I joined my cousin's family of four for waffles this morning. They were in the middle of a discussion when I sat down, and NPR was on loud enough to be part of the conversation.
"What's the news?" I said, and my cousin told me that George McGovern had died, just before dawn. He was 90.
His three-and-three-quarters-year-old daughter nodded, swallowed so as not to talk with her mouth full, and said, "Yes, we were just wondering if he got to have Halloween."
The adults' expressions told me that they hadn't actually been talking about that, and that the three-year-old was alone in her wonder. It stood to reason, Halloween being top of mind right now if you're three. But now I was intrigued, not just because I wanted to see where the conversation would go, but because I honestly wondered whether the senator had somehow celebrated an early Halloween in the Sioux Falls hospice, surrounded by family and friends.
The seven-year-old son asked who George McGovern was, and one of us explained that he had been in the United States Senate, and that he had run for president a long time ago, before their mom was born, even. McGovern had lost the race, we told him. By kind of a lot.
I turned to the three-year-old. "Do you think he celebrated Halloween?"
She said she didn't know, and I realized it was a silly question on my part because she had just now told me that she was wondering. I turned to the seven-year-old. "Well, if George McGovern did celebrate an early Halloween, what do you suppose his costume was?"
"He probably dressed up as a president," said the seven-year-old.
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Thursday, July 05, 2012
The Portland Piers
A couple of days ago I was showing Maine to a friend from away, which is what they call you in Maine if you were born anywhere else. In fact, they'll say you're from away even if you were born in Maine but your parents weren't. "If the cat gave birth to kittens in the kitchen, you wouldn't call them muffins," they'll say. I was born in Maine, but I'm from away. Still, to my friends who grew up elsewhere, I'm mostly the closest they've been to a Mainer. It's kind of like when I grew up in Maine, Meeting me was the closest many of my real Mainer friends had ever been to meeting a Jew, even though I was really only half Jewish, and the wrong half -- my dad's half -- at that.
My friend and I were standing at the edge of a pier in Portland. He wanted to see the spot where a guy had fallen off and drowned last month. It had been in the news all over New England. The victim had been from away, and was visiting Portland to celebrate his recent completion of grad school. He had disappeared sometime after midnight.
The piers in Portland are dark at night, and precarious. It was midday when my friend and I were taking stock of the situation, and in the sunlight it's clear where not to step, but still, he got the gist of how easy it would be to trip and disappear. The water off the Portland piers is thick, still, and brown. We were peering over the edge when a craggy man called out to us.
"Hey, do you like pollock?"
We looked over. The man was wearing well-worn cut-offs and work boots and nothing else. Maybe socks. With the hand that wasn't holding a fishing pole, he gestured downward to the weathered dock, where a small fish lay gasping for breath.
"Apparently they're expensive now, pollocks, and they serve them in fancy restaurants," he said, and looked at me as if for confirmation. When I was growing up in Maine I never thought I'd end up the kind of person who knew from fish in fancy restaurants, but I did turn out to be that way. I hang out with food writers, very good ones, and sometimes I am one, and I knew that cod prices have been crazy enough lately that a lot of restaurants have been serving pollock instead, even in Massachusetts, where cod is sacred. There's a sculpture in the State House called "The Sacred Cod." I know all this, and he looked at me as if I knew all this.
"They do serve them in fancy restaurants," I said.
"Yut," he said, which is what people from Maine really say more often than the stereotypical "Ayuh," and he offered the fish to us. "Usually I have to decide whether to feed it to the seagulls or to throw it back in," he said. The implication was that we'd be saving him a decision if we accepted the offer, but my friend didn't want the fish. Had I been alone, I probably would have accepted it and then, when the guy wasn't looking, thrown it back in.
"Well," said the man. "I suppose I'll throw it back in."
But instead, he kicked the fish in the head, twice. The second kick was powerful enough to send the fish flying, flopping off the edge of the pier. The water was too murky for us to see whether the fish swam away. I held out hope even though the man's work boots were steel-toed.
My friend and I were standing at the edge of a pier in Portland. He wanted to see the spot where a guy had fallen off and drowned last month. It had been in the news all over New England. The victim had been from away, and was visiting Portland to celebrate his recent completion of grad school. He had disappeared sometime after midnight.
The piers in Portland are dark at night, and precarious. It was midday when my friend and I were taking stock of the situation, and in the sunlight it's clear where not to step, but still, he got the gist of how easy it would be to trip and disappear. The water off the Portland piers is thick, still, and brown. We were peering over the edge when a craggy man called out to us.
"Hey, do you like pollock?"
We looked over. The man was wearing well-worn cut-offs and work boots and nothing else. Maybe socks. With the hand that wasn't holding a fishing pole, he gestured downward to the weathered dock, where a small fish lay gasping for breath.
"Apparently they're expensive now, pollocks, and they serve them in fancy restaurants," he said, and looked at me as if for confirmation. When I was growing up in Maine I never thought I'd end up the kind of person who knew from fish in fancy restaurants, but I did turn out to be that way. I hang out with food writers, very good ones, and sometimes I am one, and I knew that cod prices have been crazy enough lately that a lot of restaurants have been serving pollock instead, even in Massachusetts, where cod is sacred. There's a sculpture in the State House called "The Sacred Cod." I know all this, and he looked at me as if I knew all this.
"They do serve them in fancy restaurants," I said.
"Yut," he said, which is what people from Maine really say more often than the stereotypical "Ayuh," and he offered the fish to us. "Usually I have to decide whether to feed it to the seagulls or to throw it back in," he said. The implication was that we'd be saving him a decision if we accepted the offer, but my friend didn't want the fish. Had I been alone, I probably would have accepted it and then, when the guy wasn't looking, thrown it back in.
"Well," said the man. "I suppose I'll throw it back in."
But instead, he kicked the fish in the head, twice. The second kick was powerful enough to send the fish flying, flopping off the edge of the pier. The water was too murky for us to see whether the fish swam away. I held out hope even though the man's work boots were steel-toed.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
twist endings
As a kid I revered the endings of O. Henry stories enough to mimic them, but my bittersweet surprise endings tended to err toward bitter. In my seventh-grade story "Cheers," the heroine downs a bottle of rat poison in the janitor's closet after the principal announces the onset of thermoglobal nuclear war, and only after she is dead does the reader learn that the principal's announcement was just a test of the emergency broadcast system.
In my ninth-grade story "The Wish," a ninth-grader trudges down the street chanting her mantra of negation: "I suck. You suck. Life sucks. I wish I were dead." The young couples in her midst are staring into each other's eyes. Her own eyes, of course, are always cast downward, and for that she is the only one who spots the gleam of a lamp buried in the dirt. She runs through the steps to make the genie appear, and he promises her the requisite three wishes. I don't remember what her first wish is, but I remember that she regrets the first wish and habitually blurts, "I wish I were dead!" And so it is, and the third wish goes ungranted.
My ninth grade teacher made me change "Life sucks" to "I hate life," arguing that "sucks" had obscene connotations that I didn't intend. I argued back that I was pretty sure that there was nothing more obscene than the extent to which life could suck, except for maybe hate, but I wasn't entirely sure about that back then, and I wanted an "A," so I didn't argue too hard.
It wasn't until years later that I realized the hindsight aspect of twist-ending stories -- that the good ones included a lot of clues that make you realize you could have seen it coming all along, even if the characters couldn't. M. Night Shhyamalan movies guided us through that process with heavy-handed recaps. His twists ranged from artful to arbitrary, but the recaps were generally of the same ilk: Look here, and here, and here. You could have seen it coming.
In real life, a brief stint as manager helped me develop an ability to zoom in and out on situations, and my brain's been taking it to my dreams. I've been dreaming in recaps lately.
In my ninth-grade story "The Wish," a ninth-grader trudges down the street chanting her mantra of negation: "I suck. You suck. Life sucks. I wish I were dead." The young couples in her midst are staring into each other's eyes. Her own eyes, of course, are always cast downward, and for that she is the only one who spots the gleam of a lamp buried in the dirt. She runs through the steps to make the genie appear, and he promises her the requisite three wishes. I don't remember what her first wish is, but I remember that she regrets the first wish and habitually blurts, "I wish I were dead!" And so it is, and the third wish goes ungranted.
My ninth grade teacher made me change "Life sucks" to "I hate life," arguing that "sucks" had obscene connotations that I didn't intend. I argued back that I was pretty sure that there was nothing more obscene than the extent to which life could suck, except for maybe hate, but I wasn't entirely sure about that back then, and I wanted an "A," so I didn't argue too hard.
It wasn't until years later that I realized the hindsight aspect of twist-ending stories -- that the good ones included a lot of clues that make you realize you could have seen it coming all along, even if the characters couldn't. M. Night Shhyamalan movies guided us through that process with heavy-handed recaps. His twists ranged from artful to arbitrary, but the recaps were generally of the same ilk: Look here, and here, and here. You could have seen it coming.
In real life, a brief stint as manager helped me develop an ability to zoom in and out on situations, and my brain's been taking it to my dreams. I've been dreaming in recaps lately.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Beyond "Wash Me"
On days when I'm a little late for work, I usually get caught in traffic behind the same dingy mail truck. Sometimes non-committal and unoriginal graffiti artists will scrawl "WASH ME" on a dirty truck. But whoever has been finger painting in the dirt of this truck has better things to say. Lately I've found myself tailgating so I can read the latest words, which I try very hard to interpret as words of inspiration.
Last week the back of the truck read "Photonic velcro. Neutron. Tattoo." This week those words were still there, along with, "A different kind of truth, honeybaby" and "Bring back Michael Anthony."
It was raining really hard, but the dirt was tenacious.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Left behind
Many of the young women who work out at my gym tend to leave their towels and hair elastics lying around for other people to pick up, even though there's a sign on the wall telling us not to leave our towels lying around. I get indignant when I see a towel on the floor, and I get self-congratulatory when I pick it up and carry it to the towel bin in the manner of a martyr. When I see a hair elastic lying around, I usually get opportunistic. If my head isn't sweaty, I like to put my hair in a ponytail before I hit the shower, and I often forget to bring my own hair elastic. So I'll borrow one off a locker room bench and wash it in the shower and put it in my hair so I can get clean without getting my hair wet. This is just to say that the other day in the shower, I snatched a hair elastic from the soap dish and already had tried to put it in my hair before I realized it wasn't a hair elastic after all. It was somebody's NuvaRing.
I told this story to a few of my cousins on Thanksgiving, while we were eating pie. I would have worried that it was too gross a story to tell at the table, but of these three cousins, two are in medical school and one spent the better part of Friday turning goat guts into string for a homesteading project. They're tough stock. Still, they all said, "ewwww."
And then one of them asked me how I had reacted.
"I was disappointed," I said. "I wasn't grossed out as much as I was full of that feeling you get when you think you have something good and then it turns out to be something awful. That feeling of, 'aww, MAN.'"
They knew what I meant.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Loose association
"I need to buy a bathing suit for the trip," I said. "And a bikini wax."
"Oh!" my mom said. "Guess what your father caught in the basement last night! A WEASEL!"
"You didn't let me guess...." I said.
"I was getting ready for bed," she said. "And I heard him yelling at me from the basement. 'MARGARET! I THINK I CAUGHT A FAT WHITE FERRET!' But it was a weasel."
"How do you know it was a weasel?" I said.
"We Googled him," she said. "He was white. Weasels turn white in the winter."
"Wanda the witch lived somewhere west of Washington," I mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"When weasels turn white they become ermines," she said. "People kill them for stoles."
"Stoat stoles," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Stoats are weasels, and white weasels are ermines. I don't wear fur, and we're going to let him go so he can go eat rats."
"Did he go pop?" I said.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"I need to buy a bathing suit for the trip," I said. "And a bikini wax."
"Oh!" my mom said. "Guess what your father caught in the basement last night! A WEASEL!"
"You didn't let me guess...." I said.
"I was getting ready for bed," she said. "And I heard him yelling at me from the basement. 'MARGARET! I THINK I CAUGHT A FAT WHITE FERRET!' But it was a weasel."
"How do you know it was a weasel?" I said.
"We Googled him," she said. "He was white. Weasels turn white in the winter."
"Wanda the witch lived somewhere west of Washington," I mumbled.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"When weasels turn white they become ermines," she said. "People kill them for stoles."
"Stoat stoles," I said.
"Yes," she said. "Stoats are weasels, and white weasels are ermines. I don't wear fur, and we're going to let him go so he can go eat rats."
"Did he go pop?" I said.
"What?"
"Nothing."
Three bus memories
In kindergarten I’d sit in the last seat of Bus #2 and feign sleep. I liked how Dick the Driver would put the bus in neutral, walk to the back of the bus, and shake me gently to let me know we were at my stop. Dick looked like Johnny Carson. In fourth grade Dick retired. He was replaced by a sad man who was so fat that he lacked shape, and we called him Pudding in a Bag, but not to his face.
My friend Sarah grew up riding the bus with a boy named Arnold who had a glass eye, and we called him Arnold Eye. One time he got mad, popped his eye out, and threw it at another kid. The eye rolled down the aisle, and the bus got quiet except for the sound of the rolling eye. Sarah said that a quiet school bus feels eerie.
For a couple of winters there was a busker at the Harvard stop performing Elvis songs in a Spanish accent. His voice cut through the cold like magic. Once when he sang, "It's Now or Never," the mom who had been barking at her kids five minutes earlier started dancing with them instead. And an older lady in red started dancing by herself, hugging her memories close, eyes closed, mouthing the words into her own shoulder.
In kindergarten I’d sit in the last seat of Bus #2 and feign sleep. I liked how Dick the Driver would put the bus in neutral, walk to the back of the bus, and shake me gently to let me know we were at my stop. Dick looked like Johnny Carson. In fourth grade Dick retired. He was replaced by a sad man who was so fat that he lacked shape, and we called him Pudding in a Bag, but not to his face.
My friend Sarah grew up riding the bus with a boy named Arnold who had a glass eye, and we called him Arnold Eye. One time he got mad, popped his eye out, and threw it at another kid. The eye rolled down the aisle, and the bus got quiet except for the sound of the rolling eye. Sarah said that a quiet school bus feels eerie.
For a couple of winters there was a busker at the Harvard stop performing Elvis songs in a Spanish accent. His voice cut through the cold like magic. Once when he sang, "It's Now or Never," the mom who had been barking at her kids five minutes earlier started dancing with them instead. And an older lady in red started dancing by herself, hugging her memories close, eyes closed, mouthing the words into her own shoulder.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
I can't believe I never noticed this before
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority posts signs above the seats by the door, asking passengers to give up those seats to elderly and disabled passengers. The sign repeats the request in a few languages, and also in Braille. I didn't notice this until the little kid sitting across from me the other day asked her mom why there were bumps on the sign.
"It's telling blind people to give up their seats to the disabled," the mom said. "It's a silly sign."
It reminded me of the braille on drive-up automatic teller machines, which people have been laughing about for years, but apparently that's there because blind people might take cabs, and nobody wants to ask a cabbie for help with a financial transaction.
The Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority posts signs above the seats by the door, asking passengers to give up those seats to elderly and disabled passengers. The sign repeats the request in a few languages, and also in Braille. I didn't notice this until the little kid sitting across from me the other day asked her mom why there were bumps on the sign.
"It's telling blind people to give up their seats to the disabled," the mom said. "It's a silly sign."
It reminded me of the braille on drive-up automatic teller machines, which people have been laughing about for years, but apparently that's there because blind people might take cabs, and nobody wants to ask a cabbie for help with a financial transaction.
Saturday, February 27, 2010
MBTAAAAAAACK!
The bus route between Waverly Square and Harvard Square doesn't have enough buses, and by the time they reach me, bus drivers must choose whether to drive on by or to squish the passengers into every crevice. I didn't know buses sported crevices until I rode the #73. (Once I'm on the bus, I always hope the driver will choose to drive on by everyone else, which means I'm either an asshole or an evolutionary success story.)
The other day the driver stopped for me even though I could see from the outside that there really wasn't any room in the passenger section. The passengers were pressed against the windows like grumpy hams. I ended up standing next to the driver, six inches from the windshield. The woman who boarded after me stood braced against the door. Both she and I cringed when the driver ran a red light to veer onto Brattle Street. When the cars with the right of way started toward us, the driver said to them, "Please don't hit me, ladies and gentleman!"
"That would suck," I said to the driver.
"Maybe for you guys," he said, nodding toward the woman by the door and me. "I wouldn't feel a thing."
That was morning. On the way home, I stood next to an old drunk who was trying to get a young hipster to stop listening to his headphones and start listening to the world. "Boolaboolaboolaboola!" didn't work, and neither did wagging his fingers in the hipster's face. The hipster just closed his eyes.
The drunk tried again.
"I HAVE TO GO CA-CA! I HAAAAAVE TOOOOO GOOOOO CAAAAAA-CAAAAAA RIGHT NOW!" he shouted, and in a more dulcet, thoughtful tone, actually stroking his beard, "And I'm crazy enough to do it, too."
The bus route between Waverly Square and Harvard Square doesn't have enough buses, and by the time they reach me, bus drivers must choose whether to drive on by or to squish the passengers into every crevice. I didn't know buses sported crevices until I rode the #73. (Once I'm on the bus, I always hope the driver will choose to drive on by everyone else, which means I'm either an asshole or an evolutionary success story.)
The other day the driver stopped for me even though I could see from the outside that there really wasn't any room in the passenger section. The passengers were pressed against the windows like grumpy hams. I ended up standing next to the driver, six inches from the windshield. The woman who boarded after me stood braced against the door. Both she and I cringed when the driver ran a red light to veer onto Brattle Street. When the cars with the right of way started toward us, the driver said to them, "Please don't hit me, ladies and gentleman!"
"That would suck," I said to the driver.
"Maybe for you guys," he said, nodding toward the woman by the door and me. "I wouldn't feel a thing."
That was morning. On the way home, I stood next to an old drunk who was trying to get a young hipster to stop listening to his headphones and start listening to the world. "Boolaboolaboolaboola!" didn't work, and neither did wagging his fingers in the hipster's face. The hipster just closed his eyes.
The drunk tried again.
"I HAVE TO GO CA-CA! I HAAAAAVE TOOOOO GOOOOO CAAAAAA-CAAAAAA RIGHT NOW!" he shouted, and in a more dulcet, thoughtful tone, actually stroking his beard, "And I'm crazy enough to do it, too."
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