"Then six weeks ago, I received an invitation to her wedding. She's marrying some guy she met at a company conference or something like that. They had a by-the-numbers story book romance. He met her, he was nice to her and he really appreciated her. They moved in together, they got a dog and they decided to get married."
He raises his voice a few octaves and buttons his cuffs. "'I want you to be there,' she told me when I expressed reservations. 'You mean as much to me as anyone else I've ever known. Well, other than Brent.' Then she used the dirty trick it was perfectly fair of her to use. 'Please, do this for me. It wouldn't be the same if you weren't there'."
"So I'm going. I'm going to sit near the back on the bride's side and stare across the room at Louisa. She won't be up there making sure I'm watching and it would be the same if I weren't there. But I'm still going."
"The tense moment will come when the priest asks whether there is anyone who knows why these two people shouldn't be married. In my younger and more reckless days, I might've stood up and screamed, 'I do. Because I love you Louisa.' Today I will stay in my seat and the moment will pass without so much as a burning in my legs. She'll run down the aisle and they'll cut the cake. I'll give her a hug and we'll promise to do a better job staying in touch. Two months from now she'll be the furthest thing from my mind. I have enough other women I keep close but not too close to take up my time. In that way, she's been an odd precedent."
He ties his tie while looking at the ceiling.
"I don't want to sound like I regret the way this ended up. Louisa was not the 'one great love of my life' and I did not miss the boat by never telling her how I felt. In reality, we just liked being the center and focus of someone else's attention. The invigorating rush of a crush eventually gave way to how little was behind it all."
"I'm steeling myself for one moment though. At some point in the night, I'll look at Louisa or she'll look at me. We will be talking to seperate groups of people and our eyes will meet across the room one last time. She'll wink at me and I'll wink back. It will be a hold over from when we cared about the other person seeing. Back then, it meant 'I know that you know.' Now it will mean the exact same thing but in a different way."
"It was crazy to be so unhappy for so long. Our relationship could never last. We had to move on with our lives and be happy."
He pulls his suit jacket on. "Does this look good?" He stands there arms spread, his shirt already wrinkling from the sweat.
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Untitled Pt.1
"I once heard, 'A relationship can never last between two people who are the same kind of crazy.' At first, I thought it was the sort of thing which sounds wise because of its odd sentence construction. A lot of advice is repeated because it sounds antiquated and it's a common assumption anything which lasts long enough must be The Truth. So I was skeptical and thought my results would inevitably vary."
"That was before I met Louisa. She was exactly the same kind of crazy as me. By that, I don't mean she loved Japanese animation, Ernest Hemingway novels and Left Coast punk. Quite the contrary."
"I mean she took the world in the same way I did. She could see the differing nature of any moment. Most people see the world in only one way. It's easier to think if you live your life by one hard and fast code of ethics that apply to every situation and every time. In fact, it's so easy most people don't even think they are as they're doing it."
He imitates a voice. "'That's just me,' they'll claim. 'That's how I am.'"
"Louisa saw every new moment as unique. She once told me her only presumption upon entering an unknown situation was she knew absolutely nothing. I remember making a wise crack about how wonderfully Zen that was and how I wish I could be so free-minded and unfrightened by the world."
"She was right though. By going in with an empty slate, her first instinct was to listen."
"Now, years later, I think that's why so many people gravitated to her. She was constantly sticking out her neck and taking risks for what she believed in. And what she believed in was she could actually make things better if only people would tell her what was wrong. She was the most selfless person I'd ever met."
"That was what attracted me to her as a friend. It was a different thing entirely which made me want to be something more. I honestly thought she treated me differently, treated me better. As nice as she was to everyone she met, I thought I caught a certain sparkle when she noticed I was in the room. It was something special to me. Her eyes would beam, her smile would light up and she would stop."
"It became a little game between us. Who could dance around the issue better? Who could let on in a more deniable way? I stretched on for weeks and then weeks became months. The game grew more complex. Soon it became 'Who could flirt more while the other watched?' 'Who could brag more and who could bear more while talking about meeting a nice new...?' Who could get the other to say, 'You'll find a nice ... who really appreciates you,' when the nice new ... left?"
"We became co-dependents in romantic failure and co-conspirators in never being happy. That was the crazy we shared. We chose to always be the bridesmaid instead of ruining our tacit 'If all else fails and we're both 30...' agreement."
"Slowly we drifted apart. Other things and other people started to clutter up our lives. Where once we flirted to make sure the other was still paying attention, now we flirted and didn't care. I could have entire relationships and only mention it off-handedly once it ended. We no longer mattered. All of the years melted, swept away as though there had been a gust of wind. The last time I really talked to Louisa was almost three years ago. She was just out of undergrad and she was freaking out about actually being out in the world. There was so much she just couldn't deal with and she called to lean on my shoulder."
He begins buttoning his shirt, the very bottom button first.
"It was fair of her to call me since I'd been something like a confidant for years. I would listen, make some noises which implied I understood and then make broad, wisened-sounding statements. This time I was bound for failure because what each of us had done was never actual support. We were experts on each other's idiosyncrasies. But we'd never let each other in far enough to truly know us."
"The last time we talked I listened and made affirming grunts in her little pauses. Then when it came time to make my usual non-commital advice, I realized I had nothing. I couldn't even find something someone else would say. There is no old saying which expresses 'I don't even know you anymore and can't relate to your problems.' In real time, I mumbled a bit about how everything would be okay and how she would find her way eventually. It was the first time in our relationship that someone's bullshit openly stunk."
He steps into his dress slacks one leg at a time and makes a grimmace as he buckles his belt to his usual loop. "Not as skinny as I once was."
"We made plans to see a movie in the upcoming weeks and neither of us called back with firm plans. We could've repeated it a few times more, each time behind an 'Oh, hey...' facade. But we both knew it was time to quit."
"That was before I met Louisa. She was exactly the same kind of crazy as me. By that, I don't mean she loved Japanese animation, Ernest Hemingway novels and Left Coast punk. Quite the contrary."
"I mean she took the world in the same way I did. She could see the differing nature of any moment. Most people see the world in only one way. It's easier to think if you live your life by one hard and fast code of ethics that apply to every situation and every time. In fact, it's so easy most people don't even think they are as they're doing it."
He imitates a voice. "'That's just me,' they'll claim. 'That's how I am.'"
"Louisa saw every new moment as unique. She once told me her only presumption upon entering an unknown situation was she knew absolutely nothing. I remember making a wise crack about how wonderfully Zen that was and how I wish I could be so free-minded and unfrightened by the world."
"She was right though. By going in with an empty slate, her first instinct was to listen."
"Now, years later, I think that's why so many people gravitated to her. She was constantly sticking out her neck and taking risks for what she believed in. And what she believed in was she could actually make things better if only people would tell her what was wrong. She was the most selfless person I'd ever met."
"That was what attracted me to her as a friend. It was a different thing entirely which made me want to be something more. I honestly thought she treated me differently, treated me better. As nice as she was to everyone she met, I thought I caught a certain sparkle when she noticed I was in the room. It was something special to me. Her eyes would beam, her smile would light up and she would stop."
"It became a little game between us. Who could dance around the issue better? Who could let on in a more deniable way? I stretched on for weeks and then weeks became months. The game grew more complex. Soon it became 'Who could flirt more while the other watched?' 'Who could brag more and who could bear more while talking about meeting a nice new...?' Who could get the other to say, 'You'll find a nice ... who really appreciates you,' when the nice new ... left?"
"We became co-dependents in romantic failure and co-conspirators in never being happy. That was the crazy we shared. We chose to always be the bridesmaid instead of ruining our tacit 'If all else fails and we're both 30...' agreement."
"Slowly we drifted apart. Other things and other people started to clutter up our lives. Where once we flirted to make sure the other was still paying attention, now we flirted and didn't care. I could have entire relationships and only mention it off-handedly once it ended. We no longer mattered. All of the years melted, swept away as though there had been a gust of wind. The last time I really talked to Louisa was almost three years ago. She was just out of undergrad and she was freaking out about actually being out in the world. There was so much she just couldn't deal with and she called to lean on my shoulder."
He begins buttoning his shirt, the very bottom button first.
"It was fair of her to call me since I'd been something like a confidant for years. I would listen, make some noises which implied I understood and then make broad, wisened-sounding statements. This time I was bound for failure because what each of us had done was never actual support. We were experts on each other's idiosyncrasies. But we'd never let each other in far enough to truly know us."
"The last time we talked I listened and made affirming grunts in her little pauses. Then when it came time to make my usual non-commital advice, I realized I had nothing. I couldn't even find something someone else would say. There is no old saying which expresses 'I don't even know you anymore and can't relate to your problems.' In real time, I mumbled a bit about how everything would be okay and how she would find her way eventually. It was the first time in our relationship that someone's bullshit openly stunk."
He steps into his dress slacks one leg at a time and makes a grimmace as he buckles his belt to his usual loop. "Not as skinny as I once was."
"We made plans to see a movie in the upcoming weeks and neither of us called back with firm plans. We could've repeated it a few times more, each time behind an 'Oh, hey...' facade. But we both knew it was time to quit."
Friday, August 13, 2010
Take Away the Football Team, the Basketball Team And All We Got Is Me to Represent New Orleans
Jeff, a Milwaukee native and transplant to Minneapolis, is standing in the Bryant-Lake Bowl, a turn-of-the-20th-century bowling alley converted to include a bar, restaurant and theater. As moderator of a popular and locally-acclaimed reading series, Jeff is working with the technical staff of the theater to wire in a Skype chat with the author of that month's selection.
"Can you hear us?" says Jeff as the 150 person capacity crowd of the theater greets each other and orders drinks around him. ...
Ok, so all of what I just wrote is true. By reporting what I know about Jeff and by attending the July meeting of Books & Bars, I've given an accurate representation of what was happening. I may have embellished a little bit here, tightened up a bit there and put words in Jeff's mouth but at its heart everything I wrote is true to the actual event.
Is it the Truth though? Is what I wrote an absolute representation of the situation? Well, no. I focused on Jeff while cutting out everyone else in the room. I gave one perspective on the event and had that stand in for the whole of the event. As a reader who wasn't there, you would likely assume (correctly I hope) that a perspective highlighting the moderator would be able to be generalized to the lion's share of the people in attendance because taking the time to actually chronicle the entire crowd would be time-consuming and unlikely to shed a great deal more perspective upon the July meeting. So you accept it's a representation of the Truth.
The same is true of "Zeitoun". It's based upon actual events from Zeitoun and Kathy's real lives. But it doesn't purport to be the Truth. It is after all Eggers' name on the front of the book, not Kathy and Zeitoun's names. Eggers is giving a representation of the Truth of their experiences surrounding Hurricane Katrina and using it to stand in as representative of a generalized experience of a person who lived in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm. We could again try to chronicle the experience and perspective of everyone but at a wont of time and necessity, we don't.
So you might be saying, "So what? Eggers is writing creative non-fiction. Welcome to the world of early 21st century publishing." And I agree with that, especially because the popularity of Eggers and his own deliberate efforts have pushed contemporary publishing in that direction. Did anyone see that 16-year-old Justin Bieber is writing his memoirs? Speak of a wont of time and necessity...
This is why I think it's important. One of the three things which stuck out about "Zeitoun" (along with how it romanticizes the post-storm anarchy and how poorly Kathy comes off) is the frequent references to how difficult it is to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America. It stuck out to me because 1.) it's kind of tangential if Zeitoun is taking the place of the Everyman and 2.) it's like duuuuuhhhhhhh. It's not even something which we can limit to happening prior to January 20th, 2009 either as the stupid "WTC mosque" controversy has proven. Though it's been almost ten years since 9/11, our continued military presence in Muslim countries makes for a constant backdrop to living in the United States right now. Anyone alive and aware in America knows it's difficult to be a Muslim in our culture.
The only people whom that wouldn't be readily obvious for is people who don't live in our culture. Since America is a cultural hegemony (just try to find a foreign film in the top 100 grossing films of 2009) and because we're willing to live with our warts, that's not an idea which is remote to anyone living in a free society on the planet. Which means the people whom need to be told of that reality are for the most part people who are either too young to remember or haven't been born yet. Eggers has to be aware his celebrity and influence means his books will be read not just by contemporary audiences. They will also be read by people who wouldn't know offhand how difficult it is to be Muslim right now.
It matters because for many people who will be looking back on this era, this will be their perspective and representation of this era in the same way Kerouac's "On the Road" is for those of us who were not old enough or even alive in the 1950s. (Notice that I said Kerouac and "On The Road", not Halberstam and "The Fifties" or C. Wright Mills and "The Power Elite".) But it would be ludicrous to suggest "On the Road" is the Truth about the 1950s, no matter how beloved our friend Kerouac is. "On the Road" is creative non-fiction which is meant to represent a generalization of post-WWII America in the way "Zeitoun" represents our current moment. Hell, the focus in each is even on the main character's transportation.
So my impression while reading "Zeitoun" was an awareness that what I was reading was true but not the Truth. I don't think you can hand someone a copy of the book and say "This is what it was like to live in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina," any more than you can hand them "On the Road" and show them the 1950s. To get closer to the Truth, you have to keep on looking and I hope, being an open-minded individual who believes in the freedom of religion, that the future readers of "Zeitoun" keep looking. Our era is much too complex to summarize in 325 pages and in the experience of only one man.
"Can you hear us?" says Jeff as the 150 person capacity crowd of the theater greets each other and orders drinks around him. ...
Ok, so all of what I just wrote is true. By reporting what I know about Jeff and by attending the July meeting of Books & Bars, I've given an accurate representation of what was happening. I may have embellished a little bit here, tightened up a bit there and put words in Jeff's mouth but at its heart everything I wrote is true to the actual event.
Is it the Truth though? Is what I wrote an absolute representation of the situation? Well, no. I focused on Jeff while cutting out everyone else in the room. I gave one perspective on the event and had that stand in for the whole of the event. As a reader who wasn't there, you would likely assume (correctly I hope) that a perspective highlighting the moderator would be able to be generalized to the lion's share of the people in attendance because taking the time to actually chronicle the entire crowd would be time-consuming and unlikely to shed a great deal more perspective upon the July meeting. So you accept it's a representation of the Truth.
The same is true of "Zeitoun". It's based upon actual events from Zeitoun and Kathy's real lives. But it doesn't purport to be the Truth. It is after all Eggers' name on the front of the book, not Kathy and Zeitoun's names. Eggers is giving a representation of the Truth of their experiences surrounding Hurricane Katrina and using it to stand in as representative of a generalized experience of a person who lived in New Orleans in the aftermath of the storm. We could again try to chronicle the experience and perspective of everyone but at a wont of time and necessity, we don't.
So you might be saying, "So what? Eggers is writing creative non-fiction. Welcome to the world of early 21st century publishing." And I agree with that, especially because the popularity of Eggers and his own deliberate efforts have pushed contemporary publishing in that direction. Did anyone see that 16-year-old Justin Bieber is writing his memoirs? Speak of a wont of time and necessity...
This is why I think it's important. One of the three things which stuck out about "Zeitoun" (along with how it romanticizes the post-storm anarchy and how poorly Kathy comes off) is the frequent references to how difficult it is to be a Muslim in post-9/11 America. It stuck out to me because 1.) it's kind of tangential if Zeitoun is taking the place of the Everyman and 2.) it's like duuuuuhhhhhhh. It's not even something which we can limit to happening prior to January 20th, 2009 either as the stupid "WTC mosque" controversy has proven. Though it's been almost ten years since 9/11, our continued military presence in Muslim countries makes for a constant backdrop to living in the United States right now. Anyone alive and aware in America knows it's difficult to be a Muslim in our culture.
The only people whom that wouldn't be readily obvious for is people who don't live in our culture. Since America is a cultural hegemony (just try to find a foreign film in the top 100 grossing films of 2009) and because we're willing to live with our warts, that's not an idea which is remote to anyone living in a free society on the planet. Which means the people whom need to be told of that reality are for the most part people who are either too young to remember or haven't been born yet. Eggers has to be aware his celebrity and influence means his books will be read not just by contemporary audiences. They will also be read by people who wouldn't know offhand how difficult it is to be Muslim right now.
It matters because for many people who will be looking back on this era, this will be their perspective and representation of this era in the same way Kerouac's "On the Road" is for those of us who were not old enough or even alive in the 1950s. (Notice that I said Kerouac and "On The Road", not Halberstam and "The Fifties" or C. Wright Mills and "The Power Elite".) But it would be ludicrous to suggest "On the Road" is the Truth about the 1950s, no matter how beloved our friend Kerouac is. "On the Road" is creative non-fiction which is meant to represent a generalization of post-WWII America in the way "Zeitoun" represents our current moment. Hell, the focus in each is even on the main character's transportation.
So my impression while reading "Zeitoun" was an awareness that what I was reading was true but not the Truth. I don't think you can hand someone a copy of the book and say "This is what it was like to live in New Orleans in the days after Hurricane Katrina," any more than you can hand them "On the Road" and show them the 1950s. To get closer to the Truth, you have to keep on looking and I hope, being an open-minded individual who believes in the freedom of religion, that the future readers of "Zeitoun" keep looking. Our era is much too complex to summarize in 325 pages and in the experience of only one man.
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