2nd Round of the Day

It's now officially Day 6 set of of my 21 days of thankfulness!

Being tall. I spent most of my childhood hating my height, most of my high school years wishing I was taller, but I think I'm finally at the point where I'm grateful for being taller than average but not a giantess.

An early Easter package from my parents! They always know how to surprise me and brighten my day. Plus, they included the best easter candy ever: Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs. (Well, maybe second-best. I do love Jellybelly jellybeans.... But Reese's are still amazing.)

A toilet that isn't clogging. That's right: I'm thankful for a working toilet. It's the small graces, you know?

Alcohol Acceptance

I’ve never felt comfortable around alcohol. I’ve been called judgmental, but I don’t think that is true. I don’t look down on others who drink; I just don’t feel comfortable in their presence.

Much of my discomfort, I believe, is due to my childhood experience. I grew up in a household where having a drink signified a special occasion. My parents rarely drank, and when they did, it marked a holiday or some other celebratory event. My mother never drank (and still doesn’t drink) more than half a glass of wine at a time, and my dad might have two or maybe three glasses of wine, at best. Beer was a rare and unusual guest in our refrigerator, since no one in my family drank it, and although we had a nearly-full liquor cabinet, it probably hasn’t been touched since before my sister or I were born.

To me, this makes the idea of having a casual beer with dinner or drinking a glass of whiskey before bed almost outrageous. The practice seems a caricature of American life: something shown on television or in the movies, but not an activity undertaken by people in real life.

Then, of course, I grew up. First, I went to college, where alcohol was illegal for most students, yet consumed in excess. Here, drinking still marked a special occasion—it was just occasion of drinking. Which, of course, was celebrated almost every night. The quantity and frequency with which it was consumed didn’t make me feel any more comfortable around alcohol; actually, it made me even less comfortable.

I really did try to engage in “college life”: I attended various parties and attempted to participate. I played beer pong, so long as my partner drank the beer, and some friends even let me play flip-cup with water. These instances were, however, rare. Most parties were just loud, rowdy, drunken stupid debauchery. I had no desire to act foolish or out-of-control in the company of other foolish teenagers . . . so suffice to say, I rarely had a good time.

Then, I graduated and moved to New York City. Here, drinking is equally ubiquitous, but people regard the activity much more casually. Attending happy hour is the most popular and acceptable way to be social, and no one looks at you twice whether you are sipping your first glass of wine or polishing off your fourth mixed drink.

It is in this atmosphere, and under the pressure to be “social,” that I have begun to relax my attitude toward alcohol. In doing so, I have confirmed that I really don’t like the taste of alcohol. I will only drink wine that tastes like juice (i.e. Manischewitz, Sangria, or Riesling), beer that tastes like pop (i.e. hard cider…or “hardly alcohol” as some might say), or shots that taste like candy (excepting tequila, which I will admit to enjoying).

Furthermore, I may have relaxed my attitude toward alcohol, but that has made me no more relaxed about the act of drinking. I still find regular nightly drinks to be an odd phenomenon (and regard the possibility of the drinker’s dependency with suspicion), and I feel no more comfortable around drunken friends or colleagues now than I felt around drunken friends or acquaintances in college. Since I have permitted myself a happy hour or two, though, I have found much more acceptance and camaraderie with my “adult” friends and colleagues than I ever felt with my fellow college students. And that is worth the two hours and $20 spent . . . whether I’m comfortable or not.

"Outed" by your family

When you bring someone--a friend, boyfriend, doesn't matter who--home for the first time, your family is bound to say (or do) something embarrassing. They're your family; it's their job. If you're lucky, it'll be something minor, hopefully singular, and not worth mentioning in future conversations. If you're unlucky, it will be humiliating enough that a) your guest will never speak to you again or b) your guest will emerge armed with such teasing-worthy ammunition that you hope they will never speak to you again. The latter is what happened to me.

It started with the Allison Shuffle. This is a move--a dance, in fact--which I used to perform back when I was very young, when I got extremely upset. By extremely upset, I mean on-the-brink-of-throwing-a-tantrum upset: usually standing in the doorway of my parents' den, demanding something I couldn't have or whining about some sort of mandatory duty that they were making me do. I'd start stamping my feet as my pitch raised, since they inevitably would be very mild-mannered about the whole thing, which of course felt like they were ignoring me and was not achieving what I wanted. Then, my dad would, in his snarkiest voice, say, "There goes the Allison Shuffle," and off went my legs, in all directions, uncontrollably stamping and shuffling and flailing to beat the band.

This story, of course, was relayed to my guest, R___, within the first hour of his arrival at my hometown residence. I suppose my family wanted to hit him with the most embarrassing possible story first, since the next few were really just hyperbolic illustrations of character traits R___ already believed me to possess.

For instance: one day, I arrived home from school and, in a huge huff, slammed a test down on the table. My dad, who was sitting at the table, looked at the test. Seeing that it had a 92% scribbled at the top, he asked me what was wrong. In complete dismay, I answered, "It's not 100." My dad really relished telling R___ that story.

Meanwhile, a story my sister reveled in telling was that of my coming home, climbing to the top of our stairs, and shouting "F***!" at the top of my lungs. Clearly I had assumed no one was home, and I was very frustrated at something a certain love interest of mine had said/not said or done/not done at the time. I rarely expressed my frustration at this "certain someone," and so, thinking that I had the house all to myself, I had decided to "let loose." Apparently, my sister found this very amusing and, moreover, worthy of sharing with R___, who also found it quite amusing.

Luckily, apart from those rather embarrassing stories, I emerged otherwise unscathed. And what's more, I intend to be the "guest" this summer and dig into R___'s family archive of embarrassing stories....

Family Meetings

It’s funny how memories can remain hidden, boxed away in the tiniest nook and crannies of our minds and then, suddenly, jump out shedding dust bunnies and spider webs, to appear exactly like we remembered them. Amazing, really. And they do this at the most random of times.

I was in Singapore—as you must know by now, if you are at all a faithful reader—and on one of many bus rides with Angela. That’s how we got most everywhere, Angela and I: on the bus. In order to own a car in Singapore, you just first purchase a license to own the car, as cars are limited due to the size of the island. Then you may purchase the car, which you may only own for as long as the license permits. In effect, most residents use public transportation, the most convenient of which is buses. (They also have a subway system, but the island is so small, it only has two lines!)

In any case, we were on the bus. Most likely, we were discussing some comparative topic such as our families or our parents or rules we had growing up, but really, we could have been discussing mostly anything; the mind works in mysterious ways. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I remembered Family Meetings.

Family Meetings were scheduled events that my immediate family held on the first Saturday of every month while I was growing up. Gradually, the regularity of these meetings grew to be less and less, but the purpose and format of the meetings remained the same. The four of us—my mother, father, sister, and I—would sit down around our kitchen table. One of us was deemed the Holder of the Gavel and would commence the meeting by striking a red plastic hammer on the table with stern authoritativeness. Then, the Scribe—another family member; initially my mother, whose handwriting was the nicest, until I learned to write well enough and appointed myself in her place—would read through Old Business meeting notes from the last meeting. If there was any outstanding business to be taken care of, that is what we discussed first. If not, standard procedure was to move on to New Business.

New Business rarely varied from month-to-month and was usually most focused upon the negotiation/re-delegation of household chores. In return for a weekly allowance that vaguely corresponded with our age (I believe I received about two dollars by the time I was twelve, whereas my sister at that time—three-and-a-half years my junior—was still receiving a dollar twenty-five), my sister and I shared several daily and weekly household tasks. These included setting and clearing the table, vacuuming the first floor, and collecting the household trash. Because the latter two tasks were weekly and the former were daily, we further split the setting of the table into parts: silverware, plates, napkins, drinks, and condiments. We would split these as well, since each of us considered certain tasks least desirable and would barter to avoid them. Unfortunately, of course, we both considered getting the drinks the very least desirable task. This was because taking drink orders meant hunting down every member of the family, wherever they were in the house, and then knowing what beverages were available (because they would inevitably ask), and then remembering to offer ice or not (because sometimes Dad wanted ice, sometimes he didn’t; Mom almost never did). The other least desirable task was setting out condiments, and this was because no matter how hard you tried, you inevitably forgot something someone wanted and would have to get up in the middle of the meal and get it.

Alternatively, I hated clearing the table, which my sister didn’t seem to mind, so usually if I was willing to take at least one of the Least Desirable Tasks and most of the others, we could strike a bargain. The weekly chores were a bit more difficult to negotiate, as neither of us wanted to use up one extra minute of our weekend dragging the vacuum cleaner up from the basement and winding/unwinding the forever-long cord. Therefore, we alternated: one month I would take out the garbage every week and Amy would vacuum. The next month, Amy would take out the garbage and I would vacuum.

This chore alternation was dutifully recorded in our trusty Family Meeting ledger—a hard black binder filled with sheets of loose leaf paper. Additionally, when the table-setting tasks had been determined, those were also set down in writing.

Aside from chores, we didn’t often have other New Business to discuss, except in the summers. Then, we would usually also determine the specifics of our Yard Sale (who was selling what, when we would gather and price our things, the date/time of the sale, etc.), who was responsible for finding a cat-sitter for Twinkie (my cat and, therefore, almost always my responsibility) when we went on vacation, and any other concerns we, as family members, might want to raise with the rest of the family.

At the end, the Scribe would conclude by recording business left “Open” for the next meeting, if necessary. My mother then usually chose a closing song for us to sing, and the Holder of the Gavel would finally conclude our meeting with an authoritative rapping of the hollow red tool. The gavel and binder would then be stored away on one of our kitchen shelves until next month’s meeting.

Remembering these meetings makes me wonder about my childhood, but moreover, it makes me wonder where my parents came up with the idea. I would almost guarantee that no other family held monthly Family Meetings, and if they did, certainly not to the formal extent that my family did, with rigorous notes and a proper gavel-pounding, no less. Did my mother read this idea in a parenting book somewhere? Or was my father somehow creative enough to teach his children cooperation and corporate structure together by instituting this practice?

And finally, if this benign memory was lost to me for so long, what other childhood memories might I be able to coax out of the catacombs of my brain?

Theme Parks

I can remember going to Disney World when I was in second grade like it was yesterday. I remember it in the way I wrote my memoir: in scenes, moments, snapshots of time and experience that are as vivid as a color, a taste, an image. I remember dad posing, silly as anything, beside a lifesize cardboard cutout of Jessica Rabbit and Amy pretending to be run over by the crazy weasels’ steamroller while mom took pictures. I remember eating the cheesiest pizza ever beside our hotel pool, with its blue-as-sapphire water and palm trees and water slides and everyone in their tropical-colored bathing suits. I remember how intense Space Mountain felt, hurtling through the dark at what felt like breakneck speeds, and how larger-than-life the Honey I Shrunk the Kids playground felt, as we climbed up huge plastic stalks of grass and crawled through house-sized Lego holes.

I don’t remember my second trip to Disney World nearly so well. I was definitely older when we went back—maybe sixteen?—and when I looked around, everything had lost its sparkle. The Magic Kingdom was no longer magic; just a big, expensive façade, representing America’s capitalism at its finest. Space Mountain didn’t feel as fast, and although my sister and I were picked as the audience participants for one MGM studio show, the special-ness of such an experience was somehow lacking, since I knew that ten minutes later, two other nameless faces would be performing the exact same tasks we had just performed. Everything seemed smaller, duller, slower, less intense. I felt no need to do everything all at once, because I felt no need to do everything at all.

This is exactly how I felt going on the UR senior trip to Darien Lake. I suppose, in a way, my feelings of letdown were a bit my own fault. I had been told it was a former Six Flags theme park and, therefore, had six different roller coasters. I love roller coasters, and I found several different groups of friends who also love roller coasters, so I became increasingly excited about the possibility of spending my day riding roller coasters with different groups of friends. However, what happened in reality is exactly what happened upon my return trip to Disney World. I do love roller coasters, but the older I get, the more they lose their appeal. What used to be a terrifying, exhilarating experience is now just one that, the first time, is new, interesting, hopefully surprising, and unfortunately usually a bit jarring, but after one or two rides, I’ve had enough. Multiply that by six roller coasters, take into account the fact that our trip took place on Mother’s Day when the sky was the color of slate and the high only reached the low 60s, and you’ll understand that my trip to Darien Lake was pretty much over within two hours. Along with most of my friends, I stuck it out for two more hours, tallying up six rides on Superman (officially called “The Ride of Steel” and hands-down the best ride in the park) and even trying a spinny ride or two, but all of the rides that held such appeal when I was a child now fail to thrill me. If, past the age of sixteen, bumper cars can’t get me excited, forget about those half-bicycle cars can’t even veer off of their track.

Finally, all of this speculation brings me to some thoughts on parenting. How do parents deal with that childish excitement we exude as discover the world as a magical place of thrills and wonders without squelching it? Because surely they only see the world as the same tired old thing. Do they fake excitement over the things we jump up and down and squeal about? Or is our excitement that infectious? Perhaps it’s a little of both. I surely hope so if I am ever to become a parent. If not, it is going to be an even more exhausting endeavor than I anticipated, and trust me—I would never downplay the challenges of parenting.

It’s Time

In my suite, I’m probably considered the “odd-man-out.” I’m the only single girl, and of the girls in the suite, I guess I would be considered the “together” one. I have my own friends, my own activities, my own schedule; my world is not confined to those people I met freshman year, nor is it confined to the pastimes of those people around me, if I do not enjoy them (i.e excessive amounts of Magic and Guitar Hero). Granted, I do have my bad days and go on the occasional rant concerning a particularly nasty customer at Hillside or my internet-retarded computer, but for the most part I keep to myself and am certainly the least likely to “let loose” in a party situation or otherwise. Therefore, it would probably be a pretty accurate to assume that my roommate Ben has ever heard me squeal before. That is, until four days ago.

We were the only two in the suite—he was playing Guitar Hero in the lounge, and I was checking my e-mail in my room. (For some reason, my internet had decided to work at that particular moment in time. It is being particularly temperamental this semester.) Recently, I have been doing a lot of job-searching and resume-preparing, considering everything from how to go about selling myself to Random House to whether or not I wanted to continue through the recruitment process for Teach for America. In effect, I had completely forgotten that I had applied for the Time, Inc. summer internship program. I had applied to this program on somewhat of a crossed-fingers basis, because traditionally the program recruits college juniors, and I am—of course—a graduating senior. However, I am most certainly qualified for the position, and so I applied.

Well, to make a long story short, I got the job. Congratulations! read the e-mail. You have been selected out of over 600 applicants as one of our 47 Editorial Interns for summer 2008!

Yes, I squealed. I was just so excited! I mean, this takes a tremendous amount of pressure off of my shoulders for the next few months. Granted, it is only an internship, which means it will only employ me for June and July, but it will put me right in NYC, which means that I will be right there if (or hopefully, when) employers want to interview me. What’s more, the internship pays to house me in Columbia University’s summer dormitories, which gives me the perfect time, location, and financial cushioning to find a “real” NYC apartment.

On the semi-downside, I was not placed into any of my top three magazine choices. I will be working for This Old House magazine this summer, which seems from its website to be an interior decorating/fix-it-up type of magazine. (I will have to find and read a few copies sometime soon to get a better idea.) However, on the upside, I will get to work in the editorial department, which is the most important thing. And I will get to put Time Inc. on my resume—how impressive is that?!

Meanwhile, back in Rochester, I am beginning to do some freelance editing work for a fellow student. However, things have gotten more legally complicated than I had anticipated. Why can’t people just know what they want and spell it out clearly? I think the problem is that people simply don’t know what editors are for, or what they do. It’s a darned tough job, and certainly just as artful in terms of crafting the piece of work! So now I have to not only do the work of editing the student’s manuscript, I also have to edit the contract before I agree to it. Between that and all of the paperwork for the Time internship, I am simply drowning in legal technicalities!

Which brings me to my final point: I don’t know whether it is age or maturity or what, but the more time that passes and the closer to “independence” I believe I come, the more I discover that I rely on my parents. And it terrifies me. I have been back-and-forth with them over paperwork and decisions and terms and goodness-knows what else more than I care to admit. What is going to happen when they are no longer around? Sure, there are other people I could go to in order to ask questions, but they are my parents, and I am a priority to them. They answer my questions quickly and thoroughly because they care. I truly pity anyone who does not have such wonderful people in their life.

But parents cannot last forever. I am about to graduate college and get a job. When does the day come when all that knowledge magically transfers from them to me, and I become The Wise Self-Sufficient Adult?

From Prom Dresses to Business Suits: four short years

I felt like I was back in high school, getting ready for a homecoming dance. We trooped between every major department store in the mall, during which time I spent most of my energy struggling into and out of countless ill-fitted garments. Putting things back onto their hangers was almost as difficult as putting them onto my body. Sizing proved to be just as illogical as it ever has been (I fit into everything from a 4 to a 12, depending on designer), and, of course, the outfit was not complete without shoes. The only major differences between dress-shopping and suit-shopping were 1) the “we” trooping between stores consisted of me and my parents (not me and my friends), 2) the purchases were all made in the women’s department (rather than the junior’s or formal wear departments), and 3) the price: I never spent more than $100 total for any complete homecoming or prom getup (including makeup, hair, jewelry, shoes, etc.). The business suite alone—minus the blouse to go underneath and high-heeled shoes that will prevent the pants from mopping the floor—cost almost $180. Why is becoming a Real Adult so expensive?

Not to mention stressful. I am now spending the days of my Christmas Break—which were once filled with relaxed, homework- and study-free sleep and pleasure reading—researching different publishing houses and brainstorming responses to questions I may be asked at my Random House interview. My pleasure reading now alternates between Bill Bryson’s The Mother Tongue—which I checked out of Rush Rhees library in order to read for fun over break—and How to Interview like an MBA—which a near-and-dear friend gave me as a Christmas present, and which I am steadily plowing through as if it were a textbook, taking copious notes and sticky-tabbing every relevant page.

Meanwhile, I am trying to establish all the places I want/need to go while I am actually in New York City (my original destinations of NBC and the CIC career fair as well as Columbia University Press and perhaps Oxford University Press), as well as all of the people I am going to try to see (my cousin, a former UR writing instructor, the director of my one-act play from when it was performed at UR my freshman year). I need to find myself a map, compile all of my directions, find my plane tickets, print out copies of my resume, and fit all of these things into a briefcase I do not yet have.

Growing up is too much work.

Impatience: more from the Family Weekend

“Are you really going to drink that?” My sister stared at the full mug of tea in my hands.

“Um, yeah.” I squeezed out a teaspoonful of honey and started stirring it into the tea.

“Al-ieeee.” She widened her eyes meaningfully. The look was half-pleading, half-annoyed.

“Chill out.” I looked across the table. “Look, mom isn’t even done with her cereal yet.”

We were talking under our breaths, sitting at my grandparents’ kitchen table. My mom, grandma, and grandpa sat around the other side. My dad was in the bathroom, “readying” himself for the five-hour drive home. With enough “preparation,” we would hopefully not have to stop for more than one bathroom break.

Meanwhile, it was taking all of Amy’s self-control not to run out the door, jump into the car, and drive away without the rest of us.

I had to give my sister credit—she had been awfully patient all weekend. We had arrived Thursday afternoon, just in time to help my aunt and uncle clean out my grandparents’ garage, make lunch, dissemble furniture, cook dinner, and wrestle mattresses into our various sleeping arrangements. (Amy and I slept on the living room floor, my parents slept in the guest room on the mattress left over from a disassembled bed, and my aunt slept on some chair cushions on the kitchen floor.)

The next day, Friday, was Moving Day: we all woke up at seven o’clock, ate breakfast, and started moving things onto the auctioneer’s truck. I was suffering from a massively sore throat, so my morning mood was petulant, at best. My sister had to bear the brunt of my groanings, since we were doing most of the household activities (i.e. dish duty, cleaning out the attic, etc.) in order to avoid the rest of our testy family. Moving alone is stressful enough; moving involving your extended family is enough to make a person crazy.

Friday night, I came down with a fever. It was bad enough that Amy and I had been consigned to sleeping in the stuffy attic—my grandmother and mother both agreed that the air conditioner in the living room had contributed to my sore throat and, therefore, I should no longer sleep there—but I was so disoriented by the fever that every time I woke up and tried to go downstairs to use the bathroom or get a drink of water, I stumbled about, knocking over furniture and boxes (what little was left up there), and frankly making quite a racket, thanks to the attic’s hardwood floors. Amy was tremendously considerate that night, offering to find me Aspirin downstairs, getting me a blanket from my parents’ room, not complaining at all every time I woke her up. Still, the next morning I woke up feeling like death.

Saturday was our family reunion. Considering the night I had just had, I didn’t know whether I wanted to try to attend at all. However, I knew I was expected to be there and that my mother—in particular—would be extremely disappointed if I didn’t go. She, Amy, and I were supposed to play a flute trio, so I agreed to come late, after I took a nap. This meant that poor Amy had to go to the reunion and contend with our crazy extended family all by herself for the first two hours of the picnic—as if her patience hadn’t already been exercised enough.

Everything considered—my illness, our crazy stressed-out family (including my often-overbearing aunt, persnickety grandfather, depressed grandmother, and frustrated cousin)—Amy had dealt with the weekend awfully well. However, every good thing comes to an end, and Sunday morning at 9:05 a.m., she had reached the end of her patience. We were supposed to have left by 9 a.m.

“Come on, Ali,” she muttered as I sipped my tea. “Mom’s done.”
“She still has to go to the bathroom, blow her nose, clear her dishes, all that stuff. Calm down. Fifteen extra minutes is not going to kill you.”

I knew she knew this, and yet it didn’t make her any less frustrated. The funny part was, I knew exactly how she was feeling. It makes me feel old to say “when I was her age,” but I remember being eighteen and stuck somewhere with our family while absolutely itching to be somewhere else. As each minute passed, you become more and more desperate to leave. I could see Amy’s desperation increasing exponentially with every passing minute. The faster we could get home, the faster Amy could go see Dan.

Obviously, a fifteen-minute delay would not kill her. In fact, those fifteen minutes would probably be spent doing nothing more significant than just sitting there at Dan’s house, maybe watching TV. And yet, when you are eighteen, every minute you are not getting closer to your destination, you seem to be getting farther away.

I dumped out the rest of my tea.