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Monthly archives for April 2010
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The Places You Will Be From
Just for you, a Friday night woohoo haiku.
electricity
brims and lingers, then yields to
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Good News Is on the Way
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It’s in You
You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you’re confusing courage with wisdom. —Wizard of Oz
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An End Can Be a Start
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On Three
It’s hard to know what to say much of the time.
How do you best comfort a friend in pain? How do you order a steak to get it just the right shade of pink? Or let your boss know
hehis idea lacks vision? Get someone to stop asking you out? Say you’re sorry? Tell your roommate to get her own freakin’ Lucky Charms?I find, if I pause at all before speaking, the “right” words are very often not obvious … even in routine or mundane situations.
My solution, historically, has been to throw everything at the wall, hoping something sticks. As a result, I’ve acquired a reputation as an epic over-explainer. (I hear some variation of “I’m not an idiot, you know … I understand what you’re saying” on a pretty regular basis.) Those with a more kindly bent will sometimes describe me instead as “a natural teacher.”
To think about my way of talking things into the ground as the habit of a frustrated teacher makes some sense, I suppose, and it definitely satisfies that need we all have to find purpose in the odd behavior of others. But to assume the role of teacher, even in this metaphorical way, is to presume your listener lacks knowledge or understanding of some kind.
The thing is, I don’t explain things seven ways from Sunday because I imagine the listener’s ability to comprehend is deficient. It’s more that, the way I see it, language is such a slipshod way to communicate abstract ideas in the first place. I like to cover my bases.
How can I be sure you understood me? Did I choose words that carry the same connotation for you as they do for me? Did I lay out my reasoning in a way that’s compatible with how your synapses fire?
On top of all that, the expectation seems to be, increasingly, that “effective” communication is painfully literal communication. I think of this pernicious literalism as flowing from our bureaucratic and litigious society, wherein abiding by the spirit of an agreement is for simpletons and suckers. Of course, that’s an opinion heavily informed by my personal brand of paranoia. In any event, exploring the cause isn’t nearly as much fun as complaining about the results.
Just this morning, I went to a well-known national coffee shop. I ordered my usual iced tea, whereupon I presented the barista with my nifty stainless steel water bottle to use instead of a disposable cup.
Now, the bottle was about three-quarters full when I passed it to him. He looked back and—I swear to god—asked if I wanted him to dump it out. It did not even cross my mind that this would be an issue or that I might need to explicate the steps involved in turning a bottle filled with water into a bottle filled with iced tea.
Sure, it would be easy to crack wise about how he must have been stupid or high or whatever. He wasn’t, though. He was just a normal guy, clearly applying himself to his work, polite and attentive. It makes me wonder if he was once scolded by a customer in a similar situation …
Did I ask you to throw out my water? I wanted to save that, asshole. Let me talk to your manager.
Okay, that probably never happened, but things not so unlike that happen all the time … a miscommunication and somebody’s gotta be at fault.
I imagine that in days gone by the nuance inherent in language, especially a rich mongrel language like English, was cause for delight. I mean, it’s the basis for poetry, puns and wordplay of all stripes. Nowadays, people largely avoid poetry, groan at puns and possess a limited tolerance for wordplay. Those things, apparently, are becoming the purview of fools and wastrels.
Certainly, ambiguity can be costly, frustrating … scary, even (particularly as the on-demand nature of our culture leads to frames of reference that grow more singular by the day). Even something as fundamental and universal as expressing love is a murky business if left to words alone.
Sure, you say you love me. I say I love you. Do we mean the same thing? Okay, then. I love you very much. You love me very much. Same amount of very? Who the fuck knows?
Of course, I’m exaggerating to make a point. There are, obviously, ways of finding out, ways to be reasonably sure that what we infer is what was intended, but—as much as it pains me to say so—in matters of great import, they don’t involve words.
Most action-comedy tropes are built on just this conundrum. The hero says, “Okay, we go on three.” One. Two. Wait … are we going on three or after three? And it’s funny because it’s true … we all have Who’s on First? moments. I know what I mean when I say “on three” or “love” or “please, use this water bottle.” But do you?
I thought I might make it through this discussion without invoking the infamous “It depends on what the meaning of the word is is.” Alas, no. Clinton’s notorious line raises the specter of intentional deception, but—the alleged blackness of our former president’s heart notwithstanding—the man had a point. Words are slippery. Words, often, don’t mean as much as we suppose they do.
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Dharma Bums
Ryokan was a Zen teacher of repute. One day after a storm, a fisherman saw him walking on the beach. The waves had washed thousands of starfish onto the shore, and they were quickly beginning to die in the warm sunlight. Ryokan picked up the starfish, one by one, and threw them into the sea.The fisherman caught up with the teacher and said, “Surely, you cannot hope to throw all these starfish back into the sea? They will die in their thousands here. I’ve seen it happen before. Your effort will make no difference.â€
“It will make a difference to this one,†Ryokan replied, throwing another starfish into the sea.
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Changing Roles
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Wherever You Go, There You Are
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F Is for Friday
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Walk Beside Me and Be My Friend
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
—Mark TwainI hate to quibble with Mr. Clemens, a fellow Show-Me-Stater and personal literary god, but I would amend his aphorism ever so slightly … the truly great make you feel that maybe you’re already pretty swell.
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Loved and Lost
Although I didn’t intend to make a habit of choosing songs of the day in pairs, I liked the way the songs yesterday played with the contrast between permanence and its shadow, impermanence. Well, the juxtaposition was intentional … Yin-Yang. Duh. What I mean is, I liked it as a way of actually picking songs of the day. The idea that “seemingly contrary forces are interconnected and interdependent … [and] give rise to each other in turn” is an important one, I think, and one that I’ve become a tad fixated on lately. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been very good at the both/and thing, favoring instead the either/or approach. But, apparently, the difference is pretty crucial for experiencing the fullness of life, or so I’m told. So, this is experimental—partly personal growth project, partly collaborative project. I’m going to try to offer songs of the day in pairs that represent the duality of … I dunno, something, whatever speaks to me that day. Maybe it will be explicit. Maybe it will be cryptic. I’d love to get suggestions from those of you who are music mavens or dialectical-worldview mavens or, you know, don’t have anything better to do with your free time. Drop me a line at ilovecheesefordinner [at] the good old Google e-mail domain. I will of course give cred to those who play.
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Yin-Yang
For shits and giggles, I’m reviving an old favorite … of mine, anyway … song of the day. And as it’s a Tuesday, it’s also a twofer, the twofer version of a bear hug from a fat, old Taoist monk … or two wee kittehs.Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Meet you on the other side (brotha).
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Hyperbole, or Abstract Nonsense
So, when, in my most recent post, I promised in the “very near future” to write about a number of different topics, which I enumerated, I pretty much meant “whenever I feel like it I will be posting on none of the following.” The thing is, what’s most on my mind at the moment isn’t any of that stuff. What’s most on my mind at the moment is the fact that my twentieth high school reunion is coming up this summer.
If you’ve been reading me for very long, you’ve no doubt picked up on my tendency to dwell on milestones and anniversaries and, generally, to obsess over the passage of time. In that context, I feel it would be remiss of me not to comment (at length) on my twentieth reunion.
It’s not like it snuck up on me or anything. 2010 – 1990 = 20, no matter how you slice it. Still, it always comes as something of a surprise when my stubborn denial does not, in fact, alter reality. Every goddamned time.
I’d also like to say that I recognize how trite it is to go on and on about how it doesn’t seem possible that twenty years have passed since graduation. It’s so trite, really, that saying it’s trite is trite. Here, I can only fall back on the defense that clichés are cliché for a reason, which, of course, is itself a cliché. Nonetheless, what is unoriginal is unoriginal, oftentimes, because it contains something universal, something true. Or, as David Foster Wallace said in a 1996 Salon interview:
The idea that something so simple and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting—which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff—can actually be nourishing in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can’t, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.
How can you argue with David Foster Wallace? You can’t, that’s how.
So … me being me, I grapple with the importance of the reunion. In case you’re curious, it goes a little something like this:
It’s important.
It’s not important.
It’s important.
It shouldn’t be important.
Why the hell not?
It’s important.
It’s not important.
…
And, the truly, genuinely insane part is that I grapple with the idea of the reunion, not the reunion itself. About the event, I am unambivalent. My childhood BFF long since convinced me to go. I’ve RSVPed and gotten my tickets and all that. As out of character as it seems, I’m even looking forward to it.
I don’t know how to think about the reunion. That’s the problem. Is it meaningful? If so, what does it mean? Is it a rite of passage? Is it just an excuse to go home and see old friends … drink too much … flirt with strangers who, in my mind’s eye, are not strangers and will always be 17?
And right there—entirely by accident—I think I’ve touched upon the heart of the matter. In my mind’s eye, it’s not only the 150 or so strangers at reunion who remain 17. Of course, in my mind’s eye, I am still that girl I was, too.
But, in truth, that girl’s largely gone, replaced by the woman with what was then more than a lifetime’s worth of experience.
I wonder. Maybe the twentieth high school reunion is not so much a chance to recapture youth or even to reminisce about it. Maybe it’s a potent symbol because it serves as a chance to meet that youthful self once again, to say thanks … and goodbye.
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Home, Sweet, Bed
After a busy week and an impromptu sleepover at my parents’ this weekend, I’m happily back in my own bed and ready to rumble with the cheese for dinner once again. For this very moment, however … well, that’s between me and my full-body pillow.
In the very near future, though, you can look forward to posts on some or all of the following: the meaning of life (I’ve found it), how to cope when younger siblings get all growed up, Kevin Smith’s girth (I ain’t talkin penises), falling in love v. being in love v. loving, writing about the recession, and—what the hell—my ex-husband.
In the meantime, and in the spirit of Spring and rebirth and redemption and all that jazz, I’ve got two quotes for pondering.
We like people for their qualities but we love them for their defects. —John Myers (Hellboy)
Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.
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Name's Kirsten. I'm a splitter of hairs, a hillbilly, a rock horns devotee, an ellipses-lovin' fool, and queen of the conceptual jinx. I'm also a geek and the grateful human of littleblackdog. I do this and that and some of the other … up to and including writing this here blog.
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cheese for dinner by kirsten k. hammann is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
SuperMini by unnerkrunt and nocreativity.