This (Sheltered) American Life
I'm reading some David Sedaris right now; again. I love it.
Back in the day I used to listen to him on public radio. Probably on episodes of "This American Life", and other platforms. His writing cracks me up! His deadpan delivery. His raw details sometimes beautiful, or brutal, or both at once. How he can make the most mundane seem interesting! The most painful, hilarious!
This particular book of his, "Theft By Finding", I haven't read before. It's a compilation of his diaries from 1977-2002, slightly edited for the purposes of publishing, of course.
What keeps striking me as I read it is, Wow there are a lot of crazies out there! Wow, there are a lot of bigoted, ignorant, mis-informed/un-informed, HATEFUL people! And, Wow, I have no idea what it's like, really, to be a minority. He is gay and Jewish, so he's experienced more than his fair share of hate. His stories include a lot of others--not HATERS--but others on the fringes. Often the victims of all those crazies. Trying to make it as artists, or...just trying to make it another day in this chaotic world.
Some of the people he writes about are that other often victimized group: women.
Geesh! The Situations!
As women we all have them, The Situations, but...some more than others. And for most of history The Situations have been largely accepted or just looked away from. Just like so much of the other crazy written about in these diaries.
Last night I was out with Simon. The first time I've been "out" since COVID. Went for a wander with a beer, all the way to downtown, hoping to find the elusive "safe" karaoke--you know, with masks and microphone covers and tons of sanitizer and plexi-glass covers around the stage (doesn't that just sound amazing?!). It's a long walk...an hour or two since we go at a leisurely, meandering pace, but it's fun that way. We get to see things we wouldn't otherwise see, talk about things we wouldn't otherwise talk about. Plus it's summer, so it's light out till close to 10 pm. Anyway, finally we made it to the place where I had read there was "safe" karaoke...a place I'd ALWAYS wanted to go to but couldn't cause of the nights it's on...in the past always having to work the next day. But hey, Tomorrow is a holiday, I'd mused, and, But hey, I'm on layoff right now...so!
So! We finally get there, crossing into downtown, crossing over to the more skeezy part of downtown, and...the doors are all closed and there's graffiti all over the place. I say to Simon sadly, "Oh! It looks like it's closed!" and he laughs lovingly, tells me I sound like the most naive suburb girl. I think to myself, Oh maybe it's open and this is just what it looks like! I think to myself, Awesome it's gonna be so divey! What an Experience this is gonna be, I think to myself.
We wait outside a bit longer, chatting. There aren't many people out, and no one is going in or out of the building. I get a little impatient and say to Simon, "I'm just gonna open the door and peek in so I have an idea of what it's like in there!" and he laughs again as I (apparently surprise him) by going to pull the LOCKED DOORS, and he finally says,
"Baby, it's CLOSED! Of COURSE it's closed, I mean LOOK at it!"
To be honest, I was a little relieved, in my disappointment.
It was weird out there, and even though I'm not paranoid about COVID, it's real to me and I knew I'd be taking a risk going to hang out in some plexi-glassed bar.
So we stood there longer.
All around us were the riff-raff of the now empty nightlife. Imagine that.
We talked to some guy from Sudan (he told us), riding through the alleys on his bike trying to sell baseball hats.
We talked to a few Indigenous (they told us) essential workers who'd just gotten off their shift at a women's shelter a bit earlier.
As the night wore on I knew how it might get. And it was no place for a naive suburban girl, probably. As much as it intrigued me.
So I went home to my quiet, residential street.
See, I like to venture out, but I like to land where it's familiar. Which I'm sure is something most of us can relate to. I grew up white and privileged(!), in houses, with cars and spring break vacations and a college savings. Church every Sunday. Family dinners.
"Sheltered", as people LOVE to say.
When I look back at my yearbooks I still see a lot of that too. Whether or not it's accurate, that's what I saw, and that's how I remember it.
Except:
the camaro down the street
the bikini clad mom getting her suntan
oooooh risque! all the men talked about it!
the friends whose parents smoked in their home (wow!)
the friend whose dad was a drinker, whose home I'll never forget
the transition from private to public school at age 10, hearing swear words for the first time
listening to pop music, wondering what they were singing about, but kinda sensing
my first tastes...
Do all those Excepts up there sound so
tame and naive?!
Do they?!
Well they were my first tastes that opened my eyes to the wider world. That I would explore more and more the older I got, as most of us do, whether we like it or not, whether we mean to or not. Leading people to often simultaneously be amused by how "naive" I was, and shocked at how "naive" I wasn't.
I guess it was the camaro that did it to me. It had that black fan type thing on the back window, parked under the carport, next to the hot mom sun tanning in her bikini while all the neigbour men whispered and gawked. (If, for one thing, Sedaris' stories are any indication, they probably did more than that...see I'm so naive...)
Anyway, I like going to skeezy parts of downtown, and I like reading David Sedaris. I like who and what he reminds me of and introduces me to. Remembering there are Crazies out there, and to be careful, and to be vigilant about acknowledging my own ignorance, my own need to open my eyes again! All the time!
Remembering there are Others out there,
and that sometimes I'm one of them too. So,
to help, and to be careful.
It's too easy to just go back to my roots, as lovely and safe as they were on the surface. A good life requires more effort than the defaults allow.
And/But/So/Anyway
for the record,
I have always wanted that camaro.
Back in the day I used to listen to him on public radio. Probably on episodes of "This American Life", and other platforms. His writing cracks me up! His deadpan delivery. His raw details sometimes beautiful, or brutal, or both at once. How he can make the most mundane seem interesting! The most painful, hilarious!
This particular book of his, "Theft By Finding", I haven't read before. It's a compilation of his diaries from 1977-2002, slightly edited for the purposes of publishing, of course.
What keeps striking me as I read it is, Wow there are a lot of crazies out there! Wow, there are a lot of bigoted, ignorant, mis-informed/un-informed, HATEFUL people! And, Wow, I have no idea what it's like, really, to be a minority. He is gay and Jewish, so he's experienced more than his fair share of hate. His stories include a lot of others--not HATERS--but others on the fringes. Often the victims of all those crazies. Trying to make it as artists, or...just trying to make it another day in this chaotic world.
Some of the people he writes about are that other often victimized group: women.
Geesh! The Situations!
As women we all have them, The Situations, but...some more than others. And for most of history The Situations have been largely accepted or just looked away from. Just like so much of the other crazy written about in these diaries.
Last night I was out with Simon. The first time I've been "out" since COVID. Went for a wander with a beer, all the way to downtown, hoping to find the elusive "safe" karaoke--you know, with masks and microphone covers and tons of sanitizer and plexi-glass covers around the stage (doesn't that just sound amazing?!). It's a long walk...an hour or two since we go at a leisurely, meandering pace, but it's fun that way. We get to see things we wouldn't otherwise see, talk about things we wouldn't otherwise talk about. Plus it's summer, so it's light out till close to 10 pm. Anyway, finally we made it to the place where I had read there was "safe" karaoke...a place I'd ALWAYS wanted to go to but couldn't cause of the nights it's on...in the past always having to work the next day. But hey, Tomorrow is a holiday, I'd mused, and, But hey, I'm on layoff right now...so!
So! We finally get there, crossing into downtown, crossing over to the more skeezy part of downtown, and...the doors are all closed and there's graffiti all over the place. I say to Simon sadly, "Oh! It looks like it's closed!" and he laughs lovingly, tells me I sound like the most naive suburb girl. I think to myself, Oh maybe it's open and this is just what it looks like! I think to myself, Awesome it's gonna be so divey! What an Experience this is gonna be, I think to myself.
We wait outside a bit longer, chatting. There aren't many people out, and no one is going in or out of the building. I get a little impatient and say to Simon, "I'm just gonna open the door and peek in so I have an idea of what it's like in there!" and he laughs again as I (apparently surprise him) by going to pull the LOCKED DOORS, and he finally says,
"Baby, it's CLOSED! Of COURSE it's closed, I mean LOOK at it!"
To be honest, I was a little relieved, in my disappointment.
It was weird out there, and even though I'm not paranoid about COVID, it's real to me and I knew I'd be taking a risk going to hang out in some plexi-glassed bar.
So we stood there longer.
All around us were the riff-raff of the now empty nightlife. Imagine that.
We talked to some guy from Sudan (he told us), riding through the alleys on his bike trying to sell baseball hats.
We talked to a few Indigenous (they told us) essential workers who'd just gotten off their shift at a women's shelter a bit earlier.
As the night wore on I knew how it might get. And it was no place for a naive suburban girl, probably. As much as it intrigued me.
So I went home to my quiet, residential street.
See, I like to venture out, but I like to land where it's familiar. Which I'm sure is something most of us can relate to. I grew up white and privileged(!), in houses, with cars and spring break vacations and a college savings. Church every Sunday. Family dinners.
"Sheltered", as people LOVE to say.
When I look back at my yearbooks I still see a lot of that too. Whether or not it's accurate, that's what I saw, and that's how I remember it.
Except:
the camaro down the street
the bikini clad mom getting her suntan
oooooh risque! all the men talked about it!
the friends whose parents smoked in their home (wow!)
the friend whose dad was a drinker, whose home I'll never forget
the transition from private to public school at age 10, hearing swear words for the first time
listening to pop music, wondering what they were singing about, but kinda sensing
my first tastes...
Do all those Excepts up there sound so
tame and naive?!
Do they?!
Well they were my first tastes that opened my eyes to the wider world. That I would explore more and more the older I got, as most of us do, whether we like it or not, whether we mean to or not. Leading people to often simultaneously be amused by how "naive" I was, and shocked at how "naive" I wasn't.
I guess it was the camaro that did it to me. It had that black fan type thing on the back window, parked under the carport, next to the hot mom sun tanning in her bikini while all the neigbour men whispered and gawked. (If, for one thing, Sedaris' stories are any indication, they probably did more than that...see I'm so naive...)
Anyway, I like going to skeezy parts of downtown, and I like reading David Sedaris. I like who and what he reminds me of and introduces me to. Remembering there are Crazies out there, and to be careful, and to be vigilant about acknowledging my own ignorance, my own need to open my eyes again! All the time!
Remembering there are Others out there,
and that sometimes I'm one of them too. So,
to help, and to be careful.
It's too easy to just go back to my roots, as lovely and safe as they were on the surface. A good life requires more effort than the defaults allow.
And/But/So/Anyway
for the record,
I have always wanted that camaro.
Comments
Post a Comment