Making Little Sense of Everything

The day rides along in meaninglessness and nothingness because what can one really do when thinking of so many dead bodies and people in agony? I imagine a chaotic Bosch surreality in the very, very real horrors of these people’s lives. And it is thinking of them that feels so confusing. What does thinking of them do? This is not some kind of collective “we can heal their wounds with prayer” scenario. I am just asking what can we do besides give our money and watch as the aid workers and government workers do their jobs?

We can imagine troops being pulled out of Iraq and deployed to distribute supplies in SE Asia. We can imagine all other bombings in the Middle East are on hold and that the crisis in Darfur is frozen for the moment. We can imagine that this didn’t actually happen.

If you close your eyes, it can be true.

Open them again, and see how the suffering of a mother has lost her son in a car accident is no more and no less than those who have lost their children or parents or more in a tsunami. What seems worse, what really may be worse, is the terror experienced by people in a massive tragedy. As on Sept. 11, when we all gripped our chests in fear and anxiety, as well as in sadness, for those of us who lost people we cared about, or for those of us who felt the pain for other people.

What can we do, when the numbers of people homeless and suffering are in the millions? We are far away, we keep our eyes half closed, to keep out the searing images of death. We open them just enough to remind ourselves it is happening without overwhelming our senses, maybe.

Is it enough to just look? Does looking actually help? Does looking feel wrong, as it did to many of us who watched others look, noses pressed up close to our tragedy in New York? Or is this what we need to do?

This is hardly an event that can be possessed or even comprehended. It just seems like a time to decide what humanity can and cannot bear and just how we as a whole, and most likely even individually, choose to deal with it.

Are We Stingy? Yes

From today's NYT editorial:

"The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million, and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries; it actually spends well under a quarter of 1 percent.

"Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for America, and $29.9 billion for Europe."

Buona Fortuna

And now, your fortunes.

“As soon as you feel too old to do a thing, do it.”

and

“Find a peaceful place where you can make plans for the future.”

I believe that number one goes to Mordant, because I promised, so choose number two—and if you know what the hell it means, please share. Or pick a bonus number three:

“Do not desire what you do not need.”

There you go, substance minus the sustenance.

Three Easy Ways to Donate for Disaster Relief

Forty-four thousand people are already estimated to be dead. If you'd like to give money toward the South Asian tsunami/earthquake relief, here are three links to reputable organizations:

Doctors Without Borders

American Red Cross

UNICEF

I Don't Really Care

About this article in Fortune, I just really like this line:

"If you fudge or lie on a blog, you are biting the karmic weenie," says Steve Hayden, vice chairman of advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather...

Landing in a Storm

Tonight I flew into LaGuardia in a snow storm. The wind carried the snow sideways, so that it looked like a horizontal rush of white. Our plane circled the runway as the pilot explained that the first attempt to land was aborted because of low visibility. We circled, and the dark-haired man in the seat next to me and I laughed and nervously admitted our fear and made jokes and tried to be brave for each other, strangers caught in the same whirling night.

Returning back to my life after days away feels too real. It is too raw to consider the work to be done and the things to consider, so instead, I'll drink this beer and write.

The loneliness of my friends and people I don't even know has been pressing in lately. Palpably, I sense the sadness of those who have tried and failed repeatedly into middle age to find love, or the frustration of those still young enough to keep trying without bitterness, yet. Or those who are old and have found something as a substitute for love: something that sustains them in lieu of something more beautiful. For these people, I feel bad. Watching them care for each other and not receive the care or connection, warmth or beauty underneath a true love, this is sad to me. But it is functional, and maybe that is how it needs to go sometimes. After love has burned then scarred a heart, maybe this is a cushioned and necessary way to live.

It does all seem like a balance between the raw and the overcooked when I think about it this way. Who ever really finds the place that is between those two, a connection that is just right, for a lengthy period of time? Some of us will, but it really looks like most of us won't. Everything in life--not just love--can feel like this if I don't turn off the brain valve that is pouring the contents of my life down this analytical chute. For your sake, I will shut that down immediately.

When our plane began its descent again tonight, the handsome man next to me sucked in his breath and placed his hand on my arm, as much to brace himself as to assure me that I was not alone in this fear: that although this may be perfectly routine for landing a commercial plane in a storm, we were strangers, and we were frightened. And that was okay.

From the Heart

Or the heartland, I bid a sumptuous hello. Or a full one. Eating my way irreligiously through this holiday at the pseudo in-laws, stuffing my belly full with cheeses and olives, wondering how the hell these people live in a place that was 4 below last night. Goddamn.

I'm serious¡

And now for the long-awaited sarcasm point.

As the story argues:

"It is time for the adoption of the sarcasm point. Why the sarcasm point? We have a mark that conveys that we mean or know something. We have one that says it with volume and force! We have one that communicates that we don't know something, don't we? We need one more: to do for language what shade did for drawing, what color did for television, and what eyebrows did for expressions—introduce finesse."

but I'm all with Norm McDonald, who the author cites as a sarcasm purist: "Good sarcasm, they'll tell you, is cueless. It trips dishonestly off the tongue. "What I'm looking forward to in prison is the prospect of anal rape." "

See? You don't need that pesky new punctuation mark. And it wouldn't be a pretentious eyesore at all¡

Hello, Canadians!

Yes, fine judgement, yet again, to our north. See CNN.com - Canada to approve UK cannabis drug - Dec 21, 2004:

"As far as I'm aware, it's the first approval for a prescription cannabis medicine anywhere," a spokesman for the firm told Reuters on Tuesday.

Everybody must have seen this by now...but it's still so pleasant, isn't it? 

Making Sense of Yet More Things

A slate primer on the oil-for-food scandal. For those, like me, who never quite knew all about it.

And another thing. This one a New Yorker story by A. M. Homes about finding her birth parents. An amazingly written piece. A favorite line:

"She goes on, “I come from a very strange family. We’re not quite right.”"

And in other news, a colleague just dropped by my desk to show me a letter he got that has his address typed as:

John Smith, Ass

(No, his name is not really John Smith, but yes, someone really typed "Ass" after his name. This is a real letter from some kind of company. And, yes, John Smith is some kind of assistant editor around here, so that could explain it. But probably not.)

I Feel Perverse

Because I have seven email addresses. Eight, if you count my old university one that still functions silently somewhere.

I had six until just now, when I signed up with Gmail because a friend invited me to. How can one turn down 1,000 megs of storage? One can't. So now I have:

1. Hotmail: Primary address.
2. Yahoo: Secondary, occasionally primary address.
3. Fastmail: Storage account, for documents, things I'm writing, etc.
4. Outlook: Work address.
5. Myway: Trusty special McBickle address.
6. Grad School email: Yes, that.
7. Gmail: Fucking seven.

I'm so ashamed.

I first learned about email in my first year of college. We used "Pine," a ridiculous program that resembled "Basic" programming in interface, and now looks like a ludicrous Communist Bloc application. We sat in the "Computer Center" and learned that we could write mysterious notes to one another.

Merry is the technology, woe to the user who loses her sense of control in it all.

The End of It

The end of the week, at least. Or the beginning, maybe, if you're Christian.
I have just dyed my hair a slight color: a color that is my color, although slightly different. It is still too wet to tell if the subtle slight difference will be at all visible, at all delectable or obstinately absent. Maybe everyone needs to dye their hair their own color, if only for the irony. Dye your own hair, only make it slightly different. It will be a hair meta-revolution.

Right now, "This American Life" (www.thislife.org) has Russell Banks reading one of his stories; this one about a man who becomes enchanted with the ugliest woman he has ever seen. He falls deeply into her hideous face at a bar, as enamored with her ugliness as if she is the most beautiful woman in the world. I can understand this fascination, when the crook of a strange nose becomes beautiful, when a lump becomes too interesting for words. Beauty is unknowable, and variable even within one face, in one evening, in one day. Like changelings, we are only as attractive as our slight differences, maybe. Because from one day to the next, those differences will grow and diminish, depending on how you wear them, how you present them, how you wish them to be seen. It is like writing: you give the words that reveal your crooked bits and slightly different-colored hair, your slightly different-tinged thoughts. And that is how you are perceived, at least for that moment.

Enlightenish

About three strokes on the painting today, and there weren't even muscle relaxers involved. There is a bath running, so a brief entry. About the nothingness of a Saturday where nothing feels pressing--like the atmosphere has lightened a bit, pulling away from the body.

Anonymouse

Wondering about blogging semi-anonymously. I like it this way, but I wonder what the writing sounds like of a person without a face? Does it carry mystery or weight? Or is is just clearer and more direct, without an author pictured in the mind? Or is it just irritating, to not see your writer?

I'm intrigued by the voice a person uses, and what it sounds like once you know what they look like. I can't bear to see the author photo on a book jacket before reading a book, because too often it taints my reading. Hard to explain.

As a reporter, no one knows what my face is behind my byline, and that makes it feel easier to write forcefully, I believe. As now, with this blog, I wonder how it affects what we each say. Anonymous = Animate. Or Alien. Or Asinine. You decide.

Only the Lonely

Met tonight, at the bar I recently saw Jennifer Connelly at (with Paul Bethany, loyal, hunky husband), with a scimitar of my youth, a man of irrepute, my second kiss in life, I do believe, at least of the male form. (Third, if you count silly Charlie, a boy I couldn't run from fast enough.) He came forth in the night of slutty puppets (for those who enjoy the phrase, yes, in the night of slutty puppets) and I can only be proud to have met him and known him. A man who listens, who does not pass judgment (at least, not visibly, p). A man who knew me when I was a child. (Childish, one can say.)

P, we can only do what we hope, try as hard as we can.

Back to sentiment now, see? I banish myself to the tower for bad girls who say "scimitar" with no reason, and who drink too many whiskeys without hesitation and say too much.

Snore

Did you know the permanent secretary in Iceland's foreign affairs ministry is named Gunnar Snorr Gunnarsson?

(see: BBC NEWS | Europe | Fischer 'put Iceland on the map')

For the Sentiment

Struggling this morning with the value of sentiment. First, I'll begin with a link to Dowd's column. It's not one of my favorites, but the sentiment is excellent:

"The Coalition of the Shilling"--I mean, come on! Excellent!

From it:

"All those old, out-of-shape reservists being dragged back by Rummy would be great pitchmen for arthritis medication. And Celebrex night vision goggles."

Perfection.

In my deeper struggle with sentiment (I really shouldn't drive and daydream, but yes, I should and do), I am stuck on Ms. Kay this morning. Even the fact that I can't remember if it's Ms. or Mrs. is driving me into sentimental paroxysms. She taught me in "Socrates," what may be a silly name for an elementary school program that gave me...so much. It was 1st-through-fifth-grade problem-solving, staring at interlocking circles on the floor and trying to decipher...something, I don't remember what. On the wall were posters with Socratic aphorisms like "All I know is that I know nothing." So pivotal to a precocious 7-year-old, let me tell you. Still pivotal two decades on and counting. Thank you, Ms. Kay.

Something for Everbody

Fortunes! Fortunes!
Yes, kids, it's fortune time!
The pile was small today, but your trusty mcbickle managed to snag two.

The first (opened first, hence) is mine:

"You will always possess a charm and sense of humor that attracts others."

Lucky mcbickle!

And the other:

"You have a natural grace and great consideration for others."

Let that be you, and you and you! Unless one of you greedy little children grabs quickly, that is. Take it, or be vanquished by those more, uh, graceful than you!

Between the Crap

Why does near-profanity in the news make me such a happy girl?

Okay, this is not exactly "profanity," but look how pleasurable this sentence in a CNN article is:

"Gotti referred to Gravano as a "weasel punk" and said not a day went by when he did not dream of chopping mob turncoats "in little pieces.""

WEASEL PUNK.

Thank you.

Up On You

Heard this morning the head of the Iraqi Red Crescent speaking on NPR. He was describing the efforts to help people still in Falluja. In describing these Iraqis he said they stayed because "they are down to earth people," which is just a great mangled use of the idiom. I get what he meant: these people wouldn't leave their homes, they are attached to their land, etc.

The misuse reminds me of the lovely way my Italian friends have always responded when I ask them a benign question, like where should we go this evening?

"It is up on you," they say.

Really, it is.

The Poor Fellow, Clearly

J called just now with two words:

"Scrotal hypothermia."

Now, here's a look. Please note the pained expression on the man's face.

(p.s. have yet to come up with J's pseudonym. suggestions welcome.)

A Pithy One This One

I have a friend I will call Fiore who always has the perfect way of phrasing things. Take, for instance, this sentence she just sent me:

"I believe we're in the same bland anxious malaise-infused planetary
orbit."

See what I mean? Planetary orbit is a perfect way to describe the mood state, and infusion is just right, like a tea concoction of pathos and ego. A little bit bitter-tinged anxiety, with a dash of malaise.

Duorno: Part Due

Not really about Duorno himself, this post is more about the spirit of him coming back in my dreams last night.

After a frenzied few hours serving up vodka tonics and bloody marys to a room full of guests (doing what in a dark room, I don't know)--ferrying them three at a time in my hands from some sort of basement preparation room to the party, and yes, there were only these two drinks--the dream shifted, in place and feeling.

I found myself outside of a very beautiful mansion, typically mansion-collonaded, with a tremendous green lawn in front.

And that's where the spirit of Duorno comes in.

I lay down on that carpet and realized it had been freshly shorn. It had shards of grass making a sort of extra-soft layer on top of what was already the greenest, softest grass I'd ever felt. What was most amazing, perhaps, was that the expanse of lawn was on a sort of spring board or flotation layer. The best way I can describe it is as a velvety layer that moved like a "floor" in gymnastics--it moves with you as you do.

In the distant view were autumn trees, densely clustered in a New England-fall way. I lay in that grass feeling peacefully at home, not wanting to enter the house or stand up, and not feeling any timely need to do so. All I needed to do was just stay exactly where I was.

More of the spirit of relieving the madness. I should probably learn to dream when awake...

Let Us Again Praise Famous Men

Frank Rich, yet again.

From this story comparing the era of Kinsey with our own hotly repressive era:

"Elsewhere in "Kinsey," we watch desperate students pepper their professor with a series of uninformed questions: "Can too much sex cause cancer? Does suppressing sex lead to stuttering? Does too much masturbation cause premature ejaculation?" Though that sequence takes place in 1939, you can turn on CNN in December 2004 and watch Genevieve Wood of the Family Research Council repeatedly refuse - five times, according to the transcript - to disown the idea that masturbation can cause pregnancy."

and a little nugget I wanted to highlight from the same article:

"The Washington Post reports that this year some 40 states are dealing with challenges to the teaching of evolution in public schools."

That's 40 STATES. Last time I checked, that's 4 out of 5 dentists who prefer complete, total fabrications to scientific fact.

Careful What You Say Cause We're All Listening

A radio reporter resigned from her job over leaving this message on a conservative Internet site's voicemail:

"Hi, my name is Rachel, and my telephone number is... I wanted to tell you that you're evil, horrible people. You're awful people. You represent horrible ideas. God hates you and he wants to kill your children. You should all burn in hell. Bye."

Read more about her spam-induced rage here.

Then, read about it from her point of view here.

Poor angry woman.
But again, another example of how this meta-media crap gets under our skin to the point of irrationality. We say too much sometimes. But we often can't help ourselves.

I Am Neither Honest Nor Ethical

According to a new annual Gallup Poll out today: Reporters Trail Badly (Again) in Annual Poll on Honesty and Ethics.

Grand.
Please keep in mind that we at newspapers trail behind our TV counterwanks and behind auto mechanics. We do, however, beat lawyers and car salesman. Now that's saying something. I think.

Bambini Erotici

On a great day at the Met, passed along by a friend on the front lines there. 

Those Who Know, Know the Irony

Of my choice of fortunes just now from the fortune cookie pile in the kitchen:

"Including others in your life will bring you great happiness."

and

"The happiest circumstances are close to home."

Save me from this miserable irony, some friend who knows, please...

Mwah ah ah!

Really, it's CNN.com!

Really.
No.
Really.

Slutty Puppets

Yes, I really did see a show last night called "Slutty Puppets." They tried changing the name for a while to "Serious Art," but apparently, that wasn't as much of a draw as "Slutty Puppets."

These puppets were, yes, slutty, occasionally very much so. There was the Freud puppet who molested the sleeping girl doll. Creepy and funny. There was a stunning act with a small, hand-sized doll--old-looking, babyish, with a mouth in a perpetual yawn or scream or something. I think that act was called "Angry Baby." Anyway, Angry Baby confronted a series of silver bullet-shaped objects with her mouth. (The objects seemed to be steam regulators from old radiators. Yes, I know this because I've lived in a plethora of run-down New York apartments, it's true.) Angry Baby finallly fucked a doll that had no bottom. Just a hollow body and a head. Very bizarre, very slutty.

And that's how the night went. Bizarre. And slutty.

Around a Smelly Assemblance of Things

Spending the afternoon futzing with oil paints. Trying to sort all the resins, etc., out.
Otherwise, wondering if this muscle relaxer I've been given is actually helping the spasms I've got in my back, or just making me generally A Much Better Painter than usual. In my eyes. My hazy, muscle-relaxed eyes...

Really, one shouldn't write unless on some form of altering drug, shouldn't one? Or at least cigarettes, which is breaking down the smokers I work with into dithering morons because they can't smoke at their desks.
I'm trying to remember all the drugs writers I've known over the years have resorted to. The most recent revelation I've heard recently was crack cocaine. That's how he said it: "crack cocaine." That was an unexpected drug. Another instance of realizing that nothing should be unexpected.

E Pluribus Unum

A very good column from one of my favorite local columnists. About hypocrisy* and fear in media ad choices.

(*a spelling update: Hypocrisy is the only word I know of that I consistently misspell. Ever since childhood. So I belately apologize for the former spelling of that word on this post: hipocracy. For a writer, spelling that word wrong is just, well, hypocritical?)

(groan. yes.)

Glenwiddiewinichfiddle

An evening drinking 16-year-old scotch with the Man From Baghdad.
This probably explains why I feel like there is an extra human being banging around my head today.

(Driving with a hangover should be illegal.)

Fortune Drops By

Today's fortune from the abandoned fortune cookie pile:

"Be prepared for a sudden, needed, and happy change in plans."

Right on.

And here's one up for grabs:

"The skills you have gathered will one day come in handy."

First one to claim it--it's yours. Savor it.

Plugging Out

Reminds me of a happy way I ask people to turn off the lights: "Will you shut the light?"
Apparently, this is not something other people say. SHUT.
Fine.
Heard an NPR piece this morning about a study asking people to get off the Internet. Remove thyself from the superhighway. People went through real withdrawal, it sounds like. But I'm not sure that I would. I think I have gone weeks at a time without it, and, well, you just live on. In fact, I wish I were reared in the world of reporting without it. Learning to pick up the phone or consult a library, etc., seems like a good way of doing this work, instead of sorting through the mess of the web. Sometimes. Fuck it. Withdraw thyself. And then withdraw...

A little wound up with work irritations at the moment. A little wound up with the inability to enact things. Please don't ask me what that means. Tired of the fact that drivers drive like slugs in the rain. Although pleased to have realized that I now drive like a New York cabbie. All crazy-like.