A Man

The last couple of days, driving back and forth between my house and Mom and Dad's, I noticed a man. He's been standing on the less traveled side of an intersection - a little side road, really, that leads to an old road that used to be the main road. He has a very small cardboard sign that says, "HOMELESS HELP."

The first time, he was nearly a blur as I took the yielding curve on the slow side of 40 mph. I noted the cardboard, the flannel, an unkempt beard, a baseball cap. That was Saturday. And yesterday, I saw him there again, impressed by the same details, an additional sense of fatigue. Worn work boots.

I headed to Mom and Dad's after work today. An unsettling blue mood fell on me at the same time I was bathed by golden sunlight and perfumed by the early blooming cherry trees. So much beauty on the edge of melancholy. I flew across the county line at the bottom of a hill, crossed the river on the old main road and turned up the hill.

He stood where he'd been the past few days, all faded flannel and denim and weathered leather and a face burnished by sun and whatever hardship had fallen. The light was red. I dug in my purse. My windows were down. I held a folded bill out the window.

He approached the car assuring me that he was a harmless fellow. But I wasn't afraid of him. That sense of sadness in me just welled up. He took the money from my hand with callused fingers, thanking me. "God bless you," I said, feeling a terrible knot rising in my throat.

"God bless you," he repeated. And then he add, "Rock and roll til you die."

I smiled as the light turned green, held out a lifted hand as I made my turn. Maybe he's crazy. Maybe he's an addict. Maybe he's an angel. Maybe he's none of those things. But what I do know is, he's a man.

U-nope-ia

This is not a post about a revolutionary idea. This is a post about a revelationary moment.

Everywhere you turn, no matter what stage of life you are in, there is the pressure to be perfect in it.

Okay. So you're thinking, yeah, so?

So I was watching TV the other day and a Target commercial came on - the one that has the Beatles' "Hello Goodbye" in it. It's one of those stark red and white commercials they've rolled out, commercials I've admired for their simplicity, ingenuity and strong branding. But on this day, I took off my marketing hat and put on my consumer hat and really looked at that which I consumed.

And I realized that the 30 seconds were jam-packed with anesthetized utopian presentations of various stages of life. Love and marriage, birth and family. Everyone smiling. Everyone neat and clean and antiseptic. And in that moment, I found it almost scary.

Now I see it everywhere I turn - this utopia, this smiling, khaki-and-white clad, gadding-about-town family. The attractive husband and the lovely wife. The well-dressed children. The picture-perfect family gathering.

I've been in the industry for over seven years, and I know how it works. It's all about presenting the iconic image of what we want. It's all about defining an absence and proposing a solution. And for a sparkling clean floor, that's okay. But for life, well, it's just...sad. It's just sad to be surrounded by images and messages about all that we lack. Not just the things we lack - but the people and circumstances we lack. And not only do we lack them, they don't even exist.

Life isn't perfect when you're in love; I can only assume that holds true even after you marry. Children are a blessing - and a burden. Families are wonderful and maddening. And for every happy gathering, every family member you love and treasure, there's got to be at least one who's totally dysfunctional and certifiably crazy.

There are perfect moments in life, for sure. There are moments when it all comes together. When you breathe it in. When you are alive. But they are fragile, spun-glass moments, just filaments barely holding together. And this place, this magical utopian place where the table is fashionably set for 18 of your closest friends and relatives in their designer best and their Crest white smiles? I'll check my Garmin, but I don't think it's out there.

But we look for it. By God, we wear ourselves out searching for it. We castigate ourselves for all the things we're not, and we worry over what we don't have. We worry about the places we're not and the people we're not. We strive and strive for something else...to say hello to the perfect and goodbye to the imperfect...and really, we're just stuck with something in between.

So the point is...the point is I'm going to try to stop buying in to all this. I'm going to try to shut out the messages - the ones I sometimes help create - and just figure out me and whether or not that's a good thing or a bad thing based on an entirely different set of standards.

Is it just me...

...or if you had one of those Bush/Cheney '04 stickers still on your bumper, would you consider removing the whole thing with a sledgehammer?

Measuring Up: In Praise of Junk in the Trunk

"36-24-36? Yeah, only if she's 5'3"." - Sir Mix-A-Lot, "Baby Got Back"

It goes without saying that as a woman, I'm supposed to be displeased with my body. Whether in some small way - a certain attribute like flabby thighs or crooked nose - or whether with the overall figure, it's the American way for us to hate ourselves just a little (sometimes a lot) for our physical shortcomings.

I've spent most of my life riding that train of thought. I've only ever owned three bikinis, one which I never had the guts to actually wear out on the beach. Neither of the other two would be in my repertoire of items to wear to the beach now. In high school, I mostly dressed like a lumberjack. But then again, it was the era of Grunge. By college, I was slowly easing into wearing clothes that were actually my size instead of a men's large.

These days, I've given up on the perfect body. Achieving ideal proportions and weight require way more work than I want to do - and denial of things I truly enjoy. Like bread. And chocolate. But there's still opportunity for a best case scenario with what I've got. And what I've got is some juice in the caboose. This baby's got back. And I am not ashamed. In fact, when a recent purchase required my measurements in that arena, I was a little bit proud of my bootyliciousness.

And the rest of me too. I am currently a 34-32-40. Remember the 34 is the band size...I'm not posting the cups. I'm not that brave. I have no desire to run, skip and jump my way down to a below-30 waist size. And as for the junk in my trunk? I plan to keep packing. I find my shape sort of glamorous at the moment - old Hollywood, curvaceous, smokin'. The hour has finally arrived for me to like my hourglass. I hope it lasts.

Say What You Need to Say

That's right, kids. It's time for the first John Mayer post of 2008. Okay...I'm sure there are many among you who think John Mayer is lame and that I'm lame for my insanely freakish fandom. But I highly encourage you to take a listen to "Say", written for the new movie The Bucket List, with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. I found it to be a great sort of anthem for starting off the new year. Listen. And then say what you need to say.

Bones

Bones are the basics. Long after the rest of a body is gone, the bones remain; hard white fragments outline the person that once was. In forensics, even the least of these slivers of a past life can indicate how life was lived and how life was lost.

***
Having my nose broken marks the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life. Not the breaking, but the resetting. The doctor took the bridge of my nose between his first two knuckles and cracked it back into place without warning. I'll never forget the sound of bone grinding against bone or the shocking pain - so immense, I made no sound.

***
Bones make up the skeleton - the framework of the body. We never think of it, this complex matrix deep inside other layers. Each bone fits to the next and so on - the leg bone's connected to the foot bone - each one, no matter how tiny, has a purpose. We never consider how essential it is - how it holds us up, holds us together.

***
For ages, whalebone was used in corsets to shape the body. The unforgiving bones molded new curves, nipped the ribcage and waist, accentuated the hips. Bones, always giving shape from the inside, created an opposite reaction on the outside, a rescultped form the result of these forces.

***
To cut one to the bone is to say that one shears through the tender flesh and strikes the very core.

***
Bone is slang for domino and dice, likely because the earliest forms of these gamepieces were carved from said substance. These bones are a risk, a gamble - a smooth white game of chance.

***
Make no bones about it - let's get to the point.

***
At the heart of the bone is the marrow. And from the marrow comes new blood cells. Bone bears blood and feeds the veins circuiting around it.

***
And so digging deeply down to the bone to find the traces of who you were and who you are, of what holds you up and holds you together, cutting past the flesh and into the rigid hollows of bone, it's no surprise that there's blood there. That getting to the bone, so unyielding, lets out a little of the life that's in there.

Atop the Soapbox: Thoughts on the Literati

"But reading was never dead with the kids. Au contraire, right now it's probably healthier than the adult version, which has to cope with what seems like at least 400 boring and pretentious 'literary novels' each year." --Stephen King in an Entertainment Weekly article about Harry Potter.

The Growler posted a link to the New York Times Notable Book List. And while the Growler feels tremulous excitement reviewing the NYT's who's who, I feel, well, a bit annoyed. Aside from the obvious kudos to the seventh installment of the Potter series (how could they ignore the fastest selling book of all time?), most of the books sound like absolute snoozefests. And perhaps it's me and my narrow window on the world, but I'm not enticed at all to pick up most of these titles. The exception might be Rebecca Barry's Later, at the Bar, but for the most part, the descriptions sound positively...pretentious.

And I know, I know - it's the New York Times book review. What did I expect? But, I guess I wonder: what happened to good stories? Why is the notable list chock full of maudlin tales of Libya in 1979 and another Martin Amis book that recounts the painful tragedies of World War II that sound dry and boring? These could be good stories. But at first glance, it sounds like the authors are trying too hard. Trying to be smart. Trying to break into the literati. Trying to be the kind of book that people get told they should read.

Should read...the only time I want to hear that I should read a book is if it's an amazing story that I should read. That it's so hilarious that I should read it. That it's so unforgettable and I will fall in love with the characters so I should read it. But if you just think it's going to make me smart...just going to be something that will sound good if I say I've read it...well, I'm not interested. Most of the descriptions give little impression of great characters or page-turning, can't-put-it-down, stay-up-late-to-read-it excitement. And isn't that what we all want? To go back to that place when you were ten and trying to read Encyclopedia Brown under the covers with a flashlight?

A certain professor I had in grad school referred to himself as an "immortality queen". He also referred to my writing as a donut: all sweet and delicious on the outside and hollow on the inside - but that's a story for another day. And his point was that writing wasn't worth doing unless you would be remembered for generations.

I guess I'm a little more here-and-now than that. I read to enjoy...to be taken away and to escape. I hope that if I ever write a book that it will be enjoyed by people while I'm still alive. Because, generations from now, I'll be mouldering in the ground somewhere. Maybe that's why I have such mad respect for Stephen King. The literati sort of shun him - he's like the establishment's bastard son - but he knows good story. He knows how to tell a story that engages the reader, that gives them characters that last forever in their minds. And that, my friends, is far greater than any notable designation by the book snobs at the NYT.

I suppose I balk at the idea that books are being written and delineated in this way, gathered up into a tight circle and pushed toward that immortality level. Like those of us reading right now don't even matter.

All of these thoughts, of course, come from a woman with an MFA who hasn't read a "notable" book in about 3 years and devours pulp romance novels. So maybe this really is all about my own insecurity. Still...who is breaking their neck to pick up this one? Knots, by Nuruddin Farah. (Riverhead, $25.95.) After 20 years, a Somali woman returns home to Mogadishu from Canada, intent on reclaiming a family house from a warlord.

Yeah. That's what I thought.

On Mrs. Cleaver (or Why I Need a Wife)

Today at work, I was ridiculously busy. Which is not surprising, considering I put time in on both Saturday and Sunday to keep a project moving forward. I left the office at six, returned to the office "virtually" at 6:45 and left again at 8:30. But I still had a square meal - crab-stuffed tillapia, stir-fried vegetables, cous-cous. And when I go to bed, my sheets will be clean. Tomorrow, I'll put on freshly-laundered clothes.

These perks come with living at home. Mama kindly fixes dinner every night - and it's usually balanced and nutritious. And I confess - and here, I admit how very spoiled I've become - she packs my lunch. She does the laundry - and she's a fanatic about it. Even though she showed me how to use the new washing machine, she doesn't want me to use it. Because she likes the laundry done a certain way. If she goes to Wal-Mart, she calls to see if I need anything: shampoo, mascara, granola bars.

And so, since I've moved home, I'm eating better - not that it was hard to surpass Cheerio's and Alfredo Broccoli Lipton Noodles most days. I'm clean and pressed - an improvement over not having a washer and dryer and trying to get by with wearing that shirt onemoretime. I'm stocked up and haven't been to Wal-Mart in weeks. And I figure, this is how men have it all. It's not because they're men. It's because they have wives.

Stop the Presses

In the last couple of weeks, I've had two clients get caught up a the snares of the media. On both occasions there was an incident. And on both occasions, the story was printed or aired with gross inaccuracies, misrepresentations, factual errors, and downright misinformation. In one case, the story spun among the anchors and pundits until the actual events were strung so far from what happened that you almost wanted to laugh - except your client's rep was on the line because Fox put some ditzy blonde at the news desk who only knows how to posture and editorialize and not ask intelligent questions. The other client ended up on the front page speared on the pen of an entry-level reporter who based her entire story on first-person claims in what was undoubtedly a reach for investigative journalism that came off reading like Nancy Drew taking on the establishment.

Don't take this post to mean I'm all big business and protecting The Man. But it's made me wonder how the 24-hour news cycle - no, more like the mili-second news cycle - has changed the concept of accuracy in reporting. With the pressure to break news online, to be the first to the world with a piece of news, more and more reporters are doing "incremental reporting" - publishing a story immediately online and building it as more information becomes available. And some do it well - the wires like AP and Reuters.

But there's also this race to expose and criticize at any cost - to be seen as the voice of the little person against the big bad corporations. I confess I usually believe those stories where your average joe is the victim of the faceless machine. But, to my astonishment, I'm finding that in some cases, the facts are being wrenched. It's emotive journalism. And, while I'm peeved about my clients, I admit that it's much more than that worrying me. How much of other news stories is spin and conjecture? And how do we know? And who do we believe? When these stories shaded with the reporter's feelings, with the subject's feelings, are presented as news, we become numb to the fact that there are no facts. Everything is so fast, so soundbyted that we just assume that if its "news" from a "news source", it's news. And we don't have time to dissect it and evaluate before it sinks and becomes something we heard from somewhere.

We need news. We need news to inform us about the world - and at times to expose corruption and scandal. But we need to be able to believe, too, and I'm not sure there's a clear-cut rule for how to do that anymore.

All this to say, just like your mama told you: don't believe everything you hear - you hear now?

A New Shade of Green

I worry a lot about the way we all use the world without a thought or care to what we're leaving behind for the next generation to clean up - or go without. I read this blog entry from John Mayer, and I thought it was an incredibly encouraging way to think about environmentalism. It's kind of long, but it's really worth reading and considering. Enjoy.

(NOT) WAITING ON THE WORLD TO CHANGE - ENTRY NO. 1

(Preface: Don't get turned off from reading this by any pre-conceived notions you have about the subject matter. I'll make you a deal. When something I write turns you off, then you can click the "x" button and go about your day.)

A year ago this month I wrote a song called "Waiting on the World to Change", in which I tried to express the feelings of helplessness that come with knowing what needs to change in the world but also knowing the futility of trying.

Since that song has been released, there has been one social issue I've kept particularly focused on, silently keeping notes in my mind about what needs to be fixed (and more constructively, how to go about fixing it) while hoping that someone else sharing my exact views would carry out the work without my ever getting involved.

Hey, I'm just being honest.

I'm talking about (see preface!) global warming. Wait! Don't move the mouse. Finger down. Please. Just give me a second. You can watch that video of a cat playing the piano in a few minutes. I just may surprise you with what I'm going to say.

In the "degree of difficulty" column, reversing the effects of global warming is a .5 out of a possible 10, at least in theory. You just get back by reversing the way you came. No accounting for a volatile political world stage, or clashing of belief structures. Just throw this bitch in reverse and we're home.

The trouble is, nobody has managed to come close to bringing this issue to you in a way that doesn't turn you off. At best, it's a bore, and at worst (toilet paper square accounting?) it's insulting to human autonomy.

It seems to me that when it comes to this issue, we've been given only two sides to pick from: side one says the future of global warming does not present a doomsday scenario, almost chuckling the matter aside. Side two says it is a dire issue (which it is), and then goes on to inundate side one with so many separate nakedly-scientific points that they make naivete' seem cozy by comparison.

So here I am, introducing a third side. A laid-back, panic free approach to environmentalism. One that believes the message of "An Inconvenient Truth" is sound, but that it's an incredibly un-fun name for a movie. A side free from the cry of hypocrisy, for it doesn't make sweeping promises. A side that drives an SUV on the way to the grocery store but then produces nylon mesh bags at the checkout line. A side that believes in bringing a change of perspective to our government but letting Carl Rove finish his meal first.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Fans and Friends, I submit to you a third way: Light Green.

No thinking about "offsetting your carbon footprint". No rallies. No brow-beating people who think the Earth just has a fever. Pick one thing to change this year, and keep the rest of your life the same. After all, the only message the charts with escalating red lines are meant to send is that the red lines have to stop escalating, not that hey have to drop to the bottom of the graph by next Tuesday.

Part of the Light Green approach will be the (attempted) introduction of products that are cheap, easy alternatives to cut down on plastics. In the next 90 days I'm going to see how many of these products I can get produced. If it works, great. If not, you'll at least have blogs to read. I'm going to make this one of the focus points of my blog for the next few months., and hopefully by summer there will be a few items at the merchandise stands that you might not have a problem switching to.

And to anybody ready to cut me down for this, here's my full disclosure: I drive a Porsche SUV, I still drink lots of bottled water, and I will be flying private charter several times during my summer tour. However, my bus has been converted to Bio-Diesel, and I'll be coming up with even more ways to adapt to the Light Green mentality before I set out for the summer.

Now go watch that guy getting nailed in the balls on YouTube, but think about it. It's all you've got to do in order to go Light Green.

JM

Unexpected Insight

Read today in the romance novel du jour. A couple of lines that sounded all too familiar:

What I am is the confused product of a semipuritanical upbringing and a liberal education. Which means I think it's wrong for me to do anything but I think it's perfectly alright for other people to do whatever they want. - J.M.

Sign of the Times

As a thanks for one of the surveys I just did for The Gallup Panel, they sent me some results from surveys they've conducted. I found this particularly interesting.

As candidates for the 2008 presidential election continue to emerge, Gallup asked panelists an open-ended question about what quality they deem most important in the next president. One-third of panelists say that honesty or the ability to be straightforward is the most important quality for the next president to possess. This response far outpaced the percentages for any other responses given.

It's a strong commentary on the political climate among the people going into this presidential race. Party lines aside, it's interesting that people just want to be able to believe in leaders. Hopefully that won't be too much to ask.

A Mistake in Judgment

I came across an article on Yahoo last night about a new book called The Feminine Mistake by Leslie Bennetts. I couldn't find the same article this morning, but I did find this insightful piece about the book on Salon.

In the book Bennetts makes a call to arms for young women not to sacrifice career in order to stay at home with children. Her argument is rooted in staying self-sufficient, maintaining earning power (which drops 37% after just three years out of the workplace) and being prepared for a husband or partner who loses his job, develops a drug, alcohol or gambling problem, or skips out on the marriage for a newer model (usually one, according to Bennetts, who is more career-minded).

Bennetts' arguments are not new. In fact, this debate has been going on since women entered the workplace, and I suspect it will go on for generations to come. In my view, the stay-at-home or stay-at-work choice is intensely personal. I have close friends who come down on both sides of the fence for reasons that are personal and economic. So that is not why I call attention to this article.

Instead, I call attention to the crux of the first paragraph of Joan Walsh's review: If female fear and self-doubt were ever eradicated, the publishing industry would collapse....no matter the issue, the premise is pretty much the same: We're doing something wrong. And in the article I read last night, Bennett was quoted as saying, "Women are so defensive about their choices." Well, no wonder. We're under attack from all sides for what we did or didn't do.

Look at me. I'm 27-going-on-28, unmarried and childless. For every person who thinks I'm living the life, there's someone to judge me as inept, incomplete, or just plain sad. A career may be completion to some, and for others, I simply haven't found my purpose until I have a baby. There's judgment for all of our choices, and most of the time, they come from other women.

We have so many choices today - which is a blessing and a curse. Believe me, I'm thankful for that - if I ever needed further convincing, I could revisit my Women's Lit text or rent HBO's Iron-Jawed Angels to reaffirm that we've got the long end of the stick. But because our place isn't dictated by society anymore, it's dictated by us. Which puts an enormous amount of pressure on choosing a direction.

The freedom to choose has also given birth to some sort of inherent insecurity about those choices. Instead of banding together and supporting each other and embracing the classic viewpoint that it takes all kinds, we spend our time defending ourselves to each other in case anyone should think we've failed womankind by taking a certain path.

All this to say that I find people like Bennetts distasteful. Her need to push her lifestyle choice to the front, to suggest that anyone who doesn't go that way is damning herself to a life of misery, points to insecurity rather than certainty. I know several stay-at-home moms who are very happy, in healthy, stable relationships and very fulfilled by the time they spend with their children. I also know a number of women who work every day and love and support their children just as much as the stay-at-homers.

Beyond the Mommy Wars, the pressure to have the right career, choose the right husband, be the right kind of homemaker is overwhelming. The Have It All Agenda is still out there, providing the illusion that we can have it all with no sacrifice - and that anything short of the sum total of all the facets of wife, mother, career woman, and individual - doesn't add up.

Yet, I think of the women I know and the choices they've made - my mother who gave up an excellent job to stay home. Pen, who stays at home and Andi, who is a working mom. Niki, who's pursuing law, and Jenn, who's pursuing social work. All of the women who read this blog and are career women, students, writers, mothers, wives, friends. And I'm proud of them all for making the decision that was right for them. No judgment. Other than I think you're all amazing women.

Naughty by Nature?

How much can a person change? Not to get into the whole nature versus nurture debate, but how much about a person is ingrained - is the very code in his or her brain that is essential to identity? A person's nature seems to be made up of a series of reactions and interactions and personal habits that are a constant. It is the proverbial tree in the forest that no one hears falling - it is that state that you are in when you are unaffected by all other things. The default setting, if you will. When circumstances requires a person to override the default setting, does it go that the default setting will come back? How many times does it take before the new setting is the default? Or can it?

I seem to have an ongoing mental tug-of-war going on between whether or not I should expect a person to change a consistent behavior. The kind of behavior that when you mention it to other people usually elicits a response like, "Oh, that's just the way she is." And if that is so, that it's just the way someone is, is that an appropriate excuse for bad behavior? Are we allowed to write off inappropriate behavior by declaring it part of our default setting? For example, I am chronically late - as many of you will attest. Can I be excused from being late when it's inconvenient and inconsiderate to other people because it's just the way I am?

And that's a rather benign example. I'm talking more about day-t0-day relations with people. Ongoing behaviors that gnaw at you, make you feel like you're going to explode if you have to interact with a person in such a manner one more time. And I'm not talking about inherently bad people. I'm talking about people whose normal human flaws just happen to be the kind that manifest in relationships with other people. Flaws of self-absorption and condescension and greed and lack of empathy. In some cases, these are people who think to treat everyone else as they imagine they would want to be treated in the same situation - never taking into account that the people on the receiving end are vastly different. People motivated, inspired, nourished, comforted by completely different things.

Thinking that this ongoing behavior can be modified is feeling like a lost cause these days. In these cases, it seems that human nature has taken root, grown and flourished, and is not to be pruned in any manner. Reasonable requests and subtle hints fall on deaf ears. The default setting returns again and again - and with great pride at times. These behaviors I find abhorrent seem to be a source of pride in some people. And I find myself exhausted by the push and pull, the desire I feel to set things right and the disappointment I feel when I fail.

Perhaps it is time for me to just let go in the tug -of-war and see what happens when we all fall down.

The Cold Hard Truthiness

"We know Iraq is not the president's fault. George W. Bush was appointed to the presidency by God himself. And God don't appoint no junk." - Stepen Colbert, The Colbert Report

1979 - ?

"We all come into this world between urine and feces. And we will all become the cuisine of terrestrial worms. E'erbody come in and go out all ugly like that. So the question is - the question is - how are you going to spend your dash?"

-- Tavis Smiley, host, The Tavis Smiley Show on PBS & Public Radio International