Stuff I Cannot Do

1. Concentrate on any smidgen of inspiration for a decent blog post.
2. Have a telephone conversation with my mother without rolling my eyes into the back of my head.
3. Suffer fools.
4. Stop asking questions.
5. Learn any lesson painlessly.
6. Have a child.
7. Throw a ball without throwing like a girl.
8. Watch local news.
9. Break hearts.
10. Eat without spilling on myself.
11. Draw anything other than a stick figure.
12. Abandon hope.
13. Smile on command.
14. Cut my own hair.
15. Leave a hotel room really messy.
16. Believe the universe is anything but indifferent.

I'll try pretty much everything else, though.

A Hint of the Real

Dear Advertising Man:

Thanks for doing your best to ensure there is no inch of my body or one tiny part of my life that I don't want to improve - I couldn't possibly have made this far without you.

Thanks for selling me The Hope: hope in a bottle for the makeup, creams, bath oils, lotions, and pills; hope in a yard of satin with underwire so I won't be ashamed of my lack of cleavage and hope in those stretch jeans so I look like I have a springy backside; hope that my choice of car, stereo, hair color, whiskey, bath towels, shoes and spatula will net me everything you've promised.

Ad Man, I believed your promises from the beginning - I believed with all my heart every single word you ever said, and if you weren't all serious about what you said, well, this time I'll forgive you. But only this time...

Because seriously, you've made some insane claims over the years. It's about time that you made good on at least a few of them - I'm not asking for all your promises to suddenly become realized, but I've got to admit I'm losing my patience here - I need something to go on.

A person can only go so long spending and spending and spending before they see some kind of return.

I'm not expecting much but the high you promised was a lot better than the high I got.

Look, I'm not addicted or anything like that - I can stop whenever I want. I'm completely in control. If I don't get my fix I don't get the shakes - well, I haven't yet. I've been strong in the past, haven't I? Once I cut you off man, and didn't show up to buy any of the shit you sell.

But you have what I need, and I can't help coming around to see what you have. Because maybe this time it will do the trick, eh? Everybody's gotta live, right?

Just don't be a total prick and try to come through next time with a hint of the real -

With love and confliction,
American Women

Tea in the Sahara - Part Two

After a two hour flight south from Algiers, we arrive in Adrar at night, as it's not possible to safely land a plane during the day in the summer.

Due to family connections, we're met on the tarmac like visiting dignitaries - I'm whisked directly through the airport to a waiting car, while Mr. Fresh Hell helps retrieve our bags.

My first impression of the desert is the heat - I know, the Sahara in August - any but a fool would be surprised that it's hot. Yes, it's a dry heat, but the kind you feel sticking your head into a 400 degree oven.

The heat is tactile, and it envelopes me in a thick velvety wave. The night sky is vast, densely packed with stars. It will take me almost 2 days to adjust to the temperature.

We stay with our family in their home - thank God that they have all the mod cons, including air conditioning in the main living and sleeping rooms. The plumbing is dicey, but Mr. FH and I are well versed in cranky North African toilets and we adjust quickly, although I'm somewhat surprised to learn the water is turned off every night at around 10:00 pm.

We stay indoors during the heat of the day - it's only around sundown that the town comes alive. Adrar is a fairly large city for the area, and boasts its own university. There are the usual shops - bakery, grocery, clothing, hardware, and auto mechanics. There is a fair amount of activity during the day but they, no mad dogs nor Englishmen, certainly don't rush about in the noonday sun. Life has a slower pace here, a rhythm connected more to the earth and less to the demands of commerce.

Mid-morning of our second day, we drive west of Adrar to a small village - there we meet with a friend of the family, whom I shall call Kind Man. We're shown an ancient saint's tomb, a whitewashed conical building of stone. These are dotted throughout the Sahara -unfortunately, the Arabic name escapes me. The relief as we plunge into the village oasis is astonishing. The huge date palm trees provide shade from the sun; still, I cover my head with a light cotton shawl and am grateful for the extra covering.

The village children are gathered by the water as we approach. The water system is called a "fouggara", an ancient and ingenious system for the capture and distribution of groundwater. Using the earth's own gravity in part the water, distributed in little open-air channels within the tradition of an ancestral social organization, is shared out to individual gardens for the cultivation of palms, mainly, with some cereals and fruits as well.

If the children, all of them black, are surprised to see a fair haired white woman touring the oasis with their neighbor, perhaps the first one they've seen in their life, they show great restaint and merely scamper away shyly. I've already been to some remote sections of Morocco, so I am accustomed to their stares - I know from experience that if they could see my hair their curiosity would overcome their fear and they would challenge each other to reach out to touch it.

I am loath to leave the cool of the oasis but Kind Man leads us to his home in the village, where we sprawl on cushions and rugs piled on the floor and enjoy the traditional hospitality of dates and cool water.

We spend a pleasant family evening, enlivened with a difficult commodity in a Muslim country [but which can be had for an inflated price and the proper connections], perfectly frosty beer - probably the best I tasted, although it was only cans of Stella Artois.

The next afternoon we drive 250 kilometers north to Timimoun - the landscape changes subtly as we make our way north but the emptiness and flatness of the desert during the trip is astonishing to me. Montana has the sobriquet of "Big Sky Country", but there's simply no comparison to the vastness of the Sahara sky.

In Timimoun we collect a local guide, who takes us on a tour to a natural cave hewn into the side of a mountain - on the mountain's opposite side are man-made caves carved out of the rock by religious hermits, dating more than 2,000 years ago. The view from the caves is a panorama of a huge oasis [or palmerie - the term is interchangeable], with hazy mesas reminiscent of the American Southwest rising in the far distance.

At the foot of the mountain is another small village huddled on the edge of the palmerie; while descending the mountain by footpath I hear young men singing, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the local religious school.

Towards sundown, our guide directs us to a deserted stretch of dune not too far from the highway - unfurling a flat wool rug, he lights a fire in the sand and treats us to a formal Saharan tea. He makes a traditional Algerian tea; a base of Chinese gunpowder black tea leaves sweetened with block sugar and enhanced with wild mint - it is a perfect refreshment.

The timeless silence of the surrounding land, the slow majestic setting of the sun, and the archaic simplicity of our intimate tea party is a memory I'll cherish for the rest of my life - this, truly, is a dream realized, a moment that no coffee table book in the world, nor any hollow acclaim, can ever replace.

Tea in Sahara - Part One

Part one of two:

I fulfilled a lifelong dream this year by traveling to the Sahara Desert.

Several years ago, I spouted off naively to Mr. Fresh Hell about this dream, a [completely nonsensical] notion of my spending three months crossing the Sahara with a band of nomads.

Oh, I could see it all so clearly, tethered as I was in a "Sheik of Araby romantic hazy dream", how I would travel across the Sahara with a tribe - oh no, no newfangled notions like an adequate 4 x 4, abundant water & gasoline for me - no sirree! That was the pantywaist version, and I would have none of that. I would test myself as others had done before me, and brave the hardships unaided by any Western trappings.

I would travel by camel, helping to pitch a tent at sundown. I would function within the tribe as an honored and protected guest, but also accepted freely as one of them, and by so doing match my fate to theirs.

I would be swathed in veils from head to toe, exotically adorned with gold and hung about with several sharp weapons, proudly riding my camel at a majesctic pace. The cinematography in my mind's eye was nothing less than magnificent.

My plan was rather hazy really, as it involved a vague notion of performing my camp duties [skinning goats? cooking food? making camp?], but primarily I would scribble by firelight my deep meditative thoughts about my desert experience, take excellent pictures with my handy digital camera, and, upon my return to civilization promptly sell both narrative & photos to a prestigious New York publisher, resulting in a glossy coffee table book which would of course sell wildly - the end result of my adventure would ensure that I would become the toast of the town.

Mr. Fresh Hell must be highly commended for merely gently smiling at my folly rather than laughing uproariously in my face.

For, as I learned this year, the Sahara, even in the poshest of circumstances, is
hard. And I, with all my privileged soft living, was not prepared in the least.

The Consolation of Books

I discovered reading at a very early age - according to my mother, I learned to read at three accompanying her to the grocery store, sounding out and spelling brand names of soap and cereal. That should conjure up a bit of the weirdness of our consumer culture and its influence on young minds, especially if you were young in the 60's. Without the benefit of the constant barrage of television, children's programming and early learning programs, at that time children who learned to read before actually going to school were either strange or prodigal, take your pick.

On the Family Dysfunctionality Scale, with a 1 being a Norman Rockwell fantasy and 10 as a page torn from the Charles Manson scrapbook, my family was a definite 7.5. No surprise that my favorite hiding place was behind a book. And the library was always free.

During my childhood, on every occasion where some unspeakable family drama was playing out on the stage, you could always find me in the wings, reading, because books were there to lift me away and transport me to a glorous past or a barely imagined future - at the time it didn't really matter, as my dearest wish was to escape the unbearable present.

They were my first love - through them I sought a defense against reality; and, using the wisdom I found within sentences painstakingly chosen and precisely typeset, I slowly realized I could build a fort around myself that in time would be completely unassailable, all through the power of words.

Books were my teachers, friends, confidantes - when I was young and impressionable the protagonists I discovered in stories were heroes of fantasy and history, leading adventurous lives filled with cunning plans, spearing their enemies with a rapier wit and occasionally a well hidden dagger.

Those long ago stories gave me hope - reassurance that I would indeed grow up and live the life I envisioned, that I would be able to rise above my mediocre roots. They gave me a sense of destiny, a longing to achieve above and beyond myself. They provided a road map away from despair, toward a trail leading to enlightenment.

With age and experience my vision of the spectrum of human emotion and knowledge broadened, yet even now I still experience a deep and visceral thrill when opening a promising new book; anxious to dive into fiction, eager to learn of a forgotten slice of history or an obscure biography which has consumed the author for years of research and writing, or a tantalizing new scientific or sociological theory.

However, I'm often disappointed with a book that could have used judicious editing, or a storyline that veers off into tangential alleys that makes it completely unreadable, or some egregious nonsense that should never have been published - with a speck of kindness I gently slide them metaphorically against a wall, rather than literally hurl them towards solid objects with great force.

Yet, hope springs eternal. Books have given me their trust, withholding nothing, and in return I find I can deny them nothing less.

It's Not You, It's Me

Dear Science:

It's over. I really wanted to break up in person rather than write this letter, but I just didn't think I could handle it.

I've really enjoyed the time we've spent together but I gotta be honest, it's just too hard for me to continue with this - well, charade, for lack of a better word - any longer.

I'll have fond memories of you to take with me, though - I loved your pristine white coats - you always looked such an angel in them, although you did often ruin the romantic moments by trying to convince me that angels don't exist. Silly Billy, anyone with half a brain knows that angels exist, and that they watch over us.

I'll never forget your love of anti-bacterial hand products, although I will not miss you arguing with me about germ mutation vs. the merits of cleanliness being so close to godliness [if you're honest with me you'll agree that you never won one of those arguments, even though you tried your best].

I'll miss your cute furrowed brow as you tried so hard to convince me that the Earth was created over billions of years - please, who could possibly believe something like that when it's crystal clear that God did it all in seven days? It says so right in the Bible!

And evolution? Man, that was some crazy talk! I could never think of big, strong, handsome you descending from some yucky ape-man - I can't remember how many times I had to tell you the story of Adam and Eve from the very beginning to get my point across.

I won't say that I was jealous because you always talked about other guys all the time - you know who I'm talking about - those guys Darwin, Newton, Einstein, Galileo, Copernicus, Stephen Hawking. All I'm saying is that if you love them so much, maybe you should date them!

I just can't get over your overwhelming trust in logic, rational thought, and empirical evidence; I mean really, actually using theories and experiments to try to explain everything in the world? I suppose next you were going to talk about the origin of the stars, or the existence of millions of galaxies, or some other nonsense. Honestly, where do you come up with some of these ideas?

So, I'm taking this big step that I know is going to be good for us both in the long run. I don't want you to cry and I don't want you to worry - I'm sure you'll find someone out there who's just right for you. It just ain't me.

Love,
Kansas

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme

The urban riots in Paris are upsetting to me - not merely because of the French government's failures or the general societial issues behind the larger story - it's also a Grade A Prime example of Fresh Hell.

I won't point any readers in the direction of mainstream media stories on this event - even a cursory glance at the Internet or established American news outlets can serve as adequate reportage of the facts.

What bugs me entirely are many blog offerings from [perhaps] well meaning yet completely ignorant Americans who, based on the story, have written some of the most cringe inducing venom I've ever read. I will certainly not point to any of this either - I'm a fan of free speech and bloviating in general, but please, get up off your ass and find it yourself.

However; in my mind, unless you are:

a) a participant in this unfortunate melee with a point of view - any man on the street witnessing will do, no matter its bias, simply because it is based on individual experience and thus provides some jumping off point to further engender discussion and possible change, or

b) a historian whose specialty is post WWII to present day France, who possess a thorough grounding in the history of the colonization policies of earlier centuries and the economic and cultural difficulties arising from said colonization, including the implications involved in current immigration practices,

Do us all a favor and get educated or, failing that, Kindly.Shut.Up.

Since I am neither of the above, I will attempt to avoid the Pompous by drawing a rather poor analogy. In the following completely imaginary exercise, please feel free to insert neutral gender pronouns to your own personal satisfaction.

Imagine that, in 2005, you are 21 years old. You, and your father, were both born in America. Your grandfather was not, but emigrated there as a young man in the hopes of providing for his family and their future. You don't have a language barrier, and frankly neither did your grandfather, due to the peculiar relationship of Grandpa's home country to the emigrated one.

Further imagine that instead of a melting pot, or new and improved opportunities and circumstances, your grandfather and father were relegated to "second citizen" status, and couldn't find any work other than menial jobs.

As a result of these poor jobs, you grew up in a ill designed apartment highrise, a block of urban projects, instead of the pleasant suburban home to which Grandpa aspired. Now, thankfully, as a result of the government, you aren't completely desitute. There have been government benefits, enough to keep you in shoes and eating bread, and while the schools you've attended haven't been horrible, they have at least been tolerable. However, there is no way you could attend a university, and the trade schools at which you could study to earn a decent living have very few spaces available. And curiously, or perhaps not, as you get older you find out that there is subtle [or not so subtle] bureaucratic discrimination against you and your fellows, based on your last name.

Imagine if your name were O'Donovan? Or McAllister?

There WAS a period in American history that did present as discriminatory to ethnic people with these and similar names, but shh...maybe if no one brings it up no one will remember.

Back to the imaginary: What if you were born into a family of a certain religious persuasion, but you viewed your participation in it as more casual than others perceive it to be? For example, your Gramps was the religious one - your Pops pretty much pays lip service and maybe you don't consider it all that much. Yet the others, the "first class citizens" in your society, automatically assume you are ferociously religious at each opportunity that your last name arises?

What if you and your immediate neighbors experience 40% unemployment? What if there are no jobs for you and your friends at all, anywhere? Might a gang or the lure of drugs seem, in their desperate dangerous way, after all you may have considered, a way out? Might torching a car [time honored European Angry Student Response] also mean something?

I don't pretend to have all the answers to this extremely complex problem, but it's simply not something your average American seems to be able to wrap their minds around. After all, it's not happening here.

And until you can take that leap of the imagination and thoughtfully consider the ramifications of a society of any nominally democratic country that continues to treat second or third generation immigrants as less than full citizens, then you have no seat at the table of the world.

Blogger Ate my Post

I had something brilliant all ready to go - spent two days writing it, actually - when the (*&^$%#&* demons ate my post.

[and it was all about food - there's a Blog God somewhere I'm sure I offended.]

I'm off to pretend I won't seethe about this injustice for hours on end.

Foodies - the How and Why of Their Suckitude

Save me from Foodie Nation. There is a famous chef [rhymes with Ebay, round face, strawberry-blonde hair, rampaging ego, mistaken idea of self attractiveness, mega-tooly attitude] who owns a restaurant on the ground floor of my office building in New York. My office is on the penthouse floor and due to the peculiar layout of the building, occasionally, if the air vents are all tuned together and the breeze is cosmic, or something equally benign and HVAC techy, the aroma of beautifully cooked meat will waft through the floor. Very often, the smell is of badly charred toast. It just goes to show.

Recently I placated a colleague by participating in an extremely informal telephone survey for my opinions about various New York chefs; some famous, some not. The last question was: Do you consider yourself a foodie?

Me? A pretentious, toadying, trend-following ewe of the sheeple? In the name of all we call Fresh Hell, No!

Foodies have the longing to be included in a faux insider's circle, the compulsion to be the first in their group to sample the inane, the impractical, the exotic - the unconscious swell anxious to proclaim a specious individuality by purchasing all the herd-following accoutrements constantly hawked by a band of corporate shills. They are the first to jump on the bandwagon of an enthusiastic media whore touting whatever is new and improved in the world of food - regardless of its merit, practicality or, most important, taste.

I am emphatically not a Foodie. Even the -ie ending of the word repels me - what, I'm still in fourth grade?

Even so, I'm intimately connected with the world of food, for Mr. Fresh Hell is a professional chef.

The apparent contradictions of this can be solved by generous applications of the Eternal Balm of Common Sense [something I eventually intend to trap in a bottle, sell, and net millions - just you wait and see]. It was also something I had to explain to my beleaguered colleauge.

Mr. Fresh Hell was trained in France and New York - during a 20 year career span he has cooked in terribly snooty restaurants and transformed pub grub in many a small venue - without ever once falling prey to some of the idiotic concoctions that pass for current sophisticated cuisine. In fact, he regularly debunks all of the new fangled fusions and fashions that have so enslaved the most guillible.

Towers of food? Why? So a diner can insert a fork in the top layer and have it all come tumbling down? Mango salsa as a side to everything? Hint: it goes with virtually nothing. Duck confit is a bit more complicated and rich than is presented and seriously, a splash of truffle oil is often nothing more than slopply glurge - it overwhelms nearly everything it touches, which is why the genuine professional uses it sparingly, if at all.

Fresh, in-season ingredients, recipes that turn the 30 minute meal paradigm on its head, minimal handling of the food during the process and piquant, palate sharpening additions can turn the simplest of meals into a true appreciation of the beauty of food.

Imagine the warmth of a white bean and tomato soup, simmered for over two hours, enhanced by the tongue-melting taste of slow cooked tomato and onion and the astringency of lemon and fresh herbs added at the last minute. A perfectly roasted leg of lamb, crowned with sprigs of rosemary and stuffed with garlic, served in the meat's own clear juices with a side of blanched asparagus. Heavenly Beef Bourguignon, swimming in fat sliced mushrooms and diced carrots in a gravy liberally glazed with fresh butter and red wine. Crispy golden crab cakes, fresh with the aroma of the sea, the crunchy batter spiked with lime and parsley. Tuna tartare mixed with finely minced onion and papaya served with a dressing of dijon mustard vinagriette.

If I never have to hear another "Bam!" followed by a completely unnecessary idiotic flourish flung onto a perfectly acceptable dish, I might die happy, provided I was swathed in layers of perfectly ripened Brie accompanied by a sliced French baguette.

Foodies have accepted the Gospel as Written by Media Whores and blessed by Corporate Mandate. It is all dressed up in snowy white Emperor's Clothes, the public ignorant of the fact that everything is smoke and mirrors, presided over by dolts in ill-fitting and badly cut chef coats who generally don't know their asses from the proper saute pan. They are literally puppets performing for the masses while behind the scenes actual people, actually cooking, assemble their little road maps-cum-recipes ready to be dispensed to the unthinking everywhere.

As for me, I'll continue to look beyond what some vainglorious fool has to say and be ready to cook standing on my own two feet, using my own mind, Mr. Fresh Hell's knowledge and Nature's bounty as my guide.

Needy People? Bah!

"People who need people are the luckiest people in the world", warbled Barbra Streisand a long time ago. I wasn't that old when that song was criminally popular, and even then I thought it was egregiously inane. Frankly, the lyrics to this song irritated me to no end. What about those of us who simply don't "need" people all that much? Are we congenitally unlucky? I couldn't see the advantage of neediness.

Even during adolescence, arguably one of the needier stages in life, I was an aloof kid. Sure, I wanted attention and popularity among my peers - any adult who says otherwise about their younger selves is lying. In my case, perhaps the tight emotional bonds forged in youth lay in teenage social behaviors I hadn't yet mastered or in deficiences in my less than demonstrative family. True, in my late teens & early twenties, my favorite mode of attracting attention lay in shock value. At least one of my wee group of readers knows this very well [arches eyebrows meaningfully in a south-westerly direction].

I'll also freely admit that my ideal romantic longing at that time was to be subsumed within the heart and soul of another person - to be truly and deeply known to another. Living longer has proven that even I am not completely knowable, even to myself, and therefore I no longer feel the need to insist that another take perpetual care of my psyche.

From a psychological viewpoint, I believe the prevailing wisdom is that people who genuinely are vulnerable and empathetic to others are emotionally and mentally healthier than others - to which I say pffft!

More likely, they are people pathologically unable to enjoy their own company, folks whose guts churn with anxiety at the thought of only their own personalities for comfort and entertainment, or couples who are joined at the hip for fear that the beloved may just, if out of one's sight for a moment, disappear in a puff of air.

The burning question for today's Fresh Hell is: why do these people feel compelled to burden me with their neediness, and demand I share in theirs? I've been confronted at times over the last 10 years or so by mostly female friends of mine who have plaintively complained that I'm not a close enough friend to them, that I'm often inaccessible or cold, and beacuse I don't yearn for their continual company as presumably they yearn for mine that in some way I am deficient.

Perhaps this is a sexist statement. Since I don't cotton anymore to PC dogma, I don't care. Oh sure, I've run into many needy men in my time, and generally have run away screaming at the first opportunity. But somehow, in a romantic relationship, it's easier to burn a bridge that way. Friendships, particularly female ones, require a rather more delicate management.

I don't dislike having friends or being social - I have a rather small circle of intimates with whom I do share, on rare special occasions, vulnerabilities. As I age this circle is definitely ever-tightening, but conversely the list of things that ping on my pet peeve monitor is growing, so balance is maintained in my universe and I am comfortable no entropy will ensue.

Not unusual is that my circle of intimates, including Mr. Fresh Hell, are those folks with whom I share the philosophy and habit of "non-dependency". Like bonds to like, which is a cliche no less for its truth.

Another truth? The luckiest people in the world are those who recognize the true blue qualities of the ultimate best friend, oneself.