Y2K(10)

I was listening to the big folk station in my car yesterday, and I heard "Cigarettes and Chocolate Milk" (Rufus Wainwright), which I first heard when I was judging an a cappella competition at Lincoln Center two years ago. It was being sung by a group from Florida State University and the lead singer blew me away (as well as my friend/fellow judge, who was sitting next to me). Today, that same kid is serves on the board of directors of [music organization] that I serve on, and I'm happy to call him a friend. He's a dynamic, talented ball of light. Heaing that song reminded me that exactly 10 years ago today, I did a NYE gig in which we did a Loudon Wainwright III (Rufus' dad) song called "Y2K", which was so wordy that I'm fairly sure that noone else ever covered it. It took me forever to learn those lyrics and we only did that song at that gig, and never again.

Also, I was at the doctor's (trying to find out why I've been so sick for 10 months - turns out I'm allergic to a bunch of things, including CATS), and he prescribed (among other things) Astelin. While he was doing the skin testing on me, I was telling him about a friend of mine who was in the commercial for the drug, singing as "The Astelins", so he looked him up online (because, as usual, I felt lightheaded after the skin tests started to HURT, so we had time while my pansy-ass recovered), and decided he wants to go to see said friend live, which I wholly endorse.



The past few days have been strange. And I haven't even mentioned the CT scan, the flat tire, and the guy who came up to me and said, "your ex is HURTIN'!"...

I wonder if, at the end of each year, we have a penchant for talking about how terrible the year ending has been, and how we hope the next year will be better. It seems to me that these sentiments are repeated each year, but it does seem that 2009 has been particularly sucky all around. The destroyed economy notwithstanding, I personally know several people who have lost pets in the past few weeks (and another whose dog was diagnosed with cancer yesterday), one good friend whose mother had cancer surgery yesterday (waiting to hear the results on that, and very nervous), so many people struggling for the basics, my own brother's shocking divorce (and various other family issues), so many (global) significant deaths and unfortunate incidents.

In addition, I found something out yesterday that I'd been hoping I'd never find out, but...there it was. Now, deal with it. So yes, 2009 can kiss my ass. I hope that 2010 bodes better, and that at the end of that year, we're not singing the same lamentable tune.

Y2K
Loudon Wainwright III

A bunch of nerdy brainy guys a long way back
Invented a crazy little thing they called the Univac
For years now, they've been upgrading that thing
It can walk & talk & count & think & it can even sing
It can help you at school, church, business, and work
Makes you feel like a genius even though you're just a jerk
You get a computer, you sit it in your lap
It does a little bit of this it does a whole lotta that
It can boot you up, it can load you down
With that little bitty mouse you're gonna rule this town
But you're headed for trouble I do believe
It's coming your way on New Year's Eve now
Whoa what do you know
A few more measly more months to go

Hey what do you say, now here it comes now... Y2K

No it ain't a virus it's just a little glitch
It wan't done by some crazy hackin son of a bitch
And Sadaam didn't do it, can't blame him
No it's a geek with the glasses and the stupid silly grin
Billionaire Bill that's the one you can hate
If you want to blame someone blame Bill Gates

Bill said we'd make money, Bill said we'd have fun
But remember Hal the computer in 2001
We're in a time machine going back my friend
Doin 1900 all over again, well

We've been trucking down the information superhighway
But we'll be on a dirt road come Y2K
Call me old fashioned call me a fool
And yo can call me a Luddite & you can call me uncool
But we used to imagine, question, and dream
And now all of our answers come up on some screen
We're headed for trouble I do believe
It's coming your way on New Year's Eve Y 2 K

Breakdown... You better get ready, be very afraid
Because your money's no good & you'll never get paid
And the car won't start and the phone won't work
And the juice won't squeeze and the coffee won't perk
No more decaf latte baby...

You'll be doing the monkey, but there'll be a new twist
You'll still be alive but you will not exist
The stock market will crash, the air traffic will stop
You won't find a doctor, forget about a cop

There'll be a lot of lawyers with plenty to do
It's apocalypse now at a theatre near you
We're headed for trouble I do believe
It's coming your way on New Year's Eve

Meanwhile... Way over there in the old ancient Middle East
Them doomsday boys is having a feast
The end is at hand & they're down on their knees
They've been checking out all the bad-ass prophesies
This Y2K it's the latest craze
It's lock & load for the final days

Well I saw you on the plane playing solitaire
On that little laptop, with nary a care
Life's easy now, but it could get hard
Pretty soon you're gonna have to use a deck of real cards

[check out that last verse; given the new and "improved" flight restrictions after the latest thwarted blow-up-a-plane-to-get-1000-virgins attempt, it's prophetic]

Happy New Year.

Books and Movies 2009

I feel like I've left stuff out, but this is what I have written down.

BOOKS:

Feather Crowns / Bobbie Ann Mason*
Our Story Begins / Tobias Wolff*
Stories / TC Boyle*
A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again / DF Wallace*
Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain / John Ratey
High Spirits: A Collection of Ghost Stories / Robertson Davies*
The Kite Runner / Khaled Hosseini
Lit / Mary Karr*

MOVIES:

Grey Gardens (1.7.09)*
Grey Gardens (1.24.09 on DVD)*
The Reader (2.20.09)
Up (5.31.09)*
He's Just Not That Into You (6/09 on plane)
Man On Wire (6/26/09 at home)*
500 Days of Summer (8/4/09)*
Adam (9.4.09)
Revolutionary Road (9.19.09)
Mildred Pierce (10.30.09 at home)
Knocked Up (11.1.09 at home)
A Serious Man (11.6.09)*
This Is It (11.28.09 in Y-town with Chloe, Alex, Tomar, Dan, Dave, Nathalie and Sue)*
The Fantastic Mr. Fox (12.4.09)*

* = recommended

The year has ended with some great stuff - the last 3 movies on the list are fantastic, and Mary Karr's "Lit" has really stuck with me.

Lit

Omigod it's freezing. 27 degrees right now and a storm coming on. I've closed off my kitchen completely because it's so cold. The door and window are wind sieves. Cat food and water moved to the dining room. The kitchen temp is hovering at around 50 and I'm fairly sure that room is not insulated (not sure the rest of this place is either, since the heating bills are INSANE keeping the heat at 60), so my theory is that maybe the rest of the place will be a little more comfortable if I'm not heating the very cold, big drafty kitchen. So far this has not proven to work.

I am not getting any more used to this type of weather, there really isn't any romanticism to a snowstorm to me, especially being alone. It's nice to walk around when it's snowing at night, that is true, but everything that follows is misery: that parking spaces are limited because of snow piles, that the snow quickly becomes dirty and gray, that you are forced to wear boots and gloves, that simply walking become hazardous. And it's interesting to me how people who are resigned to living in these areas don't mind that it starts getting dark at 3:30, and that most days are solid gray, and that these temps are bullshit. I don't even have a shovel, so I'm at the mercy of my landlord to dig out my car when we get a lot of inches. I actually don't think we'll be getting all that much for this storm, but I did venture out earlier and the store parking lots were PACKED.

But I got a small roast and made it last night and I have lots left over, plus edamame, plus pineapple. A new bag of cat food, and various things I could do to keep myself entertained.

I need to make a plan to be out of here by the time next winter rolls around. Ok? Ok.

---------------------------------------------

"Lit", by Mary Karr, was a revelation. Though I didn't relate to her religious/spiritual evolution, or her substance abuse issues, this book got into me. There's much to be said about being consciously thankful when there's seemingly nothing to be thankful for. There were several odd connections, like the fact that she had planned to commit suicide in my town, and that she briefly dated David Foster Wallace, another writer close to my heart. Also, it seems somehow appropriate that the book jacket is made of the softest paper I've ever felt. Almost satin-y. The contents are tough, it's not a pretty picture, but the cover is a tactile comfort.

http://www.amazon.com/Lit-Memoir-Mary-Karr/dp/0060596988

"By the time she asks, Did you have a plan?, I've already told so many strangers, I forget to be embarrassed. I was going to spirit away our rusting car to a town called, metaphorically enough, Marblehead - the very name seemed apt - like I have a big, swirly marble on my shoulders where a human face should sit. There I'd suck off a garden hose purchased for that purpose." (p 271)

"Yet when Mother calls to report a heart attack coming on, my sister grabs her bag and dashes out of the house, floorboarding her Batmobile down to the sagging corner of earth sliding toward the Gulf, only to find Mother affably awaiting her, palpitations miraculously improved. No, they needn't visit a doctor, but that place on the corner has the best enchiladas and virgin margaritas." (p. 372)

"When you've been hurt enough as a kid (maybe at any age), it's like you have a trick knee. Most of your life, you can function like an adult, but add in the right portions of sleeplessness and stress and grief, and the hurt, defeated self can bloom into place." (p. 379)

what happens when the dogs are gone

A buncha stuff going on, but as usual, I'm severely lacking in the ability to convey it, so every time I consider writing, I stop myself. But I chanced upon a thought last night, as I was trying to stop thinking about something else...

I've been thinking about kids a lot lately. Not the usual regretting-never-having-them thing that all women are expected to feel (though I'm sure there's a bit of that in there) -

and may I just digress and say that I am not happy with Dan Savage saying in a recent podcast (or maybe it was online, I can't remember), in response to a woman who said she's fine not having kids and likes just having her husband and dogs, that in the end, the dogs will die, and she'll be alone with noone to take care of her. I guess I never expected Dan to wade into those judgmental and cliche waters. But he did -

- but about how, without my own kids, there's always a serious trepidation and fear on my part around other people's kids that I will do something that (in their eyes) is wrong. Not that I ever have but for this one incident, but this one incident has stuck with me, has shaped me, and maybe even influenced my not having any of my own. I was in my 20s and I was a nanny for two kids of affluent parents. The kids weren't little kids, but maybe 10 and 12 or something, a boy and a girl. We got along great. They were smart kids who liked me, and I liked them. I had to pick them up at school each day and walk them home. So, I was doing that one day, we're all walking home together, and a car drives up. The kids are excited. There are friends of theirs in the car, kids that they obviously know. The mom asks if (my charges) can come over to hang out with her kids. I agree, and before I can ask the mom's name, or when they'll be back, the car is gone. I go back to the house and wait for them to come home. But they don't. Eventually the parents come home, and I tell them that the kids are with some of their friends. But I don't know which friends. As you might suspect, this does not go over well. They commence frantic calling of kids' friends. They can't find them. And this was before everyone had a cell phone. Sometime around 8pm (8pm, on a weeknight), the parents who had them bring them back. There was no call from them prior to the dropoff, no asking if the kids could stay for dinner, nor had they made a time with me earlier in the afternoon to return the kids. And they apparently weren't very concerned about doing so.

The next morning, I get a call from the parents letting me know that I'm fired. That I've been irresponsible, and can no longer be trusted with their children. I hang up the phone and cry for a long time. My boyfriend consoles me. There won't even be a goodbye. I feel horrible, but I'm also angry at the other parents, who zoomed away without giving me any of their info, and then kept those kids until 8pm without a word to their parents. I was also angry at my (former) employers, who apparently had no issue with their kids' friends, and laid it all on me, because there needed to be a bad guy.

And that's sort of how it goes. Parents are imbued, by other parents, with wisdom and a kindliness and responsibility that those of us without kids are assumed to not have. We're just not considered trustworthy, because we just don't know. We don't have our own children. We're incomplete. We're considered "selfish", not grown up, maybe dangerous. So though I like kids, and I think (I know) I'm good with them, I'm always scared about doing the "wrong" thing like that one "wrong" thing I did so many years ago.

That's one thing I can say I feel would be nice to experience: having your own kids that you can be completely comfortable with, and you know that mistakes will be made and they'll still grow up ok, and noone will scold you for the parenting transgressions that all parents make, because hey, we all make mistakes, right? Parents are allowed to - and are expected to - make mistakes with their own kids. But non-parents are not afforded the same with other peoples' kids. And that hurts. It would be nice to have a child I could just have fun with, and educate and entertain and raise up as I wished, without that mortal fear. But instead, there's the wall, because any kids I'm around are not my kids, and even though I have friends who tell me that I'm the only person (or one of only a few) they'd trust with their children, I still have to be on my guard, still have to be scared, because these aren't mine, and I have to keep in mind that parents know (though they'd never say it to me) that I'm not complete because of my childlessness. And because, many years ago, a boy and a girl I really cared for disappeared into their friends' car, and I never saw them again.