tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-76816551382020800092024-03-14T03:25:30.479-07:00French and ZenFrench and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-40461769822467728072008-05-03T00:39:00.000-07:002008-05-03T00:40:41.422-07:00All Around The World You Will Find LoveI've just finished Subway Idol: a NYTimes video about a man named Joe Taylor who auditions for the Music Underground program in the New York subways. He sings an original love song entitled "All Around The World," proclaiming to the judges before his performance, "This is guaranteed to make you smile."<br /><br />I occasionally watch the NYTimes videos, but they're not my favorite part of the NYTimes. Neither is the international section, which I read almost exclusively for the first three years I had my online account, which I registered for when I was 15. And it's not the sports page or even the crossword, a staple of my college chemistry career. It's not even the fashion section (which I read religiously.)<br /><br />And no, it's not Nick Kristof's column.<br /><br />My all-time favorite, best-loved section of the New York Times is the Vows.<br /><br />Every week on Saturday, the paper publishes a feature article on a recent wedding, complete with pictures of the bride and groom and sometimes guests at the event. The article also features details of the couples' courtship, often giving in intimate details the defining moments of their relationship along with describing the decor at the wedding venue. In their wedding pictures, the couples are not always dressed in white (less and less often these days) but they invariably manage to look very much in love.<br /><br />Last week's article was the story of a couple who met during their freshmen year of college and instantly became best friends. They remained platonic best friends for the next eight years, calling each other almost daily while offering support and advice during the other's romantic relationships. The relationship changed suddenly on an unplanned visit one made to the other. Soon the two were dating, and very shortly thereafter the two were engaged. Their wedding picture is one of the happiest I've seen on the vows. Both the bride and the groom look radiant.<br /><br />Their story almost sounds a little too traditional for the Vows, however. The week before the Vows featured the marriage between a peace corps official who married a stuffy, closeted professor. While she traveled across the world managing the emergency response teams for the International Rescue Committee, he was a workaholic academic with three Ph.D.s and a career in evolutionary biology. They met after seeing each other's profiles on an online dating site, and after negotiating a long distance relationship for several years, married in her apartment in Brooklyn. She left for Kenya the next day.<br /><br />Other articles have featured U.N. diplomats falling in love with other during peace mediations and across five conflicts, a celebrity hairstylist finally proposing to one of his first clients he saw more often on T.V. then in real life, an Alvin Ailey dancer tying the knot with a corporate lawyer, a female marketing executive getting hitched to a professional clown, the women who wrote a book against marriage taking the plunge... Indeed what stands out about the Vows is precisely the unpredictable and wide range of love stories. Against all odds, the people who are featured in the Vows seem able to make their love work and decide to unite their lives together, even when that unity means giving up rescuing orphans in Ghana and learning how to make brown paper lunches for step children. There is no practical or logistical reason for these couples to get married. Few share a similar upbringing or share childhood memories. Defying statistics that say you should marry someone who grew up in a thirty mile radius of you, none of these couples were raised in the same home town. Many are not of the same race. Few share the same religious beliefs. Some I've mentioned don't live on the same continent for longs parts of the year. Others hate the profession of the one they love. Some, having been married before, swear they will never love again only to find themselves at the altar. Love, as expressed in the Vows, quite literally brings the world together.<br /><br />So why do I love the Vows so much? Perhaps because the variety of love found in the Vows stands as a testament against the worst parts of my character and the social world in which I date. As a single Mormon women intent on marrying another single Mormon male, the vast majority of men in my dating pool are not only the same religion as I am, but they are mostly the same ethnic background, attended the same undergraduate university, and have grandparents that live in the city that my grandparents or my parents do. Most of them, like me, have more than one sibling-- including a sister who forced them to watch Anne of Green Gables. They grew up eating a lot of hot dogs, jello, and chocolate chip cookies and they drink milk because in their heads they hear their mothers' voices telling them to grow big and strong. They don't listen to a lot of rap music, prefer to recycle, and own a bike. Once upon a time they started learning how to play acoustic guitar and dance the cha-cha. They like opening doors for women as much as I like having my door opened for me (more so, often) and feel slighted when the woman picks up the tab at dinner. Some of them celebrate the Passover even though they aren't Jewish, like my family does. They get uncomfortable when a movie gets too raunchy and listen to classical music on Sundays and know how to change a tire and iron a shirt and preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. So do I.<br /><br />If the people in the Vows can make it work with people that live on separate continents, why have I not yet found love with one of the many kind young men who share my race, religion, family background, major categories of interests, and values?<br /><br />The answer has a much to do with myself as it does the young men in my dating pool. I suffer from the pickiness and general dating malaise that maybe settles when you don't have to work hard to find people who (at least in surface ways) are compatible with you. There's the boy next door I grew up with who played the trumpet with me and walked me home from school every day in ninth grade and shared most of my major experiences in high school who I didn't date because I felt I couldn't respect his opinions (which often mirrored mine). And I didn't marry the boy in college who liked me because I didn't want to go grocery shopping with him (he married my sister and they spend hours at the grocers together) or the other boy because he was my best friend and liked football too much. I'm not dating one boy I know because he "reminds me too much of Mr. Collins"-- and I yet haven't mentioned the freckled funny boy who makes me laugh like crazy and takes me to my favorite hamburger joint for sweet potato fries because that's right-- I'm not dating him either. For no good reason.<br /><br />My ex isn't married to me partially because I "give too much of the time" and the boy I've liked for the last two years isn't dating me because I'm not "skinny enough to be paired with him in his brain." I'm sure there are others who have rejected me without even a date because I have red hair or have taken to wearing purple on occasion, because I wave my hands when I talk, because I can't open containers, or because sometimes I come out a little on the liberal side of conversation or am starting med school in the fall. Or because I never wear makeup or am not as physically active as I should be. I feel like I'm in a perpetual round of mutual passive rejection.<br /><br />How do I change my heart to be more accepting of people, even when they're very different from me? I don't have a good answer to this question, although I've been trying to work on it a little bit at a time for several years. Maybe the answer is that I just need to get out of my homogeneous dating pool and marry a Northern Indian Hindu who works as a guide on Mount Everest. We could live in a yurt together and I could cook yak. Or maybe I just need to learn to overlook the little things and focus on building on the already solid foundations of our commonalities instead of rejecting the future because of temporary habits. As the Vows teach, even a career as a diplomat is negotiable.<br /><br />I love the Vows because every week, I get a little reminder that I should stop looking at the package and start looking at what is inside-- that I should take chances on people and be patient and wait for romance to develop instead of steeling my heart against the possibility of change. As the Vows illustrate, when love is in the offing, anything can happen. Hearts can be melted. Long term difficulties can evaporate. I, too, can change my heart to accept not only a person who is very different from me, but maybe someone who shares all my major characteristics and my belief in God too.<br /><br />Perhaps more selfishly, I love the Vows because they give me hope that someday, maybe someday, someone will take a chance on a little redheaded West Coast girl who loves Catholic schoolchildren and viruses both. And if that somebody happens to be a flaming-haired man from Cali who only wears flip-flops in the lab too, then so be it. It might be true love.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-28229283410096917092008-01-12T15:23:00.000-08:002008-01-12T15:35:29.955-08:00On Precious<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0WPFcKZrp4CxfFNp7neEy-bMHIKboEnBFHwVs1RhcTIWxiAbIDrbxaVivMF8QcB7aK17SddzC44eg0iXrE9ve2dBEeonxXSZso6rPvTo9FKmxbUduOv0sSVy0t-C3WfJGb3NtlxLp4zH/s1600-h/IMG_0708.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhx0WPFcKZrp4CxfFNp7neEy-bMHIKboEnBFHwVs1RhcTIWxiAbIDrbxaVivMF8QcB7aK17SddzC44eg0iXrE9ve2dBEeonxXSZso6rPvTo9FKmxbUduOv0sSVy0t-C3WfJGb3NtlxLp4zH/s400/IMG_0708.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5154737790531845506" border="0" /></a><br />For the past couple years, I have painted at Christmas. Last year my subject was refractory camels, as inspired by T.S. Eliot's poem <span style="font-style: italic;">Journey of the Magi. </span>The subject was meaningful for me because I find Eliot's description of the experience of the Magi (and their camels!) very moving. This year, I upped the ante and decided to do a Madonna and Child. This was a very personal painting for me, and it turned out pretty much how I wanted it to. Since I'm certainly not a painter and have no technique to speak of, I consciously do not aim for photorealism, so it is of course abstracted.<br /><br />This painting was very much inspired by a song we sung in Rochester Mormon Choir this last semester. The director, a dear friend of mine, urged us to think of the word "precious" as we sang the piece. This made everyone giggle dismissively, but I really felt the word. In combination with the music and lyrics, the feeling of this "preciousness" really stuck with me. And this is the result! I can't find the lyrics, or any reference to the piece ("Little Child") online, and do not want to misquote the lyrics. When I get back to my apartment maybe I'll try to find them and post them.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-62928890919239452262008-01-10T21:46:00.001-08:002008-01-10T21:51:48.842-08:00On Brokenness I Don't Understand How To FightThis was supposed to be a blog entry about starting a revolution. I wanted to passionately make the case for teaching young Mormon women to rise up and embrace modernity while simultaneously championing the classical visions of womanhood. Key to this argument was the recognition of a growing class of young Mormon men, who may be increasingly willing to accommodate the drive and capacities of the Mormon female minted in my so-called revolution.<br /><br />That was what I wanted to write about.<br /><br />But now suddenly, this news: The former Bishop of my home ward has left his wife.<br /><br />He was bishop for about five years, husband for well over twenty, perhaps thirty. She was small and stylish with pretty green eyes and a wide smile. She was kind and gracious, always to me in my funny dresses and awkward ways. Her older twin daughters were married early and gave birth to strong babies, her third daughter a three-sport star in high school, and her youngest a dimpled blond. Everything about her spoke of compassion and grace. She had served faithfully as a Relief Society President and in other church callings. My father spoke kindly of him during his service as Bishop.<br /><br />I met with him a few times, although I was away at college for most of his tenure. He was a bit gruff in his manner of speaking, but was straightforward and I tried to follow his counsel.<br /><br />That man has left his wife.<br /><br />Perhaps he has left himself too. I cannot begin to imagine the darkness into which he must have descended. I feel I would rather die a thousand deaths, pitch myself off of an airplane over the ocean, succumb to Alzheimer's, rather than to leave a spouse. Where now are his photograph albums, his journals, the gloves he wore when he threw balls to that softball playing daughter? The pots, rugs, wallpaper he leaves behind tainted by his income, his choice, that filling the home he once filled-- all these he has now left abandoned.<br /><br />And she, we assume, must have played some small role in this drama, but how could she be responsible for his complete betrayal? Surely she, like other women before, was only trying her best at times to deal with an increasingly distant husband she loved but could no longer understand. Now every family reunion a splintered one, every moment of reminiscing with her daughters tainted by the memory of a man who broke an eternal trust.<br /><br />I suppose that if my father left my mother it would shatter my world entirely. The birds and the rain would disappear. I would stop believing in Santa Claus. I would put squares of only the bitterest baking chocolate in my mouth and then spit them back out. I expect I would stop breathing and perhaps only start when someone pushed by ribcage to revive me and then I would resent them for doing so.<br /><br />But of course I believe that I am different, that Dad would never EVER leave Mom. There is no other way to believe. Doubting his fidelity would be like pouring tar over the rest of my convictions and trying to make cement. I might hold together still, but everything would be black. But I really AM different. Dad wouldn't even dream of leaving.<br /><br />In the wake of such news, how can I make an argument for young women apart from an argument for ALL women? And how, HOW can I base any such argument on the existence of a reliable class of men? Such news leaves me in a world of faithlessness and hurt, a trembling at the thought of marriage, a creeping of doubt when I think of even the strongest young men that I know. "You, you too could leave me when you are fifty-four."<br /><br />I've never been a true feminist at heart, because I've always believed that truly empowered women can never exist at the expense of strong men. I believe in men. I respect men. I honor their unique capacities. I am blessed beyond measure to come from a home that is led by a man who respects his role and the role of my mother, who has sought always and only to serve and to cherish her. Out of all women, I should have the greatest faith in men, through the example of my father.<br /><br />The revolution isn't starting and when it comes, it won't be anything new. For thousands and thousands of years men have left their wives, left their children, left them to starve, to freeze, to succumb to the elements. For thousands of years women have stayed with unkind men, put food on the table, washed the sheets, tended to the chickens. And for thousands of years women too have died in childbirth, abandoning the men who loved them and their crying infants. Other women have been unfaithful to their men and that type of leaving has caused no less pain. Now when a man leaves he has financial obligations under the law. That is what has changed since the dawn of time.<br /><br />Perhaps in the next entry I will have recouped enough to feel a revolutionary spirit again, to want to charge out to medical school or graduate school or the world in the hopes of someday living in a nice painted house and reading Little Golden Books to a chubby-cheeked redheaded infant while earning the big bucks consulting wirelessly from my carpeted living room while my husband paints the deck and reads The Economist before flying to Paris for business. But for now I think I'll shower and go then go sleep in my big queen size bed with the dark blue wool comforter, glad that I've always (so far) slept in it alone.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-50410690900327036302008-01-04T19:12:00.000-08:002008-01-04T19:59:44.648-08:00On complexes?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-68IVdgrfZCb7c4vJQry8ucVCev9oj28LvL3t0ub_QJOx28G1bgyn3noG3eRYyAP4IqBEB2ZNTPDItCdAm7H7tJvdLS_MjSQYqZ_Qrr-XfO80dnHFBReQYikWbJFKNjy9Aje2M1q3EOBw/s1600-h/mandelbrot.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-68IVdgrfZCb7c4vJQry8ucVCev9oj28LvL3t0ub_QJOx28G1bgyn3noG3eRYyAP4IqBEB2ZNTPDItCdAm7H7tJvdLS_MjSQYqZ_Qrr-XfO80dnHFBReQYikWbJFKNjy9Aje2M1q3EOBw/s320/mandelbrot.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5151832498559171954" border="0" /></a><br /> Sometimes I feel like people demand complexes (complexity?) of me that I can't deliver. I don't remember the first time I felt this way-- it was probably a long time ago, or maybe it wasn't; anyway I don't want to think that hard. I don't know if its evident worsening is me getting simpler or people coming to expect more. Or both.<br /><br />There was S.L., a piano/composition student I knew in college with an Oppenheimer Complex large enough to be vicarious for all the world's scientists. He saw in me (which I cannot argue with and do not regret) a mind with which he could correspond. But what he thirsted for most, I think, was an antagonist, and I could only wearily 'get' him. Which was a connection, of course, but since I could not tear my soul for him, I ultimately couldn't grant him a piece of it.<br /><br />Years later, a minister of mine announced to me that he perceived me to be an "intellectual," and asked confirmation.<br /><br />"I cannot venture to say," I counterproductively replied.<br /> "I also perceive that you have a deep testimony of Christ."<br /> "<span style="font-style: italic;">That </span>is true."<br /> "This puts you at a <span style="font-style: italic;">precarious position </span>with you faith."<br /> "No, sir, I do not feel at all precarious."<br /><br />He had nothing more to say to me. What was he expecting? What did he want? Was he hoping to catch me as I fell?<br /><br />That's it, mostly, the main manifestation; people expect me to be very torn between my religiosity and my ("my"?) science. I'm not, and what's even more disappointing to them is that I don't even have any formulated rhetoric about it.<br /><br />I'm sorry, and then again, I'm not.<br /><br />C.B. is the worst for the cause. Also a scientist, and a physicist no less, he bypasses the expectation of philosophical complexes in favor of the social. It is my motivations he demands so much of-- I can only assume because his are so overwrought and convoluted. C.B., I will discuss with you laser energetics, gating currents of ion channels, Charles Mingus, and the works of Turgenev, but if you turn to some self-created social miasma you assume I share, I can only blink at you.<br /><br />Blink. Blink.<br /><br />I regard this recently discovered simplicity with gentle curiosity: affectionate and detached. I don't want to make too much of it, and yet I'm kind of fond of it; I don't want to hurt it by having discovered it.<br /><br />There is N.T., who claims we are kindred spirits because of what she interprets as my liberality, feminism, and urbanity. Her face sags with certain disappointment when she sees my glee when I play with a child, or my consistent delight with herds of cows on the roadside. I have these simple pleasures; does it make my more esoteric ones fraudulent?<br /><br />Of esoteric pleasures, or of cows:<br /><br />A month or so ago, I fell into a particular book. An autobiography of a man raised in tsarist Russia and left homeless, ill, and dissident in occupied Paris, the book absorbed my senses. From it I got that most particular of glorious feelings-- the "I could be happy just reading Russian books forever" feeling. (I intend no mockery, self or societal, in the specificity of this feeling, it's just one I get sometimes.) But this feeling <span style="font-style: italic;">was</span>, at the time, chasered with self-reproach and even dread. Were I to truly throw myself into Russian novels, I feared, it would only serve to make me less approachable, less "matchable," more-- complex. And so I hastened to dumben myself and my glee.<br /><br />No! I was instead scared of the <span style="font-style: italic;">simplicity </span>of the fact that I am in fact capable of finding Happiness and Beauty in things. I suppose I needn't apologize-- not to S.L., or C.B., or N.T., or those hypothetical folk that would (hypothetically) be alienated or disarmed by my (hypothetical) Lermentov literacy.<br /><br />I have always aspired to be disarming, anyway.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;">*Illustration: it doesn't take much to love a Mandelbrot set. They're so pretty and math-y. But the point is that fractals aren't complex-- they're a symbol of simplicity. You can write a Java program to draw one in just a few lines. I did once, but it wasn't all cool and orange like this one.</span>French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-62736268823509234832007-12-11T10:17:00.001-08:002008-01-04T19:56:10.310-08:00On a few words I like<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OSqdBO7IX8z46tyEWAkAk1EROV3Vhl5hjv1gWCmYmTIgZxPlozQSHp6YkN8iPoO4Dnv8EuCmMeJGBulYQ9pbczImGY4gyXyc8aerJIgDc8F3vyPkjEJ35Q1ymcBXYentqTwZuTOl9yFg/s1600-h/words2.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1OSqdBO7IX8z46tyEWAkAk1EROV3Vhl5hjv1gWCmYmTIgZxPlozQSHp6YkN8iPoO4Dnv8EuCmMeJGBulYQ9pbczImGY4gyXyc8aerJIgDc8F3vyPkjEJ35Q1ymcBXYentqTwZuTOl9yFg/s320/words2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5142790850303223890" border="0" /></a><br />People who know me well know that I love words; those who know me even better know that I hate words; and those who know me best of all know that I love words.<br /><br />Here is a handful of words that I enjoy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Procedural </span>(as a noun)<span style="font-weight: bold;">.</span> I do not watch police procedurals on television-- I never have. But I love the use of the word "procedural" as a noun. I am moved by the concept that there can be beauty and substance in a <span style="font-style: italic;">procedure </span>rather in just what the procedure effects. It also has such an air of movement about it, in that something <span style="font-style: italic;">proceeds</span>, but also something grave and timeless and cyclical. The procedure-- and the exploration of it, the procedural-- remains even after and through an iteration.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Apoptosome. </span>Aside from being pronounceable in seemingly dozens of different ways, all of which are so fun (and one of which sounds like "hippopotamus"), this word ought to be known by the general public if only for use in metaphors. The apoptosome is a bunch of cytochrome c and APAF-1 glommed together with 7-fold symmetry. This huge complex forms in response to a cell death stimulus, and activates pro-caspase 9. The cell undergoes apoptosis (it DIES). I can't get enough of apoptosomes, and no, I don't even feel "nerdy" about that. I just feel happy.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Gone/Done. </span>These are words so basic to the language that I'm sure they've been around since time immemorial (much longer than 'procedural' or 'apoptosome,' at least). I don't think that the essential words get enough credit for their own beauty. Onomatopoeic words are easy to love, and I extend my definition of onomatopoeia to include what I may also call "psychonomatopoiea." That is, words that somehow sound like the <span style="font-style: italic;">concept </span>they mean to communicate. I particularly appreciate 'gone' and 'done' for their versatility. They can sound so absolute, so final; and yet, since they end with an 'n,' there is some ambiguity to them... they can kind of resonate and then leave a trail as they disappear. They can be so cold and hollow with their central "o"-- or they can be almost tender with a warmer "ah" or "uh." They can be plaintive or relieved. These are truly pillars in great-word-dom.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Enlightenment.</span> This word has so many syllables for what it's trying to say, and it kind of (to me) undermines the point. But that's why I like it. We use this word as a translation of words which in other languages are so simple and straightforward-- they don't have all these little prefixes and suffixes, trying to aggregate meaning from other parts. But I love that we're trying. And I love the irony that it infuses into our understanding of "enlightenment" as a concept, especially as we complicate matters with the term "The Enlightenment." What a clumsy word it is; and yet it is so pretty to look at. And how much we yearn for it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Seemingly. </span>I challenge you to incorporate this into your speech. If you do, no explanation on my part will be necessary. Use it to begin thoughts. Use it to end thoughts. Use it in the middle of thoughts-- before adjectives, verbs, wherever. Then graduate to using it all by its wonderful self, as a jewel of an answer to many a question. You will be seemingly hyperarticulate.<span style="font-style: italic;"></span>French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-37177993439748133672007-12-10T22:53:00.000-08:002007-12-10T23:18:34.382-08:00On Having Survived To Celebrate The Second Anniversary Of My Death<div style="text-align: left; font-style: italic;"><div style="text-align: justify;">--"All this was a long time ago, I remember,<br />And I would do it again, but set down<br />This set down<br />This: were we led all that way for<br />Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,<br />We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,<br />But had thought they were different; this Birth was<br />Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death"-- T.S. Eliot<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I died two years ago today. I didn't mean to do it, it just happened and I couldn't do anything to stop it because I wasn't wise enough to know that I was dying until I was already dead</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The events of that day summoned forth the figure of death that had been lurking in the shadows. Not recognizing him in his disguise, I sealed his entrance across my threshold with a final kiss.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">Today could not have been any more different. I woke up at 6 a.m., put on a gray skirt and wooly black pea coat, hopped into my trusty old truck and drove across the Bay to Hayward. All day long I jumped up and sat and moved and waved my hands and in the evening came home from the acting school called Moreau Catholic High School and made tacos and wassail and hosted a small dinner party at my home. Now at 11:04 p.m. I type on this blog and listen to KT's Christmas CD on the MacBook.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I could not have done these things two years ago, nor a year ago. Only now do I remember what it is to be alive.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">The ironic thing is that I didn't recognize life quite so clearly before I had encountered death. Like Eliot, I had "seen birth and death, but had thought they were different." Only in experiencing my own death and rebirth have I come to understand that they are the same. The compassion, the empathy, that I can feel now was born only out of the ashes-- the hard, the bitter agony-- of the death I experienced on a chilling day two years ago.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I think Eliot has it right-- that an essence of Christianity is that ONLY through death, ONLY by taking upon ourselves the weakness of mortality can we experience eternal the birth that never ends in death, even ETERNAL LIFE-- this through the suffering and Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ who, born a wee babe in Bethlehem, laid down his life so that we could overcome the bonds of both physical and spiritual death.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">And so on this, the anniversary of my death, I testify of the resurrection of the body and the spirit-- of life, of goodness, of truth-- of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. May the hope of the birth AND the death of the Babe of Bethlehem bring you joy this Christmas season.</span><br /><br /><br /></div><pre><span style="font-family:georgia;"><br /></span></pre></div>French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-12535690884310414012007-11-14T22:55:00.000-08:002007-11-14T23:11:30.593-08:00On Opposable DigitsA big innovation in the history of evolution was the opposable thumb.<br /><br />Little did nature know what a big deal this would be. Today the thumb is perhaps the most important feature of the human body. It can hold pencils. It can open doors and can and jars. It can play the bassoon. But most importantly, the thumb can press buttons on a cellular phone!<br /><br />Ah yes! The thumb is by far the most important tool in modern communication.<br /><br />Faced with possible imminent failure of my SIM card, I spent parts of today and yesterday transferring all the names and phone numbers in my cell phone on to a Google spreadsheet so that in the chance of a true SIM card death, I won't have to send out one of those dreadful "I lost my phone in a public subway toilet!" emails or form my own Facebook group. As I went through and typed each number in by hand, it also allowed me the opportunity to edit a phonebook that had been accumulating, but not purging, for at least my last three years of my life. So who, you may ask, was important enough to stay? Well I'll tell you:<br /><br />A hit man in the Korean mafia in Salt Lake<br /><br />My ex-boyfriend's sister who I met once for lunch<br /><br />Two blind dates from Ohio, one of whom is engaged<br /><br />No less than five currently engaged men, not counting the Ohioan blind date<br /><br />Marlene, the widowed mother of my best friend from college<br /><br />A gay man at Harvard<br /><br />The passcode to the Cell Science Imaging Facility<br /><br />All those, among others, were deemed worthy to stay. But alas, not all were so lucky. Among those deleted forever from my cell phone and my spreadsheet (and thus my memory) were:<br /><br />My brother-in-law<br /><br />An Olympic volleyball player<br /><br />A former blind date from MIT who now consults for McKinsey<br /><br />My second prom date<br /><br />My roommate of two years<br /><br />and Everyone named Rachel<br /><br />I feel much better after deleting these people from my phone book.<br /><br />The truth is that I could resurrect any of these numbers fairly easily. I'm probably still friends with all of them on Facebook, and if I'm not, I will be eventually. So why let their numbers needlessly clutter up my phone? As I've been reading this week in Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, globalization 3.0 means not having store everything in my house and home when it can all be stored on a server by someone else virtually!<br /><br />Taking this to heart, I used my most advanced technology-- my thumb-- to delete all those extra numbers from my phone. Turns out these opposable digits come in handy in dealing with disposable digits all these millions of years later.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-20704448511300328882007-11-06T10:03:00.000-08:002007-11-06T13:48:17.139-08:00On Night Terrors, The Malleable Play-Dough Engram, and Being Bent the Wrong Way<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxo7k9L0aVsyyLk7XOI9pmwvX26xknEhPR8N4DxyV9wFmmiEDqGJTorxWQX0CGWZl6mjVqmYHKkppSvR67FRPpeVEyBjeLxI_nzjNgqH_NsT0pmE_jNXrZzm5zmVmnUCTKAef1xniUzqjw/s1600-h/reversecalifornia.bmp"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxo7k9L0aVsyyLk7XOI9pmwvX26xknEhPR8N4DxyV9wFmmiEDqGJTorxWQX0CGWZl6mjVqmYHKkppSvR67FRPpeVEyBjeLxI_nzjNgqH_NsT0pmE_jNXrZzm5zmVmnUCTKAef1xniUzqjw/s320/reversecalifornia.bmp" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5129799667899989890" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:georgia;">I have been sick for the past few days, and when I get sick, I dream terrible, Raskolnikov dreams. The past two nights the same night terror has recurred, and it has kept me up for what has seemed to be hours in strange, feverish worry.<br /><br />This dream is particularly eerie because it plays in a loop, over and over, and because it does not present itself in fluorescent colors or MTV editing. Instead, it is a mundane replay of just a few minutes on Sunday night. It seems utterly real in that it simply reads the script of the life I lived just a day or two previous.<br /><br />I had been at a friend's house with a small group of intimates. We were sitting around her kitchen table, enjoying Play-Dough. In turns, we would present a category-- favorite food, dream job, etc.-- and each person would try to represent their answer in the clay. For the question "if you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?"-- I chose to represent Northern California, or, just to make it simple, San Francisco. After attempting a model of the Golden Gate Bridge, I retrenched my efforts and instead chose to create a flat State of California with a little red "X" at San Francisco. My comrades guessed pretty quickly-- after trying to think of some islands shaped like that, one said, "but it looks like California," and there you have it.<br /><br />The dream is pretty much just that, looking out of my own eyes. Yet in the dream, the white clay does <span style="font-style: italic;">not </span>look like California. It is bent the wrong way. The Southern half veers out to the west as it goes south, rather than to the east. I watch myself make California wrong again and again, and again, and again, an infernal loop. Over and over. And each time I don't know that I'm making California bend the wrong way, and my friends gaze at it and humor me. And then I startle awake, after repetition upon repetition, but the dream does not leave me. I keep playing it, for now I am convinced that it is real-- <span style="font-style: italic;">why </span>did I make California bend the wrong way? And why did my friends humor me? And what do they think of me now?<br /><br />I pray for sleep to return, but I fidget, I squirm, I fret. Should I bring it up when I see them next, and make excuses? Sorry, I've been sick, things have not been right, I'm going mad, you saw evidence: Reverse-California. Bring me chicken soup. ~ I know it was wrong, it was to throw you off, haha, aren't I tricky? ~ I was making a mirror image so that when I flipped it, the surface would be smooth and pretty, but I forgot to flip it. Oops. But I always return to the same idea: just avoid those friends. Forever. Cut the losses. They will never respect my intelligence again. It is the only way to overcome.<br /><br />In the morning, I realize that it was just a dream. How could I have bent California wrong? It is impossible. All the dream is is a sad statement of my egoism; that my terror should be some trivial moment where I fail to realize a stupid mistake. The hours I spend in half-waking worry are symptom of my needing to be loved for my ability to be <span style="font-style: italic;">right</span>. In the daytime, I vow to cleanse myself of these vain, arrogant insecurities and build a normal soul, whose night terrors may be psychedelic clowns and sudden volcanoes.<br /><br />But the dream wears the clothes of memory. I see my hands working the clay through my own eye sockets. The dialogue is dull, and it never changes. I see the little shards of hardened red Play-Dough. There is no lurking detail, no strange furniture, no out-of-context faces to label it a dream. I feel my own ignorance-- or, that is, I fail to see truth-- as I form the lopsided figure: the terror comes when I awake to replay it not as dream but as memory, and in my feverish, sleepy stupor, interpret it and feel. I cannot anymore picture my white clay California except for it being utterly backward. The night terror has re-written my memory.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />Or maybe I bent California wrong.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></span>French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-36876361240100168072007-10-30T21:11:00.000-07:002007-10-30T21:35:39.226-07:00On It Being A Hard Knock LifeFor my fourth birthday I received my very own cabbage patch doll. She was no ordinary doll, oh no! She was a one of a kind, hot off the press, premier edition: never been done before, never to be repeated, and made by my own sweet mother.<br /><br />She was my mother's very first cabbage patch doll and mine. She had tight orange-red yarn curls and big blue eyes painted on her face with fabric paint and even tiny embroidered freckles and puckers in the bottom folds of her cheeks for dimples. I named her Annie.<br /><br />Annie was just like me-- down to the dimples-- except for one big difference: Annie was fat. Eager in making her very first doll, Mom had stuffed Annie a little past chubby and into the chunky category. Annie's large-sized doll wardrobe barely snapped shut over her thickly padded arms and waist. At four years old, I was not a midget but I certainly wasn't fat and perhaps was the smallest of the four girls in the family. Although Annie was the first, my mother soon made cabbage patch dolls for my three sisters, and she compensated for Annie's fatness by understuffing Alice and Tina and even Sally. And so, ironically, Annie got the flack at doll tea parties for always being so fat while I avoided the same pressure in real life that haunted some of my other siblings.<br /><br />Yes, Annie was the one with the fattest pinafore and the fattest pantaloons, which bulged out over her chubby knees, bringing extra flounce to her skirts. Annie's XL clothing drowned the other dolls and I always felt jealous when Alice could wear Sally's jackets but poor Annie had only her own clothes to wear.<br /><br />Today at school we had pre-Halloween and I dressed up as Little Orphan Annie, complete with a red curly wig (which was actually quite redundant since I have red curly hair). The costume was a grand success. Everyone laughed and smiled and clapped their hands. Even my students got into the costume. At the end of the day Father Tito came in and took my picture for the yearbook.<br /><br />It was quite possibly the most darling picture you have ever seen in your whole life of someone in an Annie costume. Not only am I curtesying, but my face just carries enough of the mix of impish charm and childlike innocence to convince the viewer that I'm precocious and lovable even to a grumpy bald millionaire.<br /><br />The only difference between me in the picture and the Little Orphan Annie we all know and love from the movies is that.... I'm fat.<br /><br />Yes.<br /><br />It's true.<br /><br />In the picture, I look horribly, hopelessly fat. I'm wearing this white bow right across the middle of my dress and it looks like a whole bedsheet had to be used to girdle my waist. I'm almost spilling into the sides of my curtsy. I realize, to my horror, that in dressing up like Little Orphan Annie I have realized the fate predestined to me from childhood:<br /><br />I have become my doll Annie.<br /><br />Oh yes! I still have a mass of red curls, freckles on my face, and funny side dimples. But what I have now that I didn't have at four is about ninety extra pounds that have added padding to my knees and toes and elbows, all the spots where Annie is bulgiest I suddenly feel bulgy now too. If it weren't for the Annie costume, I may never have noticed.<br /><br />When I finally got home from school, I hurriedly pulled off my wig, red dress, and (poofy) bloomers, slapped on some tennis shoes and went for a run. Maybe when I'm back at school tomorrow dressed just like myself the illusion will go away.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-67955678637471717482007-10-30T20:32:00.000-07:002007-10-30T20:39:31.665-07:00On Lon Chaney<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmkxdkVrOTQHZUDuQi2r9qFhYbxZg0MaCZPz4if8Aci_xSHviXMTsouBQ3klTgZry7EQwg8Mh0zSCM2CnTjFAhj2rDa_ZG0mZanCQB5NTSlzhgvDyEDjFt7M6N35GQzq2UXkMCHpmS0sI/s1600-h/younglon.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 234px; height: 311px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYmkxdkVrOTQHZUDuQi2r9qFhYbxZg0MaCZPz4if8Aci_xSHviXMTsouBQ3klTgZry7EQwg8Mh0zSCM2CnTjFAhj2rDa_ZG0mZanCQB5NTSlzhgvDyEDjFt7M6N35GQzq2UXkMCHpmS0sI/s320/younglon.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5127340309496758130" border="0" /></a><br />I am reflecting on our cultural debt to Lon Chaney, Sr.<br /><br />Leonidas Chaney was born on April Fools' Day, 1883, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. His parents were both deaf-mute; his father, a barber, was well-loved for his ability to transcend communication barriers and amuse his patrons with his excellent comedic timing. Lon was a native speaker of pantomime, a natural artist in physical and facial communication. Before immersing himself in Vaudeville at age 19, Lon trained in wallpaper, drapery, and carpet installation and worked as a tour guide at Pikes Peak.<br /><br />Lon Chaney did not consider himself primarily an actor. Instead, he considered his entertainment art to be disguise through makeup. All his appearances are dual performances-- he designed his own makeup, costumes, and contortion equipment The genius of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and The Phantom of the Opera are his; and, interestingly, so were their pains. The hunchback's hump weighed in excess of fifty pounds, designed by Lon himself to inspire a tortured performance. In <span style="text-decoration: underline;">The Penalty</span>, he tied his legs behind his back and used prosthetics below the knee. "The Man With a Thousand Faces," though evidently in favor of a broader approach to representation than simple disguise, was widely recognized as a world expert on makeup; the Encyclopaedia Brittanica reportedly invited him to write its (uncredited and since revised) article on the subject. Such was his reputation for disguise that a friend quipped at a dinner party: "don't step on that spider, it may be Lon Chaney."<br /><br />As Hollywood transitioned to talkies, Lon mused that his voice was ill-suited to the medium. It may have been false modesty or reflective of an insecurity with voice in general, as he is said to have had a delightful rich baritone, and was known as a Vaudevillian for his singing, dancing, and comedic timing. He starred in only one talkie, but it is tantalizing to think that that it is his voice work in that film which is so notable. Later, he signed a statement saying that he did indeed provide the voices of five characters: a ventriloquist and his dummy, an old woman, a girl, and a parrot. The performances were convincing enough, I suppose, to warrant the affidavit.<br /><br />I find it ironic that he died of a throat hemorrhage just months after the release of that film. His voice was apparently an untapped treasure itself; a voice he did not get to show off in his childhood or in his career.<br /><br />Lon Chaney, my friends.<br />Celebrate him this Halloween.<br />I also suggest naming a son Leonidas.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-12759180839019496012007-10-27T13:47:00.000-07:002007-10-27T15:15:46.610-07:00On Having Acquired a Hopelessly Bourgeoise AestheticI live in Palo Alto, California, home of the hyper-educated, hyper-successful Stanford graduate BMW lover. When I first moved to Palo Alto, I was convinced that I died and been transported to Paradise. Three years later, I still think it's a distinct possibility after moving into a mansion in an older, sophisticated part of town and starting to eat organic produce from Whole Foods. Surely heaven on a glorified, populated Earth will involve sidewalk cafes and Italian hot chocolate.<br /><br />Today, however, I found myself in a very NON heavenly setting near Palo Alto: Walmart. Walmart is so opposite of everything that Palo Alto holds near and dear that the Palo Alto city line is drawn just north of the Walmart parking lot. Palo Alto may miss out on the Walmart sales tax revenue, but it's a small price to pay for keeping their white-gloved fingers clean from Walmart's coinage of exploitation.<br /><br />Speaking of white gloves: I was at the Walmart for the purpose of purchasing white knee socks and white underwear. The knee socks are for my Little Orphan Annie costume and the underwear... well. Turns out everyone needs socks and underwear. That's the thing about Walmart, it has things that everyone needs regardless of race or class or origin. It's a great equalizer, although I know for a fact that Stanford sorority girls don't wear Walmart underwear. They wear lacy nothings that they find at Neiman Marcus, and when they are much older they swap the brightly colored underthings for Jennifer Lopez-hued velour suits from Juicy Couture.<br /><br />I poked around as briefly as possible and finally grabbed a five pack of white Hanes trouser socks. I wanted my sock things to be a little more substantial, but socks are always sold in "fits sizes 4-10" and having size 4 feet this always results in having bulgy heels poking up over the top of my shoes. Trouser socks, without a built-in heel, are a suitable compromise. I snatched a packet of briefs and a yellow box of Milk Duds and then read the tabloid headlines about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie while I waited in another never-ending Walmart line. When I got to the counter, the checker had to stop and change the roll of paper in her receipt machine. She apologized for the wait, but having long ago accepted the burden of patience necessary as a Walmart shopper I shifted my feet and smiled at her to tell her she could take her time. I couldn't wait to leave but I'd broken out in hives in Walmart before and knew they would heal, in time.<br /><br />On my way home from Walmart I stopped at The Milk Pail located in the opposite corner of the contiguous parking lot. Nothing could be more Palo Alto than The Milk Pail, except that in x-ing out Walmart, The Milk Pail ended up in Mountain View. Stocked full of firm organic fruits and vegetables, cheeses, and fresh baked crusty European style breads, The Milk Pail is a virtual celebration of the value the elite find in the rustic. Although packed and with equally unwieldy lines as its behemoth neighbor, the tiny Milk Pail exudes a charm that brings shoppers flocking back not for low prices but for tangy crumbs of apricot cheese and the crisp snap of gigantic sugar peas. I bought two small loves of herb rosemary bread, dried Turkish apricots, Wisconsin gouda, French Port Salut, and a bundle of asparagus although I've never purchased asparagus before and took them home in a recyclable plastic bag.<br /><br />Arriving back at the Melville mansh in the Professorville neighborhood of Palo Alto, I was greeted by my roommates bearing cup containers of fresh organic frozen yogurt with strawberries and kiwis. We all bundled together on my queen size bed in The Nook (that's code for my bedroom) and savored the subtle cream sliding down our throats. I pulled my white comforter up over my toes.<br /><br />It occurs to me that perhaps Walmart might be a staple of someone else's heaven-- a place where warm and adequate clothing and packaged foods may be bought at affordable prices. But even in this relatively open-minded state of consciousness I find myself hoping that heaven then might be tailorable and that I can stay in my little Nook in my Palo Alto paradise. As KT would say, will I someday be able to let go of Jerusalem for the Promised Land? What if I think the Promised Land contains nothing but Walmarts? I think I'm beginning to trade in my soul for a slice of that French Port Salut.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7681655138202080009.post-15620224766343732752007-10-24T13:53:00.000-07:002007-10-26T12:44:46.313-07:00On The Microtragedy of Baked Goods With Insufficient Salt<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HYILYp9uG60brQ80JcKyLD2ocUmww6ShuHGRzMMHQLA4Dmw27OwYdTAaGlIYpGkmgqJA9e3MXToAJE7UV2683TPW7RMUQ7ncQGHsG5ZD97ntSKvnenbSMqpi9Y_AwYvH5Q2Q7ekupHxR/s1600-h/salt_shaker.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5125011187665744770" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; WIDTH: 198px; CURSOR: pointer; HEIGHT: 284px" height="302" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4HYILYp9uG60brQ80JcKyLD2ocUmww6ShuHGRzMMHQLA4Dmw27OwYdTAaGlIYpGkmgqJA9e3MXToAJE7UV2683TPW7RMUQ7ncQGHsG5ZD97ntSKvnenbSMqpi9Y_AwYvH5Q2Q7ekupHxR/s400/salt_shaker.jpg" width="226" border="0" /></a><br />It is perhaps strange for my inaugural blog post to be about something so drearily commonplace as undersalted baked goods. But I suppose it is as introductory as anything to say what I am thinking about at this the inaugural moment.<br /><br />It is a small tragedy when otherwise delightful and well-constructed baked goods contain insufficient salt. Some time ago I was eating pumpkin bread of a gorgeous russet color and tender, rich crumb. The bread, while spiced well and baked to perfection, was a total waste. The flavor was bland and indistinct, the sweetness unchecked. The spices I saw suspended in the matrix registered only fleetingly and furtively, incapable of acting to half their potential. The loaf probably had inherent in it a great depth of flavor which I could not access for the lack of salt.<br /><br />In elementary school, I was assigned to participate in "Junior Great Books," a sort of excuse for a gifted-and-talented program. One selection was a working of a fairy tale. It involved a king who, in a fit of unchecked narcissism, asked his daughters how much they loved him. Each answered in turn: "more than all the jewels in the world," "more than life itself," and the like, until it was the youngest's turn; this wise lass replied: "I love you more than meat loves salt." The fair ingenue is banished to work in a distant kingdom as a scullery maid.* Eventually she is brought to the castle on the night of a feast to help with the cooking, and, no longer 'artless,' ensures that all the food lacks salt. The king, repulsed by the disingenuous blandness of the splendorous feast, realizes his great wickedness and sends for his ever-loving daughter. They are reunited, and l.h.e.a.<br /><br />The third-grade discussion was respectable, but even then I looked around the group with meta-eyes. Of course the children hated the story. Here they were made to read an over-long recitation of a stuffy, obscure fairy tale which relied on geriatric, questionable-at-best metaphors. My classmates did say appropriately insightful things, like "it's not just the taste thing, yuck, but, like they didn't have fridges, and meat would rot and stuff." But ultimately we were just saying what we knew we had to before we could be dismissed. In my own corner of the third-grade circle, I saw the discussion as another application of the story's metaphor; we knew there must be something to the tale, else why was it a "Great Book"?, but we didn't care, so we were instead cynical of it and banished it from our fondnesses. But what is meat without a little salt, and life without some thoughtful metaphors and far-fetched storytalk?<br /><br />Our meat no longer rots without salt (props to Alexander Twining), and I don't think our pumpkin bread is endangered by maggots anyway. But it is this sense of half-capacity that I get from the loaf, the squandered opportunity, the ingredients that were used but not quite utilized-- that is the micro-tragedy. It is microtragic, too, that there are bakers out there who otherwise perfect their craft and never venture to give another shake from the shaker. Were I to love somebody "as [meat] loves salt," I would speak of their ability to make me live and feel to capacity, their way of making the flavors sometimes dormant in my character shine. And that would be a true love.<br /><br /><br />*I've loved the term "scullery maid" ever since, and use it as a mental self-descriptor when doing roommates' dishes sans charitable intent.<br /><br />Salt shaker painting from jeffhayesfineart.blogspot.com-- the man creates a painting every day. I respect that.French and Zenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10725919067698621937noreply@blogger.com5