| Day 17 |
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August 17, 2004 The press of days and the wearying heat of August has left our contributors befuddled, their reflexes dull, their feet falling a step behind the beat. This month's Day 17 was full of calamity and misadventure: cans crashing, cute boys finding out secrets, mysterious explanations and heads made swimmy with powerful medication. This was not a month that taught us anything, except perhaps the folly of planning ahead, as the world will trip you up and take your belongings and leave you looking foolish in front of strangers. Editor's Note: We also added an 'About The Author' section to each of this month's entries, because we were looking for something new to do. Jill McElmurry (Minneapolis, Minnesota)
Puja Telikicherla (New York, NY)
Madeline Helma Goldberg (Brooklyn, NY)
Abby Hannan (Brooklyn, NY)
Kelly Johnson (St. Paul, MN)
Sarah Allen (Brooklyn, NY)
Gus Caldwell (Sterling, VA)
Amanda Cardone (Port Jefferson, NY)
Meredith Bragg (Alexandria, VA)
JILL McELMURRY
Day 17: Anatomy of a Hot Flash. In which I explain something that Brian hasn’t heard about. 11:41a.m: If the two halves of your rib-cage were clouds then the sun would burn a hole between them and melt you from the inside out and your head would spout rain drops that splash and douse the sun after about 60 seconds. At first you think you are the center of the universe with the sun inside you but then you just feel hot and wish that you could jump into the sea. Preferably the North Sea. :: website :: About The Author: Jill writes and illustrates children's books, and draws pictures of cats in her spare time.
PUJA TELIKICHERLA
It was a dare. Over a breakfast that ran unusually early for the day, the 6am toaster-pop and cereal crumbling into bowls instead of the 7am churn of the coffee grinder. "I dare you," Joe said, looking at me sleepily in his t-shirt, the blue towel acting as a cover. I grinned, shaking my head, tightening the soft white bathrobe around my shoulders. Half an hour later I saw him again, smiling to confirm the searing, innocuous pain of an icy cold shower. We left the coffee untouched. Now waiting for the train, I run my hand across my hair to loosen the stiff planks left behind by discount styling gel. My hair is still wet, cold. The train rushes in and my goosebumped arms turn flat again. I want the hot water back. About The Author: Puja just moved to New York, just got her pilot's license, and is going back to school. She is a busy girl.
MADELINE HELMA GOLDBERG
Little did I know that my journey from Cumberland Street to the Atlantic LIRR terminal, armed with a push-cart stacked high with duffel bags full of laundry, would be filled with such peril. Approaching a four way intersection on Hanson Place, I made an attempt to beat the light. As I double checked for oncoming traffic, I heard a muttered cry "Don't hesitate, dear!" I looked up to my right, and a stocky man, drenched in sweat, was pushing a dolly twice the size of mine, stacked 8 feet high in Snapple and assorted juice beverages, saying "Don't hesitate, don't hesitate." I misinterpreted this to mean HURRY UP. He stopped short, cardboard boxes of juice and Snapple toppling onto the street and rolling every which way. Juice-Man cursed under his breath and I quickly abandoned my laundry cart to help him. Three teenage boys and I clean up the bottles, which thankfully were plastic, causing a traffic jam of angry shoppers, honking at us for delaying their trip to Target. I still caught my train, Juice-Man forgave me after I helped him reload his dolly, and now I sit peacefully on my mother's screened in porch, staring at the sea. :: website :: About The Author:Madeline teaches public school in Brooklyn, and objects when people accuse her of drinking too much.
ABBY HANNAN
I have an INCREDIBLE sense of smell today (the Polish women at Greenpoint Avenue made me realize this). It's a side effect of a medicine I am on. The list of them is endless:
Ahh, wounds that would not heal. My personal favorite is false sense of well-being, followed by mistaken feelings of self-importance. Are these really two different things? And this isn’t even the half of it. There are internet rumors that these pills cause HUNCHBACKS (!) after prolonged use. I mean, I hate to be shallow, but if you are alive only to have a hunchback, what’s the fucking point? You can just forget going to the beach after that. You might as well yell “sanctuary” and go throw yourself in the fucking ocean. :: website :: About The Author: Abby has a little red cylindrical hat, just like the cigarette girls used to wear.
KELLY JOHNSON
Day 17 really started on the 15th. So hold on...I will now embarass myself so completely that I may never be able to recover any sense of dignity that I ever had. So there's this guy from high school I mentioned twice in old posts [on my blog]. First, in my all-revealing one about all the guys I've ever crushed on, and then again when I found a picture to reference. Here's the stupid thing about that post (the former). I used full names. Now, that was incredibly stupid of me, and why I didn't think of it, I don't know. Probably because while I can Google-stalk just about anyone, I am, for the most part, completely un-stalkable via the internet, due to my completely common and boring and overused name. It's like John Smith, I swear. So said boy (although I suppose I should be calling my contemporaries "men" or something, but I'll go with "guy" if I have to, and prefer "boy" 'cause most of them still act like that) Googles himself, and what does he find? Said post. Then said boy comments and it gets forwarded to my email. I am, of course, mortified that he would find such a thing out. And outright flabbergasted (how do you spell that?). And generally speechless. It's a good thing I'm at work, so I remained vaguely composed. But, oh no, it gets so much worse. See, then I had to go back and read what I wrote about him. And it's horrible! I mean, I did say he was gorgeous (which is only embarassing for me), but I also said maybe a not-nice thing or two that I didn't think he'd ever find so I didn't mind saying it. I wouldn't want to read said post about myself. So now I'm mortified and horrified. To protect the innocent, I will now go and edit all references to anyone whose first and last names were listed, so that hopefully this never happens again. Today I emailed him back. How exactly do you recover from such a thing? There's no way, really. :: website :: About The Author: We have never met Kelly in our life. She could be an assassin, or a world-famous flower-arranger from Hokkaido, or a man.
SARAH ALLEN
Today I saw the following comments scrawled in various Brooklyn public bathrooms:
:: website :: About The Author: Sarah's cat is bully, but she loves him anyway.
GUS CALDWELL
I’ve been accused of many and varied things in my time, but today a new one was added to the list. While explaining to a colleague that I could indeed accomplish a task, I elicited the response “That’s all a lot of jiggery-pokery!” Without knowing what that rustic, folksy-sounding phrase meant, I could guess that it wasn’t exactly a glowing endorsement. If I had to guess, I’d say at best it related roughly to “That’s all smoke and mirrors”, and at worse… well, we need not go there. So, harkening back to my childhood years whenever I might ask an adult about the spelling or meaning of a word, I took their unvaried advice and looked it up. jig·ger·y-pok·er·y (jg-r-pk-r) (n.) Underhand scheming or behavior.
Hmmmm. Wanting to think the best of my colleague (and myself), I took it to mean that they had no understanding of how I was going to accomplish the task. Or more broadly, how I do any of the work I do. And quite honestly, I don’t really know what they do, or how they do it. As we specialize our labor more and more, I have less and less of an idea about how many professions actually work. When I go into H&R Block during tax season and walk out with a five-hundred dollar refund check, well… that’s all a bunch of Jiggery-Pokery to me. It isn’t that folks aren’t smart enough to understand what I do, or that I’m not smart enough to understand what they do (unless we’re talking rocket science, I hear that is pretty complex), we’ve just decided not to understand. And as long as we can assume that we are all in it together and have some amount of altruism, we all benefit in the end. I get my tax refund, my colleagues get their information, and I have a job. I guess this revelation isn’t really new, but it is always a bit shocking to realize again how little we understand about each other’s work. The real lesson here: “smoke and mirrors” is just not as much fun to say as “Jiggery-Pokery” :: website :: About The Author: Gus used to be in charge of sailing enormous ships around the world. But now he has a little baby boy instead.
AMANDA CARDONE
Since I depart tomorrow for Pennsylvania, I spent today straightening things up around the house, relaxing, packing, and thinking. This visit to my hometown will be the last for some time, since when I return I will promptly begin my new job, my first real grown-up job with benefits and accrued vacation (hence the trip now before I can't take one in months). I'm filled with eager anticipation to begin, but can't help wondering whether I and the non-profit agency will be as mutually fulfilled by one another as we both hope. For example, a conversation today gave particular rise to my worries about whether the presentations I'll be giving weekly will be as articulate and informative as I intend: After reading some of the reports on the massacre in Burundi, I realized I knew so little about the Hutus and Tutsis that I should really look them up and find out why they're fighting. After learning what I thought was an abundant amount of information, I enthusiastically tried to teach my partner all about what I learned. Much to my dismay, I started stuttering. Me, a former theater student, a person who when asked in interviews if she minds public speaking surprises the interviewers with a confident "Not at all!", me, I was stuttering. Immediately I imagined myself doing this in front of a large class full of trendy and judgmental teenagers seething with the sense of entitlement found so commonly in these parts, trying to educate them about the important issue I came there to discuss, but only being jeered at and ignored. I do believe a trip to the family abode will bode well for my slightly insecure nature. There's nothing like a mother's unconditional love of her only child to knock the confidence back into one. About The Author: Amanda has had enough of graduate school.
MEREDITH BRAGG
The perfect insect made spiral staircase arcs above the stage. As Buddy Miller sang a wistful tune about his father we followed the large moth, watching him cycle in and out of the spotlight. Disappearing over and over into black, only to reappear a brief moment later into the harsh white light. No one said a word. I have been to a fair amount of concerts in my life, but never have I seen a more compelling image on stage. Chance and nature delivered more than any flash-pot, strobe light or video backdrop ever could. And I have to believe that at that moment there was not a more admired moth in America. :: website :: About The Author: Meredith plays sad songs on the guitar, most often in the key of G major. |