Another Name on the Wall: Part Two

Another Name on the Wall: Part One can be found here.

Washington, D.C. January.

After Christmas in New York with my family, I went down to D.C. for a few days of museuming. I had many plans but one was bigger and more important than the rest. And I, of course, put it off until the last day.

I had to hurry as I walked across the mall towards the every enlarging Lincoln Monument. Successfully putting off this until the last hours of sunlight for my last day, the sky was starting to streak colors by the time I got to the little park rangers' shack on the top of the hill.

I went up to him with confusion plastered on my face. I wonder if he is ever approached by people without confusion on their faces. It seems like a place that people would prefer to have confusion plastered on their faces instead of grief. Confusion is nicer to read.

I tell the ranger I'm looking for a name. "Estrumberto Solis. E-S-T-R..." I spell it out. He types it in. It isn't in the computer.

We look it up in the book. eXtruberto. Oh. With an X. I never knew that. With an X. Oh. I never knew that. I never knew.

I had wanted to buy some flowers. I had wanted to leave something there. I had nothing. No flowers dotted the cold January walkways. Nothing to leave. Walking from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, I had found a rock. It was white, small, and still had globs of DC dirt clinging to it. I shoved it into my pocket. It was all I had. It would work.

"Thank you." I tell the ranger. He nods. And hands me two slips of paper and a pencil.

And I walk.

I pass the statues and the tall flag and start to descend into the scar of a monument in the earth. Panel 46E - Line 50. It is towards the end where the path starts to slope upwards again and it points towards the Washington monument, the Capitol. For a moment, they are both reflected in the wall. It's picturesque. It's stunning. People stop and take pictures.

The light is fading. The land glows in soft golds. The sky stricken with wisps of clouds echoes back vague recollections of a Turner painting.

The house my mother grew up on was once called Crockett Street. Her cousin Beto lived next door. It is now Extrumberto Solis Rd. If you look at a map of my mother's hometown, it is littered with names of dead young men. Monuments to families who don't live there anymore. Monuments to sons who don't live anymore.

I kneel down in front of the slab of cold marble. My knees instantly absorb the chill from the granite beneath me. It is 19 degrees in January in DC. I find his line. I find his name. I find that I can no longer see. Tears pour out of my eyes. My face freezes and is thawed at the same time. Hot hot hot tears.

I find a kleenex in my bag. I dab and dab my eyes. It doesn't help. I try to get the paper out and the pencil out and rub the rubbing but,

it doesn't work out.

So I just kneel there. My shoulders slumped, staring at a piece of rock, older than all of us, with the name of a man younger than me. Hoping that acclimation with make me feel less. Hoping that I stop acting the fool. Hoping that I will stop thinking that I am acting foolish.

My mom was 18. He was 22. He survived in Vietnam six weeks and three days. He was drafted. He was in the 9th Infantry. He died in hostile, ground casualty with multiple fragmentation wounds. Dinh Tuong, South Vietnam. Where is that? Googlemaps doesn't know. I don't know.

In the dying light, a child walks behind me. I can hear her little boots on the stone. I can see her mittened hand in her father's hand in the reflection on the Wall. She says to her father in a hushed tone (perhaps earlier she was quieted for being too loud), "Why is she kneeling, Daddy?"

He simple replies, "She lost someone whose name is on the wall."

I felt insincere after that. It is hard to say you lost someone you never knew. It is hard to put into words the amount of regret and longing you have for someone whose whole life is a "what-if" in your mind. Can you grieve for someone you never knew? Should you?


Weighted down with guilt and woe, I put the paper to the wall and used the supplied pencil. I repeated this a second time, more carefully, for my mother. I took it down and put them in a book I had in my bag. I sat staring for a while. I took a few pictures. It was getting colder and darker. I stood up. I placed my white rock on the ledge of underneath his name. I walked away. I wandered to the Korean War Memorial--a war my grandfather fought in. I wandered to the WWII Memorial--another war my grandfather fought in. I wandered to the train. I went to dinner. I went to my hostel. I went to sleep. I flew home the next morning.

Beyond my history with this name on the wall, beyond the fact that my family flesh is emblazoned in that searing black cut on the landscape, there is something comforting about knowing these names with continue on.

Days earlier, while at the Met in New York, I saw a tombstone for a young man. Etched in the white marble was the phrase, "On the death of Chairedemos, his father Amphichares erected this monument on grieving a good son. Phaidimos made it."

Even if this monument disappears and slowly fills up with dirt, someday, someone will be using a tiny brush and taking away a tiny bit of dirt and read "Extrumberto Solis." Here lies Beto Solis, a good son, a good nephew, a missing piece of a family. Here lies Beto Solis, a cousin never known, a man who never got to grow up, a person I will always outlive. Here lies memorialized Beto Solis, a name that will be marked as long as America exists.

On the death of Extrumberto "Beto" Solis, his country, The United States of America, erected this monument on grieving a good son.

Another Name on the Wall: Part One

NYC. Christmas.

I was passing through the Met's Greek and Roman section. Rooms filled with dingy white marble labeled with placards informing the masses of their history, of their importance to humanity, of why we should be awed to stand before them.


A standard (and rather non-attracting) slab of marble was edged up against a wall. There were grander pieces near it: a tall urn with specks of original coloring, a giant memorial for a dead king, a piece of ancient jewlery. This slab, about three feet across with no discernible pictures, most had not made the journey to this place and time, was emblazoned with some text. Text I could not read. It was readable, clear and sharp carvings despite being millennia old.



The placard told us it said:

"On the death of Chairedemos, his father Amphichares erected this monument on grieving a good son. Phaidimos made it."

The poetry in the words is lacking. Perhaps lost in translation, perhaps lost because of the eons of time separating us but regardless a man lost his son, a good son, and lamented this fact and built a monument. A monument that not only proves Amphichares was rich enough to make this memorial, but that he loved his good son enough to immortalize him and his emotions (and that fact he was "good" in stone.

I'm certain that Amphichares and Phaidimos (both since long dead) had no idea that 3,000 years later anyone, much less someone who is a resident of a land not even discovered at the time, would look at this and feel moved. But I suppose, that was the point of Amphichares' desire to make this. To create something that will be remembered eternally (if possible) like he will remember his son for the rest of his mortal life. So that someone else can understand or feel that pain that he did when he lost his son. Auden wrote (about death):

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Perhaps Amphichares would have shared these words with us in his own time, but his lack of poetry or ability to betray his emotions or dignity kept him from it. So instead he tells us, "Here lies a good son." Honorable words enough.

Busy busy

So its been a while. Many exciting things happened when I started to write my 25 days of Christmas (and since) including my computer dying twice and flying to New York, having a play read up there at Repertorio Espanol, flying back to New York for Christmas, seeing it all again, going to DC for five days of exploration, coming back to Texas to 18 degree weather and lots of dead plants.

I'll update soon. It was a helluva month.

Christmas: Santa

Christmas: Santa

We remember that moment when you stopped believing. That was a really shitty moment.

Parents all say that Santa is about generosity and devotion and love and such, but really, it is about that moment when the kids see something given to them for no reason by something that they is absolutely no explanation for. Kids believe in magic. Adults do not. Santa is magic, and he makes kids go crazy. Parents play along for that moment of utter bliss in their child’s face. It’s the opposite of present face. Its blissful unaware joy.

And yes its materialistic as all hell, but it still really cute to watch.

I also have to give Santa credit for being a character who gives away things to people he doesn’t know at all for no other reason than he is Santa and they are children. I suppose there is an idea that children will look at with a bit of hope for good things in the world. There is something undeniably nice about Santa because of this. Love for all. Its a bit Socialist, maybe. Anyway, regardless, kids never really understand the "love and generosity and devotion" that exist as surely as Santa does, but man do they get excited! Santa is awesome for the power he holds over children. He's not a good teaching tool, and he's not much of anything except super fun for the kiddies. And you know, what? I think that's enough.

And remember I am a cantankerous 24-year-old who has been described as having a black soul. I might not be the best person to talk about the jolly man but, props where props are do, and wow, what a way to make kids happy. Want to read something a little bit more blindly cheery about the big ol’ guy? Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.


And as a side note, a fun related read from the Wall Street Journal:

"70% of 3-year-olds reported that Santa Claus was real, while 78% believed in the garbage man"

Christmas: Tradition

Christmas: Tradition

Traaaadition! Tradition!
Doo doo doo doo doo
TRADITION!

The song being in and of itself a tradition in the Treviño-Bradshaw household (imagine my father doing “The Fat Guy Dance” that Topol is so polite to show us in the barn with his rendition of If I Were a Rich Man)

But old Broadway references aside, tradition makes us a part of something larger. We do things without complete logic behind it, year after year just like our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents have done. When you follow a tradition, you become a piece in a puzzle that is infinitely larger than you. It can span decades or only the next few years. We do things not because we have to, but because we feel that we are supposed to, and we fall into a long sometimes tedious path of what has been done in the past.

Christmas is filled with tradition. From sitting around in the kitchen with a giant pile of masa in front of us as we make tamales, to stringing cranberries to decorate the tree, the annual ceremony rumbles on. And even though we sometimes might feel caught up in it like a giant wheel unable to claw your way free, there is always a moment that you step back and assess the havoc around you and smile. Every year you can count on the fight over stuffing, every year you can count on the ornaments to be a little bit heavier placed on Dave's side of the tree, every year there is a fight amongst the adults on who has to wear the Santa hat, a distinction that long ago was fought you got to wear it among the same people.

You might grimace at the old stockings, still hung but never filled. You might roll your eyes at the eating of the sweets behind eat door of the Christmas calender as the days pass. But then you slip into it, oftentimes against your grumpy attitude, and like an old robe, it brings comfort and joy. There is an undying sense of security that you when the whole world changes and acts differently from year to year, at least in December, you can find solace in the fruitcake or the tamales or the family singing carols and sitting around the living room. Tradition is a solid thing to hold onto when everything changes. Its one of the reasons that we enjoy Christmas. Year after year when the world is turning dark and cold, we light it up and sing and eat and be merry.

Ah, tradition. Tradition!

Christmas: Giant Decorations for Your Front Yard

Christmas: Giant Decorations for Your Front Yard

Now, to be honest, I hate these horrors. I think they look tacky and weird and usually have nothing to do with Christ or the actual reason for the celebration. But this is also one of the reasons I love them.

For example:

The flying pig



Cactus



The flamingo



And of course, the ever festive:

Spongebob Squarepants



(This is the only picture that isn’t mine. I do have one of the not so elusive Mr. Squarepants but my computer seems to have forgotten it has a DVD drive and won’t let me find it.)



All bizarre. I just don’t understand. I hope that were I to sit down with people who decorate like this, I might be able to comprehend some (but never all) of the reasons for such atrocities.

If nothing else, its always fun to watch an inflatable Santa that has blown over, or a snowman that is only half filled with air and it slumps over on the lawn like your favorite drunk uncle at the end of the holiday, or walking past the little piles they leave behind in the morning when the blowers have been turned off and all that is left is a puddle reminiscent of the remains of the Wicked Witch of the West left for the neighborhood children to walk by and wonder what strange demon prowled the streets last night killing all of the ridiculous horrid lawn decorations during the night.

Or to just imagine what made some think that this was a legitimate way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Christmas: The Tree

Backdating a bit. Timeliness has never been my strong point.

Christmas: The Tree

Our family had a plastic tree forever. One Christmas when I was in middle school we bought a real tree and I found it horrifying. I couldn’t stand the idea of watching a majestic tree die in our living room. A beautiful tree that could have lived on for, at least, decades more had we not interfered.

So we had an old musty tree that we would take down from the attic every year. And every year Daddy would stand on the stairs holding the box and gently shake the tree out of the box into my mother’s waiting arms with a big puff of matter flying off into the air. The smell of slightly heat toasted plastic, dust, and fiberglass always remind me of the holidays.

Christmas trees continue to fall into the special place of odd traditions. When you think about it, chopping down a tree, dragging it inside, decorating it with flammable things and candles, sounds like a tradition that should have stopped very soon after the first house was burnt to black ashes. But, it wasn’t. Perhaps people were better at fire safety back then, or perhaps people were appreciative onf the warmth the burning house gave off in the frozen German winters. Regardless, the Tannenbaum is a beautiful and sparkly Christmas tradition.

I have firm beliefs when it comes to trees:

1) Only colored lights. All white lights are depressing unless they twinkle, and even then, eh. .
2) When all your ornaments match in a perfect colored coordinated way, it is just as depressing if not more than having non-twinkle clear lights.


Why?


Well, because this is how the Bradshaw family tree always was decorated.

Hanging ornaments was always like looking through old chests and photo albums. You uncover the glitter covered cardboard ornament you “made” when you were four. Your first grade picture that had been fitted into the old lid of a lace decorated jam jar lid. The ballerina ornament you got when you were twelve that is glued back together from when you threw it at your sister. Christmas ornaments are like a time capsule. You remember and you reminisce and it’s great. Its one of the reason that I never find decorating the tree a chore, and I hate to do it alone. It’s a celebration of all Christmas’s past, and if all the ornaments on your tree match perfectly the décor that you decided this tree then you are missing something that the big box of colorful mismatched ornaments hold. And I feel a bit sorry for you.

So if you find yourself in that situation, go to Michael’s or Target or the local Christmas fair at your church or city square or anywhere, and buy something that will mark this year to you, the year that you started to make your Christmas tree and fascinating storyteller and not just a pretty thing that sits in the corner and catches fire.

Christmas: Peeking at Gifts

Day Two!


Christmas: Peeking at Gifts

My sister, P, and I would always exchange gifts on Christmas Eve. These were the “special” gifts that we gave each other that were allowed to be opened the night before. We would sit on the brick in front of the fireplace, still dandied up from Mass, grasping at our gifts. I vividly remember waiting every time this occurred. It is very possible we never really waited, I was little ten minutes to a six-year-old is an easy percentage of their life.

One year as I was grasping the box that was just the right size for a Barbie, I nicked the edge of the wrapping. The nick was small—there was no noticeable tear, just the corner of the corner bared. The tear looking very similar to what might happen if the package had been carried around for a long time and had just worn through. And what did I find under that mighty tiny tear? Bright toxic Barbie pink.
I got a Barbie. Sissy bought me a Barbie! There was a moment of such elation, even though I didn’t have a clue what kind of Barbie it was, or if it was a girl or boy; I was just ecstatic to realize it was a Barbie.

Hours later (it seemed), Mama and Daddy came over and we unwrapped them, and I’m sure it was awesome. I just don’t remember it, but I do remember that first flash of hot joy when I glanced at the trademarked color. Ooo Barbie!

Oddities of Oddities

Its snowing in Texas y'all! Now, this isn't as rare as many people may think. North Texas gets snow. It does. It gets cold, not Chicago-cold, but it stays in the 30s-40s for a few weeks.

But today, I wake up, and its early and cold, so I spend thirty minutes in bed with a book. I get up to take a shower but decide to check my e-mail first. I quick jump to Facebook, and everyone is raving about snow. Snow?!? Snow. I open the blinds in my bedroom, and there sifting gracefully down from the heavens is the white magical powder: Snow!

See?



From inside my house:



Beautiful.

Granted as soon as it stopped snowing, I could hear the drip drip drip of the snow melting off of the neighbor's house. Within an hour, it was all gone and it was like it never actually occured.

Christmas: Lights

After watching many of my writer friends rockstar through NanoWriMo on Facebook, I though it would be a good time to rededicate myself to writing on a schedule. So, in honor of the season: Christmas Things!*


Christmas: Lights
I am a firm believer in the illusion of magic. Making the choice to suspend belief is one of the most delightful things about life. Its essential to theatre, the movies, and most art. Its also can get lumped into the general category of “Things That are Fun to Do.”

Let’s pretend that we are spies as we shop in Wal-mart.

Let’s decide that all the grey tiles are lava and you can’t walk on them.

Let’s act like we are at least ten years younger than our actual age so we can do that above things without being weird adults who should know better.

Its fun. Its silly. Its magical. Christmas lights have some of that magic in them. It’s the twinkle and glitter. The fact that they are so bright and cheery against the cold. The oddity of having orbs of light bedecking your house.

I’ve always viewed Christmas lights with an awe that is similar to stargazing. The stars twinkle and explode forever in time and space as far as you are concerned with your relatively short life. Stars can be explained scientifically. According to physics, we know what they are, what they are made of, how the light travels from them, but everything about a star, a far away star, the stars that we only see as brief pin pricks of light, is not something that we can easily understand. The science behind them could be pure magic, and the lay people would have no recourse. Shooting stars are something from very far away reaching out to us. Stars are by definition, the past looking us in the face. There magic is inherent in their existence.

Christmas lights contain the same magic and not just due to the obvious similarities in appearance. The awe, the wonder, the oohs and ahhs and laughs you get as you gaze at the inflatable Santas and Jesui that are half melted when the blowers go out. All of these things just inherently make you joyful. Dazzle your eyes and amaze you just a bit more than anything else you’ve seen that day.

They are ridiculous and odd and beautiful and (oooh!) shiny and magic.






PS I was wanting to include a song with every post (being as Christmas music brings joy) but my computer’s sound is on the fritz, so I will have to update with songs when I’m on a different compy.

*This might also unabashedly been inspired by 1000 Awesome Things which you should go and read immediately because its, well, AWESOME.

Thanksgiving

I’ve always been a big fan of Thanksgiving. I love a holiday that is 100% revolved around family and food—two of my favorite things. I never really liked the moment when we have to say what we are thankful for—it was never a yearly occurrence at our celebrations. Usually if there was a new guest who requested it, we would go around the table and express what we are thankful for. It always gave me such woe.

As the time can nearer for me to express my thanks, I began to sweat. Irma, Lupe, Mama, Petra, getting closer still and my mind void of anything save clichés like “family” and “love.” I wanted to sound smart. I wanted to sound good. I wanted to be a good person, and for some reason while we sat around the table, this was the moment that I had to show that goodness. I couldn’t just blurt out “Candy!” like most small children. No, it had to mean something.

Perhaps it was because I was the youngest of whole group by at least three years. Perhaps it was because I am just a nervous person, but I always felt that this was very important. And always, or rather when we actually did it, I would feebly mumble “Family” or “Love” or something annoyingly juvenile like “toys” or “puppies.” And then I would feel ashamed because I didn’t have a better thing to be thankful for.

So, half because I have a new found love for 1000 Awesome Things, I’m proposing a list of thirty-five things that I am thankful for. Some are deep, some are silly, some I would have been embarrassed to say in front of all the family and extended family on Thanksgiving’s at the Martinezes, but they are things I’m thankful exist.

35 Things I’m Thankful For

1. Family
2. And their unending support.
3. Friends
4. And their unending support.
5. Love
6. Candy
7. Holding hands.
8. Unexpected phone calls or e-mails or any form of communication after a long absence from a person.
9. A glass of wine at the end of a long day.
10. A shot tequila at the beginning of a long night.
11. Having a memory triggered by the scent of something innocuous—hand lotion, someone’s shampoo, a certain type of bread, dirt.
12. Being friends with (and loving) your in-laws.
13. Crisp weather that just tickles your nose.
14. That horrible feeling you get when you view your empty apartment/room/abode as you turn off the lights and leave for the very last time.
15. Fresh picked wild raspberries.
16. Being comfortable in your own skin.
17. Firmly held traditions with obscure origins.
18. Secluded park benches.
19. The pitter patter of rain on your tent and you being dry.
20. Crushes, even unfruitful ones.
21. Knowing someone so well you can tell when they are hiding something just by vague vocal cues.
22. Hearing someone say, “I miss you” after you have left.
23. Having someone tell you “don’t go” before you leave.
24. Anytime anyone says, “I love you.”
25. The warm feeling your muscles pulse with after your post-workout shower.
26. Firm mattresses with pillowtop.
27. How tea when you have a scratchy throat.
28. Hot tea whenever.
29. Forgiveness.
30. The moment that you realize you live somewhere. When you realize that the buses and trains and streets are all there right before you not in a confused mass but in a clear picture.
31. Grace.
32. Children.
33. Finding the perfect gift for someone.
34. Watching sparkly things sparkle.
35. Kissing.

And other things…



Happy Thanksgiving, y’all!

Autumnal Feelings

"I’ve missed autumn. I miss walking through the leaves that are crinkling around your feet tossed by the wind. I miss the hum of them as they skip along the pavement getting caught in crevices and being thrown.

Most people see dead leave, see Fall as an end. As the promise of nothing but winter and death. But Fall with its rusty smells and dirty based…chemicals, promises that hardships are coming.

But it gives the perfect moment to realize that the hardships won’t last forever, and it promises the spring and summer. Fall wishes to remind us of the order of things. Everything at every time it’s suppose to be. Order—it promises us death and birth and life. It promises the order of things."

-Candace, a character in one of my old plays, With This Ring.

Snow Days

I was in the pool at the gym and I glanced outside the tall windows that line one of the walls and the thought just floated through my brain, "Its going to be so nice to watch it snowing out there when I'm nice and warm in here."

And there was a whole second before I realized the absurdity of that sentence. I will not watch the snow fall in Dallas. I will not see the world transform. I won't sit at a table with a hot cup of cider and write in my journal as people bustle by with their heads kept dry in knit hats and their faces obscured by long scarves. I won't experience that deep primal joy your body feels as you thrust it into a warm environment, wrapping it up in layers upon layers of blankets.

And it made me sad.

Granted, I was never the biggest fan of winter--of the cold cold that makes your insides quiver and jump, but there is something in the snow, in the crispness that precludes and encompasses it, that is enrapturing. Its the tingle in the air before the snow starts falling, the promise of something completely different. Its the way that the snow flakes light up like bright stars as they drift past the street lights. Its the brief second when they get tangled in your eyelashes, soft and cold. I will not miss walking through snow that had been piled up for days, weeks, and falls apart beneath your feet plunging you into ice cold scary puddles of slush. I will not miss the cold wetness when you wore the wrong pair of shoes and now have to sit through the rest of the day in soaked through garments.

But now as I face that lack of any of those charming (and not so charming) moments, I know that I will miss the snow and the hassle. The clean white and the bright reflection. The bundling up. The boots and the gloves and thick socks. The sharp cold and the horrible ice wind that stabs your face with miniature daggers as you run for the bus, slipping on a spot of black ice and landing in a puddle.


Well, I'll miss some of it.

Eight Years is a Long Time

Its September 11th. The ceremonies occurred this year like they have for the last seven. The emotions may have faded a bit--the memories becoming milky and less severe, but the skyline is still missing a something, but only because we know that something is suppose to be there.

In sixty years, who will still remember? Who will still read the names out loud at Ground Zero? It will, I assume, become like December 7th. A mention will be made on the radio and evening newscast to remind those non-history-buffs of the importance of the date. Wreaths will be laid by heads of states who do not remember the fear that coursed through our veins, who can't describe the silence of their high school lunchrooms, who didn't give their weeks' allowance to Red Cross because they were impotent from such distance, who did not have hot tears when they saw the smoke billowing from New York, from the Pentagon, form the field in PA. He or she will not remember the rows and rows of empty gurneys and hospital beds on the TV because there we so few survivors found in the rubble. The men and women will act respectful and mournful and behave like one should act when one is acting like a day dictates instead of how one feels. And the pain and woe and misdigestion that brewed in our stomachs will be packed in boxes in the earth, or scattered ashes back to the earth, and we--the survivors, the rememberers--will become like the 2,993 people, vague memories of something that has passed and have been consumed by the great hunger of time.

And some of those people sixty years in the future will look back and try to fathom what was felt and what was lost and they will draw soft conclusions and turn off the news and go about another normal early fall morning.

The Trip

I always expected to travel with my time that I have right now (a delightful blend of still-insured and not 100% broke). I imagined taking a giant trip of proportions that make you ache and desperately wish for your bed and home comfort again. I was surprised when I realized that these trips (all independently planned) are all congregating around the same time. Its coming together to a five-week-long crazy adventure:

1. Texas Tour. with my sister Petra, her husband Eric, and our friends Nikki and Eric
2. OshKosh, WI for EAA with Daddy and Uncle Ken and cousin Austin
3. Camping in the North woods Wisconsin with Mama and Dad
4. Puerto Rico with the lovely Amanda
5. Chicago (since the deal for PR, only worked if I came/went from Chicago)


Posting will be even more sporadic or non-existent. Expect some back-dated entries when I come back in mid-August.


It'll be awesome.

The requiste Michael Jackson post

He died and I wasn't moved. I'm not really a fan. I've never been a fan. I think the clearest memory I have of him is fast forwarding through his music video in the beginning of Free Willy.

I'm not saying I haven't heard his music or danced to ABC or Thriller or that I didn't really dig Alien Ant Farm's cover of Smooth Criminal back in the day (I have memories of driving in either Ajay or Dylan's car with that blaring). But his music never meant much to me. My parents, being older, did not bring share any music from the 80s. We listened to vinyls of The Beatles, Loving Spoonful, Steely Dan and Harry Nilsson, and other 60s and 70s greats. So, Michael Jackson's death, though seen worldwide as tragic, doesn't mean much to me, but it did get me thinking.


Who in the celebrity world* would I become very upset over their death?


As I start writing this, I can't picture one person who I would actively cry over or publicly mourn for. Its not like crying is something that is very difficult or unusual thing for me to do, but I really have to think.

I did tear up when I found out about Pinter dying. It was Christmas. I was in New York. I was sad already. Even though his heyday was years before his death, his Nobel Prize Speech was proof enough he still had much in him. I cried when Ann Richards died. I thought she was perfect. When John Paul II died, I was torn up because he meant more to me then than even I knew. But these people weren't celebrities, or rather, weren't celebrities in the common use of the term.


Much of the pain we feel from losing someone, whether we were close to them or not, comes from the inherent what-if possibilities that sprinkle through life. If I had asked him out on a date when we still lived in the same city. If I were to have called her that afternoon. If we had been friends until we grow old.

With the people directly in your life, you miss there every day presence, the quick phone calls you would make in between errands, the giggles and grins that dot your life, those horrible fights that lead to more honesty, those sturdy bastions of advice. You miss the possibility of the continuing existence of your relationship. But with celebrity, all you have with that person is their body of work. And the beautiful thing about many of the modern celebrities of today, is that there work is ever present.

Two months after Heath Ledger died, my best friend and I sat down and watched 10 Things I Hate About You, an old high school favorite. And guess what? It was just like we remembered it. Death or no death, Heath Ledger gave the same performance and will give the same performance for eternity. Elliot Smith songs sound the same, perhaps more poignant, after his death. I can look at a Degas painting, and though, not as readily accessible, connect with him beyond his earthly tomb. They are already entombed in their pieces before they are dead. Persistently immortalized in their art.

But re-reading the list above of people who I did cry over their deaths implies that it doesn't really mean much if you know someone well or not, they can still impact your life. Those people meant something to me, and that's why I cried.

So if Michael Jackson meant something to you, mourn like mourners do.

And perhaps my lack of woe, and (dare I say) compassion says much more about me than the rest of the world.



*celebrity world vaguely being defined as musicians and actors

Your Sexism just got a bit more Feminist

Look at the campaign for Wyoming Libraries. I love it.

A Letter

Today, I went to church with my mother. Today I was reminded of one reason why I stopped going.

Dear Pro-Life "Abortion is Mean" T-Shirt wearing girl,

Though I am an advocate for DIY fashion, I have to say the tie-dye T-shirt you choose to wear when bringing the gifts up for communion was not only inappropriate for Mass but also a insult to both sides of the abortion debate.

By demoting abortion to a sentence that is so simplistic that the subject can be replaced with any of the following"spitting," "pinching," "stealing cookies," or "saying bad words," you make abortion into something silly. Like when I would kick my sister in the shin, Mama would always tell me "that's mean," because it was something that was simply mean. Its not something I pondered over. Its not something I seriously regretted. Its not something I even would worry about when a bruise arose on her.

When you dismiss abortion down to just a "mean" act, you dismiss both sides' fervent views on the issue. You deny the inherent hardships in people feel when having abortions in America (in other countries, abortions are viewed in very different ways and perhaps don't carry the same stigma). You insult my position because imply that abortions are performed in the same lackadaisical manner that those actions listed above are performed. You weaken your case because you only insist on the "meanness" to the fetus and and take no consideration for the woman the fetus is attached to. Though this is a routine flaw in your logic, and you are apt to compare pregnant women to breadboxes or temporary homes, regardless of her emotional, physical, financial status.

But regardless, I sure you don't want this Issue (with a capital I) to be degraded down to something as menial as slaps and pinches. So in future, if you feel that you must extol your beliefs on everyone around you using fuzzy glue-on lettering I, a vivid Pro-Choicer, would suggest perhaps "abortion is wrong" or "not good" or even (if you are feeling ballsy) "murder."

So dear girl, I would have to ask that in the future you don't wear a shirt that belittles such a wide concept. Speak your mind if you are going to speak it! And please remember fondly this time, these halcyon days, before you seriously have to consider what to do when two little lines appear on a stick you just peed on.


Love,

Ade

I Before E?

I have to say, the repeal of the “I before E except after C” rule is lovely. My whole life I have been a crap speller. Without the invention of spellcheck, I can only imagine how crude my grades would have been. Actually, I know how crude they would have been from all of those handwritten essays required of us in our youth. I’m sure I got points deducted for spelling. But never more than I could make up in writing, but to be honest, that probably is a lie, I really am a crap speller.

Regardless, “I before E except after C” is one pneumonic device that never never helped me. Perhaps its complexity (I was taught a later version that said, “…or when sounded like a as in neighbor or weigh; and except seize and seizure and also leisure, weird, height, and either, forfeit, and neither.”), perhaps it was its confusing state (The Exceptions! ), or perhaps it was because of my general lack of grasp of grammar and sentence structure, but it NEVER helped me. I can’t imagine one time that little device made me understand more of what I was trying to convey to the page.

So, good riddance archaic rule! Albeit even if it is only gone from the weird foreign shores of dear old Britain and sadly still resides in our neighborhood.

A Year Older, A Minute Wiser

For my twenty-fourth birthday.
I asked for nothing.
I went to a marathon six hours of theatre.
I ate Thai food.
I aged in a big jumping way.

And now, I am 24. Its not an important age, as most agree age loses its importance once the big ones have passed: 16, 18, 21. Now you are just living it, barreling into the vast caged future that is adulthood.

After everything that has gone on in the last year (23 was quite eventful), I don't know what to expect for this next year. I don't even know what I want to occur.

Twenty-three was a whirlwind of moving, of indecisiveness, of trying to find a hold for the future. I thought it would be a year of big choices and firm decisions. I suppose I was half right. Though I can't help but evoke a Kerouac quote when I think of the last year: "I was suddenly left with nothing in my hands but a handful of crazy stars."

That was 23. Here's to 24.