Mouth Full of Marbles

That's what I sound like when I speak French. I learned in high school and college, never used it thereafter, and promptly forgot most of it, until I met and married a native French speaker.

Then, though I hardly knew it, I was headed deep into largely uncharted territories for most Americans - that of the Dreaded Trilingual. I rapidly re-learned what French I'd earlier studied, and have since made a consistent and continuing effort to refine and improve my knowledge.

My accent will never be Parisian - if anything, I sound like a very lazy Provencal who's spent the day at the dentist. Of course, in my head it all sounds absolutely perfect, but the synapses between mind and mouth leave something to be desired.

The next leap of language faith was Arabic. Spoken Arabic is dialect - there are similarities between all of them, but also profound differences. I decided to learn the way a child does - not by reading or writing, or even formal study, but by listening.

Very slowly, I learned some basic words. Through constant repetition, and learning what words meant, I began to string together short sentences, and I could hear where one word ended and the next began. It took me two weeks to master only one of the major vowel sounds in the language. Eight years later, I'm still working on the rest, and have the vocabulary of a precocious four year old.

There are definite advantages to communicating in three different languages - a breadth of expression, an "intimate" language to use around outsiders, and a deep appreciation of an ethos most easily expressed in one's mother tongue.

Because sometimes not everything translates.

Ou est les toilettes?

What are the most important phrases to learn in a foreign language? My pick for the ultimate is "where is the bathroom?". It's absolutely indispenable, for many reasons.

As a traveler, knowing how to get into the bathroom will not only consume you but, if you cannot properly communicate your need, will rapidly become your raison d'etre in no time flat. Most especially if you are drinking the local water.

Americans tend to take for granted their lovable western toilet. It's everywhere - from the most exclusive hotel to the lowliest & crappiest gas station it's still there, the silhoutte they know and appreciate.

One step into the Third World blows your conception of toilets all to hell. On my first trip in Morocco, we rode the bus [first class bus, for those who are keeping track] from Casablanca to Agadir - 9 hours of overland fun. It actually is a wonderful way to see and experience the country - the view of the county is definitely up close and intensely personal, as well as being very cost efficient.

At one of the rest stops, we alighted in a small roadside town with a marketplace and restaurant area. I gratefully left the bus to join the family in the selection and cooking of freshly slaughtered lamb, delicious by the way, served with the ubiquitous Moroccan mint tea. A better meal doesn't exist.

At the end of the meal, Mr. Fresh Hell pointed me in the direction of the toilets, clearly marked with a W.C. [water closet, for non-British.] I sailed forth with great confidence and was confronted with a classic "Turkish" toilet, i.e. a hole in the ground surrounded with a porcelain base embedded with footprints. No toilet paper to be had, but I had a bucket and a tap.

I can't record my facial expression upon exiting - I do know Mr. Fresh Hell was falling off his chair laughing, knowing I had essentially peed on my shoes and pant legs.

That was my first introduction to the alternate toilet. Needless to say, I got much better with further acquaintance and am extrmely proud to say that not only can I handle these toilets, I can do it while drunk and wearing high heels [the trick, which I'll give for free, is to roll up your pant legs].

Two things: don't forget your coin for the bathroom attendant [they take this very seriously], and tuck a small spare roll of toilet paper in your purse- just in case you find yourself in a section of Fresh Hell.

Dear Tourists:

I know, I know - New York is a fabulous city. I'm perfectly aware of this - after all, I live here. And granted, we like the money you spend here, so most of us try not to bitch too much about your presence.

But...it can't be too hard to follow a few simple rules. I realize you couldn't possibly be bothered to care about the teeny tiny folks you encounter during your stay here, but I have at least three impossible things to accomplish in two hours in locations a good twenty blocks from each other, and your inability to cooperate with these rules makes a) my tasks that much harder, and b) my teeth grind that much more.

So, without further ado, [and before I propel you through those revolving doors - hey, they're doors - they're not that heavy..jesus], here are the rules.

1. No congregating in packs on street corners to either peruse your map or decide where you will lunch.

2. No walking more than 2 or, maybe in certain spots only on 5th Avenue, 3 abreast down the sidewalk. This is simple traffic flow - if you are going to stroll leisurely down the sidewalk in a gang of 5 abreast, I will find a way to bump into at least one of you as I try to get by.

3. If you are struck dumb by the exciting thought of very tall buildings or sparkly lights on the second floor businesses that cause you crane your neck skywards in open mouthed amazement, do make an effort not to stop still. If you do, it is entirely likely I will plough right into you.

4. Try to adopt a more blase, world weary expression during your subway rides. Wide-eyed hyper-awareness and rapid blinking doesn't fit the tenor of the car. Also, step on and off the subway in a lively manner. Just because others around you are taking their own sweet time does not mean you're allowed to adopt their ways. They are natives. They already know the rules and just because they flaunt them, you cannot.

5. On escalators, even in large, busy department stores, the rules are to stand on the right and walk on the left. This tiny courtesy allows those of us with only 20 minutes to blow into Bloomingdales and make three crucial purchases the means to do so.

6. When you return home, tell all of your friends that New York is a friendly city - because it is. If you need directions, we'll either tell you where to find something or confess we don't know. If you're seriously looking for a bargain and ask nicely and sincerely, we'll tell you. If you're on the subway heading into Queens when you really wanted to travel to downtown Manhattan we'll not only kindly point out your dilemma but tell you at exactly which station to change to get going in the right direction so you won't be charged another subway fare. If you don't speak English, that's okay too, as nearly all of us can speak at least one other language. [I can't count the times a tourist has approached me and babbled away incomprehensively - it's nice that they think I know their language, though - helps with the image.]

In the 20 years I've lived here I've been the recipient of countless acts of random kindness from perfect strangers who had nothing to gain from helping me, yet did just that - from the woman on the Upper West Side who shared her cab with me on the way to my very first job interview, and who picked up the tab to bring me luck, to the little old lady sharing a bench with me on a subway platform who noticed I had a horrible cough and gave me lozenges and tissue. We do stuff like that. We don't take a whole lot of credit for it, because after the simple kindness is dispensed, we walk away and forget about you. We've got our own lives to obsess about and karma isn't instant enough for most of us.

That's about it. Feel free to enjoy my beautiful city, hit a few Broadway shows, steal some hotel towels - knock yourself out. Try to stay in Times Square, as that is an area I avoid like the plague.

Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterilized at once.
H. L. MenckenUS editor (1880 - 1956)

I've always admired Henry Louis Mencken. Born in Baltimore in 1880, he lived there all of his life - originally destined for business, he became a newspaperman. Advancing quickly to editorial positions at the Baltimore Morning Herald, he was also a columnist, critic, and book reviewer. Outspoken and iconoclastic, he was not merely a critic of his day but also a fervent student of language.

I selected the above quotation, out of hundreds of Mencken's acerbic sentences, as it typifies the kind of pointed statements that aren't found in modern writing anywhere. I'm not talking about the kind of ugly puerile name-calling quickly descending into borderline hate speech I've seen all over the Internets - Mencken doesn't natter on endlessly to make his point, for one, and he doesn't descend to vulgarity either.

It's a short sharp pointed stick that he thrusts right into the eye of the reader. By the time one gets to the end of the sentence, it's impossible to read it without any kind of physical reaction, be it as minor as a raised eyebrow or, more commonly, a gasp of surprise. He didn't just say that, did he?

Guaranteed to raise the hackles every time. I cackle with ill-disguised glee every time I read it. Mencken advocated rock bottom common sense and combined it with a rather irrevocable solution to what he saw as utter irresponsibility. Critics of this quote can certainly point to its less than humanistic qualities - after all, don't most people believe that propogation is a right rather than a responsibility?

Or a privilege?

Draconian measures aside, I think Mencken purposely wrote that, expecting [and probably receiving] any number of passioned outcries of denouncement to which, I like to imagine, he promptly ignored.

But it does make you think, doesn't it? Potential hours of rational, civilized debate found in less than 25 words.

I had started to write yesterday about the concept of religious identity - its newfound emergence, why lately, how it links folks and divides them - all sorts of good stuff. [Well, at the time it read like good stuff.]

Blogger ate my post [thanks a pantsload] and I came home today to a whopping dentist's bill it will be hard to meet, so all my religiosity has gone right out the window.

I'm lucky that I have a decent medical and dental plan - yes, I need to leap through bureaucratic hoops, submit a disgustingly large pile of paperwork, and wait forever for reimbursements, but all in all my medical needs have been very few thus far.

Unless...someone in the family needs significant dental work. Sigh. And we have a great dentist, who's also a friend and who gives us generous discounts on his superb work.

Yet...I hate to bitch and moan, meanwhile holding my lucky hands pressed onto my lucky face, secure in the fact that, barring some terminal illness, the benefits I receive will be enough to cure my ills. Especially given the fact that there are such huge numbers of Americans who don't have any type of subsidized healthcare at all.

Benefits aside, I struggle along just as much as the next person, and this new bill will call for some pretty creative juggling over the next month - I'll be challenged to keep payments up to date, I'll beg & plead for the pennies in my change jar to magically mutate into more of themselves, and I'll begin anew another semi-exhausting round of personal deprivation, cutting corners for what seems to be the hundredth time. Although I won't give up wine!

We'll get through it - we always have in the past, and that naive optimism will carry us through in the future. These financial setbacks always cause me terrific intial angst, until the routine of what will become my new days settles into the background.

The thing is - for me - when the dentist bill is paid, it will indeed recede into the background. For those without a decent healthcare program, bills like these will always be front and center [much like those two front crowns I'm shelling out for], dealing body blows in the grand roundhouse tradition of Fresh Hell.

I've become increasingly curious about the notion of identity. There seem to be now more than ever, so many different ways to proclaim one's identity. Nationalistic, religious, gender-based, familial - we've all known people who, upon first meeting, present themselves as "first" something.

Am I first an American? When I travel abroad, the force of my "American-ness" seems to be in the forefront of my mind. Then, I can't seem to lose the curious awareness that appears to me to be peculiar to American thought.

I'm not talking about the "ugly American syndrome", either - at first meeting, or at least until I open my mouth and betray myself by my accent, I'm never initially identified as an American - that at least informs me that I don't betray myself by outward behavior.

It's more akin to mental baggage, as it were - I'm constantly reminded of the unique forces that have shaped my thoughts, my worldview, my perception of myself and of others. The personal freedoms I automatically take for granted, the overall optimism I inculcated at birth, the political realities naturally held dear simply by virtue of where I was raised - all are examples of thoughful discovery.

Often, the daily cultural differences - represented in one way by the notion of personal space boundaries - are a huge difference between the US and Third World countries and one, notwithstanding my many trips there, I can ever seem to deal with adequately. The inability to queue properly never fails to drive me bonkers.

I am extremely fortunate that I have many and continuing opportunities to travel in places, and in circles, that most Americans have not. Through marriage to an Algerian who spent his childhood and youth in Morocco, I've been able to travel several times to both countries and, due to family ties, experience genuine life there as opposed to merely tourist destinations.

Even though subsequent trips have enhanced my understanding of the complexity of those societies, and the initial culture shock of the first voyage has long worn off, I still find myself identifying more with my country when I'm there, and only feeling dissastifaction when I return home, sadly more than willing to express despair at a new batch of Fresh Hell.

What have we gotten ourselves into now? Yes, indeedy, without a smidgin of resistance it's a batch of fresh hell.

In the Valerie Plame Affair, and its attendant relevations - from blogs on the left side of political discourse there is quite a bit of exultation thanks to the sparkling possibility of a merry Fitzmas [tm some other great blogger who I would credit if I could only remember] - on the right side of the divide there's a lot of hemming and hawing and wondering if the recent scandals affecting the current Administration really are, well, affecting it.

To which I must say: really? Ya think? (We'll all see of course in the days/weeks/months to come but in the meantime it serves as an excellent rhetorical question).

The situation, as I see it, is there are a lot of our citizenry who view themselves are primarily one thing or another: they are avowed Democrats, encompassing liberals, progressives, etc; or die hard Republicans, conservatives, etc. It's the folks in the middle ground, those with liberal social thoughts and conservative fiscal values, that tend to get lost in the debate. Why? Are we truly able to see both sides of the story or merely wishy washy need to grow a backbone types?

And why is belonging so damned important these days?

How do we determine identity? It seems as if it's become primarily a political label, i.e. the person I am is the political party I espouse.

Am I a libertarian? Sometimes I think it would be handy to label myself as such and just get on with it. Granted, most of the libertarian stuff I see wouldn't launch any ships at all. On the other hand, why not just live and let live? NB: I don't %100 believe in that philosophy, but it would be dandy to do so - where is John Stuart Mill when you need him most?

Come to think of it - where is a cogent political philosophy when you need it most? I'm sure there are folks out there that will disagree, and I challenge them. Let's discuss the Fresh Hell.