I was talking with a friend earlier this evening about the ease with which different people can carry on discussions with total strangers.
My sister can talk to anyone. My friend's friend can get people started about anything. But, my friend thinks he, personally, is shy and is more of a listener than a talker. I can be shy sometimes but I love to talk to total strangers - when I remember to do it.
At times, I get so absorbed in watching and recording details and making up my own stories that I forget that I could be carrying on a conversation instead. That sounds incredibly narcissistic I know, but I really just start thinking about things (or making up stories or essays) and I really do forget to talk - or maybe it's that I don't realize that, while my mind is busy, other people are just sitting there. And lots of people don't do silence well. So they start to tell stories themselves.
Airports, by their very nature, are magnificent people-watching places, bustling and noisy. But once the door’s closed on the plane, it’s all about the silences. So, people start to talk, about anything.
And airplane conversations are some of the best - I've had people tell me all kinds of things about themselves that they'd never tell while solidly and practically on the ground. Suddenly, while rocketing through the sky at umteen bijillion miles per hour, wind whipping through our collective hair – right, that was actually the canned, climate-controlled, recycled air nozzle just above and in front of my face, but you know what I mean – people find they want to bond with someone they’ve never met before.
Flying combines total strangers who are locked into an enclosed space in what is perceived to be an extremely, potentially, dangerous adventure. And usually for an acknowledged length of time that can be anywhere from 1/2 to ten dozen hours, especially if the seatmate snores or blows crumbs or eats with his or her mouth open.
Now elevators also lock strangers into an enclosed space. It could be dangerous if the cable snapped or a fault line opened up under the building or the power went off. There is a pre-determined amount of time that the doors will be closed to access. In short, an elevator, seemingly, could also serve as the same type of catalyst for conversation but the rule of thumb in an elevator is eyes overhead; hands by one's side; mouths closed; wait like you've got somewhere really important to get to when the door opens; and, above all, don't make conversation. It's startling and threatening when someone breaks this last rule. There are people who enjoy breaking that rule just to get a rise out of other elevator patrons - it's threatening, it's diabolical, it’s positively dangerous - and it's also very rare.
Why then, does the elevator not invite such personal confidences as the plane flight? Sure enough there’s silence to be had. Not enough time to bond over fear of a cable snapping or another brown-out across the entire eastern seaboard? No - that's not it. There is a sense of possibility in the elevator ride - the possibility that you might actually see this person again, that you might run into him at the PTA meeting, or her at the local SPCA as she helps her child pick his new cat.
But the airplane is clearly going somewhere - usually somewhere far off. And you'll never see this person again so there’s no harm in baring your soul. There's no reason not to tell them about how you just got laid off and you're living with your best friend but must move on in a week or two to the next friend’s house so you don’t overstay your mooching and you're flying to Dallas for a job interview tomorrow and how you're glad because you're not getting along with the best friend you're living with because they’re too demanding and you probably shouldn’t have moved in anyway but you didn’t want to live with your mother. Because, really, you've been wanting to tell someone but not your other friends because you're embarrassed and you're nervous and because they might be the ones you move in with next. And heck, the person (me) sitting next to you isn't stopping in Dallas anyway; she's flying on to Cleveland. Might as well tell her.
And there's no reason for another you not to tell this same person (me again), now leaving Baltimore for Tulsa, how your husband had cancer, had lost over 60 pounds, wasn't really a big guy anyway but he's fighting back and you're putting all your faith in God on this one. Or, in the softest drawl, how much you love your husband.
Or another you telling this same person, now leaving Cleveland heading straight for Phoenix at a flat run, how you got stuck in the Detroit airport after 9/11 and went to stay with friends for a couple days before driving on over to Cleveland because it was to be one of the first flying out after the imposed airline groundings and - really - you need to get home to San Diego and didn’t want to pay for a hotel another night. You'd actually considered driving across country, but decided to risk the flight anyway, so here you were even though everyone was watching each other out of the corner of their eyes and not really talking to each other and looking for signs of terroristic behavior.
But, honestly, we all felt the need to tell stories that day because, well, we were on one of the first flights out after the crashes and we’d already had to take our shoes off just to get on the plane.
And maybe people tell me this stuff just because I look like I love a good story.
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Back again
Well, I have written - and stopped - and now I think I'm starting again. When the "month" limit was up, I just stopped. It felt like I'd reached my goal (words goal) but I hadn't reached the point - which was to write an entire story.
So - there's a story out there to finish.
Finished reading the 6th Harry Potter. Mixed feelings. I have this hope (don't read further if you don't want to know what happens!!!) that Snape will turn out to have been acting under Dumbledore's orders anyway...because I don't want Dumbledore to have been wrong and because I kinda' like Snape - he did repeatedly save Harry and didn't seem THAT bad. And because I like Alan Rickman too...and don't want him to be the miserable bad guy. But mostly - I don't want things to end with everyone all gone to hell - Voldemort would be enough if everyone else came over to the good side of the force. Draco didn't turn out all that badly there at the end. Can't we just all get along? But then, Diggory is dead, Black is dead, Dumbledore is dead (but with a picture up in the headmaster's office now), and they need a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher.
I won't second guess...but I haven't been disappointed yet. I'll just have to hope that the end - well - that the end justifies the means, so to speak.
So - there's a story out there to finish.
Finished reading the 6th Harry Potter. Mixed feelings. I have this hope (don't read further if you don't want to know what happens!!!) that Snape will turn out to have been acting under Dumbledore's orders anyway...because I don't want Dumbledore to have been wrong and because I kinda' like Snape - he did repeatedly save Harry and didn't seem THAT bad. And because I like Alan Rickman too...and don't want him to be the miserable bad guy. But mostly - I don't want things to end with everyone all gone to hell - Voldemort would be enough if everyone else came over to the good side of the force. Draco didn't turn out all that badly there at the end. Can't we just all get along? But then, Diggory is dead, Black is dead, Dumbledore is dead (but with a picture up in the headmaster's office now), and they need a new Defense against the Dark Arts teacher.
I won't second guess...but I haven't been disappointed yet. I'll just have to hope that the end - well - that the end justifies the means, so to speak.
Saturday, August 06, 2005
Well...post-end of the month
and I haven't done a darn thing more on the story. Just stopped when the pressure was off. I suppose that I should pick back up where I left off. After all, what's the point of all that work if I'm not going to finish the thing?
In the meantime, I'm going to the gym.
In the meantime, I'm going to the gym.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
New ideas...
“The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones.”
– John Maynard Kynes
Monday, August 01, 2005
Less than effective...
Examples of when the analogy is best left buried like a moldy bone in the back yard:
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E-Coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Stan. But unlike Stan, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any PH cleanser.
27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E-Coli and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the East River.
18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Stan. But unlike Stan, this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in any PH cleanser.
27. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
The end...of the month
Well, that's it then. The end of the month. Not the end of my story, but the end of the month's challenge. I hit 50,234 words...and that's good. But now to finish the story!
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