"Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left."
Such were the words of Christ concerning the rapture (a doctrine to which, I recently learned, not all Christians subscribe). For the benefit of the uninitiated, the rapture is basically a future event in which all living Christians are taken up into the air and meet Christ, leaving behind only the unbelieving. [Wikipedia locates the etymology of the term as such: "The word 'rapture' comes from the same root as rapt: the Latin verb rapere, or the adjective raeptius[1], which means 'carried away by force, caught up'."]
The Christian fictional Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye is based on the events of the rapture, and a period of tribulation. An effort was made to create a cinematic version starring Kirk Cameron; if that name sounds familiar, it's because Cameron played Mike Seaver, of the popular 1980s sitcom Growing Pains. I do not believe the film adaptations have found the popular support enjoyed by either the novels or Growing Pains.
I have been feeling a little bit "left behind" recently by the exuberant spate of dating consortions and engagements. It started yesterday in Sunday school.* Our lesson was on prayer, and we were to break up into prayer partners for the applicational segment of the lesson. In my mind I expected Shui to pray with Auggie, but in my heart, I hoped that we could pray together. Actually, I prayed with Kevin Yap, which was a delightful and transcendent experience, but still...
...it's like--it's like: it's like...
To what shall I compare it? To what can it be compared? Even as I plead with my mind, usually a veritable metaphor sweatshop--see there's another one!--to furnish me with some analogy, it refuses.
The hard thing about this struggle is that it's not dramatic enough to render real sympathy out of anyone. It's not (thankfully) like losing one's child or one's parents, like discovering you have a malignant tumor in your liver, like a tsunami or like a category five hurricane. Maybe that makes it worse, in a sense. It's big enough to be the source of real, abiding pain, but not dramatic enough to get some pity. And, as do all adults, I understand that the ultimate end of my suffering must be the heaping of commiseration upon my head. Depending on the amount of attention a particular hurt can elicit, it is sometimes worth one's while to sacrifice a little dignity and advertise his troubles.
In my mind, when they [Shui & Augs] got back together, I started to imagine my giving a reproachably effusive best man's speech at their wedding reception. Of course the pleasure I would derive from such an event stems from my receiving the attention of 200-300 people forced to listen to me talk. The best part is when I say something like "Augustine, I'm entrusting you with my best friend, who is now your best friend. Please be patient with, and take good care of him." But I am learning that *now* is the time to prepare to let go of my best friend. I must be prepared before the time comes, that I will not be rendered completely non-functional. I am learning, as a friend once said to "hold things loosely."
Then I found out Grace Jan is dating. Grace, my long time friend whom I just assumed would remain single, period. In the minds of many who know her, she seemed like this stalwart warrior of singleness, her heart an impregnable fortress of bachelorettedom. And yet, here she is--totally smitten [at least from all the reports I've been able to gather].
Then Pam called, and she is dating. While her relationship is nothing new (half a year old, in fact), somehow in combination with the amalgam of other couples, it proved another thorn in my side. I think the sky is just going fall on me.
It's as though I were standing in a field with all of my friends, then suddenly, and rather inexplicably, half of them were taken up into thin air, and I was left behind. Perhaps I should mosey on over to the griding mill and see what the remnant ladies there are up to.
__________________________________
*Editor's note: Perhaps it actually started earlier. See, for example, "The Broken Road." Nonetheless, the most discernable cause of this recent case of melancholia began yesterday (May 28).
Monday, May 29, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Everything's Coming up Sunflowers
I've decided it would be a good idea to moniter the progress of one of my crops this year, namely the sunflower. The variety I selected for our backyard is named "Russian Mammoth", the seeds of which were ordered online from Burpee seeds, which has a great selection of vegetable, herb and annual flower seeds, as well as some fruit bushes and gardening equipment.Although capable of reaching a height of 12 feet, Russian Mammoth falls short of some of its sunflower cousins, such as Sunflower Kong (advertised as having a potential height of 14 feet), or Paul Bunyan (which allegedly can grow up to 15 feet!) I think its designation as "mammoth" arises from: a) the fact that burgeoning into a 12-foot organism is still a phenominal accomplishment for a living creature to reach in just one growing season (three or four months); and b) as the Burpee website indicates, the heads of this particular variety are exceptionally large--and friendly looking! :)
Just today I noticed that the tips of my sunflowers are just starting to peak out over the wall that seperates our backyard from the slopes behind it. (I selected this area behind the wall in hopes that the stalks and leaves could provide a respite for the lawn during the hottest part of the summer, and because I thought the sunflowers' happy heads would provide a cheerful backdrop for our yard. It is not hard to imagine the smiles that their faces will elicit from mine as I survey my yard from the kitchen window.) Consequently, I thought it apropos to begin my little photo journal tracing the growth of these Russian Mammoths.
For comparison, also included is a photo with your correspondant (whom at 5'7", estimates the flowers' current height at just above five feet):
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Hydrangea
Many are the responsibilities the home gardener tacitly assumes when first he sets his seeds into the soil. Depending on the size and composition of his little farm, a large selection of tools and machines may be required to complete these tasks.
My gardens (one in Whittier and one in Cerritos, center of the universe) combined have a relatively large area, and host myriad varieties of plants. Accordingly, diverse tools are required for tending to the particular needs of each crop, and I have made several trips to gardening supply stores around the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area to acquire the needed apparatuses. One popular stop for both plants and tools is the Armstrong Garden Center in Torrance (just a couple blocks from the SAT institute at which I work), on Crenshaw Boulevard.
The center is composed primarily of two sections: indoor, which houses seeds, house plants, gloves, hats, rakes, hoes, and other gardening apparatuses; and outdoor, where the flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and herbs are grown. On a typical day, a walk from the indoor area to the outdoor is redolent of Dorothy's passage from two-toned Kansas into the full-scale technocolor of Munchkin Land. As one moves outside, the drab, stale interior gives way to the sensuous, controlled explosions of color provided by the annuals and perennials. A few wind chimes singing their Aeolian reverie in the breeze help add to the surreal mystique as one passes into this local Oz.
My gardens (one in Whittier and one in Cerritos, center of the universe) combined have a relatively large area, and host myriad varieties of plants. Accordingly, diverse tools are required for tending to the particular needs of each crop, and I have made several trips to gardening supply stores around the greater Los Angeles Metropolitan area to acquire the needed apparatuses. One popular stop for both plants and tools is the Armstrong Garden Center in Torrance (just a couple blocks from the SAT institute at which I work), on Crenshaw Boulevard.
The center is composed primarily of two sections: indoor, which houses seeds, house plants, gloves, hats, rakes, hoes, and other gardening apparatuses; and outdoor, where the flowers, vegetables, trees, shrubs, and herbs are grown. On a typical day, a walk from the indoor area to the outdoor is redolent of Dorothy's passage from two-toned Kansas into the full-scale technocolor of Munchkin Land. As one moves outside, the drab, stale interior gives way to the sensuous, controlled explosions of color provided by the annuals and perennials. A few wind chimes singing their Aeolian reverie in the breeze help add to the surreal mystique as one passes into this local Oz.
(Photograph courtsey of JT Hayashi.)
To my surprise, I was met by a barrage of color today inside Armstrong Garden Center. It's the season for hydrangea, and there was a large selection of exquisite specimens for sale. The blue hydrangea, with their intensely colored cerulean flowers--a shade that only this flower can acheive--were especially comely. The color of some petals, transitioning from a creamy white into a middling periwinkle, was not quite ripe; nonetheless, the majority of the plants were in full bloom and providing a fetching display of springtime loveliness.
As our own hydrangea bush at home (of the pink variety, with vivid magenta and fuchsia blossoms) is barely waking from its winter hybernation, my suspicion is that these lovely plants were grown in a green house, or else otherwise unnaturally induced to bloom so early. In any event, I was grateful to the faithful gardner who roused these plants from their slumber and educed their sapphirine hues.
In tribute to the hydrangea, I located the following poem online. The original is in German, but there are several nice translations to be found as well.
Blue Hydrangea, by Rainer Maria Rilke
translation by Bernhard Frank [original in Deutsch]
Like in old cans of paint the last green hue,
these leaves are sere and rough and dull-complected
behind the blossom clusters in which blue
is not so much displayed as it's reflected;
They do reflect it imprecise and teary,
as though they'd rather have it go away,
and just like faded, once-blue stationery,
they're tinged with yellow, violet and gray;
As in an often laundered children's smock,
cast off, its usefulness now all but over,
one senses running down a small life's clock.
Yet suddenly the blue revives, it seems,
and in among these clusters one discovers
a tender blue rejoicing in the green.
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Gardening by Moonlight
This summer looks to be quite relaxed before I return to the brutal world of academia; I will not be working too muc--a nice change from the 50+ hrs I worked the last two weeks.
More free time means lots of GARDENING!!!! Carrots, tomatoes (cherry, yellow pear, Early Girl, Better Boy, Best Boy, Brandywine), eggplant (a white one called "Crescent Moon", and a soft-ball sized one called "Blue Marble"), zuccini (normal and the "roly poly"), pole green beans (Kentucky Blue and Fortex), bush green beans (two varieties), basil, pineapple sage, sunflowers, and sweet peas...
But I hate the sun. It is not the sun as an astrological body to which I object per se, but I am averse to being in the sun. I am averse to the increase of pigment in my skin. I am averse to melanoma. I am averse to heat. Hence, it looks like gardening by moonlight for me.
And gardening by moonlight, though more difficult occularly, is nice: looking at the garden while it sleeps is like watching one's somnulment child. All the day's hard work of training, serving, cleaning, the child are over, and one can watch him, peaceful slumber. Though the hours of toil may have been many, they seem more than compensated by even three silent minutes of peace and reflection. There is something intensely--yet quietly--satisfying about picking the first crop of green beans, then pausing a moment to watch the plants at rest, knowing that they are living, breathing, and bearing fruit to fulfill their destiny.
More free time means lots of GARDENING!!!! Carrots, tomatoes (cherry, yellow pear, Early Girl, Better Boy, Best Boy, Brandywine), eggplant (a white one called "Crescent Moon", and a soft-ball sized one called "Blue Marble"), zuccini (normal and the "roly poly"), pole green beans (Kentucky Blue and Fortex), bush green beans (two varieties), basil, pineapple sage, sunflowers, and sweet peas...
But I hate the sun. It is not the sun as an astrological body to which I object per se, but I am averse to being in the sun. I am averse to the increase of pigment in my skin. I am averse to melanoma. I am averse to heat. Hence, it looks like gardening by moonlight for me.
And gardening by moonlight, though more difficult occularly, is nice: looking at the garden while it sleeps is like watching one's somnulment child. All the day's hard work of training, serving, cleaning, the child are over, and one can watch him, peaceful slumber. Though the hours of toil may have been many, they seem more than compensated by even three silent minutes of peace and reflection. There is something intensely--yet quietly--satisfying about picking the first crop of green beans, then pausing a moment to watch the plants at rest, knowing that they are living, breathing, and bearing fruit to fulfill their destiny.
PWT
Years ago, my friend Philip made reference to "PWT," an aconym with which I was not acquainted, and as to whose meaning I could only, at best, offer haphazard speculation. "Pale, Widowed Tanzanians"? "Poultry, wings & thighs"? "Putrid, wino Texans"? Yet none of these, save perhaps the last one, really seemed consistent with our conversation at the time.
Later Philip explained that because there were white people around, he couldn't have elucidated the term, which stands for "poor white trash."
My student Benson recently mentioned crystal meth, and Jennifer, with a look of sheer derision, interrupted, "ew, how poor, white trailer park trash can you get?" I am apprised (despite my general naivete regarding all activities illicit) of the fact that particular forms of drugs are perferred by different races (i.e. users of crack cocaine are predominantly black, while powered cocaine is favored by whites), yet Jennifer's strong, visceral response to "ice" surprised me. "When did we assign racial and socioeconomic classifications to narcotics? Is there a memo in circulation that I missed? Did all of this stem from the 'heroin chic' movement?" I wondered to myself. Eventually, I decided that models, rock stars, actors, and rich white trash (think people like Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan, or their mid-1990s equivalents) made heroin "chic," and somehow the use of methamphetamine was relegated to the unsavory inhabitants of mobile homes.
Then today at Century 21, Michelle, who is the sweetest receptionist ever, who never says a bad word about anyone, made a similar off color remark. In preparation for the upcoming 30th anniversary party, the office closed down the strip mall parking lot to set up a stage and the dinner tables. The other businesses who share the lot didn't mind, except for the bar for doors down; in protest, the bar manager said that we were impeding his clientele from frequenting the bar--before 11!
"Seriously," I asked Michelle, "Who is drinking at 10:45am?"
"White trash."
When did it become okay in our PC world to insult poor, non-hispanic whites? Did I miss that memo too? (Did all this take place the year I spent abroad in Beijing? How come no one filled me in?) Is it "cool" now to insult the destitute of European descent? Or does it just remind all the minorities in this country that despite their power, their dominance in politics, film, and TV, & their majority status, whites still occupy some of the saddest, LOWEST, most degraded stations in our society: the trailer parks.
Later Philip explained that because there were white people around, he couldn't have elucidated the term, which stands for "poor white trash."
My student Benson recently mentioned crystal meth, and Jennifer, with a look of sheer derision, interrupted, "ew, how poor, white trailer park trash can you get?" I am apprised (despite my general naivete regarding all activities illicit) of the fact that particular forms of drugs are perferred by different races (i.e. users of crack cocaine are predominantly black, while powered cocaine is favored by whites), yet Jennifer's strong, visceral response to "ice" surprised me. "When did we assign racial and socioeconomic classifications to narcotics? Is there a memo in circulation that I missed? Did all of this stem from the 'heroin chic' movement?" I wondered to myself. Eventually, I decided that models, rock stars, actors, and rich white trash (think people like Paris Hilton, or Lindsay Lohan, or their mid-1990s equivalents) made heroin "chic," and somehow the use of methamphetamine was relegated to the unsavory inhabitants of mobile homes.
Then today at Century 21, Michelle, who is the sweetest receptionist ever, who never says a bad word about anyone, made a similar off color remark. In preparation for the upcoming 30th anniversary party, the office closed down the strip mall parking lot to set up a stage and the dinner tables. The other businesses who share the lot didn't mind, except for the bar for doors down; in protest, the bar manager said that we were impeding his clientele from frequenting the bar--before 11!
"Seriously," I asked Michelle, "Who is drinking at 10:45am?"
"White trash."
When did it become okay in our PC world to insult poor, non-hispanic whites? Did I miss that memo too? (Did all this take place the year I spent abroad in Beijing? How come no one filled me in?) Is it "cool" now to insult the destitute of European descent? Or does it just remind all the minorities in this country that despite their power, their dominance in politics, film, and TV, & their majority status, whites still occupy some of the saddest, LOWEST, most degraded stations in our society: the trailer parks.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
The Broken Road
What is it about springtime that influences people to make such bad decisions about getting married? Is it an allergic reaction to the pollen? Is it some sort of biological response to the increasing daylight hours? Just an inexplicable seasonal instinct programmed into our genetic code? I think the recent inundation of engagements & wedding invitations has put me uncommonly on edge about my own singleness.
Driving home from work recently, I heard the Rascal Flats song "Broken Road," a country ballad in which the speaker concludes (in hindsight) that all of his previously unsuccessful relationships were building blocks leading him to the "right" woman; the song is addressed to his current ladylove. The general idea of the song is encapulated in a few of the lyrics from the chorus:
"Every long lost dream lead me to where you are;
Others who broke my heart,
They were like northern stars.
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms;
This much I know is true:
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you."
While driving, I began to reflect upon these words. As a fan of Rascal Flatts, I had always appreciated what were clearly written as inspirational words for those of us still in search of Ms. (or Mr.) Right. Their admonishment is simple: "even if your boy/girl friend just left you, it's good, because that has freed to you find the person whom you are truly meant to love." As I contemplated the lyrics more fully, I wondered,
Where are my 'northern stars'?!? How can I be pointed into the 'loving arms' of my future wife??? I don't even HAVE a 'broken road'...there's no trail of failed relationships guiding me on the path to martial bliss! No freeway, no road, no boulevard or avenue, not even a path or trail: I'm just stranded in the middle of a loveless, roadless, uncharted prairie.
I can't say for certain, but I do have a hazy recollection of--more than simply wondering aloud--shouting, perhaps even screaming, these words to some figmental passenger. But to my dismay, as is so often the case, my imagined companion replied with only silence, and my efforts to extract counsel or solicitude from thin air were met with regrettable disappointment.
Driving home from work recently, I heard the Rascal Flats song "Broken Road," a country ballad in which the speaker concludes (in hindsight) that all of his previously unsuccessful relationships were building blocks leading him to the "right" woman; the song is addressed to his current ladylove. The general idea of the song is encapulated in a few of the lyrics from the chorus:
"Every long lost dream lead me to where you are;
Others who broke my heart,
They were like northern stars.
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms;
This much I know is true:
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you."
While driving, I began to reflect upon these words. As a fan of Rascal Flatts, I had always appreciated what were clearly written as inspirational words for those of us still in search of Ms. (or Mr.) Right. Their admonishment is simple: "even if your boy/girl friend just left you, it's good, because that has freed to you find the person whom you are truly meant to love." As I contemplated the lyrics more fully, I wondered,
Where are my 'northern stars'?!? How can I be pointed into the 'loving arms' of my future wife??? I don't even HAVE a 'broken road'...there's no trail of failed relationships guiding me on the path to martial bliss! No freeway, no road, no boulevard or avenue, not even a path or trail: I'm just stranded in the middle of a loveless, roadless, uncharted prairie.
I can't say for certain, but I do have a hazy recollection of--more than simply wondering aloud--shouting, perhaps even screaming, these words to some figmental passenger. But to my dismay, as is so often the case, my imagined companion replied with only silence, and my efforts to extract counsel or solicitude from thin air were met with regrettable disappointment.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Eavesdropping
"There's nothing like eavesdropping to show you that the world outside your head is different from the world inside your head."
--Thornton Wilder
With the understanding that, at least as far as my head is concerned, Mr. Wilder's statement will prove nearly categorically true, I know that I undertake eavesdropping at my own peril. It is one of a cornucopia of activities in which I can participate that reminds me that my teeming brain is incontroveribly different from those of the other members of my species, with whom I experience and respond to life.
While it may be (rightly) pointed out that all individuals and their thoughts are distinct from those of the 6 billion other persons inhabiting the earth [hence the very use of the term "individual" to refer to a person], I sometimes feel that my thoughts are different not only by degree, but in substance. Sometimes I may be oblivious to something which seems quite obvious to others; more often, I feel singularly slighted or receive excessive joy from, what in the eyes of witnesses, may appear to be a very unremarkable occurance--but again, these are differences only of degree. The real quirks of my mind have produced the best blogs, for example, my response to an unappeasable dog, my response to an intractable student, or my response to an outlandish Christmas relative.
Nevertheless, on rare occasion I will eavesdrop and encounter a mind that is different from my own, but makes me feel as though that other mind is the one which is "other", and I belong to the "in" group, the majority of normal people. Yesterday was one of those occasions.
On Fridays I can take Harbor Boulevard all the way from Hacienda Heights (work) to Anaheim (fellowship). the route is tenable because: a) I need drive down only one major street; b) traffic on the freeways at that time is horrible; and c) the Pruis gets great milage on surface streets. I often stop at the Baja Fresh on Harbor and Orangethorpe for dinner (usually a chipotle-glazed, charbroiled chicken salad). In the parking lot yesterday, I heard what appeared to be a mother with her two grammar school-aged children walking back to their cars as I was exiting mine.
"I have the grossest thing to tell you--make that two gross things!" As they moved out of earshot, I imagined her moving into her next sentence: "Listen carefully as I unravel my tales of mystery, intrigue, and aberancy!"
Ok, I thought to myself, she could be one of these new hip, 'cool moms.' She can relate. She can identify with America's youth culture. She can tell her kids about weird, gross things. In turn, they can trust her. They can come to her and expect her to understand their issues with drugs, peer pressure, and premarital sex. This is good, I told myself. More openness, more bonding, more love.
Then, as I turned the thought over in my mind, I wondered, would I want my mom to tell me gross things? What if it's not "gross" as in "I saw a dead opossum in the road--gross!" but "gross" as in "I want to describe explicitly the details surrounding your respective conceptions--gross!" There were, in fact, two children, and she said that she had wanted to describe two gross events. I'm not saying that conception or sex in general is gross, but one certainly need not be exposed to the particulars of his own genesis. [Reader, if you doubt me on this point, take a moment to visualize your own parents in their marital bed...And now we agree.] Those are, from the children's perspectives, certainly gross things, the details of which the mother might spare her children, for fear of the psychic trauma she might otherwise initiate.
Of course, from here it was not a gross leap to imagining all number of perverse, inappropriate stories that mother might be unleashing upon her hapless offspring. "Child services! Call child services! Find those kids a foster home, pronto!" my superego screamed.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
This round of pharisaical judging was not unlike that spawned by a conversation I overheard one day while dining with Alvin at Mimi's. In my defense, the woman in the next booth over was unnaturally loud--especially given the nature of her conversation. I was thus not so much an active eavesdropper as an unwilling victim forced to hear her recount her bawdy tableau. Her lunch companion, far more discrete, allowing us to hear only half the conversation--which was more than enough for me.
"...And he wanted me to come up to his hotel room. So I did, and we were on the bed, and he wanted to [sleep with] me. Well, our clothes were already off, but I'm a married woman, so I couldn't do that with him. But you know, I have a good heart...Really! I mean it, I have a good heart, so I wanted to let him down easy, not to make him feel unattractive or unwanted. 'Listen,' I said to him, 'listen, it's not that I'm not attracted to you, but we just can't do this. It's just not right.' Sure he was disappointed, but in my heart--in my good heart--I know I made the right decision. So I put my clothes back on, and me and my good heart left."
There I was in a state of utter ambivalence: half of me felt sort of debased just by exposure to her story, but half of me was intrigued. Who was this woman? Why, when she had pretty clearly engaged in an extramarital affair, did she keep insisting that her heart was good? What was her lunch partner thinking about all of this?
Imagine my astonishment when they exited their booth, and I found the woman looked well into her sixties! Either she actually was that old, and defied my stereotype of who a typical adultress is, or she was much younger and had simply aged very poorly [unprotected sun exposure over long periods of time will do that to you], thus defying my stereotype of what men find phyically attractive in a woman. Forced by the incongruity of the whole situation to choose, I resolved upon the latter, and decided that it was her "good heart," and not her looks, that had proven so alluring to the sexually frustrated man.
--Thornton Wilder
With the understanding that, at least as far as my head is concerned, Mr. Wilder's statement will prove nearly categorically true, I know that I undertake eavesdropping at my own peril. It is one of a cornucopia of activities in which I can participate that reminds me that my teeming brain is incontroveribly different from those of the other members of my species, with whom I experience and respond to life.
While it may be (rightly) pointed out that all individuals and their thoughts are distinct from those of the 6 billion other persons inhabiting the earth [hence the very use of the term "individual" to refer to a person], I sometimes feel that my thoughts are different not only by degree, but in substance. Sometimes I may be oblivious to something which seems quite obvious to others; more often, I feel singularly slighted or receive excessive joy from, what in the eyes of witnesses, may appear to be a very unremarkable occurance--but again, these are differences only of degree. The real quirks of my mind have produced the best blogs, for example, my response to an unappeasable dog, my response to an intractable student, or my response to an outlandish Christmas relative.
Nevertheless, on rare occasion I will eavesdrop and encounter a mind that is different from my own, but makes me feel as though that other mind is the one which is "other", and I belong to the "in" group, the majority of normal people. Yesterday was one of those occasions.
On Fridays I can take Harbor Boulevard all the way from Hacienda Heights (work) to Anaheim (fellowship). the route is tenable because: a) I need drive down only one major street; b) traffic on the freeways at that time is horrible; and c) the Pruis gets great milage on surface streets. I often stop at the Baja Fresh on Harbor and Orangethorpe for dinner (usually a chipotle-glazed, charbroiled chicken salad). In the parking lot yesterday, I heard what appeared to be a mother with her two grammar school-aged children walking back to their cars as I was exiting mine.
"I have the grossest thing to tell you--make that two gross things!" As they moved out of earshot, I imagined her moving into her next sentence: "Listen carefully as I unravel my tales of mystery, intrigue, and aberancy!"
Ok, I thought to myself, she could be one of these new hip, 'cool moms.' She can relate. She can identify with America's youth culture. She can tell her kids about weird, gross things. In turn, they can trust her. They can come to her and expect her to understand their issues with drugs, peer pressure, and premarital sex. This is good, I told myself. More openness, more bonding, more love.
Then, as I turned the thought over in my mind, I wondered, would I want my mom to tell me gross things? What if it's not "gross" as in "I saw a dead opossum in the road--gross!" but "gross" as in "I want to describe explicitly the details surrounding your respective conceptions--gross!" There were, in fact, two children, and she said that she had wanted to describe two gross events. I'm not saying that conception or sex in general is gross, but one certainly need not be exposed to the particulars of his own genesis. [Reader, if you doubt me on this point, take a moment to visualize your own parents in their marital bed...And now we agree.] Those are, from the children's perspectives, certainly gross things, the details of which the mother might spare her children, for fear of the psychic trauma she might otherwise initiate.
Of course, from here it was not a gross leap to imagining all number of perverse, inappropriate stories that mother might be unleashing upon her hapless offspring. "Child services! Call child services! Find those kids a foster home, pronto!" my superego screamed.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
This round of pharisaical judging was not unlike that spawned by a conversation I overheard one day while dining with Alvin at Mimi's. In my defense, the woman in the next booth over was unnaturally loud--especially given the nature of her conversation. I was thus not so much an active eavesdropper as an unwilling victim forced to hear her recount her bawdy tableau. Her lunch companion, far more discrete, allowing us to hear only half the conversation--which was more than enough for me.
"...And he wanted me to come up to his hotel room. So I did, and we were on the bed, and he wanted to [sleep with] me. Well, our clothes were already off, but I'm a married woman, so I couldn't do that with him. But you know, I have a good heart...Really! I mean it, I have a good heart, so I wanted to let him down easy, not to make him feel unattractive or unwanted. 'Listen,' I said to him, 'listen, it's not that I'm not attracted to you, but we just can't do this. It's just not right.' Sure he was disappointed, but in my heart--in my good heart--I know I made the right decision. So I put my clothes back on, and me and my good heart left."
There I was in a state of utter ambivalence: half of me felt sort of debased just by exposure to her story, but half of me was intrigued. Who was this woman? Why, when she had pretty clearly engaged in an extramarital affair, did she keep insisting that her heart was good? What was her lunch partner thinking about all of this?
Imagine my astonishment when they exited their booth, and I found the woman looked well into her sixties! Either she actually was that old, and defied my stereotype of who a typical adultress is, or she was much younger and had simply aged very poorly [unprotected sun exposure over long periods of time will do that to you], thus defying my stereotype of what men find phyically attractive in a woman. Forced by the incongruity of the whole situation to choose, I resolved upon the latter, and decided that it was her "good heart," and not her looks, that had proven so alluring to the sexually frustrated man.
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