Music to Edit By

It's hump day! The second "hump day" I have ever experienced. A real live editor now, I work a 40 hour week where Wednesday is the middle day, I am off weekends, and I only go to only one job the WHOLE time. What do I need to not only get over the hump but fly off of it, like a gold medal skier off a snowy jump?

Music! It seems everyone in my office feels the same, as we tap away at our computers, ear buds firmly in place. And since we work all day tweaking the English language, the music must energize us without making us start typing the lyrics of the song into our emails.

I am sending you these documents for you to do a light proofread. Please check that the Phantom of the Opera is in my mind and get the documents back no later than Oct. 8th.

Best,
Gwen

In what I hope will become a regular hump day feature, I plan to highlight the excellent non-English language and instrumental music that keeps me tapping my toes (to the annoyance of my cube mates). This week:

Artist: Sprengjuhöllin

Album: Bestu Kveðjur

Country: Icelancd

Mood: Poppy but sprawling. The songs are catchy but unafraid to throw you off with strange baby noises and mad orchestral moans. It lets you work in piece, only to pull you back for a moment to think, what is playing in my ear? Also, you can't beat the German Romantic painting on the cover. It makes me want to accomplish great things! Like organizing an index...

4 out of 5 for making hump day, and the rest of the week, more fun and more productive.

Human Nature #1

It is easy to complain about being a waiter because everyone assumes that you have to put up with people being assholes. And yes, people can be difficult to deal with, especially when they feel entitled to your service, rather than a working part of that service. If the customer doesn’t want to be happy, nothing I can do will change that. If the customer doesn’t want to stop talking while I explain the additions to the menu, they are going to order the entrée we aren’t serving. They’ll be upset, I’ll feel guilty, and everyone will lose.

Of course, when you talk to people about waiting tables, no one ever takes credit for being the asshole with whom they assume you have to deal. Why?

One: the top quality of a narcissist isn’t his or her self-awareness.

Two: people think that when they are pissed off, it’s because they’re right, not because they’re that person. Sometimes, this is true. Sometimes, not so much.

I rarely wait on someone who is overtly cruel or pointedly rude. Generally, people are either good people or they at least want you to like them. If they don’t care about that, they don’t want their fellow diners to think less of them because they can’t be civil to an adorable, twenty-three year old server (who, me?). Still, people make your life harder (and more interesting) all the time simply because they aren’t paying attention.

Today’s case in point: ignoring the hostess.

Restaurants have hostesses for a reason. It isn’t because we think you don’t know what an empty table looks like; it’s because we have a plan. The 5:30 reservation for two needs to go on a specific table so that that table will be free for a party of four at 8. A group of six should sit down all at once, especially if it’s busy, because often a party of six will become a party of five or four as plans change, people get stuck in traffic, ect. Then we’ll need to reset or change your table. I don’t envy hostesses, who have to juggle the needs of guests and the needs of waiters, who expect an equal percentage of guests will get sat in their section.

Despite the importance of hostesses, people love to blow right past them in search of their seat.

“I’m sure my husband is here already…”

“I have a 6 o’clock…”

No half-sentence at all, as they blow by with a determined, seeking expression…

And before you have time to ask for the name, party size, or time of day, someone is half way to the kitchen and suddenly lost and confused because, of course, he doesn’t know where he is going.

I see this every day and I always wonder why. Do people just barge past the front desk of an attorney’s office or doctor’s office? I don’t, certainly, and I can’t say I remember seeing anyone else try either. In restaurants, though, people assume they know what’s going on—after all, it’s dinner, how complicated could it be? It should feel effortless, like great writing, great painting, an expert nurse giving you a painless shot. We want that too. So introduce yourself, sit where we seat you, listen up, and I will devote both ears and one good brain to giving you a delicious dinner.

Metro-Bound Blues

After a bold two month stint of ownership, I have sold my car. A brief romance, during which I drove to IHOP (once), Trader Joe’s on a number of occasions, and to Adams Morgan for sushi on the roof of Perri’s (once). Primarily, I drove it to the DMV and to auto shops, where I got it safety inspected and then got quoted large sums of money. I learned that cars have struts for balance and that my car hiccupped at intersections because my catalytic converter was clogged. I learned that I don’t have enough money to replace either of those parts. So today I sold my car to a nice man who said he’d keep an eye out for my novel some day and handed me 300 dollars in cash. It doesn’t quite cover what I put into it, but I am willing to sacrifice the rest for having learned a few facts.

Fact one. Don’t buy a car in Maryland unless you are seriously committed to a long term relationship. Thinking of having a fling with transportation that isn’t your legs, a bus, or the metro? Buy a bicycle or, better yet, go get sauced at a downtown bar and then think about how you can simply pour yourself onto the metro, no designated driver required! When I bought my lovely 1995 Honda Civic EX (briefly named Balvanera after my home barrio in Buenos Aires) I thought, two-hundred and fifty dollars! Score! After 100 dollars at the DMV for registering, 80 dollars for the inspection, and an estimated 1,600 dollars in repairs I thought, no, take it back! Abort mission! Abort mission!

Fact two. Maryland makes money from me. From taxes and from the DMV and from the wine, beer, and hard liquor they control and make damn difficult to obtain.* I am sure the money goes somewhere, but it isn’t to transportation. There are literally juts of asphalt in the roads that come out of nowhere, imperiling your car (especially when your car is an ancient Honda Civic) and tempting you to engage in erratic driving to avoid the inevitable klunk. Maryland also clearly doesn't spend its revenue on the metro system. The Red Line crash happened, in my opinion, because no legislature in the tri-state area gives a fuck about the metro until it fails and then everyone wants to point a finger. No money = not safe. Maryland obviously thinks my car needs inspections and cash outlays for safety. Maybe they should run with that lesson and FUND THE METRO.

So here I am, metro-bound once again and singing the metro bound blues. After all, singing the blues always makes me feel better. As I embrace the many, many free things on offer here Washington DC's metro area, I plan to write about them.

My favorite free activity of the day? The always free sport of mocking the state of Maryland, the wealthy, people who really like Red Lobster, and the car-owning. Another favorite free activity, which I enjoyed as I left my car behind and headed home?

Taking a long walk without leaving a footprint.

*An alcoholic will have five handles of vodka stashed at home at all times. I, however, don’t keep liquor on hand and I don’t plan my boozing hours and hours in advance (see: Not An Alcoholic). Thus, I am constantly finding out that the liquor store is closed because it’s: after ten, a Sunday, a mysterious federal holiday, a county of Maryland that doesn’t sell beer and wine in grocery stores but only in divey county-owned buildings that are so soulless they make me WANT to be an alcoholic.

Shouts and Mise en Place

Ode to Table 49

Jerking home on the subway,
peering at dead stars and office buildings
empty lighted windows, I appreciate
the man and his wife at table 49
who ordered an expensive bottle
of Grand Cru Champagne from 1999.
A good year, I was fourteen and playing
softball in freshly mown grass that,
even then, smelled to me like childhood.
“No special occasion,” he said
when I asked what the bottle was for;
she said “Because it’s summer.”

Americans Do Their Business Abroad: Peace Corps Volunteers Tell It Like It Is

During years editing my college literary magazine, I read hundreds of poems and short stories about studying abroad, almost all of which ended with the author “finding himself” through understanding a new culture. Mostly, the content of those revelations seemed a bit obvious. The withered hands of the old woman selling mangos; a host mother who cooks and cleans for men who never lend a hand; a tired walk home from the bar with new friends and a feeling of inclusion. Suddenly, you see that giving a few dollars won’t help; you find that you are with the women in the kitchen; you realize that you are privileged (gasp!) but that your common humanity trumps everything. Then you go home.

I don’t mean to belittle the experiences people have while living abroad; I studied abroad twice, lived in Argentina for over a year, and believe in the importance of travel for opening our minds and making us more tolerant. I do mean to belittle the clichés of self-discovery and cultural epiphany that destroy many well intentioned travel stories. Americans Do Their Business Abroad: The Peace Corps Latrine Reader, a collection of stories by former members of the Peace Corps, sets itself apart from this type of writing immediately. On the back cover, the editors admit that Peace Corps memoirs usually “[bring] expectations for a certain type of book (heartwarming, uplifting, nice). Many books give you that experience. And we like those books[…] The world needs those books. This is not that book.” Instead, this book delivers insight into the lives of Peace Corps volunteers by chronicling their underfunded, slapdash, and well-intentioned if not well-executed attempts to make a difference in poor communities around the world.

A piece in the book that stands out for style as well as substance is John W. Evans prose poem, “Rock is Coking.” He describes watching the Rock give the smack down week after week with his host family. The strange, staged, benign violence of the World Wrestling Federation is juxtaposed with the real violence of poverty and ignorance of the viewers lives. Except for the author, no one watching knows the matches are fixed; you wonder how they view the own, seemingly fixed match of the poor fighting their own poverty.

The Corps members relate experiences of failure and even ambivalence. They remember other Peace Corps volunteers suffering from loneliness and alienation, some making it by truly integrating into their host communities, others surviving by drinking and cynicism. They tap into a truth that I will never forget about living abroad; the time between the adventures is lonely, slow, and hard. Still, the journey is (usually) worth it, and these story tellers have captured some truly humorous and touching moments.

I have two friends currently in the Peace Corps and as I read the stories in the book, I wished them good experiences, good health, and above par toilet facilities. I know they will both be fine—they both have exceptional senses of humor, which is what these stories showcase above all else. Humor as the ultimate weapon against tedium, loneliness, diarrhea, and a bee flying up your asshole to give you the sting of your life.

Thanks to the editors of this book for sending it to me for free to review. Want me to review your book, story, or poem? Make my week and send it to me!

The Smithsonian National Zoo and Survival of the Merriest

The National Zoo in Washington DC is an impressive zoo, and I say this as a spoiled native San Diegan who yawns at the news that another zoo is getting a panda. Pandas? We’ve had pandas for years. Talk to me when you have baby pandas. The National Zoo, though, more than meets my high standards. Large, open air enclosures, an abundance of flora both in and outside the enclosures, a wide variety of animals (including pandas), meandering paths; it even one-ups the San Diego Zoo by being a part of the Smithsonian, and thus free.

Yesterday was my first visit to the National Zoo. The sun was shining, the tourists were minimal, and the animals were out and about. I saw a panda shambling towards me, a red wolf appear out the long grass, and a baby anteater, asleep atop his frenetically sniffing mother. At the Spectacled Bear enclosure, I enjoyed watching the animal in silence until a group of girls came up behind me. “There’s only one?” a girl complained, and then they began to hoot and coo and make look here noises at the animal until it retreated into the bushes. I felt embarrassed on behalf of my species and wandered away.

At three, I stumbled upon the Giant Pacific Octopus feeding in the Invertebrates House. A fish, skewered on the end of a wire, was lowered into his tank and darted in front of him. He flashed from light pink to red and then slowly released from the glass wall to entangle his prey. While he fed, I noticed that the octopus had a blue tube tucked up in his tentacles; he never let it go, even while chewing. The ranger told us that the Giant Pacific Octopus has more nerve endings in his arms than he does in his brain, so, while he’s the smartest invertebrate, that isn’t saying much. Nonetheless, he needs stimulus to keep his will to survive so the zoo created a program to stimulate the octopus by places different objects in the tank. Every animal at the zoo has some kind of stimulus program.

Thinking about it, it seemed strange that animals need more to survival than just surviving. Why is it true that animals, humans included, aren’t content with simply sleeping and eating? We are programmed to do anything to survive, yet survival isn’t enough. We need challenges and, when we aren’t challenged to get our basic needs, we need blue play tubes or iPhones or books or skateboards; the list is endless, making us free to endlessly invent. This truth, that there is more to surviving than continuing to breath, seems to be forgotten too often by people who don’t see the point in funding the arts or majoring in, say, English. Doctors keep us alive now for nearly a century. That’s a lot of time to fill.

Yesterday, I survived by going to the National Zoo. What did you do?

Alcoholic and Overwhat?

I love getting the New Yorker; it never ceases to surprise, interest, and irritate me, particularly the poetry section. I am frequently forced to wonder, after reading a dead Slovenian poet’s unfinished work or a Russian revolutionary’s translated refutation of Bolshevism, are there no living English-language poets whose work I might understand? No poets whose (not posthumous) reputations could use a boost? Reading John Updike’s poetry several weeks ago, I discovered his prose and poetry were the same (one had line breaks) and was forced to do a little editing with my favorite red pen.

My window tells me the euonymus (an evergreen shrub, I learned)
arrives now at the last and deepest shade

of red, before its leaves go. One of

My grandsons leaves a phone message for me;

his voice has deepened. A cold that wouldn’t let go,

is now a cloud upon my chest X-ray:

pneumonia. My house is now a cage

I prowl, window to window, as I wait

for time to take away the cloud within.

Just a thought.

Last week, though, it wasn’t the poems that bothered me the most; it was the word choice in one specific article. The magazine arrived just as I was dashing to work, so it was on the subway that I read and circled a phrase that startled me, the kind of phrase I might usually skim over without really thinking. In an article entitled “Cash for Keys,” journalist Tad Friend writes about Leo Nordine, a man who works in real estate in LA, turning foreclosed houses for banks, chasing tenets, and making millions of dollars. Describing Nordine’s impoverished roots, Friend says that Nordine’s mother was, “alcoholic and overweight, shuffle[ing] the family among stucco dumps in the South Bay.”

Alcoholic and overweight? Like alcoholic and blond or alcoholic and black? Alcoholic and totally unrelated physical characteristic? Both of these descriptors seem meant to explain why Nordine and his mother were moving from house to house, poor and unstable. But do they? Perhaps we can assume that she was an alcoholic whose disease was destroying her (not, say, an alcoholic who, sober after 15 years of AA, is tired of hearing alcoholic used as synonymous with abuser), but I am not sure what Friend meant us to assume about her being “overweight.” Sadly, I can take a guess. Lazy, selfish, dirty, careless; they are all stigma attached to being overweight.

In stark contrast to his mother, Nordine reportedly gets up at 4:30am to catch the perfect surf, eats “five raw eggs and raw salmon jerky,” and then goes to his martial arts class. He lives in a 4 million dollar home (no more “shacks” for him) and works 20 hour days. No alcohol or food addict here, just a dyed in the wool southern Californian, addicted to exercise and work.

Did Nordine’s mother’s addiction to alcohol and food keep her from holding down a job or paying her rent on time? Does Nordine’s addiction to work and fitness make him an absent, obsessive husband and father? I have no idea nor could I say which addictions are better; any addiction has the potential to be harmful. I just can’t read more jab at overweight people, essentially equating being fat with being an unfit mother, without pausing to object.