How Quickly They Forget

I was watching Morning Joe earlier today because…. Prince.

Per their usual format, they rotate the people at the table in and out from segment to segment all morning long. Sometimes people leave mid-segment and without anyone acknowledging the departure. This can be somewhat disturbing early in the morning when my attention drifts in and out and suddenly Mika Brzezinski is replaced with Nicole Wallace – as though any intelligent blonde with a vagina will suffice.

Ok, so maybe that particular substitution hasn’t happened before, but there is quite a bit of fluidity to the table occupants and to the discussion and this morning, almost all of the segments drifted back to the topic of Prince Rogers Nelson’s sad and untimely death. This is not surprising as he was a cultural icon and music genius and Purple Rain is the soundtrack to all things that are good in the universe.

So I was drifting in and out with them as I was reading NPR articles – also about Prince – when all of a sudden I heard a very buttoned-up voice say the following words:

“He just put sexy in music.”

When I looked up to see who had spoken this – I think the words and the voice didn’t match in my head and so I had to see what was happening – there was former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele’s face speaking on my screen.

It was really weird. For a moment, there was a robot voice in my head saying does not compute. Surely someone else said what I heard and then before I looked up the camera switched to Michael Steele who immediately began speaking in the same exact voice. And it’s not the first time I’ve had this reaction. I once turned on Morning Joe to see Bradley Cooper discussing foreign policy at the table. I had a similar reaction. The words and the face and the perceptions all crash together in my brain over and over again, like cars backing up and ramming each other in the grill at a demolition derby. When this happens, I have to pause the TV and talk myself back into reality.

These people – for one reason or another – have earned a seat at the grownup table and now the adults are talking.  And I have to sit at the kiddie table with my coloring book and just listen to it, if I can stop the collisions long enough to pay attention. This morning, I was successful.

And why shouldn’t they have a seat at the table? Why can’t Bradley Cooper talk about foreign policy? Why can’t Michael Steele have an opinion on Prince? Policy and culture affect us all and, regardless of their chosen vocations, they are part of the whole. These are the things that I tell myself so that I can survive the American Morning Show Experience.

Do you know what I noticed yesterday about the coverage of Prince’s death (aside that is, from its similarity to the coverage of Buckwheat being shot on Saturday Night Live in 1983)? I noticed that almost everyone had a story about how his music – or his persona -- impacted their lives. They recalled concerts or school dance/class song controversies or buying his first album and hiding it from their parents. 

I have many myself, but the first one that popped into my head was not the time I saw him in concert in 1997. It was a memory of the first jazz piece I learned when I was apprenticing in a dance company at the age of 11. The song was When Doves Cry…and they were crying because of my dancing.  I remember not being able to get the jazz walk just right and I looked ridiculous trying to do the contraction at the end. I was pulled out into the middle of the dance floor while my instructor – bless her – forcibly moved my upper body while I attempted to move my lower body. It was a spectacle –which I got to enjoy because of the full-length mirrors on all four walls of the room – and humiliating because there were college dancers in there and they did not have time for 6^th graders. And Prince was playing through the speakers the entire time.

That’s right, people…I was in a small dance company when I was a child. Now that the secret is out, let’s move on.

Everyone has a Prince story and a memory. John Heilemann, managing editor at Bloomberg, recalled seeing Prince open for the Rolling Stones in Los Angeles in 1981 wearing a black thong (Prince, not Heilemann) and doing his Prince thing. He finished only 3 songs before being removed from the stage FOR HIS OWN SAFETY. The concert promoter came on stage and cussed the audience out telling them how stupid they were and how in 3 years they would want to kick their own asses for being so small-minded and not appreciating the show.

In 1984, for a brief period of time, Prince had the number one single, album, and movie in the country. Probably with help from the same people who had thrown things at him 3 years earlier. They probably told all their friends -- who were hearing Purple Rain for the first time -- how they had been fans since way back when he opened for the Stones and gave that special music-snob-eye-roll every time someone cranked up the radio for Little Red Corvette. They would conveniently forget that they once threw a jelly shoe at Prince's head while shouting MICK MICK MICK MICK, because by 1984 Prince was a superstar. 

But my absolute favorite memory about Prince was his starring role in the formation of the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC). You might remember the PMRC for their riveting takeover of the U.S. Senate when Tipper Gore and her Washington wives cohorts testified that the lyrics in the “Filfthy 15” were corrupting ALL OF THE YOUTH EVERYWHERE. 

And what do you think was #1 on that list? You guessed it, Darling Nikki by Prince.

Darling Nikki was VERY DIRTY in 1984. No one I knew was allowed to listen to it and everyone I knew listened to it all the time. We felt like total rebels every time we heard it on our jamboxes from a cassette tape that someone’s parents had bought them before they knew better and that they had dubbed onto a dozen other cassettes which had been dubbed onto a dozen more.

We were Napster before Napster.

Darling Nikki was not played on the radio in Winchester, Virginia, or in Jonesboro, Arkansas, (my homes in 1984) which should come as no surprise to anyone. But it also wasn’t played on DC101 – you know where Howard Stern was a DJ three years earlier. That’s how dirty Darling Nikki was.

Anyway, the PMRC testified before the senate about the moral decay of America and called for printing warnings and lyrics on album covers, forcing record stores to put albums with explicit covers under the counters, pressuring television stations not to broadcast explicit songs or videos, "reassess[ing]" the contracts of musicians who performed violently or sexually in concert, and creating a panel to set industry standards. Opponents, including odd bedfellows Frank Zappa, John Denver, and Dee Snider of Twisted Sister, called it censorship. 

Tipper Gore was labeled ultra-conservative.  PLEASE THINK ABOUT THAT STATEMENT.

Long story short…the music industry agreed to label albums that were considered explicit by the profanity/drug/violence/sex police and they did start printing lyrics inside album covers which was a boon for us all because now everyone could know what Elton John had been saying the for the least 15 years and what the real lyrics to Blinded By the Light were. 

Win-Win.

But back to Prince…

It appears that the same kids who were being ruined by Darling Nikki in the 1980s (along with Madonna and Def Leppard and every other song on the list because teenagers have and always will listen to the music their parents find offensive and dangerous) are the same ones who grew up to be actors, parents, scientists, respected business leaders, journalists, and the freaking chairman of the Republican National Committee.

And this is the case with all people who play at the edges of cultural envelope – especially those who so generously invite other artists into the fringes with them.  Talent and artistry that is considered corrosive and corrupt today may in fact be called early-21^st-century genius on a Wake Up, Mars! virtual cast which will be digitally mapped directly onto your temporal lobe in 35 years.

But please, Lord, don’t let it be Kanye. 

The Subtleties of Co-Parenting

My husband is a better person than I am.

 

This is not me fishing for compliments, I'm just stating a fact. Not an empirical fact, mind you...I can't give you metrics to prove that he is kinder, more observant, less snarky, better at listening, more intentional, less crazy. It's hard to measure those qualities. I only have anecdotal evidence. 

Like this...

My 15-year-old daughter wants to go get her learner's permit today. It involves taking a test and gathering about 800 documents to prove that she is indeed a 15-year-old human who is, in fact, our daughter and does live at our address which is in the State of Tennessee. 

We are unconvinced that she has studied adequately for the test but she insisted she is ready even after we told her that if she didn't pass, she'd have to wait 30 days to go back and try again. We also worried about the documentation. She doesn't have a school ID because they stopped using them this year. She doesn't have a passport because we haven't unleashed her on the world yet. She doesn't have anything with a photo (aside from a child identification card that we were given about 4 years ago from the school photography people) and I lost all of our social security cards the last time I was required to present it to some official entity that needed us to prove our existence. The cards are somewhere, I just can't find them.

Which is the actual definition of the word lost.

So the girl has been texting back and forth with her father and me trying to make sure that we have precisely everything that we need so that she will be guaranteed an opportunity to take the test. She has also been texting me to call the DMV and make sure that we have what we need. I am not calling the DMV. I don't have the psychological makeup to deal with that personality type. It's a powder keg. This is one of those tasks that people do and then get all excited about having "adulted". I personally don't find that anyone behaves like an adult at the DMV. The interactions are only slightly more reserved then those in a street riot...also, there is a tall counter instead of a police barrier. The level of hostility and amount of tears is the same. I'm actually considering letting my driver's license expire the next time that I can't update it by mail because I am not mellowing with age and I fear that going inside and dealing with the people will result in jail time and or sutures. 

But, we did get online and studied the full list of acceptable substantiating documents and put all of the ones we could find into a lovely folder. We are pretty confident that it creates an extremely easy-to-follow paper trail which proves we are exactly who we say we are and she is exactly who she says she is and that she is also exactly who we say she is. We also supplied the required school attendance form which has my name and driver's license. It's all there.

My husband made plans to pick her up and we thought everything was good. But then we each received a text: To my husband, she inquired if SHE (meaning ME) had called the DMV so we could be 100% sure we had everything we needed. To me, she simply said, "Have you called the DMV?"

These are our responses...

Husband: "If you are uncomfortable, we can wait 6 weeks for a replacement [social security card]. 100 percent sure? Never when it comes to government." 

Me: "Didn't call but...Sent our marriage certificate so that they could see that the person on your attendance form is married to the person whose name is on the utility bill which proves our residency. We have your birth certificate. We have an insurance policy with our names and your name on it. Included your immunization form and optional school enrollment form which has your name, our address and your social security number on it. Essentially, your father will be carrying all the documentation necessary to steal all three of our identities. Anyone with 1/8 of a brain should have no trouble connecting the dots to prove your eligibility. And you only have to have 1/10 of a brain to work at the DMV.

Notice the subtle differences in parenting styles and world-views?

His was simple. Not overtly sarcastic and mostly neutral in terms of his generosity about the people. Government as an institution may be difficult but he didn't disparage the people there. He was realistic about expectations for the day while presenting a deeper life lesson that nothing is 100 percent certain. They will likely have a meaningful conversation about life's uncertainties while waiting in line at the DMV. 

Mine...not simple. Dripping with sarcasm. Void of all generosity when it comes to the people she will encounter. Completely unrealistic because in truth this could easily not be good enough depending on what hardened, sadistic person they happen to encounter (see how I did it again? That's why I'm not the one taking her.) My words contained nothing profound about the nature of life or relationships. There was no wisdom. Not my finest moment. 

I can only hope that my husband's influence will overshadow my own in this instance. Otherwise, one day in the near future, I will no doubt hear similarly snarky words come out of her mouth in reference to someone whom she considers to be unintelligent and/or inefficient. In truth, there is a better-than-50% chance that the target of her snark will be me. 

Because...Karma. 

And daughters.

Reinterpreting the Data

OK, a few things….

First, could someone do me a solid and invent an app? This is what I need: Something I can download to my #2 Ticonderoga pencil so that when I write something on my 1975-era legal pad, it will transmit directly to my laptop. Why has no one done this yet? Seems like it should be a breeze. Let me know when you’ve got something.

Second, I discovered the origin of my negative association with Gilbert Gottfried…the one I knew I had but couldn’t locate in my extraordinarily cluttered brain. Here it is: he made a joke at the Friar’s Club Roast for Hugh Hefner that may have been poorly timed in the aftermath of September 11. So, I guess in the slow news days that followed that event (wha????) everyone needed to take time out to express their moral outrage at someone who was trying to inject some dopamine – which science says actually makes us happier and more successful – into our collective brain. I seem to recall, however, that we were specifically instructed to keep living our lives because to do otherwise would be “letting the terrorists win”. So, what part of a comedian known for telling tasteless jokes (at an event in which the whole point is to tell tasteless jokes) actually telling a tasteless joke is contrary to that instruction? Beyond that, what could piss a terrorist off more than seeing us laugh in the wake if such a horrific tragedy?

Osama Bin Ladin: They’re supposed to be wailing and gnashing their teeth and tromping on their constitution and they are LAUGHING?! Allahdammit! What do we have to do to make them abandon their principles and adopt ours?

Trusted advisor: Hey now, Osama, not all is lost. I mean, they ARE honoring a guy who treats women like property -- so that’s something. And I think we should give it some time on that whole tromping on their constitution thing…they just need to get their warrantless wiretaps in order. Patience, my friend.

I mean if we’re going to go ahead with plans to celebrate A PORNOGRAPHER (Oh, I forgot…you just read it for the articles) in the days following an event that claimed the lives of 3000+ Americans and turned the entire world on its ear, can’t Gilbert keep being Gilbert?  I guess moral outrage should certainly be reserved for a poorly-timed joke but not for the guy who has been objectifying women and using/discarding them like cellphones for the last 50 years. That’s definitely keeping our eye on the ball, people.

But you may feel differently. Whatevs.

Oh…and AFLAC fired him as their duck voice/spokesperson after he made, yet again, an untimely joke following the tsunami in Japan. And AFLAC has a huge presence in Japan. And…it’s just business.

But I didn’t come here to discuss that.

What I really want to discuss…or ponder…is this issue I have with not giving people a chance. In the past 4 months, I have reluctantly explored the ideas of some people whom I’d previously written off for one reason or another. With Brené Brown it was because someone I had given a chance and did not appreciate expressed his or her admiration for Brené and I just couldn’t imagine that she would have anything to offer me. Wrong. With Gilbert, it was just a fuzzy memory that I was not supposed to like him for some reason...couldn’t remember why…but it must be bad…which turned out to be a silly reason in my estimation. Wrong again. With Tony Robbins, it was simply the idea that he sells his books and ideas on infomercials and anyone who does that is a hack so... NO SOUP FOR YOU, Tony Robbins. But you know what? He’s a pretty smart guy…and a generous one too…and most definitely not a hack. I can’t afford him face-to-face (practically no one can), but his books are pretty good. He says things that speak to me and I wouldn’t ever have known if I hadn’t fallen asleep at the end of one podcast episode and woken up in the middle of the one featuring him. Wrong AGAIN. And now this Donny Deutsch guy who reminds me juuuuuust a little bit too much of Donald Trump…he’s got to be a loser right? Wrong. Yet. Again. He’s pretty smart too…a good mix of confidence and self-awareness…pretty funny and appreciative of high-quality people. And once again, he has things worth hearing…worth it for me, I mean.

Maybe it’s the dopamine opening up my learning center and looking at the world differently so I can squeeze all the good out?

I wonder how many strikes I get in this game. I hope it’s more than 4 because I’ve got to believe that if I can name 4 kind-of-famous people off the top of my head, there are probably at least a handful more. And what about the people that I actually know whom I’ve written off for equally silly reasons -- the sticker on their car…the quality of their voice…the timing of a question while I happened to be busy...a Facebook post -- what am I missing by not giving them a fighting chance?

I need to pay closer attention to these aversions and continue to test their validity. Maybe everyone is doing the best that they can.

Maybe.

What if Laughter IS the Answer?

Something weird has happened in the last week. Something that, had I anticipated its possibility, I would have expected to occur before now – like in the 1990s.

So here it is: I have become a Gilbert Gottfried fan.

Here’s a brief summary of how this occurred. I have become a podcast junkie. (Don’t judge me. Or if you do, at least have the decency not to do it from behind the same device you use to binge-watch 6 seasons of anything produced on the CW.) The one I have been focused on lately is The Moment with Brian Koppelman which I found through The Tim Ferriss Show. Recently, I was listening to Brian Koppelman’s interview with Amy Schumer in which they mentioned a previous episode featuring Gilbert Gottfried. And I was like, ew. Though I didn’t know why. If someone had asked me, “Who is Gilbert Gottfried?” a few days ago I would have said, “You know, the comedian with the annoying voice who plays the parrot in Aladdin and voices the AFLAC duck. Well, we was the AFLAC duck before the company fired him for…something offensive. I can’t remember what.”

But I’m a HUGE FAN of Amy Schumer. So I decided, after finishing with her episode, I would look for the one with Gilbert Gottfried. But I couldn’t find it on iTunes. So I Googled it and finally found it on ESPN radio of all places. So there I was, sitting at my desk, listening to a podcast with someone I didn’t think I liked on a radio station that I would not ordinarily listen to on purpose. 

You know, really challenging the boundaries of my comfort zone.

I pushed play expecting that it wouldn’t hold my interest for more than 10 minutes and found myself laughing…tears rolling down my face laughing…in about half that time. Sometimes I was laughing at what was said, but just as often I was laughing because Brian Koppelman and Gilbert Gotfried were laughing so hard. Every once in a while, the laughter would last a little longer than is considered appropriate in polite company (which was fine because there was nothing polite about it) and it was literally contagious. I would laugh at the laughter. And then I would laugh at that laughter too. 

It was exactly like what happens when you start laughing at church, except that I was alone so there was no one in front of me to turn around a glare at my joy. 

Long story, short…Gottfried has his own podcast, Gilbert Gottfried’s Amazing Colossal Podcast, on which he shares, along with his generous laughter, stories about old Hollywood, and hilarious impressions with his guests (sometimes of his guests) who share the same in return. The laughter is my favorite part – because it makes me feel awake and full of ideas. After I listen to one of his podcasts, I am ready to work…99% of the time. Yesterday, I would have been ready to work were it not for a sick child. (I don’t know how Erma Bombeck did it.) But the day of not writing became a day of productive thinking about these two questions:

Why do I find him funny? And how is it helping me write?

It felt like it was a pretty good use of time because if I could answer these two questions well enough, I’d have discovered a secret…THE SECRET…to how one finds inspiration.

I quickly figured out that the first question was a waste of time. It’s as elusive as why some people like Picasso and others prefer Monet. In many respects, humor is an art and, thus, subjective…despite the assertion by some male comics that “women aren’t funny”, the allegation by uptight people that Amy Schumer is “gross”, or the declaration by “the Greatest Generation” that comedy died with Bob Hope. No one gets to decide what’s funny for everyone.

Not even Lorne Michaels.

But the second question was important because its answer might just hold the key to unlocking my own creative process.

How is the podcast helping me write?

It didn’t come to me all at once…more like in fits and starts while I was doing dishes or folding laundry or reading or listening to other podcasts. I would remember something and then run through the house chanting it to myself until I could get to a piece of paper and a pencil. This went on all day until I finally sat down and looked at my scribbles trying to make sense of it.  

First, I remembered hearing B.J. Novak break down his writing “process” on Tim Ferriss.  It essentially consists of him doing whatever it took -- eating, walking, reading, meditating, whatever -- to put himself into a “really good mood” so that he can sit down and begin creating. This, along with Jon Hamburg’s process (discussed on The Moment) which is simply walking around NYC “until he feels special enough to write” whatever it is that he needs to write. These ideas resonate with me. I recognize in myself the need to achieve a particular state of mind before I’m ready to create.

Secondly, I recently learned the ancient definition of the word humor while reading Brainpickings. I now, of course, can’t find the article which meant I had to look it up in the dictionary and hope that it would be there. This is what I found:

HUMORn. 1. the quality of being amusing;
    2. a mood or state of mind
v. to indulge or accommodate

Yeah – I got that. But then THIS:

Historical:each of the four chief fluids of the body (blood, phlegm, yellow bile [choler], and black bile [melancholy]) that were thought to determine a person's physical and mental qualities by the relative proportions in which they were present.

So this is where the phrase “in good humor” must have originated. It doesn’t mean that someone is laughing a lot, it means that all of one’s bodily fluids are balanced out so that they can function amongst the living. Being “of good humor” or having a “good sense of humor” has evolved to mean that someone can appreciate that which is funny.  Maybe that’s because people are in their best relative states of mind immediately after a bout of laughter.

Finally, today, I watched a TED talk by Shawn Achor in which he discussed the relationship between work success and happiness. He specifically mentioned the neurotransmitter dopamine and its impact on the brain. You should watch it yourself, but the gist is that you can give yourself a happiness advantage in whatever your particular pursuit, if you can make yourself happy before getting down to business. This flips the script on the conventional wisdom that happiness is the result of success…which is a constantly moving target…which makes happiness unattainable.

So I wondered about laughter. I’m pretty happy after I laugh. I wonder if that’s why I’m able to write after I listen to Gilbert Gottfried.

Is it possible that humor is both art AND science?

I Googled “laughter and dopamine” and discovered that laughter, like general happiness, also triggers a dopamine response. Here is my layperson’s summary:

From a physical standpoint, laughter is associated with improved immune function and cardiovascular health, reduced stress and anxiety, and increased tolerance for pain. That’s right… laughing makes you physically healthier than those with no sense of humor and, apparently, if you can figure out a way to laugh when you are in pain, it might hurt less.

Laughter also activates the reward center of the brain that releases dopamine, our body’s natural mood elevator. When we laugh, our brain releases an appropriate amount of dopamine to create a natural sense of euphoria. (Drugs also cause the brain to release dopamine, but in inappropriate amounts which cause brain damage, dependence, court-ordered rehab, and, in some cases, death.)

But wait…THERE IS MORE. In his TED talk, Shawn Achor said that dopamine has not one but TWO effects on the brain. It not only elevates your mood, it also turns on all the learning centers in your brain. It allows you to adapt to the world…to process information…differently. With your brain “at positive” you are actually more intelligent, more creative, more energetic…all the things B.J Novak needs to be “in a good mood” or Jon Hamburg needs to “feel special” or I need to conquer words each day.

But there is potential here that extends beyond its impact on individual happiness and success. What could a consistent diet of laughter do for the world? What if we didn’t take ourselves so damn seriously all the time?

Think of an example of a poorly run organization (school, business, club, agency, committee, industry…you’re choice) – the worst that you can think of – and ask yourself what could happen if humor…a fluid…a lubricating elixir with the power to heal us in every imaginable way…could be injected into the veins of that system. What could be possible if everyone just took some time to make themselves laugh?

Scammed Again

Except this time it was a long con...and it took me four and half days to catch on. 

For many years, I've been hearing from writers and readers whom I respect that Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is a must-read. A important book. A masterpiece. The New York Times used the word "Uproarious" in their review. I love to roar with laughter. And so, the ever-dutiful and reverent lover of words and literature that I am, I bought it -- in iBooks -- and ignored it for 2 years. Sunday, I was sitting in my office pondering what to read next and I figured this was as good a time as any. I had recently listened to a podcast with David Lipsky who spent five days with Wallace after Infinite Jest was published and the conversation was so compelling that I expected the book to be as well. 

Well, it wasn't. Or maybe it was. I definitely felt compelled, though, not necessarily to read the book. More often than not, I felt compelled to throw my iPad across the room. I kept a diary as I read -- which I do with all the books I read because sometimes my impressions are fodder for my writing. I have decided that rather than present you with a sanitized review of the first 8 chapters (which is all I could manage before realizing that my mental health was at stake if I continued), I'm just going to reprint the diary.

There is profanity...especially in yesterday's entry because I was approaching the boundary between sane and insane as I read a 3-page-long sentence. So if cursing really offends your sensibilities, consider yourself warned. But it's real, and I don't apologize for it. I will not go so far as to say that the book is bad because it's art -- an expression of Wallace's soul -- and art is subjective. Also, if another aim of art is to elicit emotion, well, he succeeded. Honestly, I would love to one day create something that stirred people the way this stirred me. But I'm simple and would prefer that the emotion be love or joy rather than rage.

Here it is: 

(4/5/2015): Started in earnest today. Immediate impression is that it is 1100 pages and that seems pretentious. I don’t know how you can be economic or efficient with 1100 words…but hey, I’ll spend 2 weeks on something that all the people I read and listen to rave about as an “extremely important work of fiction”. What I’ve actually decided is that I’ll give it a week and then if I can’t put it down I’ll keep reading. Right now I feel as though I’m being punked. It combines the readability of Chaucer with the stream-of-conscience-style clarity of a beagle on cocaine. I can’t really figure out if I’m reading the thoughts of the same person from chapter to chapter (which, by the way, have exceptionally odd titles). In the back of my mind, I am wondering if Wallace intentionally wrote this to be indecipherable – so indecipherable that no one would ever figure out what was going on – so that everyone in the literary world (writer, reader, and critic) would so fearful of being seen as stupid or shallow for not enjoying or understanding it, that they would just accept it and herald it as a masterpiece. We shall see.

(4/6/2015): Two weeks?! I'll be lucky to finish this in 2 years. More like infinite nausea…infinite number of characters I hate…infinite run-on sentences…infinite indecipherable voices…infinite wrong names for everyday objects (teleputer? Cartridge-viewer? WTF) I hate this. 

(4/7/2015): David Foster Wallace is going to make me hate words. He uses them wrong. He uses too many and then when he’s finished using too many in the body of the book, he uses more in the footnotes…which are not helpful…just more words. And he uses a ton of obscure words – I know this because I’m reading in iBooks and every time I attempt to get a definition, THERE ISN’T ONE – I have to search the internet and it’s always something antiquated. Bolection? Reglet? Dipsomania? Optative? Fuck you, David Foster Wallace.  I feel like this was written in Greek and then translated into English by someone who learned both languages yesterday. I do not like this. It makes me long for Melville. But I’m going to finish this chapter. And my strategy has completely changed. Even if I still hate this tomorrow, I will continue reading it until I finish because I’m not going let his dead ass beat me. I did have the thought earlier today that possibly hidden somewhere in the 14^th to last page of the book – or in one of the interminable footnotes -- is a revelation that fooling the literary world and a shit load of readers into publicly revering this tripe would, in fact, be THE ULTIMATE JEST…It’s an 1100-page joke written just to fuck with the world. Somewhere in these pages is hidden the phrase, “Haha…GOTCHA SUCKERS!” but it's probably an acronym. And why are these characters always sweating? Oh yeah…and too many acronyms and he doesn’t tell us what any of them stand for. And if you think I’m reading all that bullshit under footnote number 24 (which is 7 pages long), you are sadly mistaken.

(4/8/2016): Done.
It’s like he’s trying to use ALL of the words in the entire English language. I am so tired. The first sentence of this weird chapter with only a circle for a title (no it’s not a zero and it’s not the letter O) just made me quit. After a good night’s sleep, I have realized that there is no reason to read anything that makes me this angry, let alone something that will make me this angry for around 30 days. I could read 7-8 books that make me feel like a human being in that amount of time.
I’m going to have to let go of my FOMO (Fear of Missing Out – which, by the way David Foster Wallace would not have defined for you despite his obvious comfort with overusing ALL OF THE WORDS) and just quit this so that I don’t succumb to the same fate that he did...severe mental illness and substance abuse. Additionally, I will have to come to terms with the fact that there are lots of people out there who have not only finished the book, but reread it and poured through each page for keys which they seem to believe unlock the answers to man’s greatest mysteries.
I will be leaving those mysteries unlocked. I will give exactly zero fucks that the literary world and all of the Infinite Jest Nerdiverse will think I am shallow and spiritually corrupt for not having completed this “masterpiece.” They are like wine snobs and this art is not for me.

Now I’ll be returning to our regularly scheduled programming with a glass of BotaBox wine and my copy of Siddartha or a textbook on astrophysics which I could read faster and would likely enjoy more. 

A Room of One's Own

I’m in my office. It’s new. Well…the desk is new. Nothing else is. The room is an unused parlor/living room (which is a complete misnomer because we’ve never lived in there) filled with the overflow furniture that we don’t have any other place (or use) for.

But now I have a real desk-sized desk. It's not the dining room table or the kitchen table or a tiny “writing” desk that looks like what I imagine Bartleby, the Scrivener used. And it’s not my lap in a closet under the stairs where I sometimes sit on a green polka-dotted, donut-shaped pool float. That is too small for my butt.

It’s an actual room. With an actual desk. And despite the space not being what I would have ever imagined my “office” looking like, it is managing to ingratiate itself by simply being what it is supposed to be. Though, I did do some work to get it there.

But first, how did I end up with this giant piece of furniture for which I had zero available space in my house? Well, it’s a long, sad story that I’m not going to tell. The short version is that three family members died so I could have this desk and now I feel an obligation to the universe to use it well.

I shifted some things around and found space for the desk in the “non-living” room. I wasn’t excited about it because the room is filled with unwanted things and that seems like not a good space to feel interesting or special. The room's most attractive qualities, and the ones that caused me to finally settle there, were availability and windows, so I sucked it up and moved in. I couldn't do a lot to change the room, so I focused on trying to make the desk a real work space. My work space. I began by trying to remember what I kept on my last real desk until I remembered that I effing HATED that job. Instead, I decided to start from scratch.

So just started looking for things around the house that one might put on a desk. First, I started with the basics. Laptop. Legal pad. Pencils. Pencil sharpener. The core tools. Next, I moved my giant stack of Post-It notes…the empty ones and the signed permission slips…and put them in separate drawers. I moved the books I was either currently reading or have already read and regularly refer to and stacked them all in one corner. Finally, I dug up an old lamp, put a bulb in it, and put in in the other corner.

That was the skeleton, now it needed some meat on its bones.

Gradually over the next week or two…usually when I was looking for an excuse not to write…I would wander around the house looking for things to add that would make me feel more interesting and special. This morning, I went all Joanna Gaines on it before I snapped a picture and posted it on Instagram (you can see the original there @emckinnon73). But then as I sat at my desk listening to The Moment with Brian Koppelman (for those interested, it was his interview with Amy Schumer), I realized that it still wasn’t quite mine. So I switched some of the books around because I realized that I don’t need to read Olive Kittridge again and that Brené Brown has more than earned her rightful place here. And this is what it looks like RIGHT NOW.

I thought I could invite people to ask questions about what they saw and I could answer them because I read somewhere that encouraging “an interactive experience” is one way of increasing blog traffic. But then I remembered that I don’t give a harry rat’s ass about blog traffic (big fat lie), except for the people who get what this blog is all about for me. If I did, I wouldn't publish 1600-word, non-sequitur essays just to practice my storytelling skills.

Instead, I took four snapshots of the desk. For each, I will tell you what's in the picture and what each thing means (if anything) to me.

This is the least interesting part. The arm of the couch that I sit on when reading and listening to podcasts. The side of an unused "Home Office Console" (I know) that I'm using for reminders. It currently houses a list of the books I want to read next (you know, next year after I finish Infinite Jest) and things that I don't want to forget while sucked into a creative vortex. I have, incidentally, forgotten (ignored) all of them for three days. Then there is a 16-oz cup of water on a coaster because I try to stay hydrated and nobody is inspired by water rings. Some post-it notes from Brian Koppelman's interview with Chuck Todd, for which I haven't found a use yet. My permission slip for today which says "Permission to try it without a safety net. Love, Me". Earbuds in case I want to walk around while I listen to podcasts. And two candles which are mainly for decoration. They are dusty on top.

Here we have the books. The globe and heavy metal/marble chotsky are just to hold the books in place. They were sitting in the corner looking sad and so I gave them a job. The globe's spinning mechanism is broken and so the world is literally upside down which I think is an excellent metaphor. The gold stand is actually 3 dolphins whose tails are supporting the green marble ball. I know nothing about this item...it's origin or it's purpose...all I know is that I wouldn't want to drop it on my toe. The pencil sharpener is self-explanatory -- except I should say that I have given up on electric pencil sharpeners because they all break and sound like a jackhammer. The poseable figure (with magnetic feet) which sits atop a small tin is just something for me to mess with while procrastinating deep in thought. And the cork that reads "What is your story?" is from a bottle of wine I drank most of in New Orleans after I ran my first marathon.

Laptop -- the central nervous system of this operation. The two bowls are things that I made in the pottery studio at church. One bowl has more stuff for me to mess with -- a plastic yellow dreidel, seashells, a couple of rocks, and some Canadian coins. The other bowl holds a candle -- one I actually do use -- sitting in pea gravel. And finally, the Easy Button which was given to me by someone who knew that I would never use it with sincerity. I mostly use it after negotiating with a teenager. And finally, there is a post-it note with a quote by Susan Sontag that I have been pondering. "Time exists in order that everything doesn't happen all at once...and space exists so that it doesn't all happen to you." I would imagine this will eventually be replaced by some other quote that I wish to ponder, but for now, this spot belongs to Susan.

If the laptop is the central nervous system, the legal pad and pencil are the collective heart and the coffee is the blood. Yes, I know it's 2016, but I still write things out long-hand and then type them into my laptop. I also use the notepad(s) to take notes on ideas that I have for the hundreds of books that I might never write. I never took typing so writing it all down is just as fast. There is also something mystical about the connection between my right hand and my brain as it relates to me processing ideas and transforming them into words on a page. Using a laptop interrupts that connection. I realize that the extra step takes extra time, but it's what works for me so I'm sticking with it. And then there is my copy of Siddartha. This is what I read when I need to take a break from Infinite Jest. Because who doesn't find comfort and clarity in a 65-year-old story -- translated from German into English -- about an Indian man's search for meaning? This is how a crazy person "kicks back".

The only thing not pictured here is my dog, Dash, who is usually sitting on the couch looking out the window. He has the very important job of alerting me to trouble...like a person on the front porch or a tissue blowing down the street. They are problems of equal magnitude to Dash.

And that's the space. Now that I've shared it with you. I am free to go about using it for the good of humanity.

How NOT to be Bored at a Conference

When I was in college, I spent two weekends each year (one in the Fall and one in the Spring) serving as a small group/recreation leader at a church youth retreat in Arkansas. “Serving” might be a strong word. We definitely had responsibilities, but often I was there to hang out with other college kids my age with whom I had attended these retreats. It was a chance to get together and laugh and dance and sing songs and, in between those things, lead some impressionable middle or high school students (who certainly thought we were very cool) in some icebreaker games and topical discussions about faith.

But mostly we were line dancing and flirting.

The fall retreat during my sophomore year was for middle school kids. In general, these retreats followed a similar format of gathering as a large group in the morning, after which we broke into smaller groups for discussion. Then lunch. Then an afternoon similar to the morning. I don’t remember what we did on Saturday morning (and in a second, you won’t care anyway) but Saturday afternoon was a “special” session in which the leaders had brought in a speaker.

I was a self-absorbed 19-year-old, so I have no memory of receiving any information about the topic ahead of time, nor do I know if this speaker and her area of expertise was revealed to the kids, parents, or churches that attended. My guess is NOT. Just know that it was the last time that I volunteered here or anywhere without having a clear understanding of the weekend’s theme and of what I would be expected to discuss with conferees related to that theme. 

I don’t remember what the lady’s name was nor where she was from nor where/how/when she established her particular expertise. Those details were quickly lost after she got up on stage and said, “Today, I’m here to talk with you all about SEX.”

To middle schoolers.

In 1992.

In the backwoods (literally) of Arkansas.

There was an audible gasp from the crowd...one that I barely heard over the sound my brain exploding. I was in full panic mode. I could not imagine a single scenario that didn’t involve the words “lawsuit”, “emotional damage”, “moral decay,” or “we’re going to have to sever this pastoral relationship.” Because pastors put this together…good and decent people who had shepherded me through my youth…and I was sure they weren’t getting out this with a job. 

But as I listened to her, I realized that hers was the only voice I heard. There was no snickering or inappropriate chatting. No uncomfortable wiggling and no one stomping off in an indignant huff. In fact, she had these kids engaged from the beginning. And once I realized they were ok…I realized I was ok too. 

So I learned some things. In addition to general statistics about teenage birth rates and sexually transmitted diseases, I discovered that some of the middle schoolers there had never discussed sex with their parents, that some didn’t know the correct anatomical names for parts of their bodies, and the most disturbing news that middle school-aged children were becoming sexually active.

And these were not kids from broken urban homes, these were 100% white kids from middle and upper class families.

For all they hadn’t been told, however, there was plenty that they did know. For 45 minutes, this woman led a frank discussion between herself and these 300-400 middle schoolers. She talked to them like they were people. She trusted them to ask questions about their bodies and emotions and she gave them honest answers. She told them the correct anatomical names for their body parts and then asked them to share a few euphemisms that they knew. There were some I hadn’t heard before --even in my oh-so sophisticated college environment.

It was astonishing to watch from the space inhabited between “no-longer-a-child” and “not-yet-an-adult.” It wasn’t just the maturity that the kids showed, but the relaxed (or so it seemed) attitude of the other adults there, some of whom were parents. It was in that moment that I had my first brief musing about the nature of pre-game breakdown there had been for the full-on adults in attendance. I assumed there had to be some because sex and kids and church are not often mentioned in the same sentence let alone brought together for a whole weekend. I was just putting all the remaining concerns out of my mind – and apparently tuning out whatever she was saying at that exact moment -- when it happened.

She reached into her bag and produced a bunch of bananas. And after setting them on the table…the one that would be the communion table during our last worship service of the weekend…she reached into the same bag and brought out

THE BOX OF CONDOMS.

That is the moment when my panic returned and I knew someone was going to lose their job. I knew who it was going to be too, because I saw his face change from the same mildly-embarrassed shade of pink that all the adults were sporting to a lovely OH-SHIT shade of ashy white. 

Despite what was going on in my head and among the adults, what was happening in the room was no different than it had been the whole afternoon. The kids kept it completely classy. She invited some volunteers – girls and boys – to put condoms on bananas. She used their clumsiness with this task (thank goodness they were clumsy) as a metaphor for the sense of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual responsibility that they did not have yet as it all pertained to sexual activity. She laughed with them, she told them the truth, and they left feeling normal and healthy.

Which I know because I got to discuss it with them in our subsequent small group meeting. And which I will not relate here, but remember fondly. Suffice it to say it was a more honest conversation about sex than I had experienced with anyone in my peer group up to that point.

Fast forward about 18 months.

I was in Dallas at a conference for about 1000 college students. It was my first such event with panel discussions, breakout sessions, and a rubber chicken dinner which featured a keynote speaker. I felt so very grown-up (adulting before it was an actual thing) and SO VERY BORED. I chatted with my dinner companions for what I considered to be an appropriate length of time before picking up the program to see how long it was going to last. A welcome…an invocation…a few awards…and then an introduction of the keynote speaker whose name was vaguely familiar to me…blah, blah,blah. Then I closed the program and glanced at the back which featured a short bio for the keynote speaker.

And a picture.

It was her. The same woman who had turned a middle-school youth retreat into a scandal* 18 months earlier. The sex banana condom lady. And now she was talking to college kids so I was sure it was going to be epic.

But the only thing epic was the shock and disappointment I experienced over the behavior of my peers.

This audience was decidedly not mature and it was mostly disrespectful. There were several tables of “men” who were laughing and making audible, crude comments throughout her presentation. The only time I was able to tune them out was when two entire tables of “women” stood up, tossed their perfectly headbanded-hair over their shoulders, straightened their buttoned-up cardigans, and indignantly stalked out with their hands over their wounded and delicate hearts as if the very essence of their purity was in danger of tumbling from their breasts.

It was very theatrical. And forgotten about 2 seconds after they left because who they hell did they think they were kidding?

As for the speaker, I was once again impressed as she spoke with candor and class. Despite the fact that the room was clearly not composed of people who were mature enough to engage in a candid discussion about something that was absolutely relevant to them (though I’m sure they were completely comfortable engaging – feebly – in the specific activities of which she spoke), she still delivered her message with honesty and integrity and maintained her composure and her sense of humor.

And then the finale which, for those of us who remained (most of the hecklers had since trickled out and were now buying drinks at the hotel bar with their fake IDs), did not disappoint.

She asked for 3 volunteers, two women and one man. As they made their way to the front she spoke about the roles of responsibility, self-respect and self-awareness…which included being secure about your personal values and intentions but recognizing the roles that hormones and chemistry play in a still-developing brain. In short, she said that is was dangerous to rely solely upon one’s willpower when the potential hazards of college life included disease and pregnancy.

And, she said, in the event that someone might believe condoms to be unpleasant, inconvenient, and unreliable, she said that the first two excuses were selfish and lazy and the last one was inaccurate. To prove her point, she, along with her two female volunteers proceeded to effectively encase the entire skull of the male volunteer with a drugstore condom without so much as a tiny tear.

It was, indeed, epic.

I don’t know what made me think about these two related events this week, nor what compelled me to share them in this space. It may be just an overwhelming feeling that is permeating my everyday existence…a feeling that the people we expect to engage in mature discussion are NOT and those we think can’t handle it are desperate to be part of the conversation.

Or maybe I just wanted to practice my storytelling.

You never can tell.

*That pastor did lose his job. And I had very strong feelings about it which I won’t share here but let’s just say I never impressed with scapegoating.

Why Do You Need to See Through It?

I got scammed last week.

It was 1:30 pm on carpool day at the high school and, as if on cue, it was beginning to rain. For those of you know me, you know how I feel about carpool even on the best of days. For those of you that don’t know Memphis drivers in the rain just imagine the following:

All of the worst drivers were taken from your city and magically transported to Memphis where the main corridor in town is the width of two lanes but is divided into three. And all three of those lanes are wet. And all of those bad drivers are still driving like it’s dry. And they are on their cell phones and eating Big Macs.

Knowing this, I left a bit early ahead of the 2:15 dismissal to drive east thinking I could beat the worst of the rain which was headed in the same direction. As I backed out of my driveway, I set an intention to be calm and generous. I was mostly thinking that would mean things like yielding at every opportunity, assuming the best of motives to explain any off-the-rails driving that I might witness, and just, in general, trying not to be what I don’t want to encounter on the road myself.

As I approached the stoplight that leads out of my neighborhood and onto the aforementioned three-lane-street-that-should-be-two, I noticed in the far left lane – my lane – a car with its hazard lights blinking. Standing in the median next to the driver’s side door, I could see a man on his phone gesturing…not wildly, but definitely with emotion. The car was sitting in an awkward spot at a peculiar intersection which required me to actually stop next to the disabled car so that I could make a slight left in front of it and across two lanes of oncoming traffic before I could get to the light. As I was sitting there waiting for the oncoming traffic to go by, I heard him say something and, out of the corner of my eye, noticed that he was politely motioning for me to roll my window down.

When I did, I could see that he was almost in tears and had pulled the phone away from his ear.

“Ma’am, please can you help me and my wife. We are $17 short for a tow truck and I just don’t know what to do.”  

I looked through the darkly-tinted windows on the passenger side of the car and could see that there was, indeed, someone else in the car.

Here are the things that I could have thought in that moment:

• $17 seems like a weird amount. Does he really have exactly $183 in his wallet?
• If he doesn’t have enough for a tow truck, how will he have enough to pay for any repairs? Or gas? Or whatever it is that he needs to get the car moving again.
• I don’t have any cash and I don’t have time to run to an ATM before getting to the high school.

But I didn’t think any of those things. That intention that I set as I was leaving home must have really taken hold and I extended that generosity to this man and his wife. I looked at his desperate face and said,

“You know what? I’ll run to the ATM and come right back. Just hang tight.”

As I drove toward the convenience store which sat about 100 yards away. There was a small voice in my head that said, “He’s gonna go buy booze and cigarettes with that.” But honestly, I hear that voice a lot. There are a lot of people in my city who struggle with poverty and homelessness and addiction and I get asked for help pretty frequently. The strategy which has evolved over the last 18 years is this: 

• If I have something to share, I will and if my wallet is empty, I won’t. 
• Regardless of what I give them, I always make eye contact and ask their name. 
• As I leave I say goodbye and repeat their name. 
• I always try to treat them like a person.
• I don’t lecture them about what I think they should or should not be doing with their lives.

That’s just how I have chosen to operate in my environment.

For some reason, though, on this particular day, I decided not only to ignore the voice of warning (which I instructed to “hush up”) but to make an extra effort to be helpful. I told myself that I was choosing in this instance to assume the best of someone and would accept the consequences – probably because I believed I’d never know what they were. I retrieved the cash and drove 100 yards back to the man who was still standing outside his vehicle on the phone. I pulled up behind him this time and handed him a $20 bill. There was such a look of relief and gratitude that washed over his face. I looked him in the eye and said, 

“You know, this can be an unkind town. People are in a hurry. It’s raining. They may not be nice. Just take a deep breath and know that you’ll be OK. I wish I could stay and help you, but I am headed to pick up my kids from school.”

He said thank you again and told me he was going to get in his car and call the tow truck right that second. I wished him luck and drove toward the stoplight.

As I sat at the red light with the car in my review mirror, that little voice came back and this time, she was more forceful.

You should drive the long way around the block and see if the car is still sitting there in 3 minutes.

I glanced at the clock and noticed that I still had plenty of time. The rain had stopped. I remember thinking – I guess with some other voice (which begs the questions, just how many are in there?) –

Or you could just keep driving and that way if you are a chump, you’ll never have to know for sure.

But the first voice won and I did decide to go around the block. It didn’t take three minutes though…it barely took two.  And so I was careful as I slowly rounded the curve until the intersection came into view.

The empty intersection. No car. No tow truck. Nothing.

Then I said some curse words out loud because I was pissed. And embarrassed. But I didn’t do anything. I picked up the kids and kept the story to myself. Eventually, I forgot about it.

The next day, though, I was still fuming a bit…not enraged, but not completely over it. I decided to tell my running partner what had happened and she could tell it was still eating at me. She asked me what I was most angry about and I thought for a minute before listing my grievances.

• That $20 was a tank of gas or a meal for our family.
• That guy probably thought I deserved to be treated that way. He probably told himself an unfavorable story about what kind of person I was and used it to relieve his conscience.
• But mostly, I was mad because I didn’t see through his Oscar-worthy performance.

And then she asked…Why do you need to see through it?

Then I said some more curse words out loud. Because I couldn’t come up with a good answer. I knew there must be one, though, so I repeated the question out loud a few more times (that was mostly to keep me from cursing more) and then told her I’d get back to her later in the run.

That was Friday and I still cant come up with any answer except that I don’t need to see through it. Not any more than I needed to drive around the block to prove to myself that I had been scammed. Or that I should beat myself up over a gesture of genuine kindness on my part which amounted to $20 and 10 minutes. His behavior doesn’t make me less kind and it doesn’t make me stupid and it isn't the end of the world or the end of my ability to trust other people. It doesn’t really make me anything.

Unless I let it.

I’m sure I could have taken a different approach. I could have rationalized my anger – my rightness – and let it fester into full-blown bitterness. I am really good at that. I am actually pretty thankful that in protecting my pride, I didn’t fire off some hateful Facebook post or Nextdoor warning in which I turned that man – whose actions made me angry – into something that diminished the fact that he was an an actual person. That type of behavior no longer aligns with my values which say that all people deserve to be treated as human beings regardless of how they treat me. This is just one of those moments in life where I am invited to re-examine my boundaries, live inside my integrity, and use them both to guard my sense generosity. Brené Brown calls it LIVING B-I-G.

I like the idea of living big. Much better than living angry, closed-off, and small.

The bottom line is, I can’t always know what someone does with the money I give them but once I choose to share it, it becomes their money to do with as they please. I can’t know what story they tell themselves about me nor is it really any of my business what they think. I also can’t assert truth as to any story I make up about who they are based upon a single 10-minute interaction.

And I can’t always see through it…nor do I want to. Because seeing through it may mean looking through them. And I don’t want to look through people.

I can't say for certain that I will choose to respond the same way if I am ever again faced with a similar situation. I can say for certain that if I do, I'll save gas -- and hurt -- by accepting that what I gave them now belongs to them, and skipping the trip around the block.