The World That Woke

Ninety-Eight years ago on this date, the Titanic sank.

 The RMS Titanic departing from Southampton, England for the first--and last--time, April 10, 1912.

In 1912, steamship was the mode of overseas travel, and the Atlantic shipping lines were veritable freeways of steel hulls and massive engines traversing the divide between Europe and America.  These were the last days of the Golden Age, the Age of Innocence--when men dressed in silk hats and fine cravats and ladies wore corsets and gloves as a matter of course.  Immigration from the Old Country to the New World was in a boom; hundreds of thousands made the long journey with little more than what they could carry on their backs, brimming with optimism at the promise of starting anew in a prosperous land that welcomed everyone. To do it on the most famous, the most beautiful, and the largest liner ever built was something of a coup, even for the third-class passengers.  It was a marvel of human ingenuity: miles of deck and cabins and luxurious recreational facilities, restaurants, even a Turkish bath.  You could walk the length and breadth of it and still not cover the same ground each time.   Even Charles Lightoller, the Second Officer, said that it took him nearly two weeks to navigate its layout with any confidence, and he was a veteran of many voyages and many ships.  Such was the immensity of Titanic that it seemed nothing could ever hurt it. 

"The history of the R.M.S. Titanic of the White Star Line, is one of the most tragically short it is possible to conceive. The world had waited expectantly for its launching and again for it's sailing; had read accounts of its tremendous size and its unexampled completeness and luxury; had felt it a matter of the greatest satisfaction that such a comfortable and above all such a safe boat had been designed and built- the "unsinkable lifeboat"- and then in a moment to hear that it had gone to the bottom as if it had been the veriest tramp steamer of a few hundred tons; and with it fifteen hundred passengers, some of them known all the world over! The improbability of such a thing ever happening was what staggered humanity."
-Lawrence Beesley, Titanic Survivor

The whole period was full of optimism, full of supreme confidence in the domination of man over any and all obstacles, including nature.  Looking back in hindsight, we might judge society then as being almost naively arrogant, almost asking for a good ass-whooping.  Hubris is something we usually only see after the fact, while we're picking up the pieces of the latest disaster.  It was no different on that night, when over 1500 people died in the cold water of the Atlantic, and a world was paralyzed by shock, disbelief, and grief.

"There was peace, and the world had an even tenor to it's way. Nothing was revealed in the morning the trend of which was not known the night before. It seems to me that the disaster about to occur was the event that not only made the world rub it's eyes and awake, but woke it with a start, keeping it moving at a rapidly accelerating pace ever since with less and less peace, satisfaction and happiness. To my mind the world of today awoke April 15th, 1912."
-Jack B. Thayer, Titanic Survivor

I don't need to go into the specifics of the sinking--unless you've been wrapped in cotton wadding and sealed inside a hyperbaric chamber all your life, you know how it all happened.  How there were so many "ifs".  If the crew hadn't misplaced the binoculars.  If the captain hadn't gone to bed early that night.  If the radio operators had relayed the iceberg warnings more quickly to the bridge. If the Californian hadn't turned their radio off.  If J. Bruce Ismay hadn't insisted on increasing speed across an ice-infested course.  If the Titanic had changed course. If Frederick Fleet had seen the iceberg just an instant sooner; if the bridge had hit the berg head-on instead of sideways. If Thomas Anderson had won the fight to have more lifeboats on deck. If, if, if.

"I still think about the 'might have beens' about the Titanic; that's what stirs me more then anything else. Things that happened that wouldn't have happened if only one thing had gone better for her. If only, so many if onlys. If only she had enough lifeboats. If only the watertight compartments had been higher. If only she had paid attention to the ice that night. If only the Californian did come. The 'if only' kept coming up again and again and that makes the ship more then the experience of studying a disaster. It becomes a haunting experience to me, it's the haunting experience of 'if only'." -Walter Lord, Titanic historian and author

None of that mattered, of course, to those who followed Titanic to the bottom, two miles below the surface. Or to the survivors, who struggled with grief and guilt for the rest of their lives.  Some endured international and unforgiving censure--most particularly J. Bruce Ismay, Chairman and Managing Director of the White Star Line, who climbed aboard one of the last lifeboats at the very end and paid for it until he died a quarter-century later.  He defended himself at the inquest, insistent that he had done nothing wrong.

"What do you think I am? Do you believe that I'm the sort that would have left that ship as long as there were any women and children on board? That's the thing that hurts, and it hurts all the more because it is so false and baseless. I have searched my mind with deepest care, I have thought long over each single incident that I could recall of that wreck. I'm sure that nothing wrong was done; that I did nothing that I should not have done. My conscience is clear and I have not been a lenient judge of my own acts."  -- J. Bruce Ismay

Certainly Stanley Lord, captain of the Californian, whom the world blamed for retiring early and leaving the Titanic's increasingly desperate calls for help unheeded, was regarded as a pariah and, if not heartless, a bumbling goon.  It didn't matter, in the aftermath, that he had rushed to join the Carpathia the next morning, as soon as he heard of the sinking.  He never recovered from the debacle of blame and recrimination and retired, in disgrace, never to sail again.

The morning of April 15, 1912 marked the beginning of a harsher, more hardened outlook on life by a society that had suffered a devastating blow.  It was hard not to be cynical; a goddess had been toppled on her maiden voyage--a goddess that had been built over four years by the love and mastery of Irish shipbuilders, conceived by the demigods of the time, and borne into solid reality with the finest minds in construction, innovation, and engineering.  No wonder people had so much confidence in her; she was a stunning, sleek, luxurious behemoth who carried such luminaries of the day that it seemed ludicrous that anything could possibly go awry. 

"I thought her unsinkable and I based my opinion on the best expert advice."
-Phillip Franklin, White Star Line Vice President

"You weren’t there at my first meeting with Ismay. To see the little red marks all over the blueprints. First thing I thought was: ‘Now here’s a man who wants me to build him a ship that’s gonna be sunk.’ We’re sending gilded egg shells out to sea."
-Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff Shipyards

Control your Irish passions, Thomas. Your uncle here tells me you proposed 64 lifeboats and he had to pull your arm to get you down to 32. Now, I will remind you just as I reminded him these are my ships. And, according to our contract, I have final say on the design. I’ll not have so many little boats, as you call them, cluttering up my decks and putting fear into my passengers."
-J. Bruce Ismay, Director of the White Star Line

"The press is calling these ships unsinkable and Ismay’s leadin’ the chorus. It’s just not true."
-Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff Shipyards

To his credit, poor Thomas Anderson tried.  He really did.  He was an excellent design engineer who would constantly carry around a little notebook, marking down improvements and correcting flaws right up to the day of sailing.  He was onboard the Titanic, and was jotting stuff down even then, when most engineers would have sat back and basked in the glory of their accomplishment.  He lamented the fact that he had been overruled on his proposition to carry more lifeboats--a decision he regretted not fighting harder, even as the ship was sinking underneath him--and one that the White Star Line never lived down. It was also the decision that prompted a maritime law stating exactly that--each ship had to carry enough lifeboats for ever single soul on board. No exceptions.  Andrews would have applauded that, if he had lived, though I think he would have been bitter at the fact that over a thousand people had to die to make it so.

Even now, most people think that those who perished on Titanic drowned.  Not so.  The majority of them died of hypothermia.  The waters of the North Atlantic are paralyzingly frigid, and in April, the bergs are thawing after a long winter's sleep, breaking free and sliding in to drift along the massive currents.  It's like dropping an ice cube into a drink, only on such a leviathan scale that it's almost incomprehensible to imagine being submerged in it.  But the passengers, desperate to escape the groaning tonnage of iron in its final death throes, found out very quickly just how devastating it was to the human body.  At the end, when the ship rose out of the water at a terrifyingly steep angle, it was impossible to hold on any more. 

"Just then the ship took a slight but definite plunge - probably a bulkhead went - and the sea came rolling along up in a wave, over the steel fronted bridge, along the deck below us, washing the people back in a dreadful huddled mass. Those that didn't disappear under the water right away, instinctively started to clamber up that part of the deck still out of water, and work their way towards the stern, which was rising steadily out of the water as the bow went down. It was a sight that doesn't bear dwelling on - to stand there, above the wheelhouse, and on our quarters, watching the frantic struggles to climb up the sloping deck, utterly unable to even hold out a helping hand."
-Charles Lightoller, Second Officer aboard Titanic

"Striking the water was like a thousand knives being driven into one's body. The temperature was 28 degrees, four degrees below freezing."
-Charles Lightoller, Second Officer aboard Titanic

That's the kind of temperature that will kill you in minutes, and they didn't have survival suits back in the day.  Most people didn't even know how to swim.  Those passengers fortunate enough to find floating debris or a remaining capsized lifeboat clung on for dear life, hoping that help would arrive before they succumbed.  Those passengers even more fortunate to have boarded lifeboats two hours earlier floated a distance off, unwilling to return and help those in the water, screaming for someone to return and pull them out.  It was a sound that haunted survivors ever after.

The agonizing cries of death from over a thousand throats, the wails and groans of the suffering, the shrieks of the terror-tricken and the awful gaspings for breath of those in the last throes of drowning, none of us will ever forget to our dying day."
-Colonel Archibald Gracie, Titanic Survivor

"The sounds of people drowning are something that I can not describe to you, and neither can anyone else. Its the most dreadful sound and there is a terrible silence that follows it."
-Eva Hart, Titanic Survivor

"The partly filled lifeboat standing by about 100 yards away never came back. Why on Earth they never came back is a mystery. How could any human being fail to heed those cries."
-Jack B. Thayer, Titanic Survivor

The Cunard Line Carpathia charged steaming through the early morning hours towards Titanic's last known position, 58 miles away.  His was the only ship in the vicinity besides the long-suspected Californian, and even then he was nearly four hours away.  Captain Arthur Rostron had ordered an immediate change of course as soon as he heard of the disaster and, mindful of what had befallen the Titanic, put extra lookouts on the bow of the ship, scanning anxiously for more icebergs even as he rushed at a then-breakneck speed towards the survivors.

"Icebergs loomed up and fell astern and we never slackened. It was an anxious time with the Titanic's fateful experience very close in our minds. There were 700 souls on Carpathia and those lives as well as the survivors of the Titanic herself depended on the sudden turn of the wheel."
-Captain Arthur H. Rostron, Commander of Carpathia

It was only at daybreak, in the light of the morning sun, that Rostron saw the ocean was littered with bergs--small and large--through which he had steamed over the previous hours.  "I shuddered," he said, "and could only think that some other hand than mine was on the helm that night."

The arrival of the Carpathia was almost too good to be true for the survivors who had endured the cold, shock, and uncertainty of the night.  Passengers aboard the rescue liners gave up their own cabins in order to house the refugees, and when the last was rescued, Rostron turned for New York, leaving the now-aware Californian to keep looking for more survivors, if any.

By the time the Carpathia arrived in New York Harbor, the entire world of course had heard of the disaster, but hoped against hope that it was only a rumor, or at least that most had survived.  But instead of a triumphant liner completing her maiden voyage and docking in her designated sloop, only the lifeboats were lowered in tribute to the water--the last remains, as it were.  Then it was real. 

The sixteen lifeboats at Titanic's empty dock in New York Harbor.

Let the Truth be known, no ship is unsinkable. The bigger the ship, the easier it is to sink her. I learned long ago that if you design how a ship’ll sink, you can keep her afloat. I proposed all the watertight compartments and the double hull to slow these ships from sinking. In that way, you get everyone off. There’s time for help to arrive, and the ship’s less likely to break apart and kill someone while she’s going down." -Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff Shipyards 

The infamous bow of the Titanic, where it has rested for 98 years, two miles below the Atlantic surface.

You Say Potato

I got the same chain email from a few people this week; it was a photo of President Obama carrying a book entitled "The Post-American World" by Fareed Zakaria.

 
In the email, the original sender (whoever he or she is) urged friends to forward the image on to their email lists, intending to "bring the bugger down through the internet".  The email went on to say:

THIS WILL CURDLE YOUR BLOOD AND CURL YOUR HAIR
"Post" America means the world After America! Please forward this picture to everyone you know, conservative or liberal. We must expose Obama's radical ideas and his intent to bring down our beloved America! 

Sheesh.

Now, I'm a fervent believer in expressing one's opinion--even if I disagree with that opinion.  These individuals have a perfect right to say what they wish about Zakaria's book or the fact that Obama was reading it--back in the summer of '08, by the way--before he was even president.  They even have the right to point out that Zakaria is Muslim, although I find that distinction rather unnecessary and churlish and smacking of bigotry.  However, what I do have a problem with is people expressing opinions based on erroneous assumptions or misinterpretation.

"The Post-American World" is NOT about the world after America has been "brought down".  It is a treatise/thesis on the impact of the United States' in fostering global democracy, and how other countries have taken up the US model in economics, industry, and cultural development as a free society.  It also talks about how America has been the foremost world power for over a century, and how other countries such as China have risen to become powers in their own right in a post-industrialized and more global society.  One day, the United States may be neck-and neck with China in terms of world influence and power; Western civilization, and to a great extent, America, has had a huge impact on that development. What I understood from reading Zakaria's work is that this book is not about the fall of the United States.  It's about the progress and growth of--well, everyone else, and what the US role in a world of equals or near-equals may be. A quote from the book:

The world is moving from anger to indifference, from anti-Americanism to post-Americanism. The fact that new powers are more strongly asserting their interests is the reality of the post-American world. It also raises the political conundrum of how to achieve international objectives in a world of many actors, state and nonstate.

Far from being a book calling for US annihilation, it holds the US as being a primary force for development and stability in the modern era that is being emulated by other countries and societies.  Ultimately, with such growth, it would be optimal for those developing and increasingly influential societies to act in concert to achieve common goals that affect the entire planet.

Zakaria, a Muslim, is a naturalized US citizen of Indian descent. Growing up in India, he had an extremely open and secular upbringing, singing Christian hymns at school as well as celebrating both Hindu and Muslim holidays. (Frankly, it doesn't matter to me if he sang Irish Shanty songs and worshipped the Greek pantheon.) He is a graduate of Yale University with a Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University.  He was also editor of Newsweek International and wrote a famous cover essay for the publication after the 9/11 attacks entitled, "Why They Hate Us".  His argument was that Islamic extremism's roots lay in dysfunction and stagnation of the Arab world--people clinging ferociously to the old ways of doing things and smothering their own growth with anger and rage. 

In that article, he defended the US and called for more inter-generational efforts in the Muslim world to create more open, dynamic, and fluid Arab societies--insisting that Islam should be brought into the modern world, and not remain stuck in the fugue of fundamentalist violence begat by antiquated laws, fear of change, and archaic, literal interpretation of the Koran.

If you would like to read that article, try this link:  The Politics of Rage

Other books by Zakaria include:  From Wealth to Power: the Unusual Origins of America's World Role, and  The Future of Freedom. He was co-editor of The American Encounter: The United States and the Making of the Modern World.  He is a prolific and respected commentator and writer on international relations, trade relations, and American foreign policy. 

The day we become anti-American for reading a book, we're in deep trouble.  And the old adage applies here...don't judge the book by its cover.  Let's at least find out what's between the pages before condemning it.

Sucked (heh) In

I am mortified at myself. Truly aghast.  Shamed.  I can no longer hold my head up and face my friends and family.

I started reading the Twilight saga. 

My background as an English major and a reader of erudition has taken a nosedive into the morass of popular culture, and for that I am chagrined.  But you know, I have to admit--grudgingly--that it's a pretty darn good story. Not the best written novel I've ever come across, but the story...surprisingly compelling.  I've been avoiding the whole Twilight-Edward Cullen-Robert Pattinson frenzy ever since the books came out, and then when the film debuted--Well, I sniffed, I just don't see the point.  Wasn't it some kind of teen/tween-oriented bullshit anyway?

Silly me. Never turn your nose up at anything, chilluns.  You might find yourself eating your words with a side salad and a glass of wine.

Off to read now.  And yeah, I've already seen the first movie. Waiting for the second one to come out on DVD.....

Sigh.

Irish

Coyote Uglies

Poor Jessica Simpson. Her adorable little Malti-Poo was snatched by a coyote and likely made the entree for that night's dinner.  She put out flyers, offered a reward, even hired a petfinding agency in the slim hope that maybe little Daisy might have survived and was trying to find her way home.  A lot of people evidently made fun of Simpson for that, which I think is cruel.  Vain though the hope was that her dog lived, I can understand it. If anything like that ever happened to Billy, I'd be out of my mind with grief.  We all deal with it in different ways.  My hope is that at least Daisy's death was a quick one.

Coyotes are a big problem here in the southwest.  Just the other day, one of my own neighbors lost her cat to one.  The beast came right into her backyard.  Poor Deb tried to fight the coyote even as it had the cat in its teeth, and got her arms scratched all to hell and back during the struggle.  The coyote won, unfortunately.

Although they're primarily nocturnal hunters--like javelina--I'm very careful about letting Billy out on his lead line.  Nowadays we get up early enough that the sun is just rising, and there's still a risk of predators trying to get a last meal in before they tuck in for the day.  I've taken to going outside with Billy, coffee in one hand and my big, heavy walking stick in the other.  I'll bash the hell out of any coyote or javelina that tries to go after him.

I'll have another post going up--hopefully later today--about another topic.  There's a little movie a couple of friends of mine made, and yours truly is the publicist.  So I'm using my blog, Facebook, and Twitter pages as extra ammunition, along with my arsenal of Rolodex numbers and emails to various editors and media managers.  I spent part of last week sending the usual press releases and calls out to promote the film's nomination at Chicago Horror Fest.   It's called "From a Place of Darkness", and it's an excellent film.  Not your usual slasher-masher-bloody-gorefest.

Until I post the entry, go check out this link:  From A Place of Darkness
Ta, everyone!  See ya later...

The Week that Was

You know how it's said that everything happens in threes? Well, the universe sure kicked my ass this week. Horrible seven days for me.  I really thought at one point I was going to have some sort of meltdown, dive under the covers in a foetal position and just stay there until...well, ever.

Monday morning I wake up to the cheery revelation that my refrigerator had broken down.  My freezer had defrosted itself, and water was dripping into my crisper drawer at an alarming rate.  I tried everything; checked the outlet, checked the fuse box, switched the breakers on and off--no go.  The fridge light works, so I know it's getting power, but the motor wasn't running.  So that morning consisted of running round frantically, dumping my freezer food into a neighbor's unit next door, cleaning up the mess in the fridge, and loading my cooler with ice so that I could salvage what was left.  You know how much RV refrigerators cost retail?  It's astronomical--$1500 or so.  And they're hard to find secondhand.  I just about cried. 

Then on Tuesday I find that my stinkin' bank overdrafted me because I was four cents short on a purchase.  Yeah, you read that right.  Four lousy pennies.  And so I got nailed with several $35 NSF fees, because of course everything else that posted after the first overdraft...was short.  I'm dumping them this time. I've had enough of that crap from them.  Being charged that much money for such a small error is ridiculous, and the banks are legally executing robbery.  I'm just done.  And I had to hoard what money I had left this week after paying bills. 

So after about a day or two of panic and another day of sulking, I set about attempting to find ways of resolving these issues.  Shot off a letter to the CEO of my bank, just to make myself feel better, though I don't know if it'll do me any good.  Figured out a budget so that I can pay back the overdrafts, and started working on getting new jobs so that maybe I can either fix my fridge or buy a new/used one.  A friend of mine in a neighboring town said he has an RV unit I can have; he's going to see if it still works, and if it does, he'll bring it over.  Cross your fingers for me.

Then number three hit this morning.  I woke up and found that my cooler had started leaking during the night--not too bad, but there was a definitive damp spot spreading underneath my rug.  Sigh.  Outside I hauled the cooler, next to the door, and began plopping old towels onto my floor and stomping on them to try and absorb as much of the moisture as I could before mildew could set in. (I can't yank the carpet up because there's too much furniture and whatnot holding it down.)  Since it was only really damp and not wet--I lifted one corner to check underneath for pooling puddles and there weren't any--I think it should be all right.  Problem may be that it's a really damp, overcast morning, so it may take a while.  If the weather improves, however, I should have it dried by evening. 

All in all, not a great week for me.  But now that my three catastrophes have hit, I am projecting that things will get better from here on out.  Only good things now.  These things will not defeat me. 

If y'all have a minute, send a positive thought my way.  I could use it.  :)

Between Heaven and Earth...

 "Lakewood"

This is the only photo I have in my collection of our other summer camp; my much loved cousin Bren has told me she has many more she can send me when she unpacks her new home, so she'll send some to me in a few weeks. Anticipation!

I can't remember the actual name of the lake; we called it "Lakewood" because directly across the water was Lakewood Theater, a beautiful summer stock program that featured some rather fantastic actors. Some were famous, some not--but they were always wonderful. I believe I saw my first production of "Godspell" there--one of my favorite plays. Years later, I played The Prostitute at another program and had the time of my life. Always wondered what it would have been like, though, to play it at Lakewood.

This camp was near Skowhegan, Maine, near Madison, and the lake was ringed with cute little cottages, clapboard homes, boats, canoes, docks, and splashing children. Unlike Guagas, it was heavily popular and populated; there was no sense of isolation here. As much as I liked our more remote retreat, Lakewood was my favorite place to go every summer, and I looked forward eagerly to the day when we'd pack our car and start the journey north. For a girl like myself, who wasn't all that outdoorsy, Lakewood was my idea of a summer camp. We had hot and cold running water, a real bathroom, a fully equipped kitchen (small though it was), and electricity. If memory serves, we didn't have a telephone, but neighbors to the right and left did, so we were always able to contact someone if necessary.

There is a beautiful, expansive backyard that spreads down about five hundred feet to the somewhat rocky shoreline. Dad built a gorgeous dock that jutted out into the lake, and we'd have loads of fun having contests to see who could run and jump the furthest. My grandfather was a pilot and owned a Cessna...110, I think--a two-seat floater plane, and would literally park it out on the lake in front of the dock. This served as the marker point for swimming races. The water was clear and cool; you could see everything when you went under and opened your eyes. We'd swim out and drape our arms over the Cessna's floats, just dangling in the water, while tiny little fish would curiously nibble at our toes.

We had several boats; nothing fancy, but there was a small Sunfish-type sailboat, a motorboat, rowboat, and I think at least two canoes. My entire family tried so hard to teach me how to water ski, but I was a wuss. Having a deaf ear meant that my balance was just crappy, and for a preadolescent, there is nothing worse than feeling inadequately dorky in front of your conversely athletic and poised sister and cousins. Amy took to skiing like...well, like a duck to water, and Bren and her sister Cap were equally proficient, as were my father and grandparents. I was perfectly content to sit in the back of the boat and operate as lookout, shouting to the driver when a skier wiped out in the water. I loved being on the boats, but I was terrified of trying to get up on those skis. Now, I realize I was completely capable of doing it, but it was the potential humiliation that stymied me and prevented it from happening. I've still never managed to get past that particular childhood obstacle.

Canoe fights, however, were fun for me; me, Amy, my cousins, and the two girls next door with whom we hung out and played with nearly every day would pile into the boats and proceed to go to war with our oars and any other weaponry we could invent or pilfer, trying to knock our opponents out of their canoes or, better yet, sinking them in it. There were really no rules, and we were diabolical in our pursuit of championship, ending up either drenched to the bone or submerged in ignominy along with the fish. I would usually bail as soon as it looked like our canoe was about to go under, leaping gleefully clear of the doomed vessel, not caring if I was fully clothed or not. Then I'd swim over and try to tip the other team's canoe.

Mom was pretty happy when I was outdoors, being active and playing with the other kids, but I also loved reading for hours on end. Sometimes I'd find a quiet spot somewhere on the grounds and tuck into a good book--okay, I was hiding--or I'd sit on the dock while the others cavorted with waterskis and sailed. But my favorite spot was the sunporch. It was a beautiful, rustic room in the back of our small cottage, surrounded on three sides by windows that let the sun drench the walls with warmth and light. A porch swing hung invitingly at one end, and tucked into the wall was a massive collection of comic books. Good ones. Archie, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Justice League--even a couple of Superboy and Supergirls. I would lie back on that swing for literally hours, a stack of comics on the table next to me, a cool drink in my hand, and my nose buried avidly in the stories. It was a source of consternation to my mother--she just couldn't understand why in the world I would prefer to stay on that porch and read instead of being out in the sun and the wind and the water. My perception was; there's gonna be another sunny day tomorrow. Today I want to read for awhile; is that so wrong? It got to the point where my parents would let me read only during certain hours or if it was raining. For a while that worked, but now that I'm forty, I can reveal that I managed to sneak books and comics into secret locations and disappear to read them. One ideal spot was the graveyard across the lane; I'd tuck myself up behind a tree or one of the monuments, and they'd never find me there.

I was a rather bookish, isolated girl, mostly because of my own insecuriaties. I was a skinny, pale-skinned, awkward black-haired little girl with buck teeth. My sister and cousins, however, were athletic, tanned, poised, active, and absolutely gorgeous creatures who looked amazing with their hair wet and who could get up on waterskis. No thanks, I thought. I'll stick with James Clavell's Shogun.

 Heh.

They're still gorgeous and graceful, and I'm still awkward and I weigh too much, but that's another blog entry...

However, I wasn't a total recluse. I'd get up early in the morning and go fishing with my dad. Despite the fact that I was no more of a morning person then than I am now, I loved that time with him, and would willingly forego my warm bed or tent to load up the boat with fishing poles, tackle, and bait, and go out on the water with him in the predawn hours. I wrote an article about it once: 

Once we were in the boat, out in the middle of the lake, my grumbling stopped, and by the time Dad and I started back towards shore, answering my mother's breakfast bell, I was always happy I had come, whether or not I had caught anything...Flashes of memory come back to me; the blue rowboat Daddy and I would sit in for hours, our lines in the water, no sound over the lake except a few early-rising loons.  I remember it was peaceful--so much so that it was tempting to just go back to sleep. but then my line might give a little tug, and my energy was suddenly renewed, like an electric shock through my body.  All fatigue was forgotten as I carefully reeled the line as my father gently encouraged and instructed me.

Although it has been many years since I've picked up a fishing rod and tackle, I remember the elation of catching a good-sized trout and knowing I'd be eating it for breakfast that morning. It didn't matter if Dad caught more fish than I did, or if we got none at all, really.  It was the effort and the work athat went into it that mattered--and the time I got to spend with my father that was just ours. 

Dad taught me how to gut and clean my own fish, and we'd have our fresh catch at breakfast that day. It's one of my fondest memories; being out on the lake watching the sun come up with him, and hearing my grandmother ring that bell to call us in to eat, the sound of it unmistakeably clear across the quiet water...and we'd haul in anchor and head home, ready to begin another idyllic day at Lakewood.

Gone Fishin'....

The Girl in the Picture

The photo that you now see adorning my blog was taken when I was about 8 years old. We had two lake houses in Maine where we vacationed each year. When this photo was snapped, we were in a remote area near Ellsworth, where our family maintained a little, rustic, one-room cabin in the woods. It had no running water, no electricity, and a privy for which to answer the call of nature. The lake itself was more of a marsh, with snapping turtles and multitudes of frogs, and I remember myself, my sister Amy, and my cousins would spend half the day catching and releasing the little critters just for fun. There was a huge sawdust pile about a thousand feet or so from the cabin, and it was ideal for use as a slide into the water below. Or as a diving platform from which to launch yourself. Nearby, there were vast fields of wild Maine blueberries, and we'd make a day of going out with big buckets to harvest the juicy morsels. Fresh muffins and blueberry pancakes were a staple food each morning, and because we'd literally pick bushels of berries, we'd freeze boatloads of them and have them throughout the year.

It was all very Huck-Finnish, and I doubt back then we realized how lucky we were to have a place like that, something that was constant and fun and which we looked forward to every year. We were lucky, and I feel very fortunate to have had such a great childhood experience.

It was such a remote location that we couldn't drive in to get there - we had to hike for about three hours on a very rough, unmaintained road instead. We would travel there by car or truck to a designated stopping point--if I remember correctly, it was some kind of radio tower--get out, and start gearing up for the onerous foot journey. We'd change our clothes -- something that protected us from the ubiquitous mosquitoes and other bug life. Usually it was white turtlenecks, hats with pull-down netting, much bug spray, and good sturdy boots. After that, we'd haul our individual backpacks up and begin the trek.

I remember hating that walk; mostly because I am and was a fundamentally lazy girl. If I could have had a sampan and a couple of strapping boys to lift me up and carry me in, I would have been perfectly happy to make the journey, but alas, it was not to be. And even when we got to the cabin, we couldn't quite relax, because there was a good hour or more of setting up camp. Mom would have to get after me time and again to get off my butt and help out; I was always trying to tuck myself in a corner and hope like hell I wouldn't be noticed until everything was done. Heh.

But once camp was set up, the cabin opened, canoe perched happily at the edge of the shore, we had so much fun. Today I think I'd be pretty squeamish about swimming in that lake, with it slimy, soggy bottom and the various lifeforms that resided therein. But when you're a kid, things like that don't faze you in the least. When I wasn't burying my nose in a book (which was quite often--another thing Mom got after me about), I was joyfully playing in the water with my sister--and my cousins, if we were all there at the same time.

We haven't been there in many years, and I miss it every now and again. Recently my Mom lent me her computer, and there were some great photos of us back then. As I sifted through them, I was suffused with nostalgia, wondering if the sawdust pile was still there, or if it had eroded to a mere memory. Our camp log, which every member of the family had faithfully written in during each visit, had been stolen in one of many thefts and raids over the years, so a lot of our memories had been lost along with it. Whoever the bastards are that raided that place and took our stuff, may God visit that karma back on you tenfold. What we had there wasn't much, but it was important to us, and you just came in and took it because you felt like it. Assholes.

At any rate, my cousins and I just got back in touch through the magic of Facebook, and it's really wonderful to be able to send them messages and stay in contact again. I've missed them a lot, and am so happy to hear that they're all doing so well. Hopefully we'll all be able to get together one day and have some fun again as a group. That would be the coolest thing.

Tomorrow I'll write about our other lake house and post some more images, but for now, I'll leave you with some previews. Ain't we adorable?

Me and Sis and the Sawdust Pile. My hair has not improved or tamed in the intervening decades.


Getting geared up for the hike to camp. Check out Amy's rockin' pants!



Morning coffee and cocoa with Mom.


BANZAI! Amy takes the leap.

Oink

For those of you who were asking and wondering, here is a visual aid to accompany yesterday's post:

This is a Javelina. Nasty lookin' little shitter, innit?

By the Seat of My Pants

Yay! I got paid! This is a nice thing, even though I'll only have a brief, shining moment to admire my own largesse before pretty much all of it goes back out again to the billz. Ah, well. At least I'll have insurance and contact lenses - two very important things for driving. I may even splurge and buy propane a week early. Wheee!

This week I am determined to ferret out and query some new magazines for whom to dazzle with my writing prowess. Maybe I can even con them into buying and reprinting some previously published work - that's always really cool. You get paid for doing virtually nothing except getting the proper permissions and perhaps a quick edit. So basically, I get paid twice for a piece I may have written two years ago. Sweet.

I had a busy day today. A friend of mine had outpatient eye surgery this morning, so I drove her in to the next town over, dropped her off, and then went gallivanting off in search of a grooming mitt for Billy. Ya know, those rubber things that look like potholders, only with bristles on either side. You can brush your dog--or cat--and give them a little cuddle at the same time. I borrowed one from a friend, and Billy loved it so much that I resolved to find one for him. Alas, no joy. I evidently went to every shop in town except those that have the mitts in stock. I'll try again in a couple of weeks when I go food shopping. There are a few more places I can hit.

After this fruitless search, I drove over to the Visitor's Center to see a friend who works there--hung out for an hour or so catching up. Then it was off to pick up my vision-challenged pal for the drive home. By the time I got back, it was nearly 1pm, so I wanted to finish this blog entry before I have to go into Tombstone to get some stuff out of storage. Wouldn't you know, the damn Blogger service somehow lost my login information again--insisting vehemently that "that account doesn't exist". AAARRGH! Took me several refreshes, a bootdown of the computer, a maniacal call to Google (who was no help at all, thank you very much), and a few primal screams before I managed to get back in. And I just KNOW it'll happen again. I'm Irish. That's what happens to us.

So anyway, I was planning to write something interesting and perhaps profound in this entry, but find that my nerves and my patience are both worn too thin to attempt such erudition. Maybe I'll manage it later in 140 characters or less on Twitter. I suppose anything is possible.
For now, I'm going to get a quick shower and buzz up to the storage unit before it's time to feed Billy and myself. Toodles, everyone. I'll try and be more bedazzling tomorrow.

This Little Piggy Went to Market

It is 7:15 AM, and I've been up for forty-five minutes. Being the veritable antithesis of a morning person, this shocks me as much as it would anyone who has known me for a couple of hours. I do not LIKE getting up early, and never have, but ever since moving out to Arizona, a strange phenomena has manifested itself. You see, Arizona doesn't observe Daylight Savings Time--which I love, because we never have to deal with the nonsense of changing clocks and circadian rhythms--so, consequently, around late spring, the sun comes up earlier and the days are longer. Back in New England, even in summer, it was still blue-pink dark at 7am; who wanted to get up? It was difficult for me to do, especially when I was working a regular job, but not much easier even when I worked at home. I'd have to set my alarm for three different times just to make sure I didn't stay in bed most of the morning.

Anyway, now--not so much. And it's kinda nice. One benefit is that it's so much cooler in the early to midmorning here, and I can get a lot of stuff done around the house and yard before the temperature becomes too much for me. My appetite is better; I actually eat a healthy breakfast sometimes BEFORE having coffee (another detail which should shock my friends and family). Around 9-10AM it'll start getting hotter, and about 11am I start kicking on either the fan or the AC and try to stay as cool as possible until evening comes. But the mornings are nice, and I'm glad I'm able to enjoy them.

This morning I got up before Billy did--also unusual, but evidently he was too comfortable snuggled in his little blanket, nose tucked between his paws. He waited while I washed my face, flossed, and started the coffee before rising on all fours in a luxurious, spine-popping stretch, his tiny bum pointed skyward in a canine display of laziness. When he saw me observing him from the doorway, he immediately flopped over in one motion to beg for a belly scratch, grinning at me as only your dog can do. Of course this is irresistible, so for the next five minutes he managed to fleece me into a full body massage before finally getting up, giving himself a shake, and trotting to the door for his morning constitutional.

We live in a small valley-like depression on the outskirts of Tombstone with a fantastic view of the Dragoon Mountain Range and the Chiracahuas to the East. I took a moment after putting Billy on his line to appreciate the beauty of a Southern desert sunrise before shuffling back into the kitchen to pour my coffee and turn the computer on. After a few moments, as I always do, I went to check on him as a safety precaution.

Good thing I did. He was on point, just outside of the door, staring off to the south. Following his eyeline, I was greeted with the sight of an impressively-sized Javelina just 100 feet away. Aforementioned Javelina was gazing at Billy with equal and unbridled interest.

Now, if you've never seen or heard of a Javelina, go look on Wikipedia. They're the ugliest creatures that God ever made. With high shoulders that slope down into a stubby rear end, they kind of look like a cross between a pig, a hyena, and a really big rat. Beady little eyes, coarse fur, and a snout festooned with little tusklike teeth complete this unholy vision. They're just hideous; there's no way around the fact. These little ferkers are indigenous to the Southwest, and are found throughout Mexico and Central America.

I could deal with their general unattractiveness if they didn't have temperaments to match. Their ugliness is compounded by the fact that they're plain nasty, mean, aggressive and sneaky little sons of bitches. Woe betide anyone who is unfortunate enough to get between a female and her pups (which are actually kind of cute), and God help you if you run afoul of a pack. They have no fear of humans, and they like the occasional free snack.

Which brings me back to Billy and his throwdown challenge to the little bastard across the way. Billy is, as I've said, a Miniature Pinscher. He is teeny, although if you asked him, he'd say he was as big and tough as a Rottweiler. At fourteen pounds, he'd barely make an hors d'oeurve for the piggy that was sizing him up, although I'm sure Piggy wouldn't have complained. Whatever he was rooting for at my neighbor's house paled in comparison to the juicy morsel Billy presented, judging by the look of intense concentration he displayed.

Both animals were stock-still, Billy straining the tension on his line, while Piggy lowered his head a few inches as if to get a better look. Here I broke a cardinal desert rule--it's not a good idea to go outside barefoot. Critters, cacti, stickers, and other flotsam and jetsam can end up in your skin, and are more often than not extremely difficult and painful to get out. Thinking only of getting Billy out of harm's way, I barreled out the door and snatched him up, giving Piggy the dirtiest, most menacing look I could muster. Unfazed, Piggy continued to stare as I carried Billy back inside. Piggy continued to stare for a few minutes until, with a porcine shrug, he went back to his foraging.

Folks, if you've never been to or lived in the desert, there are things you should remember to do as a rule: Have lots of water on hand, because you can drop from heat exhaustion before you even start to sweat. Keep an eye out at all times for snakes, because they can hide literally in plain sight. Shake your shoes out before donning them, because scorpions love to crawl into the toes and hide there, and those stingers HURT. And always, always, always check your environment in the early morning and early evening for cougar, coyote, and the annoying, peckish, and frighteningly implacable javelina.

Emerging From the Ether

Okay, okay...yeah, it's been three YEARS since I last blogged. So sue me. It's been an eventful three years. I've been writing some stuff I actually got paid for, which was great, got a job and then got laid off--which wasn't so great. In all the melee, the blog kinda got lost in the shuffle. You know how that can go.

Anyway, I'm still in Arizona, and loving it. I don't think I'll ever go back to living in New England again, although I'll visit. My sister is there, and my niece and nephew, so of course I'll want to see them regularly. But I can live happily without ever seeing snow and sleet again, not to mention subzero temperatures. Not my idea of fun.

Well, what else is new? I got a dog....a little MinPin named Billy, who has now been with me for...well, three years now. I got him almost literally my first week out here. He's a rescue dog. I didn't go to the shelter with the intention of adopting--I was just going to check out a dog-walking job. But there he was, peering up at me from his cage, looking so tiny. Then they let him out to run and visit with me, and he was a little ball of energy rocketing across the yard. The next thing I knew, I had written a check for $25, had a carrying kennel, toys, and dog dishes in my Jeep, along with a very excited and happy little runt of a dog. Go figure. I'll post pictures of him as soon as I remember how one does that, but for now, you can go to my twitter pic page and check him out at http://www.twitpic.com/photos/Rowaenthe . He's a little love, but boy, he runs me ragged.

Not much to write at the moment--I had an epic struggle trying to recover my username and password to reclaim this blog, and that in and of itself was frustrating enough. My brain isn't on creative mode at the moment, but give it time. It'll kick back in.

Hope to see some comments soon--when I write something worth commenting on. Have a great Sunday, everybody!

A Long Way Since Tipperary

Well, I'm back!

I know, it's been over six months since my last post, but hey, I've been busy moving cross-country and getting settled--plus a lot of stuff happened that snowballed to mammoth proportions. So much so that I felt like a candle in the middle of an avalanche.

Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know I'm alive and well and finally able to begin writing here again, and with more frequency than half-year intervals. Sorry if anyone worried about me. Got a post coming up for this weekend, so stay tuned. Hope everyone is well!

Irish

The Turkey Has Landed

Helloooooooooo!!!

I really, really, REALLY am so very sorry that it's been so long since my last post. As most of my readers (all five of you) know, I up and packed my Jeep and moved 3000 miles west, in an extremely short span of time. Every time I thought of writing an entry, something else came up and I never did get round to it. Plus, it's time consuming setting up house and getting a job. Who knew?

All right, so...details.

Back in late February, I was reminiscing to a friend of mine about when I lived in Arizona. We got to talking about it in depth, and I found myself feeling quite homesick for the desert--as I often did on occasion when I thought of the time I lived here. I'd been missing it for a few years, and always figured, well, one day we'll look at going back.

Anyway, on impulse, I pulled out my laptop and logged on to check airline prices--just for shits and giggles. Whaddaya know, there was a rock-bottom, once-in-a-blue-moon round trip ticket available for $300. I don't know what came over me, but I forthwith pulled my virgin Visa card out and booked the ticket right then and there. Something told me that it was the right thing to do. Didn't understand it then. Still don't quite understand it now, but as it turned out, I'm glad I listened.

Flash forward to March 3, and I'm on the airplane, zooming at 30,000 feet in a pressurized tube with 145 other passengers and praying to God I don't get someone's cold before touching down in Tucson. The food is bad enough; getting sick would just have been kicking me when I was down.

To make a long story short, I loved every minute of my two weeks in Arizona, which I labeled a vacation/job scout to justify my gleeful cavorting in the Southern Desert. Almost immediately I knew I didn't want to live in Tucson again; it's gotten waaayyy too big for my taste--they hit a population of 1.4 million about two years ago, and the city is enormous. Much more so than when I lived there before. Too much crime, too many people, too many traffic accidents where people die. Uh-uh.

I've been visiting Tombstone since I was ten and first came out here to visit my grandfather during summers. You may have heard of Tombstone. It was 125 years ago that eight or nine guys went at each other with guns and rifles behind a corral, and thus immortalized the town as the epitome of the "Wild West". Earps and Clantons...some such fellows. Three men died in the shootout and found their eternal rest over in Boothill Cemetery, while the others went on to achieve either ignominious deaths or an insane level of fame. I'll tell y'all about that stuff later.

But yes, I live less than a block from the famous OK Corral, and work right across the street from it.

I'm getting ahead of myself. That's what happens when you don't post in a while; all your darks and colors get thrown in the wash together. Forget separating. Anyway, I chose to come back and live here. I had no firm job offer, really--unless you count the fact that my friend Sherri said I could work at her restaurant when I got back. Which at least was money coming in while I looked for full-time employment. But again, somehow I knew it would work out. So I flew back home to New Hampshire and began packing immediately.

Whatever I could squeeze into my Jeep I kept. Everything else got sold or given away in one weekend during my moving out sale. We all say it, but it's still astounding to realize how much we accumulate in a relatively short time. I couldn't believe how much stuff I had. I mean, I'm only one woman. When I first came to New Hampshire from West Virginia (via Los Angeles), I had nothing but my clothes, a television set, and my computer. That was about it. Now, five or so years later, I was divesting myself of possessions that could have supported a small Puerto Rican family.

After packing the Jeep and closing up my apartment, I spent a few days with my sister before finally heading out in the early morning of April 6. I won't bore everyone with the travelogue; suffice it to say that I have seen the heartland, and it was beautiful, but there was too much of it.

Ohio, the state in which I was actually born, was cold and unpredictably snowy, what with the Lake Effect. One minute I could see perfectly where I was going, then the next, a complete white-out. Indiana and Illinios had a lot of corn. Miles of corn. So much corn that I literally got on my cell phone to friends and family and begged them to chat with me for a few minutes to save me from the boredom.

I saw more cows than I hope ever to see again in my lifetime. They're all in Oklahoma. If the cows decided to band together and have a rebellion, they'd win that state in no time flat. Mind-boggling. Hereford, Texas, was the only place that may have had more cows, but it was hard to tell, since the Herefords were packed like sardines into huge pens. I thought it was wood before I got a closer look. I was so appalled at the conditions the poor things had to live in that I averted my eyes for the rest of the trip through that town.

Missouri was cool. I got to see the famous St. Louis arch, and even got pictures of it on my cell phone--at great peril and risk to life and limb. I haven't figured out how to transfer them to my computer, or I'd show them to you. Maybe one day soon that'll happen. My spirits lifted when I saw it, though--knowing I was officially at "The Gateway to the West" did wonders for my morale.

Roswell, New Mexico was bigger than I thought it would be. Also more normal. I didn't see a single alien, unless you count the ones that slid across the border of Mexico illegally. Very disappointing, actually. Maybe the outer space aliens have a condo community just outside of town, complete with enclosures and a gate guard.

White Sands, New Mexico was annoying. It went on forever and was populated with brainy NASA employees who have better Wal-Marts than the rest of us. Johnson Space Center's parking lot is bigger than Yankee Stadium. Too many people with too many expensive cars. But the sand was pretty.

When I crossed the state line into Arizona, I let out a triumphant, exultant whoop. If anyone had been able to see or hear me, I'm sure they'd have pegged me as a lunatic. But three days of driving will do that to you. The moment I saw my beloved Dragoon Mountains in the distance, my entire body relaxed, and I knew I was twenty minutes from home.

I pulled into the carport of my "new" house at 11:34 am on April 9. Three and a half days and 2,675 miles after I had started out. And my Jeep was still in fine form. The first thing I did was go and get something to eat, since I was starving. Called everyone and let them know I had arrived safely. Then I collapsed onto the little twin bed a friend had set up for me and was unconscious within minutes. Unpacking could wait another day.

More later!

Irish

Ya Learn Something New

You just never know what interesting things you might learn when you visit and comment on your friends' blogspots. Have a look at the following, and make sure you read the comments section, and click on the link provided in one of the replies. That's the most important part.

I give you Torquemada Unleashed. Courtesy of the incomparable Jean.

Outta Dodge

I just returned from Arizona after a 10-day visit, and am now in the full throes of organizing and packing up my life. I swore when I moved into this place that I'd never move again, because I loathe moving. They say it's one of the top three things that is most stressful. I think the other two are divorce and taxes. I can feel my anxiety and blood pressure rising exponentially with each new day.

Anyway, I wanted to drop a quick post to let everyone know that I am indeed moving to Arizona, and am on the fast track to get out of here and on the road by the end of the month. Hence, I may not be able to write for a couple of weeks. Once I get settled in my beloved Tombstone, I'll be back online and writing all about my new home. It's a pretty famous town, even though it only has 2000 residents. I've missed it there. Can't wait till this is all over and I'm settled. Did I mention I hate moving?

Irish

History Repeating

The other day I ranted at Britney Spears' mother in this blog, asking where the hell has she been while her daughter was falling apart in front of our eyes. Well, I want to retract that rant and in its place issue an apology.

From what I've been able to find out, Mama Spears did try--several times--to intervene, even to the point of near-bullying her daughter to get help. So did her father. It appears that Britney is the only one who doesn't want to take action. As of 1pm today, it has been learned that she has again checked herself out of rehab at Promises in Malibu--again, after less than 24 hours in the facility.

I don't know if anyone is going to be able to help her. Things are falling apart, and the center is not holding. We may be looking at another Anna Nicole situation, and God bless her family for trying to stop it.

Blackjack Jesus

I have to say, I was a bit enamoured of my glib turn of phrase the other day. I even congratulated myself on my literary wit. However, Jean, in her generosity and brilliance, actually caught it by the tail and turned it into a catchphrase that I now love even more. She's just better at that than I am. Plus, her writing is just wonderful, and I always enjoy reading anything she has to say.

It got me thinking. I've been catching up on my blog as well as other friends' blogs, emails, and the like. Brock had sent me a lovely email a while back, and I read some of his always gentle and optimistic posts, despite some hardships he's having at the moment. His wife Auny had some interesting entries on her website about faith, too. Now, I'm not by any means a devoutly religious person, as I've said before. I consider myself a questioning Christian, if indeed I can call myself a Christian at all. As I've also said before--maybe not here on this blog, but I think I said it on Brock's--I believe that everyone probably has a piece of the God puzzle, and I also think that sometimes people get too bolluxed up in scripture, squabble too much over doctrine, and miss the big picture. Everything gets blown out of proportion so much that they forget what their original fight was really all about. And all I can think is, God is either up there shaking his head in defeat, or laughing his ass off at the silliness of the human race.

God and Jesus are gamblers and gamesmen. And their prophets? So was Bhudda, and so was Mohammed. Moses was a rather compulsive crapshooter, and Abraham was the most consummate poker player of all the prophets; the man looked God in the eye and bluffed Him down on Sodom and Gomorrah. The Earth is a giant casino, and world history as we know it is full of improbable gambles--not the least of which was the creation of homo sapiens.

I realize that people may look askance and aghast at me for what appears to be blatant blasphemy. If a hardcore fundamentalist got near me, I'm sure he'd be in fear for my soul and try to save it from the fiery pits of Hell. However, irreverence is not disrespect, and I maintain that a dose of humor to go along with theology is a healthy thing. It keeps you from getting into that bolluxed-up state I was talking about. Laughter is a universal leveler and it keeps things in perspective.

Jesus had a sense of humor, you know. What group of young men would drop everything they had--their families, friends, and livelihoods--and follow a guy who was somber, gloomy, and portentious all day and all night for three years? Galloping around the Galilee, depending on the kindness of strangers for food and shelter? I don't know about you, but I have a hard time believing the disciples would have stuck with Jesus as long as they did if he wasn't a fun guy to be around. The hordes of people who came from all over to hear him preach must have seen a dynamic and entertaining speaker--who wants to traipse out of town for a day to hear someone drone on with maddening brevity or hurling invective? Yuck. If I want that kind of crap, I'll watch American Idol.

Then there were the children; the New Testament tells the story that when the disciples tried to keep the kids from bothering the Rabbi, Jesus chastised them, saying, "Suffer the little children to come unto Me and forbid them not; for such is the Kingdom of God." Kids freakin' loved him--and anyone who has ever been around children for any appreciable length of time knows that they don't suffer fools gladly. If you scare them, talk down to them, or if they find you utterly boring and without any redeeming playtime value, they won't bother with you. That the village urchins were said to excitedly run to him whenever he came around says a lot for his charisma.

If you read between the lines of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, you'll also find other examples of Jesus' humor. Man, it was sharp. Now, it wasn't the kind of humor we might recognize today; as far as we know, they didn't tell "knock-knock" jokes or have an ancient version of "Jackass" back in the day. Jesus' humor was contemporary and subtle; it was used in such a way as to illustrate a point to his flock, rather than jamming it down their throats. He loved allegory, metaphor, was a master of sarcasm and a lover of puns. Sometimes when I read the Gospels, I can all but see the deadpan delivery when Jesus confronts a situation so ridiculous, the only way to respond is with humor.

Take Luke, chapter 19. Zacchaeus was a short little man, and a tax collector--one of the most reviled--if not the most reviled--of men in that day. No one ever wanted to mix with tax collectors, because to do so was to soil oneself with a man in cahoots with Rome. Sort of like any member of Congress in today's world.

Anyway, Zacchaeus was really short. One day Jesus came to town and a huge crowd gathered round him as he walked through the streets. Zacchaeus had heard so much about the Rabbi and wanted to get a good look at him. So he tucked his pride in his pocket, skirted the edge of the horde, and climbed as far up a tree as he could go in order to get a birds-eye view.

Now, the idea of a tax collector debasing himself in such a way is funny enough. But when Jesus saw this short little man dangling precariously atop the branches, he stunned both Zachheus and the crowd by saying, in what I imagine to be a completely droll and straight-faced manner, "Zacchaeus, come down. I'm going to stay at your house tonight."

I mean, what would you say to a man peering through tree branches at you? You might smile and wave, or maybe nudge your buddies and point the guy out. Jesus went one better, shocking the assembled crowd by not only inviting himself to the sinner's house, but actually deigning to speak to the man. It turned everyone on their ears. And Jesus knew it. It's hysterical. Better yet, he won a convert with humor rather than force. That's an effective speaker.

Here's another example: Jesus came across a man possessed by evil spirits, and conversed with the demon, asking, "What's your name?"

And they said, "My name is Legion, for we are many."

Well, Jesus was about to drive the demons out of the poor man, but they begged him not to cast them back into hell again. So what does Jesus do? It's pretty cheeky. He says, OK, fine, I won't send you to hell. No problem. Instead, he knocks them into a herd of pigs, all of whom promptly went insane and careened into the Galilee like a flock of insensate lemmings--and drowned.

I mean, come on! That's funny. Jesus got the last word and the last joke, and thoroughly enjoyed showing Legion the folly of their request. You don't want hell? All right, but I won't guarantee what I give you will be any better. It's your funeral.

Blackjack Jesus. If you ask him a question or make a request of him, you better mean it, because he won't necessarily give you what you want or what you want to hear. What he will give you is what you ask for. He won't cheat; he's just better at the game. You say "hit me", and he will. Just don't complain when he knows the cards better than you. You take your lumps and suck it up like a grownup. Don't worry; he'll let you play again. That goes for God, too, by the way. Or Allah, or Jehovah, or Uncle Bob--whatever you want to call him.

One of my favorite examples of Jesus' humor--aside from some of the wonderful brilliance when he's talking to Peter (who, we must admit, was a little thickheaded and hot under the collar)--is this one, and I'm paraphrasing the first part:

There was a rich man who came to Jesus and asked him, "What do I need to do to be your disciple? What must I do to follow you?"

And again, ever the consummate Blackjack player, Jesus deals out the hand. "Oh, come on," he says. "You know the commandments. Don't cheat; don't steal. Don't kill, don't lie. Honor your father and mother."

The rich man says, "I've done all of these all my life."

Jesus was impressed and saw that the guy was genuine. So he calls the final bet. "There's only one more thing you need to do, then. Sell everything you have, give your money to the poor, and come along with us."

It's the only thing the man wasn't expecting. His face fell, and he walked away without a word.

Jesus watched him go, and then looked round at his disciples, saying, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God."

Contemplate that imagery. A camel trying to squeeze through the eye of the needle. It's one of the trippiest, most evocative, and hilarious analogies Jesus ever used. Even through his disappointment, Jesus was able to use humor as illustration, and people got it.

Take a look at the world's most sought after speakers. I don't care who they are; politicians, philosophers, preachers, or prophets. You'll find that every single one of them used humor to keep people interested and thinking. Now go look at your Bible, your Koran, the I Ching. See it?

Whether you believe that Jesus was the Son of God, or that he was a brilliant and insightful prophet, one thing is incontrovertible: He was human. As God's son, he was sent down to experience being a man. As a prophet, he was flesh and blood from day one. Men--human beings--get angry, get tired, get scared, get hungry and thirsty and sleepy. They cry, and they laugh. To say Jesus never joked or laughed or couldn't poke fun at himself is, for me, highly illogical and unbelievable. The guy possessed a rapier wit and intelligence even the Pharisees couldn't match. To me, that truly makes him the Son of Man.

Bald Truths

Boy howdy, I knew Britney was on that bobsled, but apparently it's careening downhill even faster than I thought. The very day after I posted the "Tapeworm" blog, she went and did this.

I hear her mother hopped a plane from Louisiana to Los Angeles, rushing to do damage control. Which is good; someone obviously needs to take the wheel.

My question is, what in the hell took the woman so damn long? Her daughter's been imploding for months, if not years, before now.

Irish

Mea Culpa

Hi, everyone! Guess what! New post coming later on--either tonight or tomorrow morning. I promise. Really and for true. I just gotta finish it.

See you then!

The Tapeworm

A friend of mine from back in Hollyweird called me last week. She was trying to find out who's designing and distributing the infamous "Gift Baskets" for the Oscars this year. Now, bear in mind, I got out of Los Angeles about eight years ago. I still keep in touch with a few old pals, just to kind of keep my finger on the pulse of things, and I still get a bit nostalgic about Hell-Ay. But by and large, I'm really, really glad I left when I did--otherwise I doubt I'd like myself very much at this point. That town has a way of sucking every bit of your own soul out and putting something else in. It lacks in substance and harbors an excess of ickiness. I call it the Tapeworm.

Anyway, my friend needed me to call a few contacts and find out this kernel of information for her. It brought me back to thinking about Celebrutality again...remember, one of my earlier posts during which I railed vituperously at the entitled attitude of Hollywood bourgeoisie? Well, guess what? The Academy, in their infinite wisdom and ball-shriveled fear, have completely washed their hands of the heretofore traditional gift baskets. No more freebees for people who make enough money to afford the actual items in the basket. No more getting away with receiving said freebies without giving some of the largesse back to the government. They'll have to make do with designers giving them gowns to wear in exchange for publicity, and Harry Winston loaning jewels for same.

As you may surmise, Hollywood's Babylonians are decidedly not happy about this unlucky change in events; their world is tilting on its axis. Half the reason they go out to these soirees is to bilk and shill for goodies. You just know Paris Hilton is moaning into her Grey Goose at the injustice of not getting a bonus Treo for her trouble; forget the fact that no one, including Paris, really knows why she got an invitation to the event at all. The day Paris Hilton is nominated for an Oscar is the day the Seventh Seal will be opened and a great silence will be heard in Heaven for half an hour. Because even the angels and cherubim will be stunned into unholy speechlessness. Jesus will start dealing Blackjack in Vegas, and God will go to Turks and Caicos for a well-earned vacation.

But I digress. My point is (I think) about the fact that the more money people seem to have, the less they want to spend it and the greedier they get. The Academy may not be putting up gift baskets this year, but I'm willing to lay odds that the after-party hosts will take up the slack; the uproar otherwise would simply be too deafening, and besides, no one would go to the parties if there were no goodies to heist for free.

"FREE" being the operative word.

Vanity Fair has the best party of the night--as a rule, they usually host it at Morton's after the awards ceremony, and it is by far the most coveted invitation out of all the parties on Oscar night. Everyone who wants to be seen must go. Even if you're George Clooney, unless you've gotten that golden ticket of an invite, you're relegated to the B list for the evening. You're crap, and no one wants to photograph you. And VF has the best food, the best place settings, and the biggest open bar this side of the Mississippi. It's a great party that simply smells of money. However, none of the guests will spend any.

It's amazing to me, actually. There are people in that industry that make more money in one week than most of us see in five years, and yet, they never seem to have to open their wallets for anything. I don't know how that happens, really. They get free dresses, free jewelry, free food at restaurants...free tickets and free hotel rooms, you name it.

Take Anna Nicole Smith, for instance. God bless her, she was a train wreck of the first water. Not even really a C list celebrity. Okay, yeah, she had a couple of pithy endorsements for questionable diet remedies, and a now-defunct reality show--but at the rate at which she appears to have consumed drugs and alcohol, her paycheck couldn't have lasted that long. She had yet to receive a penny from the Marshall estate. Where did she get the money for all her traveling? The hotel rooms and airfares? Vacationing in the Bahamas isn't cheap, let alone living there. And the phalanx of attorneys she had working on various lawsuits is mind-boggling, and I'm sure they were keeping meticulous records and invoices for their billable hours. I'm sure they still are.

Where the hell was the money coming from?! How can someone who had no obvious marketable skills (besides her boobs, a sad and tragic life that translated into a media spectacle), and no apparent source of income that supported her lifestyle--how could she live the way she did?

Keep in mind, she was a celebrity of a lower order, and she was able, somehow to enjoy (if indeed she "enjoyed" anything, poor thing) a level of comfort and luxury not many of us do. Now, consider the A and B list people. They get even more than that. None of them ever seem to end up having to pay for anything, or if they do, they get huge discounts and are shitty tippers.

So much gets wrapped up in their sense of entitlement that it's like a tapeworm; they can't stop feeding it, and it never fills them up. Remember what I said about Hollywood eating your soul? That's the tapeworm. It always wants more, and more is never enough. Meanwhile, the things they really and truly so desperately need, they never get. Like a wake-up call.

Anna Nicole was a woman who so desperately wanted to be famous. Everything she did was to that end, but you know, I really think she would have been so much better off had she remained "undiscovered". If she had stayed in Texas the rest of her life working in a greasy spoon, raising her son and marrying a mechanic, I seriously think she'd be alive today. Yes, she got famous, just like she always wanted, but her fame also enabled her addictions. She needed help, not Methadone. She needed someone to care enough about her to take her by the elbow and steer her towards a reputable doctor and treatment facility. Instead, what she got was a gaggle of lawyers, lovers, and general sycophants who only hung around her so that they could feed on the fallout of her largesse. They didn't give a crap if she was high or drunk or messed up beyond belief; as long as the cow kept farting cash, they were content with the status quo. Why change it? If she were, God forbid, to straighten up and sober up, she probably would have realized just who these people were and forthwith booted them out on their asses. Their insurance was her addiction and her insecurity.

She's not the only one. Lindsay Lohan and Britney Spears aren't far behind Anna, if you ask me. Both are riding on an out-of-control bobsled straight into the hell of ignominy, and no one seems to care enough to try and stop them. Nobody. Where are their parents? Where are their friends? Do they have any? They have people around them all the time who are more than happy to ride on the bandwagon, get into exclusive clubs, and suck down free booze. Both starlets are in their early twenties and look forty. That's just pathetic, and terrifying. One day, we're going to have another headline on the news that tells us one of them is dead, killed by an overdose, or alcohol poisoning, or a DUI.

In large part, it happens because these people do get too much free stuff, too much unwarranted license to behave with excess, too many excuses. The tapeworm inside them keeps clamoring for more and more and more until finally, as Yeats said, Things fall apart. The Center cannot hold. They are eaten up from the inside, like a rotting corpse with a beautiful makeup job, until it all simply falls in on itself. That's what tapeworms do: lets you live on just enough to keep you alive, but takes the bulk of everything for itself and demands more. Finally, it just takes everything.

It's ironic to me that two of the women I've just named--Lindsey and Anna--worship Marilyn Monroe. Anna wanted to be Marilyn; Lindsey wants to emulate her, too. Hell, Linds just bought Marilyn's old apartment. This woman was the blueprint, really. Marilyn was beautiful, she was idolized. She was actually an exceptionally talented actress, which makes her story even more tragic, because what she might have become will forever be speculation. But she was also insecure, vulnerable, helpless in many ways, and she was enabled, coddled, addicted, and mishandled. And she died. Even her rivals felt bad for her.

Joan Crawford was nobody's fool. She was tough, ambitious, hard-working, some would say cold. But no one could ever call her stupid. She didn't like Marilyn and made no bones about it; Marilyn offended her, threatened her ego, and represented a debauchery in the business that Crawford abhorred. But despite those feelings, Crawford pegged Marilyn's problem with a precision a surgeon would appreciate.

Right after Marilyn died, Joan became very upset when she heard about it. She was having dinner at director George Cukor's house and talking about Marilyn when he called bullshit. "What is this?" he wanted to know. "You never liked Marilyn."

As always, she was bitingly honest. "Yes, you're right," she admitted. "She was cheap, and an exhibitionist. She was never professional, and that irritated the hell out of people. But for God's sake, she needed help. She had all these people on her payroll. Where the hell were they when she needed them? Why in the hell did she have to die alone?"

There will always be stars, and twice as many tapeworms looking for hosts.

You Talkin' to ME?

Yes, I know, the mighty horde of my readership is ready to lynch me for not posting in exactly a month, but hey, I've been busy. I'm by no stretch the most consistent blogger on the net, but the way I figure it, I'm not getting paid for this, so what's the rush? At least, that's the justification. I aspire to be like my pal Jean over at "You Are Here"--she posts regularly and without fail, sometimes two entries in a day--but I think it's going to be some time before I even stagger towards one tenth of her prodigiousness. You should go and check out her site whenever you're waiting for me to get my ass in gear--she's hysterical and always has something interesting to say. I, on the other hand, have plenty to say; it's just that I'm fundamentally lazy.

Merry Mayhem

Good God Gurdy, as Mom used to say. In less than forty-eight hours, my schedule for the next four days is crammed so full of stuff to do that I'm beginning to wonder if I'll actually have time to sleep. Ah....Christmas.

As I noted in my last post, I'm doing all my gift shopping in one go over the next two days or so. I am doing this not because I'm certifiably insane, or because I procrastinated. I have to do it because with the new job and all, I just haven't had time, or frankly, the money until just now. I've been making lists upon lists of the things I need to have done by Sunday afternoon, and my desk is beginning to look like Broadway after the Macy's parade.

I was only informed of my new job's office party yesterday--"An all-day extravaganza," as our receptionist described it to me. So I have to order up a veggie plate, because I don't have time to make it up myself, and I have to run downtown and pick up something for the Yankee Swap. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this time-honored New England tradition, it's kind of like your regular Secret Santa swap, but with a twist. What happens is, you draw names, that person goes up and gets a gift and unwraps it in front of everyone. Then the next person who goes, unwraps their gift and decides whether they like it or not. If they don't, they can swap it with anyone who has already opened their gift, and the preceding giftee can't refuse or argue about it. That happened to me last year. I opened a beautiful crystal vase for my gift, and don't you just know, the next person down the line didn't want her present, and promptly told me to hand the vase over. I, in turn, was the chagrined swappee of a really cheesy Sno Globe.

Anyway, so I have to find something for the Yankee Swap, and I have to go to the grocery and pick up some provisions and my veggie plate. Then I have to run out and do some actual Christmas shopping. And more of that tomorrow. Then back to the grocery store. Why? Because I need baking stuff.

If I could, I'd give gifts to everyone that I love and care about, but as of yet, I'm not rich enough to do that. Besides, if I did, I'd be shopping until past New Year's. But I want to give friends and colleagues something. So I bake.

I go out and get a bunch of those tins--you know, the kind that are used for fruitcakes. And I take an entire day and bake cookies, pastries, and confectionary until I've filled about fifteen to twenty tins with chocolate chip cookies, macaroons, fudge, wonder bars, and almond drops. It's a lot of effort, and takes time to do, but it's so gratifying. My house always smells so wonderful, and the look on people's faces when they lift the lid off that tin is worth every minute I spend mixing, whipping, and baking.

So tomorrow, in addition to Christmas shopping, I need to take the list labeled "Cookie Tins" and get all the ingredients for three dozen of four kinds of cookie. The checkout girl is going to think I'm some kind of sugar junkie, but whatever. I can think of worse things to be labeled. Then Saturday and Sunday, I'll be making like a Keebler Elf. Hee!

What else? Oh, yeah, wrap presents Sunday afternoon and go to Sis' house for dinner. Then back to her house again Christmas morning to do the deal with the kids. Then (I know, are you tired yet?) it's back to my house to get ready for a Christmas party I'm hosting for those friends of mine who don't have plans or family around and just want to hang out.

Sometime in all this, I gotta clean my house so that my Christmas party guests don't think I'm a total sloth--and I promised to go out with some friends during the weekend, too. By next Tuesday, I'm pretty sure I'll be comatose, but hey, at least I'll have had a good time.

More later. Gotta run out and buy the Yankee Swap thing. I'm thinking a Sno Globe....

Moon Sand and Monetary Misadventure

Okay, I know...It's been over two weeks, and I just know the three of you who read this blog are wondering just what the bloody hell happened to me. Sorry. I kept meaning to post, but as it happened, by the time I'd come home at the end of the day, all I could seem to muster the energy to do was cobble some kind of edible nourishment in the kitchen and collapse into my bed. Getting up at 5:30 ain't easy when you're not used to it. Especially when it's still dark outside when you get up...(shudder).

Anywhoo....here I be. The job is going very well, thank you, and I'm knee-deep in catching up on the Christmasy goodness. That's the other thing that's been corrupting my blog time. It gets harder and harder to shop for my family each year. I try to be creative with gifts and get something that maybe they had never thought of having, but realized they wanted or needed once they opened it. I get kicks out of that. But jeepers, it's difficult. I have no idea what to get my niece and nephew--I mean yeah, they're kids, and kids should be relatively easy to buy for, right? Well, not these little munchkins. I have the blessing and curse of having two very smart, very creative, and frighteningly discerning young whippersnappers for whom Barbies and Tonka toys just won't cut it.

My niece--I'll call her C--is nine years old. Bubbly, full of laughter, terrifying in her erudition and intelligence, and every inch a budding pre-teen. She's artistic, likes music and good books, loves gymnastics and group activities. Loves her sleepovers with her contemporary Scary Preteens, and still gets a little scared when there's a big thunderstorm in the middle of the night. She likes dressing up and putting the pretty on, but she also has equal enthusiasm for getting down and dirty with Daddy when he's mucking out the yard or gutting this year's deer. She's that heartbreaking combination of delicate flower and unstoppable tomboy. In other words, one day her boyfriends are going to have their hands full, and her parents and I are going to be downing Alka-Seltzer in bulk.

My nephew--I mentally refer to him as Animal, because he reminds me of that wild, uninhibited Muppet drummer--just turned five. He's an Imp. I swear, in the classical sense. He's always got this glint in his eye that lets you know that there's something going on in his brain that will completely flummox you once he lets on what it is. And he gets a real buzz off of confounding those of us who are a few decades older. He likes anything that has to do with dinosaurs. Doesn't matter what. Puzzles, erector sets, card games, action figures, DVDs, whatever. He doesn't care, as long as it has scales and teeth and is, for the most part, representative of an extinct species. Animal also loves the usual boy stuff--cars, trucks, his little motocross bike, baseballs and basketballs--you get the picture. Ironically, he's also a tomboy to an extent, although he's gotten past the stage where he liked to dress up and play Princess with big sister C. But he still retains his sensitive side.

Anyway, my sister called me in triumph this morning, having discovered the Holy Grail of the progeny's desires. "Moon Sand!" she crowed.

Moon Sand? MOON SAND? What the hell is Moon Sand? I hadn't a clue. Unfortunately, Sis didn't either, really--she just knows that's what it's called. Apparently, that's as far as she went in her research--the rest is up to me. Having used the great oracle Google, I've discovered that it's apparently some kind of water-resistant, shape-shifting kind of sand that holds together so well you can build sand castles with it. And even more remarkable, the sand has such fortitude that whatever castle you build could conceivably last longer than Buckingham Palace. Jeez, we've come a long way from Play-Doh and Silly Putty.

So, later this week, after payday, I am braving the wanton insanity of the department stores to do all my shopping in one go, and will gird myself for the relevant battles therein. Toys R Us alone is going to take body armor for the Moon Sand and dinosaurs.

I'll let you know how it goes.