PLOT OF SOIL
We have a small plot of soil in our otherwise plant-and-sod-filled backyard. It was asked whether or not we’d like to put some flowers or bushes there. Immediately, reflexively, I said no. Why was I drawn to this empty space of black nothingness? Because it is a relief to me; it is one less thing I have to take care of, to tend to. To look at it is to catch my breath.
POTATO CHIPS
When I eat potato chips, particularly the crunchy kettle kind, I find myself looking through the bag for the good chips. Somehow a good chip is one that is extra thick looking, and curled onto itself or folded, as opposed to straight and flat. It is a treat, a victory, to find a really good chip and pluck it from the bag. The thinner, straight, or broken ones aren’t nearly as pleasing.
PRIEST
I was at the coffeehouse and debated whether or not to take my backpack (with wallet) into the bathroom with me. I noticed a priest a couple tables away, so I left it.
See also: Wallet, Stolen
PRISON ESCAPE MOVIES
I love prison escape movies: watching the plan unfold; seeing how they sneak each other things when they’re out walking in the prison yard; watching them make tools out of spoons and gum wrappers and pen caps; tricking the guards with a dummy body in the bed. They can’t make enough of these movies as far as I’m concerned.
PROFOUND
There appears to be a string of seemingly profound messages that have grabbed me along the way. The messages may differ in form—aphorism, quote, song lyric—but what they all have in common is that each promoted an embracing view of life; each elicited an immediate yes! feeling in me, which I in turn felt impelled to share with others; each ultimately lost its juice; and each new crush made me feel embarrassed that its simplistic predecessor had actually felt so deep. I believe the first up in the parade was a charm necklace I received when I was about thirteen. It read live love laugh. I liked the cadence, the three one-syllable L words, but mostly the terse, wise command. What more is there? I thought. Live, love, laugh—that’s it. The next one I can remember presented itself to me when I was twenty, during a summer internship at the ad agency Ogilvy & Mather in New York. I was doing grunt work in the research department. I cannot recall the specifics, but what is vivid is this: There was a passage in a packet I was given, no more than a paragraph or two in length, which jumped out at me and aroused a feeling of This is what life’s about, we have to tell people, this is the perfect thing to base an advertising campaign around! I highlighted it, attached an emphatic note, and then placed it on my boss’s chair. I was sure that I had saved the day, that I had unearthed some incredibly valuable insight that would have numerous reverberations around the office. When it went unmentioned for a day, then two, then a week, I came to terms with my miscalculation, and felt red-faced and small, tricked by my own naive, impressionable self. And it goes on. Mid-twenties I was infatuated with Kierkegaard’s “Life must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards.” Age twenty-eight, doing freelance copywriting for Adidas. Listening to the Indigo Girls’ song Watershed. With sudden clarity, I was positive that the chorus was anthem material, and I was jazzed by the idea of imparting this message via a running-shoe commercial. When you’re learning to face the path at your pace every choice is worth your while. My grandiose mission was squelched by a polite Okay, uh-huh. And today, at this marker on my existential grid, my philosophical and spiritual capacities intersect in such a way that I am a prime target for—and unabashedly moved by—this Pueblo verse:
Hold on to what is good, even if it is a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe, even if it is a tree which stands alone.
Hold on to what you must do, even if it is a long way from here.
PURPLE FLOWER
There is a single purple flower a couple feet from where I am sitting. I am feeling poorly dressed and missing my long hair. I am at Café De Lucca in Bucktown, and there is a purple flower—that’s how I would define this moment. And you, your moment? Where are you at this moment? E-mail me and tell me. If you are the hundredth person to do so, I will bake you a pie and FedEx it to you. You will have to trust me on this.
Q
Q-TIP
Inserting a Q-Tip deep into your ear is a great, undiscussed pleasure.
See also: French Fries
R
RADIO, SONG ON
When I’m trying to find something to listen to on the radio, and I come to a song I can’t quite decide on—say, a certain Elton John tune—I quickly, subconsciously, check to see what station is playing it. If it’s on 93.I—WXRT, Chicago’s coolest-without-trying station for as long as I can remember—the song is in my mind vouched for and sounds better, it has a certain sparkle. Bouncer: You with WXRT? Come on in. Conversely, if I see the call number is 93.9 (Turn on the Lite, the Lite FM), the song’s worth and appeal are instantly and drastically diminished merely by its being affiliated with that which feels humdrum and lusterless, and I move on.
RAIN, READING A FAX AND WALKING IN THE
The girl was walking in the rain, reading a fax. The fax had just come in and she was eager to read it. The fax was quickly becoming wet and flimsy. The girl knew she should just wait the ninety seconds until she got to the coffeehouse, where she could read it without the threat of it becoming a soggy, illegible mess. Instead, she kept reading as she walked. It was a good fax, interesting, exciting even. She thought, This might be the fax that changes things somehow. I might always remember this moment in the rain, reading this fax, knowing that this was the exact minute when I realized something powerful had just happened. Then she thought, I am being overly romantic and dramatic. I want this moment to mean something, I am putting all this into the moment, I have concocted something out of nothingbecause it is raining and the fax is getting wet. It is a highly visual moment, yes. But perhaps nothing more.
See also: Meaning
RAINBOWS
If rainbows did not exist and someone said wouldn’t it be cool to paint enormous stripes of color across the sky, you’d say yes, that would be very cool—impossible, but very cool. Children are totally tuned in to the miracle of rainbows—that’s why they are forever drawing them. There’s even something divine about spotting a tiny rainbow in a puddle of water or a splotch of gasoline. Oh, look! A rainbow! It would be nice to have some universal ritual connected with rainbows, along the lines of stray penny equals good luck, and car with one headlight equals, say, piddiddle/make a wish. Maybe: See a rainbow, eat a sugar cube. Or see a rainbow, put a dollar in a jar; then when you leave home at eighteen, your mother sends you off with your rainbow money. A friend once told me a story about how he was going through his five-year-old son’s backpack and he found a picture of a little boy standing under a rainbow crying. His first thought was, Oh God, my son is having some serious problems. When he asked his son about the picture, he told him that he had been playing at school and he saw a rainbow and it was so beautiful that it made him cry.
RAINY DAY
A rainy day comes as a relief. Rain is your pass to stay inside, to retreat. It’s cozy and safe, hanging out on this side of the gray. But then the sun comes out in the afternoon, and there’s disappointment, even fear, because the world will now resume, and it expects your participation. People will get dressed and leave their houses and go places and do things. Stepping out into the big, whirling, jarringly sunny world—a world that just a few minutes ago was so confined and still and sotf and understated, and refreshingly gloomy—seems overwhelming.
REARRANGED FURNITURE
There’s the buzz you get the first few times you walk into a room after you’ve just rearranged some furniture. Oh, yeah, the couch is over there now, next to the plant … and the chairs are here. This is great! You linger in the doorway and admire it for a few moments, savoring its exciting freshness (it will be two or three days before you’re accustomed to it), remembering how it used to be, and how this setup is so much better.
RED GINGHAM TABLECLOTH
Certain vestiges from your childhood have a sort of holy status, even if they’re the most ordinary of items. For example, at my parents’ house, I am comforted instantly by the sight of our red gingham tablecloth, or the pair of large yellow scissors, or even this one certain pan.
REJECTION
If I’m looking for a parking spot and I mouth to the person who’s sitting in their car, you leaving? and he vehemently shakes his head no, I take this as a personal rejection.
RETRIEVING MESSAGES
The phone rings. I answer it. It’s Jason. He was calling to get the messages from the answering machine. I say call back, I won’t pick up. We hang up. The phone rings, I answer it. I forgot! I forgot! I say when I hear his voice. We hang up again. The phone rings. I almost, but don’t, answer it.
RETURN CALL
If you do not call back, for a brief time I will think nothing of it. But soon I will wonder. Then I will become frustrated. I will toy with the idea of calling you again—perhaps you did not get the message. I will try to refrain from making this second call, retain my pride. I will feel angry every time I retrieve my messages without finding one from you. I will imagine I am not in your good graces, or that I am thought a fool by you, or that you are indifferent to me. I will feel blue. And then eventually I will forget about the whole thing. You will then call back, saying you just got back, you were out of town.
See also: St. John’s Wort
RETURNING FROM JOURNEY
We are back from France. I am here, yes, but there has not yet lost its hold on me. Baguettes and beaded ankle bracelets and light blue shutters don’t yet feel six time zones and an ocean away. It’s really something, to return home after a month away. It would seem that the world should have changed in some way, as if to say, out of courtesy, We understand your journey was illuminating and significant, and because it affected you so, the universe, too, is making a slight but noticeable shift: Chairs will now have five legs, people will walk sideways, and raindrops will be seven percent larger and pinkish in color. Alas, no welcome-home motorcades, no new shades of rain. But then again, is it not enough that I had the experience, and that the neighbor’s dog has learned to fly?
RETURNING TO LIFE AFTER BEING DEAD
When I am feeling dreary, annoyed, and generally unimpressed by life, I imagine what it would be like to come back to this world for just a day after having been dead. I imagine how sentimental I would feel about the very things I once found stupid, hateful, or mundane. Oh, there’s a light switch! I haven’t seen a light switch in so long! I didn’t realize how much I missed light switches! Oh! Oh! And look—the stairs up to our front porch are still completely cracked! Hello, cracks! Let me get a good look at you. And there’s my neighbor, standing there, fantastically alive, just the same, still punctuating her sentences with you know what I’m saying? Why did that used to bother me? It’s so … endearing.
RIGHT FOOT
When Paris was little she would ask me, Mommy, is this shoe on the right foot? and I would glance over and say, Yes, Paris, that’s the right foot. But then, a few seconds later, she would ask about the other shoe, and is this the right foot? as if there were another option. Depending on my mood, it would be either really irritating or really charming.
ROCKET SCIENTIST
If someone tells you he’s a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon, you naturally think he’s being sarcastic. A rocket scientist, ha-ha. It will take you a moment to correctly read his expression and realize, Oh, wow, he’s serious, he really is a rocket scientist, how cool, how … weird.
ROSENDAL
Every time I go to my neighborhood cleaners, the owner, a friendly Chinese fellow, greets me with a loud, staccato “Rosendal!” Not Amy, not Amy Rosenthal / Rosendal, just Rosendal. I was wondering why this always makes me feel good, this odd but enthusiastic greeting. And leaving there the other morning it hit me: It reminds me that I am part of a team, a unit, a small urban tribe of Rosendal. It downplays, in a very refreshing way, my individuality and ego and Amy-ness, and instead emphasizes the five-member pack I’m a part of. We’re the Rosendals, the mighty, mighty Rosendals. Go, team.
See also: Dry Cleaners
Dry cleaning ticket.
RUNNING INTO SOMEONE
You run into someone you know and stop to chat. Then someone else you sort of know comes along and stops to say hi as well. It turns out that this second person knows the first person you were talking to. The second person says to you, How do you guys know each other? You briefly explain, oh, we used to work together, or our kids go to school together, whatever. Turns out the first and second person are pretty good friends. You then have to leave, so you say good-bye to them both. As you walk away, you fantasize/hope that they will turn to each other and remark on what a fine person you are, isn’t it funny that they both know you, and then continue for some minutes exchanging flattering tidbits about you.
S
SAFIRE, WILLIAM
I look at William Safire’s On Language column in the Sunday New York Times Magazine every week and think, I should read this, this is about the English language, this is relevant and smart and useful, and I do like words. And then I turn the page.
SAMPRAS, PETE
Jason relayed to me that someone on the train told him he looked like Pete Sampras, and that he responded, Well, I wish I had his income! In the retelling of this to me, he said the well, I wish I had his income part in a self-mocking way, shaking his head and shoulders ever so slightly, altering his voice, making it lower and kind of singsongy. Standing there at the kitchen counter, I knew we were both totally visualizing the scene, him retorting with that well, I wish I had his income doozy. Jason and I presume we are the kind of people who are above those kind of prosaic comments, who understand that it is a completely pedestrian thing to say, and yet there he was, saying it. We laughed about it for several minutes, really, really laughed—so hard, in fact, that I was conscious of my face distorting. And just when we stopped laughing about it, we started again.
SANDWICHES
I love but am very particular about sandwiches. I dislike pumpernickel. I dislike thick, doughy bread, such as focaccia and sourdough. Pepperidge Farm Very Thin Bread is my ideal. The sandwich must have mayonnaise. I like and fully appreciate a well-put-together gourmet sandwich, but I also love the sandwiches at gas stations, tightly wrapped in cellophane, with the wilted lettuce.
SANDWICH IN TRASH
A friend told me that a former colleague of ours was retiring, and that there had just been a big farewell party for him. As he told me this, all I could think about was the time I realized that he (the retired fellow) took a half-eaten tuna sandwich out of my garbage can at work and ate it. This was like six years ago or something, and he was a nice enough guy, yet the one and only identity imprint I’ve retained is this image of him salvaging and eating the thrown-out sandwich. I recall feeling both grossed-out and incredulous. It was revolting, sure, but he ate it with zero self-consciousness or detectable shame/meekness. He didn’t but just as easily could have patted me on the back and said, “Man. Great stuff you got in your wastebasket, Amy.” I hung up the phone with my friend and realized that this unfortunate recycled-tuna episode was fossilized in my brain like a leaf in stone.
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE
I’m riveted watching the ending of Saturday Night Live. The guest host thanks the cast, says how great it’s been working together for the week, then they all wave good-bye and start chatting, mingling. They’re up there for a good thirty seconds or so, as the closing theme song plays, and it’s certainly in their best interest to appear happy and sociable and generally un-awkward like, but I would think they must be miserably self-conscious. I watch closely to see who’s chatting up the host, who is sought after, who looks left out just standing there waving and looking for someone to talk to. I would like to ask them if they dread this whole routine, or if they’re fine with it.
See also: Cla
pping
SENSITIVE
I was having a nice chat with Justin about being sensitive—he had been feeling bad for a friend, and it was really throwing him. What does sensitive mean exactly? he asked, and I tried to explain it to him as best I could: Let’s say you see someone crying, and you don’t even know them, but you kind of catch their sadness, it somehow jumped into your heart, and this makes you understand a bit how they feel. Or it can work the other way—someone says to you, hey, Justin, nice hat, and they mean it in a fun, teasing, playful way, but you suddenly feel wilted, you can’t seem to laugh it off, that’s also being sensitive. I was telling him that he had always been tremendously empathic and sensitive. A moment later I put on my new Christine Lavin CD and it started skipping, over and over, on the word sensitive. Sensitive. Sensitive. Sensitive. I turned it off, pressed Play again, and the skipping was gone.
SERVICE CALL
Carolyn speaking, may I help you?
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Page 12