Am I Conservative?

I just drove in my big, buckskin colored SUV to a free parking space in a historical downtown to make my fortune by writing on my shiny laptop and researching on my shiny iphone in a wood and chalk coffee shop peopled by hippies, hipsters, and factory hands.

I came from my second job as an art sales assistant.

My mother is a democrat, my father is republican.

The evidence adds up quickly to “who knows.”

In that second job, I chatted with Rob, who I had never met before. I've been working there for three weeks. He was concerned as well.

“I've been working here 35 years, and this year, I think I got four checks.”

The economy is rough for art. Indeed, why would you buy art when you could spend that $4,000 on a new transmission and two month's supply of food for your children? He asked how I got this job at the art store, and I told him about Peace Corps, and waitressing, and wanting something worthwhile to spend my time on. I expanded on the audience for Peace Corps memoirs and essays (small but diverse: think Chicken Soup or the Volunteers themselves) I bad mouthed Occupy Wall Street. I threw around the word “entitlement.” I may have said “bulshittery.”

I mentioned my shy involvement with the democratic party.

He said, “You sound more like a conservative than a liberal.”

“Maybe, but at least liberals take the stance that social choices should be made by the individual. Not that there should be policy concerning them at all in the first place. Maybe I'm a libertarian.”

He nodded his head above his all natural bone and hemp necklace.

I was waxing idealistic to a completely unknown audience... He looked like a hippy. Was in an art store. Art + Store.

“Maybe you're transitioning into conservativism,” he offered, “You sound like an old Democrat.”

I have no idea what that means. I know these parties parading before us today are perversions of all sorts of ideas and historical ideals, and duels.

“There is no moderate party,” I accused. Lamely.

When we walked out to my car, him carrying a big chinese peasant print my mom had just dropped $144 framing, I opened the door for him, and he put it in---right on top of my copy of Atlas Shrugged and collection of Trader Joes eco-friendly bags.

This is my physical evidence.

Conclusions pending.

Kiddo Gets Fit

The Family lives on a swank little swathe of country club land. This means they belong to a very swank little resort. The resort has become the site of Kiddo's first individually-compelled effort at toning her muscles.

That's right. When Short Round and Smoothie get up for school mornings, I get up too, dress in various combinations of super tight clothes and super baggy clothes in an effort to look like I know what I'm doing at the gym.

What I do varies. Super Sister tells me, and has shown on every occasion she visits, that this is how it should be. Mixin it up not only keeps you from exquisite bordom, but also allows muscles to heal in the time when you rip up the others. Also, says Super Sister, you don't want to wake up three days in a row after an ass kicking, bar raising work out and need to stay in bed.

Luckily this stint of working out is less about rebelling against my own determination, and more about hanging out in the spa section of the resort. The gym is near the * * * * restaurant and Starbucks. Down the end of the hall though, are a pool, hot tub, sauna, showers with rock bottoms, ambient music, no other people – it's what I'd design my own bathroom to be like if I had a place to live and money to spruce it up.

As it is though, I just try to avoid the other people traipsing through my dream, and get my body to look better naked. Kevin Spacey said it first, jogging and weight lifting is just to be hotter, don't let anyone fool you.

The couple who show up at Magical Gym Land most often try to keep me from this magical zen mindset. They don't do it on purpose, but do it, they do. I don't know if they are there just to look better naked themselves, or if they just wanna spy on me and the other machine pushing fools.

Our interactions, between 7am grimaces at my smiles, boil down to two incidents.

1. We arrive at the same time. The day my key card loses it's magnetism. I've actually already had it demagnetized by the time we collide at the gym door. It doesn't take on the first try though. Bugger. I smile. “Why don't you let me try, honey.” the lady says without even a silghtest bit of friendliness in the phrase that begs for a mothering sort of tone. The man glares at me.
   
   Whatever. We all get in, and we have a treadmill each. I take the most exposed one, near the door. I see this as a gift to them. If any judgemental dicks walk through the hall, it's going to be my undefined cankles that receive derision.

2. I'm walking back from the pool, and just about to pass the gym on my way out when who should finish? The Man and The Lady. They aren't too red or sweaty, but they have Resort Towels around their necks. I think they look like the aging characters of Tender is the Night.
   
   The Lady sees me and tightens her mouth. “I wonder where,” The Man starts, “that girl --” He doesn't finish. Lady rips his arm down and points violently back at the gym door “Oh! Honey! I think I left something!” and she runs off. The Man continues not seeing me, but walks after her “what? What did you leave, honey?”

   
   I smile, knowing I've made it into their life sitcom. I see them again outside, they are getting into the Lexus sedan which they have parked in the 15 Minute Parking spot right under the awning of the resort. You know, that place where valets would be standing if it were a party night.

Yep. It's a fun time. Super Sister is proud of me though. That may be a first. I'm glad to have a trainer like her, and soon I'll be able to chat with her like an intelligent human being – I found The Complete Book of Running for Women in a closet somewhere in the house while scouring for orphan socks.

Who knew.

Separation of Church and Schedule

My sister, Short Round, and I went out this afternoon. It is a Sunday. In this the most civilized of all possible realities (USA) one tends to assume things of the convenient miasma known as suburbia.

As you may guess from the red levels of chagrin in my tone, we were let down. Indeed. Stores in this the most protestant of all possible countries are closed completely, or close early on Sundays.

The religious aspect leads to an obvious fact. Short Round and I went to browse and spend money on vinyl. The Record Store is in a nearby town Catlinsville. Catlinsville is music and church based town with wide roads and no train stop. The roads are large enough that it could be four lanes. Extra lanes are converted to metered parking. Store fronts are stone or brick

with engravings to say what they were at first blush. Its origins were clearly from rich people.

Rich people at that time were quite well to do. Well to do people go to church. Catlinsville is full of churches. Thus, everything closed on Sundays.

In contrast, Algernon City was the first American town to sport a train station. Termination in fact. Steam came first here. We are self-made workers with an ethic for chiselling out the cliffs to make room for our row houses. The only church in town is where Babe Ruth got married. Everything is open on Sundays.

No records, but I did find a super-cool mini top hat with back-flung veil in Algernon's very own Fairy Store.

Jimi Colored Glasses

As discussed, music can alter moods, and self-aware people can therefore self-medicate. Today's suggestion: Make a life soundtrack.

If you were the star of a movie depicting your life, what music would back it?

I'd have Howard Shore xylophone solos of poignancy, Michael Nyman piano concoctions for romance, Dead Weather and Crystal Castle cacophonies for kill scenes, and my personal favorite cover of all time:

All Along the Watchtower

by the immortal

Jimi Hendrix

for the ramping up of a quest. In my head I have a bow and arrow, knives in my boots and there's a shot of me climbing a cliff and pull/leap over the lip to face the penultimate foe.

I don't know what my final clash song would be, because I don't know what that clash will consist of. Also, who knows what sort music will exist by that time?

Music will make a dull life feel super-cool. My life is often Edith Piaf Pink. Winters in Moldova were propped up with Fine Frenzy yellows and tempered with Joni Mitchel blues. But today I'm going with Jimi Jimi Violet – violence in favor of productivity and a better immediate place in which I can slide back to a Thom York melange.

Leaves

As all residents of the deciduous world know, it's fall. All the trees have given up ever seeing Persephone again and cast themselves to a righteous death in the humus. If they are given their due, we will all have richer, darker, spicier soil in the new year. Bring on the snow to pack them down.

Or.... not....

Suburbia is many things. Nature friendly is not one of them. Not being a fan of nature, I quite like the manicured world of green lawns and quaint little rain garden caches of shrubbe

ries and flowers that possibly match your shutters.

The nature we allow though, is still relentless. The trees we planted in the 50s and 60s are now towers of kindling, waiting to smother our emerald expanses. They are so looming in fact, they mock all attempts to tidy their droppings. Rake an 8' x 20' expanse Monday, another Tuesday and a third Wednesday, Monday's oblong is already tawny again.

Thank Thor for leaf blowers and the minimum wage shmucks who know how to operate them. You can hire one or two to corral the several tons of leaves in the gutter out front. Then take them away. Good golly do they ever.

This swath of town is blessed in an 18 wheeler with a vaccuum the size of my own human girth off the back of it. Suck, suck, suck... all nature's passive aggressive war: gone.

Or...

Nope, one week later, right back where the oak gods want us—carrying away their offal.

Hopefully, soon they'll be out of ammo, and we can anticipate the sweet blankets of snow for our next holiday. I don't thing snow blowers, though, pack up and leave with such panache.

The Hunger Games and other Phenomenae

Phenomenally huge cultural stuffs (read: makes it even in Moldova) have to bunches of people I don't respect. Snob? You bet.

This is not to suggest, however, I do not think the things themselves valid. They are emotionally heavy-hitting, without fail, and I am all for that.

So, Titanic, blues, grunge, Black Beauty, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo---bring it on. My heart strings like getting tugged. Where I start having true problems with it is if it goes over the edge (Catcher in the Rye) or if it is honestly just tripe (Twilight).

Meaning I approach it with skepticism. The Hunger Games I have been mincing around. My lovely lady friend Aubergine finally shoved a copy into my hands last night to keep me warm while she put her two year old to bed.

This book is a reason to have faith in the masses. Though people slog through thousands of pages of feminine angst about whether or not to be a vampire, they will flip over and come up breathing genuine dystopic sci-fi that smacks of Cormac McCarthy and Orson Scott Card.

You just never can tell with hoi poloi.

Gospodina Americanka 2

I would like it to be known that I am a classy broad. I like nothing better than prancing around in high heels, drinking a Manhattan, maybe have a full coverage halter apron on over some frilly dress, and eat microwave bacon on a rainy morning.

A morning such as this, the 15^th of November, you ask? Why, indeed. Coming off the Atlas Shrugged high, and working nights, I gotta do my drinking far enough before work—the morning. As it turns out though, that new-fangled “white whiskey” (neither new nor fangled really, but a reincarnation of poor man whiskey: moonshine) no way compares with true rye for taste.

Why did I use the weird clear whiskey in my Manhattan? Because the rye I bought was gone. Vermouth and cherries still stand, so it seemed like a good chance for experimentation. It went awry, DO NOT assume that because it's called whiskey it tastes the same. Moonshine is moonshine. A is A. No matter how you market it, those years in casks bestow more than color upon the liquor.

Point being I don't just drink stuff to drink stuff. I drink stuff because it tastes good, and it lends an aire of horse race to my laundry strewn morning.

Why exactly am I dressed up for the laundry? The drink is for glamor (in it's strictest sense) but the outfit is for practice. I say I like nothing better, but anyone who has known me longer than 3 years will dispute the fact. I wore my sister's torn battle dress uniforms for years in college, and heroin addict sweaters in highschool. Heels never reached over an inch, even for prom. The biggest dress purchase was a $20 polkadot affair for a political dinner which resulted in my boob popping out in front of various senators and their wives. Strapless, never again.

So, Moldova strikes again. Two years of stilettos and praise of my child-bearing hips has given me a boost of rashness in the clothes department. Also, remembering the gorgeous orange stewardess mini-dress, and how I gave it to my hippy roomate before leaving... the remembering is a tragedy. I can't believe I did not save that. I was so occupied being buddhist and killing the things I loved that I didn't realize I might want to wear that thing again. Irony? You bet.

The design of the orange mini-dress is similar to this new thing. Instead of puffed sleeves, it's halter. Instead of orange it's cream and navy. The skirt is longer, but has a slit. It has a belt. The fabric is thick and porous. It is the tightest thing I have ever worn. It makes me glad I have been working out for a month or so. If my ass looks this big when I can run for 25 minutes straight, what would have looked like in September? Seriously, it makes JLo look like Twiggy.

But that's fine. I've seen Moldovankas working with less (or more depending on how you look at it). When asked, they reply that it doesn't matter what your body looks like, because you should always dress as beautifully as possible. Damn straight. Tuesday morning, here I am.

The tight dress shines up not just the largeness of my rump, but also the lack of rhythm with which it naturally moves while the feet are sabotaged by three inch heels. Ever wonder why Jack Lemmon described Marilyn Monroe's walk as “jello on stilts”? Golly, I had never figured why sexy walk were sexy until tarted practicing walking around my house looking like Betty Draper. I'm sure I come off more like the freshman stripper, but I also couldn't play guitar two years ago.

So, that's how I dress at home. As my sister, Short-Round, discovered. She just popped in between her school and work shifts to grab a jacket, and almost didn't notice, and when she did burst out laughing. This will be another embarrassing thing to bring up at Thanksgiving dinner along with the chocolate burning, orange picking, and organic milk drinking... boy howdy.

Personality Ruminations with No Conclusion

One's personality is fully formed by 13 or 14. We aren't even aware of ourselves as existent in the world, and we are already compiled. So what is it late teenagers are so busy trying to build with all their experiementation and phasal swapping? Goth to Preppy to Skank in 10 months flat, and whole wardrobes to prove it. I've seen it happen.

This didn't happen so much in Moldova. Teens all wore basic uniforms of tight clothes with excess zippers and uncomfortable footwear not suited to their muddy treks to and from school where they inevitably preen for each other then skip the rest of the day to sit at home mulling about what shiny combination to try on tomorrow.

They aren't aware of their personality, but are trying to find it? For the first time they are aware they have one, and need to learn to express it?

It's not that Moldovan teen personalities are any less diverse than American teen personalities, but they are a good deal less adamant about differentiating their expression from each other.

What is a personality made of? Habits, predicable reactions to situations. Choice in situation. Likes and dislikes. Preferences. Doubtless there are tomes dedicated to the study and reflection upon these things. What am I worried about? The idea that my sister may not realize that some things don't fit her personality, as we her family understand it. That we may say something like “Swearing doesn't suit your personality” and she'll think that we are either damning a part of her that wants to swear, or we are damning her desire to grow as a person.

Which leads me to how much can we, do we, grow after we first become aware of ourselves? How long does it even take for us to become fully aware of things about our personalities? How long can some people hide from their personalities?

So, a person must experience many things to know how they naturally react, and how they may wish to react instead. What they actually like, and actually dislike. You may only “dislike” snails because you saw one crushed on a rainy morning sidewalk, and therefore never try them at a french restaurant. Or, you try them and discover, correctly, one way or another.

This leads into a problem: Opportunity. Opportunity is a massive limiting factor in people's personalities. No matter what you MAY like, you might not have access to find out. This starts showing up in unfortunately stunted groups of people, for all sorts of reasons. Poverty is pretty obvious. Cliques are less so. Limiting factors there are just as present, but they are not out of actual neccessity, but out of social pressures. These stuntings, do they make people feel edgy and trapped, or safe? If you dislike cages, the first, and if you have a natural disposition for indecision, then your personality need not form further. Well done, you've reached a place to stick.

Expletives

• Syntactic expletive, a word that performs a syntactic role but contributes nothing to meaning
• Expletive attributive, a word that contributes nothing to meaning but suggests the strength of feeling of the speaker

Usually these come in the four letter variety, and offend little old ladies and christian hipsters. Usually, but not always.

Substitutions, Battlestar Galactica's ever witty “Frack” for example. Or the clever little teens and their “frick” or “freak.” Just because these words are not “fuck” does not mean they are any less degrading to use.

I went through a phase, as a teenager of course, where I wanted desperately to use the word fuck as much as possible. I wanted to insert it into every sentence until people no longer heard it. I thought it a noble cause. I thought, if I can make people not care about this word anymore, then it won't offend anyone and the world will be better. I was the picture of goody-two-shoes. Blonde, bubbly, hard working, drugless, mostly drinkless, flat shoes, virgin, listened to Gershwin and wanted to be a foreign service agent. I thought, shit, if I can swear as much as possible I will be a leading example of why swear words don't have to be so distasteful.

I thought, that is, that only naughty people used naughty expletives, and therefore the expletives were naughty. I did not think they were naughty because they cluttered up language and made listening to you more difficult.

I realized that when I moved to Moldova and had no idea what words like “dovedesti” meant, or many others I didn't bother memorizing because they meant nothing. They make language dirty. They make expression unclear. Expletives in English are so profuse that when you hear a person not using them, you think they are curt, or even rude.

Expletives can be words like, haha, the ever-present “like,” the over used “really,” “pretty,” “totally” and a dozen other adjectives that don't need to be used. Adverbs tend not to happen as much in speech as they do in writing, but they are just as annoying.

I've expanded my definition of expletive to include any word or phrase that makes my message unclear. My new goal is to eliminate them. It has taken me six years conscious effort to recognize them, but now that I do, I love Hemingway more than I thought possible.

Appropriate times and places for expletives: When a simple description will simply not do.

For example:

“I am scalded!”

just doesn't get the point across like

“Buggering Christ that is hot fucking water!”

or even

“Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck!”

In these situations, usually the cause and effect are obvious: Water + Hand = Pain.

Almost anyone can gather the leap in logic there: that water must be hot and that person must now be in pain. This leap is the same that poets try to imitate in their writing to get a point across more fluently. Therefore, swearing is actually the act of living poetry. Which grown up Kiddo quite appreciates.

Cutting them out reserves the impact they will have. Boy Who Cried Wolf sort of deal. If you shout “Goddammit” every time you stub your toe, no one will care when you say such things about slicing your thumb off.

In order for them to have maximum effect, however, one must cut the expletives out of normal speech. When they are dropped into normal speech, then the listener will know this sentence is important to you. This expression is more important than the last, or the one following. A normal speech expletive is designed to do this. If you use one it changes the context of the expression.

I just heard one of my favorite songs play in a Starbucks. There is one naughty word in it, but it is not an expletive. Here is a new train of thought. The singer uses “bullshit” to describe her art. She has a “bullshit canvas,” but because we are in a non-naughty setting it is changed to “pointless canvas.”

One of these phrases conveys anger, and one apathy. Since the phrase occurs right at the apex of the song, otherwise very smooth and pretty throughout, it is a shocking little tidbit. It is effective. It shakes the listener into realizing the singer's desperation to love or be loved. If the word is changed to something innocuous, the whole song is simply pretty and smooth, and nothing is realized.

The “bullshit” is key.

The expression is key.

If you go around trying to desensitize people as I did, you lose a major tool in your expressive arsenal. It's not that they are bad, it is that they are powerful. If you use them, use them with precision, because otherwise you sound like someone who does not understand power, and therefore are powerless. Powerless people get treated as such, and tend to have ugly trampled lives, so don't, MORAL ALERT, trample your speech into ugliness.

Feliz Navidad

Or

The Campaign for Taco Christmas

starts now.

The Nine Inch Nails Tailspin

Studies of suicidal whoevers reveal an upped listening to depressing music with simple beats. Similar studies of successful geniuses (genii? Is this word of Latin or Greek extraction?) show Mozart and bach were piped directly though the sonogram machine.

Meaning I will neither be genius nor suicidal. I listen to both. They don't even effect my mood. No, there is a new study:

The Kiddo Study of Existential Music Enhancement

Whereby when I am nervous I have to listen to something like Marilyn Manson to blow the nervous energy right out. When I am joyous it must be something I can sing with. When I am bored, something complex – a little fugue or bluegrass. When I am angry it could flip between various Goldfrapp albums (ie a smattering of genres to distract, expunge, and calm). W

hen I am concentrating silence is distracting, as is music I know pretty well and enjoy a good deal. It's a tricky balance. I have to like it, but can't know it too well or or too little. Like Best of the Beach Boys. I know it so well it flows through me without distracting. Or any stoopid little indie band I haven't heard yet, I'll like it probably, but know nothing about it – it will flow through like water and leave me free to think.

The best though, and the hardest to hit on the head, is the inspirational. When I

am being wholly creative the music must be as fertilizer to my little thought bubble seed. Often this results in my repeating a song.

Like last week, I listened to Closer by Nine Inch Nails 10 times in a row driving from Frederick to Ellicott City and the thoughts I had were sublime.

Yep. Considerations.... Choices. Informed choices for personal gain and enhancement. I recommend it.

Knitting and Other Hobbies

I am confused by things deemed girl activities and boy activites. Girl hobbies and boy hobbies. Why people buy into the segregation, or why they don't. Where the divide is between sociological and genetic say on the subject. Why some people are cool with being guys with girl habits, girls with guy habits, and why some girls need to actually BE guys to continue the habit. Where and how sexual attractiveness stems from these things. Are boys or girls more creative? Are boys or girls more active? Where is the divide between mental and physical activity?

At the end of the brain tangle I conclude that “Who gives a fuck?” and I carry on collaging, playing guitar, baking and reading comics. Then I see people everywhere buying into the segregation. I see it dissapate as chick soccer takes over the suburban world. I receive (not yet, but they are promised!) hand knit leg warmers from one of the cutest chicks I have the pleasure of calling friend.

Then I see another woman I adore confine herself to cupcakes and pictures of them and using the word “cute” as often as possible. I see fashion aprons springing up all over the place, and gourmet pastry shops taking over the coffee cup.

And then I realize, these are not things women are doing because it is that or be be

aten and shunned as unaccomplished. It is individual after individual choosing, in their spare time to create on their own steam something to give pleasure into their immediate surroundings. They are paid in approval, money and simple feudal trades (the leg warmers, for instance, I will pay for in Via coffee packs).

Etsy.com is the epitome of this.

It feels like the prudent side of third wave feminism, and is scary as heck to me, but it is also irresistible. Am I a product of my time, or do girls really just need tiny lacy things to make them squeal?

The Great TV Catch Up

Moldovan winters are like those experienced by Napoleon and Hitler in their respective bids for world power. This generally means hibernation for citizens. Usually active from dawn until dusk, Moldovans laze around the house and dig preserves out of cellars right before they eat them. No muss, no fuss. It's great. Maria loves it.

What this means for social time is negation. Socializing is cut to bare, bearable minimums away from televisions. A combination of high-speed internet and zero laws on downloading blends to keep savvy teens and the volunteers who love them up to date with just about any movie or TV show—if you don't mind it maybe being fuzzy or off center or in Russian.

Let it be known the following things can be in Russian and awesome and completely understandable:

Animaniacs

Ghost Rider
Leaving Las Vegas
Gone in 60 Seconds

• Anything starring Nicholas Cage

Tomb Raider
The Terminator
Jaws
American Idol
Dancing with the Stars

So, the things I saw, may be pertinent to culture, but are no way entertaining or life-enhancing. Except The Terminator. That's always good. Point being, coming home bombarded me with all the shows that the fam had seen and I had heard of distantly: Fringe, Chuck, Sex and the City, Dollhouse, Community...

At first I was unemployed, and then I got a night job. I pay rent in doing chores (as described) and have little else to do during the day. Picking up the gym habit takes an hour and a half (with washing included) and segues perfectly into laundry. Laundry and ironing take about an hour and a half. These things are static. So is the photo organizing project I picked up.

All my little hobbies and chores become centralized in front of the netflix hook-up flat screen, and whammo: TV Time Commence.

I can't get enough of Fringe. I can't get enough of Dollhouse. Sex and the City becomes stringent after 4 episodes, but I have never learned so much about women's problems. There are more documentaries than I ever thought possible for free, the academy has voted on some truly splendid movies, Sean Connery and Michael Crichton have made some truly boring movies (Great Train Robbery), and it turns out the Charlotte Gainsbourg version of Jane Eyre is better than the Mia Wachkowski.

It's kind of annoying that my family makes as much dirty clothes as they do, but it has afforded me a slice of enforced TV Time, without the misery of cold or the dicey implications of downloading.

Now, if only there were an activity I could do while reading, I'd finish Atlas Freaking Shrugged in a hot second!