The Canon

Writer Natalie Angier took the podium to a smattering of applause. She said that she deserved it. The clapping. Not for writing a book (after all, everybody seems to do it), but for going almost 10 years, to the date, since her last root canal.

With a reference to the elusive, cavity-free "dental mensa club" and listing her own extensive tooth work, she introduced her book, The Canon, and the subject of microbiotics.

Plaque: 600 different species working together to beat one's teeth to a pulp.

Angier moved swiftly into the major principles of cellular structure and the capacity to communicate using her own teeth as an example, gesturing widely and growing evermore excited and impassioned with her subject, her book, with science.

A small woman, Angier was blocked almost completely by the podium and the microphone. I strained to see her from the second row. I couldn't imagine the complete lack of view from the back of the crowded store.

I regretted that people might miss her large eyes, expressive eyebrows and temperamental forehead, shifting from a mass of wrinkles to a cool smooth brow in a matter of seconds as she struggled for a word, for an answer, to better explain her ideas. Her voice rang clearly, though, as did her sentiments.

The renowned science writer moved swiftly through topics, through stories and jokes and complex principles in a way that even the most science-illiterate among us could follow. Then, again, I doubt there were many of those in a crowd that averaged 3.08 eyes per person. (Definitely more than half of the audience rocked nerd goggles not counting those among us with contacts or LASIK).

The woman beside me seemed almost beside herself with the author. She agreed vehemently , crying, "Oh! Oh, yes!" at regular intervals and laughing heartily. The writer seemed to have a fan. Or 40. Much of the crowd nodded in agreement when she addressed the non-glorious nature of the scientists' life in what the store owner dubbed "a world that doesn't seem fun from the outside."

Angier made it interesting, however. Fun. Almost. Some of her words lingered long after we walked into the warm, clear night.

"The source of its greatest strength is that it is uncertain," she said. "That uncertainty is always there."

It seemed to apply to much more than science. Maybe that was the point. Nothing exists without science.

She quoted an experiment an interviewee performed with science students, flipping coins and imagining the process. The professor quickly separated the real results from the fake.

"Real randomness looks like it has structure. You shouldn't impute meaning from patterns," Angier said. "See the world with less mystical import."

She talked about the Laws of Thermodynamics and about chaos: "Why is it that everything tends to gradually disintegrate?"

About astronomy: People think "night" but everything we know, we know by studying light. Not only that, we're always looking back in time.

Traversing a world of science in a rush of breath, I wondered how so much information could fit into such a small tome. So much wisdom. Then, again, the subtitle espoused "A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science."

"Do not believe your disbelief," she said. "All you need is time and opportunity and you can do anything."

At the time, Angier was talking about evolution, but the words rang true in any event. The concept.

I realized that I could take the science out of the lecture and walk away a better person for having heard it. The science bit just made me feel a little smarter for a minute or two, happy to be in the company of seeming intellectuals.

In response to a question about taking scientific ideas to a harmful extreme, Angier thought for minute, brow wrinkled. She shrugged and replied, "I don't think the scientific way of knowing is the only way."

"I think we need art. We need music. We need love."

Personally, I need more exposure to writers like Angier.


Tag: Science

Mental health day

I took the day off for no reason other than the fact that I wanted a day off. No plans. No travel. No hangover, anxiety or case of the Mondays kept me in bed; I just didn't want to work. I wanted to stretch the long weekend. I planned for it a week in advance.

I awoke at six (with the neighbors upstairs), crawled to the couch and watched the morning news. I emailed my friends at work. I showered and dressed and slipped into a pair of sneakers, easing them over the blisters and bruises. With a book and a camera, a metro card and a bottle of water, I took off.

I couldn't exactly remember how to get into East Potomac Park. I had only driven in the past, but I took the train to Smithsonian, walked down 14th, over to 15th and toward the Jefferson. I followed the signs, hoping the sidewalk wouldn't end and it didn't.

The wind blew gently along the Tidal Basin as I looked at the Marina wondering vaguely if my ex-boyfriend and the dog, our dog, still lived on one of the boats. A helicopter thumped overhead. Ducks quacked. I passed a man on a bench who didn't seem to be doing anything other than looking at the water and thinking.

The sidewalk, broken and pitted, stretched interminably before me. I couldn't find my iPod; I didn't much care. I walked, alone with my thoughts, the ducks, the lapping water. When I reached Hains Point, I found myself alone with the giant for a minute or two, taking pictures and wondering what would happen when he moved.

As a couple approached, followed shortly by another group of adults who quickly lost all sense of propriety and clambered about the hand and foot, posing for pictures, I walked to a picnic table and lost myself in my book. Jets roared overhead, a never-ending flow of travelers leaving and coming to the city via Reagan across the river.

Bicyclists cycled past. Walkers. I reluctantly left my spot and walked back along the Potomac, watching a train and the metro rumble across the river, watching cars cross the 14th Street Bridge. The closer I got, the more I thought about walking into West Potomac Park and picking up the Metro on the other side of the park, the Lincoln, the Memorial Bridge.

Then, I saw the police. Lights flashing, yellow tape flapping. A police boat. A car. A motorcycle. I stood at the river's edge, the pungent Potomac splashing against concrete and watched buses turn, seeking an alternate route through the park.

I walked out of my way, a mile or so to get to the other side of the bridge only to see the cops pull away. (I never did figure out what happened.) I kept walking, past Jefferson, past Lincoln, into Virginia and through the Cemetery.

I didn't make it to the tomb of the unknowns. I ran out of time, catching a train, a five-minute shower and a drive to Tyson's to meet up for a massage that didn't quite happen. Long story short, Elizabeth Arden should be a little clearer in the distinction between their Fairfax Square and Fairfax Corner locations. I'm just saying... We didn't mind, though. They didn't charge the friend who made the reservations.

We both dropped our roofs and drove back into the District, enjoying the sunshine and wind on our faces. We met for iced coffee and reading. An hour later, we walked to the bar and waited for trivia. We were early, but we wanted a place to sit. Our friends, working stiffs, couldn't quite make it, so we played alone, losing valiantly. The bartender helped us in the speed round tossing Electric Company, Eric Clapton and another "EC" our way.

I couldn't remember that Lorenzo Lamas was "Renegade" or the name of a single Russian composer and honestly, I didn't care. I knew that the Easy Bake Oven used a light bulb for heat and that Chronicles of Narnia was the movie featured in the SNL video for Lazy Sunday. I knew that the Eiffel Tour was completed more recently than the Arc de Triomphe, the Washington Monument or the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

I couldn’t name a Guns-n-Roses song (other than Paradise City) to save my life.

Some we knew and questioned.

"Who won an Oscar for Easy Rider?"

Some we just didn't know.

"Name the only one of the seven 'nation's greatest running backs' who isn't in the National Football Hall of Fame."

Or something like that. I didn't know. I couldn't name a running back, good, bad or indifferent. I'd be hard pressed to name enough football players to fill a team, and they'd probably all be quarterbacks.

I enjoyed the company, the beer and trying to answer questions. I enjoyed not working. The lack of anxiety or case of the Mondays. I went home and checked my email. Responded to a couple and checked my calendar, planning for a morning of work and an afternoon of meetings. I went to bed and awoke happy. Refreshed. At six o'clock without alarm or the kids upstairs. A mental health day worked.


Tag: Vacation

Rooftop revelry

I got amazingly drunk with very little alcohol. Midway through my second glass of sangria, the view started spinning. At that point, I decided to pour more alcohol into my system.

I blamed the heat, the August weather on a late May night. Days of long walks and dehydration might have helped; though, I drank at least four glasses of water before I started. I continued to alternate water and wine throughout the night.

It might have been the lack of food (I didn't eat the burgers early in the evening or the Chinese food late) or the secret ingredient (Cointreau). It might not have been anything at all but sheer pleasure in the company I kept. Whatever it was, the horizon slipped and spun deliciously as I stood on the rooftop deck.

"That's so very Marilyn Monroe," laughed a friend as my dress billowed in the breeze. I held my free hand down, keeping the skirt below my waist, though not by much. I gathered much of the dress in one hand, cinching it tight, but it didn't help. The summery cotton skirt lifted and floated, revealing the straight cut sheath underneath.

"It's a good thing you wore underwear," another friend joked. "You did wear underwear, didn't you?"

I nodded and laughed and gripped the dress tighter. I never got to the point of proving the assumption but the pre-storm wind whipped and tore at the dress, trying to free it from my grasp.

At one point, the shoulder strap snapped. The hostess, my friend, pinned it back into place. Fortunately, I'd ignored the saleswoman and worn a bra under the skimpy top, unwilling or unable to trust the spaghetti-thin straps. It was all pinned together by the time I finished and looked reasonably normal; though, I was a little unsure.

Before the party, I walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door.

"Coming," she called, not expecting to see me.

"Do I look like a whore?" I asked, spinning on her doorstep. On the other end of the phone clutched to her ear, her mother laughed. They both assured me that I looked fine in my print cotton dress. (The mom couldn't see me.) I had bought it not an hour earlier at Eastern Market as part of my quest to infuse the market with money.

Standing in the sun, we leafed through bold summer prints and bright floral patterns. I held one up to the light, admiring embroidery at the waist. I slipped the hanger over my head. With the dress hanging loose in front of my frame, I judged the width of the skirt and the depth of the cups.

"You didn't try that on?" asked a friend at the party. "I wouldn't buy a dress… OK. I wouldn't buy a dress. But I definitely wouldn't buy a dress without trying it on."

I laughed and explained that I purchased it in the middle of a playground, standing on the blacktop surrounded by shoppers and vendors, by strollers and dogs and babies on a hot May morning.

It held up pretty well, my summery dress. It earned compliments at the party and laughter in the breeze. I'd never really felt like Marilyn Monroe before and the conversation, as well as the Cointreau, went straight to my head.


Tag: Party Friends

Long walks

The phone rang at 10. I'd been awake for hours, lolling about in cutoff sweats and my pollo t-shirt, watching crappy movies, the Today show, the news.

"Hey, girl date. Where are you?"

"Did we have a plan? Am I late?"

"No, I just missed you."

We did have a plan, of sorts, to walk to Arlington Cemetery, visit Kayla's dad and see the flags. We revised the plan, changed the destination, and agreed to meet within minutes.

I padded back to my bedroom and dug through my shoes, trying to find a pair to accommodate my ever-growing array of blisters and bruises, the tender bits on the balls of my feet, the littlest toe, the middle of my arch. I filled my Nalgene bottle, dug out my metro card and packed my favorite pair of flip flops, in case I needed a break from the sneakers. I headed out into the already steamy morning.

"Looks great," I called to the woman gardening next door. "It always looks great."

When she opened the door, I saw that Kayla wore equally sensible/dorky shoes. Her feet, too, suffered from one too many walks in flip flops. She smeared sunscreen onto all of her exposed parts, buttoned the straps on her dress, filled her own bottle and we left.

Past the Capitol we walked, under the trees along Independence. Construction continued for the Folklife Festival, despite the holiday. In the middle of it all, on a cross street, floats waited, empty and anxious for the Memorial Day parade. A marching band in full uniform, blue suits, hats and capes, posed for a picture. A buxom woman straightened her scout son's hat.

Tourists lined the Mall from the Capitol to the Lincoln. Flags flew at half mast, billowing in the breeze around the Washington Monument. At the National World War II Memorial, a young man with a microphone and recorder interviewed his elderly bench mate. The Korean War Veterans Memorial and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall were covered in flowers and flags, crowded with visitors on this Memorial Day.

As we headed into Rock Creek Park, I stopped for water and Kayla tried to point two women toward the WWII memorial.

"Just follow the Reflecting Pool; it's at the other end."

"No, no, no. Not the Vietnam Memorial. World. War. Two."

"Um, yeah. It's at the other end of the Reflecting Pool."

"Are you sure? We thought it was that way."

They gestured toward Rock Creek Park, toward Foggy Bottom and Georgetown. We almost let them. They were rude. Instead, we headed through the park, continue our walk into Georgetown, Dupont, upper Northwest.

Sweating through her cotton dress, Kayla asked to stop for a minute or five. She talked to her mom on the phone as I sipped iced coffee. I looked at my phone, the clock.

"We've been walking for two hours."

Her mom suggested stopping, catching a metro the rest of the way, to shopping, home.

"I tried that," Kayla laughed into the phone. "Kristin's never been to the zoo."

Not the National Zoo, anyway.

We finished our walk uphill, toward Woodley Park, and meandered through strollers and sleeping babes to see the sleeping animals; pandas and big cats stretched languorously in the afternoon heat. We cooled down with lemonade and fat free, sugar free soft serve frozen yogurt, vanilla twisting into chocolate in a cone.

After an hour or two, maybe three, we headed back toward the Metro. We passed a man pushing an elderly woman in a stroller. An actual stroller. One with FONZ (Friends of National Zoo) stenciled on the back. Her legs jutted, feet hanging over the edge as she sat, regally, in a space generally reserved for kids.

The day stretched into more walking and shopping, a movie and popcorn. We both walked a little out of our way on the way home, splitting the distance between her house and mine and chatting. Eventually, we separated, heading to our homes, our respective couches.

The neighbor was still gardening when I walked past, nine hours after I called my greeting. I smiled and nodded, quickening my pace with every step closer to my door. Seven miles, at least. The zoo by way of Rock Creek Park. Memorials and mammals, shopping and talking. A long day and a happy one. At some point I realized that I'd already taken off Tuesday. I planned for another walk.


Tag: Walking Washington DC National Zoo

Just like home. A prairie home.

"Are you a Lutheran?" she asked. EJ didn't know, when I jumped at the chance, that she'd be taking a Norwegian Lutheran who grew up with live tales of the land of 10,000 lakes, as well as Lake Wobegon.

I called my mom to tell her listen. She cut me off before I even started, telling me of my cousin's baby. Tyler Dean. Happy. Healthy. My cousin's first and only child. She – my cousin, not the baby – may or may not have Multiple Sclerosis. She will not have more babies.

I heard the size and length. I heard a story of a midnight freight train and a desperate plea, "Baby, don't come yet. Baby, don't come yet."

At some point, I managed to squeeze in my news, which somewhat paled in comparison.

"Hey, Mom. I'm actually in the car with a friend. We're going to see A Prairie Home Companion. It's a live broadcast; you should listen."

"Oh, OK. Have fun, honey."

We settled into the crowded lawn, spreading our blankets in a sea of blankets and quilts, chairs and coolers, eking a little space for our picnic. As the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band started strumming, we spread our fare. Wisconsin cheddar, stilton with lemon, brie. Strawberries and kiwi. Carrots and celery with hummus from the hippies at Eastern Market. My own chocolate chip cookies.

As Garrison Keillor walked across the stage and people cheered, as he gave instruction for the impending broadcast, EJ handed me a cloth napkin. A wine glass. She struggled with the wine key, opening a sweating bottle of chilled, cheap white. I crossed my legs and pulled my dress down over my knees for a minute or two until we stood and sang the National Anthem, in the key of G.

I cried then. Just a little. Hot tears rolling unbidden and unwelcome down hotter cheeks. I always cry at the National Anthem. I don't know why. I wiped them away and returned to the scratchy woolen blanket in the grass, my dress pulled over my knees.

On stage, Billy Collins read Ballistics and Despair. He read three short poems about the Gutenberg Bible and mini toiletries at hotels and the eternal prayers of teenage girls shrieking "Ohmigod." The Wailin' Jennys harmonized, their voices carrying across the wind as ants congregated on EJ's foot.

One more dime to show for my day
One more dollar and I'm on my way
When I reach those hills, boys
I'll never roam
One more dollar and I'm going home

At the back of the shelter before us, leaning against the rail, an usher rested his arm around a woman's shoulders. The cool white wine warmed in the summery night and little red bumps formed around my knees. I tried to avoid the contact of flesh on flesh and I doubled my hair under a band.

"Hey, I like your hair," EJ said. "You've kind of got a cock-of-the-walk thing going."

"I know. I'm pretty," I replied laughing at myself, knowing that it stuck up straight and not caring as we hand jived to a DC-centric version of the song.

After a brief, almost negligible intermission, Keillor came back with dedications. I didn't submit one. EJ's wasn't read but I felt the tears well again at shouts out to soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, shouts out to soldiers who fought in wars past, including a man who was on Omaha Beach on D-Day.

The fresh, sharp smell of crushed grass mingled with chocolate chip cookies as people settled in for the News from Lake Wobegon. I closed my allergy-swollen eyes and listened to the pleasant pausing rumble of a man who sounded like home. I cried again, just a little, when he recited the Gettysburg Address.

...It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain...

Over my shoulder, to the left, a man voiced the familiar words and I heard a murmur through the crowd. My own lips moved noiselessly, repeating the words that I so often used to drive thoughts from my mind and help me sleep.

Naked babies rolled and danced, juggled in their parents' arms. Grandparents'. Friends'. Keillor joked about the Republicans in the house, the Democrats on the lawn and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on stage. With an Al Gore parody and a presidential song, with a number of original songs about the District, the Memorial Day show poked at our political nature as well as the nature around us at Wolf Trap.

Rhubarb Pie inspired an ache for the bittersweet crunch of the ruby red stalks. A silver-plated cork glinted in the waning light as ants crossed my flowered lap. Collins read Four Mooned Planet and the Jennys sang Blues from Waiting and Racing with the Sun.

As the show ended, as audience members streamed up the hill and through the gates, the Guy's All-Star Shoe Band continued to play. Keillor and the Jennys sang. We joined them in America the Beautiful and You are My Sunshine, Down in the Valley and Amazing Grace. We had nowhere to be but on a hill outside Vienna, Virginia, singing as day turned to night.


Tag: A Prairie Home Companion Garrison Keillor Wolf Trap

Always on my mind

In honor of the gorgeous weather and getting a jump start on the weekend, I left early and walked home from work... Technically, that's not true. I work in Virginia - a completely different state from that in which I live. Or a different commonwealth. From my District. Across the river. Technically, I rode the Metro two stops and walked from there.

I exited at the first station in District of Columbia. Foggy Bottom. I was early or my friend was late. I sat on a bench and burrowed into my book awhile, enjoying the sun on my face and the commotion around me.

"Book signing today," called a writer. To his left, a man peddled roses – four dollars for a half dozen. I entertained the thought but realized that I had fresh flowers at home and a four and a half mile walk in front me. Doctors and nurses, people in scrubs, entered and exited the hospital. Students and professionals milled about the entrance to the metro. When Kayla arrived and we started walking, people kept trying to hand us pamphlets.

We walked toward the Lincoln, down 23rd, crossing and recrossing the street, trying to find an open sidewalk. We skirted the monument and walked along the reflecting pool, chatting. Rubber slapped against pavement. Flip flops.

Children played in the grass. A shoeless babe teetered precariously in front of his picnicking parents. He found a shoe and started chewing on the toe. Photos were snapped; we probably ended up in a dozen or so.

At the end of the pool, near the National World War II Memorial a stream of blue-shirted teenagers crossed to the north side, our side, of the Mall.

"Holy... crap... of badness," I exclaimed, unable to form words to describe my fear of being surrounded by a sea of students. They turned toward us and I pulled Kayla toward the pool. "Quick, in the water."

They passed quickly, quietly. Hundreds of students filed past in matching flag T-shirts, shepherded by adults. They seemed to be arranged by age, oldest at the front. Chaperones waved them to their side of the path and they walked without talking, hands clasped behind their backs.

"What? Is this some sort of... religious outing for really bad kids?" I asked. I couldn't quite place it and dehydration had descended, swelling my fingers and muddling my mind. I could no longer form complete thoughts. "When we came here on a high school trip, we spread from the Lincoln to the Capitol and off to the sides."

"No wonder nobody could find you."

"What? I just wanted a soda and walked six blocks off the mall. What do you mean they couldn't find me?" I grinned. "School trips should be over in June, right?"

"And then it's just the tourists."

I groaned. We both shuddered in anticipation. The Mall seemed on track for the Folklife Festival, with tents and speakers, sinks and signs rising from the dust. I tried not to think about what it would do to our walks home. It was the second time this week we'd met and walked miles home to the Hill. We had tried walking after work, from home, but I preferred a destination. Walking to get somewhere.

Then, again, given our work schedules, the crowds might disperse before we ever left the office. If we were lucky, we might catch some of the "evening events," and one of these days, I would stay for Screen on the Green. (Personally, I'm looking forward to Annie Hall on July 16. The Thing and Wait Until Dark, All the King's Men and Casa Blanca - basically, the entire 2007 lineup, most of which I already know and love.) In the meantime, I would enjoy my evening walks in wrap dress and flip flops. Messenger bag. Pearls.

As we approached the Capitol, three miles from the Metro and in the home stretch, we saw an elaborate construction covered in flags and security fencing.

"Is there something going on this weekend?"

Strains of music floated on the warm breeze as guests with passes on lanyards climbed steps and descended into the pit of security.

Maybe I didn't love you
Quite as often as I could have
Maybe I didn't treat you
Quite as good as I should have
If I made you feel second best
Girl I'm sorry I was blind

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

"I don't know. A super secret concert for the important people?"

"Something for the troops?"

We walked a little out of our way, more toward the Capitol than past it, straining for a glimpse. With a camera in my bag, I begged, "Let's stop so I can take a picture of the scary JumboTron with stars and stripes."

We paused. A couple of girls with cameras and maps, with makeup and Midwestern smiles asked if it was someone famous on the stage.

"We have no idea! We think it's a sound check."

Maybe I didn't hold you
All those lonely, lonely times
And I guess I never told you
I'm so happy that you're mine
Little things I should have said and done
I just never took the time

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind

"Can you tell us how to get to Pennsylvania Avenue?"

"Which one?"

"We want to walk around the White House."

"Walk that way until you get to the Washington Monument and turn right. Can't miss it."

We turned and walked up the Hill. "Always on My Mind" started again, floating softly overhead.

Tell me, tell me that your
Sweet love hasn't died
And give me
Give me one more chance
To keep you satisfied
satisfied

Little things I should have
Said and done
I just never took the time

I left Kayla at her gate and walked the last few blocks alone. Veggies and hummus, spinach and a pear awaited me. A tall glass of water and a short glass of wine. I talked with the toddler upstairs. He shared his letter cookies – giving me "S" and "O." I walked to the corner market for wine and chocolate chips, for a little more time outside. I didn't know what the weekend would bring, but it was a good start.

You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind
You were always on my mind....

Tag: Memorial Day Weekend Washington DC Walking

American Gods and roadside attractions

"I have to get away," I thought. "A three-day weekend and nothing."

I had planned to go to Sacramento. Maybe Oregon. Two sets of friends had procreated since I saw them last. I could take a day or two, fly cross country, work on regaining my elite status with United. (I used miles entirely too much last year. Didn't pay for any of my big trips.) But my traveling companion made other plans and I simply forgot to book a ticket anywhere. I lost track of time.

Early in the week, I experienced a minor meltdown. Too much work. I wanted, nay needed, a chance to escape. I thought about getting in the car and driving. Anywhere. Just driving.

Then, again, it might have been the selection for one of my book clubs. American Gods. The other clubs were reading The Bookseller of Kabul and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, both new to me. I read the former, which made me want to travel. I awaited the latter, anticipating a leisurely read. American Gods, though, I had read before.

I gave away my copy, having recommended the book to friends and family. I think I sent it to South America for my brother.

One of the most talked-about books of the new millennium, American Gods is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an American landscape at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece.

I picked it up in an airport a lifetime ago, or in 2001, the year it was released. I devoured the story of the ex-convict Shadow, picking his way through a strangely mystical story, meeting Wednesday's friends from the old worlds: Loki, Czernobog, the Zorya, the Norns. The gods of today: internet, cellphone, television, flying.

The book surprised and delighted me, but a thousand books passed between my hands and through my mind since then. The details blurred; the edges softened. I remembered, vaguely, the power of roadside stands and the need to believe.

"Believe everything," the Buffalo Man instructed Shadow in a dream, one of the few details I retained.

Wandering through Eastern Market on Saturday, I asked, "Do you need any books?"

We headed into Capitol Hill Books, one of my favorite places in DC. While my friend browsed, I looked for a copy of the book I once owned. I checked the mystery room and I checked fiction.

"Hey, do you have American Gods?" I asked the man on the steps, a man I’d known for years as an employee of the store.

"Gaiman... Gaiman... Did you check fiction?" he asked. I nodded. "We had it last week. I think it was in the mystery room. We thought we should move it. I'm sure we left it there. That happens."

He led me into the mystery room, to the shelves heaving under the weight of words, floor to ceiling, two or three books deep.

"Of course, if it's here..." his voice trailed as we stared at the shelves, realizing the futility of the search. The mystery room, filled with well-thumbed mass market paperbacks, the spines cracked, bore little semblance of order. Grouped "alphabetically" in the loosest sense of the word. We stared at the "G" section, peppered with Fs and Hs. Suddenly, it jumped at me.

"There it is. Thank you!"

I picked up a copy and rejoined my friend who had found her own books. We navigated the narrow stairwell, lined with teetering stacks. She made her purchase. The owner gave me mine for free for bringing a friend from out of town. For buying hundreds of books over the years. For grins and giggles. He gave me the gods for free.

Picking through the pages, re-reading a book I used to know, it all flooded back and suddenly, faced with a holiday weekend, I realized that I wanted to see the gods. The roadside stands. America.

Googling Graceland, I figured out how far I'd have to drive. 13 hours. The world's largest balls of twine, also too far. Kansas and Minnesota. Muffler Men. The Chicken Boy. The Museum of Appalachia. Pixies of the Deep. The Mütter Museum would wait until a friend went up to visit her Philly boyfriend.

I spent days looking for tickets. Days looking for a destination. Eventually, I decided to stay home. To visit the zoo I'd never seen. A rooftop party with friends. And then came an invitation: A Prairie Home Companion, live from Wolf Trap.

I grew up with the pleasant, pausing rumble of Garrison Keillor's voice. My people come from Minnesota. My mom lives there now, in a town not unlike Lake Wobegon, "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." Not quite a roadside attraction but it would do.

Graceland, it's still on the list. I found a website, too, to help with the planning. As for the gods, as Gaiman wrote, "People believe.... People populate the darkness; with ghosts, with gods, with electrons, with tales. People imagine and people believe: and it is that belief, that rock-solid belief, that makes things happen."


Tag: American Gods Travel Roadtrips

Unmotivated

I drove to work because I didn't want to be there. At work.

I drove for no reason other than the fact that I always drive on days I don't want to work. Maybe it's the Wrangler itself, the pull of the open road and the freedom of driving - something about it makes work manageable on days of mean reds.

This morning was a particularly bad. I even took a couple of hours of leave before driving.

It wasn't a hangover. I awoke on time, headache free. I logged into my work email, reading through messages that arrived in the middle of the night. I responded to a few. Dashed off an out of the office note. Crawled back into bed.

I just couldn't stomach the thought of work. Part of the problem was that I couldn't stomach anything. (Hot sauce raced through my system, reminding me of the day I wanted to die.) Part of the problem was logging in before getting ready in the morning, working all day, logging in after work until I went to bed. All day, every day: work.

When I finally showered and ironed, dressed and accessorized, I climbed into the Jeep and headed through town to my office. I skirted the Capitol, the Mall. Looped around the Lincoln and across the Memorial Bridge.

The sun shone brightly, sparkling on the Potomac. The lights were green (all but two) and I made it into the office in 12 minutes flat. I smiled, in spite of myself.

I stepped into my heels and slipped into my seat.

"Must have been a good happy hour," observed my officemate when I rolled in at 11.

"No... I mean, yes. It was a good happy hour. I just... I don't want to be here."

"I know what you mean."

I left over lunch, for an hour plus 10 to join a friend at a vigil in front of the Sudanese Embassy, protesting the genocide in Darfur.

It should have been a solemn occasion, I suppose, but the banter was light and the sun was shining. Drivers honked. Policemen stopped, took down the group's information, left, returned. For an hour they stood, the protestors. I was there half the time in my skirt and heels, on my lunch break, holding a sign.

On the way back to work, I dropped the roof on the Jeep. I peeled off my sweater, down to a tank, and pulled my hair into a sloppy bun. I drove through Georgetown, the sun beating down on my bare shoulders.

Dancing in my seat, waiting for pedestrians to cross, for cabs to cut me off, I thought of sitting in the sun the night before, waiting for my happy hour friends. I couldn't stomach work yesterday, either, and arrived much too early. Instead of going to the bar, I sat under a tree, with a book in my lap. I lifted my face to the sun and sighed.

"You are gorgeous," said a man walking past. I grinned in reply.

Calling my mom, I chatted away the glorious afternoon. I glanced around, noting people under surrounding trees. A boy with a dog. The man behind me peeing a golden arch in the gloaming.

In Georgetown a day later, I laughed at the absurdity of the public urination. I lifted my hands through the open roof and waited for the light to change, turning to cross the Key Bridge into Virginia.

The sun shone brightly, sparkling on the Potomac. The lights were red (all but two) and I made it into the office in 12 minutes flat. I smiled, in spite of myself.


Tag: Work

Raki by baby

Lulled by the rocking of the cab, by the radio and the raki, I drifted through downtown DC with my eyes closed. From the speakers, early Madonna gave way to Cyndi Lauper crooning Time after Time.

Lying in my bed I hear the clock tick,
and think of you
caught up in circles confusion –
is nothing new
Flashback – warm nights –
almost left behind
suitcases of memories,
time after –

"What's the best way to get there?"

I glanced out the window.

"Toward Union Station or up Independence, either one."

"Union Station?"

"Six of one, half a dozen of the other," I replied, closing my eyes.

sometimes you picture me –
I'm walking too far ahead
you're calling to me, I can't hear
what you've said –
Then you say – go slow –
I fall behind –
the second hand unwinds

I peeked at the monuments and museums whizzing past the window, melting, blurring, one into the other in the dark night.

"That raki rocked my world," I thought, giggling to myself in the back of the cab. My mouth tasted of licorice.

if you're lost you can look – and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you – I'll be waiting
time after time

I never really figured out if I liked it. Raki. I knew I didn't like Ouzo but I was in Turkey and when in Rome – or Istanbul, as the case may be.

We started drinking it on the first night. At the Blue House. Mavi Ev. We were taking turns checking our email on the computer in the hotel lobby, and somebody started talking to the man across the room, the man on the overstuffed yellow leather sofa.

As it turned out, he lived in DC, about half a block away from Sara, the girl on other yellow couch. We drank together, getting drunk on jet lag and licorice-flavored liquor. We dined together, nodded to each other over breakfast, never saw him again. But the clear liquor turning milky white in water made me think of him.

after my picture fades and darkness has
turned to gray
watching through windows – you're wondering
if I'm OK
secrets stolen from deep inside
the drum beats out of time –

She sat next to me at the table last night: Sara, the girl who lived half a block from the boy whose name I could not remember, the face I imagined in milky white. She translated bits of the menu.

"Ímam Bayildi," she said. "The Imam fainted."

"Deníz: Sea," I replied. "Remember Denízli?"

Denizli smelled like smoke, like burning and badness. We were all so tired and missed our exit, ending up on a back country road behind a truck of workers and cotton bales. Pamuk.

It was the night of the big dinner, the night in Pamukkale (cotton castle) when we ended up at a hostel for dinner and they kept bringing us food. Both Sara and Cheryl ended up with chicken and fries in their purses. They smelled like grease for days. As a veg, I ended up with soup, not nearly as conducive to palming and hiding in my purse.

if you're lost you can look – and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you – I'll be waiting
time after time

Penny hadn't gone with us, but she'd seen the pictures. She knew the stories. She knew all of us. We'd been friends for years.

Her mom lived a mile from my dad. We went to college together, Penny and I. We worked together at the newspaper, but I barely remembered her. We became friends a couple of years later, back for a visit, a Mudhens game and some Paglia's pizza. I found out she was working the summer at a paper in DC. Eventually she moved here; we've been friends ever since.

you said go slow –
I fall behind
the second hand unwinds –

Dinner and drinks. Raki on a warm, clear night. Port. Pom-Fili. I wanted a dessert but couldn't find room. Not even for pumpkin and almond cake, a cardamom creme anglaise, currant and medjool date compote and pumpkin sorbet.

Honestly, it didn't matter. The waitress seemed content to leave our table full and unattended. As long as we drank slowly, she didn't have to serve.

Inside, voices clamored and bodies crowded into the narrow space between bar and wall, between our outside table and the bathroom.

"It's loud and crowded in there," I remarked to my friends, somewhat surprised after our quiet, lazy night outside. Somebody brought us candles, burning bright in blue-frosted glass. Someone else repositioned and started the heaters.

"It seems so dark, so early," someone commented.

"I know. The sun set at, what, 8:19? I think it was on the news," I replied. "It's... 8:38 now."

"I have to go home."

"I know..."

We sat a while longer. Talking. Enjoying the night and the company.

if you're lost you can look – and you will find me
time after time
if you fall I will catch you – I'll be waiting
time after time
time after time
time after time
time after time

The song drifted into silence, into dedications and inane chatter on a radio station I didn't know. I opened my eyes and found myself home. I smiled again, tipsily content.

Tag: Friends Washington DC Zatinya

Not smart

I witnessed an accident on the way to work. On South Carolina, at the intersection of 10th, a minivan waited for a black sportscar to cross the road. A short bus paused at the corner, behind the car, at the stop sign. The black car pulled in front of the van and suddenly, unexpectedly, I heard a sickening crunch.

I didn't know what happened. The minivan didn't appear to move but the car slowed, stopped in front of me. Blocking my path. From a distance, the gash seemed more of a dent with a bit of scraped paint. Up close, I saw a hole in the fiberglass.

The side of the car seemed so fragile, so inadequate. There was no squealing of breaks. No honking of horns. The minivan moved from stopped to slightly less than stopped, tapping and tearing the side of the car.

A man jumped from the car, screaming, "That was not smart! That was not smart!"

I cringed, noting the extent of the damage. He looked at me; I shook my head. "It's not good."

He circled the car, checking out the damage and muttering. He opened the passenger door.

"Bunny, are you OK?" he shouted into the tiny car at the decidedly un-tiny woman inside.

"Bunny?" I wondered. "Bunny?!"

I crossed the street and kept walking toward the Metro. I contemplated calling the police. Glancing back, I saw that the minivan had not moved. The short bus drove around the accident and a number of cars and trucks followed, bypassing the stop sign and crossing the street.

"That was not smart!"

The owner of the sports car didn't seem to have called anyone and I experienced a twinge of doubt.

"Should I stay?" I wondered. "As a witness?"

I kept walking. Behind me, over the sound of rubber slapping bricks, over the click of heels from the woman in a suit and the bumping roll of a wheeled bag behind her, I heard the rumblings of a shouting match.

"That was not smart!"

I couldn't quite pick out the high-pitched reply. A siren roared in the distance, heading the other way, and I moved ever farther from the scene. The clickety-clack behind me overtook my flip flopping pace.

"The minivan didn't have a stop sign," I offered.

"The other car did," she replied.

That was not smart.


Tag: Accident Driving Washington DC

Bodies

As we walked down the street, toward the Dome in Rosslyn, a song cycled through my head in an endlessly annoying rotation.

"If you want my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, let me know."

The song made me think of Gimme a Break, Julie, something about jeans with plastic wrap in the seat. I didn't even know if the reference was real but my mind made a connection and as soon as I heard "bodies," the play button inside my head depressed and song stuck, peppered with images of Nell Carter and the Chief, Julie and jeans.

At the exhibition, "Bodies... The Exhibition" more specifically, the song faded before flesh and muscle, bone and disease captured in clear Lucite cases. Naked eyeballs stared unseeing at the crowd gathered in uncertain wonder. It was amazing.

Through the sensitive presentation of actual whole-body specimens and individual organs, this awe-inspiring exhibition will reveal how your body works by exploring it from the inside-out.

Reviewers warned that it wasn't for the squeamish. Within the exhibit itself, a placard advised guests to consider whether or not they wanted to see the fetuses and embryos, offering an alternate route to the next phase. The "traveling anatomy show" has generated controversy for both its use of real (rubberized) human bodies and their source (the Dalian Medical School in China), but walking amongst the once living exhibits, it seemed proper. Science made interesting.

Near an exhibit on hands, fingers flexed and wrists rotated. People bounced on the balls of their feet looking at knees and ankles and toes. A scapula made me want to reach back and touch my own wings.

On the flipside, the muscles made me glad for my vegetarian status. The blackened, emphysemic and cancer-riddled lungs made me wish for a pack of cigarettes to toss in the bin, and a cirrhotic liver almost made me want to stop drinking. Almost. And let's talk teratoma. How could a woman grow something the size of a beach ball with hair and teeth and an eyeball in her abdomen?

"Mr. Goodbody had nothing on this," I observed to my friend.

We kept meeting and exclaiming our wonder. The nervous system, circulatory, reproductive. Muscles and bones from the same body mirrored each other with a full skin suit set behind the screen. It was repulsive and utterly fascinating. It made me want to take better care of myself.

Leaving, with time to spare before hitting the airport, we walked into Georgetown. As we crossed the bridge, enjoying the sun, the breeze, the day, I thought back on the exhibit. I thought of my ankles rolling, muscles stretching, blood pumping to propel me forward. Only moments earlier, I had seen then the bare upon a table. I devoted more energy to making my brain cells work and handful of muscles pulled my face into a smile.


Tag: Bodies

Nice night

Elbows on the bar, I leaned forward and looked at my friends, fatigue and boredom etched into every face. We watched the baseball scores stream across a handful of TVs, trying to pick out the final score of the game we'd just seen. The Nationals lost.

We left at the top of the 11th, needing to use the bathroom and unwilling to navigate the treacherously steep steps more often than necessary. Tied at one, the game seemed destined to an interminable rotation of at bats and fielding and as much as we enjoyed the night, the temperature started to drop.

We had already enjoyed peanuts and hot dogs, warm, light beers and the soda in a souvenir cup. We cheered on the racing presidents. We threw our arms into the air for a wave that petered out behind home plate. Several times. We were done.

One friend stormed off, unconvinced by our decision to wait for the crowd to dissipate for a minute or two as the teams changed position.

"Are you going to sit here for another minute or 15 or 20?" she asked, slipping into the straps of the backpack.

"No. About five. We would just rather watch baseball for a minute than stand in a line in a bathroom where women need to learn to hover and aim. Hover and aim."

"Well, I’m leaving," she announced and stomped down the aisle and the stairs.

"Oh, watch the stairs," we murmured, aware of the danger ahead but she navigated them safely in her angry rush.

We left a couple of minutes later, hitting the now empty bathroom on our way out of the park and walking the mile or so to my house.

"The difference between this and New Orleans," offered Celeste, "is that I would never walk through a park in New Orleans after dark. There would be people shooting up."

We meandered through Lincoln Park, empty but for a couple of statues and a man with a pair of retrievers. We stopped by my house for a minute or two, and I unpacked Superman and the free visor from my purse. I considered changing clothes, shirts, looking a little less baseball and a little more bar, but it didn't matter. We walked to the Capitol Lounge.

Downstairs, the cigar bar was filled with men in suits and a bartender I didn't want to see. We stood in the door, looked around and decided to go upstairs. The side bar was full but not crowded. A homogeneous group of professional 20- and 30-somethings didn't seem all that interested in anything other than the sports on the screens and themselves.

One group of overdressed people practiced PDA in the middle of the bar. We decided that the couple stapled to each other must be celebrating their engagement. The girl on the chair seemed to be the sister of the groom-to-be. The girl in the halter dress: the desperate and soon to be drunk friend. The girl in the kimono: jealous and single.

Of course, we had no confirmation. The girl's left arm curled protectively around the man with whom she cuddled. We never saw a ring. We made our observations based on profiles – the same jaw line, the same nose. Double fisted beers and a look of misery. An inappropriately short dress, made shorter by stance. We might have been completely wrong but we were bored. We had nothing better to do.

All of those who had planned to meet up were decidedly drunk by the time we left the game, too inebriated to meet us at the bar. Jess peeled off early, tired and planning for an early morning drive to the airport. Kayla, we left at the corner by her house. Celeste and I, my friend from New Orleans and house guest extraordinaire, walked through the Hill talking.

Dive bar with a club scene. Brunch place. Gay country bar. Irish pub. Lesbian dance club. Marine barracks. I pointed out local landmarks or she pointed them to me, trying to figure out the scene.

Outside the Ugly Mug, I ran into a man I used to know. A friend of mine that I hadn't seen in at least a year. I waved. We hugged. He offered to buy us a drink, so we went inside. At that point, the night changed. Halfway through drinks from my friend, another man walked up to us and asked what tab we were using, he wanted to get himself a drink under my name.

It took me a second or two and I realized that it was another friend, a man I hadn't seen in a year and a half, maybe two. I had skipped his going away party to pick up Celeste at the airport Friday night.

"So, you guys dated?" asked a friend of the friend.

"What? No," I replied. The man looked confused, the friend stammered. I clarified. "We made out once."

"I call that dating."

"I don't, but OK," I said.

"She's a great kisser," the friend said. "High five!"

We drank and talked, talking more than drinking, moving from bar to table and swapping stories. The friend moves to London in a month. At some point, my brother showed up, larger than life. We chatted a while and the other men left.

My brother stayed for a minute or 10 before trying to call his friend who planned to meet us and heading out into the dark night. The friend walked in a minute later.

"Of course, he left. I knew that would happen."

"He did try to call you," I said in my brother's defense.

We hung for a while with this friend of my brother, this friend of mine, who stayed with me when he first moved to DC – my brother in the guest room, the friend on the couch in my tiny apartment. It took a while to recover from the experience but we're all friends now. He joined us and bought us a beer, the country Texas boy chatting up the Louisiana girl.

He left in search of a cigarette and ended up at a table of Marines outside. We finished our beers and headed home, stopping to take our leave. Stopping for a hug or two. As we walked away, I heard one of the soldiers exclaim "Nice" in reference to us, but I am not sure how. We didn't turn to look.

It summed up my feelings, though. A long, lovely evening with friends. Baseball. Walking. Innocuous flirting with attached male friends. Free drinks. Good conversation.

Nice.


Tag: Bars Baseball Friends Washington DC

My Friend Hoss

By Celeste from NOLA

Sometimes it's nice to be a tourist in your own hometown. I live in New Orleans but commute to Baton Rouge every day to make a living. When I found out that my company's regional meeting was going to be held in New Orleans this year, I was disappointed. "But I live in New Orleans." "No problem," replied the executive assistant who was in charge of booking everyone's hotel rooms. "We already budgeted for you to stay downtown at the Ritz." "Free night at the Ritz?" My pleasure, indeed.

After an awkward dinner with 40-somethings who after two glasses of chardonnay decided to conclude their evening with a trip to Harrah's (I have epilepsy; Casinos and I do not mix well), I snuck out of the back door of our meeting room and strolled through the Quarter to a bar that I will call M'sER.

I forget when my husband…then my "maybe" boyfriend…started frequenting M'sER on Friday nights. The regular Friday night clientele includes a pimp who owns three interchangeable purple, red and electric blue suits (he is sober for over 20 years, but likes to play video poker on his break from peddling women), a hairdresser whose picture resides above the door to the woman's restroom, a skinny guy, J., who gets 86ed on a regular basis, usually after he starts doing headstands (Rule #1: J. gets drunk. Rule #2: J. leaves), a gigantic stripper who works at the Stiletto's Gentlemen's Club two blocks away, a gay artist named M. who we flew down to Mexico to paint our wedding, and the bartender, N. I like Kristin's description of N.: She's Betty Page, plus several tattoos.

It is possible to play the following setlist on the Juke Box at M'sER: Tom Jones, Tom Waits, The Pixies, Social Distortion, Kenny Rodgers.

Another M'sER regular is a guy named Hoss. Hoss is a part-time offshore oilrig worker (eight weeks on) and part-time bouncer (eight weeks off) at a Quarter Goth bar I'll call D. (see, Kristin's post dated 5/7/07 regarding sex in a cage).

Hoss was raised in rural Texas by the type of Baptists who know the exact date of The Rapture. He played football for Tulane for two years in the Sixties before dropping out to drop acid. He is a very large man. Think Hurley on Lost.

"Celeste, come take a walk with me before I have to go on my shift at D.," Hoss beckoned. Sure…why not?

Hoss knows everyone in the Quarter: strippers, bouncers, bartenders, street performers, shot girls. He's been living in various flop houses on the third floors of strip clubs since the Seventies.

Our first stop was a "pizza by the slice" stand nestled between a neon-filled daiquiri shop on Bourbon and a club advertising "world famous sexxx acts." As soon as we walked up, a piece of pepperoni pizza slid across the counter. "Thanks, Hoss," the guy behind the counter said. "He owes me a favor," Hoss whispered to me. "Want a bite?"

We walked in and out of several other bars. Each time Hoss would introduce me as his "legal counsel" to the bartender. Each time we left with free drinks.

We continued to stroll down Bourbon Street. Despite all there was to see, I realized that everyone was staring at us: New Orleans cops on horse patrol, Lucky Dog salesman, the folks who pass out the JESUS WANTS YOU NOT TO GO TO HELL pamphlets, men in seersucker suits leaving dinner, dancers rolling huge suitcases filled with clear Lucite heels. It's not often you see a 300 pound man with long salt-and-pepper hair wearing overalls and a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off sporting a bicep-encompassing tattoo of a naked, sultry Elvira-type woman with exaggerated breasts walking hand-in-hand with a thirty-one year old lawyer in head-to-toe Ann Taylor and sensible shoes.

"Let's duck in here," Hoss says, pointing to one of many of the neon-lit bar entrances. We walk into the bar and meet another bartender, S. As S. was busing herself with our drinks, Hoss said: "I met S. when she was living on the street. She was real dirty and hungry. I used to live above Big Daddy's then. I took her home and made her some read beans and rice. Hoss makes damn good red beans and rice. She gave Hoss a blow job for it."

Hoss is one of the few people who does not bug me when he refers to himself in the third person.

"Follow me," he says, as we walk out of the door at the back of the bar. Suddenly everything is quiet. We end up in a courtyard with a backlit fountain, several park benches and a garden.

"Let's sit down," Hoss says. "You know, I need to go offshore again and make some money. Need to get clean, though. Them oil companies drug test."

We talk about his mom. He tells me a "Boudreaux and Thibedeaux" joke. We talk about all of the places that he has lived in the Quarter. He tells me that he has done lines of coke off of the fountain before and that this courtyard is a nice place to sleep.

"I don't know why you and Joe want to hang out with some old damn hippie like me. But, you do . . . and I like that . . . that you're my friend . . . That you listen to ole' Hoss. Can you braid hair?"

I've seen Hoss pick up drunken abusive frat guys by the neck and hurl them onto the street. I've heard him give the "play-by-play" on a couple having sex in a cage. I've seen him tangle with Marilyn Manson types with spikes around their writs and vials of blood around their necks. I've heard him talk about three-day LSD trips and how all of the whores in New Orleans hide when he comes back from offshore with money in hand.

Hoss is my friend.

"French braid or normal braid?" I ask.

I finish Hoss' hairdo and we return our glasses to S. at the bar. I follow him to D. where he dons a Britney Spears concert headset and resumes his position as sentinel of the upstairs dance floor/cages. "No Jumping!!" he yells. I look around the room. I have as much in common with the New Orleans Goth community as Amsterdam does with Salt Lake City. Death Medal blares. It's time to go home. I give Hoss a hug and walk back to the Ritz.

Before Katrina, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an article about New Orleans. My evening with Hoss was a reminder of the fact (to quote Mr Brooks) that in New Orleans (and probably only in New Orleans) "no matter how dull and responsible [I] become, an alternative and much stranger moral universe is just one slippery step away."


Tag: New Orleans

The Omen

Why do I watch these things? Horror movies I've seen before? I watch them alone at night, in the dark, scaring myself half to death. I must have seen The Omen a dozen times in both versions (the original from 1976 and the remake 30 years later). I keep doing it. I know how it ends. I know every milestone, every signpost along the way, and it scares the hell out of me. I suppose that's the point.

An American official realizes that his young son may literally be the devil incarnate.

Rosemary's Baby and The Seventh Sign scare me, too. Stigmata. Constantine. I might have seen The Reaping if the ratings weren't so bad. I still might. I have a habit of watching crappy movies and I love a bad movie about the apocalypse. They scare me something fierce. Knowing the ending, the milestones, the signposts doesn't help. Nor does watching it in the middle of a beautifully sunny Sunday afternoon.

As Lutherans, we never read much of Revelations. We don't really focus on the end of days. Most of what I know comes from movies. Rosemary's Baby. The Seventh Sign. The occasional book. Though, I could never really get into the Left Behind series. I preferred Steven King and The Stand.

A couple of months ago, in Turkey, I actually saw one or two of the churches of the apocalypse. (Though, I wouldn't exactly mention Denizli to one of my friends. The city smelled and we got very, very lost.) Other than that, though, seeing the churches was kind of crazy. I don't suppose that I ever thought they were real.

They still don't feel real.

On a beautifully sunny Sunday in May, The Omen still scared me. The hanging nanny and Mrs. Baylock. The priest and the photographer and a descent into madness. I knew the ending, the milestones and the signposts, but it still freaked me out. I had to pop in Raising Helen to balance it out.


Tag: Movies

Hard Day's Night

I fell in love with The Beatles in 1989. My freshman year in high school. When my sister left for a year in France, she forgot a tape in the kitchen radio.

I don't know if it was intentional, a swap for my Def Leppard cassette. (I had begged and pleaded until she bought it as birthday gift. Strangely enough, it disappeared when she left.) She might have moved on to another band. It might have been accident. I don't know how it ended up in the kitchen player, but I claimed it. I played it until it wouldn't play anymore.

It wasn't The Beatles that gripped at first. I knew they were important but not as much as my sister. I idealized the girl, three and a half years my senior. If she liked it, it was worth liking.

Eventually, I realized that I liked the band. Loved the music. It didn't matter that it was my sister's tape. It, and the songs, became mine. I bought more with my babysitting money, playing the tapes on the radio in the kitchen. (By that point, my purple plastic player had long since passed.)

Today, The Beatles make me think of baking. Of flour and sugar and dancing around in stockinged feet. My mom and stepdad weren't home a lot in those days. The boys tended to avoided the kitchen unless they were hungry. By default, the space became mine. I danced around in hot rollers, singing into a wooden spoon. A spatula. A rolling pin.

I was a bored teenage girl playing with makeup and hair pins, rolling pins and recipes. Somewhere in there, I learned to make apple pie. I also learned how to make myself look pretty. I don't do either very often.

I learned the songs by heart, the songs of my mother's generation. I learned the order of the tape. Even today, I hear one song and automatically start singing the next. Strawberry Fields run into Penny Lane, there beneath the blue suburban skies I sit, and mean while back...

It must have been the Blue album. I am the eggman. They are the eggmen. I am the walrus. Goo goo g'joob. I'd like to be under the sea in an octopus' garden in the shade. He'd let us in, knows where we've been, in his octopus' garden in the shade. I get by with a little help from my friends.

I don't think I ever saw the case or the liner notes. I'm not completely sure I ever saw the tape. It never really escaped the player. I just knew the songs and more than a dozen years later, in looking at albums, the lineup seems right. Those are the songs I knew first. The songs I knew best.

When my friends and my family started procreating, I found blankets embroidered with John Lennon's sketches. The word "imagine." I found plush pink and blue elephants with pull tails that played the song. Rattles in the same design. Gifts for babies that I felt good sending. I bought all I could find and sent them to the parents and babies in my life for the next several years.

A few years ago, at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, I wandered through an exhibit of photos from their first visit to the United States. I returned several times. I fell a little bit in love with their mopped top exuberance. The playfulness. Their youth. I never considered them as people before. Just noise from the box. The sound of my teenage years.

I bought The Beatles 1 at the exhibit, trying to get regain the feelings of my youth but it (the CD, not my youth) was stolen weeks later. I lost a lot of things in the robbery. I didn't replace the album.

Over Christmas this past year, in a white elephant gift exchange, I traded the Rolling Stones for a Beatles anthology and an album: The Beatles featuring Tony Sheridan: In the Beginning. I haven't listened to it much. Newer music has taken precedence.

I didn't really remember how much I loved them until Sunday, sitting on my couch after a serious bout of spring cleaning. I had watched The Omen while I cleaned. I lightened the load with Raising Helen while I cooked. By the time I crashed on the sofa with a remote and a soda, I didn't care what I watched. I fell into A Hard Day's Night. I had never seen it. I was missing out.

They were younger then than I am now. Happy. Playful. Adored. The movie reminded me that they were just kids. Kids who changed the face, the voice and the ears of music. They changed me. (I later ordered a copy of the Blue Album.)


It's been a hard day's night, and I'd been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright

You know I work all day to get you money to buy you things
And it's worth it just to hear you say you're going to give me everything
So why on earth should I moan, cos when I get you alone
You know I feel OK

When I'm home everything seems to be right
When I'm home feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah

It's been a hard day's night, and I'd been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright owww

So why on earth should I moan, cos when I get you alone
You know I feel OK

When I'm home everything seems to be right
When I'm home feeling you holding me tight, tight, yeah

It's been a hard day's night, and I'd been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright
You know I feel alright
You know I feel alright

Tag: The Beatles Music

Cop story

In honor of National Police Week (I'm a little slow on the uptake), I'd like to share the story of a cop I dated in college.

It didn't last long. He tended to leave bruises. He didn't quite know the difference between an inside grab and an outside grab and I feared he probably manhandled me out of habit, from collaring perps or whatever cops did.

Besides, I met a very nice boy who liked me despite the fact that my knee popped out at his party. When he gave me a ride home, I fell down in front of his car (having sprained my ankle) and a week later, when he showed up at my house because he didn't know my number, I ended the night by burning the rings from the stove into the palm of my hand.

But this isn't about him, it's about the cop.

The cop grew up in town where I attended university. He'd moved to Columbus a few years earlier, but a good family guy, he came home as often as possible to visit his parents and younger sister, to see his friends. We probably met at a bar, the Brathaus, but I don't remember. I just remember knowing him. He took me out to dinner in a time when I didn't eat out much.

One weekend, his visit coincided with that of my roommate's best friend. They met in our kitchen and realized that they lived but a few miles from each other. Unbeknownst to me, she asked for his number and suggested meeting up in Columbus sometime.

Several weeks passed. The cop and I split. I met the nice boy who didn't mind that I was an absolute wreck. The boy who came to find me because he didn't know my number. The boy whom I dated for most of the next two years.

Eventually, my roommate's friend came to visit again. She missed college life, having graduated the previous spring. At some point during the weekend, fortified with liquid courage, she sat me down and told me a story.

She had called the cop. They went out. He left her handcuffed to a bed for several hours. With real handcuffs. While we were dating.

I tried to sympathize, but honestly, I felt that she deserved it. Maybe. Just a little bit. She shouldn't have asked out a guy she met in my kitchen while I was still dating him. She definitely shouldn't have gotten into bed with him and a pair of handcuffs. Live and learn.

He called me regularly throughout the rest of my college years. He stopped by the store where I worked; I hid in the back watching on the security screens until he left. She never heard from him again.

The cop did apologize to me, if not to her. And I definitely don't think he's representative of the occupation as a whole but that's the story of my cop. I have another story, a Police Week attendee who bit a friend on Saturday night, but that's another story. For another time.



Tag: Police

Too much information

"Here's to not peeing again until work tomorrow!" I said when I came back from the bathroom, arms raised in a cheerleader pose and hoping against hope that I would make it.

I've got to admit that it was the first time I'd ever expressed that exact sentiment. While I probably think about bathrooms more than most – my going problem isn't a growing problem but rather a caffeine problem and I'm up to half a dozen cans of Diet Coke a day – I normally don't worry about it at home. I have a lovely little bathroom. Tiny but adequate. Clean. Flushing. Until Monday night.

I knew I shouldn't have bought the double rolls. One of my (many) quirks is that I hate buying toilet paper. Maybe I just hate running out. I buy gigantic packages of really big rolls. The only problem is that they swing a little too freely when a tipsy girl needs some TP. Whoops.

Bad things happened in the middle of the night. The overabundance of paper in the bowl refused to flush and why is it that I thought I knew where the plunger lived until I needed it? I know I own a plunger. I found the plunging part. I lost the stick. After a half hour of searching, I gave up. I stood in the door of the bathroom, contemplating the lid.

"Fudge."

I decided to forget about it and sleep. I could and would worry about it in the morning.

"Where... Where?" I searched for the plunger, again to no avail, and danced around the apartment in an urgency dance. I waited until I got to work. It was not a pleasant ride on the Metro with the rock, rock, rocking and the "I have to pee" shifting. I've never been so happy for a public restroom in my life.

(That's a lie. I have been happier, but it was the happiest I've been with a public restroom all week. Maybe all month. But there was Jazz Fest.)

The day passed quickly. I didn't quite finish the work on my plate, an ever-growing mountain of files to edit, spreadsheets to update, and queries to write. Meeting after meeting. I wanted to cry by a quarter to six; I disappeared into the tunnels under Arlington and Metro'd to the Mall for my friends' kickball game.

I went to cheer. I considered pompoms but almost ended up with a plunger. Fortunately, I didn't manage to find one. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to find one. Honestly, the thought of me, at a kickball game, with skirt and bag and plunger, wasn't all that out of place. Probably more fitting than pompoms.

After the game, we went to the sponsor bar, to Irish Times, to eat. We ended up with more beer than food plus an interesting array of barmates. As we discovered, it was the end of Police Week 2007. We also discovered that the beer came in kickball pitchers. Pitcher? Cops? Pitcher? Cops? One of the players misappropriated a vessel in the middle of a bar of fuzz.

We talked as we sipped, telling stories, sorting the crowd into cops, groupies and kickballers based on hairstyles and dress. We went downstairs to the flip cup tables and decided to leave. I garnered a reminder to hit the head before we left. One last chance before facing the unflushing bowl.

"Here's to not peeing again until work tomorrow!"

I thought I could make it. I didn't really think of the influx of beer. And then I started looking for the plunger again. Why is it that one thinks she knows where it lives until she needs it?

I did find it. The paper passed. I returned to normalcy and not seeking alternate bathrooms.

I had forgotten how inconvenient it could be. I thought of my roommate in college who (in a fit) managed to lodge the lid of a can in the commode at three in the morning on a Saturday night. Four girls trekking across the road to Taco Bell until our slumlord called a plumber. I showered on the girls' floor of my brothers' dorm.

I remembered an ex, a whitewater rafting guide who lived in a camper. I remembered working at a summer camp. Both places almost a mile from the nearest facilities. I thought of visiting my brother in Guyana the weekend of a friends' toilet warming party - the friend had spent months without indoor plumbing.

A few days of inconvenience was nothing compared to the manner in which so many people live but I'm glad I found the plunger.


Tag: Plumbing

Heroes

"How can a show jump the shark if it is the shark?" he asked as we sacked out in sofa city, watching TV and talking about Heroes.

"I like it," I said. "I don't know why, but I like it."

The conversation popped into my mind Saturday as I whiled away the hours, catching up on the DVR and taking a much-needed break from reality. Between Coyote Ugly and The Riches, The Shield and Robin Hood, I caught up on three weeks of Heroes.

My mind wandered as my body rested. Heroes. We don't need another hero. If I go crazy, will you still call me Superman? Much Ado about Nothing. Beatrice. Hero. Kate Beckinsale and Underworld. Everything, Everything. I looked for a listing, a show time for X-Men: The Last Stand.

I love the X-Men. The movies. The comic book. The cartoon. I used to watch it on Saturday mornings as I cleaned rooms at the Best Western. Flipping on the TV in room after room, I stripped the linens, scrubbed and vacuumed to the sounds of fighting.

I might have had a thing for Gambit. Remy Etienne LeBeau. New Orleans born and bred with a thick accent and a tendency to say "cher." I liked Rogue with her streaked hair and long gloves. Trapped by her powers. The animalistic Wolverine. Empathetic Jean Grey. The bookish behemoth Beast.

While I sold my soul for minimum wage, I lost myself in the battle between good and evil, knowing that the good guys weren't all that pure and there was something to be said for the bad guys. The only ones that were truly evil were those filled with prejudice, intolerance, racism. Not a bad way to spend a Saturday morning.

I'm a little older now. No more cleaning rooms. Not for money, anyway. Saturday mornings are mine. I still like superheroes, though. Books and movies. TV shows. I'm the first to admit that I followed Buffy faithfully. Angel. Charmed. I'm not sure why.

As a child, I saw a strong resemblance between my mom and Wonder Woman. These days, I recognize her as a superhero of another sort, a single mom. No golden lasso or invisible plane, but she did well enough on her own. She raised us to rely on ourselves and she gave us the skills we needed to not only survive but to thrive. I never expected someone to save me. I still don't. But I love to hear the hero tales.

And just because it's been in my head since the Underworld reference...

Born slippy nuxx

Drive boy
Dog boy
Dirty numb angel boy
In the doorway boy
She was a lipstick boy
She was a beautiful boy
And tears boy
And all in your innerspace boy
You had chemicals boy
And steel boy
I’ve grown so close to you
Boy and you just groan boy
She said comeover comeover
She smiled at you boy
Drive boy
Dog boy
Dirty numb angel boy
In the doorway boy
She was a lipstick boy
She was a beautiful boy
And tears boy
And all in your innerspace boy
You had chemicals boy
And steel boy
I’ve grown so close to you
Boy and you just groan boy
She said comeover comeover
She smiled at you boy
Let your feelings lift boy
But never your mask boy
Random blonde boy
High density
Rhythm blonde boy
Blonde country