What Fresh Hell is This

New York City Haiku - Long Hiatus Edition

2009-09-09T19:32:00.000-04:00

After a two and a half year hiatus of the blog, I am attempting to get back into the swing of things and thought I would open with a rousing New York City Haiku post. This is probably lamer than I intended, but after so long not writing it's really the best I can do. I've experienced a number of changes over the last couple of years, which is inevitable but in my case not always easy. More to come I hope!

Sex And The City
Filming in front of office;
Not Cool! Such a pain.

Tourists in the street-
Oh my, very tall buildings.
It's lunch - out of my way!

Real monk seen on 5th,
Long robe, belt, and wooden cross.
Does he have I-phone?

Lost in Central Park?
Surprise after twenty years,
Yet it still happens.

New York City Haiku - The New Job Version

2007-03-03T19:07:00.000-05:00

I am trading jobs and Cupcakes - it's now official. I will try to keep writing as much as I can, when I can, but for now I leave you with a few haikus of the new job version:

One very nice thing
About the new job will be
Finally, straight men.

Corporate dress codes will suck;
Oh! I have some pantyhose,
That's a real good start.

Shorter commute - yay!
Significant pay increase.
Year end bonus too.

I will miss people;
Ten to twenty year friendships.
I'm not dead, just gone!

Fresh Hell - Change Is Good Yet Scary

2007-02-22T20:11:00.000-05:00

I think now is an appropriate time to write about change. I've grown into a person not entirely comfortable with change. I like routine, I like ritual. If I oversleep on a workday or even cadge an extra 10 minutes on the alarm snoozy, I end up rushing through a part of my day that really appeals to me, namely my morning routine, unchanging as it seems to be. And of course feeling deeply resentful that my cherished routine has been disrupted.

Change in personal relationships has also proven a stumbling block. Intimacy is difficult for me - my initial reaction is to perceive attempts at intimacy as legitimate change, which then sets off the "danger ahead" warning bells. My first instinct, sad to say, is to immediately back off and possibly avoid disruption of a delicate status quo, resulting in friends and lovers being kept at arms length.

Change in professional endeavors has been difficult to embrace. I enjoy working with the same bunch of people, as often as I'd like to wring their necks, and I have to my detriment remained in somewhat "dead end" jobs through fear of change. Eventually, the downside of a bad job will overcome its clump of positives and I have been able to move along in my career, but my history shows a pattern of more gentle pushes a la corporate downsizing as opposed to pro-active moves of mine.

Of course, this reaction isn't at all rational, it's a mindset more suited to a backwards-looking-barely-sentient-mammal.

What's bizarre is I espouse the philosophy that the only constant in the world IS change, and if that seems curiously at odds with my behavior perhaps I can explain it by confessing that I eventually adjust by being dragged kicking and screaming through most changes. I get there eventually, but it's usually painful.

And change is afoot chez Fresh Hell. I've accepted a challenging and enormous new job and I am honestly unsure whether the blog will survive. Similar to the proverbial old dog I've been alternately terrified, excited, thrilled, paranoid, and anxious, moods I swing through sometimes on an hourly basis.

So I can't say yet that I'll shut down the blog or will continue albeit on a very limited basis. Time will tell, as it does most things.

This Week in Its Briefs - Starched Out of Recognition

2007-02-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

1. One of Mr. FH's favorite nieces is due to have her first child anytime between March 15th and 24th - we wish her the best of luck for a safe and trouble-fee delivery. Mr. FH and I are already two times a great uncle and great aunt, and this new baby marks the the third addition to the next generation. Much happiness to Rym and Lyes and their new little family.

2. Snow has finally come to New York and it isn't wholly unpleasant - there's a lot of slush, many unplowed sidewalks and the attendant annoyance, but...the snow sure was pretty when it was falling early last night - all one could see was a gentle and generous coat of crunchy white stuff on lawns, roads and cars. New York is always hard on snow - it turns from a pristine magical landscape to trodden sodden streets after only a few hours, so any chance to experience the wonder of a fresh snowfall is eagerly awaited.

3. A dear friend will arrive next week for his annual pilgrimage to New York for business reasons, which affords me a rare opportunity to enjoy his company, stimulating conversation, some reminiscing and an always memorable dinner.

4. I'm immersed in a very creative project for Cupcake Emeritus which has been occupying a lot of my time; I've taught myself a new program and am able to satisy some creative impulses at the same time.

5. And for the rest - well, the earth keeps spinning, although these folks, Completely Out Of Their Minds, would argue that it is not so; time marches on, tax time appears right on schedule, and the only constant we can really count on is change.

In Which Our Heroine Peers Towards The Future

2007-01-23T19:21:00.000-05:00

Posts have been sparse recently, and I confess my usual complaint of writer's block has little to do with it.

Of course I've been feeling hourly outrage at the purely asinine hijink "stylings" of the current president and administration as they relate to current events in the Middle East. I'm amazed (and I really shouldn't be) that the Military Channel actually features television shows all about the war in Iraq - it's not even over with, the body not yet warm and already some scumbag executive is making a buck out of it. Ptooie!

Other current events, cultural oddities, and horrifying news stories do capture my attention, but it's more difficult than usual to turn my reaction into posts.

Most of my energies have lately been directed towards my homefront - I am on the brink of possibly trading in my current Cupcakes for an entirely new one - a bolder, more energetic and more dynamic Cupcake. It's an opportunity that could be extremely good for me for quite some time. The fat lady has yet to sing, however, so I won't jinx myself any further.

Meanwhile, I'm still reading a lot, regularly checking in with the ever-growing list of favorite blogs, sorting out various family crises, and generally focusing on keeping my head above water.

It's a dog's life, innit?

File Under: Marriage, Ten Entire Years

2007-01-17T20:02:00.000-05:00

Mr. FH and I recently celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. It was a trifle surreal, actually, to come to the ten year point, as in some ways it feels like our wedding day was yesterday, a day which recalls numerous fond memories for me. We had a very understated civil ceremony at City Hall, then a short champagne reception given by the best man followed by our own cocktail party reception.

With so many of our guests and Mr. FH in the restaurant business, it was a given that we celebrated in two elegantly appointed restaurants in New York. There was nothing traditional about the ceremony or the receptions, but every detail suited us perfectly, which was all we cared about. For example, I wore a winter ivory suit which didn't top the bill for the wine we served at our reception, and we spent money on a lavish appetizer spread rather than a photographer or band.

Ten years together is an accomplishment of which I find myself quite proud. These years have not always been easy, but they have been challenging, surprising, peppered with adventures; a relationship graced by joy, touched by tears, and immensely satisfying for me.

As in every marriage, there were many occasions when I wasn't sure we'd survive into the next day, much less another year, and occasions when we were both hanging on by the slenderest of threads. We've learned the valleys of despair are a glimpse into the abyss and that the hills of exultation are indeed the highest.

As they say, the secret to a happy marriage is to never go to bed angry. Our secret is that it is much easier to do when one partner works days and the other nights (and you both get a bunch of time with the bed all to yourself).

This Week in Its Briefs - Way Too Tight

2007-01-11T20:50:00.000-05:00

1. Right before Christmas a quasi-friend of ours (which is what I call the position between warm acquaintance and close friend) had a heart attack and spent the holiday in the hospital getting fixed up. The weirdness is that this guy is barely 40; he has a fairly standard list of vices but many people I know, me included, have the same list or a far more egregious one and toddle along just fine. I ran into him and his wife tonight and while he's on the mend he's not out of the woods yet, and is eschewing the caffeinated/nicotined vices while embracing the fruited/vegetable virtues.

2. There's a gigantic tree on my block that I pass on my way home every night. The trunk is so large that it's difficult to see around it, perched as it is on the grass verge between the sidewalk and the curb. I call it the Drunk Mexican tree. Why, you ask? Not so much during January but so many times beginning in late summer and even as recently as early December I would walk down the street on my way home and be surprised to find at least two or three Mexican laborers behind the tree drinking their cans of beer wrapped in paper bags. I'm sure this is an urban phenomenon but you gotta admit it is, on the Scale of Odd, very much a 7.5 out of 10. Why do they pick this tree to crouch behind? Are they hiding? If so, who are they hiding from? And why are innocent passersby like myself always surprised to see them?

3. I still have my Christmas tree and decorations up - this weekend I'll take everything down. We get a live tree every year, and the exercise of removing it from our second floor apartment is an annual chore that I quite dislike, especially if the tree is large. After many years in this apartment I have the process down to a science, but I'll never forget the dismantling of our first Christmas. We had a quite tall tree that year, and as I fussed about trying to figure out how to wrap it up and maneuver it down the stairs Mr. Fresh Hell took matters into his own hands. He calmly opened up the guest bedroom window and heaved the tree out onto the sidewalk, serenely deaf to my cries of "Wait!". Our apartment faces the street; I rushed to the window in time to see the tree bounce once on the sidewalk and fall onto its side, mercifully missing either random pedestrian or parked car. Needless to say I ran outside immediately and dragged it to the curb. Also perhaps needless to say Mr. FH is no longer a part of the de-Christmasing process.

4. I really hate that KIA car commercial that uses the "so long, farewell" song from The Sound of Music. Having knowledge of the inside workings of the advertising industry can be alarming on many occasions; this is one. That commercial doesn't exist in a vacuum and isn't created on a whim.

Some creative team thought up the idea and the execution, which was then pitched to the client. The client agreed to the execution of the concept and signed off on it, which leads to an actual TV shoot involving a director, actors, and actual money being paid to all. But it doesn't end there - post production editing, for of course more money, turns a rough cut into a finished product - this process shepherded all the way from beginning to end by beleagured agency account executives and again, the client, who at all points agrees that this spot should be made. There are also media decisions made about the frequency of airtime, particular network and/or time slot for the commercial, and I'm quite content to know next to nothing about that particular process.

Automotive advertising is a terribly complex beast of its own, however, and it's entirely possible that this process as I've described it happened within the space of two weeks, maybe less. That's a criminal lack of time in which to do great work, and it entails a huge number of man hours for the result. But if the result is this commercial?

High hopes for 2007, indeed. At the very least we should get some decent commercials out of it.

Haiku - The Holiday 2006 Version

2006-12-29T20:34:00.000-05:00

Sucked into candle scents,
which aromas do I crave?
Pine, berries, and warm sand.

Tree from Nova Scotia;
a gift from the Great White North.
Do we have enough lights?

Online shopping is grand.
In pajamas at midnight,
I think this is the best.

Lamb shanks, perfectly cooked,
For our dinner Christmas Eve.
Hey - we had carrots too.

It's not really a gift
but the love behind the gift
that so captures my heart.

Postscript: Last Fresh Hell Family Story

2006-12-27T20:31:00.000-05:00

I began to reply to Stoic's brief comment on my last post but it turned into its own offering.

Stoic is correct; my last post did burn quite a bit coming out as opposed to my more light-hearted writing.

I think my father's illness and death was made more painful and confusing by definite walls deliberately erected whose purpose was to somehow shield us kids from the truth about our father's impending death but also shield us from the details of this very distasteful illness which simply wasn't discussed in society, at all. For my younger readers this may seem ridiculous and barbaric itself, but believe me when I write that it genuinely worked that way. At the time there were few "grief counselors" out there who specialized in this sort of thing, and of course nothing of the sort in the very rural Utah town in which we lived.

In addition to the societal constrictions and our geographical isolation, I'm sure much of this wall-erecting was due to the difficulty my well-meaning but emotionally distant mother has in expressing difficult feelings. Her favorite method of dealing with conflict, in icy Anglo-Saxon tradition, is to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn't exist. Hence, she was tasked quite heavily to constantly skirt the Daddy-shaped lump in the carpet. The fact that she succeeded so well and for so long is a testament to her continuing pathology.

Tangentially, it is common for divorced parents to wage subtle emotional battles, consciously or not, to determine the allegiance of their children. In a very real way, the threat presented by my father's lifestyle, so very different from my mother's, seemed hastily dismantled by his death. Which should have made my mother much more secure but which backfired on her dreadfully in later years, when 3 out her 4 children turned their back on her philosophy of life.

When Daddy died her distance from her feelings made it difficult if not impossible for me or my siblings to express our own sadness, confusion, fears, resentment, or abandonment.

We traveled to Denver to attend his memorial service (he was sensibly cremated) on my birthday, and were back at home by the time we had to go back to school. After the winter recess, when our friends asked what we had done during our holiday, I know we all made up a story or merely shrugged and reported nothing. No one outside our family knew what had happened, and I strongly believe we weren't convinced it would make a difference if anyone did know.

As I recall those few years following I despair for my younger self who performed so many silent rituals of grief that went nowhere, accomplished nothing, and were essentially useless. At the time it seemed natural to shroud myself in sorrow, draw swords against the unfair play of cosmos and thus emerge a fairly competent teenage fatalist.

I spent many years steeped in deepest denial - I knew friends and lovers for 10 years or more who had no idea my father had died at all, let alone when I was 13. It was only as I aged that I learned, painfully I might add, that to express the sadness and disappointment I felt about my father's death was perfectly allright - it was okay to feel, even as an adult, cheated of the chances which Fate had carted away from me with nary a backward glance.

Even now, at the 31st anniversary of his death, I weep. I have now outlived my father by nearly 10 years, and lately my sadness feels more profound, especially when I think of all he missed, all he would have wanted to do and know, and all he would have liked to have seen; he has two grandchildren who only have the very vaguest idea of him. Eventually all of us who knew him (even I, who barely knew him) will be gone and inevitably no memories of him will remain.

Because fatalism comes naturally now, I suspect that's the fate of us all.

Fresh Hell Bizarre Family Story - Why Christmas Is Tough

2006-12-22T21:15:00.000-05:00

Tis the season to get a little morose, oui?

Long ago, as a newly-minted teenager thinking thoughts no more weighty than that of an errant butterfly, a Christmas came and went when yet again I and my siblings received only gifts from my father rather than a rare but welcomed visit.

Barely two weeks later we received a call from my stepmother, my father's second wife, who said my father had cancer and wasn't expected to live another twelve months.

I remember being shocked to my core and terrified nearly beyond words. We couldn't possibly know what was going to happen - to him, to us. It was as if that news swept away all normality and put in its place something else, the fear of the unknown. And it was not like it would be unknown forever; just beyond comprehension for a time, a reality which would prove to be the cruelest cut of all.

Once the shock of the initial news had worn off the realization of this unwelcome and horrifying future seeped into everyday life like a light filtered through dulled and filthy window panes. Of course we went to school and life went on - there were tests to take, games to play, teenage emotional dramas in which to act. We tried to make the best of everyday occurances. We tried not to think about our level of ignorance about the disease, and tried not to be appalled at the doctors' level of ignorance about treating the disease.

Thirty-one years ago cancer wasn't discussed in a normal tone of voice. It was hushed up, it was whispered; it simply wasn't talked about. The doctors, in their panicked attempts to halt cancer's slow but inexorable progess, proscribed treatment levels of radioactivity, most especially treatments involving cobalt, that are judged barbaric by the standards of the 21st century.

And it was all for naught.

The father I barely knew - the "golden boy" athlete who was the star of every sport in which he competed - a man who took his familial responsibilities seriously, possessing a razor-sharp wit and humorous mien, a man definitely ill-suited to my mother but at last in a loving marriage, a man reluctant to be a father, was reduced to nothing much at all, and was dead at the age of 36 the day after Christmas 1975, 3 days before my 14th birthday.

After that, the holiday season was never an easy time for me. I suspect in many ways it still haunts me, because there is a real and seldom touched part of me who longs to curl up snugly within the traditions of my very young childhood and revel in their solemn wide-eyed innocence, and another part of me that is older, sadder and wiser who flings open wide the doors and takes to heart the adage of "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die". For who knows what tomorrow may bring.

The somber me and the skipping me will always be playing at tug of war, I fear, and in turn during every holiday season I seem destined to play host to both.

2006-12-20T21:20:00.000-05:00

There's a new meme out - you take the first sentence of the first blog post of every month of the current year - a somewhat random sample of 2006 and perhaps discover an overall pattern within one's blog posts and then ergo one's blog. And even though I wasn't tagged I thought I'd give it a try. I cheated a little and included the first few sentences or paragraph if it made sense.

January 4 -

Fear was the defining feature of the New School of Propoganda, first developed in the early 21st century.

February 3 -

We haven't had a good dose of Fresh Hell lately, thus, it should be rectified.

March 1 -

It's an unfair fact of life that women who work in "beauty industries", while not entirely exonerated from creating and perpetuating the media myths about the way women should look, are as much as if not more at the mercy of those same myths.

April 4 -

Another whirlwind of activity way away from the blog, and very little inspiration is left in its wake. Yet, there are still a few gems

May 5 -

Buying a car on ebay- seriously, this happened to a member of my family. This man has a habit of putting incredibly low bids on cars he'd like to own, hoping all the while (and trusting) that a much crazier person places a higher bid and wins the auction. Well, the highest bid was his and the car now must be bought. (This is not Mr. Fresh Hell, by the way - he'd be pulverized by a meat tenderizer if he played that kind of game.)

June 6 -

When I was younger I thought I was a fair judge of popular culture - the things that I thought were fairly cool also popped up on others' radar.

July 6 -

I have been working on some future posts but have also been mucho distracted-o by the highly engaging World Cup. It's been great fun to follow and hopefully, "les vieux"*** will prevail and France will win

August 7 -

I'm back - just returned from Algeria last night. We had a lot of fun and I have so many adventures to relate. Jet lag and I are currently best buddies, so I'll post more as the week progresses.

September 5 -

Right now I feel like a bubbling inchoate mass of anger directed towards the current Administration - the mess! It never ends! And I find myself asking the age old question, "Who's going to clean this up?".

October 3 -

As I can't for the life of me think of anything witty or interesting to write, I decided to render the last few dramatic weeks in a series of haiku.

November 1 -

Some years ago, Cupcake Emeritus' wife contracted cancer.

December 7 -

In no order of importance, memory reliability, and with names/identifying details mercifully kept anonymous unless it was something I actually did, which I have no trouble confessing, here is a random sampling of Office Holiday Parties Past.

No huge pattern to report, other than my fondness for haiku, interest in travel, my near pathological dislike of cleaning, various episodes of writers block, some topical outrage and a Cupcake.

Which pretty much sums up 2006 for this blog.

This Week in Its Briefs - The Flannels

2006-12-13T18:21:00.000-05:00

1. In Cupcake News: Cupcake Emeritus is convinced that even though he's practically retired, he still can't do anything without me. He makes a half-hearted stab at trying to get tasks done on his own, especially computer work, but I'm now convinced he'll be 100 years old and in a wheelchair and I'll still do all his online shopping.

2. The holidays are revving up everywhere, and my skills at my own online shopping have increased exponentially. I've spent very little time in actual brick & mortar stores, and much more time parked in front of my computer in my slippers, merrily shopping away. So much more civilized.

3. Family crises abound, so I expect blogging to be light for a while. I'm having trouble finding things to write cogently about. I keep calling my muse, but I suspect it's enjoying a three-day bender in exotic climes, as there is no answer at all.

For my wee, odd and beloved group of readers: if I don't get a chance to write again before the holidays, I wish everyone the kindest and gentlest of seasons in which their dearest wishes will be granted. Health wealth and happiness to all in 2007.

Office Holiday Parties - A Blog Jog Down Memory Lane

2006-12-07T20:42:00.000-05:00

In no order of importance, memory reliability, and with names/identifying details mercifully kept anonymous unless it was something I actually did, which I have no trouble confessing, here is a random sampling of Office Holiday Parties Past:

1. The party where the Chief Financial Officer was so drunk that he fell and broke his wrist while walking home from the party. He told everyone that he'd slipped and fallen in a patch of ice; no one believed this explanation as the night in question was perfectly clear and dry.

2. The occasion when a co-worker and I smoked a joint on the way to the party, which was held at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York. Pleasantly be-numbed, we wandered around the giant hotel for a good half an hour looking for the correct ballroom. When we eventually got there, we were so overcome with the munchies that all we did was stand at the buffet and stuff our faces with food. I don't believe I said a word for two solid hours.

3. The "office premises" party where not only did we have a live band playing on the 16th floor (you could hear them in the elevators beginning at the 11th floor), but a female co-worker and I xeroxed our bra-covered bosoms and taped the copies to the CEO's office door. Embarassing to admit, true, but no one but she and I ever knew what we did. Ah, the sweet volatile mixture of copiers and alcohol.

4. The party when a female co-worker literally collapsed from a surfeit of drink and had to be poured into a cab; I rode with her to her apartment, asked the driver to wait, plopped her on her sofa and sped back to the party - in my haste to get her safely home I'd forgotten both my purse and coat. I assured the driver I'd be right back for money and damn if the man wasn't waiting outside the venue for his payment. Got a right good tip he did, too.

5. The company where the official holiday festivities mattered far less than the "after party"; the breathless anticipation of being invited by the coolest group of people to join in the sequence of late night/early morning bar-hopping, securing one the ritualistic day after bragging rights and the mother of all hangovers.

Good times all.

Prickly

2006-11-30T19:58:00.000-05:00

Do you ever go through a stretch of life where everything that occurs results in you automatically responding with prickly irritation?

I don't mean physically so much, although it's a no-brainer that a tumble into a clump of poison ivy renders one less comfortable for a time.

It's more an existential poison ivy patch. If one normally reacts to quotidian woes with Zen-like tranquility or a Gallic shrug and weary chuckle, a stretch of the prickly dials exasperation way up and patience way down, with the result that usual coping skills aren't as effective as they've been in the past.

Perhaps it's nothing more than an annoying itch of the psyche but I'm deep in it now, which leads to blog silence (as writing anything is beyond my whirling thoughts) short attention spans, general snappishness and a well-bitten tongue.

Garcon? One large bottle of Cosmic Calomine Lotion, please.

Blog Silence III - Son of Silence

2006-11-25T15:50:00.000-05:00

Short hiatus going on over here at Fresh Hell HQ; nothing to see here, move along folks.

Pesky real life has taken over and I need a brief pause for station identification.

Back soon!

New York City Haiku-Shopping

2006-11-15T20:48:00.000-05:00

I must preface my New York shopping haikus with a little explanation: it is widely regarded as fact that New York is one of the world's great shopping meccas; it is, to be sure, but it can also be one of the most frustrating places in the world to shop. The profusion of goods can easily overwhelm one; while there is more cachet in discovering the perfect jacket or pair of shoes in a tiny out-of-the-way boutique, finding the place to begin with is never that easy, and finding the quality item one is searching for at bargain prices constitutes a full time job. Practicality and proximity often trump variables of price with convenience winning the hand. The average New York shopper has little time for shopping and in my case little patience. Having said that, I have over the years found various places which stock Swedish chewing tobacco or antique watches or obscure French cheeses or Moroccan wrought iron garden tables. Not that I stumbled onto to any of these shops by turning a random corner or anything so romantic and delightful - it was more the result of research and applying shoe leather to pavement. On to the haiku!

Prowling discount store.
Suit with skirt - too much to ask?
Sigh. Not in my size.

I do like jewelry;
Great selection, good prices.
I am without cash.

Shoes, shoes, everywhere!
I buy them in brown and black.
Cause for rejoicing.

To The Strand for books.
Longing to own each volume,
I wander for hours.

Hate hate hate R train!
Long wait with shopping bags, but
Route is close to home.

Random Bits of No Importance

2006-11-14T19:59:00.000-05:00

What is the trend lately with teeny tiny dogs? Perhaps I ought to blame the foolish idle rich for this disturbing trend, but it seems as if New York streets are clogged with canine miniatures. I am a friend to dogs, but my preference runs to the large types; these tiny yapping creatures, mostly aggressively furry, resemble bath mats for Barbies rather than pets. It's a goddamned miracle that I haven't stepped on one yet - one can only imagine the horror that would ensue. Sure I'll feel bad but criminy! It's a wee bit o'pup that I'm dodging with my career woman heels here, and if they wouldn't dart to and fro so frantically they'd be a hell of a lot safer, I say.

With few exceptions, for the past nine years the Fresh Hell household has held a Christmas Eve party. We are five weeks away from the evening yet preparation already begins; even though Mr. FH and I could probably do this party in our sleep, it is our one big blow-out for the year and past experience has shown me that early, thorough preparation is key. I used to dread and loathe the holiday season - nothing craps on Christmas quite like a parent dying on the holiday during one's teen years - it's guaranteed to completely dampen one's mood for innumerable seasons to come. (More on that in an upcoming post.) But I have learned to cope with the commercialization and enforced psuedo-cheer by alternatively mocking and embracing its inherent schmaltz and cheeziness. It's a delicate balance, but someone's got to do it.

I heaved a sigh of relief last week after the mid-term elections; I was poised with passport in hand to begin the arduous task of extricating myself from the American system, and I was gratified to find I have a few more years of grace before that day may indeed become a reality. Will everything that has gone so terribly wrong in this country be fixed? No, but I'm optimistic that some of the more egregious errors that we've lived through politically over the last six years will at least not be repeated ad nauseum. Not everything will be or can be reversed or corrected, but I do hope for better actions in the future.

Not exactly as I hope to refrain from crushing a tiny terrier beneath my feet, but as in all things hope is relative.

In Which Our Heroine Remembers A Celebrity Sighting

2006-11-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

I was saddened to hear today of Ed Bradley's death. I always thought he was a class act for a journalist, and even have a mini-tale to tell of him.

It was probably the mid-80's, definitely around Christmas time; the weather was quite cold but not snowy. I was walking up Fifth Avenue right near Rockefeller Center in the middle of the day. I don't know why I would have been anywhere near such a tourist-infested stretch of Manhattan a few days before Christmas, but I did work fairly close to the Rock then, or perhaps I was there deliberately searching for a one-of-a-kind holiday gift.

Among the oblivious swarms of passersby heading past me downtown I noticed a tall good looking black man in a drop dead gorgeous fur coat. My attention was initially riveted on the beautiful coat, but as I looked up into the man's face I realized it was Ed Bradley - complete with his signature diamond earring. I must have had a startled expression of recognition on my face, and as his eyes met mine, he nodded briefly and gave me a small smile.

It was such a quintessentially New Yorker spies celebrity moment that it not only gave me a mild mood lift the rest of the afternoon but was something I've never forgotten.

Remembering that incident and writing about it pings a twinge of nostalgia in my heart - for a time 20 years ago when I was a bit more innocent, and for a time when a handsome black man could walk down the street wearing fur unironically.

Requiescat in pace, Mr. Bradley.

Praise for the Barry

2006-11-02T19:59:00.000-05:00

Mr. FH and I have a quintessential bartender who embodies all of the most important qualities a superlative bartender should possess.

We call him Barry. The qualities of a proper Barry (gender completely irrelevant but I'll use the masculine pronoun here for clarity) are few but important:

1. He should be attentive to his customers. He needs to know who's drinking what and at what speed they are imbibing. Drinks should appear to his customers as if by magic, and they should not have to perform frantic waving actions to get his attention.

2. He should be prepared: for example, if he has a small group rapidly downing Heinekens, then he should put extra bottles on ice for the inevitable rounds for which he'll be asked.

3. He should be cheerful, swift, and clean. Economic in his actions, quick to clear away empty bottles, and crisp with a coaster.

4. He should understand the ratio of free rounds to eventual tip, and be able to recognize and cull from the herd the amateur drinkers as opposed to the professionals. Professional drinkers will always tip correctly and lavishly, provided there are free rounds. This is often a matter of trust, and the genuine professional wastes no time establishing this important trust early on in the encounter. The true Barry can rapidly distinguish the amateur by their lack of confidence and/or their inability to tip correctly, thus costing the Barry perhaps only one free round.

5. The true Barry is shrewd but cordial, and should possess a nearly uncanny ability to remember faces if not names. Putting the correct name to a face catapaults the Barry to the top of the heap, which puts more pressure on him to provide properly as noted in point 4.

The most wonderful thing about Barry is that we encounter him everywhere - we've found, cultivated and nicknamed bartenders in New York, France, Spain, Morocco, and Algeria. Our roster includes Paris Barry, Agadir Barry, Casablanca Sports Bar Barry, Sheraton Barry, That One Place Barry, and of course in pride of place, Original Barry.

And one of the best things about the perfect Barry is that he remembers us, even if we only see him once a year.

So to all the Barrys we've discovered - salut! (And we'll see you soon.)

2006-11-02T19:02:00.000-05:00

For any readers in NYC or anyone who might be in the city next week, friends of mine Lane and Ilona Siller will be showing their documentary, Deeper Than Y, at the Village East Theatre on 12th Street and 2nd Avenue. The film will run for a week beginning November 3rd.

Here's a blurb from the film's website

“Deeper than Y” is a feature length, humorous and touching documentary questioning 8 eccentric elderly New Yorkers about relationships, politics, careers, and aging, while they faithfully attend the same water exercise class at the Vanderbilt YMCA.

After the director of the film taught their water exercise class for two years, her elderly students opened up to her about relationships, pasts, politics, careers, and their insecurities about aging.

The result is “Deeper than Y”, an enlightening, heartfelt, and humorous journey through the lives of eight people, many of whom you might have passed on the street without giving a second look, people who not only impact the realities, fragilities, and humor of old age but also share their enduring hope for human possibility.

It's a charming, entertaining, well-done film from two talented first time filmmakers who have just begun to hone their craft.

It takes tenacity, vision, and passion to make films. The process alternates between deep frustration and wild exultation. Through my experience with Lane and Ilona, I've seen first hand the tremendous amount of work, dedication and sacrifice it takes to shepherd a film from start to finish, especially with no studio or industry backing. The film has been extremely well received at three independent film festivals during 2006 in San Francisco, Toronto, and Providence.

The Sillers are now at work on a new super-secret project that should really put them on the map - and I can't wait.

When The Revolution Comes

2006-11-01T20:35:00.000-05:00

Some years ago, Cupcake Emeritus' wife contracted cancer. The two surgeries she went through were successful; the ensuing chemotherapy treatment eradicated the remainder of the cancerous tissue. She didn't die from the disease, unlike my father, who was not necessarily killed by his cancer but more likely the barbarous treatment employed in the mid 70's.

As is customary for Cupcake CEO's and other wealthy folks, her medical expenses were 100% reimbursed by the generous Cupcake health plan, but this isn't a post to kvetch about our absolutely criminal health care system which allots most of the funds to people most able to pay for their own medical care while people of more slender means often go bankrupt paying for catastrophic illness.

The Cupcake Wife was prescribed a relatively new drug to further combat the reoccurence of the disease, which she took for a short period of time. This particular drug was ruinously expensive, to the tune of $2,000 a month.

As part of my job is to submit health claims and deal with the insurance company, the Cupcake presented me with the bill for this particular medication. In hushed tones of actual incredulity, that I know he couldn't fake, he said to me, "Look at the cost for this one prescription! What happens to people who can't afford this drug?"

While my head exploded at what is probably the most naieve statement I'd heard uttered by a reasonably intelligent person, I looked him right in the eye and choked out a terse response: "They die."

As fond as I am of the Cupcake and his entertaining follies, I've never forgotten this episode. This is all the evidence anyone would ever need to prove beyond all doubt, reasonable or otherwise, that for the wealthy the universe begins and ends at the end of their noses. They don't live in the same world as the rest of us, and if we ignore that, it is at our peril.

A Peek at the Professional Chef

2006-10-31T19:41:00.000-05:00

As I've written before, Mr. Fresh Hell is a professional chef with over 20 years of experience - most of which he's had in New York.

Over the years, I've come face to face numerous times with people who have bought into several "myths" about what a chef is like in his personal time, and how he spends his off hours. So now let's play debunk the myth!

Myth: I hear all the time "Ooh you're so lucky to be married to a professional, he must cook wonderful gourmet food all the time." W-R-O-N-G! We can put paid to that myth with this reality: the last thing a chef wants to do when he gets home is keep on working by whipping up a lusciously romantic gourmet dinner for his wife. Take a look other professions - does the car mechanic routinely come home every night with a yen to tune up his family car? Don't those in medical professions dread cocktail parties at which they are constantly asked to perform spot diagnoses?

Mr. FH is great with restaurant leftovers, which more than makes up for the lack of daily gourmet fixings.

Myth: "I can't believe you have access to all this great food and you're not 300 pounds!", which subtly incorporates the first myth while providing snide commentary on my weight. Very often I'm left to my own devices for dinner, and it's not a 24/7 feast-a-thon. I blame chunky famous chefs everywhere (Paul Prudhomme, I'm so looking at you) for reinforcing the stereotype. Mr. FH is quite slim; he works in a hellishly hot kitchen, drinks a ton of water during his shifts, and rarely if ever eats or tastes his food while he works; he believes it unneccesary and condescending to his craft.

Myth: "Lucky you! You never have to cook." This bothers me a lot - I do have some skills and I actually like to cook. To be honest, I have learned more from Mr. FH than I could write - he's taught me how to cook lots of dishes, taught me to rely on my instincts in cooking, clued me into many shortcuts and professional methods, and cured me of my fear of knives (we do have a lot of sharp knives around, so that's one myth that I cannot debunk).

Even though Mr. FH has taught me a number of dishes he also enjoys making, our versions are not the same and reflect our personalities rather than a rigid adherence to recipes. On a tangential note: Mr. FH never writes any recipes down - he rarely follows written recipes, and prefers to have them deconstructed, if you will, before he cooks. Written recipes are static to him and without shape, if you will - to his credit, when he reads through a recipe and cooks it once, he'll never refer to the written version again. I fervently maintain that this quality is a combination of skill, experience, and pure talent.

Yet the day-to-day reality of a chef's life can be categorized by a recent unscientific inventory of the pockets of a pair of Mr. FH's chef pants before I sent them to the laundry: 3 kitchen towels, 8 produce rubber bands, 1 corkscrew, 2 pens and a coughdrop.

I dare anyone to find a romantic myth in that.

Blogiversary, The First

2006-10-21T18:43:00.000-04:00

One year ago today, this blog came into existence. I was inspired not only by the sizeable number of blogs I was then reading on a daily basis, but by an extremely gifted and respected friend who had confessed to the creation of her own blog.

After a few fits and starts, the end result has become this place - an eclectic spot, as I see for myself while rooting around the archives.

I've written about aliens, both illegal and extraterrestrial. I've written about the places to which I've traveled, and the hopes and dreams that have followed me throughout those journeys - the occasions which have profoundly changed my ways of thinking, and the naieve romanticism I've had to leave behind.

I've written about confrontations with distant lands and unfamiliar cultures, precious and rare opportunities for me to embrace and thus explore my interest of the exotic and unknown.

I've written about books, food, current events, friendship, depression, anger, family, and cosmic indifference.

I've wept, exulted, and rolled my eyes heavenward countless times.

There are posts about gods, tolerance, perceived sexism, racism, feminism, cross-cultural marriage, and unrealistic expectations.

I've bastardized the elegant delineations of haiku to suit my purposes, with most of the verses composed while walking the streets of New York.

As one has categories of thought, so I've had categories of writing, such as File Under; In Which Our Heroine; Fresh Hell Family Stories, and This Week In Its Briefs.

To write that I never thought I'd stick with this creative endeavor for a year would be disingenous, I fear - as writers perhaps we all appear astonished that time has passed so quickly and that time itself can be encapsulated so neatly by our prose.

I believe in what I write and I continue to believe it has some small worth. To approach the blank space of the computer armed with this paltry weaponry should strike one, does strike one as hubris; not the monumentally life-changing essential component of human tragedy kind, but the garden variety recognizable as quaintly quotidian kind.

Which leaves me inordinately proud.

Tis The Season

2006-10-19T16:54:00.000-04:00

I, like a good many people, am paying the lion's share of my attention to politics and reading a lot about it, both through books and blogs. Which is probably why I'm not writing so much.

I've discovered my creativity is rather flighty-one minute there, the next gone far away, and the amount of blog posts I devote to my inability to write is frustrating to me, not to mention my wee group of reader(s).

There are some tremendously talented writers in the blogosphere, and while I have been reading more than writing I can't help but think exposure to differing clear and lively prose styles will hopefully improve my efforts.

In hindsight, my education was rather slapdash, heavy on literature and history, light on formal logic. But I have a "never too late" optimism, and have, through the exposure to some keenly analytic intellects blogging on a wide variety of topics, been enjoying the lessons of applying formal logic and reasoning patterns to what are often my incoherent emotions and random thoughts. I think I'm getting better at critical thinking, as well; so hey, thanks bloggers!

I'm working now on a self-salutary post commemorating my first blogiversary, which will arrive soon, in which I shall toot my own horn pretty loudly.

Let's just hope that's not a day my creativity takes a vacation.

The Accidental Drive By Theory and Its Conception

2006-10-10T19:18:00.000-04:00

My perception of society is that it's not particularly pleasant; strangers will not automatically love you, you will not constantly get your way, and at times it may appear that society is conspiring against you. Friends and family can act as buffers against the "slings and arrows" of society, but more often you have no choice but to marshal your personal strengths and dare to perform using your very own safety net.

That's a realistic yet not unkind notion of the callousness of human society which mirrors my view of the universe - it is an enormously complex and completely autonomous entity that considers you the random human, if it considers you at all, as a very small speck at best and while not intending to run roughshod over you at any given occasion, just might. Likely by accident. It won't mean to demolish you, of course, but shit happens.

During a small party at a friend's apartment a few weeks ago, the conversation turned to alien intelligence. All of the guests took a turn speculating on how an alien intelligence might view our planet and if it did show up, what its plans might be.

Many ideas were proffered amid much laughter - perhaps the aliens would just pass us by as backward and beneath their notice, with a wave of their many-fingered hands and a dismissive tsk toward our pathetic technology, which can best be expressed as the "Look! How Cool Are We - But We Have Ipods!" theory.

Then there was the less popular but no less plausible theory that alien conquerors would be interested in us from a biological standpoint and good only for dissection or anal probing, which finds expression in the "Humans As Scientific Experiments" theory.

The most bleak and no more or less credible than the others (and I admit this was my contribution) was the "Accidental Drive By Theory", where our entire universe would be inadvertently blown to smithereens by an alien with a big gun who simply couldn't aim straight. (Milky Way Galaxy completely destroyed? Oops. My bad. Quite sorry old chap.)

Since we seem to be on the verge yet again of annihilating ourselves, taking refuge in tipsy party imaginings may be frivolous.

Then again, we may only be left with a sense of humor in the end, and that's a pretty big safety net.

File Under: The Job and Its Nonsense

2006-10-05T20:24:00.000-04:00

Most of what I do for the various Executive Cupcakes I've worked for during my career has been the unraveling of various bits of administrative red tape. I happen to be rather good at it. The prevailing wisdom is that success at administration involves being overly consumed with details - I'm not. What I can do rather well is translate jargon and convert it into language a Cupcake can then easily understand. It should come as no surprise that the average Executive Cupcake isn't patient enough to sort out jargon for itself; after all, It is busy saving the world, attending important meetings, putting out client fires, plowing the company into the ground, wheelbarrowing their money around or whatever it is Cupcakes do with their valuable time.

But another piece of prevailing wisdom that I wish I didn't have to constantly debunk is that just because I have a talent for administrative work that I necessarily like it. I don't, not at all; it just comes very easily for me. However, true challenges don't show up on my desk very often. With the explosion of the Internet, my role has changed in response. I couldn't function without it, quite frankly. How else would I be able to find a company in England which reproduces antique billiard table lights, map a route from Paris to Calais, or obtain the hours of the Modern Art Museum in Istanbul without ever leaving my desk?

Wise aged veterans may remember that once upon a time the New York Public Library had a reference desk one could call for answers to obscure or arcane questions. Having not used them in at least 16 years, I have no idea whether this desk still exists. Perhaps I'll Google them and check.

I've also gotten very skilled in putting together complicated travel itineraries - after six years of working for the Cupcake Emeritus, who is inordinately fond of frequent flyer miles and who takes several European trips per year, my knowledge increases with little effort. I certainly don't wish to know the fine print of the major airlines' award travel programs and that of all of their partner airlines, but I could probably pass that test with flying colors. I wish I could wipe my mental slate clean after every tortured jargon-translating session with an airline representative. Better yet, if I had dandy gold ingots in my pocket for every minute I've spent during those conversations I would find more to smile about.

The secret to the excellent service I receive is quite simple - I've learned to speak their jargon, and it marks me with an indelible brand of the insider. Also, I always remain reasonable and I win them to my side by talking to them like regular people, not faceless entities. If I can share a joke or make them laugh, it's almost a given that they'll take the time to work a little harder for me.

Never bullshit a bullshitter, so don't tell me I'm doing a fabulous job; I'll automatically doubt your sincerity and promptly speculate on why you believe flattery may influence me - I do a good job because I'm a professional with high personal standards and not for praise.

I butter up folks for a living simply to get what I want out of them, so if you're a reluctant or awkward courtier I will notice immediately and discount your words accordingly. A sincere expression of thanks does the trick - but then again, there's nothing like gold ingots...

Haiku - The Last Few Weeks

2006-10-03T19:22:00.000-04:00

As I can't for the life of me think of anything witty or interesting to write, I decided to render the last few dramatic weeks in a series of haiku. A few of my wee group of readers will get the small jokes found within and be able to follow along easily. Other readers will perhaps struggle to find either levity of any kind or will not be able to build a storyline. However, trust me when I write that this is the only way I can think of to purge the events out of my brain without resorting to more drinking than I already have.

Drinking beer at JFK,
Strange man smells of black pepper,
Enroute to L.A.

JetBlue has nice seats;
Personal tv is grand.
But no food - I starve.

No one smokes out there.
It's not like I kill puppies.
Oy, the dirty looks!

I will get no sleep,
Talk all night to crazy girl-
He doesn't want you.

Sunrise brings no change.
Marriage is kaput, okay?
Face reality.

I predicted such,
But no one listens to me,
Clear voice of Reason.

Best part of L.A.
Sadly, were all the cheap cigs.
The rest was pure crap.

On the way back home,
Thank God for JetBlue headphones!
Tune out Crazy Girl.

Big shout out to home;
Good friend brings beer, hears my tale.
Helps me deal with her.

Computer and phone-
Not mine at all, oh my no!
At all hours - damn chat.

"I want second chance."
Marriage is kaput, again!
The facts are quite stark.

More phone messages
Than a sane person would leave,
But that's Crazy Girl!

She sneaks out early,
Flies to L.A. on a whim-
Surprise! Second chance?

No second chance, there-
Time to face reality.
Sad story, but true.

Homeward bound at last.
Crazy Girl - learned anything?
I don't believe so.

We tried hard to help-
With logic and self-respect.
Our toolbox is full.

Self Reliance: Don't Leave Home Without It

2006-09-26T20:18:00.000-04:00

A subject which has cropped up lately relative to family life is the individual's process of becoming an adult and separating from one's parents.

Some parents, my mother the main poster child among them, adopt a laissez-faire attitude towards the impending adulthood of their offspring. They encourage independence at an early age; very often this encouragement backfires when they saddle their children with too much independence or responsiblility. Taken at its extreme, the non-clinging parent can often become falsely reassured of the emotional maturity of their child; this false reassurance goes a long way to assuage the parent's feelings of guilt about their neglect, whether it is benign, unintentional, or because they are simply self-absorbed.

No child should become the confidante of their adult parent. No child should be confronted with adult realities before they are of an age to understand them. (There are many instances in human history and places in the world today where there is no such stage as childhood; it should be clear I'm writing about this in the context of a generalized Western middle class background.)

A child confronted with adult realtities is experiencing a subtle form of child abuse - believe me, I know that score only too well and would have been likely more socially well-adjusted had I not been forced to join that particular orchestra.***

Other parents hold their children so tightly and hover over their lives so closely that the boundaries between them are either terribly blurred or, and this is more damaging, completely indistinguishable. In its milder incarnation, these parents are known as "helicopters" - they hover over their children and monitor their lives, both inner and outer, at what is acknowledged as an extraordinary level of attention. The helicopters are completely aware of what they are doing, and most of them finally let go, eventually and with the proper show of reluctance.

At the extreme end, the symbiosis is so complete and overwhelming that neither knows where they end and the other begins, and the child is forced to struggle against tremendous odds and lashings of parental guilt to achieve even the smallest amount of independent adulthood. I also consider this a subtle form of child abuse, as the individual person's progress towards independence is hampered at every step, rendering it a much more difficult process to achieve.

Having never experienced the latter sort of parent, perhaps nurture triumphs over nature in this category. For the life of me, no matter how empathetic I try to be, I simply cannot understand the need of a parent to telephone their adult children (or even college age children) on a daily or twice daily basis. I cannot understand the need of a parent to micro manage the decisions of their adult child. As much as I have tried, I simply cannot understand or respect an adult child who accepts this kind of parental intrusion as par for the course and never attempts to become their own person. I save my sympathy for the fellow travelers on the way, however, and I encourage them to persist in the difficult journey towards true selfhood.

Because I have never been and will never be a parent, I fully recognize that I am at a disadvantage in understanding the truly unique bond that can be formed between parent and child.

But everybody at one point has to cut the umbilical cord and join the greater world; the comforting notion of a Super Daddy or Super Mommy who will swoop in and fix all disasters can sometimes be a difficult one to abandon, but learning to stand on one's own two feet and take on the world, come what may, is the most valuable lesson of all.

***But join it I did - I had no choice at the time, as my very survival was at stake, and one of the traits that is most important to me now and often defines me is an intense self-reliance. That trait reluctantly drags along its own double-edged sword, but that's a whole 'nother post on its own.

To The Genius I Can't Read, or Damn You Blogger

2006-09-25T19:26:00.000-04:00

Rumor has it that commenting has been difficult lately. According to the tiny robots of blogger, this has all been resolved.

Harumph. Don't believe that for a second, do you? Well, neither do I. According to my loyal and extraordinarily small group of readers, I have been missing various gems from the treasure chests of their prodigious minds (I know - I want to know what I'm missing as well.)

Damned if I can find a place to connect with a blog bot and ask the question.

I may have to [gasp] actually pay for the right to pour my drivel onto the information highway, or alternatively [double gasp] live without comments.

Unfortunately, our moment of blog silence is continuing - hopefully more very soon - but of course, you can't comment on it so how thrilling is the news that I won't be able to write for a little while yet? And so this snake swallows its own tail yet again.

Blog Silence II

2006-09-20T18:32:00.000-04:00

There will be a few days of silence here - family emergency to wade through. I'll be back wowing the crowds in a few days.

File Under: God, In Whom We Question Yet Again

2006-09-19T20:10:00.000-04:00

Are overly passionate people somehow better suited than those whose heads rule their hearts? It may sound like a silly question, but it seems to me that a lot of the raging debates overheard throughout the world and reported, recorded, repeated and rehashed in all corners of Blogistan consist of collisions between Passion and Reason.

Recently religious passion, notwithstanding one's religion (except maybe Buddhists, who always seem very calm to me) is displayed not as a private pact between the believer and his deity but a barometer or gauge as to one's fitness to participate in the political sphere.

I just fail to understand why it matters so much how a political person feels about religion. Why is the whole question of belief in God one every person hankering for a political position, from dogcatcher of Teenyburg, Nowheresville to President of the United States, is obliged to answer to satisfy the populace?

Oh I know why it matters from a reasonable standpoint - after all, presumably one feels more inclined toward a candidate who could further one's deeply held personal agenda. The xenophobic citizen, of which it appears we sport legion, are happy because they have the weapon they insist on - the knowledge that a candidate is one of Us versus one of Them. Why? The better to hate you with? Those of us for whom the God question truly doesn't matter are a group that is dwindling day by day, pushed into marginality by those for whom religion matters more than anything. And here I thought the transcendent light of Reason would someday trump all? (Damn you Enlightenment! I've been cheated. Cynicism, table for two please - and make that the smoking section!)

There's also the whole "my god is better than your god" tug of war that invariably becomes raised in these discussions - I believe the relative deities have never been known to extend their omnipotent pinkies to sort things out, so I just can't see how it matters.

I'll tell you what I'd like to see in a presidential race - just once. I'd like to see a well-qualified candidate with an impressive grounding in domestic and international affairs, a desire for good governance, a profound adherence to the rules of freedom and responsibility inherent in democracy, a unswerving belief in the dignity, intrinsic worth and equality of each citizen, and absolutely no interest in, even a refusal to answer, the religious questions.

I would wholeheartedly prefer to know the person who might hold the office cares more about doing a superlative job, and focusing his or her attention and energies on that, than whether he or she prays in the right way.

The revisionist history that is often spuriously used in public debates is that this country was intended by its founders to be a Christian country foremost, and that the Christian God did indeed extend an omnipotent finger and brand this country forevermore his own.

It sounds foolish when it's written like that - the revisionists usually use more high-flying language and less concrete analogies when they attempt to make their case. In the end, however, that's exactly what they believe.

But the case has already been made and closed long ago. It can be found in the writings left by the founders of this country - things they believed and wrote about in their own words, statements that were solemnly preserved for a reason.

So there's no need to take me at my word - in fact I'd prefer a person try to find otherwise, as the very words exist to refute any modern interpretation of their intent.

Of like mind was Thomas Jefferson, who wrote:

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion that has regulated it cannot be a bad one.

Now that's a candidate I could endorse.

In Which We Determine That Life is Indeed Stranger Than Fiction

2006-09-14T19:51:00.000-04:00

As reported by The Washington Post, apparently Bush believes that this country is heading towards a "Third Awakening", a resurgence of religious devotion that coincidentally (or not) is occuring during this nation's struggle with international terrorism.

Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history. Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms.

Good and Evil - how refreshing! How novel! My, we haven't seen such a cosmic struggle play itself out in human society in ever so long. Fabulous! Erasmus & Co. are likely spinning madly in their graves, calling out "Humanism? Table for One?" I wish I could say "Frankly, sir, I know Abraham Lincoln and you, sir, are no Abraham Lincoln." (He too is probably spinning in his grave, now that I think of it.)

"A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me,"Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades.

Way to go there, Sparky! Take a side publicly - damn that separation of church and state! It was a novel concept really, but outdated. Let's just smash an entire precept that has been a standard and hallmark of the founding of this country to bits and really wallow in it. It'll be like female mudwrestling, but better, cuz there will be more mud and boobs and stuff! And lasting decades? Quoi? I can't wait to be a Templar - they were so like James Bond and everything, but cooler. (Why do I feel as defiled as if I'd barged into the dreams of an adolescent boy?)

Bush has been careful discussing the battle with terrorists in religious terms since he had to apologize for using the word "crusade" in 2001

Yes, but his recent use of the term "Islamofascist" is so much more acceptable and fun; it's very early to mid 20th century, as opposed to referencing the Crusades, very late 11th to 14th century, so passe - plus there's a buncha history to learn about and all before you can actually talk about it but dude, those Templars kicked some serious ass!

And of course, the apology for the Insane Nut Job:

"He's drawing a parallel in terms of a resurgence, in dangerous times, of people going back to their religion," said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was not open to other journalists. "This is not 'God is on our side' or anything like that."

Ya think? It's exactly like "God is on our side". Whose God? Whose side? I swear, I can't make this shit up, and if I could, I'd be steering wheelbarrows full of cash to the bank. Life is far, far stranger than fiction. This, folks, is Exhibit A.

Ah - go read the whole thing.

It Was a Clear Day, Then

2006-09-12T20:28:00.000-04:00

I didn't write about September 11th yesterday, on the 5th anniversary, although the media saturation, plus discussions, memoirs and tributes found all over the net did force me to think about what happened that day.

I've been trying to avoid the overly maudlin, or what I call "tragedy porn". It seemed as if there was a sort of diabolical glee in viewing video of the towers being hit again and again, or of CNN running their footage exactly as it unfolded that day.

I think most people will remember where they were and what they were doing on September 11th - for most Americans, the televised images were all they had and the only way they received the news and the story.

As a New Yorker, though, I did have a very different experience that day, so as I've already shed my private tears I'll write my more public thoughts here about September 11th, in no particular order.

It was an absolutely perfect morning - everyone agrees on and remembers that. The reason it surfaces in so many memories is that there are so few days in New York when the weather is that pristine and clear. The day was an anomaly for that reason alone.

The first plane hit a few minutes before I emerged from the subway station at Union Square. Unaware, I walked west on 14th Street towards 5th Avenue on the way to my office. By the time I got to the corner of 5th, there were small knots of people standing there looking southward. That section of 5th affords a perfectly clear sight down to the WTC (and for months afterwards the gap in that section of the skyline was like a blow to my heart). I saw a huge hole in the North Tower. Nobody standing there had really seen what happened, until one man said he'd seen an airplane fly directly into the building. Pilot error? Heart attack? Nobody seemed to know.

As I was crossing 5th I'll never forget seeing one of the first fire engines careening down 5th at 50 miles an hour and cheering the young firefighters on along with the crowd; realizing later that as one of the group of first responders, that truckful of young men are no more.

My office is located on the penthouse floor of a 17 floor building about 2 miles north of Ground Zero. As is natural in a penthouse, there are huge office windows - ours face south, and we have a rooftop terrace with eastern and southern views. There are no other taller buildings facing south, so the view of the WTC from the executive offices on 17 and the terrace were unparalleled.

Having seen through a floor to ceiling office window the second plane hit the South Tower, I can testify that the resulting fireball was so much more enormous than any camera lens or film can record; enormous panels flew off the building with the impact and the billows of black smoke coming out of the bulding were huge.

The entire agency swarmed the terrace all morning and we were there, watching, when the towers collapsed - the first at a little before 10:00 and the second a half hour later - I've never smoked so many cigarettes in such a short time. Many of my colleagues had friends and relatives who worked in the WTC. The mood was somber and frightened. We called local hospitals to donate blood; they'd had a rush of donors already, from others who wanted to help as we did, and so they told us not to come. What we could guess was that the hospitals knew they would have no survivors.

We lost phone service fairly early in the day; since Mr. FH works at night, I knew he wouldn't be awake before noon. Before we lost the phones, I left him a message to turn on the TV, that I was okay, that I would call if I could. The bridges and tunnels out of Manhattan were closed for many hours, so by the time the subway opened up again and I got home that night at 6:30, I was so thankful just to be able to see him. During the course of the late morning I'd been able to reassure my family living elsewhere in the States that I was alright, and he at home had been fielding calls from family in France, Morocco, and Algeria, reassuring them that we were okay.

That became a litany over the next few weeks - making sure everyone was okay.

Even though airspace over Manhattan was closed to commercial traffic, we heard the sounds of fighter planes circling the island all of September 11th and if I remember correctly they flew for at least a week. And I'll never forget the sirens; they were a constant sound all of the 11th and for days afterwards.

When the wind changed a few days later and the smoke began blowing eastward, the weather was still fine enough that all our apartment windows were still open - we live about 15 miles east of Ground Zero. The smell and the lingering smoke are part of the small things that can't adequately be described; the smell lingered in our apartment and the city and was very strong as far north as the Village (roughly a mile and a half north) and lasted until the middle of November.

Despite living here, I've never been to Ground Zero. Never will go, frankly, and I'm adamant about avoiding it. Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I worked briefly on the 93rd floor of the North Tower. I hated working in the building then. I don't believe going to the site now would change anything for me. I don't necessarily have to have an anniversary to remember; I do remember. It doesn't paralyze me but I it has affected me.

But I always remember it didn't happen to me; I'm still here - to write, love, laugh, argue, work, play. There are so many others who cannot say the same. They should not be forgotten.

File Under: Tripped Up By The Past

2006-09-09T21:16:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I had to take a "road trip" for my boss to the Upper East Side -I had to deliver an envelope to one of our clients at his extremely exclusive address in a neighborhood teeming with exclusivity. I rarely go to this neighborhood, as most of my life occurs more conveniently much further downtown.

Down a dead end street, hard by the East River. The house number was barely noticeable, the apartment lobby small, discreet and opulent but nearly maritime in its spare elegance - very unusual for the Upper East Side, where most building lobbies strive to outdo their neighbors in size and marble acreage.

Walking to the subway after making my delivery, I had ample time to observe my fellow pedestrians. Every blonde, blue-eyed child, either walking or in a stroller, was accompanied by an older, darker woman - Caribbean, West Indian, African-American.

The Nanny Brigade was out in full force. It was early afternoon in early September, the weather balmy but the children back in school. It brought back many memories for me.

Once upon a time, 24 years ago, I was one of the nannies taking care of a pair of upper crust New York children.

In my day it was fashionable to import one's nanny, or "au pair" as we were called, from Europe - most of my peers and friends among the ranks were Swedish, French or British. Also fashionable was importing naieve religious girls from the West - many a good Mormon girl from Utah did her time as a nanny in the wicked city. Mormon girls were prized for several reasons - they didn't drink, smoke, or consort with men; all of them had a lifetime of experience in caring for small children, and it was nearly guaranteed that all of them would be afraid enough of a city and innocent enough that they would never suspect the cold facts of their servitude.

Perfect little puppets, in fact. Little soldiers sent to a different war, in fact.

I got my post from an ad placed in a Salt Lake City newspaper. My situation was different; I was older than most of the au pairs, I'd been to college and had lived on my own. At the time I was certainly not by any means a good Mormon girl, but I acted my heart out to convince the family by long distance that I wouldn't dare break the mold.

It was my ticket out, I confess. I wanted to leave Utah desperately. There was nothing for me there, and I was more than ready to leave a dead-end job and a disastrous relationship without a backward glance. I had always wanted to live in New York - it was my dream - and if I could get there using people who were bent on using me, I was keen to get the suffering over with and move on.

The memories I recalled yesterday are not happy or comfortable; on the contrary, much of that time I prefer to remember not at all.

The job I held lies in a hazy strata of paid servant, one notch above the housekeeper, one noticeable notch below everyone else. Depending on where one landed, one could be consistently ridiculed, debased, scorned, repeatedly shouted at, shamed, expoited or sexually harassed.

Never underestimate the cruelty of rich parents, for it can be infinitely varied and catch you unaware until you feel the knife in your back. Never underestimate the cruelty of priviledged children, for it can be breathtakingly cunning and aim precisely for your heart.

Perhaps there are situations where a nanny is loved and respected by the entire family - situations where her contributions to the children's welfare are openly and graciously acknowledged. Perhaps.

But the stories I heard and what I experienced during my very short tenure as an au pair belie that wish, grand as it may be. I was able to leave that life, fairly shortly after I'd begun, by getting a promising office job. After a few fits and starts I moved into a decent apartment, got a few raises, made real friends and experienced genuine romantic relationships. I have no illusions that my ability to leave servitude relied on being white, educated, and possessing marketable skills.

So I looked yesterday at the expressions on the faces of the Nanny Brigade, and was not surprised at all to see resignation.

It's too much to hope that they saw my empathy.

The Lost Generation

2006-09-07T21:21:00.000-04:00

I have always thought of myself as a member of Generation X. According to the Wiki

Generation X is a term for a cohort of people born following the peak of the post-World War II baby boom, especially in Canada and the United States. While all sources agree the group includes at least some people born in the 1960s, the exact demographic boundaries vary depending on whether each source means people born just before the end of the boom, or just after, or just whoever happens to be twentysomething at the time.[1] The term is used in demography, the social sciences, and marketing, though it is most often used in popular culture. The generation's influence over pop culture began in the 1980s and may have peaked in the 1990s. Emphasis mine.

The part about the exact boundaries for the beginning of this generation is interesting - if you follow sociologists, not many agree on the beginning years, although most seem to adhere to the same ending year.

As one who is in the eyes of several sociologists considered on the "cusp" between the Baby Boomers and Generation X, it is to the latter that I've always felt allegiance.

I have absolutely nothing in common with Baby Boomers. I have never shared their optimism, naivete, nor their overweening sense of entitlement. They weren't born with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging over their heads - we inherited their flimsy Duck and Cover grade school exercises knowing even as children the utter futility of the act.

Trust me - all the Generation X'ers out there possess a cold calm streak of nihilism - an extreme form of skepticism - based on the perceived reality of our childhood world. That worldview shaped the adults we are now, of that I am sure.

The future was difficult to believe in, as at the time there were not that many assurances that it would exist. And to make it to the ripe old ages that we now inhabit comes as a wee surprise to many, I'm sure.

It certainly does to me. To find myself possibly growing old arrives like a slap in the face - I didn't see that coming! So in a way our uber-preparedness as children and teens for the rigors of "The Day After" served us not well at all. C'est la vie.

Of course, my poll is of necessity small and should be subject to scrutiny for accuracy. But I believe we were all the Material Girl at heart, regardless of gender, one and the same.

So I salute our cynicism, the last pure expression of it.

Long may it wave.

This Week in Its Briefs: Screw Laundry, Just Buy New Pairs

2006-09-06T20:01:00.000-04:00

1. I was saddened but not overly suprised to learn of Steve Irwin's death over Labor Day weekend. It was somewhat inevitable, I suppose, that jockeying about with wild animals would prove fatal. But he had such unbridled enthusiasm for the natural world, and did a great deal to promote conservationist causes worldwide. RIP Croc Hunter. There won't be another like you.

2. And with the conclusion of Labor Day, summer is officially over. I emerged with only one very minimal sunburn, coinciding not at all with the fact that I received the burn on the one and only day I actually spent in the sun. (What was up with that? I'm a suncreen demon. I can only conclude the brand I bought was crap.)

I stopped actively tanning several years ago; after a youth spent in the pursuit of the perfect summertime tan the bronzing habit was initially hard to break. However, right about the time I was trying to kick off the strait jacket of tanning I visited a female relative in her mid-50's who had tanned aggressively and religiously all of her life - whoosh! She had far too many wrinkles in what should have been relatively youthful facial skin. She looked 10 years older than she should have and this scared me straight; straight to the bottle of industrial strength sunscreen and straight off the beach forever more.

Nowadays, on the extremely rare occasions when I go to the beach I'm the one under the huge umbrella wearing hat, sunglasses, and long sleeved tee shirt. I always get a big laugh from my fellow beachgoers, but I shall be the one laughing when I confront my peers in the future (most of whom have not heeded my sun warnings) when their skin resembles mahogany end tables. And for those friends still in their late 20's and 30's that scoff at my advice I have six words for you: forty five - you won't be exempt.

3. If you feel as if this Administration is just marking time before they unilaterally decide to declare war on yet another country, even before we've sloppily stitched together the seething mess that is Iraq, you're not alone.

I can't say I'm surprised, given the unrelenting tide of hate that streams forth from Capitol Hill, which hatred of "the other" they in turn disseminate through the Republican party and which encompasses nearly everything they espouse. It's not really hate so much as the callous indifference to human lives and suffering that bothers me the most. I have no problem ascribing monumental indifference to the cosmos, laws of physics, nature & stuff, as these are generally enormous non-sentient masses that don't actively wish harm, it's just shit that happens. But to willfully ignore potential suffering to a member of one's own species; just ick.

4. In Cupcake News: Cupcake Emeritus is enjoying the semi-retired life, preoccupied with propelling his wheelbarrows of money about, and is cutting the apron strings connected to me slowly and painlessly. Remaining Executive Cupcakes aren't taxing my intellect or time very much, which gives me ample time to obsess about My Life and Where It's Going. For someone like me who very easily dips into quagmires of introspection, this is not really a good thing, as the quagmire is often hard to emerge from.

All I can do is hope.

In Which Our Heroine Is Speechless With Rage

2006-09-05T18:54:00.000-04:00

Right now I feel like a bubbling inchoate mass of anger directed towards the current Administration - the mess! It never ends! And I find myself asking the age old question, "Who's going to clean this up?".

The recent presidential speeches about continuing "terror" (since Bush continues to find terrorists under every bed, it seems) is more fuel dumped daily on an already simmering Madame Fresh Hell.

Just today, the White House released the National Strategy for Combating Terrorism - national strategy, terror, blah blah blah, which Uses A Great Many Capital Letters Similar to Victorian Novels; To Highlight Importance Or Merely Sound Victorian, I Cannot Tell.

There are too many key points to parse in this post, but what I take away from the press release (Thanks a pantsload, Republicans) is that I Ought To Dig In, As This War Is Guaranteed To Last My Lifetime.

Or until someone takes a potshot with a nuclear warhead, whichever comes first.

It is to weep.

Blog Silence

2006-08-29T19:09:00.000-04:00

Not intended, not meant. I've noticed the more I read the less I write; the more family, work and money matters pull me into their respective spheres to pay attention to their voices the less I write.

Such is the situation now. All of these factors have been contributing whimsically to snooze my Muse.

But I'll be back soon.

What Is Borrowed, What is Blue?

2006-08-23T19:43:00.000-04:00

I’m no expert on Algerian weddings – I’ve only attended two. But from my slight vantage point I can offer some fun facts about wedding finery.

The bride is the spectacle, the star of the show, and the focus of all attention. Depending upon the means of the family, the bride may appear in as many as seven different dresses, including her “robe blanche” which is always a traditional Western white wedding gown and usually worn at the end of the evening. The bride is also loaded down with gold and diamond jewelry - forget understated, forget restraint. This is an occasion for her to go all out and display her personal collection, family heirlooms and gifts from the groom.

Most of the dresses selected combine regional, traditional Algerian styles with Western-style formal evening gowns. I've found a few authentic photos that show some different styles.

Here are two pictures of the classic style from Constantine in eastern Algeria. This is a very difficult dress to wear - the embroidered fabric can be quite heavy and the style seems to automatically add 10 pounds to even the most slender women.

Here’s are two samples of Karakou, a style which originated in Algiers. It combines a heavily embroidered velvet jacket with fitted satin harem pants usually slit up the sides with sort of a balloon effect around the ankles. It sounds uncomfortable but it’s more like a skirt that hampers any sort of walking other than daintily. This has always been a favorite style of mine - I think it looks sleek and elegant.

Many women select at least one of their dresses to honor their family heritage – it could be a classic kaftan made from layers of silk and satin such as either of these two dresses

or a traditional Kabyle wedding dress like this. I have the same outfit, although mine is made of a coarser silk. It’s incredibly comfortable to wear and dance in.

The one thing it's difficult to show in photos is how opulent these costumes are. Some of the ensembles are simply breathtaking but just don't photograph that well.

The women get all the fun, however, as no one has the slightest bit of interest in what the groom is wearing. He could show up in a tee shirt and jeans to probably barely a ripple - well, that's some exaggeration. The groom is generally well turned out in a classic dark suit, shirt and tie, but believe me when I say no one looks at him.

Which seems to be the case in weddings all over the world.

In Which Our Heroine Makes Some Sense

2006-08-17T16:53:00.000-04:00

A few days ago, I wrote this:

This most recent plan to combine disparate liquid elements, attach a simple detonator and blow up planes over the Atlantic is likely something Algerian security forces wouldn't be able to detect. From what I've read over the last three days, while the liquid combination/resulting explosion can be done, it's not as simple as mixing a pitcher of martinis. It would be very tricky operationally, and would be as likely to backfire/misfire as succeed.

Today, I read this:
Binary Explosives - Definitely Not As Easy As Martinis

I won't claim any sort of prescience of anything, but remember where you read it first, eh?

The Kissing!

2006-08-17T15:56:00.000-04:00

I didn't experience much culture shock during our trip to Algeria. I don't know what to ascribe this lack to, other than that we stayed in hotels during a fair amount of the time, as well as dividing our vacation between the two largest cities, Algiers and Oran. These are much more modern cities than Westerners usually expect, and thus are more open and easier to decipher. While I never forgot I was in North Africa, I did not experience any privation and, except for Oran, much in the way of staring (which deserves its own post).

I was more comfortable with Mr. FH's family at the gatherings, so perhaps I'm more accustomed to what will occur and therefore am less nervous as a consequence.

But the kissing!

Family members and close friends kiss hello and goodbye all the time. At a family event, when confronted with a twenty member "reception" line (which they resemble), the strategy is to learn whom one kisses four times, twice on each cheek, when two kisses will suffice and, most importantly for a Westen woman, if it is appropriate to kiss a male relative at all or settle for a hearty handshake.

It's a minefield, people! There are no hard and fast rules - personal attachment and sentiment factor into the equation, as do familial ties and respect for elders.

I present a short multiple answer quiz to test your comprehension (reader surveys show they like these best of all):

1. When greeting or saying goodbye to my mother-in-law, with whom I do not share any common language, do I

A. Kiss her four times
B. Kiss her two times
C. Kiss her four times, exchange warm greetings in Arabic, and give her a big hug?
D. Hearty handshake
E. Wave feebly

This is very easy (now that I think of it, this entire post could serve as a primer for every American wife confronting North African or Middle Eastern in-laws). The obvious answer is C; however, this is predicated on my learning proper warm greetings in Arabic beforehand.

2. When greeting or saying goodbye to Mr. FH's aunt, using the above choices, what do I do?

Again, the answer is C. Not just because she is Mr. FH's aunt, or because she is an elderly person, but because I know she helped raise him - it is necessary to be aware of important family relationships to avoid potential missteps. She wouldn't be offended if I didn't get it right, but she would assume, and perhaps correctly, that I had so little interest in his formative years and her part in them that I would neglect to give her the most respectful greeting.

3. When greeting or saying goodbye to Mr. FH's brother-in-law's elderly mother, using the above choices, what do I do?

I might be tempted to again employ response C, as it is a good default. However, that would be incorrect given the relative distance between us. Sure, she's an old lady, but response B is most correct. She certainly won't expect me to employ the warmest greeting, so I would not be wrong with response B.

4. When greeting or saying goodbye to any child in the family under the age of twenty, using the above choices, what do I do?

By now you should be getting into the groove - children always rate a B response - it is their default setting from birth and needn't be disturbed until they get older or they form an personal, emotional attachment with you. As they will probably not do this until they are at least twenty or so or are perceived as adults in their own right, the default child setting should stay.

5. When greeting the wife of Mr. FH's nephew, using the above choices, what do I do?

This hardly dignifies a response, as it is exactly the same as question #4. Spouses of nieces, nephews, cousins and siblings, unless one has close ties, rate the B response. So, Nephew's Wife will get a B response until/if she and I form a more solid attachment, at which time we'll both likely consider whether we rate response C.

6. When meeting brothers or nephews of Mr. FH's brother-in-law for the first time, using the above choices, what do I do?

If you've been following this quiz at all, this is a no-brainer. Response D is the only proper one to employ. The degree of distance, the fact that I don't know them, and the men v. women aspect that is a very real and important part of the culture all point to D as the only proper response.

7. When confronted with an infant, regardless of gender, regardless of family affiliation, what do I do?

Babies are the ultimate kiss frenzy. Feel free to kiss the baby non-stop. Babies exist to be kissed non-stop. It's a blessing - run with it.

Mr. FH's family is huge, and often the familial relationships aren't crystal clear to me - frankly, he doesn't know half the people to whom he's related. I may have surprised a relative on occasion by giving them four kisses when they're only expecting to receive (and give) two. Conversely, those to whom I should be bestowing four kisses have perhaps been surprised with a meagre two.

It goes without saying that these protracted hellos and goodbyes are performed somewhat leisurely - don't think you can leave even an informal family gathering with a wave and "bye all!" exclamation from the doorway.

Ain't done. At times it can be tiring - mostly I think it's sweet, although there are times when I'd love nothing more than making mad dash for escape.

But the kissing is a pervasive habit I found very hard to break upon my return to New York, so I apologize to those of you not accustomed to the custom.

Until Wednesday

2006-08-13T20:31:00.000-04:00

Is it possible to be homesick for a country that's never been your home? Because I have been feeling some nostalgia already about our trip.

Perhaps I'm feeling blue because Mr. FH is still in Algeria and I'm in New York. We've been separated before - the longest occasion was six weeks - and every time it's been difficult. I've discovered some successful coping strategies over the course of time, but I've also found that not every tip works consistently.

So for me, I think, home is where the heart is, and my heart is now 6,000 miles away. Mr. FH calls, but not often, and I let dishes pile up in the sink and spend quite a few aimless hours pacing the apartment. Sleeping alone used to be so difficult, but I solve the problem by taking one of his worn tee shirts and draping it onto his pillow. It's not a perfect substitute, but it works if I wake during the night.

I get up in the morning, go to work, make plans to see friends in the evening for drinks, take out the garbage, buy coffee filters and orange juice - the same kinds of things I would do if Mr. FH were here. But he's not here, and I feel his lack so keenly.

I'm thinking of things to write, ways to describe Algeria to make it come alive as I experienced it.

The major component I'm missing is the warm, funny and loving Algerian man who has been my best friend and husband for the last 9 years.

File Under: Airport Security, Experiences Of

2006-08-12T18:53:00.000-04:00

I had three reactions to this week's report from Britain about the foiled terrorist activity involving blowing up airplanes traveling from the UK to the US - the first was "damn I'm glad I flew back last Sunday", the second was "damn, Mr. FH doesn't come home until next week - eek!", and the third was "good - now we finally might get actual genuine security measures put in place rather than the mickey mouse routines to which we usually are subjected."

I'm sorry to say that the TSA looks like a group of kindergarteners trying to locate their opposable thumbs in comparison to the stringent security measures practiced elsewhere in the world.

Algeria, after a gruesome decade of civil war and their own internal struggles with violent splinter groups, has, as one might imagine, designed and implemented a set of most impressive and thorough procedures for airport security.

To enter the grounds of the airport, there are two police checkpoints and at the second one must allow the police to check the trunk of the car. To enter the airport building itself one must send all baggage through the xray machine, go thrugh a metal detector, and all males are physically frisked (shout out to the military guy snoozing after I went through the metal dectector on my way home - he absentmindedly helped himself for a nano-second to a handful of my chest before realizing his mistake - nice to know my surprised expression and raised eyebrows could make an officer blush!).

These procedures set the tone for the remainder of one's airport experience - I won't go into additional detail, although these are by no means state secrets. The presence of soldiers with machine guns positioned around the aircraft as passengers are brought to the plane by bus isn't chilling or overly martial; on the contrary, the military presence is oddly comforting.

Each and every security measure the Algerians employ are meaningful and performed for a reason - they are not frivolous activities meant to do nothing but delay or annoy innocent travelers. There is no profiling invovled as every single passenger, with no exceptions, is subjected to the same security measure. Each carry on bag is opened and inspected; all passengers are frisked by either a male or female officer before being allowed to ascend the stairway to the jet.

When flying the national airline, each piece of checked baggage must be "recognized" by its owner. Baggage is stacked neatly on the tarmac next to the plane - before boarding, each person physically picks up their bags and puts them on the baggage cart. Any unclaimed bag is immediately taken away and destroyed. Needless to say, with this method one never loses one's luggage, and it also reminds one to pack lightly.***

Do these stringent security measures make it terribly difficult to fly? I refuse to believe they do. Sure they're inconvenient, they take a lot of time, and inevitably delays ensue. The flight rarely takes off on time and it often feels as if the delays are eternal. (I've concluded that Hell isn't other people, it's eternity spent waiting in an Algerian airport). Do any of these measures erode one's civil liberties? Not in the least, although some men have told me that the frisking can be a bit too intimate, if you know what I mean. Algeria's air security record is now spotless. Security is performed by the military; it is well paid and well respected work, as opposed to the sporadically trained and chronically underpaid staff of the TSA.

Will we ever see such intelligent, sensible and purposeful security employed in the US? I don't think we will. Americans have for so long been so conditioned to go where they please and follow their travel whims with the minimum of fuss attached to their movements that it would take an enormous and unimaginable tragedy, or series of them, to change what is essentially a very stubborn state of mind.

I regret losing the innocence of air travel in years past, but all the regret in the world can't change the world we now live in, which is a much more sinister place than most Americans are willing to admit. And until Americans do admit that they have just as vulnerable a seat at the global table as every other nation, we'll continue to be painted with a red bulls-eye. We could learn a great deal by implementing even a small segment of Algeria's security methods, and I'm sorry to say that as a country we are still too arrogant to consider such an exercise worthwhile.

This most recent plan to combine disparate liquid elements, attach a simple detonator and blow up planes over the Atlantic is likely something Algerian security forces wouldn't be able to detect. From what I've read over the last three days, while the liquid combination/resulting explosion can be done, it's not as simple as mixing a pitcher of martinis. It would be very tricky operationally, and would be as likely to backfire/misfire as succeed. Am I glad that British intelligence uncovered the potential plan and arrested those involved? Hell yes. Will I fly in the future, even if the current strict carry-on measures become a way of life? Hell yes.

But don't behave as if a pot of lipgloss poses a grave security breach. That, my friends, is a textbook example of Fresh Hell.

***Air Algerie pilots are among the best in the world - they always land the planes with the most delicate touch.

Algeria - Where Hospitality Was Invented

2006-08-08T20:26:00.000-04:00

There's a wonderful quality to Algerians that is appreciated by all who come in contact with them - their superb hospitality is truly one of their most appealing and happily enduring cultural characteristics.

I don't know what exactly contributed to this charming aspect of their culture, but the hospitality gene is evident in every single Algerian I've encountered.

Food, drink, the shirt off their backs - nothing is too good for a guest. The comfort and well being of the guest, whether that person is a stranger, a distant cousin or a treasured family member is of paramount importance to them.

While their customs of hospitality have obviously been transmitted through centuries of tradition, modern Algerians have also inherited a great deal of personal pride, which I see reflected as a healthy self esteem and is evident in the care they afford their guests.

In the context of wider cultural observations, Algerians consider class distinctions quite formally; their cultural concepts about class are generally so well understood amongst themselves and they don't necessarily feel they need to explain them to outsiders. (The entire concept of foreigners in the country deserves its own post, which I'll write later.) In this rapidly developing country, many of the subtle demarcations they take for granted aren't well understood by or explained to foreigners.

But no matter who you are, there is food, drink, a bed for the night if you wish, and water with which to wash. And sometimes for a weary traveler it doesn't get any better than that.

Back From Vacation

2006-08-07T18:20:00.000-04:00

I'm back - just returned from Algeria last night. We had a lot of fun and I have so many adventures to relate. Jet lag and I are currently best buddies, so I'll post more as the week progresses.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a few of my personal tag lines for an advertising campaign for the country:

Algeria - One Big Outdoor Sauna

Algeria - We May Have Air Conditioning, We May Not

Algeria - You Will Dance Until Your Feet Are Bloody Stumps (well, maybe this one is a little too harsh for ads but it's true, damnit!)

Algeria - Where Hospitality Was Invented

I'm looking forward to sharing my stories and hope my wee group of readers will enjoy reading them.

This Week in Its Briefs - Heat Wave Edition

2006-07-19T20:46:00.000-04:00

1. This recent heat wave has sapped me of the will to live. Not literally, but I find myself pre-occupied with staying cool, enjoying fleeting moments of actually being cool, and various other body temperature exigencies. Imagine how marvelous it is to start one's day standing on a subway platform, essentially a tunnel dug under the street which is already sweltering at 8:00 am, feeling the tell tale rivulets of sweat inching down one's spine- delightful! One's cool shower seems ever so remote.

2. As my patience with the heat has disappeared in a thin strip of haze at the horizon, so has my patience with the assorted office Cupcakes. One could be charitable and expect that their reactions to the scorching temps might mirror one's own, hence the shortness of tempers, but one is far too occupied with matters of weather (see #1 above) to cut the boss any slack. Besides, we all know who will be first against the wall come the Revolution, eh Comrade? (I've been reading far too many spy novels lately.)

3. The G8 Summit - just when you think our very own PresiDolt couldn't possibly behave any worse, he finds a way to raise (lower?) the bar. Talking with his mouth full - unaware or perhaps uncaring - that the microphones were still on; goobering with Blair as if they were shooting the shit at the local saloon rather than discussing matters of prime importance; the deeply egregious shoulder massage of German chancellor Merkel, which has provoked a worldwide collective shudder - I could go on, but it's already been beaten to death blogwide and I'm not in the avant garde report-wise. Still. Talk about Jesus wept.

4. On Monday I'm off to a Muslim country for two weeks - yay! I say that sincerely and with no sarcasm. Algeria is an absolutely beautiful country - I was stunned last summer by its natural unspoiled abundance and expect to be so again. It's not a place one barges into, at least not as an American - I am observant, decorous, and respectful, traits that go a long way in mitigating our country's recent sorry reputation abroad. Some people who know me in real life may find it hard to believe that I can behave that way, as it is quite opposite to my natural inclination, but I'm a firm believer of turf superiority, and I play by other rules when I'm not on home turf.

Sayonara for now (spy novels, I know).

When I Was Mugged

2006-07-15T20:56:00.000-04:00

I've lived in New York since 1984, save for three years when I lived upstate. In 19 years, I've only been mugged once.

Kew Gardens, Queens, April 1989. The month before I had been caught in a corporate downsizing, the first of my career, and was cheerfully enjoying some much needed leisure before I looked for a new job. Because I wasn't working, I was spending more daylight hours in my neighborhood than usual. Kew Gardens was then, and remains, a very desirable section of Queens. Surely there were then and perhaps are now a few isolated dicey pockets, but overall it's a very nice place to live.

I was coming into my apartment building's vestibule around 1:00 pm, having just thrust a load of laundry into one of the washing machines in a nearby laundromat. Fumbling with mail and purse I entered the elevator with a nicely dressed black man who was preoccupied with shuffling various business cards, as if on his way to an appointment in the building. This set off no warning bells for me at all - I didn't know most of my neighbors and it was entirely possible that one of them worked out of their home.

I was surprised out of my complacency when the elevator went up to the 3rd floor then abruptly down again rather than continuing to my apt on the 4th floor; surprised again to find the black man wielding a knife (not really long but in retrospect perhaps long enough) and harshly asking for my bag.

The crazy reaction, and a pure New Yorker's reaction, is that I argued with him. He asked for my watch - I retorted that my watch was worth nothing, as it was an antique men's watch (true). He wanted my ring - the ring had cost me $1.50 at the Seaport, and I told him so. He wanted my cash - I had $40 dollars, which I gave up willingly. Next he went after my wallet. I had irreplacable photographs of my father in that wallet, yet I eventually gave up my wallet and purse with their contents entire. As he pushed me out of the elevator into the building's basement I shouted that the credit cards I had wouldn't net him enough money to get out of Queens. Thankfully I still had my apartment keys and once I got in the elevator and in my apartment the first thing I did, before even calling the police, was cancel the credit cards - yet another seasoned New Yorker's reaction.

After the credit cards, the police.

I was connected to and picked up by detectives working the Senior Citizens' Crime Unit. Apparently this man or others in his circle had been targeting elderly women in my neighborhood in exactly the same way and at the same time of day I had been accosted.

The detectives were initiaally alarmed to learn that their perp had changed his MO so abruptly to target a younger woman like me, and then of course they were overjoyed; their previous victims had all been fuzzy about the specifics of the perp due to their impaired faculties - the dear detectives were beside themselves knowing they had a young person available to finally give them a clear descripton.

I spent a long while in the Forest Hills police station poring through mug books, then was firmly requested to take a drive with my new found friends into downtown Manhattan to One Police Plaza, where we traversed many corridors and elevators to end up at the desk of a police sketch artist.

For those of you that will never experience recreating a criminal's face with a seasoned NYPD sketch artist (and that will be practically all of you) you can thank all the gods now that I did so you will never have to. It's mentally excrutiating, physically exhausting, and time consuming. At the end the artist and I, as it is a hugely collaborative process, rendered an excellent facial representation of the mugger.

At one point during the three hours I spent with the sketch artist I thought of the fate of my poor laundry, forlorn and unattended in the laundromat.

The story concludes in the manner of most New York stories, with a small peep rather than a bang. The mugger was never caught, my boyfriend at the time was furious that I assisted the police and was adamantly opposed to my helping them any more than I had already done (he had decided they were "using" me).

My purse was never recovered. I still miss the watch. The ring was never replaced. I got a new wallet and new credit cards, but the photographs of my father have whooshed into limbo and are above all what I most regret losing.

For a few months after this incident I was diligent in my personal surveillance - I was haunted by what I might not have noticed and paranoid about the future. But that diligence too, faded, as it invariably does.

I've told this story to some people over the years and they all focus on the moment when the mugger brandishes a knife over his head and shouts demands to me about what he wants, and I calmly argue with him over the relative value of the objects he intends to steal from me. I agree - perhaps I would have been in great danger, but it was a judgement call and I think I made the right one.

He was frustrated by his victim debating each and every object's choice. But at the time it seemed to me perfectly reasonable - what mugger with any self-respect at all will take a coral ring worth $1.50? Puleez.

The Tall Blonde In Spectacles

2006-07-12T20:46:00.000-04:00

In less than 2 weeks Mr. Fresh Hell and I embark for our vacation in Algieria. This trip will be an interesting one, I suspect. We'll spend much of the time in Algiers, and we'll have 4 days in Oran, a fascinating city located in the west of the country - birthplace of several prominent folks, among them Albert Camus, Cheb Khaled, Mami, and Yves Saint Laurent. Oran has a long history of Spanish influence, and is known for some excellent architecture, churches, mosques and beaches.

However, featured foremost in the merriment of our trip will be the wedding of one of Mr. Fresh Hell's legion of nieces. His family produced its fair share of boys during Mr. FH's generation, but there are scads of girls in the succeeding one.

It was initially terribly surprising to me, naif that I was, to learn of the lack of prohibition in North Africa against marrying one's cousin. Second cousins or even third cousins still raise eyebrows in the West, and first cousins are considered far too close relations to seriously consider. Not so in North Africa - marriages between first and second cousins are common.

One of Mr. FH's sisters married her first cousin; their children are all perfectly normal, quite good-looking, and exceedingly bright. I have no idea whether this is the norm or the exception, and perhaps it doesn't bear mentioning. After all, would I confess if the offspring are profoundly odd, ugly, and unbearably dull?

I digress because the Niece will be marrying a man who is a distant cousin of hers, a man Mr. FH and I have known very well for many years. The Groom even lived with us for three months when we were first married - he was desperate for a place, and my overgenerous and kind-hearted spouse invited him in as a quick fix, with an unspoken caveat that it would be for the very short term only.

The first year of marriage is difficult enough without introducing another person into the menage, so to speak, and when Groom didn't adhere to the "short term" aspect of our arrangement quickly enough for my taste I took matters firmly into my own hands, initiating a difficult confrontation with him which unfortunately turned into a full blown fight.

Groom found his own place (in the apartment right below us, oh the irony) and since then he and I have been on the best of terms. He subsequently moved to L.A., where he still lives, in somewhat of an extended household with his brother, sister, and her family. He told me later that the push I gave him to establish himself was exactly what he needed - in his words, "The best thing that happened to me."

He'll bring his new bride to California and her part of the adventure will begin. Groom has lived in the States for 16 years, and while she visited New York 6 years ago she'll be coping with a new country and a new marriage all at once. I wish her well and in the same breath foresee some sticky times ahead. She's extremely well-educated, though, so I hope her assimilation into American culture won't take too long.

Groom's brother is also marrying the same day and they'll share a reception, which will make this wedding doubly interesting for me to attend, pun definitely intended. I don't understand spoken Algerian that well - most of time, especially if it's a complex discussion, I comprehend the topic rather than the words themselves. When the conversation is simple, I understand the words. What I often end up relying on is body language, which has to be parsed through the culture as much as anything else; it's not always reliable, and sometimes I get it completely wrong, but in many instances that's all I have.

So wish me luck, dear readers, as I maneuver (the only American who has married into the family) through potential minefields of family relations - well-meaning widows, octogenarians of both genders who after nearly 10 years of marriage to Mr. FH aren't entirely sure who I am, shy yet endearing children, cousins, aunts, and uncles I've met before yet can't seem to remember, and the inevitable language difficulties that await (thank the Gods for French - it will only take me a few days to get more comfortable with speaking, and my comprehension has soared due to daily soaking with French TV).

If you need to identify me in the crowd, I'll be the tall blonde in spectacles.

Algerians - Heads Like Rocks, I've Always Said

2006-07-11T20:44:00.000-04:00

Sadly, Les Bleus did not win the World Cup last Sunday. It was a curious and fun experience for me, as I watched the game with fervent Algerian fans transplanted to New York, all of whom have closely followed the fortunes of the team as a whole and also the career of Zinedine Zidane. Much has been written so far this week about the headbutting episode.

Our first reaction, I admit, was shock, awe and laughter. Whatever it was or wasn't, it decisively knocked the Italian flat on his ass. (The you tube footage has 1,754-odd views at the time I'm writing this.)

I always joke with Mr. Fresh Hell that Algerians are so stubborn that they have heads like rocks - who knew how prophetic the jest would be?

Word on the net is that Materazzi said something egregiously foul to Zidane - that Zizou was provoked beyond his patience - at a time, we can all admit, when his patience was probably remarkably thin. Still, Zidane appears at the moment directly before the headbutt quite calm and composed, which makes the ensuing violence so surprising and unexpected.

I haven't decided how I feel about it. Lip readers have been employed to decipher what Materazzi said; sports journalists and soccer fans worldwide have been weighing in with written opinions pro and con.

A lot of folks have written that regardless of what Materazzi said, Zidane could have (and the should have is implied) dealt with it later, outside the confines of the World Cup final. Those of a condemnatory nature have written that it debased Zidane's final career game. Some people have defended his action, claiming that he was provoked beyond endurance, that soccer is a passionate game and often not clean, certainly not built for pansies, and that there has always been a thuggish quality to the sport. Zidane is guilty on occasions during the course of his career of a few violent responses.

Did Italy play a clean game in the final? I personally don't think so. The shin-clutching flop was way too much in evidence during regulation play to lead me to believe otherwise.

But until Zidane publishes a definitive statement - which I predict will be carefully crafted by his agent to dispense a reasonably bland explanation which will in essence explain nothing - we'll not really know what happened.

We may never know - but everyone who saw that game won't forget it soon, will they? Won't we always remember the final of World Cup 2006?

He's Just Not That Into You

2006-07-06T21:05:00.000-04:00

I have been working on some future posts but have also been mucho distracted-o by the highly engaging World Cup. It's been great fun to follow and hopefully, "les vieux"*** will prevail and France will win.

Curiously, though, as I've been talking with fellow soccer fan friends and colleagues, everyone seems to automatically frown when I express my hopes for the French team's victory. I thought the whole "we hate frogs" movement died out some time ago, along with idiocies like Freedom Fries, cheese eating surrender monkeys, and ceremoniously dumping bottles of wine. (To this day, I still don't get that. Nor could I persuade anyone to dump an expensive bottle of wine anywhere in my vicinity. Le Sigh.)

Well, the Anti-French movement is alive and well and present in New York, which seems to me the least likely city to harbor this sort of bigotry. It seriously confuses me. A friend actually told me today that he hates France because the French hate Americans. This is patently untrue. The average French citizen doesn't hate Americans. They ignore them, perhaps, or refuse to kowtow to the absurd notion Americans hold that they are suited to rule the world, but the French don't actively hate Americans. Perhaps they hate loud obnoxious uncouth dolts who routinely mangle the tiniest word in their language and falsely malign their culture and history, but that's a specific sort of loathing aimed at a distinct sub-set of person least likely to ever set foot in their country. But a general, consuming type of Insta-Hate? I think not.

To hate someone or something presupposes that one cares deeply about him/her/it, in one way or another. Hate isn't the absence of love; it is love's polar opposite. Both are emotions meaningfully felt; both are emotions in which one's inner life and outer energies are actively engaged. It's nearly as exhausting to hate as it is to love.

What I suspect the French (and most of the world who, when seen from looking out of the fishbowl of this country, appear glaringly hostile) feel for Americans is indifference. Perhaps also annoyance, too, at this country's insistence on expressing sentiments in the global arena such as Me First Always, or If You Have Stuff We Want We'll Take It, With Force If Necessary, and other petulant whining more suitable to toddlers than nations.

Yet indifference is easy. No emotions are engaged, because one just doesn't care that much.

During my travels, I've often been the recipient of this type of indifference, and amazingly, I've lived to tell the tale with my ego and sense of self intact. I never expect to be universally loved when I travel abroad - in my opinion that's a simplistic view to take.

At times I feel as if I'm under a microscope, where the smallest of my actions is being filed away under Typical Behavior, American and on occasions my nationality has been a burden I'd prefer to confer on someone else - it's not easy being a representative of a currently difficult nation.

Overall I'm relieved to be pleasantly addressed - a smile is icing on the cake.

To avoid eventual heartache, the best advice I can give my countrymen in their dealings with the world at large is to always remember: He's Just Not That Into You.

***Les vieux translates into the old guys - most of the French team is older, and quite a few of them will retire after this season. In my opinion, all the more reason for them to win the World Cup and go out in a blaze of glory.

Short Bits

2006-06-29T19:47:00.000-04:00

We moved a lot when I was a kid. Starting new schools so often, I learned how to function in a highly ambiguous setting, where all is unknown; it's a valuable skill, although generally not one learned at such a young age. It's been invaluable to me now, though, on the many occasions when I'm confronted by aspects of Mr. Fresh Hell's culture that in the beginning appear so foreign and incomprehensible, occasions when I automatically feel the tension of those long ago school days.

Among other things, as the new kid I learned how fun it can be to re-invent oneself. None of the other kids had known me from the sandbox - I could be or do or say practically anything without fear of contradiction. It wasn't necessarily lying, but more along the lines of presenting myself in the best possible light. And of course, in the beginning the grass on the other side of the fence was awfully new, and awfully green.

My glory in this self rejuvenation was probably not very healthy for an already bookish dreamy child prone to imaginative flights of fancy.

From a self-improvement standpoint, the constant moves ostensibly gave me a chance to turn over a new leaf quite often. But did I? Not really.

Here's the secret I found: more often than not, the grass is often disappointingly just grass, no greener or better than anywhere else, and while I could physically move from place to place I always carried the baggage of my self.

File Under: Historical Fiction, Lessons Learned From

2006-06-29T19:10:00.000-04:00

When I was 10 or 11 and discovered historical fiction of the "bodice ripping" variety, I naively accepted the very common story arc of a heroine who was profoundly liberated and over educated for her time.

I encountered this heroine in countless novels - she was a character written as someone to whom I could easily relate. It seemed that all that would be necessary to turn her into a modern woman would be to replace the bodice with a miniskirt and voila – there she is, Keira Knightley in Pirates of The Caribbean! As if clothing rather than fundamental ideas and worldview was all that separated she and I. It was assumed that the exceptional heroine in the story, living two or three hundred years before me, nevertheless thought as I did then as a late 20th century young woman.

It’s seemed that all the authors had the same list, engraved in stone, of things that must be included:

1. Mother died in childbirth or from other genteel upper class illness? Check.
2. No gaggle of grandmothers, aunts or female cousins handy on whom to foist the motherless daughter? Check.
3. Over-identification with father, thereby learning masculine ideas? Check.
4. Expresses self in a fiery or tempestuous manner? Check.
5. Seeks out atypical adventures for her age and time? Check.
6. Course of true love is rocky, involving stormy arguments and steamy misunderstandings, heaving bosoms and throbbing members? Check.

I was always interested in history, so I give these books a bit of a pass - at least the settings and political events encouraged me when young to delve into actual history.

Yet in actual history stories of average womens' lives were shunted by the wayside, viewed as deeply uninteresting - after all, women didn't lead armies. (Except Joan of Arc - but what was she truly after? Martyrdom? Power? She did have the light-years before her time sartorial androgynity, what with the armor-wearing sword-wielding gig, and had for the time a very feminine mystical sense. What she mostly had, whether you believe in her visions or not, was some serious balls. Any woman who convinced French royalty that she could lead an army against the English had balls.)

Women didn't hold political office or practice law, discover planets, circulation of the blood, or found L'Escoffier.

Yet along the way there have been exceptional women, and average ones - the huge amount of knowledge and information our female ancestors had about living lives on the blunt edge of survival has much to teach us. They made their own soap, beer, lighting, food, cooking implements, medicines, clothing - things that 21st century Western women rarely do. They were generalists rather than specialists.

Women were as a rule uneducated - but then, non-aristocratic men were barely educated. Maybe women couldn't read or write but they could trap and skin rabbits, cook a nutritious stew from the meat, tan the hide and sew the result into a child's hood.

I freely confess I can't do that. I have a grasp of computer technology, operate microwave ovens, DVD players, am a whiz at geography, and can speak, read and write my native language and French. Hmm. Although I'm very crafty, resourceful, and a quick study, if I were parachuted into the past I'd last a good week or so before giving up. I just don't have their mad skills, and in the 21st century Western world I don't need them.

It's not enough to push buttons or master a keyboard or program the garage door opener. It's not enough to be grateful that Western women live when not only modern conveniences save our time and are under our control but a time when we can lead armies, hold political office, practice law, discover new planets - and even found another L'Escoffier.

I think every woman should have at least one honest earthbound skill in her repertoire, and it needn't be traditionally female but it should be useful - knowing how to shear sheep, tan leather, or put up drywall. The mastery of needlework, gardening, or growing medicinal herbs. The skill in making beer, candles, or distilling perfume - something that is hard to do, that requires patience and trial and error, something that requires one to ignore the easy way and accept the long and protracted way.

It's a way of paying homage to women of the past, in a way I think they would find quite apt.

Fresh Hell Bizarre Family Story - The Farm Years

2006-06-27T20:42:00.000-04:00

“I shall purchase a small, completely rundown farm in the middle of nowhere Utah and move there with my four teenagers. Although they’ll be completely isolated from the larger world during a crucial period in their social development, they will be content in their isolation, learning useful skills and gaining depth and character from living off the land. Splendid!”

That was my mother’s mission statement, which she indeed fulfilled, as we lived on a farm for two years. I believe this exodus was a logical culmination of my mother's deep nostalgia for a simpler life in a simpler time, one which could not have been a remnant of her own memories, as I suspect the simple time she envisioned occurred decades before she was born.

Overwhelmed by the ways in which society was changing, and likely deeply unsure of her ability to keep up, I think she was always searching for a place of greater safety for herself and believed that removing her family from the inevitable dangers of society would, in the end, save us all.

Her utopian ideal was perhaps motivating in the abstract, as in her mission statement, but the practicalities were vague.

The farm was not a picture of rural bliss. The house was small and sturdy but the rest of the place was a wreck - fields overgrown with dense prickly brush, and weeds. The ramshackle sheds were piled with random farm debris accumulated over decades. It was a Green Acres nightmare come true.

We cleaned up as well as we could, pathetically armed only with suburban lawn tools. To complete the kitschy faux farmkid look we were issued sterotypical farm clothing for our cleanup - crisp new overalls and jaunty desert boots whose newness cruelly pinched our ankles. The look was completely dweeby, circa 1975, and clothing which no true rural teen would ever wear. I regret to say there is photographic evidence, which after 30 years still makes me cringe.

The farm had indeed once been a working sheep farm, but the years had taken their toll on the buildings and overgrown fields and even after clearing it was obvious there was very little to salvage. The shed in the best condition became the hen house, and our farm livestock increased to the tune of 7 whole chickens.

It was my brother's job to feed the chickens twice a day their mixture of grain mash and hot water, adding vegetable peelings and kitchen scraps to the evening mess.

It was a dirty job, and while he obediently wore his desert boots out to the chicken house he defiantly never put them on properly but jammed his feet part way down, so the heel of the boot was permanently crumpled. We used to laugh watching him careening through the yard at night like a drunk lurching home from a binge, stepping carefully in the ruined boots (he often wore them on the wrong feet, which didn't help but also didn't hurt), the feed pail swaying with every step. I sometimes helped him with this job, and can attest that the loathsome reality of feathered dimwits with the sense of marshmallows, who were raised for eggs they never laid, trumped the imagined romance of Foghorn Leghorn every time.

My mother had the 1/2 acre empty field in back of the house professionally tilled to become our garden. The space was ridiculously huge - we planted endless rows of corn. There were other vegetables also, but I seem only to remember a horizon consisting of nothing but corn. This could also be a result of being rousted out of bed at 6:00 am on a summer morning to weed the garden.

Adolescence is synonymous for sullen grudging compliance, and we were typical teenagers unwilling or unable to understand and appreciate the connections between hours of garden work and delight in the resulting harvest.

To round out the Green Acres metaphor, my role model was Eva Gabor. I longed for a penthouse apartment on Park Avenue, silk lingerie and maribou-trimmed mules, and would have traded my overalls for diamond hoop earrings in a hearbeat. I was immediately bored and thoroughly disenchanted with rural living. My emotional metronome was tuned entirely to daydreams about owning wardrobes I saw in Vogue magazine and living an exciting New York City life, details of which I saw in movies or read about in books. (It's a testament to enduring dreams, then, that I've lived in New York for 20 years.)

I fervently longed to be a famous author living a glamorous life anywhere, just so long as it was light years away from the farm.

So I set up a study in my closet.

My mother renovated the house's attic into a dormitory room for us girls - it was a beautifully done space, although my favorite part was my very own closet. It was big enough to stack my teeny shoe wardrobe neatly in one corner and leave enough room for me, a pillow to lean against, and my typewriter propped in front of me on a sofa cushion. There was light and most importantly there was privacy, perfect for an Undiscovered Young Author, dabbling in science fiction and romances, writing egregiously bad poetry. My sisters still laugh when they remember coming up the stairs to a completely dark bedroom , a sliver of light coming from underneath my closet door, the lonesome clack of my typewriter the only sound piercing the silence.

My siblings and I often joke about our ability to block painful memories - our family motto is "Just Because You Don't Remember It Doesn't Mean It Didn't Happen." Difficult to render into Latin and position around a coat of arms, I suppose, but a motto that goes far to explain how two years of farm living can be distilled into these few poignant memories of Fresh Hell.

New York City Haiku -It's Not The Heat, It's The Humidity

2006-06-20T19:41:00.000-04:00

European tourists,
In bad shoes and dorky hats.
Get offa my streets!

Why thigh-high black leather boots?
Occupational hazard?
It's ninety degrees out!

Cafe with outdoor seating,
Get close to find the tables
Two feet from pile of garbage.

Hippie couple holding hands,
Taking a stroll up Broadway,
His and hers dreadlocks swing.

Subway platform in the heat,
Can't wait to get to office-
AC and iced coffee.

Shootout at the Miss Clairol Corral

2006-06-16T20:22:00.000-04:00

Talk about Fresh Hell - there was a infotainment blurb on the Today Show Friday morning about gray being the new black - the loud ping registered on the Fresh Hell ick-o-meter was that youthful looking gray haired men are now considered charming, approachable, and sexy.

Not a single word about gray haired women.

The story did its usual fawning on graying yet youthful male celebrities, notably the latest American Idol Taylor Hicks, George Clooney, Cooper Anderson, Jon Stewart, Mark Harmon, Richard Gere, etc.

Yet not a single graying yet youthful female celebrity was profiled. Do you know why? Becuse they don't exist. Every single female celebrity who has turned gray at a young age or turns gray naturally as she ages colors her hair to hide it. And no one thinks this is stupid or odd or wrong or even newsworthy.

Yet when male celebrities choose to either stop coloring their hair (if they turned gray at a young age) or to never color at all it's treated like a maverick stance - as daring as a Shootout at the Miss Clairol Corral or something.

A quick Google search unearths a few recent articles on the "gray hair is sexy meme" that discuss promiment women who have gone completely gray; they mention Susan Sontag (who died in December 2004), and 59 year old Emmylou Harris (who does look nearly otherworldly beautiful). Not mentioned is the undeniably sexy and gracious Anne Bancroft (who died in June 2005). Mentioned in the abstract is the character Meryl Streep plays in the new movie "The Devil Wears Prada" - although I don't think that counts - it's only a movie role. Meryl doesn't have stark white hair in real life.

But where are the youthful female role models gunning for their maverick stance? Curiously absent.

Let's see - Taylor Hicks is 29; Cooper Anderson is 39, Jon Stewart is 43, George Clooney just turned 45, Mark Harmon is 54, and Richard Gere is 57.

As someone who is justifiably sensitive to soceity's double standard on this issue, as I write here and here I say:

I've just decided - gray is the new black, and it's just as cool for women. Frolic away in this pasture and discuss amongst yourselves.

2006-06-14T19:57:00.000-04:00

I'm delighted to announce a new feature here at Fresh Hell HQ - Reader Mail!

Our first letter is from an anonymous reader** (well I know who it is, but play along with me kids). After a little judicious nip and tuck (edited for content and clarity, and to protect identities of all), I present:

Dear Mr. Fresh Hell:

Tired of the swelling tide of clutter in the guest room? Well, you can do nothing about it. You can, however, have some wicked fun.

I offer this suggestion for a bit of snark, which will slowly germinate, ripen and then blossom forth to enrage your domestic engineer.

During my recent visit to my son, I provided a lot of help in his move to a new place: putting up shelves, unpacking boxes, etc.. While surveying the epicenter of this storm of stuff, my son’s office, I had an epiphany.

I moved a stack of boxes of books, account statements & office supplies to the center of that room. One can’t go to the desk, the couch or the door without stepping over this heap! I placed a post-it note on the carpet, reading “When you find this, call me. Love, Dad. 2PM May 19th.”, and then set the heap back atop it.

This being an item of great potential embarrassment, I showed my booby-trap to my wife and his who both agreed (in so many words), that I was a genius.

And now I wait. Three weeks, and counting. Snark, like revenge, is a dish best served cold.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen in Search of Domestic Cleanliness

I don't wish to embarrass our Concerned Citizen (yet Citizen of all people must know that true Fresh Hell consists of the writer finding a way to regurgitate every word ever written to her) so in the interest of fairness I reproduce here, after similar pruning of relevant identifying information, my reply:

Dear Concerned Citizen:

Oy. Your dastardly plan to save your son from his own stuff is genius, I must say. But you seem to have gotten things a little skewered in the Fresh Hell household – if there is a person who needs to have a note affixed to the bottom of a pile, it is the Mr. rather than the Mrs.!

Mr. FH is the one holding onto a box full of empty envelopes (I shit you not) amongst other assorted nonsense relevant to and/or dating back to 1994. He likes to cling to useless items on the off chance it might somehow become useful – it’s almost a Depression era mentality, although in his case more like Third World thriftiness.

Do let me know when the kid finally calls!

Cordially,

The Mistress, Fresh Hell HQ

**Please note that I have not asked Anonymous Reader whether or not this letter could be published (published?) in such a well known and hugely read blog (the whole world is watching, or are they?). I've just gone and done it. If Anonymous Reader is supremely pissed off, I'm positive I'll find out and this nifty little feature debuting so chirpily will go by the wayside. But if Anonymous Reader grudgingly agrees that the gist of this charming letter has been faithfully re-created without pertinent identifying details that would either cause embarrassment, stalkers, or visits by Homeland Security, then I look forward to sacks of Reader Mail, which can be directed to the following email address: fresh-hell@hotmail.com

Each letter will be properly edited and a reply posted.

New York Subways - The Good, The Okay, and the Pervy

2006-06-13T20:25:00.000-04:00

Subway stories – all New Yorkers have them. They range from borderline scary to amusing or bleak. Many of these tales have the “you hadda be there” quality to them, but there are some that manage to transcend the now. A few of mine are downright silly in retrospect – for example, when I first came to New York in 1984 I actually smoked a cigarette at high noon standing on the platform of the A train. (Believe me when I say that is a stupid thing to do).

Generally the most famous of subway stories and the thrust of this post (no pun intended) have to do with perverts and the pervy things they like to do in an enclosed train carriage. The first time I was on the subway and groped I was so shocked I didn’t know what else to do other than freeze, try desperately to move out of the way (which didn’t work), and sweat bullets for 20 seconds until we reached my stop. But I was young then, and not only more timid in the city but less aware of my environment and deeply unaware that I had to define my personal space.

Tangent: When riding public transportation in an urban environment (and this holds for the Paris Metro and Chicago El) one must define one’s personal boundary, stick to it, and refuse to allow a stranger's body or belongings to intrude. It’s like constructing a plastic bubble around one’s self that, once donned, is very hard to breach.

Well, the next time an inquiring hand made contact, I adopted the very effective technique of “outing the perv”. I visibly jumped away from the man, looked at him straight in the eye, and very loudly said, “Stop it!”. (I may have also added a snarling expletive or two - I don't remember.) This is a good technique as the curious and/or disapproving glances of fellow passengers and their attention to what is going on stops a perv pretty quickly. One can also use this technique to stop the gray-haired man in the business suit and gold cufflinks who thinks it’s amusing to whisper obscenities to the young woman standing next to him reading her book and minding her business. No visible movement is required; merely a steely-eyed glare and a loud “shut the fuck up!” suffices for the white collar perpetrator.

Another good technique in my repetoire is the application of a pointed implement, such as the tip of a full-size umbrella, to the top of the offender’s foot. Simply look down, locate the offending shoe and apply direct pressure to the pointed implement in the form of one’s entire body weight for maximum effect. Bask silently (narrowing of eyes a la Diana Riggs optional) in the gasp of pain that ensues.

Beyond the pervs and indeed beyond the scope of this post, but something I must share, is the appearance on the subway of a genuine potential homocidial maniac. True story: I lived in Brooklyn years ago, and after a pleasant evening out with friends was riding home on the dreary F train. I was rather tipsy, but had my book in front of me and was faking reading so I wouldn't become drowsy. While the car wasn't crowded, every seat was full. As I'm tootling along in my own drunken world, I hear the man next to me sing under his breath, tunelessly and with no apparent emotion, over and over again, "I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna get you, I'm gonna kill you dead." Of course I didn't dare actually look at him, and I didn't think it would have been wise in my condition to attempt to bolt to the other end of the car. I just sat there, reading the same page, until he got off the train about 15 minutes later, much to my obvious relief. When he got off the train, a man across the car from me chuckled a little and said to me, "You really believed him, didn't you." I was only able to offer a strained laugh in return, but at least the knowledge that someone else knew what this guy was saying was its own relief.

I haven’t had to deploy the perv busting techniques in a number of years – I don’t believe it’s because the subways have suddenly become populated with the crème de la crème of accomplished society, but rather that I have perfected my privacy bubble. I never get into crowded trains where I'm more likely to come into uncomfortably close contact(another train will come along shortly), I always remain alert and aware to some degree, but I prefer to sink my attention into my book than make eye contact with anyone on the train.

Yet pervy is as pervy does and with the handy twin inventions of camera phones and the internet Crusaders Against The Inappropriate and Practically Criminal can do more about it than before. There's an entire website where women can post camera phone pics of men foistering inappropriate and unwelcome advances on them and highlight the male offenses:

Holla Back NYC

And if a particularly dense man thinks that he'll snag welcome female attention by having his photo posted on that website, well, score one for social Darwinism.

File Under: Another Moroccan Story

2006-06-11T19:54:00.000-04:00

I didn't go with Mr. Fresh Hell on my second trip to Morocco - for some reason that now escapes me he couldn't get away during the summer. So I went by myself, and spent two weeks with Mr. Fresh Hell's family and mostly his brother-in-law whom, because he is a teacher, I shall call The Professor.

That trip was simply unforgettable - I saw so much of the country and traveled far beyond tourist haunts. I went to local restaurants, traveled as the natives do, and spent very little time in hotels, staying mostly with family friends who showered me with their gracious and abundant North African hospitality.

That year saw my first trip to Taroudaant and included a more thorough stay in Marrakesh than I'd previously had. I learned quite a bit of Arabic that summer (much of which I've likely forgotten), but I learned some useful vocabulary and a little bit of writing. Because The Professor is a teacher, he punctuated our travels with lessons disguised as wordplay; pop quizzes administered during a sunset walk on the Corniche, language drills based on everyday items seen on the beach, in a restaurant, or in the countryside.

In Taroudaant we scoured the town's souk not for bargains in jewelry or leather, although I did buy some extraordinary things, but to find the stall with the best bread to accompany our noontime mint tea. Once found, our order was for the most perfect round, opened and spread thickly with fresh natural butter and cheese, both of which had the palest cream-colored hue. The resulting sandwich was by turns both light and dense, melting in one's mouth and satisfyingly chewy all at once.

I'll never forget our taxi ride from Taroudaant to Agadir. It's a one hour trip, and the grand taxis (those that are licensed to travel from city to city) are available for hire in Taroudaant in a parking lot a short distance outside the city walls. The taxis are all Mercedes Benz sedan models made in the '70's, and a canny driver will maximize his profits by not setting forth without a full complement of passengers, generally five (two sitting in front with him and three in the back).

Ground transportation in Morocco is dirt cheap - we could have hired the entire car for the one hour trip for $10-$12. Even though I had more than enough money to hire the car privately, The Professor was too thrifty to agree to this extravagance; instead, we paid for two places in a taxi to Agadir. The Professor made sure that I was seated next to the door, with him on the other side for protection.

I figured out afterwards (even though the Arabic words weren't familiar the tone of voice raised no doubt) that a few of our fellow passengers were pretty miffed that they would be sharing the taxi with not only a female but an infidel with uncovered hair. The Professor was at least twenty to twenty five years older than the other men sharing the taxi, so I suspect that they felt duty-bound to make their irritation known with harsh words but backed down out of respect to their elder. Although I noticed to my dismay that the car's speedometer was broken, it seemed we made the trip in record time - driving 120 miles an hour seemed to go a good way in placating a few uncomfortable passengers.

Back in Casablanca, The Professor and I went shopping at the outdoor markets - the fresh produce, meat and flower souks that are frequented by everyone. (We would also go to Marjane, a modern large supermarket chain, but mostly for staples and paper goods).

After visiting several vegetable stands, we found ourselves in front of the live chicken seller. The merchant had his wares displayed behind him in three tiers of small cages, each holding a live chicken. On the smooth wooden front counter was a ancient balance and scale. I watched idly as The Professor and Chicken Man exchanged what I can only presume were typical buyer/seller pleasantries while Chicken Man took a live chicken out of its cage; holding it firmly, he settled it in the scale and plopped an iron balance weight on the other side of the scale to record its weight.

After the weight had been determined and The Professor signified his assent to the purchase, in one quick movement Chicken Man lifted the chicken up by its legs; with its head dangling upside down he wielded a wickedly long and sharp knife and expertly slit its throat, right in front of us. Setting down the knife, with a free hand he then opened a cabinet behind him situated under the cages of his wares, thrust the chicken inside and closed the cabinet door.

While the chicken squawked and frantically beat its wings during its death throes inside the cabinet, the remainder of the chickens, scenting the bloody demise of their own kind, set to furiously beating their wings against the bars of the cages. adding their fierce discordant cries to the first.

While I turned faintly green.

The entire death of the chicken was accomplished professionally and neatly in less than a minute. Chicken Man smiled broadly, but The Professor noticed my ashen face and quickly escorted me to a vegetable stand as a distraction. About ten minutes later, laden with tomatoes and lettuce and having gained my composure, we returned to Chicken Man for our now quite dead and gone chicken, discreetly wrapped in butcher paper and placed in a plastic bag. I smiled weakly and waved goodbye, accompanied by Chicken man's grin.

I was duly shocked and surprised - before this I was very typically American in my habit of not getting closer to my meat than inspecting a shrink-wrapped styrofoam tray in the supermarket. Did I think that chicken and beef plopped joyfully onto styrofoam of their own will?

I'm an unrepentant carnivore - having lived on a farm when I was young I admit that from the chicken's viewpoint, Chicken Man's method seemed like a pretty clean demise. And it was likely the best chicken I ever ate - the resulting dish rivaled a five star restaurant in its freshness and tenderness.

During that trip cultural differences and pecularities were revealed to me - most significantly I gained a front row seat into the division in North Africa between public and private life, and also learned how much those particular contrasts and divisions suit my personality.

And were I to visit Chicken Man again, I won't flinch quite so much when he wields his knife, as I know the result of his actions isn't gratuituously unkind, but will ultimately become a flavorful family dinner.

This Week in Its Briefs - Lacy Bits

2006-06-06T21:00:00.000-04:00

1. Technology, people - I pray we always use our powers to make white magic and may The Force never die. As an example - I'm not only playing favorite songs on the computer from my teensy little ITunes library while writing this post, but I'm simultaneously conducting an MSN messenger chat in a combination of French and English (including the ubiquitous web cam) with Mr. Fresh Hell's nephew in Algiers.

Coming from a childhood where the benchmark of sophistication was a knowledge of the inherent wonderfulness of Tang, I sincerely doubt that I could have envisioned this as something I would ever do years later in a tragically cluttered guest room of a Queens apartment. True, my favorite future offered flying cars, but thank God I've not been holding my breath.

2. What is it with me and shopping? How can I enter a store with a concrete purchase in mind, like finding a simple black slingback pump with a 2 1/2 inch heel, and find every other shoe under the sun but this one? The correlary of this particular conundrum is that if I happen to wander into the deluxe and mighty shoe store (DSW, I'm looking at you baby) at random, with no particular item in mind, I will find at least three different shoes that I love. This is my version of the imp of perversity (and why I shop online a lot).

3. Cupcake news: The Emeritus Cupcake has been spending less time in the office, as his slide into retirement is predictably unfolding. More of my work is with Chairman Cupcake The Second, and the very recently inherited Marketing Cupcake III - I'm actually doing more interesting and challenging work now as opposed to tedious personal assistant duties which, while they often border on ludicrous, have generally been good for a laugh on the cocktail circuit. Cupcake Emeritus continues to find ways to try my patience to its utmost breaking point but so far, I've not yet poisoned him. Check in next time, though - things change!

4. Rain, rain, rain - we've been innundated with early summer thunderstorms. I do love them, though - the unbridled power, the force - it's wonderfully cathartic, especially when I am at home to monitor the open windows. They have been wild, chaotic, and cleansing.

But I feel a longing for the true New York city summer to begin - the one where the weather is just too hot, humid & sticky to bear, when tempers flare and the sidewalk cafes are packed; when it seems like the entire world is spending the night out on the street because the oppressive heat of the accummulated concrete squeezes the breath right out of your lungs - that's the true city summer, not this candyass constant rain and gray sky.

During Which Our Heroine Fails to Note The Obvious

2006-06-06T20:08:00.000-04:00

When I was younger I thought I was a fair judge of popular culture - the things that I thought were fairly cool also popped up on others' radar.

But there are three distinct times in my past where I have proven myself to be the most Rock Stupid Prognosticator on the planet. None of this has been made up and I hope I haven't even spared myself any skewering.

Picture It: University of Utah, August 1980

Scenario: Through family connections I was working as an intern/gofer/driver for a week at the Womens' Games, a good-sized tournament on the womens' tennis circuit, being held at the University of Utah. I had a great time driving players around, picking up tennis rackets at the airport, acting like a very important production assistant and snarfing up leftover appetizers in assorted hospitality suites. While there was short and grudging coverage by the sports desks of the major networks (scoff - womens' sports? - remember, this was '80), a brash new upstart, someone no one had even heard of, was there operating out of a RV transformed into a mini-studio, broadcasting all the games. Yes, that was ESPN, brand spanking new with barely a dime to rub together. During the course of the week, I got to know the ESPN guys well - to the point where their producer offered me a job as an assistant producer. I turned them down.

My Internal Dialogue: Nah, this will never fly. Who's going to want to watch a network that broadcasts nothing but sports? These guys will go broke in a year.

Picture It: Salt Lake City, some time in 1991.

Scenario: While a college student, I had met guy in his late 20's whom I was rather casually and sporadically dating. At the time he was working with Robert Redford at Sundance (then a small ski resort nestled in a sleepy Utah canyon), putting together the Sundance Film Institute - if I recall correctly, they were discussing the possibility of introducing a yearly film festival. The guy was sort of dull and more than a little "meh" so I dropped him after three months.

My Internal Dialogue: Maybe I should stay friends with this nice but not-for-me- guy, as he does know famous people, which might come in handy. But do that on the off-chance that anybody will ever go to Sundance (in Utah - blech!) to see films? As if that will ever happen!! No way! Good luck with that project, Guy!

Picture It: Early 1977

Scenario: I was at the movies with my siblings preparing to view some unforgettable, likely unwatchable and badly acted tripe. Up on the big screen scrolled a flashy trailer for a movie that would be opening in the summer. That movie was Star Wars. I turned to my sister and said "It looks dumb - I don't think I'll see that. I'll bet no one does."

My Internal Dialogue: Seriously - who's going to line up to see this? It's a Western in space. It will close in a week. Fruity.

So I'm conclusively a pretty poor judge at predicting what the general public will find shiny and irresistible.

But I can leave you with some tremendous advice - if I think something is stupid, it will likely make millions.

Fresh Hell - Premier Reader Study

2006-05-30T20:39:00.000-04:00

I will confess to needing a prop or two here - when I write a post I spend a great deal of time futzing about finding a suitable photograph to illustrate my thoughts.

Sometimes an idea for the illustration and concimittant photo comes instantly - at other times it takes me a very long while to find a visual expression that conveys my true thoughts.

Yet I'm always quite and curiously satisfied by the photo I've chosen.

Reader Survey - do you guys get it?

P.S. Not for nothing but I have a huge weakness for Ancient and European statuary...

Buzzwords - Innocent or Lethal?

2006-05-30T20:17:00.000-04:00

I'm not a huge fan of buzzwords. Marketing people seem to be not only the first to coin them and plow them into the ground through insane repetition but also the first to decry them.

Secretly I think that's part of the pleasure - to be the first kid on the block to use a phrase just becoming popular, then with correct and timely usage display how one is extremely au courant with its correctness and then, (oh and timing is so important here) refer to the phrase but always place it in "air quotes"; this shows just the right amount of insider knowledge plus a soupcon of indifference intended to display sophistication and mastery yet often falling very short of the mark. Yet another example of where life doesn't deviate much from junior high (amazing the examples I'm piling up out of this theory).

Most of the time I think marketing people love the buzzwords because they don't really enjoy words and are relieved to have something, anything, to say - people who write and read incessantly, prose as well as poetry, seem to have less use for buzzwords because they don't rely only on them to get their points across.

Compose a random sampling of one's fellowman and ask them the question of which buzzwords or corporate phraseology is akin to psychic fingernails screeching down a blackboard and their lists will come tumbling forth, a spate of jumbled nonsense that the supremely earnest will still use, quite earnestly, but that the businessperson with a more fine-tuned ear will reject as quite immediately unlovely and will balk from ever using.

I will not post my own List of Shame - not only will you find your very own detestable phrase, likely #5987 on my list, but you could probably do one better. (Frankly, I doubt there is enough bandwidth to encapsulate. Better to exort my wee and very opinionated group of readers to imagine their own most reviled.)

Yet - oh brave new world, that has such people in it! (And good old Orwell is likely tumbling mightily in his grave lately, if one bases dead author movement on the number of folks who are referencing his very dystopian yet quite readable novel, while he's probably cursing fair Will Shakes for putting the words into Miranda's mouth in the first place and wondering why the hell he chose that quote above others.)

I suppose it's good news that there will always be buzzwords to deplore - and fun for those of us that keep clandestine lists of Things Which Ping The Pet Peeve Monitor.

The latest in the category of buzzwordery gone awry is something I actually read about just today in a new media trade magazine and Googled tonight so I can properly link (God bless Google - we just don't say it enough, do we):

Just a Thought - Death to User Generated Context

Go check out what he says. I agree with blogger Adam (although I don't know him from the original, and probably wouldn't have chanced upon his words without reading the article).***

There are scads of quite lovely, intriguing, thought-provoking, button-pushing ideas, writing, photography, reviews, video, short films and essays out there in the world, gushing out of their creator's minds quite freely, creatively, and completely without the assistance of a single buzzword.

Flowering quite without the benefit or blessing of either a corporation or a marketing mind. Makes one think, doesn't it?

***And Adam, if I could figure out how to trackback you'd see it, but since I've just figured out linking don't hold your breath, m'kay?

Big Love? More Like Fresh Hell

2006-05-25T22:28:00.000-04:00

I've been following the new HBO series "Big Love" with interest - while it has been quite entertaining I'm getting the impression that it's an illuminating portrait of what Hollywood thinks its male viewers will find fascinating about polygamy and less a genuine portrait of the modern day practice.

At first glance it is: Ooh, a man with three wives! Kinky! And he has to rush about sexually satisfying all of them, to the tiring point of him being forced to take Viagra to keep up! (Keep up? Get it?). But really, it's all one big happy family, other than some ominous foreshadowing emotional undertones between the wives, but hey! He's constantly having sex!

And then boo - a villian appears on the scene - it's the devious "prophet of Juniper Creek" - the way out there fundamentalist cowboy preacher (but he drives a Hummer - see how up-to-date he is?) living up in the ungovernable hills with his gang of bullyboys and a compound full of wives, including a 15 year old girl, my candidate for "Character We'd Most Like To Slap", a smug and priggish teen "promised" to him, who flounces around flaunting her future staus with a rather Damien-like mien. (But intriguing! Spunky and recalcitrant underage girls!).

We discover many connections between the bad prophet and our innocent hero, those of marriage, business loans, bad blood, the hero's childhood in that community, etc. We are introduced to his family, still deeply entrenched in the renegade community and who are so incompetent they can't find their way out of a paper bag.

As the series proceeds, we are given glimpses into the lives of our hero's two teenage children (thankfully for them, I guess, legitimate), who have to deal not only with the ordinary angst of adolesence but with their hidden lives and the routine lies they tell. And of course having three wives in one family means three times the emotional impact (3 times the PMS - what a gag!)

Conflict! Hey, really? Who knew that plural marriage could be more than a bowl of cherries?

Add a heaping handful of nosy mainstream Mormon neighbors, a dash of independent thinking, stir in a generous helping of paranoia, a cup of varied matrimonial and societal secrets, and voila! This is the picture of a modern polygamist's life.

But I ain't buying it.

Polygamists, whether they are Fundamentalist LDS or an offshoot, are basically living in a closet inside a closet - a good concrete analogy are Russian matroyosha nesting dolls - one opens up each successive doll to reveal a smaller perfect replica within. My experience with the dolls is not vast, but I marvel at seeing even seven of them, all perfect replicas, nestled snugly within each other.

The outer closet is the relation of mainstream Mormons to the larger community, in the sense that they consider themselves very much and very happily out of step with mainstream humanistic society, and proudly refer to themselves as peculiar people. Those inhabiting the inner closet, then, must naturally feel even less at ease with the outer world but perhaps can find themselves more comfortable with their compatriots in the outer closet.

Yet in the series, we see that the characters who choose to inhabit this inner closet, who have selected the most restrictive of all possible choices, are penalized, marginalized, and deserving of sympathy or pity but not viewed as admirable, not to be emulated.

And as the episodes progress, the noose of their choice is finding its own way to softly strangle all of the main characters, putting paid to the notion that plural marriage is just a lovely way for an enterprising businessman to fulfill his religious principles and stroke his own ego.

While the three wives of our hero Bill are all old enough to make their own decisions and enter into their inevitable tanglements, this should be a cautionary tale. Let's face it - if you're a woman looking to snag the man of your dreams, you shouldn't be looking in his direction.

My conclusion, based on the series and my footnote**, is that there is nothing modern or progressive about polygamists - HBO can gloss this until the cows come home and I will still see nothing of value coming out of this other than entertainment.

**Historical Footnote: I used to be a Mormon. My family converted when I was 9; I left mentally when I was 15; the last time I ever set foot in an LDS church I was 18; I was excommunicated by my choice when I was 33. I lived in Utah from 1970-1984 (minus two years in Illinois). Members of my family are still active LDS. I have personally seen members of polygamist sects in southern Utah (not on their own turf but at WalMart), have heard all the rumors and read all the stories, newspaper articles, and books about them. Nothing they could do, even now, could suprise me.

This Week in Its Briefs - Tighty Whities

2006-05-24T18:43:00.000-04:00

1. I’ve been hit quite hard with a case of the mid-May doldrums, evinced by my inability to write about anything interesting. Also, the advent of True Spring has been most distracting, what with its insistence on gentle breezes, fancy sunshine, and leafy greenery.

2. But hey, I bought new underwear this week. Alert the media.

3. As is my custom, good weather combined with writing doldrums gets me antsy to clear clutter away from my life. Hello, Guest Room – when last we saw each other, not too many months ago, you were in pretty good shape from the last sprucing up session and we could actually use you to house random guests. Sadly, your once semi-pristine condition has deteriorated yet again and you’ve become the final resting place or merely a convenient harbor for various household flora and fauna. It’s like the Well of Lost Souls in here or something - let’s try again, shall we? I’m up for a scrub if you are. I'll mix a batch of martinis if you bring the garbage bags.

4. A couple of years ago I was rabidly devoted to daily yoga practice. It was highly beneficial for me physically by keeping me bendy (I’ve heard this is much harder for tall people as they age; I don’t know if that is true but anecdotally I’ll go along with it). I also reaped many benefits from the spiritual aspects of practice, which was unexpected yet rather welcome. I don't think I was more mellow but I did feel better, even about things that would normally either send me into a red rage or blue funk.

I was quite fervent about it, and then, for some unremembered reason, I stopped daily practice. Well, I’ve now started up again and while I’m experiencing a certain amount of “muscle memory” my body is reacting as if it is a series of straight unyielding planks of wood joined with a combination of barbed wire and rusty paper clips. I know from past experience that I will improve greatly with a minimum of two weeks of solid daily practice, but Oy - the creakiness, people!

5. I purposely didn’t write or even comment about a recent study published by the CDC and cited in an egregiously jerky Washington Post article: Gulp - Forever Pregnant?

If you can't bear to click on the link (hey, look Ma - I figured out about links, only about 1,000 years after html was invented!) the article cites a CDC study about women's health, but wreathes the subject in concern only about their health as baby vehicles, exorting all women of child-bearing age to make all of their lifestyle choices as if they were in a constant state of “pre-pregnancy”. (Pardon me while I mop up the pieces of my exploding brain).

I’ve ranted enough about women being viewed as nothing more important or valuable than walking baby machines to satisfy both myself and my wee group of readers for probably the next decade, so I won’t waste any more valuable martini time on that subject. Only those of us with non-viable reproductive organs are invited for Martini Time. (Note to self: ending on a childish note of "neener-neener" is curiously satisfying.)

Carnival of Feminists XV

2006-05-18T12:05:00.000-04:00

Point your mouse to the above link and click over to be educated and entertained by a group of terrific feminist bloggers.

I am grateful that a post of mine was included, and of course would be delighted if anyone was in the least bit moved by my submission!

Bandwidth Enough And Time

2006-05-12T20:04:00.000-04:00

I have great hopes for the future of the blogosphere.

Yes, I said it, I admit it, and you can go ahead and drape me in the Geek for it. To be sure, I appreciate and love the way the written word was handled in the past - rare and fragile books made up of parchment pages filled with ornate calligraphied script, the fragility and mustiness of hand made paper that was never intended to last decades, much less centuries, and the varieties of the pure leather bindings, often worn smooth by centuries of caressing hands. The artifacts themselves are wonderful and beautiful, and while they'll only be seen by a few the works themselves have been disseminated quite well through society to form a cadre of classical works. The words of these long dead authors continue to resonate in a way that is satisfying and constant.

Yet in the spareness of the binary world, I find delight within the speed and elegance of the electronically communicated word - a breathtaking purity transmitted in a 0,1 code. We've almost started to take for granted the incredible speed in which we can send our words to others - (we've all been in the position of being on the phone with a person who's supposed to send you an important document by email and you just can't wait for the nanosecond it takes to get to you...."It's not here yet...not here yet...okay, refresh send & receive...I just did...you should get it any second...well I haven't gotten it yet...well you should get it did you refresh...yes I just refreshed...thank god I got it".)

We can sometimes hardly bear to wait 5 minutes to get what we need.

I think about the blogosphere - something I don't write much about, but on occasion ponder its enormity, its capacity and its community - and I think that we as "net" citizens now have enormous opportunities to encounter original writers and thinkers in ways that 5 years ago, 1 year ago, or even 6 months ago would be unimaginable.

Any topic under the sun that amuses or engages an individual - any cause, great or small that energizes the passion of a writer has its adherents in blogs - whole communities that link to each other, trade news, or meet up in realtime.

The big issues such as politics and religion have quite a bit larger communities than, for example, those communities devoted to curling or Siamese cats. But the community exists, and that's where the point lies. There are blogs about food, travel, linguistics, philosophy, atheism, baseball, knitting, and every other subject under the sun.

And each individual writer carves out their own niche, bonds with their own community, posts at a workplace or at home or both, writes in the morning with a cup of coffee, over a sandwich at noon, in the evening with a glass of wine, in the middle of the night either plain insomniac or while rocking a baby with one foot.

Some writers simply can't produce without their favorite music blasting in the background, some need absolute silence save birdsong to collect their thoughts. (I generally fail miserably without my award-winning combination of early evening, cigarettes, beer or wine, and French talk shows in the background.) Some writers sweat and slave over their work and edit furiously over the course of days - others smack out truly interesting posts in a matter of a few short hours. Some perform grammar and spell checks compulsively to make sure everything is right - others have a more spontaneous relationship with their prose.

Some bloggers write posts that at first glance don't seem too interesting, yet they have an amusing and large readership who write lightning flash comments more scintillating than the posts themselves - I read some bloggers not necessarily for what they say but the lively commentary their work generates.

But the fact remains: among those people with internet access and a burning wish to be heard, we're becoming a writerly people, and I couldn't be more delighted. The distinctly illogical and ungrammatical will eventually fall by the wayside or progress with their own output - in any case it will pave the way for budding writers of every walk of life to learn to write well and with passion, regardless of the topic.

I believe there should be bandwidth enough for every person with something to say.

Science - Put The Theory Down Gently and Back Away From This Idiocy Slowly

2006-05-12T16:26:00.000-04:00

The following article comes directly from the Chicago Tribune (my efforts at linkiness are really terrible - I need to sign up for remedial linkage - trust me on the source for this article or you could do what I did and google chicago tribune to find this story for yourself:

Scientists in Chicago and California photographed men's faces and asked women to rate them on whether they seemed to like children, on their masculinity, on their physical attractiveness and on whether they seemed kind.

Then the women rated them on their potential as long- and short-term lovers.

The masculine men—those with a large jaw, prominent cheekbones, straighter eyebrows, thinner lips and a heavy beard—were found to be attractive as short-term romantic partners. But for long-term relationships, women were more drawn to men who they thought were interested in children.

The study indicates male hormone levels and affinity for children may play a role in determining how attractive men are to women—albeit on a subconscious level.

"Our data suggest that women are picking up on facial cues that may be related to paternal qualities," said the lead author of the paper, James Roney of the University of California, Santa Barbara. "The more they perceived the men as liking kids, the more likely they could see having a long-term relationship."

The women were surprisingly adept in being able to read subtle sexual signals, Roney said. The study's female subjects accurately determined from the photos which men had high testosterone levels—they perceived the men as more masculine. They also could pick out the men who had expressed the most interest in children.

"Our study shows that women don't just look for masculinity; they also see cues for interest in infants, and they're very accurate in judging both," said Dario Maestripieri, a behavioral biologist at the University of Chicago and co-author of the study, which appeared in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, a British scientific journal.

"They're attracted to one or the other, depending on whether they're interested in a short-, or long-term partner."

The research suggests that our behavior may be affected by genetic programming that evolved to increase survival of the species, said Dr. Daniel Alkon, scientific director of the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute in Morgantown, W.Va., and Washington.

"It looks like all of us are responding to many non-verbal cues and pieces of information of which we're not really conscious that may have some origins in the hardwired parts of the brain," Alkon said.

For example, hormones that circulate in the body can have a profound impact on behavior, he said.

"What's really quite amazing is that women actually can detect aspects of men and their attitudes by looking at pictures of facial expressions," said Alkon, who was not involved in the research. "But there's evolutionary value in doing this. It's important for a woman to choose a mate that's going to help her have children and will have a survival value for the whole species.

"Something that seems like our own voluntary choice is not so voluntary, after all."

In the new study, researchers measured the testosterone levels of 39 male undergraduate students at the University of Chicago, based on saliva samples.

They determined the men's affinity for children by asking them to choose between photos of an adult or a baby and to rate their interest.

The researchers stressed that they have no idea whether the men who expressed more interest in children would actually turn out to be good fathers.

Photos of the men were then shown to 29 female students at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

It makes sense that these women tended to be drawn to the more masculine men as short-term romantic partners, the researchers said, because high-testosterone males have a better ability to fight off disease and some of their children would be likely to inherit the trait.

But although masculine-faced males might have good genes, they are seen as poor parents.

Conversely, more feminine-faced males are perceived as better parents and better long-term partners.

Earlier studies have shown that women are attracted to more masculine-looking men at the most fertile time of their menstrual cycles. During less fertile times, they choose men with more feminine faces, who are seen as kinder and more cooperative but less fit and healthy genetically.

The researchers can only guess what aspects of the men's faces clued in the women about their interest in children. Maestripieri said "it might have to do with a more rounded face, a gentler face"; Roney speculated it might be their facial expressions.

When five female graduate students were asked to rate whether the men looked angry or happy--even though the men had been instructed to maintain a neutral look--the men interested in children were perceived to have a happier or more contented expression.

"Women's ability to estimate men's interest in infants from face photographs is perhaps the most novel finding to emerge from the study," the researchers wrote.

I know, people. Trust me - this is not an article that one can read with a straight face :wipes tears of mirth from cheeks while continuing to chortle madly:

Random elements struck me while reading this article:

1. Scientists actually submitted a grant for funding of this particular study, and received said funding. In academia today the likelihood of doing this all on one's scientific lonesome is slim to none. One wishes one were a fly on the wall at either the scientist end or the dollar granting end - either situation is primed to produce comedy gold.

2. Actual scientists actually assumed that actual biological imperatives drive actual women to make actual decisions about actual male partners. And in many of their conclusions, "researchers could only guess". Honestly, ya think? They used a sample size of 39 men and 5 women - you can prove a theory with this tiny sample?

3. I keep wishing this were an article in The Onion - "Dudes Who Look More Like Women Not Only Get Laid But Become Dads".

4.

"But there's evolutionary value in doing this. It's important for a woman to choose a mate that's going to help her have children and will have a survival value for the whole species. Something that seems like our own voluntary choice is not so voluntary, after all."

Whoo doggie, restrain me from doing some serious re-adjustment here. How about trying this on for size: a woman chooses a mate based on friendship, companionship, world view compatability, and sexual attraction? By the way, isn't this exactly how a man might possibly choose a mate? Or, to get completely perverse, how a human being regardless of its gender might choose a mate?

Alert the media - humans have been heard from and they dislike this crappy study immensely.

I'm sorry, Science. This is a situation where you have gone right off your rocker. In the beginning of our glorious 21st century, there is no biological imperative to breed , and anyone who tells you otherwise is a perfect asshat.

However, I do not deny the existence of some pretty intense societal, familial and traditional pressures that are more influential in a woman's decision to have a child than any biological tick tock.

Any vestige of a biological imperative is doing its best to die out generation by generation. Most of the young women I know who are in their 20's and early 30's would as soon light themselves on fire than have a child - a good many because the time isn't right for them. Some refrain because they're not convinced parenting is the ultimate destination for them. These women freely confess that they may change their minds when they reach their late 30's, but it won't be because of a biological "sell by" date. It will be because their circumstances and marital status will have changed, or they have decided that the societal pressures they face aren't pressures at all. Not a single one of them believes in a biological clock.

Science, when it isn't off making itself terribly giddy over craptastic studies like this one, does have a point when it publishes studies that show how women's fertility rates change as they age. That's based on hard science and biological changes fall firmly in the "duh" category. But this lame excuse that some mystical "hard wiring in the brain" that can't be identified has the jumbo cojones to override any identifiable sense a woman might possess.

Much has been made of womens' biological clocks, but I assert that I've stood outside that clock tower for all of my life with exceedingly faint interest in what's happening inside. Perhaps I mistook the craving to reproduce with the more compelling craving to enjoy my life and blithely ignore societal pressure.

I just hate these kinds of studies that ultimately lead to these sorts of articles. I can only laugh at them because they are just so very wrong, so very misguided, but I end up weeping just a little because they are also so pervasive -and because damnit - in the name of my beloved Science this dreck is getting funded and published.

And because some perfectly innocent young woman will read this puerile drivel and mistake it for something it isn't, and she'll end up thinking she has to be a mother even though that person would be completely foreign to her true nature. I'm not against reproducing [thinks wildly of a flame war with wee group of readers] and parenting is cool and all, but do it because you really truly want to do it, not because you think you have to or your spouse is pushing you.

Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll be setting yourself up for gallons of Fresh Hell.

This Week in Its Briefs - Right Before Laundry

2006-05-05T20:02:00.000-04:00

1. Buying a car on ebay- seriously, this happened to a member of my family. This man has a habit of putting incredibly low bids on cars he'd like to own, hoping all the while (and trusting) that a much crazier person places a higher bid and wins the auction. Well, the highest bid was his and the car now must be bought. (This is not Mr. Fresh Hell, by the way - he'd be pulverized by a meat tenderizer if he played that kind of game.)

2. Vintage Cupcake Stories: while on a trip to Istanbul last October he called me from a bar insisting that I Google a song recorded by The Four Lads ("Istanbul, not Constaninople") to settle a bet about the year it was recorded. They were definitely in a bar, as I heard the ambient background sounds. And yes, I had the answer for him in about 20 seconds and no, I didn't see any of the proceeds of the wager.

3. The immigration issue is of interest and foremost in a lot of the news recently. It is an issue that I am rather conflicted about. The only thing I can say with some degree of authority is that if there were no such thing as illegal labor, no New York city restaurant could stay open.

There's been a lot of discussion about whether immigrants actually do take jobs away from Americans, or whether immigrants will do the jobs Americans scorn. Ask yourself if you would work for $8.00 an hour six days a week, 8 or 9 hours a day, peeling potatoes, prepping vegetables, or washing dishes. It's an honest question deserving of an honest answer. (No cheating!)

4. Zen and the art of money management - I don't think this book has been written, but I really wish it would be, and soon. I try to take a long cool look at things financial, and generally it's an easy view to maintain. But lately I'm feeling as if the blades of Dr. Guillotine are inching just a little too close to the neck for comfort, and all the while Madame Defarge is clacking away at her knitting needles gleefully like a timebomb. I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this, with rising prices and flat wages.

5. In a conversation with an older male colleague and a younger female one last week, the topic of families arose. The man declared that the birth of his daughter not only made him complete, but was the single most wonderful event of his life. Which is fine, until he adamantly insisted that it should be that way for everybody - that I, at the age of 44, would not achieve ultimate happiness without a child and that our younger colleague, at the age of 28, should look no further than reproduction to experience nirvana.

I did my best to present the other side of the issue - that it's possible for a woman to feel complete without bearing children and that biology is not destiny. I don't know for sure whether I made a compelling case but my female colleague did thank me afterwards for standing up to my principles by insisting that a marriage without children is still a viable family.

And so we close, after a quietly harrowing week, quite the devoted servant, blah blah blah.

Are We News Yet?

2006-04-28T21:14:00.000-04:00

News. Or what passes nowawdays for news. I don't know - if a teenager from Alabama comes to a dicey end in a Caribbean country, well...let's call it news, for the sake of her local station, but it shouldn't really captivate an entire country for 9 or 10 months.

News? That a 13-year old boy set up a webcam in his bedroom and filmed himself performing erotic acts and accepting Visa, MasterCard and Discover from older men as payment to view said erotic acts? Perhaps that's news for a minute, if only to illustrate that there are no depths to which a desperate teen won't sink to earn a bit of pocket money (and you can just hear the parents in the background...webcam? what in tarnation is a webcam?)

A writer pens what is billed a "memoir" yet assiduous fact checking reveals that this memoir is heavily embroidered in a fiction-y lace - is this news? Not really, although Oprah found it newsworthy enough to devote an entire show to castigating the author for "disappointing" her and her largely incredulous and barely literate viewing public with the sad but common proof that he was indeed a man with feet of clay. Entire prides of scholarly footnotes have protested with placards of shock and disbelief yet no one has noticed their plight. Fiction-y moments have joined in the protest all the same but to no avail.

This isn't news. This isn't newsworthy. These are manufactured stories meant to simultaneously placate and magnify the fears of middle America. That webcam you buy - well, that can and probably will be used by your teenager for pornographic and/or monetary purposes; the Caribbean trip you allow your 18 year old daughter to take- well, that will rebound back to smack you in the ass with a disappearing and probably dead child; and the innocent book you might possibly buy - well, if you can't trust a memoir these days what can you trust? Fiction? Something entirely invented? Ooh, very dicey.

When did we become the most incredulous insanely trusting and pretty flat out stupid people on the planet, hands down? Does anybody question anything anymore? (Much as That Guy should really have questioned why exactly Oprah wanted him on the show, and much as those guys should have questioned why a 13 year old accepted credit cards for webcam nookie. The Caribbean thing seems to be a spot of bad luck, so I'm not sure her parents should be castigated for letting her go on the trip).

I'm all about the "something smells fishy here" movement when it comes to news. I apply the principle myself every day. When listening to a mainstream new story, right along with the journalistic questions of who, what, where, why & when, I always like to add "who benefits?"

Just in case someone other than me is keeping tabs.

The God of Unwieldy Gigantic Things

2006-04-27T20:30:00.000-04:00

Religious identity - what a minefield it has become! What has happened to the concept of religious tolerance in the 21st century? Why has the notion of "your god" vs "my god" ascended to such prominence lately?

I don't remember when the topic of religion was of such fervent discussion [no pun intended]. The excitement over religious differences and the political significance of them seem to have grasped people by the throat with a garrotte that is getting tighter by the moment.

I'd like to believe I practice a certain religious tolerance. Living in New York, which is by no means a religiously homogeneous society, it still is assumed that there are clear prohibitions to polite conversation on the topic of religion - unless you know the person very well.

I'd like to believe that most folks, save fundamentalists of any stripe, pretty much believe in religious tolerance. But sadly I've found that belief and practice are sometimes out of sync, as illustrated in the following.

Occasion #1 - I was at a friend's house for a casual drinks and dinner evening with her and a few of her other friends. Somehow the "God" issue was brought up and I stated that not only didn't I believe in the existence of God but that I didn't believe that Jesus was anyone other than an obscure Jewish prophet whose life had been magnified way beyond his actual existence and influence.

Well. Watch the fur fly. While I didn't denigrate the other's belief in the existence and benign watchfulness of either the deity or his son, I was automatically treated as if I'd just sprouted horns and suggested a dandy Black Mass be performed on the coffee table. None of the mainstream Christians present could find a way to intellectually process what they perceived as outright heresy. To think that they may have simply tolerated my beliefs (or lack of belief in their God) was apparently too much to ask.

Occasion #2 - I sat at the age of 18, across the desk of my nominal Religious Superior in Tediously Repressive Religion (TRR), and said out loud that I wanted nothing more than to be free of said TRR, the sooner the better. I added that I was emphatically uninterested in any crumbs TRR had to offer and wished to wipe the dust of its precepts from my feet.

I never told Religious Superior that in my opinion he was involved in a batshit crazy cult and would be better off thinking for himself. Oh I could have done so, perhaps, but at the time it seemed churlish in the light of the freedom I was seeking and the tolerance I expected from him.

Religious Superior replied in what I now know to be a textbook response of "don't do anything hastily, you may change your mind." I never set foot in one of their churches again, and 14 years after that encounter formally severed all my ties. Members of my immediate and beloved family are still involved with TRR; I don't denigrate their involvement but it's understood that I'm not interested in hearing about it. Surprisingly, perhaps, we all comply and find a way to get along as a family without castigating each other for our beliefs. Now quite frankly, if my family can manage this I'd like to think all the rest of us could.

My belief in the inherent random chaos so beautifully illustrated daily if not hourly by the Supremely Indifferent Universe could constitute a religion unto itself, were it not so very hard to pin down and dress satisfactorily on Sunday.

Perhaps it's not a matter so much of a God of Small Things as it is a God of Unwieldy Gigantic Things that occupies us so much, but in any case if I must place a bet I'll call you on random events and raise you on indifference.

Another Day, Another City Ripe for Haiku

2006-04-27T18:35:00.000-04:00

Here at Fresh Hell HQ there hasn't been a "cup runneth over" situation in terms of actual posts, ideas for posts, or posts about substantive things. I have a lot of fun with the New York City Haiku series but I gotta admit they just dash right out of me - very little thinking required. Perhaps I missed my true calling as self-styled Random Haiku Generator.

In that spirit, and to tide over my wee group of readers while I wander the Fresh Hell mansion, tearing out my hair and wondering what has become of my muse - and most especially because deep thinking is still (sigh) beyond me, I will branch out and offer haiku of other places where I've either lived or visited extensively. Thus, I bring you today - Salt Lake City Haiku.

God! I hate seagulls,
Flocks of trash eating winged rats.
Sigh. It is state bird.

Great Salt Lake is huge!
Truly salty and you float,
After one day - dull.

Drinks at Park City,
Summer and winter are grand.
Drunk on the mountain!

Mormons at the door.
No thanks, I don't like God much.
Persistent, aren't they?

Famed site in the hills,
"Widowmaker" motor cross.
Now it's all houses.

Vice is underground.
The surface is pure and clean.
I know - I lived there.

New York City Haiku - Last Saturday in Queens

2006-04-26T18:48:00.000-04:00

Oh crazy old broad,
You may have heard of a comb.
Birds could nest in there.

Jaunty black youths stroll
Surprise for them if I yanked
Down those baggy jeans.

Lady, those hot pants
With platform shoes and crop top
Sure make you look cheap.

Wow - what a moustache!
Like Pop's in the old country.
Not right for a "she".

In Which Our Heroine Has More North African Adventures

2006-04-25T22:01:00.000-04:00

During my travels in North Africa, I've been in many gender segregated situations.

After half a dozen trips to Morocco and one to Algeria, it's often difficult to pinpoint exactly the moment of each iniital culture shock, or to highlight properly when constant exposure to the unknown kept me abnormally alert, or when the exotic sights, sounds & smells plunged me into disorientation.

I've spent a lot of time since that first trip deciphering the values inherent in North African culture and, as any sociology student can attest, one cannot discern these in a snap. The fascination I continue to have for the culture is illustrated in one way by my interest in a society that has one face set for the public and many other varied ones which are completely private.

Some occasions that still make me anxious are gender based social situations. The society is gender segregated, and the public freedoms are those enjoyed by men rather than women. In this post I don't want to write about the fairness of this (I don't believe it is, or how thin a line an independent woman can walk there, or how that razor sharp line has been re-drawn in the last five years -I've written about this in another of my posts).

Let's just say I usually feel ill at ease in a parlor full of North African women, and it's not merely because of the language barrier.

Yet one of the more pleasant situations for me is hammam.

Hammam are the public baths of the Middle East and North Africa and are separate for men and women, a reflection of society.

My first occasion visiting the hammam is with my sister-in-law and her daughter (let's call them La Petite and La Lune). We enter the women's baths and pay our fees (about $3.50 for all three of us) to the old woman in charge in the front changing room, place our street clothes in a cubbyhole to be retrieved when we're finished, and take our supplies with us to the first steam room.

We must bring with us everything we will need; 3 large plastic buckets for getting water, loofahs, washcloths & sponges for cleaning; soap, shampoo, conditioner, razors and towels. Our soap is olive oil based - a dark smooth mixture not formed into hard bars but with a gooshy mud-like texture, with a rich lather and mild scent - it's packed into a small square tupperware container for easy transport to hammam. The loofahs are rough rather than refined.

The first room we enter is a large white tiled room with pipes running along the upper sides of the wall and 3 or 4 drains built into the floor. It's very hot and feels exactly like a steam room.

We stake our place and set out our toiletries, perching uncomfortably on small wooden racks we've brought with us so we sit about 2 inches from the floor. We're wearing only underwear - the rest of our clothing is checked in the entrance cubbyhole.

The steam generates a pleasant enervance, and I relax in the warmth and humidity. We'll spend our entire visit in the first room - there are three, and each one is successively hotter and steamier than the next. The maximum time for the uninitiated (me, basically) to stay in the second room is 20 minutes; I'm warned off the third room as being far too dangerous for a person with so little experience. I take a glimpse of the third room, however, and find it sparsely populated with only a very few elderly women.

We fill our buckets from a communal tap in the first room (and will do so at least four times) and bathe sitting down by first soaping and then rinsing by pouring buckets of hot water over our heads. Etiquette has sway even here, and modesty is important, at least until after the first cleansing.

And so it occurs to me, as it should, that I've just begun to scrape the surface of this experience, hedged about with its own rules and regulations, and to save it as something to tuck tidily away for later contemplation - how hammam traditions differ between countries and how comfortable La Petite and La Lune are with changing their style to suit societial rules too subtle for me to detect.

We complete our soaping and water-over-the-head cleansing process at least three times - after each thorough cleansing we rest, relax, shave legs, condition hair, and talk, our skin soaking up the warmth of the hot water, pores opening in the steam.

No one seems self-conscious other than I. With a tradition of lifelong visits to hammam, how could they? And how could anyone sense I felt so gawky and wrong? All ages are represented, from wrinkled grandmothers to slender teens. Many women are with their children of both sexes (very young boys are allowed). Many surreptiously sneak a peek at me and I can't blame them, as I'm so obviously Western in my height and coloring, yet so obviously belonging with a normal Moroccan mother and daughter. The older women glance knowingly and I think they can tell in an instant that I've never borne a child.

After a long while I become more relaxed and comfortable in hammam - at the end, superlatively clean and uniquely comforted, we recline on divans in the main room for a short time wrapped from head to foot in towels. Retrieving our clothes from the entrance cubbyholes, we dress in street clothes, wet hair bound in towel turbans.

I've had several trips to hammam since then yet I seem to find on each occasion the same mixture of awkwardness, camaraderie, and essential comfort within this purely feminine world.

Postscript: Divorce Post

2006-04-21T21:50:00.000-04:00

Postscript to Yesterday
I've been thinking about what I wrote yesterday and asking myself questions - was what I wrote too harsh? Was it too easy? Who did I let off the hook? Was the post a facile rendering of events that so profoundly altered my life, or was it merely another stanza in a chorus of "poor me" sung to the tune of "but I had divorced parents"? (And since so many other children have sung the same song, does my version become nothing but a plaintive tune telling everyone how I was one of the first, and so felt all of it the most?)

I don't think what I wrote was too harsh - on the contrary, I could have written much more about the privations, embarassments and indignities I experienced.

To what end? So everyone can know the depth of my chagrin? So everyone can know how very long I was content to identify myself as a child of divorce?

I didn't go into great detail about how much I suffered (and I did, this much I tell you is true) as a child of divorced parents. Is the suffering I endured more or less than that meted out to any or every child of divorce?

While my experience was unique in the fact that it did seem to happen at the time to only to me and my siblings, and rarely to my contemporaries, than yes, my suffering was unique in its place. I learned some rock hard truths when I was young- probably too young.

Knowing those truths didn't always save me from making my own mistakes when the time came. Those mistakes I had to make all on my own.

File Under: Divorce, 70's Style

2006-04-20T21:29:00.000-04:00

My parents divorced in January of 1970. For my younger reader(s), this is really no big whup. Who cares and who notices?

Au contraire, mes enfants. As I was still an impressionable child in 1970 rather than firmly mired in adult mores I can't say exactly why there was such a stigma attached to it. It's hard to imagine in these days that I was the only schoolchild in a class of 32 with divorced parents, yet it happened, and I experienced it.

Given adequate thought, I can conclude that at the very least it was considered a deep moral failing by many people, and not necessarily only by the very religious or conservative. I imagine there was something slightly sinister, off-key, or debauched about divorce - one can imagine in hazy backlight the figure of a divorcee viewed as glamorous and sophisticated - after all, Hollywood stars had been getting divorces and serially marrying for decades before then (see Taylor, Elizabeth and Burton, Richard).

Reality, proving itself to be Irony's charming bedfellow, was quite the opposite of oversized sunglasses, diamond necklaces and fur stoles. My parents were 30; their oldest child of four was nearly 12 and the youngest was 7. I think we were all very far away from a wee fur stole, yes?

As far as custody arrangements went, there was never a question that we would remain with my mother. Back then family court judges cared very little about a child's wishes and usually granted automatic custody to the mother. Would we have wanted to live with my father? I don't even know the answer to that question now, 36 years later, much less been able to answer it then. We were told that my father didn't want us to live with him permanently - that was guaranteed to sting fragile childish hearts and it made its intended impact. I don't doubt that it was the truth - my father was not a person who should have attempted parenthood and one of the main reasons he did was a result of the culture in which he was raised. It was just something you did as an adult, along with finding a good job, buying a house, and paying your taxes.

Anyway, almost overnight my life changed fundamentally. In fact, it changed so much and so radically in such a short period of time that many of the fallout effects weren't felt until I was an adult myself. To be 30 years old and still questioning the fine points of the demise of one's parent's marriage sounds like grist for the therapy mill, but on that snowy January day in 1970 my ideas about marriage and family changed irrevocably. My faith in the permanence of marital vows took a beating; my faith in my own future choice for a mate was cast in doubt; my trust in the constancy of men was whittled to nearly nothing.

We moved one state away from my father - in an area like the Northeast or the Southeast, that wouldn't have represented too great a hardship, but in the grand open spaces of the West, we lived a 10 hour drive away. Visits weren't made casually (air travel was still ruinously expensive then), nor, because of my father's work, very often.

Our cozy middle-class existence was shattered - we were now living in a single parent household. My mother worked, but as she'd never finished college and had been a housewife for 11 years the jobs open to her were few and ill paid. My father paid some child support but that didn't propel our lifestyle into any stratosphere or stop us from being latchkey kids.

I entered a world of hand-me-downs and charity offerings, of always having to rsvp no to slumber parties, of checking in constantly with my mother while we were at home and saying goodbye to family vacations (which we couldn't afford to take) plus a whole host of other intermittently embarrassing social situations in which it was incumbent upon me to produce two parents. Did I feel soul-crushing envy at other, whole families for whom these issues never arose? Of course! I spent many years simmering with resentment, class based and otherwise, towards anyone and everyone who had something I lacked.

Do I wish my parents would have stayed together although their world views and essential personalities differed so radically? Do I wish they could have somehow sucked up their differences and sacrificed their happiness to ensure mine?

It would be disingenous to write otherwise than that the selfish childish part of me (which persists long after childhood ends, I find) is more than happy to insist that since these two people brought me into the world their responsiblity for my happiness lingers far longer than it ought. Thankfully the adult side of me has a chance to chime in with its specialized knowledge of the complexity of relationships to put the kibosh on wishing what could never be.

I'll never be a person that can hear about a couple's divorce without feeling some sadness or some identification with the situation. Especially if kids are involved -I always imagine the shoes of other limited and confused tiny selves, how I once fit into them so neatly, and how terrifyingly difficult they are to outgrow.

I think my experience of divorce made me a person who couldn't enter into marriage easily or early. I was nearly 35 when I finally felt I could truly commit to another person. During my 20's and early 30's I viewed marriage as a prison, each participant a free bird locked in a gilded cage.

When I seriously contemplated marriage I discovered that for two people in sync, what it really was, what it really could be, was two best friends poised on the edge of a cliff, jumping off together hand in hand towards an unknown future.

And that was an image I could hold in my heart.

This Week in Its Briefs - Cottony White

2006-04-19T20:22:00.000-04:00

1. The terrifying yet also perversely and profoundly boring tax season has ended again. I never fail to feel the sickening lurch in my gut when I realize we owe taxes. We owe taxes every year no matter what, so a logical mind might anticipate and prepare for what sensibly seems to be an ironclad eventuality, yet it catches me by grim surprise every year. I don't know - perhaps in my deepest fantasies I'll wake up and one year we won't have to pay. Laugh along with me, mes freres.

2. In Cupcake News: The Cupcake has, as I wrote earlier, announced his semi-retirement with a new title, that of Chairman Emeritus. From what I can see, Chairman Emeritus shoes resemble nothing quite so much as cushy pink bunny slippers, as he's embarked on an intense travel schedule interspersed with working on his other business ventures and steering wheelbarrows full of cash to the bank.

He's much happier now and subsequently lots more fun to work for - the tarnished lining in this particular cloud is that he still needs staff (like me) to run his life, and I'm sure the remaining active business partners at the agency will at one point, probably soon, become fed up with the time I spend doing his work and somehow find a way to pull the plug. At which point I think I ought to negotiate my own tiny cash wheelbarrow...

3. It's Wedding Season - this weekend a work colleague will tie the knot for the second time (at the age of 54 - gulp!), next month the son of a dear friend will sensibly and I’m positive beautifully wed exactly the right woman for him, and this summer we have the wedding of a favorite of Mr. Fresh Hell's many nieces.

I love weddings in a completely unabashed uncynical way. The sense of romantic promise in the air lingers as sweet and fragrant as the flower bouquets – it doesn’t matter if the couple is young and untried, or older and starting over again – summoning the immense courage to stand up in front of family, friends, (and often one’s God) and promising to honor and cherish another person until death sunders you is an icy plunge into a depthless well of faith.

4. I am a crafty person, in that I enjoy handcrafts. My real love is knitting, which has always afforded me endless delight. It's always amazing to me that with two pointy sticks and a pile of yarn I can create a useful and attractive garment. In keeping with my general impatience, I always have at least three or four projects on needles at the same time, so I don't tire of any of them.

Slow week here at the Briefs, but hopefully more to come later, so I remain, as usual.

New York City Haiku - A Tuesday Version

2006-04-18T18:51:00.000-04:00

Great price on roses,
found at Korean deli.
All dead in a week.

Hey small yappy dog,
Barking like a crazy ass -
Just a pink scooter.

In clusters outside,
Their white coats like snowy drifts.
All city chefs smoke.

Tie-dyed street merchants,
Sell all day many odd things.
Stoned? Bored? Or, good job?

Snotty French boutique.
Twig salesgirl looks up and down.
Nothing in my size.

A Tale of Two Cities- Fresh Hell Style

2006-04-13T18:06:00.000-04:00

I'm claiming a small share of geezer status before my time, and including here two places in the US that I believe have been completely ruined and shorn of their beauty by being constantly hyped.

1. Telluride, Colorado - I first went to Telluride in 1974, eons before movie stars and media moguls thought it was cool. The mountainsides were empty of anything more substantial than pine trees, and the several lakes and box canyons in the surrounding areas were pristine and unspoiled. If one camped at Trout Lake as we did that summer (located in another box canyon a few miles south of the town), it was in a roughly finished wood cabin with very little in the way of mod cons. (I think there were indoor facilities, but if there were they were quite rudimentary - in a way, it surely prepared me for my future wrestling with the vagaries of North African plumbing.)

There was a lot of mud, as I recall, but the rainbow trout fishing was phenomenal, both in Trout Lake itself and the many meadow streams flowing from the tops of the moutains. Our days were spent blissfully fishing and hiking.

Telluride itself was a ramshackle conglomerate of a dozen streets, populated half by flannel shirted, tobacco chewing, crusty miners driving rust-riddled pickup trucks, and half by bonafide pot-smoking hippies complete with patched jeans, bare feet, long hair, thriving communes and blissful expressions. This wasn't a town where you went to shop, for crying out loud; you went to the laundromat to wash your clothes, the general store for your provisions, and the bait shop for your tackle and fishing wire. Precious antique stores and restaurants menu-laden with fennel flavored sausage & tofu pancakes came much later, after Hollywood et. al discovered the place and trashed its pristine beauty beyond all recall. I can't even think about it without heaving a tortured sigh - it was so wonderful then, in all its wildness - so complete even with such a light footprint upon its throat.

2. San Francisco - I was privileged to visit San Francisco in 1976, the summer after my father's death. One of my paternal uncles lived there, and my sibs & I trooped out en masse for a few weeks during summer vacation. The streets, laid out gracefully in an arc around the marina with row after row of pastel Victorian houses, complete with plate glass veranda bay views, were breathtaking in their quiet pomp and ordered circumstance - the marina and ports were not yet engulfed and overrun with kitcshy tourist haunts, studiedly upscale restaurants, or boutiques filled with elegant yet completely unnecessary items. The streets were incredibly clean yet very lively. There was even a studied quaintness to be seen in the fey denizens of Castro & Polk Streets (although I'm sure that many of them were probably zoned out of their heads - their benign gazes were likely more influenced by quaaludes than gaiety).

It was a city of sparkling white views, a conveniently sordid underbelly kept tidily in its allotted corner, and the all time hands down best Chinatown in the world. I ate Peking Duck there for the first time, in one of Chinatown's most exclusive restaurants - it had to be ordered 24 hours in advance, which was done by my aunt's Chinese assistant. Marin County was sparsely populated then, and the majesty and coolness of Muir Woods was unparalleled - one felt, surrounded by giant redwoods and the calm and quiet of an ancient forest, that one had dropped out of civilization itself. Anyone who has been to San Francisco in the last 15 years will know the liveability and charm has all been leached from the city and impossibly ruined by the huge influx of population and attendant business, accomplished without an eye to appreciating or enhancing the grandeur and character of the city. The infrastructure has been unable to grow swiftly enough or cope. San Francisco is no longer a glittering jewel in the Bay, but yet another sprawling polluted filthy mega-city with traffic enough to defy Los Angeles on a good day.

It would be proper, I suppose, to leave this post on a high note, which is admirable but something I'm loathe to do - the biggest part of me would rather wallow in nostalgia for these places remembered in their heyday of unexplained, unexpected, and unparalleled beauty.

Blog-Holiday

2006-04-12T14:34:00.000-04:00

Just taking a few days off to recharge and come back next week with fiery content, or maybe just tepid drizzle.

This Week in Its Briefs - Brand Spanking New

2006-04-06T18:47:00.000-04:00

1. It's officially spring in New York when the Mitzvah Tank rolls into town! For all of you who don't live here, various groups in the Hasidic Jewish community own RV's, into which they pile a number of similarly togged and coiffed brethren and roam around the city, blasting Orthodox music through loudspeakers. They park in various places (today one group alit at Union Square), and hand out flyers. It's entirely possible they do other things as well (mysterious good deeds known as mitzvahs) but I wouldn't know - they always ask if you're Jewish before handing you a flyer. If you say no, they'll snatch away the offending page as if it (or you) were on fire. I've lived in the city twenty years with no bloody idea what a mitzvah tank is for.

2. Also, even if it's a little too cool at the moment, Spring officially begins when cafes and restaurants open their outdoor seating. New York has a plethora of sidewalk cafes, which offer some of the city's greatest spring and summer pleasures. Somehow even the most mediocre of dishes is enhanced in an outdoor setting. Screw privacy! Let's all just do it in the road!

Some restaurants, in an attempt to nab the surging hordes of clientele who yearn to dine a miniscule inch away from the gritty, grimy, glorious city, place their tables so close to the sidewalk pavements that pedestrians sauntering by can with ease swipe morsels from an unattended plate. Not that that's ever happened. Ever.

3. Harbingers of Spring can be also found in sandals and open toed shoes (I know! 65 degrees and the sandals are out, people!). New Yorkers, with our thin blood, will brave the chilly temps just to air the footies.

Until the next time, I remain your devoted, etc., etc.

New York City Haiku - April Showers

2006-04-04T21:54:00.000-04:00

Man in blue tee shirt
waters plants on balcony
Dude, such a sweet crib!

Wait for crap R train
Peruvian music soars
It's not the 80's.

Young kid on subway
70's called -their hair back?
It's a good question.

2006-04-04T21:47:00.000-04:00

Another whirlwind of activity way away from the blog, and very little inspiration is left in its wake. Yet, there are still a few gems:

Dear friends of Mr. FH's & mine, a husband and wife team (who sweated blood and tears to produce a fabulous documentary film) just received word that their film has been accepted to premiere at one of the top U.S. independent film festivals. (Details will remain anonymous until I get the word from them that it's okay to publicize on the blog.)

It's the culmination of a dream come true - they envisioned this film, wrote it, shot it, edited it, have marketed the hell out of it - and finally, average people will fork over hard earned money to view it on a big screen. It's a colossal creative baby that was birthed - a truly remarkable vision captured on film that will finally get the wider audience it so richly deserves.

I have a huge respect for these immensely creative minds who so eagerly and lovingly send a creative child out into the cruel cold world armed mostly with the grandest of hopes, but also shielded with the resilience of truth and passion.

In my more restricted universe, I sweat and worry about submitting a post of mine to a Carnival - yet this glorious pair trump my offerings in their enormity.

But I'm getting better with sending my own creative babies out to the wider world - I've submitted a recent post to the 2nd Big Fat Carnival, found here (and I should be better at code/linkey bits but after two hours of deciphering forgive me for not linking properly - here's the url so I'm thinking it's a copy & paste job, and I'm sorry for the extra work)

http://www.meloukhia.com/2006/04/big-fat-carnival.html

Please do read through the list, as it proves to be very interesting and provocative, and a list of posts I'll spend the next few days reading and thinking about.

New York City Haiku

2006-03-30T18:49:00.000-05:00

Young panhandler with sign
"Spare some change for pot and beer?"
At least he's honest.

Baby shoe in the street
by creepy St. Ignatius Church
Too many pigeons.

Cross only on "walk"
At 17th, Union Square
Cars will run you down.

File Under: The Satisfaction of Mythology

2006-03-29T19:28:00.000-05:00

I can’t think of a single thing to write about. Sometimes there’s a spate of topics in my mind that are all clamoring for expression. Lately it feels as if I have one lone chickpea rolling to and fro amid a vast and empty space.

I have fleeting thoughts and concepts and think to myself, “Yes, Vikings – I do have an endless fascination and admiration for ancient Norse culture – what a great idea for a post.”

Then I sit down to actually write and the post curiously sputters and fizzes. I sigh, save a draft, peer at it at later intervals, add a few clumsy edits. Lather, rinse, repeat.

It’s not for lack of passion or lack of information (the myrmidons of Google have been kind in spewing forth info on alarmingly diverse topics), so maybe I can blame it on the elusive yet mysterious essences of majestic One-Eyed Odin, god of war, wisdom and poetry; the darling of the common man Thor, god of thunder and wielder of lightning; and finally my personal favorites, The Valkyries.

As far as minor mythological figures go, I always thought they had a pretty good gig. They represented the ultimate in their culture’s definition of feminine beauty, and in their role as Odin’s messengers rode either winged horses (or packs of wild wolves, either of which are suitably exotic) while clad in armor and helmets (it was said the flickering glow from their armor caused the aurora borealis - I find this stupendously romantic).

The Valkyries main task, as Choosers of the Slain, was to roam Earth's battlefields and choose the bravest souls of slain warriors to join Odin in Valhalla, where every day the souls of the warriors would engage each other in mock combat on the plains of Asgard in preparation for the final, “end of the world” battle between the gods and the giants, referred to as Ragnorak. Every night they would return to Valhalla to feast on roasted boar and drink mead.

I don't believe a more macho version of the afterlife even exists, yet it's a practical and well-defined view of Heaven, offering daily exercise honing one's warrior skills plus the promise of endless nights of hearthside warmth full of hearty food, copious drink, and congenial companions.

Heaven should be just this; a place set aside for maidens and heros alike, each day an opportunity to be one's physical best - an eternity spent snug in Odin's feast hall, surrounded by one hell of a wild and wooly party.

2006-03-24T20:10:00.000-05:00

I’ve experienced many different reactions when people find out that Mr. Fresh Hell is Algerian.

I wrote a little bit about it earlier (I haven't mastered the whole linking dealie but it's somewhere in the December archives, my apologies) in reference to racism.

I still get some “knee jerk” responses in a post 9/11 New York City, like “is he sexist?”. Ooh, did my hackles rise at that one! Just because he has an Arabic name and heritage he's automatically sexist? That comment initially made me angry not just because it was stunningly ignorant, but it came from an extremely intelligent person with a college education plus medical school (this was a doctor, people - gah!) from whom I perhaps naively expected more.

Granted, this doctor doesn’t know Mr. FH, so I didn't get too flipped out by her asking a misguided and offensive question, reasoning as I did that she probably at best has a very slim geographical knowledge of his home country filtered through the nonsense routinely profilgated in the mainstream media.

American-Algerian marriages are rather thin on the ground, so I’m sure we do stick out a lot, but most cross-cultural marriages are ripe for seemingly earnest yet intrusive and often completely rude questions that would never be asked if the couple comes from the same culture.

Although hard to discern from a casual glance, the similarities between Mr. FH and I have always been greater than our differences. We come from tediously repressive religious backgrounds that we subsequently rejected (thus fueling our reliance on science and reason); we hold the title of black sheep in our respective families; we had romantically adventurous pasts that we both prefer to consign to the mists of memory; we share a sense of humor and are both addicted to travel.

But, as I tell people constantly, cross cultural marriages aren’t for everyone. There’s a high level of ambiguity involved – one must be prepared to be thrust into potentially embarrassing situations where one doesn't have all the etiquette to hand, be open to learning about and assimilating the mores of a radically different culture, and be receptive to criticism and disagreement of many tenets of one’s own culture.

I wholeheartedly believe respective family expectations need to be agreed upon between the couple first and then clearly and firmly presented to both of the family groups. This seems to help resolve a lot of problems as time goes on.

If you are a person who feels it would be impossible to have a relationship with a person who can't share your cultural frame of reference, a cross cultural marriage will be a long row to hoe and may likely fail. Mr. FH and I don’t (and can’t) reminisce about the funniest episodes of I Dream of Jeannie or Gilligan’s Island; he doesn’t remember elementary school drills involving “duck and cover”. The stories he tells of his childhood escapades on the family farm in southern Morocco are alternately thrilling in their recklessness and at times openly barbarous when compared to the relative safety of my American suburban youth.

He has lived, worked, been productive and happy for the last 15 years in my culture, while we visit his once a year. I've made a concerted effort to learn his language and actively seek a place of comfort for myself in his culture. I've done that because I wanted it for me and because I want this marriage to grow and thrive. The fact that it also pleases him adds a little frosting on the cake.

I made a lifetime commitment with my best friend, who continues to surprise and astonish me and who is always dear but really, awfully odd.

Really? You Want Melba Toast with a Side of Industrial Strength Manure?

2006-03-23T21:44:00.000-05:00

Food Issues - nah, let's call them by their real name, shall we? Food pathologies. I don't think I've ever met a woman who didn't have some sort of food pathology.
I can fall into conversation with a woman who's a perfect stranger while standing at an hors d'oeuvres table at a cocktail party who will within 30 seconds confess to me that she can't believe she's just made a pig out of herself for putting a spoonful of guacamole on her plate - oh, she ooh's and aah's about the wonderful taste, then in the next breath tells me she'll have to work out an extra thirty minutes the next day to undo the "damage" done by the seemingly innocent guacamole.

If you think that can't possibly happen, think again. It has and it does, all the time. I actually made a wee science experiment out of it at one time - listening to the disparaging and self-deprecating remarks women made about food and their relation to it. For what it's worth, there were always distinct shades of hostility in their words. Harsh words about their bodies, and equal disdain for the food they loved but felt they simply couldn't afford to eat. Frankly, it's not really the food that women feel badly about, but themselves - that's a larger and more insidious issue.

I still wonder, why? Wait - that's a disingenous statement for me to write. I know exactly why this happens. The diet industry doesn't rake in a gazillion wheelbarrows full of cash every day for nothing. There are times I just want to take a nice concrete pole and shove it firmly up the ass of advertising, and in this case, it's completely justified.

The current unrealistic standards of female beauty and their effects on women's lives have been written about extensively by those who studied them far more closely than I, yet even as a total amateur I know their capacity to ruin. Shall we run down the rules again? Women must be rail thin at all times - nothing must get in the way of this - most especially not age or childbearing; they must not be seen eating heartily in public; they must pick on salads only (most especially while on a date with the opposite sex); they must not indulge in public but if they do they must be damn sure to inform everyone within hearing distance that this is aberrant behavior they don't condone and reassure their listeners that they will pay the strictest penance for doing so (need I go on? Isn't this list depressing enough?).

Imagine the power of a sausage (or a chocolate eclair, oreos, or a bag of Fritos). This sausage has some serious mojo - enough so that it's mere presence on a woman's plate, in her mouth, or coursing through her digestive system causes her to experience some or all of the following emotions, all completely out of proportion to the sausage's actual standing in the universe:

Disgust - how could I have eaten all this! I'm such a fat pig!
Fear - this will go right to my thighs.
Self-loathing - but my thighs are already fat!
Resolution - I will never eat a sausage again, even though I love them.

Food, especially of the indulgence category, becomes the Enemy and is given all this irrational power that it simply doesn't have.

My mother has some severe food pathologies, and growing up with them wasn't easy. She cloaked quite a number of them under the banner of what she claimed were her health problems (very handy and also trendy). To say her health problems thirty years ago were all completely in her head would be kind. The fact that she still carries them with her when she is in her mid-sixties is an example of the tenacity of the clusterfuck. This is a woman who will, in a four star restaurant, order plain lettuce leaves with oil & vinegar on the side while the rest of the family orders normal appetizers and entrees, all the while claiming "I can't eat any of this food." So what that a lettuce leaf costs $12? So what that the people at the entire table are suddenly mute and uncomfortable, unable to enjoy their pleasant dinner because all eyes are turned to the rabbit food in front of her? Pathology rules!

It's a miracle that she raised three daughters who haven't inherited her problems with food. It's not to say that my sisters and I are all perfectly comfortable with our bodies all the time, but the deeper aspects of her pathology has thankfully passed us by.

When I was younger I was the woman feeling guilty for a dab of guacamole at the cocktail party, and I was the one eager to confess it to another woman, especially a perfect stranger. Fitting in at the time was so important to me, and espousing what I considered to be the party line in public felt natural.

I should have been wearing a neon sign on my forehead proclaiming myself as bound by what my society had defined as a acceptable standard of female beauty and behavior as were the feet of aristocratic Chinese women a couple of hundred years ago.

Yet there came a time when I wanted to free myself of the sausage's pernicious ability to cause fear and loathing. To accept my appetites for what they were, place them in a normal context in relation with the rest of my life, and to stop perpetuating, in word or deed, standards I ultimately deemed demeaning, pointless, and devoid of joy.

In other words, I ate.

And contrary to popular opinion, I didn't immediately gain 100 pounds. I actually listened to my body and appreciated my cravings, and they weren't always only for sausage and chocolate eclairs. I learned about my craving for grapefruit, for broccoli, for roast lamb with new potatoes, for steamed asparagus, for tomatoes, for hot buttered toast and cafe au lait. Sure, I'm a complete sucker for a perfectly ripened wedge of Brie; I eat enough to satisfy and put the rest away with not one single expression of guilt. I learned to eat only when I'm hungry and not as an automatic response to other emotions, and not to use food as a reward or a security blanket. I'm not grossly overweight, although I could stand to lose 10 pounds, but neither am I unhealthy (although I can't help but boast about a cholesterol level fitting a woman half my age).

This didn't happen overnight; there were fits and starts lasting years, setbacks I'm not entirely proud of, times when it seemed infinitely easier to fall back into the approved, accepted, (yet ultimately soul destroying) artificial mindfuck rather than pave my own way.

But I'm glad I persisted. In my own way, it was an achievement over my mother's tyranny, a cheeky thumbing of the nose to the patriarchy, and wonderfully liberating all on its own.

But I must close - I've got some fabulous corned beef with Dijon mustard calling my name.

This Week in Its Briefs - Stretched Out Elastic

2006-03-23T18:33:00.000-05:00

1. Dead refrigerators. I walk one long block from the subway to my office. On trash day there were no fewer than four fridges out on the sidewalk for collection. Has the recent demise of our appliance made me more aware of their fragility or have I uncovered evidence of an alien plot?

2. Dear ebay: The Cupcake has discovered you. My life is bound to change in many ways. You would have no reason to know this, but I spend a lot of my days online, purchasing both the commonplace and hard to find items that spring from The Cupcake's inexhaustible desire for consumables. I can’t decide yet if you will be a godsend or if you will make my life a living hell. Cross your fingers for me!

3. I have an intense dislike and instant inversion to masks and clowns. I have no idea what that says about my inner life.

4. Pet Peeve #8,598: the two weeks before Daylight Savings Time begins. When the pesky sun comes up, it wakes me up. One entire effing hour before my alarm. I am a person who will snatch the last second of sleep available and a compulsive snooze-bar slammer, so you can imagine the decibel level of the ping on the pet peeve monitor.

5. My totally demented and unsurprisingly illiterate landlords put a hand-lettered sign on the building's front door to protest the delivery of unwanted circulars/sales flyers: "No! No! No! Assolutey No Papers! Thank you." Assolutey? Could they be serious? Don't think for a second that it doesn't take considerable willpower for me to resist snatching it up and creating instant confetti every single time I go in and out that door. If you can't spell four syllable words, excise them from your vocabulary. Kee-rist.

Unwashed Confessions

2006-03-22T20:52:00.000-05:00

I never wanted to be a mother.

True - it was a job I viewed as one with very little appeal. There was no status, only a dim possibility of an eventual payoff in the form of a devoted child to care for me in my dotage, and far too many bodily fluids involved. My admittedly crass thought was always, "What's in it for me?". Motherhood could not come up with a compelling enough answer.

My Tediously Repressive Religious Upbringing(tm) had a great deal to do with forming my opinion; in a society where the words "independent woman" were whispered in the same tragedic undertone as the word cancer, the role a woman should play was always and only one: Mother.

No slouch I, you can bet I didn't swan around and announce loudly and publicly that I had zip zero zilch interest in playing that particular role. Instead, I fervently planned my eventual escape while paying the barest lip service to the prevailing viewpoint. (I did this for years, people, without cracking; I'd love to say I did it for you so you don't have to but sadly, in these frightening times one has to do it again and again.)

As a teenager I did a huge amount of babysitting - and I completely fell into that simply because it was easy work to find, not because I daydreamed about having any of my own. Truthfully, I was awfully mediocre. I never overtly neglected my charges, but I always made the kids go to bed really early so I could have more time to scour the house for porn and raid the refrigerator. But really, didn't everyone do that?

Even the adult me found it difficult to admit out loud that I didn't want children. Instead, I meekly suggested to any interested parties that I may not be able to have any. I had some severe lower back problems in my twenties, and one doctor I saw thought it might prove a problem in the future. It was a convenient fiction I could hang my hat on as long as I needed. At that particular time my most prevalent female role models were also ones who did not subscribe to the notion of biological destiny, and I gained a peculiar and welcome strength from them.

Then along came Mr. Fresh Hell. Not to make this incredibly shmoopy, but I truly believed I had finally met someone with whom raising a family might not be as awful as I expected. Yet even after trying for quite a long time and undergoing several distinctly unpleasant gynecological rituals I wouldn't wish on an enemy, my fate, with a pleasing irony, gave birth to my wish.

After receiving the verdict of infertility, and with both of us so very squeamish about continuing on in more invasive ways, we agreed we would remain childfree. I refuse to use the term childless, as that presupposes that there is something we're lacking.

As my reproductive viability dwindles with every passing hour, every now and then I get a twinge, not of regret so much as that of a distinctly melancholic musing over what might have happened along a path I chose not to take.

I wasn't a mother but then again, I also wasn't Miss Universe or Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, two viable career options I once entertained.

2006-03-22T13:37:00.000-05:00

Angry for a Reason: Carnival of Feminists XI

With some trepidation, I submitted a post that was included in the latest Carnival of Feminists (yay me).

I was proud of myself for sending the post into the wide world and am delighted that I was included.

Click on the link to check out some of the really terrific writing being done by some talented feminist bloggers.

During Which Our Heroine Travels to the Heart of the Third World

2006-03-21T22:03:00.000-05:00

On my first trip to Morocco, my sister-in-law (La Petite for our purposes) took me with her deep into the middle of nowhere southern Morocco. Our destination was a tiny village where lived the family who had been in service with Mr. Fresh Hell's family when he was growing up.

Disclaimer: before any egalitarian soul decides to speak up in support of beleaguered domestics everywhere, please keep in mind that it is a fact of North African culture that middle and upper class families employ domestics; while domestic service is menial labor it does provide income for a family that perhaps cannot support themselves in any other way. I am sure there are many people who treat their domestic servants badly, but that is emphatically not the Fresh Hell family way.

Our arrival in the village was heralded by excited throngs of small boys surrounding our taxi, and our welcome in the house was no less ecstatic. Watching Zara and La Petite embrace each other tightly brought a lump to my throat - it was an embrace of authentic sisterly longing and familial acknowledgement.

La Petite's annual visit and my presence (outsider status and Mr. FH's spousal status combined) turned an ordinary day into a small family festival. Extended family and friends drifted from other houses to participate. I could hardly keep track of who was related to whom - in the end, it didn't matter, as the festival feeling prevailed overall.

The children took me on an energetic tour of their outdoor courtyard and its denizens; the goats, dogs and cats, and the bunnies (one of which later turned into the legendary "bunny" tagine of earlier posting).

The family has no electricity or central running water. There is an old-fashioned water pump in the courtyard. The house is an example of traditional regional architecture; a large central square courtyard open to the elements, planted with a small grove of trees to provide shade and visual interest, and small covered rooms on all sides of the square - kitchen, men's salon, women's salon, and bedrooms. The bread is baked in the courtyard in a small conical shaped clay oven built above ground and fed by a wood fire. Ingeniously, there are pipes that filter the warmth of the bread oven's fire directly to a large teepee-like structure close by used for bathing.

During the course of the day, there were several memorable photo ops: me baking bread in the oven, me riding a donkey (while small and spindly, it could have easily supported my weight on a 25 mile trek), me posing in the couryard with the extended family.

There were quieter yet still memorable moments: taking tea with Grandma in the best salon (she killed a giant bug on the wall barehanded - whoo hoo!); enjoying a splendid lunch; sharing family news. There were some language barriers - I spoke French throughout to La Petite, who translated everything into Arabic for the family.

Much later that evening, when La Petite and I had returned to our modern hotel in Agadir, about 55 miles to the west, I looked at a night sky festooned with stars and thought about the family I had visited.

Judged by Western standards, they had nothing - no elecricity means no lights, refrigerator, radio, television or computer. No running water means no instant hot showers or flush toilets. They didn't have the latest fashions, television, shopping, or coffee - any of the things I thought must constitute proper living.

Yet during all that day I didn't hear any voices rising in discord; there was only laughter and contentment, the harmony of family love and tradition as yet unmarred by the discontent born of a modern civilization. Every family member has their place, their job and their status - every person has worth.

This family lives their lives in the same century and on the same earth as I do, yet we couldn't be further apart in tradition or a philosophy of everyday living if we tried.

While I've never fogotten them I find I can't simply view them as automatically holding a special secret of the perfectly contented life simply because they live without the benefit of mod cons.

But they certainly do have something going for them.

Literary Snobbery, Or Good Lord You Have Some Crust

2006-03-21T19:15:00.000-05:00

I've been posting lightly over the last few weeks. I am noticing that my deep thoughts [ha!] have to percolate somewhat before my brain connects to typing fingers. Posting is also light as real life often intrudes, as is its wont.

I recently finished reading Morris Berman's The Twilight of American Culture. For anyone concerned with the currently dilapidated and appalling state of our country, I recommend this book highly. It's slightly outdated in sections (it was published during the fall of 2000), and therefore doesn't include Berman's cogent thoughts and observations on the post 9/11 atmosphere, our last presidential election [I hear some people actually call it that with a straight face - hah!], and the now third solid year of the war in Iraq.

Still, some of the things he writes about are chilling, and most tingling for me were his comments about the horrifingly severe decline of literacy among Americans. His source literature states that "Roughly 60 percent of Americans have never read a book of any kind, and only 6 percent reads as much as one book a year, where book is defined to include Harlequin romances and self-help manuals." (Italics in the original). He cites other statistics showing a correspondingly dismal lack of basic knowledge about history, geography and basic science .

I used to think that it didn't matter what material one read, it was just important that one read at all. I now disagree with those early thoughts; it is vital that reading matter stimulate and educate as well as entertain.

There needs to be something of value to counteract the insidious nature of this country's infection by and infatuation with an increasingly shallow consumer mindset. I can't even call it a culture, as it is anything but.

Enjoying current television shows or fashion magazines isn't bad, but when they constitute one's sole intellectual diet, they are mere sugary snacks devoid of lasting mental nourishment. It's not necessary to have an Ivy League education - God knows I don't - but last I checked, public libraries are free, and it's extremely easy to ask a librarian for a list of great books in literature, history, or science.

I don't always head for the highest-minded volumes; indeed, sometimes I crave light hearted contemporary fiction, hunger for hard science fiction, or I'm thirsty for a good espionage tale. Frankly, some authors considered to be the "best" fail to rouse my intellect and passion and remain total snoozefests (I can't help it Faulkner, I'm looking at you). But even if he doesn't float my boat, I know who Faulkner is and can discuss his works with a modicum of intelligence...because I've read him.

Even if a fragment of the foregoing statistics have scientific accuracy, my aesthetic foibles are small potatoes considering I read about 35 times more books a year than the average American.

Another concept Berman writes about is the current attitude towards “elitism” - that it's somehow a dirty or racist word, and that excellence is to be deplored and scorned rather than passionately emulated. The notion among American's youth that being smart is "dumb" and that books are for losers makes me weep.

The expression "dumbing down" doesn't force those less able to rise above themselves; instead, it drags everything to the level of the lowest common denominator and cannot help but breed ignorance and outright stupidity.

Damnit, I agree! I have an enormous elitist streak that I don’t often display. Why? Because it makes other people uncomfortable, and the (albeit much smaller) empathetic part of me doesn’t wish others to be uncomfortable.

But I was inspired by Berman's book and from now on the division between my privately held convictions and my public persona will cease to exist. I will never agree that one dimensional characters, flat prose, bad sentences and plots full of holes are worthy of the word novel or even remotely related to eternal human truth. I will always deplore spelling mistakes in public signage and in written correspondence of any sort. I will not refrain from using difficult words and complex concepts for fear that someone won’t be able to understand me.

I’m committed to maintaining a high standard of excellence, and it isn’t a task I’m taking on because of extrinsic pressure. I wholeheartedly believe in and support a lifelong self-directed education as a way towards becoming a whole human being.

If high standards denote snobbery, it's one label I don't mind wearing.

File Under: Odds and Ends in Food

2006-03-21T10:55:00.000-05:00

One of my Teeny Tiny Group of Readers posted a comment a while ago that got me thinking about some of the unusual food I've eaten.

When it comes to food, most people fall into roughly two camps: those who will try anything, at least once, and those who consider food nourishment and comfort but never adventure.

The Food Network, before it got all crapped up with shows about running a restaurant, designing a kitchen, or choosing a new show host (yawns all around), did a show based on Anthony Bourdain's book, A Cook's Tour. The main topic of the book is his travels all over the world sampling exotic and outrageous food.

Side Note of Gratuituous New York Name Dropping: the restaurant Tony Bourdain is most famous for and the one profiled in his first big book is Les Halles in New York. Mr. Fresh Hell's cousin was a waiter there for years, and we have many friends who either worked there in the past or still do; obviously, we've spent a lot of time there in the past 8 years, and I've always had excellent meals there. My copy of Tony's second book was actually personally addressed to me and signed by him. I know! (Cue the impressed applause).

And now...

Location: Spain
Dish: Miniature Whole Deep Fried Fish
Product Specs: 1 inch long complete fish, heads, bones & all, dunked in tasty batter and deep fried to a golden crispy finish
Delivery Method: napkin lined basket
End user comment: Tremendous! These were like crazy potato chips made out of tiny whole fish. The crunch though the weeny fish spine was especially gratifying. Excellent paired with a hearty Spanish rioja.

Location: New York
Dish: Sauteed Lamb Testicles
Product Specs: Lamb balls sauteed with garlic and onions in olive oil and served with a baguette.
Delivery method: appetizer plate
End user comment: Like mini meatball appetizers and paired with French bread, completely satisfying. Tip: don't tell your guests ahead of time that these are balls; trust me, they'll never be the wiser!

Location: New York
Dish: Lamb Brains
Product Specs: Lamb brains scrambled in a combination of olive oil, butter, garlic, cilantro and spices, served with warm triangles of pita bread
Delivery method: appetizer plate
End user comment: Similar in texture to scrambled eggs but richer taste. The herbs and spices compliment the lamb - it's a simple yet satisfying dish.

Location: New York
Dish: Calves Feet
Product Specs: Boiled calves feet in a spicy broth and vegetable concoction. Looks like a light stew.
Delivery method: bowl
End user comment: Hardly one forkful made it to the mouth without a tripping of the gag reflex. End user slightly drunk during tasting, so one mouthful proved more than enough. Jellied texture highly offensive to end user. Rather than offend chef, pushed spoon around bowl and pretended to actually eat portion.

Location: Casablanca
Dish: Camel meat sandwiches
Product Specs: Grilled marinated ground camel meat.
Delivery method: Stuffed into pita bread with mint tea to drink.
End user comment: Reminiscent of bison sandwiches - rich and delicious. No gamey aftertaste. The scalding hot, heavily sweetened mint tea is a must, as it aids in digestion.

Location: Southern Morocco, Middle of Nowhere
Dish: Rabbit stew
Product Specs: Freshly slaughtered bunny slow-cooked in vegetables and sauce.
Delivery method: Large tagine (both the name of the stew & the fired pottery vessel it is cooked in) with chunks of Moroccan bread.
End user comment: Likely one of the best meals of my life - the rabbit was lean and tender, accompanied by perfectly cooked carrots, squash, and potatoes swimming in a tangy sauce.

Your intrepid reporter admits this list veers heavily in the meat groups, but I believe this is borne out by reality - really, how odd can a vegetable be?

This Week in Its Briefs - Fireman Red Longjohns

2006-03-15T22:35:00.000-05:00

1. Science Experiment Update: I still haven’t colored my hair yet, and it’s getting distinctly silvery, especially at the front. Althought I still haven’t heard anyone shriek and run away from me in horror (well they do, but not about the hair) I've had some very constructive ideas about the interim process, which will go a long way towards correcting a burgeoning bag lady look.

2. Probably the only perk offered at work by the Cupcake’s colleagues is a weekly Booze Trolley, which occurs every Friday at 4:30 pm. They actually serve beer, wine, and assorted snacks for free! I know! I don’t know about you, but the words free and alcohol in the same sentence make me terribly giddy. During the warm weather we have Booze Trolley on our roof-top terrace garden – I better stop, as the combination of free, alcohol, late afternoon sunshine, fresh air, and a gorgeous roof garden in downtown Manhattan is making me swoon.

3. I-Tunes is addictive. I don’t have an IPod, and have no interest in getting one, but I do like playing music on my computer and buying a song online for only .99 is pretty cool – until you buy one hundred of them at once. Oops!

4. Dear Ambien: I take you to get necessary sleep, yet also find half opened boxes of cinnamon buns in the kitchen the morning after I've sampled your charms. Do you think I might not only be sleep eating but also walking to the kitchen in my sleep? I not only have no memory of of consuming half a box of buns during the middle of the night, but don't remember putting the buns directly by the bed. Could it be my dog? My husband? Sincerely, Confused While Carbo-Loading. P.S. Hurry please and answer, as I feel distinctly nervous about the status of my extra large box of Cheerios.

5. Pet Peeve Monitor Ping #5,067: I absolutely cannot stand people in line behind me at the deli attempting to shove their one item purchase in front of my sale. Relax, dude - the unlimited attentions of the cashier will be with you after I've finished transacting my business. Should the purchase of your candy bar constitute an emergency, I'll be the first to tell you. Until then, wait your effing turn.

An American Woman in Morocco

2006-03-14T21:49:00.000-05:00

Most Americans traveling to Morocco visit there once, mostly for the exotic destinations. They have a tourist experience that doesn't veer off the sidepaths, and for a week or so skirt the edges of a different culture.

Although my first trip there in 1999 was incredibly exotic and often shocking, I didn't have the luxury of treating the culture as merely an entertaining and colorful pageant. On the contrary, I felt it was vital that I adopt a "When in Rome..." mindset to understand and learn about Mr. Fresh Hell's culture. Even though he is Algerian, he grew up in Morocco, and his personality and behavior veers between these two similar yet individual North African cultures.

It's a culture, to use a well-worn phrase, that's very much like an onion. There are outer layers that a first or second time visitor may see. It is only through several visits and a genuine interest in peeling back the layers and examining what's underneath that one can truly appreciate the heart of the rich combination of history and tradition.

Over the years, I've learned to appreciate this profusion of riches, mostly by seeing a lot of the country - I've visited museums and palaces, beaches & deserts, traveled long distances overland by train and bus, shopped in countless souks, and most importantly I've been able to step off the beaten path and have been graciously invited inside people's homes in large cities, small towns, and even in a teeny village in the middle of nowhere southern Morocco where there isn't electricity or running water.

Part of learning the culture involves hearing of a woman's position in their society. As a woman, albeit a visitor, I am subject to many of the rules and customs governing women. I personally don't care for most of them. I find the laws demeaning and constrictive and hate the fact that in general, women are still treated as property of their male relatives rather than persons in their own right.

The more I learn, the more I know I don't wish to be them.

There are still so many wrongs done to women in Western society; however, I admit I have it pretty good. Too often the liberal Western expression towards the injustices practiced in Third World societies is condescending and dismissive, as if we're living in some Woman's Utopia here.

I've tried to refrain from automatically thinking myself superior - after all, I believe we have a good many homegrown wrongs to right before pointing accusatory fingers.

As in too many places, exceedingly few North African women are given a choice or a voice, and their lives are decided for them in advance. Poor women are especially given the shaft; most remain illiterate all their lives, and if they aren't lucky enough to marry must help support their extended families through menial labor.

There are a few very lucky women who are independent and who can support themselves - it isn't impossible, but it is a thin line to walk - it takes courage, support, ambition, perseverance, education, and a lot of luck. Oh, plus pots of money.

As an outsider in North Africa, not all of the rules apply to me, and thus I gain a "pass" in light of my outsider status. That status also gains me a proportionate measure of often covert resentment and suspicion from the local population simply because I don't conform to all the rules.

While I would never dream of prancing down a Moroccan street in a short skirt and tank top, I don't cover myself completely, wear a veil over my hair, or even alter my regular clothing style by much. In the larger North African cities, many women adopt Western styles, so blue jeans and tee shirts don't qualify for shock value - in the countryside, I am always getting stares due to my Western clothing. Blonde ponytails, thin on the ground, are good all over for double takes.

I smoke in public (something "good women" don't do), go to outdoor cafes and nightclubs (with male companions) where the nice girls don't, and drink alcohol at restaurants. I'm a typical New Yorker who walks very quickly while they stroll. In a small way, I live a typical man's life over there, although I chafe at not being free to stride out all alone anywhere I choose. (I am practical above all things - I don't indulge myself in mistakenly assuming there are situations in which I will always win and therefore never actively seek trouble.)

On my trips I have met women with zero interest in supporting themselves financially, going to college, or living alone. They don't envy me my mobility and freedom. Quite the opposite - they consider my life one that is too closely focused on material pursuits, lonely and frightening without the protection and support of nearby extended family and, since I don't have children, devoid of purpose and joy.

They aren't dense or unusually isolated from Western society - they just don't wish to be me.

But as divergent as our lives are, they never attempt to convert me to what they perceive as the delight a woman should properly take in hearth and home, and I don't attempt to push the satisfaction and contentment of working and living in a larger sphere. I help when and where I can, all the while hoping and believing that all of our lives as women can and will be made better.

The Fresh Hell Times - Corrections Page

2006-03-13T15:44:00.000-05:00

I stand corrected. An astute reader and film buff pointed out to me that the Oscar winning movie Crash was NOT the movie that was based on a novel by J.G. Ballard.

Apparently there are two movies with the same title, one of them based on the novel by Ballard and starring the ever intense yet aging in an oddly ill-defined fashion James Spader, which was nowhere near an Oscar contender.

I erroneously confused the two and vow to complete my research before posting.

Piping hot fresh content coming soon.

Fresh Hell Bizarre Family Story, One of Many

2006-03-08T19:41:00.000-05:00

Midwest, Ho!

I've ragged about some of the crazy nonsense recently promulgated by some state and local governments in the Midwest.

On my paternal side I myself come from solid Illinois farmers, and the recent news has embarrassed me on behalf of my assorted genetic material.

The Fresh Hell assortment of paternal ancestors sadly didn't arise from what is commonly known as a melting pot (although there are a few 18th century cads born on the wrong side of the blanket). My dad's side is a fruitful combination of the acceptably inbred Pennsylvania Dutch and agreeably bland Anglo-Saxon.

Around the mid 1800's a small branch in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania caught on to the Westward, Ho! movement and went to Illinois, settling as farmers both solid and true. In their way, and in their time they formed the backbone of agriculture, people often glorified as "salt of the earth".

Generations were satisfied with rural living and carried on their acceptably Dutch & Anglo-Saxon Puritan traditions. Along the way, I think a great many things were lost in the harsh life of the prairie. Independent thought was not a trait worth preserving - imagination and flair lost out to conformity. The life of the mind and the appreciation of artistic creation were unnecessary luxuries - considered too effete or too flashy, not appropriate for simple country folk and jettisoned along with the unusual and exotic. (I do wonder about the illegitimate 18th century cads, but they were never discussed so I imagined fascinating lives for them. However, like so much family history, they were probably as dull as dirt.)

Flash forward to Christmas of 1986; the last time I saw my father's relations. I was a ballsy young kid newly moved to New York and convinced there wasn't a trick out there that I hadn't heard of, and not a single dearly beloved cultural artifact I hadn't planned to kick the shit out of. Simply put, I was a pretty belligerent know-it-all. I'd been to college, I'd read actual books, I skillfully navigated smelly dangerous big city streets (which to the relatives, might have been Beirut for all they knew).

Back on the ranch, my father's extended family had gotten very accustomed to the shopworn 50 years outdated platitudes my great uncle, titular head of the family, routinely spouted without ever hearing a murmur of dissent. As I recall, he basked in his position as the Local Resident Authority on Everything. And the women, especially, hung on his every word as if each were priceless rubies.

Imagine a collective gasp the size of a cornfield when I debunked him on a subject fair and square, with genuine facts to back up my argument. I honestly can't remember the subject of this magnificent trouncing - it was either political or a current event. I wasn't a complete dolt - I certainly wouldn't have challenged him in areas in which I knew he was an expert, such as John Deere tractors or parsnips - but I couldn't sit quietly and nod like one of his heifers while he betrayed his rabid, racist small-mindedness and sheer willful ignorance.

Thus the rift began - in my eyes it was merely shameful ignorance that had been properly corrected, though perhaps not diplomatically, and in those days I certainly felt no reason to offer empty respect to my elders when they mouthed egregious poppycock. Judging by the enormous gasp and the overt snubbing I subsequently received, I now believe that the mere fact that I, a young woman, opened my mouth to contradict the patriarch of the family was enough to consign me directly into a Hell designed especially for young, sassy-mouthed females.

They closed the book on me after that and later on my siblings were shut out, for various other petty slights - to the extent that when my father's mother died no one in my immediately family was even told.

The only way I found out was through the Internet; while aimlessly surfing I found the online version of their local weekly newspaper and her obituary was listed. To this day I can't decide whether this is truly pathetic, or merely an example of the family's legendary ability to hold a grudge longer than anyone else in the universe- hey, we'll hold a grudge beyond the grave if we must.

I am truly sorry for their narrowness, which I'm sure presently continues. Had I been older when confronted with my great-uncle aptly impersonating a giant ass I would have responded, if at all, with rather more delicacy. Most of all, I'm grateful I'm rarely exposed to people who prefer rigid conformity and outmoded hierarchy to pesky facts, intelligent discourse and logic-based opinions. (Needless to say, Mr. Fresh Hell would send them all immediately into coronary arrest, and don't think I haven't considered looking up one of the old fogeys just for spite. After all, I do come from champion grudge-holding stock.)

So I know why certain Midwesterners have bound themselves like glue to many beliefs and worldviews barely relevant to the 20th century and certainly outmoded in the 21st.

Oh but sometimes my fingers still itch to shake some sense into them.

This Week in Its Briefs - Granny Pants Edition

2006-03-07T19:14:00.000-05:00

1. An Iranian-American student at the University of North Carolina attempted to avenge wrongs on his fellow Muslims around the world by running over as many of his classmates as possible in a Jeep Cherokee. That might have made sense had he rented a tank at Enterprise, as I find my imagination stretched to envision Muslims being crushed right & left by Cherokees. As newsworthy escapades by college students go, we'll have to rate this one a poofty 2. I've seen more inventive bongs, for Christ's sake.

2. South Dakota - hey, the Repressive Era called and it wants its hateful laws toward women and their right to a legal and safe abortion back. (Meanwhile, poor beleagured South Dakotans of common sense heave yet another weary sigh and wonder why no one actually goes to their state willingly.) Way to go there and ignore the last 30 years of Supreme Court jurisprudence by leaving no outlet even for cases of rape and incest.

While we're at it, Missouri could use "Separation of Church & State 101" leaflets strewn from bi-planes, as the state legislature is pondering a bill that would make Christianity the "majority" religion, denying any protections to minority religions, and ensure the majority's, I don't know, right to be the majority? If they're the majority, don't they hold the power anyway? Who knew the majority needed a law to feel secure? I feel sullied and misled by what I've been taught about the genuine meaning of the word majority. I'm sorry Midwest, I know you house many intelligent progressive folks who have no truck with these pathetic initiatives, but you should all be feeling a bit embarassed right about now. (Hey, I have Midwestern roots and I'm appalled.)

3. I missed watching the Academy Awards on Sunday - but really, did I miss that much? And, since I looked it up, Best Picture winner Crash was based on a book by J.G. Ballard, which I read while in college and really can't recommend.

4. Speaking of books, I'm re-reading Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale. It was chilling when I originally read it (it was first published in 1986, I believe), but never more so than now. This novel I can certainly recommend.

5. We have an armchair I absolutely hate, yet its handiness can't be denied. It's mostly a clothing depot extraordinaire, and every time I'm tempted to chuck the thing out the window, I do wonder what we'll do with all the clothes that are now draped upon it. They'll have to find a new perch, as they won't find their way to the closet on their own, will they?

6. The Cupcake has been quiet recently, but he did suggest today that the crinkled parchment sheets layered between pages in a set of his absurdly expensive leather photo albums could be ironed. I actually volunteered for that, as I like ironing, but he quickly backpedaled after my eyes lit up at the thought of office ironing and I mentioned what a wonderful episode it would make in my memoirs. (I can't make this stuff up. I know it boggles the ordinary mind, but seriously, Can't.Make.Up.Cupcake.Antics.)

On Travel, Expectations, Arguments & One Orange

2006-03-04T16:28:00.000-05:00

It's a common belief that travel broadens a person. Taken on the surface, this is a blanket statement that can often be tested empirically, which I find quite satisfying.

But it's also readily acknowledged that the kind of travel one embarks on determines if one is truly broadened. How could a person visit a foreign city or country and digest and appreciate all of the differences in a short period of time?

If one goes to Europe on a packaged tour, seeing 4 countries in 10 days, whisked from place to place in an enormous tour bus, scheduled for all monuments, museums & historic places in finite bits, and fed in extremely specific restaurants catering not only to groups but to foreign groups, how much really can one say one has seen? Of what value is that experience? How much of the sights have really penetrated one's consciousness?

Mightn't there be a corner glimpsed outside of the bus window that could lead up a winding lane into the city that, if one takes that turn, would change one's life forever?

I've always believed that to be true.

It's the small, unscheduled and unplanned events that are usually remembered most fondly - on my first trip to Paris, it was the pleasure of finding the Place Vendome on my own, simply by turning a random corner and wandering to the end of the street. For my sister, it was as simple as giving an orange to a child in the street of one of the poor sections of Casablanca and receiving a blindingly beautiful smile in return. (For her husband, it might have been the annoyance of trying to order ketchup in a country that doesn't know what ketchup is...but that's another story.)

I eschew even guide books these days - the authors write about certain things with authority, and include most certainly destinations of interest - but it seems to me that reading about a place in a guidebook can't compare with the thrill of personal discovery. Or conversely, the disappointment of having read a glowing description of a momument or museum in a guidebook and then going there to find the written word quite far off reality's mark.

I have found that traveling as a couple is a recipe with ingredients both comedic and tragic, especially if there are romantic components involved in the trip (there are always romantic expectations involved in one way or another and it's not always the female half of the couple that harbors the expectations).

Expectations of the romantic depend on the other sharing one's definition of romance. A person could be aching to wander with their beloved over narrow cobblestoned streets, window shop for hours, and finally linger over a light supper in a candlelit restaurant, lacing fingers across the tablecloth over glasses of superb local wine while enjoying a panoramic view and glorious sunset.

While the other half of the couple simply can't be arsed to wake up in time to savor the sunset or the view, and once dragged to said romantic destination, remains jet-lagged and uncommunicative or simply surly.

Not that that's ever happened.

Mr. Fresh Hell and I have found that dramatic shouting matches and furious quarrels in each foreign country we've found ourselves in are quite a lively tonic, perhaps even an impetus towards future romantic bliss. I say this only because we've fought in every foreign country we've ever visited. I can't say for sure why this is so, but it is nonetheless consciously unexpected and subliminally understood, and the arguments usually involve us attempting to find our hotel in an unfamiliar city in the wee hours of the morning, after strenous partying in a raucous dance club or charming local tavern.

These are often very public fights (really, who cares if people see you on the street screaming at each other in the pouring rain? They aren't your neighbors, after all, and will never see you again. Why not provide a little entertainment to the locals? Hello Spain!).

I believe it is just those public quarrels that endear us both to the place - we've owned it and made it peculiarily ours, if only for a short explosive time. For us, it seems that one fight per foreign country is the limit - subsequent trips are calm and ordered, the only arguments consisting of a few minutes of tight-lipped silence and sighs of exasperation, dispelled within a moment as hardly worth the continuance of the grievance.

There are many more countries out there we've never been to together, yet I look forward to visiting each one...so if you see us tusseling on your charming thoroughfare around 4:00 am or so, don't be alarmed - we're fine, just either trying to find our hotel or putting down roots.

To The Two Who "Get" Me

2006-03-03T20:40:00.000-05:00

I have two amazing sisters. I know, everyone with beloved and influential siblings says that.

We were all born very close toghether, and I simply don't remember life without them.

My oldest sister told me Santa Claus didn't exist - she was 8, and I was 5, and she did not dispel the myth with malicious intent. In later years we mused that this might have not crushed my innocence but likely helped me on my path toward a healthy cynicism.

She, to her credit, reports being completely flabbergasted by this earthshattering knowledge and the first thing in her mind was to rid herself of the secret and tell the rest of us.

We manned the trenches together like brothers in arms, supporting each other during a difficult childhood, sharing the experiences of specific familial warfare. We spent our adolescence together, yet drifted away somewhat during our 20's and 30's. As often occurs with wartime buddies, I have theorized that our collective experience affected us to such a painful degree that we couldn't be close or with each other and still continue to define ourselves as adults.

Thankfully, the passions of maintaining the boundaries of early adulthood have diminished to a simmering point - now we're in our 40's and enthusiastically reconnecting and finding that the circle of people who genuinely "get" us and our humour has collapsed enough that we can count them on one hand. All the more reason to hold those people very closely indeed.

I enjoy how effortless it is to make them laugh, and there is no one else in the world who makes me laugh so freely as these two.

They saw me into this world and If I am allowed a proper deathbed, my dearest wish is that theirs are the last faces I see.

Postscript: Yesterday

2006-03-02T21:52:00.000-05:00

It occurred to me today that a reader of yesterday's post may have been severely let down by its lack of content.

I can hear it now: "Jesus Christ on toast points, lady - there are larger issues at stake in society and you're grousing that the big bad world won't let you age gracefully! What a load of crap!"

True that. Yet I cop freely to a certain amount of vanity, which I believe was obvious in yesterday's post.

However shallow my end of the pool may appear (and I agree that there are many large issues out there that desperately need fixing), one issue has stuck in my craw for quite some time now, and that is the completely different appearance standards set for men and women.

It's as if we aren't both human, but two opposite species who aren't subject to the same rules.

Oh sure, women can get wrinkly, paunchy and gray just like men - it's just that if they do, if they dare step out of the psuedo-defiant "I ain't gettin' old mister" sexpot persona and fail to stem the inevitable with hair color, face lifts, Botox, liposuction, collagen implants, etc., they become completely invisible, considered with no interest, no authority and no status.

The alarming success of shows like "Desperate Housewives" and the acronnym MILF (which I refuse to explain) all serve to bolster the rule; women are viable only in terms of their desirablility. This isn't an urban phenomenon, nor is it manufactured solely by Hollywood.

Nothing else counts, and women who refuse to play by these rules get smacked down. Now there are many women out there that do refuse to play by the rules, and don't care in the least that they get a smackdown because of it. On some days I am one of them, and on many others I am not, yet I'm learning to understand and accept the ambiguity in these often daily reactions.

Our society presents women with very few genuine choices; granted, gains made by courageous women over the last forty years have broadened the selection, but there still aren't that many. I operate within those choices; the fact that I know most of them are shit glosses them with a cynical coating, but it doesn't make a decision any easier.

So maybe wanting the freedom to choose NOT to color my hair and NOT be penalized for it seems like a teeny baby step,

Hell - I'll see your baby step and raise you another.