It's 2005. Do you know where your baby boomer is?
Posted by: lucie
The words of two women in their late fifties are snaking around corners, piercing through a loud melodramatic fog of Andrea Bocelli.
They've put back a couple bottles of wine, the Southern woman's 7-month-old granddaughter is sleeping peacefully, and the conversation has turned to pills. They speak of 'meds' casually, knowingly, as women who bear labels of diagnosis and who understand themselves comfortably in these terms.
The Southern woman is telling the Northwest woman that her dosage of Zoloft has been raised to nearly 200 milligrams but she still gets very upset sometimes. Some days she can go back and forth between massive highs and the lowest lows, she says - all in one workday. "It is really hard being manic depressive," she confides.
"You never told me that," the Northwest woman replies, stunned.
"Oh, I've known it since last year," the Southern woman explains. "I'm sure I've always been manic depressive, but you know, it takes a trauma to bring it out."
I imagine the Northwest woman nodding in understanding, with a twinge of awe. She has borne many diagnoses of her own, though none quite so edgy or romantic as manic depression. The Southern woman describes her excessive intake of white wine of late. "You've been self-medicating," the Northwest woman says knowingly.
Going from highs to lows and back in one day is probably best described as depression. It's the kind of emotional volatility you might reasonably expect from a woman whose husband left her last year, who is petrified of facing the rest of her life alone and even more afraid to admit it.
But the baby boomer women next door know themselves as victims of neurochemistry gone awry, not of heartache or fear of growing old alone. They shun the ordinary concepts of sadness, needing help and life occasionally being too much to take in favor of labels and diagnoses that prove their pain is unique and debilitating.
The Northwest woman has emptied dozens of orange pill bottles over the years, moving from hormones to treat 'medical grade PMS' to antidepressants for depression and, most recently, ADD medication. Her new pill is an amphetamine that has just been banned in Canada due to its health risks. It also recently landed one of her family members in rehab.
Thanks to the doctor who diagnosed her ADD (she has a hard time focusing sometimes, she gets tired, etc) and prescribed this, she says, she is able to keep organized and pay her bills on time. She has also quit the antidepressants and cut her hormone dosage in half. Her office and kitchen walls are plastered with inspirational quotes on colorful pieces of paper - Hallmark sentiments about being 'in process'; about embracing life and seeing the sunshine through the good times and the bad.
Wrinkles can be defeated, bags under the eyes can be tightened, skin can be lifted and emotions can be cured. Just as the physical signs of aging have been medicalized, and treatments devised for them, emotional symptoms too can be wiped out.
Sadness must be diagnosed, extracted and replaced with Chicken Soup For The Soul.
BA Flight 48 Seattle -> London
Posted by: lucie
42H - woman, 60ish. Cropped mousey brown hair, glasses, periwinkle long-sleeved cotton t-shirt with matching periwinkle and black fleece, black jeans, white keds. Franz Wisner - Honeymoon with my Brother: A Memoir.
43H - Rocks the thickest wedding band I've seen in a while. All white Court Classic tennis shoes. Jeans slightly too short. Glasses. About 60 but in good Shape and obviously trying to look younger. Dyes his hair dark brown but you can see bits of grey coming in at the temples. Blue button-up collared shirt. Jack Higgins - Flight of Eagles.
44D - American boy, about 20, wears a white "Boston, Massachusettes" baseball cap, checkered shortsleeve button-up shirt and jeans. Says he doesn't know if it's superstition or something, but every time he has a screwdriver he gets a headache. Smiles a little too proudly at his can of beer when they hand it to him, then orders a white wine, then another can of beer. Has no book that I can see. Gets progressively louder with each drink.
44E - Friend of 44D. Has a large ziploc freezerbag of cassette tapes in his seatfront pocket, a cassette walkman and big fat Koss headphones. Orange t-shirt, tan cargo pants, strawberry blond hair. He has a hardcover book, two word title, second word is Apes. That's all I know because he only flips through it once in the entire trip and I cant catch the other word. Ah, no, he takes it out again for a moment at the very end. It's Dale Peterson and Karl Ammann - Eating Apes and it has a quote from Jane Goodall on the cover, which makes sense, because she'd be against eating apes, and according to Amazon the book is actually about eating apes.
Just in case you were wondering, it includes the following statistically improbable phrases: ape orphans, bushmeat business, gorilla meat, bushmeat crisis, eating apes, ape meat, commercial bushmeat, bushmeat trade, wild animal meat, ooo square kilometers, primate lentiviruses, bush taxi, cane rat, domestic meat, baby gorilla, baby chimp, shotgun cartridges, logging concession
44F - Cute girl about my age, jeans, blue shirt, shoulder-length brown hair, tan pashmina. Laughs and looks at me when 44D makes his superstition/screwdriver/headache comment, prompting me to whisper that we got the good seats next to the single boys but refrain from mentioning the related scene in Singles. Says she is continuing on from London to Berlin. She's got a book of Sudoku puzzles, which are apparently all the rage in England at the moment. Are people in the States doing this?
44G - Me. Im not reading. I'm writing.
44J - Partner of 44K. blonde hair pulled to top of head and held in a brown clip, big silver hoop earrings. Black pants. White shirt with loose white heavyknit lace over the top. Susan Lewis - Cruel Venus.
44K- Blokey-looking man of 45 or so, looks like partner of 44J, probably spends lots of time at the pub watching footie. Plays peekaboo with a baby two rows In front of him. Walter Gilmour - Butcher, Baker: A True Account of a Serial Murderer.
45H - Man of about 40,looks like a gym enthusiast. Tight black T-shirt, jeans. Chunky silver sporty watch. Short black hair. Pete Dexter - Brotherly Love.
Highlights / lowlights of the NW visit
Posted by: lucie
Rocked:
Sucked:
I am so excited to move back for good.
Northwest boys
Posted by: lucie
Dear Northwest boys,
You're cute, you're geeky, you're chill, you eat lots of sushi and drink many lattes, you seem to dig strong, smart women and you're interesting. I totally want to make out with you. Do you wanna get coffee with me sometime?
Love,
Lucie
BA flight 49 London -> Seattle
Posted by: lucie
41C - Posh English boy around 23 years old with reddish blonde baby hair that swirls around in silky curves on his scalp. Haruki Murakami, Hard -Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.
41D - Heavyset man of about 60, though he may be younger; there are traces of brown mixed in with his mostly-grey hair. John Grisham, The Last Juror.
42A - Sharp-featured American gentleman of 70 in a green sweatshirt and khaki jeans. The Wall Street Journal.
42B - Wife of 42A. Short haired lady sporting olive jeans with a crease ironed in, and a butter yellow knit top. Yasmina Khadra, The Swallows of Kabul. Then Asne Seirstad, The Bookseller of Kabul.
42C - Me. Milan Kundera, Life is Elsewhere.
42D - British Indian gentleman of about 60, grey hair, beard, moustache, brown tinted lenses in his glasses. Jeremy Young, The Cost of Certainty: How Religious Conviction Betrays The Human People. He reads with pen in hand, ready to make notes on the pages. Is he studying? Forming arguments against? His bookmark is halfway through but he often returns to the first 5 pages. The chapter in which his bookmark has been placed is entitled "Integrating The Christian Shadow." He focuses keenly on underlining a passage, rereading it, underlining a bit more, then lingering with his pen. The subheading on the page is "Refusing to bow to the god of group belonging."
42G - Middle-aged grey-haired American woman shielded from my view by her fellow passengers. Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomasan, The Rule of Four.
43E - Slim American girl of 25 in a white zipup Puma hooded fleece, travelling with her boyfriend. National Geographic.
Somewhere at the very back, by the bathroom, someone is reading Brian Tracy, Eat That Frog.
Is this YOUR melancholy pianist?
Posted by: lucie
Are you missing a strong, silent and possibly traumatized pianist type with an affinity for Swan Lake? If so, please check this Guardian story immediately and head on over to the Isle of Sheppey to fetch him. Save him from the humiliation of being nicknamed 'the piano man.'
There is something rather romantic about mute and/or mentally ill pianists. Two cases in point:
1) The Piano, which is one of my favorite movies ever, and boasts one of the best original soundtracks ever recorded (big up Michael Nyman), and
2) That one about the nervous kid who gets rejected by his mean old father for wanting to be a pianist but goes off to music school anyway, then snaps his psyche in half on an emotionally demanding Rachmanninoff piece, then lands himself in an institution and is eventually rediscovered playing piano in a cafe...? I'm sure someone out there knows what I'm talking about.
And while we're on the topic, let's round it up to three piano/pianist films to watch if you haven't already seen them:
3) The Pianist.
Green Card Husband
Posted by: lucie
Getting divorced in England is a slow process. Someone has to file, giving reasons why they can't be expected to live with the other person anymore. The other person has to reply and say they won't defend it, then the first person has to say they really meant it, then the papers go to a judge who pronounces, in layman's terms, a provisional divorce. He does this by announcing in open court that he declares this provisional divorce on petitions number 29748 to 29759 or whatever. The judge acts as a legal rubber stamp. I'm told they resent this.
January 2004
I'm standing in a county registry office getting "married" - a thing to which I have become accustomed to referring with the aid of air quotes. My boyfriend's parents, to whom he is very close, way too close, are at home because they haven't been invited. Their presence would make the whole thing "real," which it isn't meant to be. My best friend in England is here with her boyfriend, and my boyfriend's best friend is here with his girlfriend, because someone must legally witness our "marriage."
We have selected the shortest possible ceremony - just the bare statutory declarations - and will be in and out in two minutes. The registrar reminds us that marriage is a sacred union between one man and one woman, and the six of us giggle because we've been laughing at the sign in the lobby that states the same, as if a gay couple would show up on the misunderstanding that they had the right to be joined in holy matrimony in a country run, in name at least, by a woman theoretically appointed by God.
The registrar is unfazed by our lack of solemnity; no doubt she has performed any number of marriage-for-visa ceremonies. I hope she realizes we're not strangers or anything. We actually love each other. It's not like I'm Gerard Depardieu.
November 2003
I'm still in Eastern Europe, he's been home in England a month and is supposed to be settling and getting a job. I've been researching work permits and haven't found any good news. It seems as an American I'd have to be a rocket scientist or something similar and be able to outqualify all British people and EU citizens for a job in order to legally work in his country. "I'm afraid you're going to have to marry me," I tell him, because I am not a rocket scientist. Getting married gets you a two-year settlement visa and permission to work. "Of course I'll marry you," he answers in a "don't mention it" tone.
We declare our intention to keep this a secret from friends and perhaps even family, to eschew rings and titles of husband and wife, to pretend it never happened so one day he can get down on one knee and surprise me with a ring when we're really in a position to make a committment - not when we're between countries, between lives. We'll get married on paper, we say, and then forget about it. It's that, go back to separate countries, or stay in Eastern Europe forever.
September 2001
I've been in Eastern Europe five days. I'm doing a TEFL course so I'll have something to fall back on in Barcelona if I can't get by on DJing. I'm going to move to Barcelona. I'm only in Eastern Europe for a month.
Some posh London boy comes running down the hall of the language school shouting: "They've bombed the pentagon!"
We crowd around the radio to listen to the BBC world service and figure out what the fuck is going on. I don't know anybody here. I grab the Americans I can find and we pile into a sports bar on the Square where CNN is playing on 18 TVs embedded in the walls, showing the planes crashing into the world trade center, the planes crashing into the world trade center, the planes crashing into the world trade center. We can't hear the commentary because the main screen in the sportsbar is showing footie and the volume is turned way up.
All bets are off now. In the next week I will abandon my plans, turn 25 and meet the man for whom I will stay in Eastern Europe (falsely citing a reasonably apprehensive attitude toward air travel because I can't admit that I'm following my heart and making major life decisions based on feelings for a guy I've known only a few weeks) and eventually relocate to England.
Working Men's Club
Posted by: lucie
Olivia's father is the Chairman of the local working men's club and has been a member here for as long as she can remember. Seated at his own table at the back left corner of the main room he holds court, smokes unfiltered cigarettes, chats with his lady friend and plays bingo with Braille boards.
Olivia and I have claimed the next table toward the stage. The seats and backs of our dark wooden chairs are upholstered in a red velvety material that matches the heavy curtains protecting club members from the fading daylight outside.
It is Sunday evening. We are here to play Bingo, mix with the regulars and enjoy tonight's act: "The Wonderful Vocalist Caroline Shaw," or so say the posters tacked to the back wall. She has played here before, but the Chairman can't recall whether her last showing was, in fact, wonderful. Tomorrow he will convene a meeting of the board to review her performance and decide whether to invite her back again.
Someone hands me a Bingo card. 'This isn't big Bingo,' Olivia explains. "Big Bingo is after the artist. This is just to keep them laughing until she's ready to sing."
The caller rattles off numbers in rapid succession; grey heads tip in refined concentration. Daubers daub with assurance as I struggle to keep up. "Four and seven: forty-seven. By itself: number eight. Downing Street: number ten. Five oh: blind fifty."
I briefly wonder how the Chairman feels about blind fifty before realizing he's had decades to get beyond any misgivings about the subtleties of bingo slang. He plucks a peg from the side of one of his chunky wooden boards and slots it into the hole labelled "50." We both play admirably but do not win.
The Wonderful Vocalist Caroline Shaw, a professionally tanned black-haired Geordie lass in a red dress cut up to there, claims the stage at the end of warm-up Bingo. A nod to the sound man kicks off the tinny karaoke strains of 'Rollin' on a River,' and The Wonderful Vocalist sings through a massive reverb effect and dances with inspiring enthusiasm, unfazed by the disinterested sea of grey hair before her.
She presses on, prancing and singing against the backdrop of black curtains adorned with tinfoil stars: 'Walkin' in Memphis' ("A tribute to the one and only King!"). 'I think I'd Better Leave Right Now' ("Moving on from one sexy man to another!"). 'Build Me Up, Buttercup.'
"Can I ask you all a question?" The Wonderful Vocalist asks. "Is anybody here in love?"
No one answers.
"Nobody? Alright, is anyone feeling frisky?"
Silence.
"RANDY?"
She pierces the ensuing silence by scanning the front of the room and singling out Connie ("You look randy, sir!") - a septuagenarian Bingo regular so nicknamed because he is a con man or, as The Chairman likes to put it, "a thieving bastard."
Connie strikes back a few minutes later by outsinging her on Que Sera Sera with his own version of the chorus: "Kiss my arse, my arse." Sensing an opportunity to win her audience, the Wonderful Vocalist bravely weaves her way through the tables and over to Connie's chair.
"Have you been circumcised?" she demands, shoving a microphone in his face. Caught off guard, Connie shakes his head. "No? Well, then... you're still a complete dick!"
We are aghast. We gawk at Connie. We gawk at The Wonderful vocalist, who is cracking penis jokes in a room full of pensioners. We gawk at each other.
As the shock wears off we look around the room and see members grinning. The Wonderful Vocalist, unphased, launches into Beautiful South's "Don't Marry Her, Fuck Me," inviting all the ladies in the house to sing along.
The Chairman smiles. It looks like the board will approve.
