bully pulpit

\BULL-ee-PULL-pit\

noun

: a prominent public position (as a political office) that provides an opportunity for expounding one's views; also : such an opportunity

Am I crazy to say that I'm not quite sure how any prominent public position can not be a BULLY PULPIT? I mean, a position of prominence means people listen to you, whether they like or agree with what you happen to be saying matters little. What matters is that you have a venue to say something in which people will at least hear you. And since, I am assuming, you are human, you have views, opinions, agendas, no matter how subconscious they may seem in your altruistic head. In fact, I would go as far as saying any human that has ever interacted with another human has partaken in an act of BULLY PULPITTING. You speak because you want to be heard. You want to be heard because you have something to say. You have something to say because that is totally normal. Even if you don't have anything to say, that is saying something. She denied any comment. That speaks volumes.

This is why people have friends. They want to feel like their opinion means something. Of course, there are additional reasons to have friends, but if you didn't have anyone to listen to why you think those stupid parasite-like phones that clip onto people's ears are the most useless pieces of shit ever made and they make you embarrassed to be alive, then, well, I don't know what.

As I expound my afternoon away...

translucent

\trans-LOO-sunt\

adjective

1 : not transparent but clear enough to allow light to pass through

2 : free from disguise or falseness

Some moments of TRANSLUCENCE:

My art teacher at Racebrook Elementary, Mr. Fappiano, had three circular pieces of TRANSLUCENT plastic—one red, one yellow, one blue. Primary colors. Every year he taught us (again and again) about the primaries by holding the circles up against the classroom window allowing the sun to shine through the plastic. He layered the pieces over each other to illustrate the different combinations colors made. Even though I didn't need to re-learn this information (art was one of the only classes in which I retained anything I was taught) I enjoyed this lesson every time. There was something comforting about knowing the triangles always produced the same results.

Around the age of sixteen, for a short period of time, I got really interested in fashion. This stage was mostly influenced by the window of style I'm going to refer to as the glam-revival, as observed through the likes of Melancholy-era Smashing Pumpkins, Garbage, PJ Harvey, and any other musician that owned a feather boa in 1996. I think it was D'arcy (SP's bassist and my hero at the time) who may have sported a TRANSLUCENT shirt with only a bra underneath. This, I wanted. I went into Manhattan with my mother to visit one of her favorite fabric shops—The Spandex House—and together we picked out some fabric. I ended up with three revealing tops, which I wore with pride to school, sometimes with only a bra underneath. It was a nice bra.

This destroys any attempts at chronology, but I need to talk about my father for a moment. For some reason, more than anyone, my father is able to see right through me. This is despite the fact that he may know me less than any other person I have ever known. Any moment during which I tried to lie, stretch the truth, leave something out, exaggerate, he was the first person to call me out. And he did so casually, sometimes just with a smirk, as though to suggest, How endearing, to try and get something past me. Perhaps he is just a good judge of character. Perhaps he is just a good judge of me. Perhaps he knows me better than I think. Perhaps there is something to blood relation that I often choose to ignore. Or perhaps I am just incredibly TRANSLUCENT, and my father is the only person with enough audacity and lack of tact to actually point it out.

gravamen

\gruh-VAY-mun\

noun

: the material or significant part of a grievance or complaint

I am no stranger to bitching. In fact, I cannot imagine a day going by during which I fail to complain about someone or something. But, most likely someone. Somethings don't bother me as much—circumstances are often uncontrollable. So what if I got stuck in a rain storm while walking over the Burnside bridge or I got a flat tire or my sock keeps bunching up in my fucking sneaker. These things just happen. But people—

PEOPLE—

drive me mad.

The GRAVAMEN of most of my complaints about people is a general lack of one or more of these qualities:

1) common sense*,

2) work ethic,

3) respect,

4) tact, and

5) timeliness.

Almost every complaint comes down to one of the above. I know—I shouldn't care. And believe me, I care a whole lot less than I used to. But it is just so, so easy to rip into people. And I'm positive people can and should rip into me, as well. And that's totally okay. I'm particular and neurotic and self-conscious and over-achieving. There's a whole lot of material there. If we all just accept that we are regularly both the subjects and objects of full-on rants, it will make the whole thing seem a lot more human.

*I realize common sense is a totally loaded notion. But I'm still somewhat of an idealist on this matter.

embezzle

\im-BEZZ-ul\

verb

: to appropriate (as property entrusted to one's care) fraudulently to one's own use

At age eleven, my mother enrolled me in a course at the community center that taught young girls like myself how to babysit. There were maybe ten or twelve prepubescent girls in the class—some familiar faces, some from the two other elementary schools in my town. This was the summer before seventh grade, before all three school would unite in the horror that is "junior high." The summer before breasts, before boys, and before babysitting.

I don't remember much from this class. I remember sitting in a hot, air-conditioner-less room for six weeks. I think the teacher's name was Nancy, but I could be totally wrong. Let's pretend I'm right. Nancy was always hanging around the community center teaching some or another class about something. She was petite with long dark hair and my memory is constructing her as somewhat resembling Penelope Cruz. I think she may have been engaged to someone else who perpetually hung around teaching classes at the community center as well. Love happens.

The class covered topics like: what to do if a child is choking (an notion that made me panic with the daunting responsibility of saving a life), how to negotiate pay, and how to generally manage unruly children (Keep in mind, Nancy=childless). At the end of the six weeks, we took a multiple choice test and, assuming we passed, each received a certificate saying that we were certified (by whom, I have no idea) to babysit.

Like any trade one enters with only the experience of one hardly practical course, I fell into the world of babysitting intimidated and clueless. Had I the opportunity to give Nancy feedback, I might have instructed her to teach things like: why you shouldn't accept rides home from drunken mothers at 2:30 a.m.; how to deal with children who have irrational fears of fire; and the ethics of looking (or not looking) through other people's shit.

Most babysitting gigs I held began in the early evening and extended long past midnight. Children would often fall off around 10 p.m., leaving much of the night to talking on the phone, watching extended cable, eating whatever I could get my hands on and, of course, dissecting the collections of other people's belongings. I had my limits—never bedrooms, only common areas. But, oh!, the joys of looking through people's stuff—pantries, junk drawers, cabinets, shelves of VHS tapes with collections of porn VHS tapes hidden behind discreet dividers. One family had a bar and I would sniff all the different types of liquor, never trying any for fear they measured amounts. I always made sure to meticulously replace anything I removed back into its exact spot. And I would do all of this searching in complete silence, listening for approaching cars, automatic garage doors, keys turning in a lock. I was never caught.

I felt no guilt for this invasion of privacy, this EMBEZZLING of parents' trust in me as "the babysitter." Nor do I now. Whenever visitors are in my house, I assume if my back is turned they will be scrutinizing my possessions, or at least considering it. I am not bothered in the least by this thought. As long as everything is returned to its home, left unchanged, and, or course, not stolen, why should I be bothered by people looking through my things? I have no dark secrets, at least none that bear any tangible evidence.

Come over, look through my stuff. I'm sure you won't find anything that I haven't already talked about in this blog.

Promethean

\pruh-MEE-thee-un\

adjective

: of, relating to, or resembling Prometheus, his experiences, or his art; especially : daringly original or creative

When I was younger, before I lost weight and still had a poor self-image, I would often fantasize that my body could transform into clay, at which point I would mold it to my liking. I pictured myself actually pulling chunks of clay off my body and discarding them. My fantasies didn't often bother with logistics—how would I be proportioned correctly? Wouldn't I want the assistance of a plastic surgeon, or even an artist? How would my insides feel when they were made of clay? I was simply imagining the quickest and easiest way to transform myself into something more desirable.

Prometheus is said to have shaped the first humans out of clay and endowed them with the spark of life by means of fire stolen from Zeus. His punishment was being tied to a rock and having his liver torn at by an eagle every day for eternity.

There is nothing PROMETHEAN about my desperation to change my body into clay. It is not daringly creative or original, it is only mildly pathetic and the first thing I think of when I think of creating humankind from clay.

I'm not sure of the last PROMETHEAN act I performed. I can think of dozens of things I do that are creative (original means little to me), but there is something in the adverb daringly that complicates this. There is now an element of risk to the creation in question—the stealing of fire from Zeus for the betterment of man. I'm not sure I can say I have done this. Of course, I have committed bold acts, acts of spontaneity, risky endeavors, but they are generally acts of escape or initiation. Not creativity.

Maybe, as an artist, I need to think more about this. I try to push boundaries in my writing, but I am not pushing hard enough. The moments in which I do push, I get a rush, I know I'm doing something right. But it is a precipice—

—I'm standing on the Burnside bridge, on the viewing platform of the Empire State, sitting in a window of a manmade castle on Sleeping Giant. All the high places. And I am always so, so close.

derrick

\DAIR-ik\

noun

1 : a hoisting apparatus employing a tackle rigged at the end of a beam

2 : a framework or tower over a deep drill hole (as of an oil well) for supporting boring tackle or for hoisting and lowering

What am I seeing here? I'm seeing Daniel Day-Lewis. I'm seeing There Will Be Blood. I'm seeing a tower climbed at the end of Dazed and Confused. I'm thinking about towers. A derelict windmill in the neighborhood where I grew up. Walking by the mill with a neighborhood girl named Michele, prettier than me and a better gymnast; she owns real leggings, shinier than my homemade versions. Her house is the color of a not-quite-ripe peach. Another neighborhood boy—Kevin. He looks like a young Michael Keaton. He is too good-looking to talk to me unless Michele is present. We stand in the street looking at the windmill. I've been in there before, says Kevin, We should sneak back there and go inside. I am ten years old and intimidated but I don't dare turn down this opportunity to prove I am cool. I still have these moments, all the time. Last night, at a club, I am sober, a little high. The club is hot, I am trying to be funny, and I tuck the bottom hem of my t-shirt through the neckline, an homage to the early nineties. My dance mates laugh. I will do anything to be cool and funny. Even expose my abdomen enough to illicit a drunk and creepy guy to come over and grind me. Kevin, Michelle and I sneak behind a house toward the windmill, not a DERRICK, I know, but close. The young boy who lives in the house comes out of the back door. His name is Tomasso. His hair is bright blond and he is a couple years younger than us. You guys can't go in there, he says, standing in the grass as we move our way through a tangle of bushes toward the base of the mill. Get out of here, Tomasso, Kevin says. I hate Kevin, but I am thrilled to be on his side—the cool side—for a brief moment. Tomasso just stands there staring at us. Kevin tugs at the heavy wooden door and we go inside. It is musty and dark and smells earthy, like the half of my mother's basement that is never used. Nothing happens. We stand around. We are just inside, and that is enough. These moments—these instances of doing something just for the sake of doing it—I still don't understand the appeal of the hollowness inherent in these experiences. I don't even remember whether or not I looked up to see the ceiling of the mill, the inner-workings—the only thing that might have made the experience mean anything.

substantive

\SUB-stun-tiv\

adjective

: having substance : involving matters of major or practical importance to all concerned

When I think in terms of SUBSTANTIALITY, I mostly think of food. I remember this was a word often used among adults, usually directed toward children, concerning the amount/quality/nutritional value of any given meal.

That's all you're eating? Don't you want something more SUBSTANTIAL?

My answer was usually: no. I ate a lot of junk food as a child, and I was more than happy with my choices. I never felt dissatisfied with meals consisting of half a bag of Cheetos. I probably would have benefited from something more SUBSTANTIVE, but I craved only junk.

Of course, circumstances are admittedly a bit different now. If I don't eat nutritionally-balanced meals, I feel pretty awful—weak, hungry, wanting, and sometimes even a little sick. When I see people eating pancakes for breakfast, I cringe a little bit, thinking—that's not going to satisfy them for long. It amazes me that dozens of customers come into my bakery feeding themselves on pecan sticky buns and bearclaws. When I stand in front of the case of pastries all I see is a vast dessert of sugar, and hours of post-snack discontent waiting to happen.

The change must have been fairly gradual. I still enjoy things like chips and salsa, but I'm not sure when I stopped considering that combination to be a "meal." Now, if my meals don't consist of fiber and protein and vegetables, I am pretty physically disappointed.

It's kind of a bummer in some ways. I mean, I feel pretty good, but sometimes I just want to eat bowl after bowl of cereal, and unfortunately for me, it will never be as enjoyable as it was twenty years ago.

This post turned out to be a lot more depressing than I intended. Perhaps I should eat something sugary this morning to boost my endorphins.

Then again, perhaps not.