NaBloPoMo #9 – The Writing Spider Answers Tuesday, Nov 10 2009

I dug up five random questions I will answer here:

1. If you came with a warning label what would it say? This one-of-a-kind human bean is hilarious, sensitive, sexy, loyal, and loving, but is prone to bouts of self-doubt, moodiness, and general panic. Feed sushi, chocolate and red wine, handle with care. Needs regular back-scratching. Do not allow to get overly tired. Is easily distracted with shiny things.

2. What character in a book can you connect with or relate to the most? She’s not a character, but I very much identified with Elizabeth Gilbert in Eat, Pray, Love. And Lewis Carroll’s Alice. I identify with characters who don’t quite fit the world they are in.

3. How are you with very little sleep? Um…terrible. I don’t get sleepy, really, I go from Regular Person to Madame Needsanap Crankypants in about ten seconds. I’ve done this my whole life – go to bed when I’m ready. Even as a kid. It made me terribly unpopular at slumber parties… If I turn to you and say, “I need to go to bed now,” you should let me.

5. What reality TV show would you want to be on? Biggest Loser! I don’t have that much weight to lose though, I just want to get verbally beat up by Jillian and possibly vomit on the treadmill.

6. How do you feel about road trips? I like road trips. I grew up spending many days in the backseat of the family car on vacations. We drove everywhere. People cannot believe that we (my sister and my parents and I) drove to Maine from Kentucky in a Ford Escort. (It takes a good three days to get there from here.) I like driving. I like just taking off in the car and looking at stuff – houses, trees, Christmas lights, farms. I don’t need a destination, I can just get in the car and end up at home later. That’s fine.

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Fakin’ It Saturday, Oct 11 2008

     I went on a work-related trip to Miami in February. I had never been to Miami before, except as a Very Small Baby and that doesn’t count because I don’t remember it. The trip was a workshop for small business owners who provide a product my company offers to their employees and I was pretty much just a participant in order to get a feel for the team and how they do these workshops.

     During the course of the trip – which was only three days – I stayed in the poshest hotel I’ve ever been to, I had a $13 mojito out of a plastic cup, got shooed away by Avril Levigne’s body guard,* put a band aid on a smoke detector (see previous post, That Ticking Thing), saw my first professional basketball game** while sitting in a sky box, amazed a club full of Cubans that a white girl could salsa, and convinced a stranger that I was in fact British.

     After the workshop ended, we went to the game then back to the hotel for drinks around the pools. One of the guys from my team and I were sent in to the bar to open a tab on my corporate card. The bar area was sort of Marrekesh-ish, dimly lit by candles in red glass lanterns and intricate low-hanging light fixtures. It was pretty deserted as most people had taken their beverages outside to enjoy the night air.

     My colleague and I waited for one of the bartenders to take our order. I stood counting the kinds of bourbon they had on the mirrored shelves and listened to the man next to me give his order. Even though there weren’t many people in the bar, he was standing just behind and to my left so that I could feel his suit sleeve brush my back.

     “I need six sambuccas,” he slurred. “Yeah, I know, who orders sambucca, right? Sambucca?? They’re British, you know, I guess they like that stuff.” He was shouting as if it was extremely loud in the bar.

    In an effort to get a look at this guy who kept jostling me and who sounded like a jerk, I turned my head. He saw me. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you like, British or something?”

    I didn’t even think twice about busting out my best British accent.

     “What?” Which sounded sort of like, “Wot?”

     He rubbed his face and winced. “Oh, shit, was that…was that an accent?”

    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, trying not to look him in the eye because that would’ve ruined the whole thing. “But I happen to like sambucca.”

    I couldn’t get out of the way of his backpeddaling. “OH, SHIT, I’m so sorry,” he babbled, “I didn’t know I mean I never met anybody who likes sambucca I just have these clients who wanted some SHIT I didn’t know sorry.”

     It seemed unkind of me to continue and I couldn’t hold it in.

    I grinned. “I’m just kidding. I’m not British.”

    He stared, unbreathing, tension draining from his pasty white face. His tie was mostly undone and his shirt disheveled.

     “Had you going there, didn’t I? I’m from Kentucky,” I said. He stared. The bartender smirked, shaking her head.

     He laughed nervously. “Oh. Well.” And then he promptly rushed out of the bar.

    Two minutes later he was back. He’d left all the drinks on the bar, and the bartender had his credit card.

    

 

* I actually didn’t recognize her as I was going to the beach and since the pathway was narrow, I didn’t think much of using it until a beefy guy in black stuck his chest out menacingly at me. She’s very small, Avril. Like a punky moody elf.

** Heat vs. Celtics

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The Thing with the Ticking Thursday, Aug 28 2008

     I drive Husband crazy with my eternal quest for the Perfect Sleeping Environment. I must have the following things in order to have a very good night’s sleep: (in no particular order, they are all equally important):

     1. Dark – Lots of dark. I spent the night at this girl’s house once in high school and she and her sister had applied copious amounts of tin foil to their bedroom windows such that when the door was closed and the lights turned off, there was no seeing anything. Your eyes never adjusted. I spent half the night trying to see my hand in front of my face and trying not to think about going to the bathroom since I couldn’t see the door or the two other people in the room. It was great.

     2. Quiet – I enjoy a little quiet music or ocean waves at first, but then can we just turn off everything? Husband likes the whir of fans. I feel like the Grinch when complaining about those loud Whoos. “If there’s one thing I hate…oh the noise, noise, noise noise!”

     3. Blankets – I’m like Goldilocks here. Can’t be too thick or too thin, it has to be juuuuust right.

     4. Temperature – I think you’ll all agree with me that a cold room is not only healthier but more conducive to sleep.

     Many times, as a guest in other people’s homes, I have slept in guest rooms where the hosts have placed a timepiece that insists on ticking. Or they have a conveniently located DVD player attached to the guest TV that creates a floodlight-like experience in a darkened room.

    When I went to India for my friend’s wedding, I slept in her bedroom and she slept in the guest room. Darkness wasn’t a problem in the southern India in the middle of a teeny town. But there was a clock. It was an innocuous eighties-style clock, gold plastic and a little gold plastic pendulum. The first night I sat there in bed wishing I could just fall asleep but like the ever-beating heart in Poe’s story, it just got louder and louder. Finally, I got up and pulled it off the wall intending to find a new home for it. There were no dresser drawers, no places to put it. I finally found a nail in the en suite bathroom which didn’t exactly fit the clock’s hanger hook thingy, but it was 1 a.m. and I was fed up with it.

     My intention was to return the clock to its original position first thing in the morning and move it every night. At some point that first night, I was awoken out of a sound sleep by a noise. Oh the noise! In my curry-induced stupor I fell back to sleep, not realizing it was the samurai clock leaping off the wall in the shame that I had dismissed it to the bathroom.

    Now I’d done it. Broken my host’s bedroom clock. How typically American of me. I put the pieces on the bed and went to shower thinking of a way to politely explain my accident. While I was in the shower, the housekeeper, a young woman who would later inquire anxiously about the location of my other ankle bracelet (I had one one that my mom gave me before I left but apparently only Indian prostitutes wear just one anklet…), had cleaned the room – made the bed, swept the floor…and disposed of the clock.

     I have no idea what they thought about the clock incident. I told my friend I broke it and she laughingly dismissed it. I can’t imagine what the housekeeper told the cook or my friend’s mother. “I found this clock destroyed in pieces on the bathroom floor. Clearly the American hates clocks and wishes to break them.”

     In a hotel room in Miami earlier this year, I was on a business trip and staying and a fancy schmancy hotel. (How fancy schmancy? Well, Avril Levigne was staying there at the same time and I got shooed away by her bodyguard. How’s that for fancy?) The smoke detector had an obnoxiously bright light, green and blinky, that was like something from a landing strip. Thinking of course that I’d just remove it before I left, I climbed up on the dresser and applied one of my emergency band aids to the blinking light. Verrrry effective. I wonder if anybody has noticed that the smoke alarm seems to have a boo boo…because I forgot to remove it.

 

 

**Amusing side note: My spam blocker caught this gem after I posted the above:

Direct contact with ticks frequently results in tick infestation.

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I am slightly obsessed with… Friday, Aug 15 2008

     Burning Man. I don’t remember when exactly I heard about this art-show-rave-camp out-love-in, but I’ve been longingly checking the website every year for about five years. I love reading the lists of what to bring and not to bring and the stories of past years’ festivities. Burning Man seems like an exhilarating experience and I would like to have it some day when I can afford it. (It’s a long way to the playa from here and gas is ’spensive.)  I don’t even know what I would bring to trade, what I would call my camp, what costumes I would make. But I would surely meet wonderful and interesting people and have a hell of a time. We all need a hell of a time once in a while to shake things up.

     On some level, I think wanting to go to Burning Man is part of my continuous craving to meet and be surrounded by creative people. LOTS of creative people. All at once. Like a crazy intense summer camp for crazy intense people and supportive observers and other such interesting characters. According to the articles I have read and the photos I’ve seen, Burning Man is beyond a gathering of artists, rather it is a catalyst for a community of rainmakers – people who want to change something in this world.  I can only imagine the energy of the event and it makes me dizzy. 

     It’s possibly I’ve completely romanticized this Burning Man thing. For all I know, it’s just a hot dusty mess and then you come home. But I don’t think so. I think it’s a changing experience and it’s one I would like to have.

     Since I am a writer-type person, perhaps I should find a publication of some kind who will let me write about Burning Man. Perhaps they will include funding for the adventure. While I look that up, I’m going to put that out there for God, the Universe and Everything. HEY, SEND ME TO BURNING MAN TO WRITE A FANTASTIC ARTICLE FROM THE BURNING MAN NEWBIE WRITER. THANK YOU.

     If you’re not familiar with Burning Man, check out the website www DOT burningman DOT com. There are much better definitions of it than I could ever give.

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Things I Learned in India Wednesday, Jul 30 2008

     Several years ago I went to India for three weeks to attend a friend’s wedding. (Yes, I know you saw that episode of Seinfeld.) I was in graduate school at the time, getting an MA in Literature and this lovely girl was in my class. We got to be close and she invited me to her wedding in southern India.  My feeling was that she had offered me a place to stay with her family and her friend so why the heck wouldn’t I go? Even though I had to spend $1,500 on a new transmission two months before I left… Even though I would be traveling to the other side of the world by myself… Even though I would be the tallest whitest person there… I went. I was looking through my photo album the other day and I had written some things down that I should have taken with me, which I’ll add here, but I should have also written more about what I learned.

     1. When you’ve boarded the plane to Detroit and are just settling the monster butterflies in your stomach and you’re trying to look like a savvy world traveling adult and your mother comes flying down the aisle dragging behind her a small Indian woman after having persuaded the flight attendants to delay closing the plane so that she (your mother) can point out that this woman’s husband is going to Mumbai just like you and tells you you should follow along with him so you don’t get lost/abducted/robbed/mugged/curried by Krishna-knows-what in that foreign airport….thank her kindly and acknowledge you know her. Do not squinch down in the seat without making eye contact and mumble “Thanks,” shaking your head in embarrassment until she and the Indian woman she dragged aboard are off the aircraft.

     2. Your mom was right about tagging along with a native. Upon reaching India, if you are indeed a single lady travelling alone, do find an Indian family who will take you under their wings. Otherwise, you won’t have anyone to defend you against the very helpful Indian porters will snatch up your luggage before you can tell them you’re actually going to Chennai, not Goa, and then you’ll be in a real pickle.

     3. It doesn’t matter if you try to blend in with the locals if you are in a small town, you will never ever blend in. I was clearly the tallest (I’m 5′ 6″) whitest (I think this complexion is referred to as Consumptive) person the tiny town had ever seen and I finally got to know what it was like to be a celebrity.

     4. You cannot possibly eat rice and curry for every meal unless you are very used to it. So when your friend’s mother kindly purchases corn flakes and has the help heat the milk for you (because it isn’t pasteurized), you will eat it and be grateful, even if you are eating rice and curry alongside it. You will also suck down the Coca-Cola she purchased as well, although Ribena is pretty tasty.

     5. It’s not as hot as you think it will be. September in south India was the end of the monsoon season and quite comfortable for a girl raised in the allmight oppressive heat and humidity of the Ohio River Valley.

     6. When in India, you may sleep with your friends’ friends and your friends’ cousins. Picture this: a train built during the British colonization of India with no air conditioning crammed to the gills with passengers, including the bride’s family and most of her friends and their families. It’s 10:30 pm and you still have 7 hours to go until you reach Chennai. Your friend’s best friend finds you in your little sleeping berth and explains she has given up her berth to someone’s grandmother and says she will be bunking with you. Conundrum! Did Emily Post cover etiquette for such a situation? What’s the proper procedure for spooning your friend’s friend on a train in India?

     7.  If you tell them you like spicy food, they will not believe you. My friend’s household help, a darling old man who had served the family for two generations, kept making the chai tea weaker and weaker until one morning it was nothing more than warm milk. He also prepared a separate dinner for me which was “not so hot.” Honestly, I love spicy food and insisting I like it spicier than this was kind of embarrassing.

     8. Things you should take with you to India:

     Photos of your family. Indians are big on family and my friend’s friend’s family could not believe that I lived alone but were reassured that my sister still lived with our parents. I wanted to show them where I come from.

     Gifts for your hosts. This applies anywhere, actually. I brought several coffee table books with large pictures of my hometown and home state and a cookbook for the bride to remember her time in my city.

     Lots of clothes. The laundry facilities I encountered were unable to keep up with the clothes I sweat in/spilled curry on/got wet. 147% humidity means…stuff doesn’t dry quickly.

     9. Like speaking the language of the country you visit, wearing the clothing of the country is a good thing to do. It shows you’re trying to experience the culture in all its facets. Ladies, wearing a sari is just like wearing a dress and don’t let them talk you out of the gorgeous silk one because its “too heavy.” Nonsense. I wish I’d gone for the silver and blue silk but I do love my green and gold Bengal cotton.

     10. You’ll get used to the traffic, where signals are optional, honking is mandatory, and you feel like you’re going to be in a terrible crash every time you get in a vehicle. Relax. It’s fine.

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100 Words: Travel and anxiety Tuesday, May 13 2008

In the seventh grade, I went to spend the night at my friend Robin’s house. I’d been to Robin’s lots of times. I liked her kooky down-to-earth family, her mom’s crazy red hair. It was the first house I was in that had that little embroidered adage on the wall ”Use it up, wear it out, make it do, do without.”

Just before dinner we were in the family room and the feeling began to well up in me. I can only explain at the time there was something wrong with the light in the den. It made me uneasy. I have to go home. I have to go home right now. Now. NOW. I’d never been homesick before but it didn’t make sense – seventh grade, you’re kind of over that right? Or at least you’d know you’re the homesick type. I told Robin’s mom I felt sick and my dad came to pick me up. My parents chalked it up to homesickness but that just didn’t feel right.

I’ve always been an anxious person. A worrier. Intense. But wasn’t until years later that I figured it out after reading and putting the pieces together. Panic attacks. Anxiety. The completely illogical and overwhelming onslaught of fear with no discernable source. For me, panic attacks look like homesickness or even just whininess in the morning. I cry. I can’t tell you what’s wrong but something is defnitely WRONG. I can tell you all the times it’s happened. Junior year on vacation with my best friend’s family when I hid in the basement every morning and bawled. The first two weeks of college. The first week of my trip to England.

If you don’t have panic attacks you cannot possibly imagine what it’s like. It looks different for everyone. I know a guy who will plan trips, need to travel for work, get to the airport and turn around at the gate. I know a woman who says time speeds up for her during her anxiety. I can’t tell you why it happens to me, but I can tell you what helps me get through it.

It’s always connected to travel.  If you know me, you might be surprised because I travel like someone who doesn’t have this problem.  Or you might remember that time I was so upset and you thought I was homesick, or crazy, or tired. Or all three.

In grad school, I went to see a counselor about it. “I have panic attacks when I travel. I’m going to India in four months and I don’t want this to happen.”

“Well, there are some really good medications available right now, ” she said.

That was the last time I saw her. Don’t misunderstand – I believe in better living through chemicals. But I wanted to do this myself.

So I flew to the other side of the world by myself to my friend’s wedding.  

Nothing happened. Except that I got to go to India and see my friend get married.

I read up on it. Without getting too technicaly, you can actually short circuit your body’s panic response. I was on the plane on the way to Amsterdam, waiting for it. “Where is the panic? Where is the crying?” I thought. It never came. Zap. No panic.

I still get anxious. Husband understands when I say, “I feel out of sorts.” But I have not had one of the ferocious exhausting attacks like those first ones in a long while. During one of the worst panic attacks, I was in a hostel in Scotland. Unable to sleep, anxiety wrapped around me, I sat in the lobby and read the books other travelers had left behind. “Feel the fear and do it anyway,” one title said. That’s what I do. I know this happens. I know how to deal with it. And it’s not going to stop me from going to British Columbia next week, or to Italy some day when I can afford it.

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