Long Live the Little Green Men!

You gotta watch out for people getting you back, especially the ones you didn’t even realize you “got” in the first place.

I’d left my dorm room unlocked.  I always left my dorm room unlocked.  There wasn’t anything valuable that could be taken with ease – my speakers were 5ft around – and my sorority-sisters neighbors were usually milling about that end of the hall.  But there was no denying that if I’d locked the door, I wouldn’t be dealing with this …. this what?  It wasn’t really a mess and was only slightly annoying.

Army men.  They were everywhere.  I opened my dresser drawer; army man.  I pulled down a shoe box; army man.  I put on a pair of pants and put my hand in the pocket; army man.  There was even one in the mini fridge’s freezer!  “He’s in Siberia,” my clearly guilty next door neighbor grinned.  I was finding those army men until well after I moved out of that dorm room.  Thanks Amanda.

But as I said, she was just “getting me back.”  Except, I hadn’t filled her room with army men.  No, the little green men first appeared elsewhere on campus, all over campus, thanks to another sorority sister, a trip to Leon’s and the dollar store that just happened to be on the way home. 

A tradition was born, and that tradition continues.

Mommy found one somewhere the other week.  Likely a remnant of   the attack of all attacks just before I left for Zambia.  There’s a lot of good hiding spots in a house with 3 floors.  They’re sneaked into the bottom of packages and carried along in suitcases on visits.  One of the original instigators’ daughter has her own toddler-appropriate army man.   Gummy army men were passed around for holidays and birthdays – I heard they were quite delicious.  One of my  sorority sisters even incorporated them into her wedding!

 

And this past Christmas, Alfred got me the most amazing and absolutely perfectly appropriate present.  A snowflake ornament made out of army men!  I love snow.  She found it on etsy.  It’s super cute and very ingenious.

Coming of Age in a Bubble

A few weeks ago, I caught an episode of Frontline about the housing crisis and accompanying recession.  It answered so many questions that I had asked back when I was in college.

How it’s Supposed to Work

My parents raised us in a frugal environment focused on needs, balance and temperance rather than wants and extravagances.  We didn’t resent our classmates’ name brand clothing; we thought they were stupid for spending so much extra money for a logo.  We loved our quirky hand-me downs and our “Made with Love by Mother” labeled clothes.  Mommy and Daddy taught us to keep debt to a minimum, that there were trade-offs and wanting two things meant needing to make a choice and that sometimes you just have to wait.  They taught us the basic rules of living within your means and led by example.

And the Credit Flowed

By the time I was in college, I was questioning everything they’d taught me.  It was the turn of the century and the credit bubble was inflating.  The method of using business loan risk as its own investment product invented by young bankers at Chase had started spreading to other banks and other types of risk.  Credit was as free-flowing as water.

Mommy and Daddy had taught me that you needed to pay off the credit card balance each month or you would lose a lot of money to interest, eventually have a maxed out card and be unable to get more credit.  But life was telling me a different story. 

I was 20, a college student with a part-time job that paid barely above minimum wage and I had close to a dozen credit cards all with ridiculous limits. My Victoria Secret’s store card alone had a several thousand dollar limit.  (Who needs several thousand dollars worth of lingerie?)  Nobody turned me down. Nobody I knew was ever turned down.   Somewhere along the line, I stopped paying the full balance. Further along, I was only making minimum payments.  Whenever a balance approached my credit limit, I’d receive a letter in the mail telling me my credit limit had been increased.

I didn’t understand the logic of what Mommy and Daddy had taught me.  Why would anyone ever pay the whole balance each month?  It didn’t make sense when you could pay $30 – $100 each month and go out and buy as much as you wanted and basically never pay for it.  There was always another credit card to get, another limit to increase.   And there were no repercussions.  There was always more credit.

Luckily for me, the teachings of childhood were resilient.  Even though I couldn’t make sense of things, I believed what I was taught, figuring my parents must understand something I wasn’t getting.  So I started to work on getting rid of that debt while the bubble was still inflating.  During the summers, I worked two jobs, nearly 60 hours a week. I took a less-than-ideal job because it paid higher wages and I attempted to go bare bones on further spending.* 

Banking in the Bubble

That less-that-ideal job was as a loan collector for an American bank.  A bank that, while I was there, purchased a whole bunch of defaulted mortgages.  Again, life in front of me was going against my upbringing.  I phoned customers who were behind on their house and car payments.  I listened to their stories, and I couldn’t understand why the bank had made the loans in the first place.  People’s jobs had not changed; they just spent too much. 

They wanted to put their mortgage payment on a credit card.  Interest on top of interest.  But who cared when those cards came with unlimited credit?  A doctor whose mortgage was in default yelled at me that I didn’t know what I was talking about when I told him he could lose his house if he didn’t catch up on the mortgage.  “I filed bankruptcy before and I’ll just do it again before they take the house.”  Even a bankruptcy history didn’t stop the credit from flowing.

POP!

When the bubble burst, I blamed the spenders.  The people who didn’t follow Mommy and Daddy’s rules, the rules of the depression and previous recessions.  The people who did exactly what seemed to make the most sense.  The people who relied on the banks and credit lenders to make responsible business decisions.

I didn’t understand why the banks would make so many bad loans. It was downright stupid lending to people who couldn’t pay, people who already had mountains of debt.  I thought banks couldn’t survive if they made bad loans.  But I didn’t realize, the banks weren’t considering the risk of each loan because the banks had no plans to keep the risk.

By the end of the Frontline program, I still scorned the spenders for attempting to live beyond their means, but I also pitied them some and I was mad at the banks.  I was mad at the banks not for taking advantage of people, not for encouraging the lavish excessive of the ‘90s, not even for being lavish themselves.  No, I was mad at the banks for being so incredibly reckless that they weren’t even paying attention to their own best interests.  They broke the market.

 

*Honesty disclaimer: it took my college fund helping before I was fully bailed out.  On my income, I wouldn’t have been out before the bubble burst. And note, that said “attempted;” I have this thing for shoes.

10 years and 2000 miles later

On the 10th Anniversary, it seems obligatory to do a blog post about 9/11/01.  But my memories related to September 11th do not start that morning. 

My thoughts start two weeks before that day, when I finished reading Angles and Demons.  For those unfamiliar with the book, a very devoted Catholic stages an attack on the Church in order to revitalize the Church community and support for the church.  I remember finishing that book and thinking, “America needs something like that.”  Tired of people being ashamed of our country, of flags being uncool and patriotism being dead – and this was before I moved out to the Bay – it seemed that the last time our country had been supported by its people was World War II.  We need a cause to rally behind.  I didn’t expect us to get one, and I certainly didn’t expect it to be so dramatic.

The morning of September 11th, I was trying to sort out some credit card bills.  I called the customer service line.  The lady on the other end was all distracted.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “we just heard about the World Trade Center.”  “But that was years ok,” I thought, thinking of the parking garage bombing.  Then my roommate came rushing into the room, let out of her 8am class early.  “Did you hear?!”  “Hear what?”  She turned on the small tv atop our dressers.  Every channel, every single one, was showing the same thing, the clip of the second plane hitting.

There was lots of excitement, people running down the halls, exclaiming any news they’d gotten that others might not have yet.  Candlelight vigils on the campus’s Main Lawn.  Alan Jackson’s “Where Were You (When the World Stopped Turning)” moved even those that hated country music.  American flags everywhere, not just cool again but practically required.  It was a cause to rally behind, and for most of us at my small Midwestern school, that’s all it was.

Ten years ago, I hadn’t been to New York.  I didn’t know anyone in New York.  I didn’t know anyone who would be on an international flight.  New York was like Harvard, a place that only existed on tv and in the movies.  It wasn’t until this week that I learned the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field was bound for SFO.  Even if I had known, it wouldn’t have mattered.  As a Midwesterner, I scorned those people on the coasts who flew from one side to the other, treating real Americans like they didn’t exist, “fly-over-country” nonsense.

Ten years later, I’ve been to New York.  I’ve seen the World Trade Center hole, and not because I went there to see it, but because it’s down the street from my friend’s dad’s office.  I know people there.  I know people who are frequently on international flights, including friends and family, and me.  I know some of the “coastal people,” heck, I’m even friends with them.  And while I still disdain the fly-over-country mentality, I don’t hate them.  Ten years later, the events are more real than they could have been to a sheltered twenty year-old.  And sadly, ten years later, the flags are mostly gone again.

I liked that patriotism; I’d like to see it back.  But I don’t expect it anytime soon.  It’s impossible to be both an apologetic and a patriot, and the loudest voices in our society are still demanding we be the first.

September 11th, 2001 may have given us a rallying cry on which to rebuild our patriotism.  But the events of the next 9 years destroyed it all again.  John Yoo said we’re safer and freer now than we were ten years ago.  He’s a good speaker, but I disagree.  When I feel trapped in my city because transportation out of it is either too long or too anxiety-filled due to the “heightened security measures” – not the risks, the measures – I do not feel safe or free.  I never feared the terrorists; I fear TSA.

They won. We have lost both our patriotism and our freedom.

From “Austin” to Nashville

I know it was Amanda.  I don’t remember why or when or even how, but I know it was her.  She has this way of waltzing in and overthrowing everything before you know it.  Born a few decades earlier and the government might have had her on special missions to South America.

Anyway, I know it was Amanda, and I wish I remember why or when or how she got me to sit down and listen to this song called “Austin.”  Staunchly in my Eminem phase (it was college, I remember that much), I listened to two types of music, West Coast influenced hip hop and Metallica.  Well, ok three, there was a heavy dose of 1776 in there.  Yet somehow, this crazy girl got me to listen to country.  That’s right, country.

The door was cracked open.  Granted, it never became wide open, remaining for the next however-many-years ajar, but it was still far more open than I ever expected.  Heck, I never thought that door would even be unlocked.  From “Austin” to Alan Jackson to Toby Keith, new music started to slip into my previously anger-filled cd player.  All because of Amanda and “Austin.”

Blake Shelton was inducted into the Opry this past weekend.  Just happened to be the weekend I was in Nashville.  And we just happened to look into Opry tickets (after discovering that To Kill a Mockingbird at the TPAC was sold out).  As soon as I saw that Blake Shelton was joining the Opry at the show that night, I had to go.

When people join the Opry, they’re invited and then inducted by current members.  In this case, both the invitation and the induction were done by Trace Adkins.  That meant both Blake Shelton and Trace Adkins were performing at the Opry. Woo hoo!  - I started liking Trace’s music while living in Nashville when I heard a song with a theme similar to much hip hop, “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk”.

I didn’t hear “Austin” or “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” at the Opry.  But the performances by both men were great.  And their duet, “Hillbilly Bone” was quite entertaining.  Of course any song with Trace Adkin’s deep voice is going to sound good to my ears.  I’d love to hear him and James Hetfield do a duet.

The Perfect Present

I think it is ok to use the proper word as Mommy would likely not find it vampire-worthy, in this instance: The Gates of Hell. To Dante, a reason to abandon all hope. To that poor armless, legless boy in the ICP song, something he never saw coming. To art fans, it is magnificence and beauty. And to me, to me it is a great story.

The Search

“I called Tokyo and Paris, neither of them have one.”

“Darn, and I called Philadelphia, and they didn’t have one either.”

“You, know it’s possible there just isn’t one made.”

My friend, Ant, was attempting to help me find the perfect birthday present for another friend, Mr. Maintenance Man.  I knew exactly what I wanted to get him, but it was starting to seem that the perfect present literally didn’t exist.  A poster.  It seemed simple enough.  A poster of his favorite piece of artwork, Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

The birthday boy and my goat, which I named after him (for reason).

Ant and I had started by searching online stores.  Though not as ubiquitous eight years ago as they are today, there was still a pretty decent selection of stores.  But try as we might, we couldn’t find anything.  So we started calling the Rodin museums around the world and inquiring about their gift shops.  Nothing.

The Plan

Then. An idea.  It was 2am, or some other ridiculous time of night when only drunks and college students are awake.  The Rodin museum in Philadelphia, the only one on this side of the planet, has a Gates of Hell, outside, in front of the building.  A road trip!  Yes, that’s it, a road trip!  I’ll just go there and take a picture myself and get it turned into a poster.

But work, shoot, I have work, and I can’t miss that.  A weekend!  I can go on a weekend.  Where is Philadelphia?  Ouch, that far?!  I can’t drive there and back, and get to the museum while it’s open in a weekend….  I know, an airplane!  I’ll fly there and back in a weekend.  How much are flights?  Oh, that sucks.  Hmmm……

And then, the most brilliant idea ever: Greyhound.

Oh, and I’ll need company.

It just so happened that my very good, and practically life-long, friend, The Great Ecclestone was on AIM.

Hey, wanna go to Philly?  On a Greyhound?  To take a picture of a statue?

What?  Ok.

Alright, so the conversation was a little longer and convincing him might have taken a bit more work, but soon we were set.

The Trip

Early on Saturday morning ,we stood at the Milwaukee bus station.  I had never been in a bus station before and had no idea what to expect.   People and luggage were everywhere.  Buses rolled in an out, trails of fumes behind them.  The Great Ecclestone and I looked at the stack of tickets in our hands.  One ticket for every bus we would board on our 24-hour trip eastward.  The strip of tickets reached almost to the floor.

The Great Ecclestone and our Greyhound tickets.

Many filthy bus terminals and bathrooms fit for a lead-in to CSI later, we arrived at our destination.   Backs sore, feet and legs cramping, groggy and damp with sweat, we disembarked from our last bus into the hot Philadelphia summer sun.  Sunday morning, welcome.

The Rodin museum was only about a mile or so from the bus station and would be opening in a short while.  Time for some breakfast, and a change of clothes.

My SLR camera and about a dozen rolls of film jostled in my bag as we approached the large iron gate at the foot of the museum’s walkway.  No tripod, not allowed in the museum.  And there it was, shining brightly in the sun, towering far above me, immense yet exquisite in detail.  The Gates of Hell.  I began to take my pictures.

All day I stayed at that museum.  All day, taking pictures of The Gates of Hell and of the art work inside.  The Great Ecclestone accompanied me through the small museum and then headed off to the large art museum down the street.  Perhaps he even ran up the steps like Rocky.  I don’t know, I had a job to do and shadows to beat as the sun came over the roof of the museum  and illuminated bits and pieces of the giant brass sculpture.

Rodin sculptures: The Shade.

When I had finally finished my pictures, and my film, I met up with The Great Ecclestone again and we went to see the Liberty Bell.  We had to.   I mean, you can’t go all the way to Philadelphia for the first time in your life and not see the Liberty Bell!  It’s a bell.  With a crack.

Dusk began to settle over the city.  We grabbed some Chinese food for dinner and headed back to the bus station for our long ride back.  Our day in Philly was over.

The Liberty Bell.

Getting Back

After the ordeal of getting out to Philadelphia, we thought we had a pretty good idea of what to expect on our twenty-four hour ride back.  Boy we were wrong.  24 hours later, when we were supposed to be back in Milwaukee, when I was supposed to be on my way to work, where were we?  Stuck in a bus station, in Gary, Indiana.

Never been to Gary, Indiana?  Good.  Keep it that way.  Let me give you some perspective, some places where it might be worse to be stuck.  ….  Places where it might be better to be stuck.  A bus station in Chicago, a bus station in Lusaka, a bus station in Oakland, a luggage locker in a bus station in Oakland.  You get the idea.

Five hours.  Five hours until the next bus.  Our bus to Gary had gotten stuck in construction traffic on the highway and we had missed our connecting bus from Gary to Chicago.  Five hours.  Needless to say, I had to call into work stranded-in-Gary.

We did eventually make it home.  And the present, the present turned out spectacular.  He loved it, and the Philadelphia Chinatown fortune cookie.

The photo that became the poster: Rodin’s Gates of Hell.

*Note: the white edge is from a crooked scan and was not on the poster.

A Monochromatic Life

A few weeks ago I wrote about my little sister and her anti-obsession with pink.  It’s not fair to just pick on my pretty little munchkinhead though; I too have had my obsession with color.  But mine was a little different.

Pink, blue, green, yellow.  It didn’t matter, as long as everything matched.  And I mean everything.

Getting Dressed

Every morning I went to my color organized closet (ok, I still do) and picked out my outfit for the day.  Usually, one of my classic dresses, a princess seamed, knee-length dress, generally made out of a light weight cotton.  The first of these was light blue gingham check with little blue flowers on it, made for me by Mommy my freshman year of high school.  I wore that dress in my senior pictures.  I wore that dress to high school graduation.  I wore that dress to law school graduation.  I love that dress.  By the time I was a freshman in college, I had the same dress in every color of the rainbow.

Little ruffled socks, the color of the dress, and matching shoes and I was basically dressed.  Light blue socks with dark blue denim shoes, white socks with pink flowers on the ruffle with light pink canvas shoes.  Orange dress, orange barbie slides (no socks).  Same for red.  Every color, a pair of shoes.  But that’s hardly remarkable.  The really remarkable part is that most of those shoes were flat!

Accessorizing

  Once decked out in my dress, I went to the large mirror to accessorize and put on my makeup.  A small plastic drawer set, the kind used for sorting nails and screws, sat on my counter.  Each little drawer held a different color, in rainbow order, barrettes, hair rubber bands, and earrings together. (Ok, they still do.)  If my dress was blue, I opened the blue drawer and put on blue earrings and clipped my hair back with blue barrettes.  If my dress was yellow, so were my earrings and barrettes.  My toilette was finished with eye shadow of a matching color.

A Meal

Breakfast time!  Pink dress?  Pink bowl, pink napkin, maybe even a pink plastic spoon.  Strawberry oatmeal for pink days.  Blueberry on blue days.  Yellow? Cheerios.  At dinner, I’d reset my spot so my cup and plate could match my outfit.

Final Touches

After breakfast, it would be time to head out of the house.  No jacket needed in summer, but a visor was always a must.  Pink Adidas, Blue Adidas, Yellow Adidas, White Adidas,  Orange Wisconsin Dells.  (singing: One of these things is not like the other…)  And then, the most important piece: my purse!

I had a purse in each color, and each purse had its own color-coordinated collection.  A comb, a pen, some kleenex, if it came in that color, chapstick, a lighter and keys.  Yes, keys.  I had a set of keys for each purse, each with plastic key covers the color of the purse. It helped that I worked at a hardware store and could all the key copies myself. 

I didn’t smoke, but I liked that the lighters came in a rainbow of colors.  One time, I even found colored cigarettes, so I bought them just to have the matching ones in each purse.

All Good Things

And then one day, it all came to an end.  I was wearing blue.  I could only find my green and pink keys.  I was running around the house trying to find the blue ones.  Looking everywhere.  I was running late for work.  I couldn’t leave.  I couldn’t drive my car without keys.  I had two sets of keys in my hand.  Two sets of keys that would drive the car.  But I wouldn’t leave because they weren’t the right color.  There was green in my dress, on the little leaves, the green keys would have matched.  It wasn’t good enough.  I had to have those blue keys!

Then all of a sudden, I realized the absurdity of the situation.  I was about to be late for work and risk getting in trouble because my car keys weren’t the same color as my dress.  It was so silly, it made me laugh.  And it scared me.  A little further over the edge, and I might have a full fledged mental disease.  That was it.  No more absolute one-color matching.  (Ok, once in awhile there still was.)

Now, I just coordinate.