Total Perspective Vortex
What really happened to Trillian? Theories abound, but you can see what she's really been up to on this blog. If you're looking for white mice, depressed robots, or the occasional Pan Galactic Gargleblaster you might be better served here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/guide/.
Don't just sit there angry and ranting, do something constructive.
In the words of Patti Smith (all hail Sister Patti): People have the power.
Contact your elected officials.
Don't be passive = get involved = make a difference.
Words are cool.
The English language is complex, stupid, illogical, confounding, brilliant, beautiful, and fascinating.
Every now and then a word presents itself that typifies all the maddeningly gorgeousness of language. They're the words that give you pause for thought. "Who came up with that word? That's an interesting string of letters." Their beauty doesn't lie in their definition (although that can play a role). It's also not in their onomatopoeia, though that, too, can play a role. Their beauty is in the way their letters combine - the visual poetry of words - and/or the way they sound when spoken. We talk a lot about music we like to hear and art we like to see, so let's all hail the unsung heroes of communication, poetry and life: Words.
Here are some I like. (Not because of their definition.)
Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Smart Girls
(A Trillian de-composition, to the tune of Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys)
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Smart girls ain’t easy to love and they’re above playing games
And they’d rather read a book than subvert themselves
Kafka, Beethoven and foreign movies
And each night alone with her cat
And they won’t understand her and she won’t die young
She’ll probably just wither away
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
A smart girl loves creaky old libraries and lively debates
Exploring the world and art and witty reparteé
Men who don’t know her won’t like her and those who do
Sometimes won’t know how to take her
She’s rarely wrong but in desperation will play dumb
Because men hate that she’s always right
Mama don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
Don’t let them do puzzles and read lots of books
Make ‘em be strippers and dancers and such
Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be smart girls
They’ll never find men and they’re always alone
Even though men claim they want brains
Life(?) of Trillian
Single/Zero
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Well. Here goes. Thanksgiving.
I don’t have much to say about it this year. What I do have to say about it can be summed up thusly: Thanks.
You could read this - someone reminded me of this. I’ve been doing this too long. I don’t even remember what I’ve posted here.
I do have a lot to say about holiday travel, though.
It can be summed up thusly: Don’t.
It’s not that I don’t want to be with my family. I do. Very much. I love my family. I even like them. I like spending holidays with them. If it weren’t for them I’d be spending my holidays alone or as that pathetic interloper who conjures such pity they get invited to mooch on a holiday with a friend’s family solely because the friend can’t stand the guilt of knowing the pathetic single friend with no family would otherwise be spending the holiday alone. So yes. Even if I didn’t happen to love and like my family, I am thankful and happy they’re around because I don’t want the alternatives. For them or me.
But. As a single person it is my lot in life to be the one who travels to celebrate holidays with the family. The family never (or rarely) goes to visit the single person of the family on holidays. (yes, I’ve seen Pieces of April) I understand why. I know it makes the most economic and logistic sense. One person, me, traveling, vs. the rest of the family traveling. It’s just easier. For everyone except me.
I used to allow myself the little fantasy of hosting holiday festivities with my husband and children in our home. I used to think that, you know, like normal people, that would happen. I thought one day I would have a spouse and children and a home and I wouldn’t have to travel on my own to my parents’ house. My parents wouldn’t have to once again host the holidays. Sure, it would be a lot of work, but I wouldn’t mind. Honest. I wouldn’t mind at all. I like doing all that prep stuff.
When HWNMNBS and I were househunting there was one house in particular I really liked. I could see us living there. It seemed, you know, right. Normal. This is the stupidity of real estate. This is where emotion kicks in and drives the sale. I could envision future holidays unfolding in that house. It seemed right for us. I realize that’s stupid, really, it’s just walls and a roof. But it just felt normal. It felt good. It felt good to feel normal. And the holidays play a big part in that normalcy. Holidays are normal rituals. The normal rite of passage is that you grow up, get married, have a home and celebrate and enjoy your holidays there.
I don’t allow myself that fantasy anymore. It hurts. Still. A lot. Which is why I hate holidays so much now. They stir up all that stuff I try so hard to forget or at least repress the rest of the year. And it hurts. Move on, move on...get over it, move on, no expectations, no emotion, do the opposite, just get through it, feel nothing and move on. Right. I know. I’m trying, okay? I’m trying. But it’s the stupid swutting holidays and I miss him and that hurts. Okay?
There. I said it.
Which is why I now hate this time of year so much. It’s not just that I’m very much single — as if that weren’t bad enough — I get the extra bonus joy of lugging around serious baggage from a failed relationship on my holiday travels
When I travel on holidays I see some families traveling. And a lot of couples. A lot of children being toted by their parents. But mostly I see a lot of single people. Sometimes we cast each other knowing looks. The exchange of looks goes like this. “You, too, huh?” “Yep. Alone.” “Yeah. Me, too.” “Gotta find a spouse.” “Yeah.Me, too.”
There are alternatives. a) Stay home, don’t celebrate, celebrate, whatever, just refuse to travel to be with family; b) live close to (or with) the family; c) convince everyone to travel to your place.
None of those alternatives work for me or my family.
So off I go to spend the holiday with my family.
Because that is what I want to do. I just wish there were a way to magically teleport myself from here to there. I’m normally a gung ho traveler. The journey’s half the fun and all that. But not during holidays. Nope. No way. That’s a whole other travel ball game. That’s a whole other game completely.
Especially Thanksgiving. I have always tried to figure out what it is about Thanksgiving that makes people so...I don’t know what it is. Frantic. Desperate. Hostile. Confused. Angry.
Maybe they’re dreading spending the day with their family. Maybe they’re not thankful for anything. Maybe they’ve done this one too many times. Whatever the reason, very few people I encounter while traveling seem to be in a good mood about the holiday.
And I know I’m one of them. I try to keep a healthy perspective about it. “Hey! I’m so thankful I have a family to be with on holidays! I’m so thankful I am able to travel! I’m so thankful for all these wonderful people sharing the holiday with me! We’re all on this pilgrimage together and isn’t that just special and interesting? We all have different stories which brought us to this one place in time together. United in our holiday travel! How cool is that?! It’s very cool!”
I honestly do start my journey with that attitude. It usually fades quickly but I do try to maintain some semblance of, well holiday good will. But when everyone else is in a really bad mood about the whole thing it’s really difficult to maintain a good attitude.
The children are the first to go. They’re perceptive. They know when there is a bad attitude hanging in the air. It’s like fear. They instinctively know the grown-ups are tense and moody. And because they’re children and unable to rationalize the situation they misbehave. It’s a really simple concept: Children misbehave when they are tired or craving attention. They crave attention because they’re not getting it or because they’re having emotional issues. Like fear. And confusion. Give the kid some positive attention and very clear rules and boundaries and guess what? It’s like magic! They behave! Well. Not always quite like that. Sometimes they’re just really tired and cranky.
Hey. I can relate. I’ve been tired and cranky for several years. It sucks. Sometimes I misbehave. But. There they are, reacting. Misbehaving. Annoying and irritating all the fellow holiday travelers. And the grown-ups react to the screaming, crying children. Tempers elevate. Remember, many of the people traveling this holiday are single people. People who do not have children. People who may actually really like and enjoy children. But not now. Not here. Not screaming, crying, annoying, irritating children whose parents allow them to run amuck and scream and cry and carry on, giving nothing more than an unapologetic shrug and smile and a lot of excuses and blame for why their children are running amuck.
I’ve noticed a trend among parents of young children. Blame everyone else for their children's’ behavior. The plane was late so it’s the airline’s fault the child is running around the newsstand pulling magazines off the rack while the parents slurp down a doublefrappecafemuchacrappola and discuss how this is all the airline’s fault.
I was hit in the ankle, yes, that ankle, by one of those SUV strollers a few weeks ago. The driver of the thing, a woman who could barely see over the handles of the stroller, was apparently pushing it with her stomach because she had a coughuppalottabucks in one hand and her mobile phone in the other. She was completely unaware that she hit me with the SUV stroller and kept shoving the thing into me. I turned around to see what the swut she was doing and she gave me a dirty look. I heard her tell whomever was on the other end of the phone, “It’s really crowded here. This woman in front of me won’t move and she’s making Jacob cry.”
Yes. I was making young Jacob cry. It was my fault the flow of foot traffic had come to a halt in the airport and that her inability to move was causing Jacob to be upset. Apparently Jacob gets upset when the stroller stops. Jacob likes to be on the move. Perhaps his mother's intake of caffeine during pregnancy has something to do with his need for speed. But it was my fault, more precisely: my ankle’s fault, that his forward movement ceased.
It was the “won’t move” part that pushed me over the edge.
“I ‘won’t move’ (yes, I used exaggerated air quotes around the won't move. I told you sometimes I misbehave) because the people in front of me have stopped moving forward because apparently somewhere in front of us there is a delay. This sometimes happens in airports. It’s normal. We’re all going to be okay. We just have to stay calm. Everything’s going to be okay.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Where can I send the physical therapy bill for the work I need on my ankle because you repeatedly shoved your SUV stroller into me? Do you have insurance coverage to drive that thing or do you want to settle this between us?”
“Huh?”
“Oh. Right. It’s my fault your stroller repeatedly shoved into the back of my ankle. And all that emotional distress Jacob’s had is my fault, too.”
Still talking on her mobile, she said, “She’s really weird and a total bitch and she still won’t move and Jacob’s crying really bad now.”
We finally began moving. But never during the whole process did she put down her mobile phone or her coughuppalottabucks and tend to her child.
If you think this is an isolated incident, guess again. This happens a lot. I’m not going to pin labels on people or generalize a type of parent. We all know these people. We know who they are. We know where they live. We know those SUV strollers cost a lot of money. We know status is very important to them. More important that who’s actually sitting in the strollers. One of these days, very soon, maybe even this holiday weekend, I expect a riot over this issue.
And I like children. I really do. I truly like and enjoy children. I cut tremendous amounts of slack for children. It’s their parents who fill me with contempt. But. If my anger level is raised over this I cannot even begin to imagine how people who do not like or understand children are feeling over this.
Which leads me to think: Wouldn't it be easier if we all just stayed where we are and gave thanks with whomever happened to be next door? No one would have to travel. No one would have to schlep through crowded airports, train stations and highways. No one would have to deal with travel delays, tired screaming children, frazzled transportation workers or unmet expectations. Think how much more calm the general atmosphere would be.
Oh sure, we’d miss our families and friends. That would be difficult. Being apart from the people you love on holidays is difficult. But. On the other hand, arriving frazzled, tired, cranky and generally unpleasant after a long and unpleasant journey is also not in keeping with the whole warm fuzzy holiday spirit.
Given the choice I’d take a pleasant, heartfelt, meaningful sincere phone conversation with some laughs over a cranky, tense, surly face to face dinner.
But. I’m a wimp. A wuss. I don’t have the emotional fortitude to not travel to be with my family for the holiday. I couldn’t stand the guilt. And I cannot even imagine saying, “No, I’m not going to be there for the holiday this year. I don’t feel like traveling. I’ll give you a call.” Because there’s no way I could disappoint my parents and the rest of my family who cares that way. I’m not made of strong enough emotional stuff for that. Nor do I have the stamina to actually enjoy the holiday on my own. It sounds good in theory, take a year off from all of it for a change, and I’d have all sorts of ideas swirling around for my holiday solitude prior to the day. But when it arrived I’d be upset. I’d want to be with my family. I’d feel guilty. I’d feel selfish. I’d feel ashamed. I’d feel lonely.
So off I trek, another holiday pilgrimage as a single person. Keep those swutting SUV strollers away from me. You have been warned.
