TV, When You Have One Precious Life?

    Some can watch TV in the daylight hours. I cannot. Well, I can, but choose not to if I can help it. In my late teens, early twenties, still living in my childhood home in South Sacramento, I discovered the sophisticated, urbane, and rapid fire humor of the films of Woody Allen, Annie Hall and Manhattan era, dialogue sparkling with literary and film cultural allusions, and existential wit. I reacted like Keats discovering Chapman's translation of The Iliad. I played at being a budding intellectual myself, so right up my alley rolled Allen's humor. But those hours in my brother's bedroom (he had the VCR and small black and white portable TV) I remember as escape from dull, droning summer days endured in a South Sacramento suburb, too old to play and too little money to mount adventures. Further, South Sac had zero parallels with Allen's portayal of New York City (the strictly whiter parts of the 1970s--Greenwich Village, Upper East Side, Central Park, Midtown; one would think no people of color live there, as Spike Lee wryly pointed out).

    Older and whirling in early social circles, I proudly shunned TV, especially shows airing during the day. I needed to be out in the open air, not confined like an encouched invalid. Well, that's not true entirely, must rectify. After morning and early afternoon classes were over at Cosumnes River Community College, I would take the bus home (before I had enough money for a car), and eat a quick bowl of instant ramen. Setting up a TV tray table in front of my Dad's chair, I'd turn on channel 10 a little before 3:00 pm to watch everday reruns of M*A*S*H (the soap opera The Guiding Light broadcast the hour prior, so I caught snatches of that; one Friday afternoon I got so frantically sucked into a cliffhanger that I think I cut a class the following Monday, racing home to watch the shocking drama unfold, but that's another story). One afternoon I returned home and found my father in the back room reading. He'd evidently called in sick to work, teaching Social Studies in a high school in the west side of town, a suburb even duller than South Sac. We briefly talked, then I entered the living room, flipped the TV on, and got my ramen cooking. My younger brother came home a bit later. We exchanged "Hey," with negilible emotion. While I ate, my brother wandered into the kitchen to forage a meal too. The kitchen is between the living room where I sat, and the back room, which has only a sliding door opening into it. I hear my brother opening cupboards. Suddenly he yells out in mock outrage,  "Where's the fuckin' mustard!" The horror in my skull exploded like the gates of hell loosing a fury of demons. I turned with a fierce whisper "Dad's home!" at the exact moment my father responded in shocked, unbeliving surprise. "What was that?!" Swearing wasn't done in the house, ever. My brother offered a faint, "Oh, uh, where's the mustard...." but it was over him. Dad balled him out. Jonn sheepishly apologied, then took his snack to his room--where he had the black and white anyway.

    I look at my iPhone during the day, no problem. I'm writing this on a laptop on a sunny afternoon, the light given a sparkling rinse after a night rain. I also don't mind seeing a matinee at movie theater. What's different about TV? Going to see a film during the day feels like attending an event, like taking in a ballgame. I'm in the act of creative writing on my laptop (though not always, of course). But watching TV seems like hours stolen from life, precious time thrown away. I remember when young and all the neighborhood kids would huddle in somebody's bedroom to watch the Super Bowl. After ten minutes we'd feel boredom's anxiety, and run outside to play a pickup game instead. Why waste our childhood watching?

    Perhaps my discomfort in this stems from Sunday afternoons in childhood. The weekend ebbs, the light seeps quietly westward, shadows fall away then disappear, and twilight summons the dread of returning to school on Monday. Disappointment settled in me when my parents turned on the lights in our brown stucco corner house. Freedom's over. Early evening Sundays aired "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom." I'm sure I liked the show, but that didn't muffle the dread like mud on my soul.

    All my childhood my parents watched the nighly news daily, local news at 5:30, national news at 6:00, and then sitcoms and dramas until 10:00. I remember nightly maps on screen of regions of Vietnam. When I started college at 18, I began resenting the TV on seemingly all the time, as I heard it all through blaring even through the back room's closed door, preventing me from concentrating on homework. When an undergraduate at Sacramento State University, I would either stay at school till late, or come home, eat, then return to the library. My college years saw that contempt blossoming and growing. Give me open days out in the world! A vibrant life untethered from soul-sucking and dream-withering television! 

     In my San Francisco graduate school years, I went to a friend's apartment one Saturday morning to wander the city, letting random events unfold and activities develop (or maybe we were heading to pub for beers). A bright golden morning in the City by the Bay. On the way out the door, we passed a small room with a couch and a TV going, and my friend's roommate plopped down and watching. I said to her, "It's a beautiful day outside! Why are you in here watching TV?" She gave me a dirty look, and we left her to rot. Devoting attention to TV was, to me, wasting time watching other peoples' lives and not living your own. To live was to roam the day with the soaring sky your only roof and winds off the ocean!

   Even today I flinch when walking our dog late afternoon through the neighborhood and seeing TVs flickering in living rooms. When I hear TV spilling out of screen doors in mornings or early afternoons, my flinch is seasoned with horror. But I can't feign righteousness. I'll sail headlong into YouTube rabbit holes of grizzly bears snuggling with bunnies, Karens justly slapped, or whatever. 

    Vigilance! Run outside and pull out the weedy oxalis from the yard! For you know it's there! 

   

Days in Life - 3.2.26 "Oxalis!"

Oxalis, oxalis!
Invading my palace!

Wither in summer

Returning with malice!

    Without poisoning with herbicides, we live plagued with the non-native "Bermuda buttercup" forever. Delicate sunny yellow flowers dancing with the slightest breeze arise from narrow grayish white tubers beneath the soil. They are edible, but their vinegar tang on your palate might be dog pee, so widely does it spread across our yard, ganging up on all else that grows, infiltrating within forests of stems. Oxalis petals close graciously when sunset falls. You can pull them up by their roots, each and every one, and they will grow back with a vengence more thorougly and thickly the next year. For those of us living in Sonoma County, oxalis is our Myth of Sisyphus. We are not the condemned man destined for eternity to roll a stone uphill to find, upon reaching the summit, the stone rolls down, as stones will do, but over and over. We must uproot oxalis until Apollo's cows come home, or let it live and die back, as it will.

    Cows probably enjoy oxalis, and won't mind that seabreeze of vinegar. That's an idea...

Evening Wear

     After my teaching career closed, my teacher outfits hung lonely and unworn in the bedroom closet. Ties, dress shirts, slacks, sportcoats. For years I wore ties. Five years or so before the end, I switched to longsleeve mock turtlenecks, slacks, and sportcoats, inspired by photographs of the late French poststructualist philosopher, Michel Foucault. 

    But working cashier at a supermarket, you wore the uniform: the company T-shirt, pants, and waterproof shoes. Occasionally I'd strut out wearing the dressier fashion, though not often. No church for this wayward soul, and I haven't been lucky enough to attend many funerals. Plus, who can afford dine out?

    In Syria, I learned from my students that the Syrian wives and mothers take their fashion very seriously, but inversely from their Western counterparts. They complain that American women dress beautifully when they leave their homes and wander the outside world, looking gorgeous for strange men, but at home with their husbands they slouch in sweatpants, no makeup, hair tied up for convenience. They dress like models walking the city streets, admired by every cringy creep they pass, but dress like slobs for the men they love? So Syrian women dress their best within the warmth of their own homes.

    Of course, this view of Amerian women choosing their proper attire for the hours of the day is shortsighted and rather unfair, and shows that many women in cultures define and justify large parts of their identity and appearence through the approving or disapproving lens of men. At the workplace, people are expected to dress professionally (though even fashion standards have, what's the word...evolved...?)

    I remember an old friend posting on social media (when I used social media; furthermore, before I closed my Facebook, I had to drop him as a "friend" because he  splattered my feed with memes announcing "Only 237 days till Christmas!" all year long). He once posted that as soon as he's home from work around 5pm, he immediately slips into jammies. This is horrifying to me. I guess I'd like to keep up the illusion that I could be ready to go out like my younger years and not be closed down for the evening, so I remain fully dressed, though in jeans and a T-shirt.

    But I've rethought the Syrian women's approach, and recently, in a way, I've followed suit. After the workday is done, afternoon chores completed, dog walked, even dinner started, I get out of my grubs, and don my professional attire. Some nice pullover sweaters I've rediscovered, button-down shirts (no ties--I don't descend stairways at Downton Abbey), and even slacks, which are very comfortable, unlike jeans which feel heavy. I'm not dressing up for my wife's devoted gaze, even though she cheers the upgrade, but to contribute to the elegant time and space we create for outselves during out evenings together. Sitting in the living room with wine or beer and music drifting lightly in the background, we discuss our day, and finish with candlelit dinners. We make every night a special occasion. And why not: time's running out.

    I'm sure Oscar Wilde nods his approval.  

Golden State Cider Contains Alcohol

    So I work at a market as a check out girl, as Tracy Chapman memorably sang. The local market where I daily toil is in Sonoma County, and there are only four locations: Rincon Valley and Stony Point in Santa Rosa, the original in Cotati, and the newest in Windsor. It's not a Whole Foods national chain. People often ask "Hey, we'd love if you'd open a store in Benicia!" Well, I'm a cashier: I have no say--and no care--whether and how the market expands elsewhere. Your city is 57.2 miles away in another county; rather defeats the purpose of maintaining the profile of local, wouldn't you agree? And anyway, some bright young thing in Benicia should open a cool local market. But I can see the customer's eager hopes: it's a great market.

    Yesterday, a Thursday in late January and we were slammed. No one could figure out the reason for the crowds spreading like oxalis. Was Trump scheduled for crucifixion in Courthouse Square at 6 pm, and folks were loading up on picnic delights to munch in the stands? Early afternoon a middle aged couple, maybe in their late fifties, comes up to the Express checkstand I'm manning. Among their few items purchased was a four-pack of Golden State Cider. This delicious fermented beverage originated at Devoto Orchards in the west Sonoma County town of Sebastopol in 2012. They have many ciders to choose from, including Ginger Lime, Mighty Dry, Jamaica, Brut, Gingergrass, Radical Guava, Sea Otter Savvy, and others.

    Two hours or so after I moved from Express to another checkstand, as I waiting to set up my till, the man who'd bought the Golden State Cider materializes behind me. In one hand he holds a single open can of cider, and in the other the remaining pack of three still snug in their plastic rings (I'm sure recyclable rings, hippie Sebastopol). 

    "Hi," he stutters, "you remember me, I went through your Express lane." As I stare blankly, he declares, "We bought this, but my wife didn't know there was alcohol in it." He smiles unconfortably, and I'm at a loss.

    Two questions immediately sprang to mind: 1) The fuck? and 2) Have you and your wife been in solitary confinement in a dusty wind blasted plains prison outside of Bismark, North Dakota for the last twenty-odd years? Did you see the aisle where you bought the cider? All the beers? Was the four-pack of Golden State tightly hugged on either side by cases of La Croix and bubly? Or the hard stuff?

    Haley, a manager, came to help, explaining that California law prohibits the market offering returns for alcohol, but said she'd call the wine department to see what could be done (they suggested offering them a gift card for the amount they paid, which they accepted--it was either that or no compensation at all). 

    He ended his dealing with me with a weirdly apologetic complaint. "It didn't really taste good at all." Yes it did, and does! Golden State is wildly popular with good reason. I love the Gingergrass...any of them. What boggles me: you mean you drove your sorry ass all the way back to the market to try to "return" something you mistakenly thought was alcohol-free? You do know you can read and shop at the same time, yes? How far away do you live? How much gas money did you burn? Why didn't you just lodge the last three cans in the door of the fridge? Have gatherings much? I guarantee, someone would love them.

    I feel like popping one open myself...

    

    

Still Lifes, Weathered: At Rest

     Semiconscious, flat out on his back on the brown rug in the middle of the living room in the winter of 1988, my father slurs his welcome as my mother and I enter the lighted gloom of a Friday night to—half-shocked, really—discover him. I swerved first to the kinder memory: a minor tradition I began taking my mother happily along meeting friends downtown Sacramento for long table drinking and chatter. The college friends all liked my mother, quiet but interested, gracious but working class demure, and she was easy to lounge with, except when the bar band’s wailing rose too loud and reduced her to a stoic wince.

    I’m glad, now, we spent a few evenings together appreciating the unvarnished neon of 18th and Capitol, or a faux Irish and dark-wooded pub along the railroad tracks of N street, weathered brick, stalwart Victorians, valley oak and silver maple, undrunken, a rebirth for my mother getting a chance to feel the camaraderie of young people, hot-blooded and desirous of laughter, sarcasm, and romance, for you can always turn over the soil.

    Yes, the man on the rug: a concerned rush to raise him unsteady to his feet, supporting under the arm as he slides the opposite leaning shoulder down the hallway’s wall—whoop, both arms supported to bypass the open bathroom door!—to deposit him sleepily into bed. Too many times did we replay this sad performance, my brother, mother, and I alternating, such that remembering now confers a normality to those nights. Skeletons don’t hide in closets but slump in gloomy yellow lighted living rooms staring blankly amused at All in the Family and M*A*S*H reruns. Yet many of those colder nights of boyhood years long gone saw my father throwing football passes through the mist to the gathered kids in our neighborhood running through a November Tule fog. A whispering football twirl, the only sound the rising darkness knows. Or Dad driving three hours uncomplainingly 159 miles from Sacramento to Redding to deliver a few dollars for car repair when my hatchback broke down when visiting my old friend, Tom. Decades before credit cards and ATMs. Three hours.

    Take him for all in all, I shall not look upon his like again.

Still Lifes, Weathered: Wine

     Wine gloriously poisons. Gin poisons, yes it does: jagged claws scraping the soft and seething lining. But wine as well, wine as well, wine as well...

Still Lifes, Weathered: Dream

     Dream flash, February 1989, weeks after my father’s death at sixty-nine: our backyard in Sacramento, the astringent floral of cut grass permeating the summer air, under a sprawling valley sky whose blue air breathed like a Vermeer still life, our German Shepherd circling the pussy willow, our Siamese cat cushioned on an aromatic cedar window seat, and my mother, young, curious, sliding open the screen door to call us in for lunch. In the dream I am low to the Spring earth, a toddler, gazing upward at my father, my hand reaching up to his, and in my knowing mind I think to him You have to go away now, don’t you. He had been gazing at nothing across the backyard, mournfully, yet attentive of me, but at my voice he turned his head gently, gazing farther away as if facing a summons, and there is discomfort, apprehension, a tired foreboding in his whispered reply Yes.

    As often from these dreams I awake startled and vaguely sad, for it was only a dream. I knew he had to go, and he knew he had to go, and for this visit I was cast as a toddler with insight, but in the dream my father was a young husband with a toddler, as perhaps deeply in dusty memory I’ve seen him, or caressed timeless photographs of us, a young family standing before a pine sapling newly planted in our fresh suburb, awaiting fulfillment of all the promises. 

    Now I am many years older than my father in the dream. If I was the man I am now embodying the child in the dream, to his gloomy yes I would have soothed, But you’re released…