Blogorrhea Junior

I am Pigpen, Hear Me Roar

Every now and then I get this notion that I should, you know, be a little more feminine. Usually, I have to be shamed into it, by a certain type of woman. At moments like these, it has never been clearer to me that gender is a construct and I'm missing the foundation.

Mom, who was an incorrigible tomboy herself as a child (her nickname was Jimmy), used to try valiantly to send me to school in dresses. I would have none of it. In the frigid Michigan winters, she'd send me off to elementary school in a turtleneck, a jumper, and a pair of pants to keep my legs warm, which were to be removed at school, revealing tights underneath. Guess what got left in the locker?

My best friend, who is a naturally girly girl and blonde, too, and I could not have been more Mutt-and-Jeff in the girly department if we'd tried. She actually wore dresses voluntarily. (Ew!) She had an early acquaintance with nail polish and managed to have pretty, long nails despite being a pianist from the age of four. Mel finally shamed me into wearing makeup late in junior high, a practice that went mostly out the window when I discovered feminism in college, and then came in through the bathroom window again when the punk and goth looks were popular in grad school and I could wear lots of fun colors of eyeshadow all at once and safety pins in my ears. I'm now down to coverup, blush, powder, and polish on my toenails in the summer. Sometimes I go out without any makeup on at all.

But never to work. Especially now.

No, now I sit next to the ultra-girly C. who is almost a stereotype, if she were not also smart (I caught her reading Dostoyevsky the other day, for fun). C. is in her late 20s/early 30s—the next generation behind me. Her heels are never less than 3 inches. She wears skirts the majority of the time. She refreshes her makeup before going to play softball with the office team, and she was distressed to get her new sneakers dirty when playing. She is slim, dark-haired with clear olive skin, sexy as all get out, and knows how to accentuate it. I admire her show-off style. I love her shoes. I covet her jewelry.

Secretly, I hate C., the way I hated Mel in junior high, even though she was (and is) my best friend. They are always turned out so nicely, so neatly, and look so feminine. Their clothes do not wrinkle and they always look fresh. Above all, their clothes manage to stay clean all day. Imagine that.

Next to them, I am Pig Pen—the Peanuts character who walks around in a cloud of dirt. I put on a clean shirt in the morning, and by the time I get out of the subway and walk down the street to work, I have collected grease spots on the front of it, without having anything in my hands. In sandals, my feet collect enough New York City dirt to pave another street, maybe even an avenue. Somehow, I manage to smudge blue ink from a "received" stamp on a magazine cover onto my new white pants the first time I wear them. I gave up wearing mascara long ago, because it will inevitably wind up somewhere other than my eyelashes. Ditto with lipstick. One day I went to work and found my shirt somehow covered in gear grease. I suspect I collected it leaning against a subway pillar somewhere. Oh, and the gum on the back of my pantleg from the underside of a subway bench? That was not amusing either. This is why I wear so much black: because New York is dirty and the dirt here likes me.

I don't buy really nice clothes because I can't afford to wear them once and then toss them out when they're irreparably stained. This is not to say I don't clean up well. When I do wear good clothes—and I do own some, wise guys—everyone's a little shocked. Hey! She knows how to wear a dress! And lipstick! And heels! Look! She's got legs! Oh, ha ha. Very funny. But I can only pull it off, like Cinderella, for a few hours at a time. After that, my girl warranty runs out and I turn into a bumpkin.

Anyway, I've never quite managed to accustom myself to girly accouterments. I find most purses annoying and awkward. They don't stay on my shoulder and they're not comfortable strung between a pair of D-cups. And belt pouches are just ugly. But where do I put my wallet, PDA, cellphone, Kleenex and pens?

High heels? Not even if hell freezes over. We all know women's shoes are not made for stability, and despite all those ballet lessons, any crack in the sidewalk will trip me up in even small heels. The pair that sent me down the stairs head first had measly 1-inch Cuban heels. Another pair threw me to the ground because they were short but too narrow.

Pantyhose, the bane of every woman's life and product of the devil, are pretty much impossible now. My fingertips are rough enough to snag anything more delicate than tights. I don't even buy them anymore.

Side zip pants? Whose bright freakin' idea were those? That's like a side-fastening bra. Worse even than back-zip pants.

And slips. I can't tell you the last time I wore a slip, since they always ride up around my waist anyway. What's the point? If I have to wear a skirt, it's going to be opaque material, or everybody gets to see what I look like in the bottom half of a bathing suit.

Sometimes, I can't even manage the jewelry. I just bought several beautiful new strings of dyed freshwater pearls for dirt cheap. They snag and pull all the hair on my neck and they don't stay draped evenly, even if they're tripled around my neck, where they manage to choke me. Brooches fall off me within fifteen minutes of putting them on. You wouldn't believe how many I've lost. This is another item I don't buy anymore.

I was thinking the other day I wish I'd never started shaving my legs. Once you do it, you're kind of locked into it because they're too blunt and bristly to grow out. I probably couldn't haven't gotten away with it anyway, with my dark hair and pale skin, but it would have saved me the grief of shaving every day in the summer. I have a five-o'clock shadow if I don't. If stubble were fashionable for women, I would be wearing it. Another reason I wear pants so often.

Basically, I'm not built for girliness. I'm short and round, low to the ground, and though I've got a cute face and those D-cups, I ain't built for short skirts and high heels and anything below the knee makes me look like an old fashioned Italian widow. I have, in my day, played a mean game of tennis, biked 15 miles a day every summer for several years, painted way more walls than I want to think about, fixed plumbing and small engines, and cut my own bait.

So at 45, I guess it's too late to be a girly girl. I actually made this remark to C. the other day, as one of the guys I have a mild crush on wandered by. He's adorably fresh out of school and it would be worse than Demi and Ashton, but never mind. It cracked him up and that amused me. C., to her credit, got after him about it, though his response didn't bother me. I was glorying in my secret knowledge that I don't mind getting my sneakers dirty.

Tall Tales

Second night in a row I can't sleep. Tonight it seems to be because every 90 seconds or so, some butthead with with big speakers and a small dick drives by blasting bass beats with enough decibels to rattle my windows on the 7th floor. Even the Harley riders would be better; at least I could yell at them. So I'm a little cranky. It's a cool summer night and there seems to be a lot of testosterone in the air, for some reason. Maybe it's the ginkos. But that's another story.

I also finished watching "Big Fish" tonight, which was not at all what I thought it was going to be. Far from being just a goofy fantasy, it was actually a pretty poignant tale about the misunderstandings between parents and children, and how little able children are to imagine a life for their parents before their existence, to really grasp that their parents were once young. It's sad how lacking in imagination the son (Billy Crudup) is. His father is this amazing storyteller, and all he wants is facts, like Joe Friday. Not surprisingingly, he's a journalist. At one point, his father (Albert Finney) tells him, "I've been myself since the day I was born and if you can't see who I am, that's your failing, not mine," which only made me think that are parents are never who we want them to be, anymore than we're what they want us to be. A nasty recipe for mutual disappointment.

Anyway, it's a lovely movie and I'm glad I bought it. There are some sweetly whimsical moments in it, of life being even stranger than we can imagine, which it often is, if we'll only let ourselves see it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

People on my mind tonight (and just lately):

1. Paul, who's going in for minor (if it's ever minor) heart surgery soon
2. Peri, who probably needs surgery and can't afford it
3. Roger's partner Ron, who's going in on the 27th for a bowel resection arising from colon cancer
4. Cathy, who needs knee surgery and also can't afford it, especially now that she's in nursing school and her partner Betsy is unemployed
5. Dad, as usual, who's been gruxing around all week with a bladder infection
6. Mel, who's wearing herself to a frazzle taking care of her mom and running a business and two households, but still sent me a beautiful card for my birthday
7. Cousin DeeDee, who's got congestive heart failure and whom I haven't heard from in a while
8. Uncle Dave, who's not doing well either

Shit, no wonder I can't sleep.

Nel mezzo del commin di nostra vita

When I had jouneyed half of our life's way
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
for I had lost the path that does not stray.

-Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto I

Since I'm now officially halfway between childhood and senility, I thought I'd engage in an activity today that takes me back to some of the joys of childhood, which are a long way away. I did something I don't often do, which was take myself to the movies by myself. No, I did not go to see "Revenge of the Sith." I went instead to see my favorite comic book hero: Batman. It was a nice present to have "Batman Begins" with Liam Neeson open on my 45th birthday—and to actually have them finally get it right. (No spoilers in the following.)

I've sat through Adam West (abominable), Michael Keaton (nobody's superhero, and not bad enough to be a playboy) and Val Kilmer (too spoiled and pouty to be dangerous), but they've finally gotten it right in Christian Bale. I'm not a big fan of Christian Bale, but he's perfect for this role: self-absorbed, earnest, tormented, he plays beautifully both the spoiled, obnoxious, filthy rich playboy and the straddling-the-psycho-line, almost-vigilante with a good soul. He wants to be thought of as a good person, as Bruce Wayne, and it's clear that it kills him to be thought such a lightweight asshole, even though he does it so well. There's not much sense that he enjoys anything but the toys he gets to play with as Batman. The actual work is just a nasty job he feels he has to do. You want to like him, but he keeps pushing you away. It was a bit like watching Frank Miller's Dark Knight come to life.

The rest of the cast, barring the female lead (Katie Holmes, who's okay, but frankly can't hold her own here), is stellar. Rutger Hauer is subtly slimy and condescending as the CEO of Wayne enterprises. Michael Caine is a lovely Alfred, game for whatever Master Bruce dreams up and infinitely helpful. Gary Oldman is a subdued and decent pre-commish James Gordon. Morgan Freeman makes a wonderfully dignified and smart Lucius Fox, head of Wayne's high-tech R&D branch. Ken Watanabe is as compelling in this as he was in "The Last Samurai." And Cillian Murphy is creepy as hell as the head of Arkham Asylum.

The sets are a fabulous combination of "Blade Runner" and "Dark City," a sort of futuristic noir. Gotham is a character in this movie as much as the ones who speak. Oddly enough, this is one of the things that really clinched it for me. Gotham is seamy, poverty-ridden in the way of third-world slums (more ramshackle even than New York in its worst days), and yet magnificent. It's everything Henri Ducard says it is: an example of a civilization at the peak of decadence. And Bruce Wayne loves it as passionately as though it were a person. There are echoes of Lot plea to God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah in Bruce's plea to Neeson's character to just give him more time to save Gotham because "there are still some good people here." It's clear he loves his city, despite the fact that it killed his parents.

Picky things: I wish Alfred (Michael Caine) had not had a Cockney accent. The action was a bit muddy in places and should have been shot from a wider angle. I fail to believe that 5'11" 185 lb. Christian Bale could possibly support the dead weight of 6'4" 230 lb. Liam Neeson hanging over a cliff, let alone pull him up with one hand, without dislocating his arm.

And Liam? What could be hotter than Qui-Gon Jinn gone bad, in black leather body armor?

So what's with the Dante quotations? Dante and Batman? Ah, more similar than you might think, at first glance, which is one of the beauties of Batman's complex character. But I'll let you suss those out. Mostly it's a phrase that's been rolling around my head for the last couple of days and seems kind of appropos at the moment, to my own life. I suppose this is the time of life when a lot of people think about where they are in the dark wood. No different here. Paul called today to wish me happy birthday and confessed to having more trouble with the 5's than with the 0's. I don't know why, but that's true. Maybe because you've got a whole decade ahead of you at the 0's and only half that at the 5's. Hmm. I'm sure we'll discuss this over margaritas next week.

Free Publicity

I really have to get off my butt and get my novel revision done and get the thing sent out again. No less than two people I know who are about my age have got books coming out or are just out. There's my friend Jennifer's two books: Black Bodies and Quantum Cats: Tales from the Annals of Physics; A history of physics for armchair scientists and other curious readers coming in October 2005 from Penguin, and the book she's working on now, The Physics of the Buffyverse, due in 2006 also from Penguin. Then, while beating the heat in Sheds and Commoner tonight, I ran across A Memoir, Piano Girl: Lessons in Life, Music, and the Perfect Blue Hawaiian from Robin Meloy Goldsby. At this point, Robin is more of a lost acquaintance than a friend, but we went to school together at Chatham College, though she graduated before I did. She was also a friend of my friend Adrienne, whom I also met at Chatham, and the daughter of a woman who lived next door to my Aunt Betty in Pittsburgh, who introduced us. When I went up to Chatham for a recruitment weekend, Robin looked me up to say hello, so I have a soft spot in my heart for her. She was always a very warm person, and very talented.

It's a little weird running into books by someone you know. Several years ago, I ran across a book by Lev Raphael, who'd been in the graduate program at Michigan State while I'd been there. And a couple of years before that, another friend from MSU sent me Gordon Henry's book, The Light People (which is a beautiful novel; I always loved Gordon's writing when we were in Diane Wakoski's poetry workshops together). I wasn't exactly jealous, because I knew I really didn't have a story to tell yet as much as I knew I would eventually, but it was disturbing somehow, as well as exciting to see someone I knew get themselves into print. Anway, I'm looking forward to reading Robin's book now.

And finishing my own.  Nothing like a little competition to light the fire.

Spot the Native New Yorker

True story from my friend Laurie, who works at a private boys school on the Upper East Side:

This past Thursday was the closing luncheon for our faculty. The theme was a Hawaiian Luau, and it was very festive, complete with straw huts, floral leis, a tikki bar, etc. The menu was equally exotic—and very much in keeping with the theme.

As the afternoon wore on, people slowly started to leave. Two members of the faculty report this uniquely NYC moment.

As they were walking up Madison Avenue, they saw a taxi. They had been planning on walking, but one teacher announced to the other that they had to take the cab, because "everybody knows the NY rule": if you see an available cab—you take it—period. As the car pulled over, two women stepped out, apparently a mother and her teenage daughter. They were dressed simply; jeans, white tee shirts, pearls, and headbands. The same member of the faculty who insisted on the cab, pointed out to her friend that you can "always tell a native New Yorker from a visitor—here, I'll prove it." As the mother and daughter got out of the cab, she said very cheerfully and politely, "You two aren't from New York, are you?" The two replied equally cheerfully, that no, they were from Texas. My friends wished them a good day, and told them that they hoped they would enjoy their visit. The older woman asked my friends how they knew these two were not from the city. "We just knew," one replied, "we don't mean it at all judgmentally." The two smiled and went on their way.

As my friends got in the cab, they looked at each other, and burst out laughing. These two native New Yorkers, who were clearly recognized as such and also identified the visitors in jeans and tee shirts, were wearing . . . Hawaiian tees, shorts, straw hats, sandals, and leis!

My guess it was the t-shirt and pearls combo that gave them away. I myself have never followed the NY rule about cabs, which are inevitably available only when one doesn't want them, at least in my case.

I sent this on to Rob, who's now teaching in Guam where what he calls "go-to-hell" Hawaiian shirts are de rigeur for the smart, up-and-coming young prof, and students too. I wonder what he'll make of it. Of course, New York is a town where one regularly sees people walking around in costume even when it's not Halloween—but not in pearls and a T-shirt.

Accidental Tourist

Or, the Aborted Rescue Mission

My, what an interesting day it's been: "interesting" in the way of Chinese curses, that is.  Anne Sattler, the woman from Oregon who's kid, Alice, got caught up in the Republican National Convention protests back in September, reappeared in the city this week to both have some surgery and meet with her lawyer, who's making her part of the class action suit against the city. Turns out she's the perfect representative: she was a minor, held without being charged for more than 24 hours without access to a lawyer. So she takes the bus down from, uh, Vermont or someplace where she's been doing wilderness EMT training, after spending six months in Mexico at a group house, rolls into Port Authority and promptly gets mugged. Poor Anne calls me, frantic, and wonders if I can meet her and lend her some money and perhaps help her get a plane ticket home. No problem, I tell her.

Ha!

After a couple of back and forth phone calls establishing her whereabouts, I pop out and go to the bank, intending to get on the train to 116th Street and walk over to the hostel on West 113th Street. After getting the money, I realize I've forgotten my PDA, which I'm going to need to find a nearby cafe to get the kid some food, and possibly to find an internet cafe where we can log on and she can buy a plane ticket with her parents' credit card numbers. Run back to the apartment, grab PDA, say hello to next door neighbors moving out (wonder if they'd be interested in selling the air conditioner, since they're going back to India; and who knew I was living next to a Bollywood movie star?), run back to train station, get on the train. Ah, I settle in for a little Vindigo research, a little more reading of my latest e-book, Bangkok Tattoo.

At the next station, St. Lawrence, we come to a premature grinding halt. A girl has fallen, been pushed, or jumped under the train, right under our car, apparently. I'm horrified, but also annoyed, in the way of New York commuters. Why my train? Why not the next one? If only I hadn't gone back for my PDA.

If I'd been thinking, I'd have gotten off the train, walked back to Parkchester and gotten a car service from the group always hanging around the station. But no, I go the other way up to Morrison/Soundview figuring I'll find one on the way.

Uh, no. Duh!

I try to take the train back to Parkchester. No trains either way, now. I collect a transfer, get on the bus, and by the time I get back to the Parkchester station, the trains, miraculously, are running again. Go figure. There were half a dozen emergency services vehicles of various kinds there, including a ladder truck, so I'd say they managed to get her out pretty quickly, considering. Nothing on the news about it tonight, strangely enough. All in all, I spent about an hour running around my neighborhood, trying to get out of it, enjoying the quintessential "you can't get there from here" experience. I did enjoy the little exploration though, and I walked by Fine Fare, which looks like a halfway decent grocery store, at least from the outside. When the weather's nicer, I might take a jaunt down there. Especially since there's a bus.

116th Street is only about 20 minutes away, but the walk over to the hostel is about a mile. Halfway there, I check my messages and discover Alice, resourceful girl that she is, has sat herself down on the sidewalk with her backpack, an apparently innocent face, and a sign: "Just got mugged. Trying to get home" and collected about $40 in loose change, gotten herself a plane ticket, and is heading out to JFK on her own. Screw New York. I have to admire her initiative, but now what? I decide I might as well see if she's actually left the hostel and then carry on from there.

No Alice at the hostel, just some backpacking college kids and Japanese tourists. I call Anne, who's heard from the kid at Kennedy, where she paid off the laughing taxi driver with quarters, got some food and washed up in the loo, and is on her way home, having fortunately kept hold of her passport.

Harlem was interesting. The area's slowly, well, not exactly gentrifying, but getting some decent shops and amenities, thanks to Bill Clinton and Mayor Mike, I suspect, in part. It's full of nice old buildings sadly gone to seed, and some very pretty parks, including Morningside Park, which astonished me. I walked in off the street and found this:

This fall is about 20 feet high and empties into a nice little pea-green pond, full of wildlife, of which there are more pics over at Flee's New York. So I walked around the park a bit, watched the cormorant (which some dorky tourists from California assured the New York natives was called a "corrigan" and there were lots of them in California. Never mind.) diving and swallowing fishies, took pictures of the turtles and Canada goose and enormous, dignified, white egret.

Then I walked up the stairs from hell to Morningside Drive and over to St. John the Divine. This was, sadly, so dark inside that I reflexively reached to take my sunglasses off when I went in. I decided I was too footsore, after walking about two miles, to walk much more, and found a Starbucks and then headed home.

There went five hours of my day. I got home just in time to take a shower, call Dad, and watch a thunderstorm roll in. Now I'm off to watch "House of Flying Daggers."