pedestrian saga

This morning karol gonzalez wants me to enhance my anatomy and a bad wife is out to educate me on Unfaithful Wives. What does this mean? And why is it these days I catch myself desperate to pump message and meaning from all manner of signs, objects, gestures… romping cardinals, glistening snow, a misty full moon, 50,000 people dead in the water, a thunderstorm flooding my desert city, an answering machine beep, the eyes of a traveling stranger, the deep and gentle coo of an infant… Or perhaps they’re all asking something of me, patiently but firmly insisting on my communication? Maybe I’ll just retreat into a good Calvino story…

This morning I rode a subway through postwar Iraq (because the war’s over, haven’t you heard? Whew! We triumphed. Mission Accomplished. Thanks be to God!) to a baroque Ukrainian theatre for some vaguely post-Soviet equivalent of the Emmys. In my dream I walked alone among many achingly beautiful strangers who I was certain would suddenly lash out at me. My show ticket gripped under white knuckles and my purse smothered under arm, I timidly followed several dark and handsome young men in blue jeans and polo shirts down past the rubble of a bombed-out subway tunnel to a platform resembling the Hollywood & Vine station (because the same American company who had tunneled through Hollywood had built this Iraq-Ukraine express)– all tense and edgy because these strapping young bucks might at any moment recognize me as an Ugly American and hand me over to their terrorist friends. Arriving in Ukraine proved no relief from this anxiety. The faces of the ushers and the audience at the theatre were elegantly painted porcelain with deeply mesmerizing marble eyes. I searched longingly for dear Anya, but she was not there. Moved by a wave of beautiful and sad humanity, I nonetheless hunched low in my seat as the show began and was barely able to enjoy the heavenly girls choir, for I dreaded my inevitable kidnapping as the unwelcome American intruder. This is what I get for reading AP news briefs right before bed.

Friday night I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I’ve become known as the Ping-Pong Vixen in some circles, having recently infiltrated a certain table tennis boys club. I’ve always felt like the black sheep of my athletic family, so imagine my astonishment when I realized I can hold my own (for the most part) and even hit the table a little more than half of the time! I’ve tapped into that deceptively gentle and consistent serve that harks back to the ancient history of my volleyball days. Now it remains to acquire some technique and master a style. Slightly intoxicated by the testosterone-laced adrenaline of these matches, I must recognize that playing Ping-Pong has proven to have powers of an almost metaphysical quality. As such it’s become an important component of my campaign to resist despair.

Crushed by a sense of impending doom since Bush was elected to a second term? Humiliated and depressed that your lover’s up and left, that the man who was supposed to be your partner for life has checked out with nary an explanation, without so much as a real discussion, whose fiery meteor of intense, sincere love has suddenly cooled and, straying so casually off course, has blasted your planet into the oblivion of a new geologic age? Resist that paralyzing despair, because with four more years of Bush prosperity and with your deportation to the state of Single Income, you can’t well afford to slip into a full-out, rip-roarin’ nervous breakdown. You’ve got to eat. Okay, so maybe your appetite disappeared along with your husband, but those dogs continue to demand their kibble. Besides, while you may live vicariously through others who flourish in their brilliantly bold and bitter eloquence, you will only meet endless frustration in your own lame astronomical metaphors and annoying second person narration. There’s really no attractive option but to nurture your innate optimism and resist despair. So come on into the kitchen… (more…)