Watching television the other night, I was puzzled. I was watching people behave in ways that make no sense to me.
That shouldn't be surprising, really. I shouldn't expect everyone to be like me, and I like to think that I don't. I'm baffled, though, more often than I like to admit.
I was watching one of those real estate shows - people go shopping for a home in a certain city, and we, the audience, get to watch. We watched a couple with small children, relocating overseas, and a teacher buying her first home.
The relocating wife said, over and over, that it was important to her to "experience (the country's) lifestyle;" it seems to me that it's impossible to avoid it. You'll be living in another country. It's inevitable that you'll experience their lifestyle, even if you try to avoid it. Still, they'd look at properties, and she'd complain, "I can't experience (the country's) lifestyle here."
She'd look at bedrooms and say, "This is tiny! It's smaller than our closet back home," and be astonished that, "There's only one bathroom?"
"That's very typical of (our) houses," the agent would say. Apparently, that was not the "authentic lifestyle" that the client was hoping to experience.
One home, that I thought was darling, was below their budget. It was on a riverbank in a beautiful area that was described as being 15 minutes outside of town. It had a big yard (important to me, and fun for the kids), was across from a park, and near walking trails. The wife hated the downstairs decorating, which seems to me to be a small thing - it's relatively easy to paint and hang new art. She was very unhappy, though, that there were no stores or restaurants in easy walking distance. "I don't want to get in the car every time I want to go somewhere," she said. That, too, apparently kept her from "experiencing the lifestyle."
One home was quite a bit outside of their budget. Both husband and wife said, "Ooh," and grimaced when the agent told them the price. "That'll be quite a stretch," the husband said doubtfully. Still, the wife lit up as soon as they walked in.
"Look at the chandelier! It's gorgeous!" she said. I was thinking, "For that kind of money, the chandelier had better come to life and clean the house," but they didn't seem to be thinking the same thing. "It's so elegant!" the wife said. "And historic!"
As much as she loved the house, she loved what was outside the house even more. It was easy walking distance to the market and restaurants. The wife glowed. "Now this is the lifestyle that we came to experience!" she said.
They chose the expensive house. "We'll just travel less than we originally planned," the husband said. They were moving to a European nation, and had originally planned to use the time there to see more of Europe.
"Well, the kids are little. Maybe this just isn't the time of our lives to travel," the wife said.
I was left thinking, seriously? She'd rather have a really expensive house so that she can walk to the flower vendor and bring bouquets home to enjoy them under the elegant chandeliers than travel through Europe? I just can't imagine.
Obviously, to her, the country's lifestyle was synonymous with "urban" and "elegant." I have no problem with urban or elegant, but it irritated me immensely that she kept insisting that she wanted "authentic" when what she wanted was urban. They're not the same thing. Just be clear with the agent, and yourself, that you don't like suburban or rural areas. It'll waste less of your - and their - time.
As a newlywed, I lived in a rural area, outside of a small town. We bought a home about ten minutes from town. The only business that might have been in walking distance (and that was a stretch) was a gas station. My kids would have had to ride the bus if they'd been school age.
Many of my friends and relatives found my living circumstances to be varying degrees of undesirable, and used words like "tacky," "provincial" and "middle of nowhere" to describe it, but no one would have said, "You're not living an authentic American lifestyle." When they sang the praises of where they lived, or tried to convince me to relocate, they never said that it was more American or more authentic than where I lived.
If someone had moved there from overseas, I would not have expected them to say, "It's too bad that I won't be living an authentic American lifestyle." I would not expect them to move back home saying, "Gee, I wish I could have seen what America is like."
The single woman wasn't worried about being authentic; she said that her biggest concern was safety. She said that the scariest thing that had ever happened to her was having a man stand outside her home screaming, and then throw a chair through her window.
To that end, she'd specified the part of town she wanted, a part she assumed to be safe. She wanted to adopt a dog, so in addition to safety she wanted outdoor access.
She was shown an 8th floor condo in a lovely building that she deemed very safe, but it was a bit pricey, and she thought that "coming down 8 floors in the middle of the night so the dog can go potty seems a bit much." A less expensive ground floor condo impressed her because it was gated and necessitated a security code, but the fact that the bedroom window faced the alley - basically, the complex's driveway, giving access to the garage units and dumpsters - caused her a great deal of concern.
"You can always get security screens," the agent said. (She also sniffed to the camera later that, "In her price range in that neighborhood, she's going to be on the ground floor. She's going to have to deal with that.")
The agent also took her to a small, two bedroom house. "This neighborhood makes me nervous. I notice that there's businesses mixed in with the houses," the client said. I found it very amusing that the last client had been delighted by having businesses in walking distance, but it made this client nervous. (They weren't questionable businesses - no porn shops or the like.) "And this street seems very busy."
The house had a back yard that the client loved. "It's very private. Your neighbors can't see in, and there's plenty of room for a dog." She liked the house, until she opened the blinds on the master bedroom window. She visibly recoiled and turned on the agent as if she'd just discovered machine gun toting assassins.
"I told you how important safety was to me, and look at this! It looks right out front! The street is right there!"
At that point, I'm thinking several things. Was she unclear that the room was in front of the house until she physically opened the blinds? Was she unclear about how far away the street was? She just seemed so surprised, and I don't know why. I mean, it is TV, they probably ask people to amp up their reactions, but it still seemed odd.
Then, too, I'm unclear on how this made it unsafe. There's a light on the porch, there's a street light in front of the house, and yes, it's a fairly busy street; this means that it's the least likely spot for anyone to break in. Criminals try to avoid being seen. The backyard that she, and the cousin she brought along to help her decide, swooned over was a far more likely spot for a break-in. Out of sight of the neighbors or passers by, someone could take their time jimmying a locked door or window. Going into the unused guest room is also far safer and more likely for a house breaker than going into an occupied room in plain sight of the street, the neighbors, God and everybody.
Then I thought about a conversation with my middle daughter recently. I spent a month and a half sleeping in my living room, recovering from surgery and unable to climb the stairs to my bedroom. "Doesn't that creep you out?" she wanted to know.
"No." I wondered what about my living room was creepy. I mean, my decorating isn't everyone's taste, but it's certainly mine.
"You're about three steps away from the door."
"Is anybody going to be coming and going while I'm in bed?" I can handle people seeing me in my jammies (but they'd better not wake me up if I'm sleeping).
"Probably not. But you're right there if someone breaks in."
"The front door is the least likely place for anyone to break in." Maybe we've all been watching too much TV; criminals will likely not stand on my front porch fiddling with lockpicks. We also have a porch light, a streetlight in front of our house, and clear visibility up and down the street from the front.
Seeing a person in evidence is usually a deterrent, as well. Brian Mitchell, who kidnapped Elizabeth Smart, worried that he'd come across an adult in the house. He once tried to take another girl, but abandoned the plan because someone was sleeping on the sofa in the chosen home. He couldn't risk being seen or heard.
If my house is empty, it would be worse if someone broke in, because they'll have ample, unobserved time to wreak havoc and take my stuff.
Maybe most people worry about being near the front door. Maybe I'm unaware of how most people think.
Maybe the home buyer worried that people would see or hear what was happening in her house, and that made her feel exposed, which she equated with unsafe. Close the blinds at night, and you've fixed 90% of that. No one is going to stand in your front yard, in clear view of the neighborhood, peeking in through your closed blinds. They'd be arrested. Very few people will stand on the sidewalk and listen to you. (And if you're loud enough for people driving by to hear you, well, you have other issues.)
For that matter, in that private back yard, put security screens, motion sensor lights and maybe an alarm on the windows and door. Those and the dog she was hoping to get will deter probably 95% of criminals.
Was being on the ground floor really part of what made her nervous? I've never lived in a large city, where, in the words of the old TV show "Mad About You," homeowners generally "own square footage hundreds of feet in the air, like normal people." Safetywise, it seems to me that in a high rise, you'd have bigger worries about fire, earthquakes, plumbing leaks, power outages and dozens of other issues that seem to more than balance out any "danger" of being on the ground.
She bought the gated condo, in case you're wondering, and put in security screens.
Both times, the camera crew went back to see how they liked their choices; both times, the clients were very happy. That's good; one choice is not best for everyone. That's why there are choices.
I just didn't understand their thought processes.
Or maybe it's the way they expressed themselves that I didn't understand. If the first woman would have said that she valued urban living, and the second had said that she valued privacy, what they said and did would have made sense to me. Instead, I was baffled.
Human interaction is difficult.
Also, I don't think I'll ever want a career in real estate.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Turn the Page
"On a long and lonesome highway..."
The American West is filled with "lonely" highways, stretches of asphalt ribbon stretching to the horizon across sparsely populated, sagebrush studded land. I spent my childhood in the family car or pickup truck, driving for hours between small towns, mountains, lakes and other isolated places.
Some of my favorite memories from those roads, though, come not from my childhood, but my adult years before I was a wife and mother. They includes lots of time on the highway, spending hours en route between small towns, on tour with the local university theater company.
"You can listen to the engine moaning out its one note song..."
There were two dozen or so of us packed into vans and a single large truck, hauling scenery, costumes and the like to places with names like Winnemucca and Tonopah. I was 19, but not a full, or even part, time student. The university theater company was open to the community. Members like me, unenrolled at the U, were exempt from some of the requirements the students had - for instance, always having to stay after a show closed to "strike," or tear down and put away, the set, props, costumes and everything else. I held myself to the higher standard, though, expecting from myself everything required if I was being graded. It was important to me to be a "real" member of the company.
I'd spent almost two seasons with the company by the time I went on tour. I'd already watched the group go on an international USO tour and another state tour, and I was so deeply jealous of those who got to go. But, I was living on my own, working for minimum wage, and I couldn't afford the time off work or the expense of travel. I'd juggled a lot to make sure I could spend two weeks on tour before I applied to go, and I wanted it so badly I could taste it.
The show was "The Passion of Dracula," and I was crew. We'd already had a great run in the university theater. Having worked the show already didn't guarantee me a spot on tour. I had to apply and wait. When my name showed up on the list tacked to the "call board," the theater bulletin board, my best friend and I shrieked so loudly, jumping up and down and hugging, that a professor had to come out of his office and shush us.
"But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do..."
We all got a small per diem allowance from the university, designed to cover our food and other travel expenses. The professors and other faculty, of course, got paid wages as well. The other students were typical college kids whose parents footed most of their bills. Most of them lived with their parents or in dorms that their parents paid for. For them, the per diem was just a nice perk. For me, it was my only income for half a month. I had to save enough out of it to pay my rent and my half of the living expenses at the place I shared with a roommate. I'd done the math; I watched every cent like a hawk. A couple of the casinos gave us coupon books, $2 in nickels, or both, when we checked into their rooms. I hoarded them like a miser. I skipped some of the things the rest of the company did, like the night everyone else ate at a renowned Basque restaurant. Then and now, it was considered a "must do" in some of the towns we visited. I had the ham and eggs special ($1.99) in the coffee shop at the hotel/casino where we were staying. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I had to have somewhere to live when we were done.
"And you don't feel much like riding; you just wish the trip was through..."
We had no "spare" time. We'd roll into a town before lunch, put on a show of various fairy tales at the local elementary school, then go to wherever the play would be that night - usually the local high school - and set up, then eat dinner, do the show, tear it all down, pack it up, fall into bed and be up early the next morning to do it again in a different town. There was no pool time, and no nap time unless you slept in the van. It was hard work. I loved it all.
"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go, turn the page..."
I played characters like Jack's Mother in Jack and the Beanstalk in the children's show. We changed wherever there was room; once all of us packed into a broom closet to dress and undress. We performed in lunch rooms, mostly. The kids and teachers seemed to love it. These shows were freebies, designed to spread both goodwill and word of mouth. We ended every show by passing out flyers for that night's performance. The kids weren't our target "Dracula" audience, but their parents were.
We also did scenes from "Dracula" at the high schools, because they were our target audience. One scene involved our Lucy, under the vampire's spell, biting our Dracula's chest and licking up the blood while she made, well, "yummy noises" - noises indicating pleasure. It was my job to fill the squeeze bulb on the back of Dracula's brooch with stage blood, so that he could bleed on cue. Yeah, pretty racy stuff for us big city folk to be presenting to rural teens. Our Lucy and our Dracula had very different takes on this scene. He saw it as pulling her over to the Dark Side, whereas she saw it as being deeply suggestive of sex. Nobody polled the kids, but they gasped, every time.
"Well, you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you, as you're shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode..."
After every show, we'd have people say things like, "Thank you so much for coming to our town! We never get the opportunity to see productions like this!" They didn't just tell the actors, they'd tell all of us. Those, of course, were the folks who sought us out deliberately. Walking into a restaurant, gas station or casino could elicit a different response. We piled out of our vans, many of us in head to toe black, with shirts with the word "Passion" in large letters, and graphics of a vampire, long before they were mainstream. We felt conspicuous.
"Most times you can't hear them talk
Other times, you can
All the same old cliches
'Is that a woman or a man?'"
It was the mid 80s; popular looks included long, curled hair on men, shorn or shaved hair on women, and mullets on everyone. I don't think that any of us looked outlandish; no guyliner, no animal print leggings that I recall. I thought that we looked pretty normal. Our Dracula looked downright Mr. Rogers, wearing a sweater vest and a bow tie every day. Still, we were theater people in a town full of ranchers and cowboys. We stood out.
"And you always seem outnumbered
You don't dare make a stand..."
I remember hearing about a couple of times that minor words were exchanged, maybe when one of us physically bumped into a guy our age in flannel and boots, but we had a very strict conduct code, a tight schedule and a short leash. I only remember one particular time when I felt unwelcome. We swept into a restaurant that had offered us a discount on their buffet; they apparently did this every time the group toured. Cheap food and young people - yes, please! I remember a few horrified looks and pointed comments about how "crowded" and "noisy" we made the place. I tried to smile sweetly, hoping to demonstrate how harmless and fun we were.
"Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away..."
There's a reason that people "talk shop" with others of their profession or hobby or vocation. No one else really understands. As an actor, you're both acutely aware of the audience, and oblivious to their presence. As a stage technician, you're a cog in a complicated machine, both independent and interconnected. Either way, you live for the work itself, but also for the reaction it elicits. Trying to describe how you feel sounds self absorbed. Others like you, though, "get" it. You don't have to explain.
"Every ounce of energy you try to give away..."
Our set was gorgeous. All the carved wood elements were actually made of styrofoam, so they were light enough to haul around. The Victorian "wallpaper" was painted on. The costumes were equally stunning. We had staircases, fancy furniture, crates and boxes of things to transform the high schools into an English mansion, and our actors into characters.
Besides the stage blood, my favorite jobs involved the wind and fog machines and flash paper.
Our wind machine was low tech, my preferred method of doing things. It was a wooden cylinder with slats attached to the round end units. Over that was stretched heavy canvas. A hand crank came out of one end of the cylinder. Turning it made a remarkably realistic wind noise. It was my job to create everything from low moaning wind to shrieking gusts.
The fog was higher tech, produced by a small machine into which I poured chemical fog juice. At certain points, I'd slide the machine close to the edge of the set and turn it on. Its motor made only a whisper, and the fog would pump out of one end. It was glorious stuff, reflecting the lights, swirling when the actors walked, filling the familiar drawing room with an otherwordly air. By the end of one scene, the air would be thick with fog. Turn off the machine, and it dissipated, like magic.
We had several large and small wooden crosses. At one point, our Van Helsing held up a dramatic, ornate cross about 2 1/2 feet long. Our Dracula would grab the cross, and it would burst into flame - truly, actual flame. Both of them would then drop the cross, and the fire would die. It was visually spectacular.
The crosses were painted to look like metal, but they were all wood - lighter, easier to fabricate, easier to rig. The large cross had a hollowed out portion on the back where we fastened a cigarette lighter, right at the junction of the beams. My job, every night, was to wind flash paper across the back of both beams, wound into a spiral and stapled. When Dracula grabbed it, Van Helsing flicked the lighter on. The flame would race along the paper, providing a fantastic, but brief, flash of real fire. It was another moment that always elicited gasps, and it made me smile, every night.
I learned to make stage blood when we opened our trunk one day and discovered that the entire gallon container had leaked, coating the inside of the packing crate, and leaving us with no blood for a fairly bloody show.
I panicked a bit, but our Lucy said, "No problem. Come with me." She whisked me off to the grocery store, where we bought light corn syrup, red food coloring, and blue dish detergent. I still make "blood" the same way, whether I'm using it onstage, for Halloween, or, as I did once, for a zombie themed promo video.
"Later in the evening, as you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers ringing in your head..."
I didn't know it at the time, but within a year I'd be a pregnant newlywed, living in one of the small towns where we'd performed.
The tour is such a fond memory that the smell of chemical fog, or hearing Bob Seger sing "Turn the Page," makes me instantly nostalgic.
I think that everyone who works in entertainment, whether they're a slam poet, concert violinist or lighting tech, should get the chance to tour with a show; even if it's just for two weeks, through the Nevada desert.
"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go
There I go."
The American West is filled with "lonely" highways, stretches of asphalt ribbon stretching to the horizon across sparsely populated, sagebrush studded land. I spent my childhood in the family car or pickup truck, driving for hours between small towns, mountains, lakes and other isolated places.
Some of my favorite memories from those roads, though, come not from my childhood, but my adult years before I was a wife and mother. They includes lots of time on the highway, spending hours en route between small towns, on tour with the local university theater company.
"You can listen to the engine moaning out its one note song..."
There were two dozen or so of us packed into vans and a single large truck, hauling scenery, costumes and the like to places with names like Winnemucca and Tonopah. I was 19, but not a full, or even part, time student. The university theater company was open to the community. Members like me, unenrolled at the U, were exempt from some of the requirements the students had - for instance, always having to stay after a show closed to "strike," or tear down and put away, the set, props, costumes and everything else. I held myself to the higher standard, though, expecting from myself everything required if I was being graded. It was important to me to be a "real" member of the company.
I'd spent almost two seasons with the company by the time I went on tour. I'd already watched the group go on an international USO tour and another state tour, and I was so deeply jealous of those who got to go. But, I was living on my own, working for minimum wage, and I couldn't afford the time off work or the expense of travel. I'd juggled a lot to make sure I could spend two weeks on tour before I applied to go, and I wanted it so badly I could taste it.
The show was "The Passion of Dracula," and I was crew. We'd already had a great run in the university theater. Having worked the show already didn't guarantee me a spot on tour. I had to apply and wait. When my name showed up on the list tacked to the "call board," the theater bulletin board, my best friend and I shrieked so loudly, jumping up and down and hugging, that a professor had to come out of his office and shush us.
"But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do..."
We all got a small per diem allowance from the university, designed to cover our food and other travel expenses. The professors and other faculty, of course, got paid wages as well. The other students were typical college kids whose parents footed most of their bills. Most of them lived with their parents or in dorms that their parents paid for. For them, the per diem was just a nice perk. For me, it was my only income for half a month. I had to save enough out of it to pay my rent and my half of the living expenses at the place I shared with a roommate. I'd done the math; I watched every cent like a hawk. A couple of the casinos gave us coupon books, $2 in nickels, or both, when we checked into their rooms. I hoarded them like a miser. I skipped some of the things the rest of the company did, like the night everyone else ate at a renowned Basque restaurant. Then and now, it was considered a "must do" in some of the towns we visited. I had the ham and eggs special ($1.99) in the coffee shop at the hotel/casino where we were staying. Everyone thought I was crazy, but I had to have somewhere to live when we were done.
"And you don't feel much like riding; you just wish the trip was through..."
We had no "spare" time. We'd roll into a town before lunch, put on a show of various fairy tales at the local elementary school, then go to wherever the play would be that night - usually the local high school - and set up, then eat dinner, do the show, tear it all down, pack it up, fall into bed and be up early the next morning to do it again in a different town. There was no pool time, and no nap time unless you slept in the van. It was hard work. I loved it all.
"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go, turn the page..."
I played characters like Jack's Mother in Jack and the Beanstalk in the children's show. We changed wherever there was room; once all of us packed into a broom closet to dress and undress. We performed in lunch rooms, mostly. The kids and teachers seemed to love it. These shows were freebies, designed to spread both goodwill and word of mouth. We ended every show by passing out flyers for that night's performance. The kids weren't our target "Dracula" audience, but their parents were.
We also did scenes from "Dracula" at the high schools, because they were our target audience. One scene involved our Lucy, under the vampire's spell, biting our Dracula's chest and licking up the blood while she made, well, "yummy noises" - noises indicating pleasure. It was my job to fill the squeeze bulb on the back of Dracula's brooch with stage blood, so that he could bleed on cue. Yeah, pretty racy stuff for us big city folk to be presenting to rural teens. Our Lucy and our Dracula had very different takes on this scene. He saw it as pulling her over to the Dark Side, whereas she saw it as being deeply suggestive of sex. Nobody polled the kids, but they gasped, every time.
"Well, you walk into a restaurant, strung out from the road
And you feel the eyes upon you, as you're shaking off the cold
You pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode..."
After every show, we'd have people say things like, "Thank you so much for coming to our town! We never get the opportunity to see productions like this!" They didn't just tell the actors, they'd tell all of us. Those, of course, were the folks who sought us out deliberately. Walking into a restaurant, gas station or casino could elicit a different response. We piled out of our vans, many of us in head to toe black, with shirts with the word "Passion" in large letters, and graphics of a vampire, long before they were mainstream. We felt conspicuous.
"Most times you can't hear them talk
Other times, you can
All the same old cliches
'Is that a woman or a man?'"
It was the mid 80s; popular looks included long, curled hair on men, shorn or shaved hair on women, and mullets on everyone. I don't think that any of us looked outlandish; no guyliner, no animal print leggings that I recall. I thought that we looked pretty normal. Our Dracula looked downright Mr. Rogers, wearing a sweater vest and a bow tie every day. Still, we were theater people in a town full of ranchers and cowboys. We stood out.
"And you always seem outnumbered
You don't dare make a stand..."
I remember hearing about a couple of times that minor words were exchanged, maybe when one of us physically bumped into a guy our age in flannel and boots, but we had a very strict conduct code, a tight schedule and a short leash. I only remember one particular time when I felt unwelcome. We swept into a restaurant that had offered us a discount on their buffet; they apparently did this every time the group toured. Cheap food and young people - yes, please! I remember a few horrified looks and pointed comments about how "crowded" and "noisy" we made the place. I tried to smile sweetly, hoping to demonstrate how harmless and fun we were.
"Out there in the spotlight you're a million miles away..."
There's a reason that people "talk shop" with others of their profession or hobby or vocation. No one else really understands. As an actor, you're both acutely aware of the audience, and oblivious to their presence. As a stage technician, you're a cog in a complicated machine, both independent and interconnected. Either way, you live for the work itself, but also for the reaction it elicits. Trying to describe how you feel sounds self absorbed. Others like you, though, "get" it. You don't have to explain.
"Every ounce of energy you try to give away..."
Our set was gorgeous. All the carved wood elements were actually made of styrofoam, so they were light enough to haul around. The Victorian "wallpaper" was painted on. The costumes were equally stunning. We had staircases, fancy furniture, crates and boxes of things to transform the high schools into an English mansion, and our actors into characters.
Besides the stage blood, my favorite jobs involved the wind and fog machines and flash paper.
Our wind machine was low tech, my preferred method of doing things. It was a wooden cylinder with slats attached to the round end units. Over that was stretched heavy canvas. A hand crank came out of one end of the cylinder. Turning it made a remarkably realistic wind noise. It was my job to create everything from low moaning wind to shrieking gusts.
The fog was higher tech, produced by a small machine into which I poured chemical fog juice. At certain points, I'd slide the machine close to the edge of the set and turn it on. Its motor made only a whisper, and the fog would pump out of one end. It was glorious stuff, reflecting the lights, swirling when the actors walked, filling the familiar drawing room with an otherwordly air. By the end of one scene, the air would be thick with fog. Turn off the machine, and it dissipated, like magic.
We had several large and small wooden crosses. At one point, our Van Helsing held up a dramatic, ornate cross about 2 1/2 feet long. Our Dracula would grab the cross, and it would burst into flame - truly, actual flame. Both of them would then drop the cross, and the fire would die. It was visually spectacular.
The crosses were painted to look like metal, but they were all wood - lighter, easier to fabricate, easier to rig. The large cross had a hollowed out portion on the back where we fastened a cigarette lighter, right at the junction of the beams. My job, every night, was to wind flash paper across the back of both beams, wound into a spiral and stapled. When Dracula grabbed it, Van Helsing flicked the lighter on. The flame would race along the paper, providing a fantastic, but brief, flash of real fire. It was another moment that always elicited gasps, and it made me smile, every night.
I learned to make stage blood when we opened our trunk one day and discovered that the entire gallon container had leaked, coating the inside of the packing crate, and leaving us with no blood for a fairly bloody show.
I panicked a bit, but our Lucy said, "No problem. Come with me." She whisked me off to the grocery store, where we bought light corn syrup, red food coloring, and blue dish detergent. I still make "blood" the same way, whether I'm using it onstage, for Halloween, or, as I did once, for a zombie themed promo video.
"Later in the evening, as you lie awake in bed
With the echoes from the amplifiers ringing in your head..."
I didn't know it at the time, but within a year I'd be a pregnant newlywed, living in one of the small towns where we'd performed.
The tour is such a fond memory that the smell of chemical fog, or hearing Bob Seger sing "Turn the Page," makes me instantly nostalgic.
I think that everyone who works in entertainment, whether they're a slam poet, concert violinist or lighting tech, should get the chance to tour with a show; even if it's just for two weeks, through the Nevada desert.
"Here I am, on the road again
There I am, up on the stage
Here I go, playing the star again
There I go
There I go."
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Counting Down
In 10 days, I should be able to walk again. I haven't walked a single step in almost 5 weeks. Right now, nothing sounds better than being able to go up and down the stairs in my own house.
I have a huge, unwieldy cast on my left foot, up to just below my knee. It's not the kind of cast I expected - plaster or fiberglass. It's a huge steel, padding and Velcro contraption that comes on and off. For the first 3 weeks, the foot and ankle were also wrapped in gauze, stretchy bandages and a thin "sock" covering. The cast strapped on over that. I had to take it off several times a day to put ice packs on my foot, and again to shower, with a waterproof rubber boot over the wrapping.
On the one hand, it's nicer than the fiberglass or plaster cast. I don't have the unbearable itch issues that I hear are unavoidable with those. On the other hand, while there's a half inch steel plate, about 14 inches by 6 inches, under my foot, on top of my foot there's little more than padding and straps to protect the area with broken bones. If something hits it, falls on it, steps on it, the results would be painful and catastrophic, so I'm extremely protective of the entire leg.
And geez, is this thing heavy and awkward! It extends so far past my toes in order to protect my feet. I get it - so many times, I've had that part of the cast whack walls and door frames. I've even had it be stepped on in the movie theater. I know why it's there. Still, imagine having a half inch thick slab of steel on your foot. Even simple stuff like sleeping is awkward. Imagine sleeping in a steel soled snow boot, and you'll have some idea what this is like.
Since the stitches came out at three weeks, I no longer need the rubber shower boot. My family finds my new foot both creepy and fascinating. It's much narrower and straighter than it was before. I can't quite get used to the big toe's nail facing upwards. The incision sites still look pretty gruesome (my middle daughter refuses to look), but that "train track" look will fade. I've had so many stitches; I am not worried about scars on my feet.
I've explained what I've had done so many times in the past few weeks. I'm tired of repeating, but thankful for people's concern.
I had most of the bone structure in my foot rebuilt. I had bunions, collapsed arches, overlapping toes, a big toe turned at a 45 degree angle, bone spurs, and shortened tendons. That's the shortened version. Apparently, almost half of the bones in my foot were not load bearing, even though they were designed to be. My podiatrist took hold of my foot and folded it lengthwise, flapping it like a wing. "See that?" he said. "It's not supposed to do that."
What I'd noticed most, of course, was the pain. I've known that I had bunions since I was 9. The collapsed arches were diagnosed about two decades later, and suddenly so many things about my feet made sense.
I have a lot of small skeletal issues. I had TMJ (joint issues in my jawbone) as a kid. I'm knock kneed, plus my knees bow backwards. Since I was 13 and fell off of a horse onto it, one knee has been noticeably worse than the other. It aches in the cold, and both knees will occasionally collapse when overstressed. I have a mild S curve scoliosis. Its major contributions are making my hips uneven, and therefore one leg longer than the other, and causing muscle pinches in my shoulder that occasionally need treated.
Of course, any time I said, "my feet hurt" or "my back hurts" for most of my life, I'd get patronizing advice to "lose weight and exercise more." Or I'd hear, "Well, so do my mine, but I'm going out dancing anyway." The older I get, the more convinced I become that our parameters are vastly different. What some people call "pain," I call "normal" or "uncomfortable." By the time I say "pain," it's knifing, and I can barely stand to let my feet touch the ground.
I hated, too, being told that my feet would feel better if I went barefoot. "It's healthier! It's the natural state of your foot!"
"But it hurts," I'd say, and thus unleash a lecture on toughening up, or giving it a chance, or something else equally annoying. I need practically orthopedic shoes with astonishingly good arch support before my feet feel better. It's in my bone structure; whether or not the soles of my feet would toughen up was not the point.
Well, let's hope that's past tense now - "needed" orthopedic shoes. I'm hoping that the new bone structure will be fabulous.
I needed bones cut and repositioned, tendons lengthened, screws and rods and a plate installed. The doctor estimated that it would take an hour and a half; it took almost three hours. "Things were a bit more complicated than we thought," he said. "That toe gave me a hard time."
I thought that cutting the bones would be the worst part, but it wasn't. Rotating that big toe really ached. I told him that at my three week checkup, and he said, "We took out and threw away the parts of the bone that hurt. They're gone now." Oh. OK.
The doctor told me that the post-op pain would be about equivalent to a broken bone. I've had those before, so I had some sense of that. The first two days would be agonizing; after that, it would get better. That's about how it worked, too. The first two days, I didn't want anyone to even breathe on me. I couldn't let the bedclothes touch the cast - the weight was too awful. The second day, a towel fell off the rack onto my foot, and you should have heard the noise I made - "AAAAAHHHH!!!!!" How ridiculous is an existence in which a falling towel hurts? Of course, part of that reaction was also shock, and the realization that other, heavier things might fall on me.
Luckily, the only other thing that's fallen on me is a plunger. The cast was off - I was getting out of the shower - so it smarted, but I wasn't terrified. It had been over a month by then.
My worst fear was messing things up while we were still waiting for the ends of the cut bones to grow together and knit. If I ripped out the screws, or tore the healing ligaments, or something else hideous, the damage might be too great to repair. The longer it's been, the more I relax. I haven't been in any significant pain since the first week, and now, in week 5, I think that things are pretty well solidifying in there.
The worst part has been the patience of waiting this long to be able to put any weight on it. I can't put any weight at all on it until I get x-rays in another week and a half, and get the OK. While I'm not in pain, and I'm getting around really well for someone with one working leg, I am practically counting the hours until I can WALK again.
Soon, though, we'll go through the whole thing again, for my right foot. While I want it done, I can't really even think about that right now.
Tick tock!
I have a huge, unwieldy cast on my left foot, up to just below my knee. It's not the kind of cast I expected - plaster or fiberglass. It's a huge steel, padding and Velcro contraption that comes on and off. For the first 3 weeks, the foot and ankle were also wrapped in gauze, stretchy bandages and a thin "sock" covering. The cast strapped on over that. I had to take it off several times a day to put ice packs on my foot, and again to shower, with a waterproof rubber boot over the wrapping.
On the one hand, it's nicer than the fiberglass or plaster cast. I don't have the unbearable itch issues that I hear are unavoidable with those. On the other hand, while there's a half inch steel plate, about 14 inches by 6 inches, under my foot, on top of my foot there's little more than padding and straps to protect the area with broken bones. If something hits it, falls on it, steps on it, the results would be painful and catastrophic, so I'm extremely protective of the entire leg.
And geez, is this thing heavy and awkward! It extends so far past my toes in order to protect my feet. I get it - so many times, I've had that part of the cast whack walls and door frames. I've even had it be stepped on in the movie theater. I know why it's there. Still, imagine having a half inch thick slab of steel on your foot. Even simple stuff like sleeping is awkward. Imagine sleeping in a steel soled snow boot, and you'll have some idea what this is like.
Since the stitches came out at three weeks, I no longer need the rubber shower boot. My family finds my new foot both creepy and fascinating. It's much narrower and straighter than it was before. I can't quite get used to the big toe's nail facing upwards. The incision sites still look pretty gruesome (my middle daughter refuses to look), but that "train track" look will fade. I've had so many stitches; I am not worried about scars on my feet.
I've explained what I've had done so many times in the past few weeks. I'm tired of repeating, but thankful for people's concern.
I had most of the bone structure in my foot rebuilt. I had bunions, collapsed arches, overlapping toes, a big toe turned at a 45 degree angle, bone spurs, and shortened tendons. That's the shortened version. Apparently, almost half of the bones in my foot were not load bearing, even though they were designed to be. My podiatrist took hold of my foot and folded it lengthwise, flapping it like a wing. "See that?" he said. "It's not supposed to do that."
What I'd noticed most, of course, was the pain. I've known that I had bunions since I was 9. The collapsed arches were diagnosed about two decades later, and suddenly so many things about my feet made sense.
I have a lot of small skeletal issues. I had TMJ (joint issues in my jawbone) as a kid. I'm knock kneed, plus my knees bow backwards. Since I was 13 and fell off of a horse onto it, one knee has been noticeably worse than the other. It aches in the cold, and both knees will occasionally collapse when overstressed. I have a mild S curve scoliosis. Its major contributions are making my hips uneven, and therefore one leg longer than the other, and causing muscle pinches in my shoulder that occasionally need treated.
Of course, any time I said, "my feet hurt" or "my back hurts" for most of my life, I'd get patronizing advice to "lose weight and exercise more." Or I'd hear, "Well, so do my mine, but I'm going out dancing anyway." The older I get, the more convinced I become that our parameters are vastly different. What some people call "pain," I call "normal" or "uncomfortable." By the time I say "pain," it's knifing, and I can barely stand to let my feet touch the ground.
I hated, too, being told that my feet would feel better if I went barefoot. "It's healthier! It's the natural state of your foot!"
"But it hurts," I'd say, and thus unleash a lecture on toughening up, or giving it a chance, or something else equally annoying. I need practically orthopedic shoes with astonishingly good arch support before my feet feel better. It's in my bone structure; whether or not the soles of my feet would toughen up was not the point.
Well, let's hope that's past tense now - "needed" orthopedic shoes. I'm hoping that the new bone structure will be fabulous.
I needed bones cut and repositioned, tendons lengthened, screws and rods and a plate installed. The doctor estimated that it would take an hour and a half; it took almost three hours. "Things were a bit more complicated than we thought," he said. "That toe gave me a hard time."
I thought that cutting the bones would be the worst part, but it wasn't. Rotating that big toe really ached. I told him that at my three week checkup, and he said, "We took out and threw away the parts of the bone that hurt. They're gone now." Oh. OK.
The doctor told me that the post-op pain would be about equivalent to a broken bone. I've had those before, so I had some sense of that. The first two days would be agonizing; after that, it would get better. That's about how it worked, too. The first two days, I didn't want anyone to even breathe on me. I couldn't let the bedclothes touch the cast - the weight was too awful. The second day, a towel fell off the rack onto my foot, and you should have heard the noise I made - "AAAAAHHHH!!!!!" How ridiculous is an existence in which a falling towel hurts? Of course, part of that reaction was also shock, and the realization that other, heavier things might fall on me.
Luckily, the only other thing that's fallen on me is a plunger. The cast was off - I was getting out of the shower - so it smarted, but I wasn't terrified. It had been over a month by then.
My worst fear was messing things up while we were still waiting for the ends of the cut bones to grow together and knit. If I ripped out the screws, or tore the healing ligaments, or something else hideous, the damage might be too great to repair. The longer it's been, the more I relax. I haven't been in any significant pain since the first week, and now, in week 5, I think that things are pretty well solidifying in there.
The worst part has been the patience of waiting this long to be able to put any weight on it. I can't put any weight at all on it until I get x-rays in another week and a half, and get the OK. While I'm not in pain, and I'm getting around really well for someone with one working leg, I am practically counting the hours until I can WALK again.
Soon, though, we'll go through the whole thing again, for my right foot. While I want it done, I can't really even think about that right now.
Tick tock!
Saturday, December 14, 2013
School Photos
The only professional photos I ever had taken of me as a kid were school photos. We never did family portraits, or even those department store photographs. I always wanted some, and envied friends who got them, but it was simply not something that my family needed to spend money on.
I remember being so nervous the day before my kindergarten photo. I had to wear a favorite dress (despite being a tree climbing, ditch wading, scabbed knees, dirty socks, always-a-mess tomboy, I wore dresses almost exclusively until about fourth grade. Go figure.) I had to have my hair in braids, with red ribbon bows. It was a favorite hairstyle, once I was old enough to tolerate having my hair combed, and the bows were a big deal. I remember that some movie or book character inspired the ribbons, but I've long since forgotten who it was.
I loved the photo then, and I love it now.
This is me in first grade:
New front teeth, hair in curls - this is still identifiably me, but it's a more dressed up, formal version of myself. I think she's cute. I remember sleeping with my hair in foam curlers the night before. Entire generations after me have no idea what foam curlers are.
This is third grade. My favorite part of this photo was the rhinestone owls on my hair pins. I loved them so much that I wore them for two years' worth of photos in a row, even after one of the owls broke off and my dad expoxied it on the wrong way, so that one owl was upside down.
By fourth grade, I'd decided that curls and dresses were for little girls, so I looked like my everyday self.
Those are polyester knit overalls, but the way, with an applique of a girl farmer on the front. I thought that they were kind of fancy because they had ruffles on the straps. Don't mock them - I loved those overalls. I kept wearing them even after I fell, skidded down the asphalt of my cousin's street on my knees, and had to patch the holes with the only patches we could find that were big enough to cover the damage, American flags.
By fifth grade, I'd clearly hit what my older daughters refer to as the universal "awkward stage."
That's a Ten Commandments necklace; I loved it. But hello, acne, my constant companion. So nice of you to show up and stay for the rest of my life.
I was so not pleased with my fifth grade pictures that in sixth grade, I decided to revisit what had worked in the past, and go back to curls, in the hope of being adorable again.
I hated these. I barely gave any to my friends, and I disliked sending them to relatives. In retrospect, they're not as awful as I thought they were then, but it's still not my best look.
In seventh grade, I tried to look both more normal and more grown up.
Don't mock the scarf. It was 1978, and men and women alike did the knotted scarf around the neck thing. This was as fashionable as I got. (OK, I once owned white, knee high boots.)
My major reaction to these was, "Geez, I'd better get those braces on my teeth soon." I believe that I referred to myself as Fang.
Here's high school, ninth and tenth grade.
See, these look pretty normal, until you consider the time period. Every other female on the planet, it seemed, had the Farrah Fawcett hairdo - big, fluffy, feathered layers. My big sister's version was less over the top than most:
I simply could not imagine having to curl and hairspray my hair every day, or having to get it trimmed every month. At 47, I still trim my own hair, maybe three times a year, and I have no layers, highlights, dyed grays or anything else that would take actual time and effort. Who wants to fuss with their hair in the morning? If I can't be done "styling" in 2 minutes, I'm grumpy.
So, while I don't have any photos of fashion faux pas, like a mullet, if you flip through my yearbook you'll see that I (unintentionally) stand out by virtue of my lack of big hair. I graduated in 1984; almost everyone either had a mullet or big hair. (It goes without saying, doesn't it, that I also never straightened my hair or gave it a "blowout"? Too much effort! What's the point?)
This is my high school senior portrait:
Yeah, it's a beat up copy. This is the copy that my dad carried in his wallet, so it's worn out and beaten up. I actually liked the photo with the big, sunny smile better, but Dad (and my best friend) liked this one. I thought that my teeth looked too chipmunky.
I was so happy that I liked the photos from my senior portrait shoot. I'd lived in fear of hating them, and was delighted that they were flattering.
The necklace I'm wearing belonged to my mom. All of her daughters wore it in their senior portraits.
I was disappointed, at the time, to wear something besides the comedy/tragedy mask necklaces that I wore every day, but I'm a sentimentalist, and tradition is a big deal to me. (My daughters have also had photos taken, as high school seniors, wearing the heart necklace.) As time goes by, I'm even happier that I wore it.
Just as a final note, did you notice anything else about my photos? If you grew up with me, you know this without my even asking. Yep, that's right - I'm wearing blue in almost every one. I think I have 3 or 4 school portraits in a color that is not blue. Ninety percent of my wardrobe was blue.
Blue makes me happy.
I remember being so nervous the day before my kindergarten photo. I had to wear a favorite dress (despite being a tree climbing, ditch wading, scabbed knees, dirty socks, always-a-mess tomboy, I wore dresses almost exclusively until about fourth grade. Go figure.) I had to have my hair in braids, with red ribbon bows. It was a favorite hairstyle, once I was old enough to tolerate having my hair combed, and the bows were a big deal. I remember that some movie or book character inspired the ribbons, but I've long since forgotten who it was.
I loved the photo then, and I love it now.
This is me in first grade:
New front teeth, hair in curls - this is still identifiably me, but it's a more dressed up, formal version of myself. I think she's cute. I remember sleeping with my hair in foam curlers the night before. Entire generations after me have no idea what foam curlers are.
This is third grade. My favorite part of this photo was the rhinestone owls on my hair pins. I loved them so much that I wore them for two years' worth of photos in a row, even after one of the owls broke off and my dad expoxied it on the wrong way, so that one owl was upside down.
By fourth grade, I'd decided that curls and dresses were for little girls, so I looked like my everyday self.
Those are polyester knit overalls, but the way, with an applique of a girl farmer on the front. I thought that they were kind of fancy because they had ruffles on the straps. Don't mock them - I loved those overalls. I kept wearing them even after I fell, skidded down the asphalt of my cousin's street on my knees, and had to patch the holes with the only patches we could find that were big enough to cover the damage, American flags.
By fifth grade, I'd clearly hit what my older daughters refer to as the universal "awkward stage."
That's a Ten Commandments necklace; I loved it. But hello, acne, my constant companion. So nice of you to show up and stay for the rest of my life.
I was so not pleased with my fifth grade pictures that in sixth grade, I decided to revisit what had worked in the past, and go back to curls, in the hope of being adorable again.
You know how some girls are effortlessly fashionable and chic, especially after they hit puberty? Not me. I totally missed out on whatever brain chemicals cause a person to know what looks good on them. I have no flair for hair, makeup, clothes - any of it.
I hated these. I barely gave any to my friends, and I disliked sending them to relatives. In retrospect, they're not as awful as I thought they were then, but it's still not my best look.
In seventh grade, I tried to look both more normal and more grown up.
Don't mock the scarf. It was 1978, and men and women alike did the knotted scarf around the neck thing. This was as fashionable as I got. (OK, I once owned white, knee high boots.)
My major reaction to these was, "Geez, I'd better get those braces on my teeth soon." I believe that I referred to myself as Fang.
Here's high school, ninth and tenth grade.
See, these look pretty normal, until you consider the time period. Every other female on the planet, it seemed, had the Farrah Fawcett hairdo - big, fluffy, feathered layers. My big sister's version was less over the top than most:
I simply could not imagine having to curl and hairspray my hair every day, or having to get it trimmed every month. At 47, I still trim my own hair, maybe three times a year, and I have no layers, highlights, dyed grays or anything else that would take actual time and effort. Who wants to fuss with their hair in the morning? If I can't be done "styling" in 2 minutes, I'm grumpy.
So, while I don't have any photos of fashion faux pas, like a mullet, if you flip through my yearbook you'll see that I (unintentionally) stand out by virtue of my lack of big hair. I graduated in 1984; almost everyone either had a mullet or big hair. (It goes without saying, doesn't it, that I also never straightened my hair or gave it a "blowout"? Too much effort! What's the point?)
This is my high school senior portrait:
Yeah, it's a beat up copy. This is the copy that my dad carried in his wallet, so it's worn out and beaten up. I actually liked the photo with the big, sunny smile better, but Dad (and my best friend) liked this one. I thought that my teeth looked too chipmunky.
I was so happy that I liked the photos from my senior portrait shoot. I'd lived in fear of hating them, and was delighted that they were flattering.
The necklace I'm wearing belonged to my mom. All of her daughters wore it in their senior portraits.
I was disappointed, at the time, to wear something besides the comedy/tragedy mask necklaces that I wore every day, but I'm a sentimentalist, and tradition is a big deal to me. (My daughters have also had photos taken, as high school seniors, wearing the heart necklace.) As time goes by, I'm even happier that I wore it.
Just as a final note, did you notice anything else about my photos? If you grew up with me, you know this without my even asking. Yep, that's right - I'm wearing blue in almost every one. I think I have 3 or 4 school portraits in a color that is not blue. Ninety percent of my wardrobe was blue.
Blue makes me happy.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
Apology Accepted
There are very few people in the world that I actively dislike. I tend to genuinely like, and get along well with, all kinds of people, including people who are very different from myself.
Sometimes, though, people dislike me, or I dislike them. It's an ordinary fact of life, and I don't usually get too bothered.
Partly because of my personality, and partly because teachers tend to like good students, I usually got along well with my teachers, even teachers that the other kids disliked. It was always a surprise when there was serious personality clash.
The year I was a sophomore in high school, there was serious personality clash with my math teacher. For starters, he did not understand, or like, people who didn't like math. On the twice yearly standardized tests that the district administered, I'd been scoring at "grade 12, month 9" (or high school graduate) since 7th or 8th grade in most subjects, but in math I scored "only" two years above grade level. For me, that was struggling. Math gave me a headache.
My teacher expressed the opinion - not just privately, in conferences or on my papers, but publicly, out loud in class - that I struggled with math because, "Math is a logical, precise science. You do not have a logical mind. You have an undisciplined, chaotic mind." Way to motivate, Mr. B.
He loved to tell us that, "Everything is math. Music, sports, architecture, art - it's all math. If you can't do math, you can't do anything." My strong suit, language, was apparently an undesirable gift. In English classes, I got As without even trying. In math, I knocked myself out for Bs. My teacher was unamused.
The fact that I was a theater student opened me up to more ridicule. It was particularly fierce when my drama teacher decided to produce "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The first day I walked into class with my script, without referencing me in particular - or, for that matter referencing math, the subject of the class - our math teacher delivered a lecture about the pointlessness of studying any work by an author who'd been dead for centuries.
He always called us up to see our grades on the Friday before report cards came out. It was my last required semester of math, and I didn't care too much about the grade. Still, it was painful to see a C. I had never gotten a C, in anything. I couldn't recall more than a couple of assignments that I'd gotten Cs on. I must have really tanked the final, I decided, for it to negate all the Bs and the few As I'd gotten. So, I gritted my teeth, thanked my lucky stars that I was done with math, and sat back down.
Monday came; report cards were handed out. I had an F in math.
AN F. I had never gotten an F on even a single assignment, in my entire life. I was stunned.
I went up to him after school to question it. "On Friday, you showed me your book, and it said I had a C."
I will never forget his answer. "That's what you earned, but this is what I thought you deserved."
Wow.
My mother was even more furious than I was. A brilliant woman, she was also, deeply, a pacifist. She tried not to make waves, rock the boat, upset the apple cart - whatever your stock cliche for stirring up trouble is. She believed in making nice and smoothing over and turning the other cheek. And yet, she made an appointment for herself and me with the school principal.
She explained the problem. "So, what do you want me to do?" the principal asked.
"Require him to give her the grade that she earned."
He was aghast. "I can't get involved in the grading process! I can't tell teachers what grades they can and can't give!"
Mom demanded to know what the official school, or district, policies were. She wanted to know if it was possible to get my grades from the gradebook, or my assignments, and recalculate. The only answer she got was, "Grading is up to the individual teacher. I can't get involved."
"So, there's no oversight? What are the assignments for? Why have tests? Are you telling me that a child can earn As all year, then be handed a F on a report card, just because the teacher feels like it?"
"Well, yes. I can't get involved in the grading process."
We left angrier than we were when we arrived. Mom vetoed my suggestion of complaining to someone at the district level - "It'll just be more of the same." The next year, I took a semester of one of the easiest math classes offered, just to fill my credit requirement. I thought, and said, very uncomplimentary things about both the teacher and the (now retired) principal.
My senior year, I was asked to be on the tech crew for the school's first faculty play. It's now a pretty standard practice in our area, but at the time, it was a brand new idea: have the faculty act in a play to raise money for scholarships. The students would be the crew, since we already know what to do.
My old math teacher, Mr. B, was in the play.
I could not get over the irony. After all the hours I'd had to listen to him say things like, "I don't know why the school even has a fine arts department. We're supposed to be in the business of education," now he was acting?
Still, I'm polite. I treated him as though there was no bad blood between us. Actually, I treated him as if I'd never met him before. I was polite, I was informative and helpful when I needed to be, but I was not friendly. I was one of those kids who got along well with teachers, so with some, there was joking and laughter, almost as if they were my peers. Not with Mr. B. If you didn't know either of us, I don't think you would have noticed anything amiss. (Maybe I'm kidding myself, and I was glaring daggers, but I don't think so.) He never brought up the fact that he knew me before we were introduced at rehearsals. The distant-but-cordial thing worked for me.
One day, as we neared the performance dates, he walked up and stood next to me as I watched the action onstage. He didn't look at me; he looked straight ahead at the show. I wondered why he'd chosen that spot to stand in, but I said nothing. It's a free country; the man could stand wherever he chose.
We never made small talk - anything we'd said to each other had been show related. Now, after standing there for a few minutes, he said, while still staring straight ahead, "I can see why you like this - this sort of thing."
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I briefly considered snapping something like, "About darned time," but I didn't. Also looking straight ahead, I said, in a conversational tone, "It's a lot of fun, isn't it?"
"Yes. It is." He stayed there for another few seconds, then nodded, still looking out at the stage, and walked away.
Message received. I knew that had been an apology. I also knew that it must have been agonizing for him to say anything. He didn't have to. It must have been a very difficult thing to do. From his nod, it seemed that the corresponding answer had also been received - apology accepted.
When I told one of my best friends (one who knew the backstory), she was furious. "That's not good enough! If he wants to apologize, he needs to look you in the eye and actually apologize!"
"No, he doesn't. He didn't have to say anything." Two years' worth of my anger was erased.
As I got older, and learned more about psychology and gender differences, I learned that most women are not OK with typically male communication like that - no eye contact, no mention of the actual subject at hand - but I knew what it must have cost him, dignity-wise, to even attempt to say such a thing, and to a student, no less. It was as good as it was ever going to get, and it was good enough for me.
I did hope that, maybe, he'd be a little less harsh the next time a linguistically competent, number challenged student landed in his class. Maybe, now, he'd be less scathing. I sincerely hoped that he'd never again fail a student because of a personality clash. I have no way of knowing if he did or not, but I like to think that he changed a bit. Even teachers are in school to learn.
After that, he got the same smiles, the same "break a leg," even some of the joking that I gave the other teachers in the cast. I could be wrong, but it seemed to make him happy.
Even a little sincere apology goes a long way.
Sometimes, though, people dislike me, or I dislike them. It's an ordinary fact of life, and I don't usually get too bothered.
Partly because of my personality, and partly because teachers tend to like good students, I usually got along well with my teachers, even teachers that the other kids disliked. It was always a surprise when there was serious personality clash.
The year I was a sophomore in high school, there was serious personality clash with my math teacher. For starters, he did not understand, or like, people who didn't like math. On the twice yearly standardized tests that the district administered, I'd been scoring at "grade 12, month 9" (or high school graduate) since 7th or 8th grade in most subjects, but in math I scored "only" two years above grade level. For me, that was struggling. Math gave me a headache.
My teacher expressed the opinion - not just privately, in conferences or on my papers, but publicly, out loud in class - that I struggled with math because, "Math is a logical, precise science. You do not have a logical mind. You have an undisciplined, chaotic mind." Way to motivate, Mr. B.
He loved to tell us that, "Everything is math. Music, sports, architecture, art - it's all math. If you can't do math, you can't do anything." My strong suit, language, was apparently an undesirable gift. In English classes, I got As without even trying. In math, I knocked myself out for Bs. My teacher was unamused.
The fact that I was a theater student opened me up to more ridicule. It was particularly fierce when my drama teacher decided to produce "A Midsummer Night's Dream." The first day I walked into class with my script, without referencing me in particular - or, for that matter referencing math, the subject of the class - our math teacher delivered a lecture about the pointlessness of studying any work by an author who'd been dead for centuries.
He always called us up to see our grades on the Friday before report cards came out. It was my last required semester of math, and I didn't care too much about the grade. Still, it was painful to see a C. I had never gotten a C, in anything. I couldn't recall more than a couple of assignments that I'd gotten Cs on. I must have really tanked the final, I decided, for it to negate all the Bs and the few As I'd gotten. So, I gritted my teeth, thanked my lucky stars that I was done with math, and sat back down.
Monday came; report cards were handed out. I had an F in math.
AN F. I had never gotten an F on even a single assignment, in my entire life. I was stunned.
I went up to him after school to question it. "On Friday, you showed me your book, and it said I had a C."
I will never forget his answer. "That's what you earned, but this is what I thought you deserved."
Wow.
My mother was even more furious than I was. A brilliant woman, she was also, deeply, a pacifist. She tried not to make waves, rock the boat, upset the apple cart - whatever your stock cliche for stirring up trouble is. She believed in making nice and smoothing over and turning the other cheek. And yet, she made an appointment for herself and me with the school principal.
She explained the problem. "So, what do you want me to do?" the principal asked.
"Require him to give her the grade that she earned."
He was aghast. "I can't get involved in the grading process! I can't tell teachers what grades they can and can't give!"
Mom demanded to know what the official school, or district, policies were. She wanted to know if it was possible to get my grades from the gradebook, or my assignments, and recalculate. The only answer she got was, "Grading is up to the individual teacher. I can't get involved."
"So, there's no oversight? What are the assignments for? Why have tests? Are you telling me that a child can earn As all year, then be handed a F on a report card, just because the teacher feels like it?"
"Well, yes. I can't get involved in the grading process."
We left angrier than we were when we arrived. Mom vetoed my suggestion of complaining to someone at the district level - "It'll just be more of the same." The next year, I took a semester of one of the easiest math classes offered, just to fill my credit requirement. I thought, and said, very uncomplimentary things about both the teacher and the (now retired) principal.
My senior year, I was asked to be on the tech crew for the school's first faculty play. It's now a pretty standard practice in our area, but at the time, it was a brand new idea: have the faculty act in a play to raise money for scholarships. The students would be the crew, since we already know what to do.
My old math teacher, Mr. B, was in the play.
I could not get over the irony. After all the hours I'd had to listen to him say things like, "I don't know why the school even has a fine arts department. We're supposed to be in the business of education," now he was acting?
Still, I'm polite. I treated him as though there was no bad blood between us. Actually, I treated him as if I'd never met him before. I was polite, I was informative and helpful when I needed to be, but I was not friendly. I was one of those kids who got along well with teachers, so with some, there was joking and laughter, almost as if they were my peers. Not with Mr. B. If you didn't know either of us, I don't think you would have noticed anything amiss. (Maybe I'm kidding myself, and I was glaring daggers, but I don't think so.) He never brought up the fact that he knew me before we were introduced at rehearsals. The distant-but-cordial thing worked for me.
One day, as we neared the performance dates, he walked up and stood next to me as I watched the action onstage. He didn't look at me; he looked straight ahead at the show. I wondered why he'd chosen that spot to stand in, but I said nothing. It's a free country; the man could stand wherever he chose.
We never made small talk - anything we'd said to each other had been show related. Now, after standing there for a few minutes, he said, while still staring straight ahead, "I can see why you like this - this sort of thing."
You could have knocked me over with a feather. I briefly considered snapping something like, "About darned time," but I didn't. Also looking straight ahead, I said, in a conversational tone, "It's a lot of fun, isn't it?"
"Yes. It is." He stayed there for another few seconds, then nodded, still looking out at the stage, and walked away.
Message received. I knew that had been an apology. I also knew that it must have been agonizing for him to say anything. He didn't have to. It must have been a very difficult thing to do. From his nod, it seemed that the corresponding answer had also been received - apology accepted.
When I told one of my best friends (one who knew the backstory), she was furious. "That's not good enough! If he wants to apologize, he needs to look you in the eye and actually apologize!"
"No, he doesn't. He didn't have to say anything." Two years' worth of my anger was erased.
As I got older, and learned more about psychology and gender differences, I learned that most women are not OK with typically male communication like that - no eye contact, no mention of the actual subject at hand - but I knew what it must have cost him, dignity-wise, to even attempt to say such a thing, and to a student, no less. It was as good as it was ever going to get, and it was good enough for me.
I did hope that, maybe, he'd be a little less harsh the next time a linguistically competent, number challenged student landed in his class. Maybe, now, he'd be less scathing. I sincerely hoped that he'd never again fail a student because of a personality clash. I have no way of knowing if he did or not, but I like to think that he changed a bit. Even teachers are in school to learn.
After that, he got the same smiles, the same "break a leg," even some of the joking that I gave the other teachers in the cast. I could be wrong, but it seemed to make him happy.
Even a little sincere apology goes a long way.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
The Eye
Photographers and artists talk about having "the eye." My friend Linda told me a story about going along with a photographer friend while he shot photos. He'd set the camera up on a tripod, frame his shot, then call her over to look through the viewfinder.
"I'd look, and I'd say, 'Where is that?' He'd point, and say, 'Right there,' but I could never find what I saw in the camera. I'd be standing right there, and I still couldn't see it."
We have always handed cameras to our kids, especially on vacation. When they were too small to handle a "real" camera, or when they were headed somewhere that we thought one might get lost or stolen (like summer camp), we gave them disposable cameras.
When our son was 3, we were headed with him to a nearby lake to take photos while the "big kids" were in school. We stopped at the home of a friend of my husband's family; she needed help with something, and my husband had volunteered. She had a rug made from the skin of a wolverine, and my son was fascinated. He asked her, "Can I take a picture of that?"
"Sure," she said.
We reminded him to turn on the flash indoors, and he said, "I know." Then he squatted down right in front of the rug, and shot it head on, with the wolverine's glass eyes looking right into the lens. My husband and I looked at each other and said, "He has it." Most people, even adults, would have stood over the rug and shot downwards, getting the whole thing in view. Not my kid; he knew, instinctively, where the good angle, the dramatic angle, was.
We usually have more than one camera going at any one time. My husband and I take jobs solo when the schedule dictates it, but it's always best to have both of us. A week ago, we were photographing our niece's wedding. One of us had the telephoto lens, good for zooming in for closeups, and the other had the wide angle lens, good for group shots and sweeping vistas. It saves time; at the exact moment that one of us is taking this shot
the other is shooting this.
Sometimes, though, we'll be thinking the same thought at the same moment. Then the photos from the two cameras look like this:
"I'd look, and I'd say, 'Where is that?' He'd point, and say, 'Right there,' but I could never find what I saw in the camera. I'd be standing right there, and I still couldn't see it."
We have always handed cameras to our kids, especially on vacation. When they were too small to handle a "real" camera, or when they were headed somewhere that we thought one might get lost or stolen (like summer camp), we gave them disposable cameras.
When our son was 3, we were headed with him to a nearby lake to take photos while the "big kids" were in school. We stopped at the home of a friend of my husband's family; she needed help with something, and my husband had volunteered. She had a rug made from the skin of a wolverine, and my son was fascinated. He asked her, "Can I take a picture of that?"
"Sure," she said.
We reminded him to turn on the flash indoors, and he said, "I know." Then he squatted down right in front of the rug, and shot it head on, with the wolverine's glass eyes looking right into the lens. My husband and I looked at each other and said, "He has it." Most people, even adults, would have stood over the rug and shot downwards, getting the whole thing in view. Not my kid; he knew, instinctively, where the good angle, the dramatic angle, was.
We usually have more than one camera going at any one time. My husband and I take jobs solo when the schedule dictates it, but it's always best to have both of us. A week ago, we were photographing our niece's wedding. One of us had the telephoto lens, good for zooming in for closeups, and the other had the wide angle lens, good for group shots and sweeping vistas. It saves time; at the exact moment that one of us is taking this shot
the other is shooting this.
We do this without actively communicating what we're doing. After so many years, it's a well rehearsed dance.
Sometimes, though, we'll be thinking the same thought at the same moment. Then the photos from the two cameras look like this:
When my son was 16, he went to Paris. We sent one of the good cameras, of course. There was no way a member of our family was going to Europe without decent equipment. While on a tour bus, he took this shot:
Two years later, I took this from a Paris tour bus:
Genetics? Training?
I didn't see the images together until months after we got back home. It was a nice moment to say, "Yep. That's my kid."
Sunday, November 17, 2013
"That's Just Not Normal."
I'm missing church today - car trouble, don't ask - so I've been reading my scriptures and otherwise trying to have churchy moments at home. That got me started thinking about a recent conversation I had with one of my childhood friends.
"How did you live a Mormon life in a household that was very definitely not Mormon?" she asked.
"I don't know that I can explain it to you. It was the only choice that made sense to me," I told her.
Her response: "That's just not normal."
I don't know that I worried about "normal" then any more than I do now. "Normal" is beside the point. I was sure it was the right thing to do, so I did it. I didn't care that much about whether other people did, or would do, the same in my place. I didn't know why, either, they'd care if I agreed with them.
I was seven years old when my best friends, our neighbors, took me to church with them for the first time. Back then, they had children's meetings on Tuesdays after school, and it seemed like it took forever for them to get home so that we could play again. "You could always come with us," they'd say, but we, my sister and I, turned them down. Finally, I agreed to go.
I remember the lesson from that day clearly. It was the story of the "pearl of great price" found in the Bible in the book of Matthew. A merchant, searching for pearls, finds one exquisite pearl, and sells everything he possesses in order to buy this single, perfect pearl. The teacher explained that it was a metaphor for giving up something good for something better, but I was a very literal child. I could not wrap my head around the idea of having a pearl, but no food, clothing, place to live, or money. What good would the pearl do?
Metaphor is a method of communication that grows on a person.
It only took a year or so of tagging along with my friends to decide that I wanted to be a member of the church. My dad said that I was too young, and that he wouldn't give permission until I was 12. I think he thought that it was a phase that I'd grow out of. I didn't; I was baptized at 12.
When my neighbors moved away, other friends took me to church with them. When they moved away, my mother started driving me to and from my meetings; she did it for years, without griping of any kind.
My dad thought that my new religion was odd. He said repeatedly that, "They're good, hard working, honest people," but he didn't necessarily wanting me believing what they believed. My mother opined that, "The Bible was written for people who are less educated than we are," but she saw no real harm in letting her kids figure out what they believed, and why.
I was puzzled, as a kid, when people would ask me why I was doing this, or not doing that, "when your parents won't even care." It wasn't about what my parents thought or did, for me. It was about what I thought was right.
Besides, my parents weren't likely to complain about my adopting a code of behavior that was stricter than that of my peers.
It was never about rebellion, either. I am, by nature, a rule follower. I have always known those people who would never have considered a particular course of action until they were told that they couldn't do it. The word "no" is a huge catalyst for those people. That was never me.
Some people were sure that it was about conformity, about doing what would impress my friends. It wasn't. Anyone who really values conformity isn't likely to choose a strange, unpopular religion. When people were surprised that I kept attending church after the friends who introduced me moved away, I thought that was strange. I'd made a choice; why wouldn't I continue to act on it?
I value free will too much to want to have knee jerk reactions of any kind. Having obvious hot buttons, like either rebellion or conformity, makes a person far too easy to manipulate.
Trying to impress others isn't really on my radar, at all.
I never really thought that choosing and living my religion was easier or harder for me than it was for other people. Sure, I had anti-Mormon literature dropped in my locker at school. I had a family member say, in soothing, pitying tones, "You realize that your church is a cult, don't you?" Still, there's always somebody who disagrees with everybody, and most people aren't shy about letting you know.
Sometimes, my friends would gripe - "I can't believe I have to sit through Conference!" - and I would think, "What is wrong with you? I had to ask permission to be here." Other kids didn't "get" me.
As an adult, I discovered that most religious families - families practicing any religion - spend time and effort helping their family members figure out ways to cope with negative attitudes or behaviors. I became more and more aware that most people are uncomfortable having either society at large or their loved ones disagree with them. I can't imagine making important, moral choices by taking an opinion poll.
People would say, "Well, you know that most people disagree," as if they expected me to 1. gasp in horror at this startling revelation, and 2. change everything I thought and did, if I wasn't on the side of the majority (or at least, in whatever group people thought it was important to impress). Of course I knew that most of the world's population didn't agree with me. That's like knowing that it's two o'clock; true, but irrelevant.
Sometimes this would lead to conversations that would be funny if the other party wasn't deadly serious. What, exactly, I would ask, did they expect me to do about the fact that someone disagreed with me? Usually the answer was, in some form, that I should change my opinion (so that I'd be like "everybody else").
"Oh, so if someone disagrees, then other people should change their minds?"
"Yes. Once you've been educated about your errors, you should correct them."
"So, you'll be changing your opinion to mine."
"No!"
"Why not? I can explain why you should."
"But you're wrong!"
"What makes me wrong?"
"Most people disagree with you!"
"So, it's a numbers thing."
"No! It's about who's right."
"How do you know who's right?"
"I can show you all kinds of people and all kinds of sources that say that I'm right!"
"I can show you millions of people worldwide, and lots of scholarly sources, that say that I'm right."
"But you're not!"
"But you told me it was all about how many people agreed with an opinion."
It's just ludicrous.
I tried to prepare my kids for those moments in their lives. Still, when all is said and done, they need to decide, by themselves, what they believe and what they will do.
I'm happy to explain to people why I think and behave as I do. If someone wants to know, I'm happy to tell them. It's pretty obvious from the things I do, as well. My religion affects every choice I make - the clothes I wear, the groceries I buy, the movies I watch. I think that people would be happier if they made the same choices I do.
Of course, I'm also happy to let others make their own choices, because I cherish that right myself, and recognize it as sacred.
I learned that not only from my church, but from my mother.
So, OK. I'm not normal. I can live with that.
"How did you live a Mormon life in a household that was very definitely not Mormon?" she asked.
"I don't know that I can explain it to you. It was the only choice that made sense to me," I told her.
Her response: "That's just not normal."
I don't know that I worried about "normal" then any more than I do now. "Normal" is beside the point. I was sure it was the right thing to do, so I did it. I didn't care that much about whether other people did, or would do, the same in my place. I didn't know why, either, they'd care if I agreed with them.
I was seven years old when my best friends, our neighbors, took me to church with them for the first time. Back then, they had children's meetings on Tuesdays after school, and it seemed like it took forever for them to get home so that we could play again. "You could always come with us," they'd say, but we, my sister and I, turned them down. Finally, I agreed to go.
I remember the lesson from that day clearly. It was the story of the "pearl of great price" found in the Bible in the book of Matthew. A merchant, searching for pearls, finds one exquisite pearl, and sells everything he possesses in order to buy this single, perfect pearl. The teacher explained that it was a metaphor for giving up something good for something better, but I was a very literal child. I could not wrap my head around the idea of having a pearl, but no food, clothing, place to live, or money. What good would the pearl do?
Metaphor is a method of communication that grows on a person.
It only took a year or so of tagging along with my friends to decide that I wanted to be a member of the church. My dad said that I was too young, and that he wouldn't give permission until I was 12. I think he thought that it was a phase that I'd grow out of. I didn't; I was baptized at 12.
When my neighbors moved away, other friends took me to church with them. When they moved away, my mother started driving me to and from my meetings; she did it for years, without griping of any kind.
My dad thought that my new religion was odd. He said repeatedly that, "They're good, hard working, honest people," but he didn't necessarily wanting me believing what they believed. My mother opined that, "The Bible was written for people who are less educated than we are," but she saw no real harm in letting her kids figure out what they believed, and why.
I was puzzled, as a kid, when people would ask me why I was doing this, or not doing that, "when your parents won't even care." It wasn't about what my parents thought or did, for me. It was about what I thought was right.
Besides, my parents weren't likely to complain about my adopting a code of behavior that was stricter than that of my peers.
It was never about rebellion, either. I am, by nature, a rule follower. I have always known those people who would never have considered a particular course of action until they were told that they couldn't do it. The word "no" is a huge catalyst for those people. That was never me.
Some people were sure that it was about conformity, about doing what would impress my friends. It wasn't. Anyone who really values conformity isn't likely to choose a strange, unpopular religion. When people were surprised that I kept attending church after the friends who introduced me moved away, I thought that was strange. I'd made a choice; why wouldn't I continue to act on it?
I value free will too much to want to have knee jerk reactions of any kind. Having obvious hot buttons, like either rebellion or conformity, makes a person far too easy to manipulate.
Trying to impress others isn't really on my radar, at all.
I never really thought that choosing and living my religion was easier or harder for me than it was for other people. Sure, I had anti-Mormon literature dropped in my locker at school. I had a family member say, in soothing, pitying tones, "You realize that your church is a cult, don't you?" Still, there's always somebody who disagrees with everybody, and most people aren't shy about letting you know.
Sometimes, my friends would gripe - "I can't believe I have to sit through Conference!" - and I would think, "What is wrong with you? I had to ask permission to be here." Other kids didn't "get" me.
As an adult, I discovered that most religious families - families practicing any religion - spend time and effort helping their family members figure out ways to cope with negative attitudes or behaviors. I became more and more aware that most people are uncomfortable having either society at large or their loved ones disagree with them. I can't imagine making important, moral choices by taking an opinion poll.
People would say, "Well, you know that most people disagree," as if they expected me to 1. gasp in horror at this startling revelation, and 2. change everything I thought and did, if I wasn't on the side of the majority (or at least, in whatever group people thought it was important to impress). Of course I knew that most of the world's population didn't agree with me. That's like knowing that it's two o'clock; true, but irrelevant.
Sometimes this would lead to conversations that would be funny if the other party wasn't deadly serious. What, exactly, I would ask, did they expect me to do about the fact that someone disagreed with me? Usually the answer was, in some form, that I should change my opinion (so that I'd be like "everybody else").
"Oh, so if someone disagrees, then other people should change their minds?"
"Yes. Once you've been educated about your errors, you should correct them."
"So, you'll be changing your opinion to mine."
"No!"
"Why not? I can explain why you should."
"But you're wrong!"
"What makes me wrong?"
"Most people disagree with you!"
"So, it's a numbers thing."
"No! It's about who's right."
"How do you know who's right?"
"I can show you all kinds of people and all kinds of sources that say that I'm right!"
"I can show you millions of people worldwide, and lots of scholarly sources, that say that I'm right."
"But you're not!"
"But you told me it was all about how many people agreed with an opinion."
It's just ludicrous.
I tried to prepare my kids for those moments in their lives. Still, when all is said and done, they need to decide, by themselves, what they believe and what they will do.
I'm happy to explain to people why I think and behave as I do. If someone wants to know, I'm happy to tell them. It's pretty obvious from the things I do, as well. My religion affects every choice I make - the clothes I wear, the groceries I buy, the movies I watch. I think that people would be happier if they made the same choices I do.
Of course, I'm also happy to let others make their own choices, because I cherish that right myself, and recognize it as sacred.
I learned that not only from my church, but from my mother.
So, OK. I'm not normal. I can live with that.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)