* A thousand apologies for the completely overplayed allusion in the title. But it is, indeed, the question.
Last week Bob and I journeyed to the new Durham Performing Arts Center to see the legendary Willie Nelson. It was a great show and Willie delivered far beyond what I expected from a man who has spent as many years as he has traveling the country high on a bus.
We were delighted to see copious drinking options at the new venue as well as permission to take libations to our seats. And so it was that we settled in to the fourth and fifth seats of Orchestra row Q with 24-ounce cans of Miller Lite in our hands. Willie's backing band, "Asleep at the Wheel", also served as his opening band and they performed toe-tapping yee-haw country for a good 30-40 minutes before the diminutive headliner joined them on stage. When Willie finally joined the stage it was pretty much the exact moment that I realized I needed to pee.
Seeing there would be no break between the opening music and the music we came to hear, I figured perhaps Willie's age would grant us all a set break. So I waited. And looked at my watch. And slowly began to accept that there would be no break, that any bathroom trip would have to be a rogue one, stepping out at the critically appropriate moment, over the feet and laps of strangers, scurrying up the rows trying not to obstruct the view, undoing the belt on the way to the stall, and peeing/buckling/flushing/washing (no time for drying) as fast as possible so as not to miss whatever classic song it would turn out to be that the crowd cheered for as I sat on the porcelain throne.
Of course, just as I accepted that I now really had to pee and there would be no set break, Willie switched from the new stuff that everyone politely clapped for to the greatest hits portion of the night. I pushed my pee thoughts aside momentarily to enjoy You Were Always on My Mind, swayed along with Crazy, agreed I wouldn't let my babies grow up to be cowboys, tried not to picture the opening scenes from Designing Women as he sang Georgia and decided that now, no matter what, whatever the next song was, I was going to have to pee. (all song titles referenced here are obviously lacking in accuracy and are only what I think the song is called).
And then Willie started playing On the Road Again. Now really, how can you pay $65 to see Willie Nelson - $65! - and leave the theatre as he's playing On the Road Again? That would just be ridiculous. And so I waited.
Not choosing to leave the theatre so as not to miss a good song is the saner side of my pee-holding. But I have to admit here that there was also a social anxiety element at play - the paralyzing power of those three strangers between myself and the exit aisle. It wasn't as simple as getting up and going - it would involve "excuse me, pardon me, oops, sorry, thank you, oof...", not once, but twice. Even though this was a concert, it was a sitting concert, and a sitting concert with older people, people who settle in and get their coats adjusted and glare at you in a "damn kid" sort of way when you have to jostle by them to go pee out the 24-ounce beer that they judged harshly in your hand when you first sat down. At one point the guy inside of me, further from the aisle, got up and myself, Bob, and the three strangers all stood up to let him by. I knew I should go then, to limit the rustling of the row by just sneaking through with him, while the pee-denying strangers were already standing. But I balked and missed my moment, hesitating because I considered that myself and Metro Blazer Guy would come back separately, thereby disturbing the triad of aisle defenders too many times. I missed the perfect moment to go, overthinking to pee or not to pee.
In the end, I clapped and cheered and Willie encored and wowed, but only ten percent of me was enjoying the show. Ninety percent of me was thinking pee, pee, pee, pee, pee, pee. It made me wonder how much of my life I have spent missing out, not fully being able to enjoy the experience in front of me because of the nagging persistence of my bladder. It seems inevitable at concerts and movies, frequent on car rides, unbearable on airplanes during landing when I waited too long and now we're quarantined to our seats. It seems only fair that with the majority of time I apparantly spend thinking about bathroom trips, I at least give it a few moments' thought here.
And I wonder now, after reading this tale, how many of you may have to pee?
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
An Allegory
As I have commented in an earlier post and demonstrated in a few, I enjoy and often find metaphorical meaning in literal actions or statements - like searching for meaning in running with cheese or walking on frozen footsteps. Sometimes the converse happens as well and I was struck last evening by the walking demonstration of a commonly thrown about adage.
I am surprised now to find that the phrase I will be referencing originates in the Bible (and not at all surprised that I wasn't able to recognize it as such). The Biblical origins of the enacted simile are all the more humorous to me as my story takes place in a smoky, drunken bar - a wonderful place for Tuesday night Guinness on special, but perhaps one that doesn't often inspire Bible quotes.
At the table behind my group of imbibement sat a heavily smoking trio of drinkers. My back was to the group of three women and I didn't notice much about them other than the irritating level of noxious fumes floating over the booth wall until the patrons arose and readied to leave the bar. In the hand of each woman was a long, slender cane and two of the women placed large, dark glasses over their eyes. They then stood in a line, each holding a cane with one hand and a friend's shoulder with the other.
I couldn't stop my amazed mind from silently screaming over and over, "The blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind!" I didn't have time to really think about the phrase and explore or acknowledge that it is not often quoted as a celebration of the resourcefulness of the unsighted, but instead as a warning about the dangers of the unenlightened leading the unenlightened. Before my mind grabbed at the connotation denoted to "the blind leading the blind", the metaphorical danger was literally enacted in front of me, as the second woman in the trio (both a blind follower and a blind leader), smacked face front into a wall. The blind (or, one assumes, the semi-sighted, as she was placed in front and wore eyeglasses) leader failed to communicate the sharpness of the turn out the door either with words or her body movement and the second woman failed to angle her body sharply enough for the egress.
I don't mean in any way to indicate that I found pleasure or humor in the path of these women and I felt guilty witnessing the wall bonk, but I still can't get over my amazement of the perfect literal enactment of the blind leading the blind. It is, indeed, a dangerous thing. And, if it not so wordy and perhaps offensive to the original Biblical meaning, I would add a caveat that it is even more dangerous for the drunken blind to lead the drunken blind.
I am surprised now to find that the phrase I will be referencing originates in the Bible (and not at all surprised that I wasn't able to recognize it as such). The Biblical origins of the enacted simile are all the more humorous to me as my story takes place in a smoky, drunken bar - a wonderful place for Tuesday night Guinness on special, but perhaps one that doesn't often inspire Bible quotes.
At the table behind my group of imbibement sat a heavily smoking trio of drinkers. My back was to the group of three women and I didn't notice much about them other than the irritating level of noxious fumes floating over the booth wall until the patrons arose and readied to leave the bar. In the hand of each woman was a long, slender cane and two of the women placed large, dark glasses over their eyes. They then stood in a line, each holding a cane with one hand and a friend's shoulder with the other.
I couldn't stop my amazed mind from silently screaming over and over, "The blind leading the blind. The blind leading the blind!" I didn't have time to really think about the phrase and explore or acknowledge that it is not often quoted as a celebration of the resourcefulness of the unsighted, but instead as a warning about the dangers of the unenlightened leading the unenlightened. Before my mind grabbed at the connotation denoted to "the blind leading the blind", the metaphorical danger was literally enacted in front of me, as the second woman in the trio (both a blind follower and a blind leader), smacked face front into a wall. The blind (or, one assumes, the semi-sighted, as she was placed in front and wore eyeglasses) leader failed to communicate the sharpness of the turn out the door either with words or her body movement and the second woman failed to angle her body sharply enough for the egress.
I don't mean in any way to indicate that I found pleasure or humor in the path of these women and I felt guilty witnessing the wall bonk, but I still can't get over my amazement of the perfect literal enactment of the blind leading the blind. It is, indeed, a dangerous thing. And, if it not so wordy and perhaps offensive to the original Biblical meaning, I would add a caveat that it is even more dangerous for the drunken blind to lead the drunken blind.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Literary Fears
I hate used books. At my poorest as a graduate student, when buying a six-pack of tall boys was splurging, I bent my will to the savings offered by previously read editions, but it was only out of financial desperation. Given my true druthers, I would only touch the fresh crisp pages of new publishing, would only smell the chemical airs escaping from shrink-wrapped volumes, and would only scan my eyes across pristine pages free of smudge, crumb, or dog-ear.
This, dare I admit, 'obsession' with new books certainly has no roots in my childhood. My mother is a librarian for god's sake - you can only imagine how much of my childhood was spent in a library, touching, reading, smelling, holding, loving library books. No Saturday errand run was complete without choosing a stack to check out and take home. My own personal after-school program was spending hours playing treasure hunt with the card catalog and no other place in the world offers more feelings of safety and love to me than my mom's library.
But yet, I can barely stomach touching used books. On the rare occassions in my adult life that I have frequented a library for the purposes of recreational fiction, my selections were based more heavily on which books were freshly carded and shelved than what was highly lauded. It's quite possible that my research endeavors were subconsciously shaped by this aversion to older volumes as well, rationalized in my head as an attempt to capture the most recent research on a topic. Perhaps I even would have been able to finish my PhD if I hadn't been so averse to spending extended time with the highlights and underlinings of strangers.
One might argue that used academic books offer not only financial savings, but also a built in cliff's notes of a sort since the important sections are already marked. One might argue this if one also does not assume that most everyone else in the world is an idiot. I never had any faith that the anonymous student before me offered any value with his or her highlighting, underlines, or notes. Perhaps used academic books should come with a description of the previous owner's class performance, so we could tell better if the A-student's notes are of value or if the C-student's highlights should be categorically ignored.
Not only do you have to ignore the previous readers' scribbles, but you have to add your own on top or around. Last year's slacker used a yellow highlighter, so now I must pull out the too vivid green one, the pepto-y pink one, or, worst of all, the neon blue one. Color chaos on the page! Yellow, blue, and then those necessary times when I must trace my blue highlight over yesteryear's yellow highlight and the basic laws of primary colors add green to my page. Yellow, blue, and green? It's just too much to take.
While the marks of strangers appall my senses, nothing delights me more than writing in my own books. Writing in MY books. Adding MY thoughts. Underlining MY quotes of value. Recording a living diary of how I experienced these pages, where my eyes rested longer, where my mind struggled out an interpretation that needed to be noted. A squiggly line under the words of greatest import, brackets around a bit that I don't quite understand, and the audacious exclamation point in the margin when I find the deepest meat of it all, when the author offers me the thought at the very root of all the words around it.
So here I digress into my love of books, a much more satisfying and fulfilling exploration perhaps than my fear of stranger's germs, but I must get back to my primary point. My primary point being, of course, that used books are icky. There may well be some law of nature that requires readers to hold either chocolate or peanut butter over the course of reading a new book. What else could explain the preponderance of smudgy fingerprints in library books? And why, oh god why, is it so hard for people to find bookmarks? Is there no scrap of paper in your home? No magazine laying about, no grocery store receipt? Please, I beg of you world, stop folding pages. If you are absolutely incapable of finding your place again at the beginning of Chapter Three, then you probably don't understand the plot anyway.
I have forced myself to explore this issue here today to try to understand why in my unemployed state I allowed myself to spend thirty dollars at Barnes and Noble today (throw in chastisement that I didn't spend this money at a locally-owned, independent bookseller) when there is a perfectly good library down the street. I can't even claim that I buy my own copies out of a desire to keep them for my own library. While of course I love having books around and covet my copies of Tolkein, Dumas, Shakespeare, an academic life long ago cured me of the need to keep every book.
I will just have to hope that when the savings account shrinks, my dear librarian mother who knowingly accepts these minor psychoses of mine will continue to aid and abet my love of new books.
This, dare I admit, 'obsession' with new books certainly has no roots in my childhood. My mother is a librarian for god's sake - you can only imagine how much of my childhood was spent in a library, touching, reading, smelling, holding, loving library books. No Saturday errand run was complete without choosing a stack to check out and take home. My own personal after-school program was spending hours playing treasure hunt with the card catalog and no other place in the world offers more feelings of safety and love to me than my mom's library.
But yet, I can barely stomach touching used books. On the rare occassions in my adult life that I have frequented a library for the purposes of recreational fiction, my selections were based more heavily on which books were freshly carded and shelved than what was highly lauded. It's quite possible that my research endeavors were subconsciously shaped by this aversion to older volumes as well, rationalized in my head as an attempt to capture the most recent research on a topic. Perhaps I even would have been able to finish my PhD if I hadn't been so averse to spending extended time with the highlights and underlinings of strangers.
One might argue that used academic books offer not only financial savings, but also a built in cliff's notes of a sort since the important sections are already marked. One might argue this if one also does not assume that most everyone else in the world is an idiot. I never had any faith that the anonymous student before me offered any value with his or her highlighting, underlines, or notes. Perhaps used academic books should come with a description of the previous owner's class performance, so we could tell better if the A-student's notes are of value or if the C-student's highlights should be categorically ignored.
Not only do you have to ignore the previous readers' scribbles, but you have to add your own on top or around. Last year's slacker used a yellow highlighter, so now I must pull out the too vivid green one, the pepto-y pink one, or, worst of all, the neon blue one. Color chaos on the page! Yellow, blue, and then those necessary times when I must trace my blue highlight over yesteryear's yellow highlight and the basic laws of primary colors add green to my page. Yellow, blue, and green? It's just too much to take.
While the marks of strangers appall my senses, nothing delights me more than writing in my own books. Writing in MY books. Adding MY thoughts. Underlining MY quotes of value. Recording a living diary of how I experienced these pages, where my eyes rested longer, where my mind struggled out an interpretation that needed to be noted. A squiggly line under the words of greatest import, brackets around a bit that I don't quite understand, and the audacious exclamation point in the margin when I find the deepest meat of it all, when the author offers me the thought at the very root of all the words around it.
So here I digress into my love of books, a much more satisfying and fulfilling exploration perhaps than my fear of stranger's germs, but I must get back to my primary point. My primary point being, of course, that used books are icky. There may well be some law of nature that requires readers to hold either chocolate or peanut butter over the course of reading a new book. What else could explain the preponderance of smudgy fingerprints in library books? And why, oh god why, is it so hard for people to find bookmarks? Is there no scrap of paper in your home? No magazine laying about, no grocery store receipt? Please, I beg of you world, stop folding pages. If you are absolutely incapable of finding your place again at the beginning of Chapter Three, then you probably don't understand the plot anyway.
I have forced myself to explore this issue here today to try to understand why in my unemployed state I allowed myself to spend thirty dollars at Barnes and Noble today (throw in chastisement that I didn't spend this money at a locally-owned, independent bookseller) when there is a perfectly good library down the street. I can't even claim that I buy my own copies out of a desire to keep them for my own library. While of course I love having books around and covet my copies of Tolkein, Dumas, Shakespeare, an academic life long ago cured me of the need to keep every book.
I will just have to hope that when the savings account shrinks, my dear librarian mother who knowingly accepts these minor psychoses of mine will continue to aid and abet my love of new books.
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