Running Series: Misunderstood Little Girls

In this running series on my favorite misunderstood little girls (of literary and film fame), a close second-place (after bad seed Rhoda Penmark) goes to:

Name: Regan MacNeil (in "The Exorcist"1973)

Signature Line: "NOW KINDLY UNDO THESE STRAPS!"

Reason to Love Her: The gleeful, "I-just-did-something naughty" look on her face when she kills Father Merrin. Give the girl a cookie.

Reason She's Misunderstood: "Possession" is really just a metaphor for the onset of puberty in pre-teen girls. Regan, who is around 12 years old at the time of her "possession," is merely a symbol of male fear of female power.

If She Were My Child: I would accept the pills offered by the Georgetown Hospital doctor, take them myself, and bring Regan to a "wild woman weekend" in Berkely, where we'd howl at the moon together and celebrate her womanhood. A few years later, she'd get early acceptance at Oberlin and write her senior thesis on something like : "Beyond Exorcism: A Happy Medium for Catholicism and Menses."

Beckham's Ass

This, my friends, is a picture of David Beckham's ass. I went to the DC United v. LA Galaxy game tonight. Although I am a HUGE DC United Fan, I was excited when Beckham ran out on the field. When he bent over to place the ball, I took a quick picture and ended up with this. I can't say that I'm dissapointed that it turned out this way.

When Beckham actually was sent in as a replacement with about 21 minutes left in the game, everyone SCREAMED. It was really cool to hear the roar of the crowd. A REAL ROAR. Then, throughout the stadium, a million little flashbulb lights went off, so RFK Stadium sparkled like the night sky in the Utah desert. He truly is a fine looking speciman of a man. No frontal shots, but this one will suffice for now. Here's a close-up I made. WHY, you ask? Because I can.

Chocolate Genius Song

This song just hit me in the gut. It's titled, "My Mom," but it reminds me more of what's going on with my Dad. (As you can read in "Bath Goo," below, Mom is doing pretty well.)

Don't read these lyrics too literally (except the parts about the buckteeth and the wood panelling). Dad certainly still remembers my name. It's just, how strange, I think, to be almost forty and recognize for the first time, for real--really deep down--that you're in no way a child anymore.

So, here are the lyrics. (and the monkey from Chocolate Genius's website.)

Listen to the song if you have a chance. It's beautiful.

My Mom
by Chocolate Genius

They got 5 televisions
In a house built for 3
Look up on that fake fireplace
You know the bucktoothed boy's me

See that wood paneled room
That's where I learned to drink
See that hole in the wall
That was seagrams I think

That tree was a goal post
That bathroom it was a shroud
That closet it was a phone booth
That mirror was a crowd

See that guy with the bad knees
And his heart on his sleeve
Watch him slip me ten dollars
When it comes time to leave

It's been five years and some change
And this world is getting so strange
But this house smells just the same
But my mom can't remember my name

I sit on her bed and kiss her right behind the ear
She calls out for a dog that's been dead for a year
I say how is it going? Like I didn't know
Hold on to both of her hands too afraid to let her go

And five times exactly no more or no less
She says how you been eating boy? I say, Okay I guess
In this room where she made me, each day she grows weak
She flips on the Golden Girls and the first tear hits my cheek

It's been five years and some change
And this world is getting so strange
But this house smells just the same
But my mom can't remember my name

It's been five years.

http://www.chocolategeniusinc.com/

Bath Goo.

If I ever-- EV. ER.-- tell you that I am going on "vacation" with my mother EVER again, you are to immediately correct me. Here is an example of a typical "conversation" between her and my dad. I typed it verbatim, whilst on said "vacation," as she was telling my Dad about our shopping trip together.

Mom is telling dad about her purchases at my favorite bath store in town. Forthwith, the transcript:

“I got this soap." (Pulls soap out of bag.)

"THIS IS NOT THE SOAP THAT I GOT! What is this???
Maybe he gave me the wrong thing of soap!!!"

(Dismissively tosses $14 soap aside.)

"Then I got this for Aidan. It’s called ‘bath goo.’ ‘B...a...t....h g...o...o....’ And it’s got a duck in it. I could give it to Zachary too, either one of them would like it… They had one with a frog in it, but I know Aidan is afraid of frogs… I THOUGHT it was a dinosaur. And then he gave me a whole buncha samples. And he gave ‘em to her, too. I spent more than HER. But I never treat myself. It’s all probably worth two dollars.

"I got THIS to give to the next door neighbors for watering the driveway. We’ll have to go back and make sure they did it. Wildblueberry MAINE pancake mix, MAINE syrup, and MAINE beach plum jelly and MAINE red raspberry jam. It was 20 dollars, that’s enough, right? So that’s a nice present. A nice thank you."

Dad: Can we give something to Scott, too?

(Shrieking) WHY???? What did Scott do?


Dad: (Whispers something to Mom, then) Can we just give him a jar of jam?


NOOOOOOO!!!!!!! Those preserves cost $3!!!!!!!!! SCOTT???? I thought you said Jimmie!! SCOTT!?? You want me to give SCOTT a $3 thing of JAM???? NO!!!!!! I thought you said Jimmie! I thought, 'Whadcha ask Jimmie for?' Joan used to ask us to watch HER house and WE never watched it, so I bet he didn’t watch our house. So, he’s not getting anything. Besides, didn’t we watch HIS house when he was away? He didn’t get us anything. Get him a beer. The two of you have more beer together than anyone I know.

Everybody was eating ice cream. EVERYBODY. I just had a salad. They put TURKEY on a whole side of it. Not lunch turkey, but TURKEY, big chunks of it. I HATE turkey, so I didn’t eat it and Megan got an enormous hamburger cheeseburger and french fries that looked wonderful but she didn’t eat them.

Of course, we had to change trolleys. But we were fortunate because we were on the wrong side of the road for the trolley and then we saw the trolley on the other side of the road and we got on. Then we had to change trolleys. And that second trolley came right away, too. All the restaurants were packed but the restaurant we were in. The place WE went to had no people at all. They had some kind of African guys workin’ there who didn’t know too much English as the waiters. They were nice, though.

Well, you wouldn’t have liked what we did anyway…. We went to a couple of restaurants and looked at their menus… on the bus some of the people had the stinkiest awfulest perfume you would ever want in the world. One lady had on diamonds on her right hand… she had the most beauuuuuuuuuuuuuutiful diamond, and I wanted to see what was on her left hand, so I wanted to sit [behind her on the trolley] so I could see, and SHE said, 'I won’t sit there' and I said WHY??? And SHE said 'because that woman’s perfume smells awful' and then she sat in the back of the bus holding her nose like this.

My salad, goin’ down to the bottom, I kept finding stuff and I was so afraid I’d find some celery but there wasn’t any. There wasn’t any celery. [Note: celery would be a problem because I hate it.]

It cost a dollar to go here and then a dollar and a half to go from that busstop to the next.It’s supposed to rain. It was supposed to rain today, too, though, and it didn't.You know the next vacation we should do? We should go to the hotel above the casino--where was it that we stopped? Rolling Stones…. Rolling Stones Casino. We could eat at the expensive restaurants there…. And you’d get a good bed to sleep in and maybe we’d win a couple free meals. Not on the nickel slots. But you get rambunctious and go over to the quarter slots.

Okay. That’s what well do.

Running Series: Favorite Misunderstood Little Girls

Rhoda Penmark
The Bad Seed

Let's start this series off right with my favorite girl of all, the standard bearer for all the rest:

Name: Rhoda Penmark
Signature Line: "What will you give me for a basket of kisses?"
Reason to Love Her: Appreciates the value of good penmanship.
Reason She's Misunderstood: "Sociopathic." (Whatever.)
If She Were My Child: Would skip lethal dose of pills and ask the principal why MY daughter didn't get the penmanship medal in the first place. Then we'd chill under the scuppernog arbor and polish her tapshoes.

The Apple Doesn't Fall Far

I know I was 11 years old once. And I was precocious.

But listen: I was vying with five siblings and an entire high school of my dad's students for attention. At 11, and as a middle child, there was always someone younger than me needing a diaper change and someone older than me needing acne medication. I needed to stand out somehow.

For the most part, I did this by scoring in the 98th percentile on standardized tests and by misbehaving my way into Family and Child Services counseling with "Bonnie." There, I read "TA for TOTS," and learned that some off-balance children are forced to call themselves "prinzes" and "frozzies" and that Canadian illustrators are creepy.

For the sake of brevity, let''s say that those early interventions took care of my behavioral issues.

Now it's my turn to witness the 11-year-old girl of the next generation. I just got back from vacation with my sister and her kids. The oldest, a girl, is 11. She's a lot like me. She's smart, she's cute, she has a big ole gap between her front teeth, and she knows everything.

The thing is, even when you know where it's coming from, it doesn't make it any less annoying.

Greek for Lunch

Today, after a job interview, I decided to have lunch at the little basement cafeteria at the government building next to my government building. When you work at a government building and have been subjected to the same government building cafeteria food day after day after day, venturing over to a neighboring government building cafeteria can be a treat ("Hey! Blue mashed potatoes!") . The thing is, I didn't go there for the food. I went there for the 22-year-old Greek kid who serves up the mush. And he doesn't serve it up with a smile; he actually snarls a little.

Sure, he's a bit surly. And a bit greasy. He's muscle-y, too, in a just-right way, without being too muscle-y. Today he wore a white t-shirt, jeans, a dark apron, and a wool fisherman's cap, like John Lennon used to wear in his "Love Me Do" days. On his right arm, a massive sleeve of a tattoo pops out in bright greeny-blue and black, covering his entire forecep then circling his bicep and disappearing into the t-shirt, ending god knows where. Needless to say, I'd like to join God in the ranks of those who know.

I've always been a Good Girl. I probably still am. Good grades. Lots of extracurricular activities. I play boardgames. I bring a stuffed bunny with me when I travel. Still, I've always had a thing for bad boys. I lost my virginity (donated it, actually) to a boy who wore a black leather jacket, smoked a pack or two of Camels a day, and drove a mess of a car that had a hole in the floor beneath the driver's seat, through which exhaust and fumes would fly unless he'd positioned a piece of cardboard over it "just right." He was failing classes at a Jesuit college half an hour from home. He drank too much and made me mixed tapes when he should have been studying. He wrote me dirty notes exaulting parts of my anatomy that I had yet to mention out loud.

One night, we parked on the lot at my Elementary School and made out (my parents were still awake at home, ruling out the usual makeout spot in their driveway). After a few minutes, we were chased away by the cops. (Well, one cop. Who politely told us "No parking on school property after school hours," but that's not the way I heard it back then). For a girl whose life till then had consisted of figuring out how to reconcile conflicting Drama Club and band rehearsal schedules, this was living on the edge.

Ultimately, I broke up with my bad boy because he "couldn't talk about Soviet Foreign Policy" like the pearly-smooth J.Crew-wearing Dean's List-brown-noser I dumped him for--and because "he didn't know what kind of ice cream I liked." My sister and I, now 20 years older, were talking the other day about this type of carelessness, which we exhibited freely toward the boys who loved us when we were 19. We feel bad about it now. It seemed rational to us back then.

Of course, Mr. Pearly-Smooth ended up breaking my heart, and when he did, my bad boy was there for me, although I constantly reminded him that I only wanted to be "friends." When the time came, he helped me pack and move five states away. He fielded my soppy phone calls when I was in college and another good boy or two broke my heart. In retrospect, I think I put the wrong label on the wrong boy.

And so, I want a do-over. If penance for past wrongs can be made by making "living amends" to similarly situated people today, I'd like to make it up to my bad boy by befriending the Greek bad boy at the government cafeteria. To me, this sounds like justice.

Who knows? Maybe one day, our eyes will meet over the sneezeguard at the salad station, and maybe I'll ask him out to dinner. When we're settled down at a private table, and after the waitress scrutinizes his ID and serves him a beer, I promise I won't talk about Soviet Foreign Policy. I promise that he can order any kind of ice cream he wants for dessert. I even promise to name parts of my anatomy for him if it's helpful. Later.

Eastern Market Burns Down

I














I've been so caught up in my own stuff lately that I didn't even know that Eastern Market burned down two weeks ago

My heart is broken.

The cheese lady is gone.

So are the blueberry pancakes that I never got up early enough to eat--at the greasyspoon that's been there since the 1950s.

And so is the meat case with 20 different kinds of sausage: spicy chicken apple sausage, spinach feta sausage, sundried tomato sausage, chocolate mole pork sausage, marshmallow and shredded carrot-jello-sausage. (Okay, not that last one.)

Gone, too, is the bakery with the Russian tea cookies that were so dry and sweet, with cool, white powdered sugar on top.

The walnut-chocolate ruggelah? Gone.

Also gone are the wedges of a dozen different kinds of apple slices served up as samples on paper plates scattered around the produce stand.

And so are the fish heads. Row upon row of fish heads.

Most heartrending of all-- the cheeseladystand is gone.

At the cheeseladystand, you could get free tastes of cheese "from all parts of the world." A crowd would gather there every Saturday and Sunday, where Mr. and Mrs. Cheeselady stood behind the counter busily pushing tasty slivers of cheese at people. There was never a sales pitch; the cheese sold itself. This meant that I could stand at the cheeseladystand for a long time and have a lot of little cheese slices before choosing something to bring home. With every sample, I'd stand back for a second and think--hard. Was THIS the one to bring home? Before I knew it, though, there would be another sample in front of me, and Mrs. Cheeselady would say, "Good, right?"

Once I decided what to buy, Mr. Cheeselady would give me a quick, knowing nod: out of hundreds of cheeses, I'd chosen the best one. Mr. Cheeselady never measured anything; he'd inch a knife back and forth along the cheese slab until you'd say "when!!" Then, he'd wrap your cheese in white paper, put it in a brown paper bag, and send you on your way.

Fifteen years ago, when I lived on Capital Hill, I was into free food samples--out of necessity rather than any sort of gourmandrie. As a recent graduate and "can-do girl" at the Justice Department, I initially made so little money that I sometimes used bar soap to wash my clothes. Still, at the cheeseladystand, I sometimes found myself leaving with an $8 slab of cheese . . . and feeling so happy about it. Eight dollars was more than fair for what I'd get: 100 little cheese slivers and a little love from Mr. and Mrs. Cheeselady.

NOW where will I get my slivers? (Don't you dare say "Whole Foods." If a Whole Foods moves in, I'm leaving the country. )

Long Live the CheeseLadyStand!!


p.s.: OH!!!!here they are!!http://www.bowerscheese.com/

Hypocrite

Last night I went to the new-ish "Gourment Giant" grocery store in Columbia Heights for the first time.

Columbia Heights is a D.C. neighborhood squished between Adams Morgan and Mount Pleasant, north of the "new U Street Corridor." For the past couple of decades, it has been home to mostly latino, minimum-wage families. We never went there ten years ago, because it wasn't a safe neighborhood back then, and there wasn't any reason to go there, really, that we knew of.

The Giant store is enormous and reflects the changing nature of the neighborhood. There are hot and cold prepared food bars and salad bars at about $10/pound. There are seven different brands of organic soy milk, and there's gourmet rice galore: Basmati Rice, Thai Rice, Jasmine Rice, rice in teeny little boxes that cost $3.89 each. In contrast, straight down the center of the store are two wide aisles labeled "International Section," filled with canned beans, syrupy "fruit drinks," row after row of Goya products, and giant sacks of rice at the more reasonable price of about a $1/pound.

A Target store is coming to Columbia Heights, in a building complex being constructed adjacent to the Columbia Heights Metro Station. Three big condo buildings with one-bedroom units "starting in the mid $300,000's" are being built around the Target like a Mayan temple, ensconscing everyone in Target-y goodness. Every time I walk by the construction, another Mass Marketer has pasted its placard to the front of the Target complex: Marshalls, FedEx Kinkos, Washington Sports Club, Ruby Tuesday's, Subway.

On my street now, there are five spanish grocery markets, a Dollar Store, five laundromats, four liquor stores, and a community center. There's also decades-old Heller's Bakery, which makes cookies with smiley faces on them and fancy cupcakes for whatever holiday is around the corner. (Marzipan bunnies?!!! On a cupcake??) Is it "progress" if all of these businesses are eased out by a Whole Foods?

Part of the community--a pretty vocal part--thinks so. They are literally begging Whole Foods to move into the Target complex. The Columbia Height online message board is FILLED with comments about Whole Foods. http://www.columbiaheightsnews.org/Home/Whole-Foods.html.

For now, it looks like a "Ross Dress for Less" is set to move into the spot folks have been eyeing for the Whole Foods. Hipster condo buyers and homeowners are very upset. Take a look at the comment board! One commenter, Justin, is ready to organize and FIGHT:

"It seems to me that what is in order here is to have some highly motivated community folks [hit] the ground and immediatley start a door to door petition. The emails are helpful, but not as convincing as 5,000 plus names," Justin posts. "I would volunteer for my block. It would be well worth the trouble for the chance to get some quality fish and other seafood options to compliment the Giant products. . . "

Get on the Freedom Bus, Justin!

I bet he could get that petition signed. WF seems to be what's on everyone's mind. On the Columbia Heights message board, the topic "Teen Murdered in Columbia Heights" got 9 nine comments; "Ross Dress for Less or Whole Foods"? Thirty-nine.

Is it wrong for me to feel that it's wrong to organize a small militia in the name of Whole Foods in a neighborhood filled with people working for $7.00/hour? People who are rapidly being priced out of their homes? Is it wrong to feel mad at Justin, to think: "maybe Justin could put some of that [what is almost certainly Red Bull-fueled] organizing energy into helping the homeless people sleeping in the three white trailers next to the new condo complexes."

For me, maybe.

I'm all sanctimonious and not doing anything about any of it.

The thing is, when I look deep down and am honest with myself, I realize: I want the Target.
I really, really want the Target and its Target-y goodness.

I'm paying the high rent that's booting the minmum wage workers out of the neighborhoods.

I'm conflicted:

I want to preserve the neighborhood's diversity.
I want the people who live here to continue living here.
I want to continue living here.
I want my Heller's bunny cupcakes.
I want the Target.

I guess I want the Whole Foods.
(But I still don't like Justin.)

So, I don't like the situation. But just by being here, I'm part of what creates the situation. I am the gentrifying gentrifier, the samey-same same-er, the reason Starbucks replaces the ever-rarer "Whole Bean Coffee Cooperative"-type places throughout the world.

Who am I to complain?

You, Like, Need to, Like, File a Writ of Certiorari? To the Supreme Court?

Tonight? On the metro? I listened to a pack of, like, college students? And they all, like, talked like this? And I found myself, like, counting how many times they say, "like," right? So I got up to, like, 50 times for this one girl? And, like, I notice that all of the adults (older than, like 30?) start to mouth the word "like," to themselves as she neared the very loud 75 mark.

I've decided? The word "like," is, like, contagious? And so, apparently, is talking in, like, a framework of perpetual self-doubt? Manifested, like, in a constant upward intonation so, like, everything sounds like a question?


I KNOW we used to say "like" back in the day, but it didn't pervade our conversations in the same way. We were being silly--mimicking the valley girls embodied by Moon Unit Zappa in her Dad's hit song:

• "Like my mother like makes me do the dishes? It's like so gross! Like all the stuff sticks to the plates! And it's like, it's like, somebody else's food, y'know??? It's like grody! Grody to the max!!! I'm sure! Like. barf. me. out. Gag me with a spoon!!"

I noticed, too, that the kids on the subway didn't use "right," as a conversational nudge for affirmation, like (appropriate use there) the French "n'est-ce que pas" or the equally effective English, "ya know?" Now, apparently, it's an affirmation of stupidity.

For example, you say: "Hi, you're stupid," and the like-20something responds: "Yeah, right???" What she actually means is, "Yes, I am!" or "Yes, right!"

So, the kids are using a question (right?) as an affirmative response ("right!") which makes it an affirmation seeking an affirmation. This may, actually, speak volumes about the strength of their self-conviction.

I'm wondering what happens, like, in 10 years when these kids are, like, in the working world?
Will I be at a doctor's appointment and hear from my young, talented surgeon:

Dr.: "So, you, like, need surgery? To, like, remove that purple thing?"
Me: "OH NO! What is the survival rate?"
Dr.: "Like, 80 percent?"
Me: "Like 80 percent? Do you mean, "around 80 percent" or are you asking me if I know the percentage? Help me out, doc. I mean, It's pretty scary. I don't want to die."
Dr: "Yeah, right????"

I feel like Jane Goodall. Next time I'll bring a tape recorder.

Project Greenlight

So, I've decided to start writing again, at least for a few minutes every day, in the hope that a little stream-of-consciousness blather will silence legalese that rushes through my brain all day. Maybe it even will inspire me to submit that short story to The New Yorker before I turn 40 in a little more than a year. I really want to get a short story published--preferably in The New Yorker--before I turn 40.

It's not that I haven't been published before. My work was featured in an upstate NY labor union newsletter in 1986, to high praise from the Cortland Amalgamated Glass Workers; in a federal government publication on Drug Demand Reduction (don't ask); and in a couple of American Bar Association quarterlies. By "featured," I mean "included in the table of contents."

I also co-wrote, with my childhood friend Kathy G-M, a screenplay called "The Truth About Jenny Mitchell." We wrote this screenplay for "Project Greenlight," the HBO show that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck produced as an Independent Film Reality Series (isn't that ironic?) to give new writers a chance to see their work on the Big Screen. It lasted about three seasons, until HBO realized that the films it produced had launched nothing but Shia LaBoeuf off the Disney Channel. Our screenplay didn't win Project Greenlight or even make it to the final 10, largely because we first had to survive multiple rounds of reviews by our fellow competitors in order to climb the ladder to a sit-down with Ben and Matt.

As a contest condition, each participant had to read about a dozen scripts by other Greenlighters, and then rate them on a scale of 1-10 in various categories. Ours was a flick about two smart, creative women, who plotted the political downfall of this woman who was mean to them in high school (smart, creative, and, um, "vengeful"). We didn't win because we TOTALLY missed our demographic in the early rounds. What should have been a simple random sample of reviewers was largely skewed to one of two ends of the filmaker bell curve: 1) Guys who think they are Orson Welles reincarnated and who call things "Fellini-esque" without ever having seen a Fellini film; and 2) guys who look like Orson Welles: the-LaterYears and were inspired to filmmaking by Battlestar Gallactica and Smokey and the Bear. THIS was our test demographic.

One of our reviewers was a 55-year-old man from Oklahoma. We suspect he's the one who wrote that script we had to review about a truck driver who drove "through" the apocolypse on his way to a company softball game (like Cormac McCarthy's "The Road," but without the Pulitzer Prize. And with group sports. And shitty). He totally lowballed us because, in his words, the movie was a "TOTAL CHICK FLICK" that he could "BARELY FINISH." Apparently, our demographic was too busy watching "My Best Friend's Wedding" and using "When Harry met Sally" as an adjective ("Jennifer and Michael's relationship is SOOO 'whenharrymetsally,' don't you think??") to write a screenplay.

So, we didn't win. We didn't get a sitdown with Men and Batt. We didn't even meet them. At least I didn't. Because of Kathy G-M's endless moxie and willingness to cash in a bunch of favors and cut in front of a lot of people in line, that screenplay eventually was put directly into the hands of Mr. Ben Affleck himself. Sure, it was at a political fundraiser. . . and, yeah, he was talking to Alexandra Kerry at the time. But, who knows what Mr. Affleck did with the CD that Kathy slipped to him that night. Maybe the bewildered stare he gave her meant what we took it to mean; namely: "I love it already!" (although, since then, we have noticed that Ben wore the same look on his face through large portions of "Jersey Girl," leaving us to wonder whether he was, in fact, "acting," at the fundraiser.)

All we know now, three years later, is that our project was never officially Greenlighted. At least not yet. But you never know. We had that baby copyrighted. And we've got a lawyer in our back pocket if we ever read in Entertainment Weekly that Jennifer Garner is in Ottowa filming "The Truth About Veronica Mitchell."