More Encounters of the Coffee Kind

I’m sitting in a coffee shop, earbuds in, and this guy sits down at the table in front of me. Right away I can tell that this is not his normal habitat. He seems jumpy, unsure of what to do, even though he has iced tea, a bag with (I’m guessing) a pastry in it, and a lap top. He’s dressed in a button down shirt and blue dress shorts and leather sandals, and is so clearly an executive who is trying to do summer casual. Eventually he opens his laptop and does a few things with it, although as far as I can tell (the screen is facing me) he’s just opening and closing programs and staring at his desk top for long periods of time.

After about an hour of this, he gets out is phone and makes a call. He’s sitting less than 6 feet from me, but I assume he assumes I can’t hear him because I have my earbuds in. But the music is low, I can hear everything. And eventually I turn the music lower so I can hear better.

The conversation starts out with small talk, and then he makes reference to when he should come over. I think he’s going to some kind of dinner party or BBQ. I decide he’s from out of town, here on business and a colleague has taken pity on him and invited him over on a friday night. He says “well, I don’t want to come over before you’re ready, I don’t want to impose,” which supports my story. Then the person on the other end says something and he laughs and says “That’s ok – I’m not sure if you’ve picked up on this yet but I can be pretty weird at times too.” And suddenly I realize – he’s not going to a co-worker’s house – he’s going on a date! (This is when I turned the music lower). Now I consider his agitation and dis-ease  in a completely different light and decide that this is maybe a third date, and he’s not entirely sure where he stands with this girl (or guy I suppose).

He says “So 30 minutes then? That will give you enough time?….Oh that’s ok, we can wait until we get there. In Fairfax County I prefer to drive completely sober anyway.” So I’ve decided that he’s going to pick her up and go to Wolftrap – hence the nice but casual outfit.

He hangs up the phone and sets it down and then looks at me and says “will you make sure no one walks off with my phone?” Which surprises me b/c I was sure he assumed I couldn’t hear him, and at first I feel obligated to pretend that I didn’t hear what he said, so he wouldn’t know i was shamelessly listening to his conversation. After a second I glance up with a confused/surprised look to indicate that I hadn’t immediately realized he was talking to me, and he repeats his request and I smile and nod.

He comes back with another drink and picks up his phone and proceeds to fiddle with it for the next 25 minutes. Then he stands I realize its now time for him to head out for his date. He looks at me and says “See you,” and I respond “Yup. Good luck!” because I’ve spent so much time thinking about this date that I’ve decided he’s going on, that I forgot that a) i don’t know him, b) I’ve invented the scenario anyway. He gives me a strange look but then says “thanks,” and walks out.

And once again, I’m left to wonder how the story ends…

 

Moving and Moving On, Part 1

Ok, so this blog post was supposed to be put up in like, early February. But things kept changing in my life and I kept delaying committing to this post, until now. And then of course its an insanely long post, so I’ve broken it up into pieces. That’s my favor to you and your productivity. I hope you’ll forgive the delayed coverage of my inaugural experience, but I figure better late than never

When I turned 30 a few years ago, I decided that I was going to face, and accept, certain aspects of my personality that were unlikely to change. One of those things was that I’m kind of an emotion junkie (this was maybe only a revelation to me). I am highly emotional, but I also look for emotional meaning and significance in just about everything. I always look for the bigger meaning, the emotional context or the larger social or personal significance of everything. I have been known to go into drama withdrawal when my life has been (too) stable. Also, I’m a ceremony whore; I’ll get emotional during any ceremony regardless of its personal meaning or significance,  and I will often turn routine events into “ceremonies”. There are, I suppose, advantages to this. Want to be sure someone will cry at your kid’s baptism? Give me a call. Need an excuse for a party on a Tuesday night? I’ll find it and create a ritual to mark it. But there are also many disadvantages, chief among them that its exhausting always needing to find or apply context or meaning. Plus my life is an endless emotional roller coaster, which may in fact be more exhausting for my friends and family than it is for me, (even considering they only see about 75% of what goes on in my head. I’m usually able to filter, supress or talk myself down from the other 25%).  But I’ve accepted that this is me, and it seems that the people who love me have accepted it as well, and I’ve tried to find constructive uses for that emotional energy, primarily writing and storytelling. But sometimes, events in my life and events in the world come together in a way that puts me into ceremonial/emotional overdrive. Like January 2009, for example.

First up we had Barak Obama’sinauguration. No need to look for emotional significance there, it was was obvious and unavoidable. And yet, I still felt a need to bring it down to my level, to find the impact on my individual life.  I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the inauguration, and while it was cold and crowded it was also an amazing experience. Walking down the street with thousands of other people heading toward the Mall, people singing, chanting, wishing each other well, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being connected to something bigger than myself, to truly being a part of a moment in history.   I distinctly remember thinking that the idea of change could be more than a slogan, it could be a reality. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn’t even fully recognizing or intaking the entirety of the moment – there seemed to be layers of meaning and symbolism that I couldn’t get my head or heart fully around. As we continued to make our way to the mall, I allowed myself to be distracted by issues like navigating the crowds and finding the best route to the Mall. But once we found our spot between a jumbo tron and the Washington Momument my mind once again returned to trying to identify the layers of meaning and symbolism of the experience. As the ceremony started I became very aware of the very significant fact that I was witnessing the peaceful transfer of power – something that I think Americans too often take for granted. I was reminded of the emotions that had flooded through me as I cast my vote for Obama back in November. This was more than just a ceremony. This was the physical, philosophical and symbolic representation of the very essence of what makes this country what it is, for better or worse. 

When I decided to attend the inauguration, I’d had high expectations for getting a solid emotional hit from the experience, but I was also realistic that the reality might not meet my expectations, as is often the case. But in this case, the experience was everything I needed or wanted it to be. Right down to the fact that the person I shared it with was one of my oldest and dearest friends. She currently lives in South Carolina, but since high school has lived in MD, MN, AZ and NY but in the 20 years we’ve known each other we’ve managed to share almost every major milestone in each others lives together from crushes, to heartbreaks, from weddings to child birth, from New Year’s Eve to job and educational achievements. And while it just happened to be that she was the one who braved the cold and the crowds with me on that day, looking back I realize it had a beautiful and perfect symbolism to it. She is a part of my past, but also a part of my future, and it was perfect that we experienced this profound shift in the direction of our country together. We were part of history together, and now its a part of our personal history as well.

Just as I was ready to OD on the levels of meaning and symbolism, reality peaked in just a little.

As soon as Obama’s speech was finished, we, and our roughly 2 million new friends, started to make our way off the mall and hit a massive bottle neck almost immediately. As we stood shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, unable to see what was up ahead, what the delay was or how far we were from freedom, the mood in the crowd began to shift. The first indication of the shift was when I heard a man instruct his friend to ”Just start shoving” in reference to getting through the crowd.  A little while later, someone tried to start the “O-BAM-A” chant that had always succeeded in rallying the crowds before the ceremony, but now was met with a “SHUT UP!” Clearly, we had moved on from our feelings of community and hope and were now just ready to be able to move freely. But I loved that too. I loved how realistic that was, I loved how it shook me out of my philosophical emotional high and brought me back to reality. But then I started to see it as almost a metaphor for the sensibility of our country: hope and community spririt are all well and good when things are easy, when we’re walking freely through the streets, but as soon as our individual space  or experience is negatively affected, hope and community be damned, we want resolution. The irony is that when we break down into a million individuals just trying to take care of ourselves alone, nothing is accomplished. But when we recognize that we are interconnected and therefore interdependent and seek to work within those realities, everyone’s experience improves. To wit: someone finally climbed up on the port-a-potties and described the reason for the delay to the crowd (bottle neck through badly set up fencing), and everyone relaxed and the shoving eased. Until we got restless again – I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the experience of the elderly woman who locked her fists together in the center of her chest, looked me straight in the eye and shoved me, with way more force that I would have imagined, into the back of the person infront of me - But then someone else climbed up and gave an updated report, complete with estimated number of yards to the exit point and what to expect once we passed the exit. In total I think it took us more than an hour to move about 10 yards, but we did it without anyone being trampled or too badly bruised, and I definitely consider that a success.

Once released from the mobs of people, we made our way directly West on Constitution toward Virginia and home. As we followed the crowds of people over the Roosevelt Bridge I was struck with a knowledge that I will never be able to see crowds of people walking over a bridge out of city and not have negative associations to the image. We’ve moved on from 9/11 and other international crisis, but some images will be forever imprinted in my brain and will forever have a very specific significance. But then we stopped to rest in the middle of the bridge, and we sat on the lane divider and I took a picture of my friend with DC behind her and I realized that that could become a new way of remembering a bridge filled with pedestrian traffic exiting a city. Layering of meanings. I love it!

We made it to a metro stop in Virginia, dragged ourselves onto a crowded metro and made our way back to the warm house of a good friend who had a huge dinner waiting for us, and we watched the parade on TV, and then the ceremony again on DVR. It was a good day.

For a “meaning junkie” like me, this day was, quiet simply, heaven.  I’ve been in some serious crowds in DC in the past – July 4th, sporting events etc, and never have I seen people as polite and solicitous to each other as they were on Inauguration day.  I really felt the collective and individual commitment to move on.  To move on from fear, and divisiveness, and distrust, and greed, and uncertainty.  Each step we took toward the Mall, each smile exchanged with a stranger, each high five and call and response cheer was a step toward a new future, a return to optimism and a recognition that while it wouldn’t necessarily be easy, or immediate, we were ready to start again, to start a new page in our history.

Or maybe that was just me. Looking back I can see that I had become rather obsessed with the idea of “moving on” and was looking for examples or instructions on how to do it, or even evidence that it was possible…

And as morning dawned on January 21, I realized I had less than a week to move out of my apartment, and while I’d been “pretending” to start packing by giving loads of stuff to charity and friends, there was no discernable difference in my apartment. Have I mentioned that I’m a certified Pack Rat?

To Be Continued…

 

Public vs Private Behavior

I know I haven’t blogged in a while, and have many big things to talk about, like moving and going to Obama’s inauguration. But instead, I’m going to post a blog about this weird guy sitting next to me in the Wegmans Cafe. (the meaningful blog will come soon).

So I’m sitting here in the main level cafe, and its just a bunch of arm chairs in a ring around the outside wall. Its not as intimate as some cafes or coffee shops in the sense that there is a lot of space between us, but we are still in public. This is an important point to note.

About 30 minutes ago, this older man (I’m guessing early 70’s) sat down a few chairs away from me with his coffee and his iPod, and nothing else- no reading material, no laptop. I’m begining to understand this as a warning sign of annoying people. So first he sits down and lets out a big loud grunt/sigh. I’m willing to overlook this because, well, I’m getting older and I know that sometimes when you are old, you make noises like that when you sit down into a low armchair. Then he gets out his iPod and puts in the earphones and picks a playlist and this is all accompanied by his own soundtrack of mutterings and giggles. I kid you not, giggles. These are not the mutterings of a confused old man outdone by technology. These are the muttering, I’m begining to understand, of an old man, perfectly comfortable with technology, and over comfortable with being in public.

After the appropriate play list for sitting in Wegman’s Cafe has been selected, we take a big gulp of our very hot coffee and follow it with a very loud “MMMM, AHHHHH” and some good old lip smacking.

This is when I start to get annoyed and start to contemplate the concept of Public vs Private Behavior.

A few minutes pass in silence and I get some work done (Ok, fine, I spend some time on Facebook, whatever. Point is I’M sitting here quietly).  Suddenly I notice humming. I look over and he’s sitting there in his arm chair, coffee held aloft in his right hand, sunglasses that are too young for him perched on his nose under the brim of the baseball cap covering his shaggy looking gray hair, and he is jammin to the music coming from his earbuds. He’s tapping his foot, he’s humming, he’s mouthing words, he’s bobbing his head, and he clearly has no concept that he’s not in his living room armchair, but instead in a cafe in a grocery store.

The humming stops, which was really the most bothersome aspect of his display because it draws my attention, but now I’m obsessed. I’m obsessed with why he’s sitting here, in Wegmans, for so long, with just a cup of coffee and his iPod. There is a voice in my head that says I should admire his freedom of spirit, his refusal to be hemmed in by notions of Public vs private behavior because, really, WHO decided what those lines where anyway?

But then he starts wistling, and I’m again annoyed. I tell the voice in my head to shut up. I don’t care who decided the line between public and private appropriate behavior, because I AGREE with them.

I like to rock out to my iPod as much as the next person, and I do. Often. IN MY HOME. When I’m at home, I’ll turn up the music and sing loudly, dance wildly even, or just sit and hum or whistle occasionally. But who cares if I do because I do it at home where the only people to be bothered are possibly the neighbors, unsuspecting people passing on the street, or the dog. (Although I suspect the dog enjoys the dancing. Just a theory at this point though).

I wish this guy’s public displays of musical enjoyment didn’t bother me that much. I really do want to be the kind of person who looks at someone acting oustide of social norms, ignoring convention and rules and says “well done, sir! Be free, be unique. Enjoy your life!” But I’m not. I’m just not. Instead I’m annoyed, I’m obsessed with knowing why, knowing what his deal is. I, and all of the other people in this cafe, have the ability (or is it more a question of respect? )  to sit quietly, enjoy the ambiance, the sun, the coffee, whatever sensory stimulation you receive from sitting in the Wegmans cafe, without violating the public vs private boundaries of behavior, and I just don’t understand why that isn’t true for this person.

He’s gone now. He whisteled one last song, packed up his stuff with much ado, and then fairly skipped down the stairs and out the door into the parking garage.  The voice in my head says “Maybe you are jealous of how free and happy he is. He’s clearly retired, and has the luxury of sitting in a cafe doing nothing but drinking coffee and listening to music for 45 minutes on a weekday morning.” And I consider this point and come to the conclusion that its not jealously. I’m happy with my life, and I have time to sit in wegmans for 2 hours on a weekday morning and blog, facebook and even do a little work. I’d rather have my Wegmans experience than his  – I’d rather use my public time for working and my private time for singing loudly instead of whistling and for dancing than tapping my foot.  But that’s just me. Clearly.

 

Random Thoughts

Its 11pm on a weeknight. Normally at this time of night I’m snug in my bed, having just finished watching Keith Oberman and having seen who the day’s “worst persons” are, am ready to drift off to sleep.  But instead, for the second day in a row I have missed Keith, I don’t know who the “worst persons” are -although I can assume “Billo” is on the list and that makes me feel a little better. Instead of being in bed, I’m eating my dinner of cereal and writing a blog about random things while I wait for my cupcake from Cake Love to get to room temperature so I can eat it. Tonight I had a board meeting and I missed dinner (hence the 11pm cereal/cupcakes) and as my mind wandered to various topics in an attempt to distract myself from my headache, I remembered I had an update on my coffee house stalker. And then decided I was just in the mood to write a blog of random thoughts. Probably not interesting to anyone but me, but that’s ultimately what really matters

So my coffee shop stalker came into the same coffee shop and looked at me, but didn’t acknowledge me in any specific way. But he sat down at a table near me and started to get a lesson in how to go on-line. The way he was sitting I was able to see the screen of the laptop and hear some of what his teacher was saying and he was getting a very basic tutorial in how to check email and surf the web. This is only significant/amusing because the theme of our conversations revolved around his fascination with me using a laptop and assuming I was really smart because I was using a computer.

————
I’ve started having a recurring dream where I’m pouring milk into a bowl of cereal and the milk has gone bad. The dream is in color and I very clearly see the chunks of curdled milk falling into my cereal. And then for unfathomable reasons, I proceed to scoop a spoon full of cereal and curdled milk and prepare to eat it, but I always wake up right before it gets to my mouth. Like the culinary equivalent of the “falling” dream.

———–
I was in a coffee shop in an “emerging neighborhood” this afternoon, and its one of those real trendy, neighborhood coffee shops where everyone talks to each other and you share tables with people you don’t know and its all very friendly and nice. I don’t go there very often. But today I was in this back room that is set up like a living room and has a TV and this young woman walked in and didn’t do the normal hesitation at the door before deciding to share the coach with me (this is perhaps the one area of the coffee shop that is less community oriented b/c it’s couches and chairs and low tables instead of the normal tables and chairs). But so she just walks in with her head down, doesn’t so much as glance up at me as she walks in. It was as if she knew I was in there and had decided to pretend I wasn’t, which is impossible b/c you can’t see who is in this room until you’re inside it. She sits down next to me, and I make a show of cleaning up detritus which has drifted beyond my immediate space. Normal response is to smile acknowledgement, or in this coffee shop to say something like “oh don’t worry about,” or “You’re fine. Really.” From her, nothing. So she gets on her computer and apparently checks her email and the next thing I know she’s on her cell phone. Its a small room. I admit that cell phone/coffee shop etiquette is a little unclear, but generally you don’t get on the phone when you are sitting 2 feet from a stranger. And if you do have to be on the phone, its usually a short, impersonal conversation. Not her. She was calling her mom to tell her that she was just hired to do the illustrations for a dress designer’s book. She’s excited. Really excited. Just so…excited. Really. And she wants mom to tell dad that she CAN make a living as an artist. (Although later in the conversation it comes out that she’s going to make about $8-10/hr, so “making a living” might be overstating it.) I then find out that she doesn’t have a key for her mailbox at her new apartment yet, and they returned her rent check because she paid too early. Also, she was reading a book about how to manifest your dreams (which mom had given her for christmas last year) and she was practicing some of the techniques today and then got the email that she was hired, and so it seems like the book is working. And really,  she’s just so excited they were willing to hire her. At this point I almost feel obligated to congratulate her on the job because I feel very close to her. And her mom. She eventually hangs up, and a few minutes later i see a mouse run across the corner of the room and I jump and look to her to see if she’s seen it, but she hasn’t, and thats when I really start to resent her standoffishness. I debate saying something about the mouse, just for the moral support, but there is a wall up between us now, and I’m a little angry about it. 

Then three women come in and pause in the doorway when they see us (normal reaction), then they back out into the hallway and begin to loudly complain about how there are people in the room where they normally have their bookclub (the room wasn’t reserved). One of the women suggest they go upstairs, and another says “there are a few people up there too.” So then someone suggests they get their coffee and food and wait for the rest of the members and maybe someone will leave and there will be space. Then another says “Or we could do the thing where we just stand where we want to be and be really loud until they leave.” After some laughter, it appears that this is the approach they have adopted, and our little room is their target area. I remember why I hate people, and since I was planning to leave in 10 minutes anyway, decide to pack up and leave right then. I know that they will easily overpower my roommate, but then I wonder if her wall of distance might be able to withstand their book club entitlement. Part of me wants to stay and see. But I don’t.

———————-
I’ve joined a “Biggest Loser Home Version” contest. A group of 20 or so friends and friends of friends compete with each other to see who can lose the most weight between Jan 1 and June 1. Its a $50 buy in, and so the winner could walk away with $1000. Right nowI’m at the lowest weight I’ve been at in at least a year. I still have more weight to lose, but there is still 3 weeks until the contest officially starts and any weight I lose between now and then doesn’t count. And so I feel like its actually a smart move to be eating a Cake Love cupcake at almost midnight because it increase my chances of winning the $1000 on June 1. That’s my theory anyway. By the way, the cupcake is peanut butter on chocolate (PB icing on chocolate cupcake), it’s a new flavor for me, I usually go for raspberry on chocolate. But this is very very good. Just FYI.

—————–
I’m mostly over Army Guy. I’m noticing other guys, (ok, so I never really stopped doing that) but I don’t think I’m ready to try dating anyone in a serious way. Just the thought makes me want to run screaming from all eligible men (the two that I know at the moment). But I think I could handle a friends with benefits arrangement. I actually think it could be therapeutic. I think it could be the final step in my healing. I think sometimes its called a “rebound guy”. Whatever you call it, I think that’s what I want. I had a lovely FwB relationship last year, but he moved out of state. A really good FwB is hard to find. It really does help if there is a real friendship there on some level. Not a super deep socially entwined friendship, but an ability to carry on a conversation and enjoy each other’s company for at least a few hours. Otherwise its just a straight up booty call. Which is fine too, I’m not judging, I’ve had that. But I find that the presence of a genuine affection, or at least enjoyment of the other person, as a person, makes the benefits part better (this is predicated on the idea that the benefits are good. No amount of friendship will carry someone without some skills. That kind of sacrifice should only be made for an actual relationship). So in summary, I’d like to get a new FwB. And I think I’m going to put some energy into setting that up.

—————–
I think its way past my bed time and i’m getting punchy. Kinda punch drunk, if you will. Perhaps too much sugar at such a late hour. I think i will take myself to bed now. Maybe my milk dream will involve cake tonight instead of cereal.

Peace out, yo.

 

A Random Thought About Friendship

I’m reading this book called The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst. Its about a man who looses his wife when she falls out of an apple tree in the backyard while he’s at work and the only witness is their dog. Her death is ruled an accident, not suicide, despite the fact that there is no explanation for why she was in the tree in the first place. Her husband is a linguistics professor named Paul, and he decides that he’s going to teach the dog to talk so that he can find out what actually happened.

Paul takes a leave of absence from his teaching position to focus all of his effort on this project of teaching his dog to talk. All of his colleagues ridicule him with the exception of his closest friend, another linguistics professor, who instead questions his sanity.

I’m a little over half way through the book, and a story is slowly unraveling that reveals his wife to be  dark and emotionally complicated, and Paulto be intensely devoted to her and deeply in love with her. He spends the better part of every day working with the dog to achieve communication, but is making little progress.

At one point his best friend comes over with his wife to do a kind of intervention. The wife cleans the house and opens drapes and puts food in the freezer etc, as the two men talk. The best friend asks Paul what he’s hoping to accomplish with his “research.” Paul eventually confesses to all of these “clues” he’s found since his wife’s death that reveal that all was not as he thought it was in the days/hours leading up to her death. He tells his friend that the dog is the only witness, the only one who can really know what happened on that morning that put his wife into that tree, and so he has to find a way to get the story out of the dog.

In response the friend suggests that Paul seek professional counceling. And this is when I had my random thought about friendship: A true friend would get down on the floor next to Paul and help him try to get the dog to talk.

Obviously the likelyhood that the dog is going to talk is slim, to say the least. But just as obvious is the fact that this is the way that Paul is choosing to process his grief, to understand the sudden loss of his wife. How can his friend, if truly his friend, not understand this and not help? Because that is exactly what I would do, and what I think my best friends would do for me.

(I also feel the need to mention that this is a beautifully written book and I highly recommend it.)

 

Mimes

I promised my friend Pam that I would write a blog about mimes. And since she’s probably my most loyal reader, I didn’t feel I could refuse.

But its not just a random blog about mimes – its about these mimes that came to church.

I attend a Unitarian Universalist congregation, which is barely church, or a religion in the traditional sense of the word. There’s no God ,no use of the bible, except as metaphor, no hugging or forced interaction (also called community) that occurs at “normal” churches.  The primary reason I go is to hear the sermons by the minister – an amazing woman whose sermons are more philosophy than theology. In fact, if i know in advance (via their website) that she isn’t performing the sermon for whatever reason, I’m likely to skip the entire service.

UU services are my time for peace, for self reflection and for catching up with my friend JT who goes with me most weeks. So two weeks ago, we walk in and notice that the the dais that the minister usually stands behind is gone, and there is this big blue backdrop set up with the name of another UU congregation and followed by the words “mime troupe”.

“Mime troupe?!” I said turning to JT.

“The website didn’t say anything about mimes!” she says. “Are you going to freak out?” She’s referring to my phobia of people in costumes. Its a pretty severe phobia.

“I think I’ll be ok, but lets make sure we sit in the middle of a row,” I tell her.

Once seated in the dead center of a row we look at the program and see that the mimes will be taking most of the service and there is NO sermon by the minister. “Oh great,” I moan softly.

“I swear, there was nothing about mimes on the website!” JT says again.

Since we had little other choice we settle in and wait for the service to start. The beginning is normal, and then these musicians (who came with the mimes) start to play and suddenly there are mimes coming down the aisles of the sanctuary. Full-on mimes, with the black clothes and white faces, except they are all teenagers, which was a surprise. They seem to be pantomiming something about meeting new people, or walking together…for example a solitary mime will be walking by herself and she will turn, notice another mime a few steps back and pantomime for him/her to walk with her. There is much silent excitement every time a new group forms.

Eventually the whole herd of them make it to the stage at the front of the sanctuary and begin a…show? Is that what its called? I don’t know. At this point I’m just very distracted by the fact that these are teenagers. I’m looking at the three boys in the group and I’m thinking that they cannot be very popular at school. This makes me a little bit sad, but unless things are drastically different than when I was in high school, these guys are not hanging with the cool crowd. Which is probably why they joined the mime troupe in the first place. Which probably didn’t help with the fitting in, and I sigh at the vicious cycle of teenage social circles.

A narrator is speaking and I admonish myself to pay better attention. The narration is more poetry than prose and so its not immediately obvious what they are trying to teach us. I focus on the mimes and try to interpret their message.

Ok, the narration had something to do with negative self talk. There are two girl mimes facing the crowd who seem to be acting out painting on big easels. They stop and from behind the girl on the left comes another little mime to pantomimes disapproval of the painting, and the painter mime slowly looks defeated. Then from behind the other mime comes one of the boy mimes who pantomimes pleasure and approval at the painting, and the painter mime visably brightens. So…I’m assuming the critic mimes were meant to represent self-talk? And how it can either build you up or knock you down? I’m wondering if anyone one else is having trouble figuring out exactly what the message is.

The mimes and their shadows now seem to be going through the exercise with cooking, and then… trying on clothes…I think. I’m again distracted, and a little irritated at how much trouble i’m having interpreting all of this. I’m also getting a little bored. I think the message was delivered by the painting scene…whatever the message in fact was.

Suddenly there is singing, and a woman I didn’t notice before is standing next to the musicians and she’s singing a song about being just like her mother. I look at the stage and the mimes are acting out the song, which seems to be about a mother who was mean and critical and boring (I’m interpreting here), and then her daughter grows up to be the same way, and (I think) realizes and is afraid that now her daughter will be the same way. Or something. Its really NOT very clear, and I’m now fully bored and frustrated. I’m a fairly creative person. I understand (most) art, and metaphor and all of that, but I’m just not getting the whole mime thing.

Plus its kind of a downer. UU services are usually uplifting and positive. These mimes are killing my UU buzz. I go back to thinking about what kind of social life these kids have at school. The girls are probably ok, but those boys…. I’m suddenly struck by an intense hope that they can get some action with the girls in the troupe, because I don’t think they’re going to have much luck with other girls. Especially if those girls know they are in a mime troupe. I’m just saying. And then I have a thought that cheers me up: maybe the boys don’t want to date girls. Maybe they want to date boys. And if that’s the case then a mime troupe is actually a good place for them to be.

Ok, refocus on the mimes. They are trying to tell me something…after a few minutes I again lose interest in interpreting their actions and begin to wonder if they will do the classic trapped in a box routine. Probably not, its probably such a cliché that its forbidden from modern mime troupes. And then I wonder why there are mime troupes in modern times.

OH – they are leaving the stage! Maybe the mime part is done. The minister is back in front and saying something about the collection plate. The visiting mime musicians are going to play music while we pass the plate. I look at my program and see that the mimes will be back up as soon as the collection is done. Damn.

As they file back up on stage the narrator starts to talk about something having to do with standing up to peer pressure, or not letting other people pick your friends…or something. Why can’t I understand what’s going on? I wonder if i’m having a minor stroke. Or if I got drunk this morning without noticing, because my brain cannot input any of the information these people are trying to feed me.

I straighten up in my seat and stare at the stage, determined to get this one. We have a group of girls, talking, giggling, and a boy walks up to one of the girls, and she smiles and makes a show of introducing him to the group. OK so far. The girls seem to accept him, but then…I don’t know, somehow now he’s standing with his back to them and his head down, and the girls are making motions like baseball umpires signaling the runner is “not safe!” Seriously, am I having seizures or something? How did i miss that transition? I’m totally lost. Again.

Now there is a line of girls in front of the girl who introduced the guy, and the guy is behind another line and they are facing each other, trying to see each other around the “wall”, and…OH! they’re trapped in a box! They’re doing the classic trapped in a box!! I’m so excited I’m bouncing in my seat causing JT to give me a look.

“They’re doing the wall move! Don’t you love it?!” I whisper. She laughs.

Refocus. Now they are trying to take the wall apart, brick by brick, but it seems as if a new brick grows right where they removed the last brick. No progress is being made and I’m bored again. I start trying to work backward toward the meaning. OK, they are UU mimes. They are probably trying to teach lessons from the UU theology. Except UU’s don’t really have a theology. We have principals, but they are vague – be good to each other, community is good, live for now not for the afterlife, etc. OK, so I don’t actually know that much about UU principals, but I’m pretty sure there’s nothing about walls of regenerating bricks.

I start thinking about all the things I could have done this morning if i hadn’t come here. And then I feel bad because in the almost 2 years I’ve been attending services at UU I’ve never thought it was a waste of time. Its these damn mimes. See, that old saying is really true “Nothing good can come from mimes.” Or maybe that’s just something I’ve always said.

At any rate, they seem to be done with their “skit” and now are forming a line and holding hands. And the chain of hand holding goes down to the musicians and the singer and the narrator, and now the narrator is holding her hand out to one of the congregants. JT and I shoot panicked looks at each other. Don’t they know? We don’t do that here. We aren’t those kind of people. 

The congregant who had the misfortune of sitting next to the narrator is also looking panicked, staring at her hand as if he’s never seen anything like it before. Slowly, I watch as his hand comes out to take hers and he turns to the woman next to him, who i assume is his wife and holds his other hand out to her. She takes it, but refuses to move her other hand from her purse on her lap. Her face is a mix of disdain and defiance as she looks at the narrator. The entire room seems to stand still for a moment – the mime troupe confused that their hand holding chain has stopped, the congregants praying it will stay stopped. No one seems to know what to do.

Finally the minister steps forward and thanks them for coming and they drop hands and the musicians start to play and the mimes start to go down the aisles shaking hands with the people on the aisles.

JT looks at me to see if i’m going to freak out that they are close to us. I tell her I’m fine but say “But this is why we always sit in the middle of a row. You never know what will happen if you’re on the aisle.”

We stand and being to make our way down the row toward the aisle. ”I swear, there was NOTHING on the website about mimes!” She says as we make our way out the side door. Normally we would go out the front door, passing by the minister and thanking her for the sermon. But we have nothing to thank her for on this morning. We escape via the side door and make to the parking lot without encountering mimes, and i consider that to be the second best part of the day. The first being when they did the trapped in a box routine.

 

Overheard

I’ve been out of the coffee shop circuit for a while (the spontaneous crying made it difficult to be in public), but this morning I’ve set myself up at a different coffee shop than usual, and I’m remembering what’s so awesome about coffee shops: eavesdropping on other peoples lives.

So there is this guy down the row from me on the phone with someone who I’m assuming his is girlfriend/wife. Her name is either Tara or Terri. She called him, and he starts out by saying “I’m on the way home from the doctor and stopped off for some coffee”, so right away I’m listening closer b/c Dr stories are usually good. A few minutes go by and he’s speaking softly and I can’t hear that well and so I tune him out until I hear “decide if i’m going to get a prosthetic” and I’m back. He says something about even if he gets a prosthetic his gate will still be off, so I’m trying to see his legs, but can’t with the way he’s sitting.

So he’s telling Tara/Terri what the doctor said and all of a sudden he starts saying “will you stop yelling in my ear. Would you just stop and let me tell you what the doctor said?! Just stop, just stop, if you would just stop, I can tell you what he said….he didn’t say I shouldn’t get a prosthetic, he said I should consider the options…. STOP yelling in my ear. Stop being so emotional, you aren’t listening.”

And it goes on like that for a few more minutes. Then he says “You aren’t helping me, I’m trying to figure this out, and you’re just yelling in my ear. I’m going to hang up now…. because,  you’re just yelling in my ear. I’m TRYING to tell you what he said, but you’re just yelling in my ear.”

A few more minutes go by with him giving small pieces of new information broken up by “Stop yelling in my ear. Why are you yelling in my ear?” and then he says “Stop being an idiot. You don’t understand anything, why are you trying to tell me what to do when you are an idiot and you aren’t even listening to me?”

Up until this point, I was feeling bad for him, now I feel a bad for her – she may in fact BE an idiot, but she doesn’t deserve to be called that by her partner. They go around a few more times and then he hangs up his phone. 2 seconds later it rings and he answers and he says “I don’t want to have this conversation, you’re an idiot, and you just keep yelling in my ear…I know this effects you too. I know you’re the one helping me and that you’re in this too, but not really. All you do is talk on the phone, drink beer and smoke cigarettes. Now, when I’m trying to talk to you about a choice i have to make, you just keep yelling in my ear and being an idiot.” Then a few minutes go by with her talking and he says “See, right now, you’re better. You can turn it off…. You CAN turn it off.” Few more minutes of her talking, then he says “ok, so he’s saying that while I have pain now, its not that bad, and it could be worse if i have the amputation…. NO, you idiot! It can be worse! I’m not rolling on the ground in pain, i’m not crying out in the middle of night, I’m not unable to function.”

She talks for a few minutes, then “I guess you’re just annoying me right now. I guess that’s just the problem. You’re just really annoying.” 

She talks, then “I would like to be able to walk into the house later and not have you jump all over me, not have you want to rehash all of this. I would like for you to not be an idiot and just be able to talk about this.”

Silence for a few minutes and then I notice that he’s hung up the phone and picked up his book and is calmly reading.

Through the whole conversation he hardly got emotional, everything was just a statement. 

Stories like that remind me why I’m ok being single. Because I could get a guy like that, if all I wanted was to have a man. But I’ll pass. Because I’m not an idiot.

 

Some Updates

Update to “Rules” post: This update will not surprise many people, but I’m a little bit insane. My freak out about not hearing back from the latest E-harmony guy was…over blown I think. Because he emailed me on sunday afternoon with a very valid excuse and appropriate amount of apologies. But at the same time, I don’t necessarily retract anything I said, because all my thoughts/points on rules in society and with regard to dating are still valid. I just wanted to acknowledge for the record that what sparked the post was an overreaction to a situation.

He and I had lunch yesterday. A 3.5 hour lunch. It was awesome. We’re going out again in 2 days. I’m excited. And freaked out. I don’t really know how to process good dates… I’m sure there will be more over dramatic and nutball posts to come if this continues to progress…

Update to “Stalker”: I was at my favorite coffee shop yesterday around 5:30pm, and my little stalker buddy was there. I was sitting in the window facing the parking lot and he saw me as he was getting something out of his car and he stopped and stood looking at me through the window for a few minutes but I refused to look up, and he eventually sat down. (I also refused to open up my blog and start writing about the interaction, because I had work that HAD to get done. I’m impressed at my self-control). After a few minutes he came back to the window, and I was waiting for something load on my laptop, so I looked up and saw him, and he got really excited and started waving, and I couldn’t help it but I smiled and then immediately regretted it and bent back to my computer. So then he came inside. Because I was at the counter in the window I was in line with the door and it wasn’t hard for me to not look up. So he came in the door and stopped next to me.

Him: “HI!”

Me: mumbled version of “hey”

Him: “How ya doin? Great to see you!”

Me: not looking up from my computer, “uh huh,”

Him: stands uncertainly for a minute then “Ok. Haha, Ok. See you!”

So I definitely think he’s working the program. I was waiting for him to comment on my laptop, or to ask me if i could get stock quotes on it. If he had, work would have been abandoned for a real time blog post

Update to The Smell: I’m really starting to believe its wood rot. And I’m also starting to suspect it’s outside, not inside. We had hurricane Hannah rains on saturday, and I kept the window in my bedroom open (although I continually made sure no rain was coming in), and Sunday morning I noticed the smell, and it was intense, and yet intermittent. Later on sunday I smelled a whole different, new smell, and it too was gone in a few hours. Monday the smell was back in the early evening, but was gone again when I went to bed although during the night I occasionally had whiffs… it remains to be vexing. OH – but one upside is that the spiders that once constantly invaded my room have left and not returned since the AC unit was replaced. So the nest seems to have been in there, which is cool. Its the first time in years that I haven’t had to keep the vacuum in my bedroom so I could vacuum the spiders several times a week.

 

The Mystery Smell Lives!

I’m not sure if it’s just that the air freshner finally totally died, or if the cause of the smell was removed but has now returned…but it looks like the smell is back. The air freshner has been almost gone for a couple of weeks, and I’ve been getting little whifs of the smell, but I’ve been ignoring it b/c thinking that the smell is back makes me want to cry. I don’t know why having to face it again makes me so upset, but it does.

Right after the AC unit was replaced my landlord came back to ask if the smell was gone, and I told him that the air freshner was still working, but that I thought the smell might not be gone.

He said “But we changed the AC unit, so it has to be gone.”

I said “we changed the AC unit because we THOUGHT that’s where the smell was coming from.”

He said “But if the AC unit is gone, then the smell is gone.”

I said “Not if the smell wasn’t coming from the AC unit.”

He sighed and looked at me for a minute and said, “well lets just give it a week and see, ok?”

That was several weeks ago. I’ve had a couple of occasions where i thought I smelled the smell, but I just turned up the air freshner fan b/c as I’ve said, I can’t deal.

But the little pot of chemical air freshner is 100% empty and just now when I went into my room I got more than just a whif of the smell. 

So to recap, here is what we know:
1. Air Freshner will cover the smell.
2. It probably isn’t coming from the AC Unit

Here is what we don’t know:
What’s causing it!!

 

Community In Concert

I was at Wolftrap tonight to see Great Big Sea and Eddie From Ohio . We had seats about 4 rows from the back, so I had a good view of the whole theater. Great Big Sea is Irish folk music, and so the seating area was a mix of people who were up and dancing and people who were sitting. Those were dancing were doing so with vigor: parents were dancing in the aisles with their kids, a woman near the front was wrapped in a flag doing variations on Irish jigs,  whole sections were swaying/jumping/waving their arms together… in other words, it was a totally normal Great Big Sea experience. Including the pockets of people who chose to remain seated, and just accepted that that they would be sitting among dancing people. Generally.

2 rows in front of us was a girl – maybe 9 years old. Clearly a huge fan of GBS because she was singing and dancing her heart out. She was with another girl around her same age and several adults, presumably family members. Next to her was a slightly older woman who I decided was an aunt. This girl caught my eye early in because she was so into it. I watched her swinging her hips (such as they are on a 9year old girl) and waving her arms and I thought “this is a girl who will always be the life of the party.”

As the third or fourth song came to a close, I noticed this man stand up in front of the dancing girl, turn around, get down in her face and say “Look you little brat, if you —(inaudible) one more time, I’m going to—(inaudible – but clearly nothing nice)” I was stunned not only by what he said but by the pure anger & hate that was imprinted on his face. Dancing girl’s aunt jumped between the girl and angry man and judging from her hand gestures was telling the guy to relax/back off. Angry guy turned his attention to her, continuted yelling while pointing at dancing girl, who had become frozen in place the moment he started to yell at her. I couldn’t figure out what he was saying b/c I couldn’t really hear anymore and I couldn’t see his mouth to read his lips, but I’m sure it wasn’t any nicer. So then another woman from their group whom I decided was dancing girl’s mother got up and totally started yelling at angry guy – something to effect of she didnt’ care what dancing girl had done, he had no right to speak to dancing girl that way. He yelled back at the mother, and started alternately motioning to the girl and the ushers at the back of the seating area. Then the girl’s dad, who was not a small man, stood up. When angry guy saw him stand up he stopped yelling, but didn’t move. Dad looked at him without saying a word and then turned toward the aisle and started walking toward the ushers. Mom returned to yelling at angry guy, and another adult male who was with them stands up and looks like he’s going to get involved. Suddenly angry guy runs down his row and up the aisle as well (with his wife in tow. A long suffering wife, I have no doubt). I don’t know what happened to him after that, but my friend said that she saw him sitting in the back, so I would like to believe that he realized the crowd was going to turn on him, and decided to follow dad to appeal to the ushers. My friend says she saw him sitting in the back, so I think the ushers reseated him, taking the side of dancing girl.

As soon as angry guy is gone, the girl unfreezes and sinks into her seat, and the people behind me start yelling “keep dancing! Forget him! Keep dancing!” After a few seconds the girl gets up and moves down the row to her mom and upon reaching her sinks to her knees crying. The people sitting immediately behind mom lean forward and offer support, making dismissive gestures in the direction of where angry guy had been. After a remarkably short time the girl pulls it together and goes back to her seat. An older woman who was sitting near angry guy gets up and comes over to make sure dancing girl is ok and encourage her to keep dancing (I assume, I couldn’t read her lips very well, but she was clearly being comforting and supportive).  The aunt turns around and says to all of us in general, ”its a concert! what does he expect?” and several people voice their agreement. In the row between my row and dancing girl’s row was a family with 2 younger girls with two empty seats next to them and they invited the girl and her friend to come back to their row to dance if angry guy came back. (I also have to mention that angry guy  was sitting in the middle of a pocket of open seats. He had his choice of moving left, right or one or even 2 rows down if he really wanted to get away from the child).

And this is what really struck me about the whole thing – the way the entire section rallied around dancing girl.  Maybe it seems like a small or unremarkable occurance, but for me it was an amazing thing to watch.  I’ve become fairly misanthropic of late, and this was a moving example of humanity/community.

All of this drama took place while the band was chatting up the audience, and by the time the next song started, the girl was ready to dance again. Sort of. Her level of enthusiasm was much lower and every few minutes she would look over her shoulder and scan for the return of angry guy.

After bravely dancing through almost two songs the girl suddenly decided to take advantage of the invitation to move to the open seats behind her. The family welcomed her with smiles and arm waving and the little girls clammored to dance next to her. Within minutes the dancing girl is showing the little girls how to dance like her, and dad is taking pictures like his kids are with a rock star. By the end of Great Big Sea’s set, she had returned to her full energetic-hip shaking-arm waving-singing-along-to-every-word- form.

Angry guy I assume sat in the back refusing to enjoy the concert.