Sing to the Lord a Hillsong

In my busy New York internship life, it’s difficult to find time to pencil in some fun between my workplace obligations of sexual harassment and Xeroxing Xeroxes so that colleagues can Xerox my Xeroxes of Xeroxes and promptly lose them. When I do get a break from having my knees massaged and trying not to vomit, I then find it difficult to find affordable fun. As I’m sure you know, New York is expensive. The temptation is to buy several industrial-sized bottles of wine that taste like the loose change that has collected at the bottom of my purse and lock myself in my room, but even this loses its appeal after the first several times. I say “loses its appeal” when actually I mean I can’t afford it.

My British neshama suggests going to museums. After all, the National Gallery (which is free) had become my London free toilet. (One of my hobbies is establishing toilets around cities the way some nations establish colonies.) However, in these United States most museums are actually quite expensive. I did manage to find something free called the “Museum of Biblical Art.” But after accidentally posting this picture on their giant TV screen through the wonders of social media:

…I was disappointed that the “Museum of Biblical Art” turned out to be the “One Room of Artistically Rendered Scrolls of Esther.” I had hoped for some meaty paintings. A Thomas ramming his hand into Jesus’ side the way I like to poke packages of ground beef at the supermarket. A panicked, bound Isaac asking Abraham, “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK, DAD?” Instead I got a handful of mediocre Hebrew calligraphy.

So what does one do in New York for fun when one is poor?

One can go to church.

It’s free, and you’re guaranteed some kind of a show. In fact, the more you go the easier it is to spot a disaster. Usually my free-time trips to church involve a visit to a charismatic venue, but after joining the serving team at an Anglo-Catholic parish I have invented a new game called “Spot the Me,” in which I visit high churches and look for the server who cannot go two minutes without touching her nose, rolling her ankles, or accidentally doing “The Sprinkler” when her legs get caught in her cassock. So far I appear the be the only me.

However, the more I treat churches like a sporting event...

(or indeed sports like a church—see the Mets prayer circle)

…the more I notice the international phenomenon of the Weeping Australian, found in any denomination of church that refers to God as “awesome” in the Californian sense.

You’ve probably come across the Weeping Australian before if you’ve ever been to a charismatic church. He’s the teaching pastor who is so overwhelmed that you won’t let his mate Jesus Christ into your heart that he has to wipe away tears into the tiny vest he wears paired with his skinny jeans. What’s jarring about the Weeping Australian is that you’re used to seeing the Australian as either perpetually friendly or perpetually stabby/drunk, and yet here he is choking back a sob as he leads you in a round of applause for Jesus Christ, who was so kind as to grace us with His presence at this club tonight. His eyes are so overwhelmed with emotion that they are forced shut as he joins the band onstage to repeat the chorus for the 563rd time, in case God didn’t know how swell He is the first 562 times we let Him know.

My favorite Weeping Australian story occurred just last week. In a nightclub packed with young and lost New Yorkers, the WA invited us to close our eyes. Which was, of course, my cue to keep mine open. Experience told me that this was my favorite part—the Weeping Australian would stress to us the need to let Jesus back into our hearts as though JC were crying and hanging out on a porch in the rain waiting to be let inside. Usually the long closed-eyes ramble would increase in urgency, and when panic about how badly we need Jesus reached a climax the WA would invite us to put up our hands if we felt Jesus had been locked out for long enough and we wanted to let the poor man back in. With eyes closed, usually a hefty majority would put their hands up. However, on this particular Sunday at this particular service, I noticed that something like 10 people put their hands up. The Weeping Australian soon became the Panicked Australian. Over and over again he repeated the call to put your hand up if you wanted to vote for Jesus, and still no one else put their hand up. Realizing that this was as good as it was going to get, he then started “ooooing” and “aaaahing” at the sheer number of people who were recommitting themselves to Christ at this service. “Wow,” he told the temporarily blinded audience, “there are just SO many hands. This is really incredible.” Still the same 10 or so were not joined by more hands. “Wow…this is just so inspiring. So overwhelming.” Then, “Don’t open your eyes, keep them closed. This really is awesome, I wish you could see how many people want to recognize that Jesus Christ died for them." The music swells, the lights dance, and still no additional hands go up. "Just awesome, awesome. Amazing. …Okay, you can put your hands down…and open your eyes now.” It was, quite honestly, the most convincing argument I’ve ever witnessed that religion is complete crap.

And it’s not just Hillsong, which started in Australia and thus understandably has a heavy proportion of Australian team members. No, the Australians are everywhere in the evangelical world. As I sit through “Four Minutes of Fellowship” and sip a glass of water that a hot man in a tight t-shirt brought me on a silver tray, I reflect on the sheer number of Weeping Australians and can only assume that evangelism is a front for Australian imperialism. Secretly, the Australians are here to take over America through what they call “planting” these things they call “churches.” All I can say is, “LEAVE US BE! TAKE YOUR OUTBACK STEAKHOUSES AND BE GONE WITH YOU!”

I often like to imagine what it must be like for this never-ending stream of Weeping Australian pastors to come through US Customs and Border Control. The border control officer would subject the W.A. to a series of questions, during which the W.A. would silently and seamlessly cue a previously hidden band to start picking up their instruments behind him. Their seemingly nonsensical plucking and fiddling would ever so gradually form into an increasingly loud and coherent return to an evangelical power ballad. The pastor would get more frantic and out of breath and weepy with each answer, “16 Main Street.” “Four months!” “[*sniff*] for business!! [*choked sob*]” And still the music would grow in the background.

Finally the customs officer would say, “Anything to declare?” And the W.A. would respond by bellowing, “ONLY THE LOVE OF CHRIST CRUCIFIED!” as he bursts into tears and drops the mic that had seemed to materialize from nowhere, while the band erupts with yet another deafening refrain from Hillsong’s “I Will Rise."

Crap. I think I need to find a new free hobby besides churching.

7 Clips of My New York Life

Here I am, a month into my New York adventure.  Here is how my life is different:

1)      I spend about 2.5 hours on the subway each day, and I devote a lot of that time to wondering how New York has not yet been wiped out by some disgusting disease. How are we not all dead yet? Or at the very least, I find myself wondering how on earth everyone in New York does not constantly have diarrhea. Every time I touch the handle on the subway I think to myself, I should probably stop biting my nails. But then I zone out and my fingers find their way to my mouth and I’m probably that much closer to catching typhoid fever. Either that or my immune system gradually gets a little more immortal. Today I felt a lady on the subway breathe on my face though, and all I could think to myself was how badly and immediately I want to take a shower. But that’s a problem because…

2)      I haven’t showered in a few days. For some reason we are not getting any hot water lately, making showers completely intolerable—I have a theory that it’s because we live in church-owned property and so it’s assumed that, in solidarity with lepers, we want crusty skin. Based on the fact that my roommates do not smell rank, I can only assume that they have braved the icy water and gotten clean. I, however, am from California. Being from California doesn’t mean I can’t handle cold, it just means that I’m better than it and do not need to condescend to mingle with it. It has, however, reached a critical point and something must be done. I’m considering putting the kettle on and making a bath.

3)      The other week I was standing outside of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, trying to kill time, when a bride got out of a car and walked towards the doors. Because it had snowed so hard the night before, she had to hoist her skirt practically over her head so as not to get it dirty. And…well…thanks to her choice of underwear I accidentally got pretty stellar view of her ass. This, of course, made me feel morally obligated to attend her wedding…so I did. I watched this woman and her (now clothed) butt marry a very decent-seeming man, and she seemed very happy during the entire service. Hopefully her butt also enjoyed the Mass.

4)      Speaking of Mass, I have a cassock and a nun who waves to me whenever she sees me. If that’s not BAMF, I don’t know what is.

5)      Speaking of waving, people in my work neighborhood sometimes wave at me. I suspect it’s because I’m quite literally the only white person walking around, but part of me is hopeful that I’m going to find out soon that I’m actually the Harry Potter of East New York.

6)      At work I have literally nothing to do. And everyone is aware of this. I beg people to give me work, to let me help them with whatever task I can help with, but there simply isn’t anything for me to do. I’ve resorted to the tactic of drinking obscene amounts of water and then peeing every five minutes, just because needing to go to the bathroom lends a sense of importance (or at least urgency) to my day. It gives me an excuse to stride down the hallways purposefully. Otherwise, desperate for no one to resent me, whenever anyone walks by my desk I put my (empty) email inbox up on my screen and frown at it as if in deep thought. “Hmm,” says the look on my face, “I wonder how I can make these numbers crunch.” (Is that even a thing?) I narrow my eyes and scratch my shower-desperate head, as if to say, “Gosh, if I don’t resolve this problem we’re going to have all sorts of other problems.  Man, my work keeps me busy. There are just so many problems that keep me busy with diverse tasks and jobs, not to mention projects.” And then as soon as they walk past my office it’s back to daydreaming, thinking about how I wish Quakers still dressed like the Quaker Oats man, or reading papal encyclicals.

7)      I’m discovering that New Yorkers just do not give one solitary shit about farting. I cannot even tell you how many times I’ve been on a crowded subway and heard a loud bombshell, followed by the look in the bombers’s eyes that conveys a shrug and a “Yeah. What of it?” It's just a bit surprising, to say the least. Even for someone who hates New York, I always assumed that what I'd remember after my hopefully brief stay here would be the bright lights of Times Square or something glamorous. I'm not ashamed to admit that the first time I came to New York as a little girl, I remember singing this song (in Frank Sinatra accents) with my brother in the backseat of the car as we drove over some bridge, with the skyline coming into view:

 Part of me assumed that that'd be my takeaway from my life here. But I know me. I know that what I'll tell my grandkids about my time in the big city is the shameless church farter, or the SBD-dealer in a fine suit on the 3 train, or the people on the 1 train whose asses were attempting a three-part harmony.

Actually, what am I talking about, “New Yorkers do not give one solitary shit about farting”? New Yorkers don’t seem to give a solitary shit about anything.

Lucy Who's Cardboard TARDIS

I work in a faraway land called Brooklyn, in a building that I have to assume is made out of cardboard. I say this because the walls are so thin that I can hear everything. Like long discussions on the merits/shortcomings of various coworkers. I also swear I can hear the occasional euphemistic "struggle" from the bathroom on the far side of the building.

While waiting to be fingerprinted I have a desk job…minus the desk. With no fixed office home, I spend the day surfing between whichever computer happens to be free for a moment. During the two hours or so in which I was at “Lucy” ‘s desk, a coworker walked in, saw me sitting at Lucy’s desk, and said, “Lucy?”

Before I continue, let me stress that Lucy and this woman are long-term employees, and know each other. But she said “Lucy?” the way you’d say it if you bumped into Lucy after she had gotten a peculiar haircut, as in, “Is that really you, Lucy? What the actual eff have you done with your hair?” (Except the second part of that is kept to yourself.) Only this time, Lucy not only got a weird haircut, but also morphed from a confident black woman into a neurotic white jackass.

The “Lucy” was one of genuine confusion. The rational response to seeing me at Lucy’s desk would be to say, “Oh, is Lucy not in today?” Not, as happened here, to stare at me as though I could be a new form of Lucy. A regeneration if you will, like the Doctor. Yes, I am the 9^th Lucy. The 10^th Lucy will be portrayed by David Tennant when the 9^th Lucy is forced to regenerate after sacrificing herself to save the receptionist from a tragic filing cabinet accident, in which the safety mechanism malfunctioned and two drawers were able to be opened at the same time, causing a tear in the very fabric of space.

Such was the conviction of her “Lucy?” that I began to wonder if maybe I really was Lucy, and I nearly said, “Yes.” Instead we had a long silence in which we stared at each other from across the room, me in a throne-like chair with wheels behind someone else’s fine wood desk and her in the doorway holding a stack of files, to the music of the ticking clock and the buzzing fluorescent lights. And I really mean staring. Intense, unbreaking eye-contact, both of us fully aware of it and not sure how to proceed.

I’m not sure how things ended. Perhaps the other lady committed hara-kiri when I finally broke eye-contact. And so I was left alone again, updating children’s medical charts and entering in the dates on which they received their polio vaccinations.

In a misguided attempt to stay sane, when I enter this information I pretend that I am personally responsible for the eradication of polio in the western world. In my head legions of men with swords follow behind me into battle to a stirring trumpet score by John Williams while I charge forward, waving a crusader cross banner and yelling, “NO ONE IS GONNA DIE FROM POLIOOOOOOOOO!” …as I silently stare at the screen and move nothing but two fingers on my right hand to punch in the numbers for hours on end, like a gamer minus the Mountain Dew.

I suppose that’s the depressing thing about saving the world. It seems like no matter how badly you want to save the world, the world always wants you to do data entry. You yell at the world, “Let me love you!” and the world responds, “Um, ok, that’s nice.” Awkward pause. “Fold this towel, I guess?”

The Obligation of Art

Today I went to the vanilla soft-serve temple of pretentiousness that is the Guggenheim. And look, I’m not about to say that the art in there is objectively shit, only that there are far too many people in there who, on a profound level understood by God alone, desperately do not want to be there.

The first clue was the group of girls who had huddled around a bunch of lines on paper. They stood there, staring at a print, and nodding to each other as if to say, “Indeed, this painting of random brown lines in no way resembles the other twenty paintings of brown lines in this room. Or indeed any of the other paintings of brown lines in the next two rooms.” In awe of their art appreciation I stared at them for a little longer, only to find that when each one thought the others couldn’t see her, she’d surreptitiously look at the other two with a pained and uncomfortable look that clearly said, “Am I the only one who doesn’t get it?”

Somehow this group of three girls ended up in an art museum that not a single one of them wanted to be in or understood—and this is common for art museums. This is how most people end up in art museums: “Hey, we should check out the Guggenheim!” suggests one friend, remembering as soon as the words come out that she actually hates art. She had seen a poster for it somewhere, felt pressured into becoming more “cultured,” and now…shit…now she’s fervently praying that one of the friends will say, “No thanks, I find the mold growing in my shower far more interesting to look at.” But no, God has no mercy. So the other friends smile and say, “Hey! What a great idea,” while grimacing on the inside and remembering the endless three hours spent in the Met the last time one of their friends forgot that the entire human race secretly hates art.

And this is how you end up at the Louvre, jockeying for a position among a crowd of hundreds of people who similarly secretly could not give a shit about the Mona Lisa. This is how art museums make their money. Because no one has the balls to admit that they find art museums spectacularly boring. And this is how we end up with crowded museums filled with people cocking their heads to the side, the last resort of the desperate. “Maybe if I turn my—nope, still looks like shit.”

The best were the people on dates. I saw a cheerful lady dragging around a man, shuffling with a brave but stricken look on his face that reminded me of my subway reading, “The Imitation of Christ,” in which we are encouraged to bear suffering and not seek to escape the situation. But best of all was the couple who were clearly only remaining in the Guggenheim to justify the price they paid for their tickets. “Uh, should we look at this one now?” said the man, half-heartedly pointing at yet another framed piece of paper with some lines on it. “Um. Yeah. I guess,” said the lady, as they wearily dragged their feet through the confused/bored/in denial crowd and tossed a forlorn glance over their shoulders towards the exit.

Usually at art museums I just pretend to read the little blurbs next to the pieces, but today I was feeling adventurous. I found that when I read them I could easily imagine a man with a fake English accent, in ceremonial tweed, squat-talking and waving his hands around while squinting his eyes to convey to you the exact levels of his pretentiousness, lest you underestimate them. This art “engenders emotion,” or “fosters an expression of necessity through color,” and everything is “explored.” Every piece of art “defines” or “redefines” some abstract noun that you hadn’t ever learned in 17 years of private education, and everything is a study, such as “a study of lines,” making me imagine an artist wearing safety goggles and sweating over test tubes for hours on end only to exclaim, “EUREKA! I HAVE MADE LINE!”

Staring at what was, to me, a sheet of gold on a black background, but what was actually a “journey,” I read the following sentence: “The luminosity of gold and the seeping shadows of obsidian evoke parallel visions of eternity.” And I just stood there and thought to myself,

Does it though?

Sometimes I wonder if these art-blurb writers are actually part of a humiliating conspiracy. Some of the more enthusiastic people in the gallery provided further evidence. See, there was this man in a black turtleneck, a tweed jacket, khakis tucked into his boots, goatee, and glasses.

He would walk up to a painting and then, as if overwhelmed by the painting’s majesty, would whip his glasses off in astonishment, and then continue to stare at the painting in amazement. As someone who is extremely nearsighted, I don’t understand the logic behind this, but that’s okay. No, what made this remarkable is that after doing this he would let out a “YES” that was almost Marian in the depth it conveyed, and then would put his glasses back on, proceed to the next painting…and then do the same “LOOK AT HOW MOVED I AM!” glasses removal for each painting. I liked to imagine him to be the sort of person who at home would be eating a bowl of cereal in front of the TV, channel surfing, and dropping the bowl in amazement with what each new channel had to offer.

 In spite of  his constant cycle of being deeply moved, he somehow managed to compose himself. For a while I saw him standing near the exit, with one hand holding his tweed jacket over his shoulder and the other hand on his hip, standing like a jackass superhero in khakis. “Fear not, I bring you gratuitous corrective eyewear!”

I’ll be honest with you: I have been floored by one piece of art in my life. So maybe I’m just an emotionless bitch, but I’ve decided that you do not get to let every single piece of art exert glasses-removing levels of emotional power over you. Surrendering that way to every painting makes you the emotional equivalent of the French, and that’s not okay.

Being the contrary person that I am, part of me wants to stand in front of the elevator, contemplate it with crossed arms, and when it opens scream “YES!” and throw myself to the ground. “YES,” I’ll continue while writhing on the ground, completely moved and overwhelmed by the art of opening elevator doors, “CLEARLY THE ARTIST EXPLORES THE NOTION OF THE NECESSITY OF DISLOCATION—THROUGH COLOR!” And everyone in the gallery, here by obligation, would look at me and think, “Well, shit, I really don’t get art.”

...and that's why people in New York don't smile.

As of last Wednesday, I’m living in the one place on Earth I’d never thought I’d be living: 750’s BC Mesopotamia.

Oh wait. No. Just New York City.

I’ve never been one of those people who is in love with New York. While some young people (namely  the geriatric teenagers on “Glee”) have romantic visions of New York, of not getting mugged before their certain stardom on Broadway, I can’t think of one disaster film/alien film/whatever film featuring the complete and total destruction of New York City that did not cause me to cheer. On what we could consider a good day for my relationship with New York City, I simply don’t think about New York City.

But there’s a particular program I wanted to do that just happens to be in New York, so…here I am. Writing this from my room in Manhattan. During the interview process the program people asked me some questions about my thoughts on New York and my motivation for applying to a program in New York in particular, wanting to ensure I hadn’t applied to this program simply for an easy/safe way to move to NEW YOOOOOOORK. I didn’t know how to properly convey to them how deeply this was not going to be a problem.

But now that I’m here I have two options: 1) I can make damn well sure that everyone in New York knows I hate them simply for being New Yorkers, or 2) I can try to counter some of the things I dislike about New York to make the city better for me and (hopefully) slightly, and in perhaps a completely unnoticeable way, better for others.

Armed with the naivety of the very characters of “Glee” who piss me off (for many reasons, but mostly for their complete lack of student-teacher boundaries), I decided I was going to smile at people for no reason. With the expertise of 12 hours in New York, I decided the best way to fix New York was to march to the bus with a hideous smile plastered on my face. “HELLO,” my face said, “I’VE HAD A STROKE!”

And so, looking slightly happy and slightly constipated, I got onto a bus. As it trundled down the road to the train station, I stared at the window and thought to myself, “There are people everywhere. Everywhere. So many people. Oh my God there are too many people. Why are there so many people? New York is the worst thing that has ever happened to anyone ever.” But I continued to smile.

The bus stopped not too far from one of New York’s seemingly ubiquitous Payless Shoes stores (New Yorkers must have more feet than real people?), and a man folding a table was right outside the window. Judging from the intense look in his eyes, this was no ordinary table. This was the table the prophecy had foretold. This was the table that has been promised to—OH MY GOD NOW HE’S LOOKING AT ME.

Perhaps encouraged by the near-permanent forced smile on my face, the man retained eye contact. I say eye contact because in English we don’t have a word for an ocular Star Wars tractor beam. No, I must resist. Or at the very least, I must stop smiling as that appears to be the tractor beam’s energy source. The man kept staring. Staring to the point where people around me noticed and commented. The man kept staring, and I couldn’t decide between poetically putting my hand up to the glass as if to simultaneously and fruitlessly reach out to him and make a comment about the impossibility of ever being together, or simply disintegrating on the spot.

I looked away, hoping that would end the staring. Curiosity got the better of me, so I turned my head slightly to see out of the corner of my eye. Let’s see if he’s still—ohp, he’s still there. Staring at me. Oh God. What do I do. He’s still staring WHY IS THE BUS STILL STOPPED?? Jesus…has time stopped? Is that what’s happened? Is this what I get for smiling at people in New York?

The worst part of the staring is that I couldn’t tell if the guy was angry about my smile, encouraged by my smile, shocked by my smile, or was just staring at me because something was hanging out of my nose. All I know is that I smiled at a stranger in New York and in return received a stare that combined the essences of the songs “Some Enchanted Evening” and “I’ma cut you.”

 (It’s actually a thing.)

…and that’s why people in New York don’t smile.

.

Buddhist Monastery Random Thoughts

4 December 2012, 1:00 p.m.

I’m sat for several hours, alone in the Buddhist monastery, with no idea where to go from here. I’ve been sitting alone in a freezing room staring at a statue of a rejoicing fat Buddha who, with his arms victoriously pumping in the air, seems completely unashamed of his glorious manboobs. They are epic, to the point of being obscene. I’ve been staring at them for so long that I’m starting to question my own sexuality. I hear monks chanting a drone in the room next door, but all I can think of his how tempted I am to buy this statue a supportive bra.

4 December 2012, 2:30 p.m.

I finally worked up the courage to announce my arrival to the Buddhists. Actually it wasn’t so much courage as the very real fear that I would have to amputate my toes if I stayed in the cold any longer. Shyly shuffling past men wandering around in orange bed sheets, I strode up to the office door, startled myself by unintentionally knocking a little too loudly, and waited.

I ended up being greeted by a German nun who was missing several teeth and whom I would never see again. Judging from what a total space cadet she was, I can only assume that immediately after showing me to my room she reached Nirvana and ceased to be. Or maybe she went on vacation. Whatever. Upon hearing that my name was Samantha, she became overjoyed and rejoiced in the same way that I rejoice when offered cake. She marveled at the uniqueness of my name. “Samantha. Oh it is such a rare name! Samantha.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that three girls out of about 50-60 in my high school class had the same name.

She continued to fuss: “Samantha. Is this a name you chose for yourself?” Sorry, what? Confused by the question I simply stood there stupidly and, not knowing what to do with themselves, my hands found their way to my back pockets. Because, apparently, looking like I’m grabbing my own ass was the best solution my hands could come up with under pressure. Eventually I’d learn that a lot of people at this place had adopted ‘Buddhist’ names, like Edward is now Amitaba or something, in the same way that certain types of Jews that I met in Israel would not stop trying to get me to adopt awful Hebrew names to replace Samantha, names that made me sound like your grumpy grandma who doesn’t really speak English and smells of soup. I think they thought it’d make me a better Jew, and to their credit maybe if I had chosen to start calling myself Ruchama Tova or whatever I wouldn’t be typing this story up in an Anglican convent.

The Buddhist nun continued: “Is it Indian in origin? Samantha? Samantha.” She repeated my name to herself a few times, marveling at the sound it made.

I did think of my poor mom and wish she were here. She loves the name Samantha (obviously), but I’ve unfortunately never appreciated it in the same way. As this strange, toothless German lady flapped around and got herself all worked up about what a fantastic, rare and mystical name I have, I knew that if my mom were here she’d say to the nun, “I know, right?!”

5 December 2012, 6:30 a.m.

I am, there’s no delicate way of putting this, mincing through the snow in Crocs that are probably only big enough to comfortably house my toes. I’m off to the temple, where a novice monk who seems absolutely terrified of me for no apparent reason will give me a cloth to rub fingerprints off all the temple’s brass doorknobs. Or, as I succeed in doing, smear the fingerprints around until they become even more obvious dirt. Some days I use to a broom to move dead hair and flies to other, more exotic locations in the temple, but never to the dustpan. Other days I plump up cushions sitting on the floor, and as I bend over or crouch down to adjust the cushions my pants consistently fall down just as another monk walks in behind me.

My pants have sagged so many times at the worst possible moment that I don’t know if the monk could pick my face out of a crowd, but he and my ass are now pretty intimately acquainted. Like old army buddies now, best man at each other’s wedding and everything.

But, having never been afflicted with the appalling sight of my rear end, the novice monk has no excuse for the look of sheer terror and surprise that warps his face every time he sees me. Despite the fact that my thighs make a roar of jean friction as I walk, announcing my impending arrival, this novice monk always reacts like I’ve startled him, like I’ve jumped out from behind a corner and yelled, “BOO!” Mindfulness, my ass…

7 December 2012, 10:30 a.m.

I’m in the kitchen chopping onions, the stench of which will remain on my fingers for a week, when Billy Connolly begins to give me instructions on what to do with my pile of grotesquely unevenly cut vegetables sitting in a wok, stewing in their own shame.

“Fry it…” and here, mid-sentence, he is spirited away for a few uncomfortable seconds to what I can only assume was Brigadoon, but the look on his eyes suggests that wherever he is he’s there long enough to fall in love, get married, have a painful divorce, and develop a drinking problem before mentally returning to the kitchen. And then the adverb finally arrives, after getting caught in traffic on the 405: “…gently.”

He smiles softly to himself as he silently shuffles away, and I’m left feeling like I can’t go on. No, before I can gently fry these vegetables I have to ask, “WHERE THE EFF DID YOU GO?!”

7 December 2012, 11:30 a.m.

I just want to be silent. Polite society questions like ”Where do you live?” or “What do you do for a living?” are too challenging at the moment. I just want to eat my porridge and stare at a wall. Like, forever.

But so many people here won’t stop scooting along the carpet to enter into my personal space to tell me all about how they came here to get away from it all, to have some quiet. They go on to describe in detail their great love of silence, and how there’s too much chatter in the world, and “Oh I just need some peace to think.”

I’m shy (not to mention a rancid bitch), so they soon lose interest in me. They then scoot their meditation cushion over to another person, and they proceed to tell each other how they came here to get away from the noise of society, completely oblivious to the fact that they ARE the noise of society. I keep thinking to myself that if I had a gospel of my own to preach, it’d be a gospel of “Everyone shut the fuck up for like FIVE minutes. I mean, Jesus, is five minutes too much to ask?”

At this particular moment an older English gentleman is approaching me. He’s the epitome of lost soul, constantly moving from religion to religion. He had previously casually dropped into the conversation that he was a Muslim for four years, not too long ago. You know, having the sort of spiritual crises you have at the age of 20-something with the expectation (desperate hope?) that by the time you’re this guy’s age you’ll stop having them.

Anyway, he plops down on the floor next to me and for a minute I’m relieved to find him silently poking at and contemplating the various types of fish on his plate. He then points at a fried fish ball on his plate, asking me, “Is this like gefilte fish?”

I’m thrown by the question. “…Sorry?”

He points again. “Is this like gefilte fish?” Suddenly I remember that about an hour ago the topic of my Israeli kibbutz experience (and the implication that I’m Jewish) had come up. I guess this is his way of reaching out to me as a Jew?

Trying my best to smile politely, I simply say, “Ah, no…that’s just fish…”

Another pause, a chance for him to point at a differently prepared bit of fish on his plate. “So, is THIS like gefilte fish?”

“Well, no…that’s also just fish.”

He now points at a third variety of fish, because for some reason today we had three varieties of fish, and he asks me, “Right, and is THIS like gefilte fish?”

At this point I realize what is going on here. Congratulations, I want to say to him, you know a word in what you probably call “Jewish,” and you want me to know that you know it. As this man goes on to make further inane comments about gefilte fish, I start reflecting on this, what I HATE about being Jewish. Folks find out you’re Jewish and they start trying to show off that they know something or someone Jewish—this whole thing is something my non-“minority” friends will never fully understand. Nobody ever says, “Ooooh, you’re a WASP? I think my cousin’s neighbor is a WASP…actually, come to think of it, pretty much everyone I know is a WASP.”

But no, folks find out you’re Jewish and they want to tell you that they like challah bread, or (more frequently) they get all desperate to tell you about their neighbor’s Jewish brother-in-law. The subtext there is a hysterical “SEE?? I WOULDN’T HAVE GIVEN YOU UP TO THE NAZIS IF YOU HID IN MY ATTIC!” Or, perhaps more realistically, “I WOULD GIVE YOU UP TO THE NAZIS, BUT ONLY OUT OF FEAR AND NOT OUT OF RACE HATE SO THAT’S OKAY I GUESS.” You know, the sort of statement urgently blurted out a little too loudly, like a verbal kneejerk reaction.

I don’t know what these people want from me when they tell me their coworker’s last name is Goldstein—“that’s a Jew name, right?”. Do they want me to say I know their Jewish second cousin by marriage? Do they want a medal? What am I supposed to do with this information?

Usually I utter an empty, high-pitched “Oh.” Because really that’s all I can manage. But I think the next time someone tells me that their second grade teacher’s husband was Jewish I’ll have to start a slow clap that gradually builds into a one-woman standing ovation, as I wipe away tears from my moved Jewish eyes, saying, “Bravo, maestro. Bravo.”

Thoughts on Joshua before his first visit to a Buddhist monastery

On Tuesday I will go to spend five nights at a Buddhist monastery, where I’m told I will meditate, be mindful, and have one meal a day. Part of it is me simply buying some non-expensive time before going to stay at a (part of me wants to say “proper”) Anglican convent the week afterward, but part of me would actually like to learn something from the experience, despite not being a Buddhist. I think, particularly in preparation for the silence of a stay in a convent, I would like to become a blank slate. That is, I really earnestly hope to learn how to think of nothing, a way to drown out the voice that shrieks “YOU ARE GOING TO DIE ALONE!” or “YOU WILL NEVER FIND MEANINGFUL EMPLOYMENT BECAUSE YOU ARE SHIT” in every moment of silence.

However, the largest and most overwhelming part of me cannot stop thinking about minimal eating and the effect this will have on Joshua, my stomach. Even at the best of times, he is a difficult mistress who cries out for McDonald’s, red velvet cake, and every British biscuit ever made. But in this case I’m not even that worried about the thought of not having a constant supply of food piping into my mouth. No, I’m worried about something much more serious.

Regardless of what I eat, whether healthy or greasy, too much or just right, my stomach makes the most appalling noises whenever the volume in the room falls below a certain level. It had a particular knack for making a noise like a fat knight in oil-thirsty armor slaying a large, fire-breathing beast in the moments of silence before Evening Prayer during my PGCE year, and I would think to myself, “SILENCE, STOMACH BEAST!” to no avail.

What if my stomach makes a noise and the people meditating around me are only able to be mindful of the fact that my stomach is making weird noises like a cat being savaged by a cheese grater? Will I prevent them from reaching Enlightenment?

I’m also worried that during moments of silent meditation l will think about the college Zen Buddhism lecture that I had to leave because I couldn’t stop laughing, the one where I ended up collapsed in a stairwell weeping with laughter. A friend I was attending with had farted with incomparably beautiful timing, the memory of which STILL causes me to burst out laughing regardless of present location—lecture, classroom, public transportation, funeral, etc.

Between worrying about getting the giggles and worrying about the various roaring noises my stomach feels compelled to make, I’m a bit, well, worried about staying at a Buddhist monastery for the better part of a week. But there’s actually a lot to look forward to. I'm excited to learn more about Buddhism, something I studied briefly and don’t fully understand or even appreciate. But most of all, I’m quite looking forward to five days of FUCK OFF, WORLD. IMMA SIT HERE AND HAVE A THINK.

CAN WE GO?!

I’m on the District Line somewhere between Embankment and Upminster, my legs straining to prevent my enormous suitcase from falling on anyone and my brain straining to figure out what the hell I’m going to do with my life. It’s officially my anniversary of job seeking, and I’m riding this train with a fresh sting of rejection. And even more than rejection, fresh affirmation that I’m probably not supposed to be doing the one thing I’m qualified to do: teach. I mean, I am supposed to teach, but I don’t think I’m meant to be a teacher.

I’m sitting there with a growing sense of panic, the kind where you think “IS IT HOT IN HERE?” and suddenly your clothing all feels tight and you just want to vomit everything, but there’d be nothing to vomit anyway because you’re too upset to eat. The kind of panic where, even after the train has emptied as you’re now far from the city center, you feel like there isn’t enough air in the train and you’re going to suffocate. Oh God everything is so shit, I’m so shit, oh God oh God oh God I can’t take it anymore I just want to cut my own head off, make it stop, I just want to scream—

And then suddenly someone screams. But it’s not me. We’d been stopped somewhere near wherever West Ham plays, but we’d been stopped for an obscenely long time. Train stopped, doors opened, waiting for no apparent reason. People were starting to get a bit impatient, when this woman’s voice from a different train car called out, “CAN WE GO?!”

After the first time she said it there was a long pause. Me and the person sitting across from me exchanged bug eyes, almost wondering if we had imagined it. But sure enough, she broke through the quiet again, this disembodied voice shrieking, “CAN WE GO?!” But we still didn’t go. We still sat there with the doors opened. So the voice asked again, this time louder: “CAN WE GO?!” And then with even more desperation: “CAN WE GO?!” Then again and again, louder and louder: “CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?!” Towards the end it sounded like she was about to start crying, not with sadness, but with frustration of the futility of her efforts to get the train moving. “CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?! CAN WE GO?!”

For a while I sat there with a vague smile on my face. I grew up thinking that English people were all quiet, polite and passive, and here was further evidence to prove my thesis formed last year that actually English people are some of the most in-your-face and/or obscene people I’ve ever met (I say that with love and admiration). I was amused, to say the least. But then I thought harder about this woman yelling at the train.

“CAN WE GO?!”

I think it pretty succinctly sums up how I feel right now. You know, some unemployed people don’t really have a clear sense of where they want to go, and even some of them just want to sit on the couch and laze around all day, never growing up. I’m not one of those people. I’m pretty enthusiastic about getting my life started (provided that I can still have the occasional “Fat Elvis” couch-sitting marathon). I have a very clear idea of what I would like my life to look like. Sure, I’m willing to compromise—my imaginary Beagle doesn’t HAVE to be named Simon Peter—but I think I have some very clear “career” goals that I’ve been trying to pursue. I want to go, I want to get this started. Let’s GO! Why aren't we going? CAN WE GO?!

Unfortunately, no door that I’ve tried opening has been unlocked. Actually, I feel a bit like how I felt a couple weeks ago when a friend lent me the key to her flat with instructions on how to find her flat and I, being jetlagged (okay, even without jetlag I’m this much of a bozo), spent about 25 minutes trying desperately to get into a perfect stranger’s flat. Eventually I did figure out that my friend’s flat was around the corner, and I was able to laugh about it. But to go back to my life in general, I feel like I have a key that does not fit into ANY door. Because, my God, have I tried a lot of doors.

So anyway, back to the train. This woman is screaming “CAN WE GO?!” and that’s pretty much what I mentally scream at my life every day. Eventually the train did go, and it had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that this woman had screamed at it to do so. Part of me wonders if I should stop mentally screaming at my life because, like the train, my life isn’t going to take orders like that. But a larger part of me thinks that it must feel amazing to just let dignity go to shit and scream at the train for a bit.

The Brunch, Church, and My Social Anxiety

Some days I get really bored of meditating upon new things to which my body odor can be likened (today’s simile: a stale fortune cookie) and going for long sobbing sessions drives. Because these things are, of course, how one occupies one’s time (in addition to a never-ending stream of pointless job applications) when one is unemployed.

In an effort to get me out of the house and, more importantly, out of the dirty pajamas I call my mope rags, my mother suggested signing up for a class. Her reasoning is that any normal person would make friends. And she’s right, but unfortunately I’m not a normal person. I would say that I’ve forgotten how to make friends and socialize, but that would imply that I knew how at one point.

See, I’ve signed up for this theology class a local church. Before our lecture and discussion, we are expected to have dinner with each other in the parish hall, a dinner which, if you know anything about me, is complete agony. I honestly cannot remember how I have ever managed to make friends, and indeed sitting through these weekly dinners that are like a Greatest Hits album of my gaffes has made me seriously wonder whether the people I think are my friends are, in fact, imaginary.

I wish I knew how to show these people how desperately I’d love for them to tell me about their day, using a method that does not involve asking accidentally personal questions about their work in a voice several octaves higher than my actual speaking voice. I try to fill our many awkward silences with a friendly smile to show how open I am, but instead I smile the near-hysterical forced smile of someone who has just farted in polite company and is hoping to God that no one heard it. When conversation has been paired away from me, I drink obscene amounts of water simply so I have something to do with my hands. Other times I give up and pick a spot on the wall, stare at it with a forced serene expression on my face, and wonder why this is supposed to be better than sitting at home in my underpants and crying.

The worst is when one of the priests comes to the table, because they use a Scream movie entrance rather than a Jaws approach. That is to say, none of them wear clerical gear, so you don’t notice them slowly but surely making their way towards your table, which would allow you to prepare for their arrival.  Instead you casually look to your left, jump about five feet in the air, let slip an expletive, and say hello to the priest that was definitely not sitting next to you just a second ago. But why would you need warning for a priest anyway?

Well, only a minute before you were treading water in a sea of people with actual social skills, and then all of the sudden without warning the priest, who as a priest is naturally the only other person in the room whose social ineptitude can even begin to compare to yours, comes up and starts talking to you. There is at least some hope of normalcy when I talk with the other people, but now suddenly the conversation becomes the verbal equivalent of two fat people trying to come through a doorway at the same time.

If dinner isn’t alienating enough, the post-lecture discussion does a great job of making me feel more foreign than I’ve ever felt in my life. I’m not entirely sure which country I think I’m from, but I think we can safely assume no one has heard of it. It’s not just my social awkwardness, it’s also the content: they talk about heaven as social justice and replace God with a vague “higher power,” apparently everyone’s been canonized, and we listen to the Gospel according to Maya Angelou. It’s all so foreign to me that I would have an easier time if they instead talked about Malian butt hygiene.

I could have given up socially, but I’m stubborn. Pioneer spirit, American can-do attitude and all that. I like to think of myself as a one-woman Titanic band, if the Titanic band had sobbed hysterically while nonetheless sticking to their guns by going down with the ship. And so what does the one-woman Titanic band do?

She signs up to serve at the parish brunch. I figured I would have a purpose, and I could make small talk but would also not be weird for being quiet. And, best of all, I’d have something to do with my hands. THIS would be my social in, I declared.

When I walked in to serve brunch and discovered my role for the morning, I am convinced that Satan and Hitler were sitting on a couch somewhere in Hell, having a fantastic laugh about it. Hitler actually laughed so hard that he snorted, got really embarrassed, and had to tell Satan to stop making fun of him. See, I had been placed in the position of “kitchen runner.” That is, I had to stand awkwardly (well, the awkwardly part was optional, but I like to go big in all my roles) to the side and watch other people serve other people. Should any buffet server run out of food—which, I must stress, did not happen—I was to go to the kitchen to bring more out. But mostly I was to just stand awkwardly to the side.

Have you ever noticed that when you’re uncomfortable and have nothing to do with your hands you suddenly turn into an octopus? It’s like all of you is just a blob of hands, knocking into things, touching your face, shaking violently. It seemed like every time I tried to casually ignore one of my hands it would suddenly become five hands, and if any of those new hands were ignored they would then turn into even more hands. Hands everywhere, but what do I do with them?

This pretty much sums it up.

I tried standing by the silverware station with my hands in my apron pockets, but there were two problems. The apron pockets were in a quasi-vulgar place, and also a parishioner thanked me for my work. Having done literally nothing to enable the fine buffet spread besides putting on an apron, this was more than I could bear. I figured I could reject the gratitude and explain that everyone else had done the work, but it seemed like I would waste too much of her time in explaining that this was not false modesty but simple accuracy. After all, she just wanted to say a quick thanks before shuffling away to eat her breakfast—she wasn’t asking for insight into my social anxiety. So instead I died a little inside and said, “You’re welcome. Enjoy!”

I figured I could just do this to anyone who said thank you, but my hopes were dashed against the rocks when I met the eyes of the 8 year old standing between me and her mom, who  (lucky bitch) was assigned to serve the scrambled eggs. I swear this 8 year old girl in a sunflower-patterned sundress could see into my soul as her eyes seemed to sentence me to Hell with a, “YOU DID NOT DESERVE THAT THANK YOU!” For all I know she didn’t even hear the thank you exchange and was just appalled by how ugly I am, but I didn’t want to take any chances.

Absolutely terrified of what this 8 year old girl with flowers in her hair would do to me, I swapped my creepy lurking by the silverware table for falsely purposeful surveying. I floated around the parish hall, pretending to do mental calculations of how much orange juice we had left (enough), patrolling around like a soldier visually verifying that every table had a pitcher of water (they did), and, perhaps most stupidly, putting on an official census worker-like air to ask the buffet servers if they needed anything (they didn’t).

Still though, I wasn’t as bad as the Brunch Nazi. She was in charge of ensuring the smooth running of the parish brunch, and she clearly thought the day was the culmination of her life’s work and existence. Indeed, she was called by God to manage THIS particular brunch, which I guess to her turns every scone we are short of into one concrete slab in the sidewalk to Hell. Someone served an old lady about 30 seconds before Parish Brunch Go Time, and Brunch Nazi reacted as though someone intentionally shat in her jacuzzi.

She also used the word “need” more often than I use the word “just.” Just about every sentence took the form of “I need you to do X” or “We need to do Y” or “You need Z.” And you could tell that she really meant the NEED, you could hear the urgent desperation in her voice every time she opened her mouth. The “need” seemed to suggest a WE WILL DIE IF THIS DOES NOT HAPPEN. I found this amusing because, actually, we don’t need to do any of this. We could actually just say screw it to all of this and go back to bed. But instead we got “I NEED Hallie to serve this much potatoes. I NEED you to go to the kitchen to ask them about this. We NEED , We NEED, We NEED, You NEED, I NEED.”

Lady, you know what I need?  I NEED you to calm the eff down. You’re like my dog  when the mailman comes, and you know what we give to my dog? Prozac. You should look into it. Because you know what happens when the parish brunch is running a little short on scrambled eggs?

Everyone dies.

Oh wait, no, that’s what happens when there’s a nuclear holocaust. Sorry, I meant to say that some people don’t get scrambled eggs. And if having to suffer through scones, potatoes, ham, and unlimited coffee and juice without scrambled eggs at the parish brunch is enough to make someone abandon Christianity and join some kind of pagan cult, then so be it. They’re probably better off there than here anyway.

My Acceptance Speech

Announcer: AND THE AWARD FOR MOST UNEMPLOYED PERSON GOES TO....[*pauses while opening the envelope. flashes a cheeky smile to the audience*] awww, you don't really want to know, do you? Haha, oh all right then...SAM BERRY!

 

 

[*immense applause as Sam gets up from her seat, awkwardly and unintentionally shoves her butt in people's faces as she scoots towards the aisle, and accepts her award on the stage*]

 

 

Sam: Wow...oh my goodness...[*applause starts to gradually die down*]...wow...[*inspecting award*] this is just...wow...thank you, thank you [*applause finally dies down completely*] thank you.
 

This is such an unexpected honor. I never thought I'd be up here, winning this prestigious award when I was up against so many amazingly unemployed people on welfare.
 

You know, growing up on the mean streets of Cheviot Hills, a hood where a slim majority of people can only DREAM of upgrading their BAs to doctorates, I never thought it would be possible to win such an amazing award. [*running left hand through hair in stunned amazement*] This is like something out of a dream. Um...wow...I'm speechless, but I'm gonna keep talking. [*the crowd chuckles*]

 

 

I mean, as I watched kids graduate Brentwood and go off to college and grad school and become successful lawyers and doctors and what have you, I always felt that the world of sitting in one's underpants all day and sobbing sometimes quietly and sometimes violently while questioning the worth of one's existence was something that only happened in fairy tales, something that couldn't happen to me, Sam Berry, just some poor nobody in upper-middle class suburbia. But you know what, America?

 

 

[*raising award triumphantly in the air*]
 

DREAMS. DO. COME. TRUE.

 

 

Of course, there are so many people to thank. Obviously the schools, the private families, and the countless faith communities both here and in many foreign countries, for not employing me. But you know, I couldn't have done this without the behind-the-scenes help that I received from hundreds of more qualified individuals who, with Christ-like attitudes of self-sacrifice, willingly succumbed to employment in my stead. I could not have achieved this without you guys.

 

 

Most importantly, I want to address any children who might be watching this, yes you children whose eyes are big and Bambi-like with the hope of unemployment. I'll tell you now what I would have told any young person, had I actually come in contact with one since last June, and that is this: my success here tonight was not without effort. Only if you work really hard and stay in school will you, too, one day be able to baffle and annoy the living shit out of your Oxford tutor by being the one student in his program who is still unemployed. You need faith in yourself and in God, children. That faith will give you the strength you need to wake up in the morning, apply for a job you're either ridiculously under or over qualified for because it's the only one out there, and then spend the rest of the day crying into some cake. Faith will give you the courage you need to carry on in self-pity in spite of the nay-sayers who call themselves "friends" who try to weigh you down with things like "hope," or the promise of a job one day, or their prayers. Faith will give you the determination you need to cry like a little bitch every day. You need to believe in yourself. Yes, in the words of Dr. Maya Angelou,

 

 

"Ain't nothin' gonna break my stride
Nobody's gonna slow me down, oh-no."

 

Faith really is the most important thing, children. And adults. I would like to take this opportunity to thank God, who has blessed me with the totally off-putting complete lack of social skills without which I could never have bombed so many interviews. You see, not so many people are lucky enough to be born with the gift of having no idea how long or short appropriate eye contact is, giving me a shifty, serial rapist-like quality when under pressure. Only a loving and personal God would inspire me to take the successful gamble of actually shimmying at a headteacher during an interview. By God's grace alone do I misunderstand interview questions, awkwardly interact with other candidates, and laugh when no one else is laughing. Yes, it takes a lot of work to be stuck in this state of permanent adolescence, but with God all things are possible.

 

[*orchestra starts to play*]

 

 

Oh dang it, I've turned into one of those people that the orchestra has to play off the stage. Sorry I've spoken for too long! Um...oh crap oh crap...there are still so many people to thank...um....thanks to Carol, Susan, Charlie, Jeff...um....Hank, Laurie, Jeff...shit, I already said Jeff...um....OH MY GOD I NEARLY FORGOT KEVIN! Um...oh the band's getting louder, they really want me off. Ok okay, um, thank you America. [*points at sky*] Unemployed to the glory of God!

 

 

[*exits*]

Malian Butt Kettles

As mentioned in a much earlier blog post, I ended up at a colorful hostel in Paris with several roommates. I’ve already written about one, Mrs. Iceland, but there are many others—Oliver whose sign of respect is eating things, two Brazilians—Talita and her lover, whose named sounded suspiciously like Guano--who seemed to be attempting to set a record for the loudest public sex in the filthiest place (the hostel), and a naked Italian man who would periodically show up in the room despite not being a guest of the hostel or a guest of any of the hostel guests. On my last morning I woke up to find that this morning the part of all of my roommates would be played by four absolutely enormous Asian men.

But today I want to talk to you about Mackenzie*.

Mackenzie was from Napa Valley—a California girl like me, though she was from up north, in wine country. I don’t remember too much what she looked like. She had freckles, but the weird kind that you don’t really notice until you get up close and then you’re like, “WHOOAAAAAAA! YOUR ENTIRE FACE IS FRECKLES!” I know she was sort of petite and had a sort of farm girl quality about her, like you wouldn’t be surprised if she interrupted your conversation with the phrase, “Oh, excuse me for a moment, I just have to go plow the fields, be right back” except she disappointingly never said that.

Like many Americans at small liberal arts colleges, Mackenzie had spent her junior year abroad. After living in Mali for several months, she was taking a vacation in Paris before heading back home. She was thrilled to talk about Mali, and we were thrilled to listen.  Heck, I don’t know anything about Mali. Tell me about the culture! The music! The people! The politics! The food! Come to think of it, I have no idea where the hell Mali is, so maybe also show me where it is on a map…

If Mrs Iceland talked way too much about all aspects of Iceland, Mackenzie spoke exclusively of ONE aspect of Mali:

Butt hygiene.

Yes, in all the fascinating things I assume you could say about Mali (I don’t know for sure, since I still only know about how they clean their asses there), this girl was passionate about the way that the people of Mali apparently use what she dubbed “butt kettles” to clean up after themselves after using the toilet.

To be fair, it’s an interesting thought, and I’m glad she mentioned it. However, the existence of this particular form of butt-washing warrants a couple of David Attenborough-style observations, maybe a few jokes. It does not, as Mackenzie decided it did, warrant an evening-long enthusiastic campaign for us all to adopt the Mali butt kettle system. Noticed by any NORMAL person, this peculiar cultural detail would not have sparked the complete denunciation of toilet paper, as it did in Mackenzie, who raged against toilet paper with the sort of indignation that you might expect from victims of genocide.

I honestly thought she was going to start crying when she spoke of the liberation she felt the first time she switched from Charmin to Butt Kettle. I suppose everyone has something they’re passionate about. For some people it’s gay rights, or animal rights, or abortion, or gun control or whatever. I guess for Mackenzie it’s the abolition of toilet paper.

I often thought about her during my first month of being back in the US, when I was going through my own reverse culture shock. Mine was mostly about realizing that I can no longer make a joke about ____ or ____ anymore. That every story of anything that happened in either where I lived or at school required about 10 minutes of explaining how things work in England. Discovering that if the words “Church of England” come out of my mouth one more time then someone needs to just euthanize me.

But at least I didn't acquire a love of butt kettles while in England. I thought of Mackenzie. Oh man though, Mackenzie, HAVE FUN with that reverse culture shock.

You don't know me but I've been in your bedroom.

The other day at a party I met somebody new. I shook his hand as we both assured each other that it was lovely to meet, and suddenly a horrifying wave of realization came over me.

I’ve been in this guy’s house. And he has no idea.

I’ll spare you the details so as not to incriminate anybody, but let me just assure you that I was there legally, with a few other friends who were there legally. We needed air conditioning as it was the middle of summer, this guy’s house had it. Beyond that I won’t say anything.

Normally the first few sentences with new people are totally easy. You can ask about where they live or what they do, a simple exchange of facts before the difficult task of meaningful conversation needs to start. I wondered if he wondered why I was so rude and didn’t ask him these things, but then I thought it was probably infinitely ruder of me a few months ago when I read through his job’s paperwork that was sitting on his kitchen table. And no one wants to hear a stranger say, “I live in Cheviot Hills, but I won’t ask you where you live because I already know. And I love what you’ve done with the place!”

I had genuinely no idea how much information I could politely be assumed to know about this guy, who was after all a friend of a friend. Normally friends talk about their other friends, but I was so paranoid about the fact that I had been in this guy’s house that I made a mental note to just pretend like his name had never been uttered by our mutual friend. It reminded me of being a freshman in college, when overly enthusiastic dorm mates friended each other on facebook before we even arrived and when we met in person we had to awkwardly pretend like we hadn’t studied each other’s facebook pages. “Oh, wow, I didn’t know you also liked Liverpool FC,” you’d recite after someone responded well to your very obvious and awkward attempts to get the conversation to turn to this mutual love. Except knowing things about a stranger because you’ve been in their house without them knowing is less socially acceptable and exponentially creepier.

The conversation was very interesting. We talked about something I knew we would talk about, because I already leafed through books on it from his personal library. And as eager as I was to continue the conversation, I found eye contact near impossible because I knew that he didn’t know that I knew what level of grime he has in his bathroom (relatively minimal for a guy). God help me, I know where he keeps his shampoo. I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him while screaming, “I HAVE PEED IN YOUR TOILET! ARE YOU OKAY WITH THAT?!”

This was definitely some kind of punishment for my trespassing. I had literally no idea what to do with my eyes or my hands or indeed any other part of my body. I wanted to drown myself in the party’s sea of Harvard graduates. I wanted to tear off all my clothing in repentance while screaming, “I HAVE BEEN IN YOUR HOUSE—AND I AM SO SORRY!!!!!” But instead I just stood there hiding behind a red solo cup of Coke.

I am wondering, should our paths ever cross again in the small town that is Los Angeles, at what point I am required to disclose this information. But I’m kind of hoping I’ll die before it comes to that.

A cubicle dweller reflects on the concept of pregnant women

You know what I don't get? Pregnant women. I'm staring at one right now and I have no idea how she's so calm, doing work on the computer. If I were her, I'd spend all nine months screaming, "OH MY GOD THERE IS ACTUALLY ANOTHER F***ING PERSON IN MY STOMACH LIKE RIGHT NOW. HOW THE F*** IS EVERYONE OK WITH THIS?" But not her. She just sits there, occasionally clicking the mouse and humming along to the quiet strains of a muted Stevie Wonder belting something out on the office radio.

And this is not even taking into account the countless horrifying aspects of the actual process of childbirth. No, ignoring the pain, the wishing your husband dead, and the potential to crap yourself in front of strangers, I--and I say this as someone who is pro-life and completely pro-babies--find the concept of pregnant women to be completely and utterly terrifying.

I feel like it's not cool to admit this, particularly as a woman (and a woman who loves babies for that matter), but I find the concept of pregnant women about as frightening as the concept of a twin in the womb dying and being absorbed by the other twin, like I saw in that House episode. Or maybe it was a nightmare. I can't remember anymore, all I know is that it was bad, because you know it's two people, but you only see one. Pregnant women are like the conjoined twins who got their own TV show on TLC, except much more concealed and therefore much more sinister. No, even worse, it's like a pregnant woman has her own horcrux that she carries around with her in her stomach. SHE CANNOT BE KILLED.

And because the fact that a pregnant woman is actually two people in one is hidden beneath clothing and skin, then there's the problem of fat people and/or people who wear empire-cut dresses or blouses. Are you pregnant and therefore to be feared, or do you, like me, simply have a fondness of Hostess snack cakes? This is why obesity is an issue--not because we're all going to die of fat, but because I don't know who is a terrifying clandestine two-person she-beast and who just likes McFlurries. Clearly the only solution is to either make all pregnant people wear signs announcing their pregnancy or we fat people need to start wearing signs that say, "DON'T WORRY: JUST FAT."

This might seem extreme, but you'll know I'm right once you, too, spend a few hours in an office where the only person you can see from your cubicle is a pregnant woman. In the meantime, I'll just be keeping an eye on her. COME NO CLOSER, TWO-HEADED SHE-BEAST!

You're welcome, world.

The Church of the Holy Dodger Dog

As I sat in Dodger Stadium, watching thousands of people stream onto the outfield to “recommit themselves to Christ,” it suddenly occurred to me that this was an ideal moment to get up and get myself a Dodger Dog. The concession lines would probably be empty, because for the first time in about three hours those in the stands were forced to choose between getting a third helping of nachos and getting born again.

I know for a fact I wasn’t the only one thinking about food at the moment. The second I entered Dodger Stadium the first thing I noticed was a sea of people carrying what looked like shipping containers filled with nachos to their families. Once I sat down, after wading through puddles of peanut shells, I noticed that everyone around me had a crate of hotdogs in their laps. As I looked around half expecting to find a man shouting that he has Cracker Jacks for sale, I noticed the pile of peanut shells rapidly growing into a flood of Noachian proportions.

Still though, even though the worshippers were eating enough food to feed a sizeable nation, I was willing to give religion at Dodger Stadium a chance. Truth be told, I couldn’t help fantasizing what it would have been like if I had showed up with a baseball glove and a Dodger t-shirt, wandering around the stands looking really confused. Would there be a seventh inning stretch? But, really, I gave it a shot.  I laughed off the fact that we were bouncing a beach ball around the stands, and I brushed off the fact that one Christian lady cussed out her fellow Christians for dropping the ball when it came to continuing The Wave.

But then came the prayer. Some pastor took to the stage to lead some generic “just” prayer, and the stadium reverently bowed its heads. At this point I noticed that, yes, people had bowed their heads. But some, and a fair few, continued to stuff food in their mouths…while keeping their heads bowed in prayer.

How do you pray and eat at the same time? Am I just spectacularly uncoordinated that I think this would prove difficult? If nothing else it seems disrespectful. “Dear Lord, SNARF we just want to GARRR thank you for just GULP giving us today and just HAAMMM just making us URGH all that we just are….”

Looking around at people bowing their heads and closing their eyes in reverence while shoveling Dodger Dogs into their mouths was perhaps the highlight of my life. It was at this point that I started laughing so hard that I cried.

These are the things I missed this past year in the English Anglo-Catholic world. And how would this year have been different? I imagined a world of seminarians eating nachos while kneeling in prayer. Of half a congregation getting up during the middle of the Creed in Latin to go get another suitcase-sized bag of peanuts. Or of choral evensong in St. Paul’s being interrupted by a fat man in a t-shirt letting out an echoing hearty belch fueled by gallons of non-alcoholic beer.

But no. it could never happen in England, and not just the non-alcoholic beer part. This Church at Dodger Stadium is such an American expression of Church—not the fact that it’s a megachurch, not the greasy charisma, not the red/white/blue color scheme, not the jokes about other people’s bad hygiene, but the FOOD.

And you know what, America? This is why we are all fat.  This is a sign of the end times—Americans who bother coming to “church” cannot put their hot dogs or frozen lemonades down for the one minute it takes to say a prayer.

Aw crap though. Now my next visit to a “normal” church is going to feel sorely lacking in Dodger Dogs.

Musical Cars

People ask me what it’s like to be back in America/Los Angeles. Usually I tell them about how I spend my unemployment watching movies about Amish people on Netflix. Often I talk about how totally hollow Episcopalians are. Sometimes I mention both.

But I should probably mention how great it is to have music again. And by music I mean a car.

I should probably back up and explain to foreigners and less fortunate Americans that Angelenos have quite a car culture. Everything is so spread out, and you have to drive everywhere. Last week, during my quest to find a kiddie pool at Toys R Us (I want to vomit just writing that name), I ended up on a trek across the parking lot that took longer than did my walk from my flat in Oxford to the city center, which was in a different zip code.

Granted, I had parked on the edge of the parking lot because it was full—for some reason everyone decided to congregate at Toys  R Us at 2 p.m. on a workday. I mean, I know why I have nothing better to do with my life, but what is the rest of Los Angeles’ excuse? Are we ALL unemployed? This parking lot the size of Oxfordshire is full, and Holy Hank there are cars all over the road. Traffic everywhere. Good God, is the recession so bad that about 50% of all Angelenos at any given moment are loitering, and loitering in a moving vehicle?

Anyway, my point is that I am in the car a lot. Usually marveling at the traffic and screaming at no one in particular, “WHERE THE FUCK ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE GOING AT 11 A.M. ON A WEDNESDAY?!”

When I’m not screaming at the world to get a job and get off the road, I sing. Really loudly. You might know that I do not sing in front of other people, even when others are singing, instead preferring to lip sync or stand in rigid silence like a small child wanting to stay up after her bedtime: “Maybe if I stand still enough they’ll forget I’m here.” Fair enough, I can think of two notable exceptions:

1)      In elementary school I joined the choir. Not because I wanted to sing, but because my friends could sing and I didn’t want to be alone at lunch when they rehearsed. I lip synced at all the concerts and rehearsals, except when we did “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

 

      My God did I get into that song. 11 year old Sam felt born to sing that song—heck, I STILL feel born to sing that song. So into that song was I that I tried to do not only the a-wee-mo-weh parts but also the high pitched howl, even when the two were supposed to be sung simultaneously by different people. “Fuck you,” 11 year old Sam said to the rest of the choir through her singing, “I got this one.”

2)      Then there was the kibbutz laundry room. I’ve mentioned it a million times before, but in case you didn’t know, I once spent half a year of my life folding towels in a laundry room in Israel. When I wasn’t folding towels I was accidentally getting parts of my body (namely my chest) burned by the industrial iron, having my fingerprints seared off by freshly laundered tablecloths that seemed to come straight from the fire pits of Hell, and (most frequently) finding elaborate ways to avoid having to fold my Hebrew classmates’ underpants.

Anyway, my coworkers (the Women of the Wash), whom I hated and still hate with a fiery passion on account of which I am perfectly willing to go to Hell, would frequently sing along to the radio. And, this being Israel and the land of Ben Yehuda, obviously most of the songs were in English. And horribly dated. So, to them, the first two lines of “St. Elmo’s Fire” would, instead of “Growin' up / You don't see the writin' on the wall,” be a melodically daring interpretation of the lyrics “Gerrn op / You doesee a wraton a oll.” Or something. As the only native English speaker in the room, several months of nonsensical lyrics from a random assortment of 80s, 90s and occasionally medieval songs started to wear on me.

Finally I could bear it no longer. Neil Sedaka’s “Breakin’ Up Is Hard To Do” came on the radio, probably right after Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.”

 

And as I sat there folding yet another dishtowel, I decided I needed to show the Women of the Wash how it’s done. THIS is how we sing English, you kibbutznik bitches. So I went big. I sang along with Neil as loudly as I possibly could, hoping even the Jordanians could hear my crackling voice. They’d think to themselves, “Well, I can tell the lyrics are Sedaka, but the tune is unlike anything we’ve ever heard…” Who cares though--my musical ability wasn’t what I was trying to prove, but rather my ability to speak English. See how clearly I enunciate the lyrics? See how I indisputably know how each sound I sing fits within the boundaries of a coherent, English word? Enjoy the free English lesson in this one-woman concert, you rancid communists.

Anyway, my point is that with these two exceptions (and a few others over the years, like the time in senior year when I was driving a freshman to school, forgot she was in the car, and ended up performing a noisy duet with Elton John), I don’t sing.

Except when I’m by myself in the car. When I got back in my car on August 1, there was eight months of pent-up diva that needed to be released. I’ve since then driven hundreds of miles around LA, singing at the top of my lungs.

Car song of the moment?

 When I’m in the car, I feel like Fun. need my help. And I’m happy to oblige.

Now, it’s nearly midnight. Diva needs her sleep.