(If you don't like feet--sorry! I can assure you these ones are very clean. And, have you noticed, crossed feet are heart-shaped? Awwww.)
I have an outspoken student who occasionally says things he doesn't really mean to verbalize, and usually some other student will say, "Hey, how does your foot taste?"
I could tell you how feet taste. I still remember, from my early (early) childhood when I went through a minor (minor) toe-sucking phase. It was mostly just a celebration of the discovery that I could get my foot so near my face. But that isn't what the expression means. It means, how does it feel to say something stupid?
I could tell you that, too. To me, saying something stupid feels: right. It feels like coming home after a long trip, and settling into your slouchy futon. Real familiar and comfortable.
From Friday afternoon to Sunday afternoon, I talked to one person and one person only: the woman who works at the video store (she's essentially my drug dealer, and FNL is the drug). Today, it occurred to me that I hadn't spoken to anyone I knew in days, and I was craving social interaction. So, I marched right out into the world, and I said some dumb things. Not majorly dumb, just foot-in-mouth dumb. What surprised me is that, as soon as I felt the familiar flush of confusion and embarrassment about minor, awkward miscommunication, I realized that that was the very feeling I had been missing. I was home! My foot was back in my mouth, where it belonged. I was out in the mix, and making a bit of a mess of it.
Sure, there are people who always say the right thing at the right time, but they're not very interesting. And I bet they can't get their feet anywhere near their faces.
Hey, El Nino! Who is in charge, here? What kind of messed-up, NON-winter is this? Why am I taking walks, in naught but a zip-up, feeling the sun on my back and catching glimpses of my shadow in the non-frosty grass!
I can hear people saying, Shhhh, you numskull! Don't remind the weather system that he forgot about winter. It's so nice, and makes for such easy driving. Pipe down!
But those people probably aren't teaching for two and a half hours in Fine Arts 305: the hottest classroom in America. When your students are already sweating and squirming, and you keep fluffing your bangs because you can feel them sticking to your forehead, and it's January--that is Not Good. In fact, it is quite dangerous. Because something like this could happen (okay, did happen. Yesterday.) :
"Kendall," they said, "It's so hot in here. Can't we open a window?" I'm reasonable, so I opened one-half of the window, but to do so required moving the curtain that was keeping the super-bright sunlight out of their eyes.
"Kendall," they said, "can you open the other half of the window so the sun won't be in our eyes?" Hmmm. Trickier. There was a bolt at the top of the window, well out of arm's reach, and I would need to get to that first. Uncertain of how to climb up, I balanced a foot on the very hot, very narrow radiator and was about to hoist, when--
"Kendall! Use a chair!" said three students, in unison, and one brought the chair to me. A good, life-preserving suggestion, probably. I balanced on the chair, turned the bolt, tugged. Tugged again. Yanked...
"It won't open, Kendall, because it's nailed shut," one student pointed to the nails at the bottom of the window. "Can we open the door to the fire escape?" I opened the door. It swung right back shut.
"Use the chair from before," someone suggested. I attempted to prop the chair half in the doorway and half on the fire escape six inches below (it's a weird building).
Then, we watched together, a hard-working, heat-beating team, as the chair fell from the doorway, crashed down onto the fire escape, slid across it, and stopped just at the edge, right before it would've fallen three stories onto the walkway below. And potentially maimed someone.
I stood very still, looking at the door, the chair, and the fire escape--door, chair, fire escape--like they were one of those story problems from the SAT that I could never do, when a student came up behind me and said, helpfully, "Last semester, we would do this." He opened the door all the way, stood the chair upright against the door, on the fire escape, and came back inside.
Which brings me back to my original question, El Nino:
Who is in charge, here? Because I'm pretty sure it's not me.
You know how when something sort of awkward and embarrassing happens, and you're humiliated, then you mentally rewrite the embarrassing event as a touching, poignant moment in a charming movie of which you're the star?
Really? You don't?
Last night for instance. I attempted to make my big, Saturday night debut back in Moscow. I was hoping to see people who hadn't seen me for several weeks, and surprise them with how good I looked after my time in the big city. I made my shaggy hair extra large. I put on my legging-jeans, my jeggings, and my cool black boots.
Then, I ran into one individual who I actually, really want to see me looking good and acting normal. (If you know me at all, and especially if you spoke to me even one time in the months of May-June last year, you can guess to whom I refer, and you understand why "acting normal" is imperative).
I came around the corner, all ready to order a nice tall water, because after one hundred glasses of wine I always order a water (I'm responsible like that), and blammo! There he was, at the bar, ordering with his very pretty girlfriend.
Me (desperately cheerful): Oh hi! How are you? Them (polite): Good, how are you? Me (idiot!) : I'm good! How are you? Them (confused. slowly.): Um. We're good. Me (manic): Good. Good. (to the bartender): Can I please have a glass of water?
Do you see what I did? I totally blew it! I did the "how are you" twice. Like a schmuck. I did not seem cool or especially normal. It might not seem so bad to you, but it feels so bad to me. Because it is added to a mountain, a truly mountainous pile, of other embarrassing events with this person. Like the time I made a lame joke about cheese; or the time I physically ran away while he was talking to me; or that time I flipped him the bird.
So what I've elected to do is rewrite the whole (brief) event, so that it makes me seem all the more endearing and irresistible. I mean, just look at how hard you fall for Annie Hall in this monument to awkward social interactions:
World! I'm not going to let my repetitive, parroty way of greeting people (how are you? how are you? seriously, how are you? squack!), or my lame cheese jokes, or my tendency to flip people the bird, get me down, because I've got this pretty stellar movie going in my mind. And in my movie, I'm a hard to resist, vest wearing, lah-di-dah saying, Annie Hall.
Exposure therapy is therapy in which a patient is exposed to that which frightens them most. I'm no licensed therapist, but it certainly makes sense to me. Once you confront your greatest fear head-on, and walk away unharmed, it no longer has any power over you.
In this spirit, I present:
Eighth Grade Kendall. Here I am, about to catch the bus to lead me into the lion's den that was Whitford Middle School. It was the first day of eighth grade, and I had picked this outfit carefully.
It consists of:
Carefully curled bangs.
Braces with colored bands that were some tastefully subtle combination of green and pink; purple and blue; or teal and black.
Over-sized sweater from the Gap. Tucked in (against all reason) and belted with a braided leather belt--also Gap.
Worst. Jeans. Ever. From the Limited Too. Worst. Ever.
Brand-new white shoes (more than just a little orthopedic).
Exceedingly fragile self-esteem.
I have tried to explain to people why I am sometimes the victim of doubt, shyness, or extreme sensitivity. The secret lies with those terrible pants, that tucked sweater, the awkward pose.
But, by showing this to the world (or, to my twelve followers, which, by the way, 12!! Now we're cooking with gas!), I am taking the sting out of such an awkward, uncomfortable past.
It used to hurt, a little, to come to Portland. I used to hit the city-limits, and morph into the anxious, uncertain, brace-face above. It seemed like a past I wanted to ignore, and couldn't avoid when I was home. Now, I think I've been looking at it all wrong.
First, she's pretty endearing, right? Isn't she someone you want to put your arm around, and explain to her about the value of plain-colored braces, the optional nature of tucking and belting, and the importance, with jeans especially, of a well-suited rise? I hope she's endearing, because in a lot of important ways, I am totally still her.
Second, Portland is home to some people who knew this thirteen year old, and still want to hang out with her: my parents, obviously, who probably ought to have stepped in with some fashion advice, but I forgive them; good friends from the old days, who also could've stepped in, but no matter; and my brothers--though, I admit it has taken a while to convince them I can, in fleeting but dazzling instances, be cool.
Third, our eyes are conveniently located in the front of our heads, which I take to mean that probably, more of my energy needs to be spent on looking forward, and not worrying overly much about the past. Even though coming home usually requires you to consider your past (ie, I've had to drive past my old high school maybe twenty-five times since I got here), loosening up on such retrospection has allowed me to have a brilliantly good time while I've been home.
Tomorrow, I'll be back in Moscow, writing from my little spider-house on the Palouse. I'm packing up my plants, my blog, and all my clean laundry, and I'm headed home. But I'll be leaving home tomorrow too.
Because this is my blog (and a "slow-going" blog at that, as one friend has vocalised...ahem...), and because a New Year arrives tomorrow (and what better time to reflect on where you came from, and think about where you are going), I thought I would totally indulge myself by showing you some excerpts from a journal I kept exactly ten years ago. I just encountered this journal in my tiny old nightstand. In every instance, I have done the bare minimum to edit into stand-alone excerpts.
(Anyone allergic to melodrama, or to teenagers who take themselves too seriously, should NOT read on. Even those of you not allergic, I bet I can make you cringe.)
Kendall Sand in 1999-2000. This journal houses the dreams and prayers of Kendall Sand (That is actual title of journal, as written by author on title page).
"I want to write. I don't know when or where, or for what. But I want to write and I see this as a chance to practice a little every day and become more aware of my voice. Who knows what the future of this journal, or my writing, may hold."
"If I ever write about being seventeen, I had better remember how much of my life revolved around the enigma of love. What the hell is it?"
"The comfort I find in solitude does not signify that there is something fundamentally malignant in the core of my being. I am okay!"
"I fear that I will be the kind of person who spends her youth dreaming about what will be, her adulthood dreaming of what was, and fails completely to ever feel content".
"Every so often, I think it is very valuable to sit down and think hard about who you are. It is late, and I am not up to the task of delving into the complex mystery of me, but this is a brief review:"
"My identity mantra: I know who I am, what it means to be me. I'll be okay."
(At this point, I had a terrible crush. Be especially gentle with 17 year old Kendall.) "He was polite, I was a kid he was polite to. But...did he have to be so nice, or so genuine, or so hot? Of course. That is what makes unrequited love the bitter pill that it is, the sheer beauty of its target. And he is beautiful, in a radical way that denies beauty, or transcends it. Alas, I am swept away by my much overheated, underused heartstrings."
"Do you know what I see when I picture myself in the future? Nothing. I have absolutely no idea where I want to go or what I want to do."
"Tonight marks the closing of a door. A door that, if it were up to me, should have stayed open. I crossed my fingers, said short prayers, and stuck a foot in the door just to delay its closing. But shut it is, and I bid a let-down goodbye to the high school football game."
"Wow, my first journal entry of the new millenium! I am pleased to report no cases of mass destruction or rioting. We're all still okay."
"When I go back through this journal, I just might barf at its shallow and superficial content. Rest assured, Kendall of the future, you worry about animals and pollution, you volunteer your time, and value the achievement of a deep and personal consciousness. "
Then the journal breaks down into several pages of song lyrics. That's right. Song lyrics. If I'm feeling really strapped for topics in 2010, I might just screw the pooch and reproduce them here. But they are very, very bad.
To recap:
At seventeen, I used words like "alas," and "enigma" and "underused hearstrings." I had an identity mantra. I valued "the achievement of a deep and personal consciousness."
At twenty-seven, I use words like "shit," "blam-o," and "wack-a-doo." I have an identity crisis. I value women who have long hair.
Oh good god, where is the coffee ice cream.
In the words of Andy Rooney, "Happy New Year, almost everyone."
You know how there are those days when you just feel at the top of your game? When your teeth look extra white, your car doesn't have the weird smell it had for the past week, and not a single bill comes in the mail? You know how that feels?
Monday was not one of those days. Not for me, anyway. It started out pretty inauspiciously, with my mother cleaning up cat puke in my room, from, not surprisingly, the bulimic cat. (I should've cleaned it up, but I had already regressed to acting like my ten-year-old self. I pulled the oldest trick in the book: I claimed I didn't know how to clean it, then pretended to learn as my mother showed me, but really I just tricked her to do it for me. "Wait, wait," I said, "slow down. What was the step between using the carpet cleaner and then letting it dry? Oh, there wasn't one? I really think I'm starting to get it, Mom.")
Then, I fell. Hard. My right hip, and my pride, took the brunt of it. I fell in the entrance to Whole Foods, in the Pearl District, at lunch time. So, you know, a low traffic area. Only about one million witnesses to gasp in unison and offer their assistance, wincing as I got gingerly back onto my feet. There is really nothing quite like a fall to remind me that I am, well, fallible. Capable of being brought down by a rainy day, the wrong shoes, a slick floor, and my own foolish sense that I am busy and important and in a hurry. So far, I only feel the pain in my ankles, my right hip, my right arm and my neck. But especially my right arm. Blogging hurts a little bit, to tell you truth.
On top of that, today I have to go to the dentist. Oh, I hate the dentist. There is only one kind of doctor I hate more than a dentist, a doctor whose procedures and prodding are even more uncomfortable than a dentist's procedures and prodding, though really, there is some correlation between a dental technician forcing dental floss between your teeth, and a gynecologist with her speculum...but I digress! My point is, I'm seeing that kind of doctor today too! Ah, the luck. I have this shiny new insurance card (no thanks whatsoever to the US Congress), and I'll be damned if I don't go see all the doctors I possibly can, flashing my insurance at anyone who'll look.
But my poor gums think they're under attack. It's like some sort of floss blitzkrieg where every few hours, I am at them again, because I live in fear of the dentist accusing me of not flossing. The thing is: I don't floss. Not regularly. Do I even know anyone who flosses regularly? If you do, speak up, and explain to me how flossing is not one of the most boring, unpleasant events of your day. I have a feeling it is just something we all do when we know there is a dental visit coming up. Or is that just me?
A huge, huge amount of my self-esteem is wrapped up in my dentist's evaluation of my home tooth care. When I was sixteen, and acne-ridden, boyfriendless, and terrible at every extracurricular I tried, I went to the dentist and was told I had "excellent home care." The heavens parted, angels sang, and I felt the warm glow of accomplishment: there was something I was good at. Dental home care. Ever since then, I have fretted for weeks leading up to a check-up because, honestly, if the results were less than positive, I'd be destroyed. I'd self-medicate with chocolate, which I'm sure would only make my teeth worse for the next go round. If I get judged to have failed with my flossing, we might as well just cancel Christmas, because who can celebrate when she's got inadequate home care??
I've got to go floss. Wish me luck. I'm going to need it.
K. S.
PS: Have you watched the video yet? It occurs to me, watching it, that I kind of just got that Karen Carpenter haircut.
I'm an often baffled twenty-seven year old determined to figure out how to blog. And to live right. I'm also about to embark on a Great California Adventure, for reasons that sound better in my head than they do out loud.
