La vie en prose

Coup de foudre (n)  [pronounced  kooduh foo-druh]:   French for lightning bolt; often used to describe an intense, sudden feeling of love; love at first sight. I'm a recovering academic, current performer, writer, and translator. I live in DC, via NYC, via Berlin, via Paris. I'm not French. I just play one in front of students sometimes. My birthday involves many ones. I experience many coups de foudre. I make no attempt at objectivity here.

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Paperhaus at Palisades - Brooklyn, NY - 3/28/2014

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That's my boy!!

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Hyperbole in headlines

I’m increasingly intolerant of the deluge of hyperbolic blog article headlines that cascade down my Facebook home page. The most inspiring, the most beautiful, the most profound… Not one of those things can hope to be achieved in the 34 seconds it’s going to take us to read and forget the article. Why can’t the claims be more realistic? “Nice photos of babies.”Quotes from intellectuals on peace.” “A list of things you might miss from your adolescence in the 1990s.” I’m going to collect some of them and make a post entitled “The 12 Most Stunningly & Misleadingly Hyperbolic Headlines I’ve Read Today.”

Oh, and the most disingenuous offender? Upworthy. Shudder.

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I'm the new DC Community Manager of this company. Let the rideshare revolution begin, y'all. 

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Burt Reynolds' Bees @andrewbucket @tisardofoz #burtreynolds

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Why so blue KenCen? 😿

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Rower on the Potomac

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DC Iphone pictures

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Icicles, Capitol Building (at National Museum of the American Indian)

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Look who's back from Dubai and at my gig @thehamiltonDc -it's @karintanabe!!

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at Washington National Cathedral

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Pulled over last night next to the Kennedy Center to admire Georgetown in the storm

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Secrets: Gone Girl

At the urging of a dear book-loving friend, I picked up a best-selling thriller—something I wouldn't normally have picked up—called Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn. My friend's review was too intriguing to ignore: "Read this book. It will make you want to be single." 

The story is told through the voices of the two main characters, a couple experiencing an extreme marital hurdle. Their voices are sharp, clear, perfect. It's so current (set in 2010) and the characters are so close in age to me that as I read, I had that wonderfully rare feeling of the author sitting right inside my head. 

My friend was right in his review, too. The novel explores the idea of our inability to really know someone with this ominous refrain:

What are you thinking? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do? 

This reminded me of something I started to write a couple of years ago, a never-finished blog post:

There are so many things that you will never know about a person. Enough to realize that no one is knowable. That alterity is absolute. Who would I ever have told that when I set my new coffee pot to the time 6:20pm here in my kitchen, feeling the already dark night and the cool air outside, I was reminded of being in my kitchen on Forest Mill Lane on evenings after school, making Mom’s coffee for her the next day. I was reminded of the cozy promise of an early autumn evening, of kitchen warmth and teenaged track shorts, of Simpsons and homework, of salad bowls and dogs under the table, of the Smashing Pumpkins and the piano in the living room, and, somehow, of canned green beans. Whom would I ever have told that split-second chain of memories and associations? Who would care? 

I read once that problems between people, any people, are brought about by the assumption that we somehow know each other. We begin to draw conclusions and sketch character summaries. We typecast, we plot trajectories. On the micro level we could be talking about a guy who sees his girlfriend roll her eyes and assumes she is jealous like last time, and immediately resents her. On a macro level we could apply this to multinational warfare.

I taught high school French at a Benedictine school. We were often reminded of the rule of St. Benedict, a nice little nugget of wisdom:

Always, we begin again. 

We start over, every day. We wipe the slate clean. We remember how much we don't know. Let's give it a shot...

Also, read Gone Girl. For real. 

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Dating Tips! Q: How To Get a Guy To... ?

A:  You won't.

Here's the thing about men, and women: They do what they want to do.

We hear a lot about this notion of "getting someone to like you." I keep coming across it now that I'm paying more attention to dating. Girls ask one another this misguided question all the time, an idea probably planted by the cover of the Cosmo magazines we've been forced to stare at every week in the checkout line at the grocery store since we could read, boasting "tricks to win his heart!" and other noxious ideas.

The trouble is that it's all based on the fallacy that any one person can make another do his or her bidding. If it is my goal to persuade you to do what I want you to do, my goal is selfish. And if I act on that goal in the face of obvious resistance, I'm not being seductive, I'm not being a Pickup Artist or a Rules Girl; I'm just being a manipulative douchebag. I'm being a heart rapist. No means no. 

When we like a person, we all turn into the kid in the Kindergarten classroom that sees something shiny and wants to play with it. But for god's sake, play well with others. We can't always play with the toy we want to play with. We share, we wait, we respect, we back off.

Let people play as they wish. Don't try to make anyone feel any way for you. If it works, it works, and it works for both of you. If it doesn't work, it's not because you "haven't played the game well enough" or because you are acting any certain way that is a turnoff. Well, let's be clear: that does happen. But that "turnoff" behavior usually comes down in some way to trying to control the other person. This can be as subtle as contacting them more often than they're comfortable with, as obvious as accusing them of not being into you and somehow expecting a positive outcome out of that conversation (!), or just an emotional power play. And this doesn't dilute the point, which is that if he/she isn't pickin' up what you're throwin' down, it's not the right vibe for either of you. 

I've come to believe that online dating is detrimental to relationships for the reasons outlined here, in the sense that it is an attempt to control who loves you and whom you love, run amok. But I digress, or will at least save that for another post. 

Not surprisingly, any dating "techniques" that actually "work" in a non-deceptive way ultimately revolve around one simple principle: shut up, go away, do your own thing. Live and let live, live and let love. Not a single one of these guides worth its salt would ever recommend chasing someone who simply isn't pickin' up what you're throwin' down. 

Dating tips for all: shut up, go away, do your own thing.

The right thing will find you. Don't bother attempting to control or create it. You just do you. And imma do me. 

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Take It From a Holocaust Survivor: There's More To Life Than Feeling Good, Hippies.

Mottos like "if it feels good, do it" get under my skin. "Trust your gut" (your gut will tell you to "flee!" in the face of danger), "YOLO" and "whatever you decide to do will be the right thing" also fall into this camp. 

Those things are easy enough to say and think when you have food on your table, you're comfortable and your needs are met. Trouble is, they're also wildly irresponsible. There is too much suffering and too many people in need for those adages to make sense. Suffering and need cannot be written off as "negative," "difficult," or "too much," though grappling with them is unpleasant.

I don't put this forward to claim that I've done this right. I've unfortunately been swayed by people who live for a good time. It's easy to live that way. It's fun. But Camp Feel Good left me high and dry. It always will. Not because the fun will go away; it never will. But because the people who live that way will sacrifice you at its altar. Now I can only look back in disbelief that I squelched meaning in order to stop creating any ripples in the placid, shallow puddle of fun.

Contemplating one's past and future, how to make an impact in this world and how to give back can lead to a sense of uneasiness. So the happiness warriors will tell you to simply ignore those thoughts. The happiness warriors will say your malaise is "negativity." The happiness warriors will also, most likely, go through life meandering from one hedonistic indulgence to the next, running scared from any difficulties.

Your friends are having trouble in their relationship? Ignore them both until it blows over. They're just being dramatic. ("Dramatic" being a particularly insidious codification of the concept of possessing or displaying emotional depth.) Your friend is going through a hard time and isn't being particularly fun? Yeesh. Ignore her until it blows over. Or better yet, get out of that relationship, she's so negative! Homeless guy on the street? Don't make eye contact. If I don't look at him, he's not there. He'll just use my money for drugs anyway. This article on politics is so long and boring. Ugh, what a snoozefest. If they want people to care about this stuff, they should make it more fun to read. I'm gonna read Perez Hilton. Hey, at least it's entertaining, right?  I'd rather spend the next five minutes laughing. How can that be a bad thing?

Except, it's deadly.

Whatever feels good, do it! And then what? When things stop feeling good? When you get sick or someone dies or there's a hurricane or a shooting, or worse? Then you've got no reason to live. Because you've lived for "feeling good."

Live for something bigger. Anything bigger. Find meaning. Don't wait til things get unpleasant. Stop being comfortable. Be nice. Don't be violent. But be courageous. Woman up. Man up. Grow up. 

There's More to Life Than Being Happy.

And if you won't take it from me, take it from the Holocaust survivor who inspired this post and the above article (a fantastic read): Viktor Frankl.

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How Often to Use Which Social Media Outlets?

Been thinking a lot about how often to use the various social media sharing outlets we all know and love. What do you think of these suggestions? 

1. Facebook: once every two days, or for daily events. Friend news, quite often idle gossip. Not generally urgent.

2. Twitter: twice a day to READ, more to tweet information-rich content, less to tweet your comings and goings. The best source of up-to-the-minute news. 

3. Instagram: only when generating content. The least useful of the social connection sites. Acute generator of FOMO. [NYT]

4. Reddit: once a day (after you've tweaked your front page, removing subreddits like "pics" and adding subreddits like "TrueReddit." Excellent best-of-the-Internet aggregator. 

5. Pinterest: only when searching for/generating specific content.

6. Tumblr: when generating content and depending on the quality of the Tumblrs you follow. If they enrich your intellectual life, once a day (but for a limited time). 

7. LinkedIn: as much as you need it. An excellent professional resource. 

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For Anyone Whose Heart Aches

My dad and I got to talking about breakups a while back and something he said was so poignant that I asked him to repeat it so I could take notes. I found it to be an incredibly life-affirming message. He's very faithful, but even if you're not, substitute any notion of greater good for "God" and it still works. And chin up.

Love is never wasted. In one sense, there is no unrequited love, because love is not about receiving but giving.

There’s no need to look at ourselves and ask why things did not go well, if that leads to despair. People are imperfect. We are imperfect. You’ll never really understand someone else, especially of the opposite sex.

Acting in love and good will is its own reward. When we do it, we know something about the love of God, which is generative and never self-absorbed.

God is the source of all love, the love that moves the stars, as Dante told it. It’s all so much bigger than just us. We can find comfort in that love and know that nothing we do in love is in vain.

You are loved and are so much more than any one relationship in your life. You are not defined by another. You are not a victim, not the product of a mistake, or of bad luck.

Gilles Vranckx: Heartache