Two Irritations of the Morning and an Emergency

Yes, I'm really trying to get back in the posting groove... and I will take my own survey at some point... but right now I want to share two things that I noticed this morning and mentally responded with frustration and annoyance.

Thing #1: I have come to the conclusion that there is a deadly plague or perhaps a toe-eating monster hiding in the back half of every Septa bus. Yet again this morning, about 500 people were literally squashed against the front door while, exactly at the back door, others held their positions as though defending an international border. What is the problem?? Can't you see that NO ONE ELSE CAN FIT ON THE BUS? You are literally depriving people of transportation because you won't climb two little steps, grab onto a pole, and stand there instead of two feet away. Sometimes you are depriving people of transportation because you would rather stand in a crowd than sit in a perfectly lovely seat in the back half of the bus. It is utterly, completely baffling to me that this seems to be a universal phenomenon. I actually said something today. I was like, "We have to move back more; there are people squashed against the door." And this one woman did.... all the way to the back door! Please, someone, let me in on the secret. What is back there? I've sat there. I've stood there. It seemed just fine to me. There are signs all over the bus with arrows telling people to please move back. The bus driver sometimes says, "Please move back if you can." And yet.... at the back door they stand, indifferent and intractable. I feel that this phenomenon is somehow revelatory of a basic, fundamental flaw in human nature.

Thing #2: Why would you take the time to write a song that is 100%, unadulteratedly about how there is absolutely no point in anything ever and the whole world is worthless and really we all might as well just give up now. I mean, you have to spend time on this. You have to craft it, and listen to it, and practice it, and fix things that don't work, and deal with lyrics AND music, and then you have to record it, assuming you are someone I am listening to on the radio or something, and play it again and again, and presumably you are enjoying this on some level... and what's more, you are working on it, you are creating it and shaping it and all of this stuff... but the whole point is that there is no point. I think what irks me is that you make this astonishing pattern, this music, and I don't think you can do that without caring about it... but you do it to say there is no meaning, let's all just kill ourselves. Which is not to say that I think despair should not be expressed artistically, I just... I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to say. Except there's something about most of these songs that just rings false and irritates me, instead of moving me with the plight of the musician/people in general. How does this fit in with the fact that one of the things I love about writing is that I can take the strange, ugly, painful things in my life and transmute them somehow? Or with the bizarre and disturbing story I just finished writing? I don't know. But it does seem different to me.

Wow, on an unrelated note, we just had a fire alarm, and Maria and I were the only ones who left... it had gone off once before and stopped, and people said it was a false alarm. They were probably laughing at us up here... but I'm always worried that I'll hesitate too long, and then it will be a real emergency.

Which makes me think about how we relate to emergency and normal life. There's obviously a shift, where you go from normality to definite abnormality, a shift in perception as well as action. But there also seems to be this limbo, where something has interrupted normality, but you are not ready to commit to it being an emergency and act accordingly. I guess that wouldn't be limbo, it would be purgatory. Or perhaps a pre-hell, since purgatory leads to something better... anyway. It's not comfortable, this inbetweenness. I think maybe it's less comfortable than either normality or the emergency itself, which are definite states of mind that you know how to navigate. Maybe that's arrogant, since I have not truly experienced a life and death emergency. But I've experienced what I've thought at the time were life and death emergencies. But I know it's the inbetween state that I find truly uncomfortable and scary, because I don't want to go off the deep end and totally overreact, but at the same time I am afraid that I will wait around deciding if it's real danger just long enough to prevent escape.

And how does this relate to the desire we all have for the interruption of normal life? Don't you? Do you ever have disaster fantasies, escape fantasies, what would I do if fantasies? I do. I definitely do. I always escape with my life, at least when I'm awake. Though sometimes I get to a dead end and have to go back and find another way out, and presumably the fantasy me that got stuck for ideas doesn't escape. And I also have had specific death fantasies when the whole kidnapping/decapitation spree in Iraq was at its height (please don't take that flippantly... I don't mean it that way.) Those happened because of my irrational terror of decapitation. Not that it's irrational to fear that, but it's just not a viable threat in my life, and yet it fills me with a much more visceral fear than other forms of death.

Wow, now that I'm thoroughly discomfited... why do we both fear and crave emergenies? Why do we like disaster movies and roller coasters (though, with exceptions, I don't really like either. In fact, disaster movies could go on a "things that annoy me" list)? But I have been struck, in the midst of negative emotions, fear, doubt, anger, sorrow about horrible things happening in the world, about the war, etc.... by a certain hidden seed of excitement. That "something is happening" excitement, that "I have something to fight against, to care about, to absorb my interest" excitement.

What's it all about, Alfie?

Damn, it's 11:20, and I really have not done much work. I should. But please, if you have any ideas or insights on these matters, I would like to hear them.

Color Me...

Your Life Colors

You scored mainly in the Sky-Fire quadrant. This 'yellow' quadrant highlights the fire sign of your personality and your tendency to blaze across the sky like a comet, taking new ideas and concepts and trying to push them into action. You may well have a vivid imagination and enjoy constantly dreaming up new things to do. Because of your fire sign, you will probably push some of these ideas into action before you and others are ready. You may well be a persuasive person when discussing issues you passionately believe in. In these situations, many people may well be influenced by your apparent confidence.

People who map into this quadrant like to connect the future to the present. Your mind may constantly be exploring possibilities concerning where you are going and what you might do with your life. However, there are times when you could become over-enthusiastic and make decisions before you have fully thought about the ramifications. If anything, your mind might be focused on too many ideas at once. This may result in fewer successes, mainly because of your desire to get into action before you have completely done your homework.

For you there are unlikely to be too many problems. Of all the signs, yours describes someone who can turn a problem into an opportunity. Failure is unlikely to disturb you too much as you have a knack of being able to rebound from adversity.

The Survey That Ate Philadelphia

Or at least my life! Try it! Inquiring minds want to know.

Have you ever...

snuck out of the house – No… as a child I never tried to run away, which interests me in retrospect.
gotten lost in your city – Yes, sometimes on purpose.
seen a shooting star – Yes, many times… the person I got this from (random stranger whose blog I was reading) said no. That seems very sad to me! Shooting stars are not that uncommon, are they? I usually see them every summer at least once.
been to any other countries besides Canada – Yes, should I list them? Maybe I will. Onondaga Nation (does that count?), Holland, Belgium, China, Spain, Portugal, Moracco, Italy, Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, England…Yay for being well-traveled. I’m in the mood for another trip soon, I think.
had a serious surgery – I don’t think so… I didn’t really have any surgery as a baby, so I guess no.
gone out in public in your pajamas –Yes, if Bryn Mawr or the laundry room of my apartment counts as in public.
kissed a stranger – Assuming we mean a passionate sort of kiss, no. Well, I guess assuming we mean any kind of kiss, unless we’re counting children or something. I think I’ve kissed strange children if they attach themselves to me.
hugged a stranger – I think so. I mean, not a total stranger without any introduction first. I’ve been told that as a child I had to be told not to hug everyone on first introduction.
been in a fist fight – No. Never been in any sort of serious physical conflict, and even came to playfighting rather late in life.
been arrested – No, only had one sort of interesting and at the time intensely humiliating encounter with the police, when some woman caught me dancing on her dock because it was a beautiful day and I was happy (and not aware that it was a private dock), and she thought I was insane and suicidal and called the police. That was quite horrible, in fact.
laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose – Yes. Milk, I think, at lunch in high school, at one of those hexagonal (or whatevergonal they were) tables, probably about some random sexual joke that didn’t actually make lots of sense, but was still one of the funniest things I’ve ever heard.
pushed all the buttons on an elevator – No… do people really do that?
swore at your parents – No. I’ve sworn in front of my parents before, but not often. I don’t really swear at people much. I mean, I have in my life. But I take it pretty seriously.
been in love – I think so. I get confused about this, because I’ve not been in love with someone who has been in love with me. That I know of. But… putting aside wishful thinking and the idea that if it didn’t work out, it wasn’t really love, then I’ve been in love at least once, probably more like three times… and I hope I can also count the first time, when I was about 12 and so was he, and it was this kind of mutual sunshiney thing where we just smiled at each other a lot and I watched him play soccer, because that was by far the nicest and least painful. Hopefully that doesn’t sound bitter. I’m confused about love.
been close to love – What does this mean? Close to being in love? Clearly, yes, see above. Close to people who were in love? Yes, certainly, that’s pretty easy to do. Close to people who were having sex? Sometimes unpleasantly so, though never in an obscene ridiculous way.
been to a casino – Yes! Several in Atlantic City, mostly to use the bathroom or to prowl around for no especial reason. I think my favorite is still the Wild West one, though Caesar’s is kinda cool too. Casinos are super-weird, I think. Like… the imitation of riches in the presence of actual riches, but mostly not with actual rich people.
been skydiving - No
been skinny dipping – Yes, and with great enthusiasm. Once in the ocean in Spain (fabulous!!) and many times at Bryn Mawr, of course.
skipped school – Not as in, skipped a whole day of elementary or high school. Yes, if we’re talking about college. YES YES YES if we’re talking specifically about statistics, which I think I skipped more often than I attended.
seen a therapist – Yes, just after my parents split up. I liked him, but I’m not sure the experience did me much good, since it was not at all self-initiated and I was in a strange hidden state at that time. But probably he saw it differently and understood more about me than I would have liked, or even still like. Who knows?
done the splits – What does this mean? Is it sexual? Talking simply about doing a split? Alcohol related? I don’t think I’ve done it, whatever it is.
played spin the bottle – Sort of. This is a good story, I think. I was 14, and at a friend’s birthday party, and we were playing spin the bottle. Well, I was nervous, I didn’t want to play but I sort of did, so I was just sitting around on the outside of the circle with other non-players. And then this kid John—very strange, very talented, very attractive and very very very disturbed, as it turned out in the end—spun the bottle and it pointed at me. He was poised there in the circle for a moment, and I swear he looked like some sort of wildcat about to strike, and then he pounced at me and pressed his lips to mine, and it felt very nice and very sweet, like a tiny spark of life. And I was glad, because I had been concerned that I would end up being “sweet sixteen and never kissed,” and as it turned out, without him I would have been. And then I had to spin, and it landed on Nathaniel and we kissed, too. Later I found out that Morgan got her first kiss that night too, and neither of us knew the other had.. Strange, huh?
gotten stitches – Yes. One stitch. It was the night before we were moving out of Country View apartments (where we lived my fifth grade year) to High Acres, where we live now. I was playing outside with my friend Erica… she was younger than me, but really a brick, lots of fun and up to all kinds of fantastic games. We were playing in this fabulous rock filled ditch thing, where we pretended to have a wild hide-out and eat cattail hotdogs and raise falcolns, that sort of thing. Also, one of my rock people lived there. His name was Peter and he was very big, a sort of large folk-heroesque man who was a miner in the rocks. I don’t think I told Erica about him, or about Wiz and Wizina, the wizard couple who lived in the bushes nearby with their baby girl, whose name I forget, or about the old sailor whose memories appeared over the crest of the hillside that the apartment building was on, and we could watch them like movies. Anyway, Erica and I were playing, and this strange little boy who lived across the way from me came out and was smashing rocks against the tarvia, and all of a sudden I looked up and saw this rock heading straight for me. So I ducked, but it hit my head anyway, and I looked up and just felt this strong, sudden pain, which gave me energy, so I started yelling at the kid, something inane like, “You don’t do that! You don’t throw rocks at people!” but it must have impressed him in some way, because he ran away. I didn’t realize it was more serious than that until Erica was like, “You’re bleeding,” and I looked down and saw a big drop of blood land on my shoe, and then another. I can still see that very clearly, the shape of the blood-drop on my shoe. I started to cry then, and Erica ran to get help. And then the mom of the rock-thrower lead me around the house and my mom and dad and grandma came over to see what had happened. I spent the rest of the evening in the emergency room watching sitcoms with a handsome high school boy who had broken some bone in a sporting accident, and ended up with my one stitch. Somewhere under my hair there is probably a scar. Our move was a bit forestalled. And moving anywhere with my parents was always a calamitous journey, to say the least.
drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour – No… is that something people do very often?
bitten someone – Not anyone else, that I know of.
been to Niagara Falls – Yes… with my parents and Lauren in… third grade, I think? We sang “America” from West Side Story the whole way there and back, and didn’t know the words, so it was mostly, “DA DA DA DA DA AMER-I-CA, DA DA DA DA DA AMER-I-CA!” We also went over the falls in a bathtub, which I have a picture of, a wonderful picture of Lauren and I with big round eyes and mouths. And we went on the Maid of the Mist, and into the Caves of the Mist, which was wonderful. It was a very good trip, I think, even though I did get sick at one of the restaurants we went to. But I had fun.
gotten the chicken pox – Yes. Once I learned they were not a food, I became susceptible.
kissed a member of the opposite sex – Yes, but not at all as often as I would have liked.
crashed into a friend's car – No.
been to Japan – No.
ridden in a taxi – Yes, for the first time in NYC after the Beginnings Acting Workshop when I was 14… many times thereafter in many places, most notably and constantly in Seville, where the taxis are cheap and the drivers are friendly. Mostly in a good way… occasionally in the way where they tell you you are the kind of girl boys want to have babies with.
been dumped – Not really, I guess… but sometimes I’ve felt dumped, if not always in a romantic context.
shoplifted – No, not unless you count the time I took about a hundred business cards from some guy my dad knew with the intention of using them as pretend airplane tickets and got in lots of trouble.
been fired – No.
had a crush on someone of the same sex – Yes, often in the “gosh she’s cool and smart and lovely and I want to be her friend” way, less often in the “gosh she’s cool and smart and lovely and I want to kiss her and take her clothes off” way… but it’s happened both ways.
had feelings for someone who didn't have them back – Yes… is there anyone over the age of 12 who would not answer yes? How did they get that hand dealt to them? Maybe they don’t have feelings for people very often?
gone on a blind date – No, though it might be interesting.
lied to a friend – Yes… certainly in the casual, “I can’t do the thing you want to do for a better reason than my actual reason” way, or feigning a bit more disappointment than I actually felt about the collapse of plans… Probably in more serious ways too, but they don’t come to mind at the moment. Unless you count keeping secrets. It seems to be in my nature to keep secrets.
had a crush on a teacher – Never in a serious way… more in flashes of “Ooh, smart and powerful figure just said something marvelous and we sort of think the same way and they’re not bad looking at all…”
celebrated Mardi-Gras in new Orleans – Nope, I’ve done my farewelling to the flesh right in my hometown. Well, and in Bryn Mawr and Philly.
been to Europe – Yes, see initial country question.
slept with a co-worker – No. God, no. And unless I get a new job with very different people, I really don’t intend to.
been married – No… we don’t count the faux four-way all-female marriage Roz, Liz, Abby and I cooked up for a potential high school reunion, do we?
gotten divorced – No.
had children – No.
seen someone die – No… not actually seen.
had a close friend die – Do we count my Uncle Alan? I loved him, and we had started to be something like grown-up friends, as well as uncle and neice.
been to Africa – Yes, to Moracco for one whirlwind weekend full of touristy strangeness and animal encounters (camel and snake).
driven over 400 miles in one day – No.
been to US – In fact, I was born there.
been to Mexico – No, oddly enough, seeing that it is the closest Spanish-speaking country and I speak Spanish.
been to India – No… but I’d really like to go!
been on a plane – Yes… the first time when I was 7 or 8 to go to Florida for grandparent-visiting and Disney World. The most recent time on the way back here from Seville this January.
seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show – Yes, though it took me awhile to see it all the way through in the right order, and now I own a copy by default, though I’ve never watched my own copy… a sad fate of many movies I buy.
thrown up in a bar – No, nor ever due to alcohol, long may that record hold.
purposely set a part of myself on fire – No, unless you count the passing your fingers through flame trick, which I loved loved loved as a kid and still think is pretty darn cool.
eaten sushi – Yes, but I’m still squeamish about the raw fish aspect.
been skiing/snowboarding – No, actually, at least not downhill skiing, despite my Upstate NY creditials. But I liked cross-country a lot when we did it in school. Except for some reason I was exempt from going down the big hill, and I don’t know why. Was I incapable of doing it? Was I scared? I can’t remember.
met someone in person from the internet – Yes, by accident! I just happened to be at a coffeehouse with some friends, and they happened to know this random guy there, and we were all hanging out and playing games, and lo and behold, it’s a guy I’d been talking to online for a couple of months. It was sort of fun and coincidental.
lost a child – No, thank God.
gone to college/university – Yes, I’m a Bryn Mawr grad!
graduated college/university – Oh, I jumped the gun there.
fired a gun – Speaking of guns… no. I have fantasies where people are attacking me and I get the gun and I have to pretend I know how to use it, when I don’t at all.
purposely hurt yourself – Yes, but not in a terribly dramatic way… I don’t think. For example, if I have a really bad headache, sometimes I’ll dig my fingernails hard into my head to distract myself… and I’ve been known to bite my forearms and fingers out of extreme frustration, or seemingly outletless frustration. I’m still rather self-conscious about this habit, but it’s never gotten terribly common or intense.
taken painkillers – Yes. Surprise?
been intimate with someone of the same gender – Are we talking about sex? If we are, then no. If we’re talking about love and sharing and trust and things… yes, certainly.