Lucky White Girl

Spoken word: The terms of the debate.

There's something about calling yourself a Marxist or a Feminist that makes people's eyes turn red.  They immediately want to debate you.  They will win, they say.  You can just see them dancing around you like a boxer, "c'mon, c'mon, c'mon" they chant.  They want to debate you, they want to win, they want to beat you up (metaphorically, that is).  This is the new Cold War, you standing in for a less tangible, more threatening target.  And if you say no, it's because you're chicken, it's because you know you're gonna be the loser in this ring where they will set the terms of the debate because they know if they get you on the defensive they've already won.  And that's the point.  To win.  The point is not to honestly explore the ideas, even though they'll swear until they're blue in the face that it is, oh it is the point, they'll say they really just want to understand. 

Bullshit. 

The hardest lesson I've had to learn about life is that people don't always mean what they say.  And it's not even always because their motives are nefarious it's just because that's the way it is.  They might not even intend to.  They just do it.  They just say it and don't think about if it's really true or not.  It's supposed to be true and that becomes good enough.

Don't believe them.  They don't want to understand.  They want to win.  They don't question; they challenge.  They want to win.  They want to be right; they want to win.  They want you to say --convincingly, not sarcastically-- that oh, they've changed your mind, made you see the light, maybe you will have to reconsider.

And then they'll be super nice to you and invite you out to lunch. 

They will pay because they know they've won.  The red threat defeated once again.

The story of z.

This is the story of the story of z.  I'm telling this story because until now I don't think z. had a story.  At least I haven’t been able to discover it.  You who have had more statistics courses than I might be more knowledgeable.  In which case I welcome you to tell us the real story of z. in the comment section below. 

Who is z.?  Very little is known about him.  Or her?  (Even z’s gender is unknown.)  z. is not a storyteller.  We don’t even know much about z’s name.  Is it “Little z” or just z?  Maybe z is hispanic and it’s z-ito.  Nah, that sounds like a pasta dish and since z’s involved with so many numbers I think it’d be way too crunchy for macaroni.  S/he might be Italian though, since z’s often italicized.  At least in textbooks.

Since we were never told the real story behind z. (just how to calculate him), many people in my statistics class probably believe that z (and his/her tables) just dropped out of the sky one fine sunny day and has no relation to anything else in the wide, wide world.  z. is just z. and thanks to the tables at the back of the book we know how to calculate him/her.

What we don’t know is if z. wants to be calculated.

Or, more accurately, looked-up.  Because while someone at some point had to calculate z., now that there are tables for such things all us lowly statistics students do is look z. up.  There’s no calculations involved at all.  The tables have it all right there.  z.’s been looked up so many times, she now wishes she’d left her number unlisted.

What does z. do when old lovers call?  Does s/he hang up on them?  Give them false information?  Hide in the bathroom?  But s/he’s been involved with Normal Distribution so long it’s hard to imagine z being with anyone else.  I wonder if it gets boring after a while.  I wonder if after being with Normal for so long, z is starting to feel like the center will not hold and s/he might go spinning out in all directions at once, not being z, not being Normal, not even being at all.

Poor z.  If only they hadn’t written that table...

Half remembered

When I was in college I lived with my older sister and brother-in-law, who took over and became kind of surrogate parents for me.  When questioned as to the efficacy or necessity of some unpleasant chore I had to do, my brother-in-law used to respond "Yours is not to question why, yours is but to do or die".  One day, having some complicated task in front of me, my sister, in the absence of my brother-in-law's quips half remembered this famous verse, and said to me "Yours is not to question how, yours is but to do it NOW!"

In light of such half-truths, I point my dear readers to a McSweeney's submission by Christopher Painter called Eighteen Half-Truths.  Enjoy.

Are you a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy?

So I spent about three hours at the local late-night cafe tonight with Robbie knitting, reading and playing chess (I beat him twice! and he insists he didn't do it on purpose but I don't know if I believe him).  When we weren't playing chess, I was reading a little collection of Russian short stories that he lent me since I mentioned I wasn't particularly enjoying Chekhov (so far) and it had a couple of selections by two literary figures I like a lot more: Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.  Now I'm about as far as you can get from being an expert on Russian literature and these three people are the only Russian authors I've read but my short take on D. and T. is that T. is more certain about morality where D. just doesn't know but asks the questions in good and important ways.  The two short stories I read by them tonight, though, kind of challenge that statement.  I think.  Here follows two synopses of the stories, my takes on them and then a question, are you a Dostoevsky or a Tolstoy?  Read on if you are not intimidated by long posts and let me know what you think.

T's After the Ball (link takes you to an online version of the story) is about a man telling a story of how his life took a certain fateful turn one day when he was young.  He [the narrator in the story] says that this experience is an argument against the idea that environment influences morality (which made me think of that Peter Maurin/IWW quote about the importance of creating "a society in which it is easier to be good") so I perked up when I read that, interested to know what T. was going to say about it.  So, in the story, the old-man narrator relates a tale about his once being in love with this beautiful young woman and how his love was so pure, so all-encompassing that it enveloped not only the young woman but everyone around her as well, including and especially her father, a respected colonel in the Russian military.  So one night he's at this dance and he dances with said young woman all night and watches her dance with her father and everything's great and at last he goes home at 4 or 5 in the morning but is too happy to sleep so after a couple of fitful hours he goes out for a walk.  By then the sun is up and he finds himself on the other side of the city and he turns a corner and suddenly sees a lot of military men hanging about a certain house and there's quite a bit of commotion so he asks a bystander what's going on and he's told that the regiment is punishing a deserter by making him run the gauntlet.  The narrator nears the spectacle and what does he see but the young woman's father, the colonel is in charge of all this brutality and there he is literally up on his high horse encouraging his men to viciously beat this poor soldier to death. He wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt, saying what did he know about the facts of the case "But hard as I tried, I couldn't understand [why they were torturing this man, if it was the right thing to do or not] and without this understanding I was unable to go into the army" and so he doesn't and his life is forever changed, not by environment, he says but by this one experience.  End of story. 

hmmmm.... interesting.  This story is one of T.'s later ones, written when he was about 75 and had renounced his former life, his estate and title, his wealth and his earlier writings.  He lived like a pauper, embracing a Sermon on the Mount kind of Christianity (sorta like Dorothy Day and my friend Pat).  It's an outlook I much admire but don't know if I have the kind of certainty required to fully adopt it and so I always fancied myself more of an ambiguous Dostoevsky-type.   

D's story though, seemed more like T's philosophy in this respect.  "A Strange Man's Dream" (couldn't find any online version) is about a man who has decided to commit suicide but hasn't decided whether to shoot himself in the head or in the heart.  So he's out walking one night, waiting for clarification when he runs into a little girl who's terrified and screaming and crying something about her mother.  The man understands that her mother must be dying but he shoves the girl away because since he's already decided that he's going to off himself what does it matter whether he's ethical or not in this situation?  (That's the head thinking, see)  The girl runs off and finds someone else to help her.  The man goes back to his apartment to sit, like he does every night at his table with the gun in front of him, trying to decide, head or heart, head or heart... and he falls asleep and he has this dream.  The dream is about an idyllic world where people are happy and in perfect relation with the world and each other (sorta like in the garden of Eden or the song Imagine) until he --the man himself-- corrupts them (says he doesn't know how maybe just by his mere presense) and then they start becoming like us, like our world, fearful and insecure, in need of laws to keep them from murdering each other and the like and suddenly they're inventing religions and philosophies with the aim of getting that perfect state of being back again and they declare that "knowledge is supieror to feeling, consciousness of life supieror to life.  Science will give us wisdom.  Wisdom will reveal laws and knowledge of the laws of happiness is supieror to happiness" (all head again, see).  He feels tormented he has brought them to such a corrupt state and wants to do anything to help them get back where they were when he wakes up with a start, and suddenly has the revolver cocked at his head instinctively but he thrusts it away knowing at once that he would not kill himself that he would instead preach this message: the answer is the heart, the heart, the heart.  He is a convert now; he has seen the truth.  He immediately, completely and fully instinctively now understands that "the main thing is to love others as you love yourself... that is all.  Nothing else is required".  He says "it is an ancient truth which has been repeated and read a billion times, though it has not found acceptance" and for him, it's like he has heard it --really heard and understood it-- for the first time.  "Consciousness of life is supieror to life.  Knowledge of the laws of happiness is supieror to happiness --THAT IS WHAT WE MUST FIGHT AGAINST".  End of story.

All that just to say that the heart is worthier than the head.  Last sentence is a footnote "I sought out the little girl, by the way..." sorta like he wasn't doing so well living up to his new ideal but hey, we're all human.  He [the would-be suicide man narrating] sounds like Tolstoy after he gave up being a writer for being a sort of monk.  Definitely shoot the head.  Keep the heart.  It's a hard position to argue against, you know?  And that's what I find so interesting.  I'm not interested in arguing questions of left vs. right politically.  I'm not interested at all in the right.  I'm interested in the idea of an absolute truth, even and especially a kind, progressive, positive absolute truth like "love others as you love yourself" versus the idea that there are no absolute truths AT ALL.

The point is not whether my immature sophmoric ideas of Tolstoy versus Dostoevsky here are accurate or not (I'm sure there's a lot more nuances there and it'd be really interesting if there are any Russian lit majors reading my blog, if you could comment here and give us some insight) but let's just say GIVEN THIS ANALOGY, which are you a Tolstoy or a Dostoevsky?

My heart is made of Swiss cheese

I told myself it wouldn’t hurt when I saw her again.  It did.  I was playing chess with Billy in a café.  Bladerunner was playing on a large screen behind his head.  I was watching it out of the corner of my eye.  If I had been sitting where Billy was sitting facing the windows, there’s a chance she would’ve seen me and who knows what would’ve happened.  As it was, it was Billy who said hey, isn’t that Maria?  And I turned to look and there she was walking with Jessie, talking and smiling and laughing.  They were together without me.  I knew this already, theoretically, but seeing it made my heart turn cold.

Back home now I am curled up on the couch knitting.  It is a rainy Sunday evening.  The local public radio station is broadcasting mellow lounge music instead of jazz.  The neighborhood is quiet.  The room is lit by a single table lamp. 

She taught me how to knit. 

I want to make Billy a sweater.  I rarely knit sweaters for other people; they’re such huge, time consuming, expensive projects.  But Billy is different.  Billy is a fellow reject.  He has schizophrenia and acts fairly strangely.  He’s like an older brother who needs someone to knit him sweaters, guide and encourage him through the paperwork he has to do in order to receive his disability check from the government and remind him not to worry about things, that Jesus himself said “do not be afraid” many times throughout the gospels.

I keep thinking about her.  I give myself that advice now.  Do not be afraid of seeing her again.  Do not be afraid of falling into the hole she made when she left.  Holes are openings.  Do not be afraid to go through them. 

The hole she left is large and gaping but it is not usually in the center of my life.  It’s off to one side, out of the way for the most part, easily avoided.  But tonight at the café, it was like someone pushed the “recenter map” button and the view from here was changed.  It zoomed out and over to the left and down in on the space where she once was, the empty space that is now a hole.  These days I walk carefully around the edges.  I remember when I used to fall in.

I am not one to believe in the seamless closing up of these holes in the heart.  At best they shrink, your life recenters on solid ground and fresh holes open up until your heart is like Swiss cheese, full of holes of various sizes.  We live between the holes.  I am even learning to appreciate them for what they are: negative space.  Their presence only offers more definition to what is there.  They provide texture, character and contrast.   And I don’t care what anyone says a heart made of Swiss cheese is better than one made of smooth, solid Velveeta, no matter how stable all that processing should make you.

The phone rings.  It’s Billy wanting to know if he can come over for breakfast tomorrow and play a game of chess before he goes to work   I say yes.  Maria taught me how to knit and Billy taught me how to play chess.  These are good things to know.

Barb Inc. (or My life as a corporation)

My first affair with a corporation began last year when I saw the summer edition of Smithsonian Magazine publish the winners of their 1st annual photo contest.  Ever since I have been eagerly awaiting the Smithsonian to call me up and tell me I'm one of their finalists in their 2nd annual photo contest (to be published in the summer of 2005).  "All finalists will be notified by March 31st," their website says.  "Do not contact us requesting information on the status of your submissions,". 

I contemplate contacting them to request information on the status of my submissions.

But I don't.  I have a long standing rule against calling anyone who doesn't call me.  Nonetheless, I have been eagerly awaiting the following message on my home answering machine: "Congratulations Ms. Howe.  This is Smithsonian Magazine.  We are calling to congratulate you on Your Brilliant Photograph of a dead animal carcass being chopped in half by a machete.  We are sure readers of Smithsonian Magazine -now part of National Geographic Incorporated -will feel the warm glow of nationalism overcome them when they gaze upon your photo amongst the red, white and blue Americana shots of Veteran's Day parades in small towns, backlit farming equipment in golden fields and smiling pets and children racing each other in a backyard game of t-ball..."   

No such message comes.  Months go by.  Smithsonian Magazine doesn't call me.  I knew I shouldn't have acted too interested.  I couldn't help it.  They were being all flirty like that talking about a thousand dollars for first place and a trip for two to Alaska for the grand prize.  I fell hook line and sinker and submitted four photos well before the required deadline of December 31st.

"Only one submission per category" the rules said. 

"What if I submit a photo in the wrong category" I asked. 

"If we deem that a photo has been submitted in the wrong category, we will reassign it to its appropriate category".

"What if I already have a photo in that category and you reassign another of my photos to that same category and then I have more than only one submission per category?" I asked.

No response.

We are not really on speaking terms now -Smithsonian and I.  I should've known we were not each other's type.  You know how it goes.  They're a corporation and I'm just a girl with a camera and a blog.  We don't speak the same language.

I do this all the time.  Fall for the wrong type.  No amount of rejection deters me.  I have a big mouth.  I mean, it's huge.  It stretches from here to Wyoming.  You'd think with a mouth this big, I'd incorporate myself.  I'd sell tickets for people to get in and hear myself speak.  Standing room only.  Discount rates for the upper molars.  Subscription deals if you attend three or more performances.  I'd set up an Administration to administer myself.  The Administration would sign all outgoing correspondence with "Barb Inc. Admin."  When nonincorporated individuals write me to say they liked what I say, I'll ignore them to show how I've moved up in the world and how little I need to hear what they have to say, even if it's nice.  I'm beyond nice.  Nice is for wussy human beings.  I'm incorporated. 

People who knew me back before I incorporated will write to apply for jobs being ushers inside my mouth or ask questions about the chemistry of my saliva.  I will issue a general briefing that individual correspondence cannot be answered due to heavy volume.  Only one or two people actually write with these questions and applications but I don't write back anyway.  Then they'd know I'd made up that part about the heavy volume.

Being incorporated means fewer dating options since humans still outnumber corporations but your chances of getting paired up are significantly higher.  Sooner or later another institution will buy you out, then your stocks options will go up.  I heard about a friend of a friend who once went out with Wal-Mart.  She said they outsourced her to China where she produced prestamped email letterhead already signed with "Wal-Mart Admin." on the bottom.  They'd buy 500 cartons of the letterhead a day for the Administration department of every Wal-Mart in every city in every country all over the world.  She's so busy she doesn't even know that Wal-Mart's been cheating on her with a sleazy little upstart from Southern California.

Maybe I'd avoid all that by refusing to date other corporations.  I'd run a contest -for humans only- to see who can eat the most Twizzlers or something.  And the winner could be my partner for life.  We'll merge and buy out Wal-Mart and become the biggest corporation on the planet.  We'll never write or call anybody back even other corporations.  The Smithsonian will call to say we've won their photo contest.  We won't write back. 

We're incorporated.