What a Weirdo

Five weird things I did when I was a kid:

1) I tried to flush my sister down the toilet. My sister is three years older than I am and I was about 2 at the time. I can neither confirm nor deny the intent, since I was in the blissful pre-memory stage of life, toddling around on chubby thighs like crispy brown pupa. I only know what my mother says she walked in on after hearing my sister screaming bloody murder in the bathroom: a pint sized me holding my sister down on the toilet by the shoulder while trying to simultaneously reach for the flusher by standing on my tip toes. This tale has become the stuff of family legend.

2) I was notorious for going to the doctor who not only a) had a coca cola machine in the lobby that dispensed glass bottles of soda...SODA....to his patients but b) also gave out lollipops to the kids after their exam, and asking for an "extra" lollipop to "give to my sister". I would then proceed to shove both lollipops in my chubby face before reaching the lobby again. This falls into a blurry category which could be "weird stuff I did when I was a kid" OR "mean stuff I did when I was a kid." You make the call about which is which.

3) I begged my parents to let me see "Dragnet: the Movie" in the theater by myself. What on earth I could possibly have seen or read or heard about this film that made me think it was in any way interesting is utterly beyond me. I haven't seen the film since that one time but I'm reasonably certain it involved two middle aged white men police officers trying to solve a crime involving a Satanic cult-like group kidnapping some rich lady. Or maybe it was jewels. I can't say for certain. I only have a vivid memory of escaping the Louisiana heat by sitting in the theater alone and eating my favorite snack on the face of the earth: movie popcorn that I bought myself. There have been few instances since that afternoon that mean utter bliss for me. Just always know that I'd rather be alone at the movies, eating popcorn with abandon. Or reading a book. Anyway, I guess I must have liked the stupid movie or maybe it was just that I got to go alone for the first time.

4) I was SUPER duper maxi extreme ultra into Handel. Yes, this Handel:

I started to learn the flute around the age of 11 and it came quite easily for me so I threw myself into it completely. The highlights of my time spent in an otherwise very lonely and ostracizing school in the deep south as a visibly obvious minority, overweight girl were all spent learning how to play classical pieces for the flute. As a result, and as is my nature, I read everything I could find and listened to everything at my disposal (remember how I'm old? That wasn't much) about my favorite composers, Mozart and Handel and in particular The Messiah and Music for the Royal Fireworks and Water Music which was. my. jam. I still, to this very day, have the cassette recording that I wore out when I was 12 because, that's totally normal. To be crushing really hard on a bulbous, old white guy who had been dead for hundreds of years. Since then, I've studied music as an undergrad in college and my tastes leaned more toward the Romantics and replaced my affection for Handel and Mozart with Brahms and Rachmaninoff. Yet I cannot hear that bombastic, rococo symphony of sound without welling up, not so much for the music, but rather for that awkward little girl in the coke bottle glasses alone in her room.

5) I had an obsession with Consumer Reports. In the 80s, the consumer advice magazine Consumer Reports (it still exists today and people still swear by it today, including me...I have bought my cars and assorted other big ticket items based on its recommendations) had a TV show that aired on HBO. My memory on the format is fuzzy since I was around 7 or 8 when I was really into it but I'm pretty sure the episodes were around 30 min each and focused on a theme like, washer and dryers or televisions or cars. What I know for certain is that this program used dramatizations to demonstrate....I have no recollection. I just know that something utterly fascinated me about these dramatizations. I remember there was one during the episode which must have been about hair dryers, and they were cautioning against using hair dryers near water. (Older people: was this some kind of epidemic in the 80s? People getting electrocuted by their hair dryers??) And the dramatization showed only the feet of a man getting out of his way too full bathtub, not even drying himself and immediately beginning to blow dry his hair while standing in a puddle of his own body's bathwater drops. The bathroom, or my memory of it, was in almost complete darkness. The drama ended with a big pop and electric flashes and the man's feet collapsing to the floor. I remember the terror with which I then eyed my mother's hair dryer and told her that "Consumer Reports says you shouldn't dry your hair if you are too wet." Apparently my family was used to this obsession because I would advise them on all the products I learned about on Consumer Reports. I mean that's totally normal, right? For an elementary school child to be obsessed with consumer products and their rating systems?

Oh I found a segment from one of the episodes. Not the one I described above but this is the kind of shit I couldn't miss when it was on.

I told you I was weird.

Voicelessness

Ok, so I missed a few days. If it is of any comfort to the overachieving future me, when I happen to look back on these days as an old woman, I'll take this post to remind myself of how shitty the days in question were. Because they were shitty, in ways both inconsequential and profound. And how I can't even physically talk about any of it.

Let's dispense with inconsequential business. I'm sick. The kind of sick that sounds (or doesn't sound) a lot worse than it really is: laryngitis. And it is accompanied by a hacking cough. My voice all but disappeared two days ago, making my already fervent internal dialogue border on manic.I have just been walking around without my voice and suddenly I have a million things to say.

 I have learned a bit about communication the last few days: you can absolutely set the tone of every single interaction you have with people by using the timbre and tone of your voice, and manipulating your body language. People will respond to you in an almost subconscious, mirroring way. For example, every interaction I had with a stranger where I had to use my voice, I started out with an apologetic whisper, shrinking into myself while also leaning forward to appear as un-weird and defenseless as possible, "I'm sorry I'm whispering but I have laryngitis." And every single person responded with sympathy and their own whispering. That cracked me up every time. "Oh, I'm sorry. How can I help you?"was the general, hushed response. It made me smile that by and large, people are willing to help someone who is even slightly at a disadvantage. Also, I suppose this is because I was apologetic in my mannerisms too, and close talking so people could hear me, everyone was super nice. Perhaps there is something to this. Probably not.

I've had to be out sick from work for two days and I go back tomorrow. My voice is still not better but, being the newbie, I have no sick days. Library patrons will just have to be as understanding as the sales clerks I encountered the past few days or I'll whisper so hard at them, they'll think they were in a library.

And now for the profound. I received word over the weekend that a friend from high school died. She was my age, married to a sweet man and leaves behind two small children. I will say that she was part of my social circle, though we were not close friends. I saw her most recently about three or four months ago at the first communion party of a mutual friend. She seemed herself and was getting in shape and doting on her children, planning for their (and her) future. But you make a plan and apparently god not only laughs, but he shits all over it. She suffered a stroke a few weeks ago and was on her way to recovery but took a turn for the worse and passed away at the hospital.

I went with my voicelessness to the wake last night, which is just as well. There is nothing to say. Like so many people we all know, our lives ran parallel in high school and the few years that followed. She became a wife and mother and we got together every now and then but she seemed like one of those people who lucked out in love and family and I liked to know that she was there, doing the things that families do together, the kind of goodness that, once lost, just leaves in its wake this vague feeling of dread.

I don't want to be cynical; her good humor and optimism would not have appreciated that. From the sheer amount of people that attended her wake last night (and likely again tonight) it was clear that she was loved and will be missed. Can any of us expect anything more than that?

So that encapsulates what has been happening the past few days I've been MIA from BEDO. I lost another person from my life (2015 has been a banner year in that department) and I'd love if we could make it to December with a long beat of nothing sad or terrible happening. I'd love to pink cloud my way through the next few weeks and deal with autumn as a time when nothing is dying but rather preparing for rest and renewal. Renewal is the word I'd love to see etched, graffitied, stitched and tattooed on every surface I can see and in the eyes of every person.

Here's one of my favorite songs of all time which for some odd reason has popped into my head so many times over the last few days. And now it can get stuck in your head too. I wish we could sit around and listen to it together.

Ignoring Superfoxes

Whenever I do these blog every day blah blah blahs, I inevitably check the online blog I kept starting in 2002. I used to blog every day over there without even really thinking about it. I've always kept a journal but I'm really quite glad I kept an online one for so long during most of my 20s because I can conjure up a memory that is easily searchable. This is in contrast to the journals I kept pre-computer (I am that old) when I generally sit on the floor, surrounded by a bunch of marble and spiral notebooks filled with horrendous handwriting and dumb adolescence. The journals I kept in my 20s and early 30s were only ever filled with deep, eloquent insight and significant observations on the nature of humanity. Ahem. Behold this entry from October, 2003:

went to sin-e last night. had some beer. the band i went to see was good, as expected. when i arrived, there was singing a young man with such an amazing fucking voice. his name was tom mcrae i believe. lovely.

i did learn a lesson last night... never remember or acknowledge anyone MORE than they would you. in other words, be careful with my regard for veritable strangers. my sexual attraction for an unnamed individual led me to esteem him greatly. this was a mistake, as, due to the fact that we have exchanged only a few conversations, i barely knew him at all. i received not so much as a head nod last night and perhaps i am just miffed but still... why give credit where it is not yet due?

having typed out that convoluted paragraph, i would just like close by saying what a shame that i set my expectations so high and not have them met,as he is a fucking superfox.

no more of that.

today i will be mailing via snail mail a crapload of resumes. i am in charge of at least looking. perhaps my foray into staten island this weekend was a precursor, and introduction, if you will as i am applying to a position there. the commute would be a bitch, but i simply cannot tolerate where i am any longer.

my head feels not unlike a chilled head of lettuce. i need a shower.

I have a few things to say about this:

• I miss Sin-e. It was a great venue to see bands.
• I have no recollection of Tom McRae, nor his singing voice, nor anything of the kind and a quick Google search of his music doesn't help me remember either. 
• I have nothing but embarrassment at my dramatic takeaway from whatever happened at this show. I have spent the majority of my adult life both remembering and acknowledging people way more than they did me for awhile, until I got older and stopped tallying that and realized I only surround myself with nurturing, giving people. So I'm giving myself a point for that.
• I have less than zero recollection of who the object of my affection was at this time, making him likely not worth the angst I put into my projection of whoever I thought he was. Does that even make any sense?? 
• I'd be interested to remember since I described him as a superfox. I was 27 at the time in NYC so I was, in fact, inundated with access to superfoxes (superfoxii?) making the candidate pool for this particular evening, large.
• There is a lot of cursing in my old diaries.
• Lmao "mailing resumes"
• Lmfao "moving to Staten Island"
• I really can't recall why I hated my job so much back then. I had access to a lot of independence and I liked my boss a lot; we are friendly to this day. Plus I got a lot of great anecdotes from that time period. Sigh. Someday I'll look around and see little bits of silver in the gray.
• In a shocking coincidence, my head today also feels like a chilled head of lettuce. The more things change the more they stay the same.
• This entry was during an October I dubbed "Rocktober" (how droll) due to the insane amount of concerts I was attending that month. The entry that follows it has a list.

Sept. 23 -- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Oct. 3 -- The Realistics

Oct. 7 -- Tom McRae

Oct. 10 --Radiohead

Oct. 15 -- Interpol

Nov.1 --Walkmen

These were all shows at smaller venues mostly in lower Manhattan because Brooklyn wasn't that much a thing yet. Or was it? I can't remember. I loved that music scene during those years. I remember seeing so many bands in venues no bigger than a Knights of Columbus hall. I'm pretty sure it was around that time I saw The Strokes at the now torn down Vanderbilt in Long Island which was where people used to have proms. Six concerts in a month and me broke and all. I kind of miss being 27, but only because of energy levels and following bands around and having like nothing to fucking worry about except my latent existential panic about September 11 and ignoring superfoxes. 

My youth was wasted on me, as, I suspect, will be my age. Onward.

When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of attending a performance of  Sleep No More at a venue called "The McKittrick Hotel" on 27th Street. If you aren't familiar with it, all you need to do is click the website here to get a sense of the atmosphere of the show or read my brief summary here:

Sleep No More is an interactive theater experience that takes place in a "hotel" which is really just a group of warehouses, outfitted to resemble a 1930s hotel and residence. The audience is instructed to wear masks and to not speak at all throughout the performance and can walk through the hotel at their own pace and in their own order either following the actors around as they pass through the hallways or by examining the artifacts left around the hotel. The actors don't really speak either apart from a few instances. There are five floors of this hotel, each with varying sets and the storyline takes place among these floors. The plot is loosely based on MacBeth and the set design, costumes, music, lighting...pretty much everything takes its queue from film noir so it is very, very dark and many of the scenes are played out in a mysterious, creepy way. The fact that no one speaks and everyone is wearing masks adds an other worldliness to the creep.

I have seen this play before, four years ago for my birthday when a group of some of my very best friends came with me. I'll admit to being tipsy that first go around but I was blown away back then by the level of detail and the truly unique experience of being immersed in this dark world. Since Rowan is visiting, and I had always wanted to return, we took her to see it. It is the kind of experience that is very individual and can be different each time you do it.

When you first enter the building, you have to "check in" to the hotel and you are given a playing card with a number and suit. You then have to walk through a very, very dark hallway that immediately offers a huge sense of disorientation. As we zig zagged our way through the corridor, I had the notion that it was an effective way to leave you feeling you had transported back in time, a notion reinforced when you enter a speakeasy type lounge where you wait for your card number to be called, after which you are transported to the hotel via elevator. Inside the speakeasy are already actors from the production, but you don't really realize it until they start talking; they sound very 1930s and are dressed from the period. There is also a singer and you can order old timey cocktails, of which I did. I had a gimlet and it was delightful.

I don't want to get into too many specifics about the actual show in case there is anyone reading this who wants to go (I'll go with you!) and doesn't want anything spoiled. But I do want to tell you about how the actress who played Lady Macbeth kidnapped me from my group. I didn't know this, since my first experience at the show didn't feature anything but me walking around the hotel following various actors but there are "hidden" scenes that selected audience members can experience if they are chosen from the crowd. Last night I got chosen and I'm not even certain how. One moment she was standing on the other side of the room, set up to resemble a closed piano bar, in a beautiful red gown and the next she was approaching me and caressing my cheek under my mask. She grabbed my hand and led me to the hallway outside the room, the rest of the group around me in tow. She whispered in my ear to stay where I was because she had "something special" for me. So I did as I was told and she disappeared behind a door. We were all waiting outside the door and a minute later she opened the door just wide enough for me to enter behind her and then shut it! I found myself in a small parlor that was blue tinted but mostly very dark. She started to caress my face again in a "we might make out" way. But instead she took off my mask and started cackling. Her lips were full and red and as she laughed, there was the sound of a thunderclap in the distance and the lights flashed as though there was lightning. I almost peed myself.

She said, as she was caressing my face that she had waited so long for me to come back. "I've been waiting for you, Agnes!" She was saying this as she dragged me to the sofa and started telling me a story about a shipwreck. She was pouring water into a teacup and then put a little origami ship on top of the water in it. The story of the shipwreck involved sightings of demons climbing the masts. As she told this part of the story, she started stirring the tea cup and it turned blood red. She jumped up suddenly and said it was the anniversary of the shipwreck and then she grabbed me by the waist and dragged me into this pitch black annex of the room we were in. There was water spraying from somewhere and I couldn't see anything but she was holding on to me and i was holding on to her and I felt the beading of her evening gown and she was screaming something about the waves...I couldn't focus b/c I was freaking out. The noise stopped but it was still pitch black. She stood behind me and put the mask back on my head, turned me around and kissed the top of it. Then she put something small and wet in my hand and said something like "remember that there are things done that can't be undone" or something and abruptly shoved me out a door and closed it again and I found myself totally disoriented in a room I had been in before but was nowhere near where I entered. Since you can't talk at all during the performance, I couldn't even tell anyone what had just happened! I looked at my had and it was a wet cotton ball that was blood red and had left my palm looking bloodstained. It is probably the coolest thing that has happened to me while wearing a mask. Maybe.

I was able to eventually find my group again and managed to make it to the end of the show without being kidnapped again. Here's a photo of my mask, with Lady Macbeth's lips on the forehead.

And even though I really want to describe in detail the entire experience (yes, that was just a small fraction of a two plus hour experience) it is really something that should be left to experience first hand. I'm certain there are other accounts of possibly even cooler scenes that have played out for people during Sleep No More, so I'll leave it at that.

Actually I'll leave it at this link to a song by the Ink Spots called When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano that was playing at various times throughout the scenes and in random rooms of the hotel. It was used to pretty remarkable effect in really contrasting ways and it has been stuck in my head since last night. I now pass it on to you and you're welcome.

Why did the serial killer cross the road?

I don't know why it should, but it tickles me to see people buying random things at the supermarket. I am one of those people usually and this morning I had to buy some lemonade for a staff party and I realized that I needed mouthwash. The man in front of me was buying a case of Bud (at 8am on a Monday) and some Ajax powder (for the a.m. beer pukes?) and the woman behind me was buying a chocolate cake and package of hot dogs. I think the type of people who grocery shop at 8am on a Monday morning (me) have random tastes.

Also on my way to work this morning, and every morning actually, I pass by this tire place. About a year ago, I had to buy a tire from them in an emergency and while I waited, the mechanic working on it was talking to me and I got a very distinct serial killer vibe from him. He is about 7 feet tall with dirty, greasy hair. If his eye color were a paint hue, it would be accurately named "Sociopathic Blue" and his conversation consisted of him misusing and mispronouncing words including, but not limited to: "suppositated", "UNTerling" and "i'm going to chop you up and leave you in the woods." I may have made one of those up. Anyway, this morning he was standing in the middle of a narrow two way street, precisely on the yellow lines waving his left hand for everyone to stop so he could cross. In his right hand, he was carrying two garbage bags which could only have been filled with body parts. I mean, that is the only explanation I can think of in any rational way. So this morning consisted of weirdos at the supermarket and a serial killer crossing the street.

I did quite a bit this weekend, starting on Thursday so here are the highlights in a format that I wish had existed for the common student when I was in 8th grade and handed in my typewriter typed report about Andrew Lloyd Webber all slanty and discombobulated: bullet points. (Btw, I got about four points taken for not having any margins on that paper and the sentences being, you know, physically slanted.)

• This American Life broadcast a live show version of their regular radio broadcast throughout a bunch of movie theaters on Thursday. Kismet decided to follow me: I was off from work, had no obligations and was made aware that it was playing at my local movie theater. In case I had any doubts about dear Kismet, I picked up my ticket I turned around and saw a friend and coworker in line who was also attending the same movie. Instant company! Shouldn't all company be instant? The show was incredible. David Rakoff danced with a paralyzed arm and he brought me to tears. David Sedaris came out in clown makeup and related a story about waiting for coffee behind two very annoying people which hit close to home. Tig Notaro dueted with Taylor Dane. You just don't see these things every day.

•  Vivan Maier stumbled into my life, or vice versa, thanks to the show. I read her work was displayed here in NY back in January and was young and inexperienced back then; I just didn't know. Chagrin, commence. I visit her once a day now.

• On Friday, I found myself unbelievably at Webster Hall, that bastion of my late adolescence and a place I once boycotted for not letting me in the night after my high school prom, an event I did not attend. (I had tickets to see Nine Inch Nails and THAT was going to be my prom but it turns out you had to be 18 to get in there in 1994 and this remains true to this day. So I never got to spend the evening with Trent Reznor and whole room full of angsty, ripped fishnetted goths. I believe that night what we did instead was stroll through Washingston Square Park to buy drugs and two of our group took them on the train home. I was not one of those two.) Massive digression. I was there with my concert buddy/sister to see M. Ward. Needless to say, I got in this time since I don't look a day over 40. The concert was amazing and he played everything I wanted to hear and despite it not being in my favorite venue, the sound was kind of exceptional. During the encore, Conor Oberst appeared, long haired and tortured and tapping right into that emo part of my brain. Coincidentally and perhaps bringing us full circle, that part of my brain is still fishnetted.

• In keeping with the tradition of every single concert I've ever attended in a general admission/standing room only location the tallest man in the room makes a beeline to me or one of my companions, thus making this the view, every single time (and keep in mind the predominant theme of concerts in NYC seems to be "Do Not Move. If you move, it will destroy your beardy, indie boy facade.":

5/11/12, Webster Hall, Photo by LME

• I felt like rearranging my life on Saturday morning, been feeling kind of a wreck what with my life feeling like it is going nowhere. Unable to rearrange my entire life on a Saturday morning, I spent all day rearranging my closet. Not life changing, but doable in a day. An entire day, apparently. On my way out to the dumpster, I saw two ducks napping in the parking lot of my apartment complex. It was a sign. The sign read, come outside for a bit. Let your brain take a nap. On days when I'm not dragged by rusted iron chains and beaten into submission in order to be there, I enjoy going to the library. Being a library patron is better than being a librarian in the way that watching your favorite film as the director intended it without further explanation is better than six hours of commentary. What a pleasant place the library can be. I was researching Alzheimer's disease so when depression started to cloud my eyes a bit I walked over to the local coffee house and drank a green chai iced tea that I'm still thinking about today. I also went to a local DVD store called Mother's Movies where I finally bought the Three Colors trilogy and ordered a copy of Beginners. I love that I live near a store inside of which it is possible to discuss Kieslowski and the merits of buying a four movie box set, a box set I'm still thinking about today.

• I got a visit from my brother and sister at night, in town again for Mother's Day. I played them the two chords I learned on the ukulele and we watched the Mighty Boosh. It is impossible for me to type and then reread those two sentences without smiling.

• Mother's Day consisted of many things. Fortunately, most of them were love or flavored with love. I could say so many things about my mother but specifically to chronicle this particular mother's day I'll just say: 4 mimosas. Oh and that I love that woman.

• John Irving reading from his new novel In One Person at the 92nd St. Y in Manhattan rounded out the weekend. No one will ever accuse Mr. Irving of being a dynamo public speaker but that is okay since he spends the majority of his time blowing my fucking mind with his writing. Sadly he wasn't signing books last night (and I had brought along my weathered and mysteriously stained copy of "A Widow for One Year" which I have always envisioned him inscribing it with a personal invitation to play squash with him.) but I'm comforted that he will be at ALA this year and I may meet him yet. I'm in the middle of "In One Person" and I'm riveted. 

• On the way back into Queens, I was once again facing death inside a cab. Since I look everywhere but straight ahead inside a NYC taxi, I kept envisioning a brick wall dead ahead of every movement forward. Nancy pointed out how the 7 train sounds just like a roller coaster and I think we were all collectively disturbed by this notion. I picked up my car and drove back to this neverending island. I only consider it neverending because it never, ever ends, almost exactly like this blog post.