Hello beautiful readers. Sorry about my delays in posting this month. Shaun-san and I are moving to a new apartment for the sake of trying a new Chicago neighborhood (one that is quieter and that doesn’t try so damn hard) and into a bigger, nicer place. The move happens tomorrow (Sept 1), so as you can imagine, I’ve been a bit caught up in moving plans. But now, with everything packed and an afternoon to myself, I let myself do a little writing. This essay is inspired by the events of today. I left work a tad early to de-stress before the move and I signed up for a creative writing class at Story Center Chicago. Both are things I did in the spirit of free will and I am extraordinarily happy about them. Read on to see what my happiness lead me to write. Thanks!

Regurgitating Zombies
© The Author, 2005

I had a pregnant English teacher during my senior year of high school. Her nose hooked ever so slightly, as if the extra bit of flesh on its tip were a just little droplet of sweat dangling in languor over her smudgy, bunny lips. My English teacher had teacher hair and she wore teacher clothes and she wasn’t quite old enough to be our parents but she was old enough to regularly proclaim, “No one should be having kids until they are my age.” Sometimes my English teacher made me daydream of getting knocked up and coming to class with a tremendous belly just to remind her to have a little fucking sensitivity.

Aside from questioning my English teacher’s authority on breeding, I also frequently found myself challenging her expertise as a teacher. It wasn’t so much that Mrs. Pregnant-Married-Early-Thirties was a bad teacher—it was just that she submitted a bit too enthusiastically to a larger educational system firmly rooted in creating drones and copy-cats. The attempt to turn fresh, vibrant students into zombies particularly bothered me in English class. Even as a high school student, I loved reading and writing too much to let a corrupt system suck the joy out of these things.

The English teachers I had in prior years were thrilled with my wacky creative projects that took threads from the book and expounded upon them and examined them in new lights. I made funny movies that paralleled thematic threads of our reading assignments, I created sculptures to illustrate theme, and I did performances to communicate my interpretations. I loved group work, and while other students simply wrote a paper and read it aloud to the class, I would rally a group together to collaborate on a paper and put on a show of some sort when it was time to present. My English assignments were always done in the spirit of fun—I never dreaded an English assignment, and I always worked my ass of for them. Some of my best friends in high school were people that I was randomly paired with in my advanced English classes, and beyond that, genuine learning was taking place within our projects. Needless to say, I was pretty shocked when Mrs. Fetus Container had absolutely no interest in what she referred to as “my antics.”

Soon, our stormy relationship reached a breaking point. Upon my teacher’s request that I re-do a number of items due to the fact that she did not agree with my interpretations of her assignments (in particular a series of copy-changed poems I wrote that mercilessly satire the idea of writing copy-changes), I politely challenged her reasoning. After a tense and biting conversation, Mrs. Pregg-o tersely informed me that I needn’t waste money on the AP English exam. “I’m not convinced you have what it takes to write a decent essay,” she told me.

Needless to say, I was outraged and deeply hurt.

The next day in English class, I joined my friends at our table and tried to resign myself to an hour of thought crushing lessons. We were reading The Sun Also Rises, which was becoming my favorite book of all time. This made it doubly painful that my bubbling forth of ideas and discussion points and questions and projects were squelched in favor of memorizing Hemmingway quotes to regurgitate into stale, formulaic essays.

When Mrs. Baby-on-Board waddled into the room, I physically cringed. I couldn’t possibly put myself through one of her idiotic lessons that day—I was in no mood for it. It was time to actually utilize the lessons I gleaned from The Sun Also Rises. I stood up and addressed my table, “I’m exercising my free will to leave this hell hole. Who wants to come with?” Most stared at me blankly, but a devilish grin broke out on my friend Derek’s face. He began to stand.

“Just what do you two think you are doing?” Our teacher demanded.

“Being existential,” I said as we strutted out of the room.

As much as my pregnant twelfth grade English teacher wanted me to become a mere robot able to repeat memorized quotes (sadly, I she actually did succeed in programming me to regurgitate lines from The Sun Also Rises and Death of a Salesman—a useless skill that I can’t shake even today), I actually learned a lot in that class and from the things we read in it. Taking my happiness and needs into my own hands that day taught me that the boundaries that authorities pretend are impenetrable are actually an illusion. Free will is an individual’s burden to society—not a favor we pay to those who play at superiority. In this way, all of our actions, reactions, good deeds, and bad deeds shape the world we live in. If we are ever able to reach a point where we can collectively accept this, then we will not have to rely on a higher power (god or politician) to shape our societies and lives into the happy, peaceful, just states of being that we imagine and deserve. We can do it for ourselves.

Now if only the schools would stop making status quo supporting drones, then perhaps everyone would understand their personal power and obligation to be free thinkers and shakers of this slumbering world. Until then, we all are in some way reliant upon superiors—snooty teachers, disrespectful bosses, murderous politicians, politically positioned religious icons, and other “power players”—who seldom have the interest of equality, justice, and happiness for all people in mind. In the meantime, I guess those of us who know better will just have to continue to be the change we want to see.

________________________________________________________________________

When have you resisted against something you didn’t believe in? Was the consequence worth the struggle?

WARNING: Offensive language ahead.

I’m Not Your Buddy
The Author, 2005

Call “those people” what you will: mentally challenged (who isn’t?), handicapped (says who?), retarded (not nice), but please, please don’t call them buddy.

There is an insipid new advertisement gracing the Chicago’s subway cars that has been grating on my nerves for some time now. This ad features a young woman in a ludicrous floppy velvet hat and a drag queen’s feather boa smiling manically. With no regard to personal space whatsoever, this woman’s meaty arms are thrown clumsily around the neck of a mildly freaked out, cautiously smiling woman in her mid-thirties who appears to be affected by downs syndrome. Bold, red lettering above this couple’s heads righteously informs commuters that, “The Next Person You Meet Could be Your Best Buddy!”

There is a particular breed of volunteerism that is so shallow and ultimately unhelpful that it makes me want to punch a girl scout. This type of volunteerism is typically done by the kind of people who would call their efforts “charity.” It is work that is rooted in the belief that the caregiver is in some way superior to the recipient, and churches and other smug people frequently undertake it. Chicago’s “Best Buddy” program is undoubtedly rooted in this variety of shitty good deeds.

Now, before you get your underwear all in a bundle about this proposed information, consider this: would you ever–in a moment of sobriety–call a new acquaintance your “buddy?” Of course not! You’d simply say that is was a pleasure meeting them and that you’d like to meet again, and if things go well, you may soon be able to call this person your friend. Buddy is a lame, weird, term that is gummy with condescension. Buddy is a word reserved for small children and dogs; neither of which should equate to adults with mental issues.

Aside from the atrocious use of the word buddy, the ad faults in its costuming and pose of the non-retarded woman; her outfit and pose is so unflattering that at first glance one might wonder if the best buddy program is a charity organization in which retarded people assist non-retarded, fashion impaired people with their wardrobe and social skills. Once you understand that the crazy boa-clad woman is supposed to be mentoring the woman with downs syndrome, you can’t help but shake your head in pity. “Oh man,” you think of saying to the downs syndrome woman, “a lot of help that nut-job is going to do you.” It is bad enough that the best buddy program assumes that people with mental challenges also have problems making friends, but it is even worse to pawn off the social rejects of the world on to them to play with. The assumption of non-retarded people that individuals who are mentally challenged somehow have an inherently unsatisfying life–so unsatisfying in fact, that supplying them with wacko’s dressed in a crack whore’s clothing will somehow improve their situation–is really bothersome.

If the Best Buddies program were being honest about its motivations in its ads, the banner would feature the boa-wearing woman looking awkward excluded in a social situation filled with people who are dressed in a manner that reflects their sane-ness. Instead of reading, “The Next Person You Meet Could Be Your Best Buddy,” the bold red lettering would read, “The Next Person Who Rejects You, You Can Be Better Than!”

Before you think that I am being too much of a bitch about this whole idea of “buddies,” consider the lasting and self-perpetuating damage that people like the boa-wearer creates. When we call people, “buddy,” we never take the time to learn their names. We never look at them at individuals.

While I may seem insensitive in my word choice when I write “retarded,” I simply cannot agree with the words mentally challenged, or handicapped. Mental challenges are relative and we all are, or should be challenged mentally to different degrees. Handicapped is a stupid word that people who function “normally” (whatever that means) invented that consequently creates limitations for “impaired” people. It is a word the serves to separate “us” from “them.” Humans are really disgusting in our love of clean, distinct separateness; we love it so much that we create it when it doesn’t even really exist. Sure, you’d love to think you are so different that a mentally challenged person–and in plenty of ways you are, just as we are all individually unique–but across the board, people share more commonalities than differences. I use the word retarded because it is brash, it is not politically correct. The raw use of the word retarded is (I hope) forcing you to reconcile with what all the terms mean, and ultimately how meaningless they all are.

So what do we call “these people?” I’m not entirely sure, but it seems like a starting point would be to take the time to learn individuals’ names, and recognize the differences and variations that mental capacities can have. It is a dangerous thing to define people by their demographics.

It is time for society to change—and I’m not talking about the cosmetics of political correctness. Organizations like Best Buddies are right in offering support systems to retarded people, as everyone needs one type of support or another, but the Best Buddies ads, and other like them, are better off showcasing the services provided than presenting degrading assumptions of those they assist.

Until all members of society can look each other in the eye with absolute respect, it is we “normal” people who have the biggest mental challenges ahead of us; we have the challenge of being honest with ourselves and confronting our gross bigotry. I suggest that we all take this process one step at a time, starting with ditching the word buddy. It’s just way too retarded.

Rational Fear in a (Pity) Party Dress
The Author, 2005

Usually my Fridays are purposeful; I work at my tutoring gig at a local
college. But that college is on break between summer semester and fall,
leaving me with an entire Friday to enjoy in solitude while the rest of
the world is at work.
 
The trouble is, I’m not so good at having days off. I do silly things
like think about what I am doing with my life, which oftentimes leads
me to think about my biggest fear: the possibility that I may be subconsciously
resigning myself to a life of mediocrity.

And you thought my greatest fear was cockroaches.

Fearing cockroaches is irrational–sure they are hideous scuttling
monsters that play mind games with me by standing on their hind legs
intimidatingly, nearly convincing me that they are ten feet taller than
me–but the fact of the matter is that I am bigger than the most
behemoth roach, and my shoe is his crunchy death.

On the other hand, fearing a subconscious inclination towards
mediocrity is completely rational. The institutions that seek to
control society (our governments, our jobs, our churches, ect) depend
upon this quiet and unsettling resignation. Without it, the “masses”
(as we are so lovingly termed) may prove to be more capable than those
who have the power. Upon the epiphany that we are as fabulous and
genius as we actually are, we wouldn’t hesitate to eject these freak
shows from their thrones and shape a world full of purity and grace.

But we doubt. And on many quiet, hidden levels of our minds we believe
what our world subliminally tells us: we are expendable, replaceable,
and we should be grateful to receive whatever scraps the people in
power choose to throw our way.

In a fit of prickly disgust with myself, I am festering in an Internet
cafe today, researching various ways I can change the world. I’m
looking into various other not-for-profit arts centers that provide
means for creative expression free of charge to underserved youth.

Yesterday, I did an informational interview with a professional in this
field, and she had some good suggestions for me. I learned so much from
the experience, and today I’ve scheduled a few more of these types of
interviews with other organizations in Chicago.

Taking this proactive approach to dismantling any feelings of
mediocrity is temporarily soothing, but the prickly panic of fear
eventually creeps back up on me. While conducting research online to
prepare for these informational interviews, a spongy, sickly feeling
creeps in between my breasts. Am I good enough to call myself a
teaching writer/artist? It’s weird–I am really confident with my
ability to bring out the best in other’s writing, but I have such
serious doubts about my own. Can I be a person who facilitates
education with that dynamic happening? And as for video
production–there are a million and one people who are far better than
me. My ideas are always cool, but the finished product lacks polish.
This is a recurring theme with me. I prefer a rougher look, a look
where the guts of a project are visible (its a running aesthetic in my
work that is an extension of the fact that I am a person who wears her
heart on her sleeve), but I haven’t quite mastered ways to make that
look less like an amateur and more like a directorial choice. It just
gets disheartening, you know?

I know I’ve got to do a better job of believing that my creative
endeavors are decent, but it is just really hard to do. I know I need
to do it, though because my doubts in my acting and directing abilities
caused me to really distance myself from theater these past three
years, and I really miss it now. And just because my singing voice
isn’t as stellar as other divas, I quit singing, even though choir was
my lifeblood in high school and I miss it. If I keep feeling shitty
about my work, then I might abandon it in the same way as I did the
performing arts, and that would seriously suck. The joy of the artistic
process out weighs however depressed or self-conscious I oftentimes
feel about the product.

Anyhow, I bring this all this emotional turmoil up not to throw a pity
party, but to invoke an honest dialogue about the things that we fear.
These hideous feelings need to be cut loose; there are freak shows on
thrones to overthrow and a crazy, beautiful world to revive.

With this in mind, I ask you: What rational fear do you carry? How do you deal with it? What would happen if you conquered it?

WARNING: This post is gross.

Heaving Dryly
© The Author, 2005

Yesterday (I guess we can call it that, since I am posting at 2:00 am Friday), on my way to O’Hare airport to travel to St. Louis to teach another College Summit writing workshop, I died. Well, almost anyways.

After a morning of feeling vaguely funny, which I chalked up to being over-heated in our heinously muggy un-air-conditioned apartment (Chi-town’s been reaching a sopping wet 105 as of late), I trotted off to the Blue Line to journey to the airport. The icky feeling was to get progressively worse.

I did my best to ignore the blurry dark spots invading my peripheral vision as I boarded the subway car. I tried to convince myself that my queasy feeling would soon pass as I hunched in my seat with my head between my legs, soaking my shirt with a steady stream of cold sweat. Upon arrival at the airport, I tried to make it to the bathroom before collapsing, but I only made it as far as the nearest reeking garbage can. Attempting to look as if it was the most normal thing in the world for a disgustingly sweaty, panting person to squat down randomly in front of a garbage can, I tried to will my body into cooperating with my travel itinerary. My body passed out instead.

A few minutes later, I woke to a friendly, mullet-ed Chicago Public Transit Authority worker shaking my limp, sopping shoulder.

“Hey! Are you okay?” He asked me kindly.
In lieu of saying, “I’ll be fine, thank you,” I dry-heaved a bitter, bile-stenching breath in his beautifully compassionate face.

I have a history of dry heaving and passing out in public. This is largely due to a quirky little hereditary disease I have called Vasovagal Syncope (see http://www.ncemi.org/cse/cse0101.htm for details). This “disease” (I feel like a leper calling it that) is more embarrassing than harmful, as it mainly means that my body refuses to feel pain or anticipation. Since my blood pressure flat to refuses to cramp its style with adjustments that would accommodate survival during unsavory feelings, I simply pass out. As long as I don’t hit my head or fall onto anything that will kill me on my way down, it’s fine. Mostly, it is just embarrassing to wake up afterwards, especially since on more than one occasion I wake to people who assume I’ve passed out because of an eating disorder or due to being in the early stages of pregnancy—both conditions being ones that I have never suffered from.

Since illness is accompanied by a plethora of unsavory feelings, I also frequently pass out when I’m sick. This is also pretty embarrassing because instead of feeling refreshed when I wake up (as I do when I pass out in a healthy state), I dry heave loudly upon entering consciousness, as the kindly CTA worker discovered first hand.

Warf!

The nice CTA man asked if I wanted him to call a medical unit and I shook my head no. Instead, I asked if he could please use one of those little airport golf carts to haul my putrid ass to the nearest restroom. After being nice enough to let me lean on his forearm on the escalator, he pawned me off to another CTA worker with a golf cart. Amazingly, my puke was able to hold off its burning exit from my trachea until the golf cart dropped me off at the nearest ladies room. I’ll spare you the details, but it was vile to say the least.

Being too sick to venture back on the el, I reasoned that perhaps eating a bit of something would ease my pain. The trouble was that the food court was on the other side of the security checkpoint—so what’s a sordid, vomitous Chicago Art Girl to do? In my stupidly nauseated state, I actually did the unthinkable. I went through a security check point for a food court.

Once I miraculously made it through the security checkpoint without passing out, I gagged at the sights and smells of the fast food Mecca. Consciously holding back any food remnants from making a violent departure from my stomach, I feebly made my way to the smoothie stand.

“One small banana smoothie, please,” my puke-stained voice moaned.
“Five dollars,” the indifferent clerk sighed.

I shelled out a little less than thirty minutes pay before the clerk horrified me with the way she made my hideously expensive drink. First, she squirted a dog-shit sized lump of soft serve vanilla frozen yoghurt into the blender pitcher. Then, she dumped a few sad frozen banana slices atop the lumpy squirt. Lastly, she added tap water to the terrible concoction before blending my caloric replenishment into a gross, goopy smoothie from hell.

I tried to convince myself that I needed to eat something, that I would be fine once something was in my stomach. But as I raised the straw to my barf-chapped lips, I couldn’t help but think about the various reports you hear about the unsanitary nature of soft-serve frozen yoghurt—specifically the festering bacteria that breeds in the smoothie machines and coats each and every square inch of the frosty sweet stuff.

“Wharf!!” I heaved. And it was back to the bathroom for me.

As my head hovered over the sickly lip of the public toilet’s seat, I realized that as much as I had genuinly been looking forward to it, there was no way that I would be able to stand in front of a room and teach. I called my workshop director from the pube-coated floor and told her that, to my grave disappointment, I would be unable to board the plane to teach at the workshop, due to the fact that I was dying in a public restroom at the airport. Although we were both bummed out by the fact, the news was not catastrophic (read: I think I’ll be able to work for that company sometime in the future, even after canceling on such short notice).

Eventually, I was able to move at a snails pace back to the el. I survived the trip home. Sharing my bed with the fan, I napped and drank plenty of fluids until waking recently for a snack of Chex and Sprite, the official “flu foods” of the Chicago Art Girl household. Currently I’m still not feeling very well, but at least my flu’s abated enough to blog, eh? How else could I gross more people out than I did at the airport? Since I am not a star of a reality TV show, it seems that the Internet is my best bet for this challenge. So, tell me, honestly—how gross was this read?

Wharf!

After a crazy week of work, shopping for a new apartment to move into Sept. 1 (Yay for our spankin’ new lease in a cute part of town called Ravenswood), attending 2 free, fun movies (ET at Movies in the Park and Broken Flowers, an awesome new film that I scored free passes to by my favorite director, Jim Jarmusch), I am heading out to teach another four day writing workshop to high school students. This one is in St. Louis, a city I have never visited, and am quite eager to explore. Any entertainment or dining suggestions from St. Louis peeps? Anyhow, with a leisurely morning before my flight leaves, I had the pleasure to take a time out for a little blogging. Enjoy!

Crazy Countenance
© The Author, 2005

Among many little things that make my work day bright is the pleasant happenstance of stepping into the elevator with a colleague that I actually like. Not that I dislike any of my colleagues, but some are simply more comfortable to me than others. The front desk receptionist—we’ll call him Jimmy*—is one of these colleagues.

Although many people think it is odd that I have a handful of close friends who are shorter than the average Joe, being that I stand a statuesque six feet tall on a short day, I surmise that it is completely natural for people whose bodies vary from the status quo to share an unspoken bond. This assumption is seen in the up nod that us Amazon queens give each other in passing; it is demonstrated in the amazed smile that a tall and short person exchange when they are randomly situated next to each other; it is the giggle that a fat and skinny person share when they put their arms around each other for a photo. Mutt and Jeff’s are everywhere, and for the most part they delight in their differences.

Anyhow, Jimmy stands an awesome five feet on a tall day, and even though three of his strides equal one of mine, he is my absolute favorite person to ride the elevator down to punch out with at 5:00 pm. We walk the same route to the el, so I have the added bonus of an actual conversation to cap off my workday, as well.

Being a person of outstanding quality, Jimmy forgoes office gossip (which I loathe) for real topics. We gab about movies, art exhibitions, newly discovered bike routes, our attempts to make and save money, our plans to travel and rule the world—you know, fun stuff.

Yesterday at the lazy hour of 5 pm, I was had the pleasure of riding the elevator down with Jimmy. I am always up to learning something new from our chats, but never was I expecting to learn something as crazy as this.

“You are in a movie,” Jimmy said.
“What?”
“You are in a movie?”
“I repeat: What?!?”
“I was watching a Howard Zinn documentary and I was like, holy shit, that is Truly. You were nodding emphatically to a lecture he was giving. I’ve been dying to tell you all day, but you keep walking by when I’m on a call.”
“Oh my god! I love Howard Zinn! I was at that lecture for a class in college—Culture, Race and the Media; it was the best class I’ve ever taken in my life. That is so crazy! Did I look like a freak?”
“No—you looked…emphatic.”
“Did I have a weird look on my face? Like a look of crazy concentration that looks like I am trying to bore a hole into something with my eyes? Did I look like a mannequin with zero intelligence? Because I look really weird sometimes.”

It’s true. I do look extraordinarily weird sometimes. Most notably, I looked extraordinarily weird on a little program called The Oprah Winfrey Show.

During college, one of my internships was in the Public Relations department at Harpo Studios. Before you ask—no, I never met Oprah (although I did see her and her gigantic hair a couple of times), but I did open all the letters that nut-jobs sent her during the height of the Anthrax scare. Anyhow, at the tail end of my internship, I was invited to sit in the audience during the taping of a show. This was supposed to be a treat, although I much preferred my usual routine of sitting in the director’s booth during the tapings, but what are you going to do? It’s a part of an intern’s job to be ecstatic about everything.

The show that I sat in the audience for was called, “Incredible Weight Loss Stories.” I am all about healthy living and an active life style, but there is nothing that I hate more than talk of dieting. I could go on a rant about how dieting talk is bad for body image, how it is more interested in fueling consumerism than healthy bodies, the unreliability of medical trends, and a plethora of other more eloquent reasons for hating diet talk, but when it comes down to it, I hate dieting talk because it is boring. It is as boring to me as driving through Nebraska, only driving through Nebraska you get to listen to fun music to keep you awake, where as when listening to dieting talk you have no other option but to let your mind turn to mush.

So I’m at the taping of Oprah’s “Incredible Weight Loss Stories,” trying to stay awake as middle aged women around me blot at their mascara-rimmed eyes and gasp orgasmically as Oprah struts around her warm and amazingly lit stage. I wasn’t put to sleep because the guest’s stories weren’t incredible—I mean, they really worked their asses off, literally—it was just that I longed for the awesome action happening in the director’s booth; now that stuff really keeps my interest. I hadn’t in my wildest dreams suspected that the cameras would take not one, but five reaction shots of my seemingly unimpressed face.

Sometimes, depending on my mood, I tell this story as if I was simply so engrossed in the once-sizable guests’ stories that my face took a look of severe concentration, of emersion into their incredible tales. But to be honest—this expression my countenance assumes also generates itself any time that I am lost inside my own head, like when I am dreaming of new recipes for ice cream sundaes while feigning interest at someone’s incredible weight loss story.

Anyhow, as Jimmy told me that my altogether too expressive face was captured in Howard Zinn’s film, I feared that my face might have assumed a freakish posture while listening to Zinn’s incredible lecture. Looking like a snooty bitch on Oprah is one thing, but looking like that while listening to Zinn is absolutely unforgivable. For those few of you who haven’t had the pleasure of reading historian and social crusader Zinn’s work, I urge you to indulge yourself—he is an amazing person.

As it turns out, Jimmy assured me that my face was just fine, but I guess I’ll have to wait until Netflicks sends me my most recently qued item, Howard Zinn—You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train to find out for myself.

*Please note: Jimmy is a fake, fake name.
________________________________________________________________________
Does your face ever betray you?