Universally Acknowledged

I’m currently rehearsing for a play. On an entirely unrelated note, if you are in Albuquerque between September 14th and October 7th, you should go see a show at the Adobe Theater in the North Valley. I have it from scrupulously unbiased sources that their upcoming production of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice is the single best thing to hit the stage in this millennium.

Since most of the setup in Jane Austen’s stories takes place at country balls at the turn of the 19th century, the cast is learning a few vaguely Regency-era dances for the party scenes. As a result, the women are asked to wear skirts at rehearsal so that we can practice moving correctly.

Several of the actresses possess varied collections of flattering sundresses; I, on the other hand, have been bringing the same ankle-length skirt to every rehearsal and adding it to whatever blouse I wore to work that day. It usually makes me look like a colorblind Puritan.

I’ve started doing my grocery shopping after rehearsal without changing. It’s fun watching the checkers try to decide from my purchases which fundamentalist sect I belong to.

It probably doesn’t help that the grocery store is my favorite place to talk to myself out loud.

There may also be some dancing around.

I even got stopped at my car last week by a sixteen-year-old Albertson’s parking lot monitor. Apparently they frown on exuberance after 10 p.m.

The poor guy seemed kind of disappointed when I started obediently pointing out the items on my receipt. Next time I’ll have to make more of an effort.

Crime of the Century

My car is pretty distinctive. It’s a late-1980s, white stripe–tired, Elderly Gentleman Land Yacht. In sky blue.

This instant recognizability makes me feel extra bad about doing stupid things in traffic, because I know I can’t hide. If I cut somebody off on the way to work, then every day on the commute he can see me driving a wide-turn-radius blue sign that says “Remember me? The jerk?”

Of course, dumb driving moves make me feel horrible anyway because there’s almost no way to apologize afterward. Shouting out the window tends to get misinterpreted, oddly enough, and the rest of the world still hasn’t mastered reading my thoughts. I just need a bumper sticker that says “I’m so sorry” and a neon sign to switch on in my rear window.

(SPECIAL NOTE: The aforementioned situations are, naturally, completely hypothetical. I have of course never committed and would never entertain the notion of any irresponsible activity that could jeopardize my own safety or that of others while operating a motor vehicle. Hi, Dad!)

Being really eye-catching also means that my car and I should probably stop hanging around security-patrolled abandoned buildings.

Let me back up for a second and point out, in case you were unaware, that derelict shopping malls are extremely cool. I am not the only one who feels this way, as evidenced by a large and moderately disturbing web community and the delicious term “Dead Mall,” which is coincidentally also the name of my emo poetry collective.

Old things are pretty nifty in general, for that matter. I agree with hipsters on this point, as difficult as it is to admit. Actually, I might be swayed by aspects of hipsterdom were it not for my natural mantle of crippling self-consciousness. For example, I don’t believe that all ironic fashions are necessarily stupid or unappealing—

—it’s just that I know that they are decidedly stupid on me.

My enthusiasm for decaying structures is similarly hobbled by unrelenting fear, this time of trespassing arrests and/or hobo molestation, so personally exploring boarded-up retail carcasses is not in the cards. Thank goodness there’s the internet.

On the other hand, we’ve got a mall in Albuquerque that has been mostly dead for years, and it’s attached to a feral cat wonderland of a long-abandoned hotel. You can drive right up to the perimeter fence and stare at all the places where copper wiring used to be, and it’s beautifully landscaped in broken glass and 1960s parking lot fixtures. 

Recently, though, they actually moved a bulldozer into the site to clear the way for new construction. The last time I needed some kitchen gadgets from one of the three stores still operating out of the mall husk, I suddenly realized that all the fabulous creepiness could disappear at any time and be replaced with something unromantically safe and operational. 

Seizing what could be my last chance, I drove a really slow arc around the hotel and took some nausea-inducing jittery video. After that I pulled into the front parking lot for a few still photos of the desolation. 

Then a mall cop in a golf cart whirred up to tell me not to take pictures. 

I spooked like a first-grader in trouble for talking in the library and slunk home as shamefaced as possible. 

But then I realized that all of my pictures were really cool…

Two weeks later I went by the mall again to see if the bulldozer had moved, and OH WOW THEY PULLED THE OUTSIDE WALLS DOWN AND NOW YOU CAN SEE INSIDE THIS IS THE NEATEST THING EVER! I was busy gawking at the peeled-open hotel when I drove right past the same golf cart guard, who wrote down my license plate number as I made my getaway at a parking lot–mandated 15 mph.

I felt like such a wild hooligan that it made me cackle all the way home.

I haven’t monitored the demolition situation in weeks, and again I’m nervous that all of the enticing decay is about to be replaced with something dull like progress. Also, I’d like to give the security guard another opportunity to get nervous about my intentions. Presumably he has no idea that I am too skittish even to get out of my car, and I really hope that he’s imagining my vast potential for breaking, entering, and wreaking havoc. Part of me is way too excited about the possibility of being suspected by law enforcement. It’s probably the same part that wants to wear tiny hats.

Objects in Head Are Further Than They Appear

I’m finally watching Breaking Bad. For my fellow latecomers, it’s a TV show that follows the heart-warming story of a middle-aged chemistry teacher destroying his family as he becomes a drug lord to pay for cancer treatment.

The whole series is set and filmed in Albuquerque, so I keep seeing familiar locations and/or high school drama classmates in every episode. It’s a weird feeling.

People who live in sexy cities like New York experience this all the time, except that their shows are about witty friends or witty cop friends or witty crime scene investigator friends or teenage mutant ninja turtles, and mine is about crystal meth.

I imagine that New Yorkers and Angelenos become desensitized to seeing their landmarks on TV, just like I assume that people called Ashley or Jessica get used to encountering strangers with their names. I, however, am not accustomed to this phenomenon at all.

The combination of gritty, violent intensity and local surroundings is messing with my grip on fiction versus reality. I’m going around with the feeling that something dire and unpleasant has recently happened to me and resulted in amnesia. People ask what I’ve been up to lately, and it seems like I have a lot of important news that I can’t quite recall.

It doesn’t help that I’m also halfway through the last Hunger Games novel, since stories about teenage deathmatches don’t really create a feeling of security.

This pathetic level of limbic system gullibility is why it’s always a bad idea for me to watch horror movies. After five minutes of possessed hotels or masked strangers, I’m positive that those events could repeat at any moment and the next victim will be me. I have to venture out into the farthest reaches of bizarre improbability to find a film that will still let me stay in a house alone within the next six months.

After some harrowing Girl Scout experiences with urban legends (“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody NONONONONONOIQUITDON’TLETHERGETME!”), I took a lot of comfort in the Snopes.com page debunking them. Then I realized that the site has a whole category for legends that nobody can prove didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, I hear that the words “embarrassingly suggestible” aren’t in the dictionary.

Trust Me

I like being an expert on things. If there were a way to harness this “internet” thing to regale imaginary strangers with long stories they don’t care about, I would definitely be all over that. I might even draw pictures.

The best times, though, are when you get expert status as a bonus—it just so happens that everyone else in the vicinity has less knowledge or skill in this area than the paltry amount you’ve got, plus no way of judging your own ineptitude.

A sudden snowstorm recently handed me one of those glorious moments of unearned authority. I was checking the freezer for ice cream around midnight when I noticed the snow through the window, and I went out front to look at it in case it melted before morning. That’s where I found my next-door neighbors and their abbreviated dog, staring around them at all of the weather and looking awed but apprehensive.

With a hand to my sagacious chin, I dispensed the deep wisdom of the ages.

They listened, confident in their newfound guru, as I nudged them toward enlightenment through sticking to major streets and looking for closures on the news. They had no way of knowing that I had spent the previous February frantically Googling how much road ice it would take for me to die of fear before even starting the car.

Of course, operating under unearned credentials is a risky game, and there’s always a chance they’ll figure you out. During the summer educator-training program for Teach For America, I once spent about twenty minutes as the person in the room who could draw. This is not typically a title I can claim in the presence of an even moderately capable fifth grader, so I was as surprised as everyone else by my answer to a colleague’s plea of, “Help! Can anyone draw a pet that kids have?”

However, in that rush of sudden exalted proficiency, you have to be careful not to push your luck. With everyone else thinking you have superior skills or knowledge, you can start to believe it yourself…

It’s easy to ruin the illusion.

Sometimes it’s just better not to reveal your expert knowledge in the first place. For example, the assortment of 65-and-older ladies assembled for Sunday School do not necessarily want all of their questions energetically answered.

In any case, you can definitely trust my advice on all of this. It’s pretty clear that I’m the expert.

Speedy Grease

I recently got an oil change at an establishment that, to avoid attention from their legal department, I will call “Speedy Grease.”

My town has almost 20 Speedy Grease locations, which is good because I can never return to any of the three I have used so far. The first time I couldn’t figure out how to pull up to the service bay, so now they know that I’m not competent to care for a vehicle. The second time I absentmindedly tried to get in my car without paying, so that crew knows about my tenuous grasp on the conventions that govern society.

In my shame, I slunk away to a third Speedy Grease shop. This time I managed the whole transaction with only minimal failures of sentience.

All that success went to my head, and it took until Monday to notice the impressive constellation of scratches on my windows. These new decorations can only have come from that adorable little dance where they pretend to wash your windows, presumably using an old sweatshirt stuffed with gravel.

I was upset for about ten minutes, and then the battle joy started seeping in. After work, I got to go yell at Speedy Grease!

I love the prospect of a conflict that calls for righteous speech-making. Planning out a biting diatribe satisfies my primal need for occasional violence, with the added bonus of minimizing the bloodshed. On the other hand, 100% of confrontations work out better in my head than in reality. Typically, I’ll plan something like this:

…but thanks to a genetic tendency toward anger-crying, I usually discharge that frustrated energy through my eyeballs in the most humiliating way possible:

This is the same recipe by which I accidentally got a grade changed in college. It only takes a few key ingredients:

One misunderstood assignment...

One attempt to explain...

A double handful of panic about damaging a GPA over an elective music class...

…and one terrified grad student instructor who did not see this coming.

Ultimately, though, I did not so much as sniffle at the Speedy Grease guy. I also didn’t get such impressive results. In fact, the reward for my little wrath spree doubles as its own punishment: I have to go back and face that same crew to redeem my 50% discount on another oil change.

At least now I know which direction the door opens.

P.S. If you are forming a band, you can have "Wrath Spree" for free.

Planes, Names, and Automobiles

I call myself weird pet names when I get anxious. This habit has given me a new understanding of the term “pet name”—I’m starting to feel like my own puppy.

This is a great way to draw attention to yourself in airports. Of course, you can accomplish the same end by being the only person with a cowboy hat at both the Albuquerque and Atlanta ends of your flight. By the end of my trip, I had accumulated one of these…

…and one of these…

…and one of these:

I also had zero of these:

When I reached the rental car counter in Atlanta, I was firmly reassuring my canine self.

Then it was time for the nerve-wracking process of learning a new grown-up skill. I fumbled for cards and papers, knowing that any minute I would do something wrong, they would realize I wasn’t responsible enough to trust with their vehicle, and I would have no way to get to South Carolina.

As it turned out, my cover held, and I got to borrow a nice, gold Elantra. I even brought it back without any dents punched in it from the time the alarm went off all day next to some kind people’s tent.

At the outset I asked how to return the vehicle, and “You just drive it in!” seemed like a thorough response. The agent did not mention the magical secret labyrinth of steps, including counterintuitive stuff like parking in the middle of a traffic lane to collect your luggage. Instead, I ended up at the center of a honking and angry-flagger-stick-pointing tempest until I figured out the code. Thank goodness I’m so easy to train.

Anyway, I’ve successfully added Car Rental and Return to my list of grown-up abilities. After an adequate recovery interval, I may try to tackle another item.