torture by comparison

I personally think that the worst torture is torture by comparison and yet I can't help but willingly engage in that same masochism over and over.

It was the summer between my Senior year of undergrad and my first year of grad school.

I spent that summer jealous and alone. I should have been relishing in my youth, in my beauty, in the fact that I should have been carefree. In a better world I would have had parents that congratulated me on not only graduating but also getting a scholarship to grad school. Finally, this was my moment. But I never had a graduation party or much acknowledgement that it even happened.

Instead I got a phone call forcing me home. It was the summer she tried to kill herself.

We all knew she had problems that none us could solve no matter how hard we loved her and no matter how hard we tried to be perfect. It's something that’s greater than all of us that started long before us.

I got the call and found myself in a mind numbingly drive back to Buffalo. Fucked if I knew what to do. What does a twenty-three year old do for a ten year old child who just lost a father to a drug overdose the year before and now has a mother who tried to kill herself?

Fuck.

So I made her French toast every morning. I drove her to school even though she could have taken the bus. I made sure I told her I loved her everyday even when she rolled her eyes at me. I lied to her. I told her our mother went on vacation and would be back soon. "Don't worry, it'll be ok." Even though it wasn't ok and we both knew it.

During the day when she was in school, I drove downtown to the hospital to see her. I hated her then. I hated her for stealing my summer while my classmates backpacked in Europe or interned. I hated her for making everything about her. I hated her for not knowing what I should to do. And for a minute (as awful as it sounds) I wished she had had the guts to pull it off.

She begged me for coffee while she was there. So I lied to her too. I snuck in decaf and pretended it was the real deal. "Don't worry, it'll be ok." I lied to her sister, “Don’t worry, it’ll be ok.”

I lied because I knew that as a former prom queen she’d never want anyone to know. I tried to hide it because I was embarrassed and ashamed. I lied because I couldn't bear anyone knowing.

But more importantly, I couldn't face the judgement that comes from comparison with my peers, and so I lied to myself as well.

glamorus

I've been accused of having a glamorous lifestyle - much like an obsessive compulsive is accused of being a neat freak. It's an innate falsehood. Only I'm not sure that when Fergie defined glamourous she visualized squatting above blue sludge during a turbulence patch thirty thousand feet in the air with neatly pleated pants scrunched around her ankles.

Middle seat in row 11 on Delta flight 645.

I've washed underwear in a hotel sink.

G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S. Glamorous.

nurse candy

At the very least I can say with almost full confidence that I have never forgotten to put pants on.

My mother has never been the Joan Cleaver type of mom I've always longed for. She never made cookies or even dinner that didn’t come in the form a combo meal straight from a drive-thru window. By the age of eight I was doing my own laundry and making my best attempts at peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. On occasion I wrote myself love notes to put into my lunches to make the other girls seep with jealousy that was barely containable within their plaid jumpers and knee socks. By then my penmanship was already at a 5th grade level and could certainly pass any handwriting analysis my classmates might employ.

Rather than ironing my socks with light starch or meticulously organizing my vast collection of nude and sometimes headless Barbie dolls, my mother was much more likely to wake us up at 6am for a game of Find the Bra. It was a regular occurrence for us to search the house and surrounding areas for the bra she was about to put on that morning and had somehow managed to misplace at some point in the time it took her to have her morning coffee and put on her makeup. On two separate occasions I found her bra in the freezer.

To describe my mother as unpredictable would be a gross understatement. In fact her eccentricities are so common it would be delusional to hope for any indication of the mundane. The problem is you just never know exactly what new adventure she has in store that day.

My mother has worked as a nurse in an assortment of pregnancy clinics, gyno offices, and breast treatment facilities and always carries with her an ample supply of inappropriate stories. But more importantly, her occupation in combination with her name has resulted in a witty yet descriptive nickname that my sister and I regularly exhaust: Nurse Candy.

Several weeks ago – against my better judgment – I invited a gentleman friend back home to experience all that is Buffalo, New York in February. Aside from the obvious excitement he had in venturing to a great cultural metropolis, he had little idea what to expect from Nurse Candy.

I gave her a solid four hour head start to primp herself and hide any of her penis and/or vagina diagrams she unapologetically leaves around the house before arriving. When we got there I’m not sure what was more embarrassing, the fact that she welcomed us into the house garbed in a bathrobe at 3pm or the fact that the bathrobe was untied exposing her bottomless nether region.

Unfazed by her appearance, Nurse Candy welcomed us into the house mid-robe fumble and with a hug.

the midwest

I recently started up a new project that has brought me to wholesome, God-fearing towns in Minnesota bearing colorful names like Shakopee and Minnehaha. Monday through Thursday I am trapped in Middle America hell. There are outdated hair styles, - my favorite of which belongs to Marjorie who proudly sports a bowl cut and makes no apologies for it - chain restaurants as far as the eye can see, and hallways filled with women exchanging their latest casserole recipes.

Two weeks ago I was on my way into the corporate headquarters of the world's largest agriculture producer and marketer. Because much of the mid-west operates on a farmer's schedule, I was forced to drag myself into the office well before sunrise, silently cursing the fact that I wasn't still in bed. As I walked into the lobby half-awake/half-dead, I approached what appeared to be a woman dressed in a gigantic red foam vagina. Immediately I perked up. Finally something to crack Minnesota's squeaky clean image! I had approximately ten steps of gleeful excitement that there just might be a protest or [gasp] that a meth addict had somehow stumbled into the lobby in a drug-induced rampage. I tingled anticipating the possibilities.

But just as soon as my hopes for a more thrilling Midwest were lifted, reality kicked back in. My dreams of a foam vagina were squashed as I realized she was actually dressed a tbone steak promoting a meat raffle to benefit the food kitchens for the larger Minneapolis area. I didn't end up winning the raffle, but I think I was actually more disappointed that something that had started with so many possibilities resulted in something so mundane.

Later that same day as I was making my sprint to the airport (by far my favorite activity each week), I was stuck behind a semi-truck transporting chickens on their way to slaughter. This reminded me of a discussion I had earlier about saving money by cramming more chickens into a space intended for one (let's set aside ethics on this one). But before I could get too lost in the calculations and the quality of life debate, I was jolted into a momentary panic. I was engulfed in feathers and speeding down a highway in near whiteout conditions. Windshield wipers are vital in situations like this.

That same day I decided that I am in fact a city girl.

consulting

I'm feeling like a total idiot lately and it's to the point where I almost don't even care anymore. I'm so uninterested in what I'm doing that I can't even pretend to care. I don't want to be here and I'm completely checked out. My only incentive right now is to keep my job so I don't end up homeless.

If I wasn't doing this, what would I be doing? I wish I knew the answer to that. I wish I was doing something where I felt like I was actually making a difference in someone's life or the world or a dust speck for that matter. I wish I was creating/destroying/changing something... anything!

Instead I sit in meetings for hours discussing such riveting topics as: how to submit a request form, a meeting to discuss making meetings more efficient, and what is meant by the term "complete."

[sigh]

I guess this is what consulting is supposed to be and why it's so difficult to define. Regardless, I think I'm over the hype.

the self hug

I don't talk a lot but I over think things... a lot... pretty much every second of the day. So much so I often get lost in my own head with little regard for what's happening around me.

I like to think about the drops of water left in the sink after washing my hands and wonder if they miss each other. Or what happens to the breath that exits one person's lungs and enters another and if it's innately altered afterward. Or if its some sort of cosmic balance that you laugh on the inhale and I snort when something is uncontrollably funny.

I have this habit that anyone who has spent more than a day with me has picked up on. I can't really explain why I do it, why I need to do it, why I breathe to do it. I'm horribly self-conscious about it and can't explain it in the slightest.

I tell people it's "the self-hug" and it is. It happens when I'm about to burst out of my body with happiness and I'm too embarrassed to say anything about it because I fear it's too strange to mention.

Would it be strange to tell you that your one gray hair makes me giddy? Or that watching a brewing pot of coffee makes me tingle in anticipation? Or that I rehearse you saying, "Give me your little paw," over and over in my head because I secretly love it?

I'm weird. I know.

[self hug]

11 dollar mark

"Thank you for flying with United today. The current temperature in Chicago is 0 degrees." Ouch.

I turned my cellphone on and within 10 seconds I received a call from my sister. While I was in mid-transit, my grandmother had died. Double blow.

I waited 30 minutes for my suitcase. I was cranky and felt horribly alone. I plopped into the next available cab, which happened to be a minivan. The cab driver was a personable Indian who had a nicer cell phone than I did. The traffic was stagnant and I knew I was locked in for the long haul. In cab situations I don't tend to be much of a talker but I kept making eye contact with him in the rear view mirror and since he led, I had nothing else to do other than follow.

Without any hesitation he proclaimed that he is the happiest he's ever been in his entire life. Although unsolicited, I felt obligated to inquire why.

"Let me tell you Miss... when I came here I was 20 years old and I had 11 dollars in my pocket. God has blessed me Miss."

He then proceeded to go into a tale that began in India where his mother would cut an apple into 12 pieces: 1 for herself, 1 for his father, 1 for his grandfather, 2 for his grandmothers (his grandfather had 2 wives) and 7 for each child. His journey brought him to America through varying odd jobs and eventually his story caught up to his present.

"So you see Miss... as long as I have more than 11 dollars in my pocket, I am blessed."

Being the ever-skeptic, I started to wonder if he was doing this to bump up his tip.

There was some brief silence that was interrupted with another story about his sister. She had married a man that had a nasty habit of chewing loudly with no consideration for anyone around him. They were at a party and people began to notice and laugh, which horribly embarrassed her. She was afraid to say something to him because her husband was not a kind man. So his advice to her was this:

"She must make him a private meal. Make him his favorite dishes and when he starts with the [smack smack smack] she must tell him that they are partners and that they are here to protect each other. And that his loud chewing draws attention not only to him but to her as well. You see Miss, you cannot bend steel with a fist. You must bend steel with slow, steady heat."

(wow)

Eventually the cabbie turned his attention to me and the current status of my love life. He advised me that, "Women here give themselves away too easily. You must make a man work to be with you, if he is to truly value you. Do not pick a partner for the physical beauty. Pick someone who can know you on this inside because it is the inner beauty where you will find happiness."

After 2 hours of sitting in traffic we finally reached my destination and I did not have enough cash to pay the cab fare in it entirety. So I told him I could tip him in cash but I would need to put the rest on my credit card. He turned to me and asked how much cash I did have and I told him, "Thirty-seven dollars."

And he replied, "Then that is all you owe me."

I insisted that I put it on my credit card and tip him in cash and he countered with, "And a million times I tell you no."

In the two hours I spent with him, this guy managed to break my skepticism and really got me thinking... What's the point in my life that I measure my life's happiness against? What's my 11 dollar mark? And will I recognize it when I surpass it?