Up in Smoke
I'm writing this to the accompaniment of the Spectrum hold-music from the earpiece of my heavy old landline phone-- the only one I own-- waiting once again to try and negotiate a reprieve from excessive charges for inconsistent service and the potential privilege of watching mediocre television on 4000 irrelevant channels I will never explore. I am reminded of ordering multiple Happy Meals just to get the nineteen-cent toy for the kids which seemed to be exclusive in those innocent pre-internet days; and how can we be horrified by the habits of these TLC-channel reality-show hoarders when our lives are chocked with exponentially massive digital tonnage? Mall-scaled stacks of unopened TV dinners defrosting in the global-warmed polluted air? Does this give anyone even a fractional glimpse into the hourly generation of froth-data and marketing congestion? All you binge-texters and iPhone junkies-- no, you are not 800-pound obese and homebound but somehow morbidly bloated with nutritionally unsound brain-feeds. Is anyone out there? Back to my yellow lined pad and cheap ballpoint pen. Does anyone remember Koko the Clown? Back to the inkwell....?
Friday night I had a midnight show. We arrived at the bar and I was corralled by an attractive youngish woman who in blunt verbal and body-cues let me know she wanted to hook up. Yes, she was drunk... and if she'd been a man, I would have freely given her the fuck-off response... so I began to wonder, with the #MeToo history we older women have navigated, why I would give my own sex a free pass. I do not find the aggressive come-on appealing-- even when it's a rockstar or celebrity; it's just not flattering to be flash-craved like a cupcake by a food addict.
Similarly, I met a man recently who seemed intelligent and interesting enough; we bonded over the book I was reading. He is literate and musical; we had a coffee-- benign. On the phone, later, he made a few lewd outside comments and references to his sexual superiority. Jesus.. I am a senior citizen now? Certainly he is. Dealbreaker. Are there people out there who respond to this? Who like it? Apparently.
Of course, we rock and rollers are used to an entirely different behavioral code at the workplace. Audience (and band members) scream, curse, strip down, fight-- throw bottles and themselves onto the stage, bleed-- we've seen it all. Some bands instigate extreme behavior-- it's part of the experience. Alcohol and drugs stir the pot to a quicker boil... and the music itself is both exciting and inciting. We love it. But I gave up going to hardcore and punk shows. When ambulances park outside of a club waiting for customers-- well, I'm done with it now. Does that make me a prissy-assed prude?
In the midst of teenage hell, a school psychologist told me I had not given my son clear boundaries. Yes, at his worst gangsta-phase, he referred to me (and his teachers, apparently) as 'Niggah'. We had worse battles and issues... but even he, who has emerged from the delinquency and acting-out a remarkable and beloved 'mensch', told me I had failed to maintain disciplinary lines. I am not the military type. What does one do.. beat them? I was a single Mom ex-hippy playing seedy rock-clubs in bands with less-than-stellar role models. Admittedly, I failed the teenage parenting non-exam.
At this life-juncture, where way more is behind me than before me, I have much more clarity than I once did. Musically-- it's a yay or nay. I avoid things I once tolerated. Personally-- it's fairly black and white; there is little time for people who annoy me. We live in an over-populated city where there is limited width for individuality and attention, let alone a seat on public transportation. I have grown more selfish about my personal latitude; I spend much more solitary time -- sometimes in crowds, but as an observer, not a companion or subscriber. I have drawn those lines more graphically around me-- whether it is the nightmarish approaching white-chalk of my own imagined fatality, a sort of protective prison, or an adult time-out. I have finally acquired a sense of boundaries.
Our clown president (back to the inkwell for him, if only...) is obsessed with the US/Mexican border... but has absolutely no awareness of his utter failure as a human to perceive or respect the concept of personal boundaries, and has crossed and violated every imaginable line of justice, decency, courtesy, ethics, acceptability, humanity-- we can go on forever. He offends women daily, is bigoted, ignorant, intolerant-- embodies the antithesis of everything I believed as a child was 'presidential'. How can I expect drunk women in bars to respect my personal space?
Last week I went up to Dyckman Park to watch my son's spectacular basketball team play a league game. I was frisked by the police-women on the way in, and handed one of those blow-up plastic thunder sticks to taunt the opposite team. The stands were filled with mostly twenty to thrity-ish spectators and fans, some kids. There is loud music blasted through the speakers-- a DJ-styled announcer runs around the court during play. It seemed everyone was lighting up cigar-sized spliffs. They were passing them around-- even to me, by the guy in front of me who asked me if I noticed I was the only white person there... and was I nervous? No, I am not... but the smoke was so thick... it was like eating a heavy meal; I honestly don't see how the players maintained their skills.
On the train downtown, afterward-- I kept smelling marijuana. At the grocery store the cashier looked at me like I had facepaint on. At last I ran into a friend who did a double-take and said.. woman-- what have you been smoking? I went home and took a shower. Next morning-- even my sneakers in the hallway smelled like a fresh-lit joint. There I had been, watching a great game... minding my business-- an observer-- and the smoke permeated... I breathed it, I wore it... even though my days of getting high are many decades away.
There is little we can do about some boundaries. Smoke-- the dark-- the weather-- people in ridiculous states of dress in our visual field-- sirens-- overheard conversations. Men and women in my gym... at all ages-- choose to display their naked flesh in varying states of youthful beauty or decay... we cannot change their choices. Maybe the fashion police are out there, or the actual dress-code enforcers. Our own friends will say things or do things that bother us... I care about people, but I care less and less what strangers think of me.
When I was ten years old, I smoked cigarettes but I didn't always inhale. It made me feel like a teenager and I liked the way it looked in my fingers, the way the smoke curled up around me. They became prohibitively expensive, and really bad for you; smoking is banned in public places in most countries because it's too hard to draw a non-permeable line. Other seriously offensive, unhealthy things are duked out on sidewalks, argued in court, debated in international forums, protested in human marches and on picket-lines. These things are important... and time is too precious to get our feet stepped on and watch others helplessly violated by schoolroom or presidential bullies. As far as intimate personal boundaries, I can still imagine the cigarette, sympathize with the smoker, refuse to inhale and walk away.
Friday night I had a midnight show. We arrived at the bar and I was corralled by an attractive youngish woman who in blunt verbal and body-cues let me know she wanted to hook up. Yes, she was drunk... and if she'd been a man, I would have freely given her the fuck-off response... so I began to wonder, with the #MeToo history we older women have navigated, why I would give my own sex a free pass. I do not find the aggressive come-on appealing-- even when it's a rockstar or celebrity; it's just not flattering to be flash-craved like a cupcake by a food addict.
Similarly, I met a man recently who seemed intelligent and interesting enough; we bonded over the book I was reading. He is literate and musical; we had a coffee-- benign. On the phone, later, he made a few lewd outside comments and references to his sexual superiority. Jesus.. I am a senior citizen now? Certainly he is. Dealbreaker. Are there people out there who respond to this? Who like it? Apparently.
Of course, we rock and rollers are used to an entirely different behavioral code at the workplace. Audience (and band members) scream, curse, strip down, fight-- throw bottles and themselves onto the stage, bleed-- we've seen it all. Some bands instigate extreme behavior-- it's part of the experience. Alcohol and drugs stir the pot to a quicker boil... and the music itself is both exciting and inciting. We love it. But I gave up going to hardcore and punk shows. When ambulances park outside of a club waiting for customers-- well, I'm done with it now. Does that make me a prissy-assed prude?
In the midst of teenage hell, a school psychologist told me I had not given my son clear boundaries. Yes, at his worst gangsta-phase, he referred to me (and his teachers, apparently) as 'Niggah'. We had worse battles and issues... but even he, who has emerged from the delinquency and acting-out a remarkable and beloved 'mensch', told me I had failed to maintain disciplinary lines. I am not the military type. What does one do.. beat them? I was a single Mom ex-hippy playing seedy rock-clubs in bands with less-than-stellar role models. Admittedly, I failed the teenage parenting non-exam.
At this life-juncture, where way more is behind me than before me, I have much more clarity than I once did. Musically-- it's a yay or nay. I avoid things I once tolerated. Personally-- it's fairly black and white; there is little time for people who annoy me. We live in an over-populated city where there is limited width for individuality and attention, let alone a seat on public transportation. I have grown more selfish about my personal latitude; I spend much more solitary time -- sometimes in crowds, but as an observer, not a companion or subscriber. I have drawn those lines more graphically around me-- whether it is the nightmarish approaching white-chalk of my own imagined fatality, a sort of protective prison, or an adult time-out. I have finally acquired a sense of boundaries.
Our clown president (back to the inkwell for him, if only...) is obsessed with the US/Mexican border... but has absolutely no awareness of his utter failure as a human to perceive or respect the concept of personal boundaries, and has crossed and violated every imaginable line of justice, decency, courtesy, ethics, acceptability, humanity-- we can go on forever. He offends women daily, is bigoted, ignorant, intolerant-- embodies the antithesis of everything I believed as a child was 'presidential'. How can I expect drunk women in bars to respect my personal space?
Last week I went up to Dyckman Park to watch my son's spectacular basketball team play a league game. I was frisked by the police-women on the way in, and handed one of those blow-up plastic thunder sticks to taunt the opposite team. The stands were filled with mostly twenty to thrity-ish spectators and fans, some kids. There is loud music blasted through the speakers-- a DJ-styled announcer runs around the court during play. It seemed everyone was lighting up cigar-sized spliffs. They were passing them around-- even to me, by the guy in front of me who asked me if I noticed I was the only white person there... and was I nervous? No, I am not... but the smoke was so thick... it was like eating a heavy meal; I honestly don't see how the players maintained their skills.
On the train downtown, afterward-- I kept smelling marijuana. At the grocery store the cashier looked at me like I had facepaint on. At last I ran into a friend who did a double-take and said.. woman-- what have you been smoking? I went home and took a shower. Next morning-- even my sneakers in the hallway smelled like a fresh-lit joint. There I had been, watching a great game... minding my business-- an observer-- and the smoke permeated... I breathed it, I wore it... even though my days of getting high are many decades away.
There is little we can do about some boundaries. Smoke-- the dark-- the weather-- people in ridiculous states of dress in our visual field-- sirens-- overheard conversations. Men and women in my gym... at all ages-- choose to display their naked flesh in varying states of youthful beauty or decay... we cannot change their choices. Maybe the fashion police are out there, or the actual dress-code enforcers. Our own friends will say things or do things that bother us... I care about people, but I care less and less what strangers think of me.
When I was ten years old, I smoked cigarettes but I didn't always inhale. It made me feel like a teenager and I liked the way it looked in my fingers, the way the smoke curled up around me. They became prohibitively expensive, and really bad for you; smoking is banned in public places in most countries because it's too hard to draw a non-permeable line. Other seriously offensive, unhealthy things are duked out on sidewalks, argued in court, debated in international forums, protested in human marches and on picket-lines. These things are important... and time is too precious to get our feet stepped on and watch others helplessly violated by schoolroom or presidential bullies. As far as intimate personal boundaries, I can still imagine the cigarette, sympathize with the smoker, refuse to inhale and walk away.
Labels: #metoo, basketball, border wars, boundaries, cigarettes, DJs, Dyckman Park, fashion police, gym etiquette, hardcore, Immigration policy, marijuana, rock and roll, sex, teenagers, The Wall
posted by mysocalledwriterlessblog at
2:43 PM
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