May 1, 2006

I'm processing a triple-helping of change, making me a bit adrift, often needy & coy, a bit disorganized in thoughts and actions; if I hadn't been so we never would have met. But that's another story.

I'm normally a person of strength & conviction. I inspire the project, get things off the ground, make the phone calls & launch the ship in spite of the zillion obstacles presented by anything worthwhile. At present I'm stuck, paralyzed by option anxiety; and moving to the next level held back by fear. Fear of making the wrong decision, the ill-timed or misinterpreted remark; being silent when I should have spoken. This imbalance applies to everything: work/making a living, relationships/all kinds, creative/personal life.

My internal support mechanism, tried & true, tells me these times are short-lived, painful. I pride myself on having the courage to take intelligent risks, living a truly interesting life, being the right person in the right place at the right time. Before long I'll return to my usual state of dynamic creative confidence and (often) sickening sense of optimism.

So the above are some thoughts, a small explanation about me. Told because you're new to my life, and I value the time we spend together.

In the 1960s my grandfather's farm wasn't doing very well, so to pick up the slack he tried a series of get-rich-quick schemes, none of which was particularly successful. After a couple of years of failure and some observation of get-rich-quick trends in Europe, he happened upon the idea of raising nutria.

Nutria are the poor man's chinchillas fur-wise, and otherwise, while not tasty, are not inedible either—their fur is soft and relatively valuable, once tanned and treated to take out the stench, and their meat, once canned, tastes not entirely unlike (canned) chicken (as do most things, apparently). Nutria are also small and easy to look after, though smelly beyond belief; you can keep them in old chicken coops if you want (which my grandfather did). And they are cheap to buy, or at least they were in 1966.

My grandfather and his partner in scheming purchased twenty-five nutria from someone in Ontario who promised that they'd be worth their weight in gold as soon as they started reproducing. The problem was that the males and females wouldn't go anywhere near each other without fights erupting left and right. Some quick research in the form of a frantic telephone call to the original seller yielded information about a peculiar trait apparently common to all nutria; he said that when they're in captivity, males and females all come to smell the same, and so each assumes that the others are the same sex as it and therefore not to be associated with, particularly not when all interactions between the captive nutria take place in an enclosure fifteen feet a side.

According to the original nutria vendor, there are two possible solutions. Either the nutria can be relocated to a bigger enclosure that has water in it (standing water or a stream), which apparently helps pheremones become discernable against the greater background of generalised nutria-stench, or you can douse them in something that smells completely unlike nutria, which reaches the same end without the hassle of relocation. My grandmother had a quart of cheap perfume purchased in bulk from Woolworth's called "Evening in Paris", which was eminently suitable for the job.

Twenty-five snarling, fornicating nutria slithering around a chicken coop smelling of equal parts musky pheremones, filth, and "Evening in Paris" proved too much for my grandfather and his scheming partner; they gave them away to another down-on-his-luck farmer in Dunmore, east of Medicine Hat by the border with Saskatchewan, on the condition that he give them a third of any profits derived from the nutria. Problem solved; nothing lost except a hundred dollars or so, a quart of perfume, and a bit of dignity.

Instead of keeping them in an old chicken coop, the farmer who bought the nutria decided to bypass the perfume and build them an enclosure that jutted out into the South Saskatchewan River where it is at its widest and most sluggish. He sealed off a section of river beside a corral all fenced off with chicken wire, to keep the nutria from escaping by land or by river; but of course it didn't work. The first night the nutria were in their new enclosure, all of them vanished without a trace, into the river.

This weekend on short-wave radio I heard a news broadcast out of North Dakota. They were talking about how the area's nutria population has inexplicably swelled from zero, in the 1960s, to thousands upon thousands; they've become such pests that it's now legal to trap them at any point in any season, just to take some of the pressure off the river system. The reporter interviewed a biologist who said that they could trace the nutria back to the South Saskatchewan River, but since they aren't indigenous to North America (though they have been introduced to other areas), there is no reason for them to be in North Dakota in the first place, let alone in quantities that would inspire such a massive population explosion. A mystery to be quashed with shotguns and modified beaver traps, not a mystery to be solved.

There are things about my grandparents that I'll never forget because I want someday to do them for my (albeit nonexistent) kids.

One of those things was, they always left the light on over the stove when they went to bed at night. Something about that one light amplified the stickiness of the linoleum floor, every step attached and detached in the most meticulous manner.

I killed the lights in my kitchen (miles and miles from their kitchen) tonight, and for whatever reason I'd forgotten about the light over the stove. It stayed on, and any anxiety I might have felt about about anything at all just melted away and puddled at my feet.

With the erratic comings and goings of me and my roommates, the all-hours talks and cartoon binges and caged cigarettes, I like the idea of coming home to a house where there's always a light on over the stove. I'm going to like flicking it on every night. Just, you know, in case.

Future Business Leaders of America is a big thing in my school. I go to a Business, Economics, and Technology magnet program, and as such we have many members in our chapter. Despite that, we're one of the worst chapters in the state.

I joined FBLA for the same reason most people do: a chance to get four days of excused absences and a discount trip to Orlando. I, along with two teammates, competed in Network Design. Since our team runs and maintains the school's network, we were practically a district shoe-in.

We won the district competition, and off we went to Orlando to represent our district in statewide competition. I had no desire to win. Winning meant traveling to Nashville, and investing about $500 and a week of my free time in something I don't care about at all.

So anyway, we lost. We came in fourth place out of maybe ten teams. Since we placed in the top five, we at least got to go on stage in front of 3,400 people and strike a funny pose. We were upstaged by a group of Jr. Accountants who kissed each other and did backflips.

The entire four-day fuckoff was worth it, overall. New friends were made, casual acquaintances got to know each other much better, and by the end of the week everyone was comfortable around each other. For most people, the trip was a school-sponsored excuse to socialize. And socialize we did. Aside from the people that took the whole thing too seriously and joined FBLA because they really want to be a Future Business Leader, and the obnoxious over-the-top people who overcompensate for years of shyness and parental oppression by completely freaking out, acting like a spaz the whole time.

Oh well... I suppose you can't expect a group of economically and technologically inclined high-schoolers to be the most well adjusted and easy going people in the world. The bus ride home was quiet, with most of my time occupied with the person asleep in my arms.

Fun Fact: Today is the three year anniversary of president George Bush landing on the USS Lincoln with a big red banner reading Mission Accomplished

Subway
A One Act Play

A man stands behind the counter of a Subway. The store is empty; he's spacing out a bit. Enter KYLE, our protagonist, an Everyman in search of sustenance. He is congenial, nonchalant, and fairly dashing. He approaches the counter.

COUNTER MAN: Hello, welcome to Subway. What kind of bread would you like?
KYLE: I'm sorry, bread? I'd like a regular sandwich, please, with ham.
COUNTER MAN: Okay, what kind of bread?
KYLE: Oh, oh, oh! Italian, please. You got focaccia?
COUNTER MAN: Yeah...

Begins to get out the Italian.

We've got Focaccia.

Kyle looks at the focaccia next to the Italian, confused by the discrepancy between his request and the result.

KYLE: ... umm, yeah, I'll take the focaccia then.

The counter man looks at the Italian in his hand, confused by the discrepancy between the request and the result.

COUNTER MAN: So, no Italian?

Kyle considers it might be easier to let the whole thing slide, accept the Italian as one of the more miniscule cosmic jokes. Kyle is no picky eater - any discerning tastes he has are fairly limited, as evidenced by his choice of Subway. The economist in Kyle kicks in, and he presses the issue.

KYLE: Yeah, no Eye-talian, per favore - (humor to defuse the tension - the telltale signs of class struggle) - the focaccia's great here.

The counter man shrugs visibly, the look on his face suggesting that any stores Kyle frequents, or their bread products, are probably not really that great. He returns the Italian and retrieves the focaccia.

COUNTER MAN: So, six inch or footlong?
KYLE: A regular. A six inch, I guess. Yeah, great.
COUNTER MAN: Ham?
KYLE: Yeah, ham.
COUNTER MAN: Cheese? American, swiss ...? Provolone? (A swipe at Kyle's internazionale tastes?)

At this point, the counter man's hands are hovering over the cheese section of his counter. He is as tired of not having decisions to make as Kyle is of making decisions. The novelty of guessing what the customer will want has long since waned; he wishes he worked at Quizno's - they start with a fully-made sandwich on the menu, and the customer can choose to let it stand as presented. This is all conveyed as a dullard's weariness, the half-cocked ear at Kyle, inviting input, demanding the idleness cease.

KYLE: You got cheddar?
COUNTER MAN (snatching some cheddar): Great, mayo? mustard?
KYLE (confident for once): Oh, light mayo, if you have any. Otherwise plain.
COUNTER MAN (applying light mayo): Toppings?
KYLE: Umm, just some lettuce and tomatoes, and purple onions. And a dash of salt and pepper.

The counter man does all of this by rote, wraps the sandwich hurriedly, despite the completely empty store. He clumsily tosses the sandwich in a bag.

KYLE: ... could I get a combo? The regular Baked Lays will be fine.

The counter man seemingly ignores Kyle, twisting the bag into a loose knot and entering data on the cash register. The facade of personal service complete, the almighty dollar preoccupies him. He looks up suddenly, a double take without the first.

COUNTER MAN: Did you say you wanted a combo?
KYLE (patience tried): Yeah, Baked Lays? Thanks.
COUNTER MAN: That'll be $7.09. Here's your cup (the cup), your chips (the chips), and your sandwich (QED). Anything else I can get you?

The counter man now freezes. A major miscue in this farce. He has given Kyle the upper hand - the slave is no longer the master. He awaits his punishment ...

Kyle ponders the facetiousness of this question, the sheer gall of it, when not only has the entire transaction clearly ended, but that any attempt to answer this question with anything but, "Nope, thanks a lot, have a good one," will be met with the utmost contempt. He thinks better of all other possibilities.

KYLE: Nope, thanks a lot, have a good one.
COUNTER MAN (attempting to hide his relief): Okay, you, too.

Kyle moves away from the counter, and pantomimes filling his drink cup. Satisfied, he makes his way to the door, his hands precariously balancing bag of sandwich, chips, and cup. No more acknowledgment of each other's presence as Kyle exits the stage.

The man behind the counter resumes his spaced-out position, as the empty store engulfs him. Curtain.