The auto-fill function on most junk mail always manages to get my name perfect; they do not add “r”s or try three different variations in quick succession.  Printed exclaimations and italics do not convey the same manic “camp counselor” enthusiasm of someone who gets paid on commission.  Worst of all, you can’t ever respond to Racq D. Smoothz, whose emails may have the subject heading “hi” but always mean “hi, if you have ever had erectile dysfunction, boy, do I have a blue pill for you.”

Essentially, junk mail does not have the potential for mischief that a phone call does.  Take for example this interchange between my dad and a telemarketer from the Meat-of-the-Month-Club:

Telemarketer (talking faster than the Micro Machine guy, so he could finish the marketing script out before anyone hangs up): Do you have a few minutes to take a quick survey?

Dad (brightly and cheerily): Why, yes! I would love to take a survey!

Telemarketer (unnerved by the first positive response of the day, but trained to proceed with his speech no matter what the other person says): Great! First question: How many people live at the residence?

Dad (lying through his teeth): Twelve! The Missus and me and our six boys and two girls

Telemarketer (chuckling with fake friendliness): Wow, that is quite a big family.  I am sure you spend a lot of time driving to the grocery store to feed so many people.

Dad: Oh, sure, you know how growing kids can just eat and eat.  We go to the grocery every other day, it seems.

Telemarketer: Do you ever think how much time you could save if you could have some of those groceries delivered directly to your door? Like meat, for example.  Think how much better it would be, knowing that you would not need to shop for meat at the store again.  In fact, we have a number of plans that would be perfect for your family. <Insert sales pitch about different meat membership plans>

Dad (sounding completely serious and excited):  You know, you have totally convinced me.  I mean, it sounds like this meat-of-the-month club would be perfect for our family.  We have so many kids and, as you point out, we do waste a lot of time going to the store.  It would be so much easier to open the front door and see a bunch of steaks sitting in a cooler on our front porch.

Telemarketer: Great news! Let’s go ahead and get this processed so your order can be shipped to you right away.  <Begins to fill out order form>  Ok, Mr. IncomprehensibleLastName, now, I will just need to get your payment information.  Would you like to pay by check, money order, or credit card?

Dad (deadpans): Do you accept food stamps?

Dial tone……………………………………………………………..

There is no satisfaction, comparable to a well-earned dial tone,  in junk mail.  Pressing delete or tossing an envelope in the trash just isn’t quite as fun.

He came into our home 12 years ago and had already been passed around five different families.  He had been chained up outside, beaten, starved, taunted, and finally rescued.  His name changed four times; he began life as Bobo, he learned to answer to a kick against his ribs, was rechristened Rocky before he got the name that stuck.  Danny Boy, Danny Man, D Man, D Monster.

All of that abuse and neglect had taken its toll.  We could not even be in the same room when he was given food, we could not hold him the way we did our other dog, we could not take him on walks.  All of these things illicited a deep, low growl and an intimation that he was always prepared to fight.

His first Christmas, a month and half after he waddled into our home, he bit me.  He was this close to moving to his sixth home in his first year of life.  I argued that he should stay, I had inadvertently provoked him.  I had forgotten that his first memories were of cruelty and that a game that my first dog loved would seem threatening  to him.

Time went on and he settled in.

We discovered that he was stubborn, mischievous, and very smart.  Any barricade we devised to keep him from one of the bedrooms would be dismantled by his ingenuity.  His little black nose would push aside chairs and his stout body would hop over horizontal speakers.  My mother and he were locked in a battle of wills.  She was Javert and he Jean Valjean, she was Wile E. Coyote and he the Road Runner, or maybe they were both in a Michael Mann film where the law and the criminal share the same way of thinking.  They could have appraised each other coolly, like Al Pacino and Robert de Niro in Heat, separated only by the Formica finished table at the diner.

We knew something was wrong when he stopped barking.  This is an activity which has occupied his every waking hour since he was a puppy.  His bark is on the answering machine (I just tried calling a few minutes ago, and his two sharp barks still interrupt my brother’s message.  A reminder of a sound that is gone).

His most recent seizue was a bad one.  He could not eat any more and his ribs poked through his coat, like they did when he was starved as a puppy.  So my brother took him in to the vet and now our dog is gone.

I laughed at my older brother when I saw a picture of my mother, pregnant and smoking.  I started taunting him by calling him a cigarette baby.  It was less funny, when he informed me that I was the one concealed under the end-of-disco print maternity dress.

My mother quit smoking when I was six, but I vividly recall it as a traumatic time.  Mommy was not happy without her cancer sticks.  After she had made it through the worst of the withdrawal, my brother went into the pantry and rattled a cardboard box.  He called out to her that he found a lost carton and there was one pack left.  I ran around the corner in a fit of anxiety, fretting that she would seize the pack and would undo all that hard work.  My mother reassured me by letting me know that, if there had been even a single cigarette left in the house, she would have found it three weeks ago during the peak of her cravings.  Sure enough, my brother was shaking a box of crackers, trying to determine whether she had quit for good or just for the month.  She passed his test and has never smoked again.

My father, on the other hand, has a several-pack-a-day habit.  It is expensive, he hates being chained to it, he spends every moment trying to make sure his kids would not start smoking, and keeps waiting for the miracle science that will wrest him from tobacco’s snares.

When I imagine me smoking, I experience what a cult follower must feel.  My response is automatic and programmed.  No.  No way.  Disgusting.

I find, however, that underneath this Pavlovian conditioning is a certain sentimentality towards the cigarette and cigar.

As my childhood was spent around smokers, I sometimes have positive associations with smoking too.   I, like many children of my era, bought candy cigarettes and fell victim to the strategy of big business.  Worse, I exceeded any expectations they may have had in hooking kids on cigarette-themed sweets.  When the money was tight and candy was not in the household budget, I did the equivalent of “rolling” my own pretend cigarettes.  I would take pretzel rods and pretend to smoke them.  This was an elaborate ritual that involved great attention to detail.    I would carve a line around one end, so it resembled the filter mark on my neighbor’s Parliaments.  I would bite off the other end and “ash” the pretzel dust.  I never dreamed of smoking cigarettes, but I loved pretending to.

Beyond that, my grandmother oversaw a 6-person cigar-making factory and my uncle owned a smoke shop. The first perfume I knew was the sweet and smokey scent of tobacco leaves.

I was entranced, as the factory workers handled the dark and damp leaves, peeling the edges up and rolling them.  Each thin layer swaddled the next, building in dimension until a single cigar was produced.  Their expert hands moved in a quick and soft dance.

My yearly road trip to visit my cousins began with a stop at my uncle’s store, before it went bankrupt.  (My grandmother’s business suffered, too, in the era before Arnold Schwarzenegger graced the covers of Cigar Aficionado.)  Before the market for cigars crashed and before it was later resurrected, all roadtrips led to the smoke shop.  Summertime and adventures were caught up with images of pipes and cigars and the sound of the shop bell ringing when the door swung open.

I had forgotten all about these things because life has diverted my mind, distracting me with thoughts about now, rather than with memories of then.  But, in a fit of procrastination, I indulged in a Mad Men marathon and I found myself wanting to watch smoke draw patterns in the air.  I wanted to exhale in a long sigh, to tap my cigarette on the ashtray, and to let those toxic chemicals relax my brain.

I bought a cheap cigar from the gas station the other day.  I listened, as the clerk told me in conspiratorial tones that  there is a common local practice of cutting open the cigar, filling it with pot, and resealing it.  The cigar scent masked the pot, making it easier to smoke in public.

As cheap as my Dutch Masters cigar was, it still carried that distinctive perfume and I got lost in memories of then. I hope this is not the start of another nasty habit.

Their group was so large that their appointments had to be staggered and, as a result, there were rotating shifts of women splitting time between the dimly lit ladies lounge and the nail bar.  The matron-of honor was in the waiting room with two other women, while the bride-to-be was mid-service in the room next door.  Thankfully, she was far from her friends’ conversation.

The matron-of-honor walked to one of the plush chaise lounges and sat down heavily, complaining that she had nothing to do.  If she had known she was going to have to wait, she would have brought her work.  Although the music and lighting was designed to aid relaxation, her jaw was rigidly set.

The two women who flanked her were occupied with their phone screens and the most recent copy of UsWeekly, so only managed to grunt in sympathy.   She leaned back against the lounger, but could not get comfortable because she was keenly aware that her expensive dress was wrinkling.  She sighed again and then jumped up to retrieve her phone from the lockers.  When she returned, she texted and the room lapsed into silence.

There must not have been enough to keep her busy, especially as her phone could not access the internet.  She snapped it shut, sighed again, and then looked around the room.  She turned to the woman on her right and, in a sweet voice that attempted to play off a serious request as a joke, said: “I need Julie to be my ghostwriter for my speech tomorrow.”

Julie looked up from her magazine and gave her a questioning look.  The M-o-H continued, “I didn’t even think that I would need to give a speech at the wedding until I saw that program today.  I have no idea what I am going to say.  And, well,  you are the writer of the group.  Maybe you have some ideas and can help me organize my thoughts?”  Poor Julie.  She did not realize that she was the Anthony Michael Hall to this woman’s Molly Ringwald.  She was moments away from being asked to stay after detention to write the essay for the group.

Julie, however, loved the faint praise and became animated.  They began brainstorming possible toasts for the wedding the next day.  The matron of honor offered her tentative plans for what she wanted to cover: “I was thinking I would talk about Alicia.  Ummm, and then I would talk about Michael.  Umm and then I planned on talking about how they are together.”  She did not expand on this theme, nor was she aware that she had not said anything of use.  Julie merely blinked.

Realizing that she did not have much to go on, Julie suggested a variation on her own plan to use movie quotes to describe the couple’s love.  The M-o-H harrumphed, “But that is your thing, what am I going to do?”  Julie gestured lamely, unable to come up with anything.  “Uhh, how about quoting from songs instead?  You could say something like, ‘I found this beautiful quote and it speaks to the love Alicia and Michael share…’ or ‘In the immortal words of’ and then quote from, like, an 80′s song or something.”

This seemed funny and easy enough, so it replaced the M-o-H’s original plan.  Unfortunately, it had three major flaws.  None of the women knew much about music in general and they knew even less about their friend’s tastes. This perhaps would not be so bad, but they needed to work hard to find a song that would be appropriate for what sounded like a tumultuous and highly problematic relationship. It also seemed clear that they did not like the man their friend was marrying.

Sadly, every song they could come up with referenced the bad parts of the couple’s relationship.  For example, they remembered that the bride’s favorite band was Bon Jovi, so they thought “I’ll Be There for You” would be a perfect choice.  The matron-of-honor barked at Cheryl, the woman on her left, and told her to locate the lyrics online.  The very first lines made it clear that this song would not do:

I guess this time you’re really leaving
I heard your suitcase say goodbye
And as my broken heart lies bleeding
You say true love is suicide

The woman coughed out the last line.  They move on to “Living on a Prayer,” which they remembered for its hopeful promise of: “take my hand and we’ll make it I swear.”   Unfortunately, this chorus supports a bleak storyline where a young couple is pushed to the brink because of money problems.  Although their friend is not exactly like “Gina, the waitress” trying to support her man during a union strike, financial snags have plagued her relationship with Michael.

Beyond the potential financial drama, these lyrics do not exactly set the right tone for building a life with someone:

Tommy’s got his six string in hock
Now he’s holding in what he used
To make it talk – so tough, it’s tough
Gina dreams of running away
When she cries in the night
Tommy whispers: Baby it’s okay, someday

The ladies nixed the song and the band, deciding to change tack.  They switched to Journey, remembering that “Don’t Stop Believing” used to be the bride’s ringtone.  They also realized that it could put a positive spin on the couple’s rocky relationship.  They got excited and felt the matter was close to being settled.

That is until Cheryl summarized the song’s story.

Even though a small town girl living in a lonely world takes a train to anywhere, it is unclear whether she will be one of the ones who “wins” or one of the ones who “loses.”  At this point, the M-o-H got impatient with the task and decided that, even if the story was depressing, the chorus was uplifting.  Cheryl agreed and began to read the three-line chorus enthusiastically, but stumbled on the last line:

Dont stop believin
Hold on to the feelin
Streetlight people

I wish desperately to go to this wedding, to hear the clink of a fork against a champagne flute signaling the toast will begin, and to watch the matron of honor send her friend off to marital bliss with the phrase: “Streetlight people.”

I was dimly aware that art could be meaningful.  Guided tours or school groups made me understand art movements and historical shifts.  But I listened to the images in front of me rather than saw them. The docent’s face was clearer in my memory, or the look of a nylon camera strap slung over a tourist’s shoulder was, or the silent conversation conveyed by a young couple’s eyes. Without biographical detail and historical significance, I could still recognize that art is more than background.  I have seen people moved to tears by cut marble and others quiet before brushstrokes on canvas. But, even so, it was lost on me.

During the months I spent in Rome–a city of artwork–I still did not enjoy the experience of looking at art.  So, when a friend asked if I wanted to see a Kandinsky exhibit our last weekend there, I hesitated before agreeing.  She was an art history major.   I assumed that meant that she was so aware of an artist’s significance that she never needed to lean forward to read placards. I worried that I would have to turn my impressions into intelligent conversation afterward.  I was worried that I would not be able to do this.

We paid for our admission and separated, walking in separate ways, down different halls, and stopping in front of different paintings.  I studied them, looking like I do when I see the clouds–searching for recognizable shapes in the formless mess.  The titles were vague; empty words that reminded me of nothing and did not draw anything from my own imagination.  It was a relief not to have my mind compete with my vision.

My eyes were tired from the sight of one painting.  I had looked up close and at a distance, checked the frame and noticed the thickness of the paint.  My attention turned to survey the rest of the exhibit.  I wanted to determine how many more paintings needed to be looked at and estimate how much longer we would be there.

But then, all of those colors and shapes and broken images caught my breath.  Standing next to one painting, I could not see anything.  Facing the room, I felt that words or explanations or meanings were unnecessary.  Here were just a series of colors, beautiful and upsetting.  I wanted to stay there, in that spot, for hours and let the light from the paintings come to me.  To allow the artwork and people and benches and carpet mingle into one image.

Suddenly though, it felt strange and foolish to think about art in this way.  I turned back and approached the paintings singly, working to find the right emotions and the right feelings.

It was then that I noticed my friend, sitting on the ground.  I had never seen anyone sit on the floor of a museum.  She stared up at Composition VII and was so open to all of that beauty falling down on her. It made me even more sure that I was looking at the individual pieces in the wrong way, that I did not understand.

I walked up and down the exhibit with a furrowed brow, trying to love the artwork before me.  When my friend left, I returned to Composition VII and I saw nothing.  I struggled again to make sense of it before turning for help from the placard.  It was difficult to translate, but I figured out that the painting referenced the Last Judgment.  I sat, looking up, trying to study my way into my friend’s world, to a place where art does not seem difficult.

After a time, she came and sat next to me. I straightened and asked what she thought about the religious elements, prepared to describe the papal imagery, the cross patterns and the colors.  She had no idea what I was talking about, she had not read the placard, and did not know much about Kandinsky.

Instead, she described how she looked at this painting.  She sat in the middle of the room. She let her eyes relax until she did not control where she was looking.  She let her sight be carried across the canvas.  Only then did she pay attention to what her eyes has been drawn to.

There was something so comforting about her words and, because of them, I have never looked at art in the same way.

Aerial cameras were probably passing overhead–trying to capture footage of that skyline of new-beginnings for a romantic comedy about a girl moving to Manhattan–while I was somewhere in the concrete and sweaty mess of it.

Although I resembled my pop culture predecessors, I did not share their same hopes.  My goal was not to exchange my college sweatshirts for cute business attire and a media job.  There was no plan at all.  A friend needed a roommate and it sounded like as good a start as any.

In retrospect, I realize that perhaps there could have been better or, at least, more prudent starts.  I arrived in New York with a Toyota’s worth of student loan debt and $1,000 printed at the bottom of my ATM receipts.  I was too ignorant of the world to know that that was not a lot of money.

To cut costs, I shared a curtained-off living room in a small two-bedroom in Alphabet city.  By the time I moved out, there were five of us living in a space designed for one person.  I had the maximum amount of luggage that the airline allowed and nothing more (read: I was the mayor of Sofa City for a few weeks).

I had begun my job search immediately but found nothing.  My roommates had done unpaid internships that prepared them for the low-wage and entry-level jobs in magazines, Broadway production, and publishing.  I listened to them debate what message their clothing conveyed, chuckling over the wine connoisseur language invoked for a two-piece ensemble.  The belt is absolutely necessary; without it, it doesn’t say vibrant, fresh, and modern.

Perhaps I should have let them thesauricize my wardrobe because I could not even get a job at the local bookstore.   Instead, I was committed to my craft–wasting my time editing cover letters that no one else would read.  The number printed at the bottom of my ATM receipts no longer said $1,000.

After scanning the Monster.com ads, I found a short blurb that appealed to me.  It was for an executive assistant position at a travel agency.  The appealing part was not the job description, but the potential travel benefits and decent salary.  My roommate suggested that I drop my resume off in-person to make an impression; however, she cautioned that there would probably be bag searches or refusals of entry.  Less than a year had passed since 9/11, and the city was still cautious.

I was nervous.  On the subway platform, I blinked, feeling the dryness of my restless contacts.  Slight blurry stains, caused by the ripple of the lenses, dotted the corners of my eyes.  The platform was crowded and the heat from the streets had found its way below ground.  My white dress shirt was becoming transparent with sweat stains.  Luckily, when the train arrived, I had a spot beneath the air conditioner duct.  The cool air slowly dried my damp hair.

I could not find the travel agency at first because I was looking for a building that movies had taught me to see.  I expected to find an immense structure with a cavernous and cool reception area, to open large glass doors by their smooth metal handles, and to walk confidently to an elevator bank.

The travel agency was not housed in such a place.  It was a one-room brick rectangle slightly below street-level.  No security guard peeked into my purse or informed me that I could not enter, as my roommate had feared.  Instead, I was face-to-face with rows of women typing, talking on the phone, and printing itineraries.  My stomach tightened with nerves.

The president of the company sat at the back of the room.  He had a comical name, better suited for a soap opera villain than a travel agent.  He was distracted, moving papers on his desk and making eye contact with the clock.  I intended to drop off my resume and leave, but he thought that we should do an informal interview.  Apparently, his ad on Monster.com was netting him 250 resumes a day, most of which had been thrown into the trash.   He simply did not have the time to read through them all.  I thought briefly about how many of my own cover letters were decorating the trashcans in offices all over the city.

He was impressed by the college I attended, by my grade point average, by my awards, and by my limited work experience.  However, he was mostly impressed that I was there in the room.  We shook hands and I felt glad to have had the interviewing practice.

He called later that night and again spoke warmly about my educational background and my initiative to hand deliver my resume.  He said that he would like me to come into the office and start working.  My heart jumped and I thought about how reassuring it would be to deposit a paycheck again.

I quickly agreed, but he stopped me, “Well, wait until you hear what the job is,”  I hesitated.  I knew what the assistant position entailed.   He continued, “I would like you to come in and go through the resumes that I have been getting.  I want you to find me someone like you, but better.”

My jaw dropped.

But my bank balance had dropped further.  I asked how much he was willing to pay to find a “better me” ($20 an hour).  I agreed but stipulated that I wanted to be paid at the end of every day. The next day, I was at work in that rectangular box of an office and I took a paycheck home that night. I bought a futon mattress and began to live out the rest of the sentences that followed that first cliched one.

When my hand let go of the receiver and I zombie-walked to the shower, my sleepy brain emitted one strong pulse of energy that must have been an evolutionary mechanism to keep bad ideas from becoming bad realities.  It was a cool dose of near-anxiety that shot down my body to my fingertips and toes. A nonverbal Really? A physically embodied Are you sure that’s a good idea?

Despite the synapse warning, a cloud of foggy reason–produced in equal parts by the steam of the shower and the haze of being woken up early–enveloped me and convinced me that agreeing to attend the Sun Goddess event was a fine idea.  As my father had assured me, it was a brunch and not a pageant.

My father’s car pulled up as I was drying my hair.  Because I had refused to consider attending this thing until he called on the morning of the event, we were already running late.  I walked out to meet him and tossed my bag in the back.  He looked at what I was wearing and then tilted his head, “Umm, honey, do you think you should wear a dress or, I don’t know, something a little more dressy?”

I glanced down at my jeans and my three-quarter length, scooped-necked, bluish green shirt.  The outfit could have been classified as business casual, depending on how casual the office was.  It was a nice top, with a subtle floral design, and was dotted with some synthetic shiny objects that reflected small flashes of light. I told him it would be fine.  The brunch was supposed to be informal.  He agreed but still looked nervous.  I told him that I wouldn’t go, if I couldn’t be comfortable and be myself.  Happy that I was going at all, he turned the key in the ignition and we were off.

As we took the long drive out to an expensive house in an expensive neighborhood, I started to rethink my decision.  What seemed like a fun experiment of putting myself in an uncharacteristic setting began to sound awful.  Although my father had hatched this scheme however many months earlier, he had no real sense of what I could expect.  He knew it was not a pageant, but a scholarship opportunity for women with poise and leadership abilities.  How a smaller cross-selection of these poised women ended up on the parade route at the end of the process was unclear.  I liked surprises and figured I would just wing it.

We pulled into the wealthy neighborhood and realized that I was probably to go to the house with the driveway spilling over into the street with expensive cars.  I was dropped off at the corner and walked towards the densest concentration of high-priced cars.  As I approached a series of BMWs, I noticed two girls heading to my same destination.   They were each wearing pink business suits, probably from Chanel or some other high-end label.  Their hair was expertly coiffed.  Their make-up had been applied with a firm hand, as soft colors highlighted and accentuated every curve that their faces offered.   I briefly wondered if I had wandered into a Mary Kay cosmetics sales meeting.

My morning dose of near-anxiety was amplified to full panic.  Simultaneously, I realized that I did not have any means of escape, as my father would not return for another three hours.

This was a terrible idea.  I could feel it in the swish of my denim-clad legs as I walked up the stairs of what could be best described as a mansion-esque home.  I could feel it in my stomach, when a Mary Osmond-type character gathered “us girls” together to describe the day’s activities.  We were supposed to meet the individual husband-and-wife teams, who chaired the committee, in a cocktail-type setting before we would settle in for the group interview.

I am sometimes an under-socialized person, but I really do like people.  Despite my fears, I was able to make cocktail talk with the best of them.  Holding my small plate of brunch food and my glass of juice, I felt that things were going far better than I expected.  The house had the most beautiful view of the water.

Although I like people, I bore easily and I had begun to exhaust my ability to listen to an older woman’s nickname woes.  One of the husbands then asked me a question which I could not answer.   He looked surprised and said, “Oh, it was on the application you submitted.  Can’t you remember what you wrote about <insert local issue>?”  Ahh, I thought.  Not only had my father approached committee members to have me be considered for this honor, but he also seemed to have filled out a personal statement form as if I had written it.  I was perhaps committing Sun Goddess fraud.  I mumbled something and excused myself.

As I was eying the exit with more frequency, the Mary Osmond clone called us into the other room for the largest most awkward meeting I have ever attended.  The amount of nervous laughter that echoed against those walls is incalculable.

Once we were herded into the next holding pen, we were instructed to take seats in a large circle.  Before we were asked questions en masse, the event leader noted that two girls had been unable to make it to the first event.  After identifying ourselves, we needed to share–as the other girls had during the coffee klatch–the reason we wanted to be a Sun Goddess.

I could make chitchat, but I could not construct a lie on the spot.  I still had no idea what a Sun Goddess was or why these husband-and-wife couples, with whom I had spent the morning, had any involvement with the event.  I decided that I would listen to the other delinquent goddess-applicant and then rework some of her information for my own answer.  I just needed a few salient details about the organization and I would be golden.  Then, she spoke.

“Well, I want to be a Sun Goddess because I had the honor of being selected as a Junior Sun Goddess.  I can honestly say that that process was the single best experience of my life.  I met young women with whom I created lasting friendships.  Being a Junior Sun Goddess gave me the confidence to meet the challenges that life offers.” Ugh…and she said all of this with perfect posture.

There was absolutely nothing that I could steal from that.  So I scrambled and told the truth, “I like meeting new people and I thought why not?  It could be fun.”  Ugh…and I said all of this with permanently slouched shoulders.  Although the discussion leader tried to encourage me to elaborate, I was at a loss.

With that perfectly inflected “Ah” that says “Disappointed” in a classy way, the leader moved onto the main event. We were to go around the room answering various questions that ranged from the banal to the trivial.  We were instructed to introduce ourselves, to describe what had happened since the first coffee event in December, to reveal a New Year’s resolution, and to describe our plans for the future.

The responses could be hilarious, like when a girl said that she was “a basketball dancer” and then gaped at us for not knowing what that meant.  Some seemed meaningful but were not, like when one girl said that she and a friend had just had a coming out party.  I was excited that there was a progressive element in the suit parade, until I learned that they were referring to debutante balls.  In general, the answers were somewhat dreary.  Almost every girl  said, “Well, like everyone else I celebrated Christmas and my New Year’s resolution was to lose X number of pounds.”

It irritated me that so many of these young women assumed that we were all Christians.  I kept thinking how alienating such a small comment like that can be.  If there were girls who celebrated other faiths in the group, they might have felt the need to silence that part of themselves or to lie.

Looking at the group–all of those poised young women in dress suits with their hands folded on their laps and their shoulders back and their crossed ankles and closed knees….and all of those pounds to lose–I gave into my idiosyncrasy and said, “Well, like everyone else, I celebrated Kwanzaa…”

When the phone rang later that night, I spoke with a cordial woman, who broke the news that I was not going to continue in the process.  I heard the electronic beep, signalling that the call had ended, and put the cordless phone back into its cradle.  I then thought that, even though it had been a bad idea for me to try to be a Sun Goddess, I had at least gone in wearing jeans, feeling comfortable, and being myself.

I returned home with a head full of philosophical thought and a very new feeling of social contentment.  I have discovered that this is a dangerous combination for me.   It makes me extremely susceptible to ideas.

When my father picked me up from the airport, I could tell that a plan was afoot.  He was clearly waiting to tell me something, but let me prattle on about the flight and some gossip about my friends.  Halfway home, he could not hold back any longer.  It is always a bad sign when he nervously looks to the left and right, takes a deep breath and says, “Now, I don’t want you to get mad at me, but I….”

There have been any number of things that have followed such a sentence.  Some that worked to my favor, such as attending college fairs in my absence–even though I had been very clear that, when school was out for summer, school was out forever.  Some that had the potential for humiliation but thankfully were never realized, like submitting a dreadful photo–from the zenith of my awkward middle school phase–to my college’s orientation booklet.  Some that had the potential for humiliation but thankfully I never realized it, such as the time he sent a letter to my university’s chapter of his ex-fraternity to let them know I was coming to campus.  I shudder even now to think of it.  And then there are some that qualify him for the pathologically insane, like this one.

So, as we cruised down the highway and I watched the seagulls tip their bills into the water, he looked nervously left and right before saying very quickly, “Now, I don’t want you to get mad at me, but I entered you in the Sun Goddess competition.  I know that you are going to say that you don’t want to do it, but I just want you to hear me out.  It’s not a pageant.  There is some scholarship money involved, but it’s not a pageant.  You just have to go to a coffee and an informal afternoon lunch with some of the people who run this thing.  It’s not a big deal.”

Despite my philosophical thoughts and contentment, I rolled my eyes like a teenager and said, “No Way.”

My father continued; he had a whole marketing strategy worked out.  I could meet local town leaders and learn from them!  This merited a more pronounced eye roll.  If I won one of the dozen spots, I would get to be in the annual town parade!  I told him the effect would probably be ruined, when I was vomiting all over the parade float because of my severe disgust.  I could win a scholarship, which would really help the family out!  I informed him that I was willing to drop out if it came to that–a bluff that he thankfully did not call.  After his last feeble attempt to move this plan through committee, I huffed, “Drop it, Dad.  It ain’t gonna happen.”

It really was not going to happen.  In high school, I was Most Likely to Wear Lisa Loeb Glasses For the Rest of Her Life, not the Most Likely to Make Money for College By Waving from a Parade Float.  I was surly and scowling–the antithesis of a Sun Goddess.

My father also knew it was not going to happen.  He would make an occasional half-hearted sales pitch but, when the first coffee event happened, it passed without much comment.  It was scheduled right before Christmas, so my father was too busy buying last minute presents and thinking about work to remember it.

After the gluttony of Christmas had passed, the sloth of winter break set in.  Weeks passed and I had hit a patch of boredom. My mother did not have cable or internet and, really, there are only so many episodes of People’s Court that you can watch.

The day of the big Sun Goddess event–that informal lunch–was approaching.  My father made a last ditch effort, calling me early in the morning.  I was sleepy and grouchy–adjusted to a college schedule of noon mornings–so I told him he was crazy before hanging up.  Then, as I stumbled back towards my room, I thought about what it would be like to go to the informal brunch that was not a pageant.   Instead of producing an unfurling roll of visions, my mind went blank.

I couldn’t.  I simply could not imagine myself in a situation like that. I then asked myself why I couldn’t.  With a head full of philosophical thoughts and a feeling of social contentment, I decided…why not?  Why be bound by only what I could imagine for myself?

I called my father back and he practically yelped.  Apparently, he was not entirely forthcoming about the time of the event.  It was a morning brunch, not an afternoon lunch.  We would really have to book it, if we were going to make it.

But I can see by my word count that this is a tale that will need to be continued in another post…

Despite all of these admissions to musical philistinism, I love music…perhaps even as much as the people who hunt out rare tracks and those who get their hands stamped at the first concert of an obscure band.  You will likely never see me without headphones on my person or somewhere in my bag.  When my ipod breaks, the day feels so long.  All of that unsyncopated and non-rhythmic noise assaults my ears.

I love the feeling of not paying attention to new music and hearing, for the first time, that song that is going to be a favorite. I will play that song over and over, discovering why it sounded so good and letting it become familiar to me.  I will wish I had paid closer attention that first time because it gets played so much that I stop hearing all of it.  I will play an album or a playlist in an almost insane loop, just thrilling at a collection of songs that I like.  These song collections become associated with times of my life.  They are the songs that walked with me down different city streets.  They are the soundtracks to my commute and to my free-time.  When I hear them again years later, I am back in my remembered body with remembered emotions that are strong and clear.

Here are some favorites:

I’m Gone by Dolly Parton

This was the song that helped me quit my first job.  Is there anything more radically freeing than when she does an inventory of everything that makes up her life and then renounces it all?

Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright by Bob Dylan

Dylan is the master of music that takes you to his memories rather than to your own.  It is a visual song and perfect.

Absolutely Cuckoo by Magnetic Fields

I am a sucker for a likable song on a sad subject.

Love Is a Five-Letter Word by James Phelps
I like hilarious songs that are belted out, but Phelps somehow also conveys a momentary tenderness and a lot of pure joy in this one.

Way Back Home by Junior Walker and the All-Stars
I honestly think soul music was the perfect achievement of sound and that everything else pales next to it. This song is nostalgic and angry, visually descriptive and sonically rich, and brass-band perfection.

Knock on Wood by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas
So much better than the Eddie Floyd version. I dare you not to love the speed of it or the playful energy between Otis and Carla. Their interactions are not the sober ones of most duets, but a raucous  series of interjections.

Yeh Ladka Hai Allah
This is a fun Bollywood song from K3G, I love the drumming.

Tujhe Yaad Na Meri Aayee
This is one of my favorite Bollywood songs because the opening notes are so beautiful. The quality on this clip is not very good, but still you can get a sense of it.

I have to stop.  I will spend all day doing this.  Yikes!