A Ménage et Trois of Freedom….Or, A Freedom Sandwich, if You Will.
© The Author, 2005

I am an ignorant American. Sometimes I like to pretend I’m not by reading the New York Times, BBC News online and listening to NPR, but just like any news sources, these outlets can only present stories that affect the present. Having graduated college from an art school that never required me to take one single world history course, I am frequently unable to fully digest the stories presented. I lack context. In large part, this is why I was completely baffled when a new friend of mine was reluctant to disclose her Iranian ethnicity. Iran-what was so bad about that? I vaguely remember the events of the Iranian Hostage crisis unfolding on the television when I was in grammar school. That was all water under the bridge, right? Iran was cool with the U.S. now and vice versa. I just smiled at my new friend and with friendly mid-western gusto, I said stupidly, “That’s great!”

You know, it really would be great if my assumption that Iran and the United States are chummy friends were true. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not so stupid as to believe that the United States is the friendly, peace and freedom promoting sugar-daddy it pretends to be, but it is getting to the point where, even as a jaded skeptic, it is shocking for me to hear of yet another nation that the United States has utter disrespect for. It’s gotten to the point where there are so many nations that I as a “patriotic freedom-lover” am required to hate (remember kids-you are either for us or against us!), that it’s actually hard for me to remember all of them. So, lets take a moment for a refresher course of, “The Nations we Love to Hate.”

Nation #1: Iraq
After joyfully destroying Iraq, our power hungry president and his freakish conservative lackeys are dragging their feet about picking up their mess like bratty little titty-babies being told to pick up their room. Who needs running water when you’ve got freedom? I hear that democracy is even better than food and that peace can cure you better than hospitals. Electricity is a complete bore next to the good feeling you get of having a friendly Halliburton neighbor sucking you’re your country dry of all it its resources and profit! Sure, Sadam is gone, but who needs him to fear when you’ve got the stupidity of George Bush to terrify you at night? If only freedom could provide as much as Bush imagines it could. If only there were actual peace and freedom. It makes my stomach turn.

And by the way…where the hell is Sadam these days? I seem to vaguely remember a trial of some sorts starting. Why didn’t this trial coverage dwarf the Scott Peterson trial? Why do I know more about that insignificant domestic murder than I do about the trial of a man who murdered thousands and instilled fear into the cultural identity of an entire country? Why have I unconsciously memorized the many hair makeovers Scott Peterson underwent during his trial, and I can only conjure up one grimy, raggedy image of Sadam, fresh from the Spider hole? He must have gotten a haircut since then—at least a trim! I need updates, goddamn it.

Nation #2: Afghanistan
We disrespect Afghanistan so much that our mainstream media doesn’t even cover what ever the fuck is going on there. I guess this makes sense since advertisers will purchase air time on shows that minimize violence in dusty nations, and maximize stories on haunted grilled cheese sandwiches, blood thirsty black people, and of course, weather and traffic. Since Iraq seems to promise future money shots of oil ejaculating onto Dick Cheney’s face, who can blame the news channels for choosing Iraq as the dusty violent nation to cover? As far as our mainstream media is concerned, Afghanistan is only comprised of bearded men who hide in caves and trash talk Americans. Obviously, the events of 9/11 tell a more complex story of Afghanistan’s Al Quaeda rebels, but why report it, when its always more fun to hate what you are jealous of—Iraq and its plentiful springs of profit-giving oil.

To be fair, the main stream media did report Afghanistan’s supposed “elections,” but I wonder if media outlets would have found it to be note worthy if the puppet leader the U.S. put in place after we overthrew their government hadn’t been the champion. After all, a story about converting a heathen nation into a peaceful, freedom-loving democracy seems to be the only thing that gets America off these days.

Nation #3: Israel and Palestine (U.S. Involvement Helps Kill Everybody!)
The United States is unfortunately represented almost exclusively by politicians who are white, Christian, and chronically suffering from “white guilt.” They perpetuate the holy war between Israelis and Palestinians by siding with Israel. The way these white church-going dudes figure it, they’ve got a whole lot of constituents who are Jews, and they’ve got to make sure they look like they give a shit about Jewish issues. There ignorance on what these issues are inhibits the politicians from comprehending the polls that consistently show modern American Jews wanting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. It’s a shame that these polls seem to be the only ones that politicians aren’t obsessed with, since these poll-taking Jews feel that a the only way to achieve peace is through the establishment of a Palestinian governed Palestinian state. It seems that American Jews feel that the little strip of Gaza really isn’t worth all those death-by-car bombs after all. Too bad our white Jesus-freak politicians can’t see it that way! They continually supply troops and funds to help perpetuate violence and keep peace far, far away. What would Jesus do? Promote peace? Fat chance!

Nation #4: Cuba
Why can’t I go there? Why all the fines and federal prison time for visiting what looks to be a perfect Sandals Resort destination? Why all the sanctions that do nothing to hurt the leader we are in a philosophical political disagreement with, but that economically damage the people who live there? What’s up with that? It just makes me want to rip out my Che Guevara T-shirt (made in China) that I bought for $14.99 hard-earned American dollars (available at Walmart!) that I acquired after I received a much-earned raise at work, and wear it to the next WTO protest I attend.

Nation #5: France
Freedom fries. Need I say more?

Nation #6: All of Africa (I’m too American to keep the individual countries straight)
Sometimes I stumble upon these really horrifying accounts by independent journalists of all the terrible shit that is going down in Africa. If the U.S. were really the freedom crusaders we pretended at, we’d get our asses down to Africa and straighten some things out amongst tribes who don’t even permit the freedom of a woman’s right to have a clitoris. And female genital mutilation is gentle in comparison to the constant brutal warfare between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, the AIDS epidemic, and famine. If it weren’t for Christian charities holding up dirty babies with fly encrusted eyes, pleading for five cents a day on TV, then most Americans wouldn’t even know Africa had any problems at all.

Nation #7: North Korea
With Kim Jong Il openly creating nuclear weapons with the help of teaming concentration camp workers, the U.S. seems to be passing up their chance to steal another country’s weapons of mass destruction. But I guess another countries weapons aren’t fun toys if you don’t get to steal their oil while you’re at it. So, screw all the North Koreans suffering in concentration camps manufacturing nuclear warheads. Screw all the Japanese people who have had North Korean missiles fired into their waters, just missing the islands by a hair. It’s just no fun without the oil.

Nation #8: Everyone Effected by the Tsunami
Once the news coverage dies down, and the photo ops run out, we’re out of there! That’s right, American troops and aid will be skidattling out of the areas devastated by the tsunami shortly. What—it’s been a few weeks, the pacific islanders are over it, right? I’m just grateful that our president didn’t decide to go to war with the Tsunami—it seemed like we just narrowly escaped a war on hurricanes this past summer.

Nation #9: The Entire World
A couple months ago, I heard Bush’s environmental cabinet member (no, I don’t even know her name, that’s how much press the environment gets!) on NPR, basically denying the fact that global warming was a scientifically proven outcome of unregulated emissions. She was skeptical of it, and until global warming has been “proven” (yes, I too thought that already happened), it was justification enough for the president to revoke the Kyoto agreement signed by President Clinton that would pledge to the world reduced emissions in the United States. But, to Bush’s defense, I guess science is a difficult subject to grasp for someone raised in schools that inform students that dinosaurs are scientists fiddling with chicken bones, and that the first woman on earth was not an evolved monkey, but instead sculpted by her boyfriend out of a chunk of his own rib. Go figure.

Now, we come to a critical juncture in our lesson of “Countries We Love to Hate.” Our next country is the trendiest distain the U.S. has to offer its citizens! It’s the hottest hatred around! That’s right ladies and gentleman…

Nation #10: Iran
It wasn’t until our president with a boner for democracy (“I am a freedom lover!”) and his creepy sidekick Cheney, gave his bone chilling inaugural speech and subsequent interviews this week, that I remembered my new friend’s hesitant admission to her Iranian heritage. Apparently, Iran has some weapons of mass destruction, and that just isn’t the type of thing that a good freedom lover has. According to Mr. Cheney in an MSNBC interview, “We don’t want a war in the Middle East, if we can avoid it. And certainly in the case of the Iranian situation, I think everybody would be best suited by or best treated and dealt with if we could deal with it diplomatically.” Hmm…that sounds eerily familiar. That’s exactly how we pretended to handle the situation with Iraq in the beginning. Accuse them of having weapons they don’t have, and when they don’t turn them over (because they don’t have them), invade them to steal their oil and overthrow their government.

The thing is, if I were Iran, I’d have a shit-load of weapons. Iran is situated between Afghanistan and Iraq. That’s a lot to contend with as it is, and now they’ve got the U.S. ogling them like the oil perverts we are. And since when did it become a crime to have nuclear weapons? We’ve got them, and so do plenty of countries. Sure, the world would be a better place if the damned things had never been conceived of, but what’s done is done. Iran even has a president, so you can’t even say that its only “bad” if you run an undemocratic society and have nukes. If we invade Iran, we don’t even have “freedom and democracy” as a scapegoat. Our president and his minions will simply be blatant in their randy lust for oil.

What is really scary is that, if Iran does indeed have nukes (which would be wise on their part), our government is putting U.S. citizens at real risk. If our president invades, or sanctions Iran, they would be justified in the game of war to use their weapons to defend themselves. We would die. Our politicians would wonder why. If you poke a beehive with a stick, you’ll get stung. If you put your arm in a snake den, you’ll be bitten. How many stupid animal analogies do I have to use? It’s simple. Don’t piss people off. How hard can that be?

Perhaps the new trend with hating Iran is only to make sure that the entire Middle Eastern area is under U.S. control. Right now, Iran is sandwiched by the born-again freedom lovers of Afghanistan and Iraq. If Iran “converts” to U.S. control as well, we’ll have a dandy little freedom sandwich. A ménage-et-trois of freedom, if you will.

With any luck, the hugely conservative house and senate will not allow Bush to get carried away with himself. After all, they can get reelected still. Bush cannot.

Besides learning about a new country to add to my list of “Countries we Love to Hate,” I was infuriated in another way by an arrogant statement that our president made in his inauguration speech. Bush stated, “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands.”

Wow. In a nation where my reproductive rights are perpetually threatened, where I earn 70 cents to every dollar a man makes, where my gay and lesbian friends have to settle on “union ceremonies” instead of marriages that grant their deserved rights, where underprivileged young black men fill our prisons, where I am forced to be a killer with the federal taxes taken from my paychecks and used to fund wars I do not believe in, where freedom of speech applies only to those who speak freely of their love of our conservative capitalist government, where the options of the kids in my neighborhood are so fucking slim that they gear up in military uniforms after graduation, willing to die or loose their limbs just to have access to a college education—my president wants me to blame these oppressive forces on other lands?

I am thankful for the freedoms I do have. But it seems to me that the more we blame and punish other countries for our own problems (primarily the price hike of imported oil), the less I get to enjoy the liberties that make me love this country in the first place. I only wish someone could make our president understand that his choice of the word survival is completely accurate. But we will not survive if we continue to invade other countries and force feed phony ideals to their citizens while we steal their resources. We will die. These citizens will become outraged, and sick of paying the high price of U.S. “freedom.” Our survival depends on U.S. forces stepping off, and our politicians taking care of the United States for a change.

Mind and Body

Today, while the rest of the world works, I am sitting, un-showered in a cafe, writing, reading, and sipping tea. I am “sick.”

Sitting at my cubicle yesterday morning, I was struck by the incredible dullness of my surroundings. The air around me was a dry, cold, life-sucking air; the cubicle shrunk about me, wringing my neck. A mild nausea sent me walking briskly to the restroom. I was unable to focus.

My eyes, lately incapable of accepting my contacts, looked out at the blur of my colleagues from my glasses, which, due to an insurance policy that allows only one optical prescription refill a year, are several prescriptions old. The pretty faces of my coworkers were reduced to dabs of paled flesh colors by my dated eyewear, which made it easier to tell to them.

“It looks like the winter flu finally caught up with me,” I said. The true exhaustion about my eyes and the struggle to keep my head up made this declaration believable. I left work around 2pm yesterday, and I called in “sick” today.

I have never called in sick to my current job before. I am hourly, and I depend on the money. In the past, when my migraines pounded against my eyes and nausea swept over me, I have dutifully gone in. Besides that, I have a lot of work to do–I am typically busy and I am (perhaps overly) concerned with doing a good job. Despite the fact that my job is by no means my dream job, I want my bosses to think well of me, I want to play the game–I want to advance. Until now.

This January, my delicate health has introduced some uninvited apathy into my work ethic. It feels good to finally give in to it, if only for today.

The truth be told, while I may not be suffering from the flu, as I told my kind bosses to simplify the situation, my body has been misbehaving lately–in a way that has effected my mental health dramatically. In fact, I am quite certain my reproductive organs are out to destroy me.

Now, before I delve too far into the tale of my recently rude reproductive bits, it’s important to mention how unlike me it is to write so directly about such personal stuff. I hate to become like an old woman prattling on about her health disorders, but I am starting to see the truth in a “new-age” theory that I would ordinarily scoff at: the events of a woman’s body truly do shape her outlook and mark her time. With my recent health issues that force me to deal with this, I am beginning to notice that the struggles of women’s reproductive health and the mental fatigue these frequent struggles cause is given little consideration in our society. It is either ignored completely, or it is callously acknowledged only when males arrogantly blame any emotional response from a woman on PMS. Our consumer- driven culture encourages us to dismiss the inner workings of the human body, and to focus only on the external appearance, for which you can buy things for. It is my own craving for some sort of discourse on the interplay between a woman’s mind and body that soothed my doubts on writing this. But trust me, being candid about this is hard for me–I’m just as vain as any person, and I hate others to know the disgusting truth of my insides. I much prefer the attractive external package, for which I can buy things. Shallow and pathetically American, yes; but wouldn’t you agree?

Now that you understand the purpose of this, dear reader, it’s up to you if you’d like to continue reading this mindfully polite account of my vengeful reproductive organs.

My troubles began about a month ago with a crewel, hideous, and horribly situated, cancerous mole. After conquering that battle by experiencing what I can only describe as genital mutilation, I felt as if I could trust that my body would lay off its pesky tricks for a while. My subsequent tests and check ups revealed that I was safe, and that things should be fine. Finally fully healed from my mole debacle, I was ready to let my guard down, until I noticed that I was faced with a fear almost as traumatic as my brush with cancer; my period is two weeks overdue.

Usually accustomed to regular (if not too frequent) cycles, I’ve since taken three pregnancy tests. They have all come back negative.

My hazy, confused mind has reflects on a boss I had during an internship in college. She was a radiant woman, with a great career and a happy marriage. Suddenly, she left the office for a few months, due to an ectopic pregnancy that rendered her infertile and inflicted ungodly amounts of pain unto her. A fertilized egg trapped in my fallopian tubes, an ectopic pregnancy–does this explain my own lack of menstruation, my own inexplicable fatigue, my sudden bouts of nausea, my negative pregnancy tests?

I am known to pass out from the slightest discomfort, but over the past few weeks, it seems that I struggle to not black out doing most anything. I stand, my vision darkens, I stumble, and I hope to regain my vision before I fall. I stand at the fax machine at work, the teakettle at home, and I black out. Even for me, these past few days have brought more “episodes” than I am used to.

I know that an ectopic pregnancy is only my apocalyptic mind’s way of coping. In stressful situations, I tend to imagine worst-case scenarios and adopt them as truth to try on for size. It’s a bad habit, but what can I say? I have an overactive imagination. It is also my minds way to prompt me to schedule a doctor’s appointment if conditions don’t improve soon.

So, am I just a generic, un-pregnant, mild flu-ish “sick?” For now, I have to assume so, since that’s what the preggers tests tell me and an ectopic pregnancy seems too dramatic a possibility to be true. But it’s a good thing, I suppose. First off, my “sick” has provoked me to take a day and 1/2 off from my responsibilities, and just focus on feeling good again (physically and mentally). More importantly, for someone as horrified of pregnancy as me (I have been known to regard fetuses as parasites living off of a host), I was shocked to find myself sad, staring at my pissed-on pregnancy test reading a solitary, pink, and lonely “negative.” It’s good for me to know that, when the time comes, I won’t eat my young after all.

I recall a time as a teenager, heart pounding as I took a pregnancy test in a disgusting Burger King bathroom while on summer vacation with my family (horrifying, I know). Although I was always overly cautious about protection (almost militant about my use of condoms, pills, and spermacide), my emotional maturity wasn’t fully able to handle the physical possibilities of my sexual activity at age16. The only place I could be alone with my anxiety on this family holiday (and dispose of the evidence easily) was the Burger King bathroom. Trying my best not to touch the germs I believed to be infesting the public space, my heart fluttered as I watched with suspicion the lines of the test form. The negative reading flowed through my body; a sigh of relief followed by the coursing of blood that same day. And no one ever knew.

At least my recent tests were taken in my own warm, clean apartment, with a loving husband watching the pissy stick read “Negative” with me.

However unfortunate the bind between a woman’s mind and body can be, at least I can depend on time, experience, and my evolving maturity to see me through it and make each ordeal that passes a bit more bearable. After all, if our bodies are capable of supporting the parasitic events of pregnancy and the trauma of birth, I suppose its best that our minds and bodies are connected so that we can ensure our species survives. But sometimes it would be nice to just be able to forget about it all, and just dwell on maintaing a pleasant exterior.

I hope you are all feeling healthy and alive today. Thanks for reading.

Ps

Never heared of ectopic pregnancy? Visit: http://www.ectopic.org/medical_information/symptoms.asp **

Seamus Heaney, Spinach Salad, and a world of “What-ever!”

My partner and I had a great dinner last night. Over a delicious, fancy salad made with the assistance of our awesome new food processor (props to my mother-in-law for that ultimate Christmas gift) and a cheap-o bottle of Zinfandel, I was privy to one of the coolest phenomenon’s of the happily committed relationship: after seven years of togetherness, we learned new things about each other. It really is amazing what can happen when you turn the damned TV off—actual people are much more interesting than we give them credit for.

Anyhow, somehow we got to talking about our middle school experiences, and how unbearably odd we felt at that age. While my partner was never an actively pursued target, he claims this is only because he was too much of a nerd for anyone to care about. His school pictures from these times are so very different from the shaggy haired, rock concert-attending writer I fell for as a teenager. As a boy, he was a short, skinny, smirking kid with self-proclaimed “Captain Planet” hair (for those who have trouble evoking the image of this dated cartoon character, imagine a stiff, spiked, short arrangement of hair slathered in Dep gel) and pathetically oversized, plastic rimmed glasses. Defensive and taking himself all too seriously, he took cover in bratty sarcasm. He said I would have made fun of him if I knew him then. This is likely—the only target for my childhood nastiness was those who took themselves too seriously.

For example, in grammar school, there was this girl named Heather who though she was the cats meow, when in fact, she was a rancid bitch. A snarl was perpetually on her face, as if an invisible string connected her upper lip to her left nostril. For some reason (fear, most likely) this was the most popular girl in school. Refusing to accept the status quo, and thinking it hilarious that she gave so much thought to her superiority, I would counter her “What-ever’s” with two syllable words that were chosen specifically for their random meaninglessness. “Wood-chuck!” I would say, eyebrows raised, hand on jutting hip, “Beef-carcass!” I would roll my eyes and do my very best valley girl impression. It was a wonder she never hauled off and punched me in the face.

Because I unfailingly stood up to the Heather’s of our school, I always had many friends, but I had an equal amount of enemies. I infuriated people for being uncompromising when it came to embracing my strange sense of humor. And really, who could blame those who taunted me? After all, what does school teach if not conformity?

It wasn’t just the peers who deemed themselves authorities that I rebelled against, it was also teachers, administrators—anyone who was infringing on our freedom of speech, or inhibiting interesting, meaningful learning. One teacher in particular was very fond of assigning “copy changes.” Until my happy dinner conversation, I had all but forgotten this pointless exercise. Once I was reminded, I remember my burning hatred for the conformity of it all. For those of you who have forgotten about the “copy change,” it is an insipid school assignment where one must take a poem already in existence, oftentimes specifically assigned, and then re-write it using the same form and tone. So basically, it takes the work of another artist, shits all over it, all while warping the message of the student as they try to stuff their words in an ill-fitting form. Hideous.

To counter this situation, I would satirize the assignment by writing ridiculous copy-changes about the most absurd of topics. It should have been quite clear to my teachers that I was ridiculing their assignments, but instead I was patted on the back. I received comments such as, “unusual point of view-and probably very publishable! A lot of current poetry rings familiar!” To illustrate the hilarity of these comments, I want to share with you a copy-change, written years ago in a stifling high school English class. The assignment was to copy change the Seamus Heaney poem “Personal Helicon,” and here is the crazy stuff that flowed from my pen. If you are reading this at work, beware—you might laugh out loud. It’s pretty twisted….
______________________________________________________________________
Strong Enough for a Man, but Living as a Woman/Cow

As a man they could not keep me from dressing in women’s clothing
And often in old beef carcasses, too.
I craved the dank smell of both, hugging my skin, the warmth
Of body spandex, and baby calf ribs.

A dress, on my hanger, with a delicate wrap.
I savor the temptress crimson
And the scooped, plummeting neckline.
So low, even Jennifer Lopez wouldn’t dare.

A beef carcass, hanging in my deep-freeze
Waiting lonely for me.
Punctured by the cold vicious meat hook
Waiting for a tender touch.

Others have such fetishes, private to themselves
Indulging in precious sin. But no one
Has mastered their hang up like me.
Drag Queen/Cow is my existence.

I graze in fields, living as a cow would
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, and on other days,
I am female, myself the only bearer of my secret,
The only bearer of my bliss.
________________________________________________________________________

With luck, I haven’t alienated my audience at this point, but if I have, I beg you to reconsider. After all, if you can’t have a laugh at the nonsensical and warped in this world, then you just might be taking yourself a bit too seriously. The following is my sincere wish for the popular and pretentious Heather, for my daft but well-meaning high school teachers, for the world at large: I sincerely hope that all people can feel comfortable enough in their own skin to let their guard down, throw their head back, and laugh at the world, at themselves. It’s the best thing in this world next to having a partner with whom, after seven years of commitment; dinner at home is just as fun as your first date.

p.s.
**For those of you who are unfamiliar with the brilliance of Seamus Heaney, please don’t use my sardonic little copy-change to inform you about his Nobel Prize winning literature and poetry. Check out http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1995/heaney-bio.html to quench your thirst for knowledge. Thanks for reading!

A Symbol of Nothing Much

My mom’s hands are beautiful. No matter how much she scrapes about in the dirt, kneading her garden into an enviable tangle of green, shadow, and light, her hands have always rinsed clean to reveal starling elegance. The graceful poise of her fingers and wrists has never made her look prissy or princess-like; rather, she holds her hands like a queen—a goddess able to create life with the wave of her fingertips. My mom has never been a woman who primps and fusses over long and garishly painted fingernails. Her nails are natural, straight, strong, pretty shells that grace the tips of her fingers: subtle accents to a beautiful collective whole.

Since her divorce from my step-dad this past autumn, I am sometimes startled to see her without the quiet and familiar gold ring that decorated the left ring finger of these perfect hands for so many years. I wonder where it has gone.

Her wedding ring was gold, and boasted a pretty engraving of vines wrapping around her finger. The engagement ring held a diamond of a good size: not showy, not small, but…nice. Her rings were bright without being brassy; they maintained their origins as mere products of nature. My mom’s wedding rings were as accurate reflection of her as anything a person can physically own. My mom’s rings were what I came to associate her with, even if I didn’t know it until they were gone.

Although I have never seen it, I like to think that the ring my real dad gave to my mom was so unlike her that it should have been clear from the start that the marriage would be a failed venture. I like to imagine that this ominous ring was angular and cold. In my mind, the diamond engagement ring flaunted itself and boasted status so very separate from the humanity of the actual marriage. I wonder where that ring has gone as well. I’d like to see it to know if I’m right.

My wedding and engagement rings are small and silver. They slide up to my knuckles when I’m cold. The wedding ring is a small sliver that wraps itself around me. The center diamond on my engagement ring creates little rainbows when the light shines on it. This used to distract me and wrap my heart in nerves when my husband and I were still engaged.

I don’t wear my ring consistently. Not wearing my ring is an affirmation to myself and my partner that our relationship has not been institutionalized, and that we will not conform to societies prescribed roles. Besides that load of feminist pedagogy, I oftentimes simply forget. It is jewelry, and I wear it when I dress up, or when it matches my outfit. But I never forget my partner. When I need to take strength in our relationship, I never glance to my left ring finger—I put my palm over my heart. I wonder what my mom did to summon strength in her relationships. I’d like to know, in all honesty, if there ever was any. If not, I want to know how the sweetness of love can overlook a woman with such beautiful hands and a smile and a heart to match.

I am really, really happy tonight.
I am happy like I was when I was a kid, sharing Spanish Rice and Angel Food cake at my birthday parties.
I am happy like when I was a slap-happy college freshman decorating my dorm room with collages cut from Spin and Rolling Stone magazine with my first roommate.
I am happy like I am when I’m with my oldest friend Brian when we walk into a bar and he knows everyone and we are treated like VIP’s and I smile to be lucky enough to know him better than anyone there.
I am happy like when my amazing partner proposes that we move together to a crazy new place or an entirely new country–and he is completely serious.

I am happy because I’m writing something that I like. And that makes any messy part of my life seem like only a fleeting thing.

I’ll post it when it’s time….

Some friends visiting Chi-town met me for lunch today and we got to talking about how the Tsunami has been represented by U.S. media. My friends reported that the picture chosen by our hometown paper to represent the natural disaster was of a collapsed Starbucks. (Don’t worry Asian island dwellers–there is another Starbucks just ten yards from this one that is perfectly intact. Damn globalization!) It kills me that a corporate name receiving damage would take precedence over the people of those nations. Although I wonder if my hometown’s news editor’s assumption that small town Americans would be unable to empathize with foreign people an ocean away is a true one. I wonder if the familiarity of a Starbucks in shambles draws more compassion from my fellow midwestern dwellers than a brown-skinned face in agony. I sincerely hope this isn’t so, but remembering the hideous reactions to the few non-white citizens that found their way my slumbering hometown makes me doubtful.

I am curious–how has the media been treating the situation in the communities of my fellow Xanga authors?

While writing at work is not a habit I want to start in on, my boss is out on vacation, and I’ve run out of ways to appear productive for the day. That’s not to say I’m trying particularly hard. I had a painful, cancer-ridden mole lanced off of my body yesterday, and it was in quite an unsavory location. Now, I am sore, crabby, and feeling ambushed by the effects of sleep-deprivation, emotional exhaustion, and drinking acquired over the holidays. I curse the hourly-pay rate system, as it is the only thing that is keeping me in my cubicle today.

 

Anyhow, that little hissy fit wasn’t what I had planned for your reading enjoyment. Rather, it is the phone conversation that my co-worker is having with her office door open. She is trying desperately to get her friend to cancel her honeymoon vacation to Thailand, coming up this week. After the horrific devastation that has ravaged that area, I find it appalling that anyone could be so out of touch with reality that they couldn’t imagine what landing in the midst of such horror would be like. What kind of a spoiled brat do you have to be to think that you will still be catered to on a Thai beach vacation when the resort you have reserved a room at is now reduced to a pile of sticks and dead bodies litter the sandy white beaches you planned to be sunbathing on? My coworker tried to convince her, “There will be disease! During my China trip I saw farm animals floating in the Yangtze. Those freaked me out, and they were only animals! Call the airlines! Change your plans!” 

 

Anyhow, overhearing the piggish attitudes of my co-workers friend provoked me to donate to the Unicef relief fund that is being set up for the affected Indian Ocean areas. I felt badly listening to the NPR reports this morning, but nothing motivates me to take action like the attitudes of ignorant Americans. I hope you will all log on to www.unicef.org and help if you can.

When I was a girl, my grammar school playground replaced it’s rusty teetering slides and squeaky, lanky swings with a bright and careful, plastic play scape that we took to calling the “Big Toy.” The Big Toy had many tubes for crawling and monkey bars for dangling, but my favorite component of it was a glider that you could hang on to and push off with your feet to take you from one side of the Big Toy to the next. Barreling through the air, free and fast, I would pretend to be a flying squirrel, a magical fairy, an adventurer soaring on vines through the jungle, or whatever struck my whimsey.

One day, while flying over a bubbling sea of hot lava as a cave girl, a classmate came rushing carelessly in my path. Vulnerable and out of control, I clamped my eyes shut and prayed for a miss. Unlucky and exposed, he slammed streight into my chest, and my skinny body was flung onto the ground. I tried to cry out, I tried to speak, but my poor little chest couldn’t even breathe. It was the first and only time in my life that the wind was knocked out of me.

Until this Christmas, I had forgotten what getting the wind knocked out of you felt like. My chest became tight and impossible in the aftermath of our family’s Christmas dinner as a nightmarish version of my mother raged while I straightened up her kitchen. For reasons all too unnecessary, my mom had decided that we abandon our fondue to listen as she verbally assaulted my middle brother. Her ridicule went far beyond the realm of the evenings encounters, and her reasoning was buried under years worth of disconnect with her and my brother, as well as her and my brothers father.

This poem was written in exhaustion, without breathing–my chest vulnerable, constricted, and impossible. This is a poem written with love, with hope for my brother.

As always, your comments are welcome, your criticisms are appreciated, and your readership is cherished. Thank you.

_____________________________________________________________________________ Prodigal Son
I am my father’s son.
The soft tap of my pulse
reverberates in his ears
like the steps of an ancient predator.
The patriarchs choice is involuntary.
It is the decision of all who came before him,
the decision of survival:
My death or his exile;
I exist to replace him.
A twisting double helix
ropes around my young and clumsy body-
slithering, seething bondage.
Hacking away at these binds
in a primal bushman frenzy,
I’ve severed my ties to history.
I’ve thwarted the great design.
Panting, I greedily inhale my freedom.
The earth beneath my feet is ripe and welcoming,
the sky above without bounds.
Resting at last, I sink into the warm, familiar cradle of the earth.
My head feels pleasant and heavy upon the gentle slope of her shoulder.
Smelling of tangerine skins, aloe, and rye,
She whispers love into my ear
as she quietly accommodates
the vines of my inheritance
to snake around me once again.

Hello Ladies and Gents! I’m back with a revision of the five minute scene I had requested your assistance with. Your emails and postings were fabulously helpful–thank you!

I have softened the begining to create more of a lighthearted open and a more sympathetic close. Please let me know how this new revision works for you, indulgent reader. I promise, I won’t bore you all with revisions past this drastic one. I only linger with you all so long with this because of the emotional complexity I am trying to pack into 5 minutes. So for those who are in high school, for those who remember it well, for those who study/studied Psycology, for those who are writers—your imput on the realism and emotional pull are most appreciated.

Also, I’d like to thank my most adored critic (sorry to play favorites , sweet readers) by recomending his website to you all. The site features fantasticly beautiful writing.

The address is: www.shaunmanning.com.

Enjoy!

SCENE 1

A suburban high school, 4:00pm. School has ended for the day and SHERI is standing outside the theater, looking at the recent play rehearsal schedule. SHERI wears a floral dress, combat boots, a backpack, and short, brightly dyed hair. Soon, JAMES approaches her. JAMES wears a Mr. Peanut T-shirt and bright green bell-bottoms, a purple scarf, and a pink backpack. He sneaks up from behind her, smacks her butt with his playbook. SHERI isn’t at all surprised.

JAMES
Ola Chica.

SHERI
(Rubbing her now-sore butt)
Hi ass fetish!

JAMES
(Jokingly pinching Sheri’s checks like she is a baby.)
Who’s my Diva? Who is it?

SHERI
Your mamma.

JAMES
I wish!

SHERI
Act two isn’t rehearsing ‘till 5 and I’m hungry like the wolf.

JAMES
(Pretending to make a claw, but it is all too delicate)
Rar!

SHERI
(Laughing and threading her arm through his)
No, not hungry like the sex kitten, hungry like the wolf.

Together, they begin to walk to a set of nearby vending machines in the school lobby. JAMES begins to sing Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf.” SHERI joins him and they are soon skipping in a kick-line towards the vending machines, laughing.

A group of five jock guys enters the lobby. They stop their conversation and stand jeering at JAMES and SHERI, who are oblivious to their presence. James breaks away from SHERI and takes his scarf and puts it around his shoulders and shimmies up to Sheri, who is cracking up.

JOCK #1
(Whistling)
Take it off, faggot!

JAMES and SHERI stop their dance, startled. The group of guys laugh even harder. Jock #2 drops his glass juice bottle on the floor. It shatters, and instinctually, without hesitation, he grabs a large shard of glass and chucks it at James’s face. James flinches, and falls to the floor. Sheri is confused. The jocks hush.

SHERI
James?

JAMES
Shit.

James looks up, and from his eyebrow, a gush of blood flows. Sheri gasps and glares accusingly at the group of jocks.

JOCK #3
Lets go!

They take off down the hallway.

SHERI
(Screaming after them, red faced)
What the hell do you think you are doing!?! Come here you freaking assholes!

JAMES
Sheri, shut up. I’m fine.

SHERI
(Still screaming after them)
Don’t think for a goddamned second that you are getting away with this! I’m going to kill you, you filthy shit mongrels!

James lets out an unexpected chuckle, startling Sheri.

SHERI
(To James)
What?

JAMES
(Softly laughing)
Shit mongrel?

SHERI
Stop laughing!

JAMES
(Blotting away his blood with a Kleenex)
Let them go.

SHERI
(Crying)
Screw you.

JAMES
(Joking)
Pretty please?

SHERI
It’s not funny.

JAMES
Okay shit mongrel.

Despite herself, Sheri laughs through her tears.

JAMES
Come here.

Sheri goes to her friend, and hugs him. She checks his cut.

SHERI
How can you just let them go?

JAMES
How can’t I?

SHERI
I hate them.

JAMES
Don’t we all.

SHERI
(Touching his hurt eyebrow)
Lets go to the nurses and have this cleaned up.

JAMES
(Looking panicked)
Can you just please do it?

SHERI
(Resigning to the fact)
You aren’t planning on telling anybody.

JAMES
I’m not the crusader you want.

SHERI
(Upset)
It’s not about what I want…

JAMES
(Interrupting, shaken and wrought with
emotion)
I’m not your little pet project. I just can’t…

James breaks down crying.

SHERI
Look-I was just trying to help! Excuse me for being a friend!

They sit in silence for a time. JAMES face is set in an impenetrable expression. Only the soundless tears that run down his face betray his emotion. He lets his blood drip from his brow without even putting a hand to it. SHERI searches his face and is softened.

SHERI
(Soothing)
Hey. Okay. All right.

Beat.

SHERI
Our Act is up soon.

JAMES
Yeah.

From her backpack, she retrieves tissues, a bottle of water, and a makeup bag. She dab some water from the bottle onto a tissue.

SHERI
(Blotting the wet tissue onto his eye)
Tilt your head back.

James does, as Sheri cleans away all the blood. James lets quiet tears roll down his cheeks. Sheri wipes them away, and takes James head in her hands.

SHERI
(Singing)
I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gay!

JAMES
Oh do I ever.

SHERI
Shhh. Shut up so I can make you beautiful.

Sheri begins to apply some powder to his cut, and under his puffy, tear streaked eyes.

JAMES
Lets remember to laugh about this when we’re famous some day.

SHERI
Of course.

Sheri continues to apply the makeup, as we fade to black.

I thought it would be a fun exercise in short form screenwriting to try my hand at a five minute scene. I am still working on a title, and I am open to any title suggestions from my gracious readers. This work is formatted incorrectly for a screenplay, I realize, but my copy/paste function wouldn’t allow me to properly maintain my formatting. Again, if anyone has feedback on how to do this sucessfully, please let me know. Otherwise, bear with me. I’d like to shoot this in two weeks when I travel to my hometown to visit family. I’d appreiate any feedback before the script is committed to video. As always, thanks for reading. Enjoy!
______________________________________________________________________

SCENE 1

A suburban high school, 3:40pm. School has ended for the day and JAMES and SHERI are sitting on the floor in the hallway, outside of the theater. Their backpacks, coats, and books are sprawled out about them in a comfortable mess. SHERI wears a floral dress, combat boots, and short, brightly dyed hair. JAMES wears an un-tucked black dress shirt and jeans. They are rehearsing John Guare’s One Act play, Four Baboons Adoring the Sun. Sheri reads from the playbook book as James concentrates on his memorization.

SHERI
(Reading from the playbook)
“Grief is like love. It makes us do terrible things. Say terrible things.”

JAMES
(Hesitating, then defeated.)

I forget. Fuck.

SHERI
(Jokingly pinching James’s checks like he is a baby.)

Who’s my Diva? Who is it?

JAMES
Your mamma.

SHERI
I wish!

(They are quiet for a time.)

SHERI
James, you are going to do great. Everybody knows you are ten times better than Nick Sutter.

JAMES
Then why didn’t I just get the part? What’s with all the callbacks?

SHERI
Smith is a masochist.

JAMES
What director isn’t? It doesn’t matter anyway. We will be out of this hellhole in two years.

SHERI
And then we shall be rich and famous and everyone will shrivel up and die of jealousy!

JAMES
…And stupid Nick Sutter will still be working at the car wash, reliving his pathetic days as a high school drama queen.

SHERI
(Quickly standing up to mimic Nick Sutter at the car wash. She mimes Nick leaping into the path of a car coming out of the wash, ready to dry it. She flashes jazz hands and does a little kick line, as she belts out her dialogue like it is a show tune.)

Hey big boy! Can I towel you off? I live to dry cars!

(James laughs, and stands to join her dramatic mockery. He takes his scarf, and pretends it is a wet towel as he snaps it at Sheri’s behind. They ad lib as they begin a small chase, giggling manically. A group of five jock guys enters the lobby, and stand jeering at James, who is oblivious to their presence. James takes his scarf and puts it around his shoulders and does a shimmy dance to Sheri, who is cracking up.)

JOCK #1
(Whistling)
Take it off, faggot!

(The group of jocks laughs even harder, and as they do, Jock #2 drops his glass juice bottle on the floor. It shatters, and instinctually, without hesitation, he grabs a large shard of glass and chucks it at James’s face. James flinches, and falls to the floor. Sheri is confused. The jocks hush.)

SHERI
James?

JAMES
Shit.

(James looks up, and from his eyebrow, a gush of blood flows. Sheri gasps and glares accusingly at the group of jocks.)

JOCK #3
Lets go!

(They take off down the hallway.)

SHERI
(Screaming after them, red faced)
What the hell do you think you are doing!?! Come here you freaking assholes!

JAMES
Sheri, shut up. I’m fine.

SHERI
(Still screaming after them)
Don’t even think for a goddamned second that you are getting away with this! I’m going to kill all of you, you filthy shit mongrels!

(James lets out an unexpected chuckle, startling Sheri.)

SHERI
(To James)
What?

JAMES
(Softly laughing)
Shit mongrel?

SHERI
Stop laughing!

JAMES
(Blotting away his blood with a Kleenex)
Let them go.

SHERI
(Crying)
Screw you.

JAMES
(Joking)
Pretty please?

SHERI
It’s not funny.

JAMES
Okay shit mongrel.

(Despite herself, Sheri laughs through her tears.)

JAMES
Come here.

(Sheri goes to her friend, and hugs him. She checks his cut.)

SHERI
How can you just let them go?

JAMES
How can’t I?

SHERI
I hate them.

JAMES
Don’t we all.

SHERI
(Touching his hurt eyebrow)
Lets go to the nurses and have this cleaned up.

JAMES
(Looking panicked)
Can you just please do it?

SHERI
(Resigning to the fact)
You aren’t planning on telling anybody.

JAMES
I’m not the crusader you want.

SHERI
(Upset)
It’s not about what I want…

JAMES
(Interrupting, shaken and wrought with
emotion)
It’s about you being some crusader, because it’s easy for you, because your straight, and pretty, and a girl so no one will ever bother you like they do me. It’s a lot easier for you to stand up for guys like me, than to be a guy like me because at the end of the day, you don’t have to live with it. You walk away, to your normal life and don’t have to deal with the consequences like I do. I am not a charity case. I’m not your little pet project. I just can’t…

(James breaks down crying. )

SHERI
(Soothing)
Hey. Okay. All right.

They sit in silence for a time.

SHERI
Your audition is soon.

JAMES
Yeah.

(Sheri digs in her backpack, and retrieves tissues, a water bottle, and a makeup bag. She dab some water from the bottle onto a tissue.)

SHERI
(Blotting the wet tissue onto his eye)
Tilt your head back.

(James does, as Sheri cleans away all the blood. James lets quiet tears roll down his cheeks. Sheri wipes them away, and takes James head in her hands. )

SHERI
(Singing)
I feel pretty, oh so pretty. I feel pretty and witty and gay!

JAMES
Oh do I ever.

SHERI
Shhh. You are going to get this role. Now shut up, so I can make you beautiful.

Sheri begins to apply some powder to his cut, and under his puffy, tear streaked eyes.

JAMES
Lets remember to laugh about this when we’re rich some day.

SHERI
Okay. We will.

Sheri continues to apply the makeup, as we fade to black.