"In our Fast-paced Modern Society Today,"

So sayeth many a freshman & sophomore! While the cliché about Today's Society (as opposed to last Tuesday's?) causes Composition teachers all over the planet to groan and roll their eyes, there is a savant-like truth in this essay-filler phrase. I'm just not sure our texting students actually believe this notion; it's simply what they know.

I remember a friend who could not cut off his cell phone when we went out, always worried he'd "miss something," unable to focus on the experience of the moment, always with one foot poised to dash to the next social interaction. His excuse was he was just part of his ADD Generation.

We all live, however, in a culture of ADD. I find myself not focusing on one task or experience but multiple tasks & possible future-tense experiences. While I have argued with my husband that this may be an inherently female trait, (to wit he accuses me humorously of post-feminist sexism) at this moment in Our Society Today the ability to multi-task has become a human trait, one needed to survive the pace of both our work and play.

I may teach online, blog, and check news, weather, & email on my Blackberry; I may have married into XM, OnStar, and the I-phone; I may have discovered the difference between Blu-ray & HD DVDs, what LiveJournal is and where to find slash, what a WIKI is, where LOTR players meet, and the joys of MP3s, but I am breathless at the moment.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, "As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives."

With all the shiny objects and glib n' ironic conversations surrounding me, with the demands placed upon being plugged in 24/7, I find it difficult to walk one path or keep a sustained thought. I feel like I am only treading water on the surface of a postmodern sea.

I leave you Dear Reader with this below video, and the question of whether or not this pace is progress or a downward spiral. Just don't view this while drinking coffee like I did! Heart palpitations may ensue!

Is it a Confession if You Tell Everyone . . . ,

but no one knows who you are?

Certainly that may be the fun in blogging.
In fact the Internet is a weird mixture of exhibitionism and anonymity.

I have been thinking about levels of intimacy lately. Like the Internet I am a weird Myers-Briggs case. I may appear to those who meet me in town, know me at work, or are second or third-tier friends as an Extroverted sort. I have, however, a shadow Introvert who few see.

My Extrovert came out to play yesterday at the garage when I realized that the mechanic and I had both just attended the same funerall. I'm just chatting him up about his loss in a Mayberry Way while my sensible husband is having a Larry-Davidesque (as he later described it) reaction over this mixture of business and social.

I told him later over subs that encounters like that are why I love living in a small town. I have moved my entire life, and now I enjoy the social dance of at least pretending that my life is more entangled than it really is with the bank teller who goes to the Methodist church or the bag boy who is a former student.

I don't really think these people are going to invite me into their homes. This is The South. I was born in the region but not raised in this town, and I work at The College and so does my husband. They do not know my Momma nor my Husband's Daddy. I'm not a Carpet Bagger because of my accent, but I am a Forever Foreigner.

But despite my love of starting conversations with the woman who takes my payment at Georgia Power, in reality I have a strong introverted streak that few recognize or understand when they see glimpses.

I have good social camouflage, and I think this liminal distribution between extrovert and introvert makes me a bit Deanna Troi-like (save the Spandex and lip-liner).

Being an empathy sponge at work and in relationships can, however, make me sometimes too soaked.

Lately with work challenges, my best friend living 64 miles away (which I know is great in academia but still), and the ever-shifting sands of socializing, especially as a newly-married, I find I am detaching and observing the interactions of others. Despite my Troi-ness and my extroverted-ness, there is sometimes a significant disconnect between what I am comfortable in doing or sharing from what another friend may share with me (and anyone else within earshot). Other times I imagine a much closer relationship then I realize the other person is just waiting for his or her turn to speak.

My BFF once said there should be grad-school-to-work programs. So much time in The Academic Bubble World often makes it difficult for people to cope in the so-called Real World. Add to the complication that I work in Academia and the social expectations and interactions have shades of grad school intensity and that even when I am aware of this I too fall into those intense expectations of others.

Can we really ever know another person? OK before I get all Sartre-y on you Dear Reader, I think we can come close with a spouse, best friend, parent, or sibling. Perhaps it's commitment, DNA, past shared experiences; no Single-serving Friends are needed. Real intimacy is part time and part trust.

And to get this, I must know you and you must know me.
So I leave you with a strange phenomenon, what sparked this post.
Post Secret:
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Fascinating, but is even a portion of these anonymous confessions real, and even if they are all real, isn't it just a double helix of voyeurism and exhibitionism? This site, like much of what I have recently observed and myself done, perhaps these are all parts of the Post-Postmodern world of surface where most do not hear you; they are just waiting for their turn to talk.

Voting

I voted (again) today. December 2, less than a month since November 4, with The Election Shiny worn off The Process for many, Georgia had run-off elections. But I'm not here to proselytize a particular candidate or party.

I'm here to praise the experience.

I love voting. I love going to the polls and seeing the senior citizens and college students working the polls, checking off names, filling out forms, handing out yellow plastic cards for the voting booths. I love seeing old retired black men who may still remember when voting was a dangerous privilege, and young pregnant white girls who may be wondering about their futures and those of their children, and even, yes, rich society golfer types who may be worrying about tax hikes and plunging stocks, all standing in line, all standing in a unified act of great faith.

I am proud to stand with them all.

The Big Turkey Day!

Despite what the above blurry cell phone photo might suggest, the feast was a success! So the Legendary Dressing was so epic that it didn’t quite fit in the stove! Nothing an inventive husband, merry family, and good Chardonnay can’t cure!

Better, no Botulism Bird and all Parental Units had a fine time, as did the Offspring.

“Better than Cats!”

Five stars, (or should I say bananas, Jean Louis?)

Holiday Perversions!

As we get closer to the arrival of the Parental Units, and I listen to friends plan (and moan) about their upcoming holiday plans, we continue to plan our Big Meal, which has inevitably lead to self-analysis and loved-one analysis about what is sacred and what is not at Thanksgiving.

While not a purist like some about specifics, there are those well-known dishes that make it That Special Day, mainly turkey, dressing, and cranberry jelly. I really don't like to mess with those standards. To quote Frasier’s dad when his son insisted on a fancy fresh-cranberry side dish and not getting canned cranberry sauce (with the "ridges from the can"), when people go off the reservation and into fancy cuisine on that one day, I wonder, “Is it that you can’t learn, or you won’t learn?!”

Don’t mess with the canned jelly goodness and pass the pumpkin pie!

In the spirit of my desire to be slightly perverse about this good day, however, without ruining the menu, I offer two Alternative Thanksgiving tidbits.

The origin of this holiday is, of course, in the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving, recorded by William Bradford in Of Plymouth Plantation. Sidestepping any politically-correct revisionist questions about the Pilgrims’ first Thanksgiving and their relationship with the Native Americans, I would like to share a later Turkey Tale as related by Bradford.

Dissatisfied with the secularization of the Pilgrims years after their 1620 settlement, Bradford relates a story that can only be summarized as A) “These teenagers today are out of control,” and B) “All of ya’ll are all going to hell in that proverbial hand basket!”

“Ther was a youth whose name was Thomas Granger; he was servant to an honest man of Duxbery, being aboute 16 or 17 years of age. (His father and mother lived at the same time at Sityate.) He was this year detected of buggery (and indicted for the same) with a mare, a cowe, tow goats, five sheep, 2 calves, and a turkey. Horrible it is to mention, but the truth of the historie requires it.”

I can imagine poor Thomas busted for bestiality and dragged in front of the elders. Knowing he would be executed for this crime against biblical law and nature, he confessed: “Ye Gods! I did do it,” going on to list a litany of possibly fictional farm animals, and culminating "with a Turkey too! So there!”

Of course, Granger isn’t the only one to abuse the turkey. PETA’s protests & my cooking aside, I just overheard a colleague talking about his new-found holiday tradition, something I had not seen since moving from South of I-10 in Louisiana. Turducken!

For those of you outside Louisiana and parts of Canada who are unfamiliar with this culinary abuse of the turkey, allow me to quote my students’ favorite source of all wisdom, Wikipedia: “A Turducken is a dish consisting of a partially de-boned turkey stuffed with a de-boned duck, which itself is stuffed with a small de-boned chicken. The thoracic cavity of the chicken and the rest of the gaps are filled with, at the very least, a highly seasoned breadcrumb mixture or sausage meat, although some versions have a different stuffing for each bird.”

Kinda like a Russian nesting-doll concept. Often credited as a culinary invention of Paul Prudhomme, I see it as a Culinary James-Dickey-Deliverance Special!

Mmm. Mmm.

Check out the picture if you need further convincing for or against such a dish:

http://fematrailer.blogspot.com/2007/11/happy-turducken-day.html

Perversions aside, I do love Thanksgiving. Still relatively-commercial free, it’s nice to have a day set aside to pig out and piously reflect on one’s blessings. What a wonderful American Tradition!

Before I start to get all Oprah-cheesy, here is a recent poem about giving thanks aired on Prairie Home Companion this past weekend:

http://prairiehome.publicradio.org/www_publicradio/tools/media_player/popup.php?name=phc/2008/11/22/phc_20081122_64&starttime=01:50:24.0&endtime=01:52:03.0

In the meantime dear friends and love ones, know that I count you among my most precious blessings.

(OK back to holiday snarkiness!)

Notes from the Holiday Homefront

We are now beginning the countdown to Thanksgiving, our first big Married Couple hosting event. My husband thinks I am making too big a deal about this; he's right on a certain level. For example, I am not a cook, and I am afraid I will kill everyone with Botulism Bird. Rationally I know my husband won't let this happen because he is a cook, and my best friend (also a cook) says she will be on speed-dial, adding that my kitchen safety-related worries are over-rated, facilitated by animal rights groups and the Internet. Notice, however, cooks are telling me not to worry. They probably only suspect a portion of what are my kitchen-anxieties, deeply-rooted in Career Woman Who Never Learned to Cook syndrome. What makes it worse is the best cooks I know are career women & men.
Thank goodness I will not be left alone in the kitchen.

I had jokingly offered Tofurkey as a menu alternative, to wit my husband responded, "Murder is Delicious." (How would Morrissey respond?)
While I am Friend to the Animal Kingdom, I have to admit that I love leather shoes and holiday turkey; it's the other accompanying anxieties of holiday entertaining. I love my family; don't get me wrong. In fact it's because I love them so much, I want everything to be perfect.
It won't be.
I know this, but I am a perfectionist in recovery.
Off to the grocery store!
Wish me luck!

Words, Words, Words . . .

As we enter the less-than-one week countdown to the wedding, we finally picked our last poem today to be read at our ceremony. It’s surprising how much I dislike most poetry about love when it’s love of another person. Poetry is good when it’s about God, loss, sex, regret, death, irony, writing, or the family pet. But finding another poem about love after we had already found one? How the second had eluded us, words of love without the tang of saccharine, the ring of the facile and obvious. Until today.

Then this afternoon, we met with the minister to discuss, among other things, our ceremony. It became a discussion of context and language: scripture to be read or not read in full or not at all, lines we wanted taken out of the service, all in light of "the cultural milieu" (the minister’s phrase not mine), and our own consideration for our own integrity and all those dearly beloveds who will witness our happy day.

All this wrestling with language made me realize tonight that I had not written much in the last two months.

I had turned outward to direct experience and inward, not willing to share in writing what I had been feeling (sorry Gentle Reader), but happy to let others do the writing.

Two days ago I started writing again. A new friend told me about a writing exercise where you handwrite 4 pages every morning without stopping. Supposedly it's to "unblock" your Inner (Read: Nasty) Editor. So I started writing. Only few interesting insights have appeared on the pages in the midst of mostly boring stuff.

Yet I will keep writing.

This past weekend as my Husband-to-Be coped with his Wife-to-Be's pack rat ways (see above photo of former home office as Exhibit A), what emerged from The Merging of Things were characters in folders of unfinished stories and one pretty room, a room of my own, a room where the writing will once again occur.

My Love has given me many gifts but what a gift this new room is. A quiet clean place for words.

Proof

That I did always love,
I bring thee proof:
That till I loved
I did not love enough.
That I shall love always,
offer thee
That love is life,
And life hath immortality.
This, dost thou doubt, sweet?
Then have I
Nothing to show
But Calvary.

- Emily Dickinson

. . . found another orphan . . .

"It was the devious-cruising Rachel, that in her retracing search
after her missing children, only found another orphan."--Herman Melville


The lights in the sky / have finally arrived / I'm staying right beside you . . .

Wedding Announcements

I'm convinced.

"Steal It!"

Trent gets sober and unlike Sid & Nancy, he is able to promote "healthy anarchy!"



From "Our World in Words"
October 8, 2007

"Even if you aren’t a Nine Inch Nails fan you have to respect Trent Reznor’s (NIN frontman) move to take the band independent. Reznor has been calling out against big labels in an attempt to separate music and big-business. This is important because NIN will now pave the way for other bands (both big-name and indy) to remain or become unaffiliated with a label. This means that there is less control over their music and they (the band) will reap much more profit for the product they created. The next ten years will be very interesting for music fans as more music moves out of brick-and-mortar or DRM’d sources (iTunes) and becomes available through E-music or directly through the band. This is ultimately a great service to fans and will make the music more accessible. NIN- 1, Evil Music Labels- 0."

-JEStacey
http://offedit.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/nin-and-reznor-label-free/

Maybe this is the call to arms I needed that will get me off my ass and into the new millennium.

Ghosts I-IV certain does much more than just rock, and Trent? --The Genius Still.

Is an I-phone in my future?

Will my I-pod replace my CD player?

Stay tuned to this same Bat Channel!

Mansinthe!

What every discerning Uber-Matrix-Kewl-Goth who is steadily on the tenure track or who has that tech job finally sewn up needs!

While living in Louisiana I once tried to order a bottle of wine for my parents and have it shipped to another southern state. http://wine.com/ informed me that was illegal. Yet again I am tempted to try and have something worse-than-wine shipped way down to Dixie, this time for personal gifting. After all, Manson provides a handy-dandy link (via http://www.marilynmanson.com/) to http://www.absinthe.de where for 36 euros, I can be Man-tastically smashed on the Green Fairy, just like my fave Shock Rocker (TM).

Since the company site gives us such useful facts like:
"This fine spirit is also enjoyed by the most discerning connoisseurs without sugar.
Do not:
- drink Absinthe pure
- light your Absinthe on fire
- think, Absinthe will make you hallucinate - it won’t!
Drink responsibly and with moderation!" (Did you get that memo, Mr. Manson?)

I will also provide Two Random Facts About Absinthe from My Life:

I have had my share of faux "Absinthe" in New Orleans. Pre-Katrina, down Pirates' Alley, behind the St. Louis Cathedral off Jackson Square there was a charming little cafe frequented by employed Goths who took their breaks from their shifts as tour guides for Haunted New Orleansor New Orleans After Dark. One evening I sat with a friend and watched a clearly-forty-year-old-plus Vampire hold court with an admiring androgynous pair of little Bat-kids while I sipped my green drink and thought seriously about a career change.

Supposedly a friend ordered the real thing, and his wife reported it arrived at their suburban pretty-princess- house in a box marked "Vase" and "Fragile." She reports also that the drink in fact, tasted like feet but soon they didn't care.

Well as Marilyn urges us on his Latest Album—"Drink Me!" Now with any major credit card we can!

Ah, when Art and Capitalism merge!

" . . . it's hard to believe it comes down to this"

"WELCOME TO http://REMIX.NIN.COM.
Hello there, we've noticed you're using Internet Explorer 6. This site has not yet been optimized for IE6, so it's not going to look very good, and you may have problems using it. We highly recommend that you upgrade to Internet Explorer 7, or better yet, download Firefox - a far superior FREE web browser that will give you a better experience on this and almost every other website. Go to www.mozilla.com to download it, or continue here with IE6 at your own risk."

Sigh.

Trent I love you but all this techno geek stuff—hidden web sites aside--is exhausting me because I have a real job. Not saying that you don't of course because, well, you're a Highly Innovative Artist (TM).

I've been with nin (in the fan sense of course) since 1990. First time I saw them (Trent & hired guns of the moment) was at the Masquerade Club. A friend of mine was in grad school (weren't we all?) and living in the Atlanta & Album 88 was the source for the non-lame music of the day. This is where he discovered nin in late '89.

That’s how it started, via cassette tape on the way down to Gulf Shores--Spring Break at the Atlanta friend’s mom's condo. We were driving down together to meet the rest of the post-high school crew, when we hit Radio Deadland. Having exhausted our own tunes, we stopped at a mall in the last town of civilization before the long stretch of nothing to the shore.

Standing in Camelot Records, my pal comes up and hands me Pretty Hate Machine.

"You like Echo & the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, The Cure, right?"
"I like anything that isn't Jacko or Paula Abdul."
"Then you'll like this."

My friend was only 1/2 right.

Hearing it for the first time, windows rolled down, the prospect of no class, just beer, sand, and my best friends, hearing PHM for the first time was like. . .

Getting Ziggy Stardust because a friend in middle school's Dad had brought it to her from a business trip, but she didn't like it b/c it was "weird," so she passed it on to me.

When I discovered Welcome to my Nightmare was what KISS was ripping off.

When I first heard Let It Bleed, bought for 50 cents, marked down from a dollar at a garage sale, scratchy but powerful, “The Midnight Rambler” throbbing in my speakers.

Pretty Hate Machine wasn't a crush. Like these others, it was The Real Thing.

So flash forward to post-grad school, the tenure track job, bought a house, got more responsibilities at work, friends are getting married, having babies, I'm thinking about my 401K and resolving growing conflicts at work, and maybe these are all the reasons why I'm too damned exhausted at the moment to download MP3s and even new versions of Explorer or Firefox just to get to my music, find a tour date, that I suspect will hit my state, oh, yeah, right, smack in the middle of a week of work meetings in August.

I respect Trent's desire for evolution, innovation, and yes, relevance. And yes, I still believe, but it's tinged with sadness.

Now my best friend, she tells me something I don’t want to hear. She’s been my partner in nin concerts since that September '90 club date when maybe 150 people had come out to hear a skinny Trent with dreadlocks!

That night I asked a huge biker guy to get me to the front of the stage, one of the only times I have plied feminine wiles in a concert setting. And he did, shoving me though the crowd to the front, where I wrapped my arms around a wooden horse near the stage and gladly felt the spray of sweat off the band and got bruises from the crowd shoving against me. My best friend lost bracelets that night, and her shoes.

So when I emailed concert dates to her last week, she said she wasn't sure she cared anymore. I know she wasn’t a fan of Year Zero, despite my urging her to “give it another chance,” and she is skeptical of the just-released instrumental Ghosts I-IV, I know these things, but damn--a nin concert nearby, and we don't go?

Maybe her increasingly complicated life has gotten in the way too.

Maybe responsibilities do have a way of draining off our energy.

So this is what nostalgia feels like.