Saturday, December 26, 2015

Is it a fish or an elephant?

My Dear Jennio,

I am operating the lamest fake travel agency ever.  You've been standing at the end of your driveway in the dead of winter, bags packed, waiting for instructions about your trip for weeks now.  I'm so sorry for my slowness.  But finally, here's your itinerary.

Because you value and are generous with time, and you don't really like to be away from home where your loved ones and books reside, I'm sending you back in time so you get more of it, this thing you both value and are free with.  (I know.  It always comes back to time travel with me.)

But here's the thing, Jennio.  I woke up this morning, thinking about the constellations and the more I thought about it, the more choked up I became.

That's Pisces.  Do you see it?  A pair of fish? Me neither!  Let's get some help.
  


Do you see it now?

I know.  What if we have it wrong, and those stars have been pigeon-holed as a pair of fish, and really, its a sea monkey or an elephant?  What if the inner elephant has been waiting to get out, and that little piece of sky has been misjudged, misunderstood, misrepresented for millennia?  
Same stars, different interpretation.  Do you see anything now?  Me neither!

 What if one of us had been there and drawn it differently?  Would we behave differently?

Or maybe there's a nobler reason for the sketchy constellations.  Do you think so?

For your trip, Jennio, you'll be going back to ancient times to hang out with the original dot-connectors.  3,000 years ago, when Greece was on the tail end of flourishing.  You'll see what they saw, know what they knew, and hopefully, bring something good back to us.  Maybe its an act of generosity to see the fish.  Maybe that was the point.  They planted a gigantic message up in the sky, a reminder for us all to be forgiving, squint as hard we can in order to a see beautiful pair of leaping fish connected by a silken ribbon.  We practice on the dark indifferent sky, but carry that home with us like 3D glasses so that we can see the tender beauty and magnificence in our own imperfect mortals too, because it's there.  We've believed in the sketchiest lines between stars and called it Pisces forever; can we do that for each other?

You can see why I'm sending you on this journey, Jennio.  It's more than a vacation; it's a critical mission.  Because sometimes, I can only see the elephant, although I believe in the fish. I don't think I'm the only one with this problem.  Maybe that's why it's so dark in all ways at this time of year:  to strengthen our fish-seeing muscles.  [Oh, dear readers, don't get all up in arms (or trunks, as it were).  I do love elephants too.  In fact, I'd like to see Babar with his clothes off.  Oops, that quickly took a creepy turn.]

Before you go back to Greece as it was 3,000 years ago, you should refresh your memory on a few things.  Let's not think too hard about how women were treated.  Same ole stuff: oppression and sacrificing virgins; you'll be able to figure that out pretty quickly.  But do study the paradoxes of time travel!  This is essential to protect not just your well-being, but the fate of the universe.


  1. You can't change history.  They tried that in the Time Traveler's Wife, and sheesh, look how it worked out.  Don't try to kill Hitler or fix the hanging chad problem. 
  2.  Don't try to bring information from the present back with you.  Leave your iPhone at home.  But I don't think there's harm in bringing things we used to know forward again, do you?
  3. Of course, I'm sure you'd never do this, but don't kill any of your ancient direct relatives, or poof, there goes Jennio.  (Is that a normal travel agent thing to say? "Don't kill anyone on your trip!"  I'm not sure; I'm new at this.)
  4. If your journey happens to be like a bus ride through history, absolutely don't get off before your stop.  You need to minimize the risk of colliding with a prior version of yourself, because that will muck things up forever.
Travelling Mercies, Jennio.  Maybe Sisyphus was laughing.  Let us know.

Betsy

PS:  If you need a fake travel agent, feel free to write.










Sunday, December 13, 2015

Tick Tock

When I was a new-ish mother, I attended a Tupperware party.  This is before I caught on to the whole thing, women trying to make parties out of guilt and plastic.  If anyone needs plastic shit, they go to Target.  They don't go to a party.  We all know that now, but I was still figuring it out, trying to fit in with the other moms, and woo-hoo, I got invited to a party!

The first thing we did was to go around the room and say what our favorite piece of tupperware was.  I didn't listen to the other answers because I was busy trying not to panic.  Favorite tupperware?  Really?  Is that a thing?  I don't even have a favorite color or movie.  (I did have a favorite Monkey, though:  Peter.)  

When it came to me, I made something up. I said I really liked these plastic salt and pepper shakers that we took on picnics when I was a kid.  They were white towers shaped like the space needle and embossed with a gold "S" and "P" that flaked off over the years.  I really didn't like them at all, but I did like picnics, so I felt like my answer was true-ish.

We progressed around the circle, each person recounting their favorite juice pitcher bowl with a snap-on lid, until we got to one woman who said, "I don't have a favorite piece of tupperware."  And I immediately thought GRRRR!  WHY DIDN'T I SAY THAT? 

So, this brings me to my point.  I think.

I asked Ms. Jennio three random questions in order to plan her trip, because she's my second customer for the Fake Travel Agency, and I've been a little awestruck by one of her answers:   

What is your greatest extravagance?
Time. I spend time on people and interests like there's no limit to it. But - eek, Betsy, there IS. Time is runneth-ing away from me. And from everyone.

I've just been thinking about that for days now.  It was just such a surprising and lovely answer that I haven't even been able to do or think about much else.  Except for make a dumb zoetrope with the Patterson Video that didn't really turn out.  (Zoetropes are best viewed FAST, and Bigfoot, of course, moves slowly.  Possibly due to the big feet.)  

I looked into how various famous people answered that question (because it's from Vanity Fair's version of the Proust Questionnaire.) PS, I have learned how to pronounce Proust.)
Arthur Miller:  New York restaurants
Walter Matthau:  sweaters
Jack Lemon: cars
Dustin Hoffman:  disposable glasses
Joan Fontaine: a car just for her dogs

I can't even wrap this up in an interesting way.  Time.  Can you believe it?  Greatest extravagence = time.  I so wish I had thought of that.  It might be my New Year's resolution extravagence.








Friday, December 4, 2015

Horoscopes: the foreplay edition

My holiday decoration that I
found in a moldy bag of potatoes
Pisces (2/19 – 3/20):  The DIY-ers are helping people off the grid by showing how to grow penicillin.  Nice re-frame:  I'm not just forgetting to toss old bread, I'm preparing.  For that time-travel adventure back to 1949, when penicillin actually worked. Who goes to 1949, though?  They didn't even have women then, as far as I can tell.  I looked over the highlights, and it's men this, men that.  But maybe,Pisces, it's worth a trip to investigate.  I think I have some old bread you can use.  

Aries (3/21 - 4/19)
: The winter, dark times are upon us. Bleh.  I find that I'm mostly waiting for Starlee Kine to release another podcast, but I've been waiting since July.  Aries, do you think she'll ever be back to solve another mystery?  


Taurus (4/20 – 5/20):  I've been watching this for a while, which both appeals to my [deeply buried] sense of order, and also makes me unbearably sad, because jeez, no one should spend their childhood folding shirts.  Even if there's a nice piece of cardboard involved.  Also, all the cool kids are rolling their clothes up like sushi.  And I even did it in my own home. I rolled my clothes like sushi (except for a few things that were folded more like cranes and that one thing that lent itself to a dragon, but that's not the point.)  The point is actual sushi.  Right?  This week?

Gemini (5/21 - 6/21): Yeah, I know.  The world is going to hell in a bucket, and it seems as though, unbelievable as it is, thoughts and prayers aren't enough. Now we know  It's dark and pouring buckets every day, literal buckets, and people and guns, don't even get me started.  But still.  All the good stuff is still happening, like pomegranites and homemade socks and that man helping a really old man onto the senior center bus, and that salad that has the bread in it, and all the majestic naked maple trees and arduino.  It takes effort, but don't lose track of it, Gemini.

Cancer (6/22 – 7/21):  The thing about going places for a short trip is that the anticipation is often the best part.  Then there's the actual travelling, which involves planes or traffic, and then you're somewhere else trying to figure out what to do, and you end up walking around looking for food a lot, and then you might end up eating in places you wouldn't eat if you lived there, because you'd know better.  So, Cancer, enjoy your time at home.  Go nowhere.  

Leo (7/23 – 8/22)People always use the phrase, "since the beginning of time" but I've recently become paralyzed by that.  Time has a beginning, 15 billion years ago, which is impossible to consider, but then again, hard to stop thinking about.  Leo, I know this isn't a good horoscope, but do you have any advice for me? Paralyzed.

Virgo (8/23 – 9/22):  To address that pesky problem of travel, I'm thinking of starting a fake travel agency. Here's how it works:  You write to me here and tell me you want to go on a little trip.  I'll reply with a few clarifying questions, and then, poof, before you know it, I'll post your trip right here on this very blog.  All for free!!

Libra (9/23 – 10/22):  And, while we're at it, why not offer fake relationships?  You write tell me you'd like a fake relationship, I reply with questions, and poof, partner of your dreams materializes right here on the blog.  Think of it:  that partner who accepts -- even embraces-- every single one of your quirky bits, has no annoying habits, no worries about pregnancy or std's, they prefer the other side of the bed, and so on.  The brilliant ST offered the business name, "Fore Play" because, well, I guess I don't have to explain.   

Scorpio (10/23 – 11/21):  I was cooking (ish) with the Cake Boss the other day and ended up with an extra clove of peeled garlic, which I slipped into my pocket, beknownst to her.  (Is beknownst a word?)  Anyway, Scorp, since I've been carrying it, nothing bad has happened to me.  Correlation or causation?  Give it a whirl!

Sagittarius (11/22 – 12/21) I think, even with the mini-hardships and annoyances, that we've won the lottery as far as our lives go.  If we were to roll the dice and swap with another human on the planet, odds are overwhelming that we'd be in a worse spot.  So, enjoy it, Sag.  Peak oil, the internet, all your friends and loved ones, and the ease that comes 100,000 years into human evolution.  

Capricorn (12/22 - 1/19):  I'm in a coffee shop listening to a man explain how god works, and here's what I've learned:  God gets to decide if we should all have the same amount of money or not.  And God decides who gets a gun.  If we're good all our lives, we get saved.  If we're good half our lives, we might get saved, it's not for sure.   I'm too chicken to go over there and ask questions, because it's the cool kids table.  (I know. How does that work?)   

Aquarius (1/20 – 2/18):  I'm thinking of offering a writing class in January -- maybe 4 or 6 weekly sessions.  The kind of class where you get to write without being judged, get to be in a room with the right vibe and a bit of structure and a lot of encouragement, and mostly, celebrating the gift of being alive among the living.  Write to me if you're interested.  (Does it seem like these horoscopes are just a fairly obvious plea to get mail?  I know.)  
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