Caustically Optimistic

she's hot

Not everyone has a favorite memory from a Grandmother’s funeral; I am not everyone. 

 

For reasons that I will remain blissfully ignorant of, my father’s brothers do not get along.  People have told me their sides of the story, besides Stella Maris, when ‘those people’ talk to me I think of baseball or recite the books of the Bible in my head until it goes away.  You would be amazed at how many things thinking about baseball can fix.  Because of whatever-their-problem-is my cousins and I are not close and do not see each other often, apparently someone in our extended network has to kick-off for us to be in the same place. 

This is, really, one of my favorite stories. 

The day before my grandmother’s internment there was, of course, a viewing.  For those of you who aren’t up to date with the burial habits of white people a ‘viewing’ is a wake where the white people in question are too cheap to provide food and alcohol.  To be fair, my family is full of lazy fat-lards who can skip the hors d’oeuvres and don’t need alcohol to be assholes. 

I went to the viewing with Chaos Bean and our cousin Alison, our parents traveled in another car.  When we arrived at the funeral home (many of the family cannot go into a church, it would combust) we mingled with the people there and talked to different cousins.  Chaos Bean and I at least can recognize our cousins and put a name with a face.

Now, I don’t know what the drama is but I know who is angry with whom.  I know that a bad idea would be for me to talk to my cousin Derek because it gets peoples rankles up so as soon as I spotted the kid I went over and shook his hand.  I was really tempted to hug him, but I don’t hug people and it would have been obvious that I was being incorrigible.  Now, Alison is with me at this point and as the youngest and the one who is loved by her parents she hasn’t seen these people in a long time and she was a toddler when she did. 

I hadn’t seen Derek in years and he looks at me, looks at Alison and says, “She’s hot, is she your girlfriend.”

And, really, I hope to God that somewhere there is a blog post about how his brother or someone put him up to that.  I really, really do.  Alison and I do not resemble each other in the slightest but I still hope this was a joke I’m still not let in on. 

The rest of that interaction is deliciously awkward, of course.  Being the cousin who was born in the South – in fact the only one born outside of civilization – it does seem plausible that I would consider dating a family member but I was raised by good Christian Americans who wouldn’t cotton to the idea of intramural dating. 

This interaction is one of the most storied and discussed ones of all time and, besides the question of if there was an organ or not, is the most discussed and well-remembered story of our grandmother’s funeral.  I know it’s not right to have a favorite story or even funny stories at all from a funeral but please remember: my apple did not fall far from the tree.   

This entry was brought to you by: the number ten. 

 

 

spectacular

When I was in High School I was terrified of the lunchroom.  I have a social anxiety disorder so I was a senior before I went into one during lunch – because we weren’t allowed to be anywhere else.  I would have overcome this, perhaps, if I didn’t go to a new school each year.  Someone asked me the other day if I knew how to read, because they needed someone to read for them.  I reminded me of when I did time at Leavenworth – well, Leavenworth High School. 

It sounds so much cooler when I approach it from the former instead of the latter. 

During my junior year I ate in the outside area in the front of the school.  It was a strange mix of people who weren’t cool, or perhaps brave, enough to eat in the lunchroom.  I’m not even confident that I knew where the lunchroom was.  I know I was in it a few times when we had to do written work for gym and for our first session of driver’s education.

When it would rain we would move into the lunchroom, stand in the rain, or huddle in the entryway to the school.  I’m not sure what the term in English is for these doors, but it’s one of those where you go through two sets of doors before getting into the main building.  After a bit, the people who had to clean up after us got wise to what we were doing and put up a sign not to eat or drink in there.

I wasn’t an especially belligerent teenager but I wasn’t a huge fan of being wet and cold; and it was in my job description as a teenager to be (on occasion) an asshole.  One day it started to rain at the end of lunch and I was finishing my sandwich in the entryway.  The custodian came in, and in a fit of rage shouted at me, “Don’t you know how to read?” 

Now, there was this girl, and I won’t say that I had a crush on her but I will say that there was something alluring about her.  What made her so damn charming was that she was a very spontaneous person who would do something completely unexpected and it would be very funny.  I do things out of left field but they are rarely funny.  I was smitten.  This girl, her name was Michelle Bloom, would do the strangest things.  She made doing time at Leavenworth a little less miserable. 

I remember walking by the in-school suspension room when they were being walked to the restroom like a chain gang and she grabbed my arm and pleaded that I protect her virtue from thugs from the in-school suspension.  Another time, in a rare and unrepeated social outing, she started saying “stop it, Jimmy, you’re hurting me!” in a movie theater.  She then rushed out of the theater and those of who we were with her awkwardly left as well.  I walked home.  It would be months before I was around the people my own age on purpose, outside of school.

Well, on this occasion when the question was posited, “Do you know how to read?”  Michelle flew into action.  She almost immediately burst into tears and screamed, “he doesn’t know how to read!  You insensitive jerk!”  Please don’t think that I put down my sandwich during this: I ate popcorn through The Passion of the Christ; I am not setting aside food for anyone.  The custodian was speechless after her performance and then began to stammer out an apology, he went in three times and each time Michelle shot him down with another outburst about his completely unacceptable behavior. 

The rest of this memory is in slow motion and I don’t remember what happened, I do remember being at once enraptured by and jealous of Michelle.  I pride myself in my ability to be completely off-topic, random, embarrassing, and spontaneous.  I can never be like Michelle.  It was spectacular. 

I will never love another woman the way that I loved her.  

welcome back, Suburban Island

I am pleased to announce the return of Suburban Island to the Internets.  I have no explanation for her absence but I can explain my own. 

 It started on the Independence Day Weekend.  I went to my friend’s farm to help him bail hay.  Some people who aren’t charter members of the Spritopias Fan Club don’t know this, but I have done a bit of farm work in my life.  My grandparents had a farm in Germany; Chaos Bean and I had been known to work on it from time to time.  I have also been a garbage man and a groundskeeper so it isn’t outside of my experience to heft something and toss it.  It isn’t rocket science.  It is funny to watch my fat, out-of-shape bulk waddle around the farm and try to be useful.  I had to come after work, so I was there long enough to get filthy but not long enough to be useful, strictly speaking. 

 After helping with the bailing I went to the fireworks with Jason, Erin, and their kids.  Erin went to High School with Chaos Bean and I, but now lives nearby on a farm.  Chaos Bean was busy and unable to come to the fireworks, which is a shame because I had learned how to take fireworks pictures but Chaos Bean could have done it well.  This is where I tried, but failed, to ruin my friendship with Jason and Erin.  I took their oldest daughter to get the three kids glow-in-the-dark necklaces – which will probably give them cancer later.  They were a dollar.  For three dollars you could also get a baton that lit up and had tassels.  The girl asked for it and being a moron I not only got it for her, I didn’t get anything analogous for the other girl and the boy.  This caused the other children to be intermittently upset because that was really unkind and stupid on my part and there were a couple squabbles over the baton.  It was entirely my fault, stupid baton. 

 Despite the baton fiasco I was invited, along with the Bean of Bedlam, to their Fourth of July barbeque.  We didn’t realize that we were going to be waking up Jason to intrude upon their family day or we’d have stayed home.  However, no one chases off people bearing beer and ice cream.  This is where I disappeared because Erin’s children repaid me for making fireworks into a fiasco. 

 And, really, someone should have warned Jason: nothing ordinary can happen when I am around.  There will be some disruption to the peace, a fiasco, a debacle, and if you’re luck and hang around long enough an imbroglio.

It wasn’t that their toddler took on the duties of my personal trainer and made me chase her around the house and then would chase me around the house.  It wasn’t that the older daughter made me help her with her math homework (in the summer, AYFKM?).  It was their son.  He is a drug pusher.  He had my play Lego Batman with him on the PlayStation – which is only a gateway drug – and then put me on Mario Kart for the Nintendo Wii.  This is a bigger time suck than inspiring a good Alex Vance photo-shop and then trying to do it yourself.

I spent hours and hours in college playing that stupid game.  People I went to school with, I’m not kidding, decided who their roommate would be by video game system and ownership of Mario Kart for N64 – yes, I am that old.  I met a lot of great people through that game (Christian and Mike, although everywhere Mike and I go, we see the same hoes).  I have had to admit to people that I was only their friend in college to get a Nintendo fix.  I am not proud of that.  I am proud of the fact that for about seven or eight years I was Mario Kart free.  I had broken the habit.  I have stepped away from this post twice to eat and three times to race on the Nintendo.  It hurt their son’s feelings that I didn’t consider him when buying things at the overpriced useless light-up thing booth and he has repaid me for that by exposing me to a drug I cannot say no to.  It’s like giving an alcoholic a glass of whisky or handing out heroin by the methadone clinic or telling a dieting fat kid you’ll meet them at the McDonald’s parking lot.  It’s just wrong.  It’s horrible and un-American and I need to wrap this up so I can go play.  Yes, I have my own now.  

 This is where I’ve been and while it’s been comical to think that Grand Dame of Suburban Island has been rocking out her Mario Kart skills I am entirely positive that it isn’t the case.  I am glad, however, that she has returned unto us.  

smoking hot

I was skulking around Facebook and realized that some of the same, tired sexist stereotypes about men are still rolling around the universe.  We are pigs but we’re not the mindless beasts it makes you feel better about yourself to assume we are. 

My good friend, Joanna, posted an article about how Megan Fox is bad for women.  The article blamed her and women like her on the fact that women feel the need to emulate her and be like her.  It pointed out that she wasn’t bright and gave terrible interviews.  It’s not like she’s a politician; she’s an actor.  She entertains us.  She’s eye-candy.  I, for one, do not feel any compunction about not looking like Fabio.  I think it’s easier for women to pin their insecurities to the biological reaction men have to breasts than to own up to them.  As an example, we don’t blame you for our anxieties about penis size.

Then there was a (photo-shopped) photo of the President of the United States checking out some scantly clad teenager at a public event.  I made my comment to the reactionary Republican who posted it with my opinion – God forgive me – that the First Lady was ‘smoking hot.’  Someone’s response, I kid you not, was: “michelle obama is smoking hot??? omg, i think i just threw up in my mouth a little bit :(.” I will not dignify the comment by cleaning it up. 

 

I then replied with the fact that it is a little known fact that men really do find smart, articulate women attractive.  I should have said, “secure” men find smart, articulate women attractive.  Yes, Mrs. Obama is a poised and attractive without the ability to disembowel someone in a match up of wits but that ability gives her an edge on a great of other women.  Beauty fades, stupid is forever.  The original poster then dismissed my comment by pointing out that I do not like Sarah Palin.  I do not.  It’s not that she’s Republican or that she isn’t intelligent but that she allowed herself to be used by the Republicans – first to get out the vote and second as the scapegoat for their spectacular collapse in November.  That is neither smart nor attractive. 

As someone who has been fated to go blind there is nothing more terrifying to me than the thought of being stuck for the rest of my life with anyone who was a beauty at dawn and a bore at twilight.  I polled all my male friends, straight and gay, who were online at the time and all of them concurred: a smart, articulate person was the ideal partner while models were still fun to look at. 

Nedenia was the most attractive girl I went to High School with because she is also the smartest person I have ever met, and easily the most articulate.  Yes, she is an incredible beauty and when you peek inside her soul you’ll see one of the most beautiful people you could ever hope to encounter.  I cannot recount all the times her compassion has lead me through the darkest times in my life.  I can also tell you that she’s intimidating.  If Ginger Rodgers did everything that Fred Astaire did backwards, in heels then you can liken Nedenia to doing that vis-à-vis Darth Vader.  Lesser men cannot hold their bowels when confronted with her. 

Angie is going to shoot this down, but she should remember that I said ‘secure’ men.  Once Angie finds a man who can handle the fact that she has a brain the size of a planet then she’ll be happy.  Joanna, I had a crush on you when you were chubby because you’re fascinating and smart.  The scrap-booking fetish was a little off-putting. 

I’m not going to end this by saying that we don’t find physical beauty alluring but I will say that those of who aren’t complete pigs, are just little piglets of men, find a poised, smart, intelligent, and articulate woman attractive.  I resent that insecure women say that we only find what they don’t have attractive when it’s far more unattractive that they’re insecure and would rather blame someone else than take pride in themselves.  If you don’t like being packed in one box, stop doing it to other people.  

go and sin no more

I’m writing a book.  I know a lot of Bloggers make this announcement and then write some crappy tome about how being a teenager with acne and a penchant for emo poems was wretched and delicious; but they were special and insightful.  The world just didn’t understand!  The difference between my book and everyone else’s is that I had a wonderful childhood.  Sure, I had no friends and I didn’t do anything interesting but I was happy.  The other difference is that I have an expert in publishing guiding me through the process and she’s not letting me take the missteps that cause you to tread down the wrong path.  Oh, there is also the small issue of being a published author before the Internet was publicly available. 

The most fulfilling part of writing a book has been people’s response to my endeavor.  No, people aren’t proud of me and I haven’t experienced an outpouring of support for my work.  People’s reactions have been pretty universal, not to mention: swift, sudden, and severe.  People are terrified.  I haven’t seen this amount of mass hysteria since the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

The people fall into two camps.  There is a very large contingent of people who fear that I am going to “Sedaris” them.  They know that I have been collecting stories and foibles for years.  They are treasured up in my heart and at any time I could loose them on the world in all their absurdity, hilarity, and bitterness.  Chaos Bean raises the twin issues of the idea that I could be sued and that people are stupid enough to go into open court and announce that, “the jerk in the story, yeah that’s me.”  If I decided to write this book it could also create a firestorm of defamation in kind, or considering the literacy of the people I have the best stories on defecation in kind.  I have not told these people that the book isn’t about them because it’s just too damn fun to watch them quake in their boots.  Nedenia and Alex Vance would be set for life if I wrote that book because they’d spend the rest of their careers in expensive litigation. 

The other camp that people who are terrified are people who think I am going to write a Tucker Max story about them.  First, I am flattered that they think I am that clever but I am alternately terrified that they think I am going to write a story about vulgar, tawdry sex with them.  I don’t know what Spritopias you’ve been partying with or which one they’ve hung around but this Spritopias hasn’t even had boring sex with anyone, no sex for me at all.  I have no idea how I would write a Tucker Max story about anyone.  What would I say?  I have no idea how to even fake that.  I’m not that good at telling a convincing story.

Actually, my book is a theological work and isn’t really a work of fiction to skewer the people in my life.  I’m writing about the most important thing I ever learned in Sunday school, Lutheran University, and as a teacher.  The book will be about Forgiveness and throwing someone under a bus isn’t the best way to teach that.  

I still enjoy the terror.  

malicious intent

While I was waiting for my mother during her class at the Apple Store I had a bagel (with smear) and a diet soda at the People’s Republic of Panara Bread.  They have free wireless and I could hang out there until my mother’s class was over.  She’s epileptic and cannot drive this month so I was giving Chaos Bean a day off from her role as Morgan Freeman in, Driving Miss Crazy. 

 I was hoping for, and obviously did not get, some quiet time to work on my writing, play at Club Pogo and stalk people on the Facebook.  Unfortunately there was a loud woman who is the public face of Panara Bread in Oxmoor Mall.  She went around and talked to everyone, loudly – including me despite my strategically placed ear-buds to prevent unwanted human interactions.  It wasn’t her job to go make sure everyone was happy and talked to them, alternately there wasn’t an intellectual impediment to prevent her from realizing the faux pas she was perpetrating on the patrons it was more a social one.

In case you are slow or new to planet Earth here are a few simple rules to follow when interacting with someone who is busy when you approach them:

First, if they have ear-buds or headphones on, they probably want to be left alone.  If they start to sing along, dance in their seat, clap, snap or otherwise participate it’s a good indication that they’re feeling it and not you.  I wasn’t listening to music but I did start to dance along to “Don’t Stop Til You Get Enough” and clapped over my head like I was.

 Second, if someone has a book, magazine, or other reading material and the person is in a coffee shop with their breakfast it is for a reason.  It isn’t because they are lonely.  My best friends, the ones that have been with me since I was wee are all found in books.  My beloved heroes and cherished villains are splashed all over the New York Times.  It’s very possible that I am sitting there all by myself with the people I love in the only place I can spend a little quiet time with them.  If I were lonely I would have acknowledged you and accepted your offer of society. 

Third, and this is the most important – I need to remember that it isn’t really rude if there is no malice involved.  I had to really reign myself in and think on the times when I’ve been boorish and people took it as rudeness.  Monday I sold a car to a family headed up by a pair of women, and I don’t have the lexicon to speak to a family with two moms and it isn’t as easy as just talking to them as I would speak to any other family – there are other nuances and dynamics in the language when verbally grappling with the progress of our society.  The one lady kept getting pissed and the other was more understanding.  This is what kept me from really losing my religion on the Panara Poltergeist for making me break it down, Michael style in the booth. 

So remember, next time, that when someone is being boorish that it isn’t rude unless there is malice attached.  We have to start backing off one another and placing responsibility only when someone meant to hurt or annoy us.

 Yes, I probably meant to annoy you.  Most of the time, I do.