Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Read online

  I have to look real close at the columns and small type, and keep double-checking it, as I could be misreading a departure time; a centimeter to the left or right and you’re in the entirely wrong little box/column. Even after I’ve confirmed that there’s an 8:06 leaving Chicago’s Northwestern Station, I’ll pull the crinkly little schedule out of my bag and check one more time. And then, as the final coup de grâce, I’ll turn to some guy waiting on the platform and ask, “You’re waiting for the 8:06, right?”

  VENDING MACHINES

  Again, I have to double-, triple-check. Okay, it’s A5 for the Bugles. Is that right? A5? I don’t want to read the codes wrong and end up with the Flaming Hot Cheetos. But then, what a relief when the Bugles tumble down. Yes! I knew it was A5!

  BIBLIOGRAPHIES

  All those commas. Last name of author, comma. First name, comma. Then name of book, underlined. Name of publisher, not underlined. Page numbers, then period. Or is it comma? Writing the paper itself was difficult but manageable. But that bibliography always made my body clench up. To be in that hyperconcentrated mode was nerve-racking. The whole time I’m picturing my teacher reading it, looking for a misplaced comma, eager to tarnish my hard work with red pen marks.

  RUNNING INTO SOMEONE

  It could be someone I know rather well—an old work colleague, a second cousin—but for some reason I panic and completely blank on their name, and then, at the last possible heart-racing second, the name will come to me.

  ALLOTTING ENOUGH TIME TO MAKE FLIGHT

  I always work backward. Okay, the flight leaves at 11:15, so I should be at the airport at 9:15. That means I should leave the house at 8:30—no, play it safe, could be a lot of traffic, say 8:15. That means I need to get up at 7:30; that gives me 45 minutes to get ready and finish any last-minute packing. As soon as I’ve come to this conclusion, I’ll immediately repeat the whole internal dialogue-calculations, see if I come up with the same time estimates. I’ll do this at least a couple more times the day before I leave, one of the times being that night when I set my alarm clock.

  APPROACHERS

  People are either approachers or avoiders. Approachers will dart across a crowded room and enthusiastically state the obvious: “Oh, my God. It’s you! We went to camp together! I haven’t seen you since we were ten!” An avoider, in the same situation, would make no effort whatsoever to reconnect. They reason: So we once knew each other. That in and of itself is not interesting. I have no desire to acknowledge that we once, long ago, roasted marshmallows together. It will only be awkward to make small talk, and our shared campfire history is of no consequence. I see you. And you see me. That is enough. And while the avoider chooses not to approach, the approacher really has no conscious choice in the matter; approaching is just what they do.

  AS

  As self-conscious as rearranging what’s on your coffee table before guests arrive—putting Art Forum and Milan Kundera’s latest novel on top of People magazine and The Berenstain Bears Potty Book.

  As specific as a mosquito bite on a pinky toe knuckle.

  As startling as coming home from vacation and seeing yourself in your own bathroom mirror and only then realizing just how tan you really are.

  As out of place as a heap of snow that remains by a street lamp on a sunny April day long after all the other snow has melted.

  AYN RAND

  Ayn Rand seems so mysterious, privy, snobby—in a cool way. I’m pretty sure it’s the y.

  See also: Letters

  B

  BAD MOVIE

  Upon hearing that a friend of mine saw a bad movie, a movie I knew would be bad and never would have gone to see myself, I think, Of course that movie sucked. How could you have thought it wouldn’t? You are sheeplike to have gone to see it in the first place. This is definitely going to affect our friendship.

  See also: Calling Someone’s Name; Smooth Jazz

  BAGPIPERS

  They have hired bagpipers to play at the wedding. There are two of them, in full Scottish regalia, standing in the field playing. It is a most unusual image, these two men in kilts by a tree, performing for us. Even more startling is how, after only five minutes or so, we are used to them. There is nothing unusual about them anymore; they are now part of the scenery, nothing more, nothing less. I imagine if they started hurling eggplants at each other, we would, in no time, mentally readjust and be rather ho-hum about it.

  BIRTHDAY

  I like my birthday, the actual date April 29—it seems right, like it matches me, the capital A of April, the way the number 29 feels, the whole spring flavor. I am very glad I was born and definitely appreciate the ongoing alive status that each birthday brings, but I do not typically get into the animated birthday hoopla spirit. I do recognize, however, that for me it is a fine line between not wanting to make a big deal about my birthday but also wanting family and certain friends to dote enough to satisfy some nebulous quality/quantity acknowledged-my-birthday barometer. When I was a kid, my mom always made sure my brother and sisters and I woke up to birthday signs and her famous Krouse Klown drawing. I tried instating the Rosenthal Rabbit for my own kids, but it fizzled out because in my mind it never felt as special or as important as the Krouse Klown; it felt fraudulent and satirical. For as many April 29s as I can remember, my mom has presented me with a poem, a tender, rhyming summary of my life up to that point, and it is these gifts of verse written in her lovely Ann Krouse script that are the centerpiece of each birthday.

  BIRTHMARK

  I have a birthmark on my left arm. As a child I thought it looked like a bear, or Africa, depending on the angle. I would often draw an eye and a mouth on it; sometimes I would allow a friend to do so. To look at my birthmark was to remind myself that I was me.

  BLUSH

  I blush easily.

  BOWLING

  It would be difficult to convince me that leaning has no effect whatsoever on the outcome of my bowling.

  BOZO CIRCUS

  My husband and I were out with another couple—two messy-haired, way-smarter-than-us professor types. It came up that one of their friends had just won the Nobel Prize. You guys actually know someone who won the Nobel Prize?! That’s amazing, I said. In a matter-of-fact way, they added, Actually, we seem to know about twenty or so people who have won a Nobel Prize. Well, I said, I have never won the Nobel Prize, but when I was four, I was picked for the Grand Prize Game on Bozo Circus. They were incredulous. God! What was it like? I always wanted to be on that show. For them, the Nobel Prize, while a nice honor, no longer loomed as the powerful end-all. But my brush with Bozo—now, that was really something. I told them all about the magic arrows; how I made it to bucket number three; and that I had walked away with a year’s supply of pudding, an Archie board game, and panty hose for my mom.

  BRODSKY, JOSEPH

  I have just started Joseph Brodsky’s book On Grief and Reason. Let me say I have only read one essay in a collection of thirty, and I flipped through the book, sizing up the chapters, actually counting the pages, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7—yes, this one’s good, it only has seven pages. This hardly counts as being familiar with Joseph Brodsky, reading seven pages and the jacket bio, yet I can tell you that his essay In Praise of Boredom is one of the best things I have ever read; that I think you would be stimulated and moved by it; that I’d be happy to direct you to a copy of it; and that I now know this of Brodsky: he really liked Robert Frost. He was particularly infatuated with the line The only way out is through. He quoted it in this one essay, and then when I flipped through the book looking for another essay I wasn’t intimidated by, I found the same quote again.

  That’s how it is. That’s how it always is. In a handful of pages we can see a writer’s defining twitch: One has a fondness for ellipses; one constantly references his jumpiness (Thurber); another fancies single-word sentences; another has a sloppy habit of overusing the word surprisingly; still another leans on a Robert Frost quote. Perhaps Brodsky never thought the two essays, which co
ntained that reference, would end up in a bound volume. (One would have hoped the editor would have picked up on this, and at least separated the essays more substantially. It’s tragic really. When my work is left to be poked through, will it be painfully obvious that I gravitated toward semicolons, and frequently wrote about coincidences and doughnuts with sprinkles?) If Brodsky used that quote in those two essays, we can be sure he brought it up at dinner parties; at a literary conference in Turin; over coffee with an old chum from the University of Michigan.

  Right now I think his book will change my life. Brodsky makes me feel alive. He seems to know things. His knowing will allow me to know. He will beam me to a higher place—a place that’s vaguely different, sharper, where the dial’s been shifted just a notch to the right (that’s all it took!) and everything clicked into place.

  This happens to be my immediate reaction every time someone or something truly gets me. I think, Oh, this new book/new friend/new sweater will alter the course of my life in a profound way. It was like that even when I was young, with a small box. I remember the power of receiving a certain small keepsake box. I excitedly put all my things in it, all the things that mattered to me, all the things that had meaning; nothing mattered anymore but what was in that box. But then after one, two, maybe four days tops, I grew tired of the box, or the hinge broke, or my disloyalty made itself evident when I chose not to take it to a sleepover at Rosalie Press’s house. Any number of scenarios may have occurred that ultimately led to the same feeling of disenchantment. Brodsky is my new box.

  BROKEN

  The CD player in our kitchen causes the first three songs to skip. The CD player in the baby’s room no longer functions at all, although up until recently, at least the radio worked. I’ve broken every computer I’ve ever owned. My current printer and fax programs are incompatible. I jam the Xerox machine nearly every time I touch it. I go through Walkmans like paper towels.

  The screen on our back porch is so badly ripped that the kids don’t even bother opening the actual door, they simply lift the big, detached flap and walk right through it. The children’s bathtub drain is partially clogged with small toys; actually, there is no real drain there—it was broken years ago and now we compensate by stuffing a washcloth in there, every single night. Their double stroller has snapped in half.

  There are long black wires hanging from the ceiling in my office because we still haven’t installed the lights and fans. The fan light in the master bedroom never once worked. The light switch in the baby’s room has never once worked. Our beautiful antique chair in the family room has had visibly broken springs for half a year now. I just noticed that one of the handlebars on my treadmill fell off. The boys broke my favorite barrette. I broke the glass serving dish with the decorative dolphin trim. We do not have a single glass left from our bridal registry.

  BROKER

  It is weird and unsettling that a person who is hired to handle your money, make wise decisions about it, and, ostensibly, keep you from losing it is called a broker.

  BROTHER

  My brother, who grew up with three sisters, was I won’t say how many years old when he finally realized that he did not have to wrap the towel around his chest when he came out of the shower.

  BUSY

  How you been?

  Busy.

  How’s work?

  Busy.

  How was your week?

  Good. Busy.

  You name the question, “Busy” is the answer. Yes, yes, I know we are all terribly busy doing terribly important things. But I think more often than not, “Busy” is simply the most acceptable knee-jerk response.

  Certainly there are more interesting, more original, and more accurate ways to answer the question how are you? How about: I’m hungry for a waffle; I’m envious of my best friend; I’m annoyed by everything that’s broken in my house; I’m itchy.

  Yet busy stands as the easiest way of summarizing all that you do and all that you are. I am busy is the short way of saying—suggesting—my time is filled, my phone does not stop ringing, and you (therefore) should think well of me.

  Have people always been this busy? Did cavemen think they were busy, too? This week is crazy—I’ve got about ten caves to draw on. Can I meet you by the fire next week? I have a hunch that there is a direct correlation between the advent of coffee chains and the increase in busy-ness. Look at us. We’re all pros now at hailing a cab/pushing a grocery cart/operating a forklift with a to-go cup in hand. We’re skittering about like hyperactive gerbils, high not just on caffeine but on caffeine’s luscious by-product, productivity. Ah, the joy of doing, accomplishing, crossing off.

  As kids, our stock answer to most every question was nothing. What did you do at school today? Nothing. What’s new? Nothing. Then, somewhere on the way to adulthood, we each took a 180-degree turn. We cashed in our nothing for busy.

  I’m starting to think that, like youth, the word nothing is wasted on the young. Maybe we should try reintroducing it into our grown-up vernacular. Nothing. I say it a few times and I can feel myself becoming more quiet, decaffeinated. Nothing. Now I’m picturing emptiness, a white blanket, a couple ducks gliding on a still pond. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. How did we get so far from it?

  See also: Coffee, Stopping for; Crossing Guard; Nothing

  BUTTERFLY

  Once you learn how to draw a butterfly, you just want to keep doing it. There is something calming and satisfying about drawing them. Maybe it has to do with the symmetry, and the curves of the wings.

  BUTTERSCOTCH

  I love butterscotch but rarely think to seek it out.

  C

  CAB OF TRUCK

  Seeing just the short, truncated nubby front part of a semi-truck (the cab), one is always compelled to point and say look. It’s just an image you can’t get used to. It registers in the brain as funny, odd, on the loose.

  CALLING SOMEONE’S NAME

  You’re calling someone’s name, trying to get their attention. Perhaps you’re in a crowd. Or they are across the street. Or they went to get popcorn and Raisinets and are now looking for you in the packed movie theater. You cup your hands around your mouth and repeatedly call their name, waving your arm—Here I am—but they don’t hear or see you. No matter who they are—a lawyer, a surgeon, a Latin scholar—they look like an idiot searching for you, craning their head like that, and you question their intelligence.

  See also: Bad Movie; Smooth Jazz

  CAPRICIOUS

  I kept a vocabulary journal for a while in my early twenties. I had just added the words capricious and precarious to the list, and while talking to Brian on the phone, I decided to try them out. I said something about life being both capricious and precarious. Knowing me as he did, he immediately picked up this finagled repertoire—my God, I myself could practically see the neon arrows flashing as each word slipped out into the air. Oooooh, fancy words, Amy, he said. I more or less ignored the comment, as a way of implying that I didn’t think one way or the other about these words, that they were just the kinds of bon mots I used all the time now, no biggie. I wished the words would have felt more worn in in my mouth, the way words do after you’ve said them hundreds of time. Table. Melt. Floundering. See, I can say any of those without thinking about them as I say them. But he, Brian, had spotted capricious’ and precarious’ stiffness; in fact, he caught me with the tags on. I think of this every time I use or hear either of those words.

  [Aside]

  I added the Capricious entry on the afternoon of April 15, 2003.

  Later that night, I received an e-mail from Brian.

  I had not spoken to him in eight years.

  CAR

  When I’m in my car and someone lets me in their lane and I not only mouth Thank you to the other driver, but I actually say it out loud—as if they could hear me—I am taken aback, it sounded so goofy, hearing my voice alone in my car.

  CAR RADIO

  … and when you get back in the car, the loudn
ess of the radio startles you. It didn’t seem so loud before because you turned it up gradually throughout the ride.

  Table

  SOUNDS THAT ARE LOUD THOUGH QUIET

  A mosquito buzzing in your camping tent at three A.M.

  A phone that should be ringing but is not.

  Sitting in the waiting room waiting for a medical procedure and then hearing the nurse call your name.

  The snipping of scissors cutting your long hair short.

  The crunching of sitting on your sunglasses.

  The first time he/she whispers “I love you.”

  Your four-year-old saying something inappropriate in front of your mother, or someone you hoped would be especially taken with your child and parenting skills.

  Someone who won’t stop drumming their fingers or tapping their pen on the table.

  Your pee when you’re in the stall next to your boss.

  The unwrapping of a small piece of candy in a place of worship.

  CAR WASH

  Every time I go to my local car wash, the owner peers inside, throws his arms up, and says, Oh, Miss—very dirty. Very, very dirty. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was supposed to bring it in clean.