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!