August 4, 2005

• 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?

  • 12:10 pm
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