life of East Rock

it’s a strange thing to run without music when i’ve run plugged into my ipod for so long. the opposite of music is not silence, it’s breath–mine and a neighborhood’s. the sound of moppy heads grinding the sidewalk with skateboards. of dogs behind fences barking at dogs on leashes. of the soft soles of a faster runner coming up behind me.

it’s been a long time since i’ve ran through East Rock (the section of town). Carrie-Lynn and i used to jog to the edge of East Rock (the rock) and then wind through the sort of suburban streets of the rare New Haven neighborhood that has somehow managed to not become too gentrified or too dangerous. we’d end at her place on Foster, and she’d invite me up for lemonade and conversation on her third floor balcony.

the houses lining Livingston all look like they’ve been alive a long time, like great-grandpas with bushy eyebrows or ancient aunts whose knee-high pantyhose are always falling down–the ones the kids love best.

and there are kids everywhere. one who keeps throwing a flat rock at the sidewalk to see how many pieces she can break it into. teenagers in Uggs outside of Hall-Benedict Drug. i smile but they don’t smile back because teenagers never smile back. white kids shooting hoops at East Rock Park; black kids shooting hoops a little further down English St. across from Rice Field.

i go a little further down English and realize that I-91 and a hidden field of cat tails keeps me from looping back over the river to my car. so i turn around.

i take the trail that girls aren’t supposed to take by themselves. i take it because it’s quiet, lined with giant, quiet trees and a quiet river. nothing has blossomed yet, but it seems to me like the brown of winter has turned gold. the jogging comes easier with gold than with brown.

and then i’m suddenly back with the oversized houses stuffed three floors high with Yale grad students and starter families. everyone smiles back when i jog past, even the dogs. everyone except the teenagers, of course.

i think i’d like a floor and a starter family.

i’m about to turn back onto Edwards where my car is parked when i notice that under the mail box on the corner there’s a pair of old ladies shoes, black flats like a librarian would wear. they just sit there, as though an old lady were standing in them.

i’m not sure i would have noticed them if i were plugged into my ipod.

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pillow talk last night

Lauren:  i just pictured us middle-aged and hanging out on a porch swing, watching our kids play in the yard, and saying, “we made it.”

Me (with happily surprised tone): kids?

Lauren: ummm, maybe dogs. i don’t know. they were really far away.

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good/evil, life, and the movies

i’ve been sick and stuck on my couch for the last 24 hours, so i’ve been stuffing myself with passive activities that mostly involve tv-watching. yesterday, i loaded Lord of the Rings – Return of the King into the dvd player and and dropped my head on my pillow for the next three and a half hours .

the LOTR movies are  up there on my all-time favorite list. why? i love the battles. i love watching Legolas surf down stairs on a shield while shooting his arrows at ugly things; Aragorn storm majestically through a crowd of orcs; and Gandolf spin with his wizard grace, taking out enemies with his staff in one hand and his sword in the others.

in fact, i love war-ish movies in general. Gladiator. The Patriot.

but it sort of goes against who i am. in real life, i find violence not only repugnant, but completely unnecessary. to me, violence is insecurity in its basest form, a desperate need to be right at all costs.

so why my attraction to such bloody movies? easy: one dimensional portrayals of good versus evil. in LOTR, orcs are bred by an inherently evil, destructive leader, so no one cares how many of them die; while Aragorn is the epitome of goodness and humility, so he’s an easy hero. in Gladiator, Maximus kills because he is forced to but he really just wants to be with his family (who was brutally murdered); while Emperor Commodus has a perverted love for his sister and basically holds his nephew hostage, all for the sake of holding onto power. in The Patriot, Benjamin Martin is also forced to kill because the ruthless English Colonel Tavington killed his innocent son on a whim.

all of these movies operate in a black/white, wrong/right universe; clear-cut choices for an audience hungry for escapism.

the problem is, though, that we carry this simplistic, dualistic view back into real life, carelessly assigning “good” and “evil” via rules we write and rewrite to suit whatever our needs are at the time.

in reality, though, people are people. people with weaknesses, people clinging to whatever stability they might have, people covering up their helplessness with brute strength and absolute truths. but they’re all people, nonetheless. not “good” people or “evil” people, simply people whose experiences have carried them to a certain place in life and created a particular perspective of the world.

back from the southernmost point

this is one of maybe five pictures i took in Key West last week,
and it’s my favorite.

it’s my favorite because the meal was great and
Lauren let me use her new camera.

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15 albums and 15 songs

cross-posted from facebook. (i know, i’m a huge slacker these days.)

the rules per fb land: Think of 15 albums, that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life. Dug into your soul. Music that brought you to life when you heard it. FIGURATIVELY socked you in the gut, is what I mean.

here are mine, chronologically, sort of. (defining song from album in parentheses.)

Pearl Jam – Ten (Porch)
in junior high, i fell asleep to this album on high volume in my chunky headphones every night. i could program my discman in the pitch dark to play six songs, culminating in Release. for some reason, i’d always wake up during Garden, a little petrified from the darkness of the music and a little awed by the depth of it. this was the first album i fell teenage sloppy in love with.

Toad the Wet Sprocket – Fear (Something to Say)
this was the first cd i owned. my dad bought it for me for Christmas, and it was sort of his nod/wink to me that we could be on the same page. this was the album of my adolescent’s discontent. i’d listen to Something to Say (he drops hints but he won’t tell you what’s really on his mind / but you know if you look it’s easy to find) a thousand times, trying to figure out this one girl and why she was on my mind so much. i’d fall asleep to Pray the Gods, waking up during the dreamy round of angel voices at the end.

Tori Amos – Little Earthquakes (Tear in Your Hand)
my own revolution. i learned how to hear music when i heard this album. Katie Swingle played Silent All These Years on my stereo at home, and i was hypnotized for the next ten years. i could pull out every layer out of every song and play it alone in my head. i knew the harmonies and tended to like them more than the melody. my love affair with Tori grew stronger with the next three albums, but this was my gateway drug.

Violent Femmes – Add It Up (Kiss Off)
i drank in high school like a freshman fratboy, and this was the soundtrack of every illegal drop that went down my throat. this album went the way of my party nights–from a slow, slightly off-balance bus song to building sloppily and with many mistakes to the desperate end until you pass out during the loud, live stuff. there’s not a better alcohol poisoning anthem than “eight, eight, i forget what eight was for! nine, nine, nice, oh and i lost count!”

Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table and Dreaming (Satellite)
in high school, Dave Matthews somehow reassured me that better things were to come. i felt mature when i listened to it for some reason. maybe it was how so many uncool instruments–a fiddle with a saxophone?!–fit together so purposefully. it was what we listened to in Jason’s car, and Jason’s car was one of the only places i felt at home in that goddamned Wyoming town. every song had its place over the course of the day. Rhyme and Reason when we were escaping for lunch, Ants Marching on the way to soccer practice, #34 just before bed.

Miles Davis – Kind of Blue (the whole damn album)
at Wax Trax in Denver, i asked Jason to pick out two cds for me to buy. Kind of Blue, he told me, was essential. when i thought jazz, i thought that cheesy smooth jazz you heard in waiting rooms or on the local access channel. Miles assured me otherwise. i’d buy red wine because i knew we’d be listening to Miles at dinner. i’d lie on the couch at dusk with my eyes closed for the entire album and feel the light fading through the music. it might be my deserted island pick. maybe.

the stars are speaking. or seeing. or listening.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Even when you are not feeling your best, you try hard. You’re strong when things are broken. Where there is hurt, you rise up with surprising resilience to provide help and inspiration. If there are people who don’t know where they are or where they’re going, you are often beacon of calm. Thank you, my beautiful friend. I applaud your urge to fight for justice not only in service to yourself but also on behalf of others who can’t be as composed as you are when things are broken. And I’m happy to inform you that the favors you’re doling out now will ultimately be returned in kind when you least expect it.

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fear and loathing in my inbox

i’ve somehow made it onto my grandpa’s email list. a few excerpts (without edits–italics are mine):

THIS MUSLIM ALIEN (Obama) HAS AN AGENDA THAT IS ENTIRELY UNPALATABLE AND I AM THOROUGHLY CONCERN THAT THE MASS MEDIA ARE PERPETUALLY COW-TOWING TO THIS UNABASHED KENYAN MESSIAH.

–

Subject: The Patriot Microchip

The PATRIOT MICRO CHIP is intended to be implanted in terrorists. The implant is specifically designed to be installed in the forehead. When properly installed it will allow the implantee to speak to God.

It comes in various sizes:

–

this stuff scares me. i understand thoughtful dissent and sincere concern for the direction of the country, but i don’t really see these sorts of messages presenting any solutions beyond shouting “you’re wrong and i’m right!” (at best) or raw violence (at worst). i also don’t see any substantial reasoning to any of it. no logic, no research–just sheer emotion and fear.

i get fundamental differences in philosophy. i get how a small-government Republican who believes every person (rather than society as a whole) is responsible for their own well-being would think that the economic stimulus package going through Congress right now is completely misguided. and i get how a true-blue liberal who believes in creating opportunities for all people would have problems understanding why CEOs are compensated hundreds of millions of dollars when there are homeless people wandering the sidewalks outside the buildings where they work.

what i don’t get is the complete refusal of those on both ends of the spectrum to have a conversation. not an argument on CNN, but a discussion where each side hears out the experiences of the other. because that’s all our beliefs are–values shaped by how we’ve experienced the world. when you start to see people as a product of their experiences, you begin to see that there is no “wrong” or “right;” that there are simply different knowledge pools, more or less access to information, and more or less contact with people of different experiences.

i can’t get mad at a kid in Rock River, Wyoming for calling me a dyke when his only experiences of gay people has been what he’s seen on tv and what his homophobic father taught him. and i can’t get mad at a Yale student from Boston for calling a guy wearing Wranglers and a cowboy hat an ignorant redneck when that student’s only experience of cowboys has been what he’s seen on tv and what his Harvard dad taught him.

the best i can do is call people on their assumptions and snap judgments, and simply ask them, “what do you really know about that person? what do you know about what they’ve been through?”

and maybe that’s what i need to do with my grandpa’s emails. maybe i just need to ask him if he’s ever really considered where the “terrorists” are coming from. maybe i need to ask him what about Obama scares him so much.

or maybe i’m being naive (as so many people have told me many times). maybe i just need to delete the emails as soon as they come into my box and accept the fact that he’s never going to let loose his grip on what he so strongly believes is “right.”

i just wish we’d all stop and listen to each other once in awhile instead of constantly seeking out only those who agree with us and demonizing those who don’t.

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thank you, weakness

i’ve lived through so many patches of weakness in my 30 years. through failures in (or total absence of) confidence, through white-knuckled clutching to fear, through blind spots in reasoning, through simple ignorance. i’ve lied and cheated. i’ve cried behind the locked bathroom door at work, and i’ve punched cinder-block walls. i’ve hurt and been hurt.

but i have not one ounce of regret for any of those moments. not for the two times i cheated on the people i loved. at the time, they were brief lapses of judgment, the succumbing to the thrill of someone else hotly pursuing me in a haze of alcohol and other clouds. in retrospect, though, it was my cowardly way of punctuating struggling relationships, my way of pushing through the dirt to the surface. i am so sorry for the pain i threw around so carelessly, but i wouldn’t do it differently if i could.

not for the times i was cheated on. it’s one thing to be devastated by betrayal, and it’s the next thing to realize that, had the relationship been open to honesty and trust going in two directions in the first place, things might have gone differently.

not for the months of insomnia that filled my nights with a blinding pulse and my days with ghosts. i broke it down a thousand ways, stalking its shadow across the pages of health magazines, through friends’ advice, inside slow songs, within meditation and finally to surrender. in that, i learned the difference between wasting time and paying better attention to empty time. which is when i started sleeping again.

i read recently that growth requires tension. it’s why we lift weights to build muscle. it’s why we tend to like the teachers who are toughest on us.

people always say, “if i knew then what i know now, i’d…” the thing is, we know what we know now because of what happened then. would it be worth losing that knowledge to go back and prevent the struggle?

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my 25 things…in case you’re Amish

…and didn’t see this on facebook:

1. i was born and raised in Darth Vad-, i mean Dick Cheney’s hometown. everything is named after him–the courthouse, the (other) high school’s stadium. it makes me want to become a vandal.

2. i love wasabi peas. a great salty substitute for chips.

3. the part of my body that i am most proud of is the giant scar on my knee. makes me feel tough. i’ll show it to you even if you don’t want to see it.

4. i’ve driven across the country (North Fork of Long Island to Los Angeles) twice, roundtrip. the first time: from NY to WY by myself, from Casper to Las Vegas with my grandma, and the rest of the way with random girls from Belgium (don’t ask–it’s a long, boring story). the second time: with my ex. i also did the CT to WY drive quite a few times.

5. i am unabashedly unashamed of my love for facebook.

6. i’m not afraid to ask you for your money if it’s for something i truly and passionately believe in.

7. i can’t think of one thing (besides Lauren) that i would be absolutely devastated losing if my apartment burned down.

8. i think my love for beer is fading. i’d rather be drinking white wine. i’m not cool enough for red.

9. the last time i was in love with an entire album was In Rainbows by Radiohead. the last time i was in love with a song was Scott Joplin’s Bethena (A Concert Waltz).

10. i regularly miss my old friends and can’t understand why we can’t connect better. and i readily admit that it’s probably my fault.

11. i ADORE furry animals, but they make me seriously ill.

12. i am often reminding myself to practice what i preach.

13. in college, i dreamed of writing for the New Yorker, but now i just read it every week.

14. i tend to believe i’m in pretty good shape. before my knee dissolved playing soccer last month, i was running 5k a few times a week and working out. now i can only make it 2.5 miles until my lower leg starts doing this burny numb thing.

15. i never thought i was very good at soccer.

16. i love that Lauren just gets me. and when she doesn’t, she lets me be me anyhow.

17. i deplore the “funny before nice” philosophy.

18. it was a tie for my favorite Christmas gift between the Iron Gym and the UConn hoodie.

19. i didn’t realize until i was an upperclassman in college that i was totally crushed out on two girls in high school.

20. i’ve had three nicknames in my life: skins, sprout, and bear.

21. i’m currently reading “Everyday Zen” and “Why We Hate Us”.

22. i lost at least two “best” friends when i came out.

23. i was most unhappy when i was living in the most beautiful house in one of the most beautiful places in the country.

24. i don’t understand why East-coasters say ore-gone. it’s ore-gun.

25. i once went camping with one of my favorite singers, and i spent more time having a blast with her son than hanging out with her.

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wow. cynical.

lauren: i got your eye stuff.
the lady was all smily at me.
i was highly suspicious.

me: why suspicious?

lauren: who smiles anymore!?

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