The State of My Economy: RSVP

"Brotha, can you spare a line?"

I've never treated this space as a blog; in fact, it was deliberately poised somewhere in the in-between, somehow to suggest that there was a middle ground, a somewhere-something else that could be figured in hyperlink and badly sketched ink-snark. Non-linear, hypertext creative non-fiction. Essays, my peeps. Plain and simple. Look it up, um I mean "Google it," or um, well, just, yeah, here. Essays! Why not? They get around.

Essays and doodle snarks! (WTF?)

The ink was bad, but man, was it ever fun. Drawing on Dunkin' boxes or Gym Membership Paraphernalia and the standard Customer Service Survey, I felt free to fuck with the clutter-fuck of our familiar.

Almost a year since my last, and we need no lesson in Russian Formalism to reckon our rude defamiliarization. (I'm teaching undergraduate Lit Theory this semester, so alas, you're going to get one too many of these kinds of references, Dear Reader; apparently, I still firmly believe that we can resolve our economic crises with some revolutionary theater. . . well. . .)

These pieces spoke of memory palace malls and lonely grocery ghosts--hunger narratives, really. They are all, and always, hunger narratives. And perhaps it's because this is what I see. I can only call it likes I sees it, you know? And I've been itching, itching to return.

"Return Policy: Exchange Place"

Hello!

I would like to exchange this for this.

What? This?

Yes. This.

But, um, it's the same thing. I can't do that.

No, no. You see? It's like this.

. . .

It's like this, folks. I find myself talking that back-talk of the state of things, the kind of talk that finds itself amazed at our current state of synecdoche; the kind of talk that gets tounge-tied at the way we seem "shovel-ready" to build ourselves audience to the Mega Church of Howie Mandelism, the kind of talk that wonders at the small and quiet ways I witness and experience the loud, loud internal-rhyme kinda suffering of folks around me whose credit cards are declined at the check out line. I guess what I saw today was no different than what I ignored yesterday, but it was enough to get me here.

And I want to make a return, please.

While this space has always been a question, a matter of form, I will take my number from those and other folks who can certainly tag themselves into the hyper-literary canon; I seek my bearings, wander about, and will blog on.

In May 2008, when I posted last, I wondered if we could re-figure the color line, especially when it is built into the very point of purchase display we call life. But there are so many lines. So many spaces to read in this in-between.

Check out, dotted, raced and erased, I can't help but wander-wonder and consider the line.

And like any good blues, which is any good life, I want to keep troubling the line.

Return.

And wander back again.

Hello.

Two Americas

The color line hasn't shifted, exactly.

This morning, as Edwards embraces Obama in the digitalized glare of the in-between, I shop for Nescafe and omega-juiced-up-eggs and find I am "seeing" a bizzaro "1rst and 10" virtual line of Consumer Culture Communication Device Creep Factor.

On one side of the line, we have, of course, the "Mahogany" line. On the other, well, we have "Sassy, FUN, Quirky"--not a line per se. But, well, of course, that makes a world of sense. It's just "Hallmark". But, sassy! . . . aye. (please, someone help me rescue that word)

I was hungry this morning. Rushed. Thus the "need it now" fake-Euro-java. But the cartoon OJ Simpson hangin' on the border on the Sassy Side of things, tellin' me he would have stolen the card for my birthday, "but," made me see the line. And suddenly, there it was. I saw it. Like a bad "secret shopper," I had to take a snap shot of my sudden cardiac-culture-snark. I saw it. And so often, we try so hard, to see not to see. And the Obama-esque sound bites tell us it's not about race in his race when he tells us we're still messed up about the race in the race; and we want it otherwise (or don't. . .hello Kentucky); and we want it now. As I say, I was rushed so you don't see that four doors down from the Simpson Snark-fest is an Obama b-day card, callin' out the b-day politico fun. Interesting neighbors. But hey, I got my eggs; I got my instant-fake-o-Euro-java, and I got the picture.

Lost in Transitions: Time, Tests, and a Big-Ass Bowl of Chocolate Two-Bite Thanks to my Dear, W in Short-Order Form

Lost in Transitions: Time, Tests and a Big-Ass Bowl of Chocolate Two-Bite Thanks to my Dear, W in Short-Order Form (and other poor inscribed conventions)

"Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus-value. The labourer produces, not for himself, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that he should simply produce. He must produce surplus-value. That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, and thus works for the self-expansion of capital. If we may take an example from outside the sphere of production of material objects, a schoolmaster is a productive labourer when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his scholars, he works like a horse to enrich the school proprietor. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of in a sausage factory, does not alter the relation. Hence the notion of a productive labourer implies not merely a relation between work and useful effect, between labourer and product of labour, but also a specific, social relation of production, a relation that has sprung up historically and stamps the labourer as the direct means of creating surplus-value. To be a productive labourer is, therefore, not a piece of luck, but a misfortune." (Marx; Captial V. 1, Chap. 16)

"To think of time . . . . to think through the retrospection,

To think of today . . and the ages continued henceforward.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I shall go with the rest. . . . we have satisfaction:

I have dreamed that we are not to be changed so much . . . . nor

the law of us changed.

I shall go with the rest,

We cannot be stopped at a given point. . . . that is no satisfaction;

To show us a good thing or a few good things for a space of time--

that is no satisfaction;

We must have the indestructible breed of the best, regardless of time.

("To Think of Time"; Brotha Walt)


00:01 "Once Upon A Time": or, what happens when the Fairy Tale is Over-Time (Part I)

"Make the Most of your System 30A Timer[:] With HME's R31 dual-color display employees see times in two modes [emphasis added].

Green indicates how many seconds have elapsed before the target is reached. Red signals your workers to speed it up!" (HME: System 30A Timer)

The semester is almost over, Dear W. I thought I'd have more time. Ah, me.

[. . .] (The ellipses point to all that is lost to time. I'd add more, but I don't know where they went.) But I digress.

It all began over a year ago when I inadvertently paid attention to a certain clock. It was then May, and summer was just around the corner. I was still ordering green teas rather than the Turbo Uber Venti Giganto Javas in adult sippie cups that I now get from whomever will sell me the substance (but you know, we can find those shady-grown types on any given corner). I felt as if I had all the time in the world then. I was calling out to the transparent magic eight ball of my modern day “American Scholar ” speeches I’d give in various versions via hallway, office hour and classroom commencement. Saying goodbye to students who’d made me realize why the scent of Fall was just as sweet as Spring, those intermediaries of time, those glimpses of the process of in between, ah, summer was approaching; and the Spring was in full bloom. And I still believed in the unsweetened promise in a cup of green tea. But I looked up; I looked up and through the Drive-Thru window glare, and there it was. There was this menacing, blinking red thing: a digital clock. And next to it, another number rendering measurement but this one, a percentage. Blinking as well. Red. Blinking thing.

And I had to ask.

“Hey, um, sorry to ask the obvious, but, um. . .” I point over to the big, red digital digits display which blink out seconds as the blink by, “is that thing timing you?” I sound incredulous, but I know these things exist. I guess I just never paid attention.

He sighs. And with a shoulder shrug and face framed far away from the camera monitoring our untimely convo, he speaks through ear piece microphone and soft sarcasm,

“Uh, yeah; they time us here."

And over his shoulder, camera and clock.

The green percentage rate resulted to and resonated a flashing red suggesting the anger and audacity of my untimely inquiry. What did it care of care or context? What did it know of flesh and process? It is dumb; it speaks a binary world of color-coded efficiency rates and one result: results.

“In this consumer-driven environment, students increasingly care little about the distinctions that sometimes preoccupy the academic establishment, from whether a college has for-profit or nonprofit status to whether its classes are offered online or in brick-and-mortar buildings. Instead, they care—as we do—about results.” (Spellings Report)

00:02 Rollin’ Round Outside the Cave Sometime in Medias Res

I am a strange, silly gal; at my best, I imagine strange, silly things: doodle-snarks. And the corruption of Classical Texts and Supreme Dialogs degenerated through the power of my Half Wit imagination machinations. I imagine a strange, silly thing. I imagine what, say, a convo

between Socrates and Phaedrus would be like today. I imagine it resembling nothing of this sort, despite the fact it is all I can imagine:

Socrates (puts away his Blackberry after messaging the Muses) Ok. Where was I? Ah, yes. Apparently, I am to speak of the advantages of having a “Friend with Benefits”. First, of course, before I extol the FWB, I should diss love, or the Lover. Because, really, they’re all just players anyway. . . (Cell Phone rings) Um, brb, ok, Phaedrus? (Socrates gets up and talks into his Bluetooth; “Plato. . .Plato, now Chill, bro, chill; I never said that. You really need to calm down; yeah, yeah, look, I have to let you go; Ok. Ok? What? Stop. I never said that! Look, I don’t have the time to go through this again; I’m rollin’ with Phaedrus today, ok? I’ll call you later.”). Sorry, man, sorry. This thing (points to the ear) has taken on life, and seems to be consuming my own. Ha ha ha. LOL! LOL! I am LOLing!  Oh, where was I?

Phaedrus You were about to discourse on the Lover as Player, Socrates. But you were interrupted. . .

Socrates Love? Love! What does our "Global Community" need now? Love? No.

Phaedrus But what of "True Love"? I just returned from a Weekend Retreat at Soul Journeys Spa & Golf Resort where we meditated on our doshas and discoursed on the pursuit of the Highest Form of Genuine Happiness: True Love! Oh, but the Dead Sea Salt mud baths were divine, Sockie. You really should have come, you know. Oh, sorry, go ahead. . .

Socrates (Ahem. . .) “True Love” you say? True Love? Why only yesterday I read a report finding that only 4.562% of all Users under 34 have ever (A) “Really Loved” whereas most responders—over 57.889%--selected (C) “Loved and Lost and Loved Again”. “The One”? True Love? Oh! That’s an idea that has long lost its cred. No. Love is complicated,, and messy, and worse. You see, really, it is immeasurable, and we can’t have that Phaedrus, we cannot work with something if it renders faulty data or doesn’t fit a flow chart! And this, above all, is its fatal flaw. . . But. . .(starts choking and coughing). . . But I must stop now, Phaedrus. I must stop. (coughing) Frankly, this is getting ridiculous.

Phaedrus Wha? Why? Aren’t you supposed to discourse on the advantages of the “Friend with Benefits”? Wasn’t that the deal? I thought we would have a real old school Discourse here, man!

Socrates Are you kidding? Can’t you see that I went from thinking in emoticons to speaking in assessment discourse? to generating and repeating statistical data collection? No, way, man. No. And that was just me dissin’ love. Can you imagine where I’d go if I started praising "Friends with Benefits"? Shit. I’m outta here, man. I’m outta here.

(With all Apologia to my man Plato)

I find solace in my imagination, but I can imagine what fuels it. I sometimes don’t want to think on it.

It’s kinda creepy.

00:03 “Branded at the Drive Thru”: Leggo your Logos (While U Wait!)

So I guess there’s something about our “thanks for the ad” consumer culture that functions and “runs on” slogans and the sense that we are empowered through the Logos of the Logo.

And it kinda--yeah-- freaks me out. (a sad thesis, that. . .)

And I think, well, maybe we should notice. Maybe we should see before we say and pay. Plato et. al noticed, right? In his world, in his way, he noticed. And lo! Western Metaphysics! Well, ok, bad example, but Plato noticed; it’s why he didn’t want those damn poets in the friggin’ Republic after all. After all, he suggested that the poets of his day weren’t celebratin’ it snarky, so to speak; they were singin' the status quo, and the identification was troubling. What was it that people were identifying with? Who and what were the referents? Plato was like, fuck that shit, and there went the modern day equivalent of Spin Doctors and PR Parrots out da door. Because—hello!— we’re the Bizzaro Republic, and we’re starting to pay attention to what we’re buying a bit, but we should maybe re-think what fuels us.

I hear that word—sustainabilty—thrown about like we all tuned in to our favorite childhood show sponsored by the letter “S” and a kinder, gentler Exxon. But sustainability means so much more than down payments on Hybrid Hummers. Sustainability means life. What kind do we actually get to choose to live, after all? If we’re all lining up at the Drive-Thru 24 Hour Pharmacy before we get to the Drive-Thru 24 Hour ATM in order to get more cash for the Drive-Thru 24 Hour Gas n Grub Stop in order to get to work at our own private drive-thrus, well?

What are the referents? What are the signs? What are we repeating without knowing?

Certainly, I’m all suds here; I’m all suds atop this electronic soap-box, but let’s bring those back, ok? Why not? Let’s clean things up to make a different mess. Let’s consider the "choices" of choices we’re told we can choose from. Let’s not choose the combo or value meal. Don’t choose to run that way. Oh, man, but this is becoming like a really effing bad version of that. . .that. . . song. I can hear it now: . . . “salesman!”

Bah. But seriously, potentially offended Neil Pert fan, there’s something wrong about life on the QSR. And can I argue that? Are we Post-Post-Types allowed to make such essentializing claims? Can we still suggest a lesson to be learned in the concept of well, this ain't NO GOOD? This is the not good? This is kinda . . .bad? And not Michael Jackson "Bad" but that other kind. . . the bad kind?

Because there’s a flaw in the Liquid Crystal Display; and I’m frozen but running.

All of this I feel and think about when I see the percentage sign measure our exchange and ask the untimely inquiry.

That was May. And if you’ve read me, you know me and summer (Dear W, you actually do read me! You do. . . how odd it is to have someone sense the tone of things on screen; how disarming it is to be read and remembered in turn). Summer. Winter and Summer! Those certain seasons get me so uncertain. :) At that moment I dreamed up a convocation speech to my students, pasted it together in Spellings and Taylor and then. . .


00:04 October: My Fall

“Fast Track 2+2 Timing Systems are state of the art timing and recording systems that monitor the speed of customer service in the drive-thru line of quick service restaurants (QSRs).

For each car in the line, the system measures, stores, and displays event times as follows: greet delay at the menu board, total time at the menu board, time at the pay window, time at the pickup window, and overall time from arrival at the menu board to departure from the pickup window” (“Fast Track 2+2 Timing System”)

I got sick twice this semester; first, in October. It’s amazing what teaching overloads and trying to run committees and programs and other mad, mad things can do to a body; oh, my body. There was a small space in time where I’d only offer myself fairly traded, organic green tea, and considered the anti-oxidants in berries and nuts, wondered at the anti-inflammatory wonders of fish oil, and was manically obsessed with health. I believed in attempting to sustain the balance of my body. I believed in my body. Yet somehow, between Summer 06 and Summer 07, I fell. I lost my faith. It kept failing me, despite the thousands of dollars spent at alternative groceries, despite the manic drive to find the right combination of supplements to stop me from wanting to eat my way through my cabinets on a daily basis ever since I quite smoking in October 2005. Ah! "Happy anniversary to me," said memory to my body, as it fell tired and sick onto sometime in late October. I fell indeed. It is the human condition we’ve conditioned all our stories around. And then, driving from my sweetie’s pad to get to campus, I find myself on the odd stretch on Rte 18 in central NJ where monster chains still sit alongside mom and pops which call themselves “American” Retailer X, and I wonder at the names.

There is a new Dunkin Donuts on this portion of 18, right before it becomes mostly highway; it’s the last stop, so to speak, before one would have to take an exit ramp to Food and Fuel themselves at a similar chain and clone. It’s shape from the outside reminded me of an article I’d read for that convocation speech I wanted to give my graduating students this past May, something on the re-tooling of the QSR. I had mentioned this initial snark-urge to my dear friend "W" sometime earlier in the lull of a seeming "summer" of a September. My dear friend, W. Somehow, she finds my wanna-be "writerly" rants about strip malls, pre-fab communities and Chain-store gang warfare--somehow--readerly. In the time I allowed for friendship before my fall, I explained where my words my wander next: the drive-thru line of the QSR. But instead of giving in to the urge to snark, I got distracted in the dead-lines.

Quick Serves are re-considering the efficiency of their delivery mechanisms by getting rid of interior space and centering their work and identities around the Drive-Thru. You’ll notice the difference when you get to one of these angular, stream-lined establishments. I did, but then, I forgot. I became a customer. Instead, I believed I wanted coffee, of course, because that’s who I had become by October: Extra Large Turbo Hot, bit of cream and Four Splenda (too sweet; too strong; too too). I wanted to get a box of Munchkins as well, recalling that my students might dig the motley-colored Halloween varieties, but I went with the grown-up version of a mixed dozen instead, since this was a much smaller group, and since my “Healthy Jiminey” Voice of Reason was then last seen gasping to death after one too many meals shared with me and my pesticide-ridden table.

I remember that box. It had an odd thing rolling around in it.

“What is that?” Dana asked. She’s the President of a student club I help co-advise, and this was the day she decided to take on that new role; I offered left over doughnuts from my Honors American Lit class as incentive and reward. Oi. Tiffany, also feeling out her own new identity as colleague and co-advisor, upon spying the odd orb-in-the-box, thought aloud, “is that a butter ball?” and then it rolled as we shifted the box to reveal an opaque, plastic and painted "eyeball".

“Oh! Ha! It’s--I guess--a creepy Halloween eyeball. It must have been set in the middle of one of these,” and I point a purple ink-stained finger to the bright-orange colored disks, “and just rolled off.” I pick it up; it’s hard; a sick yellow with red squiggly lines denoting the madness of its vision, I ask if anyone wants it and when no one replies, I set it back inside a doughnut I would later offer to my honey who I don’t think ate the doughnut or kept the Opaque Eyeball.

I am reminded of this story as I order my Extra Large Turbo Hot this October, right before my Fall, and I’m staring up at the blinking red %78, recalling the first time I noticed such a thing, and paid for green tea and attention instead, and dreamed up a radical speech for the New "American Scholar." The young woman with the orange cap, blue tooth microphone, and button down orange polo asks, “Is there anything else, mamn?” And I'm stuck; I’ve made them fall behind target time and quota; I’ve made the Monitor RUN Red, yet I can’t move for the surreal moment of awakening I find there, despite my sleepy, java-less state. Ah, a necessary moment of wonder-wander; can you measure it? Can you make it run? Can you see Spot run and run and run so far he doesn’t return to the text? And we forget there ever was or ever could be a dog for Dick and Jane, and those names disappear as well?

"When are you going to write it?" My Dear W asked before the fall.

"I just don't seem to have the time," went the lame lament and refrain. With arched brow and pursed lip, my wonder-worthy W's silence suggested an alternative ending to my sad story. Alas, I wasn't able to revise it, W, until now.

"Upsold" down the QSR: See Rosey Sell (watch Bob watch and hyper activate you)

"With today's drive-thru technology, the graphics do the upselling, not the employee [. . .]".

"According to Dave Boerlin, vice president of business development at Delphi, one test operator has seen drive-thru sales thru increase by $543 in a week. 'The application can analyze the data to see what is working. So you might find that suggesting a large Coke when they order small doesn’t work, but small fries to large does,' Boerlin said. He has the benefits down cold: relying on a human to suggest an apple pie with every order isn’t as foolproof as programming a machine to make the mention. Simply put, technology tracking eliminates guessing and doesn’t require re-training staff. 'I believe suggestive selling boils down to getting the words out, and that’s the most difficult part,' said Jimmy Fitzgerald, director of the new concept division for Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Donuts. “That’s technology’s advantage – it won’t miss [emphasis added].'" ("Franchisees mull over")

Hmmn. You know, I'd say Plato was worried about them speech writers for a reason. Now, as a modern Chica--and a postmodern Chica to boot--I'm not here suggesting in my very own hypertextuality the evils of textuality. I celebrate the slide; I construct the demolition deliberate. The issue, however, is that we're not remotely calling out the signs that call us out (remotely or otherwise). Oh, and they'll call you out, alright. In fact, they'll down-right remember you.

"Would you like to try the combo meal?"

We've been upsold down the QSR, and we're eating it up, one pre-cooked, shrunk, and suggested graphic at a tee-time. Sure, we're aware of "suggestive selling" or "up sales" at every turn, but it's normalized, routine and route. In fact, it's so routine, it's apparently predictable. Or, alas, we are:

"Meet Bob:

Consistent food quality and speed-of-service keep your customers coming back. That’s why we developed HyperActive Bob, the first product to automate kitchen production operations in a quick service restaurant (QSR).

Bob “sees” car traffic into the restaurant, analyzes that visual data in conjunction with historical and real-time point-of-sale (POS) data, and directs kitchen employees in real-time on what to cook, when, and how much.

Bob brings a discipline to your front-line efforts because he has the ability to make smarter, more controlled real-time decisions than human operators are capable of making. Simply put, HyperActive Bob is your 24-7 kitchen production manager." ("Products/Services: Meet Bob"; Hyperactive Technologies)

"Would you like to try the combo meal?" goes the recording that can get those words out without pause.

Out, out, out.

Again and again and again.

And the words come and go, and come and go. And so do we. Again and again. But the fact that the people we come in contact with (in one way or another) on a daily basis are scripted to negotiate relations in percentage and dual time is troubling to say the least; the problem, to say the least (because that's the most I can do), is in the words in between and between us.

Among a gazeeliion things I can't begin to understand, Plato's Phaedrus was a written testament to his ambivalence to the written word, on literacy's effects on memory. And certainly, the shift from an oral to a written culture has produced folks who can't remember their parents' cell phone numbers without scrolling through "Contacts" (well, at least I can't). But this isn't the memory I'm recalling. You see, with Things like Bob and Red Blinking, our notions of time and memory--and thus, ourselves--are being reconstructed in ways we might not necessarily find so keen. This may seem silly, but my beef's not with the pre-cooked technology, yo. It's not the Things. It's never about the things, per say. "It"? . . . Hello "vague pronoun reference!" It. . . it is? It is. It's something we've suggested we can't call out any longer in our post-lives: it's purpose (its purpose); it's intent (its intent). And the intent and purpose of these things is pretty predictable, eh, Bob?

Bob: Would you like to try the combo meal?

Rosie: Oh, Bob, you're so silly. You know I gave up fries years ago. Don't you remember?

Bob: Would you like to try the combo meal?

Rosie: LOL! You're too much! No, thanks, Bob. I'm not hungry for the combo, thanks. No fries for me! LOL! But I will have a gallon of Diet soda, thanks.

Yeah; the call and response of our daily lives is culled from some mighty creepy-ass crops.

But I digress. . .

"What do you, um, mean by this, here?" pointed my student to my pink V5 commentary in the margins of her expository essay.

"Oh, 'transition'?" I mused, running a purple-ink-stained finger and frayed finger nail over the term in question. "Well, you know, you move kinda abruptly from discussing your indoor tanning addiction to your coffee addiction," and I smile. "I know addiction is what they have in common, but let's work out a sentence or two that allows your reader to move her way to this discussion; that creates a 'transition'" and as I say this, I point to a fallaciously-truth-happy sentence that reads, "Everyone knows we run on coffee. I do, don't you?"

"But, um, what about this?" She points to the word "Also" which I had circled and explained as a "bullet list" solution to creating connections between ideas, but she didn't read it, and--for one brief moment of weakness--I want to write in the margins "I want to run away to. . ." in Top 10, bullet list-genre, but we manage to find a bridge for our addictions regardless.

"Would you like to try the combo meal?"

But time doesn't always honor the necessity for decent transition. Nor do those who proselytize its holy benefits.

[. . .]

'When are you going to write it?" asked W, my dear and darling friend.

"I just don't have the time," I unblinkingly and immediately replied, reaching over the table for the wine she and her hubby brought just as she reached over for the wine we'd brought for our mutual dinner at "that Greek place" my honey had suggested for the occasion. That was the last time we all got to break pita and act like slightly Dorky Dioneaseans, Darlink. And I'm pretty sure, Dear W, it was September 29th.

00:05 "The Center Cannot (put you on) Hold": The Call of the Wild Call Center

"One, two, three," said Jane.

"Three new dolls for my birthday!
Three baby dolls that talk!
All for my birthday!
Now I have a big doll family!" ("A Doll for Jane")

The Look/Say paradigm for literacy embodied in Dick, Jane and their forgotten sister Sally in the early through mid 20th century taught our Boomer gen much more than a limited set of terms through the new metaphor of Suburban image and it's essential component: repetition. It helped teach them and subsequent generations the nascent values of the Venti, and we've learned accordingly.

In The Phaedrus, Plato writes about what he sees (through his dialectical vision, of course) as the problem with the written word, its ghost-like state and separation from the author. . . .well, sorta. But he’s dead, and I’m not sure exactly anyway. Plato's my man, but I'm not always wanting to xerox his conclusions as handouts, dig? Yet, it’s that mythic disconnect that’s had folks of much worthier thought-cred wondering about those wandering words. As Derrida noted, one of Big Papa Plato's biggest concerns was the contradiction that writing called out to us when we find our selves "repeating without knowing". And while thousands of years of being and thing-ness-es have challenged, opened, changed, rearranged and lamented the binaries of Western Metaphysics, and our villians and heros and Heideggers and Havelocks and Derridas have had their day, this half wit still finds a lesson or two to be had in the metaphor-weary monitors of our modern day spelunkings; you see, there's so much amazing snark in the skepticism on those sliding and wayward words wandering about without their (mamas and) papas (the parenthetical update, indeed); There's just something going on with the words.

Words. WTF?! They can be tricky, and more so; they can trick: trick words. And these trick words will come a' callin; no doubt, they will call on you.

And that's the thing, see? Because here in the Modern, Standardized and Efficiently Productive Drive-Thru Cave, the images flicker and we now know in green and red. We GO in green and red; we "see times" in green and red, because we're two-timed; And this "all that is old is new again" binary is not something our Dialectician would be, well, praising, you know? Nope. Besides, I'm biased. For all such particular and linear evils, I blame Aristotle. ;-) But the line is drawn nonetheless, and we line up to hear it; we pull up for the up-sell voiced by a machine recording; the Voice records our sale; she is away away away. We SEE the picture of the pre-cooked "authentic" "Mexican" wrap-thing. Sally, our Choice and Voice recorder will not be the face at the next window; she's somewhere else. She's being carefully "tracked," timed, and "monitored," but we can't SEE her. Sally III gives us our order while Sally II, miles away, is working out the next and next and next. Her words are all scripted for the up-sell as we pull up for the sell. And again, we're used to this, as we live the Customer Service Lingo in terms of the Call Center, as noted in the article, “The Long-Distance Journey of a Fast Food Order”:

"The remote order-takers at Bronco earn the minimum wage ($6.75 an hour in California), do not get health benefits and do not wear uniforms. Ms. Vargas, who recently finished high school, wore jeans and a baggy white sweatshirt as she took orders last week. The call-center system allows employees to be monitored and tracked much more closely than would be possible if they were in restaurants. Mr. King's computer screen gives him constant updates as to which workers are not meeting standards. "You've got to measure everything," he said. "When fractions of seconds count, the environment needs to be controlled”. (Ritchell)

When I read stuff like this, I almost want to give up the ghost, so to speak. But the young Ms. Vargas is no doubt a future candidate for the emergent identity of the "life-long learner"; she made it through the ghetto inferno of public high school, and now has the rewarding prospect of looking ahead to a life long series of measurements and scripts. Our "Sally" Vargas is free of the standard issue Employee Polo, but she will most likely be stuck in the sweat-shirt uniform of the working poor for all her live-long days. But we've educated her--just enough--to serve.

And (ah--that ever present conjunction) I suppose, it is in how we've decided to frame what we see. How do we see? What and how? Content and form? How? Do? We? Imagine? It?

Taylor created a counter-vision which has become all we can and care to see. Then, he argued, we didn't have the right perspective:

"We can see and feel the waste of material things. Awkward, inefficient, or ill- directed movements of men, however, leave nothing visible or tangible behind them. Their appreciation calls for an act of memory, an effort of the imagination" ("Introduction"; Principles of Scientific Management)

Plato lamented memory-loss for more than he could ever imagine, I'm afraid.

(we interrupt this half-assed, half wit genre-play and take you somewhere inside the digital clock timer, to a message found Scotch-taped to the microprocessor)

"See it Go"

"Look!" said Spellings.

"See 'teacher' go away.

See 'student' go away."

"Away, away, away," said Sally.


Sally, Dick and Jane's forgotten sister, bears testimony for us here. She sings the loss. She laments the sign. She. . .

"Shhhhhh! Sally!" said Spellings.

[. . .] She. . . is. . . She is "shushed!" by Spellings who insists on not leaving her behind again. Sally Customer is reborn and reformed! Amen!

"A significant obstacle to better cost controls is the fact that a large share of the cost of higher education is subsidized by public funds (local, state and federal) and by private contributions. These third-party payments tend to insulate what economists would call producers—colleges and universities—from the consequences of their own spending decisions, while consumers—students—also lack incentives to make decisions based on their own limited resources. Just as the U.S. health-care finance system fuels rising costs by shielding consumers from the consequences of their own spending choices, the high level of subsidies to higher education also provides perverse spending incentives at times" ("A Test of Leadership")

Following the "logical" conclusion to the recommendations made by the Spellings Committee Report and the creepy choir of the Efficiency and Accountability Police, here and forever collectively known as the Neo-Taylorists, standardized courses delivered through online course-ware and RUN by "Content Deliverers" and "Learning Managers" is in large part a key to a leaner, meaner learning machine. In fact, who needs the ego-bound, archaic and flawed notion of "teachers" anyway, F2F or online? Because it's all content, anyway. And we're not, according to the Report, delivering.

What Strangelove System am I prophesying here? Why, we're already there, folks. Indeed, there are tons of pre-packaged, pre-scripted courses waiting to deliver and inspire you, the "Total Student". Take for example, this critical-thinking-inducing excerpt from a McGraw-Hill Online Learning module, and SEE how they indeed deliver and inspire Sally to construct a "quality" paragraph with brilliant anticipatory sets such as these:

“Clarissa and Michael seem to be the best candidates for the job,” said the Human Resources Director. “I agree with you, however, I have my doubts about Michael,” responded the vice president of the multi-national corporation. ("English Composition"; McGraw-Hill Online Learning)

And then, if Sally clicks on, she will see the image of Mr. Human Resources Director which is displayed and allowed to explain why Michael is not a quality candidate because of his value-subtracted essay. In the subsequent and accompanying image, we can see that the Mr. Vice President of the multi-national corporation is smiling and thus, happy to SEE Mr. Human Resources Director’s thoughts RUN along as his own; and we can see Mr. Vice President of the multi-national corporation as his image shows his smile, and this image tells us that his smile is for and to his good employee, Mr. Human Resources Director, who knows how to hire good employees. And the image of the smiling Mr.Vice President of the multinational corporation hovers above the text which reminds users (aka, potentially employable "consumers"; formerly known as "students") that

"[k]nowing how to write a proper and strong paragraph is not optional if you want to produce a quality essay. The following lesson provides you with methods, techniques, and different options about how to create the introduction, body, and conclusion of a first-rate essay [emphasis added]. Consider the fact that writing an effective essay is not only a skill you need to achieve in college. If you master this skill now, you will see the benefits long after you graduate." ("English Composition"; McGraw-Hill Online Learning)



"Away, away, away," said the Vice President of the multi-national corporation.

I think about a class I teach which shares the name "English Composition" with this pre-cooked class which includes a seeming anticipatory set that anticipates more than I want to see, Dick. Please? But this is where it's at, or where we're heading, anyway. See? Besides, soon enough, Dick, I will see the Blinking Red Thing hovering and blinking above my own shoulders, no doubt. All in good time, Dick? All in good time.

Higher education institutions should improve institutional cost management through the development of new performance benchmarks designed to measure and improve productivity and efficiency. Also, better measures of costs, beyond those designed for accounting purposes, should be provided to enable consumers and policymakers to see institutional results in the areas of academic quality, productivity and efficiency.
(Spellings Commission Report: "A Test of Leadership")

In 1957, after a little stray Soviet mutt by the name of Laika went on UP UP UP and AWAY AWAY AWAY and took a bit of a space-trippin' trip round the earth, we were dazzled and disturbed by the display. In response, the "National Education Defense Act," was itself launched the following year, opening up curriculum and doors to new students who would help fight the chilly fight of the then Cold War discursive dialectic. But the borders and battle lines have shifted, and we do not seem to open doors, but affix height strips to their jambs instead. It's not the development of curricula, but the assessment of it, not the possibilities of civic engagement and the meaning of a truly public and open academic enterprise, but the possibilities of corporate enterprise: the manifold measures toward the privatization of our public educations.

But the privatization of public higher education isn't a postmodern irony; it has been a part of the ways in which we Incorporated the corporation in tandem with our ABC's and 123's. The rhetoric of the Neo-Taylorists and their Gospel of the Spellings Report just makes more explicit and permissible what has already been in motion, long before Goldman Sach's was somehow given currency to rant about the direction for"global" education and decide what it means to set the agenda for "Educating Leaders". It's not that private industry or big business hasn't been shaping the possibilities of learning, because they have, from the get-go; the significant difference now is that the very modes in which pedagogy and knowledge are and can be imagined are being re-configured through the discursive tropes and signs of corporate management. What is "Leadership"? What does it mean to be "tested"? And what is it in and of which we measure? These are just some of the questions that leave me reeling if not simply wondering. If critical thinking is understood and negotiated in terms of Human Resource Values, and we are only Good Employees in Training, Bob, um, hey? then I wonder what kind of people these companies will actually "get" in the end? Right, Bob? Yes, Sally. I mean, if our content is watered-down, our curricula is press-button Venti-Vendorizied, and our notion of learning is chained to the Drive Thru feeding off a highway, feeding off a development, feeding off a highway, feeding off a Drive Thru, well, then where the fuck are we going, Bob? Lunch crowd coming through; make 15 extra combo meals, Sally. Ok, ok. But wait. I'm . . .thinking here. . . No time, Sally. We need those fries. Now. But, but. . . wherearewefuckinggoing and. . . what the hell are we actually learning, after all?

"You're fired."

In Between a 30 Minute Baking Time Break; My Two-Bite Thanks to my Darling W

In all of this madness, in what I imagine and what I can't, looking up at the Red Blinking Thing reminded me of quite a few things, none of which it is programmed to recall in others, but hey, value-added memory bonus is not such a bad comp in this space, right? Above all, hung the Red Blinking Thing, and above all, the Red Blinking Thing framed for me some sort of memento mori, flashing both seconds and second chances I'd been given and run away from again and again and again. I thought about how I probably shouldn't be thinking all these things, as the clock was certainly many things, but it was certainly not analog nor was it necessarily as anagogical as I had deemed it, but I kept thinking regardless; consequently, in thinking that somehow--somehow--I should try to testify to it's rhythm and seduction in words I can imagine and can't, I was reminded of a heart-debt I've not paid up, of a friendship I've not fully nourished in my nutrient-deficient state of Running Man.

That was October. It's almost 2008 now. I'm getting over that flu that everyone is either giving away or running away from, and I'm editing this piece on the last day of my Fall semester, this piece that I kept editing all semester, it seems. But, Dear W, if anything, know that I kept thinking regardless.

She doesn't RUN on caffeine and confectionery glaze, but she sure do have a hankerin' for those two-timin' micro-brownies, and apparently French toast sets her off into . . . well, let us leave her bizzaro turbo carbo rituals to her telling, but she's a friend who I've been blessed to have in my life, despite my perennial excuses for one.

If she's not knitting a new cardigan or design dreamed up beyond pattern book and fair trade thread, she's weaving words in secret, constructing a memory palace out of textile and texture, or subject shadow and aperture ratio, a keen-eye of kindness and inquiry juxtaposed with an up-turned eyebrow, sass and silence--all these things and things I have yet to learn, my dear friend, my Dear "W". Yes, my Dear W is a Renaissance woman of the Uberist Kind. The first time I met her, I think she may have thought that I thought her a skittish kitty; but really, I just thought her "cool". ;-) I soon discovered, however, she's feline indeed. But in a world of manufactured relation, she makes the effort to make relation instead, and that, Dear W, has made all the difference.

Upon discovering my "Ugly Doll" fetish, she made a point to create for me her own version, a hand-made W Doll representing--I think-- my own feline nature, a hand-crafted Diva Doll, all Diva'd up right down to my (it's) hipster skirt and scarf. When she gave me the gift, I was awestruck; I couldn't believe she took the time to make it; who offers such intimate, careful gifts these days?

As I type this portion of a piece that has taken me over a year of imagining and at least three months of scribbling, I haven't even had time to go shopping "here" online, never mind "make" the gifts I've been dreaming up to give this holiday. But there it was. For me. Of me. By her. Of her. I was honored, enamored, so incredibly happy to have such an offering and such a friend; but I'm not sure I thanked you, W, properly. I'm not sure I have lived up to my end of the friendship deal. I'm not sure you know. I have been living such an "On the Go" Turbo Venti Version of my life, such a Gas n Go, such a Food and Fuel, such a 24hr kinda not-life. But there are moments where the downtime has been beautiful. There have been so many wonder-ful moments! And well, I'm sorry I didn't call then. There's always time in between, but we never do call when we do have time, right? And there is always time outside of the measurements, the words, "not enough," you know?

And my little W Diva Doll Micro-Me chillaxes on my bed with my other various dolls, made here and there by occluded hands and machines not rendered in product tags. Unlike those objects, my Diva of felt and thread reminds me each and every morning that the world is still ours to be made, carefully, with each stitch in and out of time.

Thank you. It's all I've wanted to say, this entire time. It just took me about three months. ;-)

The Great Chain(s) of Being and Friendliness:re-connecting with a kindred spirit despite being served & surveyed at my local, highwayhood Samsarabee's

A Prefatory Note of some note to my Dear Reader(s)*:

The following mini-meander on the highwayhood of neighborliness was written sometime in late August; there I was, attempting to inscribe whatever "creative non-fiction" may or may not signal in the temporal and temperamental time/space continuum of that durn "blogisphere"; blog spaces are all about the "right now" of hyper (no KIDDING) textuality, but I'm rather absent-minded, like slow-food as much as I like "slow scroll," and was consumed by the following life-stuff, rendered here for you in despised discursive form, otherwise known as "bullet list". So I didn't publish it "today" (that someday in August) because I was

• Preparing for the then-upcoming and now all-encompassing Academic Year
  
• Finishing my Paint Quest 07 Paint-a-Thon
• Avoiding preparing and/or painting (and much else)
• Being rather absent-minded and losing the survey that was to be snarked

So, I create this bullet list of poor excuse, present to you a prefatory note of current intent in Tahoma Red 12, and self-publish (because who else would effin' do it?) a piece that's "so old; outdated; why bother?" today-today instead and realize that I need to re-consider my relationship with said hyper- hypertextuality. This makes me think that I would like to start the "Slow Scroll" movement! Who wants in? Let us stroll and scroll slow. Slow Scrollers of the Blogiverse, unite! The only thing you have to lose are your RSS Feed Chains! Or something like that. . .

Much has changed since I wrote this. We're all living that spare-change, so I'll spare it, but share some context that seems share-worthy.

My living room is now that perfect shade of periwinkle that haunts bridesmaids but compliments cherry wood and bone china plate; the snarky of summer self has given over to the promise of pumpkin picking in some future October day, no doubt, but above all, my dear friend who lamented her Bartleby "Before" shots is now a colleague. :) She decided that people and their words are worth the Slow Scroll (and the severe pay cut) after all, and thus, this is dedicated to her dedication to helping our peeps communicate in complete sentences, in MLA TNR 12, and in ways they never imagined possible. May she find her voice as she enables the tenor and treble in those she edits and abets. :) Congrats, Tiff! Woooo!

And yes, I lost the damn survey. Shit, but that was one creepy document of snark-worthiness, folks. Damn. . . . I honestly think I threw it out with the outdated rebate forms from Home Depot I never got around to filling out. All I know is that at some point when I thought to look, I only came to found that my damn pharmaceutical-grade survey was gone. But certainly, as we live in an Assessment Obsessed "Culture of Assessment," I knew something would turn up eventually. And then, lo! A new year begins (September will do that to a teacher or student type) and suddenly I forgot about this essay altogether! Yep. It sat in Draft Limbo (very much like much of my life, it seems) awaiting some sign or "exciting coupon" of remittance. And there it sat, until the above pictured "Reader/Customer" survey slipped out of a book I was browsing and my WTF?! florescent-on-a-timer turned on. As I "filled it out" (the only way one can, of course), I remembered

*plurality, like hypertextuality, is a state of being my "audience" may consider optional. . .

“In a free economy, people do not always buy just because they have money. . . . Theirs is the sovereign right of choice. One of the hopeful developments of recent years is that new knowledge is rapidly being accumulated about the aspirations and wants and motivations of our people.”

–President Dwight D. Eisenhower on the wonders of consumerism and consumer surveys in relation to the prospects of the national economy; quoted in A Consumers’ Republic by Lizabeth Cohen.

“Sauntering the pavement or riding the country byroads here and there are faces,
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,

. . . . . . . . .

Sauntering the pavement or crossing the ceaseless ferry, here and there are faces;
I see them and complain not and am content with all.” --From “Faces,” Leaves of Grass by Brotha Walt

“Would you be mine? Won’t you be mine?” –Fred Rodgers

I have actually existed on this portion of our planet for 33 years and had never as of yet experienced the pleasures of dining at an Applebee’s . . . until this very day. The wondrous thing about this bizzaro fact and life in general? Well, there are always firsts;

and lasts.

Apparently, until today, despite my thinking otherwise, I hadn’t truly experienced “local” dining; as the façade and interior of the chain portrayed, I had finally arrived at my “neighborhood” grill, after all. And I didn't even need to bring the buns.

These were my “neighbors”; Applebee’s: my “friends.” Funny thing about these neighbors, though. They reside on a highway. Funny, that.

I hadn’t seen her in over a year; an old friend, we had a lot to catch up on and share. She knew nothing of my recent neuroses, hobbies or honey, and I knew nothing of hers. There were over 365 days of life’s bliss and boredom to compile into bite-size bits in between bites. And even though I almost hesitated to meet being still in the midst of catching up to the middle once again of my Apartment Revitalization Plan, I stepped away from the blue tape, nothing to paint here, and got ready to head out. She lives in a sweet little beach town in Monmouth county but has the misfortune of having to commute to work up here near enough to my hood; thus, knowing we should meet somewhere in proximity to her work, my residence and the GSP, she sent a text asking if meeting at Applebee’s would work for our reunion. “Never been. . .” began my text-reply, but I looked forward to seeing her, and perhaps, I half-joked, trying out something from the Weight Watchers menu, as I am always, obsessively watching and measuring that.

I also tend to be an obsessed foodie-in-the-making. I can be a bakin’ fool depending on my particular hormone count, and I certainly enjoy cooking for my peeps, and when I can, I pretty much attempt to eat/shop in that pathetic but not SAD fashion: whole, organic, local and all that jazz. This “pretty much” healthy and as the "flex" happy wordies call a “flexitarian” lifestyle--coming from a chick who as a young girl believed a balanced meal consisted of Classic Coke, Sour Patch Kids, Andy Capp Hot Fries and Little Debbie Oatmeal Snack Cakes--is an accomplishment that’s been well over a decade in the making. Trust me, I was (and, heck, still am at heart, and man, ya gotta have that) a Joisey Diner girl, a drive-through Diva, and an all around junk fetishist. But I just couldn't do it anymore. And time went on, and so did I. When I do eat out—and gosh, but I love to dine out with folk— I tend to stick to my local Baristaville eats owned and operated by actual families (not corporations) and gen-u-ine chefs (and not TV chef personalities represented on laminate menu selection). I don’t really have that much disposable income, but I will and do spend on food. I’m a bit obsessed with it. But, hey, I’m American. Who isn’t obsessed with food in one way or another round these parts?

“Welcome to Applebee’s. Let me start you with a drink. We have a new Red Apple Sangria, and there’s the Banana Berry Breeze, and . . . ”.

It was a discursive equivalent to a daiquiri filled machine gun, and I was the “kill”. “And don’t forget the drink specials. . .” She must moonlight as a telemarketer, I thought. She’s so quick; she almost has the face down straight. She’d be good. Especially on the phone; that way, they wouldn’t see her ever-so-slight and ever-so-repressed smirk as she maneuvers through her script.

I stare and blink out an “S.O.S” at Tiffany.

“Diet Pepsi,” she offers our telemarketing ninja neighbor.

“Unsweetened ice tea and, um, water,” I exhale. No more machine gunning margarita mixes. I turn to Tiffany to begin the year’s exchange.

With our drinks comes a new line of fire: “How about an appetizer? We have a special that includes . . . and don’t forget to add. . . and you should try the. . .” she directs her pen-weapon at one of the many laminated pictorial menus which work to make a gaudy, shiny altar to the Buffalo Winged Margarita Gods at the window side of the table; “we have the wah-wah-wah-wah where you can choose three wah wah wah for . . .”. At this point I can’t believe that the scribes of the Neighborhood Welcoming Committee Volunteer and Anima-Donor Recruitment Speech believe me to be so. . . well, gullible? Lulled by siren sheen of tropical colors in laminate? I don’t know. I mean, c’mon! Do they really think we aren’t paying attention to the fact that they sprayed down their weedy-lawns and replaced dandelion and crab grass with AstroTurf? Do they really think we’re buying the gaudy green for something real and living? Do they?

Do we?

When the curious child holds a strip of turf to the Man Loafing, does he reply, simply, “It is the handkerchief of Monsanto”?

Hey! What’s so weird or wonder-worthy about listing appetizers? you may ask. Don’t you always get a “specials” tirade at any given restaurant? What gives? I know I have been accused of “thinking too much” about things not deemed thought worthy by my kind and patient peeps (and occasional reader!). The thing is, there was something different about the whole experience—er, no, approach. There was something different yet familiar about this script. And it wasn’t the “Cheers” familiar where everyone knows my name and “taste preference”. It was scripted; it was . . .“customer”-oriented; it was retail; it was all about the sell.

“No thanks,” Tiffany begins. She’s good. She sees that I’m too awestruck and fascinated by the wonderment of it all and brings me back to her presence and “reality”. In retrospect, and after all this wandering about nothing, I am still so glad for that repressed smirk. I can’t imagine if I’d get much sleep tonight if there wasn’t one.

"Love Thy Prospect"

The manager walks from table to table: “How is . . . fill in the blank?”. As anyone who eats out anticipates the owner and/or chef crawl, you’d think the manager’s walk through would give me the same sense. But there’s just something about the place, you know? Something about the overdetermined nature of their overt neighborly determination. And for crying out loud, but how many chefs or proprietors walk around in standard issue polo shirt and “Manager” name tag? But Mr. “Managing by Walking” wasn’t smirking. He may even have been sincere in his stops and stride, actually. I’d like to think that I remember feeling comforted by the human face behind the Customer Service Protocol. These lists of lines and protocols are everywhere we turn, behind the doors we ignore if we are not “employees only”.

A few weeks ago when I visited my family in Miami, I went to get my hair dyed by my cousin at her salon. She works for a popular strip mall hair chain; it was a slow morning, and I walked around and stared at the mugshots of missing stylists on licenses taped onto mirrors and the racks of clearance hair product bottles as my cousin slipped out front for a quick smoke before she washed my grey away with her magic touch. Stopping by the employee’s room, I became transfixed by the rules of engagement presented in Commandment Poster-board on the other side of the open door. Eye contact. Name and familiarity exchange. Shampoo sales (through indirection). Service extras (indirection strategies listed and repeated). Retention strategies (oh! Sorry! That last one’s a slip; that would be the student—er—customer service lingo of my "biz," sorry! Golly!). Every bit of relation, of interaction, from how to look, position your body and speak, down to the final goodbye was rendered in bullet list on that poster. Everything scripted and mitigated by the potential sale add-on. By the

“three course combo for $12.99 is a great choice ” (smirk).

This may seem overboard, but sometimes I wonder how it is we can truly, well, follow suit and "love thy neighbor". I am left to wonder: what are our reference points for relation? What are our notions and metaphors for such exchanges nowadays? That love, real love, is possible is a testament to the beauty I found there along the highway, despite the décor.

See: "Edwardo, Party of Five" (including grandma) celebrating the youngest son’s birthday.

“Carrie; we need singers: Anne, Jennifer, Carrie? Birthday,” commanded a server as I returned from the ladies. The Special B-Day Task Force maneuvered and assumed positions and voices. They sang, clapped, and moved on to the next performance in appetizer plea, and a year in a young life was celebrated.

May he have many, many more.

I continued toward our table. “Mom, I just think you can do better,” the large woman with the thick and frayed blonde curls pulled back in a vintage “scrunchie” leaned over and whispered to her on-the-cusp-of-elderly mother. It was a contrast in hands and hair. Her mother’s hair was sleek and smooth and a pristine yellow-white. But her hands were small and withered and spotted, rendered “old” in light of the large but elegant and smooth, kindly hands of her daughter. “You can,” she clasped both hands, and the small spotted fingers disappeared in her own.

As I sat down our server returned to place two pieces of paper on our table and ramble through lines in reference to them, but at that point I was just in complete awe. I couldn’t believe what I was looking at: surveys. A survey! To be filled out and . . . Now.

Then she went through the various desserts we should order. I looked at her; I looked at Tiffany. I couldn’t help myself.

Tiffany and I laughed through my coffee and her cola order.

“A survey!” I went on and on about my other obsession with our other cultural obsession: assessment and metrics. Oh, the glories of assessment. It’s in everything we do; it is everything we have become. We can say the phrase “data driven” without a single smirk. We are fully in love with our identities as customers, and we speak, breath eat and think in the language of satisfaction surveys. So began my tirade, and when the coffee was brought to the table, we were regaled with a reminder:

“Don’t forget to fill that out for me, ok?” the pen taps the surveys.

I sipped. It was getting late; the commute ahead for Tiffany made me for once thankful that it wasn’t me making that long trek to the other side of the Raritan, and I felt sorry and selfish for a moment. “You’ve gotta go!” I chugged. We began cramming in thoughts and ideas we’d wanted to cover but left out, and new ones that happened along the way as we started to maneuver to call it a night.

“Are you going to fill this out?” asked the anxious pen.

I am, of course, leaving out the two other “reminders” we were offered. I suppose there is some sort of penal code and system of reward and punishment these poor peeps reckon with in light of the surveys. No doubt it was plastered on the back of a door somewhere. By this point, though, I had already smuggled mine into my bag. Consumer contraband for a future survey snark!

“I don’t think so,” Tiffany politely responded. Subtly firm with a slightly scrunched up nose and side-turned head, yet assuredly polite, Tiffany is an ace at the call and response of the retail and service blues.

Having worked in retail most of her working life, she knows the ins and outs of all the dance moves. She’s a writer at heart but currently a Buyer by trade, and the Bartleby-esque apathy in which she described her work between those bites seemed a fitting discourse in our current hood:

“I spend my day with vendors; we have the data on what our clients want, and then yell at the vendors to re-configure the product to get what we want: to make sure that the features they want and need are only on the expensive, higher end models; It makes me sick. But I’m supposed to think this way. This is supposed to be normal; I mean, it’s not “normal” for me to think it isn’t, you know? Because that’s our job, right? It’s our business. I’m supposed to enjoy spending hours strategizing about squeezing every last and extra cent out of our clients. Because, hey! they’ll pay more for the gingham check fabric, don’t forget. Gingham check fabric! So I spend my days figuring out what we should buy from the vendors, and my nights writing and proofing catalog copy in order to sell it.”

Sans smirk, our server grabbed at the single survey remaining and then the part of her body I could see as she walked away wished us a good night. She was rushing toward the table adjacent to our own. It’s not easy to get all the protocol straight.

My neighbors at the adjacent table, apparently, can see a good “free appetizer” survey bribe for what it is: “Do you have a pen?” the woman with the hair scrunchie and the beautiful hands asks. “Oh, sure!” she replied and gestured with her trusty weapon.

Maybe they were the mysterious Pharma Reps referenced in the survey’s question #15. Yes. Question #15. When I scanned down to it, I just couldn't figure out if I was in a snarky post modern Twilight Zone recreation, or if it has really come down to a world of Question #15s. I'm afraid of the outcomes of this question I'm questioning. . .

#15: “Are you a pharmaceutical representative?”

Answer:

W . . . T . . . F?!

As we collect our things, I am distracted by a flash of light from the window behind our laminate altar and notice the birthday-celebrating family huddled close for one last shot before the sun set. There are hugs and smiles exchanged, and the boy breaks free from grandma’s grooming ritual and runs toward an eggplant colored (and shaped) mini-van. I watch each get in and then, remembering myself, turn away to get ready to leave as they drive off to their own neighborhood and settle in next to their own neighbors. For a moment, despite the décor, it seemed as if they were mine as well.

"Our Vision is becoming the world's favorite neighbor" -- from the Applebee's "Vision and Mission" Statement

I live in an apartment which is essentially the second floor of a large, old converted house where my neighbors’ lives are played out above and below me. As this is an old house, and we have but wooden floors between us, I sometimes hear the daily dramas enacted above those boards and behind those walls. There are four sets of lives living in this house. Four. But I’ve never once had a cup a tea or java in their kitchens. Not once. Only once did I actually sit a spell and get to know my upstairs neighbor. She had locked herself out and was waiting for our landlord's son who was heading over with a spare key. When she knocked on my door, she apologized and asked if she could just use my bathroom; she was honestly planning to wait on the steps in the hallway. Breaking the false boundary of the hallway threshold, I pulled her into the kitchen, placed her shopping bags on the counter, showed her where the bathroom was and proceeded to spend two hours talking, laughing and learning and discovering the life I’d only glimpsed in moments through brief seasonal-themed exchanges, kind hellos and hallway echo. She’d been my upstairs neighbor for well over four years, and this was our first kitchen table chat. Our first and thus far, only. I hope not the last.

I know the names and many of the standard life stories of my local deli clerks; I know the names of my favorite dry cleaner, grocery and wait staff, and they know mine. They know my “preferences” sans check-box. I know the names of many if not most of the folk who help me consume the things I like to consume, and somehow that makes my life a little more life-like, but for the life of me I can’t remember the names of the sweet and hard working couple on the first floor unless I remember to check their laminated tag on the mailbox. And I keep meaning to ask them up for a cup; I keep meaning to bake a thank you batch of muffins as he always takes out my garbage to the curb. I know I will; man, I sure do hope so. And this is not a merit-accruing attempt at “radical hospitality”. But I gotta admit, I like that concept. I like the notion of opening that door and listening to a life. I’m tired of the parking space lines we draw between us. I try to find ways to re-figure those borders, but I can't always figure it (or me) out. So, I try, but I fail at it often. I do. I still see "obstacle" if not a car instead a person driving a car on the GSP as I blindly speed my way toward the place I think I’m going . All of these folks, just like me and so not like me, going and vibing and try but who (or what) do I see? People? Not really. “Phantoms,” to borrow a phrase from Curtis White's latest. Phantoms.

But there are moments when I remember that it isn’t—despite what the tee shirts say—always and all about “me”. I’m not even sure what that means, anyway, and especially not as “I” have been rendered on pre-shrunk cotton and the false frame of survey check boxes. So the day my neighbor got stuck outside, I was in the middle of a "Holy Shit! Deadline!!!" writing frenzy and attempting to write a proposal for a project at work; when I heard that knock and the "Roseanne?" which followed it, I found myself automatically shifting into the “this is not a good time” gear. And when I debated whether to stay behind my half painted walls to finish my work or go out and reacquaint myself with an old friend, I also re-discovered (as I do on the daily) that oftentimes, most of the things we do (or really should do) really aren’t about us. Yet somehow, in the process, they really are quite becoming.

Home is Where the ♥ Was: Homeward bound happiness in half-finished flat enamel (but alas, no flat screen TV)

"I’d like to buy a vowel, Pat”: The Return of the Penates (or, a welcome mat of obscure observations at the HomeGoods with my honey)

Summer Session I: Solstice/June/Freedom and Promise in Certain Numerical Protection Factors


“Look!” he said from across the aisle. He came running toward me almost like a child, and I laughed and put down the "salad spinner". In his upturned hand he held a small, shiny, red cast iron owl. I think to myself a pepper mill? He’s freaking over a pepper mill??, but I come to see that it is, simply, wonderfully a

“penates!” And I’m thinking we could use one right about now. No doubt we’re about to rehash our former convo about the movement and distinction between Gods and Goods, as we are most certainly products of not only the Great Vowel Shift, but seemingly the EVS, or Extra Vowel Shift, where all hinged and turned to and on a word and we followed suit: Goods are God. Just add an “o” and see . . .

See the young girl! She’s doing that little girl dance by the stack of pillows wrapped in clear plastic. You can tell she wants to squeeze them all, and she begins to start the squeeze fest; the joy of soft and squeezy stuff gets a hold of her; she begins to dance again. She dances and then, I suppose, realizes she has lost her primary audience.

“Mom? Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa? Mom?! Look!” she grabs a Queen Euro Sized Pillow and starts her twirl. The plastic sheeting begins to tear and it seems as if the Euro is falling apart. Her mother is nearby, along the wall where the gaudy, tasseled towels that never dry your hands properly beg for relocation.

“Loooook!” she’s slightly stomping and now twirling the pillow above her head; certainly, she’s revving up her performance to get Maaaaaaa to see; to look. She let’s go and continues the spin and with my now ignored Penates in hand I mouth “Look ma! No hands!” and my honey catches it (the Penates, that is. . . before it crashes to the floor; I’m slightly absent-minded). She’s spinning hands-free, and I’m entranced. You know by now she’s drugged by the dance and loving it; the top of the pink spray of glitter-plastic flower on her bobby pin catches on the plastic, and she gets stuck but laughs and spins and

“Alyssa, stoooooooop....” says the backside of her mother to the back of a set of curtain hooks. She’s not looking. We know this; you know this. Children dance and play in wonderment of all things, and we have grown and grown tired of looking. This is not judgment. I am no better than Maaaaaaa. I have done and do the same. Often. And no doubt, you have, too. This is not judgment; this is life after the Great Extra Vowel Shift. We are all caught up in those shiny curtain hooks.

“Born down in a dead man’s town": Jersey Soundtracks for the Bastard Bennies Blues

The aforementioned HomeGoods sojourn is the result not only the residue of EVS, but mostly because I am in the middle-nearing-end of my summer-wondering inspired, full-on Apartment Revitalization Plan: Phase 2. It is the summer. It is, then, of course, time to wander. To wander and wonder and somehow—well, I can’t seem to wander (psychically, if not physically) beyond the implication of these walls, this space. An academic year’s worth of neglect and negligence called out to me somewhere around May when I decided I wouldn’t move to Central Jersey (. . .just yet). Yes, I was “this!” close to finally making my move to the other side of the Raritan which cuts this oddly capped fellow of a state in half; ah, the Raritan River. Ah, the as of yet still standing Driscoll Bridge. Ah. Ok. So I've admittedly made a Persephone joke or two, but that’s just the stooopid Nawth Joisey snob in me (which, isn't saying much nor saying it well, apparently).

I work in and for Monmouth County which is right smack dab in the middle of the state. It’s odd, that county-- odd in the contradictory detritus of McMansion aluminum siding commingled with historic shore line sea shells and bungalow sideboard. Neither North nor South, it is caught almost without an identity in the standard Nawth/South Jersey Family Drama. It is, however, somehow so very “Jersey,” even though it’s not the venerable Sopranosesque that the world beyond EWR and the highway sound walls wish to project (besides, those would be the Bennies, anyway). It’s “perfect” in the slightly-creepy way former Governor Tom Kean used to enunciate, “puuurfect together,” when he’d advert for the “New Jersey & You” tourism campaign. Puuurfect. I mean, hey! It has to be. It is the county where the epitome of “Jersey Pride” reside: Jon Bon Jovi and da Boss fa cryin' out loud! And well, isn’t “Bruuuuuce!” enough evidence people? And, of course, commuting 80 miles a day, four times a week for the past seven years on the GSP can take its toll, even with EZpass (aye. . .cheap. . . sorry). Despite my subtitilo soundtrack snark, many of my most cherished peeps and places reside in said space, so move I was! Yes! Move it! New address! New me! Yes, this was supposed to be my “Summer of Change” accompanied by my “Indie S.O.C” inspirational, motivational playlist of travelin’ tunes on my busted wheel o’ iPod; I was going to move. I was going to do it. But, somehow, well. . . Enter “Phase 2.”

As a consequence, now, a few of those precious summer months later, after having returning from a week-long Monmouth Co. dog and house sitting expedition which was immediately followed by an almost month-long trip to that (according to my mother) other home known as and in Miami, I am once again in the midst of my Apartment Revitalization Plan. And now, once again, I am facing certain half-finished re-zoning projects scattered throughout the premises. Certain pieces of furniture and knick knack sorry ass bric-a-brac that have seemed to cement themselves to their choice locations with dust I seldom, well, dust, have succumb to the smaller-scale version of Apartment Living Eminent Domain and have been displaced, only to find themselves in recycle or garbage bins (or stuffed into the dark, seedy corners of basement and closet).

It all began with the initial Solstice Plan. Once Apartment-white walls would soon be bursting with Wonka-vision kaleidoscope color: a candied-orange hallway, French’s Mustard yellow kitchen, Pistachio/Chocolate Chip Mint Ice-cream bathroom, (a soon to be transformed) lollipop purple-blue "grape" dining room with an “asparagus” green living room and a Lemon-ice bedroom; but the Collard Green Office will have to wait for Winter Break, I think (hmmmnn... the foodie in me wonders about my comfort-color choices). Yes, this apartment; this pad; this place, this. . . “home”?

“Yankee, oh Yankee go home” (Home: love it and leave it and wait for the refrain to return once again)


Sometime in Solstice, Continued. . .

I had just returned from the Home Depot with two gallons of that mustard yellow I thought matched a snap shot I took during a long ago summer Stand Issue 20-Something Backpackin’ Euro-wander; it’s a fuzzy, off-centered pre-Photoshop shot of yellow sun-baked walls of a Venetian home which now has prime wall space in the kitchen. I knew the paint would be perfect, but it was time to clean before the storm of paint and uber urban kitchen renewal. And then:

“They don’t live the way we do. . . . They don’t do things the way we do. . . . They don’t sit home and watch TV; they hang out in the streets and talk. . .”.


Preparing for the eventual kitchen makeover, I was mopping the kitchen floor when that statement came through my tinny radio speakers.

I stopped mopping.

Standing akimbo, with Swiffer Wet-Jet poised for eternal battle with the disposable nature of my kitchen’s cleanliness, I wondered at the words and the implications of the speaker’s construction of “We”. Us and Them. These and those. Those and We. We. “We” the People! . . . We . . . sit home and watch TV. And. . . Those, the Not-Us/Not-We-People, well, they are taking over! They’re OUTSIDE! VISIBLE! And worse!!! AUDIBLE! Talking to one another! In their godforsaken forked tongues of . . . . Spanglish! Oh! How awful. How icky. How . . . un-American!

Maybe, I thought, maybe this explains my TV-free existence. When my stunned and dumbfounded students discover and ask me why in the world of High Def and Dish I don’t own a freakin' TV, clearly, I can now point to my First-and-a-half-Generation-Un-American-Values! Yeah. . . And I figured, well, perfect! This makes perfect sense, to me, of course. Because as a First and a Half Generation American, I have sometimes felt somehow stuck in the middle somewhere, not like my Cuban-born but "naturalized" American mom, and not like

“the White kids”. Weird, but that's how it sometimes figured in my brain as a kid. Not at first, of course. Who thinks that way “at first”? Do I trace it to being put in the “Spanish” afternoon Kindergarten class until they realized I actually spoke (and read; and wrote) in English? No. I don’t remember that; but my mom sure does. I really don’t know when that became a phrase, a way of saying and seeing self and other, but eventually, alas. There are things one actually learns at school, apparently. And it's odd how it's stuck; and yet, it’s odd how I’m stuck. I was never part of the Identity Reclamation Crew, with “Proud 2 B . . .” fill-in-the-blank ethnicity License plate or bumper sticker. Despite my disdain for identity parade and charade, I have still on occasion found myself on the other side of the Pronoun Divide: “those [insert brackets] [insert 'white'] people”. But to my differently race-d "white" [Cuban] family living in Miami, when they talk about “those” people—the very same people I'd be bracket-snarking, of course—they say, “Americanos,” or if they want to be really cutting,

“Yankees.” (Juh-ahn-Keys; that’s right).

I got me some super strange stares once when I used the phrase “racism” in reference to an incident my cousin had with a racist (to this Yankee) client at her hair salon. After a few blinks and stares, I realized that “my people" see themselves as white and can’t figure out what their Yankee "Gersey" cousin could possibly mean by suggesting the primary difference between my bottle blond cousin and her bottle blond client would be constructed on race. To them—on the surface-- it isn’t about “color”. It’s the passé irrationality of nationality. But I am sure, like me, they have discovered and learned that to despite their seeming shared space on the Revlon color wheel of synthetic hair samples, the chain links that both hold and separate these false strands change and make us in very real ways.

In so many ways, we're still dealing with the interesting synaptic phenomena of how things kinda look different when you're not in Kansas anymore. The funny thing, of course, is that residing in ethnic liminality as I so often do, I'm not sure what I face when folks attempt read my face and match it to my name. I can't tell you how many times I have been regaled with

"Cuban? You don't look Cuban."

Shit; I suppose I missed out on that episode of "Extreme Ethnic Makeover". But I may live differently than most; I'm a Super Creepy Weirdo, recall.

I don't even own a freakin’ TV.

I don't own a freakin’ TV, but I have the average myTube brain (despite my super creepy cred). I know the scoop on all "the shows". I’ve got screens, if not tubes. Yeah, I’ve got screens, and I know the scene, new school and old. But I guess I’m old enough to vibe nostalgic in a generational “tube” sense. Like so many of us who have been raised 'neath antennae and behind tubes and screens, I've got that other Modern Man disease otherwise know as the Life as Mixtape--er--Soundtrack--er--Playlist-anitus ringin' in my now 33 year old brain. Oh, I have a perma-soundtrack running through my click-wheel meets vinyl 45s adapter wheel of a brain for many and most a scenario; it can include anything from walking into a messy room and suddenly hearing old "Mr. Clean" jingles to much, much worse. . . .

I can sing the entire "Golden Girls" theme song. I can name that theme song in one note. . . ;-) It's just amazing what noise will fuse and frame a synaptic fragment of self, isn't it? Yeesh. But hey, Sophia kicked ass, yo.

“They don’t live the way we do. . . . They don’t do things the way we do. . . . They don’t sit home and watch TV; they hang out in the streets and talk. . .”.

Yep; that’s what he said, and it's stuck here, as I am, and as a consequence, you are as well, dear reader, with the above poorly portrayed Passport ID head trip 'round my as-of-yet only partially painted pad sometime earlier this summer (and this 'sentence').

Our immigration debate is implicitly framed by the larger, “global” problematic of home and nation, of white picket fence-dreams that make good neighbors and 12 feet deep concrete walls that make good nightmares. I teach contemporary World Literature at my College, and it happens to be one of my favorite courses to teach. Themed around the very premise of this particular dialectic dance--between the premise of the “Global” and the presence of the “National”--it attempts to interrogate through language this bizarre, seemingly unidentifiable liminal space we seem to be stuck in currently. Our world, with it’s ever-present and projected Extreme Global Makeover in a Big Box to Go (careful: contents are extremely warming), is now more than ever most obviously holding on with bleeding, torn finger nail desperation to the fabric of flags. Never mind the insidious discursive shift from "International" to "Global"; we’re keeping it real in our hood, and freakin’ out about

“leaking borders!”

Apparently, we have been told that we want flexible, “temporary” workers. We want flexible people-er-"guest workers", to pick our fruit, and well, clean things up around the place, mow lawns and paint walls, ya know; but shhhhhhhhh. Yes, fluid, flexible people! Acrobatic, invisible “Guests”! Yes, flexible and fluid peeps. But we want

“tighter” abs and borders! Tighten those abs and borders, now! C’mon! How oh how can we figure out what it means to be “American” if “those” people can just waltz right in to our family room whenever they choose? I mean, really. And I was right in the middle of watching “24”.

I listened to disembodied voices debate the demise of the Mom and Pop Shop. I contemplated the purple plastic of the mop. Yes. I thought. We want flexible workers for our flexible and fluid and lovingly disposable "global" community. Because, as I've recently noticed, my newly acquired parting gift of a "Miami" refrigerator magnet has a tiny "Made in China" circular sticker on its backside, right behind the clear plastic line of genuine "Miami" sand held affixed within said magnet. I'm assuming I'm safe from potential lead paint hazards, anyway. Between the words "Miami" and "China," there is a shifting line drawn in occluding sand. It suggests something other and even more sticky and seemingly permanent than the terms temporary, flexible, or even "global." It points to these words we exchange and have become since 20^th century post war reconversion efforts turned tanks into refrigerators you purchase at your “local shopping center” and Main Street into a place you visit at Walt Disney World.

(co)dependence Days: July, July!
Summer Session II: “Little pink houses for you and me. . .”

Last year, when my mom first moved to Miami, I had constructed a hybrid tableau Miami to which she would soon reside. Part Golden Girls, part Vice, part Crayola Havana of my mind, having never been there, I could only imagine it into being through the busted Viewfinder Archive of Miami Stereotypical Images I inherited thanks to my youthful love affair with TV. Ideally, she would reside in an Art Decco complex with groovy guys in Havana Shirts, sipping Café Cubano and playing dominos; my nightmare scenario? Not necessarily where she'd live, but who'd she'd become in and thanks to proximity. I was happy with my Ethnically Challenged and challenging mom who cooked canned beans and never made a cake that didn't have the Crocker seal of hapless baking approval. She seemed eons away from my Cuban-American friends' moms, but also light years away from my White-Ethnic friends' moms. She was this weirdo puzzle of influence and identity crisis with a piece of the Citadel de Havana and a corner piece of Plaza de Madrid and a whole slew of pieces suggesting north Jersey factory towns forced into relation.

Funny, but my mom wouldn’t do well piecing a literal puzzle together; it’s her hands. Three days into her New American Life my mom found herself sobbing on a public bench near a compassionate soul who didn’t understand a word of Spanish but apparently understood humanity and introduced her to the front gate and foreman of a factory where she would begin her American Working Life on said day three. Her first “Made in the USA” job title was as a welder; she would fuse filaments for the picture tubes in those old school television sets at the RCA factory in Harrison. I was there, too. Working through her pregnancy, I have “baby shower” pictures of my mom’s shy smile next to four other women in 70s pastel and plaid, posing with her boxes of baby things set in front of fence and brick face. She occasionally blames the arthritis on those initial 6 years of exposed joints in freezer-cold warehouse climate, and for some odd reason in my odd head, I am reminded of this as we pass yet another construction site marked off by temporary fencing on our drive over to purchase her glucosamine at The Vitamin Shoppe in one of her many strip mall shopping stops on the stretch of 88^th which runs through the suburb of Kendall, Miami; her new home.

Frankly, when I initially thought about my mom’s move, I was afraid I'd visit the New and Improved Born Again Hyper-Cuban Mom. And, indeed, like the myriad lives and residences she's inhabited, she has seen the light and is baptized anew in "La Llave" Cafe for certain. She says things like, “Up there in Jersey” which makes me feel like I’m apparently chillaxin’ at the barbarous North Pole on occasion. She’s gained a new accent and is dismayed to report having “lost” her “English” (apparently leaving it “up there”). But as many know, the life and flickering avatars of the Exile are never as singular and stable as the ironic solidity of the term itself would suggest. Up here in Jersey, she was sometimes too “Hispanic” to be comprehensible to the “Accent = Listening in Stereo” Types. I’d watch her ritual of frustration as she’d carefully construct sentences that had only a prepositional slip and fall here and there and then watch the shut down faces of the Anti-Accent Automatons waiting for the apparent Babble-Woman to stop and loudly retort, “Whaa? I don’t undahstand you; I don’t speak Spanish.”

But there in Kendall, I know she still feels like a stranger in a strange land. I’ve heard her say things like, “Here, in this country” in reference to Miami itself (as if Miami were not just a new city in a new state but a whole new nation of peeps, so to speak). And, of course, there’s the problematic one-two punch of consumption and identity in relation to time and place: “They called me ‘Yankee’ the other day” my mother dramatically laments in reference to the response to her order of salmon and asparagus rather than cerviche and arroz con pollo at the restaurant. And I've noticed the ever-present reality and shadow of the refugee-exile in her as well. She still can't sleep in a bed. I woke the first morning of my stay to find her downstairs, snoring away on her recliner. For the first time in the her American Life, she has her own "upstairs" bedroom (something I still long for), and she can't be comfortable in a bed. Unlike most parents who don’t sleep together, I knew my mom’s late night sneaking off into the living room to chair-sleep was in part due to the fact that she’d spent most of her initial years in the States with a rocking chair for a bed/room. And it stuck.

"It's good here," she sleepily retorted when I yelled at her to "go to bed".

"It's good; I like it better. Por favor: leave alone!" She replied, and noisily turned away on the faux leather “bed” as I walked over to the kitchen to prepare to brew the "American" coffee. I scooped the Starbucks out of the new bag of beans we just purchased at the Publix, which, she proudly informed before we began our grocery jaunt, is just a “short drive away.”

Miami's suburban sprawl is evident in every inch and yard of terra cotta Olive Garden. These developments of houses and condos seem only linked by the color if not quality of roofing material and the surety of a Publix grocery store only a car drive away. Everything is only a car drive away. And what, pray tell, is "everything"? "We have everything here," my mom gleams and gloats with consumer pride. "Targeh, Bar-nes y Noble, el Publix, el Winn Dixie, Kmar, Walmar (pronounced sans "t" so why not honor phonetic identities?)

Time Travelin' Tourist!: a brief rest stop of a return to sometime in solstice before we U-turn back to July

“So what does it mean to you? 'Home'?”

It was late, and I needed to start to get ready to head back up north to that 'home' I was working on. It was a conversation I found myself striking up with everyone I could. "Home?" What does it mean? Is it a place? Space? Ideological construct? Sense? Feeling? What? I was now asking one of my closest friends who lives far too far away from me in that county I have yet to fully call my own. We’ve had lots of deep convo on that couch in that living room. I guess it was right about the time I had decided I wasn’t going to move just yet. I guess it was the HGTV coming through the white wicker entertainment center; she loves that channel (and I love her effin’ furniture).

It appears that this beloved friend with the sweet furniture watches HGTV to assess the market and value of the homes featured there (and as a consequence, be aware of her own). She hits realtor.com like our students hit MySpace. Spaces and estates, real or otherwise, seem to be on everyone’s mind, if not screens. My cousin-in-law’s latest identity is sub-prime mortgage lender: "Best rates; no credit, no problem" he smiles and winks and cracks open a Presidente. In Cuba, he was a high ranking and trained para-military officer. Here, he's just another Cuban/American trying to find steady work to keep his family under mortgaged terra cotta rooftop: satellite dish installer; contractor/house painter; and now: “loan officer”.

A few weeks ago, when a group of us came back to my cousin’s home from a day at the zoo, we found my cousin-in-law and uncle huddled around his laptop, oohing and aahing over a house they were checking out on no other than realtor.com. It's a newer ranch down by the end of 104th Street, where the "developed" suburbs of this end of Miami end, and all that remains beyond is yet to be. . ."developed". “Oh… look at the ‘game room’…” mused my Uncle as the jumpy video panned a large, empty room furnished nothing save for billiard and ping pong tables. Those tables looked untouched; the green too pristine, like the infamous dining room where no one ever dines, this game room seemed like a display area rather than a place of play. Somehow, Kendall seems the end of the line; so much is new, so much on display and being built before my eyes, and each visit brings with it a new erection of Chain Store Nirvana. Soon, my mom will have her Panera Bread to go along with her beloved Barnes y Noble.

”Oh, look!” said my mom, turning to my cousin in the back seat. I was tired of seeing only the suburban outskirts of this city and I wanted my mom’s radius of being to expand beyond the boundaries of Publix and future Panera parking lots. We were off to Vizcaya; I needed me a fix of some sweet old school estate architectural brilliance. On the way, however, it seemed my mom was more excited about the newer evidence of, um, “architecture”. “How nice!” my mom comments, pointing to a new, huge, looming box of a public storage warehouse. “This is so much bigger than the one I used, Mari” my mom protests to my cousin. “It’s so . . . big!”

Something you might notice, should you care to look, would be the homeless working and wandering along 88th Street. As you head further north, closer toward older Metro Miami, you'll see men carrying cardboard blessing you for food or donation, and other men in yellow tee-shirts working against the apathy and protection of driver side windows and door locks in order to solicit donations. Miami, in so many ways, is a city bursting to the brim with the subtleties and explicit nature of homelessness. Whether sheltered in condo development, Miami McMansion or bus stop, there are storied seekers all around you. You just have to look. And listen.

Before I leave for "Gersey" this time around, I sit out back with my aunt and uncle and listen to new stories. Like the one about the soon-to-be exile women who'd hide their jewels in lipstick cases and hair buns. How the woman who invented the secret chamber hair bun idea actually lives in Miami, and is rich and famous for her hair products. I love hearing stories about Havana! This time around they tell me about the houses with the "false" walls. Behind these walls were hid all the goods the initial and second round of refugees left behind, believing they'd eventually come back to reclaim their properties. My uncle tried to convey the images of all these abandoned mansions, these huge homes with everything still inside, everything except for homeowners.

"When they redistributed and others took over the houses, they'd knock down walls just to see; so many walls to break down, you know?" I think of all that's been tumbled down in my family's life. How walls and doors and floors have been trampled and disrupted. How, in Cuba, after having her front door busted down, sending a plume of dust and sunlight across that black and white marble tile she always described with awe, and after her cupboards, dressers, and essentially every piece of my grandfather-carpenter’s handmade furniture was shredded, she somehow still managed the courage to offer a cup of coffee to a machine gun with a man behind it. They didn’t find what they were looking for. If they did, well, I guess it would be safe to say you wouldn’t be reading this. And this is one of the many miracles and testaments of faith she attributes to her multitude of saints, like, St. Anthony, for example, the patron Saint of Lost Things. And she believes. And in my way, I do too. While I was in Miami, I kept thinking about these unfinished walls yet to be painted here, “up” in “Jersey”; how summer is actually almost over now, even though just a blink and a few paragraphs ago it had just begun, and how despite the fact that all I kept thinking about was getting home, I found it there, in moments.

AUGUST (and back again)

Summer Session III: "Someday we'll meet beyond the land that you call miles away"

So, I am apparently home again.

Ah, home. I'd been texting and messaging peeps about the intense longing for this space--this half-assed, unfinished space that I don't even own. But will this paint really make a difference? Beyond the aesthetic coat, what changes? The odd thing is that it might be nothing at all. But how to tell? How do I, um, "assess" the Change? How do I measure the "outcome" of my Apartment Revitalization Project? Forgive the snark slippage, folks, but it seems that while I'd like to believe that "home" is a process rather than place, I am somehow bound and pulled by the idea that it is more idea than anything else, tangible or otherwise. Process? Place? Lately, it seems we’ve pawned it for and as an elusive obsession, as a quest to consume and consequently display "happiness" or, even worse, how the calculated notions of our “achieved" and “maximized” consumer happiness and satisfaction is now and forever being re-assessed and measured despite the fact that it isn’t and cannot be attained nor achieved in these numbers, flow charts or those damn paint samples. ;-)

Recently, I was myself similarly obsessed with reading this pretty rad book that traces the trajectory of the "development" of consumer culture; I finished it on the plane ride home (not really a huge fan of "Mr. Bean" re-runs, sorry). And as I peeked over my neighbor's tray table full of suduko and mini pretzels to spy me some glorious Exit Row View of what will always be the most nostalgic view of all, I came to an odd conclusion. It all came together for me on that flight home, as things often seem to make the most sense to me in transit. You see, I don't find it at all a coincidence that, at the mid-point of the 20^th century, when post-war America was figuring out what to do with all these peeps and space, with the then and now disquieting proximity of race and place, of class mobility and the purple heart of front lawn mowed grass; when America was “developing” itself: building and building and buying and buying until somewhere along the way our Hero "Man Consuming" was consequently consumed by the term and will from now on be played by “Consumer,” well, I don’t find it at all a coincidence that the birth of the 'Burbs also coincided with the birth of the survey. The development of the Modern Home Owner is the development of the newly Measured Customer. It makes sense. I see it. We see it. We live it and in it each and every day.

If you would recall, I began with an apologia; this isn't nor could ever be "judgement"; this is pathetic little pixel of an attempt to link to the beautiful-sad contradiction of Life after the EVS. I shop at HomeGoods. I like to do it. I guess I do. Well, it’s what we do. In fact, I shop in various places and spaces, am accosted by more muzac and more plastic packaging I can’t make heads or tails out of opening than plastic arts I can make heads or tails out of apprehending; I consume goods more than I consume art, despite the fact that I live in a less than 15 mile radius (measured in driving OR public transport distance) to dozens upon dozens of the worlds best art houses, gardens, museums. . . but, see? See Saturday afternoon and see the mad rush of me and my neighbors: we are mowing and moving bright red plastic shopping carts along aisles of prints to hang on walls painted (or otherwise). Sorry, but that new collection of urns can wait; I've got my prescription to pick up at Walgreens, see? No time. No time, sorry! Who has the time, or desire for something else? Or, as Hugh Wolfe suggests, “sommat" more? ;-)

. . .

I walk into a pile of torn-up catalogs that were smartly recycled as make-shift drop cloths and smile, give in to the almost slip and fall. My honey painted my bedroom for me while I was away. I now have a bright, lemon yellow bedroom. "Lemon Cake," I mused but then thought the better of it and went with, "Lemon Ice!" mmmmmmm....

On the phone he described it as "happy," and it sure is. While I was away I sure did miss these walls, but there are others--some I have only witnessed in the puzzling pieces of my imagination fueled by stories my mom and aunt and uncle and cousins have and will tell--that I seem to somehow miss more.

“El Patio de mi casa es particular: se llueve; se moja, como los demás”— lyrics from a (very familiar) lullaby

I can’t do it. I can’t buy the owl. I don’t know why. It’s not like I haven’t bought numerous other things, things that I haven’t even imbued with such significance as this. But for some reason, I can’t do it. Walking over to the rugs, I skip over to the middle of the aisle where a “Welcome Friends!” mat in bright greens and reds signals entrance to nowhere but the center of the aisle. I find this kinda snarky. At that moment I hear the familiar “door bell” sound of an in-coming text message and I scoop inside my over-sized “it” bag to see what’s the good word:

“Pita; estoy counting los dias hasta cuando tu vienes para tras a tu casa en Miami. Ya compre tu chair para el desk en su cuarto, y un lamp para leer en la noche. Todo esta esperando aqui. It is raining, so I finish Norah Roberts today. Love y besos, Mom”

Like Dorothy, I make for the mat and click my heels to speed the way.