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/.

Otherwise, hello, and welcome.
Mail Trillian here<




Trillian McMillian
Trillian McMillian
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Women, The Internet and You: Tips for Men Who Use Online Dating Sites
Part I, Your Profile and Email

Part II, Selecting a Potential Date

Part III, Your First Date!

Part IV, After the First Date. Now What?


"50 First Dates"






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.
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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.)

Quasar
Hyperbole
Amenable
Taciturn
Ennui
Prophetic
Tawdry
Hubris
Ethereal
Syzygy
Umbrageous
Twerp
Sluice
Omnipotent
Sanctuary
Malevolent
Maelstrom
Luddite
Subterfuge
Akimbo
Hoosegow
Dodecahedron
Visceral
Soupçon
Truculent
Vitriol
Mercurial
Kerfuffle
Sangfroid




























 







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Highlights from the Archives. Some favorite Trillian moments.

Void, Of Course: Eliminating Expectations and Emotions for a Better Way of Life

200i: iPodyssey

Macs Are from Venus, Windows is from Mars Can a relationship survive across platform barriers?
Jerking Off

Get A Job

Office Church Ladies: A Fieldguide

'Cause I'm a Blonde

True? Honestly? I think not.

A Good Day AND Funyuns?

The Easter Boy

Relationship in the Dumpster

Wedding Dress 4 Sale, Never Worn

Got Friends? Are You Sure? Take This Test

What About Class? Take This Test

A Long Time Ago, in a Galaxy Far Far Away, There Was a Really Bad Movie

May Your Alchemical Process be Complete. Rob Roy Recipe

Good Thing She's Not in a Good Mood Very Often (We Knew it Wouldn't Last)

What Do I Have to Do to Put You in this Car Today?

Of Mice and Me (Killer Cat Strikes in Local Woman's Apartment)

Trillian: The Musical (The Holiday Special)

LA Woman (I Love (Hate) LA)

It is my Cultureth
...and it would suit-eth me kindly to speak-eth in such mannered tongue

Slanglish

It's a Little Bit Me, It's a Little Bit You
Blogging a Legacy for Future Generations


Parents Visiting? Use Trillian's Mantra!

Ghosts of Christmas Past: Mod Hair Ken

Caught Blogging by Mom, Boss or Other

2003 Holiday Sho-Lo/Mullet Awards

Crullers, The Beer Store and Other Saintly Places

Come on Out of that Doghouse! It's a Sunshine Day!

"...I had no idea our CEO is actually Paula Abdul in disguise."

Lap Dance of the Cripple

Of Muppets and American Idols
"I said happier place, not crappier place!"

Finally Off Crutches, Trillian is Emancipated

Payless? Trillian? Shoe Confessions

Reality Wednesday: Extremely Local Pub

Reality Wednesday: Backstage Staging Zone (The Sweater Blog)

The Night Secret Agent Man Shot My Dad

To Dream the Impossible Dream: The Office Karaoke Party

Trillian Flies Economy Class (Prisoner, Cell Block H)

Trillian Visits the Village of the Damned, Takes Drugs, Becomes Delusional and Blogs Her Brains Out

Trillian's Parents are Powerless

Striptease for Spiders: A PETA Charity Event (People for the Ethical Treatment of Arachnids)

What's Up with Trillian and the Richard Branson Worship?

"Screw the French and their politics, give me their cheese!"


















 
Mail Trillian here





Trillian's Guide to the Galaxy gives 5 stars to these places in the Universe:
So much more than fun with fonts, this is a daily dose of visual poetry set against a backdrop of historical trivia. (C'mon, how can you not love a site that notes Wolfman Jack's birthday?!)

CellStories

Alliance for the Great Lakes


Hot, so cool, so cool we're hot.

Ig Nobel Awards

And you think YOU have the worst bridesmaid dress?

Coolest Jewelry in the Universe here (trust Trillian, she knows)

Red Tango

If your boss is an idiot, click here.

Evil Cat Full of Loathing.

Wildlife Works

Detroit Cobras


The Beachwood Reporter is better than not all, but most sex.



Hey! Why not check out some great art and illustration while you're here? Please? It won't hurt and it's free.

Shag

Kii Arens

Tim Biskup

Jeff Soto

Jotto




Get Fuzzy Now!
If you're not getting fuzzy, you should be. All hail Darby Conley. Yes, he's part of the Syndicate. But he's cool.





Who or what is HWNMNBS: (He Whose Name Must Not Be Spoken) Trillian's ex-fiancé. "Issues? What issues?"







Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.


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Reading blogs at work? Click to escape to a suitable site!

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

 
Sunday, January 30, 2011  
My friend who may or may not be separating from her husband keeps saying she wants to "play single" and "try out being single with me" and wants me to help her "remember how awful being single is."

I do not like it when she uses the term "play single." I do not like all the implications, spoken and unspoken, those phrases carry.

But. She's been very nice to me during the past year. And I'm the only single person she knows within an 800 mile radius so I'm her observation subject. So I'm tolerating it, cringing through a forced smile kind of thing. And hey, I'm getting out more thanks to her. She's married and having a midlife crisis, I'm unemployed and having run of the mill crises. She wants a single compadre to recharge what she feels is a lackluster existence, I have no money to do anything and pretty much no one to do anything with even if I had money, so, hey, it's a win-win. I guess.

The problem (of which there are many) with this that doesn't set well with me is that I like her husband. I like her kids. I like them. As a family.

Their suburban dream life isn't exactly what I long for, but, they are not "typical" yuppie suburbanites. Of all my former single friends who've married and gone native in the suburbs, they are the lone couple who still have a shred of their former personality...and reality...in their lives. They had an SUV when both their children were in car seats, because, really, it's just a lot easier to get the kids in and out of their car seats in a vehicle with higher seats. But, as soon as the kids were tall enough and old enough for car seat emancipation the SUV was traded in for a smaller, "regular" car. Sure, it has cup holders that accommodate juice boxes, but there are no DVD players embedded in the seat backs. I know! I know! Imagine such a travesty! The kids have to actually hold their DVD players in their laps. It's like, the olden days or something. Their children get teased about this and the parents (my friends) are scorned and tut-tutted by the other suburban parents due to their lack of on-board entertainment. As my friend said, one unforeseen advantage to being van/SUV-less in the suburbs? No one expects/wants them to carpool a tribe of children to activities. They can ferry one or two friends at the most. Which means their children are forced to endure the presence of and social involvement with other children who may not be their chosen friends but live close or are involved in the same activities. Oh the humanity! Their children have to endure car rides with other children who aren't their "special" friends!!! Ye gads, this is child abuse! This will scar them for life!!  Car pooling based on, you know, logistics???!!! Savages!!! It's worse than Lord of the Flies!

I like my friends because they see the absurdity of the extreme child-raising mentality prevalent in a lot of suburbs...and they refuse to be part of it. Their suburban friends chastise them for this. Their suburban friends have even staged "talks" with them about how their renegade behavior is adversely affecting the socialization and growth of their children.

Here's the thing: I like their children. They are not selfish, spoiled, greedy, thoughtless, dull cookie cutter brats. They are are imaginative, kind, interesting, funny, wise, polite children. They're not perfect, but they're real. If this is the result of stunted socialization due to a lack of SUV/mini-van car-pooling then rock on, it's working.

My friend and her husband have never exactly "blended" with the other suburbanites. They fit-in because they have the right house in the right neighborhood and he has the right kind of job and earns the right amount of money and she stays home with the kids and they generally wear the right clothes and go on the right vacations. But. They don't blend with the other people there. They're not above it because obviously, they are part of it, but, at least they are aware of life outside their right neighborhood and right town. They are very aware that their lives are not perfect and their children are not prodigies and they are not the epitome of success. They are very aware that their world is a very, very small and closed ivory tower masquerading as a Utopian society of culture and social acceptance. They see the weirdness and hypocritical nature of their neighbors.

This is getting way off track but in case you don't know anyone who lives in a sheltered suburb you have to hear this.

Their friends give money to charities for underprivileged minorities yet their children have never played with much less attended school with kids who aren't white. (I mean really white.) They hire nannies and housekeepers and gardeners who speak foreign languages because they think it's "a good cultural experience" for their children. And yet those nannies', housekeepers' and gardeners' children and grandchildren do not play with or attend school with their employers' children. One of my friends' neighbors has a housekeeper who has three children the exact ages of her employers' children. You might think, "Hey, that's great! The kids can play together!" Nope. The housekeepers' kids are not even invited to the elaborate birthday parties where loads of other kids are invited, even flown in from other countries. I kid you not - these people flew in kids from France (children of distant cousins and work colleagues) to attend a five-year-old's birthday party to give the event a "multi-cultural tone," but the children of the Nicaraguan housekeeper were not invited to attend.

My friends are very aware of the ridiculousness and absurdity that surrounds them and they try very hard to stay out of it as much as possible. They are considering a move to a less "right" suburb, but the housing market is crap and for now they're stuck there.

And I think this is a contributing factor to their marital malaise. My friend wants to go back to work. She is the only one of my former single working friends who has made any real and honest effort to find a job after the kids started school. Unfortunately, too, her son's entry into school and her re-entry into the workforce coincided with the horrible job market last year. You think I'm having a hard time finding a job? Try being a woman who quit her job 8 years ago to stay home with her kids and now wants to work again. She's never worked retail or waited tables, either, so we're in a similar job-hunt plight. Though her's is not tinged with financial worries. They don't "need" the money she would earn. But that's not to say her job hunt is any less discouraging or frustrating than mine.

Lately she's been thinking maybe she needs a complete change of environment and mindset. Hence the "playing single" thing. I don't want her to divorce her husband. I like him. I like them. Married. Their problems are not money or sex or fidelity. They're having midlife crises and I think those crises stem from their ridiculous friends and neighbors in the suburbs. Of course they go to bed at night thinking it's all bullshit and a waste of time! If I was surrounded by that mentality and "lifestyle" I'd be in some sort of crisis, too. And I think they both realize their environment is a huge contributing factor (hence the desire to sell the house and move to a less pompous suburb). But they're kind of stuck there, and my friend feels like time is slipping away and she needs to do something now. Her husband understands - he knows she wants to work and that she's never fit in with the other stay-at-home mothers in their town and he loves her all the more for that. But. That doesn't change the fact that until they can sell their house that's where they live and that's what she's surrounded by all the time.

Enter: Me. The lone single friend in the city my friend still has.

We choose days to "play single." Her husband made the mistake of jokingly calling it a play-date once. That joke resulted in an extra visit to the couples counselor. He's "okay" with her "playing single" with me because he knows I'm responsible. He knows she's "safe" with me and that my conscience will be her guide. If she needs to get something "out of her system" better that she's accompanied by me rather than one of her similarly discontented suburban friends. I'll show her what she's really "missing," not some created fantasy of like-minded unfulfilled suburbanites. My mere presence alone keeps it real. My life is not a fantasy Disney-fied version of single life, smooth and prettied up to make everyone feel warm and safe. It's the real Coen brothers deal. Stark, harsh, kinda funny but mostly unpleasant.

On the days she plays single she does what I do, a one sided life swap. She lives like me, the good but mostly the bad and the ugly.

I'm pretty sure I'm saving a marriage.

And I'm pretty sure I have the premise and enough plots for at least a couple seasons of a sitcom. 

Episode 1:
Meltdown
My friend's been taking a lot of classes lately. Mostly yoga and poetry, and of course she's training with the closet Svengali. She offered to pay my tuition for a couple classes. She wants to do things that are creative, hands on. So we're taking a jewelry class which, as I suspected, is more of a metallurgy class.

Let's just say we're not stringing beads.

It's held in an art center, you know, real art and artists and studio space, where the emphasis is on creating and being with other artists. It's a studio co-op where artists have work space. To subsidize the expense of studio space a portion of the building is used for classes.

This is not cutely/chic-ly decorated suburban "paint a pre-made piece of ceramics" or "make a cute bead necklace" store where the purpose is selling stuff, not-so-cleverly disguised as a way for customers to get creative and provide a "fun" creative birthday party for the little ones.

This is a real art space - gritty, utilitarian, smelly and drafty. People milling about wearing tatty clothes splattered and stained with paint, clay, ink and unknown solvents, probably mostly toxic. Faces and arms smudged with ashes from kilns, metal polishing solutions and more paint. They're carrying hack-saws, large rolls of industrial grade wire and metal, slabs of marble and stained gallon jugs sloshing with murky liquids. There are classes for children but they're confined and secluded in a "safe zone" of the building - nothing hot, sharp, toxic or breakable.

It's going okay. Don't get me wrong, I love it, I'm in my element, these are "my" people. This is my native environment. My friend, though, well, she's kind of struggling. She's afraid of the raw fire power of the acetylene torch and she doesn't like the icky smell of the finishing solutions.

And she is, um, jealous of me, or over me, or something. There's some kind of negative thing going on with her. Envy, inadequacy....something. Since she got married, had kids, quit her job and moved to the suburbs our friendship is based on the assumed principle that she is successful and socially acceptable, socially "right" and I am a loser who is still single, childless and, heh heh, gotta love this, unemployed and soon-to-be homeless. In her mind, though, the fact that I'm single and childless is more pitying and more suspect than the fact that I am unemployed and losing my home. She views it as cause and effect. She feels that if I had a husband to rely on I wouldn't have to worry about financial stress and losing my home. But that's a blog for another day or a couple visits to a therapist. Anyway, the accepted outward appearance dynamic of our friendship is that she's the pretty, successful, enviable one and I'm the unattractive, wacky lovable loser.

But here, in a creative environment, among "my" people who speak "my" language, the tables are turned. (It should be noted that I congenially resist the urge to say, "Your in my world now, missy," (bwa ha ha implied)) This microcosm of creativity is a small (very small) outpost where creative people can get their art on. Half the people there don't even own cars, much less notice or care about what cars other people drive. Obviously I like it, I'm enjoying it. It's very, very good for me on a lot of levels. My friend had to coax me to let her pay for my tuition and supplies, I didn't feel "right" about accepting that sizable gift. She was too timid to endeavor something like this on her own but wanted to try it, so in the end she convinced me that I would be the one being charitable, doing her the favor of accompanying her on her quest for...whatever it is she's trying to find.

When I visit my friend in the suburbs I am more than a fish out of water: I am a stranger in a strange land. Sure, I grew up in suburbia, rural suburbia, so I know the language, it's my native tongue, in fact. But. My parents were never "typical" suburbanites. Were it not for the riots in the '60s and the fact that they both like gardening, my parents would have happily stayed in their first house in the Detroit city limits. Yes, they loved their rural suburban home and grew to be integral in the community - actively involved with groups and volunteering, always friendly and helping neighbors. But. They weren't exactly the keep-up-with-the-Joneses types. When I was a kid I resented my parents for "making" us live in the middle of nowhere. When I was old enough to choose where I live I left suburbia. And have not lived there since. When I visit a suburb I always feel, I dunno, weird, I guess. I find myself holding my breath a lot when I'm in the suburbs, like some disaster is about to happen or someone's going to throw an insult at me or confront me, ask me what I'm doing there. But now, watching my friend and her midlife crisis, I have an even better understanding of the sacrifices my parents made for us kids. They wanted us to be able to run and ride bikes and swim and sled and skate and play in the woods and attend good schools. It didn't kill my parents, they had each other and some good like-minded friends. But the suburbs are killing my friend and her husband. And I have even less desire to move there. And this class, with other creative people, is really good for both of us on a lot of deep psychological levels - there are other people like me who don't fit in with the accepted suburban norm, and there are people like her who aren't happy accepting "success" in the form of a nice house and new car. 

My friend wants to push herself, get out of her comfort zone. But she's the kind of person who feels that doing anything, even pushing yourself, getting out of your comfort zone, requires a companion. And sure, a traveling companion is always nice, but I feel that to really explore yourself, step out of your comfort zone and find yourself, a certain amount of independence is required. But my friend...she's extremely social, she needs a compadre. So. I'm her trial single-girl companion.

Unfortunately I'm making friends with most of the people at the art studio, people I have a lot in common with and people I understand. Not that I'm little miss popularity, but, I'm far more open and social there than I usually am because I have a comfort level, things in common. Ideas to exchange. This is not the Trillian my friend is used to seeing. And this is not a world my friend understands. So I end up translating a lot to and for my friend. She's the foreigner, here. She's the one people eye suspiciously. One of our younger, less tolerant classmates, rolls her eyes and scoffingly calls my friend princess. Yes, that's immature and yes, inappropriate, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel a certain amount of vindication. When I attend my friend's parties in the suburbs her suburban friends say some really catty things to me. Far worse than being called princess by a young sculptor with an attitude. But I'm not out for revenge so I try to ignore all the social stuff and just enjoy the class and the opportunity that's been presented to me.

And it's getting kind of thorny on the project front. I'm excelling in our metals class. I love it. This is my kind of thing. Duck + water = swim. In some circles I am now known as the Copper Whisperer. My friend...well...not so much. See above, fire, smelly, princess.

And more to her disdain, most of the people in our class are artists of some ilk - most are graphics or painting professionals who want to either try out or get back into some kind of sculpting. So, there's a lot of creativity in the class. People have big ideas and loads of sketches and a "just jump in and do it" attitude with the torches and tools. Most of us are well acquainted with power tools and smelly solvents and...sketchbooks. My friend can barely use a screwdriver, fumbles with a lighter at a concert, and is more of the paint-by-number type of artist. She didn't think a jewelry class would involve, you know, drawing. Or power tools. Or safety goggles. Or acetylene torches.

She wanted to push herself, true, but this is more of a shove from behind. She's afraid of the torch and doesn't like the smell and she thinks the people there, while quaint, are weird and dirty.* She's like a carnivore who doesn't want to know how cows and chickens are butchered. She prefers to think the meat in the grocery store just somehow magically appears there, as is, all neat, fat trimmed and packaged nicely, nothing questionable or messy, no dirty hands, in the process. Similarly, she doesn't want to know how paintings and sculptures are made, she prefers to think they just somehow magically appear in galleries and museums, all clean and pretty and displayed in an eye-pleasing way, nothing questionable or messy, no dirty hands, in the process.

So, we had a little cat-fight, okay, more accurately she had a hissy fit at me over my success and her failure in the class she paid for. It was inevitable and I predicted it, but it was still hurtful. "If it weren't for me you wouldn't even be able to take one class and now you're the star pupil!" Yeah, it was kind of an ugly meltdown. (Which also happens to be an apt description of her class project.)

She has yet to achieve even one of the course "requirements." I have accomplished all the goals, completed the required class project plus four more pieces. Our instructor, who is encouraging me to keep working with metals, gave me some tools and metal to use at home. She's giving me lessons in techniques usually covered in the more advanced classes. She wants to use two of my pieces in the student showcase. This is what pushed my friend over her edge. She's used to being the successful one in our relationship. She's used to being the one "in control" and the "leader." She's also not used to failure of any kind. And she's sort of impatient, too. I predicted her breakdown, but I didn't think it would happen quite so soon.

Still, I'm glad we have it out of the way and we're moving forward from it. I'm trying to help her with her project, trying to slowly show her some techniques. I asked her what she wants to make and translated her ideas into sketches she can follow. This will, in turn, help our instructor understand what she's trying to accomplish. I think at the end of the class my friend will have at least one project and will walk away feeling "good" about her adventure in metallurgy. She is absolutely trying new things and getting way, way, way out of her comfort zone. And hey, it's a darned good story to tell back in Suburbia.


Episode II
Dancing with Herself
Then the single-girl play date fun continued! What do single girls do on Friday nights? Drinks and dancing! With gay men! Off we went to see a Eurodisco band at a small club. Much to my friend's surprise, there wasn't much dancing or drinking in our group. I don't have money or the inclination to drink much alcohol, my friends who joined us are not big drinkers, and we all feel too old and self-conscious and disinterested in dancing to hit the dancefloor. We're not fuddy-duds, we were at a live show, we wanted to see/hear live music, we're just...not kids anymore.

MAF and his partner have been together a lot of years. 10-ish. They are an old married couple. They are not ashamed or closeted gays, but they are not flamboyant or in-your-face-with-the-gay-rights-debate. They're regular people who do very regular things and are a typical couple except they're the same gender. Neither of them has ever liked gay clubs or gay resorts or gay this or that. They're not ashamed of their sexuality, but they don't see it as their defining label. MAF doesn't really like Eurodisco, but his partner does, so, the compromise they found long ago was: No stupid disco-clubs, but if a Eurodisco band comes to town for a live gig, at an established "regular" venue, they'll go. This was just such an event.

I'm not really into Eurodisco, either, but hey, it was an inexpensive gig and my may-or-may-not be getting a divorce friend was in the city and looking for a single girl in the city night out. Yes, it's a sad and telling reflection on my single girlness that the best single girl night in the city activity I could come up with was a live Eurodisco band with a gay couple. I know this. But, just as my friend originally thought a jewelry making class would be fun and hanging out with artists would be "quaint," so did she think hanging out with a gay couple at a live Eurodisco concert would be "hip."

My friend is like Barbie commercial. She comes in one outfit with loads of accessories and other outfits (sold separately) available. She bought an outfit for our jewelry class, complete with artist created jewelry and designer boots, but was mortified to discover that it might get sooty, stained, torn and dirty - and posed a health and safety hazard: Her earrings and necklace recently procured at a local gallery were admonished by the instructor, "You'll want to take those off, you don't want anything dangling around the torches or polishing wheels and drills. The wheels will suck in a necklace and choke you before anyone will even know you're suffocating. They don't call it the 'strangler' and 'the widowmaker' for nothing." The instructor was exaggerating for effect, but the precaution is real. It should be common sense, but, to my friend, who's never been in a real studio or around real power tools, common sense isn't so common. (For Coen brothers' effect, imagine my suburban friend as Carl Showalter and the polishing wheels as the wood chipper.) She was also very surprised to learn that her "artist's blouse" and "La bohème" skirt and expensive designer boots called "Gallery Girl" are not de rigueur in our class or the studio at large. Her catalogs apparently lied to her about what artists wear.

Okay, so, after our class we went to my place to get ready for the night out. I wore, you know, actual work clothes to class, and needed a shower. My friend wanted to change her clothes, too. Not that she got them dirty or that she needed a shower. But. Like Barbie, she had a theme outfit for a night out with gay men at a Eurodisco concert. Yep. They sell such an outfit. It's comprised of a lot of black skin-tight clothing and yet another pair of boots. Thigh-high boots with four-inch heels. My friend used to be really cute, as she ages she's turning very pretty. This is not a usual or easy transition for most women but her DNA is fantastic and she looks great. She usually looks effortless and natural. The artist outfit would probably look natural back in the suburbs, so I'll let her off the hook with that one. But. Her single girl in the city night out outfit? Yeah. Um. Yeah. Well. You know. Just because I don't know any single women who dress like that doesn't mean they don't exist. But. You know. We're not kids. Even Madonna doesn't dress like that anymore. She looked like she was wearing a Halloween costume. It was kind of sad to see, so forced, so clearly grasping, gasping for something, some persona, some transport out and away from something. But, she had already downed a lot of vodka and through the haze of booze she thought she looked hot so, you know, rock on, sister, let's go, my friends are waiting.

When we arrived at MAF and his partner's home they were visibly, um, shocked by Mid-life Crisis Suburban Mom Barbies' outfit.  "Hi, how are you?! We haven't seen you since Halloween!" We were all dressed as some era of Cher, a Chera, for Halloween. So, MAF's recognition of Halloween in conjunction with my friend's evening attire was not unintentionally coincidental. As proof of MAF's good nature, he left it at that and didn't make any obvious jokes or remarks about my friend's outfit other than to say, "Your hair looks great like that!"

Okay. Like I said, I don't drink much, MAF and his partner drink even less. Our nights out are usually nights in. I'm unemployed. MAF is doing "okay" but his partner was unemployed for almost a year and they're living on a very tight budget. When we get together it's usually an inexpensive bottle of wine and potluck of what we have in our combined kitchens. Which is to say, some sort of pasta, some sort of sauce from a jar, lettuce that's on its last sell-by day and cheese shredded from the un-moldy end of the brick. (This ain't no party, this ain't no disco, this ain't no foolin' around.) So this night out was kind of a big deal for all of us.

We decided on a restaurant that was close to the concert venue. It's not a great restaurant but it's inexpensive and if you stick to the basics on the menu it's not bad. And it's also a neighborhood joint. Certainly not of the hip and trendy persuasion and certainly not of the "single girls out for a big night in the city" persuasion. My friend was visibly disappointed at the lack of ambiance and "singles vibe."

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention, this is another of her phrases that is irking the crap out of me. "Singles vibe." Everything from a blouse to a car to a restaurant is graded according to its "singles vibe." She wants to create and exude a singles vibe. The jokes and remarks about batteries go unsaid but every time she says, "singles vibe" I have to fight the urge to make a sarcastic comment about the vibe most single women have because dating is such a nightmare that they've given up and are more satisfied staying home in their comfy pjs with their, um, "singles vibe." 

During my closet and wardrobe intervention the term "singles vibe" was used so often I felt like a character in a noir version of a Poe-like story, a woman being tormented and finally driven mad by the incessant repetition of the same phrase over and over, "singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe" "Stop, stop, please stop I can't take it, please, have mercy on me, can't you see you're driving me mad? Stop!" "singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe""singles vibe"

Anyway. The restaurant lacked ambiance and singles vibe. My friend looked extremely out of place and she knew it. She was self-conscious about it and I felt bad for her. She tried so hard, she was really looking forward to a big night out in the city, and she clearly miscalculated the caliber and genre of restaurants MAF and his partner and I frequent. I think a lot of her vision was misconstrued by images of gay life portrayed in movies and on television. I think she presumed that since MAF and his partner are gay, and dress up as Cher on Halloween, that the only establishments they frequent are hip and trendy places where only straight-off-the-runway nightclubwear is acceptable. When plans were being made I made sure to explain to her that this restaurant was chosen for its proximity to the concert venue and the inexpensive meal prices. But she chose to go the over-the-top route with her outfit. And there she was. She didn't look like Lady Gaga, but you know how when you see a photo of Lady Gaga everyone else around her looks kind of off, out of place, especially when the people around her are dressed such that next to anyone else they'd be the head turner? Well, it was kind of like that. In comparison to my friend the rest of us looked like refugees from the Island of Nondescript Apparel. And MAF's partner was funked up that night! He pulled out the good outfit, got a fresh haircut and everything. For us, an inexpensive meal and a budget-friendly concert is a big night out, you bet he pulled out the good outfit and got a haircut. And yet, he looked downright frumpy in comparison to my Mother from Another Suburb friend. 

MAF paid for the concert tickets, so my suburban friend wanted to buy dinner. Which was nice of her. No doubt about it. But apparently the vodka was really kicking in and she felt that, since she was paying for dinner she had the right to criticize every morsel of food on the table. Fortunately MAF and his partner understood it was booze and a lot of pent-up suburban frustration talking, but still, it was embarrassing. I tried to make light of her comments, turn her frown upside down, but I was largely unsuccessful. So we cut the dinner short and went to the club.

Okay. Well, she was happier because she deemed it to have a decent singles vibe. And a bar. She started a tab and started buying drinks. For all four of us and approximately twenty of her new best friends, 15 of whom I am sure were underage.

Yep. My friend was mingling with really, really, really young boys. I presume some of them were gay but some of them were not. And some of the ones who were not gay were eying my friend as an easy a) alcohol source and b) lay. In the dim light and with her outfit and hair and make-up the fact that she was technically old enough to have conceived some of these boys was not obvious. (Sidebar: How old do you have to be to be a Cougar? And, what's the age difference required? The "old enough to be his mother" rule of thumb has a lot of gray area. I know women who got their periods when they were 11 or 12. Technically they could have given birth at age 12. So when they're 32 and the guy is 20, is that a Cougar relationship? Or does "old enough to be his mother" actually mean "old enough to vote when I conceived him and now he's old enough to legally drink booze in all 50 states and US territories." I'm not clear on this. If anyone knows the official ruling please let me know. I know someone who wants the guidelines.) I was pretty sure most of the guys were mostly harmless, but, I was concerned about the "aiding to the delinquency of minors" infraction. Forget the lack of SUV/minivan, that would definitely get her kicked out of carpool.

The club is the sort of club that has three opening acts before the main act. Which is cool, lots of live music is a good thing. But two of the bands sucked. And no, that's not a given since it was a Eurodisco extravaganza. I had higher hopes for the music but tried to just go with the flow. Since the foot/ankle injury/surgery I don't do much dancing. It hurts and I look like an idiot. So. I sat at the table with MAF while his partner and my friend shook their groove things. Every now and then my friend disappeared to the bar or got caught up in a dance circle. On more than one occasion she was in the center of a dance circle. Oh yes. My very overdressed married mother from the suburbs friend was gyrating and dancing surrounded by a bunch of young men, straight and gay.

MAF's partner took these opportunities to sit one out.

And then my friend would suddenly appear, and breathlessly and drunkenly say something like, "This is so much fun! You guys are so great! I think it's just great that you found each other! You're so cute together! I just love gay guys!"

The term you're searching for is: mortification. She was talking at my friends, about them, as if they were an attraction in a museum or "It's a Small World" at Disney Land. Not Disney World.  The much quainter, older and uglier stepchild, Disney Land. Set to a Eurodisco soundtrack. Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it.

At this point a lot of things were going through my mind. None of them kind. Or compassionate. Or Sympathetic. But the main things going through my mind were, a) She's really, really, really drunk and b) how is she going to get home to the suburbs because she's not driving in this condition and she's not spending the night with me because 1) I am not sleeping on the couch  and 2) she has to take her son to karate in the morning. MAF read my mind and proffered his Blackberry, on which he conveniently had the suburban train schedule. "If we leave now we can get her on the 12:10."

Dragging my friend out of that concert was no easy task. But we did it. MAF drove at break-neck speed to the train station, I texted my friend's husband that she was too drunk to drive and he needed to pick her up at the train station in their suburb. He called me back in seconds flat and berated me for "letting" her get so drunk that she couldn't drive and how was he supposed to pick her up at 1 AM when they have two young kids sleeping, he couldn't just call a babysitter at this hour, how could I let him down like this, he was depending on me, so on etc.

I know, okay? I know. But she started hitting her vodka stash before I even realized she had a vodka stash. And then when she was so rude about dinner it was clear she was so drunk she wasn't driving home and at that point I kind of figured I'd be driving her home. But when I saw the train schedule and realized I'd be stuck in the suburbs until the morning because I'd miss the last train back into the city I just thought...oh whatever. I am irresponsible and I do forget about babysitters and suburban train schedules, okay? I'm single. I have a singles vibe.

Driving my friend's car back to the suburbs early the next morning I felt like a teenager facing serious trouble when I got home. The quiet suburban neighborhoods and properly groomed lawns only reinforced this. There's nothing like early morning in the quiet suburbs to make even the most innocent, well-behaved teenager or singleton feel like a debauched hooligan bound for Hell. "Good" people are snugly sleeping in their cozy beds or reading the paper over breakfast in nice dining rooms on proper dining room tables. "Good" people are not out and about early on weekend mornings, unless they're jogging or preparing for some community event. If you're out and about in a suburb very early on a weekend morning, odds are very good that you were up to no good on the previous night.

My friend's husband and son met me in the driveway. Her husband whispered to me, "She's asleep. Get in, I'll take you to the station. You can catch the 8:45." We had a silent ride to the train station. Even their son, who is usually a chatter box, said nothing. I knew there were a lot of issues. My friend was supposed to take their son to karate because her husband was meeting with a client later that day and wanted to go into the office to prep for the meeting. I heard all about it the day before, albeit from my friend's slightly skewed perspective. The perspective of the wife and mother who desperately wants to return to work and can't find anyone willing to hire her and she resents her husband's job and work responsibilities. So. I felt really guilty about letting my friend's alcohol intake get out of hand. This was interfering with her husband's job. This was not good. I'm more responsible than that and he trusted me. I let him down. Oh crap. If they get a divorce it'll be my fault. When we got to the station I just said, "Thank you. I'm realllllly sorry." He said, "It's not your fault," and drove away.

I was pretty sure our play date for the next week would be canceled, but my friend is sticking with our class and so, she showed up for class and went back to the suburbs after our after-class snack. No mention of the previous week's drunken train wreck, I mean train ride, was made so I didn't bring it up, either. Filed under things left best unsaid.


Episode III
Going to Graceland
Okay, so, after the night out with MAF and his partner didn't live up to her hopes and left me so embarrassed I'm not sure I'll ever feel right about socializing with MAF again, my friend decided that a) she would spend the night with me "sometime" and b) we'd go "out" for a more "normal" night out. Normal apparently meaning more of a heterosexual singles vibe.

Well, "sometime" arrived sooner than I expected.

And I think it's now safe to conclude my may or may not be getting a divorce friend will not be getting a divorce.

This time out my friend donned a more "appropriate" outfit. I think she's getting the hang of dressing herself more occasion appropriate - reality based, not catalog fantasy image based. I don't think she's sending a singles vibe, but she's exuding less of a suburban mom who's desperately trying to not look like a suburban mom vibe, so, you know, that's probably a good balance.Maybe a little sluttier than appropriate, but not trying so hard as the Night of the Eurodisco outfit.

She heard about a newer restaurant in my old neighborhood. She thought maybe we could drop into a few bars after dinner, check out some local bands. Okay, this sounded all right with me. And she promised she wouldn't drink "too much." And really, she doesn't usually drink much. Which is why I think she got so messed up and out of control The Night of the Eurodisco.

She took the train into the city and a cab to my place. Normally I would take a train and a bus to our class, but she didn't want to "deal" with that so she paid for a cab to our class. And back to my place. We worked on my closet a little more, she's learned some new techniques from the closet Svengali. And then we got ready to go to dinner. Okay. I admit. It is fun, nice, to have someone to hang out with and do to dinner and, you know, just generally pal around with. But. I can't ever quite forget that she is married and has two children. She wants to play single, and that's "okay," I guess, but, she isn't actually single. So where's the line? When does "playing single" become, "inappropriate behavior for a married women?" I've never been married. But. I have been in a couple serious, long-term, monogamous committed relationships. And the "rules" of fidelity are pretty much the same. Right? You can go out with your friends, have a good time, but you don't wear your lowest cut tops, shortest skirts or highest strappy heels or smolderingest makeup when you go out without your partner, right? (Especially not all at the same time.) Or did I miss something in the last decade? Is it now perfectly okay and normal for married/relationshipped people to go out without their partners looking as if they're on the make? (I realize "on the make" is a really antiquated term, but I like it. And I'm using it. If it makes me sound old and spinstery, so be it. I like it way better than "singles vibe.")

I'm very uncomfortable with my friend's desire to "play single." I feel like a co-conspirator against her husband. I don't like that. I like her husband. And apparently he knows "everything" that's going on, they allegedly talk about this and he's going along with her desire to re-charge herself, "play single" as long as she doesn't actually have sex with someone else. Still, I'm just not comfortable with some of her behaviors. I feel like she's crossing lines her husband doesn't know about. And I'm not going to snitch on her, rat her out to him...or am I? I already made it clear to her that if she has sex with someone I will not cover for her and I will tell her husband. Still. The whole looking like she's on the make thing bothers me. I've never liked women (or men) who are teases. You advertise it, you sell it. There are laws about bait and switch. You don't advertise something with no intention of selling it, instead offering something else. You don't go out to bars advertising boobs, thighs and smokey eyes and sell, "let's just be friends." Or do you? Maybe that's done these days. I dunno. I've been up on the shelf a long time, I guess. I don't know how being single works anymore. I know, I know! I'm the Mayor of Singleton and I'm out of touch with my constituents. Good thing I have a married friend who wants to play single!

All right. So. Another cab ride to my former neighborhood. I would have taken the train or a bus, but my friend didn't want to "deal with that." So cab it was. The restaurant turned out to be very hip, very trendy, very crowded and very expensive. In other words, exactly what my friend had in mind.

We had a reservation but of course we had to wait for a table. At the bar. Which was okay, my friend promised she'd only have one or two drinks during dinner and one or two if we went to some bars after dinner. And she stuck to her promise. We found the remaining free cocktail table and discussed what we'd drink - and tried to figure out the protocol was for drink procurement: Wait staff or schlepp the gauntlet to and from the bar?

One advantage to having an attractive friend is: Men. They come out of the woodwork and offer the most amazing things. Usually booze. The guy who approached my friend within seconds of our arrival was nicer than a lot of men in this situation. He offered to buy both of us drinks when clearly he was only interested in my friend. I was honestly surprised he even noticed me, let alone acknowledged my existence. I scraped together a little cash for the evening, not much, and my friend insisted she was going to pay, but, I wanted to pay for at least some portion of the evening and I especially didn't want this guy to buy me a drink. I did not want to be indebted to him in any way. He wasn't shy about taking the money I offered. Which was barely enough to cover the cost of one drink. I  didn't think my friend should let him buy her a drink, either, but, she did. So. There you go. The first transaction of the evening. Apparently buying her a drink meant he was entitled to ogling her breasts, rubbing her thighs and and telling really lame jokes. I did not know that thigh rubbing was being sold so cheaply these days.

The thigh rubbing, breast ogling and lame jokes continued for way too long.  A lot of bad memories of when we were both single came flooding back to me. Us going out, her getting picked up by dozens of men, me saving her seat/watching her purse/waving her good-bye when she left with one, me going home alone. Finally our table was ready and we wound our way through the crowd to our table, which was wedged between the kitchen and bathrooms.

My friend was furious.

I tried to calm her down, "Welcome to Singleton: Population: Us. Conveniently located between the kitchen and bathroom doors."

My friend complained to the hostess, pointing out three empty tables not by the kitchen or bathrooms. The hostess wasn't budging. She insisted those tables were reserved.

My friend countered with, "But we have a reservation!"

Yes. Two women + dinner reservation = table by the kitchen/bathrooms.

My friend has been married so long she forgot this Law of Singleton. It's in the Singleton Restaurant and Dining Code, article 1a: "Single people dining alone shall be seated at the worst table in the establishment, located next to one or both bathrooms and the kitchen." Article 1b, "Single people dining in groups shall be seated at the worst table in the establishment, located next to one or both bathrooms and the kitchen." Unless, article 1bi, "If two or more members of the group of single people are women between the ages of 19 and 23 and of centerfold caliber attractiveness (slim, petite, blond or Asian with boobs no smaller than a C cup), in which case a table in the window or closest to the bar will be offered."

We were both hungry and the wait for another table meant going back to the bar and enduring more thigh rubbing and lame jokes, so we stayed at the Singleton table. Dinner was expensive. I mean really expensive. I felt horrifically guilty. There was no way I could afford this place. One meal cost the same as my entire week's food budget. I hate being unemployed. Not because I can't afford to eat at expensive restaurants. I don't care about that. But the indebtedness makes me feel like crap. My self esteem has taken so many blows I'm afraid I'll never fully recover. I had a lot of misgivings about this evening, but I was so focused on my friend "playing single" and her husband that I didn't give myself much thought. Now, staring at the menu, knowing I didn't even have enough cash to cover the tip on one meal, I wanted out. I wanted to go home. I was uncomfortable and miserable and on the verge of a meltdown about my life. "It's not dinner, it's my liiiiiiffffffe, sniff, sniff, sob sob, I don't have a job, no one will hire me, I'm going to be homeless and I don't even have a husband to cheat onnnnnnnnnn. wah wah waaaaah" that kind of thing. I could feel it creeping up on me and it was getting harder and harder to fight it off. Obviously I don't get out much. And my friend thinks she's doing something nice for me, getting me out, helping me feel more connected to normal life, etc. But. Wow. This breakdown really sneaked up on me and was ready to throw a major punch at me. The level of acceptance and rising above myself required to overcome that breakdown was nothing shy of miraculous.

Okay. So. We made it through dinner. It didn't take long. I had a salad. A very small salad. With guilt infused malaise served on the side.

After dinner we went to a bar I used to go to when I lived in that neighborhood. It wasn't trendy then, but wow, what a difference a few years make. It hasn't changed at all, but he clientele has. Once again my friend was the target of a guy looking to buy what she was selling, or what he thought she was selling. And oh lucky me, this guy had a friend.

Over the course of a few drinks we learned we had a few things in common. One of these guys also lives in the suburbs and was staying with his friend who lives in town to help do some renovations on the kitchen and for a little fun, food and f...oh never mind.

My antennae immediately tingled - one of these guys was married. Admittedly, I don't have very good gaydar. And my jerk-dar isn't always accurate, but, my marriedman-dar is always, always, always dead accurate. I knew exactly which of these men was married. And of course the irony was poetic. The friend with the kitchen renovation was okay, though there was something kind of off about him, too. Not married, but my jerk-dar was picking up something from him, something on the creepy-o-meter. I don't think he was "interested" in me, but I got the feeling that he might be a long-time resident of Singleton, perhaps, like me, in a self-imposed dating exile.

Wellllllll, I didn't have to wait long to find out to find out if I was right. What do you know? Turns out his place was just around the corner. How convenient. When I finally got my friend alone in the ladies room to compare notes I told her there was no way we were going back to that guy's place. My friend was all, "Oh come on, they're harmless and they're nice, he wants to show off his kitchen renovation. They're doing a kitchen renovation, on a loft condo on one of the busiest intersections in the city, Trill, how dangerous can they be?"

Yadda yadda yadda nothing in my long, storied, dating life could have ever prepared me for what was lurking in that innocuous cookie cutter loft-condo building. From the outside it looks like every other faux-loft condo building. The corridors seemed normal, long passages with Starbucks-y paint colors and modern light fixtures and normal doors with industrial unit numbers. The smell of someone's Chinese take-out mingling with the faint bass of someone's stereo. Everything seemed perfectly normal. Even the entry to the condo gave no clue as to what lurked just around the corner. The kitchen renovation was not a lie. The kitchen area was all but gutted and new cabinets, flooring and cans of paint were sitting, waiting to renovate the kitchen.

I thought, "Okay, these guys are legit, that part of their story wasn't a lie. One of them is still very married, but one of us is very married, too. So. Yeah. There's that. Relax a little, Trill, don't drink or eat anything, use the buddy system, never let your friend out of your sight, have 9-1-1 ready to dial on your cell phone."

I think I may have even sighed a relieved sigh at the sight of the kitchen renovation gear.

But then.

We were invited into the living room. I knew we were on the East side of the building and two floors up so I figured there might be a really great view of the skyline. And there was. A lovely view of the skyline.

But I didn't notice that for a while.

My friend was the first to turn the corner see it and judging by the fear and shock in her expression I dialed the 9 of the 9-1-1. If it was as bad as her expression indicated, she wasn't looking out the window so I knew she wasn't awestruck by the view. I knew whatever had her shocked into silence was inside the condo. With us.

I didn't want to see what fate had in store for us. I wanted to dial 9-1-1 and then close my eyes and let these guys do whatever it is they do to women in that room my friend was witnessing. I was hoping the cops would show up, not in time to save our lives, but in time to save enough of us to be able to identify our bodies. Or at least my body. Because my friend was dressed so out of her norm that no one would think the slutty trollop in some guy's loft condo in the city in the middle of the night was her. But if they can identify my body then her husband will figure out the remaining pieces of slut I'm with are what's left of his wife.

I hesitated to turn the corner, eyes closed, fingers in pocket hovering over my phone's keypad. I heard my friend finally speak. "Oh. My. God." 

I dialed the first 1 of 9-1-1 and opened my eyes to see if my friend was still alive.

The two guys were standing there, hands on hips, beaming proudly, surveying whatever was lurking in that room.

The married one sidled up to my friend asked her what she thought. My friend said, "I, uh, I'm not sure.Trill, come in here, you have to see this."

I timidly stepped around the corner, bracing for the worst.

As I said, nothing in my storied dating life could have ever prepared me for what was in that room.

Two words: Jungle Room.

One more word: Elvis.

And one more word: Graceland.

I kid you not. There, in an innocuous loft-condo on one of the busiest intersections in the city of Chicago, with a picture window view of the skyline, is an exact, and I mean exact, duplication of Elvis' Graceland Jungle Room. I was simultaneously awed, impressed and horrified.

My friend, too, was visibly shaken. I know they have nothing like this in her suburb. (Though I've seen some weird freaky stuff in suburban houses, so, you know, it's possible. Not probable, but possible.)

Okay, what do you say when two guys invite you back to see their condo kitchen renovation project slash Jungle Room?

I got nothin'.

I finally said, "Wow, this seems very, um, accurate."

The heretofore somewhat quiet, unmarried guy said, "Yep, exact replica. It took four visits to Graceland, tons of photos and an incredible amount of research over 14 years. I've been researching and collecting everything and storing it until I could afford to buy a place that had the exact dimensions. The window's a little different, but other than that it's the exact dimensions of Elvis' Jungle Room. "

In case it's been a while since you've seen it, or if you have never seen it, here's a reminder, just a small corner of the actual Elvis Jungle Room:

This guy has the exact lamps, furniture, carpet, tchtchkes, the Tiki bar, everything...even the wall bricks/rock were laid in exact duplication. The plants were trimmed and placed accurately.

It was both loving homage and creepy obsession.

Naturally, I presumed one or both of these guys were big Elvis fans. So I said, "So, you're a big Elvis fan, eh?"

The unmarried guy said, "Meh, early Elvis, you know, pretty cool. But I'm not much of a fan. But the Jungle Room?! I am a huge fan of the Jungle Room. I went to Memphis with some friends for a weekend, something fun and different to do, drinking, mostly, and we toured Graceland. I came away a changed man. It was a pivotal moment in my life. It's always weird when people ask me if I'm an Elvis fan because I'm really not much of a fan of him or his music."

"Just his Jungle Room"

"Right! You get it! You'd be surprised how many people don't understand that."

"Huh. Yeah. People can be so narrow minded, so literal, so quick to judge."

"Yeah! Exactly! See? You get it!"

I didn't get it. But then again, I kinda do. I don't understand the desire, the drive, to recreate the Jungle Room, but I understand loving the Jungle Room can be different, separate from loving Elvis.

We had a very awkward, overly polite conversation, and my friend and I got out of there as soon as we could make a break for it.

When we got outside, on the relative normalcy and safety of the sidewalk, she said, "Ohmygodohmygodohmygod, Trillian, can you believe that? They seemed like such nice guys! They seemed so normal! Oh my God, Trillian, I cannot wait to go home. In one evening I've been groped, forced to sit at the worst table in the restaurant and subjected to...whatever that was."

"You did figure out that guy is married, right?"

"Which one? Not the Jungle Room guy. No one would marry that guy."

I suddenly felt the urge to defend the Jungle Room guy. He represented all us Singletons. There's kind of a code here in Singleton. You always defend other Singletonians against married people who ridicule and judge them. "I dunno, you know, apart from the Jungle Room thing he seems nice enough. Your husband has a man cave. This guy just took it to another level."

"Yeah, a level of insanity. You're not serious, are you? God Trill, do you like him? Like, like him like him?"

"No, I'm just saying, if that's his only quirk, you know, it's contained to one room, and it shows a lot of dedication...I mean, I don't think it's a forgone conclusion that he has to be single."

"Oh God. You like him."

"No, I don't. But, I've gone out with men who have much worse obsessions and hobbies - or worse, no interests at all. At least he has, you know, a hobby, a passion."

"Oh God. You like him."

"No, I don't. But I don't think he's so awful that he's unlovable. I hope there is some woman out there for him. But it's not me."

We hailed another cab and headed back to my place. My friend texted her husband at least three times during the 30 minute cab ride.

The next morning my friend dug around in her purse for change. "Trill, do you have any cash on you? I cannot believe I went through all my cash!"

"Cabs. Dinner. Drinks. Cabs."

"Being single is really expensive."

"Well, being single your way is expensive. I don't take cabs or go to expensive restaurants or bars or buy different ensembles for every event of the day."

"Your way isn't any fun!"

"I don't mean to be rude, I appreciate our night out and I'm grateful for all that you've done for me, but, I didn't think your way was all that much fun, either. Though we did get to see the Jungle Room, so, you know, that was fun. Now that we got out alive, that is."

"I dunno, Trill. I didn't love being single when I was single. I just thought maybe now that I'm older, wiser...I thought maybe things would be different, less desperate, more interesting. But it seems like the same old BS and weirdness."

"That's what I think, but when I say that people think I'm bitter, jaded, a sore loser, a discontented spinster...so on etc."

"Who can blame you? Men looking for nothing but quick and easy sex...married men...men with Jungle Rooms...blech. I know I'm lucky, I know my husband is great. That's not the issue, never has been. I'm not looking for something better, or even different."

"Then what do you want?"

"I don't know."

"Freedom?"

"Maybe. I guess. I dunno."

"Freedom isn't free. Freedom, independence, it's really expensive."

"I knew living alone is expensive, but Trill, I don't how you manage, even when you were working."

What could I say? Finally she gets it, she understands why, even when I had a job, I wasn't out every night whooping it up, shopping every day and having dates and interesting adventures in some presumed single-gal-in-the-city montage.

The "playing single" play dates have been good for my friend. At least she's learning something, becoming more aware, realizing the grass isn't greener, or something, anything positive, I hope.

We have a couple more metallurgy classes and a few more play dates and I'm hoping over the course of a few months she'll recognize and realize that the malaise and discontentment she's feeling have nothing to do with being married with children and everything to do with living in town filled with hypocritical phonies and not having a personal identity separate from your husband and children.

But that's armchair psychology for you. Easy to diagnose other peoples' problems. The advantage of distance. All that.



*She thought one guy who was taking a smoking break from his sculpting was a homeless person. I "met" him the week prior when I ventured into the sculpting studio and saw him working on a 10' piece. When we headed into class and I saw him in his scruffy sculpting clothes, hair messily poking out from a tattered hat, sitting on the sidewalk outside the studio having a smoke, he said hello and I responded, we had a small exchange about the weather. My friend was mortified that I would talk to a homeless person. I said, "I don't think he's homeless, he's working on a huge hunk of marble in the sculpture room." She said, "I don't understand why artists have to be so messy and dirty." I didn't respond. Why bother trying to explain?

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7:34 PM

Wednesday, January 26, 2011  

Take a penny and some magic,

Even though your life is tragic, 

and throw all your dreams down the well.

Though each day the pain grows, 

You'll ride unicorns on rainbows

If you throw all your dreams down the well. 

When your life comes apart at the seams 

And you've given up on all your dreams 

Here's just the means to make your dreams come true.

No more suffering no more sighing 

No more pain and no more crying 

Just throw all your dreams down the well. 

All the magic has gone missing,

And everyones still wishing,

But their dreams have fallen flat upon the ground.

You'll find magic under rubble.

So let's all grab a shovel,

And this is where the magic can be found.

We're at the bottem of a well 

But man won't it be swell when we make everyones wishes come true!

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4:26 PM

 
You know how when a person files bankruptcy there's a public notice? It used to be a shameful thing to do. People filing bankruptcy would try to leave town under the cover of darkness before the public announcement hit the local newspaper. If the shamed bankrupty-ee didn't get out of town in time the local villagers didn't show up with pitchforks and torches, but...the gossip, contempt and judgment was impossible to live down.

In small towns it's still kind of that way, I think. Though not in the past few years attitudes about financial struggles have changed.

At least that's what people told me. That's what I hoped.

And then one of my neighbors, a woman who lives down the hall from me, confronted me in our hallway with a pitchfork and a torch. A verbal pitchfork and torch.

She's angry that our condos have fallen in value. She needs to assign blame and I'm conveniently unemployed and three doors down from where she lives.

Miraculously I have not gone into foreclosure. Yet. I keep hanging on, every month it's a nailbiter to the mortgage payment deadline finish line. I've robbed Peter and paid Paul, I've drained every penny of my 401K, I sold everything I had of any value. I've pawned things that have deep sentimental value. I do every odd job, every teeny tiny freelance job I can find, anything to make money.

The "real" job hunt? Sigh. On it goes.

I've begged for jobs that pay less than minimum wage. I've applied to night-shift 7-11, gas station and janitorial jobs. I've offered to work for free, literally FREElance my services in hopes of impressing employers enough to eventually hire me. I volunteer. I network. I call and email HR people, CEOs, managers of every description. I go on interviews...and get the, "it's down to you and one other candidate, we like you but s/he has more this/that/other experience" rejection. And if one more potential employer tells me I'm overqualified...I dunno. I mean, half the time I'm already lying about my education and work experience. Lies by omission, that is. I dumb down my credentials so I'm not as "impressive." When did education, experience and singular career dedication to a profession become such a liability?

No, I haven't worked retail or waited tables. Ever. Why? Not because I'm spoiled and didn't "have" to do those jobs. It's because I worked really hard to land jobs, any job, in a field related to what I wanted to do for a living. In high school I bugged the ad manager of the local newspaper to hire me to let me do anything - anything in the ad department (that consisted of three people). In college I worked the overnight shift at printing companies and learned a lot about the production aspects of advertising, and a lot about cost factors which, to this day, helps me accurately estimate budgets. I worked in galleries, often for free, so I could meet artists and photographers and learn that side of advertising. I mean, I was on a mission to learn everything possible about all the aspects, I wanted to be a professionally viable, well versed job candidate when I came out of college. And now that professional motivation and career drive is working against me.

"So, you've never actually stocked a shelf/folded sweaters/worked for tips?" is the first question I'm asked when I apply for retail jobs.

"Well, no, but, I have designed and produced retail store signage and advertising."

"We get all that from corporate. I need someone with floor experience. Retail sales."

"I understand. And my experiences from the merchandising and advertising side will give me a unique perspective on the floor. I see the bigger picture. It's not just about selling a sweater, that sweater is the end result of a highly sophisticated merchandising and advertising campaign that was well over a year in the making. It would be an honor for me to be a physical part of the end result of that effort. It all comes down to exchanging goods for money, and to be there, be part of the exchange, what all that merchandising is about, the culmination of a long cycle of marketing, I mean, it's like being there at the birth of a child." (Too much? Such is my desperation to persuade assistant store managers to give me a chance at a minimum wage job.)

"Sorry, I need someone with actual retail sales experience."

"I can stock shelves or do in-store displays...I'm a hard worker, I like to be busy, I'm friendly and I have a fantastic customer service attitude!" 

A few days ago that can-do attitude garnered this response from the afternoon assistant manager at a local DIY store:
"Sorry, I feel for you, I really do. My brother has a bio-chemistry PhD and 12 years experience at a pharmaceutical company. He's been unemployed for two years. I can't hire him, either, he doesn't have retail experience. Corporate pushes us to hire either young high school or college kids with little or no experience, or, retail professionals with lots of retail experience. We don't have good longevity stats with other types of employees. I have applications from people who have worked retail and they're more right-qualified for the job than you are. You seem friendly and eager and I'm sure you can do this job in your sleep, but on paper you're not qualified. The side-by-side comparison to other candidates might seem odd, but I have to choose someone with actual retail experience over someone like you."

I appreciate his insight and candor. It's more feedback and insight than most retail employers have bothered to give me. But the end result is that I'm still unemployed.

Here's how bad it is: I've sold plasma. Okay? I used to donate blood at every blood drive at work. Now I sell it. I'm not proud of this. And I am surprised at how little cash plasma gets on the open market. I've done it twice and live in fear of what I might have contracted in the process but that's a blog best left unwritten. (The take-away: Don't do it. Selling blood is nothing like donating it and you don't "earn" enough money to make it worth the effort and potential disease.) I've tried to sell eggs (mine; human), I offered my services as a surrogate mother; it's illegal, but I'll sell a kidney if someone will pay the medical expenses and give me cash up front.

Every month I think, "well, old girl, this is it, this is the month I can't pay the mortgage." So far I've scraped by, if I'm lucky with a couple bucks to spare. A few friends and my mother are extremely generous in helping me - giving me extras of their staples, sending me care packages of toothpaste and toilet paper, taking me to lunch, letting me borrow their cars, paying me for odd jobs like babysitting or housesitting or converting their cds and dvds to digital files. Pride goeth before a fall, and I fell far, fast and hard so humiliation isn't an issue. Shame goes straight out the window when you're desperate.

So.

When my neighbor from down the hall saw me returning from the mailbox and said, full of snark, looking accusingly over her glasses, "Still unemployed, I see." Then, (making a theatrical look at the mail in my hand) "Is it Welfare check day?"

"Yes, clearly since it's 1:00 on a Wednesday afternoon and I'm home I have not found a job. But no, I don't collect Welfare and my unemployment benefits ended in October. None of your tax dollars are supporting me."

"Then how do you pay your mortgage?"

Okay. I've been friendly with this woman. But we're not close. She has a daughter around my age and I like the daughter. So I tolerate my neighbor's sometimes abrasive and judgmental attitude. She's of the "I'm right and I'm going to tell you I'm right" school.

I knew what was fueling her verbal pitchfork and torch. There have been several foreclosures and property auctions in our building. Consequently the condo values have plummeted. The average auction price is less than half the price I paid for mine three years ago - and I bought at a good time, my condo was a bargain when I bought. People were impressed with the amount of space and neighborhood I snagged at such a reasonable price.

What a difference three years makes. Even if I had a job and needed to sell for a job transfer I'd be in serious trouble. It's bad everywhere, of course, but buildings like mine have taken serious hits: The condos are mainly smaller - great for singles, young couples or seniors - so our building's main owner demographic is younger and mid-career professionals on the low to middle range of the income scale. Singles living on one modest income. And when a younger single person with a modest income loses their job...there's no backup. There's no spouse to help earn money. There's not a lot in the savings account.  If that person remains unemployed for more than a few months there aren't many options other than a short sale or foreclosure. Either way, the rest of the owners in the building take a home value hit as a result of a foreclosure.

I know this. I know all of this. I am well aware. But do I blame my former neighbors who, like me, were doing okay until they lost their job and couldn't pay the mortgage? Of course not.

And word of yet another auction on one of the larger units in the building spread like the black plague. The auction price was...disturbingly low. I've seen used cars priced higher than the final auction price on that condo. Nice used cars, but still, used cars listed at prices higher than the auction price for a nice condo in a good neighborhood with views of Lake Michigan? Wow.

Naturally owner residents are upset. Down, down, down go all the investments in real estate. That whooshing sound you hear are the broken dreams of owners hoping to sell in the next year or two flying out the windows and doors.

Do I feel bad, guilty, ashamed and otherwise embarrassed that it's likely I'll be contributing to my neighbors' plummeting decline of listing value?  Of course.

So what do I do? Do I slide a letter of apology under my neighbors' doors? Do I post a notice in the laundry room? Do I hold an open house and serve cookies and punch and let my neighbors take shots at me while I apologize?

I understand they're angry. I understand people "like me" are ruining "it" for people "like them." But this wasn't an intentional move on my part. I didn't buy a home I couldn't afford. I didn't have a stupid balloon mortgage. I didn't even have a zero down mortgage. If I hadn't been laid off everything would be fine. In fact, because I was so conservative in my purchase I've been able to hang onto it (barely) through 16 months of unemployment. And I'm fairly certain the other foreclosures in our building were the result of circumstances exactly like mine. But the end result is the same: Foreclosure, bank auction or short sales bringing the value of the other units in the building down. Way down.

So. How do I respond to the angry villagers who come at me with pitchforks and torches? "I'm sorry" is obviously inadequate. Do I take out a classified ad or billboard, a la bankruptcy notices, issuing a public blanket apology?

I just stood there listening to my neighbor vent her anger and frustration at me. Unfortunately I was wearing a frayed t-shirt, sweats and worn out slippers I threw on for the two minute round-trip trek to the mailbox. I looked very stereotypical unemployed. Of course she didn't nab me when I was going to or returning from one of my many job hunt treks or interviews. That would require the Universe to throw me a karma bone and that doesn't happen to me.

Ultimately I think it was "good" for her to take out her frustrations on me. And better me than the really mean guy who has been trying to sell his place since I moved in and is about to go into foreclosure. He would not stand there taking the verbal pitchforks and torches from my neighbor. I'm pretty sure it would get pretty ugly. So, better me than him. But what I'm wondering is: What, beyond, "I'm sorry," do I say to my neighbors about my inability to find a job that will pay my mortgage? Do I tell them I've sold everything I possibly can, including blood, to try to stay out of foreclosure? Do I tell them I'm even lying about my education and experience in order to not seem overqualified for jobs? Or do I just leave quietly under the cover of darkness, letting my silence say everything because there's really nothing to say?

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12:13 AM

Tuesday, January 18, 2011  
Last Person to See Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Turns Off Lights and Closes Door

Chicago: The last person to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I, quietly left the theater yesterday afternoon after the final showing of the recent blockbuster hit and seventh installment in the Harry Potter movie franchise.

"I meant to see it sooner," Tricia McMillian explained, "I mean, not opening day, but I planned to see it long before now. But the holidays and stuff and I dunno, I just didn't get around to seeing it until now."

Ms. McMillian, an unemployed creative marketing manager, said she is an enthusiastic fan of the J.K. Rowling book series of the same name featuring a teenage wizard and his friends. "Oh yeah, I read 'em all. Really enjoyed them. Good ripping yarns."

She intended to re-read the final book before seeing part I of the final cinematic installment of the series. "Yeah, I kind of meant to re-read Deathly Hallows before seeing the movie, it's been a few years and I thought I should refresh my memory before seeing the movie, but it's a long book and I was already in the middle of two other books and I dunno, I just didn't get around to it. Did you know there are no Cliff's Notes for Harry Potter books? And then it was opening weekend and I was disappointed in myself, and that kind of depressed me, I felt like I needed to punish myself, I didn't feel I deserved to see the movie because I didn't follow through with my plan to re-read the book."

Opening weekend, and then another and another came and went without Ms. McMillian in the audience. "Then it just got, you know, awkward. I went to the theater once,  it was the discount matinée and there were only a few people at the theater. They were going to see Tron which opened a few days prior. I felt really lame buying a Harry Potter ticket. I figured they'd think I was either one of those people who goes to see Harry Potter movies every week of their run or that I procrastinated seeing it until the right before it was due to leave the big screen. Either way I'd just look pathetic, especially because I was already really pathetic by virtue of the fact I was going to see the movie alone. And add the children's movie component, I mean, there's a creepiness factor involved when an adult goes to a childrens' movie alone. So I saw Tron instead. I fit in with that crowd. A lot of people were there alone."

When she heard Harry Potter was due to leave her local big screen theater Ms. McMillian knew it was the now or never moment. "First it was showing on three screens, every hour on the hour, then two screens, then one...and then only a couple shows a day...when it got down to two showings a day in the small theater I knew the window of opportunity was closing. I still hadn't re-read the book, but I was feeling less guilty and disappointed with myself. So I just went for it. I'm glad I did, it was a good movie. Boy, those plucky kids sure have grown up!"

McMillian doesn't regret her procrastination. Seeing the movie two and a half months after its debut gives her an advantage over those who saw it opening week. "Now I'm glad I waited so long to see part I because I'll have less time to wait for part II. The people who saw it opening weekend have to wait longer to see part II. I totally beat the system. I don't want to give anything away but there's a bit of a cliffhanger at the end, they really left it wide open for a sequel," the film enthusiast winked, "and the momentum will be fresher for me than for the people who saw it a couple months ago."

After finally viewing part I she has no immediate plans to re-read the book. "I could re-read the book before part II debuts in July, but after seeing part I a lot of the plot and details are coming back to me. I remember, now, there's a fight between forces of good and evil. It'll be easier to resume the story line when I see part II because part I will be much fresher in my mind than if I saw it two months ago. I think I remember enough of the plot, now, to get through part II without re-reading the book."

The theater's assistant day manager said Harry Potter's attendance numbers have been dwindling the past few weeks. "We have a couple people at the evening shows, but the afternoon matinée has been pretty much empty. We had a homeless guy in there last week. We're not sure how long he was in there, a couple days at least. No one bought tickets to see the movie on Monday or Tuesday, and Wednesday night a family came in with their half-price coupons and complained about a guy who smelled bad and yelled profanity at them. He was pretty ripe smelling and had a sort of fort set up in the back two rows. He must have been there a couple days because even after we removed his blankets and garbage bags the whole back 10 rows smelled really bad. We're probably going to have to replace the seats."

"Yeah, the theater smelled kind of musty," Ms. McMillian ceded, "but that's what I get for waiting so long to see a blockbuster movie. It sort of added to the eerie damp outdoorsy atmosphere of the movie, though, so it worked out okay," she said, flipping off the light switch and closing the exit door tightly behind her as requested by the assistant day manager who was on break at the movie's scheduled closing time.

When asked if she plans to see part II sooner after its debut than she did part I, Ms. McMillian said she'll probably wait for the lines to subside. Noting the July 15 release date, she said she doesn't have plans for the Labor Day holiday weekend, adding "though I think I heard Piranha 3DD is coming out around then."

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8:30 AM

Monday, January 17, 2011  
First Mark Twain now Mark Knopfler?

Okay. So. You didn't really expect me to remain silent about the Dire Straits, um, issue(?) did you?

I want to rise above it. I don't want to justify it with a response. But.
  1. I'm a big fan of Dire Straits. 
  2. The language of the ruling is so comical there's no way I can remain silent.
The case began with a complaint from a listener in St. John’s, Newfoundland, after the song was played on a local station. She wrote that “by airing it unapologetically on the radio, this station is indirectly propagating hate.”

The song is a store employee’s diatribe against the wealth and fame of rock stars. In one verse, the employee calls a musician “the little faggot” three times while bitterly commenting on his makeup, hair, earring, private airplane and personal fortune. In its ruling, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council found that the slur “although lightly sarcastic in its application in the song, was not used in a ‘sneering, derisive, nasty tone.’” Nevertheless, the panel concluded that any use of the word was inappropriate in today’s context.
Ronald I. Cohen, the chairman of the standards council, said that this was only the third time it had ruled against a song.
Let me repeat for effect: “although lightly sarcastic in its application in the song, was NOT used in a ‘sneering, derisive, nasty tone.’”

Um. Okay. So. If Mark Knopfler sounded more sneering, derisive and nasty this would be a non-issue? The issue is that he only sounds lightly sarcastic?

Apparently if Mark Knopfler sounded like a homicidal, misogynistic, racist rapper throwing racial epithets and describing violent acts inflicted on women and police in great, vivid detail "Money for Nothing" would be a-okay to play. Eh?


I was in Canada recently. I heard some incredibly offensive rap played on a few Canadian radio stations. (And not just the radio stations close to the Michigan border where much of the listening audience is Detroit.) But in reflection, I guess it was more than lightly sarcastic. It was straight forward hateful. So I guess that's okay. Based on the "Money for Nothing" judgment it's more of a syntax thing. If you're going to sing hateful, sarcastic, lyrics you need to sound sneering, derisive and nasty.


Okay. Here's the thing. Yes. I am a big fan of Dire Straits. More specifically, I'm a huge fan of Mark Knopfler's guitaring which is, hmmm, I'm at a loss for adjectives, I mean, there are no words or comparisons. He's unique, in a good way. How do you describe Mark Knopfler's style? Kinda difficult because he's an innovator.

So. Because I'm most fond of Knopfler's guitaring, I am consequently most fond of the pre-Brothers in Arms Dire Straits releases and Knopfler's subsequent solo work.

Truth be told I've never really liked the banned-in-Canada song.

But not because of the epithet in question.

My dislike for the song is over its musical integrity. I find it disconcerting that the type of public acceptance and musical success lamented in the song - quick, easy, lame pop stars who lack musical integrity but who look good, dress cool and style their hair appropriately - is precisely what they achieved with the song about lame pop "music." Basically: After the incredible Dire Straits work that precedes Brothers in Arms, the album sounds like a sell-out. Whether it was or was not an intentional money grab is between Knopfler and music industry execs. Did he sell his soul? I kind of doubt it, or, if he did, he has long since redeemed himself with his subsequent (but less pop-accessible) work.

What I always find sad and disconcerting about Dire Straits is that a lot of people, the youngsters mainly, the ones I presume find the song offensive, only "know" Dire Straits for Brothers in Arms. I wouldn't care much for them, either, if my opinion was based solely on Brothers in Arms.

I'm lucky. I have an older brother who was into really good guitar bands. So via him I heard the best of the best. And Dire Straits' first eponymous release and Making Movies are among the best. Certainly among the most innovative and original. Even at a young age, through a scratched hand-me-down vinyl album and (you're gonna be aghast and maybe crack up when you read this) an 8-track worn thin and taped with Scotch-tape in places, Knopfler's chilling guitar came slithering through and picked my soul up by it's neck and said, "You listen to me, little girl, I'm the real deal, pay attention to me and no one will get hurt." (My brother and dad were always working on some old car or another, consequently "we" had a use for 8-track tapes long, long, long after they were being produced. Unfortunately some very good songs are forever altered in my mind - skips, missing words and riffs, where the worn out or broken tape was patched with Scotch-tape. Sadly, I only knew Ziggy Stardust via a heavily patched 8-track for the first 10 years of my life. Imagine my awe and wonderment and confusion when I heard a clean vinyl copy of it.)

I find the timing of the Dire Straits ban interesting: On the heels of the news of a censored Mart Twain hitting stores and bookshelves. Gadzooks. That's just...ugh. Let's leave that alone. It's all been said. Anyone with a functioning brain who has actually read Twain knows he was against slavery and his stories reveal his sympathy and compassion. The word in question, is, of course, awful. History has happened since then. We evolved. And then, based on some rap and comedians, we devolved. But I'm a white girl so my opinion on that word is irrelevant. I find it to be the dirtiest, most foul, offensive arrangement of letters possible. And I fail to understand how anyone could feel otherwise. But I'm a white girl.

A heterosexual white girl. Which probably renders my opinion about the epithet in "Money for Nothing" null and void, as well.

But even with opinions about these words I remain staunchly, stubbornly, against censorship. I don't like the words those configurations of letters spell and I have certainly don't use them. I wish the words didn't exist. Because that would mean the judgment, disrespect and hatred that created them never existed. Unfortunately that's not the case. So. As many high school English teachers try to explain, these words can teach us a lot about human behavior, negative, hurtful human behavior. Most of us don't actually live on Sesame Street. Most of us live where judgment, disrespect and hatred exist and even thrive. Understanding the language and the ignorance and disrespect behind the words is crucial if we're ever going to combat it. I don't judge people on their skin color or sexual preference. But. The words people choose to use tells me a lot about them.

I also know a bit about syntax and poetry. And I know nothing if I don't know sarcasm. Knopfler's tone may not be sneering, derisive or nasty, but that's the whole swutting point. He's waxing musically, poetically, sarcastic, affectedly dismissive about the fed to the masses chirpy, pretty pop music "played" by pretty young things who wouldn't know a Telecaster if they were hit over the head with one. If his tone was overtly sneery, derisive or nasty he'd lose the dismissive affect and cross into "bitter has-been who never was" territory. By keeping the sneer and nastiness out of his tone he creates an air of empathy. We feel for this guy who does back breaking work for minimum wage while some pretty pop-prince (George Michael) hops around in a pep-pep-peppy MTV video all white teeth smiles and cute dance moves (George Michael) is making oodles of money (George Michael). Money for doing nothing. Money for having zero talent. (George Michael)

Wow. I'm just now realizing I like this song more than I thought I did.

When this all came out I went straight to my go-to source for homosexual correctness: MAF.

"Hi MAF, did you hear about Canada banning Dire Straits?"

MAF: "Yes. As a matter of fact I was just practicing my sneering, derisive and nasty tone."

Me: "Ah. You want to be sure your sneer can be heard. Because otherwise your run-of-the-mill sarcasm may be misconstrued for raw Unibomber-like hatred."

MAF: "You know it. What does derisive sound like, by the way?"

Me: "Maybe something like Mr. Burns?"

MAF: "Ah, okay. Excellent. Smithers is gay, you know."

Me: "Yeah, I know. They've been using that shtick for several years, now."

MAF: "The Simpson's should have 'Money for Nothing' playing in the background during the next Mr. Burns/Smithers scene."

Me: "Would that offend the gay community?"

MAF: "Just that one chick in New Foundland. The rest of us would laugh. Do they show The Simpson's in Canada? It's pretty offensive."

Me: "Yeah, but I dunno about New Foundland. Plus, their tone is clear, the sneering, derisive nastiness comes through loud and clear so they're off the banning hook. So, that line in 'Money for Nothing' doesn't offend you?"

MAF: "No more than a Wham! video offends me. Which is to say it's laughable."

Me: "I was thinking, I've never heard you use the F-word. Is it like the N-word thing? It's 'okay' to say it if you're gay?"

MAF: "I know people who use it. I don't, but I'm not offended by it, either. I'd prefer to not be called one, but only because I don't like my sexual preference to be the leading adjective to describe me. You know, like you don't like to be called spinster. When the word is used to describe a generic collective it's okay. When it's pointed offensively, derisively, nastily, with a sneer, at someone specific that's when it's hurtful and hate-mongering."

Me: "So, 'the little faggot with the earring and the makeup, yeah buddy, that's his own hair, that little faggot got his own jet airplane, that little faggot he's a millionaire' doesn't offend you?"

MAF: "Not now, not back then."

Me: "Were you out yet when that song came out?"

MAF: "Nope."

Me: "Still didn't offend/scare/bother you?"

MAF: "Nope."

Me: "What about Sting?"

MAF: "What about Sting?"

Me: "Do you find him offensive?"

MAF: "Annoying but not offensive."

Me: "So do you agree that if it's okay for Sting to blather on and on about Tantric sex it's okay for Mark Knopfler to call George Michael a faggot?"

MAF: "Sounds about right. Karmic balance."

Me: "But not in Canada."

MAF: "They're so polite it's got to be fake. And if it's not it's still a bit much. You know, like when someone breaks up with someone citing that they were 'too nice?' That's Canada. Canada is the boyfriend you dump because he's too nice."

So there you have it. Straight from a gay guy's mouth.

A lot of good music has been/is banned. Dire Straits joins an esteemed group. Elvis. Hendrix. Zappa. Alice Cooper. Loretta Lynn (yes, really). Sex Pistols. Prince. And, oh, oh! THE KINKS!!!! I forgot about this one, I learned about this in an advertising history class, THE KINKS!!! "Lola" was banned because originally instead of saying "cherry-cola" Ray Davies sang "Coca-Cola." The BBC wouldn't play the song because it was against their advertising policy...but they didn't care that the entire premise of Lola is about Ray wanting to have sex with a woman who turns out to be a man  - a transgender/transexual man.

If liking Dire Straits is wrong I don't want to be right. I kind of wish it was a "better" Dire Straits song coming under fire and bringing attention to them and their talent, but, there's no such thing as bad publicity and maybe now that they're "bad" some of the youngsters will take an interest in them and listen to them just to be rebellious - and end up hearing some really, really good music.

Ahhhhh, maybe this is a subversive plot by Canada to get kids listening to someone other than Justin Bieber. Nah. If that were the case they'd ban a Rush song. That would launch a civil war in Canada. Hey wait a minute, Rush, "Tom Sawyer"...there must be something offensive about that, right? Does Geddy Lee use the N-word in "Tom Sawyer?" I'm not a fan and I'm not going to listen to the song to find out. Someone will have to tell me. I presume not. Though I might pay good money to hear Geddy Lee sing the N-word just to see him get his ass kicked. (Note the tone - sneering, derisively and nastily.) The mere fact that Rush alludes to Tom Sawyer, Tom Sawyer being a character in a book by controversial author Mark Twain, must surely propagate hatred, right?! And the two times I've listened to Rush I didn't detect any obvious tone of sneering, derision or nastiness. But maybe it's a double-standard thing, what with Rush being Canadian and everything.

I remain in solidarity with Dire Straits. I might even cash in an unused iTunes gift card to purchase "Money for Nothing," or maybe even all of Brothers in Arms. I'll probably never listen to the song(s) but I love the idea of Dire Straits getting an upsurge in paid downloads as a result of Canada banning their song. (Written with a sneer, oozing derisiveness and nastiness.)

The good thing about this, and why I'm lowering myself to publicly discuss it, is that it puts Dire Straits in the public ear and ultimately that's a good thing. So, f-word you, Canada.

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1:26 AM

Wednesday, January 12, 2011  
What's in a name? A rose, by any other name, would smell as sweet.

True. But language is a powerful thing. Would you send your valentine a dozen thorny rancidspore, no matter how pretty they look or sweet they smell?

I've been thinking about names - more accurately labels - a lot lately. I suppose because a lot of them are being assigned to me. They're only words. Judgmental words. Judgmental words spoken, affixed, by people who are, and are not, in a position to accurately judge and summarize me and my "situation." And that's really what labels are: Quick, dismissive one or two word judgmental summaries. Sometimes succinctly accurate, other times completely wrong.

My mother makes spectacular raspberry jam. I mean really, this stuff is nectar of the gods. But. She labels the jars it's with a simple "Raspberry" written in wax pencil on a piece of masking tape. That's it. "Raspberry." Sure, it's fairly obvious by looking at the jar than it a contains dark red jammy substance and the only thing left to explain is the species of origin. "Raspberry." It's really all one needs to know about the contents of the jar. And yet...the beguiling complexity of tastes, the subtle nuances of texture amidst a cacophony of flavors waltzing across the tongue in just one small bite go unannounced, unrecognized. Anyone who's tasted her raspberry jam and recognizes her handwriting knows that "Raspberry" written in wax pencil on a piece of masking tape affixed to a glass jar means a lot more than just "Raspberry." But to anyone else? The at-a-glance summary is all they think they need to know. Fortunately my mother's not trying to sell her raspberry jam. She's not even concerned about anyone stealing her secret. (Hint: It's the berries.) She's not trying to lure or convince anyone to buy or taste her jam. Her only concern is that there won't be confusion between the jars of raspberry and strawberry jam.

I have a friend who's going through something. Her something is nothing like my something. Her something pertains to her marriage. Which is, um, well, I dunno how to summarize it, label it. It may or may not be "in trouble." Too soon to tell.

But.

My friend is in the "personal rebirth" phase of her rethinking the marriage situation. She's taking art and yoga classes and is thinking about starting a closet organizing business. (I know, I know, there are a few labels going through your mind right now. Believe me, I know. And most of those one word judgmental summaries are accurate.)

Okay. So. She's training with a closet organizing guru (see above, accurate judgmental summary) and will soon hone her closet organizing craft on all her friends. Oh boy. I can hardly wait. Ya know, when I moved into my condo, back when I had a job and more than a couple outfits, I probably could have used an unbiased second opinion and ideas about how best to utilize the teeeny tiny closet in my new home. But now that I'm on the verge of homelessness and only have enough "good" clothes to get me to job interviews and enough "off hours" clothes to get me through a week-ish, it's comical to think of a closet organizer helping me sort and arrange my closet.

But, that's exactly what happened.

My friend and her closet Svengali spent much of the afternoon going through my few remaining clothes and organizing my closet.

I was kind of ambushed. I mean, I knew they were going to show up and use my closet as a training ground for my friend's burgeoning closet organizing career, but I didn't realize it was going to turn into an episode of What Not to Wear. I didn't think I'd actually be, you know, involved. I thought my closet was the hypothetical scenario, a case study, not me.

And so it came to pass that labels were affixed to me via my clothes. The closet Svengali said my wardrobe is "okay" but not an accurate portrayal of my personality. He ascertained this within 15 minutes of meeting me. Well, he is the closet Svengali...still, some harsh labels were affixed. Not to what I own. To what I don't own.

Apparently my clothes are not sending a "single" vibe. But they're not sending a "married" vibe, either. Which, I contend, is an absolutely accurate portrayal of me. I am the Mayor of Singleton. I am up on the shelf and intend to stay there. I have given up on love, relationships and men in general. Wait. "Given up" isn't accurate. I have surrendered, white flag waving, to dating/relationship defeat. There are more women than men, statistically some women will have to remain single, and I realize and surrender to the fact that clearly I am one of the women who will be man-less. Accept. Acceptance. It's the only way to remain sane and forge ahead. So the closet Svengali's determination that my clothes are relationship ambiguous sounded like success to me. Clearly I have accepted my relationship status fate. Single zero. Ta dah! And I'm dressing appropriately.

But of course my friend and the closet Svengali were aghast at the suggestion that there isn't someone for everyone. (My friend, should she decide to separate from her husband, will soon find out dating at our age isn't the open hunting season it was in our 20s.) Even when I pulled up census data, pointing to cold, hard numbers, the black and white fact that there is not someone for everyone because it's statistically impossible, they dismissed the facts with an "oh pish posh" and continued to badger me about how a "differently" organized closet is all that's standing between me and a secure relationship with a great guy, or at least a lot of sex.

"Where are your date night clothes?" the closet Svengali asked.

"I don't date. Hence, no date night clothes."

"Uh huh, uh huh, I see. Why don't you date?" he asked, cozying up to my friend, giving her a "watch me, I'm the pro, this is why you pay me to train you" look.

"We just went over this. There is not someone for everyone. More women than men. Statistically impossible. I drew the short straw. I am single. And oh yeah, unemployed. And soon to be without a home. And a closet. Even if I wanted to date, wouldn't be exactly a priority right now. Nor should it be."

"Uh huh, uh huh, I see. Well. Yes, of course your focus is on finding a job and your wardrobe reflects that. But do you want employers to think you don't have your personal life together? That you are in emotional disarray?"

"Ummmm, not dating doesn't equate to emotional disarray. And if employers wonder why I'm the Mayor of Singleton I could cash in on some good discrimination money, so if you know how to get in on that I'm all ears. Otherwise, no, my relationship-ambiguous wardrobe is a non-factor in my interview and work wardrobe."

"Wow. You weren't kidding. She is a tough nut to crack," the closet Svengali said to my friend.

"Okay, look, let's play pretend. Since we have all your clothes out of the closet, let's play dress up. 'Ring ring, ring ring.'" The closet Svengali was pantomiming a phone call.

(Friend to me, whispering, nudging me.) "*You're supposed to answer the pretend phone.*"

(Roll of eyes) "Hello?"

(Affecting a deep and kind of creepy voice) "Hi Trillian, it's that Mr. Handsome you met at the grocery store last night and I'm asking you to go to a gallery opening and dinner with me because I can tell you're a creative woman with substance and intelligence and exactly the woman I've been looking for all my adult life." 

"You have the wrong number."

(Friend to me, kind of whining-imploring) "C'mon, Trillian, don't be such a Rhoda, play along! People pay a lot of money to spend time with the closet Svengali, and I need to learn, and you promised you'd help, so go along with this."

(Conceding to my friends plea) "Oh, wait, right, I remember you. Brussels sprouts."

"That's right, Brussels sprouts and now I want you to have dinner with me. How about Thursday night? Around 7?" 

"Okay, sure, that'll be great."

(Back to his regular closet Svengali voice) "Fantastic! Now call your friend and tell her the great news about your date."

(Me, not pantomiming) "Ring ring, ring ring."

(My friend, pantomiming) "Hello?"

"Hi friend, guess what?"

"What?!"

"I met a guy buying Brussels sprouts and he asked me out to dinner."

"Wheeeeeee!!!! I have a good feeling about this! You love Brussels sprouts! It must be fate! Kismet! What are you going to wear?"

"I dunno, I'll figure out something."

"No, Trillian, you cannot just 'figure out' something. You need to have a plan in place. And with my help you can have several plans in place, just waiting in your closet for any event or occasion!"

"Seriously? You're really going to say that to prospective clients? That's really your opening gambit? What, Amway wasn't hiring?"

"That bad?"

"Awful."

"Okay, let's try another approach," the closet Svengali intervened. It was a conference call.

"Your closet is small. There's not much space to work with, but that's okay because you don't have many clothes. Which would be okay if the clothes you had were the right clothes. There's no variety here, not what we usually like to see in an adult woman's closet. It's impossible to organize a closet that will in turn make someone's life easier if they don't have the right variety of clothing to organize in the first place. You, girlfriend, need some man bait, some slutty clothes. You have a rack on you, women pay top dollar for that kind of milkshake, but not one top or dress in this closet is cut low enough to show off the goods."

"Uhhh, because I want a man to be interested in me for something other than my boobs? Because I prefer to not be ogled and sexually objectified by men I barely know or don't know at all? Because I don't actually sell milkshakes?"

"I'm just going to say it. You need to slut it up."

Yep. My friend, who may or may not be getting a divorce, brought a man, a closet Svengali, into my home and after knowing me and my closet all of 40 minutes he told me I need to slut it up.

Okay. You know, yes, I could use the boobs to lure men. Boob men. Men who are interested in nothing more than boobs. I could do that. I might even be able to get sex by using my boobs as bait. But. Is that really the kind of sex I want? Do I really want to succumb to that? Up to this point I have firmly believed the answer to all those questions is: No. No way. Firmly, staunchly, no.

And my friend, and other friends, have backed me up on this. Not that we're all prudish good girls. Not that we're ashamed or conflicted about our bodies - we're not. But. The girls are a bonus for the men who bother to care about and get to know us for reasons other than our bodies. And if you are a woman who is "blessed" with an abundance of bosom you soon learn that very few men who approach you are truly interested in your in-depth knowledge of pre-war abstract expressionism or your interest in music and travel. And you learn that if you want a man to give you eye contact you have to keep the girls securely tucked away. Bring 'em out slowly, progressively, congruent with the man's interest and attention to your personality. They're a bonus for the guy who bothers to care to get to know you.

As I write this I realize that maybe that attitude is prudish.

Maybe my incomplete wardrobe and consequently incomplete closet is seeping into the way I carry myself, manifesting in an emotionally ambiguous label. Maybe I give the appearance of being incomplete. Maybe prospective employers look at me, presume my closet contains no date-night clothes, size up my relationship ambiguity and assign the label: Incomplete. And incomplete is not a positive label, especially when affixed to a job candidate.

So.

Maybe I should try to slut it up.

Ick.

I don't like that world. That label. It's so banal.

Slut. Whore. Hooker.

Nasty labels. Used more as judgmental assumptions than actual job descriptions.

"What do you do for a living?"

"I'm a slut." "I'm a whore." "I'm a hooker." Much as I would love to think there are prostitutes who own their profession enough to say that I kinda doubt it happens often. Maybe in Amsterdam. But there I think they go by the more descriptive title of sex worker. Notice the lack of judgmental slang in that title. It's purely the job description.

Funny how linguistically dressing up the slang makes them seem more lewd and, ironically more deserving of scorn: Tart. Harlot. Strumpet. More provincial "prettier" terms for prostitutes, less commonly used, which is probably what makes them sound all the more banal.

I don't want to be, or look, slutty. I just don't.

In my past, when I've been "going for" a sexy look I aspired to trollop. I like that word. It seemed appropriate when I was out trolling for me. Trolling, trollop...trolls. (Cause and effect?) Trollop is sexual but funny. It implies promiscuity but is so quaint you can hear Queen Victoria herself making the accusation. Mission accomplished. But strumpet-like? Well, yeah, I guess I could experiment with that. It sounds like a saucier type of prostitute. A specialized, senior level prostitute. Like you'd have to pay a lot more and be capable of handling a lot more than you would with just a slut. A strumpet sounds like she'd separate the boys from the men.

But in the end it's just a judgmental label. Unless you are, in fact, a sex worker (in Amsterdam or elsewhere) strumpet, tart, harlot, slut, whore, hooker...they're just judgmental labels affixed to women who dress and behave sexually provocatively. Very few women who dress slutty are actually sluts/hookers/whores/harlots/et al. They may be promiscuous, they may be trollops open about looking to find a man, but, very few of them are actually taking money in exchange for sex.

Labels. Words. A rose by any other name.

Funny how sexually derogatory labels are rarely affixed to men. I know, the topic of sexual double-standards has been beaten to death. I'm just saying, in terms of labels, snap judgments, slutty is rarely applied to men. Men are rarely said to be of ill-repute. They're rarely admonished and dismissed as slutty, implying they're inferior or disgusting or dirty because they dress and behave sexually provocatively. Men rarely have sexual labels applied to them, and when they do the labels have positive connotations. Hot. Beefcake. Hunk. Hung. Duuuude! Even manwhore has a sort of alluring caché. Unless we're talking gay men, in which case the labels slut, whore, tart, harlot, strumpet...trollop... are thrown around willy-nilly, but interestingly, they're used with affection, mock admonishment fueled by desire. Not necessarily dismissive, insulting labels.

I'm dwelling on this way more than an unemployed soon-to-be-homeless person should. I have other, pressing, urgent priorities. A job. A home. Food.

Still, the closet Svengali's theory about what message I'm sending about my emotional well-being is nagging at me. Does the fact that I'm "obviously" single, at my age, inherently imply that I'm unbalanced, emotionally unstable, or at the very least incapable of achieving balance, structure and commitment in my life? If I at least looked like I date would I seem more emotionally balanced, more stable, more normal, more like someone you'd want to hire and have around the office?  Are women who dress more sexually at job interviews perceived as more savvy and consequently more accomplished and innovative? In short, does dressing relationship-ambiguous read as boring, lacking initiative and out of touch? Could it equate to not getting hired?

I really do not want the closet Svengali to be right. But. The fact that a few days later I'm still taking his "advice" to heart shows that he hit on something, maybe a nerve, maybe a fear, maybe something latent that I've been refusing to see or acknowledge. Labels. Judgments. First impressions.

I'm in a creative, competitive field. Like dating, there is a lot of competition for just a few opportunities. I failed to beat the odds in dating and now I'm failing to beat the odds in employment. My relatives and friends don't "understand" why I'm single, listing all my positive personality traits as reason enough for any and every man to be begging for me. "Looks don't really matter, Trillian, there are a lot of really ugly women who have more men than they can handle." They say, "She's intelligent, creative, funny, genuine, compassionate, emotionally mature, positive, supportive, kind, perceptive, moral..." All very nice labels. Still, I'm single. Very, very single. The Mayor of Singleton, in fact.

And interestingly, as I journey through unemployment, my family and friends call up similar personality traits and apply them to my prospective employers. They think I'm a great professional catch, they'd all love to work with me, have me on their team. Of course they are not hiring.

So now I'm thinking I should "do" something about my wardrobe. Sex it up a bit. Ye gads. I've spent my entire career downplaying my boobs, thinking of them as a liability in the boardroom. And now I'm trying to shift that paradigm to see them as not an asset at work, but that I use them as an asset in my personal life. I want to give the appearance of having a healthy sex and emotional life outside of work so that I appear savvy and viable at work. 

Even if it's all just an illusion - and that's what image is, an illusion - so that I get the "right" labels assigned to me when I go on job interviews.

Of course none of this should matter. I, we, should be judged on our personalities, our skills, our character. But we're not. Hence a lot of single people, lonely single people, roaming this planet. Nice, viable, funny, intelligent, kind, caring people remain alone and unwanted because they're not assigned the "right" appearance labels. I never wanted to think that appearance labels matter in the professional world, at least not in any professional world I wanted to join. But the closet Svengali might be onto something. If you look like you're all work and no play, like you don't have a life or interests outside of your career, the labels affixed to you could be hurting your career advancement (or employment). It pains me to even consider this because the implications are disturbing, but, I've examined and revamped and polished every other aspect of my career, skills and job hunt. I thought I was giving a great image: Professional, polished, current but not trendy, certainly not slutty or even stumpetlike. But maybe I need to tweak it a bit, give a few hints that maybe, just maybe, at some point in my life, I was sexually viable and consequently emotionally "normal." A label that is universally accepted. "Normal."

A rose by any other name might smell as sweet, but if it's labeled "thorny rancidspore" it will not be offered any jobs.

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11:22 PM

 
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