Dilemma

I'm torn. I've got two seats of tickets to advanced screenings tonight. They're both at the same time and I need to decide which movie I want to see…

THE WICKER MAN
In Neil LaBute's remake of the 1973 horror classic, Nicolas Cage stars as a sheriff investigating a young girl's disappearance from an isolated, mysterious island off the coast of Maine. As he digs deeper and uncovers evidence of disturbing pagan rituals, he realizes there's something very strange about the local community.

CRANK
Chev Chelios is about to begin his morning with an unexpected wake-up call. Chev has been poisoned in his sleep and only has an hour to live. As it turns out, A freelance hitman who works for a major West Coast syndicate, Chev let his target slip away the night before in an effort to quit professional killing and start a new life with his girlfriend Eve. Now, Chev must keep moving to stay alive: the only way to prolong the poison from stopping his heart is to keep his adrenaline flowing. As the clock ticks, Chelios cuts a swath through the streets of Los Angeles, wreaking havoc on those who dare stand in his way. He must rescue Eve from danger, stay two steps ahead of his nemeses and search for an antidote to save his own life.

[Summary Source: YTIC.com]

Honestly, The Wicker Man looks like a better movie but Crank is closer to home. They both start at 10 and The Wicker Man would require a long bus ride back after midnight.

Other factors: Nicolas Cage kind of skeeves me out but Jason Statham, of Snatch and Mean Machine is sex on wheels, except in The Transporter, where he was still sexy but that barely made up for the thin plot, poor acting and lack of direction. Nicolas Cage, skeevy or not, is a darn good actor

Both sets of tickets are free and mine for the taking, and I have a friend lined up for either movie.

What to see? WHAT TO SEE?

Help.


Tag: The Wicker Man Crank Movies

Peanuts and Crackerjack

When a friend emailed ages ago to ask me to the ballgame, to offer half a pair of company seats, I jumped at the chance. I love baseball. I'm a terrible fan – I don't follow teams or scores even, I just like watching a good game. Of course, with the Nationals within walking distance, I'm almost tempted to pick a side. Almost.

Then, again, I didn't feel particularly bad when they lost last night. I didn't want the Phillies to win, but I didn't much care about the score. I cheered for the Nats. I booed bad calls; I woo-hooed Soriano's home run. I stood, swayed and sang (somewhat tunelessly) along with the seventh inning stretch. I hurrahed for Henry somebody or other when he stepped up to the plate. I clapped mindlessly along with cadences I don't remember learning but know as well as anybody else. Everybody else. That's what one does at a sporting event.

My friend, a huge baseball fan, explained some of the rules, some of the strategy to the group behind us. Two couples, a little older than much of the crowd, they seemed to relish the experience. We talked of the balk. The backwards K – strike out swinging versus strike out looking. Walking a strong hitter - loading the bases versus giving him a chance to hit. She explained some of the finer points and blurred a lot of the rest to make it easier to understand.

And I did understand. In high school, I spent three seasons with the boys' baseball team, wrapping bum knees and ankles and keeping score. It wasn't the most sought after position – track and field earned more respect and more injuries, but it was baseball. It was boys. Shivering in the dugout, I learned the numbers that went with each position. I followed the lineup, recording each hit, each strike, each ball and out. I was happy.

Last night, attendance topped out at 24,438; I would have thought it lower. An on-again, off-again drizzle drove people into our (covered) section. I valiantly defended the seats next to ours, the other set of company tickets. The attendees, a lovely couple named Dan and Mary, were up in the Red, Hot and Blue Barbecue, munching on finger-licking goodness and watching the game. Actually, I didn't do much but I did tell a pair of seemingly nice, damp women that the seats were taken. I'm sure that I could have taken them if they'd tried to sit.

We passed our seatmates earlier, on our way back from the concession stands. Burrito Brothers for me and a Kosher sausage for my friend. Not quite the right ballpark frank but worth a shot. Peanuts. Ice cream. Beer. Not necessarily together. As we sat in the seats, vendors walked past, calling their wares. Lemonade. Peanuts. Cotton candy. Beer and beer and beer.

A little over a year ago, I went to the first baseball game at RFK Stadium. An exhibition game. It was cold and rainy and just plain miserable. I don't remember who won. I don't know if we lasted to the end. My pizza was not just doughy. It was made of predominantly uncooked dough. Ings and her sister left to buy a sweatshirt - they returned about an hour later. The line wasn't long; actually, they were at the front of the line the entire time. It took that long to make the transaction.

Over the summer, last summer, I went to several games and as time passed, the park improved. It felt a little better. More organized. More real. Last night, finally, it seemed like a real ballpark. With a peanut vendor juggling as he passed and Screech making his mascotty rounds, with the Presidents racing toward home plate with their giant heads bobbing (Teddy Roosevelt cheated a bit, but Honest Abe won), I had fun.

"You know… I just realized. There are pockets of really hot guys here," I announced with a bit of surprise toward the top of the ninth. I looked around again, just to make sure I wasn't imagining things.

"You're right," my friend replied. "But how to meet them?"

I shrugged. I didn't know and it didn't really matter.

I turned back to the game and cheered for players I didn't know. I booed another set of Phillies at bats. It didn't make affect the outcome of the game. It didn't change the way I felt about the game. I was tired and cranky. Overworked and under slept. Worried about my brother. Worried about finding time to shop and pack and plan for Alaska. (I leave tomorrow.) An overdeveloped sense of duty brought me to the game and I am grateful. I had a wonderful time.


Tag: Baseball Washington DC Nationals

I'm it

I have been remiss in writing. Frankly, I've been remiss in a lot of things, but with my brother in the hospital, blogging took the back burner as I tried to get through each day with an overwhelming workload, errand running, hospital visiting and family/friend calling. As of Sunday, the hospital visiting dropped off the list and I brought my brother home for a interminably boring convalescence.

As I baby step back into blogging, I find myself tagged by Barbara on one of my favorite subjects: Books. (I'm a nerd. I can accept that.)

1. A book that has changed your life: As a child, I read "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Speare about a hundred times. Seriously. The 1959 Newberry Award Winner whetted my appetite for historical fiction, romance and darn good writing. It was probably the first book to steal my heart and it spurred my lifelong affair with the written word.

2. A book you have read more than once: Both of my book clubs seem to pick books I've already read. Some I remember well enough to discuss; others, I reread. A recent discussion centered on "Bel Canto" by Ann Patchett and I appreciated the opportunity to revisit this beautifully lyrical book. The National Book Critics Circle and PEN/Faulkner award winner inspired me to read all of Patchett's work, including "Truth and Beauty," a book so moving, I keep giving copies away.

3. A book you would want on a desert island: Tough question. I wouldn't want to take a book I love because I'd learn to hate it over time. (It's the same reason I don't want to write for a living.) I'd probably enjoy "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. Bryson is an author who can make even science funny, compelling and easy to understand. He's witty and wry and perfectly self-deprecating. Not only that, the book is downright enlightening. It really is a short history of nearly everything.

4. A book that made you laugh: "Tepper isn't Going Out" by Calvin Trillin. It's a clever book, not laugh-out-loud, comically absurd like something by David Sedaris or dryly amusing like Bryson but hilarious in its own thought-provoking way. The plot centers around an average, aging New Yorker seemingly obsessed with street parking. It is both as simple and as complex as that and I think I might just have to go home and dig up my copy for a second reading.

5. A book that made you cry: "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. I cannot recall why I cried; I just remember sitting on an airplane and facing the window with tears rolling down my cheeks. I slowed my eager pace and tried to stretch the book and the experience for just a little longer. I finished before the wheels touched down and reread the last pages, still crying.

6. A book you wish you had written: "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee. There is a reason it's a "classic" and high school English teachers drag unwilling students through its pages. I've read this book half a dozen times at half a dozen different points in my life. It always makes me think and for that I am grateful. Beautifully tragic? Tragically beautiful? It is listed as one of the top 100 novels of all time.

7. A book you wish had never been written: I don't really hate anything I've read. Some books take me longer to read than others – Love in the Time of Cholera took something close to five years for me to finish and I absolutely loved it. Actually, many of the books I love confused the heck out of me until the last couple of chapters – The Tesseract, The Corrections. Some books fit better at one time or another and some I just can't finish. I try not to read anything by Danielle Steele. An unfortunate scene from Family Album still lingers and I wish I could wash it from my brain.

8. A book you are currently reading: "The News from Paraguay" by Lily Tuck. I just picked it up, so I'm only three metro rides and two bedtime readings into it. The novel earned accolades as the 2004 National Book Award winner and has been compared to works by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a favorite of mine. I can't really see the comparisons yet but as I said, I'm not that far along.

9. A book you have been meaning to read: "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. I've had a copy of it sitting on my shelf for months now. I've started it twice but...

10. Now tag 5 people: I'm terrible at tagging. I would love to hear from everyone. I know that Esbee's a reader and Hey Pretty. EclecticBlue is in the book club that just read "Bel Canto." Joe's a college friend and a teacher - I hope he's still reading books! I've taken recommendations from Jamy, Chairborne Stranger and Eunuch. I can only imagine what Chud would include. Books say so much about a person…


Tag: Books

Rise and shine

A little after 7 on Sunday morning and I’m writing. I should be cleaning or cooking or cleaning or showering or cleaning. (Believe me, it requires a second and third mention.) I should be sleeping. Instead, here I sit, poor little brain and aching fingers trying to assign meaning to the bedlam of my life.

More than anything else, I do want to crawl back into bed but it’s hot in my room. Really, really hot. And noisy. I’ve already had two work-related nightmares, so bed is not the place for me. Instead, I got up, tried to take some pictures of the blossoming discoloration on my bottom, the road rash on my leg, the swell of my ankle and started to write.

My left leg looks like it’s gone through a meat grinder. A hen’s egg pushes out from the ankle. Sorry. That’s the right leg. Left leg: road rash (scrapes and bruises) on my foot, shin and knee. My sister said I resemble her 8-year-old son and a friend said she hadn’t seen such a scrape since she was a child. (Unfortunately, I've had worse. Recently, even.) The bruise on my bum is about the size of my hand – long, tapering fingers and all – and is complemented by another, smaller one (the size of a tennis ball).

I ought not complain, though. I did this all to my accident-prone self. I need to take care when I walk and I need to brace, bandage and massage the offending parts. Take a painkiller or five and be done with it. It will take a little while to forget my skirt-flying tumble at F and 11th or my skirt-flying tumble in the emergency room, but it will be easier when the marks fade and the swelling unswells.

In the meantime, I should shower, dress and head back to the hospital. Pick up some breakfast along the way. I blogged too soon, I wrote too optimistically when I dared to hope that my brother would come home on Friday. A little after 7 on Sunday morning and he’s still waiting.

A little after 7 on Saturday morning and I headed to Frager’s Hardware to pick up a dehumidifier and a vacuum.

“New place?” the über helpful salesgirl asked as we wound our way from the garage (dehumidifiers) toward the front room where vacuums towered high above our heads.

“No… my brother’s coming home from the hospital and I have to get rid of the mold before he gets there,” I replied, his ravaged immune system making him more susceptible to the mold. “I already bleached pretty much everything
[around midnight on Thursday] but I want to make sure that I take care of the problem for good.”

She agreed that bleach was the best approach and the dehumidifier would help. She also mentioned that I really didn’t want mold growing on my own lungs but strangely enough, that had little impact in my decision to finally buy the household appliance.

Leaving the store, I drove to the bank to deposit the checks that had been sitting on my ottoman for a week, since before this all started. I drove home, stripped the bed, the shower curtain, and drove to the Laundromat where my laundry commingled with my brother’s. I walked to the Southeast Safeway for a muffin and dryer sheets. Well, I walked to the store for dryer sheets. The muffin was just blueberry-filled, sugar-topped goodness to make my morning a little brighter.

Back to the Laundromat, back to the grocery and shopping for easy foods, foods that required little in the way of preparation – frozen dinners and sherbet, pudding, cereal and granola bars – and would get my brother through the days while I worked until I could get home and make us both dinner. I stopped to pick up his dry cleaning.

At home, I unloaded the car, reassembled the beds and shower, assembled a Peruvian quinoa and kidney bean salad (for book club) and scrubbed the bathroom. All by 10 a.m. I showered. Called my sister. Called my brother. Dumped all of my own laundry in the middle of my bed to force myself to put it away; though, at midnight, when I actually found time to do it, I wanted nothing more than to crawl between the sheets and settle myself under the skirts and sweaters, tank tops and lingerie.

The dehumidifier hummed beside the bed as I unfolded and hung, refolded and stacked my clothes. Loud. Hot. Playing into my nightmares, I’m sure, transforming into an office chainsaw massacre, a swarm of killer bees or killer mold. I did dream of bleaching the floors in my apartment, all of the floors, again. My dream-self cried at the thought. My waking-self needs to get out the bleach. I haven’t slept much and certainly not well. I need to clean a bit, clean myself up and get back to the hospital. I have calls to make to family and friends. Breakfast to buy. A day to begin.


Tag: Hospital Cleaning Family

Define "emergency"

"I fell down. Went boom. Want to cry," I typed into my phone just as soon as I was able to catch my breath and pop the battery back into the phone. I typed as an excuse to stand for a second. Testing my ankle, I shifted my weight slowly from my bleeding left leg to my tender right. I exhaled sharply. "That's not going to work."

I leaned over the trashcan for a second, gripping the edges and grossing out passersby who hadn't seen my graceless fall from the curb.

"Do you need help?" asked a couple of very concerned tourists who apparently saw both the fall (skirt flying, phone flying, underwear under nowhere - out for the world to see) and my white-knuckled grip on a rubbish bin. "Do you want us to call someone? Do you work close to here?"

Wild-eyed, I stared at them a second. "No, I'm fine. I'll be okay… I'm just going… to the Metro. I work over the Metro. Thanks."

They looked at each other for a second and back at my grimacing attempt at a placating smile. Uncertainly, they nodded and moved on, looking back to see me step gingerly away from the trash and toward the Metro. Fortunately, I thought they might be far enough away to miss the tears welling and the sharp whoosh of breath with every hobble on my right foot.

A lifetime later, after figuring out how to get on and off an escalator without putting too much weight on one foot, after tugging my skirt down a dozen or so times in a desperate attempt to hide my bloody knee, I worked my way through Metro center. I played a game with myself as I limped across the platform and down another level – if the next train was blue, I would go to the hospital; orange and I would go to the office.

I caught a blue train and fiddled with my phone during the short ride, hoping it wasn't broken. It arrived the night before and had been working for approximately two and a half minutes before I fell. I was walking from T-Mobile to the Metro, setting the time on my phone, when I stepped off the curb and into utter misery – pain, embarrassment, and scrapes, swelling and discoloration to add to my tension headache, nausea and the big, bright bruise on my bum. I felt pretty.

A woman stared at me as I walked into the hospital. I imagined that she was fighting the urge to point me toward the Emergency doors instead of the lobby. She wasn't the only one to turn and watch as I limped to the elevator, blood dripping down my leg, newspaper and high heels cradled in my arms. I held my head up high and hobbled with as much dignity as I could muster.

"What did you do?" my brother asked when he opened his eyes, lifting them to my masked face. "You should clean that up. Maybe you should go to the emergency room."

He was the second one to tell me that in the past 24 hours. My mom had said the same when I called her from the doctor's office.

"I'm fine. I just have a tension headache, which was exacerbated by sitting in a waiting room for an hour and a half and hearing 'Take two aspirin and don't call us in the morning – we're going on vacation!'" I snapped into the phone.

"I'm worried that you have what your brother has," she said.

"I don't have meningitis. I've just left the doctor. It's stress and possibly the mold growing under my bed."

"You should go to the emergency room."

I shook my head and wondered, "Are you listening to me? Are you listening to yourself? I just left the doctor's office, an appointment scheduled explicitly to make sure I didn't have what my brother had, to make sure I didn't have meningitis."

"You should really rethink your position on painkillers and take some tonight."

"I would but I don't have any," I replied. "I will get some tomorrow."

"I know, but I wish you had some now."

My headache kicked up a notch and my stomach started rumbling. "I'll be fine…"

I recounted the conversation to my brother while I nursed my injuries in his hospital room. I told him that she'd called our sister, certain that I had meningitis and that I hadn't seen a doctor. He looked at me, looked at my knee and closed his eyes, still in a morphine funk.

"So, I'll call you later… when you're awake…" I whispered and pulled myself, wincing, to a standing position. I tiptoed/limped out of the room. I washed my hands, as dictated by the sign posted outside his room. I washed my knee and returned to the office.

When I called after lunch (or what would have been lunch if I'd actually eaten or left my desk), he still didn't know if he was coming home. His temperature had either stabilized or the hospital staff reached a new level of ineptitude by not taking it, but he needed to wait for still more test results and a conversation with the infectious disease team. On a positive note, people no longer needed to wear masks and he saw a full face for the first time in days.

On even more positive note, I didn't cry. I didn't have meningitis and my phone still worked.

On the most positive note of all, my brother should be home soon. He's healing. The pain seems to be leaving his body and he seems more like himself. Over the past three days, I've fielded calls from our family, his friends, my friends - all offering support, offering visits, offering movies and food and trips to Fragers Hardware for a dehumidifier. It's been pretty amazing.

Tag: Hospital Meningitis Sprain

Meninges

Meninges.

It is not a word I've used before but it's kind of fun to say. Meninges. It just rolls of the tongue.

"My brother is suffering from an inflammation of the meninges... I might be suffering from the inflammation of my meninges."

I almost feel like I'm in an ESL course, testing a new word, rolling it around in my mouth, tasting it, feeling it – smooth with a bit of bite. Meninges.

When my brother called Monday morning to borrow my car, I said he could. I always say he can but it was a little strange to get such a call at 11 on a Monday morning. More often, it's an email or a call at home, but Monday morning he called my cell phone and asked for the car.

He always calls my cell phone when he's trying to reach me at work. He's one of three people who always get Ella when he dials my extension. While writing, I called myself from my cell and got my own desk. I don't know what happens. Those three callers go straight to her, regardless of the phone they use.

So, Monday morning, my brother called me on my cell phone and asked for my car. He left work early and wanted to drive to the doctor's. He'd gotten a massage that the airport on Sunday and something seemed desperately wrong. They literally rubbed him the wrong way and his back ached something terrible. He walked to my house from the Metro and picked up my car, planning to go home, nap and consider the need to see a professional.

I didn't hear from him again until Tuesday over lunch. Actually, I was in the middle of a meeting when an alien sound emanated from my bag and I realized that my loaner phone (another story altogether) was ringing. Embarrassed, I punched at random buttons, trying to make it stop, while the owner of my company continued talking at the end of the table. A few seconds later, I heard a beep. Voicemail.

After the meeting, walking back to my desk, I listened to the message and heard my brother rasping, "I need to know where urgent care is in the District and I might need you to take me."

I called him back immediately. In the 15 minutes from his first call, he'd arranged for a friend to pick him up and take him to the George Washington University Hospital emergency room. Hours later, he called me again. He'd been admitted under suspicion of meningitis.

A half hour later, at the hospital, I got more of the story. He'd spent an hour in the waiting room with his friend. When he was finally taken into triage, the nurse said that whatever he had was contagious and wanted to know how long he'd been in contact with patients. They whisked him into his own room and started distributing paper masks to anyone who entered the room.

Spinal tap. Blood tests. All the while, he curled up in pain, shivering under very thin blankets. By the time I got there, his fingernails were turning blue. I held his (very cold) hand and covered him with more blankets. I rubbed his back, his shaved head. He whimpered quietly and asked pretty much everyone in sight, which wasn't very many people, for painkillers. He finally got them – eight hours after entering the hospital.

I Googled meningitis before I left work, before I visited the hospital. Apparently, the most common symptoms include a severe and persistent headache, a stiff/ painful neck, and vomiting. He had all of those. Actually, so did/do I. He also exhibited a bit of the confusion and decreased level of consciousness. He talked normally most of the time but then he'd spout the most random things, more random than the typical Brokekid randomosiity. For the most part, though, he joked.

He teased the nurse who admitted him. He ribbed the transport attendant, Dimitrius, talking about his days in that position and saying that tips were awful. He laughed when I fell trying to sit on a rolling stool that rolled itself out from under me.

"Are you okay?" he asked through concerned laughter.

"I'm fine," I replied. "You're sick… My brother's got meningitis and all I got is this lousy bruise." (And I did get a bruise. A deep, purple, it hurts to sit down contusion on my bum.)

Even though the emergency room only allows one visitor at a time, two of us snuck back to see him. We were a little worried about Megan given that she had just had surgery on her mouth, the latest in a succession of surgeries to replace the teeth that had fallen out when she contracted an autoimmune disorder while serving with my brother in Guyana in the Peace Corps. We didn't know if she faced increased danger; we didn't know if she might be unnecessarily exposing herself to something potentially deadly.

When we were younger, much younger, my brother and I knew a boy who died from meningitis. Jason Greenwalt. He was in 7th grade, my brother's class. His sister was in 10th. We were all shocked and she never really recovered from it, at least not while I knew her. Lying in his bed, shivering in the emergency room, my brother brought it up. His last words to Jason had been along the lines of "Fuck you."

"He was a little shit but he didn't deserve to die," I said and my brother agreed. We sat quietly for a second, thinking about the little shit. I remembered that it rained the day I found out about his death. It was a strange sunny, rainy day. My friends were supposed to come by but they stood me up. I was livid. I didn't tell my brother any of that, though. We just sat for a while and then started talking about the ineptitude of GWU Hospital.

"Can't they get you a blanket? Painkillers? Water?" He'd had a spinal tap hours earlier but still no painkillers. That was before Dimitrius moved him to the room he had to himself, in respiratory isolation, the room where we watched Fear Factor and Larry King Live while we waited for a nurse. We left when she came, promising Percocet.

I stopped at his apartment on the way to work. Megan who was supposed to stay with him but stayed with me took some necessities to the hospital – a toothbrush and toothpaste, underwear and deodorant. A clean T-shirt. Some magazines. He didn't expect to stay when he'd gone to the emergency room. I didn't expect him to take my car and park at an expired meter for the rest of the day. I didn't expect to skip a movie and possibly get blacklisted from the world of advanced screenings, as they've so often threatened. The best laid plans.

He's staying again tonight, in the bed that's too short for his 6'3" frame. Curled up in pain. Whimpering softly. I'm going back after work, after I go to the doctor about this terrible headache, backache, nausea...

Tag: Meningitis Hospital Illness

Gridiron Gang

I didn’t know what to expect when I receive a free pass to a movie starring The Rock. Actually, I had an idea: big-budget nothing, poor acting and rich explosions, something along the lines of Walking Tall or The Scorpion King. I knew nothing about the movie itself, but just the name, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, inspires brilliant imagery.

An email preceded the pass, telling me to sign up for a friends and family event, four free seats (when I’d normally get two), which I, in my cynicism, assumed meant that they had trouble getting filling the theater. Actually, I might have been right: some seats stayed empty and promoters handed out passes after the showing, asking that we share them with friends and family.

Like I said, I knew nothing about the movie but the name of the leading man, and nothing about him inspired thoughts of a quality flick. Entertaining? Yes. Beautiful? Probably. Meaningful? Right… Define meaning.

Open mouth, insert foot.

The Gridiron Gang tells the story of juvenile detention camp officer Sean Porter (played by The Rock) who turns a group of teenage felons into a high school football team. Facing bitter gang and ethnic rivalries between his hard-core punks, Porter teaches the boys to respect themselves, each other and the game of football.

Opening credits announced, before pretty much anything else, that 75-percent of juvenile inmates return to prison or die on the streets, setting a grim undertone as the characters develop, as these hardened criminals morph into the boys they really are, underneath the ink and the anger, the gang signs and the guns.

By the time I read the synopsis and accepted the tickets, I knew I’d enjoy the movie. I’m a sucker for finding hope in harsh settings, for a focus on rehabilitation instead of punishment. I loved Greenfingers. Mean Machine. Even the football scene in Sleepers; though, the movie breaks my heart.

I expected these underprivileged kids to face seemingly insurmountable odds and triumph. That’s what happens in the movies. Even when they’re based on real life. Especially when they’re based on real life. Nobody makes a movie about the futility of growing up in a society where violence begets violence, babies have babies and no one gets out. Nobody except, maybe, Spike Lee and this wasn’t one of his movies.

What I didn’t expect, however, was to truly like the movie, to find my cheeks streaked with tears from time to time. The movie was formulaic. From the man who hopes to make a difference to the funny little sidekick bringing comic relief. From the disillusioned administration to the big, bold, Braveheart music welling in the background. It was exactly what I knew it would be but also somewhat more.

The movie made me think. Maybe it was the grainy, out of focus, herky-jerky camera shots turning my stomach or the gut wrenching violence. Maybe it was the futility. Maybe it was downright strong performances by an unknown group of boys.

Something about the movie made me think. It made me remember the country club boys in my high school. After a rash of vandalism and thievery, a group of rich kids were caught with thousands of dollars of stolen goods. They earned them little more than a slap on the wrist. Nobody went to Sargus where they might see the poor white boy who’d brought an unloaded handgun to class two years earlier.

It made me think of a boy from my class, a boy I’d known since second grade (Mrs. Birch’s class) who stabbed a guy during fair week, the fall of senior year. The man had pulled a gun on my 17-year-old classmate outside a bar. I don’t know why Vaughn was there. I don’t know what happened, but I believe that he was tried as an adult and convicted of manslaughter. I know he didn’t graduate with us and he’s still in prison.

It made me think of the men in met in college on a school trip to New York and a visit to Sing Sing. The men were enrolled in a seminary program and wanted to return to their communities, to help keep kids of the streets. While we talked, these men said they wouldn’t hesitate to kill another prisoner. They had no respect for their own lives or the lives around them. Most of them would never get out.

The movie made me think, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. The crowd burst into applause. Frequently. And they clapped just as much for the quiet, personal moments as the great football plays. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been in a theater where so many people clapped or laughed from joy (not amusement) or stayed in their while the credits rolled.

Based on a true story, Gridiron Gang brought reality to entertainment with documentary footage of the real Sean Porter (not nearly as sexy as The Rock) and some of the boys from Camp Kilpatrick. In a world were 75-percent of these boys won’t make it, Gridiron Gang offered a little hope. (And made me feel really guilty for not doing more to make the world a better place.)


Tag: Gridiron Gang The Rock Camp Kilpatrick

A case of the Mondays

Monday morning. 9:05 a.m. and I felt like vomiting. If I thought it might help the pain in my head, I would have tried the office bathroom, flipflops poking out from the beneath the stall door, hair pulled back with an array of paperclips and real rubber rubber bands.

Unfortunately, I didn't think that would help and so there I sat, checking my email and comparing line after line of staffing data, trying to find the reasons that three people are missing. Three. Out of thousands of records.

Just the thought made my head start pounding and I reached for another Diet Coke.

"It's not even a hangover," popped into my head, almost wistfully. I hadn't had a drink since Saturday night and even then, I didn't have enough to warrant a hangover. Just a couple of beers with friends. Literally a couple. Maybe three. Definitely no more than that. Yet 36 well-hydrated hours later, I felt like death. I think it has something to do with dark chocolate and my mint green backpack.

Despite the moniker and my own generous curves, I don't really eat candy. Ever. Or junk food, in general. But Sunday night, watching a terrible movie and reading chick lit, I decided to indulge in some dark chocolate M&Ms. After all, I had four bags in the freezer, at least two of them bearing Darth Vader's image, which should give readers some idea of how long they've been there.

About two handfuls in, I felt queasy. By the third, I wondered what, exactly, I was doing and stopped. I stepped away from the M&Ms and headed to bed, early, with my book. The stomach settled a little but my head started pounding. My nose stuffed. My eyes itched. I blamed the green backpack in the trash; it was originally black.

I live in an English basement apartment. In a swamp. Well, what used to be a swamp. Last year, my apartment succumbed to flooding, twice, and I am now the proud owner of a ShopVac. This year, I managed to avoided the highwater marks through diligent scrubbing of drains but it's still a little damp inside my apartment. A lot damp.

On Saturday morning, as I pulled together my laundry, I noticed mold growing on the closet door, under the robe. (Robe, meet laundry basket; laundry basket, meet robe.)

Looking more intently at the contents of my closet, I discovered a couple of pairs of light green boots, originally brown leather and now covered in mold. (Boots, meet trash bin. Trash bin, meet favorite brown boots, boots that I've had since college, boots that have been re-soled once, re-heeled twice.)

And my backpack, my sturdy, black nylon travel companion of many years: covered in mold. I sat down, head in hands and sighed. I used it only two weeks before, back when it was black.

I cleaned out the closet and removed as many of the mold-covered items as possible, but given that it's the only storage space in my tiny apartment, I'm not sure I got everything. Worse, yet, as I crawled into bed Sunday night and sniffed, I detected the strong scent of mildew and realized it was probably growing under the bed. Possibly on the box spring.

Despite my affinity for bleach, I didn't move the bed and start scrubbing. It wasn't terribly late, but late enough and I was tired. I still reeled a little from the chocolate mistake. I just tucked myself away with the book and some ShakespeaRe-Told on BBC America. Eventually, I slept, praying that it would go away. Unfortunately, I awoke to the feeling that someone had driven a Mack truck through my head.

I'm allergic to mold. I think I'm allergic to my bed. I'm definitely allergic to Mondays. Back to the staffing data.


Tag: Allergies Mold Hangover

Toys

When I came into a bit of money over the weekend, I thought I would just deposit it. Save it. Pay off the things I've already purchased – my trip to Alaska. My trip to Turkey. My trips to DC bars.

It wasn't a lot of money. It wouldn't get me very far, but I don't have far to go. I tend to live within my means, but it would help in the "saving for a rainy day" or "saving for the day I get so frustrated I walk out of my job" department. Never a bad thing but after a glass of wine and some time online, I decided to buy myself a toy.

Of course, I tend to buy myself whatever I want. (The "saving for the day I get so frustrated I walk out of my job" fund isn't growing as fast as it might.) I couldn't really think of anything I needed. Or wanted.

I could use a new cabinet for glassware, as I recently received that of my great-grandmother, but I haven't found one I like. And I'm getting used to the big box in the middle of my living room.

I wouldn’t mind buying my own place, moving out of the basement, but that would take a while. And I'm a total commitment-phobe. And it wasn't that much money, certainly not enough for a down payment on the type of place I'd like to live.

Glass of wine in hand, I perused the internet, searching for a toy to fill the hole I didn't know I had and finally, an idea came to me. A digital camera. Perfect.

As the rest of the world moved toward digital photography, I moved backwards, buying another SLR. A couple of box cameras. An accordion, pop-out Polaroid. I've got a wind-up 8-mm camera and a projector to go with it. A Holga. A fisheye Lomo.

I can't even find film for half my cameras. (Though, I probably haven't looked hard enough.) And I wouldn't know where to get the stranger film developed. Not only that, I just don't carry my cameras much. They're big. And heavy. And I've started taking pictures (at least for the blog) on my super-low resolution camera phone.

Sunday night, I decided it was time to grow up and enter the age of digital photography. The money helped. So did the wine. I did a little research and realized I knew nothing about digital cameras, so I emailed the brokekid who responded with his username and password for Consumer Reports.

20 minutes later: I was on my way to being the proud owner of a brand new toy.

A capable compact packed with features. The Fuji FinePix E900 Zoom boasts a 9 megapixel CCD, allowing for massive photo enlargements that don't sacrifice quality for size.

Probably so much more than I need, but you never can tell when you're going to want to make a massive photo enlargement, right? And it's pretty. It arrived by Wednesday, as did my new 1 GB memory card. In the office, after charging the batteries for entirely too short a period, I started to play. The beeping brought in my boss.

"Is that you beeping?" Sheepishly, I said it was. I just wanted to set the date and time. I couldn't figure out the volume and didn't want to waste time looking through the manual. I snapped a couple of shots of myself reflected in my office window and left it at that until the commute home.

Between Arlington Courthouse and my house on Capitol Hill, I managed to take pictures of the elevator buttons, the lobby in my building, the street outside, the Metro, the Hill. I couldn't stop.

Actually, I stopped for a minute or 12 to talk to a girl on a train. I carry a messenger bag from my last job and apparently, she works there still. Has worked there for 10 years. We discovered that we had friends in common and filled each other in on gossip. She almost missed her stop because we were chatting so much.

Between the camera and the random connection, it was the best trip ever. I have photos to prove it. Unfortunately, though, I have yet to figure out how to get them off the camera…


Tag: Camera Photography Digital

Trust the Man

Last night, I saw Trust the Man, an understated, charming little flick on love, and on the way home, I realized that I didn't buy it. Any of it. It wasn't the film. It was me. I don't believe in love.

Trust the Man tells the story of two couples, four best friends, struggling to define themselves within and without relationships. The plot revolves around seemingly happily married Tom (David Duchovny) and Rebecca (Julianne Moore), and her brother/his best friend Tobey (Billy Crudup) and his girlfriend of seven years Elaine (Maggie Gyllenhaal).

I first saw the trailer at a showing of The Great New Wonderful and again before Little Miss Sunshine. Something about it got to me. Maybe it was the music. Music makes a movie and it seemed a good soundtrack. Maybe it was the snippets of dialogue – love and porn, breaking up and making up. Even last night, after I got home. I watched it again and sighed a little "ahhhh…" The movie was just sweet. When I found out about the advanced screening, I knew I'd have to go.

Given my recent luck in winning movie passes, I fully expected to find an email in my inbox. Congratulations! You're our latest winner.

On Sunday, I received one for a movie on Tuesday, The Illusionist, but nothing for Monday. Nothing for Trust the Man. I waited. Patiently. (Well, almost.) I checked my profile on the website. My messages. Nothing. I concentrated on work, on accepting the fact that I might not get to see it, that I might have to wait and actually pay to see the movie. That lasted about five minutes before I googled "Trust the Man" and "free screening" and DC. I found three different ways to get a pass, one of which could be accomplished from my desk. I printed my pass and breathed a sigh of relief.

Everything seemed fine 'til the end of the day when Kayla wrote that she had to work late, later than me, and I worked late. Riding the Metro from Courthouse to Gallery Place took almost an hour. To go five stops. We spent nearly 45 minutes between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom, stopped. Standing there, shifting from foot to foot in frustration, I wanted to stomp, to cry, to scream. Instead, I buried my nose in my book and tried ignore the chatter of inconsiderately loud sorority girls.

By the time I joined the line, the queue on the third floor had filled up and a second had formed one level down. I didn't know if I'd even get in, and anxiously, I tried to read. That didn't last long, so I text messaged Kayla at work and chatted up the couple behind me. Eventually, finally, I got in and found a seat, watched a preview for The Namesake (based on a book I loved) and fell into the movie, half in love with the characters already, based on my love of the actors.

The story was simple. Complex. Human. The characters didn't seem to live big or even love big, really. But something about the movie made me think, pushed unwelcome thoughts into my head, thoughts of my own failed relationships and the current lack thereof. It could be that Billy Crudup looks an awful lot like my ex. It could be the common problems, witty dialogue and likable characters. Whatever it was, I thought a lot on the walk home.

"People don't really love like that," popped into my head on the way back from the Metro. I wondered when I started to doubt love, big feelings and grand gestures. Granted, the movie ended with an unlikely scenario but it wasn't just the ending that I didn't believe. It was me. I stopped believing in love and the realization made me want to cry.

Strangely enough, though, I'm glad I went. The first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. I don't believe in love. In the next step, I think I have to believe that a power greater than me can restore my sanity. I'm not sure how to find that, but I'm working on it. At least Trust the Man made me think about it.


Tag: Movie Trust the Man Love

Slipping from the soapbox

I feel guilty, gut-wrenchingly, self-doubtingly guilty, because I did something this weekend. Something I swore I would never do: I shopped at Wal-Mart.

Generally, I'm a "Damn the man. Save the Empire" kind of girl. I regularly (and loudly) denounce the wickedness of Wal-Mart, a store that sells guns but not music with explicit lyrics, a store that limits employees' hours to keep them from attaining full-time status and benefits, a store that steamrolls small businesses and their owners.

There must be good things the chain; I just don't know what they are. I don't want to know what they are. I'm quite comfy upon my soapbox, and I believe in supporting local businesses, even when it means I'll have to pay more. And I almost always have to pay more.

Through college, I worked at a small, family-owned jewelry store. Klevers Jewelry, established a million years ago (or 1918), currently owned by Jon Klever, returned Peace Corps volunteer, grandson of the original owner and one of the nicest people I've ever met. After all, he employed me for three years and I was a terrible employee.

Actually, I was decent employee. Just a bit of a mess. Working at least 40 hours a week between two (to four) jobs at any given time, managing a full-time (honors) course load and trying to be a normal college student (read: partying entirely too often). I worked hard but I lost a diamond once. (I spent the day on the floor with a flashlight looking for the reflection of light on stone in the thick, red shag.) Engraving made me so nervous that I started to shake and ended up scratching more pieces than I care to admit. I'd sleep over lunch instead of eating and return in worse shape than I started.

Like I said, I was a mess. And he was good to me. He supported me, working with my schedule, giving me as many hours as possible, not to mention regular raises. He taught me how to appraise silver and fix watches and jewelry. He taught me to engrave. He let me spend a lot of time in the back: cleaning silver, engraving, typing appraisals and formatting the newsletter instead of leaving me in the front. (I disliked sales. I was the polar opposite of a pushy salesperson. I asked customers what they wanted, how much they wanted to spend, and I generally found something within their price range. They'd have to ask me to show them something more expensive.)

When I graduated, Klevers closed early. They threw me a graduation party. They gave me an engraved watch. A blue topaz pendant. Flowers, a cake and $500. They cried. I can't imagine Wal-Mart doing the same for any of its employees.

While I worked there, I learned a lot about small business, the Better Business Bureau, the Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Business Association. Mr. Klever cared deeply about his community, his town, and he honestly tried to make it a better place. People might find cheaper gold at a chain store, but they wouldn't get the attention that they got at Klevers. We treated everyone equally and they got personal attention from the greeting down to the handmade bow on the packages. That's just what we did. What he taught us to do.

Respect. Pride. Some things can't be bought at a big box store.

I've come a long way from the jewelry store days but I'm still the same girl, a mess, with respect for small business owners. My brother-in-law, a barber, owns his own shop. Shave and a haircut. Cigars. It's got character that you won't find at Supercuts. He works hard, all day, every day, to make a life for his family. He doesn't get vacations. He doesn't get sick days. And I know he's no different from most small business owners, struggling to get along.

These days, I buy my food from Eastern Market. My gifts and cards, my jewelry and accessories. I go to the shop on the corner to pick up groceries or to Yes! Organic Market. If I could find a local pharmacy, I'd probably shop there and I generally take my film to camera stores on the Hill and fill my hardware needs at Fragers. Sometimes I pay a little more, but I feel like I'm supporting my community.

On Saturday, though, in my hometown, after getting doughnuts from the local bakery (est. 1925) and before getting pizza at a tiny, family-owned counter, we went to the new super Wal-Mart. My brother just wanted to see it. My sister's kids wanted treats. I wanted to get out of the hotel.

Walking in, I just wanted… stuff. Candy. Notebooks and folders. Vanilla-scented deodorant and Biolage shampoo at half the price. It was just all so cheap. And big. And colorful. Exactly like a kid in a candy store, I joined my sister's kids in the candy aisle, picking out treats for the long drive home. Charleston Chews. Mike and Ikes. Tootsie Roll Minis.

"I can eat 30 of these and it's only 170 calories!" Okay. Not so good, but I was blown back by the fact that 30 pieces made a single serving. The next day in the car, I realized that my nephew's box of Gobstoppers included 13 servings. When he asked me what that meant, I replied, "If you eat the entire box, you will have eaten… 780 calories."

Ugh.

At the time, though, standing in the aisle, I wanted it all. I could afford it all at 97-cents a box. I did the same in almost every aisle, thinking, "I want that. I need that. I have to have that." Followed by, "And I'm pretty sure I can afford that."

Sense returned before I bought the Barbie convertible for my niece or bags of "I don't even know what" for myself. I walked out with a couple of boxes of candy that I wouldn't eat, some apples that I would and a 2-liter of soda to go with the pizza. Not too bad, but I could finally understand the draw, see how people could be sucked into the whirlpool of Wal-Mart shopping. It was scary.


Tag: Small business Wal-Mart Shopping

Where we used to live

I am at hotel, on a hill, in my hometown watching a movie with my sister, nieces and nephew, full of my favorite pizza because that’s what we do when we come home. We get Wally’s pizza and Kennedy’s donuts.

Actually, this time we didn’t get pizza from “Wally’s Old Fashioned” but rather from “Cambridge Classics.” According to rumor, Wally sold the original store at least 15, 20 years ago and the recipe’s steadily changed over the course of time. According to the website, they not only still own the shop, but live behind it. Nevertheless, I’m convinced that it’s changed. I know it has. It just tastes different.

Six or seven years ago somebody opened a new shop, Cambridge Classic, on Southgate Parkway. Back to the original recipe. Cheese. Two slices of pepperoni. Square pizza, sold by the slice with a hope and a prayer for a corner piece and a soda from the fridge.

Honestly, the experience at Cambridge Classic didn’t differ too much from going to Wally’s. One room with a counter dividing the selling from the buying, the cookers from the eaters. No place to eat, though. Just to buy. Watching the big trays layered with dough and sauce slide in and out of the oven, a second scoop of sauce plus provolone, out, sliced, slid into boxes with two pieces of pepperoni and cheese thrown on top.

These days, if you’re smart, you call ahead. Actually, if you’re really smart, you get delivery but that wasn’t an option when we were growing up – the calling or the delivery. Pulling up to Wally’s with dad, my sister, my brother, placing an order and waiting the 20 minutes or so (eternity to a kid) until the pizza was ready, I hoped we hit the one time in 10 that Pac-Man or Space Invaders or Donkey Kong wasn’t broken. There was only one game in the store at a time, and generally, a hand-lettered sign blocked the darkened screen: “Out of Order”. I got really good at Donkey Kong while waiting for pizza.

I got really good at waiting. I watched my siblings play games. I watched the boys so much older than I was then, so much younger than I am now, spoon sauce and toss cheese on the homemade dough. We wondered which of the pizzas would be ours and with each new pan from the oven, we hoped that our slices came next. Eventually, ours came: boxed in thin, white cardboard. We fought for the front seat of the car, relishing the job of holding warm boxes on cold days, trying to balance them on two fingers in summer.

At home, we fought over corner pieces; we picked gobs of melted cheese off the cardboard. We got good at figuring the number of pieces we’d eat and we were held to it. No more. No less. Two pieces. Three. Now that I’m a grown up, I eat four. It’s probably a bad idea. Three isn’t quite enough and four puts me over the edge. They’re not big pieces. The crust is thin and crispy. A little bit sweet. The sauce: tomato perfection. A little chunkier than normal. Provolone cheese. Two slices of pepperoni. Actually I leave off the pepperoni these days because I don’t eat meat, but if I did, Wally’s original pizza would be at the top of the meat-eating list.

Tonight, after a full day, after several full days in my hometown, my sister, brother and I took my nieces and nephew to Cambridge Classic to pick up some pizza. I ordered a half-tray plus six, four pepperoni, the rest cheese. I spent 20 or 30 minutes in the store, talking to girls, women, while they waited with their kids for their slices. I wondered if we went to school together, these girls and I, and later, talking to my brother’s friend, I grew convinced that the one girl, the blonde visiting her husband on his first day at his second job, was his friend’s sister, a girl from my freshman gym class.

It’s a small town, my hometown. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were the girl from my gym class, a girl I haven’t seen in about 13 years, a girl I haven’t talked to in at least 15, half my life but I’m half-surprised I didn’t recognize her. If it were in fact Lori, the girl from my gym class, I should have known. It’s that kind of town, my hometown.

My hometown.

I half wonder if I should call it that anymore. I no longer have a home here. My dad started job shopping in 1978 and moved away, for good, in 1982. My mom moved my sophomore year in college, skipping Parents’ Weekend for to auction off all our worldly belongings, give or take a few. My parents were transplants themselves, so no family remained. The house still stands, but I don’t know the people living there. I have a few friends left in town but our lives are quite different.

These days, when people ask me where I am from, I say DC. It’s where I live now. It’s where I’ve lived for the past seven years, most of my adult life, and the place I chose to make my home. At times, I’ve caught flack for my choice, for claiming to be “from DC” instead of harkening back a decade or two to growing up in Ohio. I struggle with it myself – at what point can I transition my hometown from the place where I was born and raised to the place I make my home?

Of course, when we drove into town, my brother, sister and I, we started to reminisce, to dredge up mostly-forgotten pieces of our lives together and the place where we grew up. Patterson Meat Market has been replaced by a nursery and is the Dancing Donkey new and was there something there before? Growing up, it seemed like the lake was a million miles away from home or at least 45 minutes. As a grown up who commutes at least 45 minutes each way, walking miles a day, everything seemed so much closer, including the lake and park.

We drove past the house in which we were raised. It’s more of a turquoise now, instead of the baby blue I remember and the shutters are mauve, not black. The yard is overgrown, the porch cluttered with plants and wicker, flags and plaques. We stopped at our favorite bakery. Twice. We got our favorite pizza.

Some of the things we remember are gone, just gone. The junior high. Half the elementary schools. I went out and took pictures of the courthouse (built in 1881) and the library (built in 1903). I went to the old high school, my high school, built I don’t know when and slowly falling apart. The band room is gone. The art room. The gym’s still there and the library. I think the cafeteria remains but I couldn’t get too close due to the “no trespassing signs” and the big chain link fence.

Actually, I got a little closer than I should, walking up to the front, past the faded, peeling benches and toward the abyss that represented four years of fitting in and fighting to find myself, belonging and insecurity all at the same time. The emptiness, the neglect, the weeds and grass and weathered plywood over a gash that lead to the guidance counselors’ offices felt a little strange, I admit, but it was leaving that tore at my heart, walking down the steps from the front of the school to the street. I felt almost like I did when I was 15. Anxious and hopeful, awkward and beautiful. Bittersweet.

As I walked alone, holding my camera and sweating a little in the August afternoon heat, the lyrics to “The Old Apartment” ran through my head. Broke into the old apartment. This is where we used to live. Broken glass, broke and hungry. Broken hearts and broken bones. This is where we used to live… Only memories, fading memories. Blending into dull tableaux. I want them back. I want them back…

Tag: Home Hometown Cambridge Ohio

The Best Laid Plans

The best laid plans… Actually, what was that quote? All I knew was "the best laid plans of mice and men" and that it meant that everything went all wonky. Gone to Google it…

"The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."

Well, that didn't help much.

No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it. The saying is adapted from a line in "To a Mouse," by Robert Burns: "The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley." [Bartleby]

That made a little more sense, but I knew it was from a Steinbeck novel (one I hadn't yet read). Back to the Googling, and after a bit I found more about the quote, the reference, the role it played in the novel, Lennie and George's lives, and the poem.

I meant to write about car repairs but the best laid plans… I spent a half hour Googling instead. The writing went the way of the rest of my Wednesday plans. Horribly awry. Or a-gley, as the case may be.

For a good year or so, my fog lights turned themselves on. After a bit, they turned themselves off and stayed off. Given the whole metro-city-chick I pretended to be, I didn't drive much, especially in the fog, so I didn't much notice.

One night, a spooky All Hallow's Eve on a mountain outside of Frederick, I drove through fog to visit friends who lived on a Civil War battlefield, in a house used as a field hospital. Could have used the lights then. And maybe some silver bullets. A string of garlic. A crucifix. What repels ghosts other than the tiny, plump lady in Poltergeist screaming "Go into the light, Carol Anne"?

Anyway, by November, I knew that the fog lights didn't work. If the lights turned themselves on, why not off? I thought I had a short. Testing the lights from time to time, I realized that they were, in fact broken. Something I'd have to take care of. Soon. Of course, ten months later, they still didn't work and I realized that I had three weeks to fix them before my state, er, district inspection.

A week ago, I dropped off my car at my local shop for an oil change, tire rotation and fixing the lights. Two days and $350 later, I walked out with an appointment to visit the dealership. My fog lights still didn't work.

"It's the headlamp switch," said the man on the phone, the man from the shop.

"Okay…" I replied. "Can you replace that?"

"We'd have to get the part from the dealership." Okay. "It would be easier if you'd take it to the dealership."

"I hate the dealership."

"We'd have to drive over there, pay cash for the part and install it." Okay. "It would be easier if you'd take it to the dealership."

"I hate the dealership."

Silence.

For a really. Long. Time.

"It would be easier if you'd take it to the dealership." Fine. I give up. I'll take it to the dealership. "We did find [fill in an expensive blank]"

Given that I had already given up, I gave in and authorized all sorts of repairs. I no longer made car payments. I supposed I could cover the charges and if things needed fixing, they ought to be fixed.

When I hung up, I found the number for the dealership, took a deep breath and called. I was routed through the switchboard twice and had to leave a message. A few hours later, a man returned my call.

"Hi. I need to make an appointment for my Jeep Wrangler. I need to have the headlight switch replaced and I need to have a new key cut."

"Is it a gray key or a black key?"

"A gray one," I replied, thinking "can't we talk about the headlight switch?"

"The gray keys are programmable. The key runs around $60 and programming 47…" I know. And wait - $107, plus tax for a new car key?! On top of the $350 I've already paid? Fudge. "And the lights won't turn on?"

"The fog lights won't. I thought it was a short but I've taken it in and it's the switch. I need to have the switch replaced."

After a bit, after the guy on the phone looked me up in his system and gave me a really hard time because I hadn't been into the dealership for four years, I made an appointment. One week later, Wednesday morning.

"We start taking cars at 7. You can drop the car off any time."

And so I did. By 7:30 Wednesday morning, I had dragged myself from bed, showered, checked my email and found bus directions from the dealership to the office. By 7:30 Wednesday morning, I made it to the dealership. I waited in line and turned over my keys.

"The gray keys are programmable. The key runs around $60 and programming 47…" I know. I know. I know. I know. "And the lights won't turn on?"

"It's the switch. I've had someone look at it. It's the switch. I need to have the headlight switched replaced."

The man looked at me with doubt in his beady, car salesman moved to the service department eyes.

"We'll take a look at it. If it is the switch," and I swear he scoffed at that "we'll just replace it. I don't know how much that will cost." Fuck. No more "fudge" for me; I knew I was screwed. "And we're a little backed up. I'm not sure that we'll get the car done today."

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

"I'm driving to Ohio tomorrow. I need the car."

"Oh, we'll definitely get it done by Thursday."

Not done Wednesday but done by Thursday? Huh. Crossing my fingers and cursing my luck, I headed out the door with a wave and a grimace/grin. (He'd given me directions to the bus stop and instructions to take a bus/metro combination that would add 20 minutes to the route I'd found on the Metro website.)

Work kept me busy and I barely noticed the passing of time, working through lunch, staying late. Eventually, I left. I walked to the metro and headed home. When I left the dank, dark underworld of the Metro, I found that I had a message. From the dealership.

"Please call us immediately." Another message at home and one at work. I returned the call and left a message. A few minutes later, I tried again. And again. And again. I think I called 20 or 30 times, give or take a few. I didn't get through and I didn't hear back.

I couldn't do laundry before my trip. No car to get to the Laundromat and my quarters were in the car. No happy hour with friends, postponed for plans to do laundry. No packing, due to the lack of clean clothes. Nothing.

I walked home and thought about crying. I didn't know if I'd have my car for the trip. I didn't know if I'd have the money for repairs and I was sure that they'd say that they found a million things. (That happens every time I go to the dealership.) Eventually, I threw somewhat less dirty clothes in a bag. My camera. Some toiletries and a book. I got online. Googled "Of Mice and Men" and sat down to write, to vent, to keep from crying. The best laid plans…

The dealership called around 6:45 this morning. Calling my mobile and then my home number.

"You need a new headlamp switch," the man told me.

"I know. That's what I said. That's why I brought it in," I replied.

"The part runs around $230, $240… I just wanted to call before we put it in, like I said."

That was most definitely not what he said. Not only that, my Jeep wasn't ready. They had not yet started the work requested and the dealership would surely charge me for diagnostics to define a problem I already knew.

I hate the dealership.


Tag: Jeep Car Repairs Dealership Mechanics Plans

Step Up

Sometimes, going to a movie isn't about the movie. Sometimes it's just about being there. Not being there. Not thinking at all.

Tuesday night, I won free movie tickets again. (At some point, I'm going to have to stop mentioning that part; I've "won" tickets five times in less than three weeks. Every movie for which I registered except World Trade Center and I registered for two movies that night. I figured I'd only win one, if any.)

Anyway, free movie tickets. Free movie. I left work somewhat on time after a particularly taxing afternoon. My head spun and I wanted, nay needed, a break. I wanted a whole lot of nothing and reading my book on the metro did nothing to help. A Pulitzer Prize winner, it requires actual thought. With aching limbs and fatigued mind, I wanted a little brain candy. Fate obliged and gave me tickets to Step Up.

The event started long before the film started rolling. It actually started before we made it into the theater. It wasn't the typical indie film, Birkenstock-wearing, laidback crowd that I see at most of the screenings. It was a little more... hip hop.

Local radio station WPGC cosponsored the event and DJ Shaq in the Pack got the crowd in the spirit with contests and giveaways. I didn't really want to win (what would I do with another t-shirt or a wrist band?) but I raised my hand along with everyone else. For the trivia at least. When it moved into a dance competition, I knew better.

And there was a 10-second dance off. At the front of the theater, in front of the screen. Five contestants, 10 seconds each to show their moves. After all, it was a movie about dancing. The first contestant spent five seconds looking around. The second?

"Don't hurt yourself," the DJ called and the third earned a "Whoaaaaa..."

Contestant #4 – "Are you climbing a ladder?" and five looked like a belly dancer. All in good fun. The audience voted for their favorite with hoots and hollers, cheering and clapping. #2 earned a good deal of applause because he just seemed to be having fun but the "whoaaaaa..." won. Gina. By a landslide.

"It takes a lot of heart to get up here and dance," Shaq said, announcing all of the participants winners. Every contestant won a prize pack and as for Gina, "Big money hooked her up with big money."

I guess everyone won - the theater gave away free popcorn, and between that and the contests and prizes, the music and the DJ got everyone all riled up. Just in time to sit through a movie.

It's not the best movie ever. It's some sort of amalgamation of The Cutting Edge, Dirty Dancing and Bring It On. Without the talent. Actually, that's a lie. The girl? Jenna Dewan couldn't act to save her life. She sucked the talent right out of the generally brilliant Rachel Griffiths. But the boys from the bad side of Baltimore made the day. Of course, their side of the dialogue included "My bad" and they were just plain sexy. Especially Channing Tatum.

The movie included a lot of gratuitous physicality – fighting, shooting hoops, and of course, dancing. The whole premise is that a boy from the wrong side of the tracks gets sentenced to the scene of his most recent crime: the Maryland School of the Arts. Street dancer meets ballet dancer. She smoothes his rough edges, he ruffles her feathers. Electricity sizzles. Or that's the intent. Actually, they carry it off fairly well. The girl can dance, even if she can't act and the boy seems like he'd have chemistry with a brick wall.

Plot: Predictable
Dialogue: Stilted and fortunately, kept to a minimum
Soundtrack: I'm not so into hip hop but by the end of the movie I wanted a copy
Dancing: Just plain fun to watch

Okay. So it's not going to win an Academy Award. It's not even going to be nominated. For anything. Including the music. But sometimes, it's nice not to think. It's nice to be entertained. To watch dancing for the sake of dancing. Romance. A PG-13 movie without sex or swearing or even much in the way of violence. Sometimes, I want the happily ever after.

I heart Pete Yorn

I want to blame my sister, but I know it's all my own fault. I'm the one who gave her that first CD, the one who sparked her love of the soulful singer.

I remember the first time I heard him. Behind the wheel of Mr. Toad, my green Dodge Neon, driving on the Beltway toward Falls Church, Fairview Park, on a random weekday morning and listening to Gina Crash on WHFS when is was actually WHFS and not El Zol, I heard "For Nancy." At the time, I didn't realize it was my first listen. At the time, I thought the song was old; I felt like I had known it forever.

Later, much later, I found out that the album had yet to be released: Music for the Morning After. It must have been five years ago. A little more. I stopped driving that car in June 2001. By that point, I knew I loved Pete Yorn. A few months later, I shared him with my sister.

For her 30th birthday, I babysat my sister's two older kids and she and her husband took my niece, Yummy, then barely three months old, to Massanutten for the weekend. They stayed with another couple in their time share and I drove down Saturday, abandoning the kids to their grandmother. I brought food, music and a Tiffany ID bracelet. The most important to my sister: The music. That was the weekend she began her love affair with the incomparable Pete Yorn.

I took her to a show at the 9:30 Club with the wife of the couple. They made me wait, long after the show, so she could see him from across the street, walking to his bus. At that point, she needed to pee so badly that she could barely function, but she would never forget seeing Pete Yorn.

The world has changed since then. The other couple divorced; the wife is remarried. To a woman. Yummy starts kindergarten in the fall. Pete Yorn's about to release another album.

When my brother found out that he was playing a live, free, acoustic show at Olsson's in Dupont, he emailed our sister and me. I think it was more for her; he knows how much she adores Pete. I said I'd go and joined in the general harangue, trying to get her out of the hills of West Virginia and into DC to see her favorite artist. As recently as a week ago, she said she'd go but on Sunday afternoon she said she couldn't. She had to babysit. She would be late. She begged me to call and leave a song on her answering machine as I used to do when our brother was in college.

And so Monday came and no sister. Growing rather accustomed to the crowds associated with free events, I got there early. 5:15. Maybe 5:20. I browsed the tables and stacks of books as the crowd slowly grew. My brother and our friend, Byrd, arrived soon after. We walked the store, doing a little recon, and realized there would be no chairs. No comfort. Just Pete Yorn with a microphone in the middle of the store.

We staked our space and the crowd continued to grow. And grow. And grow. Around 6:30, 6:45, a man came out and warned us that we might need to move, that Pete would be walking through us and I swear we practically tittered in anticipation. We chatted and waited and there he was, walking through us. Saying hi. Brushing my shoulder. Stopped to turn and say "hey" to my brother. Nobody talked, really. Nobody clapped. He just walked up to the stage and started talking.

Something broke and applause rippled through the crowd, grew, reached a crescendo. Bashfully, he looked out from under his mop of hair and grinned. He talked easily with the crowd and pulled a guitar strap over his shoulder. He performed another sound check, seemingly intimidated by the volume of the speakers beside him and around the store. And then he played.

Barely six feet in front of me, across the rack of CDs, on the other side of a low wall, he played. Eyes closed. I could see the sweat beading on his forehead. The spit flying from his lips. I could have looked up his nose, if I tried, but honestly, that's just a little weird. I wanted to close my eyes like him and just hear the music, but I was scared of missing out. Missing something.

He joked with the crowd. He teased a freelance photographer and he teased his cousin with a video camera.

"You know I'm just playing with you," he said to the photographer after hundreds of snap, snap, snaps of the digital camera. Of Pete singing. Of Pete playing. Of Pete drinking from a water bottle. "I have my cousin in my face all day with a camera."

The camera pointed toward us throughout much of the show. I fear, wonder, halfway hope that my brother, my friend and I will end up on a website, a video, a DVD someday. Mostly fear. Kristin in glasses: Not so pretty. And I know I almost cried toward the end. I definitely bit my lip and blinked back tears as Pete gave an intro to a song he planned to cover, a song played on the Mall by Peter, Paul and Mary in 1963. Blowing in the Wind. A song he professed still pertained today, no matter where one placed himself politically.

After the show, we found ourselves magically, fortunately, at the beginning of the line for autographs. I'd preordered his new CD and gotten an EP for free.

"Who should I make this out to?" he asked.

"Kristin," I answered, a little dazed by standing so close to him. My brother asked if we could take a picture. My friend pulled in. Flashes popped.

"Is that with a 'K'?" he asked, glitter pen poised.

"Yes… No… Make it out to Amy. Our sister. She loves you." I smiled in the general direction of cameras. He signed my disc. My friend's. We chattered inanely, the three of us with Pete torn between being just a really nice guy and wanting to turn to talk to friends who'd just walked up to him.

We walked out of the store, chattering nervously. Giggling like schoolgirls. Even my brother (though, he'd deny it). We ran into friends in the street and shared photos from our phones. They accused us of being drunk. We sounded drunk. We were star struck. Intoxicated with the fun of a free night, good music and the pleasure of meeting a man, a star, who seemed like a regular guy with a really nice voice.


Tag: Pete Yorn Olsson's Free Concert

Note to self

Note to self: Do not attempt an 8-year-old's birthday party with a hangover and/or complete lack of sleep.

On Saturday night, I joined a group of friends for a birthday celebration. 29 and holding. 36 and holding. Somewhere in between. We planned to meet at Kitty O'Shea's in Arlington Courthouse and go from there – dinner, drinks, maybe some dancing. We never left the bar.

Between the X Games on TV and Doc's high school yearbook, we had more than enough to keep ourselves entertained. The beer flowed freely, as did the shots. Raspberry kamikazes. Chocolate milk. Red-headed sluts. By 1:15, the birthday had been properly feted and I decided to head home.

Being the responsible city-dweller that I am, I rode the Metro to Arlington. I wanted to leave before the Metro stopped running and I'd have to flag down a metered cab for what would be a long, misdirected ride back into the city. I made my excuses, pulled myself together and tried to leave.

"You could crash at my place," offered a friend.

"No… Thanks. I really should go. I have to get up early."

"How early is early?" she asked, suspicious. "Are you talking 7 o'clock early or 10 o'clock early?"

"I can't. Really. I'm sorry… I have my nephew's birthday party."

"I could get up and drive you home in the morning."

"No, really. I can't."

It went on like this for several minutes as I gathered my bag, hugged friends, kissed cheeks and backed away from the table. Finally, they gave in and I escaped to the Metro, book in hand.

Sometime between the 11-minute wait for an Orange Line train (in the direction of New Carrollton) and the long, slow ride toward Capitol Hill, I decided to stop by my favorite bar for a drink, which lead to a second and chatting with a bartending friend as he closed. We went upstairs to talk to another bartending friend on this, her last night of work before moving to Colorado.

According to my cell phone and the date stamp attached to a late night text message, I was on my way home at 3:57. Once there, a little after 4, I set the alarm on the cell phone (because my clock radio no longer makes noise or keeps time) and crawled into bed. Unfortunately, I didn't hear it when it beeped three hours later because I was sleeping on it, which, oddly enough, happens rather frequently.

Somehow, though, I managed to get up on time. I showered and dressed, drove to my brother's house and dropped the roof on the Jeep. He staggered out a few minutes later, reeling in the morning light. Apparently, I wasn't the only one who stayed out too late.

On the drive to West Virginia, a route I've driven at least a hundred times, probably more, in the past seven years, I took several wrong turns, knowing that I was doing it and doing it anyway. I stopped, per our sister's request, at the Dollar Tree for helium balloons and grabbed a random sample, checking out the items behind the counter as I waited in line. Scissors, ribbon, pregnancy tests. Right. Because if I think I'm pregnant, I'm going to run to the Dollar Tree for the most reliable of pregnancy tests. I handed the balloons to my brother who wrestled with them in the open-air Jeep.

"All I can do at this point is close my eyes and pray for the best," he said as the balloons strained against their ribbons, beating him in the face. Fortunately, it was only about two miles to the hotel. (Our sister had rented the pool for the party.)

"Lodi!" screamed my niece as we walked in and "Wet hug!" as she jumped into my arms. "Are you getting into the pool with us?"

Dazed, I agreed and slipped into the pool. An hour and a half later, I managed to pull myself out, the room and my head reverberating with the shrieks of 14 little voices. My body ached from the strain of swimming with at least one, if not two or three kids on my back, my arms, my neck. I moved toward the food, pizza and cheese puffs, grapes and cupcakes, raspberry-flavored soda.

I thought I might die between the food, the clamoring and pin the tail on the donkey.

"Lodi, watch me!"

"Watch me, Lodi Lo!"

"Watch me!"

Four hours of watching the pool. Watching other people's children jump and splash and climb all over the adults who dared enter the waters. Four hours. That's about how much sleep I got. I chatted with my sister's friends as they came to retrieve their exhausted children. I knew the friends. I knew the kids. I knew I needed a nap.

My brother fell asleep in the car, the sun and wind in his face. When I pulled up in front of his apartment, he said he was going to bed. It was 6:30. I came home and tried not to go to bed. I turned on the computer and I had just walked into the kitchen to slice an apple, a baguette, a block of cheese when the lights cut. I sliced in the dark and carried my plate into the living room to read in the waning light.

I moved to the front steps. The light on the corner was out. Traffic stopped moving on Independence; I overheard someone say that police had blocked traffic. Exhausted. Sore. Curious. I walked around the neighborhood, past the police officers, the cruisers, a police line. I walked past Pepco employees puzzling over a diagram. I heard the word "transformer" and was sure that they weren't talking about the comic book, cartoon or toys from the '80s.

I returned to the steps and my book. I thought about bed. Instead, I waited for the lights. I finished my book. I checked my email and sent a note to self, in advance of the next birthday party.

Do not attempt an 8-year-old's birthday party with a hangover and/or complete lack of sleep.


Tag: Sleep Weekend Party Birthday