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My home break, Kalama’s, can sometimes get moderately big waves, and these past few weeks it’s been getting exactly that. My days are punctuated by spontaneous runs down to the beach, usually at some bizarre time like 5:30 am or 11:50 pm. The waves are soft and hard at the same time, and I throw my body into them like one throws themselves off a building. The impact is strong, but satisfying.
With the summer months being hot and sticky, the distance to the beach has gotten shorter. Most times it feels like the only logical place to go as I walk around the house or the city sponged in sweat. Sometimes I bring my boogie board, but usually I just run down in my swim suit and nothing else. Sometimes, even less than a swimsuit. The impulse to cartwheel into the water is at times too strong, so I just swim fully clothed.
Once when I was 10 my uncle took me to a place called Pyramid Rock to surf. The beach was off the Kaneohe Marine Core Base; we drove through guards and past boxy grey barracks. Pyramid Rock was a beach for short boarders and what my uncle liked to call, “spongers,” which meant boogie boarders. The waves were large and the current was strong. The water was deep blue, an indication of the depth. All along the beach people’s bags, fins and boards lined the sand–no one was tanning.
I put my fins on that I’d purchased at Goodwill. They were practically new; they was a high quality brand and fit perfectly. Boogie boards in hand we walked together and swam out through the shore break. As he caught the large waves, about 6-7 foot faces, I floated over them as best I could. But then there was this wave. It didn’t look as big as the others, and no one else seemed to want to catch it. I kicked my fins and pushed the nose down hard and wiggled myself onto the wave.
The boogie board slipped down the slope with such speed and mobility that I temporarily lost my head. I couldn’t think about anything else. The acceleration from my kicking to the speed of a six foot wave behind me. Needless to say, I kept moving forward instead of turning with the wave and I crashed into the white water. I felt like I was going to drown, the wave was pulling me down so hard. I panicked, lost my air, and gasped like a fish with snot running down my face when I surfaced. Immediately, another wave came and my head dunked down again. When I surfaced the second time, I vaguely heard my uncle yelling something to me.
“Stand up!” he was screaming.
I stood up, and to my surprise the water barely came up to my hip bones. I walked calmly to shore with my board in tow and collapsed onto the sand, panting.
He’d had one job, in high school, though if he were honest he’d admit that it was his dream. He was an ice cream man. He never really understood how he got the job, but he scooped and drove and rang the bell like no other. On the job, he proudly wore a vintage suit he’d found at Goodwill for five dollars. He felt as though this is a how an ice cream man should be—well dressed, kind, benevolent, and jolly. The kids used to come running down the block to line up for him and he’d play games with them in the baking summer months as the melted cream ran down their sticky faces. He remembered all their birthdays.
Once, he had come down his usual corner and no kids were running toward him.
“Stevie! John! Xander!” he had yelled his favorite’s names and rung his bell.
Xander and Stevie walked out from behind one of the houses and invited him back. It turned out that Stevie’s family from China–her entire family–were visiting and there was a huge party in their backyard.
He’d gone back, eaten way too many crab legs, and just listened to the fast paced Chinese being spoken around him. Of course he couldn’t understand a word, but somehow the jokes were still funny and the stories still sad, and he’d sat there just absorbing the energy and the sounds.
Then he started getting too popular, and kids from the surrounding neighborhoods would come to his route. They told him stories of the other ice cream men, who were cruel and sharp tongued and had once, Billy told him with real tears in his eyes, ran over his cat and laughed. He didn’t believe this, because he believed in ice cream man honor, and he knew that young children sometimes made up stories and forgot that they weren’t real.
However, his views on his fellow ice cream men began changing one morning when he came to the ice cream truck warehouse to unplug his car and get started. Someone had unplugged his electric cord, the one that kept the ice cream cold and hard.
“What the fuck!” he’d yelled.
“Hah, looks like da guys are playing tricks on ya. Did y’do anything to piss ‘em off?” the manager inquired.
He’d brushed it off as a one-time episode but that entire day he couldn’t help noticing the vicious glares from the other ice cream men as they passed each other on the intersections. Images of Billy’s dead cat flashed in his mind.
The next morning as he was pulling out of the warehouse he felt a firm tug on his truck. Upon inspection, he’d found that the electric chord was tied around his tailgate.
“That coulda killed ya!” the manager had exclaimed from the dark shadows. “If that snapped you woulda been fried! The entire trucks metal. Death trap.”
He’d lived his life upon the virtue of ice cream man honor. He’d had faith in the ice cream man honor. But an ice cream man had nearly killed him.
He was almost murdered by an ice cream man.
So he left and never came back.
The voices in the street were loud, as if the dark houses and smooth pavement served as some sort of echo chamber. Laughter. It was brief but jarring as a car door slammed and they walked down to the beach access. There were other noises, whispered voices and forgetting-to-whisper voices…nothing clear or with any kind of message. I closed my eyes and pressed my head against the pillow.
One in the morning, I lay in bed after hearing a car park in front of my house. I heard the laughter and the voices and the slam and the footsteps. Then darkness collapsed on itself once again and streetlights lit up swaying palm trees for no one. It was silent.
I recognized the voices easily. Not that I knew the specific owners of the voices, but it was more that I knew the answers to the questions that the voices posed.
I knew because there have been moments when my voice was released and the sound waves bounced and danced against still houses. The car doors had slammed and we walked down the empty street laughing at nothing. The wind blew softly and I remember noticing the plumeria tree was filled with more flowers than usual. The sky was clear.
It’s a heady feeling knowing the rest of the world is asleep. On the way to my apartment, we used to stroll through the intersection to watch the light turn red, green, yellow, then red again. Once the hush fell and the monkeys in the zoo sent their last cries throughout the park, the ocean was loud enough to hear.
And then there’s the final stumble and giggle when the final destination is reached. Home, with sandy feet or smoke and sweat drenched body, I used to listen to the memory-dense space in the whisper hours, limbs spread out on a sheet-covered air mattress.
The distorted street voices I understand clearly. Each outburst of night laughter I know the source. Those people, the only ones awake in the entire world, I recognize. I can pretend to be asleep and not make a noise or turn a light on, if only they promise to do the same for me.
1.
The number four bus, the bus I take, smells like the armpit of a seventy year old fry cook. It’s by far the sketchiest bus that I’ve ever taken, filled with twitching people, homeless people, old people, costumed people, and me. Sometimes I wonder where I fall into place in the great universal measure of sketch.
2.
“Hate is a lack of imagination.” –Graham Greene
On the bus I once sat next to a mentally disabled boy. Throughout the ride, he would alternate between relaxing his entire body on me and leaning his head on my shoulder. I felt a bit violated. Anger and resentment filled my stomach hot as I subtly tried to nudge him away.
I don’t like being touched on the bus by strangers even more than I don’t like being talked to on the bus by strangers. So, sitting there on my two by two foot brown square seat, I hunched and fumed.
“Hey, hey. No snuggling with strangers,” his mom chided. The mentally disabled boy shifted his weight for a second and then dropped back down.
But this time it was different. His mom’s word choice—“snuggling”—pricked my imagination. I noticed his bare, gangly arms huddled against my shoulder and I imaged how cold he must be on the air-conditioned bus. I imagined his day and what he ate for breakfast (a banana and raisin bran).
When his mom pulled the “stop requested” cord, he lifted his head from my left shoulder and took her hand. They weaved through the standing crowd. I watched them until the bus turned the corner and they were out of sight.
3.
I scribbled: “Deep down I want to be persuaded just so the actions can be explained, and I can sit here nodding before walking away. Not so deep down, I’m scared of my unanswered questions.”
It’s funny how this poem is a lie, I thought to myself as I looked out the greasy bus window, how it’s easier to regurgitate generic sentiments than tell unflinching factual truth. The dawn was breaking, and the doors slammed loud as the bus stopped and accelerated.
It’s true though, the part about lying. None of the passengers look any different from each other. There are Hawaiian shirts on the businessmen. There are averted eyes, hunched backs, pages turning, thumbs glancing off iPod spin wheels. Fat plastic watches on skinny prepubescent wrists.
It’s not that they wear the same exact clothes necessarily—there are no generic personalities—that would be ridiculous. But it’s the shifting eyes that give it away. The Roxy t-shirt girl checking out the Oneil shirt girl checking out some one else. There’s a sense of fear. I know because I’ve felt it. Everyone wants to fit in sometimes. We want to look the same, move the same, think the same. It’s so innate and strong that it’s downright primal. We are as birds flying in triangles, climbing onto buses and off buses and into the sky.
4.
My favorite part about going over the Pali every morning is that moment just before the tunnel. The bus moves with such momentum that I feel like I might hurtle off the cliff any second. I’ve thought about contingency plan after contingency plan, usually when it rains so hard all I can see is fuzzy grey rain-static. Would I want to be under the seat when it crashes? Or should I float to the ceiling with the fall? Do call my mom in the seconds before death?
5.
A fat girl was on the bus in front of me. She smelled like Longs perfume and her hair was thick, curly, and wet. It resembled a mass of black seaweed clinging to a boulder. Her body took up two seats, her thighs over flowing into the aisle. Two stops after I got on, she pulled the stop requested cord and got off. As the bus powered away in great lumbering turns, I saw her light a cigarette and lower her weight onto the bench.
6.
Crack head Santa sat behind me on the bus today. I was in the first row, window seat; he was second row aisle. With his brown tipped full beard poking through the hole between our seats, he leveled his head with mine and turned to look at me. His jacket, maybe six inches away from my nostrils, smelled like Santa had indulged in some ganja and had maybe spilled a forty on himself.
I wondered if there was a rehab center on the North Pole. I imagined their high squeaky voices saying, “Hello, Santa.” I bet he started drinking after Tim Allen played him in Chris Kringle. That was horrible. He’d probably get drunk every Christmas eve and then do some speed (just to be safe). But he really started hitting the hard stuff once Cinnamon the elf showed him how much cocaine looks like snow. A couple of lines of “snow” and he’d be merry for the rest of the night.
But that couldn’t continue for long. One day, as she was mending his best suit, Mrs. Claus found his stash sewed into the fluffy ball in his hat. She kicked him out that night. Every Christmas eve since she’s been putting on a fake beard and making the rounds.
Things weren’t so good for a homeless, drugged out Santa on the North Pole, so he moved south—to Hawaii. No one recognized his traditional outfit and it was warm, the most logical location on the globe. When Santa couldn’t afford his “snow”, and when crack prices got cheap, he got himself a real pipe and cut off his red velour pant legs. He’s made his home camping out on the stoop of “Paintballtopia” in Maikiki.
I pulled the stop requested cord and took one more look at jolly Santa: eyes rosy and cheeks shiny, he winked in my direction and promptly passed out against the window
Today in the mail I got my first ever debit card. It was shiny and bright, and a little bit cold, with the MasterCard insignia and a shiny platinum oval with the word “debit” on it. My mom sent it to me last week Thursday. She had told me on the phone about how she spent the day going to the North Shore with my Step-Dad and picking up her new car, and then laying on the beach where the TV show Lost was filmed. I imagined her sitting at the café near Mark’s work, drinking a latte in her bathing suit under her favorite Capri jeans and a white shirt, tucked in, with her red Converse high tops. I miss her smell.
As soon as I got the letter, I looked at the handwriting that was as familiar as my own. The curving letters brought on a familiar feeling that I couldn’t quite place. I felt the hard rectangular outline of my new card inside the soft, off-white envelope.
I whipped out my card and immediately sprinted upstairs to show it to my Auntie Angie and Uncle Dave.
“I just got my first credit/debit card!” I yelled.
“Are you sure it’s a credit/debit card? It’s probably one or the other,” Dave asked.
“But it has the MasterCard logo on it, and I can use it as either in the stores,” I told him eargerly.
“Can you use it when you have no money left in your account?” he asked.
“Um. I’m not sure. I’ll ask my mom.”
“Do you mind if I look at the paper work?”
In the end I found out that it was indeed a debit card, and not the illustrious “credit/debit card” that I thought it was. My sudden impulse to shop, however, was not dampened.
“This is a new, great start in the world of finance,” Dave assured me.
Earlier that evening, after a dinner of pizza and lemonade, Angie had discussed my seven year old cousin Matt’s own leap into the world of finance: he was going to open his own lemonade company, and charge ten cents a cup.
“He should charge twenty-five cents,” Dave had argued, saying that, “it’s the going rate of lemonade.”
Over the remains of the pizza dinner, Angie said, “Matt is always asking me if he has a hundred dollars in his bank account. But he thinks about it as if there were a stack of a hundred dollar bills in Matthew’s pile, and a stack in front of Mom’s pile…” she gestured up and down, indicating the imaginary stacks of green money Matt lusts over.
Matthew is obsessed with the concept of a hundred dollars, and this obsession was heightened after he peaked inside my wallet one day to see my hundred dollar bill.
“WOOOW!” he had shouted, lengthening the “ah” sounding syllable in the word “wow.”
Ever since then, he’s been asking me whether I would give him my hundred dollar bill if he gave me a hundred ones, or if he gave me a ticket to Disney land, or if he gave me one of his baby kittens. I tell him that sadly, I need my hundred dollar bill in case of an emergency and that kittens are usually free.
“Aww man,” was his solemn reply. “So if I have change in my lemonade stand, will you give me a hundred? Wait, can I tell you something? What change do I have to give you, ninety cents? What change do I have to give you?”
“You have to give me ninety-nine dollars and ninety cents.”
“I don’t have change for a hundred, but I might have change for a fifty. Ok, hold on one second. I need to go ask mom if I have change for a fifty. Because I don’t have change for a hundred. But I might have change for a fifty. What change do I have to give you for a fifty? Because I don’t know a lot about change and stuff.”
“You have to give me forty-nine dollars and ninety cents,” I told him.
“Ok, I’m going to go ask mom if I have that. Hold on,” he said resolutely.
“I don’t have change for a hundred and I don’t have change for a fifty. But I have change for any other dollar bills that you could give me…So when you give me money for a lemonade, what dollar bill will you give me? A twenty?”
“Sure, I’ll give you a twenty, if you give me change.”
“What change do I have to give you? Ninety cents and what else? I have enough money in my bank account for change for a hundred, but not in my bank.”
“You have to give me nineteen dollars and ninety cents.”
“So you give me the twenty, and I give you the change. Let’s shake on it.”
“Did you fart?” I ask, sniffing suspiciously.
He looks sheepish and darts his eyes back and forth. “No, I didn’t,” he tries to look innocent.
“Are you sure? You have your lying face on.”
“I SWEAR!!!” he yells. “So I have to give you nineteen dollars and ninety cents for the hundred?”
“No, for the twenty,” I tell him.
“Ohh yeah,” he says. “I have a hundred dollar bill in my bank account. But guess what? I can’t open it until I’m eighteen. I’m serious.”
I tell him I believe him.
“I don’t want to wait until I’m eighteen, it’s SO far away. SOO far.”
“You’d be surprised at how soon you’ll be eighteen,” I assure him.
A little while later, out of the blue, Matt says, “If people bought infinity glasses, I’d be a millionaire.”
This surprises me, and for some reason I see a huge pile of bright orange Raybans.
Then I thought I heard him say, “No, I don’t really need them.”
“What was that?” I ask.
“You know what the two things are that I really want? I want a stack of hundreds, and a stack of fifties. But I tell myself, no I don’t really need them. Then I tell myself, yes I want them. Then, no, I definitely don’t need them. Money doesn’t need anything to me. No I REALLY NEED THEM, money is great I love it! No, actually I don’t need them, money is not good for people, it just buys stuff. Yes I really need the money! No, I don’t… That’s what I’m like.”
“Matt,” I said to him, “you are not alone.”
So today in the car, Matt was asking Angie how much money he would get if a certain about of people bought lemonade.
“How much money would I make if ten people bought lemonade?” he asked eagerly, and I could almost see the dollar signs swimming in his eyes.
“You would make a dollar,” Angie said.
“And how much would I make if a hundred people bought lemonade,” Matt shook his head with excitement in the way that only kids under 8 can do.
“ Ten dollars.”
“This,” Matt said, “is getting fascinating.”
So, thinking of Matt’s wise words, I fingered the smooth plastic of my golden debit card.
“This,” I whispered to myself, “is getting fascinating.
|
Your 1996 Theme Song Is: 1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins |
 Shakedown 1979 Cool kids never have the time On a live wire right up off the street You and I should meet |
On a whim this morning, I decided to do this quiz. I got a decent answer: Smashing Pumpkins. I suppose I would have preferred Radiohead, because I <3 Thom York. But alas, what can you do?
The nineties. Wow. That was a long time ago. That was when I may or may not have worn denim overalls. And that is something that my dear readership will never know/see the pictures that I’ve burned.
I remember my first day of school. My mom took me into the classroom and I walked in feeling like everyone had done this already. Like it was only my first day and everyone else had been here a week. I guess that’s how we all feel at some point in our lives; that everyone else has it figured out. Later, with age, you gather a wide array of wisdom and knowledge until you finally come to the conclusion that no one knows that the hell they’re doing. Funny how it works out, isn’t it?
In Pre-Kindergarten (two years before Kindergarten) I was a proud member of a global gang called the “Kissy Girls”. We were a bunch of neo feminists that decided the playground’s class ceiling needed to be broken. We wouldn’t take any more sexual abuse from the males who loved to kiss and run. We would reclaim our SLIDE!
The gang was made up of the toughest, smartest, and prettiest bunch of four year olds that Hawaii has ever seen. Our plan of action was this: run up to boys, kiss them, and run away. Complexity and depth were innate in our philosophies, obviously.
I started off running ground work, but eventually made my way up pretty high on the totem pole. Of course, secrecy was essential, and though I was a leader of the group, I never knew much of the history until much, much later.
It was only a few years ago that I found out Angelina Jolie used to be a fellow Kissy Girl:
‘I was a member of a group called the Kissy Girls…I created a game where I would kiss the boys and give them cooties’
Story of our lives.
[I wrote this article for the newspaper, but it's interesting so I'm reposting it here]
In early April at the Ihilani Resort, the Blue Planet foundation had a 3-day Global Energy Summit, where world leaders, energy experts, environmentalists and artists discussed the environmental problems we’re facing today. They explored the answers to the essential questions of our energy crisis: where do we need to go? How quickly? How should we get there? They plan to make this an annual collection of events that, according to their website, will “celebrate achievements, and inspire people around the globe with the power of human imagination to solve our energy challenge.”
The imminent environmental problems challenge our earth require a unique and unparalleled global response, making it necessary to put aside our partisan biases and come together to address these problems. Blue Planet foundation’s summit is a forum that will aid this need. The hope is that Blue Planet will be able to provide a platform for cooperation across interest groups, industries and national boundaries, and help create a new vision of the way we create and package energy. Their goal is to inspire a “global commitment to change” and the realization that the responsibility for the implementation of change falls equally on all of our shoulders. “Most of all, this will require a new level of communication, understanding, tolerance and trust, and a belief in new possibilities.”
The afternoon after the Blue Planet foundation had their last speaker, Bobby Kennedy Jr was lounging on the deck of a friend’s sail boat, relaxing in the Hawaiian rays and gazing out at the ocean. As one of the speakers himself, and as a man who has a passion for saving the environment, Kennedy had a lot to say on the concept of the summit: that Hawaii has the potential to become a sustainable model. “Hawaii has extraordinary natural resources,” he said. “Solar, wind, tidal, otech, biomass, everything. There’s no reason why they need to ship oil to the islands. Hawaii is the only state that’s still using oil as a major energy source. There are a lot better choices.” He turned his eyes to the horizon, his brows furrowed and eyes passionate.
Kennedy gave the example Iceland as a country that has benefited from almost complete switch to sustainable energy. With an unemployment rate of 1% and an extremely healthy economy, Iceland has gone from being one of the poorest countries in the world to one of the richest. They’ve also switched from being 100% oil dependent to 89% geothermal dependent. Consciously making the choice to be sustainable, Kennedy says that they have demonstrated how switching to environmentally sustainable energy resources has spurred economic growth. Hawaii could follow in their footsteps. He believes that sustainable energy usage gives space for entrepreneurs to make money and provide jobs that benefit the environment, but also benefit the economy.
But isn’t sustainable energy more expensive than oil? “It’s not,” Kennedy insists, shaking his head. “Sustainable energy is actually cheaper.” The difference is made up in subsidies: the seemingly cheap price that we pay for oil is all because of the tax dollars that went to the oil companies through subsidies. So, when the hidden taxes are revealed, oil is more expensive.
It also doesn’t help that ex-oil company executives have suddenly been reborn as politicians. And when lobbyists are wooing their way around checks and balances, it makes it hard for any honest and good change to happen in environmental policy.
What should we do?
“Take the oil companies by storm! Run for the hills!” he smiles playfully. “No, we need to take our government back.”
For the final project in Ideas in Western Literature, two friends and I assumed strange roles/characters and rode the bus as these characters.
The characters were as follows–
The stuffed animal girl: Emily carried around her stuffed animal on the bus, cuddling it.
The laughing girl: This was mine. I started laughing very loudly and animatedly at Hamlet.
(I’m not laughing in this picture, but I was for most of the time…)
The crack whore girl: Jasmine dressed up as a crack whore (using my pajamas) and stumbled around Chinatown and on the bus.
***
What if you were on the bus, and some weird girl started laughing erratically? What would you do? Would you feel out of your comfort zone or unconsciously deem what she was doing abnormal? This is what we’re testing: comfort zones and the concept of normal behavior, or the code of social norms. We’re observing the reactions of people on The Bus to slightly skewed behavior.
There are several different points of view to look at this cultural assumption from. The most obvious is from the perspective of the observer of the odd behavior. When does the observer consciously detect that something isn’t right? Does the observer ever feel endangered by this erratic behavior? Is it a defense mechanism to feel ultra aware of people behaving out of the ordinary? Then you can look at this idea from the perspective of the person doing the strange behaviors. Do they realize they’re doing the strange behavior? Is it a conscious decision to be different from the normal?
Why does the observer react at all? We’ve narrowed down three main reasons: fear, curiosity, and discomfort. We received reactions to our behavior that fit into all three of these categories. There were the people who chose not to sit next to us because of how we were acting (fear), there were the people who exchanged amused/conspiratorial glances with other passengers and who looked at us with interest (curiosity), and there were people who looked away consciously and tried to neutralize the situation (discomfort).
What we were hoping to explore in our social experiment was normalcy. What is it and how did we disrupt what is generally considered “normal” behavior?
Our dialectic explores this question and others.
L: Hamlet hid behind the mask of his seeming insanity, and in the same way, we hid our own “normal” personalities behind our characters. And, like in Hamlet’s court, the people around us reacted to the craziness immediately. There were no suspended judgments of character, and despite our attractiveness and youth, people reacted negatively towards us. This implies that we are judged by our normalcy. Who we are inside doesn’t matter, neither does what we have all done with our respective lives, what only matters is whether we laugh out loud, etc on the bus or if we sit quietly and be normal. The consequences are obvious: if a person wants to move through live with the most ease, they need to behave “normally”.Out of the ordinary behavior is not rewarded by strangers or society.
J: So, what constitutes normal?
E: I would say that whatever people have seen repeatedly throughout their lives is what they think of as “normal.” An assumption I had going in to this project was that, because you always see crazy/weird/sketchy people on the bus, we would not invoke many reactions – yet we did. So, I think that what was really “abnormal” in people’s views was the fact that we were young, healthy looking girls acting this way. If we had been crusty, middle-aged, homeless looking guys, it would have still been “normal” to everyone to witness “abnormal” behavior from us.
J: I mean, every single person has a freaky or sketchy side to them somehow. They look normal, but inside they might have secrets… problems…fetishes, etc.
L: Maybe we all hide our freaky selves to try and be normal, but in actuality we are all like that.
J: If this is true, then how did society end up formulating the idea of “normal?” How did we all agree on what normal is? Is there something instinctual about it?
E: Well, in different cultures different things are considered normal. I think it develops as a result of survival issues. For instance, it’s not normal to invade other people’s personal space, because that is instinctively viewed as a threat.
J: I think we can see from our experiment that bizarre behaviors trigger a flight or fight reaction in people.
E: Yeah, because the black woman you accidentally kicked wanted to fight you! And when you were a mangy crack addict, people wanted to… flight you.
L: And there was that woman who kept moving away from Emily, and the man who didn’t want to sit next to her… it seems that more people wanted “flight” rather than “fight”!
J: In general, people reacted defensively, whether by wanting to run away or wanting to fight against whatever it was that was upsetting them.
L: But most people just wanted peace. Few people wanted to shake up the atmosphere.
J: I think they didn’t want confrontation, exactly.
E: That kind of brings us to our connection to Sartre and his idea of “hell is other people.” People dealt with uncomfortable (hell-like, one might say) situations because they didn’t want confrontation.
J: People are afraid to step out of their comfort zone, even if doing so will ultimately bring them more comfort. We didn’t only see this in other people’s reactions to our experiment, but on our own side as well. When that woman on the country express wanted to scrap with me, I kept pretending I didn’t speak English. It would have been way out of my comfort zone to tell her to leave me alone, or to ask for help.
L: You just ignored it – you hid behind your character, kind of like how people hide behind a fake “normal” exterior.
J: But I avoided confrontation because the situation was dangerous, not to appear more normal than I was.
E: so in your case, it was fear and/or a concern for personal well being that prevented you from trying to do something about it.
J: Yeah. And in that case, her behavior was not “normal” because it was so confrontational.
L: Maybe normal behavior is just neutral behavior, in that case. It isn’t normal to show strong emotions or emotional reactons.
E: And that fits in with our survival instincts idea, because revealing your emotions is kind of a weakness, I suppose…
J: I’ve got another example of how our society’s collective idea of what is “normal” has roots in our survival instincts…. we feel the need to find a mate, therefore we try to make ourselves attractive…preen, if you will. That’s why, when you see a “crusty” or unhygienic person, it isn’t “normal.” We base so much on appearances.
E: I think that makes sense. Even though in today’s modern society we may seem far removed from basic survival stuff like that, everything we have has all grown upwards from those concerns. Anything that’s “weird” to us is upsetting because we fear it will disrupt the natural order of things, like the circle of life, or the chain of being. (Like Scar killing Mufasa, or Claudius killing Old Hamlet, for example!)
J: Take our goth girl experiment idea. Society has this idea that girls are supposed to be soft and delicate. When goth girl dresses tomboyishly or imposingly, she challenges the gender boundaries and thus makes herself seem generally uninviting.
E: And she seems that way because people are alarmed by her upsetting the chain of being or the natural order of the world. Because she doesn’t seem to be fulfulling her… biological function.
***
J: What doesn’t make sense though, is that if everybody has a strange side to them, normalcy really can’t be defined.
L: It’s not about the “strange” sides of people, though. It’s about what they present to everyone else. I think we could agree that we all have aspects of our true personalities that are strange, but the reason they’re still abnormal even if they’re common is because it is not acceptable to display these aspects openly. Kind of like, we have all these latent urges, but we don’t act on them.
E: Yeah, that is the interesting thing… basically, we’ve concluded so far that “abnormal” and “normal” are constructs of society formed from basic survival instincts: avoid anything potentially dangerous so you won’t get killed, appear alluring to others so you can… procreate. But then why have we developed ideas like… having sex in public isn’t normal? Because the constant drive to propegate the species is about as natural/survival instinct as it gets.
J: Well there’s also… culture
L: religion, piousness….
J: That all wraps it up in different packaging.
L: Our instinct may be to have sex, but… we’ve been raised to go with abstinence instead?
E: So it seems that some boundaries of “normalcy” do not stem from biological/survival instincts, but rather from our attempts to rise above those things.
J: Basically, memes!
L: Memes fight against instinct?
J: Not necessarily…memes coat them, I suppose. I don’t know how to describe it.
E: (Now I have this weird image of a meme coated instinct in my mind. It looks like an ice cream bar…)
J: I guess what I’m saying is that survival instinct may be the core of what defines normalcy. But memes have encased it and given it guidelines and rules. I think that, aside from our instincts, each individual is built up of other things that form their unique personalities…whether these are forged through nature or nurture, I do not know. But these variables interact, and this is what creates culture; people agreeing upon ritual and tradition, because we need to interact with one another safely.
E: So… culture / “normalcy” is basically the compromise between… survival instincts and human memes?
J: Yeah. And different cultures find different ways to channel their instincts. For example the Mayas and Aztecs: their idea of protecting their existence had evolved far beyond cavemen using weapons. They moved on to the spiritual realm, and engaged in human sacrifice, because they thought it could protect them from the wrath of the gods. Now we look back on that and think it’s sick, because in our modern society, we’ve evolved and come up with a new vision of how to protect ourselves and how to interact. But that is constantly changing. We can look back at our American history from a few hundred years ago and be disgusted by the fact that we had slavery – that is not “normal” now. And even if we look back a hundred years or so, we’re horrified at segregation and the fact that women couldn’t vote – again, that’s no longer a normal state of affairs. So hopefully, societies of the future will look back on us and be disgusted that gay people couldn’t get married in the same way that we are scandalized that women couldn’t vote until the 20th century.
” “The Irish don’t know what they want and are prepared to fight for it,” said British attorney Sidney Littlewood. I don’t endorse that assertion, since it’s an offensive ethnic stereotype, but I do want to borrow it to create a cautionary message for you. Please make sure that in the upcoming weeks no one can say to you, “You don’t know what you want and yet you are prepared to fight for it.” I definitely hope you aggressively champion an idea you believe in or a dream you care about, but you should get clearer about what exactly it is. “-Free Will astrology
What do I believe in?
To conceptualize my beliefs makes them seem less real. Inside of me, they run through my blood and my adrenal system like fire, or occasionally they just blend in and saturate me. Do I really know what they are? Can I define them with words?
Yes, but no. As soon as these beliefs leave my skin, they turn to plastic and with words loose their meaning.
My challenge is to find a way to stop this. My challenge is to learn how to express what’s complicated and what’s seemingly inexpressible. Because it is expressible, and once I can, I will have come so much closer to knowing myself. Then, I’ll know what I want, and I’ll fight for it. Or maybe once I know, I won’t have to fight anymore. Maybe there really is no fight.
But until then, the search for the perfect word combination is on.
THE DISSERTATION OF LINDSEA…to be continued indefinitely.
Sometimes it helps to make lists of things that you have to do in the coming weeks, so I decided that I’d give that a try and make a tidy to do list.
Books that I have to read and projects that relate to them:
Hamlet- write a thesis paper on Hamlet (the title of my paper: Are those boobs real or fake? Seeming versus being in our modern culture)
Handmaiden’s Tale- write a book report-esque paper exploring any theme I choose.
Unvanquised- just read it
Franny and Zooey- just read it
Great Gatsby- write literature circle papers every week, paying special attention to the different scenes, the characters, and lexicography.
Faulkner’s short story collection, and various books on Faulkner- write a paper and have a presentation ready for the class the week of class.
Projects:
I. French projects-
- Listen to the audio version of Around the World in Eighty Days and record myself reading a chapter of it, paying special attention to pronunciation and inflection.
- Film myself making a French meal, and explain on camera each step (in French)
- Write an in depth paper on a character in Indochine, the classic French film.
- Prepare a response to 10 questions on a previously given list, and be ready to answer any two of these questions (orally), plus a question not on the list
II. American Literature projects-
- Get a 20 minute presentation ready to teach the class about Faulkner.
Tests:
AP U.S. History- A four hour long college board AP test, which includes a multiple choice objective exam, two free response essays, and one document based question.
Math- On Monday, a smaller test ranging 4 chapters, and then the next week, a quarter test.
French- A French quiz on Tuesday.
American Literature- Reading quizzes every week on the Great Gatsby.
And then objective final exams, the week of 27-30th:
Math
French
To combat my stress, I asked my tweeps about what would help. Here are some of the replies:
“Tea.”
“Booze?”
“Kavakava is good for stress, meditation, exercise…many things help stress.”
“Combating Stress: Engaging in Flow, Physical Activity, Proper Diet, Meditation, Medication, various vices I wouldn’t recommend.”
“Exercise, prayer, meditation–all ways to combat stress.”
“I use essential oils. Lavender is infamous for that among other things.”
“Oiling and lotioning, lotioning and oiling… smiling. I can’t take this no more!
-Sandlot (1993)”
“Sleep. Keeping busy. FRIENDS. Dance. Helping others. Cleaning house. Removing the root cause (I’m serious, and it can usually be done, if not easy). Hugs. *offers you a warm and friendly hug*”
“Valerian, skullcap, hops.”
“Aerobic exercise 20-30 mins, 2-4 times per week…it really does help.”
And my own personal antidote: Blast Iron and Wine and then watch this theatrical masterpiece on youtube (fast forward to 3:24 for the best song).
