Subtle

I like my job, except for all those other people and stuff.

How Twilight Ruined My Life

All right, that’s a bit of overstatement. I don’t actually have anything against Twilight, per se, though I have heard that it’s not the most feminist story in the world. But I’ve never read the books or seen the movies so I can’t pass judgment on that, and I have nothing against the paranormal or romance. Then why is it the bain of my existence?

Vampires. Everywhere. All bloodsuckers, all the time.

You might remember from previous Rib posts that I am writing a vampire story. I started it prior to the current mania that has everyone panting like Renfield.  All of a sudden there are vampire books, movies, t.v. shows out the ying yang, none of which I read or watch and yet cannot escape thanks to modern advertising. Consequently, I am getting a little tired of vampires.

Yes, Rib readers, I AM GETTING SICK OF MY OWN STORY. This is a crime against nature. It is not supposed to happen until one’s editor demands the 37th rewrite.

It doesn’t help that now when people find out what I’m writing, they immediately think Eddie-Bella-Sookie-Buffy-Anita-Lestat Rip Off. You get the knowing little smile, or the carefully blank expression, or even the eye roll. Those are the polite ones. The more forthright just say it: “Reading Twilight, are you?”

Derivative is a fightin’ word and makes my muse wanna get all up in their face. “Hey, I was writing my story before Edward was a sparkle in Stephanie Meyers’ eye! And my vampire isn’t an emo refugee from Teen Beat!”

But you know, what are you gonna do? Whatever’s going on out there, you have to “fill your paper with the breathings of your heart,” as Wordsworth said.  So I’ll write my story, and eventually when editors send rejection letters that say “Oh, honey, vampires are so 2010,” I will just wait another ten years to resubmit it. And maybe then I’ll get to ruin some other writer’s life.

Friday Funny: Laugh You Will

Pretty much what I look and feel like right now. Not a morning person am I.

Nothing more than feelings

A recent episode of This American Life featured a piece by a guy who lost his long-term memory as a result of anti-malarial drugs he was given while studying abroad in India. (Nightmare scenario or what?)  He “woke up” one day in a train station with no memories, not even of his family.

Some folks helped him get in touch with his mother — he remembered her email address but not her name, her face, or her voice. When he got home, his fiance was one of the first people to greet him. Not only did he not remember her, he did not love her. In fact, he couldn’t even conceive of himself loving her.

Besides being one of the saddest stories evar, it makes you think about the Big Questions. Like, what exactly IS love, then? How can it be that the only thing that makes this life worth living can be erased by a hit of synthetic chemicals?

Anyone can be passionate, but it takes real lovers to be silly. ~ Rose Franken

Old Grey Bonnets

This is a video of Kevin and me in a parallel universe where we have been married for 62 years and both play the piano. Note that butt-grabbing appears to transcend space and time.

Friday Funny: Fundamentalists, don’t fuck with ‘Frisco

Merry pranksters holding silly signs and blasting Lady Gaga vastly outnumbered the sad Westboro Baptist Church demonstration in front of the Twitter office in San Francisco last week. Fuckhead Phelps and brood subsequently cancelled their scheduled protest of Fiddler on the Roof (ha! ha! ha!) at the Golden Gate Theater, but that didn’t stop the music - the counter-protesters turned up anyway with signs and rick rolls. Brilliant.

Photo by sandwichgirl at the theater.

Photo by Rubin Starset from the Twitter protest.

Time

So the other day I was having coffee with my friend Mo and we got to talking about how you never seem to notice how those friends that you see all the time are aging. It’s only when you see pictures of them from back in the day that you go “Wow. You look a lot…more mature now.”

And then I started yammering about how the same goes for one’s self… except in my case I really don’t think I’ve changed all that much in the last oh, twenty years or so. Really, I haven’t changed hardly at all. Have I.

My friend Mo just sort of looked at me over the top of her coffee cup.

Fast forward to a few weeks later, as I am standing in the bathroom getting ready for work.

And I notice the grey hairs at the crown of my head, and the lines at the corners of my eyes, and the cheekbones jutting as the collagen drains away, and the skin beneath my eyes that is less elastic, and the tiny broken capillaries on my nose. And I remember how my knees and back and neck hurt more often, and how I have to work out a lot more and drink a lot less. And how I have to wear a hearing aid when I watch T.V..

In retrospect, I think giving me the “Poor girl, I don’t want to be there when the high wears off” look was probably the kindest thing my friend could have done.

Here’s looking at you, kid

Every year Kevin and I get season tickets to the UW World Music series. We rarely know any of the performers on the schedule and do no research on them beforehand. Every show is an adventure.

Last night in the theater lobby, we realized we were at least twenty years younger than the rest of the ticket holders. I told Kevin it was a good thing he knew CPR. He didn’t think his skills were necessary since every third person in there looked like a retired doctor.

It turned out that the evening’s entertainment was pianist Leon Bates and opera singers Louise Toppin and Robert Sims doing the best of George Gershwin.  I’m not a huge opera fan but who in cold, gray, drizzly Seattle can resist a hot summer night on Broadway? Even Kevin, who would rather eat ground glass than watch any sort of musical, was riveted. It was over too soon.

Walking back to the car, Kevin mused, “Why were so many of those old people staring at us?”

“My theory,” I replied, “is that people of a certain age have the guts to look strangers in the eye because they just don’t give a shit what you think of them.”

In Seattle, looking at strangers all, let alone staring, is an anomaly. Maybe it’s the Scandinavian roots, but the majority of people here are not overtly friendly en mass.They are perfectly fine one-on-one, like when you order your latte. But when they pass one another on the street, sit next to each other on the crowded bus, or mill about in theater lobbies, thou shalt not look at any human being you do not know longer than half a second, lest they look back at you and the dreaded eye contact is made. ¹

What’s so bad about eye contact? Well, it’s the subtlest form of acknowledgment. And no one wants to be the first to acknowledge someone who might ignore them, which is the subtlest form of contempt. This “ignore them before they ignore you” is a passive-aggressive kind of self-protection used by people who care too much about what other people think.

Who doesn’t care what you think of them? Small children. The homeless.

And the old folks, the true pirates in our communities.

When I am an old woman, I shall wear a pearl earring and look into your eyes.

A very beautiful old woman by pedrosimoes7

1. Current graffiti on the Why don’t Seattle-ites Talk to One Another? Facebook group: “If you ever see this face walkin’ down the road, please say hi! I can take it, promise!” [↩]

Friday Funny: The Apple of my fly