June 13, 2005
The Sisterhood of the Ring
I gave my best friend a friendship ring last weekend, and myself a matching one--big, glorious plastic rings, painted with flowers. I didn't really think of the implications until later, for instance, the idea of renewing friendship ties and vowing never to part. (Oh, boy, I'll bet she's nervous now.) Anyway, it was great fun, and it made me think of the following:
Ever wonder what the Fellowship of the Ring would be like were it composed of women instead of men? Here are some thoughts.
1) Everyone in the fellowship would have her own (preferably matching) ring. Could the men not predict that there would be constant fighting with only one?
2) Women would not have let the nine rings be scattered in the first place. Nor would they have let the one true ring fall into the wrong hands. Anyone ever hear of a jewelry box?
3) Women would not be afraid to tell their friends to get their ring resized so they wouldn't have to wear it in a chain around their neck.
4) Women, unlike Frodo, would not shun other people trying to help them bear their burden. "Take it! Take the damn ring!" they'd cry, if it got too heavy.
And,
5) The women's rings would not reflect gruesome scenes of war and dismemberment, but the faces of their friends. They would be mirrors of solidarity.
I hope my friend will wear her plastic ring with pride. I will mine.
Posted by Lisa at 05:44 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 31, 2005
It's Not Rocket Science
One of my bad habits is that I always try to make things more difficult than they are. I know, I know, it should be the opposite—I should try to make things easier—but it’s not, and I don’t. It’s true even with my blog. “I don’t know what to write!” I’ll agonize. “Just bitch about your day,” my husband answers. My husband has his own blog, and the entries that have gotten the best response are the ones where he just blathers on about nothing in particular. I’m always wanting to write finely tuned mini-essays where I uncover deeply profound truths about life.
It happened with teaching, too. I think that one of the problems I had with teaching is that I acted like my undergraduates were graduate students. Everything had to be complicated, “problematic” (how I miss that word now that I’m not in academia) and, again, deeply profound. But the undergrads didn’t know enough for that. What it needed to be was simple; the basics. I sat in on other professors’ classes and was just sort of in awe of how beautifully simple the material they presented was. I can’t seem to think like that.
I’ve asked myself why this is. My automatic response is to say I don’t know why, but I actually think I do have some clues. Part of it has to do with covering up who I really am. It’s easier to be “finely tuned” and complicated than to be simple and honest. It was easier to work myself into knots about class material than to take a fresh look at the images and say, OK, what is this? What is it saying to me today? I think I was afraid that I wouldn’t come up with anything. And so I tried and tried and tried to cover up that fear of failure.
Deep down inside, I think I’m afraid that I’m so shallow that, left to my own devices, all I’ll really want to talk about is Duran Duran and how my hair’s doing. But I think that’s just a symptom telling me that I haven’t quite outgrown being a gawky, insecure teenager inside. Great. There’s nothing better than an immature thirty-something.
Anyway, what I don’t want to happen is for all this “things must be difficult” crap to find its way into my writing. I can see it already, hovering at the edges, and I’m trying to head it off at the pass. I’m learning that good stories are not built on overwrought, supremely complicated plot structures. They are composed of good characters in simple situations who react to life honestly.
One of my favorite authors right now is Elizabeth Berg. I just read “Durable Goods” and “Joy School,” about a twelve/thirteen year old girl who is trying to cope with losing her mother and with just being an adolescent. The scenes are simple. Katie crawls under her bed and stares at the bedsprings. She goes to a new school and tries to make friends. She talks to her best friend about makeup and boys and hair—and there it is, my much-coveted subject, hair! In other words, this story is not rocket science. What makes it good is the dialogue, the way that Katie responds to things—which is honestly—and the development of the characters.
This worries me a little. What I am frequently *not* good at is honesty and simplicity. I wrack my brain coming up with tortured plot lines and master plans when what I need to do is sit back and say, OK, how would my character respond to this situation? Who *is* my character? What maker her *her*? And let it unfold. I recently found an author’s site where you are shown how to produce a “design document” prior to writing a story. “Good fiction doesn’t just happen,” the author says. The problem is that I’ll design and design and design a story until I’ve knocked whatever life there was right out of it. For me, I think it needs to just happen.
Sigh. This certainly *sounds* like rocket science.
Posted by Lisa at 03:10 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 27, 2005
Fax Wars
A long time ago, in an engineering office not nearly far enough away…
a Kelly girl sent out thirty-seven letters and twenty-four faxes for ONE engineer—-in one morning.
The fun started on Wednesday, when the fax machine began ominously spouting one fax after another, at about two-minute intervals, all from a single office, all addressed to that one engineer in our office. They were liberally sprinkled with phrases like “please advise” and “pursuant to.” I thought it was funny until I realized what it meant. All those letters generated an equal number of letters in response, sent out by yours truly, each beginning, “I am in receipt of your letter of 25 May…” Of course, each letter was also copied to five other people, so that the entire galaxy could witness the refined verbiage of these two professionals. The letters were fanned across my desk in an imaginative pattern when I came in yesterday morning, waiting to be proofed, copied, faxed, mailed and logged.
I imagine my counter-part in that other office, both of us standing at our fax machines like two outlaws in a shoot-out. We are killing each other with pieces of paper and legalese.
Days like this suck all the kind juices right out of me. Sluuuuurrrp. They’re gone. The other evening, our pastor’s kid came to mow our lawn, as he does once a week. His mom or dad has to drive him because he’s only thirteen. That night, I sat on my sofa feeling crabby and inhospitable while the pastor’s wife sat in her van outside our house waiting for Josh to finish mowing. Usually I go out and insist that she come inside, have something to drink, etc. But that night, I just let her sit in her car. The house was a mess, *I* was a mess. I watched out the window as she went to get Josh when he was done, waved, then got in the van and drove off. I couldn’t believe it. She actually saw me sitting on the couch, not inviting her in, and she waved to me.
The point is that I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to feel so sucked dry that I can’t be hospitable or even civilized. Is money for our bleed-us-dry health insurance or credit card debt worth being like this? I don’t think it is.
Can I call a truce or drop out of this war altogether?
Posted by Lisa at 09:11 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 21, 2005
Ho-hum Pascal
Today I attended about half of our local University's law school graduation, where four of my friends received their degrees. Unfortunately, I had to leave before the acutal conferring of degrees since I was with a friend with a 2-year old who had a melt-down.
It was all worth it, though, just to hear the Distinguished Practitioner in Residence and Third-Year Class Adviser, during his remarks, call the French philosopher Pascal by the first name of Blase, with an accent over the "e" (as in yawn, ho-hum, you certainly are blase about this whole tragedy).
Sometime, life is just delicious.
Posted by Lisa at 01:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 20, 2005
Pray and Scream
Can I just say that I’m really, really annoyed with myself and God right now? My husband is in the process of very preliminary job negotiations that seem as slender as a house of cards: nobody breathe. And I don’t know how to pray about it.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a response to a post at Smart Christian, who asked for responses to questions that members of his congregation had submitted. One question was, How do we discover God’s will or purpose for our life? I wrote this snippy little response that said, in effect, that I was sick of people whining about what God’s will for them was when the Bible says it clearly over and over: “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (I Thess. 5: 16-18). The Bible does not talk about career paths and the ladder to financial success and what house you should buy. It talks about praying and giving thanks. I basically agree with what I wrote, but I think I could have conveyed it with a lot more gentleness and grace.
When you act without grace, your actions come back and bite you in the ass.
Now I feel like I’m one of those whiny people I complained about. What I want to ask God for is a tailor-made job for my husband, in the perfect place, with the perfect people, with a perfect salary, and so on. As job after job falls through, I want scream, “Well, what is that you want with us, then?”
And I know what He wants. Give thanks continually. Pray. Submit your requests with thanksgiving.
And I know what He’s taught me. I’m pretty close to understanding what it means to say, “you can’t take it with you.” Salvation (even salvation here on earth) is a huge cushion that I know will soften any fall we might take. Money really doesn’t matter, because it’s really OK, because there really is a God that makes it OK.
So how do I pray? Do I give thanks and simulate joy, or do I scream for what I really want, like all those whiny Christians?
Thank goodness Jesus himself introduced paradox into Christianity, because right now I think I’m going to scream *and* give thanks (with a heavy emphasis on the screaming).
Posted by Lisa at 10:49 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
May 19, 2005
A Lesson From America's Next Top Model
Well, Naima won America’s Next Top Model Wednesday night. Now that I’ve seen the finale, I can cancel my satellite TV subscription for the summer. Is there really anything else worth watching?
It seems to me that there’s a lot we can learn from ANTM. For one thing, we learn that the underdog wins. The last two cycles, it has been the “tough girl” that’s won over the more mainstream candidate (Naima over the blond “girl next door” and Eva over the college-educated dancer; note that “mainstream” is a relative term in the world of modeling). The judges, especially Tyra Banks, like seeing a candidate “evolve” from rough beginnings, self-doubt and bitter toughness into a confident superstar. There’s a meta-narrative going on that’s as much about self-acceptance as it is about winning. There’s a lot of “lesson learning,” in terms of the school of hard knocks, from week to week.
In fact, it’s beginning to seem that candidates have to have had a really rough life in order to succeed on ANTM. They have to have hated themselves or been raised in poverty or have had a bad family situation. They have to overcome. That’s good, that the judges reward overcoming, but it raises a few questions. In particular, what happens to the “good girl” that does consistently well and has less to overcome?
Wednesday night, the judges compared the two finalists,’ Naima’s and Kahlen’s, portfolios. Kahlen’s pictures were consistently rated better. From the beginning, she took outstanding pictures and she kept it up from week to week. She also did well in the final competition (the “final exam,” Tyra called it). The only criticism was that she might have held her neck a bit stiffly on the runway.
Naima, on the other hand, had a “solid” but not stellar portfolio. Some pictures were good, some not so great. Yet the judges, Tyra in particular, felt that she “rocked” on her final exam, both the fashion show and the commercial that all three finalists shot together.
“What do we do?” Tyra asked on Wednesday. Do we choose the candidate that’s had the consistently good performance, or the one that’s had the solid performance but skyrocketed on the finals?
I recall having a similar dilemma when I taught undergraduates. There were the students that plodded along, doing consistently well all the time, and then there were the students that either dramatically improved at the end of the semester or that showed occasional flashes of brilliance throughout an otherwise unexceptional performance. How do you grade such students? Do you reward improvement? If you do, you’re going to have to either fudge the grading scale or give a lot more weight to later assignments. If you didn’t decide to give more weight to later assignments *before* the semester begins, you’re screwed, because you’ve already announced the grading scale and you have to stick to it—or secretly fudge it.
That’s essentially what Tyra and the judges did Wednesday evening. They fudged the grading scale. They rewarded the student who came up from behind, even though they made a show of evaluating the entire “semester’s” work. Also note that both Naima and last cycle’s winner, Eva, are more exotic looking than most of the candidates. They stand out without having to do a single thing.
As a professor, I, too, always wanted to reward the Naimas of the world, and I agonized over trying to figure out how to make their final grade reflect their improvement, their flashes of chaotic brilliance.
But where does that leave Kahlen? Where does it leave the good girl that always does well? I myself sometimes had trouble with students like her. Indeed, the problem with rewarding consistent performers is that you sometimes feel as though they aren’t trying very hard. You miss the flashes of brilliance that come out of nowhere.
Yet for most of my life, I was like Kahlen. I was the consistent, reliable and commendable performer. I wasn’t ever exotic (although I was smart); I just plodded along. That part of me thinks it’s grossly unfair that Kahlen lost on Wednesday night.
Now, however, I may be more like Naima, at least in my newly chosen field of writing. In this field, I have little training, a lot of self-doubt and sometimes that bitter toughness that we initially saw in Naima and Eva.
Their success tells me that I can—and will!—come up from behind and sweep the competition away.
I’m ready to leave the good girl behind. Fair or not, it’s the underdog that wins.
Posted by Lisa at 03:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
May 18, 2005
A Tribute to Star Wars
In honor of today's premiere of episode three, I offer below my own version of Star Wars, written when I was twelve. It was, in fact, begun on May 22, 1981, twenty-four years and three days before today's premiere. Notice that my version has the edgy premise that Han Solo is actually working for the empire when the story opens. Read it and either a)weep or b)dare to tell me I don't have what it takes to be a writer. And remember, folks, twelve. Age twelve.
"I knew someday I'd go to [sic] far," a middle-aged, fairly handsome man remarked. Next to him, a 100 year old wookie, seated in a co-pilot chair grunted in return. Han Solo, smuggler, pirate, gazed out the front window of his old, beat up ship, which he called, the "falcon."
Han smuggled many unsual things, but this? Smuggle some princess for the empire?
"I don't know, Chewbacca--well, I've already got myself into this mess. Let's get going."
As they neared, many laser shots and rocks were flashing across the galaxy.
Back in a dark cave, lit up by radar screens, and flashing buttons, a young, pretty woman with her braided hair coiled on top of her head gazed intently at a flashing screen. An officer approached her.
"Princess, no signs of approaching ships, or any signs of distrubance from the empire. I suppose that pleases you."
"No," Leia replied. "It really worries me. If Darth Vador hasn't done something already I'm afraid he's planning something really big." A call from a nearby watchout post interrupted her thoughts, saying, "There's a ship approaching!"
"Man your stations--oh, never mind--that couldn't be the empire in that dinky little ship--just be on guard."
Han told Chewie to watch the ship, while he went and pretended to be friendly.
Han, expecting a richly dressed lady with a crown and all, stood gaping at Princess Leia, after a guard pointed her out.
"Well, what'ya expect, an evening gown in *here*?"
"You're the princess?" Han asked, unbelievingly.
"What do I have to do, have you kiss my feet?" she answered sarcastically.
"Alright, alright, just sit down and simmer down."
"Are you telling me to shut up?" she asked.
"In a nice way, yes."
"Where did you come from anyway?"
"Maybe it's time you had a talk with your mommy."
"I've had it with you," she turned away, tears stinging her eyes, as she remembered her mother.
"Oh come off it--stop putting me through the third degree. I came to see you," he said.
"Me?"
"Well, not exactly you," he almost slipped! "Just, whoever was here that could help me."
Across the empire, Darth Vador sat smugly in his throne.
"So, Solo has gone to get the princess. I'm sure she'll go with him. He'll appeal to her. If he's working for me, maybe she will too.
Leia stood gazing out the door, watching Han try to fix his ship.
"That imp," she said under her breath.
"Princess, there's disturbance near. So near, half of our hide out has been blown away," a young officer Perolt shouted.
Suddenly, a loud voice was screaming into an intercom, "EVACUATE!"
Han winced. "What a voice. She could get a job calling hogs (tauntauns)!"
The whole place suddenly was in a turmoil of running people.
"Good luck," Leia was saying to a band of her fighters.
Well, fans, that's it for today. But there's more where that came from. Tune in another time to find out who will cook dinner--Leia or Han?--and what happens when Leia is thrown into Han's arms by a disturbance in the force one too many times. (Notice that I didn't say, "tune in tomorrow"--that's because I don't want to scare you, my readers, away.)
Posted by Lisa at 07:59 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)