Tag Archives: things i want to say out loud

Arms akimbo in the land of lotus eaters

This paragraph from A Visit From the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, which won the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award (ETA: AND the 2011 Pulitzer Prize!) for fiction, is one of the most hauntingly vivid descriptions of a marriage that I have ever read. At the same time the description sounds clinical, meticulous, it strikes me as one of the saddest things I have ever read.

 

Yet each disappointment Ted felt in his wife, each incremental deflation, was accompanied by a seizure of guilt; many years ago, he had taken the passion he felt for Susan and folded it in half, so he no longer had a drowning, helpless feeling when he glimpsed her beside him in bed: her ropy arms and soft, generous ass. Then he’d folded it in half again, so when he felt desire for Susan, it no longer brought with it an edgy terror of never being satisfied. Then in half again, so that feeling desire entailed no immediate need to act. Then in half again, so he hardly felt it. His desire was so small in the end that Ted could slip it inside his desk or a pocket and forget about it, and this gave him a feeling of safety and accomplishment, of having dismantled a perilous apparatus that might have crushed them both. Susan was baffled at first, then distraught; she’d hit him twice across the face; she’d run from the house in a thunderstorm and slept at a motel; she’d wrestled Ted to the bedroom floor in a pair of black crotchless underpants. But eventually a sort of amnesia had overtaken Susan; her rebellion and hurt had melted away, deliquesced into a sweet, eternal sunniness that was terrible in the way that life would be terrible, Ted supposed, without death to give it gravitas and shape. He’d presumed at first that her relentless cheer was mocking, another phase in her rebellion, until it came to him that Susan had forgotten how things were between them before Ted began to fold up his desire; she’d forgotten and was happy — had never not been happy — and while all of this bolstered his awe at the gymnastic adaptability of the human mind, it also made him feel that his wife had been brainwashed. By him.

 

I read this book over the winter holidays and till this day, I am still haunted by this passage. From time to time I would take this book off from the bookshelf, flip to this page and read this passage again, word by word, while caressing the rough edge on the side of the book as if it were an adequate substitute for human warmth.

Of course, per usual, I identify with the wrong character. I want to jump in and rescue Susan.

Wake up, Susan. Wake up. Remember what it was like. Remember what you were like. I want to give her a blog.

Here’s to being decidedly alive even if at the risk of being miserable. Here’s to kicking and screaming. Here’s to never be folded up into a tiny pocket.

Here’s to never forget.

 

This post is dedicated to a dear friend who is standing arms akimbo in defiance in the land of lotus eaters.

Do Over: A perfect comeback is a terrible thing to waste

Maddow for Prez (and Stewart for Veep, of course)!

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This picture of wishful thinking is at the beginning of this post to make it known with no uncertainty how much I love and respect Rachel Maddow. I also would like it to be known that my adoration for her is NOT bandwagon-jumping: I have professed my loyalty to Dr. Maddow as early as December 2008 ever since I saw her appearance on Conan O’Brien (and for that there will always be a soft spot in my heart for Coco and his hair…)

To further set my girl crush all ablaze, Maddow gave a “fake” Presidential Address on her June 16 show following the much-anticipated, and laster much-criticized, Presidential Speech from The Oval Office by the Prez regarding the BP Oil Catastrophe. (Ok, seriously, peeps, we really need to stop using the term “Oil Spill”. Thanks.)

Maddow began her show thus:

You know how sometimes after you get into an argument or a confrontation with somebody, you can’t help afterwards thinking of all the things you wish you’d said.  You run it over and over in your mind, imaging the perfect comeback or the perfect way to have made your point.

Did I ever?! Yes, YES and YES!!!! She had me at this “OMG that’s exactly how I feel all the time” moment…

But, that’s not all!

She proceeded to give her own Presidential Speech, a speech that she wishes the real President Obama has given instead. Here are some of the highlights in text. Or you can read the complete transcript which MSNBC put up right away due to unusually high demand. Or feel free to watch the video clip instead (after the jump) which is extremely gratifying, to say the least.

I‘m here to announce three major developments in the response to the BP oil disaster that continues right now to ravage the beloved gulf coast of the United States of America…

Never again will any company, anyone be allowed to drill in a location where they are incapable of dealing with the potential consequences of that drilling.

When the benefits of drilling accrue to a private company, but the risks of that drilling accrue to we, the American people, whose waters and shoreline are savaged when things go wrong, I, as fake president, stand on the side of the American people and say to the industry, “From this day forward, if you cannot handle the risk, you no longer will take chances with our fate to reap your rewards.”

… …

The second major development I‘m announcing tonight, my fellow Americans, concerns another oil industry assurance we can no longer believe.  The industry has long assured us that they were capable of handling spilled oil…

The same low-tech ineffective equipment and techniques are being used to respond to this oil disaster today that were used in the 1960s and ‘70s to respond to spills back then.

That‘s because the industry has not invested in any new containment and cleanup technology in all of these decades, because they haven‘t cared too much about it as an issue and it shows.  It shows both in the inept technology that we have to deploy, to contain, to clean up a spill like this.

And it also shows in the lackadaisical, uncoordinated, unprofessional way this inept technology has been deployed by BP.  Beaches have been fouled.  Wetlands have been destroyed.  Wildlife has been killed that should have been saved.  Pensacola Bay in Florida, if properly boomed, should never have been breached by oil.  Perdido Pass of Orange Beach, Alabama should never have been breached by oil. Queen Bess Island, the pelican nesting ground and Barataria Bay in Louisiana – Barataria Bay itself – none of these areas should have been breached by oil even given the sad state of existing technology to stop it.  But the fact that those areas were breached is BP‘s human error.

And tonight, as fake president, I‘m announcing a new federal command specifically for containment and cleanup of oil that has already entered the Gulf of Mexico with priority of protecting shoreline that can still be saved, shoreline that is vulnerable to all that has not yet been hit.

… …

And finally, the third development I have to announce to you tonight in the response to this oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is about how we got here and how that will change.

I no longer say that we must get off oil like every president before has said, too.  I no longer say we must get off oil.  We will get of oil and here is how.  The United States Senate will pass an energy bill this year.  The Senate version of the year will not expand offshore drilling.

Every president in the modern era has complained that America must get off oil.  Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W.  Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and now, I, fake President Obama – we have all intoned solemnly that we must get off oil.

Now that we have, at the hands of the oil industry, experienced the worst environmental disaster in American history, the time for talk is over. The world is different now.  Our country is different now.  The scales have fallen from our eyes.

People say we‘re not ready.  They‘re right.  We‘re not ready.  We also weren‘t ready to fight in World War II before Pearl Harbor happened.  But events forced that upon us and events have forced this fight upon us now…

If there are elements of a bill that cannot procedurally be passed by reconciliation, if those elements can be instituted by executive order, I will institute them by executive order.

The political cowardice that has kept politicians from doing right by this country, finally, on energy – finally, standing up to the oil industry – that cowardice has been drowned in oil on Queen Bess Island.

… …

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Although I am not so naive as to believe that any president will ever be able to pass an Energy Bill and have it executed just so that will have any real impact on the environment in my lifetime, like I said, it is gratifying to imagine what it would have been like to hear these same statements from the real Commander in Chief (assuming he has not lost his mind and decided to wage a war directly against the 50% of the country that considers Fox News a reliable news source). Naturally, depressing at the same time to imagine what could have been…

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Here’s to you, Dr. Maddow. Thank you for the Perfect Comeback.

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She proves that a brilliant mind makes you instantly hot. Period.

Waiting

Let's go. We can't. Why not? We are waiting for Godot.

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I have been thinking about this exchange in Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot a lot lately.

ESTRAGON: Let’s go.
VLADIMIR: We can’t.
ESTRAGON: Why not?
VLADIMIR: We are waiting for Godot.

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End of Act I. They do not move

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This exchange recurs throughout the play. No progress is made. Nothing is changed.  Both acts end on the same verbal promise for action that is never carried out:

VLADIMIR: Well? Shall we go?
ESTRAGON: Yes, let’s go.
They do not move.

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It depressed the hack out of me when the lights dimmed on the two figures in the center of the stage: the same way they started; the same way they ended Act II.  Immobile.  Engulfed by the darkness, the unknown, eternity. The image and the thought haunts me.

They do not move.

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A lot have been written, theorizing the allegorical meaning of Beckett’s tragicomedy. The meaning of Godot.

To me, I’ve always thought that Beckett made a mistake; he should have turned the label the other way around – a comictragedy. This is a tragedy about Didi and Gogo who are the prisoners of their own misplaced hope. This whole waiting thing causes the inaction. It would have been better if they have come to the conclusion that no one is coming.  Things are not going to be better.  Nothing is going to change their situations for them.  But themselves.

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I didn’t even realize I have been waiting.  Waiting for something, for what I have no idea yet.

What are you waiting for? If you knew what you are waiting for, perchance an event, a sign, the other shoe, will it make everything more tolerable?

I compartmentalize.  By spouting random nonsense here I am able to continue to not think.  To forestall the unraveling.  To keep it together.  To carry on with no resolution in sight.  To wait.  Not remembering that I have been waiting.

For what I know not yet.

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Let’s go.

We can’t.

Why not?

We are waiting for Godot.

I love you, Lily Coyle of Minneapolis

By now everyone of us have heard of what Pat Robertson has to say about the earthquake that just about leveled Haiti. I cannot help it, here is the highlight of his point:

“They were under the heel of the French. You know, Napoleon III and whatever. And they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, ‘We will serve you if you will get us free from the French.’ True story. And so, the devil said, ‘OK, it’s a deal.'”

If you have a strong stomach and does not wince easily, here is the broadcast of his show where he made this, eh, huh, “unfortunate” statement.

First we were shocked. Disbelief. Then we quickly got over the puzzlement of “Why is Pat Robertson still relevant?” amidst this unspeakable human tragedy and the global mobilization to send aids to this country that had so little for its people and so much to suffer even before the devastations by the earthquake. But a response must be given. And how?

How do you even react to something so outlandish that your first thought was, “Is this from The Onion, again? The Onion surely has been making into a lot of high-profile news lately…”

Why, a letter from the devil himself, of course!

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best,
Satan


This letter was sent in to Star Tribune in the Twin Cities by a reader named Lily Coyle. Whoever you are, wherever you are, God Bless You, Lily Coyle.

To Hell with keeping my mouth shut and ignoring the crazies and the ignorant…

I thought I could just comment on what has been happening to this country, specifically the latest, hottest, “meme” that is going on and making the news circuit and the blogoshpere and the twitterverse, by reminding all of us, once again, the Golden Rule. Yes, indeed, I am referring to the clever, seemingly harmless and indeed “How Christian of you”, appearances of bumper stickers that say:

“Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8”

By now I assume most of you know what the hack I am talking about. If you are one of the fortunate ones that have been shielded from such ugliness, here is the article, “Biblical anti-Obama slogan: Use of Psalm 109:8 funny or sinister?” on none other than The Christian Science Monitor. I am also repeating the by-now-old-news-because-our-generation-suffers-from-ADD details here for my children, so they will know, when they look back one day, how FAR indeed we/they have come. Please, let it be overcome by then…

Why the debate on whether quoting Psalm is sinister? Because this is from the Old Testament, whose god is a vengeful god. Because the exact verse in Psalm 109:8 is

“Let his days be few; and let another take his office.”

Not so bad? One clearly has the right to wish Obama out of the White House as soon as possible, as argued by many, citing Freedom of Speech. Read on because Psalm 109:9, which comes after Psalm 109:8, says

“Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.”

Because, Psalm 109 is Vengeance Invoked upon Adversaries. Remember, Vengeful god.

Naturally some of the folks that gladly applied the bumper stickers, tweeted this verse, emailed it to friends and families, or even wore the t-shirts (Are you surprised that there were t-shirts made and sold already?) now claim ignorance. They did not know what comes after Psalm 109:8

And you have got to believe them. Old Testament aka the Hebrew Bible. Is it a surprise that not many Christians have read it?

More importantly, selfishly, I want to believe the claim for ignorance. I need to. Otherwise it would be extremely difficult to continue to believe in the general goodness of mankind. I don’t want to be convinced by Frank Shaeffer’s argument on TRMS that this is “trolling for assassins”, “calling for holy war”. That many are just eagerly awaiting Obama to fall into the same fate as that of Kennedy, McKinley, Garfield, and Lincoln. That it really “just takes one”.

I never liked Bush yet I had never prayed for his untimely death. Nor have I Cheney. Nor Glenn Beck. The list goes on…

I don’t even want to go down the road of pondering why Obama, in himself, incites so much fear and anger. I understand, with sorrow, that not all Americans were heart-broken when John Kennedy was assassinated. One could safely made the assumptions that the malignance (invidiousness? which negative emotion best described the frenzy?) bestowed on Obama has reached an unforeseen level of intensity.

This whole incident illustrated the dangers of quoting anything out of context and not checking the sources/references before propagating it. Another example, the ironic “Teabaggers wearing the Obamao t-shirt from China“, immediately comes to mind. Though the danger of you being mocked for not getting something is significantly reduced if you have taken care to be surrounded only by like-minded people…

It also goes to prove that Richard Dawkins (yes, THE IT atheist) is correct in advocating the mandatory studying of the bible, albeit as LITERATURE,

“The Bible as literature should be a compulsory part of the national curriculum… you can’t understand English literature and culture without it.”*

I would also like to suggest a new rule for consideration in conjunction with the suggestion above:

One shall not quote the Bible, or Shakespeare for that matter while we are on this subject, without actually reading the entire passage first.

* This is the reason why the first book of literature we were made to read in the department of Western literature was The Old Testament. Read it and weep. For so many reasons…

In addition to the Pre-nuptial agreement, draw up a chore chart and sign on the dotted line!

The following is a rant against men who do not help out around the house.  You have been forewarned…

I hesitate in calling myself a feminist. Because I am embarrassed.  Not because of the label, but because I would be living a lie if I call myself one.  I am the woman that Feminists hold up as a bad example.

An enabler.

The truth is: I still do most of the housework around here. I work full time. My commute is over an hour each way.  I travel for business.  I make as much money as my husband. (Even though this is not supposed to make any difference?)  I have a Ph.D. (I regretted putting this here: it was not my intention to brag. But rather a perpetual regret that I have wasted the best five years of my life getting a degree that has proven to be quite useless. And oftentimes a burden on my soul. I have let everybody down, myself especially).

Other couples fight about money, or so the myriad of studies showed.  We fight over who is doing what how much when with which one of the children for how long.  We fight over fairness.

“If you care about the house being neat, you should be the one that cleans up.  You are the one that’s anal.  I don’t care.”

I guess I can’t say anything about that if I don’t want to live a bachelor’s life.  And, seriously, I cannot expect everybody to want to get up in the middle of the night, like 3 am, to do the dishes, pick up the house, vacuum the carpet.  I am like Mr. Monk.  Mrs. Monk.  Ha.

I am one of those crazy women that get turned on when their husbands do the housework.  I am not making this up.  One of those women’s magazines did a survey and an overwhelming number of wives selected “My husband doing the household chore” as the thing that arouses them the most.

“How can you complain about doing housework if we have a cleaning lady?”

The cleaning lady comes every other week.  I guess it never dawns on him that ours is not ALICE from The Brady Bunch who lives with the family?

Hey, if they don’t mind a disgusting toilet bowl, why should they be the one to clean it up?  I can see the logic in that one too.

“If you spend less time on the Internet, you could have finished doing the dishes already.”

Oh. That. Is. A. Good. One.  Let me write it down for future references.

I have walked out many times in a fit of rage. Oh yes, believe me. Because I have a chip on my shoulder.

PSA to Men: You seriously don’t want an over-educated wife.  Just sayin’  Especially those that have taken Women’s Studies.

Most of the time though, I just swallow things that I want to say.  Because, when it comes down to it, do you divorce your husband if he does not pitch in a fair share of housework, on your mental scale?  Do you deprive your children of a father because you are tired of being the one responsible for doing the dishes, folding the laundry, picking up the house, and oh, everything related to the children?

Yes, he mows the lawn.  And he fixes things when things break inside the house.

Am I asking too much for some sort of help?

“I am going to clean up the house now.  I am going to turn on the music.  Do you mind moving somewhere?”

“Can I listen to the music too?”

“NO. To be honest, it annoys me to no end to clean up the house while you sit here and read your book.  So, it really would be better if you move somewhere else.  Just get out of here.”

He moved upstairs.  I turned up the music.  Way high.

Who is the Queen of Passive Aggressiveness??!!

p.s. Depiste my lament, I am relieved that I don’t have a daughter.  I don’t know what kind of an example I would be setting for a girl: “Don’t bother. It doesn’t matter whether you get an advanced degree or not. Probably worse. Because now you know to feel resentment AND guilt when you do everything around the house.”

Afraid to ask: What is the point of HCR without a public option?

I don’t set a lot of rules in the house for my boys.  The Golden Rule, of course.  The “Be true to yourself”, remnants from reading Hermann Hesse in my youth.  And then there is my very own:

Whatever you do, don’t do a half-ass job.

(I know. I am all brevity…)

So here I am, 2:17 am 2:58 am 3:14 am on the Thursday morning after the POTUS’ address to a joint session of Congress, the one where he laid out the general principles of the Health Care Reform plan that both sides have been fighting on for months, wishing I were a better writer, because I am about to explode, wordlessly.

This headline sums up what everyone, on either side, has figured out, probably has even anticipated, at least subconsciously,

Obama avoids the details on divisive issues to keep his healthcare goals on track

The point of contention is the so-called “Public Plan”.

With all due respect to the freedom of speech, blah blah blah, I sincerely don’t see how anyone who opposes the option of a government-backed insurance plan for ALL can look at themselves in the eyes, be 100% honest, and say, “I oppose this because I don’t feel like paying more taxes for people who do not earn it.  If they cannot afford health insurance now, it is their own damn fault.  I work hard, and I pay taxes ONLY because I have to.  It has nothing to do with being selfish.  In fact, I am NOT.  I donate to charities.  I am good.”

Actually, scratch that.  I think that’s how most people justify their opposition to the Public option.  I can see it, I just cannot understand it.  Richard Dawkins must have regretted that somehow his seminal book got it so right, literally.

Not wanting to count on the innate selfishness that we were born with, GOP has augmented the horror story of a Public Option by playing up to people’s fear for an invasion by illegal immigrants.  “Their kids will get accepted into colleges before your kids are.  Now your hard-earned money is going towards to paying for their health care too!  Where is the free handout for YOU?!”   So much so that Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled, “You lie!” after POTUS countered the fear mongering that the health care legislature as proposed will provide free health care to illegal immigrants.

Here you can witness the historical moment that turned Professional Heckler Joe “You Lie” Wilson into a GOP “Atta boy!” Martyr:

I appreciate that POTUS is caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. 

L.A. Times:

“And so, though some liberal Democrats have threatened to revolt if Obama does not insist on a new government insurance option — the so-called public plan — the president told the joint session of Congress that he would consider other approaches to making coverage affordable for the uninsured…  At this point, Obama seeks to remain flexible because the House will not pass a healthcare bill that does not include the public plan, and the Senate will not pass a bill that does.”

I pity the fool that covets Obama’s job after last night…

I know somewhere I must be over-simplifying things.  I must have missed something.  Even though I do understand that POTUS has to be the Über diplomat in order to push this thing through, to help it see the light of day, I cannot help but wonder, screaming aloud inside my head, at the same time feeling guilty for not being supportive, being a sort of “backseat driver”, or worse, like one of those parents that never volunteer yet always the first ones to complain…  I just have to ask out loud:

Really.  What is the point of a health care reform without a public option? (That is not Medicare, thank you very much.)

Whatever you do, don’t do a half-ass job.

Apparently, in politics, this laughably simple rule I set for my children, is difficult to follow.

“We will not become what we mean to you”

"We will not become what we mean to you"

This is yet another picture I took of the art works that resonated with me when we went through the new Modern Wing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

“We will not become what we mean to you.”

I think about that sentence often ever since…

I’m interested in how identities are constructed, how stereotypes are formed, how narratives sort of congeal and become history.

This is how the artist, Barbara Kruger, explained the thoughts behind her creation.