Love to all. Even you, the Video Interview guy from the Wall Street Reporter.
Archive for January, 2008
48 hours after I jumped out of a still-moving vehicle, blind with rage and thinking in white-hot arcs of electrical static, I was sitting in my office with my head in my hands, shoulders shaking, tears falling. 1pm today.
Today is Maggie’s mother’s birthday. In the midst of an argument with Maggie over tonight’s ill-conceived (in my opinion) plan to meet her and her family for a birthday celebration at 6pm at 207th Street in Inwood, Manhattan, Maggie asked me what my problem was.
On the surface, it was:
- Her brother is always fucking late.
- It’s a 56 minute subway ride from my office to 207th street.
- If I go, they have to take two cars, and I don’t want my kids riding in the car with my mother-in-law driving.
- It’s a fucking Tuesday evening, the kids have school, and why don’t we just do this on the fucking weekend (how about on Saturday, which is my birthday?”
But as as I started to answer her, a massive wave of sadness swept through and over me, and I started crying. Because in the end, I just wanted my family back.
MY mother. MY father.
Stupid, sick fucks. It’s been over five years since we had to call in the police to stop the harassment. Five years since we were getting faxes warning us to look around when we stepped out of the house. Five years since my father wished me dead in the harshest possible language.
Borderline personality disorder. When it locks onto you, you better fucking duck.
And we did.
But they’re my parents, and I love them. And in the midst of this immersion in my in-laws, with my birthday on Saturday and my father’s on Monday, I just wish he could unlock himself… ratchet down and defocus.
But for Borderlines, that’s pretty much impossible.
Two days ago I jumped out of a still-moving car. Maggie had asked me whether or not I was mad at her for painting the inside of the house. It was a huge expense, with money we don’t have, and I answered honestly. Yes, a little. And with her Mom living with us, dealing with her brothers, etc., I felt like I really want to do something for myself.
So I told said, look, I’m getting that tattoo, okay? This is the tattoo I mentioned a long time ago…. the one that originally was going to say “Be Love” but at Renn’s brilliant suggestion became “Even you.” I’ve wanted it ever since, on my forearm. Maggie has overtly disapproved, because it’s below the sleeveline.
She said: “I’m not going to approve.” I said “I don’t want to approve, I just want to hear you say “I heard what you said.” She accused me of playing a power game, to force her to say something that she doesn’t want to say. I said: “No, I don’t WANT you to say that you approve, or condone it, I just want you to say that you heard me.” She told me I was being manipulative. In turn, I thought SHE was playing a HUGE power game, for refusing to say this.
And I lost it. I screamed at her to stop the car, and jumped out before it was stopped. I was out of my mind. She drove off. It’s hard to explain how this ramped up so quickly. It just did.
Much fury and causing-dogs-to-bark later, Maggie suddenly realized that ALL I WANTED was for her to ACKNOWLEDGE something that I’ve wanted to do for, I believe a YEAR. As soon as she said that, the firestorm ceased, replaced by a bit of shame and a lot of “Holy fuck, what was THAT?”
Back to now. Right now, I want so much to feel angry at my parents. I’m sitting here, on the train, wishing for rage. But it’s not here. There’s just sadness.
Love to all. Even you, blue.
I don’t normally post movie reviews, but Cloverfield had a unique effect on me..
In summary: Cloverfield is the first movie I’ve ever seen that I wish I hadn’t.
It’s not that it was a bad movie… it wasn’t. It was well directed, the acting was neutral-positive, and the special effects were as to be expected in the age of CG. Furthermore, in the one area the “plot” could have taken a really cheap out, they didn’t.
In the end, though, Cloverfield wasn’t a movie. There was little-to-no story, little-to-no character development (that which you learn about the characters in the first 10 minutes stays consistent throughout), no real storyline to follow. The ending of the movie was pretty much given away in the first 10 seconds.
The images of destruction in New York were personally unwelcome, but not a causal factor in my dismissal of this film. Having seen first-hand the collapse of one of the Twin Towers, I didn’t really need to see the Woolworth Building collapse, too. They made a very realistic plume of street-filling dust that was just like the WTC collapse, and I’m sure the CG folks must have used the 9/11 destruction to model their own.
The movie had zero emotional pull. No rah rah, no rooting, no HOLY CRAP, nothing. Even after a crappy movie, I feel kind of mad about seeing it. Or after an action movie, I feel thirty seconds of ROCK ON before forgetting the movie existed. Cloverfield left me with nothing whatsoever. Not even the nausea that supposedly could be induced by the Blair Witch Project style of filming.
I guess all I can say is that Cloverfield is vaguely insulting… like someone you don’t really care about saying shit about you behind your back, and you don’t find out until years later. You’re like “Well, that’s silly. Why am I using my memory to hold this data?”
Love to all. Even you, JJ.
I just ran the 2008 Manhattan half Marathon with Eric, our friend Jack, and one of Eric’s girlfriend’s friends. It was cold and beautiful outside, and by the end of the race those of wearing hats had a thin layer of frost over our the top of our heads, where the sweat had frozen.
I did okay. I averaged 8:33/mile, which is not my best. But I haven’t been running all that consistently, so I should take what I can get.
Love to all. Even you, the runner-scientist who got mad at people for saying nice things.
I think I’ve given the wrong impression.
I don’t believe that minor flirtation by a woman equals that woman saying “I want to bang you senseless.” But what I AM saying, and the reason for my extra degree of paranoia, is that the privilige of flirtation has been utterly trashed but jackass dudes who take a smile, a sweet word, or eye contact and turn it in a blanket license to be disgusting.
I didn’t think the lady on the train was being anything more than sweet… and only the mildest level of flirty. I just get all preemptive on the lack of gross.
Oh, there are other circumstances where I’m more than happy to flirt dangerously. Especially with women of a certain age (and if you’re married to boot - watch out!).
And, while I’m clearing the air: when dudes are a little flirty with me, I dig it just fine. I don’t understand why I don’t find men attractive. I find the IDEA of finding men attractive attractive, if that makes sense… but I just don’t.
Ah, my mildly fucked up, ADHD, oh-how-I-love-the-ladies chemistry.
Okay. Apologies to Steve for the title of this entry.
Love to all. Even you, RDL.
I sat down on the train tonight, in the seat I can only get when I’m missed one train and am super-early for the next. It’s in a three-facing two configuration, the seat that doesn’t have one directly from it. It’s got a clear line to the door, and you can stretch out your legs a bit.
A woman got on the train, entered my little seating area, saying “excuse me” as she went past. I responded with a polite “no problem.”
She sat down in seat one of the row of three. The one near the window. She looked at me and said “I was hoping to get your seat tonight.” I said: “Yup, this is the best seat in the house. I’m with you.”
Then I thought… and said: “You know what? Here. And I switched to the row of two.” She said “Oh no! You don’t have to do that. I can’t.” I said, “Well, I ain’t moving back, so if you don’t take it, someone else will.”
She said, “You’re really cute. If you get squooshed by someone, let me know.”
I smiled, night now made, and then immediately put on my headphones to write this.
I don’t know why, but it’s really important to me to make sure that women know that I’m not going to take advantage of mild flirtiness. Either that, or I don’t trust myself completely not to take it a little further than I should, because, deep inside, I’m a total lusthound.
Love to all. Even you, the dude who just sat down in seat one of row three, throwing his bag territorially on top of the the nice lady’s purse.
So, if I’m going to over to the Blogger’s Choice Awards to vote for Chickie, and I see that I’m nominated for 2008’s “Hottest Daddy Blogger,” and I haven’t voted in that category, and I, um, vote for myself… is that like, um, pleasuring myself to a picture of myself? OH MY GOD I FEEL SO GROSS.
God, I hope not.
Anyway. Now everyone has to sign up and vote for me so that my masturbatory-style self-declaration of hotness can be buried in an avalanche of support.
Why don’t they have a “Most hyperactive-in-a-vaguely-cute-but-also-vaguely-annoying-way Blogger” award. I’d be a winner by a landslide.
Love to all. Even you, the lady reading the Economist and biting off something on the back of her hand.
Minor confession: I have had more than one blog. I forgot about this until I read a post by Miss Britt about hate.
About two years ago, I decided to try and engage the Angry Crowd at their own mocking, vitriolic level. This was mostly a politics-based endeavor. I’d go to Right Wing blogs (Not you, James. Nor even that dude who commented on Right Face that disliked me so much.) and try and drop bombs on people.
I committed myself to being mean. To responding to insult with insult. To give them something to shoot at, and dammit, I’d return small-arms fire with tactical nukes.
I thought it would be a great outlet. Or something.
Turns out, it just made me sick inside. I kept it up for, oh, two or three days. I got all the reactions I could have ever hoped for, but in the end all I learned was a lesson: sustained anger is corrosive, pointless, and beneath me. Yes: beneath me. I deserve better than to put that kind of shit into the world. It’s not only insulting to the people I’m insulting… (regardless of whether they are fuckwads, jackasses, or otherwise, um, icky), but it’s insulting to me.
I took it down. I posted a public apology, and just stopped. I read, but didn’t contribute to, the comments discussing whether or not my apology was for real.
And that was that.
I still sometimes want a second blog (and who says I don’t have one?), because there’s stuff that I want to write about that’s um, not Championable appropriate. But that’s a whole other entry.
Love to all. Even you, the maldigestive attorney.
There was a moment in the debate, when Obama started quoting things Bill Clinton said in order to use them against Hillary, when the whole thing changed for me.
Paraphrasing:
Hillary: “I didn’t say that!”
Obama: “Well, you’re husband did.”
Hillary: “But I’M right here!”
Obama: “Well, I sometimes can’t tell who I’m running against!”
Bullshit, bucko. That was stupid, cheap, and beneath who you claim to be. I think you need a couple of years to get a little Clinton-style seasoning before you’re ready to take over the country. I was 75% for Hillary anyway, but now I’m 100%.
Love to all. Even you, Michelle.
Maggie was crying. Her voice was cranked up, high and tight and wavering right on the edge of a scream: “Rich, you need to come to the mountain. Right now.”
Adrenaline surge and walls closing in, short of breath and pulse to the fore.
Time slows down, and the options start unfolding: my oldest had crashed at the terrain park or into the trees or one of those out of control, idiot snowboarders took out my youngest or…
It was just as bad. Our youngest was missing. He had skied off while Maggie was talking to the people in charge of the terrain park. She had asked him to wait. He got impatient, and just LEFT. She tried to catch him, but couldn’t.
He’d been missing for an hour when Maggie called… and by that point she was in a full-blown, couldn’t breathe, panic. What had made it go from bad to worse is that she had SEEN him, our six-year-old, and then he had vanished. After talking to the officials at the area in which she was looking, she took a short lift up part of the mountain just to ski back down, hoping to find him waiting for her.
And he WAS. She spotted him down below while on the lift. He had apparently realized that he should wait for Maggie, and had taken off his skis and laid down in the snow. She screamed for him… to tell him to wait… but he didn’t react. By the time she got off the lift and skied to where he was, he was gone.
At that point, the mountain called a Code Yellow. Forty-five minutes additional minutes had passed.
I told Maggie’s Mom to keep an eye on my daughter, jumped in the car, and headed for the mountain. I called a friend on the way, to keep my breathing normal and stop myself from trying to pass slow moving trucks.
Halfway there I got the call that he’d been found. They were bringing him to the Learning Center.
When I got to the mountain, I ran up the stairs to find Maggie, and instead saw my youngest being led into a building by a big dude wearing the official employee outfit. I yelled my son’s name and ran to him. He turned to me, and he had clearly been crying. As I picked him up, I turned to the employee and said “I’m his Dad.”"That’s fine,” the employee said, “but we still have to go inside and sort things out.”
Best. Response. Possible. Because I could have been anyone, and by bringing us to the Learning Center, and to Maggie, he’d be doing his job absolutely properly.
When Maggie saw me rounding the corner, boy in my arms, she started bawling. She knew he had been found, but up until that point she thought someone had taken him. Emotions spill over.
The rest of the story is denouement, exhalation, and unwinding.
It could have been so much worse. For an hour, we thought that something terrible might have happened to one of our kids. There are so many people who experience tragedy without end; something DOES happen. It’s NOT a scare, and there is no tearful reunion. So I have to remember: there is joy to be had in minor experiences of fear, and I need to remember to show respect for people who experience REAL tragedy and somehow integrate it into their lives.
I do not know if I could show the strength I have seen in others.
Love to all. Even you.
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