The Scottish Dream

Most people in theater know the proverbial dream: the one where you’re doing a show and you realize you don’t know any of the lines, missed all of the rehearsals and now you need to go on to a full house complete with a New York Times critic. I have that dream often, although since I’ve been teaching, my subconscious has added in a shrill school administrator who usually shows up to ask for test score data. Last night I had the most vivid variation of this dream yet. I was playing Macbeth in a production comprised of those reverent actors one usually only sees on the James Lipton Tongue-in-Butt Hour. I showed up to the front door of the theater and realized the show had already started. Oh, well, I thought. I wasn’t feeling particularly in the mood to perform and I knew I didn’t know the lines. I decided to take off my pants, leave them at the door and go have a beer instead. Later, the cast found me at the pub and berated me, except for one astute, organically-trained Lesbian actress. It turns out they had miraculously gotten through the entire performance without the appearance of Macbeth. No stand-ins, no understudy. They all just ad-libbed and talked about him a lot. The Lesbian, playing Lady Sarah, (who’s Lady Sarah?) devised a plot turn where she takes over the crown. She was really proud of her improvisational skills and the fact that a woman could rule Scotland in the 11th century. I’m not sure if she shacked up with Lady Macbeth, as things got a bit fuzzy after my third pint. I’m so glad theater is still in my blood.

Desert Storm

Desert Storm
Phoenix is right now in the middle of a major weather event. It's been raining for at least two days. The meteorologists on the local news are now purpose-driven and absolutely giddy since they have something to report. The news opened with the forecast, the sky-cam showed headlights, and some grandmother was stuck in her AMC Pacer in a puddle of water. When rescued, all she said was a thank-you to Jesus that she had brought her gun along with her. I'm glad this was the top news story as we already know all about Haiti.


It's understandable that Phoenix gets excited with any kind of precipitation. After all, we get a meager three inches of rain per year. I just don't understand why every time it rains, it's like a hurricane blew in. The airport closes, (don't planes land in rain in other cities?) electricity gets knocked out at the slightest mention of a breeze, and there are auto pile-ups because people are learning how to turn on their windshield wipers.

Because of the rain last night -- and it really was more like a steady drizzle -- there were all sorts of failures at my school this morning: the bells didn't work, no one could print from their computers, the copiers were jamming paper and everyone was wet. (no one owns an umbrella here, it seems)

And it wasn't just happening at school. Later on at the gym, they announced there was a tornado warning. Cory, the 210 lb bodybuilder with a lisp, screamed and tried to duck under the squat machine. Someone had to tell him not to worry since the gym was in a basement. On my way home, my Florida instincts were kicking in. I debated about stopping in Safeway to buy bottled water, batteries and canned sardines, but decided to live dangerously.

To be fair, it is sounding rather windy out there now and the rain hasn't stopped for at least an hour. Having an add-on with a flat roof plus a pool deck that slopes conveniently toward our bedroom doors does give one pause. Flooding is as frequent here as Sheriff Joe on a dollar store sweep.

I just wonder why Phoenix's infrastructure -- electricity, sewer, airport, highways etc -- seems to be so damn sensitive. Why can't city planners study a place where there's like 300 days of rain a year -- like Seattle or Ireland -- and see how they cope with a little wet?

This reminds me; I need to save this right now, as my lights are flickering and that can only mean one thing: 30 Rock will not make it on the DVR tonight.

Watching Obama, Clinton and Bush outside the White House as the president introduces their group effort at relief for Haiti.  It's like a student presentation in front of the class. Barack, the A-student, is well-spoken, regal, the one who sits in the front of the classroom.  Bill is still and solemn, waiting for his turn to be Elvis-sincere. Poor George is the special-ed student. He can't stand still or stop smirking.  I'm waiting for him to do bunny ears behind Barack's head.  Thankfully, the CNN camera moves in for a closeup, taking problem George out of the shot. I hope he keeps staying in Crawford doing what he does best -- chopping wood.

The Lonely Goatherd

     I finally saw The Sound of Music -- in sixth grade and ten years after its initial 1965 release. My mother took me on a hot August day to the Crest Theater, the last remaining movie palace in downtown Fresno. We sat in the empty art-deco auditorium with a few misguided Chicano drunks and witnessed Julie Andrews on the big screen singing her heart out to the Alps. It only took the opening credits and I was smitten: my Austro-Hungarian Empire phase had begun. I decided to take German in the seventh grade that September. I collected European model trains and had a layout complete with paper Mache Alps, A-frame pensiones and gilded cafes. I devoured books: The autobiography of Maria Von Trapp, the life story of the waltz king, Johann Strauss, Heidi and Mein Kampf.

     In Mr. Adair's geography class we were to give a presentation on a country of our choosing. I seized the dramatic opportunity and came to school in lederhosen and a felt Tyrolean hat. In character, I presented the glory of Austria -- once the center of the Great Hapsburg Empire -- when people built real palaces and really knew how to live it up. I spoke in a broken German accent that prompted the slovenly Annette Messina to shout from her back row seat,

“Why are you talking like that? Are you retarded?”

After digressing about German dialects, I elaborated on Austria, home of the most cosmopolitan of European cities, Vienna. Home of the Sacher Torte, the perfect cup of coffee, the Strausses and their music, and opulence for days. Die Fledermaus played on the phonograph for background ambience. Lori Silver, the sole Jew in our school, shot up her hand:

“Didn't the Austrians exterminate my people?”

I had anticipated this from overly whiny Lori and rebutted that Austrians were a peaceful people who were bullied by the Nazis. “Didn't you see The Sound of Music?” I asked her with exasperation. The Austrians were personified in the character of Baron Von Trapp, beautifully and wryly played by the handsome Christopher Plummer. The Austrians were a poor, once-great people forced into occupation or else their beautiful churches would be burned down and their musical festivals cancelled, I explained. They were victims; they would have rather stayed home with their flocks of sheep and compose music and enter
amateur singing contests. I ended the presentation with a class sing-a-long of "Edelweiss". Appallingly, no
one knew the lyrics. Mr. Adair interrupted my solo because of time constraints. Billy Drucker then got up and did his "country" report on Oklahoma. No costume, no music, no audio/visual. Because he was the hyperactive class clown and imitated his father's "Okie" accent, they all laughed and ate it up. While I faced a barrage of historical challenges and sneers over my choice, my costume, my gift bags, no one even flinched when Billy tried to pass off the nation of Oklahoma.

     My middle-European obsession led to a pen pal for three glorious months. Gerhardt Ladstatter was a tall, Aryan boy who looked older than his 13 years. I had found my Rolf. Best of all, he was from Vienna. I never went into detail about my Fresno home in the middle of farmlands and devoid of western civilization. I played up the California card and sent postcards of rocky cliffs, massive redwoods and Hearst Castle with the note, "I live near here". His correspondence at first was frequent and full of photos: Gerhardt fishing, Gerhardt riding his bike in what I imagined were the Vienna Woods, Gerhardt hunting in the Alps -- could that be a nun singing in the distance? One picture had Gerhardt with his arm casually draped over a friend's shoulder after what appeared to be a dirty and grueling futbal game. There was master-race victory on their faces mixed with something intimate I couldn't grasp. A real pal shot: Something nowadays Abercrombie and Fitch would blow up to the size of a wall. In his letters, Gerhardt was warm, affectionate and so European -- not like those cold American boys here who only liked you if you played that stupid American invention, baseball. I was determined to learn German fluently and take up some sport to impress Gerhardt. The 1976 winter Olympics from Innsbruck had just finished. My most recent Austrian hero was Franz Klammer, winner of the gold medal. I decided to follow in his footsteps and become a championship skier. I started by stealing my sister's sun lamp and stared at it while wearing sunglasses. Arriving to school on Monday with a face looking like a raccoon with radiation was the height of Fresno status. I spent two months looking at ski equipment to rent and would only choose it if were German or had some hard-to-pronounce guttural name attached to it.

     I wrote Gerhardt that I was training using my Kneisal skis and had bought my florescent yellow and orange plastic ski parka and could he take me to the Alps soon? The Sierra Nevadas in California were puny and the lodges hadn't the Tyrolean atmosphere I was looking for. I finally went to the Yosemite ski resort for my first time with my friend, Brian O'Connor. He was a good skier and abandoned me pretty quickly for the intermediate run. I took a beginner's class where I learned how to stop by bringing my knees together, letting the skis angle towards one another and braking into the snow. I didn't like it. It wasn't a Franz Klammer power slide and it looked slightly handicapped. I went to the lodge and sat for three hours drinking cocoa in front of the fire. There was a nice, old woman from Modesto sitting next to me who was chatty and dim. I told her I was a foreign exchange student from Salzburg. My name was Gerhardt. She had seen The Sound of Music so I had a lot to tell her. When Brian came in to get me -- interrupting and almost blowing my story of how I was a runner-up in that year's music festival with my accordian solo -- I excused myself and said I needed to return to my host family.

     Brian tutored me on the "bunny slope" and how to get on and off the t-bar until I thought I got it. It was fun for about 15 minutes. I was disappointed since the sun had gone away and now I couldn't even return to school looking like a burn victim. Finally I had to attempt the last run of the day; feeling pretty cocky and in homage to Franz, I crouched down to gain speed like I saw them do on the Olympics. I must have sped up to at least 10 miles per hour. As I approached a large Ponderosa Pine in my way, I tried to stop beginner-style but my skis crossed and I tumbled over, hearing and feeling a snap in my right leg. I broke two bones and was in a cast for what seemed most of my puberty.

     Gerhardt was empathetic to my slightly revised story and was amazed I could slalom on the pro's hill as a beginner. With nothing to do in my cast, I started writing him more. I told him how I didn't much like the American way. We didn't have electric trains -- we had Amtrak. We didn't have coffee houses -- we had tins of General Foods instant coffee and palm oil and called it Cafe Vienna. We didn't have downtowns to shop in with streetcars -- we had a mall with a parking lot and a JC Penney's as an anchor, for Chris sakes. Gerhardt wrote back with innocent questions like, How is McDonald's hamburger? Do you own a gun? He dreamed of all things American: eating Big Macs in the Grand Canyon and wearing cowboy boots. The poor, deluded lad, I mused. During my convalescence, I relayed my dreams of flying to him in Vienna and riding the old Ferris wheel with him, attending the Vienna opera with him, and eating strudel in the Schonbrunn palace with him. I wanted to take a picture with him in front of the Rathaus, his arm casually draped over my shoulder. As my letters became more Rococo of our future together, his became more spare and infrequent. I couldn't help but think my failure as a downhill skier turned the pen-pal into pen-pity. It seemed that Gerhardt, like his people, couldn't tolerate weakness. Perhaps owning a hunting rifle would've helped matters.

     His last correspondence was a postcard of the Danube. On the back he scribbled something about great fishing with his Dad. No best wishes, no fond words -- just a p.s. about his moving and the new address would be forthcoming. I read in-between the newly cool, Teutonic efficiency of his words: It's Over, Kaput -- Achtung. I looked at the picture of what looked like a castle overlooking the river. Why is the water brown? I thought. The Danube is supposed to be blue. And what's he fishing in it for? Doesn't he know? You're supposed to waltz on it.

I'm intrigued by a sign in my neigborhood. It's one of those signs with changeable letters, like high schools have.  It's in front of the Meinecke Brake shop at a not-very-nice intersection highlighted by a Pizza Hut Wing Stop, a check cashing store and a CVS Pharamcy.  The sign says, "Your life is shaped by your thoughts."  It's been there quite awhile now.  I'm surprised -- in this economy -- it hasn't been changed to "Brake Special 4 just $34.95" or "Tuesdays is Ladiez Day for Oil Changes," like most other auto shops have.  This gets me thinking about the owner or whoever is responsible for putting up that message.  He must be cool to work for.  It makes me think perhaps I chose the wrong profession and I should be changing brake pads and having metaphysical discussions with the boss.  I know it's condescending of me to question a sign like this at this shop, in this blue collar neighborhood.  It just strikes me as an ironic location as most of the time, this intersection is punctuated by people who don't look too happy or content with their lives: overweight mothers in a halter top and shorts, pushing a baby stroller followed by three toddlers, homeless men yelling at bus stops, and other assorted characters usually only seen on Spanish-speaking talk shows.
So I guess the sign is needed.  It certainly is reassuring to me.  It makes me think that enlightenment is not strictly a high-end luxury -- a thing only reserved for poeple who live in Sedona or shop in Whole Foods.
"Your life is shaped by your thoughts."  Of course I've seen that message throughout my life and in  different variations.  My problem is I always get it mixed up and think, "My thoughts are shaped by my life,"
which is something entirely different.  Coincidentally, my car needs an oil change.  I should go there tomorrow, meet this guru and thank him for improving the 'hood.

Mr. B

Lately, the Bogeyman has returned to me. I actually haven't see him, but I definitely feel him. It's been more than 40 years since I waited for his nightly visits, so I'm finding it strange that it's taken so long for him to return.

As a child, I pictured him as an obese apparition -- shrouded in white, tattered rags with blood oozing from his mouth and eyes. As if the Michelin Man had been put through a food processor and was really pissed off about it. I would lay in the dark of my twin bed, saying Hail Mary's and Our Father's since this was the proven method for keeping him at bay. My parents, of course, always disputed the existence of such a creature. It was my older brothers who warned me about him. Sometimes they would sneak into my room and imitate his groans and thumping feet, sending me screaming to my parents' bed. I think I stopped believing in the threat of him around adolescence, when I discovered I could do other things in my bed at night besides pray to the Virgin Mary. Instead of dwelling on this ghoul, I decided to direct my nocturnal thoughts towards my future adult life: my fabulously successful careers, the interiors of my Manhattan penthouse and my brief, but memorable, marriage to Jaclyn Smith.

Where did the Bogeyman go? Throughout high school, college and all of my erratic careers, I had completely forgotten about him. Through a variety of pursued and broken dreams, friendships and romances, he never bothered me. I'm now in my 40's; I have a great relationship; and I have a teaching job that pays the bills. You would think he would've grown bored of me and moved on.

This time, the Bogeyman -- or Mr. B as I've taken to calling him -- doesn't haunt me late at night like he used to; he's changed his schedule. Now, I wake up to him. What's more is he's taken a new shape. Several, in fact. He seems to be everywhere: glowing blue in my alarm clock, stalking the cold, morning floor, floating in the Mr. Coffee water reservoir, condensing in the ceiling of the shower. The picture of me now in the morning makes a terrible Folger's commercial. To be honest, I've never been a morning person, but this awaiting Mr. B makes me look like that snot-nosed scene from The Blair Witch Project.

I talked to my doctor about it. I explained to her several things: my mother had just been diagnosed with a terminal illness; I had just moved across the country to a place I never particularly thought I would move to, much less stop along the way for gas; and I had a new teaching job that made me feel talent-less and stupid. Was it depression? Sure, she said, as she wrote the prescription for a popular anti-depressant. I gave the pills more than two months to kick in. Instead of transforming me into a Lark at sunrise, they made the presence of Mr. B even more formidable than before. One morning I experienced what I can only call a panic moment followed by a blackout; several minutes later, I woke up from a nap I had taken after I had fainted in the tub and under the running shower head. I decided the drugs weren't a very good deterrent for Mr. B's charms.

Recently, I've been sensing Mr. B. in strange disguises. Like in certain administrators and in fellow faculty members. He is playing a game of cat and mouse with me. His is no longer the chubby, bloody man from a horror movie; he has gotten slicker in his old age. He is able to transform himself and hover in my empty classroom, in the ennui of a faculty meeting, in a memo full of educational-speak words that only makes me dizzy.

Sometimes, he'll hide in students. Usually it's the students who don't understand me, who don't get my references, or who look at me like I stepped out of Avatar. And the other day, during my planning period, I swore I could feel him on Facebook, wanting to befriend total strangers.

I often wonder if Mr. B plagues other people. In the morning, I see a fair amount of teachers --sitting in their cars with the engines running -- drinking coffee and staring nervously at the cacti in front of them. And I don't think they're camped out there because of Sirius Radio. This comforts me.

Strangely enough, Mr. B is usually gone by lunchtime. Unless there's a department meeting that afternoon. And I can't feel him until the next morning, although he often makes surprise visits on Sunday nights when I'm ironing clothes.

When I'm on vacation, Mr. B seems to take a vacation, also. I should thank him for this when I finally meet him. But I don't think that's going to happen. This makes me sad, because if I did -- at last -- get to actually shake his hand, I would do my best to strangle him with my school ID, or stab him with my teacher scissors, or bludgeon him with my 25 pound teacher's edition textbook. It would be lovely to finally use that book for something.

In truth, however, Mr. B wont show up anytime soon. I'm aware of that. I know that if he ever does decide to make an appearance, it will be at some profound moment, like at my retirement lunch. And it will be too late. Then, that son-of-a-bitch will change his game again and visit for altogether different reasons.

Annie says I should blog. She's an old friend of mine from college and she works in the world of New York media, so I'm thinking she must know something. And if some whiny girl could do it and then write a book without ever having met Julia Child or gone to cooking school, then maybe I can. Still, all this -- and I hate this word -- journaling feels like masturbation, but without the happy ending. I teach high school English and journaling is the last thing I want my kids to do. I know this sounds like I'm a bad teacher, but personal lives are one thing I wont get into. We can talk all we want about Hamlet's life with all that incest, premarital sex, homoerotic longing (I'm talking about Horatio here) and stupid friends with weird names, but don't start with the student's personal histories. There are several well-paid social workers in the main office planning potlucks who can handle them.

I've written stuff before, but most of it sits untouched, unedited and unpublished. Several friends have kindly read them and given me a pet or two like I'm one of those abused dogs in the ASPCA commercials. I was in theater, but nothing is as vulnerable as writing. I'd rather do a nude play in winter -- with a frigid penis as large as Michael Jackson's nose -- than submit my writing for publication.

So why am I doing this? Well, for one, no one's going to read this.

The real reason I'm attempting this is because of a New Year's resolution. I know New Year's resolutions are about as lame as those Sunday morning exercise infomercials or that shrill geriatric lady who sells cookware for people who dig crock pots, but I realized I need to change my ways if Hugh Jackman ever comes a-knocking. (It will happen)

I wouldn't call myself an alcoholic, or even an alcohol abuser. I just spend too much time and too much money drinking and meeting people who I don't ever remember the next day. I'm too old for this. Once I have two drinks, I'm done. Forget about reading a book or writing something. I end up watching my boyfriend's inane reality shows and feeling alternately disgusted and superior through my vodka-soaked haze. So instead of drinking, I'm going to write. Here. On my high-tech spiral-bound. Let's see what happens.