Everybody stand up if your dad died on your birthday. No? It's a small club. This year marked our first 'anniversary' together, me at 48, him at -83 . It was an ok day, I didn't have the time or impulse to celebrate much. Later that night I found it difficult to fall asleep, and ended up contemplating the old man.
Not that I can tell you who he was, which is what kept me awake. Of all things, watching Jon Hamm's character on Mad Men tolled a bell. It awakened me to the repressed qualities of manhood in the fifties and sixties, a familiar theme. Hey, I know that guy. He looks a bit like my dad. He wears his hair like my dad did. Don't architects think in white space, in the background that defines a building? I only knew him from the exterior; ironically, my father was the family photographer. Yes, some of the best childhood photos of me were taken by the man I never knew. And because I knew him so little, my child's eye perspective on that dad was infinitely malleable. Was he like Fred Flintstone, or Herman Munster (played by Fred Gwynne)? Well, he was about that two dimensional, and his name was Fred. To a child, any Fred would do, a screen to project on was better than a void of misunderstanding.
In reality he was truly handsome, hailed from an upper crust Chestnut Hill family,wore the right clothes,belonged to the right clubs, graduated from Yale, and pretty much stuck to the script, as long as you couldn't hear the screaming tirades delivered only to the bosom of his immediate family. Not many people were privileged with that opportunity; though now that so many of his comrades
have also fallen, I'm learning that my dad wasn't the only one who played a different role behind closed doors. So many Don Draper/Dick Whittingtons out there from his generation, Jekyll and Hydes. Much much later, much too late, we got the diagnosis of bipolar, or they called it manic-depressive then. With that knowing, dark sense of tragi-comedy I smile when I recall that after leaving home (at 17, ejected to boarding school and then college, never to return) my mother kept trying to sell me on the line that 'he's so much better now'.
My mother had her own brand of repression going on; it took two to make a marriage like that work. She's the kind of person that if you call her on something, really confront her, she stops talking to you for eight years, and whatever it was never happened, or it's still your fault. I don't understand her either, but we've been close at times, in our own dysfunctional way, the only closeness I'd known growing up. Our most recent rapprochement coincided with my dad's funeral. And even then she was accusing me of having taken all the existing family photos and slides ... I'd managed at one point to transfer all the best shots to video, and that was the last time anyone recalled touching the family photo trove. It had to be my fault, right? No, I told her, you've still got them all, in your attic probably, keep looking. All the while thinking about Kate Chopin's novella on motherhood, The Awakening, wherein a woman's consciousness is analogous to the house, with the attic symbolizing both her unconscious and her incipient madness at being relegated to a role that repressed her. I believe they termed it hysteria then.
I didn't have those slides anymore, it was true. Though when I did, the process of choosing the best shots had allowed me to almost memorize the catalogue. Is it only human or simply narcissistic to be most attracted to the pics either taken of oneself or by oneself? Even then, I didn't grasp the power of what I held in my hands, though somehow I sensed its import, finding myself fascinated without understanding why. Only now, a year after his death, realization dawns. It was the perspective of the photographer that mesmerized me, the moments he chose.
I recall the little me he captured, and wonder if seeing that moment through his eyes can help me to understand if he knew what father-love was, if he knew he was approximating a dad, or even a husband. That is as close as I can get to feeling any kind of emotion from him, and it took a lot of work on my part.
As I'm groping towards this idea, my heart finds it too far remote, too intangible. I try to recall more of his shots, but what keeps springing to mind is one I took of him. He's holding a can of black Krylon spraypaint; he'd been painting the iron patio furniture, went to open a new can and it was stuck, so he'd jammed something in the eye of the spray hole, and the paint had splayed out over him, a fine spatter of black up his neck, over his chin, and onto his nose, something like the bear in the cartoon who gets a honeypot stuck on its head. His expression was sheepish, humorous, on the edge of laughing at himself.
Moments like that, I can feel as if I loved him. I certainly liked that he had a sense of humor. Love doesn't have to be reciprocal to exist, I understand that. There's the selfless love of monks and Mother Theresa, sure, but when you're talking about your immediate family, it just doesn't work unless its going both ways, both giving out and receiving back. So my moments of ... nostalgia are just that, because nothing from him ever reflected back at me, and when it did, at times the emotion coming at me or my mom or my brother was like a spewing hatred, a repudiation of what the relationship was supposed to be.
That vitriol sent me back inside myself, at that time a child who slept with a pillow tightly over her head and her tummy pressed deep into the mattress, though the muffled screams and epithets still came through. Because you couldn't tune it out totally - you had to be sure he wasn't coming for you, just in case. That girl with a habit of undercover listening too closely is the same person who spent twelve years as a cop listening to at least three radio channels simultaneously,a woman who has a very strong male side, who can always count on herself, who tends to be the emotional stability for others. Should I thank him for making me grow that in myself, or wonder that I still sleep with a pillow over my head, on my stomach.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Taken
When I first saw the trailer for Liam Neeson's film Taken (2008), I was repulsed. Another movie about sexploitation that mimed the very ills it was alleged to combat, I thought.
Wrong.
It reminded me of George C. Scott in Hardcore (1979), yet another avenging father searching for a daughter lost to the sex trade, in that case snuff films.
I knew there was some sexual slave trade out there, even trade in children and sex tourism, but stealing an American woman from an airport- nah, way too far fetched.
Wrong again.
Believe it or not we're studying this in nursing school, a group reporting on multiple aspects over a six week span. I've been a captive audience. Cross-reference that with the fact we now tune in every satellite channel available, and I end up watching Taken.
Why this is a decent movie... from the first, Neeson is driven. He plausibly reflects the ruthlessness and impetus required of an ex CIA agent whose daughter has been kidnapped by an Albanian gang that traffics in women.Where George C. Scott trailed listlessly through low life low light American landscapes, Neeson embodies a humanized Bond, international, no boundaries, technology or ninja equally at the ready.
A former co-worker counsels him that statistically he has only 96 hours or less before his daughter is lost forever. Neeson uses every skill honed from years of dark arts, and then some. The film races tautly from Parisian seedy locale to construction site to uppercrust slave auction, Neeson sparing no mercy, leaving a trail of bodies efficiently dispatched by various methods, all the while suffering from jet lag.
It's also decent because it does not seek to exploit the victims portrayed therein. The sad truth is this kind of business really does exist. It's a good action movie, but a better commentary on an aspect of our society few want to contemplate.
Wrong.
It reminded me of George C. Scott in Hardcore (1979), yet another avenging father searching for a daughter lost to the sex trade, in that case snuff films.
I knew there was some sexual slave trade out there, even trade in children and sex tourism, but stealing an American woman from an airport- nah, way too far fetched.
Wrong again.
Believe it or not we're studying this in nursing school, a group reporting on multiple aspects over a six week span. I've been a captive audience. Cross-reference that with the fact we now tune in every satellite channel available, and I end up watching Taken.
Why this is a decent movie... from the first, Neeson is driven. He plausibly reflects the ruthlessness and impetus required of an ex CIA agent whose daughter has been kidnapped by an Albanian gang that traffics in women.Where George C. Scott trailed listlessly through low life low light American landscapes, Neeson embodies a humanized Bond, international, no boundaries, technology or ninja equally at the ready.
A former co-worker counsels him that statistically he has only 96 hours or less before his daughter is lost forever. Neeson uses every skill honed from years of dark arts, and then some. The film races tautly from Parisian seedy locale to construction site to uppercrust slave auction, Neeson sparing no mercy, leaving a trail of bodies efficiently dispatched by various methods, all the while suffering from jet lag.
It's also decent because it does not seek to exploit the victims portrayed therein. The sad truth is this kind of business really does exist. It's a good action movie, but a better commentary on an aspect of our society few want to contemplate.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Ironflan 2
The truest measure of the special effects in this film is in the skin its actors.
Largely viewed in close up, this Stark comic book world had me marveling at their pores- fantastic dermabrasion?, an uber facial? the famed strict star diet-perhaps raw, perhaps a perfect science of carbs and protein- what ARE they feeding these people? It's not what the rest of us are getting, that's for sure.
Not only does Robert Downey discover- nay, mint - a new element, he and Gwen Paltrow manage to turn back the clock on aging and not even look as if they've had work done. Her strawberry blonde has been ratcheted up a notch, yet they seem to have captured her before she had children- impossible you say? At times Downey's nose appeared putty large, though with the right camera angle it suited his face perfectly. I don't recall being so transfixed by his nose previously? Something must have changed. Given that he looks far younger than the first flick ( hair flushed out with a few plugs here and there) the film offers a virtual version of the aging process, our hero ducking away at odd moments to stick his finger into -not an O2 sat device but a blood toxology meter. Despite starting out 29% toxic and it going downhill from there, it doesn't seem to phase him. He swigs black chlorophyll drinks while his audible British valet surround sound home computer lets him know its the Palladium in his heart that's killing him.
Although Don Cheadle flies by with some amazing hair painted to his head, he appears to be fulfilling some kind of contract obligation as his prodigious talent never registers much past dismay. To give you an idea of how long the final fight scene is, I had time to walk from the stadium seating to find a ladies room where the lights weren't working, go in search of another one, complete the entire business with a hand wash and wait for the auto towel machine- upon my return, the fight wasn't even half over and I missed nothing.
Meanwhile Johanssen- a veritable youngster- has her blonde locks daubed a saturated auburn hue. In her few closeup moments we are left to ponder if her similarly dunked green eyes are merely contacts, as she is permitted no expression. Though she may titillate our hero, who struggles mightily to overcome an incestuous brother/sister gig with Paltrow, no real sparks are fanned. Johanssen doesn't even get to sit at the same table with our hero, but may be seen perching uncomfortably nearby. She's 'from legal' we're told numerous times, though her original incarnation is as a lowly notary, her functionality for most of the film is to agree with bosses, assuaging their ego, whilst secretly acting as an operative for the Matrix-like Man from Uncle figure played by Samuel Jackson. Yeah, yeah, she does some drawn out scene in a white hallway where she literally mops the floor with a few guys, her knack dependent on throwing out a coupla zappy disks to electrically knock the bad guys (dressed in black-natch) off their feet so she can execute a signature Chinese crossed leg maneuver. Her act is as bloodless as the old Johnson Wax commercials and highly derivative of both Wonder Woman and Catherine Zeta Jones (Entrapment).
Perhaps in a nod to his directorial aspirations, Jackson poses as video deliveryman, depositing in his wake a few cannisters conspicuously labeled Kodak, the brand so retro that we need to be reminded what it is for. In one of the the film's quieter moments, we view reel to reel early sixties films of Stark's dad (leaving one to ponder that Stark must be in his late forties or early fifties) mouthing the usual Stark Industries PR drivel- until suddenly he is speaking to the camera, to his son, at least forty years later. Tony gets misty for about half a frame and then gets right back to business, connecting the dots in his dad's old world fair model - while weaving a really nice laser ball in midair- to create a new periodic element, solving his toxic blood problem while simultaneously giving his clanky suit a major shot of Red Bull. Luckily they still had the model hanging around at Paltrow's office - he gave her the job, by the way,and at the end of the job she tearfully acknowledges it's all too much for her. Can you spell misogyny? Never mind, I know it when I see it.
What to say about Mickey Rourke? No safe haven from the ravages of time here. His body and balloon-like facial features are such a caricature of the creature we knew in Diner that one can only stare with the same spellbound fascination customarily reserved for dwarfs and albinos. Apparently if you're Russian and born in Siberia you can intuit enough physics chops from your embittered imprisoned old man so that a few dormant years later just a bottle a vodka, a blowtorch and a parrot are all that's required to compete with the best inventions the mighty Stark Industries can buy. Welding school, here we come. Might even be musical in it, who knows.
Why is this film flan? Because the girls don't matter. Because the baddies are simply evil and the good guys get all the best lines.Because we know the plot before our seat gets warm. Just a comic book, you say? OK, in the manner of V for Vendetta, just a bad but not as boring (or creepy: I'm your faceless jailer and thirty years your senior, I just watched you starve for six months -now fuck me). The Dark Knight was more than a comic book, and this too has its moments. Downey testifying before a congressional panel in full Libertarian mode, zinging one liners exposing the fatuous perversity of that process, recalling lost integrity somewhere between HUAC and Iran Contra. Downey''s ability to draw out the narcissistic feats of his titan of industry while exposing the man beneath the curtain, varicose veins and all.
Thankfully it has a sense of humor and Downey. No thanks to Favreau's wooden direction and the boring plot with its under-developed Mickey Rourke moments.
Not only does Robert Downey discover- nay, mint - a new element, he and Gwen Paltrow manage to turn back the clock on aging and not even look as if they've had work done. Her strawberry blonde has been ratcheted up a notch, yet they seem to have captured her before she had children- impossible you say? At times Downey's nose appeared putty large, though with the right camera angle it suited his face perfectly. I don't recall being so transfixed by his nose previously? Something must have changed. Given that he looks far younger than the first flick ( hair flushed out with a few plugs here and there) the film offers a virtual version of the aging process, our hero ducking away at odd moments to stick his finger into -not an O2 sat device but a blood toxology meter. Despite starting out 29% toxic and it going downhill from there, it doesn't seem to phase him. He swigs black chlorophyll drinks while his audible British valet surround sound home computer lets him know its the Palladium in his heart that's killing him.
Although Don Cheadle flies by with some amazing hair painted to his head, he appears to be fulfilling some kind of contract obligation as his prodigious talent never registers much past dismay. To give you an idea of how long the final fight scene is, I had time to walk from the stadium seating to find a ladies room where the lights weren't working, go in search of another one, complete the entire business with a hand wash and wait for the auto towel machine- upon my return, the fight wasn't even half over and I missed nothing.
Meanwhile Johanssen- a veritable youngster- has her blonde locks daubed a saturated auburn hue. In her few closeup moments we are left to ponder if her similarly dunked green eyes are merely contacts, as she is permitted no expression. Though she may titillate our hero, who struggles mightily to overcome an incestuous brother/sister gig with Paltrow, no real sparks are fanned. Johanssen doesn't even get to sit at the same table with our hero, but may be seen perching uncomfortably nearby. She's 'from legal' we're told numerous times, though her original incarnation is as a lowly notary, her functionality for most of the film is to agree with bosses, assuaging their ego, whilst secretly acting as an operative for the Matrix-like Man from Uncle figure played by Samuel Jackson. Yeah, yeah, she does some drawn out scene in a white hallway where she literally mops the floor with a few guys, her knack dependent on throwing out a coupla zappy disks to electrically knock the bad guys (dressed in black-natch) off their feet so she can execute a signature Chinese crossed leg maneuver. Her act is as bloodless as the old Johnson Wax commercials and highly derivative of both Wonder Woman and Catherine Zeta Jones (Entrapment).
Perhaps in a nod to his directorial aspirations, Jackson poses as video deliveryman, depositing in his wake a few cannisters conspicuously labeled Kodak, the brand so retro that we need to be reminded what it is for. In one of the the film's quieter moments, we view reel to reel early sixties films of Stark's dad (leaving one to ponder that Stark must be in his late forties or early fifties) mouthing the usual Stark Industries PR drivel- until suddenly he is speaking to the camera, to his son, at least forty years later. Tony gets misty for about half a frame and then gets right back to business, connecting the dots in his dad's old world fair model - while weaving a really nice laser ball in midair- to create a new periodic element, solving his toxic blood problem while simultaneously giving his clanky suit a major shot of Red Bull. Luckily they still had the model hanging around at Paltrow's office - he gave her the job, by the way,and at the end of the job she tearfully acknowledges it's all too much for her. Can you spell misogyny? Never mind, I know it when I see it.
What to say about Mickey Rourke? No safe haven from the ravages of time here. His body and balloon-like facial features are such a caricature of the creature we knew in Diner that one can only stare with the same spellbound fascination customarily reserved for dwarfs and albinos. Apparently if you're Russian and born in Siberia you can intuit enough physics chops from your embittered imprisoned old man so that a few dormant years later just a bottle a vodka, a blowtorch and a parrot are all that's required to compete with the best inventions the mighty Stark Industries can buy. Welding school, here we come. Might even be musical in it, who knows.
Why is this film flan? Because the girls don't matter. Because the baddies are simply evil and the good guys get all the best lines.Because we know the plot before our seat gets warm. Just a comic book, you say? OK, in the manner of V for Vendetta, just a bad but not as boring (or creepy: I'm your faceless jailer and thirty years your senior, I just watched you starve for six months -now fuck me). The Dark Knight was more than a comic book, and this too has its moments. Downey testifying before a congressional panel in full Libertarian mode, zinging one liners exposing the fatuous perversity of that process, recalling lost integrity somewhere between HUAC and Iran Contra. Downey''s ability to draw out the narcissistic feats of his titan of industry while exposing the man beneath the curtain, varicose veins and all.
Thankfully it has a sense of humor and Downey. No thanks to Favreau's wooden direction and the boring plot with its under-developed Mickey Rourke moments.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Taking Stock
This is the second week of my Direct Entry Master's Nursing program, and I've been cranking out the work, most of which is reading, but also some Blackboard quizzes.
From an educational perspective, much has changed for me over the past year. As of last January, I'd never taken a Chemistry course (not even in high school) and had managed to avoid most Science courses altogether, with the rationale that I was "not good" at them.
This outmoded reasoning was once espoused by the same person who thought she was bad at math and couldn't do Algebra. Beginning with a requirement - in order to finish my Bachelor's degree in Texas- to take College Algebra, those beliefs were successfully challenged. Two years later, the first teaching job I was offered entailed that I teach Algebra II, previously my worst subject in high school. As it was my only offer, I took the plunge.
A couple of aphorisms about teaching: one is that you must only stay one day ahead of your students; the other is that when you know something well enough to teach it, you have mastered the subject. Somehow by maintaining a one day lead on my students (class preparation being the bane of the novice teacher's existence) I did manage to learn Algebra II better than I ever had as a student. Occasionally a student would lob in a question or present a novel approach to a problem that threw me, that made me question all my heretofore rock solid assumptions of the subject knowledge. Those students engendered my enduring respect and admiration for their fresh approaches, though not without some sweaty palm moments as I struggled to either understand their point or endeavored to answer the question. " So Josh, if I understand you correctly, what you're really saying is..." as I ad-libbed, playing for time and praying for inspiration.
You'd expect that since I'd had a moderately successful run in the Math genre (one that drove me as far as Geometry and Functions and stalled, awaiting further erudition) I'd anticipate tackling Chemistry with some confidence. Sadly, once cowed by a subject, I seem to remain in awe of it. Thus, my goal for that first high school Chemistry course (yea in January of 2009) was "to get a C or better"; rather shoddy given that I'd already attained a Master's degree in Education at the time.Perhaps its true what that say about education degrees ("they're not worth the paper they are printed on").
Knock me down with a feather, I ended up really digging stoichiometry. And here proper respect must be given to my teacher Diane Moreau, a seasoned West High School veteran whose complete confidence in her students as well as an adoration of her subject matter managed to convert me from a Chemophobe to a Chemophile. Further back pats go to my college Chem professor Chris Toher, who over two courses balanced a stimulating rapid-fire lecture style with an abiding love of the culinary arts, managing to insert foodie metaphors and hilarious examples in the bargain. I regret that I cannot take his Organic course this spring, it would have been a treat.
Other phases in the journey of this past year included a trial by fire anointing in Anatomy and Physiology by a community college professor. Legend has it that local hospital ranks are rife with personnel who either failed him once or limped away, battered and bruised, to tell the tale. The beauty of taking his exams was that after studying somewhere between twenty and thirty hours ( longer than I'd ever prepared for anything, I who routinely read the book the night before the exam and got an A) you really knew the stuff cold. Fresh from that battle and just to ensure that I'd be up to the current challenge of nineteen credits in my first semester of Nursing graduate school, I took sixteen credits last fall in my nemesis content areas, Math and Science.
Last January I was looking at one year practical nursing program; I thought that since I was a bit long in the tooth I'd get in, get out, and start by getting some experience in the field, then move up the ranks. To my consternation and surprise, I found there was no room in any LPN program within 50 miles, and the local community colleges had a two year wait to get into their associate level RN programs. All programs had daunting lists of prerequisites - none of which I'd previously taken, and most of which I doubted I could complete within two years. The prospect of becoming a nurse after fifty seemed ever more remote.
I spent a couple months struggling with high school chem and banging my head against the wall, wondering why I was so late to awaken to the Nursing call. Twenty-five years ago I'd first contemplated Nursing; back then they were offering enticements like a Bahamas vacation to sign up for local hospital programs. I guess there always was a shortage - that or hospital programs were beginning their death rattle, almost complete now. It mattered not, as my father talked me out of it. As if to spite him, I became a State Trooper instead. Was it irony or fate when he passed away, mid semester of last fall, necessitating that I balance a visit home to Pennsylvania and a funeral on top of what was already a daunting course load? Or did he merely reach through the fog of his own dementia from the grave with his karmic soul, a soul not present in his life, leaving me a modest bequest that made it possible to start this program now, with all its attendant out of pocket costs (PDA $300, new laptop $680, books $780, snow tires $580) before the first tuition loan is even signed. And a sense of balance and coming home...priceless. I am in the right program at the right moment, though it took almost thirty years to get here. Those intervening years have taught me skills of empathy, humility, and most importantly, faith.
From an educational perspective, much has changed for me over the past year. As of last January, I'd never taken a Chemistry course (not even in high school) and had managed to avoid most Science courses altogether, with the rationale that I was "not good" at them.
This outmoded reasoning was once espoused by the same person who thought she was bad at math and couldn't do Algebra. Beginning with a requirement - in order to finish my Bachelor's degree in Texas- to take College Algebra, those beliefs were successfully challenged. Two years later, the first teaching job I was offered entailed that I teach Algebra II, previously my worst subject in high school. As it was my only offer, I took the plunge.
A couple of aphorisms about teaching: one is that you must only stay one day ahead of your students; the other is that when you know something well enough to teach it, you have mastered the subject. Somehow by maintaining a one day lead on my students (class preparation being the bane of the novice teacher's existence) I did manage to learn Algebra II better than I ever had as a student. Occasionally a student would lob in a question or present a novel approach to a problem that threw me, that made me question all my heretofore rock solid assumptions of the subject knowledge. Those students engendered my enduring respect and admiration for their fresh approaches, though not without some sweaty palm moments as I struggled to either understand their point or endeavored to answer the question. " So Josh, if I understand you correctly, what you're really saying is..." as I ad-libbed, playing for time and praying for inspiration.
You'd expect that since I'd had a moderately successful run in the Math genre (one that drove me as far as Geometry and Functions and stalled, awaiting further erudition) I'd anticipate tackling Chemistry with some confidence. Sadly, once cowed by a subject, I seem to remain in awe of it. Thus, my goal for that first high school Chemistry course (yea in January of 2009) was "to get a C or better"; rather shoddy given that I'd already attained a Master's degree in Education at the time.Perhaps its true what that say about education degrees ("they're not worth the paper they are printed on").
Knock me down with a feather, I ended up really digging stoichiometry. And here proper respect must be given to my teacher Diane Moreau, a seasoned West High School veteran whose complete confidence in her students as well as an adoration of her subject matter managed to convert me from a Chemophobe to a Chemophile. Further back pats go to my college Chem professor Chris Toher, who over two courses balanced a stimulating rapid-fire lecture style with an abiding love of the culinary arts, managing to insert foodie metaphors and hilarious examples in the bargain. I regret that I cannot take his Organic course this spring, it would have been a treat.
Other phases in the journey of this past year included a trial by fire anointing in Anatomy and Physiology by a community college professor. Legend has it that local hospital ranks are rife with personnel who either failed him once or limped away, battered and bruised, to tell the tale. The beauty of taking his exams was that after studying somewhere between twenty and thirty hours ( longer than I'd ever prepared for anything, I who routinely read the book the night before the exam and got an A) you really knew the stuff cold. Fresh from that battle and just to ensure that I'd be up to the current challenge of nineteen credits in my first semester of Nursing graduate school, I took sixteen credits last fall in my nemesis content areas, Math and Science.
Last January I was looking at one year practical nursing program; I thought that since I was a bit long in the tooth I'd get in, get out, and start by getting some experience in the field, then move up the ranks. To my consternation and surprise, I found there was no room in any LPN program within 50 miles, and the local community colleges had a two year wait to get into their associate level RN programs. All programs had daunting lists of prerequisites - none of which I'd previously taken, and most of which I doubted I could complete within two years. The prospect of becoming a nurse after fifty seemed ever more remote.
I spent a couple months struggling with high school chem and banging my head against the wall, wondering why I was so late to awaken to the Nursing call. Twenty-five years ago I'd first contemplated Nursing; back then they were offering enticements like a Bahamas vacation to sign up for local hospital programs. I guess there always was a shortage - that or hospital programs were beginning their death rattle, almost complete now. It mattered not, as my father talked me out of it. As if to spite him, I became a State Trooper instead. Was it irony or fate when he passed away, mid semester of last fall, necessitating that I balance a visit home to Pennsylvania and a funeral on top of what was already a daunting course load? Or did he merely reach through the fog of his own dementia from the grave with his karmic soul, a soul not present in his life, leaving me a modest bequest that made it possible to start this program now, with all its attendant out of pocket costs (PDA $300, new laptop $680, books $780, snow tires $580) before the first tuition loan is even signed. And a sense of balance and coming home...priceless. I am in the right program at the right moment, though it took almost thirty years to get here. Those intervening years have taught me skills of empathy, humility, and most importantly, faith.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Do Not Go Gentle, Ladies
It's becoming increasingly clear that I am now ' a woman of a certain age' , perhaps an evermore indeterminate age- no! Succomb to several age related truisms? Well, ok. Deign to reveal my actual age number ? No problem. This led to an awkward moment last week around the cafeteria table at the National EMT certification testing in Manchester, where I was whiling away a Sunday morning. One young man opined that he was "almost a quarter century" and he had a hard time believing it, and another chimed in. Pondering the ridiculousness of these statements, I advised them to wait until they were pushing fifty and contemplating that their life was at the very least half over, or at worst they had perhaps twenty years left.
A silence ensued, the reason for which may have been that these puppies could not fathom 'pushing fifty' , and may have paused to reflect why they were hanging with someone who was; eh ... tough to gauge. In my more flattering recollection, I imagine them thinking:
"She's almost FIFTY? Jesus." We'd spent the last six months training together for this certification, during which I often spoke of my college-age sons; apparently these guys didn't do the math.
Anyway, my point is, Do not go gentle into that good night well may have been penned for women at this juncture. Though always an exerciser, I've made few concessions (certainly not diet) to the ravages of time. However, due to genetics I've had an advance leg up on the competition in one area, that of hair dye. Hypothyroidism can beget prematurely gray locks; in my instance requiring obligatory dye before age thirty.
"Let it go!" some may say, and given my naturally minimalist preen-factor proclivities I certainly would if I could. But as those thirties wound on, it became apparent that while my temples favored a fine silver hue, above the ears and at the crown my crop sprouts flat dead white. Paeans to Madleine Kahn's character in Young Frankenstein notwithstanding, this is not the look for me, thus I must .... dye.
Now to the meat of the subject at hand, in which I pass on my meager wisdom.
1) It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature
And by this I refer to skin tone. A brunette looks sickly and sallow with golden blonde tresses - look no further than the ashen results for Sandra Bullock in All About Steve and The Blind Side.
Despite this, most women of that indeterminate age begin heavily highlighting or even going 'blonde' (appears orangy), which I feel is a mistake. At this point I refer the reader to wonderful Nora Ephron's I Feel Bad About My Neck , specifically the chapter on Maintenance. The entire book is required reading, but a quick synopsis: Nora had been happily covering her grey for many years; one day her stylist convinced her to try highlights, after which she could not stop checking out her hair in every mirror. As Lilli von Shtupp would say, It's twue, it's twue ! Highlights are tremendous fun, but unless mine stay in the ash hue and in the background I get the same wash-out effect as if I were a blonde.
This is not to say that highlights don't have their uses: one of the difficulties in dyeing one's hair is the unrelievedly flat tone that results. Also, in my case (once again due to Hypothyroidism which causes the hair to become coarse) after repeated chemical treatments one's hair begets the consistency of straw. This won't do, obviously. So as the twin forces of age and hypothyroidsim ever more firmly clenched me in their jaws, I began casting about for answers. Who wants harsh chemicals on their scalp, anyway?
My search eventually led me to young stylist who recommended Bigen. This is a natural, henna-derived product from Japan. Its hues range from black to light brown, and there are a few competitors, among them Waterworks, but nothing seems to cover the grey as well as Bigen. Yes, I can do it myself at home - particularly the touch ups, which are needed every five weeks. Besides creating softer, silker hair - even just after a color- one of the other nice features about Bigen is that its color contains natural highlights and does not appear flat.
Previous to this, I was enduring what is euphemistically called "a two step process" at the salon, costing $120 to $190, and I needed it every five weeks because my hair grows fast. First they would cover the grey with brown, and then add a highlight so the brown didn't look so flat and ugly. We're talking two to three hours of agony in uncomfortable chairs with no footstools ( tall women, don't salons just suck? Don't your feet always stick out at the hair wash sink?) , well documented by Ephron. For someone who rarely even applies makeup anymore, this was an unconscionable waste of time and expense.
So these days I do the Bigen part at home and leave highlighting ( now only required every 5 months or so since I carefully control my own touch ups, avoiding the highlights) to Fantastic Sam's (partial for a bargain $40, use reconnaissance missions to pick your stylist carefully) and gratefully leave the cut to an experienced professional (not Fantastic Sam's, I'm cheap but I'm not stupid), in my case the magical Heidi at Olivia's in Concord NH, whom it took me four years to find after we moved away from my old stylist.
A silence ensued, the reason for which may have been that these puppies could not fathom 'pushing fifty' , and may have paused to reflect why they were hanging with someone who was; eh ... tough to gauge. In my more flattering recollection, I imagine them thinking:
"She's almost FIFTY? Jesus." We'd spent the last six months training together for this certification, during which I often spoke of my college-age sons; apparently these guys didn't do the math.
Anyway, my point is, Do not go gentle into that good night well may have been penned for women at this juncture. Though always an exerciser, I've made few concessions (certainly not diet) to the ravages of time. However, due to genetics I've had an advance leg up on the competition in one area, that of hair dye. Hypothyroidism can beget prematurely gray locks; in my instance requiring obligatory dye before age thirty.
Now to the meat of the subject at hand, in which I pass on my meager wisdom.
1) It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature
And by this I refer to skin tone. A brunette looks sickly and sallow with golden blonde tresses - look no further than the ashen results for Sandra Bullock in All About Steve and The Blind Side.
This is not to say that highlights don't have their uses: one of the difficulties in dyeing one's hair is the unrelievedly flat tone that results. Also, in my case (once again due to Hypothyroidism which causes the hair to become coarse) after repeated chemical treatments one's hair begets the consistency of straw. This won't do, obviously. So as the twin forces of age and hypothyroidsim ever more firmly clenched me in their jaws, I began casting about for answers. Who wants harsh chemicals on their scalp, anyway?
Previous to this, I was enduring what is euphemistically called "a two step process" at the salon, costing $120 to $190, and I needed it every five weeks because my hair grows fast. First they would cover the grey with brown, and then add a highlight so the brown didn't look so flat and ugly. We're talking two to three hours of agony in uncomfortable chairs with no footstools ( tall women, don't salons just suck? Don't your feet always stick out at the hair wash sink?) , well documented by Ephron. For someone who rarely even applies makeup anymore, this was an unconscionable waste of time and expense.
So these days I do the Bigen part at home and leave highlighting ( now only required every 5 months or so since I carefully control my own touch ups, avoiding the highlights) to Fantastic Sam's (partial for a bargain $40, use reconnaissance missions to pick your stylist carefully) and gratefully leave the cut to an experienced professional (not Fantastic Sam's, I'm cheap but I'm not stupid), in my case the magical Heidi at Olivia's in Concord NH, whom it took me four years to find after we moved away from my old stylist.
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