Get Your Shoes On

Near the top of the list of things that make me bad at being a girl: I hate shoes. I don’t enjoy shopping for them and I’d just as soon not wear them. In fact I grew up in one of those houses where everyone takes her shoes off at the door. When I was a child “Kids, get your shoes on!” hollered by adults into stairwells, was synonymous with “it’s time to go.” That made it unpopular, signaling as it did the end of whatever fun was being had unshod, and the start of, more often than not, car rides and bedtime.

During my adult life, people stopped saying “get your shoes on” to me – more because I lived alone than because I was wearing shoes. It was my cousin Leigh who reminded me how much fun it could be. We were reminiscing about the first cars we owned, and his was one that refused to start in the rain. He planned to be out late in Manhattan and the forecast called for heavy rain at night, so he asked to swap cars with his dad. My uncle said no – for no good reason we can remember, but likely because his son woke him out of a sound sleep. When Leigh protested that he would have trouble with his car my uncle insisted, “no you won’t. If you do, just call me.” Fast-forward to 2:30am, when Leigh, wet and mad at the local train station, wakes his father up again – this time with no greeting save “get your shoes on!”

There’s danger in not wearing shoes, especially if you were born without an ounce of Graceful in your body. One evening when I was meant to be waiting by the phone, I had toddled off to the kitchen when my cell phone sang, and went running full speed to answer the call. Full speed into the corner of the couch, it turns out, with enough force to leave my fourth toe pointing to the right (rather than forward, which I much prefer). That day I discovered I can carry on a normal conversation only seconds after breaking a toe, and the caller will be none the wiser. This is not the type of talent one hopes to show off repeatedly.

Normal people go to the doctor – or perhaps the emergency room – under similar circumstances. I have an aversion to doctors, by which I mean the last time I went to one was 1994. After a bit of painful dragging of my toe into a forward facing position, I taped it to my middle toe and went on with my life. Nonetheless, this unfortunate incident halved my shoe-wearing capacity, at least for the period the swelling lasted.

I brought two shoes on my brief trip to Norway that weekend – one on my good foot and one in my suitcase, with an orthopedic boot on what I had come to call “my broke-ass toe.” In fact, my broke-ass toe did not appreciate gassing and braking around central Norway in my rental car, but I was having too much fun driving in the taxi lane and flying over Bergen’s imitation of a speed bump to worry about it. I find driving in countries where you don’t understand the signs to be liberating. I doubt I can say the same for my passengers.

Giddy at the prospect of reuniting with good friends, I wore two shoes to the evening’s entertainment, and left The Boot in the boot, as the English say. Sadly, the short walk from car to concert venue left me near tears, so when a friend went back for an umbrella, I asked her to bring me The Boot, so I could enjoy the show in comfort. I considered dropping off my extra shoe at the coat check, but rejected the idea as too ridiculous even for me.

Some time after the show I realized I was no longer carrying around a single shoe. It remains unclear when and where the footwear went astray. I like to think it has since led a full and interesting life in Norway. My friends insist it was simply too scared to get back in the car with me.

Late that evening, I could be found ensconced in a hotel room, putting the world to rights – or at least American politics. It was early 2008 and Obama had just started to galvanize liberal thinkers and tell the Bush regime to get its shoes on; the Democratic primary had yet to be decided. I told my friends I believed Obama would be President but, if it weren’t for the groundswell of support he was gaining, I would have told you it wasn’t his time yet. I had him pegged for 2012 or 2016, as I feared we weren’t quite ready for his brand of change. “But if everybody’s ready, count me in. I’m ready right now. I’ve got my shoe on.”

Fabulous, As Usual

I was born and bred a cynic, but I’ve been hanging with the up-with-people crowd for a number of years now. You know the ones. They have great big smiles and wear clothing that declares themselves optimists in love with love. They engage in daily affirmations, and believe that most arguments can be resolved with a hug. I was raised in what I thought of as the “real world” to think these happy folks were aliens from another land (most likely California).

That called for a visit.

The truth is I got in the door on fake credentials, because my standard answer to the formality of “how are you” is “fabulous, as usual.” I had been looking for a snappy answer since I heard George Carlin profess to be “moderately neato;” it’s merely coincidence I didn’t wind up stealing Steven Wright’s answer “medium”, which surely would have unearthed me as (at best) a realist. I am, of course, feeling conspicuous here in the Optimists’ Oasis. But once you’re inside, most people are far too hopeful about your potential to ask you to leave.

People – especially delightful ones – rub off on me, as they do most people. Before you know it everything is “excellent” and “fantastic”. I swear less and say “I love you” more. I’ve never been much of a high-fiver, but I get a ton more hugs than I used to. I’ve taken to telling people what it is I like about them, and to saying “Yay!” in conversation without irony. There might have been some skipping. Things are out of control.

Worse, once immersed in the cult of Shiny Happy People, you’re unfit for the rest of society. I visited my parents for a few days between packing up life in New York and moving to (shiny, happy) Colorado and was shocked to realize how much of our habitual conversation falls under the category of “bitching and moaning.” Somehow, I’m losing my taste for it. These days I spend my emotional energy finding the best in people and putting aside all but the most offensive wrongs. Folks in these parts find me refreshingly up-tempo. When did I become such a pansy? Have I strayed so far from my fellow Ironics as to have traded sarcasm for earnestness?

Defensive, I hasten to shore up my reputation as a hard-eyed misanthrope. Do years spent in deep depression qualify? Shall I ply you with Dorothy Parker and Fran Lebowitz? I have references available – friends and family who will tell you I don’t really like people. I am a first class grudge-holder, with a history of culled friends to show for it. Perhaps if I just return to making trenchant remarks or hating myself out loud…

Not only am I a pessimist by brain chemistry, I’m part of Generation X, who inherited the lemons of negativity from Baby Boomers and made nihilism our lemonade. We grew up in an era where no institution was respected, much less sacred, so we ignored them. Children in the ‘70s watched adults sledgehammer the corroded walls of 1950s establishment and came of age amid the rubble. Existing rules and laws were for suckers, and we were too busy surviving post-disillusionment to be institution-builders ourselves.

As if that wasn’t enough, I was groomed at private academies, boarding school and an ivy-league college to be a hole-poker – trained in dissection, analysis and criticism. I evaluate things by their difference from some Platonic ideal. Does this result in unrelenting negativity? Sure thing! On the other hand, having counted every molecule that’s missing, I can assert with confidence that the glass is 96.2% full. See, now, how it just seems negative? We’re nearly there!

I’m not the only poser in The Land of Peace and Love, I’ve realized. I found another one (during a routine but thorough study of Bravo TV’s primetime programming) on The Real Housewives of New York City. Cast member Kelly says she lives purposely with rose-colored glasses on (and does cartwheels!); indeed she seems both shiny and happy. But faced with the disdain of her cast mates, she finally gives in and tells them off. I sympathize, Kelly. It’s not easy to maintain a sunny disposition around the negativity crowd; we revert to form and join right in the title fight. Perhaps a move to LA-LA land is in order.

So we’re not all experts. Some of us are just beginners, and gratitude and forgiveness are seeds you plant in patience and water with practice. I like that about this community, and I might as well. Whenever I find something I truly hate about someone else, it turns out I’m guilty of the same crime. (This enables a vicarious self-loathing – my superego’s guilty pleasure.)

As time goes on, I’m feeling more at home with these fine folks, and I think I might stay awhile. I’m working on fixing those things in myself – the ones I dislike in others. In the meantime, can’t we all just try to find them charming?

That would be fabulous.

Rebel Without a Clause

“What’s another word for ‘thesaurus’?” – Steven Wright

Why would someone buy me a book only to laugh at me for reading it?

Once upon a Christmas, my parents gave me a paperback thesaurus. Truth is, they gave me a gigantic pile of toys, clothes and whatever else a girl aged in single digits could ask for. What I remember best is the thesaurus, its companion dictionary – and an illustrated book of Aesop’s fables.

I thought the thesaurus was the coolest thing I’d ever seen – even the word was thrillingly Paleozoic, and sported one of those extravagant Latin plurals. I suspect I’d only recently learned about synonyms and antonyms in English class. I carried my new treasure everywhere in the days after Christmas, wandering purposefully from “spend” to “squander” to “waste” to “lavish”, getting lost among shades of meaning.

Until I got caught, that is.

I didn’t know that reading the thesaurus was a source of shame and ridicule. It seemed perfectly normal to me, and there was no warning on the cover – I checked. Still, my family found it riotously funny – the kind of story with which you regale your friends at the country club. I resolved never to embarrass myself that way again.

But I loved it so! What would I do without access to words like autochthonous (aw-TOCK-thin-us), which is both fun to say and fancy for “indigenous”, which in turn is fiddly for “from around here”? How else will I discover the most hidebound, prim word for “stuffy”, or select the synonym for “silly” with the right balance of juvenile and inane? And why am I the only one who finds this fun?

I know: I’ll pretend to read Aesop’s fables whenever someone comes in the room…

It’s probably best this happened well before personal computing took root. I can still lose an afternoon to the online thesaurus in Microsoft Word, and using it still feels forbidden and daring after all this time. Years ago a friend gave me a Random House dictionary on CD-ROM that pronounces words for you. I was in nerd heaven. For about a week, an official-sounding pronounceticator hailed innocent visitors to my office as “DUNDERHEAD!”

Now that’s a good time.

I Got You That

Does every family have that super-crafty cousin? The one who presents you with a beautiful handmade fill-in-the-blank (quilt, scrapbook, needlepoint pillow, cookie assortment, etc.) perfect for the occasion and reports “I made it myself.” This shy declaration is followed by 3-4 minutes of utter disbelief and flabbergastion. (In my family this period also involves a lot of swearing, of the getthefookouttahere variety). That kind of person is always a hit at holiday parties, isn’t she?

And, in her well-deserved glory, the craftswoman makes the rest of us feel inadequate. Or maybe that’s just me, for I have no talent for physical labor of any sort, unless sleeping qualifies. I am neither artsy nor crafty, when it comes right down to it. I’m reduced to taking credit for slice-and-bake cookies, or showing off a particularly compelling stick figure doodle.

In my family, Cousin Barbara was the crafty one, and Tom her husband. Even when the gift was store-bought Tom didn’t do the shopping. But, not to be one-upped by his wife, he began telling people “I made that” – the more improbable the gift, the better. One holiday season he “made” a windshield-mounted compass and at least one batch of Jack Daniels. I like his style. I aspire to a similar flair for talentless generosity.

And then there’s my brother’s art of giving. The scene: a graduation party. When the camera comes on he is holding someone’s jacket, at least one purse and an umbrella, and he abhors holding things. Behind the congratulatory main event he wanders silently, handing off an item at a time – mostly to his wife and other mothers. (Mothers engaged in conversation will, in my experience, distractedly accept anything extended insistently at them. I urge you to test this theory with the maternal types in your life; the less hygienic the gift, the higher the point value). Then, like Santa Claus divested of his toys, my brother strikes out in search of sustenance and returns shortly with cookies. End of scene.

Thus with role models in mind, I decided to make the most of a nervous habit. I peel the labels off of bottles. And when the bottles in question were once filled with alcohol and their number is quite large, one is left with an abundant supply of damp paper and an inflated regard for one’s own humor. I took to handing the labels to friends (and in some particularly dire cases, strangers) with the advisement “I got you that.” Who wouldn’t want such an impromptu gift? Even the most useless trash is more fun when recycled as presents. “Here; I got you that” has been extended to almost anything you can give to someone else – the ketchup, a quarter found on the ground, gum wrappers, a hard time. It’s the thought that counts, right?

I am not merely artless and poorly crafted. I am, to add insult to injury, also talentless in the performance department. That means no song and dance, no athletics, no magic tricks, nothing. I know a knock-knock joke or two, and that’s about it. I have one friend who can sing with her mouth closed – she sounds like she has a tiny Ethel Merman sitting on her tongue – and another who can talk like a duck. I know yo-yo-ers and jugglers and people who can do shocking things with a hula-hoop. I count opera singers, flautists, and dancers – not to mention karaoke aficionados, semi-professional whistlers and brilliant storytellers – among my friends and family. Mostly I just sit there, amused but inert.

This is a shame when you hang with musicians, actors, comedians and the like. (Or the Irish, actually; just about all the Irish in my life can perform, and do so with great gusto.) These well-meaning folks are always trying to uncover your hidden talent. It’s a kind of generosity, really, that performers assume you must have something going for you. Having checked the between the couch cushions and in back of the fridge, though, I am forced to admit I have nothing to offer in this regard. Stubbornly waiting it out isn’t going to change that, though it could result in your hearing me recite poetry from 6^th grade or pantomime the extended remix of “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”.

I like to think my true gifts lie elsewhere, though it’s still possible I lack them altogether. I’m also working on a killer lip synch routine, complete with hairbrush and dramatic air-grabbing. In the meantime, I have declared my talent to be audience member. It’s a venerable role and in high demand, though rarely associated with any hard-won skill. In the hip-hop world, I’m known as a witness. But I’m an above-average listener.

And here; I got you this round of applause.

Almost France

I didn’t expect to be back so soon.

The day I flew to France, I spent the morning in my office with two colleagues, shooting screenshots for a software training video. It was crowded with camera equipment, door shut, lit only by the screen. I was dressed in my traveling clothes, and eagerly anticipating my first trip to Paris. At 3:00pm, I left my colleagues in my office to continue their work and rolled my suitcase out to the waiting car.

I am chronically early to airports. In fact, I’m a bit of a nervous traveler about every part of an airplane trip except the actual flying. I worry the car service won’t pick me up; I worry about traffic to the airport, about missing my connection or losing my luggage, about arriving without local currency and being unable to use my ATM card, about not having hotel reservations. I simply don’t travel well; like a poorly packed suitcase, I usually arrive where I’m headed, albeit a bit rattled and somewhat disheveled.

One of my travel rituals comes from the Marrakesh episode of Absolutely Fabulous. On her way out the door, Edwina’s daughter asks whether Edwina has everything she needs. “Yes… Got everything,” she answers, pulling the door shut behind her.

A beat.

Then she scurries in chanting, “Tickets! Money! Passport! Tickets, money, passport.”

I made “tickets, money, passport” my travel mantra. Before leaving my apartment, I check my briefcase: tickets, money, passport – good to go. In the car on the way to the airport: tickets, money, passport – OK. On the way out of the airline lounge – tickets, money, passport. I do this with the same compulsion that causes me to open my purse and touch my wallet any time a person bumps into me or my bag.

And so you are right to ask: how is it you arrived in Paris without your passport?

I wish I knew. This was 1998, a more innocent time, when checking ID at the gate was not part of the routine of U.S. air travel. I know I had it when I left the lounge. Perhaps it fell out of my bag going through security. More likely I left it at the gate; I ran into a friend and colleague I didn’t realize was on the same flight, and was busy chatting. It’s possible someone stole it from me, either at the airport or on the plane. I was in a bulkhead seat, so my briefcase had to be stowed in an overhead compartment; maybe someone saw that as an opportunity. On the other hand, I was up all night giggling with my friend rather than getting some rest, so you’d think I might have noticed someone rifling through my bag. All I know is it was not in my possession when I got to France, nor was it ever seen again.

The plane arrives at the gate in Paris at about 7:30 am, and I stand, stretch, and fetch my briefcase from the overhead bin: tickets, money, … uh oh.

Again: tickets… money… uh oh. I have a sinking feeling. I report the loss to my colleague. I take everything out of my briefcase and put it back – twice. I clear the seatback pocket of barf bags and airline magazines. I get fresh with the seat cushions and feel up the overhead compartment. I peer behind footrests while the plane empties around us.

A flight attendant asks what the trouble is, and sets about helping. I had NO idea it was possible to fully denude and dismantle an airplane seat. Alas, still no joy. We are joined by one of the airline ground crew as the last of the passengers exit. She is French and intimidatingly fabulous, plus has the advantage of not having been up all night. A flight attendant informs her “elle a perdu son passport.”

She sucks her teeth and rolls her Rs in my direction, “Oh, you must find your passporrrt, or it will be verrry bad.”

Really. Very bad, you say? Not just regular ol’ bad? Well, then stand by while I pluck the passport out of my ass and get on with my business trip…

Nope. Nothing. Let’s proceed with the Very Bad, as I’m fresh out of alternatives.

Very Bad seems to consist of a detour to the airline lounge, while my colleague continues on to Paris to report my misfortune and do what we came to do. I am not allowed to have my suitcase, for it has arrived in France successfully and I have not. I am informed that I must remain in airport limbo while the U.S. embassy and the French government decide my fate. On the plus side, I’m welcome to all the airline pretzels I’d like while I wait.

In the hour or two that follow, rumor has it my recovered passport could be delivered by the next flight from New York – but the document never turns up. There is some talk about my going to a French jail while the embassy gets me a new passport. I reflect on what little I know of the French prison system and consider making a run for it. Ultimately I’m put on the phone with a French official, who informs me that I am being deported on the next plane to New York, “because that is what the American government does to French citizens who arrive without a passport.” She seems eager for me to understand this tit-for-tat; I’m just relieved I’m not going to jail. I promise to give the U.S. the finger on France’s behalf, and they agree to send me home.

In fact, lucky me! The airline sends me home first class, seated on the aisle with an empty seat next to me. As we take off, it is just past 5am in New York, some 11 hours after I left. I have been awake for 22 hours and am nodding off by the time we’re airborne. It’s a midday flight, though, and I seem to be the only person intent on drooling on a pillow for most of the journey. The passengers are chatty and the purser is solicitous. Would I like some warm nuts? Perhaps a beverage? Have I made a selection from the lunch menu? Do I want a personal movie player?

I would not. I have not. I do not. I will not be dining – will not be appreciating first class at all, really – as I am barely conscious. Having explained this, I am left in peace. Not long after, I am awakened by a shower of wee VCR tapes from the overhead bin; I can report that these have sharp corners and a tendency to dig into the scalp, but bounce off the bridge of the nose. The purser is terribly sorry, but wonders, since I’m up, if I’d like dessert from the sundae cart. I give up on sleeping.

We land at JFK shortly after 1pm, and I am nearly delirious. Surprisingly, I skate through immigration despite my documentlessness; someone warned them I was coming. I am joyfully reunited with my luggage. I am tortured by the wait for a cab and, for reasons that pass understanding, direct the driver back to my office, instead of toward home.

At 3pm – exactly 24 hours after I left – I open the door to my office, wearing the same clothes and pulling the same suitcase. My colleagues are inside, filming screen shots in the dark. I ask, “what’d I miss?”