Little boxes, on a hillside

Last night I watched 8 or 9 episodes of Weeds. it is an edgy series that showcases the monotony of suburbian life–the intro depicts the expansion of a typical treeless neighborhood where everyone looks the same: the joggers in the park, the men coming out of the coffee shop, the SUVs driving down the street. There is a sickening rhythm to the intro– it reminds me of Camazotz in A Wrinkle in Time. Of course, the real irony comes when Nancy, a widowed suburban mom, begins selling weed to the husbands of the Agrestic community, proving that not everyone is, in fact, the same. Mostly, they're all a bit psychotic.

An argument could be made for the immorality and irreverence of the show. This is certainly not one that you want to watch with your in-laws. However, I'm wondering what these shows have to say about our culture. It seems to me that Desperate Housewives and Weeds have something in common: pretty people in pretty communities with rebellious under(over?)tones. That is, underneath it all, everyone is absolutely rotten and this predictable cookie-cutter lifestyle which feigns a Leave it to Beaver motif is actually the world going to "hell in a hand basket." The child who patronizes Mrs. Cleaver might not be such a brown-noser after all–he's probably just high.

And what is all this suburban anxiety about? It is as though we have reverted back to the 50's–everything is a front designed to hide what we are "really" like. Granted, these television series are extreme examples of this anxiety, but we have to recognize that popular culture says something about who we are as a society: our morals and values. Technology has made it possible for us to maintain this double-life dynamic. The public/private binary is seemingly preserved in these fictional communities, but is it really? Everyone "buys into" the front, but do they really? The front is completely artificial–while everyone publicly pretends to buy into the image, in reality (that is, the fictional reality of the television shows), everyone also knows everyone else's business. The entire community is "in on" the big secret: we're all pretending that "Agrestic is the bestic" (a genius slogan invented by the stoned city councilman in Weeds), despite the fact of our lives spinning out of control.

There is also a desperation in these series (hence the title "Desperate Housewives"). The residents of both communities cling to their artificial lives with alacrity. It is not as though they are seeking to break down their artificial fronts. Rather, they are engaging in deviant behaviors to maintain them (i.e. Nancy selling weed to keep her house after her husband dies).

So why are we so attracted to these shows? (I say "we" because the ratings have proven that these are popular shows, so "we" refers to the American population as a whole.) I think we are fascinated by the break down of the public/private binary–that is, these shows provide us with a "sneak peak" into the lives of the notorious "Joneses". While we may watch the shows and say, "that is so not me," the thing that draws us to these shows is the fact that we are, in some way, like these people. We can identify with their anxiety and their desperation to "keep up with the Joneses." And it is perhaps a relief that the Joneses are not altogether such wholesome characters–instead, they are fictional constructions of the "American Dream."

I remember...

Today in Sun Belt, we took down and disassembled our writing walls. In doing this, we were supposed to write down "I remember" statements about the artifacts on our wall, which were supposed to reflect "Who we have been and who we have become as writers."

I remember Coca Cola and Kettle Corn Popcorn at midnight with my best friend, who unfailingly mails me cards on random Tuesdays.

I remember reading with disbelief, "Your're smart," in the fancy script of my professor's grandiose handwriting.

I remember the frustration of putting meaning into shapes in my graphic design class as an undergrad. I also remember the night that Lauren (then) Taylor saved my life with her connections to people with mad computer skills.

I remember when pink was "my signature color."

I remember the mountains in Buena Vista, CO and the nights I spent sleeping on the porch outside.

I remember the last conversation I had with Grandaddy and Alma's words to me at his funeral.

I remember my grandmother greeting the visitors in her stocking feet.

I remember the moment I met Ruthie. I remember the dear friends who were there to support me. I remember how nervous my dad was.

I remember my mother's cooking–eclectic and intuitive.

I remember learning how to water ski. My grandaddy told me to pretend like I was sitting in a rocking chair. I used Snoopy skis.

Morning Has Broken

I woke up grumpy. First, Adam took a shower before me, which caused me to leap out of the bed in a fury to beg him to think of me as he drained our hot water heater. Sweet man that he is, he was taking a cold shower so that he wouldn't use it all up. I know. my stomach hurts just thinking about it.

Once I finally got in the shower, I couldn't find my shampoo. So I fussed at him again for taking my shampoo with him to the river (which he didn't do). He just quietly picked up the bottle from behind the toilet and gently placed it on the ledge of the tub.

He made a wonderful pot of coffee, which I sipped on as I spouted off various renditions of "I'm so fat. I hate these pants. I have nothing to wear. Look at me! I mean, how would you feel walking around with your pants wedged up your crotch? Everyone's going to think I'm a hussy." (I've been reading Tess of the D'Urbervilles for a class and she gets called that a lot). Of course, each remark was punctuated by the refrain, "And you don't even care!"

Throughout all of this, Adam smiled and resiliently claimed that he DID care (except when I viciously insisted that he didn't even know what it was like to be fat in tight clothes bc guys could get as fat as they want and they still don't have to wear their pants tight. They just go out and buy another crappy pair of Carharts that actually fit). In the back of my mind, throughout this whole episode, I am thinking, "I hate mornings. But you know you can control this bc if there were a stranger in the house right now, you would be nice to them. Yeah, but strangers don't try to sabotage your mornings. But neither is Adam trying to sabotage your morning. Look how nice he is being. I don't care. He's not wearing tight pants and he's a morning person. He should be nice. Well, you should be nice too."


Yes. I have conversations like this with myself. How else am I going to curb these nasty habits?

Adam's quiet resistance to my grumpiness is somehow a cure for it. It is unbelievably hard to continue to act like a brat when someone close to you (whom you are inflicting your impossible attitude upon) has no reaction. Then, I can see myself for myself and there is no one to blame but me. Me and my tight pants.

Almost Daily Quote

"Almost" every day, Art posts a quote on the Sun Belt list serv. Here is todays:

Writers write to learn, to explore, to discover, to hear themselves say what they do not expect to say.
~Donald Murray

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Donald Murray, he is a hero in the writing project world. He was one of the forerunners in the cultivation of process writing pedagogy. He was a journalist for the Boston Herald and has written several books. He died this past year.

At Sun Belt, we are reading one of his books: Crafting a Life.

Links to sites about him:
Column Archives
New Hampshire Writing Project Remembers Donald Murray

Swashbuckling Sun Belters

I'm "doing" Sun Belt this summer–a four week Summer Institute for teachers of writing. It's so laid back... we have a total of at least 3-4 hours a day to work on our own material (independent reading, writing, listening to music, consulting with each other... etc.). It is lovely. And daunting.

I am not so much a writer as a person who wishes she wrote more. I always envisioned writers as these terribly inspired people who crank out ingenious word mosaics of the tops of their head. Usually, I picture these people wearing glasses and perhaps chewing on a pencil in an over crowded office cluttered with dirty coffee mugs and brimming with books by people like Michel Foucault, Joan Dideon, John Steinbeck, or Proust. They dive into their writings without hesitation, without pretense, without fear. They are bold. They are confident. They write with authority.

Meanwhile, I hack away at my little black computer surrounded by sippy cups and half-eaten bagels. My teeth feel scuzzy from so much coffee, consumed in a vain attempt to stimulate my mind to the point of production. I listen to everything from Bruce Hornsby to George Winston seeking my muse. The most productive thing I wind up doing is creating a killer playlist. Praising myself for my ecclectic compilation of musical selections, I decide that my coffee buzz has dissipated and the laundry sounds much more enticing.

I believe that my slothlike approach to writing stems from the lack of tangible evidence of my labor when it comes to writing. No matter what I write, it can always be better. I might hammer out 5 pages of absolute crap, resulting in perhaps two surviving paragraphs. Anne Lamott would argue that this is success (check out Bird by Bird). However, I have a greater sense of satisfaction after folding 4 pairs of Adam's boxers and tucking them neatly away in his drawers. The labor involved in writing instills me with a love/hate relationship to the practice. When the writing is good (as it feels at the present moment), it is so good. But when it's bad, it is mind-numbing, chew my arm off, speaking in tongues, otherworldly, gut wrenching.

I'm still learning my process. Sometimes, I can lie awake at night and mentally write my papers and then sit down at the computer and bust it out. Other times, I will sit in front of the computer for so long that I develop butt-rot and an acute pain in my lower back and neck. Perhaps this blogging will become a piece of that process, since the audience feels more tangible, more real, more immediate.

10 things I hate about...

I am curiously selfish–I am consistently engaged in an angst-ridden tug of war with myself about... well, myself. So here's the list of things I don't like about myself.

A note to the reader: I have discovered that some of these things have been considered some of my strongest attributes by those who love me most; some even claim "that's why I love you." However, I have also found that the very people who make these statements are also those who are the most annoyed by these blacklisted qualities of my personality.

Read on.

10. I am often overcome by the desire to pick my toe nails with a vengeance, and sometimes I leave them on the coffee table for Adam to unwittingly encounter.

9. I bought my first mac because I thought it was "cuter" than a pc.

8. I bought the one I have now because it's black like the one Carrie Bradshaw wrote on during Sex and the City.

7. I am fascinated by my pores and have been known to examine them in the mirror (on my tip-toes because it's too high for me to look directly in to) for prolonged periods of time.

6. I am vain.

5. I am a "yeller"

4. I never read the Bible, but I believe in God

3. I am a messy neat-freak.

2. I am picky about stupid things: like, for instance, "I'll have a venti organic white mocha with 2 pumps" and then I wait to see my order on the monitor before I drive to the window (where I observe someone pumping the syrup like a maniac)

1. I don't want to be materialistic, but I continue to define myself in terms of my "stuff"