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Back from Camp

I just got back from sleep-away camp. I spent the week sleeping in a bunk on an army cot and plastic mattress, showering in a shower house (every other day, at best), brushing my teeth in a bathroom with only cold water and walls that didn’t reach to the ceiling, swimming in a lake, sitting on a bench at a picnic table making stained glass by gluing layers of tissue paper, raising the flag, playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee, singing folk songs, eating in a mess hall, and making a friendship web by passing a ball of string from girl to girl.

I volunteered, with my mother, as a counselor for the week at a camp program for girls – ages 8 through 12 – who have lost a parent. It treats them to a week away, with more laughter than tears, alongside other girls who have experienced the same thing.

Once throughout the week we sit in a circle. Each girl pulls out the photo of her parent. And, one by one, they tell their stories of loss. So many of them find comfort in being able to talk about it at all. And they are relieved to be around the other girls. They aren’t the “only one without a mother...or father.”

In my bunk, I had nine-year-olds. Eight little girls going into fifth grade. I asked Courtney for middle-grade book recommendations. There was only one requirement: there could be no death of any sort. Among her suggestions was 11 Birthdays, and that’s the book I picked and carefully screened. Each night we read a few chapters to the girls as they got ready and got into bed. They usually fell asleep while my co-counselor – a retired second-grade teacher who thankfully did most of the out-loud reading, she was really good at the voices – read.

Though we didn’t get to the end, I like to think it was comforting for them to be read to, sleeping in weird excessively airy bunks in the middle of nowhere Maine. And [SPOILER ALERT] one little girl put together part of – if not the whole – mystery of the 11 repeating birthdays by suggesting that maybe the bus driver was that same creepy lady who was skulking about at Amanda and Leo’s earlier birthdays. Thank you Wendy Mass. The girls were into it. And I enjoyed it too!

The director of the camp says that the activities at camp are based on the talents of the volunteers. My mother, who runs a “dance fitness franchise,” teaches Jazzercise classes. My friend who has a passion for dance teaches hip-hop. The lady with the awesome voice teaches the girls new-old folk songs and how to sing in rounds. I offered to lead a writing workshop.

I’ll admit, I felt a little nervous and wonder if what I had prepared would capture their imaginations. The first two “classes” I had were abbreviated and only lasted about a half an hour because of post-breakfast announcements and meetings. We were able to accomplish about a third of what I had prepared – a “game” based on the old parlor game “Exquisite Corpse” adapted in the book “Don’t Forget to Write,” from 826 Valencia. Thankfully, I didn’t have to share the name of the inspiration with these girls. Each girl writes her name on the back of her paper then she writes a sentence on the other side. She passes the paper to the person next to her and that girl writes the opposite of the sentence given to her.

The last session I had was with the girls who were the most precocious…12 going on 21. Shocking really. I spotted the two most notorious on their trek up the hill, sans the rest of their bunk. They were “visiting their friends,” they said, instead of going to the previous activity. I asked them if they were coming to “Scribes,” and the girls asked where it was. We walked there together.

I presented the first exercise and they were all into it. The second thing I had planned had to do with finding inspiration in your environment. So I was going to send them out to overhear a conversation or see a poster or sign, something with words that would inspire them. But, I was really reluctant to let these girls loose once I had their captive attention. I improvised. I asked one of the counselors to gather a couple books off the shelf outside the room. I handed out the books and assigned each girl a page number and a line number. They wrote down the words from their assigned passage and I told them to write for seven minutes.

And they did it.

They got into it! One of the troublemakers even asked to sit under the window to the write. It was great. They came up with some great stuff. With every question, the answer was pretty much, “get creative.” When the sentence was “…and I said ‘500, and be careful…’” the answer was… “500 what? Start there…”

It was great. I heard from a few counselors that some of the girls said “Scribes” was one of their favorite things – next to tubing! And one counselor even reported that there was a near-scuffle over the Scribes folders I put together for the girls.

Eventually my week in the middle-grade trenches came to an end. It wasn’t until after the eight-hour ride home that I realized how amazing it was.

Here’s an example of the “Exquisite Corpse” I did with my friends – to test it out:

Nina was playing happily with Courtney, until Amanda came over with her fancy necklace.

The baby was miserable with Courtney as Amanda left wearing no jewelry.

The old lady was so happy with Courtney and Amanda was bedazzled.

The old lady didn’t like Courtney and Amanda was pissed off.

The male model stripped for Emily and Tara was jealous.

The fat lady bundled up and Tara was relieved she didn’t have to see her naked.

Labels: books, camp, writing

I Love TAL...TAL and me...Forever...TLF

I met Fella in June. The very beginning of June. But during the winter leading up to that, I had a very serious relationship going with This American Life. It welcomed me home. It always had an interesting story. Fourteen years worth of them to be exact, minus the reruns. And it talked to me at length, never tiring, never running out of things to say.

I let TAL tell me every story. We started with the present, and as TAL opened up we made it all the back to 1998. I cut TAL free before we got to 1996-1998. Sometimes these days I go back and pull out one I haven’t heard yet. And just like the times when someone you think you know tells you a story about themselves you’d never heard, I am always relieved that there something new, something surprising about TAL. It makes me fall in love a little bit more.

When TAL and I were getting to know each other, I heard all the go-to stories. The ones held in reserve for those preliminary days of a relationship. TAL’s best-of. I never had to pull out any of mine in return (the one about the time when our cat got sprayed by a skunk and my dad had to go to the supermarket to buy douche by himself because the rest of us were on vacation; the one about the time the burglar alarm went off in our house while I was babysitting and I took my little sister and went down the basement to silence it without even thinking that it might have meant there was an intruder.) I didn’t have to offer anything. I didn’t have to worry about whether I was keeping TAL entertained. I could just listen.

And, I listened, as I cooked dinner, sat at the table with my legs tucked under me, as I moved to the couch, tried to read without tuning out TAL’s voice. Sometimes more than one a night. Sometimes three.

David Sedaris kept me entertained, with his spot-on impression of Billie Holliday (one, he reported, he wouldn’t even do at the request of Terry Gross when I asked him about it in person at a book signing). He made me feel okay about myself with his self-deprecation and clear disdain for people lacking his cultural aptitude.

I commiserated with Sarah Vowell, as she queried Phil Collins for his opinion on her relationship.

David Rakoff stood in for my best gay, inviting me to sit in on his television experiment.

Ira orchestrated it all, seemingly for my enjoyment alone. He told me about the time two little girls were switched at birth and one of the mothers knew and kept it a secret for forty years. He told me about unsolved murders, standing up to intruders, violence and people who couldn’t help themselves from fighting. Ira clued me into the fact that there are things like this that happen that people actually live through. It’s not over ‘til it’s over. He also told me about how he and Anaheed used to sing the entire theme song to the O.C. whenever the show began.

They kept me company, during the dark winter months. Dark, lonely winter. Except I wasn’t lonely. I loved coming home to my empty apartment, picking out a story I wanted to hear and listening to TAL tell it in a way that no one else could. Never an awkward silence, never a dull story, and I never skipped over one unless I had heard it before in recent memory. (Sometimes I listened over and over again…begging, “tell me again about the time you, John Hodgeman, had to kiss Charlie Chaplin on his white powdered cheek!”)

One time I remember asking Miranda, who has also had a long-standing relationship with TAL, dating back long before mine, how many times she could listen to an episode, when I noticed they used to sell CDs and even cassettes back in the day. She told me that I would be surprised. And she was right. She’s wise, experienced. She loves TAL too. TAL is one of those types, those wandering geniuses, who don’t really have a hold on their magnetism. They never fall for anyone but everyone always falls for them. I became obsessive. And I don’t regret a minute of it.

Labels: for the love of NPR, journal

Handbook for the Recently...

My sister gave me the book The Autobiographer’s Handbook. I stopped reading Paul Auster and turned my attention to the volume. It’s like sitting in the middle of a classroom where the desks have been turned inward in a circle, like those new-age teachers did to foster community and sharing. The desks in this classroom are populated by famous memoirists: Elizabeth, Anthony, Alison, Sarah, David…and they are all espousing advice, in rapid succession. Finishing each others sentences, adding… “and another thing.” I scribble wildly, trying to annotate their words as they hang in the air. I am the girl sitting in the front row of Frances McDormand’s class in Almost Famous taking notes when she says “rock stars have kidnapped my son.” And I am trying to keep up – catch every valuable word.

I had taken a break from the “personal experience” essay. But Elizabeth Gilbert’s notes on telling your story like you are talking to one specific person, someone you know, is something that’s stayed with me. Anthony Swofford’s assertion that we all remember things differently, and remember different things, but we all have the right to tell our story, is something I’ve always tentatively held onto. Especially when it’s been asserted that I have my version of things…you’re darn right I do. When Sarah Vowell picked out the scene from Capote when Truman cut the article from the New York Times about the Clutter murders as her favorite scene in all of cinema, I felt like she had been on my couch sitting next to me as I watched the film not days before. I felt like she had been in my head as I watched, vowing to read the newspaper more carefully, scanning for ideas. Every word Alison Smith utters makes me grateful she had the courage to tell the story of her brother’s tragic death. Alison Smith found the dawn. David Rakoff. Thank you David Rakoff. When I read what he’s offered in this book I think of The American Life and the time he described the traffic cam on the corner of 12th Street and the West Side Highway as being as beautiful as waves. I love you.

Dan Kennedy said this. And I underlined it in red pen (it’s what I had on hand in my bedside table):

“In my experience writing will be the most humbling job you’ve ever had. I’m surprised so many of us want to do it. Can you imagine? If somebody said they’ve got a great job for you but that the only catch is that the hours are midnight to midnight, seven days a week, the pay varies wildly and is not guaranteed, the responsibilities are many and you report to almost everyone you know and meet? And then they were like, ‘Oh, and PS: if you can leave the party early of skip it all together, that would be great, because you need to go over your marked-up manuscript again and key in revisions to the copyedit.’ The weird thing is it’ll be one of the best jobs you’ve ever had.”


I…it’s just…I mean…it’s the clique I wish I could be a part of…The Moth, This American Life, 826…someday, somehow.

Before Somebody Drops a House on You Too...

I just need to sit still and keep my hands off everything. Not that I think I caused everything to malfunction today. It’s just…all the electronics, lights, primitive devices, and socks would probably be better off if I just got into bed right now and tucked myself in…straight-jacket, like. I feel like the guy in Benjamin Button’s nursing home who always had a different story about how he got struck by lightening. It just kept on happening to him – a magnet of some sort.

For me, everything broke today. Well, not “everything.” I feel the need to qualify that, in case there is some real retribution in the world, and the forces send some real breaking power down upon me, destroying something even more important.

Here’s what’s broken as of now:

First, my iPod, seemingly perfectly healthy last night, would not wake up this morning. I tried everything…syncing, charging, resetting. Nothing. I had big plans for today, and the iPod was going to be integral to my enjoyment of a long walk I had planned. I even updated it last night so that I had the latest This American Life and Radio Lab. Instead, I walked nearly seven miles with “I Kissed a Girl” stuck in my head. Maybe I heard it at the gym. Thankfully, I didn’t need to rely on the iPod at the gym because I got to watch Bravo on the TV…WorkOut was on. Oddly motivational. That Jackie Warner.

Next, as I stepped out of the cold into an ATM vestibule on 40th Street and Broadway I tried to unzip the jacket pocket into which I tucked my wallet. It wouldn’t open. The plastic teeth of the zipper got twisted in the pull. Having just walked about 20 blocks, then awkwardly bending to tend to the zipper on the side pocket, I was sweating. I probably should have tried to coerce and negotiate the zipper with more care, but instead I ripped it open and pulled the plastic from the coat itself. Now I have to retire the coat until I get it repaired, which doesn’t sound like something I would do. But I now know that zippers are just really tightly coiled plastic. Well, the plastic ones are, at least.

I stopped in said ATM because I was on a mission that had me en-route to Toys-R-Us…apparently the only toy store in Manhattan. Hard to believe. I was on a mission to purchase jacks. Note to anyone looking for jacks…they don’t have them at Toys-R-Us. They might have them once their merchandise is replenished from the holiday rush, but on this particular Sunday, when the store entrance was so crowded I almost tripped over the poor store employee they made dress up as Spiderman, they did not have jacks – quite possibly the single most classic game since…marbles? Pooh sticks? I left dejected and unsuccessful.

I did make it to Rockefeller Center without incident to do a walk-by before they took down the tree. I was able to get a Skim Chai Latte at Starbucks even though one of the baristas ignored me at first. I was almost unable to find MadLibs at Barnes and Noble, but they did have one version of the classic MadLibs. They also had Star Wars, Family Guy, Indiana Jones, and Adult Naughty Girl versions. I’m a purist when it comes to MadLibs, I guess.

I wasn’t able to get into the Genius Bar at the Apple Store on 14th Street. I was able to get vegetables at Trader Joe’s even though their entire lettuce section was un-stocked due to some lettuce caper, no doubt.

I came home and turned on the lamp and the light bulb blew out. I was able to buy a new one at Duane Reade, but it meant going back downstairs and outside after my near-seven mile walk. I was able to do laundry but I lost a black cashmere sock.

I probably should not contemplate heating up water in the microwave for tea, even though my feet are cold. And I should probably put away the computer before something bad happens.

Smile Because it Happened...

All the holidays are over. I was tempted to say “it’s all over.” But that sounded too morbid, too extreme. I know it’s not something Fella would want to read. He doesn’t get the melancholy. He’s more the “happy because it happened” type of dude. I could, should, take a cue.

But I can’t help it. Sometimes I fall into melancholy. And today it felt like it was all over. I almost cried. It’s so cold. And, for the first time in what felt like a while, I was headed home to my apartment to spend a night alone (in reality, I force myself to recall, was only four or fives days ago that I had the bed to myself. And it’s not something I mind from time to time anyway). For some reason, for a few minutes, it felt ultra lonely.

There had been a convergence of forces.

My sister stayed over on Monday night. We live on separate coasts. I always miss her, being near her, being a sister to a sister, sharing memories. We used to share a bed every weekend. I used to ask her to hug me while we fell asleep. I used to be scared. And even though she was four and a half years younger than me, her skinny arm, flung over my back, made me feel safe.

Beyond that, so many other things we were looking forward to are now behind us. I hope I lived them fully enough. Sometimes I get…distracted, taken out of the moment. The weddings, the vacations, the days off, the eating, the steak, the wine, the A Christmas Story marathon, the gift-giving, the cooking, the Twilight Zone marathon. Everything that carried us through November and December, all the things we had been looking forward to since last winter, are all in the past.

I used to do plays when I was in junior high. I think they were all performed in May, but I don’t remember. When I played Winifred in Once Upon a Mattress, someone made costumes for me, dresses for the princes character, by hand. I played Fruma Sarah in Fiddler. I don’t remember all my roles, I just remember there were a lot of plays. They required probably four to six months of weekly rehearsals. I threw so much energy into those shows – they let me escape a little from my silly junior high school preoccupations and I fit in there. I wrapped myself around that experience, with arms and legs. I didn’t want to let go. So much, I would have a breakdown after the last performance. I wouldn’t know how to curb the rush of emotion that came when it was over.

It’s over for this year. Last year. 2008. I guess the upside is that I get to look forward to holiday 2009. Next year’s new years will ring in 2010. That’s pretty flippin’ cool. A new decade. Right there - that’s me in a nutshell…I mourn a little too much the things that have ended, and I rush a little too quickly through the things that are to come.

I think I’ll watch the Project Runway marathon. Heidi will help me put myself on mute.

Labels: family, holidays, journal, memories

New Year's Eve Day 2008

Waking up with a song stuck in your head is kind of funny. Going to bed with a different song in your head is annoying at the time, but it’s a relief, when you wake up with a different song in your head.

I woke up with Strange Overtones in my head. By Brian Eno and David Byrne. But I went to bed with Hot-Blooded, in my head. The latter is from a car commercial I saw last night before bed, apparently. That’s the only explanation. The former is easily explained away by admitting, proudly, that I am a huge fan of Bob Boilen and All Songs Considered. Now I am not trying to overstate, but I am making the assumption based on the amount of times I heard the name on the podcast that Bob is a huge fan of Brian Eno. If the name and the song stuck in my head and stayed there, it only means I’d heard it times numbering greater than one or two.

Wiki tells me Eno is the father of ambient music. This year he put out an “album” that was meant only to be cell phone ring tones. (Boilen featured it as one of his favorites of the year, acknowledging that, yes, he knew it was supposed to be ring tones.) I also know that Eno was the synthesizer player for Roxy Music (More Than This…I always think of that melancholy scene in Lost in Translation. I had to have that song after seeing that.)

What’s most perplexing about this song coming up out of my head this morning is the fact that I knew exactly who sang it. I never know who sings songs. It’s the one thing that my brain doesn’t have space for. I remember movies and people in them simply from seeing the commercials. I can remember full strands of phone numbers. I am rather proficient on names. And I even remember the zip code of the first town I lived in, from which we moved when I was seven. Admittedly, I only remember the first three digits of my best friend’s phone number. But, in those days, we went next door or outside and played with whoever was around. We didn’t call all that much.

I woke up singing Strange Overtones the morning after a night of watching Capote, eating salad with apples, walnuts, goat cheese and raspberry vinaigrette (funny the spelling of that word doesn’t include the word “vinegar”), talking to Fella about the future. I don’t think that there were actual strange overtones to the evening or to our talk. And I also am not sure at which point, which wake-up because I woke up several times between five-fifteen and seven, where Strange Overtones popped into my head. But when I got up for good, and looked in the mirror, opened the medicine cabinet, it struck me that I even knew who sang the song. I had to Google it to make sure.

It’s New Year’s Eve Day. It’s supposed to snow today in the Northeast, apparently. I couldn’t get myself out of bed any earlier than eight to write this morning. It’s gray and a little dreary and I don’t even know how cold out yet. But my attempts were also hampered by the fact that I don’t have any half-and-half for my coffee. I am going to have to wait until I get to the office to partake of the Parmalat. Not even milk in my book. Oh well. Maybe I will treat myself to a Starbucks. Here’s to getting out early today. It won’t be because of snow. We all travel underground. It’ll be to celebrate the New Year, which I will be ringing in from my couch with my man in front of a Scrabble board. The way it was always meant to be. Maybe we'll even listen to More than This.

Labels: for the love of NPR, journal, music