I dreamt that I was visiting a cousin in England who was a physicist. He was young - in his late 20s - and had written a very popular book about a tachyon in which he credited my father for "intellectual contributions". My father was/is a mathematician and reading his name on the byline filled me with pride.
My cousin's career and literary acclaim rested on the idea that a particle people had known about for a few decades had, under some circumstances, a shelf life. It was a very, very, very long shelf life, on the order of millenia. But it explained why all over the globe, million year old petroleum was accumulating a strange fuzzy goo and slowly going bad.
I read about his book in the basement while a parade of my distant relatives inched through a line leading to a cash register. Instead of buying anything, as each family member approached the cashier, they would share a few sentences of the most significant events in their lives for the last 20 years. This was for my benefit so that I could quickly catch up.
Two of them on my mom's side were 30 something cousins I had never met - a reformed biker-turned plumber with tattooed arm sleaves confessed that he'd recently lost his born-again faith of fifteen years; a large blonde woman explained that ever since her conversion to evangelical Christianity she'd gained and been unable to lose 50 pounds. Unlike the biker, her faith was intact.
Tuesday, November 26, 2013
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
A rose bi any other name might be straight (radio edited version)
*A warning to readers. This post contains sexual content and violence, though never at the same time. While explicit language is avoided, it describes a specific instance of domestic violence and discusses the effects of child abuse. The existence of consensual adult sex is mentioned and specific acts are evoked or implied in some cases.*
I recently was talking to someone who threw out the term "bi lady" when referring to me.
Let's set aside "lady" right off the bat - my mother used to despair of my distaste for that word. To me it evokes someone mature and delicate, who can carry off a decent impression of what women are expected to be.
I certainly read as a straight girl and I guess I'm achieving some state of maturity, reluctantly, in my 40s. But I only just learned this year how to use hair product; dressing up is fun but it feels like I'm in drag; and I've been told by more than one person that I walk like a man. "Actually," said one, when asked for clarification, "it's more like a duck."
As for "bi", this is a label I alternately struggled with and embraced for a decade, before finally not really needing it anymore. I think when you finally reach a state of self acceptance, the definition you've been dancing with melts into "I am a human."
I grew up pretty uneventfully as a straight girl. I crushed on boys from K-12, and dated guys from age 16 - 26. I had sex with my first serious boyfriend after 8 months of dating; I was 17. He was a virgin, and a repressed Catholic boy, so it was sweet and awkward and perfect. I became a serial monogamist, average relationship 2-4 years, time between relationships anywhere between minus 5 days to 6 months.
One summer in my 20s, during one of those fun economic dips where lots of actual adult people lost jobs and houses, but which affected me mainly because nobody had full time well paid work for college kids, one of my four barely-above-minimum-wage jobs was a 10h a week gig at a restaurant.
I became friends with a group of 3 other women - 2 servers and another busser like me. We had breaks together, during which we laughed until we cried. I came away from our meetings high, buzzing.
The other busperson, let's call her A, lived four blocks from me, which in sprawling Canadian suburbia is like meeting someone in the grocery store and discovering that they live in your bathroom and you just never noticed.
Over coffee one day, A confessed to me that she was a lesbian. I was the second person she had ever told and she was terrified. I had never met a gay person before, at least not to my knowledge.
Of course, logic dictates that in two decades I had most certainly met dozens of queers already, probably hundreds, and the burnished gold tags, "fag", "dyke", or "tranny" simply hadn't been properly affixed to their lapels that day.
If this seems unbelievable, it may help to know that I was a serious, studious honors student and so were all my closest friends. I wasn't rebelling or exploring the world or talking about much of anything outside of academics; I was single-mindedly pursuing the highest score on every test set before me. I didn't even drink much until grad school in my late 20s. So I was still pretty sheltered.
So when A confided in me, I was shocked and thrilled. I felt special for having been trusted with this revelation and protective of A, who was in no way comfortable with her stated identity.
The first person she had told was her mother, a tall, stocky outspoken social activist who wrote petitions for international women's rights, demonstrated for worker's rights and was very fond of the underdog. Bizarrely, this passion for justice in the world was accompanied by a tyranical need for control over her own family.
When A's mother heard this news, she screamed, "no," over and over; she kicked and hit my friend, throwing her against the wall, treatment that I gathered was not unprecedented although this particular trigger was unique.
The reality of homophobia, both internal and external, is that family matters. It's a lot like rape, or any other violence perpetrated against the "weak".
Media, news and social education efforts related to violence - when I was growing up at least - all focused on stranger danger. Women pursued by anonymous figures in parking lots; children lured into cars with candy; femmy men beaten outside of discoteques by bands of roving thugs.
I think this external focus is still pretty mainstream. We want to believe that violation is separate from "normal" society, it's outside of us, lurking in the shadows, when in fact most women are raped by an acquaintance, most child abuse happens in the home, most queer people initially face judgement or outright rejection by parents, siblings and peers, and it is at least as scarring as anything that could be perpetrated on you by a stranger.
It's so confusing to be hurt by someone you need; the anger you feel is polluted by fear and guilt and shame and grief and there is no place to run to for support. Daily you are confronted with your abuser. Daily you think about killing them. Daily you long for their gentleness and nurturing. If only you get it right today, they'll finally love you without hurting you.
This person is not always a man, contrary to the women-are-nurturing, men-are-violent stereotypes. Tangentially, the dykes-are-raped-women theory is a handy way to dismiss an entire inconvenient group as simply victims of all that stranger danger but it just ain't that simple, world, sorry.
But I digress, and I'm sorry because my how-I-turned-queer story is largely upbeat and a little hot so I will return to the regularly scheduled coming out.
So there was another woman in the group, B, who was tall, blonde and butch - (not the term I would have used at the time since I had never heard it) - and I was crushing hard on her - (not the term I would have used at the time since I had no idea I was attracted to women) -
so: I just really really really looked forward to seeing her. all day long. every single day.
B invited me to go shopping after work with her "roommate" S, a short blonde butchier version of B. We drove to the mall, me seated in the back of their sweet little convertible while they discussed the day's purchase (blender and clothing) and their future plans - S was planning to enter the police academy and B was trying to find a career that was more stable and better paid than waiting tables.
I remember thinking that I had never met roommates who were so close.
A couple of weeks later they had me over for dinner. I learned that A had also confided in them, which, they said, made sense since they were the only other lesbians A knew (picture me trying to hide that I was choking on my water).
Then they mentioned D, the fourth member of our merry band of restauranteurs. She was in the middle of a divorce. She had two kids. She was going back to dating women. Thankfully for my fragile ego and perceived coolness factor, they misinterpreted my second bout of water inhalation, and explained that she wasn't gay, just bi.
Oh right. Of course. That explains everything.
(WTF.)
I had never heard this term before. I knew homosexuals existed and had no problem with it apart from being too sheltered to recognize them without a "hey I'm gay" handshake. I had certainly never questioned my own sexuality, because I liked men.
The rest of the conversation was similar to my coffee date with A. They congratulated me for being open minded and welcomed me into the ranks of their straight allies and I was So Happy to be able to offer something important to this gorgeous muscular funny woman (and her girlfriend).
I never told B that I was bi. First of all I would have had to hand back my straight ally status, which was still warm from the oven and was the most significant bond we had.
Second I just didn't trust it. Was I really bi? Was I just imagining it? Was I merely saying it to get attention? Certainly I enjoyed the reaction it got from men. Besides, I had never dated a woman. Frankly the women I was drawn to - beautiful, funny, outspoken - intimidated me.
I knew how to be passive and seductive and attract men. I had NO IDEA how to approach women. Or what to do with them. I had learned how to operate the machinery on a guy, which came as naturally as breathing and was a pretty easy lesson -
(- as an aside, I will draw this further parallel: men are like cars; once you've driven one, you're pretty much skilled enough to drive them all. Women are like motorcycles - the center of gravity, seating position, acceleration and responsiveness, clutch distance, brake sensitivity, all varies so much that if you take out a sporty bike after only driving cruisers your whole life, most likely you're going to die in a fiery crash..... BUT I DIGRESS SOME MORE)
- but I wasn't all that comfortable with my own anatomy. So what to do with all these warm fuzzy feelings when I looked at naked ladies... (now THERE is a good use of the word lady.)
Even from a young age I had far more fantasies about women than men although I suspect this has a little to do with social constructs about what the genders are for: women are passive and accomodating, men are active and aggressive, women receive sexual attention, men actually experience pleasure... without even reflecting on it at all, I identified with male sexuality.
I am not a very private person unless I try really, really hard, and my peers were science and math geeks ie frighteningly smart, unconventional, socially awkward, mildly autistic and utterly without judgement or mainstream expectations.
So pretty much all my friends knew I was bi by the time I was 24 even though I STILL hadn't actually even so much as kissed a woman.
My attempt at flaunting gender stereotypes extended to buying a motorcycle, riding around in skimpy dresses and confusing people at gas stations by taking off my helmet and allowing my long dark hair to cascade out.
Then I dated this guy, let's call him M.
Within a week of dating he confided that he thought he was bi - he loved women but he fantasized all the time about being with men.
What happened next reminds me of one of the many similarities I can draw between sex and dancing. Traditionally in partner dance there is a lead and a follow. Typically the leader is the man, the follow a woman, a convention I obeyed when I started dancing.
Only a few months into dancing, I realized I wanted to teach and since you have to be able to demo both roles, I had to learn how to lead. Which is how I discovered that I love leading in dance just as much as I like to follow.
Beginning dancers tend to stick to one role and are often quite freaked out by the notion of switching. But if you spend any time in the dance world you will notice that really good leads do not find it emasculating to follow other good leads or switch roles with women; they recognize it makes them better dancers.
Really good follows already have picked up some of the skills needed to lead, and have some basic interest in leading if only to show their non-dancing friends how it's done and convince yet more people to drink the kool-aid.
And there are some folks who just want to do the unconventional role all the time. Women who prefer to lead; men who prefer to follow.
And so it is with sex. Though that is a far more taboo switch. I had become pretty bored with straight sex, and if I hadn't met M, might eventually have concluded that I wasn't bi at all but actually a lesbian. Instead I discovered that what was missing wasn't some specific anatomy. It was the freedom to play well outside of the missionary position and my role as a passive sperm recipient.
In the meantime I met a woman who was in the middle of a nasty divorce and custody battle over her two year old daughter; her ex-seminarian Catholic husband had cheated on her with his secretary and she had joined a woman's group to cope with her anger and grief, which dug up all sorts of stuff about childhood neglect. I was in the same group to deal with my issues around intimacy with women.
Though she identified as straight, and never wavered in that label, when I drove her home one night, she declared she was drawn to me.
What happened between us was mostly a lot of nots
But she craved touch and I love touching people. One night she asked me to brush her hair. Her reaction was blissful. I stroked her head. She swooned. I stroked her arms. Her ribs. Her thighs. We both conceived of all this semi-erotic contact as "spiritual healing". I was like an unlicensed massage therapist freed from any culturally imposed limits on what appropriate touching might consist of.
One night we went dancing with her straight friends at a local cowboy bar. We danced together, not even close, more like girlhood friends holding hands and being silly. But I'm from such a conservative city and that was such a hick part of town that the energy we were sharing made the other patrons visibly uncomfortable and her friends made some passive aggressive comment about her being inappropriate.
Afterwards, she was feeling rebellious rather than cowed so we went home, got a little drunk and I took off her shirt, skipped first base, went straight to second.
Then I left for grad school in another country. Left my boyfriend and my friend-with-massage-benefits and my platonic friends and family and moved to a city where I didn't know anyone.
And started dating girls for reals.
I recently was talking to someone who threw out the term "bi lady" when referring to me.
Let's set aside "lady" right off the bat - my mother used to despair of my distaste for that word. To me it evokes someone mature and delicate, who can carry off a decent impression of what women are expected to be.
I certainly read as a straight girl and I guess I'm achieving some state of maturity, reluctantly, in my 40s. But I only just learned this year how to use hair product; dressing up is fun but it feels like I'm in drag; and I've been told by more than one person that I walk like a man. "Actually," said one, when asked for clarification, "it's more like a duck."
As for "bi", this is a label I alternately struggled with and embraced for a decade, before finally not really needing it anymore. I think when you finally reach a state of self acceptance, the definition you've been dancing with melts into "I am a human."
I grew up pretty uneventfully as a straight girl. I crushed on boys from K-12, and dated guys from age 16 - 26. I had sex with my first serious boyfriend after 8 months of dating; I was 17. He was a virgin, and a repressed Catholic boy, so it was sweet and awkward and perfect. I became a serial monogamist, average relationship 2-4 years, time between relationships anywhere between minus 5 days to 6 months.
One summer in my 20s, during one of those fun economic dips where lots of actual adult people lost jobs and houses, but which affected me mainly because nobody had full time well paid work for college kids, one of my four barely-above-minimum-wage jobs was a 10h a week gig at a restaurant.
I became friends with a group of 3 other women - 2 servers and another busser like me. We had breaks together, during which we laughed until we cried. I came away from our meetings high, buzzing.
The other busperson, let's call her A, lived four blocks from me, which in sprawling Canadian suburbia is like meeting someone in the grocery store and discovering that they live in your bathroom and you just never noticed.
Over coffee one day, A confessed to me that she was a lesbian. I was the second person she had ever told and she was terrified. I had never met a gay person before, at least not to my knowledge.
Of course, logic dictates that in two decades I had most certainly met dozens of queers already, probably hundreds, and the burnished gold tags, "fag", "dyke", or "tranny" simply hadn't been properly affixed to their lapels that day.
If this seems unbelievable, it may help to know that I was a serious, studious honors student and so were all my closest friends. I wasn't rebelling or exploring the world or talking about much of anything outside of academics; I was single-mindedly pursuing the highest score on every test set before me. I didn't even drink much until grad school in my late 20s. So I was still pretty sheltered.
So when A confided in me, I was shocked and thrilled. I felt special for having been trusted with this revelation and protective of A, who was in no way comfortable with her stated identity.
The first person she had told was her mother, a tall, stocky outspoken social activist who wrote petitions for international women's rights, demonstrated for worker's rights and was very fond of the underdog. Bizarrely, this passion for justice in the world was accompanied by a tyranical need for control over her own family.
When A's mother heard this news, she screamed, "no," over and over; she kicked and hit my friend, throwing her against the wall, treatment that I gathered was not unprecedented although this particular trigger was unique.
The reality of homophobia, both internal and external, is that family matters. It's a lot like rape, or any other violence perpetrated against the "weak".
Media, news and social education efforts related to violence - when I was growing up at least - all focused on stranger danger. Women pursued by anonymous figures in parking lots; children lured into cars with candy; femmy men beaten outside of discoteques by bands of roving thugs.
I think this external focus is still pretty mainstream. We want to believe that violation is separate from "normal" society, it's outside of us, lurking in the shadows, when in fact most women are raped by an acquaintance, most child abuse happens in the home, most queer people initially face judgement or outright rejection by parents, siblings and peers, and it is at least as scarring as anything that could be perpetrated on you by a stranger.
It's so confusing to be hurt by someone you need; the anger you feel is polluted by fear and guilt and shame and grief and there is no place to run to for support. Daily you are confronted with your abuser. Daily you think about killing them. Daily you long for their gentleness and nurturing. If only you get it right today, they'll finally love you without hurting you.
This person is not always a man, contrary to the women-are-nurturing, men-are-violent stereotypes. Tangentially, the dykes-are-raped-women theory is a handy way to dismiss an entire inconvenient group as simply victims of all that stranger danger but it just ain't that simple, world, sorry.
But I digress, and I'm sorry because my how-I-turned-queer story is largely upbeat and a little hot so I will return to the regularly scheduled coming out.
So there was another woman in the group, B, who was tall, blonde and butch - (not the term I would have used at the time since I had never heard it) - and I was crushing hard on her - (not the term I would have used at the time since I had no idea I was attracted to women) -
so: I just really really really looked forward to seeing her. all day long. every single day.
B invited me to go shopping after work with her "roommate" S, a short blonde butchier version of B. We drove to the mall, me seated in the back of their sweet little convertible while they discussed the day's purchase (blender and clothing) and their future plans - S was planning to enter the police academy and B was trying to find a career that was more stable and better paid than waiting tables.
I remember thinking that I had never met roommates who were so close.
A couple of weeks later they had me over for dinner. I learned that A had also confided in them, which, they said, made sense since they were the only other lesbians A knew (picture me trying to hide that I was choking on my water).
Then they mentioned D, the fourth member of our merry band of restauranteurs. She was in the middle of a divorce. She had two kids. She was going back to dating women. Thankfully for my fragile ego and perceived coolness factor, they misinterpreted my second bout of water inhalation, and explained that she wasn't gay, just bi.
Oh right. Of course. That explains everything.
(WTF.)
I had never heard this term before. I knew homosexuals existed and had no problem with it apart from being too sheltered to recognize them without a "hey I'm gay" handshake. I had certainly never questioned my own sexuality, because I liked men.
The rest of the conversation was similar to my coffee date with A. They congratulated me for being open minded and welcomed me into the ranks of their straight allies and I was So Happy to be able to offer something important to this gorgeous muscular funny woman (and her girlfriend).
And then a few months later I woke up early one morning and thought, "OHHHHHHHHH. WAIT."
I never told B that I was bi. First of all I would have had to hand back my straight ally status, which was still warm from the oven and was the most significant bond we had.
Second I just didn't trust it. Was I really bi? Was I just imagining it? Was I merely saying it to get attention? Certainly I enjoyed the reaction it got from men. Besides, I had never dated a woman. Frankly the women I was drawn to - beautiful, funny, outspoken - intimidated me.
I knew how to be passive and seductive and attract men. I had NO IDEA how to approach women. Or what to do with them. I had learned how to operate the machinery on a guy, which came as naturally as breathing and was a pretty easy lesson -
(- as an aside, I will draw this further parallel: men are like cars; once you've driven one, you're pretty much skilled enough to drive them all. Women are like motorcycles - the center of gravity, seating position, acceleration and responsiveness, clutch distance, brake sensitivity, all varies so much that if you take out a sporty bike after only driving cruisers your whole life, most likely you're going to die in a fiery crash..... BUT I DIGRESS SOME MORE)
- but I wasn't all that comfortable with my own anatomy. So what to do with all these warm fuzzy feelings when I looked at naked ladies... (now THERE is a good use of the word lady.)
Even from a young age I had far more fantasies about women than men although I suspect this has a little to do with social constructs about what the genders are for: women are passive and accomodating, men are active and aggressive, women receive sexual attention, men actually experience pleasure... without even reflecting on it at all, I identified with male sexuality.
I am not a very private person unless I try really, really hard, and my peers were science and math geeks ie frighteningly smart, unconventional, socially awkward, mildly autistic and utterly without judgement or mainstream expectations.
So pretty much all my friends knew I was bi by the time I was 24 even though I STILL hadn't actually even so much as kissed a woman.
My attempt at flaunting gender stereotypes extended to buying a motorcycle, riding around in skimpy dresses and confusing people at gas stations by taking off my helmet and allowing my long dark hair to cascade out.
Then I dated this guy, let's call him M.
Within a week of dating he confided that he thought he was bi - he loved women but he fantasized all the time about being with men.
What happened next reminds me of one of the many similarities I can draw between sex and dancing. Traditionally in partner dance there is a lead and a follow. Typically the leader is the man, the follow a woman, a convention I obeyed when I started dancing.
Only a few months into dancing, I realized I wanted to teach and since you have to be able to demo both roles, I had to learn how to lead. Which is how I discovered that I love leading in dance just as much as I like to follow.
Beginning dancers tend to stick to one role and are often quite freaked out by the notion of switching. But if you spend any time in the dance world you will notice that really good leads do not find it emasculating to follow other good leads or switch roles with women; they recognize it makes them better dancers.
Really good follows already have picked up some of the skills needed to lead, and have some basic interest in leading if only to show their non-dancing friends how it's done and convince yet more people to drink the kool-aid.
And there are some folks who just want to do the unconventional role all the time. Women who prefer to lead; men who prefer to follow.
And so it is with sex. Though that is a far more taboo switch. I had become pretty bored with straight sex, and if I hadn't met M, might eventually have concluded that I wasn't bi at all but actually a lesbian. Instead I discovered that what was missing wasn't some specific anatomy. It was the freedom to play well outside of the missionary position and my role as a passive sperm recipient.
In the meantime I met a woman who was in the middle of a nasty divorce and custody battle over her two year old daughter; her ex-seminarian Catholic husband had cheated on her with his secretary and she had joined a woman's group to cope with her anger and grief, which dug up all sorts of stuff about childhood neglect. I was in the same group to deal with my issues around intimacy with women.
Though she identified as straight, and never wavered in that label, when I drove her home one night, she declared she was drawn to me.
What happened between us was mostly a lot of nots
we did not have sex in any officially recognized way
we did not fall in love
we did not fall in love
we did not kiss
But she craved touch and I love touching people. One night she asked me to brush her hair. Her reaction was blissful. I stroked her head. She swooned. I stroked her arms. Her ribs. Her thighs. We both conceived of all this semi-erotic contact as "spiritual healing". I was like an unlicensed massage therapist freed from any culturally imposed limits on what appropriate touching might consist of.
One night we went dancing with her straight friends at a local cowboy bar. We danced together, not even close, more like girlhood friends holding hands and being silly. But I'm from such a conservative city and that was such a hick part of town that the energy we were sharing made the other patrons visibly uncomfortable and her friends made some passive aggressive comment about her being inappropriate.
Afterwards, she was feeling rebellious rather than cowed so we went home, got a little drunk and I took off her shirt, skipped first base, went straight to second.
Yup. Totally bi. I could have happily occupied that base all night but I got shy and went to bed - in a
separate room - completely frustrated and scared to go any further in
case she didn't like it.
Now, years later, I am certain she would have let me do just about anything to her. Oh, to have a time machine... Her reaction to what did happen was so sweet, taking it any further most likely would have just about stopped my heart.
Now, years later, I am certain she would have let me do just about anything to her. Oh, to have a time machine... Her reaction to what did happen was so sweet, taking it any further most likely would have just about stopped my heart.
Then I left for grad school in another country. Left my boyfriend and my friend-with-massage-benefits and my platonic friends and family and moved to a city where I didn't know anyone.
And started dating girls for reals.
Our top story this morning
Usually, first thing in the morning, my dreams, insights, worries, and tasks for the day, come tumbling at me all at once. Lately - for the last several nights at least - I've seen a news gazette in my head right before waking. Today it was a short two page insert, soft grey border and pale orange background, with gothic script for the title, and the headline: "Buy Longer Shoelaces"
Sunday, November 10, 2013
Opening bars to a short story
John Dale had a personal soundtrack. I don't mean that he got songs stuck in his head. What I mean is that at every major shift in the action of his life, classical music could be heard. Soft violins as he moved in for a drink at the water fountain. A crescendo if he lifted his four year old niece in the air to swing her around.
It might sound sort of romantic and exciting to have a musical score accompany your every waking move, but it was distracting at best. When he was alone, it made it hard to study. The minute he felt frustrated by a concept, the percussion section would kick in and then perhaps some horns.
At worst, waiting, for instance, outside the principal's office in eighth grade, because his teacher thought he was playing a prank to distract everyone on the math test with a rather loud rendition of Strauss' Blue Danube waltz, the fact that the opening bars to Prokiev's creepy Dance of the Knights began as soon as the principal opened his door to beckon him inside... well it didn't help his case.
John was expelled after a series of meetings in which he was directed ever-more-emphatically to reveal the location of the speakers he must have installed all over the school. "You!" his math teacher yelled in the last parent-teacher-principal meeting. "You are a MUSIC TERRORIST!!"
Eighth grade was probably the worst year of John's life. He was expelled from that school in September, and by several schools thereafter. By Christmas his parents had decided to home-school him.
He was examined by a veritable army of psychiatric and medical professionals, initially to break his antisocial speaker-hiding behavior, and then to see if his vocal cords could project complex orchestral music at a distance, and finally by a doctor who was also a priest and hypothesized that he was possessed by demonic spirits.
Eventually his parents gave up, accepted the utter lack of explanation for the phenomenon and John developed a kind of phobia about being in quiet spaces with strangers. A shrieking air-lifted toddler was unfazed by violin accompaniment, but adults in the library or a mall elevator were a different story. Though frequently they didn't identify him as the source of the music, their initially puzzled or annoyed expressions set him on edge.
It had not always been this way; John was a pretty normal kid, which is to say that music only played when adults set records on the retro turntable in his parents' den or popped a tape into the car stereo. When he was ten, he got his own discman as a birthday present. He listened amiably while pedaling his bike through the neighborhood after school or on the bus in the morning, but otherwise was not especially obsessed with music.
The trouble began when he hit puberty, the fall after his 13th birthday, just a few weeks into the eighth grade. At this point, he liked loud, energetic rock music - he was certainly not a classical music fan, nor had he ever had piano lesssons or played an instrument. In fact anyone who had approached his unusual condition with logic rather than assumptions would have immediately realized that even if he was the epicenter of the music, it was in no way a conscious result of his own actions or knowledge. John didn't know 99% of the pieces that played near him.
Some of it was recognizable, even to the layperson - the score of Beethoven's 9th or Rachmaninoff's Funeral March. Much of it was more obscure. But all of it was composed long before John was born and in many cases long after the composers and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were dead.
It might sound sort of romantic and exciting to have a musical score accompany your every waking move, but it was distracting at best. When he was alone, it made it hard to study. The minute he felt frustrated by a concept, the percussion section would kick in and then perhaps some horns.
At worst, waiting, for instance, outside the principal's office in eighth grade, because his teacher thought he was playing a prank to distract everyone on the math test with a rather loud rendition of Strauss' Blue Danube waltz, the fact that the opening bars to Prokiev's creepy Dance of the Knights began as soon as the principal opened his door to beckon him inside... well it didn't help his case.
John was expelled after a series of meetings in which he was directed ever-more-emphatically to reveal the location of the speakers he must have installed all over the school. "You!" his math teacher yelled in the last parent-teacher-principal meeting. "You are a MUSIC TERRORIST!!"
Eighth grade was probably the worst year of John's life. He was expelled from that school in September, and by several schools thereafter. By Christmas his parents had decided to home-school him.
He was examined by a veritable army of psychiatric and medical professionals, initially to break his antisocial speaker-hiding behavior, and then to see if his vocal cords could project complex orchestral music at a distance, and finally by a doctor who was also a priest and hypothesized that he was possessed by demonic spirits.
Eventually his parents gave up, accepted the utter lack of explanation for the phenomenon and John developed a kind of phobia about being in quiet spaces with strangers. A shrieking air-lifted toddler was unfazed by violin accompaniment, but adults in the library or a mall elevator were a different story. Though frequently they didn't identify him as the source of the music, their initially puzzled or annoyed expressions set him on edge.
It had not always been this way; John was a pretty normal kid, which is to say that music only played when adults set records on the retro turntable in his parents' den or popped a tape into the car stereo. When he was ten, he got his own discman as a birthday present. He listened amiably while pedaling his bike through the neighborhood after school or on the bus in the morning, but otherwise was not especially obsessed with music.
The trouble began when he hit puberty, the fall after his 13th birthday, just a few weeks into the eighth grade. At this point, he liked loud, energetic rock music - he was certainly not a classical music fan, nor had he ever had piano lesssons or played an instrument. In fact anyone who had approached his unusual condition with logic rather than assumptions would have immediately realized that even if he was the epicenter of the music, it was in no way a conscious result of his own actions or knowledge. John didn't know 99% of the pieces that played near him.
Some of it was recognizable, even to the layperson - the score of Beethoven's 9th or Rachmaninoff's Funeral March. Much of it was more obscure. But all of it was composed long before John was born and in many cases long after the composers and their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren were dead.
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Biochem major terror with an ist
You see what I did there? In hopes of not getting flagged by immigration trolling for green card holders to remove from this country?
What could possibly drive me to risk being expelled from classroom USA? I had this dream last night that kept repeating, with minor variations, like a sort of narrative morse code.
I was a hovering spirit watching an 18 year old boy sign up for his first semester of classes, over and over, but each time at a different college.
The first time he was in his living room talking to his father about his upcoming freshman year at University of Texas. The boy was tall, broad-shouldered and well built but nerdy, with glasses and a pale, slightly sweaty complexion. He wore a white and brown striped button down shirt with chest pocket, from which an actual pencil, in a pocket protector, protruded. His hair flopped into his eyes every time he looked down at the catalog to write his latest selection onto a school form.
The next scene was a television newscast describing a grisly scene at the University of Texas. The date scrolling across the ticker was November 17. The boy's picture, a still taken of him in the same striped shirt, displayed in the upper right hand corner, was labeled simply, "suspect still at large."
Now the boy was wearing a purple button down shirt and talking amiably with his aunt while filling out a freshman schedule for fall quarter 2013. He had not aged. There were no signs of depression or psychosis in his eyes, simply curiosity and thoughtfulness as he pondered the academic year ahead, mapped out his near-future in strings of 7 character codes: Biol 160, Chem 112, Phot 110, Calc 199.
Next I was on a street corner. Two teenage girls stood at a bus stop, smoking, shivering in the cold. Beside them the newspaper vending machine front page showed a blown up image of the boy, purple shirt, glasses, staring expressionless into some school ID camera. The caption: "A troubled student at the University of Arkansas turned a simple fall day into a nightmare for hundreds of his Biochemistry classmates."
Back to another living room, this one in Somewhere, California. The boy. A new shirt, same glasses, visiting his big brother. Registration form for fall quarter classes at Pacific University.
I don't know how many times this dream repeated before I woke. Often enough to make an impression that lasted over an hour while I did Morning Chores before having time to sit down and write.
FTR I didn't feel a huge sense of terror or fear, or imminent danger. It was an emptier, colder emotion than that. If this dream was a message, it was not a literal one.
What could possibly drive me to risk being expelled from classroom USA? I had this dream last night that kept repeating, with minor variations, like a sort of narrative morse code.
I was a hovering spirit watching an 18 year old boy sign up for his first semester of classes, over and over, but each time at a different college.
The first time he was in his living room talking to his father about his upcoming freshman year at University of Texas. The boy was tall, broad-shouldered and well built but nerdy, with glasses and a pale, slightly sweaty complexion. He wore a white and brown striped button down shirt with chest pocket, from which an actual pencil, in a pocket protector, protruded. His hair flopped into his eyes every time he looked down at the catalog to write his latest selection onto a school form.
The next scene was a television newscast describing a grisly scene at the University of Texas. The date scrolling across the ticker was November 17. The boy's picture, a still taken of him in the same striped shirt, displayed in the upper right hand corner, was labeled simply, "suspect still at large."
Now the boy was wearing a purple button down shirt and talking amiably with his aunt while filling out a freshman schedule for fall quarter 2013. He had not aged. There were no signs of depression or psychosis in his eyes, simply curiosity and thoughtfulness as he pondered the academic year ahead, mapped out his near-future in strings of 7 character codes: Biol 160, Chem 112, Phot 110, Calc 199.
Next I was on a street corner. Two teenage girls stood at a bus stop, smoking, shivering in the cold. Beside them the newspaper vending machine front page showed a blown up image of the boy, purple shirt, glasses, staring expressionless into some school ID camera. The caption: "A troubled student at the University of Arkansas turned a simple fall day into a nightmare for hundreds of his Biochemistry classmates."
Back to another living room, this one in Somewhere, California. The boy. A new shirt, same glasses, visiting his big brother. Registration form for fall quarter classes at Pacific University.
I don't know how many times this dream repeated before I woke. Often enough to make an impression that lasted over an hour while I did Morning Chores before having time to sit down and write.
FTR I didn't feel a huge sense of terror or fear, or imminent danger. It was an emptier, colder emotion than that. If this dream was a message, it was not a literal one.
Monday, November 4, 2013
Black forest cake quest
You know those dreams where you have to pee and you spend the entire time searching for a bathroom but then the surfaces are made of slime and it's too disgusting to sit down, or the door is locked, or the walls turn transparent halfway through and you have to leave or there are monsters in the tank all of which turns out to be actually great since then you have to WAKE UP to accomplish your goal?
I just realized where you think this is going but you are wrong. The point is that besides saving you from wetting the bed, these dreams are anxiety dreams. Similar to the dreams where you have to write a test but you show up in your pyjamas without a pencil and the classroom is across campus through a labyrinth, or the dreams where you are late for your flight and can't find your passport and discover the airport was moved to another city and your car won't start so you have to steal one...
How can you be certain it's an anxiety dream? There is no resolution. You never catch your flight. You never locate the classroom. You never find a suitable restroom.
Last night I dreamt that my impossible quest was about cake. I was on my way to a party at a hotel but I had forgotten to bring anything and got lost in the corridors. I ended up taking a long series of flights of stairs and at the very bottom was a broken water fountain holding up a half eaten Black Forest cake.
To one side was the hotel kitchen; staff bustled in and out of the swinging doors, carrying in dirty dishes and pushing full carts out to the elevator. On the other side was a row of five computer poker booths manned by patrons with bottomless glasses of lager, who, other than their playing hand on the digital screen, looked like they hadn't moved in several years.
The cake was moist and fresh but sat at an angle in the fountain so the cream had collected on one side, making the whole thing lopsided. I figured it was being trashed. Next to it sat a knife and three clean plates. I stood there for half an hour, waiting for the hubbub to subside long enough for me to sneak in and cut off some pieces to bring to the party.
Just as there was a lull in activity, the cake moved a fraction of an inch and imploded, falling into the fountain. I was horrified. All that fresh cream and moist chocolate wasted. I went back up the stairs determined to find the party but instead found one of my friends, a tall fat gamer named Jesse. He looked more like a retired lumberjack than a computer nerd. He carried a beer in one hand and an ipad in the other, managing somehow to carry on playing his game while drinking beer, walking through the hotel and holding up his end of a conversation.
At one point he also succeeded in groping my breast in a friendly non-threatening way all without putting any of his accessories down. When I shook my head he shrugged and said, "a guy's gotta try, you know?" I said no, I did not really know that, but he was so amiable and nonchalant that I couldn't muster any outrage.
I told Jesse about the fountain. He wanted to see it so I re-traced my route down the stairs. Lo and behold, a new cake sat there, entirely untouched. It was even more lopsided than the first. Now I was less sure it was trash and considered that the place was just so busy that they had taken to setting cakes on any surface available.
I still wanted slices of cake and now it was a matter of stealing it, rather than a noble effort to prevent waste. Again, I waited for a break in the steady stream of hotel bussers and bellhops. Now there also were a couple of homeless people lying on the carpet, which was littered with candy bar wrappers and empty packs of cigarettes. Jesse and I moved in slowly, like cheetahs fixed on prey. He was surprisingly graceful for such a big guy. I mentioned it and he said, oh, yeah, he took ballet as a kid. People are full of surprises.
We were inches from the target when it happened again: the cake shifted, and the four tier pastry came down like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. Jesse and I locked eyes, shared the same thought. We dug into the top of the cake, bringing up handful of somewhat intact double layered cake and set it on plates. I grabbed a slice and shoved it into his mouth. He threw the piece he was holding directly into my face, and I reflexively closed my eyes.
When I had cleaned up enough to see again, Jesse was gone, along with the two plates of cake we had salvaged. A fresh cake sat in the fountain, this time inside a cardboard box. I took the knife and carefully cut a perfect wedge, setting it onto the last plate. I turned to go but at the top of the stairs I looked carefully at what I had acquired. Like all the cakes before, this one was lopsided. I had cut mostly a wedge of cream.
I turned to go back, thinking I could cut a piece out of the opposite side and balance it out. I lost my footing and the cake went up into the air; when it landed the cream sprayed off the plate in all directions, settling back down like a melted snowman in a puddle around the plate. I realized that I had all the cream from the cake in that piece. Even if I went back down the stairs, the cake would be completely dry.
I just realized where you think this is going but you are wrong. The point is that besides saving you from wetting the bed, these dreams are anxiety dreams. Similar to the dreams where you have to write a test but you show up in your pyjamas without a pencil and the classroom is across campus through a labyrinth, or the dreams where you are late for your flight and can't find your passport and discover the airport was moved to another city and your car won't start so you have to steal one...
How can you be certain it's an anxiety dream? There is no resolution. You never catch your flight. You never locate the classroom. You never find a suitable restroom.
Last night I dreamt that my impossible quest was about cake. I was on my way to a party at a hotel but I had forgotten to bring anything and got lost in the corridors. I ended up taking a long series of flights of stairs and at the very bottom was a broken water fountain holding up a half eaten Black Forest cake.
To one side was the hotel kitchen; staff bustled in and out of the swinging doors, carrying in dirty dishes and pushing full carts out to the elevator. On the other side was a row of five computer poker booths manned by patrons with bottomless glasses of lager, who, other than their playing hand on the digital screen, looked like they hadn't moved in several years.
The cake was moist and fresh but sat at an angle in the fountain so the cream had collected on one side, making the whole thing lopsided. I figured it was being trashed. Next to it sat a knife and three clean plates. I stood there for half an hour, waiting for the hubbub to subside long enough for me to sneak in and cut off some pieces to bring to the party.
Just as there was a lull in activity, the cake moved a fraction of an inch and imploded, falling into the fountain. I was horrified. All that fresh cream and moist chocolate wasted. I went back up the stairs determined to find the party but instead found one of my friends, a tall fat gamer named Jesse. He looked more like a retired lumberjack than a computer nerd. He carried a beer in one hand and an ipad in the other, managing somehow to carry on playing his game while drinking beer, walking through the hotel and holding up his end of a conversation.
At one point he also succeeded in groping my breast in a friendly non-threatening way all without putting any of his accessories down. When I shook my head he shrugged and said, "a guy's gotta try, you know?" I said no, I did not really know that, but he was so amiable and nonchalant that I couldn't muster any outrage.
I told Jesse about the fountain. He wanted to see it so I re-traced my route down the stairs. Lo and behold, a new cake sat there, entirely untouched. It was even more lopsided than the first. Now I was less sure it was trash and considered that the place was just so busy that they had taken to setting cakes on any surface available.
I still wanted slices of cake and now it was a matter of stealing it, rather than a noble effort to prevent waste. Again, I waited for a break in the steady stream of hotel bussers and bellhops. Now there also were a couple of homeless people lying on the carpet, which was littered with candy bar wrappers and empty packs of cigarettes. Jesse and I moved in slowly, like cheetahs fixed on prey. He was surprisingly graceful for such a big guy. I mentioned it and he said, oh, yeah, he took ballet as a kid. People are full of surprises.
We were inches from the target when it happened again: the cake shifted, and the four tier pastry came down like it had been hit by a wrecking ball. Jesse and I locked eyes, shared the same thought. We dug into the top of the cake, bringing up handful of somewhat intact double layered cake and set it on plates. I grabbed a slice and shoved it into his mouth. He threw the piece he was holding directly into my face, and I reflexively closed my eyes.
When I had cleaned up enough to see again, Jesse was gone, along with the two plates of cake we had salvaged. A fresh cake sat in the fountain, this time inside a cardboard box. I took the knife and carefully cut a perfect wedge, setting it onto the last plate. I turned to go but at the top of the stairs I looked carefully at what I had acquired. Like all the cakes before, this one was lopsided. I had cut mostly a wedge of cream.
I turned to go back, thinking I could cut a piece out of the opposite side and balance it out. I lost my footing and the cake went up into the air; when it landed the cream sprayed off the plate in all directions, settling back down like a melted snowman in a puddle around the plate. I realized that I had all the cream from the cake in that piece. Even if I went back down the stairs, the cake would be completely dry.
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