Self-Discovery in Its Many Awkward Forms

This past weekend was one of those weekends of self-revelation. I spent a good portion of it by myself--almost always a recipe for disaster in terms of self-discovery--and I had to giggle at the lesson in my own personality which I took away from those forty-eight hours: I do not respond well to pick-up lines.

It's not that random friendly attempts at conversation from men I don't know set me on edge. Believe it or not, I don't unleash streams of vitriol at the men who come at me with their somewhat awkward, always unsolicited overtures of interest. To be honest, I don't even (in general) find them all that annoying. Perhaps because they're so new to me, I'm still rather touched by the notice when it occurs. (And it doesn't often.) The trouble is, I just don't know what to do with it.

Now maybe this comes about as the logical result of living my teenage years (you know, "sweet 16" and all that, when most girls are learning the gentle arts of...well...being girls) secure in the conviction that I would be a nun, and that I could therefore leave all that ridiculous "girl stuff" to my friends and sisters. As a college student I'd come through that conviction well enough, but I'm afraid I'd missed something on the old boy front. Men? What the heck are those? That's been my typical response to all things of the "boy-girl-girl-boy" variety for pretty much my entire young adult life. It's only in very recent years that I've even stumbled across some semblence of a sense of fashion, for goodness' sake.

Whatever the reason(s), the sad truth remains that when I'm faced now with masculine interest of just about any variety (except, "Hey lady, you're in my way" or "Hey baby," to both of which I respond without hesitation or difficulty, and always appropriately), I simply do not know how to react. And so, in typical Mary Beth fashion, as a rule I just don't act. I put on my kindest, most distant smile, respond with as few words as are civilly permissible, and withdraw.

And think of all the clever, open, engaging things I should have said later.

Saturday morning gave me my first glimmer of this truth about myself. I had several hours free to grade some MODG student work before my one piano lesson for the day, so I betook myself to Panera where I indulged in a breakfast sandwich and a cup of tea as I read 12th grade Government papers. I had a seat next to a window overlooking their outdoor seating area, and occasionally I'd glance up and watch people go by. At one point, a youngish man took a seat at one of the outdoor tables with a mug of coffee and a copy of In Conversation with God. I thought, "Hmm, that's a neat idea. Bring your spiritual reading to Panera." And I went back to grading. After a few minutes I guess he decided it was too cold outside for reflection, because he got up and brought his beverage and his reading materials into the restaurant, making a beeline for the booth that was right behind my table. I glanced up, caught his eye (not on purpose, lest you get the wrong idea, oh readers), and smiled a polite and (I hoped) distant smile. He walked past, and then I heard a distracted, very apologetic, "I'm sorry" at my elbow.

I turned. He had set his books down and was now looking at me with an almost sad expression on his face. "Sorry?" I thought. "Good gracious, for what?" But all I said was, "Excuse me?"

"I love your miraculous medal," he replied.

(The first thought that flashed through my mind was: email forward--"Did you feel what I felt when we dipped our hands in the holy water together?" And it was all I could do to keep from bursting out laughing.)

And I said: "Oh, thanks," and went back to grading.

"The young man went away sad"... or relieved...or both.

And then Sunday. I drove out to Reston to see Katie and Sam and Katie's family at her parents' house. I went out early and stopped at Reston Town Center (for reasons which I am not at liberty to divulge, but they involved a particular party's birthday). Having an hour to kill after my errands were finished, I stopped in at Starbucks, purchased a brownie (to celebrate Sunday) and a coffee, and sat down to read a bit of the novel I'm currenty working through, F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender Is the Night. I settled myself in the quietest corner of the very busy coffee shop, near an older man who was filing taxes and a youngish (I say "ish" because, while I'm relatively certain he couldn't have been a day over 35, his hair was almost entirely gray. But he wasn't bad looking at all...not that I noticed, of course) man doing work of some variety on a lap top.

I read without interruption for a good twenty minutes. It was beautiful. Reading Fitzgerald is like having a love affair with the English language. And then It Happened. The youngish fellow stopped his work and stretched and looked at his watch, and almost simultaneously with a very large and (I'm sure) gratifying yawn asked, "How's Fitzgerald treating you?" I had the initial impression that his question was directed at the wall above my head, so I almost didn't reply. Then I realized the guy was grinning at me.

So I put on my best closed-face, "I'm sure you're very nice, but I don't know you from Adam and I definitely don't know what to say to you" smile and replied, "Good. I love it."

"Well, I have a dictionary in here," he picked up a blackberry from the table and waved it in the air, "if you need it. Fitzgerald was one of the most pedantic authors of all time." Given my love of Fitzgerald's crafting of the English language, I can't quite agree with that description. I did, however, have to admire a guy who uses the word "pedantic" in normal conversation. Not sure what to say, I nodded and said, "Thanks! Hey, that's why I read him."

And returned to reading. Conversation: dead in the water. Five minutes later I gathered my things and left.

This does not bode well for my future life, does it?

Memoirs of a Miser

Here is a sad story.

Mary Beth discouraged me from sharing this story. It is so sad that it makes her feel, as she put it, "sick." I suspect what she experiences is that heart-dropping-into-your-stomach feeling you get when you are reminded of something massively unpleasant. I know because I get the same feeling sometimes. It is a very sad story.

One day in early December I went out to buy a pair of leather gloves. My objective was leather gloves and leather gloves only. I had never owned a pair of sturdy leather gloves and, being that my hands are almost always cold, especially in December when the rest of me is almost always cold along with them, having to shove my hands in my pockets every time I ventured outdoors was putting said gloves constantly in the front of my thoughts.

When I buy something that I can wear, I take great care in making sure it is the best I can afford. Even before the Great Glove Day, I had been out numerous times eliminating any cheap alternatives that might have blurred my budgeted mind. I also saved money for a bit so this excursion could be considered a "splurge." (I never splurge.)

The gloves on my mind that day were from Banana Republic. It was the greatest purchase I had made in a long time. Expensive enough that they were worth it. Black leather. Unadorned. Timeless. Beautiful. I felt classy just putting them on.

I never knew such a luxury as warm hands. After that I never went outside without them. I made sure I knew their whereabouts before I even considered whether or not I had a coat to put on. I took care of them. I kept them in my pocketbook when I didn't need them, so they would never be lost.

Then happened the Fatal Night.

I worked until closing. My sister came to pick me up. At this time we still lived in the yellow house a few miles away from my store. When I got in the car I took my gloves off absentmindedly and put them into my pocketbook. Or so I thought...

The next day I had to leave for the bus stop in a hurry. I checked my purse for my gloves, but they were gone. I thought perhaps I had removed them the night before (often I find myself, for no reason whatsoever, moving an object from one place to another. People say this is a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder), but they were in none of the places I usually put things, and I did not have time to conduct a proper search. I left without them.

All day at work I thought and thought about where I could have put my leather gloves. In my mind I retraced my steps from the night before. Left store wearing gloves. Got into car wearing gloves. Took gloves off in car. Climbed out of car. Entered house. No more gloves!

Realization struck. My stomach dropped as I remembered that the gloves had sat in my lap during that car ride, not in my purse as I supposed. They must have fallen to the ground when I unfolded myself from the seat and stood. It was the only explanation. They must still be on the ground then, I thought, unless someone has taken them! This piece of the puzzle was resolved and for the rest of the day I itched to get home and rescue them.

That evening my sister again gave me a ride home. She gave me hope when I related my woes to her; apparently she had seen the gloves on the ground that morning, but left them there thinking they belonged to some other cold-handed soul. Then they may still be there, I thought. It had snowed the night before, and some of that day, and when I got home the ground was coated. Nevertheless I searched, digging and kicking up snow in my efforts to reclaim my prized leather gloves. But the search resulted in nothing.

We went inside and I shared my loss with our two other roommates, both of whom saw the gloves lying in the yard that day, but neither of whom picked them up, for the same reason Mary Beth didn't. Those were good leather gloves, and by now they were long gone. Someone stole my gloves off my own lawn. I had to shut myself in my room for a little while. I felt like someone who's just had his pocket picked of something dear and valuable.

Mary Beth doesn't like me to tell this story because she feels partly to blame. "I should have just picked them up," she kept saying. But I do hope she doesn't still beat herself up, because I am not upset with her or anyone (aside from myself, a little, for being so careless). I just hope whoever nabbed those gloves off the grass needed them more than I do, because as long as that's the case, I don't really mind making room in my pockets for my hands.

Is It Spring Yet?

See title.

In With the New

I've been twenty days in the new apartment. I'm charmed.

We have two mattresses, one dresser, two floor lamps, two bookshelves, a chest, a rocking chair, two rugs, one table, and some kitchen appliances and miscellaneous articles. We intend for it to be a fully furnished apartment eventually, but I sort of like it this way.

Oh, we also have a writing desk and its accompanying chair. In case we want to write letters. Or draw a picture.

I've become so fond of my mattress on the floor that I don't know if I will ever go back to real beds again.

Most reading is done on the floor, in my case, due to lack of a sofa and the fact that if I attempt to read on my mattress, I will fall asleep. Which would defeat the purpose of owning the books, who in turn occupy the bookshelves.

The hardwood floors are exciting because when I wear socks I can slide across them.

The coat closet is very large. I bet we could squeeze up to eight people in it if we wanted to. But that would be silly because we can't have eight people over at a time, because I broke one of the drinking glasses so now there are only three, which means we can only ever have one guest.

(We broke this rule last night and had three girls over for dinner, but we drank wine from wine glasses, and Mary Beth has plenty of those, so the issue was avoided altogether.)

We have our own washer and dryer, and they are hidden tactfully away in a closet. It is convenient because I can use them when my garments are soiled and forget about them the rest of the time. But don't worry, that isn't how I treat my Actual friends.

There is a spacious linen closet right in the bathroom! No more drip-drying when I forget to bring a towel in with me when I shower!

The refrigerator is cold, and the freezer is colder. The oven is warm when I make it warm, and the gas stove lights up as it should. Altogether we have a very functional kitchen.

There is a comfortable view from the living room window of the lovely homes across the street. Today it is snowing so it is a very white view. Some disgruntled neighbors are digging their cars out, but usually they are very pleasant people.

Work is a ten-minute walk for me now. Nine on good days. Twelve on slow days. Perfect except for the fact that it's January and I have no gloves.*

Oh yes, and we can heat and cool each room individually. Except the coat closet is always cold, no matter what.

One of my favorite things about our new home, though, is that there are none of those beastly camel crickets hopping around and creeping up walls and attacking me in the night. I could live here forever for that luxury.

*See "Memoirs of a Miser," posted 02/12/10

My Love Affair

I fell in love on the metro this week.

At least I fell into daydreaming. I had to take a later train after a morning meeting on Wednesday, so the 9:00 a.m. rush was past. There were more empty seats than occupied ones on the yellow line train at King Street. I took a seat by the window and opened Graham Greene. Reading Graham Greene always puts me in the mood for falling in love, though I can't really explain why that's the case. I had five pages left of The End of the Affair, and I dove into them with divided heart--half delighted in reading Greene, the other half sad that there were only five pages left. For the seven and a half minutes (and three metro stops) it took me to get through those five pages, I paid no attention to the world.

Then I reached the end (sorrow!) and closed the book and put it away, and took a long look around me. And there he was. A dark-haired soldier in uniform with his right arm in a sling.

I probably wouldn't have noticed him much at all except that just at the moment I happened to glance in his direction he happened to be glancing in mine. Our eyes met (excuse the cliche), and he smiled a small, amused smile and then looked deliberately away.

I liked him right off. This never happens, especially not on the metro. When I happen to make eye contact with men on the metro, my first reaction is almost always annoyance, if not complete revulsion. The sorts of men who will make eye contact with ladies on the metro tend to look at us as a possiblity, a conquest they could laugh about with their friends later. Then there are my favorites--the obviously Christian guys who read Bibles or books with titles like Finding Christ in the Modern World. I also like the stuffy literary types who grow beards and wear glasses and read scientific journals and Arabic texts. Those guys make it a point never to look at anything that might be remotely female, so they're safe. (Safe from what exactly, I've never been able to figure out. But don't worry--it won't get them.)

But this soldier was different. His expression didn't say, "Hey baby," and it didn't say, "Excuse me, miss, but I have more important things to do, as you can see...." It just said, "Hi."

I liked that he didn't keep staring (though we made eye contact once or twice more). I liked that he was a soldier, and I liked that his arm was broken. Most of all, I liked that he had the sort of face that belongs to a person with a good sense of humor. His whole demeanor said, "I'd tell you a joke if I knew you, and we'd both laugh, because we'd agree that it was funny." And I liked that, though we transferred to the same red line train (and the same car) at Gallery Place, he didn't try to strike up a conversation.

Two stops later, I got off the train, he stayed on it, and it rumbled off as I made my way up the escalator to Massachusetts Avenue.

And that was that.

I think what I like best is that I'll never see him again. But I was in love for twenty minutes, and that was kind of nice.

How To Catch A Misfit

I spent today at the Boulevard in Largo. I helped the ladies of Largo select shoes.

I sell shoes. It's what I do. When ladies need shoes, I'm the one they come to.

I left work around 6:15 this evening. It had been a long day. A long day in Largo. My throat was dry and my feet hurt. Outside was darkening and the wind was cold. But I didn't mind. All the ladies of Largo left happy who entered my shoe store today.

I made my way to the metro. I passed a man.

I had passed several men, and many ladies too, but this man was not like those men. He wore the most serious of expressions. There was something in the way he walked that made him different, and I think the only difference was that there was absolutely nothing in the way he walked. He was a tall, lean black man, dressed all in black. He was slow and cool, and he knew it. He was young but he walked with a cane. It was dark but he wore sunglasses. There was nothing intimidating in his demeanor, but he walked like someone around whom interesting things could happen at any moment.

Printed on his t-shirt was the word "Misfit."

I had taken three steps past him when he called back to me. I knew he would. He was the sort of person you just know will strike up a conversation on passing you at the Boulevard in Largo.

"Excuse me, can I ask you something?"

I turned around. Considered with apprehension what manner of question this particular man could have for me, and decided I was much too interested to say no.

"Go."

"What do you think a 'misfit' is?" he asked, taking a step closer and indicating his shirt.

I promptly answered, "You." At this his serious expression melted and a grin lit his face.

"That's a pretty good guess!" Then the seriousness resumed.

"I'm Misfit, by the way. I'm a rapper. I rap. My rap name is Misfit."

Misfit proceeded to invite me to his show that night. Single tickets for only two dollars. But I had just finished a long day of selling shoes to ladies in Largo, and my throat was dry, and my feet hurt. I declined. So he gave me his card.

"Well then check out my website. Does your phone have a camera?"

"Uh, yeah."

"Could you take a picture of me?"

So I did.


"Okay, well it was nice meeting you. I'm Misfit, and your name is...?"

"Jean."

"Nice meeting you, Jean. Could you email that picture to me? My email is on the card."

"I'll try not to forget."

"Okay. Later." And he turned slowly and walked away.

This is unlike me, but I will refrain from cheapening his seriousness during this encounter. I will do this by not saying another word.

"The Mysteries of Female Life"

"Over the mysteries of female life, there is drawn a veil--best left undisturbed." Thus spoke John Brooke in Louisa Mae Alcott's Little Women.

As one who has lived her entire life behind said veil, I have to say that this utterance has always given me some pause. Perhaps my life is more interesting than I think it is, but I have a hard time believing it. Mysteries? Really?

I am the oldest girl of five girls, with scores of female friends, acquaintances, neighbors, and colleagues. I have lived with at least seven female roommates. Not a day goes by that I don't spend at least half of it in company with other females, and let me say: we're not all that mysterious. When you come right down to it, women (at least most of those with whom I have had the pleasure of being acquainted, and even more so those with whom I have lived and worked for any amount of time) are mostly interested in men. Whether meeting them or dating them, getting engaged to them or marrying them, thus is the deep-seated desire of every woman, no matter how voraciously she denies it. Even when she denies it, in fact, deep down she hopes that some man will eventually recognize her independence and love her for it. So the "mysterious" life they lead seems to revolve in some sense around that final goal.

I don't say this to belittle my sex. I merely state a fact. You might think of this statement as an expose of womanhood. It's that simple.

In my 23 short years, I have often tried to spend an hour in the company of other females without bringing up (even once) the topic of men. And in all those 23 years, I have succeeded in this endeavor exactly once. I spent a deligthful hour and a half in a coffee shop with a young lady of an intelletual bent, and we discussed political philosophy like it was our job. It took me a little while, as I mulled over our conversation later, to put my finger on what it was that made this discussion stand out in my mind against other similar coffee dates with my girl friends. Only after serious reflection did it dawn on me that we hadn't brought up "boys" at all.

I learned later that this friend had only recently begun dating a young man with whom we were both acquainted--and that she was a little bit uncomfortable bringing it up. So even while we didn't discuss "boys," the topic was there, hiding under the surface the whole time.

I tell you, men pervade our existence from the inside out. Sometimes this infuriates me so much that I can hardly sit still. Just once, I often think, I would like to spend an evening (or even an hour) with girls. No boys allowed. But men manage to creep into even the most exclusively feminine affairs. In fact, the more females I manage to gather into one place, the worse it gets. They spend hours discussing the "who's who" of dating, engagements, marriage preparations, wedding showers, weddings, pregnancies, baby showers, and child rearing. Many a so-called "ladies' night" I have spent listening to so-and-so wax eloquent on the details of getting proposed to, or patting the shoulder of so-and-so who just broke up with the boyfriend of eight months. Many an hour I have wiled away hearing the dating woes of friends, sisters, new acquaintances, and even some complete strangers.

And the older I get, the worse it gets. In high school I was convinced that when I went away to college I would discover young women who had more important things to discuss. How wrong I was. No matter how often we formed study groups to discuss Metaphysics or Moral Theology, the topic always seemed to devolve into "who likes who." So I looked toward professional life as an escape, only to be disappointed again. Women in the office talk about their boyfriends or their husbands. Roommates discuss fiancees, boyfriends, or boy "interests." And when there are no actual boys to discuss, they discuss hypothetical ones. "My future husband..." "The perfect guy..."

These men have an "in" in every facet of our existence, actually.

And they call it a mystery? Poor fellows. It would seem that they really are just clueless.

And poor deluded gentleman callers sit in our mismatched chairs and eat our cookies and peer around at our housekeeping with nervous, awed expressions on their faces, thinking themselves admitted at last to the holy of holies. At last, they have been permitted to step behind the veil--yet somehow the mystery remains. "What," they all clearly wonder (we know this, because some have the audacity to ask), "do these girls do, anyway?" And they clearly feel that here is a mystery worth solving. (Now, of course: we only permit those gentlemen we like to sit in our mismatched chairs and eat our cookies; thus they may and should feel that they have been admitted to something sacred. But again, I must insist: there is no mystery here.)

Or is there?

Is there perhaps something mysterious in the inexplicable comfort one feels while sitting for an hour in the company of a good woman...or a few good women?

Is there something mysterious about a woman's uncanny ability to look someone in the face and know (just know) when something is wrong?

Is there something mysterious about the delight we take in making others happy?

And is there just maybe something mysterious about that very focus on men which makes up the whole mystery of who and why we are?

As I grow to know more and more truly good women, I can only surmise that there must be more here than meets the eye. And perhaps a truly beautiful mystery lies behind the words a woman speaks when she prefaces most statements with: "When I have children..."

So maybe John Brooke was right after all.

And maybe, despite my whining and fussing over the facts, I'm just as proud as the next girl to be part of that mystery.