Take a look, it's in a book

Right now, we're in the middle of By the Shores of Silver Lake. 

A Few of the Conversations Occasioned By* Reading the Little House Books, In Order, With My Five-Year-Old Daughter in the Year 2013

--The one about Jack dying: 
Me: Pets ...[choking sobs, tear-swabbing] ... don't live as long as people so ... [honking nose-blow] ... they -- they die [more sobbing] ... and Jack was a good dog ... and ... oh honey, I'm sorry, this is ridiculous [laughing through FLOODS of tears], I'm crying about s-s-omebody else's dead dog from a hundred and fifty years ago! [weeping, nose-blowing, furious tear-mopping]
Kid Gleemonex [wrinkling brow, reasonably, dry-eyed, though possibly worried about my sanity]: But Mommy, Jack was old. He died and went to Kevin, just like your Daddy did.

--The many about how much more was expected of children back then vs. now: 
Major topics of emphasis have included: Mary and Laura taking the family's cow (a huge animal that could trample them to death if it took a notion) to meet the herd each morning; the fact that children did chores, and it was a hell of a lot more than taking their own plates to the kitchen after meals; sitting still and quiet in church; why don't we go to church Mommy; they woke up everybody, all the kids, to work in the nighttime? Won't Almanzo be grumpy and get a lot of time-outs the next day because he's tired?

--The one about Mary going blind: 
KG, extremely alarmed: BLIND? You mean she can't see anything?
Me: No, sweetheart -- she got sick and it made her blind, and that means she can never see anything anym --
KG, outraged: She has to get un-blind! She has to get better. How can she see anything if she's BLIND?
Me: [Fifteen minutes on how blind people adapt to living in the sighted world, with digressions on the topics of seeing-eye dogs, causes of blindness, and the ways in which disabled people were viewed in "prairie times" vs. how they are viewed today]
KG: So can she see again in the next book?

--The one about Santa Claus being unable to cross the Verdigris River: 
KG: But Santa Claus's reindeer can fly! Why wouldn't he be able to get across a river?
Me: ... uh ... they, ahh ... didn't have any snow and ...
KG: Mommy, we don't have any snow. Santa Claus came to us!
Me: ... um ...
KG: Maybe Mary and Laura and baby Carrie weren't good girls. Is that why -- THAT'S why Santa wouldn't come.
Me: Yep! Mighta been. Anyway let's keep reading, OK?

--The one about what a flaming racist Ma is: 
KG: Why doesn't Ma like Indians? My teacher, Ms. Varsha, is an Indian -- she's from India. It takes twenty hours to get there on an airplane.
Me: [Solid half-hour on "not that kind of Indian, the kind of Indian so called because Christopher Columbus was a dummy," and on the racist colonialist mindset of the times which held that non-white people of all kinds but particularly the ones who happened to occupy the land "we," aka settlers/colonists, wanted to live on were "savages," and how fear of them was not necessarily misplaced -- they DID kill settlers -- but was not exactly justified either because damn it we were fucking stealing their land and killing THEM off, so what would you have them do]
KG: Ma was not being nice to Indians. But I bet if she met Ms. Varsha she would be nice to her. Or maybe not nice, because Ma is not very nice. To Indians I mean.


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*"Occasioned by" -- is that a thing? It sounded normal when it popped into my head when I wrote it, but the more I look at it, the more it looks like bizspeak verbing or something that does not mean what I think it means ... but hell, I'm leaving it. You know what I fucking mean. 

I suppose there is a certain crucial interval in everyone's life when character is fixed forever; for me, it was that first fall term I spent at Hampden.

Fourth in a series of four. 

Things About and Around My College Transcript: 1995 - 1996

--So many of my favorite classes were this year! Suburbia and Its Culture, Film Censorship in America, The U.S. During the 1960s, The American Revolution, Italian I (easy A! love this language!), and my #1 favorite: History of the City of New York, taught by one of the greatest professors ever, Kenneth T. Jackson. God, that was a great class -- I wish I could take it over and over. The marquee event of it was the annual all-night bike ride throughout the city, with some 250 of us led by Professor Jackson starting on campus at 9:00 p.m., riding all over the damn place, stopping for a pub breakfast at 4:00 in the morning, swinging by the Fulton Fish Market, and finishing by crossing the Brooklyn Bridge at dawn.

--Annnnd also two of the worst: Laboratory in Screenwriting, and Senior Project: Screenwriting. OMFG these were terrible. My screenplay was fucking horrifyingly bad -- so bad that I wouldn't even read it at Cringe, because even now, seventeen years after I turned it in at the prof's office and went straight back to my room to smoke out and watch Dazed and Confused again to get it off my mind, I'd have a brain aneurism and die of shame.

--Mr. Gleemonex and I shared my eensy tiny single dorm room this year (he raaather unofficially, heh). He was working a job that was a very good learning experience and a "name" to go on his resume, but which paid a very studenty wage, so we shacked up. Mr. Gleemonex still had his student ID from the same dorm from the year before, making the whole thing relatively easy to manage. Side bonus: Total parental rebellion on my part. Ma and Pa Gleemonex would have shat twice and died if they knew. To this day, I think Ma Gleemonex prefers not to know. 

--This is also the year we met and bonded for life with the Drink Nazi, aka the Hedonist, aka Our Most Beloved Jew, aka The Kid/The Freshman. The seniors had all the singles in this dorm, and the doubles were filled with freshmen. This guy's roommate was an utter dud, so being a social guy in general, the Kid was more often out of his room than in it, and became well-known on our floor. He stopped in to my room in search of a microwave for his Hot Pockets once, and the rest is history (history that involves a LOT of weed, a ton of booze, the best snacks ever when we were smoking up together [except that one time he brought matzoh crackers which WHAT. THE. FUCK. where is the Ben & Jerry's], making snow angels in the middle of Broadway around 2:00 a.m. one quiet still new-snowy night after tumbling out of an extremely loud campus bar, a lot of the deep philosophical conversations that you have all the time when you're a freshman and have mostly abandoned by the time you're a senior, etc.).

--So, a lot of weirdness, a lot of good times, a lot of graduation-related agita* looming, some of the funnest parts of the whole four years -- and I finished with another semester on the Dean's List and a 3.6 cumulative GPA. College, y'all.

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*O dumpster-diving christ I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how stressful it was to have my family there for graduation -- my mom quitting a 30-year pack-a-day smoking habit & going through menopause, my dad recently fallen off the wagon mit force, my sibs not in good places in their own lives, general what-next angst, no job or school prospects lined up, no fucking money AT ALL, weight at an all-time high because of the weed munchies and a diet consisting mostly of SunBolt and Cheetos .... yikes. That shit makes seventh grade look awesome by comparison. 

For the record, I did *not* run for chocolate.

Interrupting the series that has you all on tenterhooks, I reappear from the schedule-blowing tilt-a-whirl that is Kid Gleemonex's summer vacation to bring you: 

Whatnot in re: the Half-Marathon I Just Done Gone and Ran!

--My finish time: 2:22. That's about forty minutes slower than BlabberMouse can do it, but damn hell am I proud of it! Yeahh boyeeeeeee! I felt great when we started out, kept pace easily with the 10:13/mile group for the first eight miles, and then faded a bit in the heat and headwind. I can't even tell you all what a lift it was to see my little family about a quarter-mile from the end, too, with their GO MOMMY GO! sign -- so much awesome. :-) I finished strong and happy, dead-legged and sweaty, and made straight for the champagne tent. Satisfaction.

--Lesson learned: It's not the running per se, it's the time-suck of the training that makes this type of thing hard to do. It's easy at first -- three miles, two miles, three miles, then a weekend "long run" of 4 miles. I can, and did, usually knock those out in the a.m. and get back before even Kid Gleemonex was awake. But later on, it's five-four-five-tenpointfive, and you're talking nearly two hours on the hoof on Sunday morning, which is just a beatdown.

--Which brings me to another point: "Support" is not a vague thing for the family of a person embarking upon a damn fool half- or full marathon. It's very specific; the partner has to solo with the kids while you're out running, the kids have to deal with Ma or Pa being gone on the reg, the partner has to listen to your run-talk for four months and then take a day off work so you can travel to the event and then bring the kids to the finish line to cheer you on (blowing another beautiful Saturday in the process), plus participate in the purchase of good running shoes, hydration gear, race entry fees, etc. All of which is to say: Thank you, Mr. Gleemonex -- you're a good man and a fabulous husband and I appreciate the hell out of you supporting me in this.

--This particular event was very girly rah-rah empowermentcakes, to the point where my finisher medal proclaims "I RAN FOR CHOCOLATE!" I, Gleemonex, love chocolate like the vagina-owner that I am, but goddamn it, that's not why I did this, and I resent the implication. I know the sponsor was See's Candies, but come ON. I'm a grown woman; I can BUY chocolate. But more to the point, and this is what really chaps my muscular thighs: I don't feel I "have to" run to burn the calories to "earn" the right to eat any fucking chocolate, either. I hate that attitude. I will eat whatever I want whenever I want it for whatever reason I want to, without regard to working out or calories or any of that good/bad food dynamic that fucks up everybody's -- well, every woman's -- life and relationship to food, and so the goddamn hell should all of you. Fuck that noise.

--Wow am I tired of running, as a thing. I want to do some Pilates, play some tennis, swim, lift -- anything but running right now ehhhrrmerrrgaaaaaaaahhhrrd.

--And finally: Ohhhh, you guys. This was something. I trained for four months to get to this point. I put in the time, did the miles, and fucking DID IT. And if  you've ever wondered whether you could or should, I say: yes.

I'm gonna have to send my SAT scores to San Quentin instead of Stanford!

The third in a four-part series.

Things About and Around My College Transcript: 1994 - 1995

--Background: The summer of 1994 was fucking awesome. I lived in Harlem with six boys (including Mr. Gleemonex, with whom -- SCANDAL! -- I shared a room), worked on campus for like $7.00/hr, interned for zero dollars at an independent film production company, and escaped out to Long Island nearly every weekend with Mr. Gleemonex (either to his parents' house or his HS friend's, where we drank a lot, went to the beach every day, and cooked delicious and wonderful things while listening to the new Moz and other good tunes). We got ever more inventive at eating/drinking/having fun on the cheap (the two-dollar movie theater in the West 50s, restaurants that had monster $2.00 burritos after 10:00 pm, clubs w/o cover charges if you got there early enough, Pearl Light at the corner store for $4.00/sixer, a couple tallboys from the cart in Penn Station to start the trip right).

--My first year in a single! SHIT YEAH! Almost all freshmen had doubles, but most sophomores and up had singles; the housing lotto number my group drew was so incredibly bad, though, that my friends and I all had to double up again soph year and didn't get singles till junior year.

--I did an unpaid internship both semesters: Fall at another independent movie studio, and Spring at a premier pay-cable channel. Loved both, for different reasons, but they made for some long fucking days; I'd intern from 9 - 5, then book it uptown to my 6-10 p.m. film class every Wednesday, for instance. I stole a lot of office supplies and coffee. A LOT.

--There are at least two classes from this year that I have no idea what they were. One of them might have been the Music in Film class where I got to know Rich Hilary and Weird Arthur better? Or not, no clue.

--Also this is the year I took up semi-serious recreational herbal jazz cigarette usage, so. 

--I cannot fucking believe I managed a B+ in Lab In Fiction Filmmaking. What a stressful, terrifying, pain-in-the-ass failfest that whole thing was. I recalled this grade as a scraper/pity/extra-credit B- at best -- I knew I didn't get a C, but ...

--Fun: France on Film, Photography I, American Cinema II: Hollywood in the 1940s.

--Awesome: Structure and Style, I and II. Although the second semester was taught by a gal I came to dislike intensely, and my grade was a full point lower, even though I thought my work was better. When I see her books in the store, even now, I get annoyed all over again.

--Really fucking awesome: Race, Gender and the Politics of Rock 'n Roll. Took this with Mr. Gleemonex -- it was the greatest. And we almost always went out for pitchers of beer on Rich Hilary's dime after (it ended at like 8:30 pm, I think).

--Dean's List both semesters! Dang! (I really do not mean to brag about this -- I mean, lookit that last class, above! You, too, can make the Dean's List writing papers about Bob Dylan and/or The Lemonheads -- but I am honestly surprised, so that's why I mention it. Memory is strange.)

--Mr. Gleemonex graduates! I always have liked older men, you know.

There's a time and a place for everything, and it's called college.

The second in a four-part series. 

Things About and Around My College Transcript: 1993 - 1994

--Keep in mind: I was working at least 12 hours at a campus job this whole time, from my fourth day there in 1992 to the week of graduation in 1996; I didn't get a dime from my parents beyond the couple grand they (reluctantly and painfully) paid toward tuition. My grandmother sent me the occasional $20 bill in the mail, for which I was deeply grateful, but every other penny I spent (textbooks, food, beer, clothes, fees, etc.) was out of my own pocket. I added unpaid internships starting in summer '94, too. Tuff times in NYC, y'all!

--This is where I started taking classes for my eventual major, Film Studies. It started off pretty easy in the fall of 1993, with Masterpieces in American Film History (basically the "101" class), taught by the department chair (I got a B+), and World Cinema: The 1970s (which was an eye-opener in terms of 70s-style sexism, and was the first of three courses I took in which The Godfather was on the syllabus; grade: A-). Spring's Contemporary Italian Arts: Film class was fun and interesting too (and to it I owe the fact that I've seen such fun, bubbly flicks as The Bicycle Thief, Bitter Rice, and Open City, all in Italian with subtitles; grade: A).

--But oh holy Shatner was I out of my depth in Film Theory and Aesthetics, taught by James Schamus. He is a fantastic teacher, and hilarious, and it was great to take this with Mr. Gleemonex and with the guy who eventually wrote a book about alcohol and named us in its credits, and to have had the mandatory group TA sections with the TA who loved us all so much that he invited us to a party at the end of the semester and got all 10 of us shitcanned on the most awesome sangria in the history of ever. I could feel my brain expanding in this class. But all the good was nearly undone by the physical dread I felt each week, knowing how far below the bar I really was, and how hard the whole thing was going to be for me. Ugh. Miraculously, this ended up a B+. I think I wrote a couple kickass papers? Maybe the one about Rebecca?

--Hola, Espanol! Gracias para las notas de "A" en los dos semestres! I tested out of a year, so these were the third and fourth of four required semesters. I didn't realize I could test out of any of it, but the professor of the Beginning Spanish class I attended on the first day told me -- after I busted out a complete paragraph that included the word "guantes" in the "Hola, me llamo" portion of the meeting -- that I really really should. Heh.

--Contemporary Civilization (aka CC), with the densest reading list of any class I took, netted me an A- for both semesters -- which is weird because the classes were taught by two of the most different profs I  encountered in my entire four years. Fall '93 was a young, hip bisexual gal, shaven-headed and given to pre-class recountings of her motorcycle travelings of the weekend/night previous. She wouldn't put up with either dismissal of the "old dead white guy" authors or slavish devotion to same; she really wanted us to engage with the material, look at it critically (this is where I pretty much shed my lifelong Christianity ... oops), take different angles, see where the themes and works wove into other times, disciplines, theories -- and she was good at nudging us to go that extra step. But she bailed at the half to take a full professorship somewhere else, so Spring semester was with a nearly-dead old white guy who just kind of didn't fucking care at all. He had no idea who any of us were, so it was incredibly easy to skip out ... particularly on these lovely warm spring afternoons, when my friend Rich Hilary was in the habit of lying in wait on the lawn bordering the walkway between my dorm and this building, with a six-pack of Hamm's and an extremely persuasive argument about how "that guy doesn't even know your name, you said so yourself, and I have all this beer to drink, bitch! I'll give you my notes from last year, you'll be fine. Sit the fuck down! You're in college! People are supposed to do this, CHRIST."

--Raaawwwwrrrrrr! Dinosaurs and the History of Life! Sounds like an easy, ridonculous gut, right? No -- it was science, for real, taught by a semi-famous researcher and enthusiast. And it was FUCKING AWESOME -- one of my top three, easily. Chicxulub, Archaeopteryx, Glen Rose, cladograms, birds are tiny dinosaurs, Jurassic Park, etc. etc. etc.  Took this with Mr. Gleemonex as well. Grade: A-

--Once again: Dean's List! BOOOOOOSHHHH!

An MC to a degree that you can't get in college

So out of the blue, I recently decided to request my official college transcript; I couldn't remember my GPA, I wasn't sure when/if I made the Dean's List, I just wanted to see the actual titles of classes I took. Just a fun trip in the wayback machine, with the added benefit of tying down some of those disconcertingly flappy memory-corners blown around by the winds of time, you dig? They responded within a week, and therefore, the first in a four-part series:

Things About and Around My College Transcript: 1992 - 1993 

--Christ did I work hard for that B-, the first such low-ass grade in my entire academic life, in Major Topics in Asian Civilizations: East Asia. Also I was an hour late for the three-hour final -- overslept after a night of studying -- not that the extra hour would have helped me much, since it ended up barely taking me the two remaining hours to write down every goddamned thing I'd managed to cram in my head from this class (which covered thousands of years each of the histories of China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam -- fuuuuuck). 

--Lookit me go, with the A+ in Masterpieces of Western Art (aka Art Hum)! It kicks the ass of my lowered-expectations B in Masterpieces of Western Music (aka Music Hum), I will tell you that.

--How bout that A in Race & Ethnicity in American Politics, a 3200-level class? Goddamn right! Which I guess is how I returned home for the summer with a really, super incredibly more superior knowledge of the world than my poor sad provincial parents, amirite?? But on a serious note: This was my first real unbiased, non-agenda-based exploration of these kinds of topics -- the Bed-Stuy riots, abortion, unionization, all kinds of deep shit -- and it was genuinely, honestly valuable and eye-opening for me. One of those life-changing, perspective-altering classes, sincerely.

--I'm gonna go ahead and blame the drop from B+ to B- from semester one to semester two of my two-linked-semesters science requirement -- Mind, Brain and Behavior (Fall '92), Sense and Sensory Perception (Spring '93) -- on the fact that I was taking the latter with Mr. Gleemonex, who was a distraction in and out of class. Shatner yeahhhhh was he a distraction, y'all.

--The rest: Nice raise in Lit Hum from fall to spring (B+ to A-); I passed PE, yay!, by virtue of showing up pretty often to the 7:30 a.m. aerobics class I took; and apparently I was committed to taking the exact number of credits required for a full-time student (by contrast: my eventual roommate/eventual bridesmaid, now known as Twelve, generally took at least double that number every Shatner-loving semester. Daaaaannnng.).

--Dean's List, yo! 

By this time we were both half-crazy from too much whiskey, sun fatigue, culture shock, lack of sleep and general dissolution.

Wowie wowie wow, if you wanna see a post that totally nails it, go to here -- inspired by the upcoming release of Before Midnight, Joanna looks up some of her favorite screen couples to find out what they're up to now. It is awesome. I want more. (Hat tip to Sarah Brown for finding it!)

a few months after moving in together in houston, lelaina was hired by bunim/murray. she moved out to LA, and troy came with her.

And if you want to read the piece that was the very genesis of Hunter S. Thompson's gonzo streak, not to mention his first collaboration with the great Ralph Steadman, go to here -- there are some great footnotes that you won't want to miss. Hat tip to Mr. Gleemonex, because he sent it to me, and this man knows what I like, y'all.

"I was sure it was the last article I was ever going to do for anybody," Thompson said in a 1974 interview with Playboy. "Then when it came out, there were massive numbers of letters, phone calls, congratulations, people calling it a 'great breakthrough in journalism.' And I thought, 'Holy shit, if I can write like this and get away with it, why should I keep trying to write like the New York Times?' It was like falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a pool full of mermaids."