"We're Screwed"

I really shouldn’t talk to Bret. We see things so eye to eye, so we tend to reinforce each other’s delusions. Plus, we both have twisted and irreverent senses of humor so we tend to descend into harsh cultural criticism. No matter how we keep it mocking and light, we’re both aware that when we say “Yeah, we’re screwed,” we really do mean it. Cynicism wins out.

But it’s nice. It’s good to have that kind of positive reinforcement, to find someone out there who thinks the same things I do, things we wouldn’t even admit to most people. I recognize what I get out of these conversations though – an ego boost, a little high. We get on a roll and we can just keep going, mutually reinforcing each other.

Today we discussed architecture on campus and its dismal bastardized status. We decided we should start a company together which hires out as consultants to tell clients exactly what kind of bullshit their fancy architecture firm is trying to put over on them so as to prevent debacles like these in the future.

“You mean I just get to criticize people and I don’t actually have to do architecture?” Bret asked. “Well, hell, I can do that all day!”

We talked about politics and agreed there is no real, fundamental difference between Republicans and Democrats. We shook our heads over the ridiculous obstructionism caused by partisan politics in states like California and New York which can’t get their budgets passed. Say what you will about Nebraska, and how conservative it is, at least our state government works. On a fundamental level, it works, and compared to other states it is small. I am always amazed when I visit other states just how much government they have.

We both admitted to a secret and completely age-ist wish to ban people over a certain age from voting because all they are doing is setting us up for a horrible future which they aren’t going to be around for. Our generation is going to have it the worst, because we can see the storm coming and we’re frantically screaming to change course, but all the people in the back of the boat aren’t listening. And we’ll remember just how good the “good old days” were. It isn’t the same for our grandparents, who grew up in the Depression, made it through the war, and raised their children in a time of ever-expanding affluence.

“We were poor,” Grandma Del told me, “but we didn’t know we were poor. We didn’t know the difference.”

That will be the next generation, the one born into a world in which the myth of social security has already failed, the climate has shifted, deserts have expanded, oil has run out, resource wars have become common places, and every major coastal city has an intricate (and expensive) system of dikes and levies. But us, we’ll know the difference, and we’ll know just how we got there.

The optimist in me still holds out hope that it won’t be all that bad; that surely we’re smart enough to figure it out before then, but the realist just shrugs and agrees “We’re screwed.”

Our parents, those millions of Baby Boomers, tell us we’re spoiled and ungrateful. They’re right. We are spoiled and if we aren’t appropriately grateful, maybe it’s because we know what cost it’s going to have down the road, economically, environmentally, and socially, and we know we’re going to have to pay it, not them. And it’s so easy for us to see (higher CO2 = higher temperatures) that we become frustrated and intolerant, which only exacerbates the problem. We need to find a new, more productive approach, a better way to speak to one another.

“These people,” Bret complained “they just think that growth is the answer. Rising population equals rising consumption and that we’ll always come up with new ways to produce more stuff. But they don’t understand that resources are limited and we’re gonna hit a wall. We’re all stuck on this same ball of mud floating in space and that’s all we’ve got: one ball of mud.”

So we shake out heads at the shitty hand life has dealt us and get our bitching and moaning out of the way so we can go back into the world and try, yet again, to do something worthwhile with our lives. And I feel like an overinflated balloon which has finally had a little bit of the air let out. At least someone out there can see some of the things I see (and hope I’m seeing wrong), but that just reinforces the “we’re screwed” belief.

Yeah, I really shouldn’t talk to Bret.

It's All Bullshit

"Hey, Mohamed, why don't I ever hear you speak up in class? You're a PhD student. You should blow us all away," I asked today as we trudged up to the Attic (where they banish grad students to) after our architectural theory discussion let out.

"Well, I'm really busy with my dissertation, so I don't always do all the readings, so I don't know what to talk about," he told me in a soft accent as we passed Bruce's desk, the other PhD student who is older than most of the professor's here.

"Aw man, just BS it. Theory is just BS anyway," I told him.

Bruce laughed and chimed in with his deep voice, "With one sentence she just demolished the entire scholastic institution."

"Nah, I didn't demolish it. I just see the truth of it."

Don't get me wrong. I love theory, and philosophy, debate, history, research, and thought. I'm just not in love with theory. (And people have a long history of loving things which aren't necessarily good for them.) I see it for what it is - which is bullshit. It's all just words. I heard a quote once: "Talking about music is like dancing about architecture." Well, talking about architecture is pretty much like dancing about architecture, and maybe less illuminating than that because at least dance has certain visual and spacial qualities to it, just as architecture does.

Bullshit isn't limited to architecture theory though. It permeates everything. Hell, ninety-nine percent of what we call "the dharma" is bullshit - not because it's bad for us or wrong somehow, but just because of the nature of it. The word "chair" is not a chair. The word "enlightenment" is not enlightenment and the word "buddha" is not a buddha and won't get you enlightened no matter how many times you say it. Sure, we need the words, but we can't go around confusing the words of wisdom for wisdom itself. We can't conflate the description of an experience or state of existence for that thing.

What I study in my architecture class isn't architecture. If I wanted to study architecture, I couldn't do it in class. I can read about it, research it, discuss it, theorized about it, criticize it, but if I actually want to study architecture, to experience it, I have to get out and visit it. I don't like to criticize buildings I've never been too, or praise them either. I do, of course. It's usually required at some point, but I don't take anything I say seriously, however worthwhile it may or may not prove to be. It's all bullshit, because until I've actually visited that building, explored every nook, cranny, and closet, watched people use it, seen how the light changes throughout the day and the building systems respond to the difference seasons, only then will I really know that building. And even then, anything I say about it is merely a shallow interpretation of that knowledge into the medium of language of something that is made of infinitely more than black chicken scratched on paper.

So, yeah, the dharma is bullshit. It's a bunch of monkeys swinging in the jungle debating the merits of the Sistine Chapel versus Chartres Cathedral. Maybe one day, they'll swing on over to Italy or France and check it out for themselves, but most of them seem pretty content to hang in the jungle (or the ivory tower). I know I like it here.

Of course, if living in the land of bullshit bothered me, I would have flunked out a long time ago.

Fatherhood

Sometimes I fall a little bit in love with parenthood. It's not mothers or babies or families that give me that "awh" feeling deep inside the recesses of my heart that I'm barely brave enough to admit exist - it's fathers. It's the father in the park with the little boy, or one like this man writing about his little girl in the New York Times. It's my father, who I know beyond a shadow of any doubt would make a wonderful grandpa.

I'm ambivalent about motherhood. It is one of those cultural expectations which has never found it's way onto my lifetime To Do List, but remains firmly on the That Would Be Nice Under the Right Circumstances List. I have never, ever doubted that if and when I have children I will love them with all the ooey-gooey, passionate, sentimentality of any parent. Yet, I have always admitted that the possibility of children would rest strongly on whether or not my partner wanted one or two. In a way that seems odd, considering I have never been someone to change herself in life-altering ways for her significant other, and motherhood definitely constitutes a dramatic change. But when I see the fathers and children, I think to myself "I would like to give that to someone. I would like to share that with someone."

Snake and Snake Falls

We went to visit my great-uncle Lavern and great-aunt Zelda this morning in there apartment at Cherry Hills Assisted Living. They sleep in their recliners, forgoing a bed entirely. Uncle Lavern has had several strokes and his speech is slurred, but his mind is still there.

"When we moved in here, she chucked the bed out on the curb," he complained to my Dad about his wife.

"You're lucky she didn't put you on the curb."

"She woulda done, but she's too little."

"Well, anybody here woulda helped her. You better be careful."

"You know what they call him here?" Zelda chimed in. "Ornery."

Lavern just laughed.

Sunset

Sunset after the storm in Valentine, Nebraska.

Another Ode to Summer

How many odes have been written to summer?

Too many, I’m certain.

The winter is the cranky old man down the street

who just won’t die.

Spring is a flirt, tentative and unsure.

Then next we know, the pools are full

of pale-skinned, loose-limbed, screaming, little monsters.

The cicadas’ screeching drone fills the air

The fireflies wink in the twilight

Every evening show (reruns anyway) is broken

by the desperate, repetitive warnings of the weather man.

The nights are cracked with thunder.

How many days have we hidden in air conditioned rooms

and written metaphors about the wall of heat

and the woolen blanket of humidity?

Too many, I’m certain.

We memorialize baseball games and bad hotdogs,

family reunions and drunk uncles,

camping trips and whatever bit who this time.

As if all the long year we have waited,

impatiently tapping our foot for green, wild summer.

And now that it is here we fling ourselves upon it

determined play as hard as we work.

At least, until we notice how damned hot it is,

and hide indoors instead.

How many of us have forgotten what summer is?

Forgotten how live without chilled beer,

hot showers in cold rooms,

movies on cable and televised sports?

Too many, I’m certain.

Summer isn’t here for our amusement.

And it doesn’t care for odes or sonnets.

Summer is doing its job, ripening the earth,

Making the dogs lazy, the squirrels fat, and the bunnies multiply,

So old man winter can take pot shots at them

with his well-oiled twenty-two.

"Come the Plague or Democrats"

This morning Garison Kielor read:

"Here our fathers stopped their westward push,

Not, God knows, for love of scenery or soil,

But because an ox gave out, an axle broke,

Or a child took with cholera or chills.

Now, their sons cross the fields like roofwalkers,

Chucking dirtclods at the crows, while in the shade

The women mutter of lost limbs and hopes.

Like a periodic curse, a drought this month

Has once more settled on the western plains,

Thickening the creeks, working into wayside barns,

And famishing the stock. On kitchen radios

One hears again the pulpit-pounding talk

And familiar promises of punishment,

That we have ourselves to blame for this,

Who lusted, craved and coveted—

But if sin lingers in these washed-up towns,

It could be only pride or stubbornness:

Each spring another crop of debt is sown,

And, though agencies attach the land,

Outbuildings, crops and unborn young, still

The beak-nosed men walk head-up and proud,

Convinced, against all evidence, that what

They've planted, built or reared is theirs,

And that, come the plague or Democrats,

They will die as they have lived, that is

In their good time, just when and how they choose."

By Norman Williams, from The Unlovely Child, 1985.

Emphasis mine.

Visit With An Old Friend

I hadn’t seen Paul in two years, maybe three. I think I saw him a time or two after Marilyn’s funeral, but I’m not sure. I was reading my blog from February 2007. I found Marilyn’s death. I had written: “Paul asked me if you were ready. He was worried that you sometimes seemed ambivalent about it. I told him I thought you were ready to go, but that you just weren’t ready for your children to lose their mother. I don’t know that anyone ever is, but that in the end, you were ready. I think this reassured him, though even I can’t say for sure that I was right.”

It struck me as funny, reading it again and remembering that time, that anyone should have asked me such a question. I was twenty-six. It strikes me as odd that anyone would ask me that now. I think the older I become the more ignorant I realize I am.

Oh, I know that our relative ages didn’t have a thing to do with Paul's question. I had seen more of Marilyn in those recent weeks than Paul had, but looking back, I sometimes wonder how up front with me Marilyn was. Was she strong for me like she was for her children? I remember once, after she had been diagnosed but before she had gone to hospice, I told her not to cry. We were standing in her kitchen talking and I was getting ready to go. She started to cry and I hugged her and said “Don’t cry. Oh, don’t cry.” She sucked it up, because Marilyn was nothing if not a hard ass.

That request had been for my benefit. My dog had just passed. It had been a rough week. I didn’t want to cry anymore and I knew that if she started I would be off, too. It had nothing to do with whether or not she wanted, or needed, to cry. I was entirely selfish in that. I tried to explain later, to tell her it was okay to cry and that I would be there for her when she needed me. She got a little teary and sad from time to time, but I never did see her cry.

I dug Paul’s email out of my inbox archives and shot him a note. He comes down to Lincoln from time to time as part of a new clinic Children’s Hospital has set up. Paul is a pediatric pulmonologist attached to the University Medical Center and also sees patients of Children’s Hospital, both in Omaha. He met me downtown for a drink. I smiled as we exchanged hugs.

We talked about life, what I’m doing, what he’s doing, where his kids are now. He was driving a pretty new white Volkswagen SUV instead of his beautiful forest green Jaguar. “Broke my heart,” he told me, “but since we got the place in Colorado, I needed something that could haul stuff and handle better. A Jag doesn’t exactly handle well in the snow, especially a supercharged one.” His daughter is married and his son graduated from a university in California and has come back to go to graduate school in Omaha. He said he thought I’d run off with some guy and was living in Utah or Colorado now, which made me laugh.

We talked about death. He got a call and I took a moment to find the ladies’ room. When I returned he was still detailing the pros and cons of treatment options. When he finished, I just looked at him and said “I’m glad you do your job and I don’t.” I would like to be stronger and more compassionate than I am. I would like to actually be able to save people’s lives. And I don’t know how much of that is just “not me” and how much is me simply telling myself it’s “not me” out of fear.

“She’s gonna die,” he said. “Eleven years old and she’s gonna die.” He looked so sad.

We continued to talk, covering religion, or lack thereof, and pets and motorcycles and travel and why they put out these horrible little snack mixes in bars and why in hell do we keep eating them. It was nice to see him again. I hope he’ll look me up again next time he’s in town. And next time, I won’t let him coax me into that second drink. A second is all well and good when you’re drinking beer (Paul claims he’s a “featherweight,” but he’s also British, so I think that’s an oxymoron), but I was drinking martinis. Two in two hours (instead of my normal four or six hours) left me quite sloshed, which is not a sensation I enjoy. However, he had his lovely new SUV with the seats already down, so he gave me, and my bicycle, a lift home before heading back to Omaha.

Earlier, we had spoken about Marilyn and her death and who has spoken with whom from the old fencing club lately, which is where we had all met. “That always was a ragtag assortment, wasn’t it? It always revolved around Ian and once he was gone, well it fell apart,” he observed, taking a drink of his beer.

“As maybe it should have. I miss it though.”

“Me too.”

DN Column - Poverty

Crap! They've started putting out mugshots online. I hate my mug and it's bad enough when it's itty bitty in the paper, but now it's big and in color, not to mention several months out of day. Now I'll have to do something about it. O, Vanity, you sneaky devil!

‘New Poor’ need to buck up and face facts

Enjoy!

Box in the Closet

I cleaned my closet today and found a box of old files. In these old files were three folders, one full of cards, pictures, photos, and drawings, and the other two full of old writing. I suppose ten to fifteen years isn’t that old, but I’m talking about high school here, which seems to be an entirely different life. I found photos of my dogs, Jordon my scruffy old man, and Bejamin that neurotic little spaz, and my Mom’s cat Spook. They were all taken in the house in Gretna from the time when my parent’s still lived there. I also found a few photos of myself fencing at the first Cornhusker State Games I attended. Then there was a stack of the little billfold portraits it was the thing to hand out to all your friends in high school just before graduation, with little personalized notes on the back. I didn’t have a lot of actual friends in high school, but by graduation day I at least had equal parts fear and respect from the student body.

“Well, I can never say class is boring with you in my class! You managed to spice up any class! It’s been fun getting to know you! Good luck with everything! –Nancy.”

“Don’t listen to what people say, you are unique and yourself and that’s all that matters. Never change. – Shawna”

“Well, we made it! We’re finally SENIORS!! It’s been great getting to know you. I admire your individuality. Never lose that quality. I wish you luck in all you do. You are a very smart girl, and I know you’re destined for greatness! Take care and keep smiling!! Your Friend, Melissa.”

“Hey smartie! I’m glad I can joke with you and you won’t take it seriously. You’re a pretty cool person. I really like your unique personality, hold on to it. I know you’ll do find in life. Just don’t forget me. –Stacie”

“It’s been great getting to know you! It is good to have someone who isn’t afraid to say what they think. I respect that! You will go far in life! I wish you the best of luck! –Ann”

“Way to go in Ac-Dec [Academic Decathlon] Sis! You are very smart and very unique! Be proud! More people should be as independent as you! Take care! Love, Katie.”

I sat and sorted through the writing. I think some of it must have been things my mother kept. Much had notes from my teachers on it. There were several cases of “Interesting!” and “Bizarre!” There were journal entries about things that were going on my life, dreams I had had, the beginnings of several novels, an eleventh grade paper about the planet Venus, criticism of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, lots of bad poetry, and a whole bunch of scenes, little excerpts of imagined things that were probably part of some kind of assigned writing exercise. I took creative writing twice, there being no other good classes in my high school. I had no idea I had saved this much.

of all the dreams I’ve dreamed thus far

they’ve been filled with visions of the stars

i dream thru alien skies to glide

yet only in my mind confide

that never will i do these things

I’ll never visit saturn’s rings

Yet i will continue to dream of space

where dreams exist of untold grace

--Stargazer’s Dream, date unknown

She wouldn’t let go, she wouldn’t. Her fingers ached from her perilous hold on the rock face. She could feel the skin being scrapped off as she slid just a little farther. Sweat dripped off her forehead and into her eyes. Janet fought panic, she couldn’t afford to panic now, not now, she told herself. She screamed again in desperation, even though she knew there was no one to hear her. She was going to die. She knew she was. Tears trickled down her cheeks, carving trails in the dirt on her cheeks. She didn’t want to die yet. Her feet scrabbled vainly beneath her, trying yet again to find some sort of toe hold. She felt herself slip a little farther and she screamed. The rock face slipped out from her fingers and she was left grasping air.

A gloved hand show out from the edge of the cliff to catch her fingers just as they let go. The scream lodged itself in her throat. Thomas looked down over the cliff at her, his mouth set in a grim like as he gripped her bleeding fingers with all his might. Janet swung her other hand up to latch onto his wrist. Thomas began slowly pulling her up over the cliff. Small rocks rained down on her. One struck her in the eye and she screamed again as she lost her grip on his hand, but Thomas didn’t let go. Slowly he moved back for the cliff edge, pulling her with him. When she could, Janet levered her leg up over the cliff edge and pushed herself up, right into Thomas’ arms. He caught her and she clung to him as she sobbed her relief.

--Creative Writing Activity #98, April 29, 1998

Sarcasm is a bandage

Once stung you rap yourself up in it

It cover the wound but doesn’t heal it

That must be done from within

It protects you from the outside world

For those unfortunate one the stings are sharp and close together

With no time for healing before another wound is rent

Until at last all one sees is the bandage

Hideous and ugly

Like a long dead Egyptian king

Like that dead king that person was too once alive to the outside world

Now she is separated by the bandage

Until the bandage become one with the flesh

Too painful to remove

A new one is applied at the tiniest prick

Or none at all

Until at last the person suffocates

To die by suffocation for those few who walk too far down that trail

Is Mercy incarnate

--Sarcasm, Journal, April 11, 1996

Black roses and white dresses

at my funeral shall be

No one weeping, no one wailing

no crying when they bury me

I want a marble headstone

With a message for all to see

A curious strange inscription

that tells all a bit of me

I wish for no one to grieve

for my spirit is now free

No dark and somber faces

at my funeral shall be

--At My Funeral Shall Be, date unknown [Note: these are not my current wishes, so if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, do me a favor and forgo the burial and tombstone and just scatter me somewhere pretty.]

misery is a blade of ice

stabbed through the heart of a man

when a friend dies, when a love flies

when a man finds himself alone

misery is pain in the core

when a woman is left alone

by those thought near, friends held dear

who stabbed her in the back

misery is befuddling fear

to a child huddled in the dark

who calls and cries, fearing night’s eyes

to parents who do not come

misery is all of these things

to a soul solitary

searching for the joy love brings

and always coming up empty

--Misery Is, date unknown

And perhaps, funniest of all, what appears to be a short journal I wrote shortly after loosing my virginity. I do not remember writing this at all and it took me a moment to even figure out what it was.

6.6.2001 - Now that I'm getting it, I realize I'm not getting it nearly enough.

6.7.2001 - Kinda gives a "To Do" list a whole new meaning, doesn't it?

6.8.2001 - It's kind of like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Only it's not you you're rubbing and you have to keep track of your hands as well as your mouth all at the same time with trying to gauge how much he likes it. Practice makes perfect. Good think I don't mind.

6.11.2001 - It's like watching a man who's won the lottery and is dying at the same time and can't seem to decide which feeling is greater.

6.12.2001 - Truly unique: a room, one man, two of his lovers, full knowledge of each's activities with the other, no one trying to scratch another's eyes out. Truly unique.

6.13.2001 - What's 26 years here or there?

Who was that person?