Month: January 2014

Essay: On being called a perpetual adolescent.

Last weekend, someone referred to me (and Matt too) as “perpetual adolescents.”  The description didn’t seem to faze Matt, but for me it was an arrow that shot through me and sunk the rest of my weekend, leaving me alternatingly angry and upset.  I’m not sure what aspect of my life they were referring to, but there are many things they could hang that comment on.  I chalked it up to not having any children, but it might be that I haven’t married my boyfriend or that I work 32 hours per week instead of 40, or that I invested a master’s degree worth of tuition and living expenses in a job I haven’t been able to be hired for.  Or perhaps the fact that I refuse to buckle down and do what needs to be done to get said job, because I can’t imagine anything more lothesome.
So yeah, there’s a lot about me that could be construed as adolescent. Including the fact that I haven’t gotten around to saying to the person in question, “hey, what did you mean by that?” and “You know, you really hurt my feelings.”
But here’s the thing about my life.  I chose every single bit of it.  I don’t have children because I have never wanted them and I have a feeling that lack of wanting would make me a less-than-adequate mother.  It’s possible I would rally and be outstanding, but I’d rather not stake someone else’s life on it. I’ve known people raised by disinterested parents and it’s not a good situation for any of them.  I’m not married because I don’t see the point.  I’m committed, he’s committed and the social structure allows us to be together without signing papers, so for now, no marriage.
I work 32 hours per week because my job allows me that freedom and I would rather have the eight hours to do other things.  I take a hit financially, which means not really ever having a vacation, but aside from the mortgage and student loans, I can work 32 hours, live debt free and spend more time doing things I enjoy.  The fact I’m not a teacher rankles me, but again, I’ve chosen there too.  I could move away to a city or town with more teaching opportunities, but I love Portland and would rather be here and not be a teacher than to be a teacher any other place.  I don’t work as a substitute because it’s a job that calls on things I don’t really like to do, and has nothing of the teaching things I do like to do.  I make my choice every year.  I’m not going to sub.  If that means not getting a teaching job, then so be it.
Though there are aspects of my life that I don’t like, I’m thrilled I got to have a say in how my life is lived. That hasn’t always been the case for women, and it’s not the case for women in some parts of the world today.  A generation ago, I wouldn’t have been able to live with my boyfriend, would have had trouble getting credit in my own name and (depending on how you define generations—my family tends to reproduce rather slowly) had trouble getting birth control.  Before that, I probably would have married and married early, even before I finished college as my father’s sisters did.  Before that I wouldn’t have been able to own property, or vote, or live on my own.
In the movie Pleasantville, two 90s-era teenagers are transported to the bucolic TV town of Pleasantville where they both go about wreaking havoc on the ideal setting.  There’s an exchange of dialogue I love.  It takes place after things are starting to change in the town.   The basketball team doesn’t always win their games, the books actually have words in them and people have started thinking about places other than Pleasantville.  Margaret, the girl from Pleasantville, asked David, the boy from the future a question.  From the script:
MARGARET
               So what’s it like?
                               DAVID
               What?
                               MARGARET
                       (a whisper)
               Out there.
        She clings onto the words like they could transport her by
        themselves. David thinks for a moment.
                               DAVID
               Oh. I don’t know…It’s different…
        She leans forward.
                               MARGARET
               How?
                               DAVID
               Well it’s louder…And scarier I guess…And…and a lot
               more dangerous…
                               MARGARET
               Sounds fantastic.
Margaret’s longing for that other place, where things aren’t safe and easy, resonates with me.  I could have gone down the path that was clearly marked for me:  college, marriage, job, children, etc.  But some of those choices didn’t click with me so I went in another direction.  It’s possible to construe my life choices as adolescent, but I see myself as fully adult.  I’ve supported myself since leaving college, I save for the future. I stay informed of issues, vote, pay my taxes and volunteer in my community.  And what I want for people in this world is the ability to be able to make their own choices about what is right for them, just as I have.

 

Back to the early twentieth century

I spent a year without a watch, figuring I would be like everyone else and just use my phone to tell me the time.  But you know what?  Sometimes I just want to know the time by flicking my wrist toward me and glancing down rather than rummaging around for my phone, finding the “on” button and pushing it.  There’s no way to do that in a non-obvious manner.  So welcome back Wenger watch!

Three sentence movie reviews: Meek’s Cutoff.

One of those movies were no one talks much, but man, is it tense in that way that you can’t really get around, just have to go through.  Michelle Williams plays it quiet and understated as a woman on the Oregon Trail.  Difficult decisions are made, not with the input of the women, of course, because who needs to listen to them?

Cost:  free from library
Where watched: at home

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/2011/meeks_cutoff.html

Essay: Marching Band part I

Note:  I’m going to spend a few weeks of the essays dredging up details of high school band because I’m trying to remember things that have sunk into some mostly forgotten part of my brain.  Feel free to tell me any of your band memories, should you be lucky enough to have them.

Also:  I apparently never finished writing this, so it just trails off.
It was in high school that band changed.  Before it had always been an elective, as in: “Are you taking band next year?”  At the high school level it became, “Are you in band?”  In junior high band, we were segregated by grade, travelling through seventh grade band, to eighth and then ninth grade band.  Eighth and ninth grade band got to practice marching by appearing in the holiday parade the week before Thanksgiving, but otherwise didn’t interact with the other kids in band.  In high school there was just one class with all three grades.  We were an activity, like student council in that we had a class all to ourselves during the school day.  We were also a group, like the sports teams, in that for part of the year we had practice outside of school hours.
Marching Band started off the high school band calendar.  Our practices began the same time the football, volleyball and soccer teams started their practice, about two weeks before school started.  I remember them being incredibly early in the morning, although I think we started at eight or nine o’clock.  Unless it was insanely hot, eight to ten in the morning was a great time of day, before the heat really kicked in.  The football players had two-a-days the first week of practice, so they were there with us and then came back in the afternoon for a second practice.  I always admired the cheerleaders, who started early and were finishing up by the time we rolled into the parking lot.
The first day was usually all about logistics: getting the sophomores oriented, passing out the music, sketching out the plan for the season.  We had not very much time to learn music for both parade marching and at the same time start to work on the halftime show. We would begin to build the piece and have the first song done in time for the first game, and then build more onto the show as the season went on.  Mid-October was the competition, so that was our big date on the fall calendar.
As a sophomore, starting marching band was fairly overwhelming.  There was a lot of music to memorize right off including at least three songs to know for parades, plus the pieces for the show.  I wasn’t very good at memorizing and mostly floundered at this part of band.  Avoiding memorizing music—and the drummer boyfriend—were the main reasons I played cymbals the last two years of high school marching band. 
We also had to learn to properly march.  Our band director was nearing retirement, having been at my high school since the early 1960s.  By the early 1990s he was still a fairly cheerful guy, although a bit stooped in the shoulders, and he was happy to shepherd us through the high school band experience.  We called him by his initials, JP, rather than Mr. Perkins. 
JP had done his military service in the Army band and would now and again encourage us to go in as a musician if we were joining the services.  The reason being, according to him: “while the other guys are doing pushups, you will be doing this” he would say, wiggling his fingers to mime playing the trumpet.  An aside: I told that story to a friend who had gone into the army as a musician, and his reply was.  “Yeah. Unless there’s a war.”  So beware.
JP loved to teach us to march, especially the “roll step” that was necessary to carry out the smooth maneuvers on field and parade route.  A good Roll Step involves placing your heel down and then rolling to your toes which minimizes upper body movement.  He also liked to drill us on marching, especially at the beginning of the season when there was more time in practice.  We would begin in a big block of people and started off in step while a drummer beat a steady beat.  Then JP, or the drum major would call out the changes, “forward march” “right face” “left face,” “mark time” “halt” while we attempted to follow them as an entire group.  People who messed up stepped off the field and watched while the group got smaller and smaller until there were only a few.  

Three sentence movie reviews: Lord of the Rings Extended Versions of The Fellowship of the Ring, Two Towers, Return of the King

Really, there are three movies, so there should be nine sentences, but they all blurred together into a very long movie.  I found that a lot of the bonus content was not necessarily necessary, but was mostly interesting.  And I realized I hadn’t seen these movies since their release (it was a Christmas activity with the brother for three years running) so I had mostly completely forgotten the story, which made for pleasant viewing as it seemed new to me.*

Cost:  free
Where watched:  Laurie and Burt’s house.

*Also, I had completely forgotten the huge amount of eye candy, which made for a pleasant addition to eleven hours of viewing.

posters from:
http://www.impawards.com/2001/lord_of_the_rings_the_fellowship_of_the_ring_ver1.html
http://www.impawards.com/2002/lord_of_the_rings_the_two_towers.html
http://www.impawards.com/2003/lord_of_the_rings_the_return_of_the_king.html

LOTR Extended Editions

“If I were going to watch all the extended edition of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy in one day, would anyone be up to watching them with me?”  So the query was posted and so people replied in the affirmative and so the Lord of the Rings Butt-Numb-A-Thon came to be.
Laurie and Burt provided us with three meals which was good, because we were watching movies from 9:00am to 10:00pm.  Here was the spread for Breakfast.  We also had sandwiches for lunch and tacos for dinner.

And we begin.

And we continue.  And some of us discover that sitting on the top part of the couch is preferable to the couch.

And so it ends, and I take a picture of the liquids that got me through my day.  Tea in the morning, water through the day, hot chocolate to get me through the last two-hour stretch.

I confess, I didn’t really know what I was signing up for, and it was rough going in the middle*, but I’m proud to say I did it.  There were nine of us (if you count Lily the dog) who watched all three movies.  We should get tattoos.

*I actually left to feed the cats simply so I could get up and walk around.  I even did lunges, my legs were feeling so dead.  Since I stand at work now, I really never sit down for long stretches any more.

Three sentence movie reviews: The Italian Job (1969)

Yet another “why not?” at the library that turned out to be an excellent view.  It’s speedily plotted, it’s funny in the small details and you get to see those cute minis driving around Italy.  It also has the best ending to a heist movie I’ve seen in a very long time.

Cost:  free from library.
Where watched:  at home.

poster from: http://www.impawards.com/1969/italian_job.html

New Glass!

My Aunt Carol has been on a clean and purge streak and boy, did I win.  Do I want the cactus glasses that were my Great-Uncle Tom’s?  Yep.  Do I want the cocktail glasses that were my grandmother’s?  Yes ma’am.
Uncle Tom’s cactus glasses. There were 12, but I’ve learned that they don’t stack well, so now there are 10.

Grandma’s cocktail glasses, which would be even more amazing if I had put them against something white, so you could see the fabulous color.

They have these pretty roses etched on them.

And this is fabulous.  It has a glass stir stick and I love the shape.  Plus, the cups stack.
And now I must purchase something to contain all this glassware.

What we still write and mail in these modern times.

Judging from the amount of shelf space devoted to thank you notes, one can extrapolate that the only thing people hand write and mail anymore are thank you notes.  This is a shelf at Target, where I had a gift card.  Maybe I will get some stationary, I thought to myself.  I was excited to see the huge selection they hand and then, as usual deflated to realize that 90% of the offerings are thank you notes.  Grrr.