Crave This: Pit Stops on "The Path" to "Nowhere"

Are you craving more? Goooood. . . . :) The crave-worthy contents will appear shortly; I've a few pit stops to attend to. But like any novice in all that is Buddha-Lite should know, such things are fleeting and temporary, and my non-self should return to tell of the tales hinted at in green ink doodle done on a Creepy Coach flight to Not/Home. Or, something like that.

"Um, is there a stamp for that?": "Sending Happy" the Half Wit Way

It will be my father's birthday tomorrow. My father would have been 63; the “would have,” of course, points to the fact that he is no longer chillaxing on the couch watching Game Show Network (um, not his best moments, of course), or dreaming about the dreams I could never really understand but thought damn dreamy regardless. Dad died on an average 29th of July, but an average 29th that just so happened to be the date that I turned 29 in July, and so birthdays carry a bit of weight for this half wit, just a wee bit of weight.

“I Can Name that Shamrock in One Note!”

“There's this thing that I do.”

They seem to pop out right before the spring: Jerry's Kids, March of Dimes, and shamrocks and February hearts—I am, of course, referring to those paper donation (name) tags that pharmacies and groceries seem to wall paper their windows with at this time of year. Pretty much every chance I get I give that precious buck for a bit of post-it-like props to my pops. I rarely note who gets the spare change; Jerry or Dimes or some Cause or another, the charities blend into one another like the sound of the Salvation Army bell a tollin' our mortality and apathy during the holidays; just like that pointed peal, these donation tags point to us and say, "given". I remember the first time I felt compelled toward one; I'd given before, but when I lost my father, I felt that I had lost so much; the hardest thing in the world is in the recognition of the, hmmn, presence of absence. Death: it’s heavy. When you lose someone who was once both looking glass and world-window, when you are truly present to the fact that their voice--something about the way they called your name, something about the way they named you in voice and in birth—is silenced, well, let's just say that I haven’t quite found a name for that yet.

But I keep trying.

. . .

I sat in the kitchen, fiddling with my recent Walgreen’s purchases of cheap but “in” lipstick colors I’d never wear and the 100 pack of rainbow-colored hair ties I lose in a week, when I decided to tell my boyfriend about the naming ritual: “There’s this thing that I do. . . .”

. . . The first time I signed his name, his full name-- the name that became my father once he died, with that middle initial "D." which stood for David, a secret name I never knew or considered-- it was on one of those shamrock things. I think back now and realize that I had to wait for that initial year to begin to hint of spring before I could perform such an act. It was just some strange compulsion. "Would you like to donate a dollar for the Blaaaah Blah Blah?" she must have asked. I remember taking the Sharpie (oh, I really love that smell, don’t you?) and just Wija-movin’ with the first letter: M. . . and each subsequent letter seemed to write itself. "Manuel D. Alvarez". And since then, it’s been this thing I do. I filled one out today. Spring will be coming soon.

“I’ve Heard it Too Many Times to Ignore it”

And I did, and it will. Walgreens, again, and again, a shamrock. This time, however, I’ve added to the tag: “Happy Birthday!” I remembered not because of the Shamrock, or my mother’s UBER drama of martyrdom stirring in the digital divide of cell phone guilt speak, but it rained this morning, and rained hard. Hard and heavy, the first real sign of the spring to come. Winter wasn’t. It just simply wasn’t with it’s lack-luster cold and re-union tour tired snow, but despite that, the hint and subtext of spring under the steady downpour makes you forget a cheated season and stirs you to move beyond kitchen and blinking cursor. Or, at least it does me.

. . .

“Sometimes, I just want to write him letters, you know? I want to say, hey dad! Look what I’m doin’ of late. Send him letters and address them to. . . well! I don’t know; address them to the effing universe,” I said as I shot my beloved with a fuchsia-colored hair tie.



“There’s no Earthly Way of Knowing”

This past Christmas he gave me a booklet of Bloom County-inspired post-letters (not quite cards, so I’ll call them “post letters” as I don’t have a better name for the things).
“I know how much you loved that strip,” he said as I unwrapped with mouth agape and eye faucets turned to “on”; “I thought you could send them, well, a letter, you know? You always talk about writing letters again.” (insert wistful smile here and forgive my little momentary gush of happy; I can’t help myself; he’s a good one.)

Oh, there’s nothing wrong with a little happy. Yes, I attempt in my pathetic half of a half-wit way to snark our cultural obsession with it’s having and getting, with the fact that wherever you turn there is rendered for our dismay more evidence of just how sad we must all be, as happiness and its pursuit and capture seem to be hardcover bestselling stock in our days. Yes, I snark that shit for shizz, and I want to snark it good. But in my pursuit of thinkin’ on this pursuit, I’ve come to find something altogether unexpected: a wee bit of happy. Yeah. Go figure. In my desire to “call out” (in other words “snark”) our commodified compulsion to “get happy,” I’ve actually found some. And found it in the corniest way: I’ve found it by giving it up.

“When I was young,” I began this particular kitchen-table confession with even more gravity than usual. It seemed as if I held that mug of milky Sencha as if it were a lectern-prop, and my beloved, who was only then discovering my storied obsession with myself, smiled at me in such new-knowing way that it brought me down gently yet seemed to compel me to “do over”: “When I was a little kid,” I began again, confessing of my notion of the Origin of Roseanne’s List o’ Irrational Fears n’ Things.

I was deathly afraid of balloons. Kids are supposed to like them, right? Kids, balloons, parties. FUN, RIGHT? Wrong. I hated them. Well, maybe not hate, exactly, but I was in complete terror of the things. I don’t know why; I just know that it was terrorizing to see one and death—instant, immediate, bam! death!—to ever per chance happen to hold one on a string. Yeah. Death on a string. Of course, the grim reaper decided to visit me early, and in public, no less. In a mall, no less (how effing Joisey). I was uber young—preschool young. And I don’t remember much: walking in Paramus Park Mall with mom and dad. I loved going to the mall with them. Pork fried rice and a new Richard Scarry or Barbie? Who wouldn’t love the mall? Anyway, one night we were walking through Paramus Park Mall, and all I remember is this old woman walking toward me with this creeeeepy grin and a big. . . shiny. . . aluminum balloon. I think I knew right then that I was in for it, really. My dad must of sensed something (maybe the nails now firmly dug into the palm of his hand), because he squeezed my hand with a gentle-firm “hush, now” squeeze.

“Oh! I wouldn’t know what to do with it! And I’ve been looking for just the little girl to give it to! I’m so happy I’ve found you!” I think she said something like that. My memory has scripted it to feel that way, anyway. I remember she said something about not knowing what to do with a balloon (she being old) and wanting to give it to a child to take and obviously make use of (she being young). She beamed. She had found her victim. Oh, joy.

“Dead Girl Walkin’!”

I think my mom was about to deny the gift in her Telenovela fashion (I love that woman) when suddenly, my dad took the balloon, handed it to my paralyzed but free hand, held it there until said hand functioned just enough to accept the "offering", and smiled his amazing all-eyes smile as he thanked her profusely for her kind generosity (and, of course, through left-hand-gentle-squeeze-speak, asked me do the same; oh, the dead speak, apparently, because I did what I was asked, despite the dual death grip dance I was secretly performing). He kept that smile fixed on my face as he lead us toward the exit. Then, far enough away from the Balloon-Bearin’ Bruja, his face seemed changed, set, determined. “Outside,” it read.

I’d like to think I was brave right through and up until the night air refreshed and pacified my flushed, wet face, but I think I wasn’t. I think I moaned, complained, cried, and generally freaked. I’ve always been a Cowardly Lion, you know (remember, folks, Leo here). I’d like to think I was brave, but I don’t think I was. But, hey! maybe I was, actually. Maybe. Because I held onto it, you see? I held it until we got “outside” as his face and pace promised, and I let it go.

It was a Charles Dickens sky that night; I always call that particular type of twilight blue “Dickens” blue for some reason. There was such peace as I watched it. I felt that it was happy then. I felt that it was free, and would see so many things. Lots of good things! And I watched it until I couldn’t see it anymore. We all did. The three of us, hand in hand, must have seemed a strange spectacle of silence and upturned awe to anyone who cared to see. But in my mind, then and now, there was no one else outside that night; just we three mall-weary witnesses, hand in hand, staring up at a balloon that found where it belonged. And I remember that feeling the most: I thought it became real then, became alive when it was up there. It would see so many places from the best place of all: it was home.

“I think that cured my sorry ass of that particular fear,” I finished the story and the cup in one dramatic (and slightly First Generation US Network-Telenovela) gulp.


“Return to Sender”

Some letters, as Bartleby will (or won’t) attest to, never get through. But there was something about the rain today that told me to write, and I send this to recall that my dad taught me something about true happiness that night and many subsequent nights thereafter. True happiness, it seems to me, can only truly happen in patches and moments, in those patches we somehow recall to cultivate, and in the understanding and experience of another’s perspective. It is, perhaps, letting go of yourself just enough to find yourself again on the other end. Because she was happy to have found me, and I was made brave by the steady calm of my father’s helping hand, and the balloon? Well, it most certainly was glad to get to see those many good things to see, as balloons are wont to do on their flight home.

Happy Birthday, Dad.

"Remember, me?" A User-Friendly Users Guide to Being (slightly) Use-less

“ [. . .] [M]echanization has such a power over man's leisure and happiness, and so profoundly determines the manufacture of amusement goods, that his experiences are inevitably after-images of the work process itself”

(Adorno & Horkheimer)

Man, I didn't know I was such a freakin' user.

Really. I thought I was all sorts of aware and attune to the ways in which our cave projections have evolved, but seriously, User, I had no clue about you, or us. Or me. Luckily, I’ve remembered to check the box and be remembered. Being remembered is what it’s all about, for shizz. Because then, well, we can customize things and the things we use can be customized to maximize our pleasure. . .er. . . “satisfaction” in our using of the things we use. Because our things can be customized to our tastes and User Preferences. So, hell yes! I check that box, because I often forget myself, I mean, my User ID and Password (I have so many. . .or I pretend to, anyway). Yeah, we’re totally being remembered, you and me. The only thing about this latest Wonkavision ride, my dear . . . . um, you/thing/reader/user/audience/client/customer/student/colleague/peepsta

is that I’m not sure I like how all our little floating parts are being put back together over here. Yeah, not too sure. But, whatever. I checked the box.

. . .

“But, uh, wait; I thought they were our "customers"?” I didn’t miss a beat. Ok, yeah. I missed several. This how I wished I had immediately responded to my colleague’s revelation about my Use Value. But instead I was just attempting to hold my breath while I walked into our now sorta toxic office. . . .

“I thought of you at the meeting,” she said, putting her books and neat manila folders into her beat up but trustly ol’ LL Bean bag.

Oh, yeah. The meeting. I always forget those durn things. . . .

“It was one of your ‘words’, you know? Truly, a ‘Roseanne Not/Word Moment,’ and I thought, ‘Oh, Roseanne would just love this one!’ He went on and on about the changes in legislature, the pension, the contract, and something along the lines about how this is all for the ‘Users’ and how our Representatives believe we need to make sure the ‘Users’ are happy, and then—oh, this had you all over it—he made sure we understood who he meant: ‘Users, by the way, are how they [the NJ Legislature] refer to our ‘students’. I wish you were there; you would have loved it.”
She smiled and revealed her perfect and perfectly snarky rim of pearly whites, then stepped over the waste baskets now transformed and serving as water basins. Our office, I did sorta mention, is having a bit of a weepy-leaky issue. And well, we can’t really use it right now. So, we both laughed, kinda coughed, and got the hell out before the slightly toxic dust-stuff produced by the engorged, dripping and still-remaining ceiling tiles started giving us those wicked headaches.

“Catch you later, ya effing user!” I shouted in my goof-ball manner, and trudged off to teach my Worldly peeps (big ups to my ENGL 236 Crew) to question their productivity percentages and efficiency potentiality (essential Socratic pedagogy for a course on the literary Global, dontchaknow?).

As I walked, however, I wandered into a typical half-wit moment; I began to wonder: if our students were now Users and/or Customers (depending on which Un-Speaker you happened to ask), then . . . then. . . well, what in the world did that make me? The Barista analogy already being fully ground in a former rant-blog, I stopped mid-stride and saw exactly what my Gal Pal was trying to tell me: if they are the Users, then they are using. . . well, us.

Man, I didn’t realize I was such a freakin’ tool.

“Don’t forget to call me!” or “Pass the Penates”: Thinging Things and Things Slightly Thingie-er

You, see, well, apparently, I am a bit obsessed with names. Oh, call me crazy, but somehow words matter to me, and somehow I think that getting hit with a Capulet “Hello” Name Tag at a Montague Family Reunion would be, well, rather trippy, but I don’t want to end up a gold statue (nor do I want "earn" one for something called "Excellence in Service," thanks). A bit ago, I rambled on and on about how the new Professional and Pedagogical Development Paradigm Shift was being led by Richard Dawson’s ghost. Well, it still is, but we have other screens to contend with. These, dear User, are the very ones reflecting back our own graven avatars. And this contest is found not just in those Virtual Hallowed Halls and Towers of Excellent Ivory, but here too. Here and there and everywhere. We are all of us (well, all of us privileged enough to reside on either side of the wire more or less) transformed into the User.

“Don’t forget to call me!” I yelled out at my Beloved as I headed out to run some errands. I always remember to ask him if he "needs something" while I’m out, and he never can think of anything until I return (sans desired object, of course). We had just recently enjoyed our Sunday morning ritual of omelets and bottomless cups of Joe at our favorite Sunday morning breakfast spot where we once again had one of our many typical atypical extended convos over yummy llevos:

“Have you ever heard of the Penates?” He asked, while the Sunday morning breakfast rush and buzz radiated and swiveled around his question like an ever-rotating gyre of red nylon old school diner bar stool.

“Mmmm. Nope. Enlighten me!” I joked. Chew, clink, rush, hum, buzz. . .

“Funny you should say that. . .”

Our waitress danced around babies and hotcakes and dwarf tubs of ketchup and asked if all was well. "More coffee?" We both nodded and did the quick-chew "mmmnhmmn. . .(swallow) thanks!" choral reply. It was Sunday; I was gratefully chowing on my favorite egg white, spinach, tomato and goat cheese creation, with “diner” now coffee steaming in my cup and my Beloved beaming about something called a “Penates” or something. All was well in our User-verse indeed.


“The program of the Enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy. From now on, matter would at last be mastered without any illusion of ruling or inherent powers, of hidden qualities” (Adorno & Horkheimer)

The idea of the online avatar is an interesting conundrum. We've come such a long way in our short journey that we now fashion our User Identities in multiple manifestations that run the gamut of Anime to Photo-Shopped Prom Picture Parody. Everything that once seemed fine without an image representin' the User behind the use is now rendered in Avatar for and of your preference. We are out there, out here, in-cartoon if not incarnate. And that's what seems so odd to me.

. . .

"Vishnu has 10," I said, savoring that last bite of breakfast beauty. "He's got 10. But the 10th, you know, he hasn't happened yet," I said, in my "doomsday" best.

"Avatars?" he asked. He's got lots left on his plate, and I'm eyeing his home fries with starch-envy; this happens every now and again ever since I decided to deprive my body of insulin-inducing simple carbs. My body didn't seem to do so well with such substances, but it's hard to get my mind to comply with the idea. He smiles in recognition of my carbo-wander and asks, "So why the connection?" He looks down at the napkin-sketch that began my particular wander of the day. "Why Kalki, specifically? Is it just because of the word?" His fries begin to fall away, and away from my mind as well. Words matter, I think to myself.

"There's a matter to them, you know, words; words matter. And yeah, I was interested in 'avatar' as a storied-word, but still. . ."

"More coffee?" asks our acrobat-waitress. We are offered a new mini pot of coffee for our table, and he pours into our waiting cups, while his face notes his waiting for me to continue. I tear open Splenda packets and stir into my idea:

"Vishnu's Avatars are partly about becoming embodied, right? 'incarnate'. We're going somewhere else; the opposite direction. Maybe not even 'opposite' per se; just somewhere else. . ." gulp scrap chew hum spin He considers this and adds,

"But we've started from somewhere else, no?" He touches my hand, and I feel what he means. This is the starting point; we are: hand in/to hand, these things we carry which carry and use.

"It was the Penates, love," I offered. "I just started thinking of it when you mentioned the Penates."

User Beware(s)

"You always forget to tell me what you need, you know?" I grumble-mumble as he unloads my bags of over-stuffed, over-priced organics and "healthy junk" onto the kitchen table. He smiles the "I didn't need anything," smile, but I'm in full-on consumer adrenaline rush mode, and I ignore the point in his grin, "You should just call me, love; that's what this 'hands free' thing's for," I point to the Blue-Fanged Demon Appendage jutting out of my right ear.

His smile widens, and mine begins.

The story of the Penates is an object lesson of sorts; once die ties watching over house hold goods, the "gods of the storeroom," the 'light' of history and time froze our famed Castor et. al and reified them into the very goods they guarded; the gods became the goods. The word "penates" means "goods," stuff, bling. But it meant gods. These particular gods, no longer useful in a world that saw differently, and well, couldn't see them nor their use any longer, became the things we used. Became things. It's something to think about, anyway, dear User.

. . .

"I thought they were our 'customers'?" I wanted to quip back to her, but I'm not that quick, and especially not when soaked ceiling tiles threaten my already foggy noggin'. Yeah, I'm really a dullard sometimes. The world seems to spin and drip around me, and sometimes, all I can think of is the next word to appear before the blinking cursor, the next word that will take me one step closer to the thing I'm trying to get at but never quite recall.

WHW Sista's next installment: Happy Quest, '07; Or, what it means to "be" in a world transitioning from McFerrinism to Powterocity

Happiness will be posted . . . eventually. Until then, feel free to whistle. Certainly, you must be grounded enough in the nature of your un-being to manage the chaos of a blog-less blog. Or, maybe, just maybe, you got you a mean-assed whistle!

WTF?!

"Haven't got Time for the Pain": Pharma-soundtracks, 'Prilosec' Rants, and Future Pops Killas Contemplated on the Waitin' Line at Walgreens

"Yo, dad?! I'm so PISSED!"

I think he might have been, about six. Seven, tops.

"I'm . . ."

"I'm . . ."

"I'M!"

"I'm GOING TO KILL YOU, dad!"

The little boy, his face set in a Gangstadon'tchafuckwithme grimace, stomped along the wall of cheap synthetic vitamins which promised our joints and our hearts and our memories some respite. We pathetic Pharma-queuers, look on in horror. We might want to pay attention to ourselves, however.


(DON'T) "ASK YOUR DOCTOR"


When I got to the pharmacy section of my local Walgreens, the line before me immediately made me think twice: "do I really need this 'script?" But we sad pharma-queuers apparently follow scripts, and so, like the feeble, strange and "sick" folk ahead of me, I waited on the waitin' line. Our leader, a palsied woman in her 80s (oh, I could tell she broke some hearts, she did! despite the weathered patina of age, I could certainly "see" her)bent over her Ziplock freezer bag filled with empty prescription bottles. I counted at least 9 visible bottles, but there could have been more. If the 6 others ahead of me induced a double take that almost snapped me out of my zombie zone, the over sized, overstuffed baggie o' burnt umber pill bottles were no doubt catalyst to my inevitable wander-wonder. Cradling the bag to her bosom, she ambled toward the tiny waiting area to the back right of the store; there, she eventually managed to sit and thumb through one of the "informative" brochures on some aspect of our managed pill popping paradisio. This is when I realized she must have been incredibly beautiful once.

And this is when we first meet our young hero.


"Oooooooooooooh! I'm so PISSED. I'm going to. . ."


The morbidly obese woman in the black and white peony-floral shirt with the tight red-orange Loreal curls turns to offer her "shock and awe":

"Did you hear that kid? And look! His father. . . trails behind! Typical!" She shakes her curls, and begins to rhythmically tap her pack of Prilosec to the beat of her own dismay and disgust. The haggard and ashen woman with the butterfly tattoo and long denim sundress drops her prescription on the floor, and tiredly whisper-scolds it, "Oh, you," she mutters. Bending down to pick it up, the man who can't find whatever supplement he was looking for grumbles about not getting any assistance, and the new elderly line leader seems to be having some sort of trouble with his Medicare managed refill "time":

"Too soon?" he blinks.

Suddenly, I notice the song.



Dear Carly Simon; or, Muzac is better than Prozac Any day!

Maybe it was the song? I don't know, but I felt like I was in my own, bad indie movie never to be released on YouTube (but, well, soon to be butchered in blog). In the midst of the Walhell pharmacy chaos, came the soundtrack hit single to the chorus' construction of our young PHARMAKOS from tinny speakers, "I haven't got time for the. . ."

"Too soon? But I"
. . .

"Future generations! Humph!" (TAP TAP TAP TAP)
. . .

". . .said it was on the top shelf?"
. . .

"Oh, you."
. . .

"I'm GOING TO KILLLLLLLL YOOOOOOOOUUUUUU, DAAAAAAHD!"

"suffering was the only thing that made me feel alive"

"Did you hear. . ." (taptaptaptaptapppppppp)

"Someone aught to give him uh. . ."

"I haven't got time for the pain. . ."

And then, suddenly, he was born. Our pharmakos. Each member of the chorus stopped to gawk, to head shake, to collectively bemoan the state of our tragic, parricidal youth. The elderly line leader who cried for time held a single finger mid air as if to feel whether or not his unlucky wind blew from the detritus trail of

"that boy!"

echoed Loreal, her finger, unlike Father Time's, was now machine gunning the seemingly benign purple box.

The woman in the denim sun dress coughed a deep, guttural cough that punctuated the air with a reminder of our eternal battle with pestilence and West Nile Virus. She seemed to want to shrink into her already too large dress. Or maybe. . . I wanted her to?

Slowly, as if rolling through the residue of the shame we supplant on the

"shameful!"

little boy, a very large man, leaning over his cart crawls into our scene. His lips, I notice, droop and hang, mirroring his stomach, and I can't help but notice the two items in his cart: Cap'n Crunch and a big yellow box of Domino sugar. He cuts across and I refuse to see where he's headed; while I wasn't looking, Loreal disappeared and the woman in the sun dress is inching closer to the Drop Off window; my turn is coming soon, and I'm already writing this in my wandering brain, despite the fact that I stay to order my refill.

When she coughs again, I try not to wince and offer a smile as she passes by to leave. She doesn't acknowledge the offering, and I am left to hold the weight of its presence until I almost drop it on the weary woman behind the counter along with my last name and phone number. She's had enough of false smiles and complaint. She, from the looks of it, is sick of them.

STARTING SALARIES AND SMALL SINCERE :-)'s

Before I leave the store, I recall I'm in desperate need of new razor blades. Perusing the pink and green, I'm pulled once again to the back of the pharmacy--this time audibly--by laughter and a fragment of a punchline, "And that's old age, honey! No cure for it!"

The new pharma crew laugh, and I'm smiling a real smile, my eyes are evidence. Somehow I begin to remember a conversation I had with someone I love very dearly:

"My dad wanted me to be a pharmacist. He said they have great . . . starting salaries". In his face, I could see the very particular brand of disappointment and dismay that comes with the acid/alkaline imbalance of familial desire and alienation. I remember his eyes when he said this to me, that pained swallow-squint. Somewhere, no doubt, the "I'm going to kill you daaaaaaaaaaad!" sentiment screamed aloud by our pharmakos is held at bay in the tight cradle of eye lid and lash. I want to send him a text, but I get caught up in the inability to find those damn razors. So, when I talk to him shortly thereafter, I begin with

"I'm glad you decided against being a pharmacist." On the other end, some laughter framed by the sound of a question mark. On my end, a genuine grin.

"How are you feeling?" He asks.

"Much better," I answer. I'm tapping my V5 on the box of Pepcid I've just pulled from the medicine cabinet. tap tap tap

"My dad just loved Carly Simon when I was a kid, ya know?" taptaptaptaptap