Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Read online

  CLAPPING

  Are there actually people who are so totally comfortable with themselves, so completely unself-conscious, that when they’re at a concert and the band signals the audience to clap along, they can clap without thinking to themselves, I am clapping now, here I am clapping along, are most people clapping? Okay, fine, most people are clapping, but wait, the clap-along thing feels like it’s losing its momentum—should I stop clapping now? I’m feeling a bit heavy-handed in my clapping, but how/when do I stop? Three more claps and I’m out. Okay, last clap. Clap. Done.

  See also: Saturday Night Live

  CLOSET

  We were having a closet-organizing company redo a couple of our bedroom closets. On the morning they were supposed to do the work, we received a frantic call from the owner saying they had an unexpected closet emergency with another customer, and they’d have to reschedule. No problem, I said. For the life of me, though, I couldn’t fathom what could possibly constitute a closet emergency.

  COFFEE, STOPPING FOR

  Waiting while our parents quick grabbed a to-go cup of coffee was not something we had to endure as kids—it did not exist. Stopping for coffee came onto the scene full force—via Starbucks—in the early 1990s, around the same time that I became a mother, so stopping for coffee is something my kids have grown up (and put up) with. Them as they see I’m pulling over and putting on hazards: Oh, Mom. Me: Oh, Mom what. I’ll just be a sec. My guess is they, along with the rest of their generation, will ultimately connect stopping for coffee with their minivanesque childhoods.

  I remember perfectly the first time I saw two cops with designer to-go cups in hand. They looked really silly. But that was the tipping point, when the whole thing graduated from trendy fad to way of life.

  Then it became: My journey is enhanced if I have some coffee in the car cup holder, so how easy is it to incorporate a stop into my route, and do I have enough time to do so? Before getting on the highway: Yes, have to, no-brainer. On the way to a meeting: I’m already running late and parking sucks around there, hmmm … On the way to kids’ chilly October soccer games: Definitely. One morning in July of ’99 I stopped for a cup on the way to visit my grandma Mimi in the hospital. She died minutes before I arrived. That cup cost me.

  Coffee stain and random spill I noticed one morning in my office. I thought it looked like an angel.

  The same way that movies set in the 1800s show gents casually tying up their horses to wooden posts—and doesn’t it immediately place you in that time, and make you think about horses versus cars?—future filmmakers doing an early-twenty-first-century period piece should definitely include stopping-for-coffee scenes. Props department: Make sure the cups have cardboard jackets and collapsed bowler hat sipping lids.

  Then there’s the cream-and-sugar-station tango, which we’re now all adept at. You get to the bar. You twirl the oversized Thermoses around, in search of the whole milk, perhaps. Guy comes up who needs 2 percent Thermos next to you; you sway your upper body and neck back as if to say, Go ahead, I don’t need it, all yours. You take an Equal packet, pinch the top and flick it a couple times, so the powder all settles or something—don’t know, it’s just habit—then tear it open, pour. And now, the last step, snag a stirrer. Lift your arm up … and over the fellow, higher than is necessary so as to respect his space, not step on toes. Exit and out.

  COFFEEHOUSE

  My coffeehouse died. The one I went to every single Thursday for three years, minus a couple sore throats, vacations, and childbirths. The one where I wrote or tried to write or thought about trying to write. The one where I ate ham-and-cheese sandwiches, tofu asiago melts, and bagels with basil cream cheese. The one where I would sit for hours and sip and sip (never enough water). It was called Urbus Orbis, and I loved it.

  I fancied Chicago’s Urbus as the kind of coffeehouse/salon you would have once found in Paris’s 4th Arrondissement. I’m totally making this up; I should know more about the history and role of European coffeehouses, but I’m rather attached to the smoky notions I’ve adopted as fact: Passion. Pretension. Unnecessary gesticulating. Cigarettes that didn’t cause cancer. And pencils that caused revolutions.

  Urbus’s decor was Late-Twentieth-Century Thrown Together, which I think for a coffeehouse is a good thing. Like your college English prof, Urbus was brimming with personality and papers that needed shuffling. There was that wonderful William Carlos Williams poem about the plums painted up the stairs. And graffiti was the legacy of every smart-ass who ever graced Urbus’s bathroom.

  We saw it coming. The once messy, artsy Wicker Park neighborhood where it held court is now the Midwest’s answer to Soho and South Beach—not that any of us ever asked the question. The rent at Urbus eventually became higher than the heavily caffeinated clientele.

  I’m still in a mourning period now, drinking my coffee black. I keep calling up the owner, Tom—who I guess is the Ponytailed Widow in this dramedy—staying connected to the past under the guise of checking up on him post-Urbus/pre—whatever’s next. I ran into another regular last week and our giddy enthusiasm had nothing to do with liking each other, and everything to do with liking Urbus.

  Growing up in a family of four children and a TV, I quickly learned not so much how to tune out chaos, as how to ride its energy as I memorized spelling words, practiced my multiplication tables, and skimmed The Hobbit. The point is, I liked writing at Urbus precisely because it was chaotic and garlicky and alive. I’ve been reading about different writers’ colonies lately, and apparently these cubicles in the woods seem to just breed Pulitzer Prize winners, but I suspect that for me, all the … nothing would do just that for my work.

  Thursday—painting by Charise Mericle Harper.

  As Urbus became synonymous with Thursday, Thursday became synonymous with Charise. We met on a blind date of sorts—a mutual friend noticed we had similar interests and shoes. Charise and I would spend the afternoon basically just cheering each other on. Oh, Charise—that illustration is amazing! Thanks, Amy, and I love that sentence you just wrote! Intermittently, we would invent projects and experiments to collaborate on, as a way of justifying our sixth cup of coffee—the last venture being a lemonade stand where, for a quarter, the customer could buy a glass of lemonade, an illustration of lemonade, or a paragraph about lemonade. More often than not, though, we were just happy to share rejection letters, a table, and the cream.

  I want to say that I miss Urbus. I miss the slow service, and the way they never remembered the tomato that I ordered with my bagel. I miss the chalkboard menu that tended to be inaccurate. I miss the bathroom sink that only ran scalding-hot water. I miss the matchbooks under the table legs. I miss Tom’s house special: the tasty illusion of mattering.

  And I want to say, Excuse me, but I thought I ordered a bottomless cup.

  COMFORT IN THE EXPECTED

  Comfort in the expected manifests itself in less overt ways, too. Like let’s say you have a mixed tape (now we make compilation CDs; back in the day, it was mixed tapes), and you come to know not just the order of the songs but the exact pausing in between, and then when you happen to hear one of those songs on their original album, it really throws you.

  See also: Improvisation at Concerts

  COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS

  Mark all your college photos now, with names and dates. You think you’ll never forget these people, but you will; the last name of one of my college beaus escaped me for three entire years. It is now time to give the milk crates to a freshman and get yourself some real bookshelves. From this point on, you will be required to correctly use it’s and its. This would be the year to backpack through Europe, date all the wrong people, and temp at a sushi bar. Now is the time to take up guitar and work on your cursive M’s. Your first job will most likely be in an office of some kind. When you jam the Xerox machine, lift the side door and follow the simple instructions. Or walk away and return an hour later—surely someone will have fixed it by then. Chances are, you will either h
ate your boss or fall in love with him/her. Both are normal, if not inevitable. Regarding these phrases:

  Let’s try to push the envelope.

  Think outside the box.

  I’ve got a lot on my plate.

  I want to make sure we’re on the same page.

  Things are really crazy this week.

  Many people before you have said these things many times; they sounded foolish each time. There is no need for you to resort to this office-speak, ever. Take every single one of your vacation days.

  Have children, if you’re so inclined, but before you breed, sleep a lot. And when you order takeout, make sure to check the bag before you leave the restaurant.

  COMPLETION

  I eat quickly, purposefully, and almost always finish everything on my plate. I finish the meal so I can get to dessert. I finish the dessert so I can get up from the table. When I’m out, I’m usually thinking about going home. When I’m home, I’m usually thinking about the next time I’m going out. I find deleting e-mails or messages on my answering machine quite gratifying. I have not experienced the full pleasure of an act or task until I’ve crossed it off my list. I’m thrilled when leftovers finally become stale so I can throw them out. Wednesdays are special—it’s when the garbagemen come. I like it when we finish one of our half-gallons of milk, so I can rinse it out and put the glass bottle out back for the milkman. I tend to see movies right when they come out because it bothers me to know it’s something I still have to do. I always hated Monopoly—the end was invariably nowhere in sight. Magazines full of too many good articles make me frantic. I fantasize about getting rid of everything in my closet except for an outfit or two. I love mailing letters—specifically, letting them drop out of my hand into the mailbox’s metal cavern. I find myself throwing away, say, a jar of peanut butter or bottle of shampoo when there’s still a small amount left because the satisfaction of disposing of it far outweighs the option of keeping it in my life for some future spoonful or drop. An emptied dishwasher is a pleasing sight. My favorite command on the computer is Empty Trash. When I’m driving, my mind is fixed on the destination. My all-time favorite play is Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, which consists of thirty very short plays performed within sixty minutes, under the constraints of an egg timer placed onstage. I enjoy cooking because recipes offer a very manageable list of instructions to continuously complete, not to mention the joy I get from using up the ingredients. The concept of infinity makes me nuts.

  See also: Magazines

  COMPLIMENT

  While getting my annual checkup at the doctor’s, the nurse says, as she’s preparing to draw blood from my arm, You’ve got great veins. Thanks, I say, as if it were a compliment, as if I had anything to do with the creation of my veins. If someone says, You’ve got a great backhand, that’s something you can actually take credit for; your backhand may have sucked before, but after many tennis lessons and months of practice, you were able to improve it. Fine. Your ego is then entitled to process you’ve got a great backhand as a compliment. But under no circumstances can you’ve got great veins be taken as a legitimate compliment.

  CONNECTED (VERSUS REMOVED)

  When I read a magazine, I feel connected to the world, in on everything. When I read a book, I feel removed from the world, isolated, as if I’ve slipped off into a soundproof booth. It is the same with listening to the radio (connected) versus listening to a CD (removed). Both fill a certain need, balance the other out. There’s the getting away, and then there’s the coming back.

  CONVERSATION

  Standing in a doorway and chatting is safe; one has, literally and figuratively, an easy out. But the slightest gesture—taking a step in, glancing at a chair in the corner, unraveling a scarf—signals a commitment to a full-blown conversation. Similarly, if one is interrupted while reading a book, a thumb in the book signals an allegiance to the book, and the interrupter should expect only the most cursory reply. But if the book gets shut with a bookmark, or placed down open-faced, a full conversation will most likely follow.

  COOL

  I didn’t realize just how far away I was from being cool, successful, and taut until I read about a breed of attractive, young, hip multimillionaires in halter tops throwing all-night raves in Silicon Valley.

  CREAM RINSE

  Cream rinse always gets stuck in the upper rim of my right ear. Not my left ear. And never shampoo. Just the right ear, cream rinse. I will be driving and glance at myself in the rearview mirror and spot white goo hanging out in there. I’m always like, Again! The cream rinse! What’s up with this?! as I wipe it off. You’d think I’d make a special mental note to do some focused right-ear rinsing in the shower, but I never think about it until later, usually when I’m in a public place. Amazingly, no one has ever said anything to me about the white glob in my upper ear. Whether this is because it’s usually sufficiently hidden by my hair or because it’s too awkward for someone to bring up, I don’t know. So nice to meet you. I’m glad we’ll be working together. Uh … you have … uh …

  CREAM SAUCE

  I love any kind of cream sauce. My mother hates cream sauce but craved it when she was pregnant with me.

  See also: Meaning

  CROSSING GUARD

  I was walking down Lincoln Avenue when I overheard a crossing guard say to some older gentleman hanging out on the corner, Yeah, work’s been crazy around here—I’ve been really busy. I tried to picture the circumstances that would account for this statement. Perhaps when it’s a nice sunny day, crossing guards wake up and say, Dang! Everyone’s gonna be out walking today—work is going to be insane.

  See also: Busy

  CROUTONS

  Unusual and delicious croutons can be made simply by using corn bread in place of French or sourdough. I simply get the pre-made corn bread (available in most bakery sections), cut it up into little chunks, toss with some olive oil, and bake in a 350-degree oven until golden brown, about twenty minutes or so.

  CURLY HAIR

  Curly hair is more original.

  CUSTOMARY, THINGS THAT ARE

  Table

  Companies specializing in paying people to lose thirty pounds customarily advertise via crappy, hand-scrawled signs—WE’LL PAY YOU TO LOSE WEIGHT!—tacked to street poles.

  A hearty bread customarily has nine grains.

  Couples customarily take a cruise on their ten-year anniversary.

  It is customary to serve buffalo wings, but no other kind of chicken, with blue cheese dressing.

  It is customary to de-blandize the walls of one’s office cubicle by tacking up Internet-circulated anecdotes and jokes, inspirational quotes, and personal photos of babies/pets/ski trips, all intended to subtly reveal one’s true, interesting self, but which only a handful of months later will seem embarrassing in their earnestness, simplicity, and triteness.

  When people go up to a microphone, they customarily say, “Check—one, two, check.”

  Fractures are customarily one millimeter away from something much more serious. “The doctor said that if the fracture had been one millimeter to the left, I’d be dead.” Growths, for their part, are customarily compared to the size of fruits: a grape, an orange, a grapefruit.

  When the waiter comes to take your order, it is customary to open your menu and glance at it even though you already know what you’re having.

  Airplane magazines customarily have ads for companies that will put your logo on a watch.

  D

  DEEP MASSAGE

  If I’m getting a massage and the massage therapist happens to be applying too much pressure, I find it nearly impossible to tell her that it’s too hard, even if I’m in a great deal of pain. What, like this would really devastate her in some way? In all other non-massage life situations, I have no problem being bold, even at the risk of being overbearing. But for some reason, lying there, being slowly bruised, I can’t seem to speak up, and I will formulate in my mind all the ways I might broach the subject for the
duration of the massage.

  DELI TRAYS

  Tragedy-oriented and celebration-oriented gatherings both seem to result in deli trays.

  I’ve got twenty people coming for a holiday party—can I get your deli meat platter?

  I’ve got a hundred people coming here after a funeral—I’ll take two pounds of salami, one pound of …

  DENTIST

  I went to the dentist for an annual cleaning. I had started flossing regularly and was looking forward to the inevitable moment of recognition: Wow, Amy, great job flossing. I kept waiting, but it was as if he didn’t notice. I brought it up as tactfully as possible—So, Doc, can you tell I took your advice about flossing more?—but of course that wasn’t nearly as rewarding.

  DEPRESSING, THINGS THAT I FIND

  Table

  Flipping through an issue of Cat Magazine at doctor’s office. Sections had titles like “What’s Mew” and “Purrsonals.”

  Logo for a local hair salon, something about the turquoise swish.

  Male model getting his hair cut next to Miles at Supercuts. Couldn’t help but overhear him telling the stylist about his glamorous jaunts to Germany for big photo shoot, all-expense-paid this, limo that. The desperation inherent in bragging about himself and his imagined fabulousness to this very sweet, very polite woman who, let’s face it, didn’t understand English very well, was disturbing.