Saturday, January 26, 2008

Why I Hate Third Party Candidates!

The endless news cycle around the presidential elections - 'change' anyone? - has reminded me of a story I wrote: "Exhilarated (New York City, October 2000)." It tells of my own personal reasons for calling Ralph Nader a 'spoiler.'

This story was effectively homework for a writing class I took at the New School in the Fall of 2004. The teacher gave me some really good criticism on the first draft: "Okay, we get it. Your ex-boyfriend is a jerk. So what? What was it about you that made you want to be with this guy? That would be infinitely more interesting." I took that to heart and turned the mirror back at myself.

There's an interesting coda to this story with respect to Seth Rudetsky - a very talented musician, performer, and writer. He cyber-pens a very entertaining, weekly, theater-related column on Playbill.com. Among the theater news and tidbits he introduces his new boyfriend James. Week-after-week he goes on-and-on about James and I just wish he would get back to the Broadway gossip. Then he suddenly drops James's last name into a column one week and I'll-be-damned if it isn't the same James from my own "Exhilarated (New York City, October 2000)!" He's a regular Nancy Cunard for the gay virtual blogisphere!

Monday, January 21, 2008

Never Make Eye Contact

I heard the ring - a pulsating tone from one of those two way radio things. It came from behind me, at the front of the subway car. Knowing better and ignoring that sense, I turned my head to look. I hate those things. People end up shouting into them with every turn in conversation preceding by a thought scattering "beep-beep.'

"What're you looking at tall guy!" I had already looked away, so the shouter was anonymous. It could have been any of the kids.

"Yeah, I'm talking to you in the beige! What do you think you're looking at!"

It's not beige. It's camel. Why am I letting these black, ghetto, teenagers bother me? Shouldn't they be in school? Am I being racist for hating them so much because my own thoughts and conversation keep getting derailed by their nonsense. Maybe I'm just a classist. Does the volume have to go up as the family income goes down? Why is every sentence punctuated with "n*" this and "n*" that.

Mark shook his head and gave a disapproving smirk, an inaudible tsk-tsk. He stood opposite me, holding the same pole, as the L Train passed underneath the East River.

"What're you smiling about guy in the green! Something funny!?"

Poor Mark. He had wanted to board at the front of the train but I had insisted on this position, calibrated for a perfect exit at my stop.

Then I compounded one mistake by making a meager gesture of defiance. To stand my ground or not show fear or protect my husband, I tuned back and stared. I looked some of them in the eye and didn't look away. I still didn't know which delinquent had been the shouter.

Nothing happened. I turned back to look at Mark.

"What're you lookin' at tall guy! Yeah! I'm going fuck you up. Seriously. What the fuck does he think he's lookin' at?"

I thought for sure they would get off at 1 st Avenue. There are still pockets of those neighborhoods that are poor enough for these jerks.

The taunts continued, through third avenue and onto Union Square - where Mark gets off the train to go to work. It didn't escalate, but remained a banal, persistent menace.

"Get off the train with me here and change cars. Please." Mark is often the most practical person in our marriage.

At the Union Square stop, we got off and quickly kissed goodbye. We ran back a car and passed the conductor. Mark held the door open so I wouldn't miss it. As the doors separated us, he waived good-bye. The L train all but clears out at that station so I had most of a bench to myself.

Should I do something? Tell the conductor maybe. That could be a whole other thing. They'd call the police. Could I even pick any of them out of a lineup?

The train stopped at 8th Avenue, the end of the line. As I walked out, I glanced back at the offending car. Those same kids were sitting there on the idle train as it waited to go right back where it came from.

Above ground, I sent Mark a text message to let him know that I had arrived safe. He worries.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Crap Generosity

"You've got to be more giving!" said Tracy.

I laid on the massage table, cradled to my left side in the fetal position. I turned my head over my shoulder to watch my own feces travel across a clear tube - no more than a few inches in diameter - behind a small clear pane. I felt like I should have waived good-bye as it passed by my window.

"You've got to be more generous!" Tracy loves poop, or more correctly the total elimination of it. She runs the M.A.R.C. Holistic Center on Spring Street.

"How many of these do you do per day?" I asked.

"Maybe ten."

"Seriously."

"Yes. It's very serious." Her voice had a subtle lilt to it of the Caribbean or some such balmy island. "I was studying medicine in college when a friend of mine died of constipation. The toxins built up and poisoned him from the inside. So I changed my focus and studied massage and colonic. People hold on to all this shit. If I can help them release all this crap that they hold on to, it can change their lives. It can lighten your mood, improve your skin, give you energy. You'll see."

She stood up and started to rub my belly very hard. Tracy is a bodacious lady. She used her full strength to loosen the inside of my colon from the outside.

"You're being stingy. Look. Do you see that? It's gas. You're full of hot air!" She made herself guffaw with that one.

I groaned. The pressure and pain indecipherable but total and overwhelming.

This first session (in my package of three) happened just before Christmas. Giving this year had become a task list rather than an act of kindness or love or appreciation. Maybe that was my own fault because I wasn't "giving." So preoccupied with myself, everything I was taking in was not entirely coming out, agitating my guts. As for Tracy, I didn't know how to give her was asking for. I didn't know how to trigger my body into releasing.

"Come on, come on. You can do it," she coaxed in a soft voice.

So I tried to stop doing anything physically. Thinking about "release" and "letting go" I suddenly felt the pressure drop out.

"Look. Now you're giving. I knew you had it in you!"