nerd nerge
The ultimate in linguistic nerdiness.
Here’s the hebrew transliteration:
K and I have noted recently that the structure of the middle-class family in the U.S. has changed. Particularly, the expectations and desires of young adults today (which I’ll identify as anyone 18-30) are completely different from our generation. This stems from entirely different parenting styles than we experienced.
When we were growing up, it was the norm for parents to expect their kids to be out of the house and self-sufficient when they finished school, which could be high school (K), technical school (my brother), or college (me). Parents made it clear that after that, you were on your own. Although this frightened some of us (me, for one) a little bit, we did fantasize about having complete autonomy and living our lives on our own terms. But also, one was considered a complete failure if one lived at home much past the age of 21, and open to mockery.
The other reason many of us would rather starve than return home is to avoid the dysfunctionality that was our homes. Hell, we often moved thousands of miles away from our parents to ensure we had as little to do with them as possible while we forged our paths as adults. Paths, I may add, that were often stupid, naive, and reckless, but ours nonetheless.
This has clearly changed. I work with a 29-year-old who lives down the street at his parents’ lovely home. He is clearly not embarrassed in the least to be doing so. He has a girlfriend and she certainly doesn’t care that he doesn’t have his own pad. (The latter is especially bizarre to me; I could never imagine having sex in the vicinity of my parents when I was young. ) His parents evidently enjoy having him close by as well; they seem to spend a lot of time together.
That would have never happened our young adulthood. Our parents made it quite clear that once we were adults, we were to get out. Prior to that, when we were young, parents often said things like, “You’ll see what a pain it is to have kids when you grow up.” Statements like this clearly indicated to kids that 1. We were considered annoying 2. Our parents were hoping we would be as miserable as they when we grew up.
It’s funny now, since we didn’t have kids, that our parents probably don’t remember framing parenthood as a hellish, doomed state. They used to be perplexed and disappointed that we didn’t have kids; they’ve stopped communicating about it because they’ve given up the fight. They certainly didn’t make it seem like a good fate, and it never occurred to them that someone could opt out of the whole thing.
I’m sure the 29-year-old never heard these kind of statements, and was probably met with support and encouragement throughout his childhood. Many parents today go overboard in this respect by curtailing all criticism even if it’s constructive. However, it seems that being a cheerleading parent, for all its drawbacks, is better than a bitter, fucked up one. Which may explain why some adult kids today can live with their parents: their parents openly enjoy having them at home. It’s hard for me to even picture this, even though I can observe it myself.
Oh, man.
Strange times here in Oakland.
I’ve been caught in a web of twitter feeds for days now. This started last week, not with Occupy Oakland, but with the second earthquake in 24 hours at the same spot. I was in an old warehouse at the time under a rickety wooden loft and I thought “This is got to be one of the worst places to be in an earthquake.” We waited for a few moments while deciding to flee the building or stay put, eventually opting for the latter. I queued up the twit feed to get info, as well as the usgs.gov site (I signed up for the email updates while there). We’ve had several more earthquakes since then, all with the same epicenter. And even though “experts say” that there’s nothing to worry about, it does make me uneasy.
So with that baseline, I witnessed (via live video and photos) what went on here in my city, my beloved city, on Tuesday night. Oakland Police Department, already under a federal direction to improve its relationship with its citizens, assaulted its own citizens with a use of force completely out of proportion with the situation.
It really sickens me to think that this city, that I love so much, is now viewed by the world solely as that place where the cops brutalized its citizens, involved in peacful protest, to the point of nearly killing one. And it breaks my heart to see my neighbors being attacked by these cops, and then defended by a Mayor that I previously strongly supported. I feel a deep despair.
Although I dropped by to observe Occupy Oakland a few times, I didn’t actually participate in the protests for a variety of reasons. One of the main ones being that I have gone to many, many protests, protests much larger than this, and see nothing come of it. These experiences disheartened me to the point that I haven’t gone to a protest in a long time. But, with the sadness and despair, I also feel rage. I am enraged at so many things in this country: endless war, greed over compassion, the political lies, the poverty, the unfairness of it all, the fact that none of it has to be this way. And I feel a primal urge to be able to vocalize this rage.
Now I see there is something far worse than the government not listening to the voice of the people; it’s the government authorizing attacks on the people.
This morning I was awakened by another earthquake.Today the wind has kicked up, and there is a high fire danger, and I live in the fire zone.
These things concern me, but not nearly as the loss of compassion and humanity I have seen in these past few days. Excessive force and dehumanization is unsustainable and weakens everyone’s humanity and compassion.
It’s with these thoughts, and the overwhelming emotion I feel, that I plan to go to the General Assembly tonight. Maybe among like-minded people I will regain some hope. Maybe I will be able to do something to help. We’ll see.
It’s funny, but when my Dad wasn’t that old, he used to refer to himself occasionally as “Dear Old Dad.” Now that he is actually old, he doesn’t seem to say this. A lot of things about him have changed since I’ve been an adult, but especially since he turned 80. Up until then, I had a really hard time getting along with him. Recently he came to visit for six days — the longest time we’d actually been together since I was 21 — and I was sorry to see him go.
Some things about him haven’t changed. His moroseness, for one. He loves to says things like “Enjoy life — because you’re gonna die.” It’s said with a dry laugh at the end of the sentence. Same goes for “Life’s a joke. You’ve got to laugh — what else are you going to do?” These kind of sayings drove me nuts up until a few years ago. Maybe now I’m just glad he’s still alive, or maybe it’s because I kind of agree with these statement now that I’m older — maybe both — either way, they don’t bother me any more. In fact, I think they’re kind of funny because they are SO HIM. My Dad has become a sort of caricature of himself. Besides these pet phrases, he also has about fifteen of the same stories that he tells over and over. The time he says Joe Louis fight from a rooftop when he was 12, the time he caught a bunch of snakes and put them in bottles (which his grandmother later dumped out), the time he was three or four and came face to face with a bobcat (which his grandfather scared off with a shotgun). All of his stories have to do with when he lived with grandparents on a farm (ages 3-12) or when he was in the service (WWII), except for the Joe Louis story. I’ve noticed that if you’re around him long enough, some new stories do come up that I haven’t heard before. However, he doesn’t talk about living with his parents, or being my father. It’s as if we never lived together. When he occasionally references it, it’s never about me in particular; it’s more about being a Dad in general, and it’s usually glossed-over memory, like him making pancakes for breakfast on Sunday morning.
Now it’s all in the past, and I hold no anger towards him, but my Dad wasn’t such a great father. He had very little interest in me. He would only pay attention to me if I nooged him relentlessly. Then he might toss me a ball, or let me read Peanuts comics to him, but I could tell he wasn’t enjoying it. There were three things he liked. One was taking care of injuries. He loved cleaning up and putting a band-aid on a cut. I used to joke and call him doctor at these times. I found out as an adult that his Mom desperately wanted him to be a doctor, but he didn’t have the grades. The other thing he enjoyed was, on Sunday nights, he would take turns lying in bed with each of us kids for about 15 minutes. During this time, he would act silly in a way he wouldn’t do otherwise. I kept up this tradition long past my siblings, until I was about 12, which was the time I started feeling self-conscious about my body and feeling weird about a lot of things. Lastly, I realized somewhere in my teens that my Dad was the tooth fairy. I lost my last baby tooth at 15 or 16, old enough by far to wake up when he stuck a quarter under my pillow. Even though he never openly admitted he was the tooth fairy, and my parents told me I was too old for tooth fairy, I insisted that the tradition continue. I even wrote threatening messages on the over-decorated envelopes I would put my tooth in: “The tooth fairy better come!”
While he was there, I asked him if I could interview him. He agreed and I videoed him for about 45 minutes. I hope I have a chance to continue those interviews. After we were done, I took out an interview I did with him 30 years ago, on cassette tape. We listen to it for a short time, but it was just too weird. We couldn’t recognize his voice. It had changed so much over the years, getting hoarser and hoarser, that we no longer remembered what he used to sound like. At the time, he was 55, but he sounds about 30. I, who was 20 at the time, sound like I’m 12. I’m a bit whiney, which is embarrassing.
After listening to that tape for about ten minutes, I recognized his old voice. I remembered the father he used to be, and I felt sadder and sadder. Because even during the interview, I can hear how he doesn’t really want to do it. He’s eating, his answering my questions, but begrudgingly — as he always was. He just didn’t seem to care about me. I was not allowed to sit on my parents’ laps. They didn’t say they loved me until I was an adult.
The things is, lots of parents were a bit lousy back then. My parents did not stand out. Lots of parents were neglectful and disinterested, or demanding and unreasonable. Lots of parents told their children how annoying they were and how one day they’d see how hard it was to be a parent. They held that threat over their kids because they were 100% sure that we all were going to have kids. I wonder how many of those parents remember saying these things and regret it now. My parents don’t, but I feel a twisted glee that I avoided their prophecy by not having kids.
So, my Dad and I stopped listening to that old tape. I don’t know if I can ever listen to it. I want to hear what he says, because even in the short time I listened to it, there was information that he no longer includes when he talks about his life. I just can’t do it. It’s just too painful to remember how he was when we’re finally enjoying each other.
During his visit, he also talks about how he still has nightmares a lot. My Dad is a war hero; he liberated three concentration camps. He was 18 or 19 at the time. I didn’t know this until I was about 25. He never spoke about it when I was growing up, and even now, he will not go into any details. I can see now that my Dad has probably dealt with life-long undiagnosed PTSD. And K tells me, since he deals with PTSD folks, that it make people very self-absorbed. They have a pain they can’t resolve, so they keep going over and over it, consciously or not, continuing to turn in on themselves.
Both my parents have always been very self-absorbed, but they have very different personalities. Now I wonder, what traumas did my Mom suffer? She’ll never say. Clearly they were both emotionally impaired as parents, and it’s likely that this is why. Recognizing this made me understand my Dad a bit better. I wonder if he wants to talk about it after all? If this is why he mentions his nightmares? Would it be prying to ask?
My Dad clearly has a fear he’ll be forgotten when he dies. My brother can’t bear him, and he’s the only one with children. So my Dad’s only grandchildren have been raised to believe that he’s just an annoying, weird guy. My Dad says things like, “I was a human being. I had a life.” Or, “When I die, I want people to know that I was a mensch — not an S.O.B. And I think that’s one of the reasons we get along, because I am genuinely interested in his story. I don’t care how many times he talks about the snakes in the bottles, or the bobcat, or whatever — I’m just glad he’s here to tell me these stories. For as many times as he wants.
It’s been a couple of months now that I am working standing up. It *still* rules and I don’t think I’ll return to sitting for a long time. The initial slowness of my brain went away, I feel alert, just everything is better. Shoes are a problem, though. They all make my feet hurt, so I just work with my shoes off and put them on when I need to leave my desk. I have a flimsy little rug that I stand on but even that little thing makes my feet feel good enough to stand all day. I’ve gotten better at keeping my knees loose and overall not reverting to the fetal position.
Overall, a very successful experiment. Now all I need is a cheesy headset, ugly sneakers, and a treadmill.
Note: This review is written by someone who is hostile towards pop culture.
Some friends are always trying to convince me to watch some television show or another. It doesn’t matter that I don’t even own a TV. They are sure that I will find their show hysterical, wildly entertaining, or emotionally gripping, depending on the show. When I do finally acquiesce and watch the damn thing, it always falls flat.* Then they tell me it’s because I need to watch a few episodes to “get into” the characters. I don’t agree with them and I never follow this recommendation. If I don’t like a show after watching it once, it’s not going to get better. I tried it a few times, and they were wrong.
I had a similar experience last night that I ended up backstage at Lady Gaga’s show at the Oakland Coliseum, and fairly suddenly. I happen to be related to a member of the crew, and K, K2 and I headed over to see him on fairly short notice as he didn’t alert us he would be in town. We knew he was on the Lady Gaga Tour, but we weren’t actually paying attention to her schedule (see note above).
So, while we were hanging out he invited us to take a peek at the show, and full of curiosity and expectation we went. We got to watch from off to the side near the front, very very close to the stage. The seats close to us were worth hundreds of dollars.
I have no doubt the thousands of fans thought the outfits, props and imagery to be fun, shocking, freaky, and weird. But to me it all looked very derivative, and mostly a watered-down montage of performance art and 80s style. Everyone calls her style Madonna 2.0, but there’s also some attempts at Karen Finley, *The one exception in the last 20 years is The IT Crowd.
During a discussion today with my coworker H., we were discussing how much ire is expressed towards the EPA. EPA’s job is to protect the environment and public health, so why would this make people angry? Politicians claim that it’s because the EPA obstructs business opportunities and therefore jobs. Many of these politicians represent corporate interests, and therefore greed, so it’s obvious that what the EPA is really obstructing is unmitigated greed and profits. Reigning in corporate activity to protect health and the environment completely chap’s the corporate ass, as well as all those with stocks in? up? the corporate ass.
The ire that is expressed has another level to it. The EPA’s job is protection and doing good. They are basically perceived as a bunch of goody-goodies riding high on their moral horse. Since I am a vegetarian, I’ve often felt this kind of ire on a personal level. Which is to say, some meaty people perceive that I am holding myself to a higher moral standard, and they resent this, so they feel a need to insult, mock and belittle my vegetarianism. I mean, why should anyone care what I eat? They care only if they perceive I am judging them. Really, it’s about them judging themselves. Right now there’s an ad by McDonalds appearing on buses that says that their “all-american” food is for everyone except vegetarians. Ha ha ha. Did they forgot about those who keep kosher, or follow halal laws, or who eat healthy? No, they just want to mock vegetarians because everyone knows vegetarians are irritatingly with their damn morals.
In the same way, I think politicians who attack the EPA dislike the idea of a body being protective and kind, especially if they themselves are mean and corrupt, so they attack. All these perceptions and misconceptions are simplified though. EPA isn’t a bunch of saints and don’t always make the mark. This is why non-profits such as the NRDC exist, to keep the EPA to its goal. But no matter. The perception is more real than the reality.