when we die, do we become limbs? just faceless, legged remnants of a life lived?
i can't look at these ap and reuters photos of devastation in asia without thinking about that. not since 9/11 have i seen photos that so accurately capture the most visceral human emotion, grief.
the photos are like a morbid peep show into something i would never see here in a commercialized world and 9/11 is probably the closest america will come to it.
photographers freeze-frame mourners' faces, contorted into wrinkled, shut eyes and white teeth bared in now still, silent howls of despair.
two men carry a body out of the rubble of a home. the older man lets a cigarette hang loosely from the corner of his mouth. judging by their blank expressions, one would think that they were bored rather than shell-shocked.
and the carnage. even looking at the pictures, i cannot fathom what it must look like, thousands of bodies piled upon one another, faces turned blue and gray and bloated. what does that look like? what does the air taste like to the woman in this photograph who has wrapped her headdress around her nose and mouth? i sit staring at swollen bodies whose lungs are drowned in water.
what made me lucky enough to live land-locked in america?
the look of devastation is the same everywhere, but this disaster has changed the way i regard it.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
after the tsunami, snapshots...
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Miracle on Cincinnati Avenue...
And that miracle would be that I got my car ALL the way up my driveway.
After Ohio got bitch-slapped by mother nature herself all day Wednesday and into Thursday afternoon with a little over a foot of snow, we kin who be unaccustomed to such likened weatherins have been done shovelin ourselves outta it for damn near three days.
No really.
Granted, a foot or more (or even less) of snow is substantial. Especially when most of it hits an area in say, a twelve hour period. But for Ohioans, who are used to only about three or four inches at MOST at a TIME, the preparation is not there and thus, we suffer all the way into the weekend.
I worked Wednesday from 9 am til 6 pm. My way there was a near white-out on the highway, where I crawled at about 25 miles per hour or less the entire way. I grimaced every time I looked out the storefront window during my day, dreading that some maniac mother in her SUV would come flying around my car and slam the parked QTPUH2T in the rear. Fortunately, no lunatics destroyed anything and I was able to dethaw my car in about a half hour and leave for my way home. The three to four lane I-71 (home and highway of many an eastern traveler who journeys between Florida and the northeast) had become a one or two lane highway for most of its duration between work and my house. The snow was still falling heavily and aside from narrow, limited lanes and terrible vision, the lanes that had been more or less carved out of the snow were lined by ice that grabbed as I drove and threatened to pull me into the ditch.
I got home and faced the beast that is my driveway. The Family driveway is an uphill battle, lengthened at about, oh, a good 100 yards from street to house. As I attempted to get up the drive, I got no further than three feet up and away from the street and decided I'd park elsewhere for the night. I chose Michael's Pest Control down the street and prayed to the extermination gods above that Michael would not tow my car in the morning.
He didn't.
In fact, he shoveled my car out of the snow for me. Thanks, Mike and your pesty friends.
Thursday, I got my car up our drive by about fifteen feet and left QTPUH2T there for the day.
Today I jumped in the car with an hour to spare before work.
"Meh... if it usually takes me fifteen to twenty minutes to get to work, it'll take me about a half hour to forty minutes today with Christmas shoppers. That'll leave me with a little time to run into Best Buy, grab a few last minute things and then go to work."
Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
But no. Instead, it would take me over an hour and a half to get to work. AN HOUR AND A HALF.
Most of the highway had become a tundra, barren ice and packed snow with still only two-lanes of moving traffic where other cars had carved lanes out of the snow (with no particular care to where the lines HAD been painted). Like a battle between nature and machinery, carnage of wrecked cars rusted and weathered in the shoulders and in snow-banks. Scared for mine and my car's future, I gripped the wheel and fought the grip of the ice and snow as the willy-nilly lanes ebbed and flowed from their nonsensical directions.
I sat in stopped traffic to exit I-71 for over forty five minutes and also spent twenty minutes in the parking lot, fighting for a space and getting stuck in a line of cars where there was no thru-way. (We all had to go in reverse one by one in order to get out of our rubix cube jam.)
I clocked in a half hour late, at 1:30, worked only until 6:30 and still got a half hour break. Rock on, Christmas Eve.
I love working Christmas Eve. It's so hectic, and, at least at Old Navy, I thrive on chaos. The busyness lasted for about two and a half hours before our traffic slowed to just about nothing. Unfortunately, I encountered no unusual customers or extremely angry customers this year as I have in years past.
Customers of note on Christmas Eve:
1. Creepy guy 12/24/02 8:30 am:
Bought only socks and underwear.
Said he "liked my hat" (didn't wear Santa hat after that year to work), worked some lame come-ons in, then cut to the chase asking:
"You know, my friend was supposed to come with me tonight to Florida for Christmas but he can't make it. ((slides plane ticket across counter)) You wanna come instead?"
Uh...Well, uh... That's nice of you, but I think my family is expecting me for dinner.
"Are you sure, baby? I can come back for you later. What time you off work?"
That's really okay. I'm busy.
2. The If-You've-Worked-Retail-You-Know-Which-L
Yeah, that's right. The bitch who not only doesn't have a single penny on her, but has emptied the entire store in her shopping cart and now expects you to take her business check. PERSONAL CHECKS ONLY, PLEASE. After yelling at me, throwing merchandise in my face, and asking for a manager, she requested use of our phone, talked to her husband for ten minutes and at 6:20 pm (we closed at 6 pm), decided she didn't want to buy anything and before leaving yelled, "DON'T YOU GUYS KNOW PEOPLE WANT TO SHOP ON CHRISTMAS EVE? WHY DON'T YOU STAY OPEN LATER??!"
3. The Mom with Eight Kids early afternoon 12/24/any-year
I'm pretty sure this is the same mom every year. She just shows up and wreaks havoc on the store. The same kids. The same hijinks... tearing down posters, throwing ornaments, tossing recently-folded shirts off of tables, wearing the dog-reindeer-ears... And the mom, comatose, deaf, dumb and glassy-eyed.
That's one-hundred eighty-one dollars and thirty-two cents, ma'am.... Ma'am?............. Ma'am?!
Don't bother. She's gone, her kids have taken control of the front half of the cash-wrap and her husband is probably at home, piss-ass drunk and watching football. Let her stay in that silent, safe place that only Old Navy can provide.
Other customers are generally just happy dads who don't give a rat's ass how last-minute their shopping is and give you smiles of encouragement and ask how late you have to work. Others are moms with daughters who are aware of how late they are shopping and just look bug-eyed with the fright and thrill of it. These guys I don't mind at all. But if it weren't for those crazy Christmas Eve customers, could I ever have the claim to fame of having been offered a trip to Florida from Creepy McCreepersons?
Back to the miracle that occured this Christmas Eve...
Once I braved The Tundra--I-71 North, I returned back into safe Lebanon, Ohio, where LaRosa's Pizzeria was open, and in small suburban homes, upper middle classers huddled around their Christmas trees to open Old Navy fleeces from Gramma.
Piddling my way up Cincinnati Avenue, I decided that this bitch of a driveway was not going to get me tonight and so I shifted it up into second gear as I turned and gunned it all the way up, my car shuddered and spitted over the ice and lurched to a halt where the snow heightened into a bank that no shovel nor plow could sunder.
As reward for my excellent driving, a (practically) normal family Christmas Eve was had in the Family household. Complete with a nice dining-room-worthy meal, half-Christmas present unwrapping and PJP2, formerly known as the Pope, giving his Midnight Mass. (The true family tradition, watching Midnight Mass on TV.)
And although there would be no late-night holiday light driving due to the road conditions, the Christmas spirit glowed warm in the Family household that night while they were all nestled in bed with plans of really late sleeping-in danced in their heads.
Saturday, November 27, 2004
Bras!
Today I bought new bras.
(I know this sounds like it's headed nowhere, but bear with me...)
First of all, I don't shop the day after Thanksgiving. In fact, in the first eighteen years of days-after-Thanksgivings I've experienced, either I or my family made a conscious decision to stay inside, cozy up with movies and leftovers, and generally just avoid the conflict that suburban malls bring with them.
So today, when I awoke at 3:00 pm, I thought to myself: Today is the day I will try shopping during this notorious and hellish day.
And indeed, after my 3:30 pm shower and 4:00 pm breakfast of leftovers, I slid into the Beetle, iPod and iTrip close at hand, ready to brave the forces of suburban elitist mothers who drive large SUVs and keep their children at bay with screeching promises of "No dessert!" and "We'll see if you're good enough this year for that toy!!"
((Note: While driving to the lovely Cincinnati Tri-County Mall, I rediscovered my love of driving with the volume up so high that I can shout along with the music and not care what I sound like. Queen, Ray Charles and the Rushmore soundtrack found new homes in the blaring speakers of the Beetle this afternoon.))
I make no pretenses about what I was going to buy. Hell. I stated it right up above. I was buying bras. And, hell yes, I was buying them for myself.
There's nothing more gratifying and/or disturbing in the realm of shopping to a girl than the purchase of intimate garments. I think we can all agree that breasts are pretty awesome and bras are fun things, but they're expensive endeavors. Choose wisely, oh naive shopperette, thine garments wilst stand the tests of self-scrutiny and conscious decision-making: Thou shalt not place thine bra in the firey depths of the DRIER!
But eventually, thou shall, and thou knowst it to be so. But whilst thou stand in front of Victoria Secret's glistened mirrors, thou makest false promises of air-drying.
So hopefully, I haven't lost my entire livejournal audience by discussing laundrying tactics, but this is important. These were the thoughts running through my head while I was deciding while bra to buy.
Buying this underwear at Victoria's Secret (I've never owned one of their bras, by the way...) gave me an opportunity to do some self-reflective and perhaps egocentric thinking. And what better way to do that thinking than doing it while looking at your own reflection??
And, not surprisingly, I figured a few things out.
I haven't hung out with a single person from home since I've been here. I ran into Carolyn working at Kidd Coffee today, but that's the extent of my interaction with "home-folks." And somehow, that's okay.
I guess if this were Christmas break, and I knew I wouldn't be seeing any of them for all that time, I'd be distressed...but maybe not even then.
Instead, right now, I have this inner calm and sense of completeness about who I am and what I am doing. I've talked about my academic future with my parents, and although none of us can definitely know the path it will take, everything seems like it's going to be fine...and more. It will be what I want it to be.
It's having this sudden sense of control that overwhelms me right now. I'm home and home sure isn't what it was two, three or ten years ago...but that's fine. Home now gives me opportunities to be alone and think that school, just as a matter of its essence, cannot...
So maybe that's why when it was just me and my half-naked reflection for a while today at Victoria's Secret, I was thinking:
I know what I want and I know what I am feeling. I know where I want to be and I know who I care about. I want to make the most of myself and I want to make others feel what I feel. And it's alright that I'm at a hiatus right now--things will fall into their places.
That may not make everything okay in the interim. I'll be disappointed. I'll get hurt. I'll fail at times when I hope to succeed. But, with the sense of self I have right now, I challenge the future:
Alright. Show me struggle. And watch me stride through it.
And I'll do it in Body by Victoria style...
Wednesday, November 3, 2004
Indecision 2004
I feel that it is my duty as
1.) A livejournal user
2.) An active member in American society
3.) A legal Ohio citizen
to update above mentioned livejournal in honor of the current election and its incoming results.
I know too many people who walk a fine line between religious morals and politics and confuse the two who voted conservatively today.
I know too many people who have been hurt in the last four years because of the Bush regime.
I know too many families who have lost jobs to a failing economy.
I know too many people who have been sent over to the Middle East, risked their lives, and then after they were told "Mission Accomplished," they were given orders to go over again.
If Ohio, which has been declared by CNN "a green state" aka: too hard to call, goes to Bush... I'm afraid the people who made the mistake today of voting for him will self-righteously postulate their position for the next four years, and come the next forty, they will learn the hard way.
Our generation is the generation that will clean up the mess of this president. Four years is enough. I can't take four more.
Tuesday, November 2, 2004
Friday, October 22, 2004
An Open Letter to the CTA
Dear CTA,
We both know I'm one for excitement. I mean, come on. I wouldn't partake in your services were I not!
However, I don't know how appreciative I am of times when the El car I am on catches fire. Smoke is cool and flames can be sometimes, but still...endangering passengers lives is not.
Be thankful that Chicago residents are dull and robotic when they ride the El, otherwise, rather than calmly exiting the car and complacently standing on the platform, we would have rioted and set fire to more of your cars as you rolled away with a cloud of smoke trailing behind you.
Best wishes,
CC
Sunday, October 17, 2004
By David Brooks
SCHIEFFER And our first question goes to
KERRY Bob, I'm glad you asked me that question, but before I dodge it I'd like to thank you for moderating this debate, I'd like to thank Arizona State University for being such wonderful hosts and I'd like to thank Dick Cheney's daughter for being a lesbian - in case anybody didn't know.
Bob, as you know, this nation is on the brink of an apocalyptic catastrophe. Civilization as we know it is hanging on by a thread. Our culture has collapsed, our economy is in tatters, the human spirit is extinguished, children never laugh, God is dead, and families like Dick Cheney's are ashamed of their daughters, one of whom is a lesbian. All of this is because of
Did you know that right here in Arizona the average share of the national debt on a per capita basis is rising faster than the inverse of the median lost wages ratio of the typical swing voter in Ohio, Missouri and Florida combined?
Bob, when I'm president, we're going to have a president as gloomy as this country should be. But the difference is that I have a plan to balance the budget. In fact I have seven plans. Seven and a half if you count the one I was working on in the limo, not even counting subclauses. When I'm president, our country is going to marry a really rich country, which will pay for everything. Thank you.
SCHIEFFER Mr. President?
BUSH You need a plan. I know that. I'm president. I wake up every day looking for a plan. In fact, I supported Mitch McConnell's plan. But my opponent voted to raise taxes 1,500 gazillion bazillion times. He even voted for some of my budgets, which have created deficits as far as the eye can see! He's a liberal!
The first thing we need to do is cut back. I'm not going to have a flu shot this year. I'm not even going to take a Tylenol. I'm going to have a root canal right here on this stage without Novocain. But we also need to declare an international war on deficits.
I'm excited about 19-year-old girls in Afghanistan who are voting in favor of the line-item veto for the first time ever. I'm excited about the millions of Iraqis who have been liberated from Saddam's Hussein's trial lawyers and their frivolous lawsuits.
SCHIEFFER According to the prearranged rules of this debate, each candidate will now have two minutes to spew forth sentimental blather in order to connect with the American people.
KERRY Thank you Bob. I'm a Catholic. I was an altar boy. In Nativity plays I was usually cast as one of the posts holding up the manger. I know that a lot of people are tired of politicians who just tell them what they want to hear. America, I want to look you in the eye and pledge I will never pander to you.
Spirituality is important to me. I've always felt that we humans are insignificant maggots scuttling across the muck of the universe, and that life itself is just a meaningless moment of agony between the suffocating stench of the womb and the foul decay of the grave.
SCHIEFFER Thanks for that uplifting message. Mr. President?
BUSH America, we've been through a lot together. Imagine how bad things would be if I'd made any mistakes. But we've come through it.
We haven't enforced the Dred Scott decision. And what about my timber company? Can you believe the networks? Oh, never mind. Do you want some wood? How late does this go, anyway? I'm losing it.
SCHIEFFER As I was driving in tonight one thing occurred to me: All three of us are surrounded by strong women. What the hell are we doing up here? Why aren't they running the country?
KERRY Bob, it's true that I am married. She's my second wife, to be precise. Can't recall her name at the moment, but she's fully funded. And I've got two beautiful daughters. Heterosexuals, both of them.
I want to tell you about my family unit and what it means to me. We're in the 79th percentile in most demographic categories. Our compatibility fitness score is within the standard deviation for median households worldwide. ...
This Stuff
I expected college to be a lot like a series of monologues, where each individual would get a moment of self-declaration and in that moment, we completely mature, learn, and grow. But that hasn't happened and I don't think it will any time soon.
Instead, "College," the theater show, is set on a stage that has been designed as a cest pool of competition, gossip and hormones, where, we the players ("college students") port North Face fleece, Nalgenes, and five-hundred pages of reading for each week, and off stage right, parents and authority figures tell us to function.
"College" should really be a musical instead. Oh, wait. Waa Mu definitely already did that. But they didn't have a musical scene in a library--and that needs to happen.
Last night I was lying in bed thinking about all the things that had happened to me in a week's time. I'm positive nothing happened to me during the entire LENGTH of summer that compared in terms of dramatic interest. More dramas should be set on college campuses.
I've been cryptic lately with everybody. I apologize.
My backyard is big with big trees, divided in half by a white fence that runs the width of the green space. Stretching away from our back door and porch, there is a patio, a walkway to our pool, the white wooden fence, and then another stretch of lawn where our barn flanks the right side and my old wooden swingset flanks the left.
When I was seven, I'd run the entire backyard in circles. I'd start at the backdoor's steps, run crosswise toward my swingset, climb the swingset and jump down, run the width of the yard to the barn, turn, follow the white fence down toward the big tree with the old swing (where I once fell and scraped open my chin), around the pool (keeping my distance from the edge like Mom asked me to), and then leap over the lavender bushes.
Once, as I tried to jump those bunches of lavender in one leap, I thought to myself (as I fell into the grass and proceeded to roll down the hill toward the patio in one motion), "Someday, I'll look back and think about this and I'll know I was really lucky."
And I was right. I do look back. And I was lucky. Everything was simple, and even though I knew it, I couldn't appreciate it.
I think I'm going to jump in leaves later this week and maybe run around campus. I think I'd smile if I saw someone else doing it in between classes or at night on their way to the library, so maybe I should go for it
Tuesday, October 5, 2004
Monday, October 4, 2004
An Open Letter to God
(Upon Spending Hours in Library and After a Late Beach Walk Full of Introspection the Previous Night)
Monday, October 4, 2004
Dear God,
Please don't let me become just another college student on her way to just another grad school, who will ultimately lead just another suburban-working-mother life. Help me make my life interesting and fill it with the unexpected. Remind me when my eyes glaze over with humdrum existence that a world lives outside of me, begging to be breathed in, exhaled, and experienced. Shake me at my foundation and challenge me daily.
Help me make my life extraordinary, if only for the reason that I lived it.
With much love,
CC
PS. Good job with that whole running the world thing. I'm very impressed. Oh, and could you maybe throw a vote left in this upcoming election? Thanks!