World Culture 101: Holidays

This week I have the pleasure of getting paid to manage the selection and decoration of a Christmas tree for my office. Not because my boss is overcome with holiday spirit but because some clients from China are visiting next week and apparently they get a kick out of seeing our traditions in action. This made the culture-junkie in me so happy. It’s been a long time since I’ve had money traveled abroad and I kinda forgot that there's stuff we Americans do that is totally weird to other parts of the world. Like chop down 8’ tall trees, prop them up in our living rooms and place cookies under them for the imaginary man who breaks into every Christian household on the 24th. 

This makes me nostalgic for my time in the Peace Corps and the inherent comedy of holiday discussions. On Halloween, two volunteers and I explained to our neighbor that, for Americans, it's a day devoted to spirits and mischief and that everyone dresses up in costumes and children go door to door at night to collect candy from the adults. “We have this in Morocco!” he beamed. “The men kill goats, dress in their skins and throw water on the children!” We blinked at him. Chickens clucked in the distance. "Riiiight." I said. "And when exactly is that holiday?" Because that sounds utterly traumatic and I want to make sure I stay home.

Then there was the time I told a neighbor that I would be out of town to meet up with other volunteers for Superbowl Sunday. "Sunday is holy in America, yes? Superbowl Sunday is a religious day?" I couldn't argue with that. "Yes" I told him. "A very important religious day."

The ultimate holiday conversation, though, – one that is still a hit with my family and friends nearly fourteen years later – revolved around Easter. It was my first experience with Aid el Kebir, the most sacred of Muslim holidays, which is marked by slaughtering a sheep and feasting around the clock on every (every) part of the body. Islam runs on a lunar calendar and it happened that that year the Aid fell in early April. After the slaughter ceremony, as I sat on the floor choking down sheep's stomach with my Moroccan family, it dawned on me that Easter was being celebrated back in the States. My language skills were limited at the time but I had studied holiday vocabulary in preparation for the Aid so I thought explaining Easter could be fun way to practice. I cleared my throat and everyone looked at me. I was shy about talking and rarely initiated conversation so their interest was piqued.

“So... um, in America, we have a holiday right now, too...“ 

“Religious?” the father interrupted.

I nodded emphatically. “Yes, yes! Religious.“ Murmurs of approval all around. “Um, to celebrate… we, er…” 

“You kill a sheep!” a cousin submitted. This, too, was met with happy support.

“Well, no.” I stammered. “We have, um... there’s, er…” I fumbled for a stick and drew in the dirt. “What’s this?” I asked my friend Fatima.

“A rabbit.” she answered, supplying the Berber word. Her face lit up with comprehension. “The Americans kill a rabbit!” she exclaimed. Thunderous praise.

“That pleases God!” preached an uncle and everyone clucked in agreement. 

I kneaded my temples and cursed myself for starting this conversation. Why didn't I just say, "Christians celebrate Jesus dying and then coming alive again and living forever. We wear nice clothes and eat a special dinner"? What possessed me to try to articulate secular mythology with a vocabulary of present tense verbs, local fruits and vegetables and numbers 1-100?

"We don't kill the rabbit." I sputtered. "The rabbit... it’s not alive, it's - what's the word? - it's, um, in our heads and parents put candy in baskets for the children but they tell the children that the candy is from the rabbit.”

As I was talking I knew it sounded asinine but I didn't have the language skills to salvage any of it so I just punished my ignorant mouth with a fistful of sheep's stomach and vowed to never again say anything other than, "It's hot outside!" and "This couscous is delicious." Fatima patted my hand. 

“I understand." she reassured me. "You give gifts to the children but you lie and say the presents are from a rabbit.” 

The uncle shook his head sadly. “They shouldn’t lie on a holy day.” 

“It's hot outside.” I mumbled.

Now that I’m older and understand that these “teachable moments” are completely forgettable, I realize I should have rolled with the rabbit slaughter, enjoyed the applause and washed down the lies with some sweet mint tea but I was 22 and life was very serious and important so I marched ahead with my culture lesson. I'm much older and slightly wiser now so my current position is that holidays are about humility, not humiliation. This means that when our Chinese clients come to town on Monday I will do my best to share Christmas with them but if a special-needs reindeer's redemption story gets lost in translation I will not think twice about steering the conversation to Katy Perry and In N Out.

  

Dreams: The 12 Days of Stressmas

It's that time of year, again! Time for spicy coffee blends and glittery mail and fuzzy blankets that smell faintly of vanilla and joy and song and cookies and the suffocating realization that the New Year is imminent and I have nothing to show for my personal and professional life. Raise your wassail, friends- It's Stress Dream Season!

Last night I had a dream that I was working at a small jewelry manufacturer and by small I mean me and Robin Marcello (who I went to high school with and haven't spoken to in nearly 20 years and I probably just saw her name on Facebook and it stuck- Robin, I'm sorry, let the record show that you're a good person) and we worked for the Grinch. Not the silly cartoon Grinch but a human interpretation who was really mangy and creepy. We worked in a dank one-room office with faux-wood paneling and a concrete floor and the only furnishings were matching metal teacher's desks which Robin and I sat at, side by side. 

The Grinch came in on this particular day, sneered a "Good Morning" at us and told us that he was offering a $3 million Christmas bonus to whichever one of us produced 3 salable necklaces by midnight that night. He shoved a cardboard box of materials at each of us and slithered into his office. I was shaking with excitement. Necklaces were my specialty so I knew I had this in the bag and my mind was racing with all the ways I would use the money. "I'll pay off my student loan and my car loan and I'll start a retirement plan and I'll go to France and I'll take a writing sabbatical and I'll buy a house and new jeans and an ice cream maker!" (I really want an ice cream maker) I felt so light and free and I had to concentrate really hard in order to not break down and cry huge, cathartic I'll-Never-Be-Hungry-Again tears but I didn't want to show any emotion because I knew it would make the Grinch angry.  

I looked in the box and it was a tangle of cheap gold-plated chain.  I loosened a couple strands and as I tried to open the links to attach a clasp, the chain disintegrated and the more I tried to work with it, the more it would disintegrate. I wasn't going to be able to make any necklaces and I wasn't going to earn the $3 million dollars. The Grinch had set us up to fail. I looked over at Robin and I could see she was processing this, too. I was going to offer her some consolation but then she looked at me and smiled and said, "I'll be back in a bit." and she left. 

Some time passed and Robin returned triumphantly with three beautiful necklaces. She had gone out and bought materials to make them and the Grinch was very pleased. "But she cheated!" I cried. "She didn't use what you gave us!" and he just looked at me with hatred and pity and cackled, "Details, details..." so pleased with his crafty his protege. Suddenly I was having trouble breathing. I felt a crushing disgust in my chest - disgust with Robin for cheating so smugly, disgust with the Grinch for rewarding her dishonesty, and disgust with myself for failing to think creatively and missing out on $3 million. I worked for the Grinch, I should have known that manipulation was expected. I should have been more innovative. I watched Robin and the Grinch celebrate and buried my head in my hands and wept. 

And then I woke up with my tiny dog curled into my neck, snoring contentedly with the tip of her ear up one of my nostrils. I know my life is pretty great and I have a lot to be thankful for but airy sentiment never seems to keep my subconscious from taking a magnifying glass to my every disappointment and creating elaborate disaster scenarios during the month of December. I wonder what the next episode will be! Famine? Car crash? Tidal wave? My series of terrifying tidal wave dreams are usually reserved for periods when I'm particularly anxious about money but anything is possible during Stressmas...

The Book of Questions: Parents, Urine and Torture.

It's time again to delve into Gregory Stock, PH.D's borderline-inappropriate collection, The Book of Questions. Today we take the Whitman's Sampler approach:

Question 139. Would you rather spend a month on vacation with your parents or put in overtime at your current job for four weeks without extra compensation?  

Wow. Do people really hate their parents this much? Call me naive but I think my parents are great. I wish I had the money to take them on vacation. If I could I would fly us to Italy for a month and I would eat cannoli with my mom and go to a Parmesan factory with my Dad and we would drink wine and laugh and they would fall asleep by 9pm and I would have feverish late night rendezvous (is there an Italian phrase for that?) with a steamy motorcycle-riding local named Nico who has magic stubble that doesn't slice your face when you kiss him. Seriously, even if you aren't tight with your parents, vacations naturally allow for doing your own thing so you wouldn't have to spend time with them if you just organized your schedule well. And isn't anything better than working overtime without getting paid?? I don't know about you but I'm salaried and I clock out at 5pm on the nose. Anything more than that and the Resentment Calculator kicks in. "It's 5:22! That's $12.87 down the drain if I left RIGHT NOW" I’m sorry, even if you can't stand your parents, this question boils down to Vacation vs. Work and vacation must win. 

Question 61. Can you urinate in front of another person?  

First of all, um, yeah, duh, I'm a girl and we are biologically engineered to gather in restrooms and speculate about the intentions of attractive men while taking turns peeing. Also, football and concerts and camping are pretty much my favorite things, so double-duh. However, I don't think this is the answer you had in mind, Dr. Gregory. I think you are creepy and weird and although I am perfectly comfortable peeing in front of another person, you asking me if I'm comfortable makes me uncomfortable. Now I feel gross and there is an imaginary-yet-overwhelming urine smell in my nose.  

Question 54. What is the worst psychological torture you can imagine suffering? 

Easy!

 

Dating in Los Angeles. 

You want answers about Benghazi? Find the one girl in the group who is single and in her thirties. Plant her on a first date in Venice at a candle-lit corner table made of reclaimed wood. Pair her with a smart, creative, attractive professional who makes her laugh and smiles dreamily at her and simultaneously displays emotional maturity and boyish charm by confessing that he really likes her. Have them excitedly discuss all the possibilities for their second date: Restaurants they want to try, shows they want to see, meals they want to cook, hikes they want to take. Finally, have them part ways, have him seal this enchanting evening with an adorable goodnight text and BOOM. He will mysteriously never contact her again and within a week she will have clawed herself raw trying to make sense of it and will divulge anything you want to know if you can please just explain the enigma that is The Awesome LA Guy Who Is Obviously Into Me But Then Disappears. Done! I would like a consulting position with the State Department, thank you. Also, I would like a creative, professional thirty-something year-old man in this godforsaken town to date me for the love of all that is good and holy I'm in the prime of my life isthattoomuchtoask.  

Now I need a cocktail. Well played, Dr. Gregory. Well played. 

Lists!

I love lists. This will probably be a recurring entry theme, since I get a thrill out of making bullet points. The following lists the contents of my purse. I think this is a fun, minimally invasive way to get insight into people. It appeals to the amateur detective in me, who still dreams of starring in the Nancy Drew film franchise. 

• Keys with plastic monkey head fixed on my house key for easy identification because I love efficiency. And monkeys
• A paperclip
• An unreasonably expensive yet wonderfully luxurious Fresh Sugar lip treatment stick
• Laura Mercier lipstick in Poppy
• Three lip glosses that I took from a Borghese promotional modeling job. They were brand new and supposed to be testers. Whoopsy! They're actually really silky and awesome so everybody go out and buy one to make up for the three that I stole
• A somewhat melted Pacifica solid perfume in Lotus Garden
• Keys to my brothers’ apartment building
• Keys to my friend Chel’s apartment building
• Wallet with $3 and way too many dining and bar receipts. At a glance, the first two are from back-to-back meals at Lulu's Cafe. If you've ever eaten breakfast there, this needs no explanation 
• Iphone headphones
• Iphone charger
• Iphone
• Makeup case with Advil, Emergen-C, Benefit luminizer, Visine and other essentials one requires when one shows up to work hung-over. Also 2 tampons because I'm a girl. And ear plugs because I'm an old lady disguised as a girl
• Two tea bags because I love tea and what if the car breaks down and I have to fend for myself for days in the wilderness? A cup of Lady Grey will sooth me as I listen to the howls of approaching predators, obvs
• Wine key. If you have to ask why then you don’t know me
• A dime
• A thumb drive loaded with all my writing as well as TV and movie scripts I want to read
• Deodorant because I sweat all the time. Nervous, excited, whatever - basically anytime I'm doing anything not boring, I'm sweating
• 3 Pilot Precise V7 roller ball pens in blue. They are my favorite and I have three just to be absolutely certain I will always have one on me, because I’m obsessive like that. I also carry a cheap black ballpoint from the Tropicana Las Vegas that I offer when people ask me if they can borrow a pen
• Tiny Moleskine for jotting down funny things that happen to me. Also for ripping out pages to stick stale gum in
• 3 brain teaser puzzles, torn from a 2009 Puzzle Master desk calendar
• A roll of pink doggy poop bags
• Paper coupons held together with a giant binder clip. Coupons include: 20% off at Bed Bath and Beyond, a Living Social voucher for a facial in Santa Monica, a Groupon for $40 at Amoeba Records, a Victoria’s Secret coupon for $10 off any purchase, 25% off at World Market and $1.50 off any size bottle of Wellness Formula capsules  
• Wintergreen Altoids because the normal flavor makes me gag
• Two-month old issue of Los Angeles magazine
• A hair clip
• Prescription glasses
• Non-prescription sunglasses
• Travel-sized Neutrogena sunscreen

And there you have it. I feel so vulnerable! Meh, no I don’t. I mostly just feel like I need to clean out my purse.

Dream On

I keep a dream journal. There’s a Black n’ Red and a pen tucked down the side of my mattress and the first thing I do when I wake up is write down everything I remember. I have incredibly detailed and cinematic dreams, I have since I was a child and it wasn’t until I got older and started sharing them with others that I realized I wasn’t normal – that while I’m dreaming about evil music boxes that form a militia and I’m the only force keeping them from total world domination*, most people are dreaming about their grandma or (this kills me) don’t remember their dreams at all.

My dreams are always very complex. They have story arcs and act breaks and climaxes and cliffhangers. They are also closely tied to whatever is going on in my life: When I feel happy I might have a dream about me and my best friend strapping on vests with tiny hot air balloons attached and soaring around my neighborhood. When I feel stressed I might have a dream about my ex boyfriend and I being trapped in the unhinged car of a roller coaster that is suspended miles above the ocean and the only way to stop from careening off and plummeting to our deaths is to throw our weight around in a way that keeps it on the tracks. And when I have really acute anxiety about something, I have my recurring nightmare that someone is stalking me to kill me and we play cat and mouse until eventually the killer (always cloaked in black) corners me and I try to scream but can’t find my voice until just as he lunges to strangle or stab me (always one of those two); I’m finally able scream but it’s too late because I’m being brutally murdered. That’s a fun one for boyfriends because I wake up screaming in a cold sweat. Fortunately it’s rare and generally reserved for major life transitions, like when I’m contemplating changing jobs or moving or ending a relationship. I actually have a great appreciation for that dream because it’s a very clear knock on the head that I’m unhappy with my life and need to change things up. On a few occasions it has happened unexpectedly, which is fascinating-slash-alarming because then I have to go on a psychological witch-hunt to identify what’s bothering me so that the nightmares will stop. Good times!

Sometimes I dream in other languages. If I’ve been reminiscing about Peace Corps, I’ll dream in Arabic that night, which I love because I don’t really remember any Arabic so as soon as I wake up I jot down all the vocabulary I can recall. The other day I downloaded the Wunderlist app for my Iphone and just for kicks I decided to navigate all the settings and features in French. Right on schedule, that night I dreamed in French that I was the headmaster at a prestigious boarding school nestled among lavender fields and there was a visiting headmaster who wanted to observe the school to get ideas for his own up the road and I wanted to run him off because he was my competition but also I was secretly in love with him.

Like the French boarding school, most of my dreams are purely entertaining. Like the one I had a couple weeks ago where I was on a guided tour of Buckingham Palace and I got separated from the group and Prince William struck up a conversation with me and before I knew it we were having a clandestine affair but I was also staying at the palace as a guest of the Royal Family, playing tennis and acting like everything was normal. I felt so ashamed about it until Kate Middleton took me aside and told me she knew about the affair and that it was fine, that everyone in Europe has mistresses and that she was glad Prince William had chosen me because she really liked me and enjoyed my company. This dream is a little disappointing because I don’t find Prince William the slightest bit attractive but it’s nice to know that my brain is comfortable justifying extra-marital affairs.

In the words of my father, after I described a dream over the breakfast table in 8^th grade: “Jeepers. Even in sleep you have a flair for the dramatic.”

I go through phases logging my dreams. I haven’t done it for years but I started up again last January because I was experiencing a really damaging artistic block and I hoped that recording my dreams might harness the creative juices that were flowing while I slept. At the time I thought they could be the catalyst for a screenplay or a character study or some short stories but after 10 months of steady tracking they have established themselves as nothing more than deeply bizarre snapshots of my psyche so now I mostly record them so that if I die suddenly in a car crash, my friends and family, entrenched in a grief that only wants to remember me as vibrant and beautiful, will have something tangible to remind them what a loon I was.

And now you can, too! I’ve decided to open up my dream journal to you so you can enjoy the inner workings of my cracked-out subconscious. Instead of revisiting dreams I’ve already had, we’ll start fresh together and I’ll report the most interesting ones to you as I digest them. So none to talk about yet, since the clock starts with this post but I’m sure there will be some doozies as the holidays draw near. Sweet dreams!

*All the dreams I mention are real. This one occurred in high school the night before my AP English exam.

Frankenstorm

Frankenstorm is scheduled to hit the Northeast today and in talking to family and friends out there I find my inner Rhode Islander feeling nostalgic for natural disasters. Not to minimize the fact that peoples’ safety is at stake but I do sometimes miss epic weather events. There’s something so electric about the way a great storm shifts our thinking; we always bow to Nature. This doesn’t exist in California, does it? There's a constant threat of earthquakes, I guess, but their unpredictability deprives us of my favorite part of the experience: The preparation. I love the Colonial America-ness of boarding up the house, securing the animals, collecting candles and preserved food. As my mother happily chimed over the phone yesterday, "I bought three gallons of ice cream so that when we lose power we have to eat it all!" This is the compass she's passed down to me. One of joy and abandon - enjoy the rhythm of the storm, wear pajamas all day long, huddle under pillow-y comforters and play board games by flashlight. Create festivity in the face of fear. Storms are a celebration of resilience. 

Certainly I wish for a mild storm and minimal damage. My closest loved ones are all on the East Coast and I would love nothing more than for this to blow out to sea... I also recognize that yesterday, as my parents were cleaning the gutters and filling the bathtub with water, I got sunburn while browsing fresh honey at the Farmer’s Market. I have nothing to complain about. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t once in a while wish for the occasion to join my mother in bundling up in an oversized sweatshirt, drinking hot chocolate and taping the windows :) 

The Book of Questions

I was rummaging through some holiday decorations over the weekend and found The Book of Questions by Gregory Stock, PH.D. I remember buying this years ago on a whim, thinking it would be fun at parties but I guess I don’t have parties (or my parties are so fun they don’t need help from a book?) because this thing has never been cracked. Until now! 

Okay, maybe my expectations are way off base but aren't these books usually pretty innocuous? Don't they generally only exist to make you contemplate "What would you do if you found one million dollars in an abandoned shopping cart?" while your friend takes too long in the Barnes and Noble restroom? Not this creepy, hairy mole of a book. It's unclear what Dr. Gregory’s credentials are but based on the first twenty pages, I’m guessing he falls just right of the questionable pediatrician I went to during junior high whose answer to any ailment was to have me take my shirt off so he could “listen to” my braless chest and just left of the maniacal abortion doctors showcased at fundamentalist Hell Houses. Take Question #11, for example: 

“You’re given the power to kill people, simply by thinking of their deaths and twice repeating the words 'good-bye'. People would die a natural death and no one would suspect you. Are there any situations in which you would use this power?” 

What the WHAT?! I’ve read this a couple times now and I think the detailed procedure he created is the most disturbing. For the average person, a healthy curiosity (and a couple of Sazeracs) might make you wonder out loud, “Hey, can you imagine having the power to kill someone with your mind? Ethically, that would be bananas!” Not Dr. Gregory. He has fleshed this out and planted a neat little script for us so that now I can’t stop thinking of people in my life and saying “good-bye” over and over. I may very well have just eliminated my entire immediate family, two of my friends and Rueben, the smiley cleaning guy at my office who is (used to be??) helping me with my Spanish. It is of no comfort that they died of natural causes, by the way. Drowning is technically a natural death. Also, I feel like he’s trying to mask the crazy by using subtle wording in that final question, “Are there any situations in which you would use this power?” Um, you’re asking me if I would kill people. Don’t get coy with me, Dr. Gregory. You want me to tell you all my killing fantasies and you want to tape them and dance to them the dank, leaky basement where you keep your severed head collection. 

That said, I would totally use it. I would use it for the guy in rush hour traffic who doesn’t let me merge in front of him and then later cuts me off when he needs to get over at the last minute. I would also use it for anyone who talks during movies and bicyclists who bike on the sidewalk. 

Good-bye, good-bye!