Line Up To Eat Me!

I was just about to go to bed, but I had to go back and read another post by V at ViolentAcres.com. V is a fantastic blogger, and shares everything. Some would say to the point of over-sharing, but I like to pretend that when she’s typing out a post that will make people cringe, she’s standing as if in a receiving line, either shaking hands with people as they pass, or punching them in the nose.

I just read this post about young people who have NO respect for anyone older than them. Go ahead, read the post, then come back. Or don’t. You can always visit her site later. Every once in a while, I just log on, and follow various links. I agree with most of the things she says, and totally identify with her hatred of morons. In fact, I remember reading something on her blog I disagreed with, but I honestly can’t remember what it was, so it’s all good.

She states at the end that she realized she was maturing, evidenced by the fact that she didn’t punch the little chippy in the book store.

I’ve been thinking about how the elderly are treated. I’ve been thinking about it for the past few years and my grandma’s heath is declining. Her husband’s (they got married when she was 81, and my grandfather had been dead for something like 16 years) health declined rapidly about 2 years ago, and we had no choice but to move them both into a “community” called Eagle Ridge, where they had their own little 2 bedroom house and total autonomy. They also had trained medical staff on the premises just in case they need some help, and they had the option of having the cafeteria bring their dinner if they weren’t feeling great, or just feeling lazy. When he was sick enough to need care around the clock, we moved him into a really nice assisted living house. He was deluded and confused most of the time, but whenever he snapped back to reality, he was incredibly funny. When he finally passed, it was terrible on Gram. She had taken the time to prepare herself for her grief, and to move into a nicer place than where they’d been living. We moved her into a spectacular apartment in another semi-assisted living community, and she couldn’t be happier with the staff, the building, and the friends she’s made.

I should mention here that my grandma, who is now 90 years old, has congestive heart failure, but is as sharp as a razor. She’s incredibly industrious, and absorbs knowledge like a sponge. She can do the Sunday crossword in about 10 minutes, and has done a crossword puzzle every morning for as long as I’ve known her, and probably longer. She and three of the ladies in the building where she lives now have intense discussions and debates about current events, and it really keeps her on her toes, even though her body is failing her. She has congenital heart failure, and has for quite some time. A lot of people do very well after that diagnosis, but she really is starting to decline health-wise, which absolutely breaks my holey heart (I love saying that-I have a hole in my heart that gives me headaches).

As far as Gram passing away, it’s going to be horrible. She is one of the best people who have ever lived. She still sends Christmas cards to the wife of her favorite waiter at a restaurant where she and her husband ate dinner every Sunday. That lady has been in the Phillippines for the past 12 years. Every time we go into that restaurant, the waiter comes up and greets us all like we’re family.

That’s what it’s like going anywhere with Gram. People just adore her. Gram was a bookkeeper for two jewelry wholesailers (or more, I don’t remember, but I remember her getting really good deals on stones from them), and she was one of about 50 non-Japanese people in the world who was certified to teach Bunka, which is a Japanese form of painting by embroidery.

She held every last one of those jobs until her arthritis kicked in and her fingers weren’t working well enough for the Bunka. She didn’t stop working as a bookkeeper until the second time she got married.

I say all of this about Gram not so you admire her or are inspired by her or any of that nonsense. I wrote all of those things about Gram because whenever I take her for lunch or dinner, and some dumb asshole bends over as if she’s deaf, and baby-talks to her like, “Would you prefer a booth today, Mrs. Clarke, or are we looking for a round table dear?” I want to punch them. Usually, I just steal everything I can get my hands on from the candy dishes/business card holders, and that sort of thing for revenge.

I know that sort of revenge is stupid, and might affect people other than the one person who condescended to my awesome Grandma, but it’s that or a full-on drop-down kick in the NUTS for someone. Stealing candy and business cards is a really lame revenge, but I have to do SOMETHING. Sometimes, Gram speaks up about it and puts them in their place, telling them that her white hair isn’t an indication that she’s “slow.” You should see it. On her better days, she is sassier than even me.

I’ve reached the age where people are calling me “Ma’am” quite often. I live in SEATTLE, where people who say “Ma’am” are frowned upon, and usually corrected by the typical Seattle snootiness. “Don’t call me ma’am That’s my mother.” Fucking bearded clam.

Clearly, the drugs are kicking in. I’m starting to go surreal again! Here are a couple of new pics from and of the new adapter I built to block the ambient light from between the viewfinder of my 1951 (I think) camera and the lens of my phat d200.

Here’s the adapter I built. The viewfinder is on top of the little camera on the bottom. The digital lens goes into the tube. It’s made from a few of the money jars Amy Sedaris gave me for Christmas in 2006, right after her book was published. I still have a bunch of them, so I might make MORE adapters with them just for variety. I call it….THE ANTI-ANATHEMA DEVICE!!

Here are some shots I’ve cranked out so far:

Here’s the first shot I took after dissecting, scrubbing, and otherwise sterilizing the old camera. It arrived from eBay in terrible shape. Lots of rust and green oxidation all over it. I’ll throw on another photo of what the camera looks like without the adapter on top.

This is a continuation of one person I mentioned in this post: Ken “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Kesey.

**Ken Kesey was the keynote speaker at one of my college graduation ceremonies. He was reading from a stack of papers (it’s such a nightmare when someone heads to the podium with like a REAM of paper they’re planning to read!), but had to stop his speech midway through because he ran out of paper. He then turned to the Board of Regents on the stage and asked, “Have any of you seen the rest of my story?” They shook their heads, “No,” and Kesey just walked away.**

Best_speech_ever. After reading Kesey’s books, you’ll see how the speech really couldn’t have ended any other way! It’s hard to figure out howthe psychedelic Kesey website’s purchasing feature works, so I’d advise you click here to buy some of his books if you don’t own any already:

After that, we just had to wait until our row was called to walk up and take our diploma holders (diplomas mailed separately), shake hand with some bearded jackass, and then go through the dreaded Hall Of Hugs. For those of you who don’t know me, I do_not like to be touched. By anyone, at any time. I have had to learn, nay, be TAUGHT the social niceties of when you’re supposed to hug someone, and shake hands, and things like that. My good friends understand this, and know to just keep the fuck out of my bubble.

My bubble is completely invisible when it comes to kids, though. I don’t mind lying on the floor with a bunch of toddlers using my fat ass as a jungle gym. I don’t even mind the slobbering and screaming. For some reason, I can just tune it all out. But with adults, I have zero tolerance unless, of course, it’s one of those social situations where touching is SUPPOSED to occur. Like if you haven’t seen someone in a long time, it’s expected that you hug them, and NOT with one arm stretched out like a plumber’s copper ell joint. That is not a good hug. Two arms, maybe a pat on the back.

But that’s where I draw the line. So imagine what it’s like to have been the only person in any of your classes to get perfect scores on everything. ALL of the professors you have ever studied with love your ass. They fucking LOVE you, and sometimes call you at home, which is weird, but okay if it contributes to a good evaluation. The college I’m talking about now is not on the grade-point system (which is a nightmare when you’re thinking about graduate studies anywhere but in the state of Washington, let me tell you), rather it’s based on evaluations professors write about your course work and personality, EVERYTHING, balanced with the evaluations students write about their professors.

More or less, it’s in your interest to get a great eval. and write a really detailed eval, especially if you have anything negative to say. If, for instance (and this is a real life example from my education at this fucking school), one of your teachers [who will not go unnamed: Mark Levinksy (or Levensky, I don't remember) was his name] falls asleep regularly in class, and fails to mediate when a certain Line Up To Eat Me writer turns in a deconstruction and attack on Marx and Engels and inadvertently starts a fight with Justin, an anarchist/communist who didn’t agree, and Justin then hits the fuck out of Said Line Up To Eat Me writer with his backpack.

So after graduation, you have had your full fucking fill of the patchouli-stank, icy weeks spent on a sailboat in fucking Puget Sound in the dead of winter, the inevitable wet-wool reakage on and off the boats, and homeless people living in treehouses on campus and drum circles outside your windows, PLUS drummers living beneath your room and an entire fucking SKA band living right beside you, along with the weekly overseas student throwing himself off the roof of the freshman dorm (have you ever see an exploded head? I have. More than once!) you just want to get the hell out of Olympia and never look back again.

But no. Aside from Professor Mark L. (who was one of Matt Groening’s profs, btw-Matt liked Mark L. because he didn’t get Matt at ALL, but encouraged him to keep being weird. Apparently Mark was awake more in Matt Groening’s day.), all of your teachers are at graduation, and they all have BIG hippie hugs for you. The last class I was in was led by two professors, Jolie and I think her name was Marla. Jolie was great-she reminded me a lot of my sister Ann-Marie who is ALMOST an Episcopalian priest. Jolie was ordained, and she is a married lesbian. An all-around wonderful woman who actually allowed me to be an actress in class instead of an actual student-doing-projects. Instead of writing papers on the Gnostic Gospels, I would memorize certain passages that included an angry Jesus really trying to SHOUT his point home to his apostles. I had the best time getting up in front of the class and preaching passionately AT them about stuff I don’t even believe. I also got to be the shrink in a 3-person performance of “Agnes of God.”

I still have copies of the reviews my classmates were required to write. When I was preaching, the standard was something along the lines of, “When you pointed and then lunged at me from the stage, I was actually really scared. You must really believe what you’re saying!”

During “Agnes of God,” similar reviews regarding believability. I took it as a good sign when most of the class was bawling its collective ass off. That was pretty sweet.

Jolie really liked me a lot, but Marla wasn’t so sure. Marla was more of a drumming fan. I’m not just saying that to drive home the fact that she’s a hippy. I’m saying it because she demanded, as the end of that semester approached, that we bring in big buckets, sand down their bottoms, put ropes in them, learn a rhythm, and march in formation. She actually signed our class up to march in Olympia’s annual “Procession of the Species,” which I referred to as the “Species Parade.” I wormed my way out of it because I had just had my breast-reduction series and couldn’t deal with all that arm motion. I got away by writing a review of the Species Parade for the school paper. I didn’t even go-I just read about it on the internet and then gave a big mention to Marla’s group of drummers. It went over well, ultimately, as both Jolie and Marla were waiting at the edge of the stage, with big ol’ hugs for me. From Jolie, that was fine. From Marla, not so much. She is a large lady, which is fine, I don’t give a shit about people’s sizes I do, however, find myself repelled by body odor, which was a problem for Marla. She didn’t see it that way-she’s one of those French-type people who grow out their armpit hair and let the stink reign.

That was ONE of the grossest hugs I’ve ever experienced.

After Jolie and Marla was pretty much the entire bio-science staff, including the office staff, which was actually a really big compliment to me that they were there. My friend Leslie always told me to give special treatment to secretaries and anyone who does ANY work for you at all. Following that advice has been one of the saving graces of my life. People at the post office, cashiers, food service people (ESPECIALLY) the people who have the thankless job of showing people to their table)…they all get my full respect and the ones who go the extra mile get presents for Christmas, or whenever I feel like baking something that I don’t eat as soon as it’s out of the oven.

Also, the profs from the liberal arts classes I had to take were there, most notably BOTH of my French profs. I’m still in touch with Judie, not so much with Marianne, who was pretty sick last time I saw her. She has some sort of nerve disorder along with rheumatoid arthritis. Last time I saw her I made fondue at her house for her and her husband, and we all drank wine and watched French movies. That was fun, and their dog was fucking adorable.

One of my old friends (actually, a couple of them) I went to school with is completely amazed at the friendships I made at college because most of them were my professors, not the students. That isn’t true from my first year at college, when I didn’t attend a single class after Spring Break. I made a LOT of friends my age there. But the next college I went to, I ended up teaching classes there while finishing my degree. Teaching classes, and teaching Shakespeare.
It’s hilarious when I think back on the resume I could write up if I wanted. It wouldn’t look real, though. Nobody would believe me!!

One of the classes I took at the crazy hippie college in Olympia was a 3-day writing workshop (for a full semester’s credits!) that took place in a bunch of cabins in Pack Forest near Mt. Rainier. It was incredibly beautiful. I didn’t know anyone there, until one girl walked into the cabin where I was just sitting on my top bunk waiting for instructions. Her name was Amy, she was my age (we were older than most of the students there) and we were both there to do some serious writing, serious drinking, and then some more serious drinking. We were instantly “best friends at camp,” and wrote postcards home to our parents that we had made the very best friends we will ever have, here at camp. I think I was maybe 25 at the time, and I’m sure my mom thought I was high again. After camp, I never saw Amy again. She works for Weherhaueser doing some sort of physical labor, I’m not sure what. She was also a waitress at Hawk’s Prairie. Still, never saw her again.

The best part was, at graduation, guess who was right in front of me? That’s right, it was AMY! I didn’t even notice her. When we were lining up to process to our seats, they were sort of doing it by height. I’m 5′8, which is pretty tall for a girl, I guess. Amy and I had had people measure to see who was taller at camp, and she was by about a millimeter. I didn’t recognize her at all, but she instantly spun around and hugged me (joy-why do people do that BEFORE you can see their face and know who the hell they are?!) and yelled, “MY BEST FRIEND FROM CAMP!!” She ran to get her parents, and I ran to get mine so we could show them the cold, hard proof that we had each been sober enough, at least for the first hour, to make friends at camp.

College money well-spent!

So after all the professor hugs, it was time for family, roommates, former roommates, and whoever else was just happy to see me. All of them hugging me. And then they wanted cap and gown pictures.

I have had a lot of graduations in my life and this was I think #3. I had opted out of #2 by not telling anyone I knew that there WAS a ceremony. #1 was high school, and that was the only one that really meant anything to me, because that school was like another family. It was actually hard to leave the 33 other girls in my class. Those were girls who, give or take a year abroad or a year at another school, I had grown up with since I was 11. We were all burned out on each other for a while, I think, but, and I think this is very funny, a lot of us are getting back in touch with each other through Facebook!

I like the Facebook thing, because you can see what everyone’s up to, but you don’t have to catch their cooties or hug them, or answer any questions you find offensive (a lot of the girls who went there were SUPER-wealthy. Not just kinda rich. We’re talking owners of airlines, and now, Bill Gates’ daughter goes there), such as, “How many homes do you and your husband have here?”, “How’s your mom?”, or, “My hubby is at work all day, so I play in the garden with my children.” Sure, that last one isn’t a question. ON PAPER. But when one of “those” girls says it, it’s a question. It’s a request to reveal to you that they are superior, because whatever it is you’re “wasting your life” doing, they want to believe their lives are better. It isn’t a request: it’s a flat-out judgment.

So back to the point I was eventually going to get to: I hate hugs.

And the point that’s an even pointier point: It’s nice to be able to choose friends instead of get stuck with friends, but best-friends-at-camp can be really helpful in hug-hogging you so you don’t have to hug fat people with sweat puddles under their arms!

We put our arms around each-other’s shoulders, grabbed our hats with the other hands, and fucking RAN the gauntlet!!

I found my family in the audience-they couldn’t get out, so I had someone take a photo of me in my cap and gown, a picture of me and Amy in our caps and gowns, and then sauntered the fuck OUT of there, to my car, where I smoked a big fat one, and waited for my family to come tell me where we were going for drinks and dinner.

That was one of the best days of my life. There is nothing like getting away from The Evergreen State College.

No. There is nothing like getting away from The Evergreen State College and knowing for absolute sure that you never have to run the gauntlet through the trees, trying to avoid the falling of hobo piss from the treehouses.