1) In first grade, we were required to write a book. I plagiarized a book and got called out by another student and had to write a new book. The new book was good, and was about a frog named Lucy.
2) In third grade, I wrote 12 different books and won our class' Newberry (for writing) and Caldecot (for illustration) awards.The 12 books featured such plots as: watching chicks hatch with my brother, meeting a new kid who spoke no English (true story, he as in our class), and a story about teenage triplets that was suspiciously similar to Sweet Valley Twins (except that they were triplets).
3) If left unchecked and without sleeping pills, I'd stay up until 4am and sleep until 5pm.
4) I've never been happier than with a pack of cigarettes, a case or two of beer, and a good friend to talk to.
5) I've never been sadder or more self-destructive than after a pack of cigarettes and a case or two of beer.
4) I quit drinking 8/07
5) I quit smoking 12/07
6) A significant portion of my song lyrics come from misheard lyrics. (I hear them in other people's songs and think they're great lyrics and lament the fact that they are already taken, until I realize I've heard them incorrectly. Then I put them in my own songs).
7) My songs are written piece meal--in short spurts of a line or two kept in a journal. After a week or so I come up with some chords and put the lyrics together. They almost always end up fitting together in a meaningful way.
8) My passion in junior high was visual art, but it made me crazy and I had trouble finishing anything.
9) I'm a fairly accomplished pianist, though in 8 years of lessons I averaged about 15 minutes a week in practice time.
10) When I was 17, I performed the piano in a big deal contest at St. Mary's Contest in South Bend, IN. I forgot the piece halfway through and had to start over. The judge's comments included the question, "Do you really like playing this piece?" And I didn't really. It was Mozart's Rondo Alla Turca (last movement of Piano Sonata 11, a "turkish march"). I could play it technically but I felt nothing for it.
11) I'm starting to think that people having psychotic breaks tend to gravitate toward me.
12) I am lactose intolerant. I know what I will look like when I'm pregnant--exactly as I do after a glass of milk or a slice of soft white cheese.
13) I think that "King of Carrot Flowers" by Neutral Milk Hotel is the most uplifting song ever. Second is "Bittersweet Symphony" by The Verve.
14) I was in love with Eddie Vedder when I was 15. I would listen to Vitology over and over and get teary eyed, knowing we would never meet.
15) I refused to kiss a boy until I got my braces off. I got felt up before I'd ever been kissed.
16) My first kiss was horrendous and lasted 20 minutes. I had chap marks around my lips for days. I hated kissing until I was 20 and kissed a boy who was nice and knew what he was doing.
17) For years, my all-time favorite movie has been Reality Bites. I even wrote a 15 page paper on it for film class my junior year of college. But the last time I watched it I wasn't as wild about Ethan Hawke's character as I once was. He's kind of a self-centered dick and I'm not that glad that he and Winona end up together. Perhaps I've matured...
18) I blame my 10 years of smoking on Reality Bites.
19) I have the best job ever but I have trouble getting in before noon.
20) I once locked myself in a broom closet at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (where I work). The building is a giant old mansion that is reputed to be haunted. It was a Friday night and everyone else was gone. I was about to use my cigarette lighter to set off the fire alarm when I got the door open.
21) I drive a 1993 Subaru station wagon. It's the best.
22) I spent a semester at Marlboro College in Vermont, but I lived with very mean boys, one of whom I was in love with. I got into an accident over Christmas break and broke my pelvis. It was a blessing in disguise and I came back to Goshen College in Indiana, where everyone is nice.
23) When I broke my pelvis, I had to crutch around campus in a really embarrassing way. Basically, pelvis first. When I got off the crutches, I walked like I was 9 months pregnant. I found out later there was a rumor that I was pregnant.
24) I've gained 40 pounds in the last two years, but I was sad and skinny 40 pounds ago.
25) I used to be embarrassed of my small feet. I thought they looked like hooves.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Scratch
Write about a time you itched.
In February of 2004, my fiance Kevin and I bought a house. My brother had died in September. My boss/good friend Tricia's advice not to make any changes in the first year after he died seemed silly as I adopted a cat, bought a house, planned a wedding. In a bizarre (and perhaps cosmic, though that word and its meaning always seems a little fruity to me) coincidence Tricia's brother (also her only sibling and best friend) was murdered on the exact same date--Sept. 16--25 years before.
The house was a small bungalow in the quiet and scenic Pittsburgh neighborhood of Stanton Heights. The back room held a wood burning stove and was lit by skylights and a wall of windows that lined the entire space. The small second story deck was surrounded by a magnolia tree, the blooms of which were pink and white and felt soft and smooth when I plucked them. Our house abutted a lush and undeveloped valley and from the deck you could see the city skyline. Fireworks lit up the sky over the valley during Pirates games and highlighted what I most love about Pittsburgh, that it is simultaneously urban and wild.
During winter, I worked on the interior of the house. I painted the kitchen a light blue, the attic practice space light purple, and began to paint the living room a light green until I realized the house was beginning to look like a basket of Easter eggs. But I was proud of the work I had done and the rooms looked good.
When spring hit, I cleared flowerbeds in the front and planted Dutch irises. In the back, along the alley, I planted gladioli. The backyard was a tangle of weeds and scrubby trees. Once it was warm enough, I dressed in one of Kevin's white t-shirts and set to work on the yard. I uncovered a brick patio under inches of mud. I pruned hedges at the edge of the property. And I set to work pulling weeds. Some of the weeds were attached to long underground vines. I pulled them up, wrapping the tough ones around my waist and using my full weight to wrench them from the ground. It was later that I realized I had been enfolding myself in poison ivy.
For the next week, I wore a cotton pajama set from Kmart. I covered myself in calamine lotion. I struggled to sit still when the rash reached my armpits. My arms and legs were covered in a seeping rash. My left arm was swollen to double its size. My only relief was to step into the shower and turn the temperate as high as it would go. The water hit my body and scratched it, scratched it in a way that I could not do with my hands. It hurt but felt nearly orgasmic at the same time. Ultimate satisfaction. A deep itch finally scratched.
After a week, I went to the emergency room, despite my lack of insurance. The doctors asked me three times if I had started any new medications. I hadn't. They couldn't believe that my rash was simple poison ivy. But it was. $300 later I had a prescription for steroids. My arm returned to its standard size and the red began to fade from my skin. Though if one looks closely at press photos I had taken weeks later, a rosy outline can be seen running the length of my arm and into my armpits...
In February of 2004, my fiance Kevin and I bought a house. My brother had died in September. My boss/good friend Tricia's advice not to make any changes in the first year after he died seemed silly as I adopted a cat, bought a house, planned a wedding. In a bizarre (and perhaps cosmic, though that word and its meaning always seems a little fruity to me) coincidence Tricia's brother (also her only sibling and best friend) was murdered on the exact same date--Sept. 16--25 years before.
The house was a small bungalow in the quiet and scenic Pittsburgh neighborhood of Stanton Heights. The back room held a wood burning stove and was lit by skylights and a wall of windows that lined the entire space. The small second story deck was surrounded by a magnolia tree, the blooms of which were pink and white and felt soft and smooth when I plucked them. Our house abutted a lush and undeveloped valley and from the deck you could see the city skyline. Fireworks lit up the sky over the valley during Pirates games and highlighted what I most love about Pittsburgh, that it is simultaneously urban and wild.
During winter, I worked on the interior of the house. I painted the kitchen a light blue, the attic practice space light purple, and began to paint the living room a light green until I realized the house was beginning to look like a basket of Easter eggs. But I was proud of the work I had done and the rooms looked good.
When spring hit, I cleared flowerbeds in the front and planted Dutch irises. In the back, along the alley, I planted gladioli. The backyard was a tangle of weeds and scrubby trees. Once it was warm enough, I dressed in one of Kevin's white t-shirts and set to work on the yard. I uncovered a brick patio under inches of mud. I pruned hedges at the edge of the property. And I set to work pulling weeds. Some of the weeds were attached to long underground vines. I pulled them up, wrapping the tough ones around my waist and using my full weight to wrench them from the ground. It was later that I realized I had been enfolding myself in poison ivy.
For the next week, I wore a cotton pajama set from Kmart. I covered myself in calamine lotion. I struggled to sit still when the rash reached my armpits. My arms and legs were covered in a seeping rash. My left arm was swollen to double its size. My only relief was to step into the shower and turn the temperate as high as it would go. The water hit my body and scratched it, scratched it in a way that I could not do with my hands. It hurt but felt nearly orgasmic at the same time. Ultimate satisfaction. A deep itch finally scratched.
After a week, I went to the emergency room, despite my lack of insurance. The doctors asked me three times if I had started any new medications. I hadn't. They couldn't believe that my rash was simple poison ivy. But it was. $300 later I had a prescription for steroids. My arm returned to its standard size and the red began to fade from my skin. Though if one looks closely at press photos I had taken weeks later, a rosy outline can be seen running the length of my arm and into my armpits...
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Response to "Miss New York Has Everything"
I'm starting to feel like a star-f*cker after my continual mention of the fact that I know Lori, but it has been interesting to re-read a book now that I know the author. It gives me a perspective that I've never had before--to be able to read a text but also have knowledge of the person who created the text, to know what she is like in conversation, to know what was not mentioned in the memoir. The first time I read Miss NY I had not met Lori. I finished the book an hour before my boyfriend Erik (who went to high school with Lori's husband) and I went to their house for dinner. Lori, her husband Dave, and their two children live in Lori's childhood home in Trafford.
I wandered through the little ranch house and felt like I was touring a celebrity home, or Emily's Dickinson's Amherst homestead. I had finished the book so recently that it was fascinating to be in the place where most of the book took place. And to see the transformation that the house has taken on. Lori speaks of the house as a typical Pittsburgh suburban ranch house with no privacy in a nice neighborhood, but the house has been remodeled to include offices for both Lori and Dave, who are both writers. I am fascinated and inspired by Lori's ability to quite literally go back to her roots while at the same time making the space, and the town, her own.
Lori's writing is hilarious--last week I stole my favorite line, in which she speaks of sitting on Santa's lap as a Junior Miss contestant and in the pictures looking, "fat and insane." The producer who worked on my last album is making a video of one of my songs. He lives far away so I've been given the task of filming myself for the project. I have yet to capture a moment in which I don't look like an idiot, or like I weigh 200 pounds. Last week I asked for patience from the producer of the video, noting that I was working hard to capture footage in which I did not look "fat and insane."
As I understand it, Lori has written a sequel to Miss NY, a sequel that documents her relationship with her husband (a fabulous husband who is certainly worth wading through the awful boyfriends she mentions in Miss NY).
Questions I have for Lori are--she has a great David Sedaris-like ability to discern which moments should be funny, and which should not. How does she do this? I've felt inspired to write something funny.
Also, she has a talent for beginning with a point/anecdote and then riffing off of the story with other semi-related stories but never straying from the initial point of the chapter in a distracting way. This is the way that I think--a former boyfriend called my mode of thinking "pinball-esque." I'd like to write in the manner that I really do think.
And, I'm not sure that the story is really about the desire to "make it big" or the experience of being a flight attendant. I'm wondering if these foci were emphasized for the purpose of publication. The book was promoted as chick lit, but it has more in common with Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs than anything else.
I wandered through the little ranch house and felt like I was touring a celebrity home, or Emily's Dickinson's Amherst homestead. I had finished the book so recently that it was fascinating to be in the place where most of the book took place. And to see the transformation that the house has taken on. Lori speaks of the house as a typical Pittsburgh suburban ranch house with no privacy in a nice neighborhood, but the house has been remodeled to include offices for both Lori and Dave, who are both writers. I am fascinated and inspired by Lori's ability to quite literally go back to her roots while at the same time making the space, and the town, her own.
Lori's writing is hilarious--last week I stole my favorite line, in which she speaks of sitting on Santa's lap as a Junior Miss contestant and in the pictures looking, "fat and insane." The producer who worked on my last album is making a video of one of my songs. He lives far away so I've been given the task of filming myself for the project. I have yet to capture a moment in which I don't look like an idiot, or like I weigh 200 pounds. Last week I asked for patience from the producer of the video, noting that I was working hard to capture footage in which I did not look "fat and insane."
As I understand it, Lori has written a sequel to Miss NY, a sequel that documents her relationship with her husband (a fabulous husband who is certainly worth wading through the awful boyfriends she mentions in Miss NY).
Questions I have for Lori are--she has a great David Sedaris-like ability to discern which moments should be funny, and which should not. How does she do this? I've felt inspired to write something funny.
Also, she has a talent for beginning with a point/anecdote and then riffing off of the story with other semi-related stories but never straying from the initial point of the chapter in a distracting way. This is the way that I think--a former boyfriend called my mode of thinking "pinball-esque." I'd like to write in the manner that I really do think.
And, I'm not sure that the story is really about the desire to "make it big" or the experience of being a flight attendant. I'm wondering if these foci were emphasized for the purpose of publication. The book was promoted as chick lit, but it has more in common with Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs than anything else.
Sprints
Do three-minute sprints with each of the following topics:
Cantaloupe
My favorite fruit. I'm not usually a picky eater, but I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to seeds in my fruit. I can't do watermelon. Even seedless makes me nervous. A meticulously de-seeded and cut out of the rind without a speck of rind material and not the slightest bit turned (which makes it tastes suspiciously alcoholic) is a one of my favorite summer memories. Out on the porch of our old house on Roys Avenue, where I lived between the ages of five and nine, until we moved and everything changed and, in my memory, everything began to grow dark. Where my dad took care of us after school. He worked for the school district and got home before us. Gave us snacks of celery with peanut butter and raisins ("ants on a log"). We were allowed to watch half an hour of tv--usually Duck Tales and then were ordered to go out and play, to enjoy the sunshine. When we moved, our house was more expensive, the school district was less rough (less rough on me, which was why we moved) but the district was more expensive. We lived in a modest 60s split-level in a subdivision. Few cars passed. We played tennis in the street, roller skated at the nearby church parking lot, walked around after dark. Parents from other neighborhoods would bring their children to our neighborhood to safely trick or treat. The night before we moved, I sat on the hardwood floor and cried, cried for the change, cried for the house. My dad sat with me, looked a little teary himself and said, "It's been a good house." When we moved, my dad began work at a nursing home and was irritable all the time. His interminable sighing began and my mom hit menopause at 40 and started crying into her spaghetti at dinner and I started to look fondly back at Roys Avenue.
Cow
I have many black and white portraits of cows, taken by my brother a few years before he died. On the occasion of my college graduation, he gave me a card he had made, on which he had drawn a pen and ink sketch of flowers in a vase. I saved the card. The image is a surreal, a unique take on a standard still life. The inscription on the inside of the card said, "Remember me always, your loving brother." Even at the time, it was both cryptic and sweet. Something between an honest expression of genuine affection and a goodbye. He was the one who knew me best, who got a kick out of my incessant talking, my constantly shifting dreams/plans. He really loved me. Inside the card were a series of black and whites of cows he'd photographed in Wisconsin. The composition is striking, creating evocative portraits of black and white spotted cows with numbered tags hanging from their ears.
Breast
In sixth grade I overheard Cory S., the most beautiful boy in our class say disdainfully, "The only girls here who have any breasts are the fat ones." And I remember looking down and thinking, I do and I'm certainly not fat.
Then came college when they just kept growing and growing. And everyone--and I mean everyone, most everyone was Mennonite and related--had pear shapes. I realize that "pear shaped" evokes big thighs but no one had big thighs. As I remember it, most everyone was svelte. Small on top and a little bigger on the bottom, much like the artsier models I'd seen growing up. And there I was, giant on top, tiny on the bottom. And I felt as though I were simply too much. Just to scratch the surface on this issue, but the men at Goshen were egotistical and not particularly interested in girls. It's suspicious in retrospect, that most of them wanted simply to work on their pottery and spend time with each other, but at the time it was devastating. For me but for all of us. No one wanted to date us. We were lucky if we got someone to spend the night with us after heavy, heavy nights of drinking. When I tell my boyfriend Erik about this time in my life he says, "So, a single red-blooded male would have cleaned up at Goshen?" and I say, yes. Most definitely yes.
Window
Looking out my window now, at a quintessentially Pittsburgh scene. I live in a valley, a "hollow" ("holler"?) and look up at red, blue, green houses that with each street stretch higher and higher, ending at an ancient brick, Victorian style school building at the top of the hill. Two stories, all gables, with a long abandoned stove top emerging from the top of the building. We do not live on Mt. Washington. We live three block from "Mt. Washington" but our neighborhood is Duquesne Heights. And the contrast is noticeable. Tiny condos that sell for half a million dollars on Grandview Avenue. Three blocks down the hill, Duquesne Heights where the houses cost $60K. This is quintessentially Pittsburgh. Before Duquesne Heights, I lived in Friendship. A quiet neighborhood with towering single-family owned Victorian houses. Two blocks away, crossing Penn Avenue, was Garfield. A dangerous neighborhood with nuisance bars, few street lights, drug dealers every few blocks.
Urine
The worst public restroom I've ever used was in Havana. I spent nearly every night at what we called "The Pig Bar." It had no discernible name, but the image of a pink pig on the sign out front. I'd drink beer after peso-priced beer and have to visit the bathroom frequently. No toilet seat (common in Cuba), floor coated in urine, no toilet paper (very common in Cuba), and flushable only by quickly pouring a bucket full of water into the bowl, which would activate the flush mechanism. But there was no bucket, no sink, and as far as I could tell hadn't been flushed in days. But I continued to go there. The beer was cheap, it was outside, I could smoke half a pack of Romeo y Julieta cigarettes in peace and chat incessantly to my fellow students and sometimes Cuban students from the University of Havana.
Pillow
I was just eyeing a back pillow that I bought with an image in mind of me sitting up in bed and typing away at my laptop, poems, essays, stories. But now it serves as decoration and a place for my little brindle pitbull to lay his head while he stares out at the window.
Vanilla
Is startlingly expensive. I don't bake very often, but I do make peanut butter cookies from The More With Less Cookbook, a Mennonite staple, a book written in the 70s that presents recipes that use less of the world's resources. Definitely ahead of its time but does include a variety of hilarious anachronisms, including instructions to place hot casserole dishes on your asbestos pad, and to add lard, as though we all have lard hanging around, to a variety of dishes. The recipe requires vanilla. I made a recent trip to Foodland to buy some and was, as said earlier, startled by the price. But I bought it and all eaters of the cookies are grateful.
Cantaloupe
My favorite fruit. I'm not usually a picky eater, but I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to seeds in my fruit. I can't do watermelon. Even seedless makes me nervous. A meticulously de-seeded and cut out of the rind without a speck of rind material and not the slightest bit turned (which makes it tastes suspiciously alcoholic) is a one of my favorite summer memories. Out on the porch of our old house on Roys Avenue, where I lived between the ages of five and nine, until we moved and everything changed and, in my memory, everything began to grow dark. Where my dad took care of us after school. He worked for the school district and got home before us. Gave us snacks of celery with peanut butter and raisins ("ants on a log"). We were allowed to watch half an hour of tv--usually Duck Tales and then were ordered to go out and play, to enjoy the sunshine. When we moved, our house was more expensive, the school district was less rough (less rough on me, which was why we moved) but the district was more expensive. We lived in a modest 60s split-level in a subdivision. Few cars passed. We played tennis in the street, roller skated at the nearby church parking lot, walked around after dark. Parents from other neighborhoods would bring their children to our neighborhood to safely trick or treat. The night before we moved, I sat on the hardwood floor and cried, cried for the change, cried for the house. My dad sat with me, looked a little teary himself and said, "It's been a good house." When we moved, my dad began work at a nursing home and was irritable all the time. His interminable sighing began and my mom hit menopause at 40 and started crying into her spaghetti at dinner and I started to look fondly back at Roys Avenue.
Cow
I have many black and white portraits of cows, taken by my brother a few years before he died. On the occasion of my college graduation, he gave me a card he had made, on which he had drawn a pen and ink sketch of flowers in a vase. I saved the card. The image is a surreal, a unique take on a standard still life. The inscription on the inside of the card said, "Remember me always, your loving brother." Even at the time, it was both cryptic and sweet. Something between an honest expression of genuine affection and a goodbye. He was the one who knew me best, who got a kick out of my incessant talking, my constantly shifting dreams/plans. He really loved me. Inside the card were a series of black and whites of cows he'd photographed in Wisconsin. The composition is striking, creating evocative portraits of black and white spotted cows with numbered tags hanging from their ears.
Breast
In sixth grade I overheard Cory S., the most beautiful boy in our class say disdainfully, "The only girls here who have any breasts are the fat ones." And I remember looking down and thinking, I do and I'm certainly not fat.
Then came college when they just kept growing and growing. And everyone--and I mean everyone, most everyone was Mennonite and related--had pear shapes. I realize that "pear shaped" evokes big thighs but no one had big thighs. As I remember it, most everyone was svelte. Small on top and a little bigger on the bottom, much like the artsier models I'd seen growing up. And there I was, giant on top, tiny on the bottom. And I felt as though I were simply too much. Just to scratch the surface on this issue, but the men at Goshen were egotistical and not particularly interested in girls. It's suspicious in retrospect, that most of them wanted simply to work on their pottery and spend time with each other, but at the time it was devastating. For me but for all of us. No one wanted to date us. We were lucky if we got someone to spend the night with us after heavy, heavy nights of drinking. When I tell my boyfriend Erik about this time in my life he says, "So, a single red-blooded male would have cleaned up at Goshen?" and I say, yes. Most definitely yes.
Window
Looking out my window now, at a quintessentially Pittsburgh scene. I live in a valley, a "hollow" ("holler"?) and look up at red, blue, green houses that with each street stretch higher and higher, ending at an ancient brick, Victorian style school building at the top of the hill. Two stories, all gables, with a long abandoned stove top emerging from the top of the building. We do not live on Mt. Washington. We live three block from "Mt. Washington" but our neighborhood is Duquesne Heights. And the contrast is noticeable. Tiny condos that sell for half a million dollars on Grandview Avenue. Three blocks down the hill, Duquesne Heights where the houses cost $60K. This is quintessentially Pittsburgh. Before Duquesne Heights, I lived in Friendship. A quiet neighborhood with towering single-family owned Victorian houses. Two blocks away, crossing Penn Avenue, was Garfield. A dangerous neighborhood with nuisance bars, few street lights, drug dealers every few blocks.
Urine
The worst public restroom I've ever used was in Havana. I spent nearly every night at what we called "The Pig Bar." It had no discernible name, but the image of a pink pig on the sign out front. I'd drink beer after peso-priced beer and have to visit the bathroom frequently. No toilet seat (common in Cuba), floor coated in urine, no toilet paper (very common in Cuba), and flushable only by quickly pouring a bucket full of water into the bowl, which would activate the flush mechanism. But there was no bucket, no sink, and as far as I could tell hadn't been flushed in days. But I continued to go there. The beer was cheap, it was outside, I could smoke half a pack of Romeo y Julieta cigarettes in peace and chat incessantly to my fellow students and sometimes Cuban students from the University of Havana.
Pillow
I was just eyeing a back pillow that I bought with an image in mind of me sitting up in bed and typing away at my laptop, poems, essays, stories. But now it serves as decoration and a place for my little brindle pitbull to lay his head while he stares out at the window.
Vanilla
Is startlingly expensive. I don't bake very often, but I do make peanut butter cookies from The More With Less Cookbook, a Mennonite staple, a book written in the 70s that presents recipes that use less of the world's resources. Definitely ahead of its time but does include a variety of hilarious anachronisms, including instructions to place hot casserole dishes on your asbestos pad, and to add lard, as though we all have lard hanging around, to a variety of dishes. The recipe requires vanilla. I made a recent trip to Foodland to buy some and was, as said earlier, startled by the price. But I bought it and all eaters of the cookies are grateful.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Exercise: What do you know by heart?
What do you know by heart?
-My childhood best friend Carrie Warkentin's phone number and address.
-The day I had braces put on--2/14/96, around the time everyone else got them off and couldn't stop running their tongues across smooth, braceless front teeth. I insisted on "clear" braces that turned yellow the first time I ate tomato sauce.
-The day I almost got married--June 17, 2006.
-The pledge of allegiance, and one of my dad's favorite stories in which one of his students asks, "Who is Richard Stans?" As in, "To the country, for Richard Stans..."
-Mozart's Piano Sonata 11 in A Major, though I forgot most of it when I played it at a competition at St. Mary's College in 1998.
Things I can't remember:
-My boyfriend Erik's phone number. Last week, I had tags engraved for our pets. They now wear metal hearts around their necks that read 412-781-2902, which is bound to be another Pittsburgher's number.
-My last 3 addresses. Even the house that I owned.
-My own lyrics. Even those I've been singing for years. I take a journal on stage. Last month, I forgot my lyric book at home. Thirty minutes before a show I begged to be let into the venue's basement that was stacked with oversize cans of chick peas and oil and to the ancient Mac they keep in the corner. I printed out what lyrics were saved in my email and spent the night playing only those songs. It has been suggested to me that I can't remember my lyrics because I always have them, that I use them as a crutch. But I feel that having lyrics on stage helps me lose myself in the song. If I don't have to worry about the next verse I can disappear into the chorus and look at my cue cards if I'm too lost to remember my next line.
-My childhood best friend Carrie Warkentin's phone number and address.
-The day I had braces put on--2/14/96, around the time everyone else got them off and couldn't stop running their tongues across smooth, braceless front teeth. I insisted on "clear" braces that turned yellow the first time I ate tomato sauce.
-The day I almost got married--June 17, 2006.
-The pledge of allegiance, and one of my dad's favorite stories in which one of his students asks, "Who is Richard Stans?" As in, "To the country, for Richard Stans..."
-Mozart's Piano Sonata 11 in A Major, though I forgot most of it when I played it at a competition at St. Mary's College in 1998.
Things I can't remember:
-My boyfriend Erik's phone number. Last week, I had tags engraved for our pets. They now wear metal hearts around their necks that read 412-781-2902, which is bound to be another Pittsburgher's number.
-My last 3 addresses. Even the house that I owned.
-My own lyrics. Even those I've been singing for years. I take a journal on stage. Last month, I forgot my lyric book at home. Thirty minutes before a show I begged to be let into the venue's basement that was stacked with oversize cans of chick peas and oil and to the ancient Mac they keep in the corner. I printed out what lyrics were saved in my email and spent the night playing only those songs. It has been suggested to me that I can't remember my lyrics because I always have them, that I use them as a crutch. But I feel that having lyrics on stage helps me lose myself in the song. If I don't have to worry about the next verse I can disappear into the chorus and look at my cue cards if I'm too lost to remember my next line.
Fake Siblings and Grilled Grapefruit
This Christmas David and I sat down to dinner with his parents, both retired school teachers. I glanced across the room to his mother’s elaborate collection of Babushka dolls she’s collected on frequent trips abroad. We dug into our grilled grapefruit, a food I have only had at their house, and his father told me about his upcoming trip to Ghana.
From ages 5-9 David and I spent Sundays together at church, learning Bible stories and sneaking downstairs to play the piano. He was a bit persnickety, a bit spoiled, and not my favorite playmate. His family switched churches later and I didn't see him until 12 years later when we climbed onto a plane bound for Havana.
My Spanish was passable but I’d speak too softly, and would be left communicating with cab drivers and hosts in a rudimentary sign language. It wasn't until David and I became friends that I was able to connect. David's vocabulary was vast but his accent poor, his words coming out in flat midwestern tones. I, in contrast, am an excellent mimic but have no patience for languages. With my flawless accent and David's knowledge of verb conjugation, we combined into a veritable dynamic duo, a top notch exchange student. And with our fair complexions and matching Caribbean sun-bleached hair people often mistook us for siblings.
We spent our evenings out, drinking Cuban beer, of which there are two varieties--Cristal a pale ale that tastes like Bud Light and Bucanero, which is darker. We'd often spend the evening at what we called "The New Year's Bar," a bar in Havana that had tinsel and "Happy New Year" banners up in June. We made friends with the bartender and chatted about Havana, Miami, and other topics we knew the words for.
As I sampled the grilled salmon David's father had made I said, “David is lucky to have inherited your adventurous spirit, your love of travel.”
At this David's mother, who looks very much like my own, laughed and began to tell me about a trip they took to Denmark's Legoland amusement park when David was ten. After a week of Danish cuisine--cabbage, barley, potatoes and beetroot—-they came upon a hot dog stand. David took hold of his mother’s sleeve and dragged her to the stand in the middle of a crowded city square. When the vendor handed him a bright red sausage the size of an index finger he chucked it to the ground and screamed, “Can’t these people even make a decent hot dog?!”
I smiled and tussled what is left of David’s hair. Despite all our time drinking together, we've never ended up in bed together, and neither of us has the desire to do so. There is a magnetism that pulls us together, but it is not sexual. When I visited him at college he told me he was thinking of introducing me to friends as his sister, and since then he's called me his "fake sister." David is an only child who loves the notion of siblinghood and now that I've lost my only sibling the feeling is mutual.
From ages 5-9 David and I spent Sundays together at church, learning Bible stories and sneaking downstairs to play the piano. He was a bit persnickety, a bit spoiled, and not my favorite playmate. His family switched churches later and I didn't see him until 12 years later when we climbed onto a plane bound for Havana.
My Spanish was passable but I’d speak too softly, and would be left communicating with cab drivers and hosts in a rudimentary sign language. It wasn't until David and I became friends that I was able to connect. David's vocabulary was vast but his accent poor, his words coming out in flat midwestern tones. I, in contrast, am an excellent mimic but have no patience for languages. With my flawless accent and David's knowledge of verb conjugation, we combined into a veritable dynamic duo, a top notch exchange student. And with our fair complexions and matching Caribbean sun-bleached hair people often mistook us for siblings.
We spent our evenings out, drinking Cuban beer, of which there are two varieties--Cristal a pale ale that tastes like Bud Light and Bucanero, which is darker. We'd often spend the evening at what we called "The New Year's Bar," a bar in Havana that had tinsel and "Happy New Year" banners up in June. We made friends with the bartender and chatted about Havana, Miami, and other topics we knew the words for.
As I sampled the grilled salmon David's father had made I said, “David is lucky to have inherited your adventurous spirit, your love of travel.”
At this David's mother, who looks very much like my own, laughed and began to tell me about a trip they took to Denmark's Legoland amusement park when David was ten. After a week of Danish cuisine--cabbage, barley, potatoes and beetroot—-they came upon a hot dog stand. David took hold of his mother’s sleeve and dragged her to the stand in the middle of a crowded city square. When the vendor handed him a bright red sausage the size of an index finger he chucked it to the ground and screamed, “Can’t these people even make a decent hot dog?!”
I smiled and tussled what is left of David’s hair. Despite all our time drinking together, we've never ended up in bed together, and neither of us has the desire to do so. There is a magnetism that pulls us together, but it is not sexual. When I visited him at college he told me he was thinking of introducing me to friends as his sister, and since then he's called me his "fake sister." David is an only child who loves the notion of siblinghood and now that I've lost my only sibling the feeling is mutual.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Response to Swamp Songs
This was my second time through Swamp Songs. The material is of course still powerful, but I was able to read this time with an eye for craft. I have much to say about this text and will most likely be blogging about it more in the future but for now I think I will focus on elements of craft that I noticed this time through.
The author's choice of tense is interesting in this text. For example, in "Eye of the Storm," the author begins in past tense. "It was 1965 when Hurricane Betsy hit..." (6), but in the next paragraph the author shifts to present tense: "Today, more than thirty years later, I'm visiting my mother..." Also in "Controlling Francois"--"I was moved by how well he could write," is followed by a story told in present tense, "My family is having their traditional Christmas Eve party" (63).
The choice to use shifting tenses is effective in Swamp Songs--when the tense shifts to present the reader knows that this moment is important. The portions of the text in past tense set us up for the anecdotes told in present tense. And what is really achieved by this choice is that the author is truly IN her memories.
"Controlling Francois" is one of the most successful pieces in the book. The subject matter is powerful, but the author manages not to come across as maudlin, a feat that is perhaps only possible after some time has passed. Also, the comparison of the author's autobiography to the landscape is particularly successful here: "We are not unlike the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi, my brother and I...making our way to the same end through different routes" (77). This comparison is spot-on, the events of the author's life are not being stretched to fit the nature writing motif of the book.
Another craft-related observation I had was in "Eye of the Storm." The author takes us into a memory of her childhood and uses the lines, "I couldn't have understood then, but I think I was feeling..." and "I know I felt _____ (my dog ate the last word of this sentence) as a child, though I could not have expressed it" (8). These lines serve as a device for inserting higher level thinking into a child's perspective. This device is something I anticipate "stealing."
And perhaps a list for myself on what was powerful to me in Swamp Songs, portions of the book that I would like to reflect on and write about in the near future:
This was my third time through "Controlling Francois." The story is similar to my own experience in the loss of my brother. The story is not precisely similar in that my brother had no problems until schizophrenia began to eat away at his brain at age 17. He was the one who we all thought would make it, the one who would escape the family curse of mental illness. The closeness and the complicated nature of familial intimacy is familiar however. "There's something about our spirits that rhymes" (63) is a quote that I'd like to reflect on in the weeks to come. I think that this closeness is born of a complicated upbringing. I had a depressed, emotionally inconsistent and sometimes psychotic father and a depressed mother who routinely cried at dinner--though no one drank, hardly a drop. As someone who quit drinking right before it killed her, I am shocked that neither of my parents sought refuge in oblivion.
As Dan grew into a man, I was drawn to him. I'd spent years being conflicted and confused about my father and Dan was the only one who knew what it was like, the only one who was there. And now he's gone and it's this loss that has hit me hardest. I was lost, then found for a few years, then even more lost after his death.
I am also intrigued by the line, "I whisper something in his ear, feel empty and stupid, and walk out of the room" (71). I am curious--does the author not remember what she said or has she chosen not to tell. I remember exactly what I wrote in the note that I slipped into my brother's coffin. I'm willing to give away a lot in my writing, but I'm not sure that I want to give this away.
"I've come to understand this nakedness as a mask of sorts, nakedness a shield for nakedness. After all, if it appears you have revealed all, no one will be curious about what you have not revealed" (20). Masks and false intimacy have been a pattern for me. I have always considered my inability to hold back, my compulsion to reveal too much to be a fault of mine but it's been pointed out to me recently that I am doing just this--using this calculated nakedness as a shield for what lies beneath.
The author's choice of tense is interesting in this text. For example, in "Eye of the Storm," the author begins in past tense. "It was 1965 when Hurricane Betsy hit..." (6), but in the next paragraph the author shifts to present tense: "Today, more than thirty years later, I'm visiting my mother..." Also in "Controlling Francois"--"I was moved by how well he could write," is followed by a story told in present tense, "My family is having their traditional Christmas Eve party" (63).
The choice to use shifting tenses is effective in Swamp Songs--when the tense shifts to present the reader knows that this moment is important. The portions of the text in past tense set us up for the anecdotes told in present tense. And what is really achieved by this choice is that the author is truly IN her memories.
"Controlling Francois" is one of the most successful pieces in the book. The subject matter is powerful, but the author manages not to come across as maudlin, a feat that is perhaps only possible after some time has passed. Also, the comparison of the author's autobiography to the landscape is particularly successful here: "We are not unlike the Atchafalaya and the Mississippi, my brother and I...making our way to the same end through different routes" (77). This comparison is spot-on, the events of the author's life are not being stretched to fit the nature writing motif of the book.
Another craft-related observation I had was in "Eye of the Storm." The author takes us into a memory of her childhood and uses the lines, "I couldn't have understood then, but I think I was feeling..." and "I know I felt _____ (my dog ate the last word of this sentence) as a child, though I could not have expressed it" (8). These lines serve as a device for inserting higher level thinking into a child's perspective. This device is something I anticipate "stealing."
And perhaps a list for myself on what was powerful to me in Swamp Songs, portions of the book that I would like to reflect on and write about in the near future:
This was my third time through "Controlling Francois." The story is similar to my own experience in the loss of my brother. The story is not precisely similar in that my brother had no problems until schizophrenia began to eat away at his brain at age 17. He was the one who we all thought would make it, the one who would escape the family curse of mental illness. The closeness and the complicated nature of familial intimacy is familiar however. "There's something about our spirits that rhymes" (63) is a quote that I'd like to reflect on in the weeks to come. I think that this closeness is born of a complicated upbringing. I had a depressed, emotionally inconsistent and sometimes psychotic father and a depressed mother who routinely cried at dinner--though no one drank, hardly a drop. As someone who quit drinking right before it killed her, I am shocked that neither of my parents sought refuge in oblivion.
As Dan grew into a man, I was drawn to him. I'd spent years being conflicted and confused about my father and Dan was the only one who knew what it was like, the only one who was there. And now he's gone and it's this loss that has hit me hardest. I was lost, then found for a few years, then even more lost after his death.
I am also intrigued by the line, "I whisper something in his ear, feel empty and stupid, and walk out of the room" (71). I am curious--does the author not remember what she said or has she chosen not to tell. I remember exactly what I wrote in the note that I slipped into my brother's coffin. I'm willing to give away a lot in my writing, but I'm not sure that I want to give this away.
"I've come to understand this nakedness as a mask of sorts, nakedness a shield for nakedness. After all, if it appears you have revealed all, no one will be curious about what you have not revealed" (20). Masks and false intimacy have been a pattern for me. I have always considered my inability to hold back, my compulsion to reveal too much to be a fault of mine but it's been pointed out to me recently that I am doing just this--using this calculated nakedness as a shield for what lies beneath.
Monday, January 12, 2009
34DDDD's and waiting
I didn't know they made bras in size 34DDDD until I was in the market for one.
I worked at a department store in high school, a regional chain called Elder-Beerman at the Concord Mall in Elkhart, Indiana. I dreaded the "May I help you?" portion of my job, so I kept myself busy folding the table of turtlenecks that was continually in disarray and helping the Lingerie Dept. manager reshelve bras that had fallen from the racks. The manager was a heavy woman in her 40s who wore pantyhose and black tennis shoes and kept a yellow cloth measuring tape around her neck. She gave me directions and then left me alone. The task was interminable, untangling bras straps and slipping them onto tiny plastic hangers, but I liked the quiet. Occasionally I'd stumble onto a gigantic bra at the back of a row--a bra the size of my head.
Ten years later, I placed my bra on my head in an attempt to be funny and found that it fit perfectly. Whereas an average sized bra would rest on one's head like a yamaka, mine fit more like a knit cap that could have kept my ears warm in winter.
For years I'd hated my breasts and would cringe when I'd unhook my bra for a boy and hear, "What are those DD's?" To which I'd reply, "At least," as he gripped them and smiled. And shopping was quite possibly worse, my upper half something like a 12, my lower half more like a 6.
It's been six months since I had surgery to reduce them. Plastic surgery, which sounds as absurdly grown-up and bourgeois as the fact that my boyfriend is a "divorcee."
I've been told the surgery can take up to a year to achieve a final result, and I've begun to repeat this to myself when I am irritated at the fact that my breasts still lay heavy against my chest and buttoning my coat is not always possible. My breasts are still big, not much smaller than they were, and this fall has been a season of waiting, something like Advent, for the swelling to go down.
So for now I spread shea butter on the thick purple scars that run around my nipples and down the front of my breasts. And as I do I am resassured that the sensation is odd, not unlike touching a twisted and swollen ankle. I can feel the fluid between my skin and flesh and hope against hope that when the swelling goes down, I will be happy.
I worked at a department store in high school, a regional chain called Elder-Beerman at the Concord Mall in Elkhart, Indiana. I dreaded the "May I help you?" portion of my job, so I kept myself busy folding the table of turtlenecks that was continually in disarray and helping the Lingerie Dept. manager reshelve bras that had fallen from the racks. The manager was a heavy woman in her 40s who wore pantyhose and black tennis shoes and kept a yellow cloth measuring tape around her neck. She gave me directions and then left me alone. The task was interminable, untangling bras straps and slipping them onto tiny plastic hangers, but I liked the quiet. Occasionally I'd stumble onto a gigantic bra at the back of a row--a bra the size of my head.
Ten years later, I placed my bra on my head in an attempt to be funny and found that it fit perfectly. Whereas an average sized bra would rest on one's head like a yamaka, mine fit more like a knit cap that could have kept my ears warm in winter.
For years I'd hated my breasts and would cringe when I'd unhook my bra for a boy and hear, "What are those DD's?" To which I'd reply, "At least," as he gripped them and smiled. And shopping was quite possibly worse, my upper half something like a 12, my lower half more like a 6.
It's been six months since I had surgery to reduce them. Plastic surgery, which sounds as absurdly grown-up and bourgeois as the fact that my boyfriend is a "divorcee."
I've been told the surgery can take up to a year to achieve a final result, and I've begun to repeat this to myself when I am irritated at the fact that my breasts still lay heavy against my chest and buttoning my coat is not always possible. My breasts are still big, not much smaller than they were, and this fall has been a season of waiting, something like Advent, for the swelling to go down.
So for now I spread shea butter on the thick purple scars that run around my nipples and down the front of my breasts. And as I do I am resassured that the sensation is odd, not unlike touching a twisted and swollen ankle. I can feel the fluid between my skin and flesh and hope against hope that when the swelling goes down, I will be happy.
Friday, January 09, 2009
Exercise: What do you know by heart?
What do you know by heart?:
-My childhood best friend Carrie Warkentin's phone number and address.
-The day I had braces put on--2/14/06, around the time everyone else got them off and couldn't stop running their tongues across smooth, braceless front teeth. I insisted on "clear" braces that turned yellow the first time I ate tomato sauce.
-The day I almost got married--June 17, 2006.
-The pledge of allegiance, and one of my dad's favorite stories in which one of his students asks, "Who is Richard Stans?" As in, "To the country, for Richard Stans..."
-Mozart's Piano Sonata 11 in A Major, though I forgot most of it when I played it at a competition at St. Mary's College in 1998.
Things I can't remember:
-My boyfriend Erik's phone number. Last week, I had tags engraved for our pets. They now wear metal hearts around their necks that read 412-781-2902, which is bound to another Pittsburgher's number.
-My last 3 addresses. Even the house that I owned.
-My own lyrics. Even those I've been singing for years. I take a journal on stage. Last month, I forgot my lyric book at home. Thirty minutes before a show I begged to be let into the venue's basement that was stacked with oversize cans of chick peas and oil and to the ancient Mac they keep in the corner. I printed out what lyrics were saved in my email and spent the night playing only those songs. It has been suggested to me that I can't remember my lyrics because I always have them, that I use them as a crutch. But I feel that having lyrics on stage helps me lose myself in the song. If I don't have to worry about the next verse I can disappear into the chorus and look at my cue cards if I'm too lost to remember my next line.
-My childhood best friend Carrie Warkentin's phone number and address.
-The day I had braces put on--2/14/06, around the time everyone else got them off and couldn't stop running their tongues across smooth, braceless front teeth. I insisted on "clear" braces that turned yellow the first time I ate tomato sauce.
-The day I almost got married--June 17, 2006.
-The pledge of allegiance, and one of my dad's favorite stories in which one of his students asks, "Who is Richard Stans?" As in, "To the country, for Richard Stans..."
-Mozart's Piano Sonata 11 in A Major, though I forgot most of it when I played it at a competition at St. Mary's College in 1998.
Things I can't remember:
-My boyfriend Erik's phone number. Last week, I had tags engraved for our pets. They now wear metal hearts around their necks that read 412-781-2902, which is bound to another Pittsburgher's number.
-My last 3 addresses. Even the house that I owned.
-My own lyrics. Even those I've been singing for years. I take a journal on stage. Last month, I forgot my lyric book at home. Thirty minutes before a show I begged to be let into the venue's basement that was stacked with oversize cans of chick peas and oil and to the ancient Mac they keep in the corner. I printed out what lyrics were saved in my email and spent the night playing only those songs. It has been suggested to me that I can't remember my lyrics because I always have them, that I use them as a crutch. But I feel that having lyrics on stage helps me lose myself in the song. If I don't have to worry about the next verse I can disappear into the chorus and look at my cue cards if I'm too lost to remember my next line.
Tell me everything you remember about a radio.
Tell me everything you remember about a radio. Go. Ten minutes.
Between the ages of six and nine, I lived on the corner of Roys and Cleveland Aves. in Elkhart, Indiana. On my dresser, I had a Lloyd brand clock radio that had been my father's in college. The radio had a faux wood finish and a "flip" style clock face. Each minute, the numbers flipped over with a loud click.
My friend Carrie had a similar Lloyd brand radio and after school we'd tune in to U93 which played top 40 hits and used "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship as its theme song. We'd turn down the volume when provacative hits came on like "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred and "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc (that included the lyrics "She got AIDS from doing the wild thing").
I listened to the radio before bed and at least once a week, I'd hear the unmistakable voice of Lt. Dave Shock from Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers was a regular spot that recounted local unsolved crimes in detail, and at the end asked residents to call in with anonymous tips. Each segment ended with its theme song--"Crime Stoppers, Crime Stoppers, no one will know your name!"--and the words, "Crime Stoppers does not have caller ID."
I'd lie in bed, paralyzed by tales of cold case murders and robberies. When I finally crossed the room to switch off the radio, I'd run. One night a spot came on about the murder of Kari Nunemaker, a sixteen year old whose murder was still unsolved. Kari was a sophomore at Bethany Christian High School, the Mennonite high school in our town, and had disappeared at a railroad crossing while waiting for the train to pass.
Her body was found a week later in Bonneyville Mill County Park, near the observation tower I'd climbed many times before. Not long after my fourth grade class prepared to take a field trip to Bonneyville Mill, where we would go sledding. I remember feeling terror on the bus, afraid I would run over a body under a snow mound as I sailed down the hill on my plastic sled. Kari's murder hit the Mennonite community hard, but I was the only Mennonite in my class and I don't think that anyone else understood the significance of the place.
This year, seventeen years after Kari's death, a 58-year-old man was convicted of the crime, primarily on DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence in California for rape.
Between the ages of six and nine, I lived on the corner of Roys and Cleveland Aves. in Elkhart, Indiana. On my dresser, I had a Lloyd brand clock radio that had been my father's in college. The radio had a faux wood finish and a "flip" style clock face. Each minute, the numbers flipped over with a loud click.
My friend Carrie had a similar Lloyd brand radio and after school we'd tune in to U93 which played top 40 hits and used "We Built This City" by Jefferson Starship as its theme song. We'd turn down the volume when provacative hits came on like "I'm Too Sexy" by Right Said Fred and "Wild Thing" by Tone Loc (that included the lyrics "She got AIDS from doing the wild thing").
I listened to the radio before bed and at least once a week, I'd hear the unmistakable voice of Lt. Dave Shock from Crime Stoppers. Crime Stoppers was a regular spot that recounted local unsolved crimes in detail, and at the end asked residents to call in with anonymous tips. Each segment ended with its theme song--"Crime Stoppers, Crime Stoppers, no one will know your name!"--and the words, "Crime Stoppers does not have caller ID."
I'd lie in bed, paralyzed by tales of cold case murders and robberies. When I finally crossed the room to switch off the radio, I'd run. One night a spot came on about the murder of Kari Nunemaker, a sixteen year old whose murder was still unsolved. Kari was a sophomore at Bethany Christian High School, the Mennonite high school in our town, and had disappeared at a railroad crossing while waiting for the train to pass.
Her body was found a week later in Bonneyville Mill County Park, near the observation tower I'd climbed many times before. Not long after my fourth grade class prepared to take a field trip to Bonneyville Mill, where we would go sledding. I remember feeling terror on the bus, afraid I would run over a body under a snow mound as I sailed down the hill on my plastic sled. Kari's murder hit the Mennonite community hard, but I was the only Mennonite in my class and I don't think that anyone else understood the significance of the place.
This year, seventeen years after Kari's death, a 58-year-old man was convicted of the crime, primarily on DNA evidence. He was already serving a life sentence in California for rape.
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Vulnerabilty and The Enneagram
I surprised myself tonight when I answered the question, "What is the biggest problem you face in your writing?" with, "I have difficultly being vulnerable." In my writing, I disclose lots but there's much more that I'm holding back. Everything I reveal is calculated. I disclose facts and paint pictures--the pictures are evocative but I'm hardly in them. I struggle with competing desires--to reveal absolutely everything and to withdraw. I want so much to be understood, but at the same time I hate to feel vulnerable.
So, moving in the direction of vulnerability I share my affection for The Enneagram, a personality theory that I've studied off and on for a very long time.
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
The theory includes nine different personality types and a person is categorized not by his or her actions, but by his/her motivations. So, in essence, two people could be doing the exact same job but for decidedly different reasons.
And this is the personality type that I most certainly am, a Four:
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else. While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. Fours typically have problems with a negative self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate for this by cultivating a Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image which is built up primarily in their imaginations. In the course of their lives, Fours may try several different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences, or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface, they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions.
So, moving in the direction of vulnerability I share my affection for The Enneagram, a personality theory that I've studied off and on for a very long time.
http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/
The theory includes nine different personality types and a person is categorized not by his or her actions, but by his/her motivations. So, in essence, two people could be doing the exact same job but for decidedly different reasons.
And this is the personality type that I most certainly am, a Four:
Fours are self-aware, sensitive, and reserved. They are emotionally honest, creative, and personal, but can also be moody and self-conscious. Withholding themselves from others due to feeling vulnerable and defective, they can also feel disdainful and exempt from ordinary ways of living. They withdraw to protect their self-image, to take care of emotional needs before attending to anything else. While it is true that Fours often feel different from others, they do not really want to be alone. They may feel socially awkward or self-conscious, but they deeply wish to connect with people who understand them and their feelings. The “romantics” of the Enneagram, they long for someone to come into their lives and appreciate the secret self that they have privately nurtured and hidden from the world. Fours typically have problems with a negative self-image and chronically low self-esteem. They attempt to compensate for this by cultivating a Fantasy Self—an idealized self-image which is built up primarily in their imaginations. In the course of their lives, Fours may try several different identities on for size, basing them on styles, preferences, or qualities they find attractive in others. But underneath the surface, they still feel uncertain about who they really are. The problem is that they base their identity largely on their feelings. When Fours look inward they see a kaleidoscopic, ever-shifting pattern of emotional reactions.
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