August 09, 2006
My Brother - Telemarketer Extraordinaire, With Attitude
“Good afternoon Kathryn, my name is Lee. You might remember me because we sat next to each other in calculus through the entirety of senior year….
“Kathryn, are you 18?
“Are you registered to vote?
“Do you care about anything outside of your own limited sphere of adolescent reality?
“If so, then please listen to the following message.
“We have been gerimandered. As proud, democratic Chelsea-ites, we used to vote with the proud, democratic members of the Ann Arbor district. It was a happy relationship. Their un-showered, free-spirited, hippy mentality gave us a creative edge which we enjoyed. Our small minded, small-town, middle class elitism was something that they mostly overlooked. This relationship, however, has been torn asunder.
“The lines have been redrawn, and we now vote with the Jackson district, the birthplace of the Republican party. Meaning that, come November, when the elections for National Congress Representative occur, whichever Republican is on the ticket will most likely win in a great landslide when the flood gates open allowing a sea of ignorant red pollution to flow into the voting booths.
“It is thus, our duty, as devout liberals to insure that the least douche-baggy Republican possible is on the ticket. His name is Joe Schwarz.
“So please, go to the voting station before 8pm today and cast a vote in the Republican primary for Joe Schwarz. Because Tim Walberg is indeed a douche-bag, and we can’t have that now can we?
“I know you can do this, Kathryn. I believe in your ability to make this one happen. I hope you’ll get off your lazy but today and cast a vote for Joe Schwarz, because he’s the Democratic choice…..I also hope, you aren’t a Republican.
“Have A Nice Day.”
I love my brother.
Even if Walberg did win the primary 54%-46%, I think we still taught the GOP a lesson: Don’t mess with egocentric, adolescent, liberal idealists. We know people, we have cell phones, and we have nothing better to do with our time than make calls informing others of what douche-bags you are.
Posted by vcbailey at 10:20 AM | Comments (0)
WANTED: One fashionable electric scooter with significant lumbar support, preferably in yellow.
My mom is retired!
Actually, that should read: My mom is retired. Because she’s not the good kind of retired with twilight cruises and bingo games. She’s the bad kind of retired, on permanent disability for a spine that curves like Route 66. But she’s very excited about it, so I suppose that’s all that matters.
She walks funny. That’s what this post is really about. She walks with a distinctive gate that it will be nearly impossible to recreate here. But I will try.
Its like a gorilla is holding on to her hips. No, no. Its like she’s in a dog sled race, and someone has a rope wrapped around her midsection and is just being dragged along behind her. She walks utterly doubled over, pumping her clenched fists at double time as if to start some sort of steam powered back-up system that she has stored in at the base of her abominably crooked spine.
Sometimes she starts to feel confident, and its as though someone has attached a rip line to her nose and is reeling her in to her destination. I can see her thinking “If my nose can just get there…the rest of me is bound to follow suit.”
When we walk around town, she sees people she knows sitting in cafes or on park benches, and she stops to talk to them, leaning on one arm as though really interested in what they have to say. People always comment on my mom’s charismatic personality. If only they knew it isn’t charisma, but a gesture to keep her spinal disks from collapsing like a slinky. She’s like the President (G.W.B, folks), with their beady little Texas eyes and their propensity to make up words. George leans on the podium with a cocky air to hide the fact that he’s reading off a script typed like a “See Spot Run” book. While my mom, leans on park benches, also trying to cover her own weakness.
We were in Starbucks the other day and my mother spasmed. She started to buckle and collapse as we placed our order. I, of course, knew this was the sign of a slipped disk and she would need a good leg yanking later in the evening. The poor Coffee Artists, however, thought my mother was having some sort of massive stroke. They looked at me with pleading eyes, betraying their fear that they might be asked to take some measure to save this woman’s life. “Screw CPR!” I nearly screamed. “What this woman needs is a Venti Frappacino!”
It shows me what I have to look forward to. Apparently my mothers brand of scoliosis is pleasantly hereditary.
Posted by vcbailey at 09:47 AM | Comments (0)
July 28, 2006
The Facebook Paradox
I’m a junky.
I admit, I have a real problem of the addiction sort.
I am hooked on Facebook.
And not just Facebook, but MySpace too.
I waste hours online, usually when I’m at work. I don’t think that’s immoral of me. If they wanted me to do work, while I’m at work, then they would leave me work to do. Anything else that I find to fill the hours is just effective management of my time.
So, I Facebook at work. I MySpace at work. I’m so addicted that I just used Facebook and MySpace as VERBS.
But do I update my own profile or load my own pictures? Nope. My user info has been pretty stable since the inception of my accounts several months ago.
I use these sites for a much sexier purpose. I use them to look at other people; to look at you.
And I find out all sorts of interesting, crazy little tidbits of information.
Like that guy, that I used to date 2 summers ago, who I broke up with because he was a total ‘Can’t use a telephone to save his life’ Schmuck…he just scored a perfect 180 on his LSATs. That news made my day.
And I currently have friends, who I thought I was rather close to, that are living in New York and Chicago and Paris and Africa and London and Poland and Texas and I HAD NO IDEA. I should be taking more vacations….
And everyone, I mean EVERYONE, who I went to High School with is getting married.
And so I’ve come to the conclusion that being addicted to the Facebook just rubs in my face how much everyone else is accomplishing with their lives while I’m sitting around surfing the Facebook.
And so, I'm going to make the most terrifically intriguing facebook profile ever. I'm going to lie, of course. I am going to flat out lie to make my life sound infinitely more incredible that anyone could ever dream.
As of this moment:
After writing my senior thesis on The Mating Habits of Multicellular Parasites in Bog and Swamp Habitats, I applied for early graduation to move to Kenya and work as an intern for the United Nation’s Gazelle Amputee Rehabilitation Center.
After several late night conversations with the President of Kenya, enjoyed over games of chess and Bailey’s on ice, I realized how important art and culture are to the development of a society. I returned to the U.S. and began work planning publicity galas for art houses in SoHo, which cater exclusively to clientele under the age of 12.
When my left leg was taken in a freak subway train accident, I went into rehab where I learned to overcome my self-esteem issues and developed a healthy superiority complex. My first autobiography, entitled ‘My Triumph Over Tragedy and Why Your Life Is Completely Inadequate,” was published as a result of my personal discoveries in therapy.
I spent a brief period of time teaching prisoners convicted of tax fraud to crochet as a means of positive creative outlet.
I'm being awarded an honorary PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the field of Ethics.
My second autobiography, entitled "What To Do At 22, When You’ve Already Accomplished Everything" will be published by Harvard Press this November.
Later, while working at a marine biology lab of the coast of New Zealand, I met the Slavic prince of a former Soviet Republic. We fell madly in love, he gave me a 3 carat ring made out of a stone he found while traveling as an astronaut on the first Mars landing, and we intend to have a massive blow-out wedding on his private island next June.
Oh, and I just won the lottery, and donated all my winnings to an orphanage in the Philippines.
Take that facebook Biatches.
Posted by vcbailey at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2006
Mom's Adventures in CyberSpace
My mom plays EverQuest II. She’s a healer – a ‘Templar’ to be precise. She goes by the handle “ThisIsMom SeeMomRun.” Her alternate character’s name is Gimpy, but everyone still calls her Mom. They call to her across cyberspace, “Mom! My leg was severed by a rusty sword in battle! I need you…” My mother is the matriarchal hen of the internet.
She claims she started playing as a way to connect with my 18 year-old brother. It didn’t really work out that way. Now, they watch Law & Order together (the Doing-Doing, as it is known in my family). But even though my brother is now too cool for noobs, knights and spell casting, my mom keeps playing, four hours a day, two for each of her ‘toons.’
And I have to hear about it. She drives me in to class or work or on errands (my precious Volvo is in the shop), and she talks about EQII for 45 minutes straight. My brother gets of scott free, watching Doing-Doing and then retreating to his room, never exchanging words with my mother or listening to her rants. While I am trapped in a 1994 Ford Escort for the half hour commute EACH WAY, listening to my mom talk about Plat, rades and skill points. We used to bond over the Young and the Restless, I miss those days sometimes.
But it can be interesting, to listen to my mother’s tales of a secret world. As a college student I have no time for indulging in hours of fantasy gaming. My mother praises me, “I’m so glad your not like Beatles4You, we gamed until 4am and he had an Econ Midterm at 8 today!” I don’t comment on the obvious lack of intelligence vested in an individual called ‘Beatles4You.’
So, yesterday my mom drove me in to class and shared with me her first adventure as a clan leader.
“You have to have balance in a clan. You have to have a Tank who can deal some damage to others, and you have to have some regular people who can take the damage that is dealt, and you have to have healers…who just sorta sit under a tree until they are needed. You should really have 2 healers, but most clans just have one since they can be a liability. Our contributions are vastly under appreciated….”
It’s a metaphor for martyr mom’s entire existence.
“Usually the leader is the Tank, or a wizard or knight or something. Someone crafty and strong. Healer’s are almost never leaders. The boys [my protegy younger brothers, who like Al Gore, often claim to have invented the Internet] couldn’t believe I tried to start a clan. You can tell the difference between guys running a clan and girls running a clan. Guys are all like ‘Gotta Kill! Gotta Fight! Gotta Get Get GET!” and girls are always so diplomatic and fair, saying ‘Oh BloodRage, you really should give that spell book to DarkMage, because he is a wizard and it would benefit him a lot more than you….’
“Often, when I’m online with women, and I tell them I’m a single mom who plays EQII to be close to my sons, they always say ‘Oh! Divorce! How terrible! Do you wanna talk about it? If you’re ever in the Boston area, we could meet for coffee or something’…Do I want to fly to Boston to talk about my divorce that ended almost 9 years ago? I mean, its just so thoughtful, women are so considerate…”
She digresses…as always.
“Anyway, I started a clan and the boys couldn’t believe a healer started a clan. Apparently healers can’t be leaders.”
I stop her there…healers can’t be leaders? “It seems to me,” I say. “That a healer is exactly the kind of leader this country needs. Maybe if the current administration were full of healers we could have healed the anger from 9/11, healed the poverty from Katrina, and healed our relationships with foreign countries, re-establishing ourselves as mediators and HEALERS in a time of global conflict and chaos!”
My mom, never a minimalist, states concisely, “But we didn’t get a healer, honey. We got ‘The Decider.’”
It seems to me, he could decide to heal.
Posted by vcbailey at 10:38 AM | Comments (0)
July 16, 2006
Snow White Swims The Ocean
Lately I’ve been missing the former phases of my life. I’m not exactly sure why, since I’d say I’m generally much happier and MUCH healthier now. For the first time, I feel free to pursue my ambitions and make the life I want happen. I did not feel that way before, in my previous stages of refining and fermenting.
I used to feel pegged into an identity, a character. I was often a very narrow contribution to an organic whole. Each phase of my life was denoted, not by the role I fulfilled, but by the grand play I was in. I don’t think back on my ‘experimental stage’ or my ‘rebel phase’ or even my trip through ‘girly-girl pubescence.’ Instead I remember my days with The Crew, and many Girls’ Night adventures, and the Era of Co-Op Living. Strangely, when I think back on these times of belonging, I remember always feeling like I was the piece that didn’t fit. I guess everyone between the phases of pimply puberty and self-conscious collegiate feels as though they are the odd one out, so I won’t over dramatize my own feelings of awkwardness and disconnect. Suffice to say, it seems always feeling like I didn’t fit would have prepared me much more for a life of not belonging, of being on my own.
Somehow, though, I find myself missing that sense of being part of the group, of knowing my place and my path. I know that all of those old cliques are still tightly bonded, but now without me. I wonder if I missed out, by moving on and leaving them behind. They’ve made connections that have opened doors for them and led them into great adventures, together. Sometimes I feel like I haven’t really accomplished anything, because it takes twice as long to swim the ocean by one’s self. It would have been so much easier, and perhaps less lonely, to continue to stow away on their journeys, and let them oar me to a distant shore, even if the destination wasn’t what I wanted.
I suppose I don’t really miss those 'cliques'. I don’t miss being a fraction of a person... What I do miss is being jaded enough to be content playing a part in that life. Things were so much easier when I could fit into my role and shrug of the falsehood, the drama, the burden of expectation.
I miss the former phases of my life, because they were an age of innocence. They were an age of acceptance, complacency, and ennui.
Now, I feel this pressure to prove that I am better off having left those unhealthy phases behind. I feel like I have to swim across the ocean and beat the ship, and in all of the rush, I’m missing the joy of the swim.
I guess the point of this blog is to remind myself that its O.K. to tread water, as long as you are resting in a place that you really want to be.
Posted by vcbailey at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2006
Feelings of Inadequecy
So, I’m clearly unmotivated to update this blog regularly. Actually, that’s not true. I’m very motivated to update this blog regularly and I’ve often had small snippets of thought that I nearly posted. But none of those musings have become permanent additions to my little slice of the internet. I think, perhaps, there are two culprits at fault for my negligence.
Firstly, I am a little afraid that something I say in this blog might, one day, come back to bite me…Like right there, were I nearly said “to bite me in-a-certain-part-of-my-anatomy…” but then I deleted it because I felt using that certain word might be in poor form.
I know that makes me a little paranoid. Many of you faithful, and yet non-existent, readers are probably thinking “Uh, no one even reads your trite little blog, so what makes you think you’re so special that anyone would care?” Well, I don’t think I’m so special that anyone would care…yet. But I do want to be someone someday. I have ambitions, like running for President, or Senator, or School Board Representative. I intend to be a teacher when all this university business is said and done. And in the course of these pursuits, I don’t want some young protégée to stumble upon my Free-er Phases of Life and subsequently question my integrity because I ‘used a swear.’
Secondly, after my moving introduction to this site, I’m terrified that any follow up would disappoint my faithful, yet non-existent, readers. I’m not, generally, eloquent in my writing. Moreover, when I strive to be so, I tend to become dishonest. Really, my writing is like a 13 year old girl in a leather mini-skirt and wedge heels. She tries to act all grown up, but in doing so she betrays her truth. Suddenly there is melodrama and waxing philosophic and none of it is very….real.
I think a certain contemporary pundit would call that “Truthiness,” and that’s sort of what it is. I often write what “feels” right, what “feels” significant and meaningful, but not necessarily what is the meat-and-bones truth of the matter.
I certainly don’t intend to be dishonest, any more than the integrity touting reporters of Fox News do. But I think it happens sometimes, when one is trying to explain a truth that is so…heavy. Somehow, regular words don’t seem to do it justice…and it becomes like a Young and the Restless love scene. One throws in fancy diction, theatrical background music and dramatic pause, rather than just allowing sincerity to lay bare the truth.
That is my confession. In many ways one fault is at the source of the other. Once you begin to censor yourself, you have already abandoned reality and you must install fantasy to compensate for the void. I’m not trying to make excuses, of course. I just want to be honest. These are my shortcomings and they will inevitably play out in this blog as much as I try to control them. I say inevitably because they are part of me, my desire to make a difference, my desire to live a powerful life, my desire to know myself and understand the world, these are all qualities within me that make this blog the exploration that it is.
So, I have given you my disclaimer. Although, in truth, it’s more for myself than for anyone else. I hope that I may take this ‘warning’ as a license to occasionally succumb to my faults. I can now blog freely without constant concern for fixing these problems but rather embracing the reality of their existence.
Perhaps tomorrow I can get down to the real business of this blog, my entry will probably lack the harsher elements of my personality, and it may instead contain some cliché melo-drama…but at least it will be there.
Posted by vcbailey at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)
