media & me

double whammy last night of dinner w/ another ESL teacher and watching "the office" w/ alison. dinner was at this great South Indian restaurant on lex and 27th - yummy dosas & Brooklyn IPA and good conversation about students and politics and timespace patterns. so cool to fall into the conversation you knew you were going to have with someone who is essentially a perfect stranger: he said "it's doesn't matter so much whose mouth it came out of but the fact that it came out of someone's mouth." in other words, it's all the same thing - the same thought-impulse coming out of the human organism.

and then watching "the office"- or rather, a kabillion minutes of advertising and "the office." first, i'd like to make the obvious observation that perhaps the popularity of "the office" and "officespace" and related comedies/sitcoms makes a strong case for Western society's dawning recognition that people aren't designed to work in offices. and to take this to its logical conclusion, most of the way we live our lives today is based much more in convenience (mostly economic and social) than it is in any fulfillment of our spiritual or emotional needs. (of course i'm not saying anything that hasn't been said before, and - the worse offense - i'm taking the spiritual fulfillment stance, but this is what i see.) watching television is a difficult undertaking for me. on the first level, i'm expected to interact with a story line and a cast of characters that i don't know, whom i know don't really exist. at the next level, i can't help but to constantly interpret them through the filter of my knowledge that it's someone's job to create these people and situations, that testing has even been done to ascertain what will give me or someone like me the most enjoyable television-watching experience. and thirdly is the "me or someone like me" awareness - all of a sudden i'm part of this gigantic entity of Americans who watch "the office" on thursday night, and of every person who thinks like me and sees it for the media machine it is, there are three people (a generous estimate) who buy it whole hog, who probably aren't able to discern their buying it from enjoying it.

because most people like to watch television. most people come home and "unplug" from their work by plugging into the TV. it has become, for better or worse, our fantasy playground, and i suppose that in a lot of ways we need it. i used to think that the entertainment industry was complete fluff and it boggled my mind that billions of dollars are spent on nothing more than making up some stories, but now, after having digested some good ol' Jung, i see that we desperately need our fantasies. (we must, right? how else could the benefits of making another shitty dane cook movie or "reality" TV series versus, say, feeding or vaccinating a few hundred thousand people be explained?)

but here's the thing: i'm not sure if my fantasies look like those ones. i'm reading this kind of dull book right now called "object lessons" which, as far as i can see, centers around one woman poet's experiences discovering what it means to be a woman and a poet at the same time. her thesis is that women and their lives are the object of a poem but are only now becoming the subject of it, and as such we have only been seen from the outside and romanticized or objectified. while this seemed a little facile to me at first, or even untrue (perhaps because of having come into consciousness in the post-women's lib generations), what she writes has begun to sound a deep chord in me, at least when i'm watching NBC on a thursday night. those stories - most of the stories that can be found in mainstream media - don't do it for me. i want to really be entertained - i want real stories. and perhaps the only way to get them is to make them for myself.

a little piece of paper

so: i am cleared to get hired (i think) and ... AM ACTUALLY CERTIFIED TO TEACH IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK. i really never thought this day would come - all of the bureaucratic nonsense, and hundreds of dollars of fees, and tests, and paperwork, and phonecalls, to say nothing of the four years of college, the student teaching, visits to 65 Court Street, gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, all of it culminating into this one glorious moment where the little white lie on my resume ("NYS Certified") is finally true. amazing that a stupid piece of paper can make me feel this elated.

i will start teaching on the 29th (yes, two days before Halloween - how fortuitous!). visited the school yesterday and sat in on a couple of my sections. i will tell you this, O Blogosphere, i am scared. i am scared because they say i look about 15 years old, scared because the Bloods are recruiting, scared that i don't have the organizational skills or patience or moxie to do this. but this is what i've been waiting for. as i told patito last night, i have absolutely no idea what it's really going to be like - my expectations have so little bearing on what the reality is going to be that i may as well try not to indulge them.

and i quit my stupid job. i got paid today - i'm so looking forward to the day that getting paid won't make me feel like i've been punched in the face (or make me want to punch someone else in the face.) that being said, i'm trying to hang in there for my students' sakes - haven't yet told them that i'm leaving although i've dropped a few hints. i'm really going to miss my week class but hopefully i'll be able to stay in touch with some of them, and they did teach me a lot (as they always will, right?)

what else... the weather's turning here. it's chilly in the morning - makes it even harder to get out of bed - but i love it, love how a different season can make me see this city in a new light. it's a sort of reprieve, a reminder that things aren't always going to be the same, although with all this change i don't know why i'm looking for more.

tectonic movement

as of my last post, i've had quite a few changes take place. am finally settling into the new apartment, which i'm pretty thrilled with (as of right now). actually had the "this rug really pulls the room together" conversation with pete, and then had the requisite "did we actually just say that" moment. having my first real place, where i pay for it and have my name on the lease and things, makes me have little reflective bursts all the time, like "gee i guess this is what it's like to be a real person." they come now and i'm almost ashamed of them because i know that the rest of the world has been aware of these kinds of responsibilities this whole time and i'm just arriving onto the scene. it's like the awareness after you get your driver's license or turn 21 that all that anticipation leads up to a whole new set of tasks, and that you'll probably be bitching about what you were just celebrating. but i will always be having those moments, i will always be realizing that i'm a new inductee to one legion or another - perhaps the graceful thing to do is to just let it be that moment of newness (or of whatever.)

aaaaaaaaaand. i got a Real Teaching Job. well, sort of. the things i need to do to get the job for real are 1) get a file number/get certified (still? still. fuck me.) and 2) quit ESL job. and it is ever so easy to whine about how difficult these things are going to be but the plain fact of the matter is that this is my in. this is what i am supposed to be doing. this is the time for me to triumph over the gorgon bureaucracy and get myself where i deserve to be. this is not that say that i'm not a little apprehensive about beginning this job. the school is 70% guys, is only 4 years old, and as the AP told me, not without its structural flaws. on the plus side, i'll be able to bike to work (it's in williamsburg) and will no longer need to go to manhattan as much. so. i'm trying to be pragmatic and action action action on this but let me unburden myself as i cannot elsewhere that i'm blown away by the amount of responsibility i'm about to take on. am i worthy? will i do a good job? of how much am i truly capable?

pato visited this weekend, too. it was a nice time - lovely dinner at hearth (i had the bass with calamari and chickpeas), brunch at roebling, indian food, not nearly as much adventuring as i had planned, but taking a nap and eating a good meal were top priorities on my list (lazy-ass that i am.) but nevertheless - some beautiful moments: walking the tree-lined streets of bushwick, smoking under our umbrellas with the storm overhead, the roses on my bureau reminding me of his visit. i fear he showed me a better time than i did him, but i think that might have a lot to do with my slow comprehension of how to let myself be treated. i think that this trip proved him to be a bulwark for me in this new time.

so now to bed for some much-needed rest. i have a lot to take care of in the next few days.

cleaned the shit out of the new apt w/ jay and pete yesterday. after things were mopped and clean(er)-smelling we went around with a tambourine and pot lids and incense and scared the old bad spirits away (the upstairs kitty looking on from the fire escape in bewilderment), then went back to pete's and had sub-par burritos and beer. i'm looking forward to living with those guys.

and then riding back to alison's on the subway, looking at the outer edges of the map where it wanders off into long island, i remembered myself 5 years ago riding the subway looking at the same map. a lot of it has become so much more familiar - i wonder what i would have thought if i'd known how far from manhattan i'd end up. those outer edges used to make me feel twinges of envy of the people whose childhood homes were just on the other side of brooklyn and now i'm making my first "real" home of my own right there, and the longing has diminished to a little pebble. i guess i'm feeling the happy effects of finally settling down after so many years of having my stuff(myself?) scattered all over the place. (although god only knows how long i'll really be anywhere anyway.)

harvest moon

just saw the harvest moon hanging low over met. ave and it was like a huge swollen pumpkin in the sky (eerie orange, i swear to god) and i wish everyone in brooklyn could see it, too, and we could have a big orgy. or harvest things. or something. i always feel like i should be doing more with myself when i look at a full moon.

last year i saw the harvest moon with huck at the dreamaway. it was chilly out (sweltering today, mid-90's) - there was a scrim of clouds across the sky, and huck told me to remember the moment and write about it some other time, which has now finally happened.

in other strange synchronicities, i ate lunch (soggy but passable chilaquiles) in this mexican diner that matt used to live under. mana's "labios compartidos" came on, creating a sort of triad of longing (matt/old life in ny, nicky/summers on the cape and mexico itself.)

into and out of the wild

last night i watched sean penn's "into the wild," and, being the granolaface i am, was moved by it. (which is not to say that i didn't snigger at the shot of him burning his as he set off across the sweltering Arizona desert.) besides it coming right after what could have been a disastrous phonecall w/ dad (Me: Hi, dad. so you're going to move me in on sunday. Dad: Oh. I am?) but ended sanely, even sweetly (Dad: And we're going to get you moved even though it's a tremendous pain in the ass, because you are the most important thing and I love you. Me: [sort of sobbing]) which brought up all sorts of feelings about what it means to really and truly leave home, to become, as i vowed to myself last december under a sky pulsing with stars, "a child of the universe," it set some interesting thoughts into motion.

on the one hand, a complete return to nature is the easiest thing to do - at least from an existential standpoint. the most definite measure of a person, in my estimation, is who s/he is without the adulterating influences of other people, media & the incipient bullshit they entail. and without question, such a change would open the door to a new series of existential problems, but you'd be so busy trying to satisfy the most basic of needs that you wouldn't have to entertain them. (although, having never been in that situation, i can't really speak authoritatively.) taken in this light, it is more difficult to create a self-sufficient, or at least sustainable, lifestyle within the confines of society.

which is not to say that chris mccandless was "right" or "wrong" in doing what he did. i had the interesting experience of being able to see this film and read critical discussion (from the onion a.v. club, naturally) without the impulse to call him either a hero or an asshole - he was just doing what he felt he absolutely had to do. and, of course, i am not really speaking of chris mccandless as a person but rather of the character of mccandless as i saw it in the film.

what i really enjoyed most about the film, beyond the gorgeous shots of the sea, woods and sky, was being able to contextualize my own longing to live "the truth" that i think exists outside the social world we have built. i have entertained fantasies of living in the wild for many years and read books on it and fallen in love with people who i thought were capable of doing it, and i see now that it is (at least for me) a symbol for being able to live the truth of myself. but the truth of myself is who i am right now - perhaps it's a truth i don't fully recognize often enough, but more probably that the truth i want to see doesn't correspond to that which is really there.

el regreso

well! it certainly has been quite a while since i've posted, and as far as i can tell the person who last wrote never really existed, much less lived in another country. i've fallen back into the american rhythm of life - mostly, that is... there was a little incident with me almost dying on a runaway horse - as seamlessly as i left, and now i'm back in new york. teaching grammar. yes, the very thing i said that i didn't want to do now occupies at least 5 hours of every day of my life until the beginning of december.

it's not so bad. the people are great, and their english is so good they can absorb - and even respond to! - my pseudo-philosophical rambling. the things that really suck about it are 1) only sleeping in once a week, 2) working 9-5 both days of the weekend, and 3) my creepy boss. i have a lot of creative freedom, half days from monday to thursday, and, because of the unrestrictive curriculum, a renewed interest in doing the work necessary to keep a classroom afloat. i would even go so far as to say that i'm honing my craft, and that i might even be more suited to working with this population than i am to working with NYC teenagers. or am i? only time will tell - because god may strike me dead if i don't get myself a Real Teaching Job soon. or at least get the weekends off.

y otras cosas - ahora hay un hombre en mi vida. we met this summer and it was like something out of a nora ephron movie (well, if nora ephron movies had protagonists who think actual thoughts and/or smoke drugs) complete with starlit beach cuddling, couples mini-golf and a bunch of other stuff that i am ashamed to say i totally enjoyed... the kind of stuff that sounds horribly cheesy when you're recounting it but was so much fun when it was happening. i can't talk about this anymore - i'm never watching another romantic comedy again, or at least until i can feel like my experiences aren't the montage in some hack screenwriter's first act.

but fuck that. they were beautiful, (dare i say it) meaningful experiences - they may have borne more than a passing resemblance to all of that schmaltzy drek that's forced down our throats from the moment we can say "cinderella," but they felt good when they were happening. this is how it goes, i guess, and it's a terrifying thing, because i can look at my life from one perspective and see it as my own, my experiences and feelings as genuine and irreplaceable, and then i can look at it from another and see myself as a facet of this manifold human beast and see myself as a sort of pawn, doomed to play out scene after scene of The Human Game.

it's so much more than i can even put into words - somehow the act of writing a blog entry with the knowledge that someone i know, or perhaps more intimidatingly, someone i don't know, may eventually read it makes me balk, makes my thoughts (and "Me") come off half-baked, insincere, dimwitted. i wonder how many other people are sitting right here in this very city writing this exact entry about how they don't have any

oh god. that's enough. alright, let's stop with the metameta bullshit - no one's even reading this anyway, so i may as well come out with something straight and readable, something i'll be able to look back on and actually use. so here's the real story, because that's what we're here for, right?: i came back from mexico, had a harrowing experience that left me with a sprained ankle and sense of malaise i can't quite shake (the realization that, a la don juan, my death is indeed sitting - lying in wait - on my left shoulder), taught Nature and got a sweet tan. i met an incredibly sweet guy, a quiet, smart person who brought me flowers for no apparent reason other than that he really likes me (something no one has ever done as far as i can remember), a guy who has that really sexy pair of muscles that stand out on his lower abdomen and what can only be described as Soccer Legs, and we had a tremendous amount of fun, and then i moved to (back) to New York City. i started working for an ESL school, and my students were from all corners of the globe, and i learned more about how to be a good teacher from them, and i saw a bunch of people i hadn't seen in a while. i also realized that i have to tow my own load now financially, that i am indeed a Grown-Up (Groan-Up, more like), and that i am the only person directly responsible for myself and my sense of satisfaction. and there is much much more to tell, and i will be endeavoring to tell it, if i can only get out of my own way long enough to see that it doesn't matter if 10,000 other people almost exactly like me are having the same experiences because this is my goddamn life and my goddamn story.

(...and no one is reading this anyway.)