EDUCATION VS. EDUCATION

VS.

Graduate seminars are composed of two essential moments. Either I think to myself, "OK that sounds vaguely familiar." This is usually followed by pensive eye contact with the professor, or "I have no idea what he/she is talking about." Usually followed by thumbing through pages of my book.

But it's OK! There is the understanding that I am a fledgling pupil and this encyclopedia (that happens to have a circulatory system) currently lecturing me has many years of experience and that THAT is my future. (Pause for a twinkle in my eye and I gaze out the window and look out on...old ladies in lawn chairs outside their condos.) Of course the professor is well versed on pop culture from 40 years ago, she probably remembers living through it.

And here is where I turn to the great tragedy of my education. I FAIL POP CULTURE. The evidence is below...I can't answer any of these.

1. Name more than one Kardashian and talk about why they are famous.
2. Name three celebrity babies.
3. What is a Bieber?
4. What is the Reunion?
5. Have you ever watched the Jersey shore?

I am an island.

OK secondary education begins today: I have to learn everything about pop culture I possibly can. (Yes that is ambitious) Both middle brow How can you break something that is bad? and low brow But then...what is a fake housewife?

Assignment #1 Read headlines. I don't know where to begin. I think that Perez Hilton is too advanced. MJ suggested Huffington Post, but I think he was making fun of them. Then again:

Assignment #2 Watch the Daily Show and the Colbert Report because it forms the common bond between all of humanity.

Assignment #3 Watch at least clips from these reality TV shows. Then perhaps graduate on to Gossip Girl.

Assignment #4 What are the kids listening to? Extra credit for cool indie side projects.

Assignment #5 Watch crap on YouTube. (Don't even watch this clip, it is so unbelievably stupid.)



Goals:
1.To start a sentence with "Oh my god, did you see..."
2. Answer with , "Yes! I did."
3. Make friends with people my age, so I don't have to sing along to Sinatra with the ladies in lawn chairs outside the condo and talk about the scandalous Evelyn Nesbit.



Tonight, I explore a new place for me: Hulu. Where will it take me? We'll find out.

Missed Connections

My friend has this amazing story:

One late New York evening he found himself caught up in the headphone tangle that is the late-night-weekend Brooklyn train system. On his third attempt at a train that would stop in Bushwick he struck up a conversation with a pretty girl who giggled a lot at his Midwestern awkardness. At her stop, she walked out the doors and he watched her in slow motion walk away toward the platform stairs...

Pause for a second to understand this New York phenomenon: In the seconds it takes for a train to take off, before tunneled darkness, the acceleration creates an effect of slow motion to whoever is walking on the platform. There is a direct proportion between the emotion you have for said person and the slowness in which they walk away. Only in the New York subway. It's true, ask Woody Allen.

...he realized he never asked her name. Or contact information. Or appropriate Googling information. But love was not lost completely, for he could use Missed Connections, a section of Craig's List for moments like this. Only in New York could there be more than one of these moments on any given Wednesday night. Many times it is rauncy requests, but for the most part they read like this:


We exchanged a bunch of glances, including when you walk by me an the two women I was with (just friends!).
But then one of my two friends decided to leave and I did too... Alas.
So I didn't get the chance to talk with you...
But you were really cute. You had on a sheer white top and jeans(?) with long-ish hair and a charming smile.
Describe me a little so I know it's really you.
It was fun exchanging smiles with you and it might be nice to do so again.
Grab a drink sometime?

He described the moment and she found the post. They connected. They will always have that story.

I went to a one-man play tonight by myself. That quantifies as loneliness squared. The solitary man was Dex Edwards who wrote and performed in "The Rising Son: a story piece," a play about connecting to people of other cultures and reaching out to make those connections. I don't feel overindulgent by relating it to my life. That's the point of The-AY-ter. I keep talking to friendly people and when I feel them presenting opportunity to reach out, I shirk and run back to my apartment. To a glass of wine and a dog who shirks if I try to pet her. So much shirking. The girl at coffee shop, the usher at the play...they are all so friendly but I can't pull the social trigger. Damn this friendly Southern town. At least if I were in the Russian tundra, or Alaska during the dark months, or for christ's sake, back in New York, I would have an excuse for isolating myself.

I should join a Church.



POSTSCRIPT: I started looking at more MCs and I think this is my favorite:

Hey, I was biking around Staten Island earlier today and when I passed you, you yelled that you liked my Led Zeppelin T-shirt.

Get in touch with me if you'd like.

Nailing Chicken Wire to a Fence...

...is not something I thought I would ever do, but it is done. MJ and I nailed and tied chicken wire in the hot blazing sun on a Saturday afternoon in Oxford, Mississippi. We sweated and toiled in order to keep Daphne, 15 pound beagle, in the yard. "Yard" being intermittent patches of brown grass, a patio deck, and a machine that pumps freezing cold air into my house, centrally. First time living outside of New York. First time in the South.

Daphne somehow manages to get out every time.

She mocks us from outside our kitchen window, while we innocuously sip our coffee and we have to run outside and call her in. She wins again.

We have taken turns trying to watch her. Learn her method of escape. Inevitably we get bored and turn to each other for a moment of fleeting conversation. And she is gone. Always running towards the woods. I would call her Houdini, but her mental capacity reminds me more of the Hamburglar.



Today she got out and I chased her to the edge of the woods where she defiantly entered. I stood outside yelling her name in my pajamas, with a mug of coffee in my hand. I recognize this as a moment of transition from urbane sophisticate to women-who-yells-barefoot-in-pajamas-at-her-dog-while-drinking-coffee. THE COFFEE WAS MADE FROM A FRENCH PRESS GODDAMNIT. A FRENCH PRESS.

When she finally emerged from the woods all feral smelling like dead armadillo, I gave her a bath she will never forget. Ever.