Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Summer Reading Review 2013

I’m not going to lie, I spent a LOT of down time this summer watching Law and Order SVU marathons on the USA network. I’m pretty sure that Benson, Stabler and I are best friends. However, when USA cruelly showed NCIS marathons, I got a little reading done. Here were my summer reads, listed in order of least favorite to most favorite. The top was very crowded; I’d recommend anything after the first two books.

Three Bodies, One Room – Charlaine Harris – This is the woman who wrote the Sookie Stackhouse novels from which the show True Blood is based. She is usually a generally entertaining writer, but once she leaves the world of vampires, she kind of sucks. This was a real snore.

Notorious Nineteen– Janet Evanovich – Remember last summer when I bitched about Explosive Eighteen? Ratchet the bitching up by ten decibels. Although, I have to say, I am the only one to blame here. I knew that this, the latest in the Stephanie Plum series of novels, would be awful. And it was. Blame the fact that I’m still hopelessly attached to Ranger.

Lean In – Cheryl Sandberg – Technically, I didn’t read this over the summer. I think I read it in May. Sandberg is the CEO of Facebook and this is her autobiography/manifesto. Autofesto. This woman is awesome, and her message happened to resonate with me: women in the workplace need to stop putting being seen as nice ahead of their own success. Damn straight.

Into Thin Air – Jon Krakauer - Ever thought about climbing Mt. Everest? This true story, written in first- person by a journalist and climber who lived through an ill-fated Everest expedition is mesmerizing. You wouldn’t think that the “business” of guided mountain climbing is interesting, but it is. Bonus: Sherpas! You’ll find yourself appreciating oxygen like never before.

And The Mountains Echoed – Khaled Hosseni – This is the latest novel by the supremely talented Afghan writer Hosseni, and tells the story of multiple generations of one family, seen through the eyes of different family members. It’s the least sad of all of Hosseni’s novels, but it will still rip your heart out. Hosseni describes his homeland beautifully and with great love. For most of us, who only know Afghanistan from the Soviet occupation or the aftermath of 9/11, this is a much-needed perspective of the people and culture.

A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseni – Second novel by Hosseni, and still my favorite. Like And the Mountains Echoed, this novel spans Afghan history from a monarchy through the post-Taliban era, but through the eyes of the women, men, and children who lived through it. I never really buy it when men write about women, but Hosseni does it with deep empathy and admiration. But you will cry. Like, hyperventilate cry. It’s worth it.

The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood – I love Margaret Atwood. She’s a mad freaking genius, emphasis on the word mad. This is a novel about a novel, and is, in equal turns, murder mystery, sci-fi fantasy, and feminist critique, all wrapped in Atwood’s magical blanket of beautifully descriptive words and imagery.

Swamplandia – Karen Russell – I suggested this novel in my ill-fated book club, but the HFCM voted me down. The book club’s loss was my gain. One of the three finalists for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in fiction, this is the story of a family who owns an alligator-themed amusement park on the decline. Russell as a writer is a both a throwback and a breath of fresh air in the crop of contemporary writers. In passages, she channels Jack Kerouac with her vibrant, energetic descriptions of things we’ve never seen, but she also creates complicated, weird, and tragically beautiful modern characters. And this is her FIRST novel. Can’t wait to see what she does next.

That’s it, people. Happy reading.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Go on...

I’ve been in the same line of work for the last nine or ten years, and it involves the thing that is purported to be peoples’ number one fear: public speaking. If you’re wondering if I see the humor in the fact that I am afraid of everything, but I do something that other people would rather punch their own grandma than do, the answer is yes. I see the humor. And I’m not scared of it at all. It’s not a forced death march, so how bad could it be if things don’t go as planned? I just tell a funny story and move on.

Anyway, I regularly get asked what attracted me to what I do. And I have the same response every time: “Well, I think people are really weird, and the weirder I find out people are, the better I feel about the world. And this job gives me the chance to find out a lot of weird stuff.”

And I’m not talking about, “I’m married to my cat,” kind of weird. I’m talking about fork-in-the-road kind of weirdness. You can choose between A and B, and you chose A. I like to know why. And what happened after that. And what happened after that. It is a fact that, if you tell me a story about your neighbor’s cousin, who struck up a friendship with a professional boxer over cantaloupe at Kroger, I will be on the edge of my seat, hands clutched together, listening to your every word. “GO ON…,” I will demand, trembling with excitement, despite the fact that your neighbor’s cousin lives in Tuscaloosa, I will never meet her, and this story happened twenty years ago. Because people are weird, and I love their stories.

One of the stories that fascinates me is just a little vignette from my local Kinko’s (which is now called Fed Ex. But I don’t want to confuse you, so Kinko’s it is). I was there on my lunch hour one day, picking up some posters for some high school event that my son was doing. This Kinko’s is in the middle of our downtown, so there is a combination of drug addicts who wandered in from the clinic a block over, business people trying to get stuff done on their lunch hour, people who seem to have thought Kinko’s was a taqueria, various homeless, and the people who worked there. I was concluding my transaction, when the most fascinating man walked in. He was dark, dark black, wearing bright white pants. And a bright white shirt. With a bright white jacket over that. And a white cane. Oh, and sunglasses with a bright white frame like Kanye. AND A WHITE TOP HAT. The short kind, not the Abraham Lincoln kind. The best part: the man behind the counter looked over at him, and in a way that made it clear that this happened every day, said, “Hi, Sno-Cone.”

I couldn’t move, I was so overwhelmed by the perfection of the moment, and the multitude of questions I had. I literally just sat there, looking at the counter, knowing that if I looked at either Sno-Cone or the cashier, I would have to yell, “Wait! We all need to stop and discuss some things!” and then I would have to ask the following questions: 1) WHY does the cashier know you by name? 2) Where did you get your cane? 3) What came first? The name Sno-Cone, or the outfit? 4) Why are you at Kinko’s? 5) Can we be friends? 6) Is this what happens at Kinko’s? 7) If so, can I work here? And on and on.

My point is that people are surprising, and awesome, and do the weirdest freaking shit, and just being around them changes your life if you’re paying attention. Every time I pass someone, whether he is wearing one spiked glove, she has an ugly skirt on, they are Mormons on a mission, he is morbidly obese, or she is holding hands with her spouse, I want to just stop and say, “Tell me about the choices you make. Tell me what it’s like to be you. Tell me everything. I want to know.” Because I know that the stories have got to be great.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

So Sorry

Once upon a time, I had to make some people Dead To Me. I’m going to be honest – that is about the most serious step I can take with a person. I generally think that everyone has a reason for the weird things they do, so I try to be understanding, but this group of people had gone over the top, were causing disruption in my life, and were also annoying twits.

As it turns out, the Dead To Me people later found out that the whole reason why they went over the top against me was misguided, as I hadn’t done the Very Horrible Thing they thought I did (which I knew all along, but wasn’t about to tell them, as they were Dead To Me). One of them even apologized! But not to me. To my friend. When my friend – the one who received the apology – gently tried to tell me that I should forgive and forget, I responded, with absolute seriousness, “Um….instead, how about they go fuck themselves?” *

Because there is nothing worse than a non-apology.

Non-apologies have become notorious in the last few years. They generally start out with the words “I’m” and “sorry,” which sounds promising, but those words are then usually followed with the big sin: “if.” If is a word of vacillation. It means something could be so, but it could also not be so. It depends. “I’m sorry IF I hurt your feelings.” It is possible that I didn’t hurt your feelings. It is possible that a person of ordinary sensibility would not have had their feelings hurt. It’s possible that you’re just an oversensitive freak, but all the same, to mollify you, I will pretend to apologize. Here’s an even better one: “I’m sorry IF I did SOMETHING to offend.” This doesn’t even acknowledge a specific act. It is saying that, really, in the world, there are people for whom the mere act of my existence is offensive, and owing to their delicate nature, we all have to walk on eggshells. So, IF the fact of my mere presence is offensive to you, then I am sorry that you are you.

Do you see how this is crazy-making, these non-apologies? The most infamous non-apology is, “Mistakes were made.” That is as indirect as one can get; the fact that there was no regret or remorse is almost obliterated by the fact there is no direct object in the sentence!

So, today, I am going to help everyone. According to the UMass Amherst Family Business Center, here are the elements of a meaningful apology:

1. A statement of regret, e.g., “I am sorry”

2. An acceptance of responsibility for your actions, “That I punched your dog”

3. A statement of willingness to remedy or not repeat your actions, “I will bandage its nose”

4. Given to the person who was harmed, e.g., it doesn’t help to apologize to the cat

5. Sincerity, meaning that you have to actually mean it

6. No excuses, so you can’t say, “But in all truth, the dog had it coming. She knows why.”

Oh, by the way, I regret if you interpreted anything in this blog as offensive to you. Mistakes are occasionally made, and the intention was good. Okay? Good. I feel better, too.

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* From this blog, it might appear that my entire life consists of me spending hours each day lining up people and telling them go fuck themselves. If only, people! 





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Saturday, August 3, 2013

No Worries

“You should write a blog post about anxiety,” people tell me on occasion.

“Well, you should shut the fuck up,” I generally respond. “This whole goddamn blog is about anxiety.”

“No, I mean a real post,” they generally say, because my friends are not intimidated by me in the least. Okay. Here you go:

I have friends, or my friends have friends, who are new to this anxiety business, and because I’ve never made a secret that much of my world is experienced through a veil of anxiety, I get asked about it a lot. It usually comes out like this: “So, for the past two weeks, I haven’t been able to sleep, and I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack all the time,” or “Hey, I can’t stop thinking about that plane crash/kidnapping/tiger mauling/Muppet fight and I really think I ought to pull my child out of third grade and home school him. Is that normal?”

Yeah, neither of those things are normal. And God knows, maybe you are having a heart attack or you should pull little Cooper, or Quigley, or whatever name you’ve given your child out of school. But chances are, you should probably go talk to somebody.

I don’t remember a day of my life where I wasn’t anxious. In fact, church just confirmed that anxiety was normal. Every week, the priest would say, “Lord, in your mercy, keep us free from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” I looked around church, and everyone was like, “Yeah. Amen,” so I thought that everyone felt the same way I felt. It wasn’t until I was much older, and noticed that I washed my hands more often and more frequently, and I checked for killers behind more doors and in more basements than most, that I realized that I might have a different anxiety than the waiting for the return of the Lord variety.

Just like any normal person would get treatment for diabetes, or high blood pressure, I get treatment for anxiety. I take medication, and see a therapist, and try to do all of the things that keep my persistent, anxious thoughts in check. But sometimes, I do shit without even noticing it. I obsess, and I mean OBSESS about where I am going to park. I make lists upon lists, reminding me to do things that are so ingrained into my routine; I doubt it would be possible for me to forget these things. I find it impossible not to say “bless you,” when someone sneezes.

My therapist tells me that my anxiety, and the resulting compulsive (or obsessive, I don’t know the difference) behaviors are all resulting from a deep safety concern. Well, that makes total sense. I was raised in the 70s. Does anyone remember how dangerous the 70s were? This was before MADD really took hold, so our parents were drunk driving us everywhere, and there were no seatbelt laws, so we were sliding all over the vinyl back seats of the car! There was no internet, so nobody was posting videos about how it was bad to marinate barely cooked hamburgers in raw chicken juice, or play with the neighborhood kids, in the street, unsupervised, with our parents’ loaded pistols, until it got dark out. If our neighbor’s dog bit us, we had to go apologize to the dog, and everyone smoked everywhere! I don’t know how any child got out of the 70s not having “deep safety concerns.”

But listen. There is an upside to being anxious. First of all, people who are anxious are great in a crisis. You would think we would fall apart, but the fact is that we’ve already imagined the worst-case scenario for every situation, and in fact, expect that to happen. When the worst does happen, we’re just like, “Yep, I thought so,” and we proceed to kick ass awesomely. Second, anxious people are super observant. We don’t know where danger’s coming from next, so we pay attention to everything. We can find Waldo like that! Third, anxious people can get a lot done. We’re not overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety in high-pressure situations, because that’s the way we’re used to feeling. So if you need someone to perform that emergency tracheotomy or to lift a car off of you, call your anxious friend. We’ll lift that car, do your taxes, and fold all your laundry before you even have a chance to get some ibuprofen for your car bruise.

Also: anxiety can be hilarious. You want to laugh and laugh? Menace me with moldy food, or make me walk on the left side instead of the right. Interrupt me while I’m washing my hands, or hide the one “approved” pencil that I use at work. It really is all about safety: moldy food is contaminated; walking on the right side is necessary so I can keep my fighting hand free; washing hands, obviously protects me from all that fucking moldy food, and having my special pencil right there where I left it means that thievery is still in check and/or that my memory is still good enough that I put it where it was supposed to go, and found it where I left it. Makes sense now, doesn’t it?

So, if you’re worried about being anxious, just remember these simple things: A) anxiety is just like more-awesome diabetes. It can be controlled, but you may need a professional’s help to figure out how. B) Great people, like Woody Allen, Charlie Brown, and Ross from Friends are anxious, and one of those people got to marry Rachel. I think. I stopped watching Friends after, like, season two. C) Everyone is afraid of something. And fears are there to protect you. But if your fears are hurting you, then it’s time to get help. D) If any of you touch my pencil, you’ll regret it.