Spam

Nothing like a little spam to give you a reality check.

Friend and fellow-blogger (and editor--but not mine), the ZimmerMan, sometimes blogs about the spam he gets in his email account, and it's always very funny, but I usually just delete the entire cache of the spam I get, without looking at the titles and only sometimes glancing with amusement at the supposed names of the senders. Today one caught my eye, though. It said:

"A Submariner SS watch is for people who know the true value of life."

Really? What have I been doing all this time?! Shoot.

Well. Now we know. Consider this a public service announcement.

Fashion Slave

This is ridiculous.

Last night I received an early Christmas gift from some people I haven't received a Christmas gift from before. It was a sweatshirt. This is truly awesome, because I am in need of such types of clothing these days. It was a hoodie, which I also like. It was neon blue with neon green and pink and yellow flowery designs silkscreened on it. That last bit . . . well, it was cute, but my initial gut-reaction was, "Can I wear this in public?" I don't think I've ever worn neon anything. Even in the 80's. I said to my mother, "I'm not sure I would have picked this colour . . . "

About two seconds later, I noticed that the hood on this hoodie was emblazoned with the word (in neon pink), "Diesel."

"Diesel?!" I exclaimed.

Suddenly, I think this sweatshirt is beyond cool, and after my shift at Starbucks today, instead of going down to the church and changing out of my uniform there, I changed in the Starbucks bathroom, just in case when I came out, anybody happened to notice that I was wearing a hoodie that said "Diesel" on it in neon pink.

I'm not sure who decides which clothing companies are "cool" and get to overcharge for their merchandise, nor why I find it thrilling to own one of their products even though I doubt we stand for much of the same thing. I'm approximately 100% sure that this mindset does not line up very well with Jesus' "ideology" (if you want to call it that) about Stuff. But . . . I would be lying if I tried to tell you that I'm not quite pleased to be wearing a designer hoodie. And . . . it's not like I was trying to be designer. It just happened. (That statement right there? Also ridiculous.) I do find it kind of embarrassing that I am so easily convinced, though.

Sparrows

Now that everyone has very cleverly made the points, in the comments, that I made myself in the actual conversation, I'm going to reiterate them all here.

The first thing I suggested in my chat with the Milk Guy was that, if there is indeed a God, He would not be subject to time, and so therefore His helping out with a shopping trip wouldn't exactly waste any for Him. But I also got the sense that asking for help with something as seemingly shallow as a shopping trip was perceived as just a little audacious, beyond the issue of time.

I conceded that, say, praying about my cancer diagnosis is probably more important that praying about the results of my shopping trip.

("You think?" said the Milk Guy.)

But it seems to me that if there's a God, it would either make sense for Him not to care about anything that concerned us, or to care for everything that concerns us. He's God, not us, so who decides where the line is regarding Important Enough for God? He has every right not to care about my shopping trip--but given my relative importance in the universe, I would expect that if He didn't care about that, my ex-tumour wouldn't be that big of a deal to Him either. In which case I should just not bother to pray at all.

Since, however, I believe that God does care (based on my understanding of the Bible), then who's to say He doesn't care about my shopping trip as much as my healing? I remember when I was a teenager and first became aware of I Corinthians 10.31: "So whatever you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." I remember feeling completely flummoxed by the concept; how could I glorify God by eating a sandwich? Of course I know now that there are a lot of ways to live that verse out in a lot of contexts, and I feel it applies here, too.

Sure, I can pray about everything so much that I paralyse myself and become incapable of making the simplest of decisions. But I think in this case, asking God to give us a successful shopping trip opened us up to being able to glorify Him in that shopping trip; as my mother pointed out in the comments, though God is not bound by time, we are. We had limited time and, in spite of a financial gift, limited resources, and to me it makes a whole lot of sense to talk to God about the endeavour first, so as not to waste what He had provided us with.

And that's another thing. Jesus told us not to worry about anything, particularly food and clothes, because our Heavenly Father knows we need them and He will provide them for us. But He did tell us to ask that same Father for good gifts. The Heavenly Father had already provided my mother and me with the means to supply these specific needs, so it seems a logical next step to ask Him to help us find the things He had, essentially, already given us.

("Fascinating," said the Milk Guy.)

I do recognise in myself a tendency to pray primarily for myself, and maybe one or two others who are particularly close to me. I don't think this is the right way to pray. I agree that there are much more selfless things to pray for than even my battle with cancer. But I don't think that means I should pray for the minutia of my own life less. I think I should just pray for everybody else more. If God clothes the flowers, and if He knows when a sparrow falls to the ground, and if it's true He wants a relationship with me, then it may be audacious to ask Him for a good haircut or something. But I believe He loves that kind of audacity, and in gratitude, I'm just going to keep telling Him about and asking Him stuff.

Shopping With God

Today the Milk Guy asked me another God-question, so I took that (whether wisely or not) as an invitation to throw in a few other thoughts about God that he didn't ask for. It just led to more questions. Basically, I confessed to him that my mother had prayed about the effectiveness of our shopping trip on Monday.

Here's the thing. My mom and I always go shopping when she's home. But the last three or four shopping trips have been sort of duds for me, because although there have been clothes I needed, I have been completely unable to find items that correspond to my need, or else to my price range. So evidently, with this in mind, my mother prayed on Sunday night that (since we had already been provided with money for the purpose) we would have a productive shopping trip. And we did. I found everything I needed, she found some things she needed, and we still had money left over. (Kind of like the loaves and fishes, only with fewer people involved. Zero, I suppose, if you are only counting men . . . )

But the Milk Guy (quite understandably) protested something like, "Don't you think God has better things to do with His time?"

I wonder about this sometimes. College-Roommate-Jenne once had a professor who asserted that God doesn't care about the minutia of our lives--that it is up to us. So I know even within Christendom there are differing opinions on what constitutes a prayer-worthy request. I have my own opinions on this, and I'm prepared to write them (maybe even within the next couple of hours), because I already rehearsed them today. But I'm curious to know where you stand on this issue.

Disgruntlement

First of all, why do they call those obnoxious blue things with the asymmetrical ties in a hospital "gowns"? Why do we use the same word to refer to the article of clothing that can make a woman look the most regal, and the article of . . . something . . . that makes everybody look completely stupid? I'm just asking.

Secondly, it turns out my insurance may not pay for the Oncotype-DX, the test which is meant to show what my risk of recurrence (and therefore need of chemotherapy) is. It is a very expensive test. Also, nothing got sent away for it yet, which means that my wait time is growing proportionally. Also, my medical oncologist is still just itching to dose me up with dangerous chemicals, although she did give me the paperwork to fill out to at least get the ball rolling, which is more than anybody else managed to do.

The good parts of the day, which I feel I should mention to battle my crankiness, included:

1. A good chat (probably also and professionally known as a "session") with my counselor.

2. The Milk Guy's homemade mac-and-cheese, plus his loan of a (metal) thermos so that my mom's and my Starbucks Signature Hot Chocolate would stay hot.

3. A shopping trip (on which I actually found some things I needed, for once), brought to me (and my mother) by some very kind people in another country.

Costume Shopping

Some girls get to take their friends or sisters and shop for wedding dresses. I got to take one of mine and shop for wigs and scarves for when I go bald. I was hoping I would have one of those bride-to-be moments where (as when some pending brides see a dress, try it on and never have to look any further) I would see a wig that looked just great and not need to worry about anything else. That didn't really happen, though. I've never really gone shopping for a Hallowe'en costume (the times I've dressed up, I've made my own), but I suppose there might have been similarities to that sort of trip, too.

Anyway, Kristin was a good person to have on hand. We both agreed that the square bandanas tied in the back looked good, and that dark auburn hair is a great colour on me. It was a little hard to tell about wig styles exactly, because I currently have so much of my own hair, it ballooned all the wigs out to comical proportions. I think I found one I like, though, in said shade of auburn, and although I at first thought I wouldn't bother with wigs at all, if my insurance covers enough of this one I might go for it. Meanwhile, I shall definitely be stocking up on bandanas.

Afterwards, Kristin and I went and got dinner, drank imported ale/cider and talked about the implications of everything that's going on in my life right now. And about the infestation of critters in her and Jerry's apartment.

Nothing like a girl's night out.

MRI

Unfortunately, even after all the laughter the day before, yesterday was not so good.

I had a last-minute MRI scheduled (by which I mean, while I was talking to the surgeon on Monday, they scheduled my MRI for Tuesday), which meant I had to get out of my Starbucks shift for that day. Fortunately, I had already brought up my condition to the person who ended up covering my shift, so I didn't have to say, "By the way . . . " and all that.

It was a glorious fall day, and I thought how great it would be to go for a walk in Elm Park instead of hanging out in a tube, but it didn't occur to me until I ended up in a room that looked like something out of the original Star Wars that I maybe should have brought Heather-of-Six or someone along for moral support.

I knew she wouldn't have been able to come into the "docking bay" with me, but still, knowing she was there outside for me to immediately debrief to would have been strengthening, I think. When the technician not-very-skillfully jabbed a small catheter into my arm and left it there (this is the first time anyone's ever stuck something into my vein and not taken it back out again almost immediately), I realised I was "not in Kansas" anymore.

And when I lay face down onto the padded device which was to slide me into the giant magnetic test tube, I felt like I wanted to cry. The technician asked me what XM station I wanted to listen to during my ordeal, and 90's-to-now seemed good enough at the time, although in hindsight I'm pretty sure I'll ask for classical, because listening to people crooning or moaning about either fulfilled or unfulfilled love, while the sounds of a construction dig were going on all around me, somehow in association with a disease I didn't ask for that has to do with part of what makes me female and someone who might like to be a candidate for fulfilled love at some point in her existence was, shall we say, not altogether uplifting.

Afterwards I went to the mall to look for a dress for a wedding I'm going to on Friday. I have really been looking forward to going to this wedding because I really like the couple and they and their friends are so much fun I'm pretty sure the wedding will be, too. But I was also hungry, and the food court in that mall is really creepy, particularly when it's empty, which it mostly was. There's a carousel that plays carousel music which only doesn't sound nightmarish when it's outside and there are lots of people and real children enjoying it. There were also those weird little "bucking bronco"-type kiddie rides, complete with disembodied children's-laughter sound effects, which added to the whole "oh yeah, it's October, the month when we think about dead people" ambiance. Then there were little table tents on all the tables with pink ribbons on them because (as the ever-with-it-and-observant-Kristin (formerly posting on this blog as "cuppajojo") had already pointed out to me) it is Breast-Cancer-Awareness-Month as well as Pastor Appreciation Month.

Plus, somehow retail therapy didn't seem to cut it in the circumstances.

Plus I didn't find a dress.

Upswing

Last week on my first day of work after the New Year's break, I observed that, according to the digital thermometers outside of the banks along my commute, it was 1 degree Fahrenheit. The next day, it was a whole 4. There's something about only one vertical line being lit up in an entire digital read-out that makes me feel like I'm teetering on the verge of maniacal laughter.

The good thing about temperatures like that is that when they finally get back up to freezing (32), it actually feels kind of warm. And when they hit 66, like they did over the weekend, people around here start thinking about shorts and tank tops, and they order Frappuccinos by the bucketful. Yesterday I saw a girl who had gone from thinking about it to actually doing it--and it was only 52.

Everyone knows that winter's not over. It'll come back and sock us with a big one, most likely. But in the meantime, may I leave you with the public service announcement:

No, folks. It is not summer. And we really don't actually enjoy making Frappuccinos. Also if we run out of plastic cups, it's not our fault.

In Which We Welcome a New Member of the Crazy Cousins

Can I just tell you how much I love my cousins? The ones from Mom's side of the family do something along these lines every time we get together. Even at Grandpa Madeira's funeral.
















Cousin Dave got married during part of that time between the Overly Delayed Flight and the Urban-Traffic-Like Headcold. The wedding was beautiful and grace-filled (which was needed, given some of the extraneous family dynamics). The reception was One Great Party. The cousins were . . . crazy. My sister-in-law was inducted into this batch of cousins this way when she married my brother, so we had to do the same thing to Liz. Congratulations, you two!

(If anybody noticed that the dress I'm wearing looks familiar--sorry. But thank you for reading my blog this long.)

The other exciting event during this time was that my Mom turned the same age as my Dad on New Year's Day. They look pretty great, huh?

Sock Update

Shall I tell you how many socks the Dryer took today? Three. Three. I ask you. (Two of them were blue, but their counterparts are . . . not the same blue as each other.) I feel that perhaps I am being punished for something--but I have no idea the something is.

Sigh.

How 'Bout Them Socks?

Well, yes, these Sox, naturally. (We shall refrain from discussing how silly it is to call the championship games of a sport that is played in very few other countries, the "World Series." We shall merely applaud and feel simultaneously smug and grateful that they won it again.)

But what I really wanted to talk about was socks. And dryers.

I have decided that doing the laundry is sort of like making a weekly sacrifice to a pagan household deity. You bring down a heaping load of textiles to the basement, and offer it, in turn, to a sloshing, churning creature, and then a gasping, hot-aired monster. In the end, you get most of it back . . . except for a sock.

Seriously. My dryer exacts a high toll, because I think I lose one sock every time I do laundry. Oh well, you say. One sock. But have you ever noticed: the Dryer only ever takes one sock of a pair? (I suppose this kind of makes sense, since after you've lost the one, there is very little reason that the other one, freshly cleaned, would ever get dirty again.) And it's always from a pair of socks you like the best.

I buy these boring pairs of "just to get by" socks--a couple of each pair. It would be okay to lose one of those, because I still have a few more pairs that are exactly the same, and if, for example, one sock ends up getting holes in it, I'd have a spare. But oh no. The Dryer only takes one sock from a one-of-a-kind pair--the pair with the stripes or flowers or obsolete London double-decker buses. (That's actually a pair I gave my sister-in-law--but if her dryer's anything like mine, she's probably missing one.) Or, you know, a sock from the pair that is exactly the right shade of . . . something . . . to match exactly this outfit that I have.

Sigh. Sock puppets, anyone?

Good thing I have boots.

The Event

I spent most of my three-day visit to New York tromping around in a pair of boots that I really only needed for two hours on Tuesday night. Trouble was, most of the tromping was also done with a backpack on my back, and those boots wouldn't have fit in there with the clothes, toiletries, and books I had brought along. So I dispensed with the comfort of sneakers for those two hours of scuffed fashion. One more day of that would probably have made the tendons and muscles of my calves pop like too-tight guitar strings. Fortunately, there was not "one more day of that."

In the meantime, the tromping was sort of fun. On Monday I went with Marianne to the Museum of Natural History, because when I was providing the links to this post, I discovered they were having an exhibit about Mythic Creatures. It cost a little extra to get in, but it was pretty fun to read about creatures with which I feel familiar, and others I had never heard of before. It was more interesting to see mythic synchronicity across cultures. I love that stuff.

On Tuesday, I went with Seren to the Cloisters. Here we saw things like the Chamber of Smirking Marys and the Painting of the Blood-Gushing Jesus. ("Gushing" may not be the right word, exactly, because, according to the painting, the icon of Jesus managed to aim the blood right out of his ribcage into the waiting chalice of the priest who was worshiping there.) Medieval art is Really Weird a lot of the time. Small American museums instituted by millionaires are often a bit weird as well. But I kind of like those things, too.

After tea at the end of our Cloisters loitering, I got into the outfit that the boots were truly meant for and returned to Manhattan. The Yale Club is directly outside of Grand Central Station, and I got there just in time. The Lloyd Alexander memorial evening turned out to be another moment of mild weirdness, because I didn't know a single person there. I didn't even know who anyone was. It is kind of awkward, I realised, when the only person you know who is relevant to the event you are attending is dead.


This was how I rediscovered that I am a completely inept at conversing or networking with strangers unless there's a counter and a cup of coffee between us. I have no idea how to start a conversation with people I've never met. Apparently I don't know how to keep one going either, because at least three times that night, people introduced themselves to me, began to talk about Lloyd, and then, when I began to talk about my own (albeit minimal) experience as his friend, found someone else they urgently needed to talk to.

On the other hand, Sharyn November, editor of the Firebird imprint of the Penguin group, made a valiant effort to meet everyone in the room, and everyone did include me. Also, Jim Jacobs of Brigham Young University was cordial and friendly and even seemed genuinely interested in my experience of writing to Lloyd. Blouke and Marianne Carus of Cricket Magazine (etc.), who had spearheaded this event, were lovely. And I met one of Lloyd's granddaughters--the one who had taken greatest care of him at the end. Lloyd had one more book about to be published when he died, and all of us at the event got a free copy of it--as well as of his first published book, and some of the Carus magazines. This was generous and unexpected and delightful.

Besides, it was great to hear other people's stories. Some who had been particularly close to Lloyd were given the opportunity to speak to all of us, and it was fascinating to hear what other people had known of him more close at hand. I didn't feel the need to cry anymore. But I did still wish he had been there, to really talk to.

Photos by jennw2ns: Museum Unicorn 2007; The Cloisters 2007; Photo of Photo of Lloyd 2007.

Photo by J.S. Jacobs: Jennw2ns w2 Books and Illustration.

Grand Central Station

I drove to Anne's house on Sunday. She's a little less than halfway between here and New York, but I can get a train pretty inexpensively from her town. The day I left it was gorgeous and I put my camera on my dashboard and tried to get spontaneous brief videos of riotous colour along the highway, but I had a little trouble with camera angle, because, you know, I was driving and everything. And I was concentrating. I really was. The next morning, the trees around Anne's parking lot had left gifts on my car like this one. This was all very lovely, because I was pretty sure most of this mind-blowing colour would have fallen onto the ground by the time I got back from the city. (I was right.)

But cities are otherwise colourful. When I arrived at Grand Central Station, it was well after rush hour, which meant the place was empty enough for me not to feel overwhelmed, and so that I had time to gawk like what I was, which was a Tourist. I really think this is my favourite train station ever. I remember its being dirtier, with dark wood fixtures. It seems to have been spiffed up, which can, in some cases, turn toward architectural travesty (cf. Wheaton College dorms), but Grand Central Station is still magnificent.I had had breakfast before leaving Anne's, but I was a little hungry, so I went to the Dining Concourse, and bought myself a soft pretzel with nacho cheese to dip it in. I got the kind of pretzel with the enormous salt crystals on it because they look so cool, but this turned out to be a mistake, so I ended up flicking them all off. I sat in a molded plastic chair that was supposed to look like a big puffy armchair but was much harder, flicked salt off my pretzel, and people-watched.

There are the Nice Families. And the chic, suave, posh Urbanites. The respectable middle-aged, middle-class Couples, usually traveling in groups of four, whose fashion sense screams, "We're Americans! Check out our heinous accents!" when they go to places like London. The hopelessly attractive Hippie Couple and their long-haired love children. The Obligatory Lady in Magenta Sweater and Fuzzy Red Earmuffs, clutching a plastic bag and babbling to herself. This one's bag was from Macy's, and on it was scrawled in permanent marker a name, and the words "Midnight Run." I thought this was all very eccentrically charming and mysterious. It got a little creepier after she sat herself down next to one of the unsuspecting Nice Families and I realised she was babbling loudly about kidnapping.

Everyone in a train station is a caricature of themselves. Of course they're all much more complex in reality. Likely, if I got to know any of the people I was watching, I'd discover them to be both like their stereotypes, and altogether different. I myself was the semi-artsy writer-wannabe-chick with scuffed boots and a well-tailored coat, eating a soft pretzel and scrawling notes on a napkin. But of course you all know better.

Photos by jennw2ns: Golden Tree 2007. Leaf-Gift 2007. Grand Central Rush 2007.

Derring-do

There comes a point in every woman's life (well, maybe not every, but it makes for easier grammar later on) when, after feeling at age 19 that she was going to change the world, she realises that the most daring thing she can do in a given week is Wear Two Totally Opposing Shades of Green. At The Same Time. In Public. On Purpose.(This photo doesn't properly capture the oppositional nature of the shades, but it's the best I've got.)

I did this last night when I went out for Indian food with Dawna and Hannah's-Mom-Heather. Neither of them remarked on it, which shows remarkable good manners. I do like to wear non-matching shades of the same colour on occasion, but especially green for some reason. Maybe because I'm in an I-think-green-might-be-my-favourite-colour phase. My favourite colour changes about every five years (which is why I can never be too assertive about it), as does my job; perhaps they're related.

Anyway. I was thinking that things were getting a little intense around here, and I have more intense things that I want to talk about coming up, so I thought I'd throw in some banality to lighten the mood.

Oh, and:

Don't worry. I've only done two of these. Really.

Artwork:
Photo by jennw2ns: Greens, 2007.
Cartoon by simsonizeme.com: jennw2braids, 2007.

Traitor (to) Joe's

I like Trader Joe's. You know this. Ex-roommate-Sarah (who at the time was still Roommate-Sarah) got me into shopping there about six months ago, I guess. I like their food and their ambience, and their prices are usually not too bad, either. They also have some pre-made dinners which are not scary, taste good, and seem to be made of more or less healthy products.

And, of course, conversation with the people at the registers is always enlightening. A couple of weeks ago, I made friends with an older British chap, who was very personable and probably more chatty than the people behind me in line would have wished. He told me that his daughter recently tossed strawberries with balsamic vinegar, pepper, and sugar, and then put them on vanilla ice cream. According to him it was delicious. Being an avant garde eater, I tried it, and--what do you know?--he was right.

You can't really put a price tag on interactions like that.

But Price-Rite is just around the corner from where I work. Someone at church said, "You should go there. Their food's really cheap!" Probably less likely to be organic, though. Still, sometimes cheap is what I need the most. Not to mention right around the corner. Our closest Trader Joe's really is not that. So yesterday, as my section of the fridge was fresh out of everything, I went to Price-Rite.

Thus I discovered where all the non-European Americans go to do their grocery shopping. Or maybe, where very few of the European Americans go. Seriously--there are so few places I go in town, and they are always so overwhelmed with people of European stock, I'm sometimes not very sure there is anyone else in this city.

But at Price-Rite, I felt like I was back on Green Street. There may not have been much certifiably organic produce there, but there were multiple kinds of avocado, plantains and cooking bananas (there's a difference?), piles of mangoes, lychees, papaya, every "green" imaginable, and that was just the produce aisle. The bakery section boasted Jamaican sweetbread and things I had only ever seen on shelves in East London. The aisle of Goya products was extensive. (I also learned that I should be harvesting dandelions from my yard, because they were selling huge leaves of the stuff for 99 cents a bunch.)

The whole experience reminded me how much I miss a multi-cultural milieu. It's pretty easy to get used to being the majority ethnic group if you get the chance to be, and I am used to it, I'm reluctant to say. But the thing that I loved so much about East London was not being the majority.

I've had people accuse before me of trying to be part of a culture that I'm not. I guess that happens sometimes. Probably it's good for each of us to be secure in who we are within our birth cultures. But it's also possible, I think, to really thrive on crossing cultural barriers--and that can be just as much a part of "who I am" as the fact that I'm what is typically called "white" and that I'm from the United States. Or maybe moreso. Just because I'm likely to don a shalwar kameez or a sari for a Pakistani baby's first birthday doesn't mean I think I am Pakistani, or that I think I know anything about being Pakistani, even. But there are aspects of that culture that I like, and that I'm willing to investigate, try out, enjoy--and that enjoyment of those things is, I feel, in part what makes me, me.

I don't know what the Jamaican or Ghanaian or Indian or Puerto Rican subcultures of my city are really like--most particularly because I don't truly know any of their representatives, if anyone can truly be said to represent a group in that way. But it was kind of a relief to know that there are some, and to get myself into another environment for a change. Trader Joe's hasn't lost my business completely--but in spite of offering pretty decent attempts at world cuisine, there are some things they just don't offer. At least not in my neighbourhood.

Just Seen

Today I was driving home from work, down the street where Ex-Roommate-Sarah now resides, and I saw a young man sauntering down the road. The first thing I noticed about him was that he was not wearing a shirt. Note to guys everywhere:

I don't care how fit you are, how great you look or how hot it is outside. Being shirtless in public, unless you are at the beach or a public swimming pool, is Not Classy. I am not impressed. Nor, I might add, are several other women I know.

(I might not be very classy either. But please. Spare us.)

Here, however is the other thing I noted about him. He was wearing a license plate. Yes. As in, the thing that one affixes to the back of cars, the number of which one wishes one remembered when one's car is towed. The bottom of this license plate was somehow tucked into the back of the young man's Bermuda shorts, but the number was legible, presumably in case he violated traffic. Or perhaps if someone wanted to call "How's My Walking?" (there must be such a thing, right?) and let them know he was staying on the sidewalk.

I am having a hard time imagining this adornment could be comfortable. On the other hand, I also have a little trouble with the idea that someone coerced him to put a good-sized rectangular metal plate in the back of his pants.

I don't know. Anyone have any creative explanations as to the reasons for this particular fashion statement?

Also, for a totally unrelated but also humorous observation, please check out this article from the Onion.

Euphemisms

There's a corner in our church building with a table, some shelves, and a hanging rack, where various pre-owned items appear on a weekly basis, free for the taking. "Pre-owned" is a euphemism that I find utterly hilarious--and appropriate for the car industry. But it's a nice word to use here, too, even though it makes absolutely no sense in relation to its ascribed meaning, if you think about it.

But here is the observation I was going to make. I picked up a shirt the other week from this used clothing rack. It's a cute striped button-down shirt. I like it. The label inside the collar which is meant to proclaim brand name or some such thing says, "Cotton Works" in largish letters. On the other collar-tag, the letters are much smaller, and they announce the shirt to be made of 64% polyester, 32% nylon, and 4% spandex. The word "cotton" is not in evidence.

I mean, I guess I could have figured that out just from the feel of the thing. But am I missing something here?

Everyone Keeps Dying All Over the Place

Well. They do.

So far I still don't know what it's like to have family kidnapped and my entire community slaughtered. But some people do. Like Emmanuel, for instance.

Emmanuel and Jemima came to work for the group of churches I also worked for, just about a year before I left London. They're Rwandan. Emmanuel was a pastor, and he and his wife and children were not exempt from experiencing many of the atrocities that occurred in their home country. The faith they exhibited in the aftermath was inspiring, and the love was more inspiring still. Although they reached out to whomever God put in their path, they're heart's mission was to bring the reconciliation of Jesus to their fellow Rwandans, even though they were no longer in Rwanda. They never told whether they were Hutu or Tutsi. They never told anyone. "We belong to the Third Tribe," they said. "Jesus' tribe." They wanted everyone to belong to that tribe.

"Someone should write their story," I said, on probably more than one occasion. I never did anything about it, though.

Then Emmanuel contracted some sort of cancer. It was pretty sobering news to find out, so soon after leaving the scene. "Someone should write their story," I said. Emmanuel and Jemima and their adult children believed he would be healed, and truly, I didn't hear anything about the cancer anymore for a long time, so I thought maybe he had. You sort of lose touch with people after a while of not being in their presence regularly anymore.

Then this year, three years after the first diagnosis, my friend Jayne wrote and said that Emmanuel's cancer had become suddenly very aggressive.

"But someone needs to write their story!" I said. It hit me, then, that I had wasted a lot of time and opportunity. People are worth more than their stories, but their stories are always worth telling. Everybody has one. Over the last few months, as people I care about keep dying (Grandpa, Lloyd, Phillip), I've been realising with waxing and waning but quiet desperation that there are all these people around. And no matter how well you love them, you never quite love them enough, and you always take them a little bit for granted, and there are always things about them you never quite learn or know sufficiently, and most of the time you miss out on something.

Emmanuel died over the weekend.

I could still write Emmanuel and Jemima's story. I could talk to Jemima. Her side of the story is just as compelling as Emmanuel's and I would be remiss to discount it. I could talk to their children. I could talk to my London church family, who got to know them better than I. But the grief's too fresh now, and I don't know when it won't be. And in the meantime, I missed the opportunity to really sit down with this man of God and take down the story from his point of view.

I have a Rwandan outfit that Jemima bought me when we celebrated Emmanuel's induction into the service of our church in London. It's purple and beautiful. Maybe I'll wear it on Sunday.

Real-Life Links

So you're blogging, right, and you read some blog you've never read before, and you like what you read, so you comment there a few times. And then that blogger visits your blog and comments back. And then, if things go well, suddenly you have this new friend. Except that you've never actually met each other. Sometimes (even though in a way this is part of my job), I forget that you can develop connexions with people in real-time, in real life.

The other week when I was wandering around the shops of Noho, my wandering took me into a place called C.S.O.R.K. Peru. The front of the store said something about fair-trade clothing. I like clothing. I also like fair trade. I went in.

There were clothes displayed about the room, as one might find in any boutique, but at stage right there was also a fireplace (not, unfortunately, lit) a few couches, and a desk with various pieces of computer equipment and a sewing machine on it. A South Asian woman was sitting on one of the couches, and a West Indian woman and two adolescent girls were looking around, but they were all also loudly engaged in an uproarious conversation about intercultural communication. Mostly they were joking about how American standards of political correctness would never fly in their respective countries of origin.

Some of the examples they were giving of this reminded me of my own encounters with this phenomenon when I worked with refugees in London. The conversation was too loud for me to avoid hearing it, and too funny for me to avoid laughing, and so eventually they pulled me into the conversation.

After a while the customer with the two girls left, but Raya, the woman who had been sitting on the couch, was obviously still interested in talking. It turned out the store was an idea of her daughter's, a college student studying textiles and fashion design. This young woman's late father was Peruvian, and so, in order to get back in touch with her roots, she had spent some time in Peru working in an orphanage. While there, she realised that the woman cooking the food for the children were amazing embroiderers and seamstresses, and she conceived the idea of starting a boutique of clothing designed by her and made by these women, sold at a fair price.

Apparently her mother and stepfather had the means to make this dream happen, because the young woman in question is studying out of state, but there is the store, and there is her mother, running it for her. Raya was very enthusiastic about the whole enterprise, fortunately, and I was, too, although there was no way I could afford anything in there. No matter; Raya wanted me to try everything on, because she was sure I would "look great" in it all. She advised me on colours to bring out my eyes and things, and then oohed and ahhed as I modeled them for her. I would like to say, "Whatever," dismissively and with embarrassment, but it really was kind of fun. And I'm not going to lie. The clothes did look pretty good.

It also turned out that Raya has written a fictionalised autobiography. We swapped stories about being unknown writers. We also swapped email addresses.

It was nice to make a friend in person. I'll go back to Noho one of these days, and visit her again.

Shopping Beyond the Windows

Keep in mind my definition of a shopping spree is buying more than one item without going home and thinking about it first. On Friday, after stating I was going for a walk, I did, indeed, go for a walk . . . to the Century City Mall, which continued to remind me of London because of the high fashion stores from which one could, if one had lots of money or didn't mind running up a huge credit card bill, buy really expensive clothing.

I don't like spending money, but I have to confess to a weakness for clothing. Even if (even though, most of the time) my shopping is confined to the window variety, I can't say that browsing in stores like those at the Century City Mall doesn't contribute in some way to my fashion lust. Part of me thinks that high fashion is completely ludicrous--but that's part of the appeal. One time I made a dress out of a curtain. It is hideous. And very chic. If it were sewn better, a movie star could wear it to the Oscars or something. Really.

Anyway, I wasn't planning on buying anything that day. But I stepped into Mango, which I haven't done since I lived in London, and there was a tremendous sale going on, as there sometimes is. That store does have great sales. And there was this cute brown coat that looked great, and my purple coat is falling apart and I've had it for years and there were only two of this brown coat and only one in my size and it was not expensive for a coat and so . . . I bought it. This was pretty daring of me, because I usually only buy things if I can return them after I bring them home and have a second, third, and fourth thought about them. But there was no money back on this item. Then I bought a pair of black pants, to make matters even more extreme.

I wore both items while eating at a Persian restaurant and walking around in Hollywood that night, so that I would be less likely to suffer shopper's remorse. And it's pretty much working.