New Decade

By this time next decade, I will be 29.

Scary. *shivers* Maybe I'm shivering because the house is 64 degrees. Mom likes it cold, especially when we come back from 90 degree weather in DR.

Regardless (while I hold back on talking about the three times I was turned away from church), I am still looking back at this decade with my own memories, perhaps a little influenced by the NYT photo reel from the last 10 years that I just watched.

So, things I remember from this decade:

1) Y2K. Nothing like a some paranoia of the occult 90's to bring in the most turbulent decade I have ever seen (emphasis on the "I"), where fears were far beyond the occult and became more orientalist.

2) I turned 10. Say hello to TWO digits.

3) Believe it or not, as a 10 year old, I almost cried when I thought Al Gore won. Hey. I grew up on a farm. And I was 10. I did not vote!

4) 9/11/2001. I was in Mr. Ferra's (?) science class in 6th grade at Highlands (one of the ONLY memories I have of that place...). Our vice principal came in and turned on a television. I watched the second plane crash into the second tower. Mom came and picked me up from school and I watched army helicopters fly over the house. Where did they come from and why did they fly so low? I was afraid, but more confused. I cried for people I did not know and began to understand the meaning of patriotism.

5) I remember seeing American flags out of every car window.

6) Watching your country invade the area of the world you would soon become more fascinated with than anything... even Barbies... is often times life shaking. In my 11 year old heart, I shook with a strange feeling of righteousness and uneasiness. They deserved it? Yes? Or were we just doing this all wrong? I could not decide. I don't know if I still can will the same strong conviction so many "seem" to have. I remember the green of the night vision goggles.

7) I went to my first school dance. I still remember the smell and some large plump girl (my age, and already having sex) offering my a cigarette. I didn't smoke it. And didn't for a looooooong time.

8) Blink 182 and Greenday came into my life, like some blast from the 90s. I loved it. I think?

9) I became a teenager. I'm now finishing out my last year of that madness.

10) HARRY POTTER, the MOVIE.

11) I remember the space shuttle crumbling.

12) They caught Saddam. I wrote an article to my local newspaper about how reporters should stop talking about Saddam's favorite snacks (Cheetos) and start telling me valuable information--true article. True Story. (Later in the decade I got a blog. Much better for voicing opinions than that local Newspaper... thought I got a lot of positive feedback!)

13) WARDROBE MALFUNCTION!!!!

14) I get accepted to Ellis. I feel like I have just gotten into Yale. Up to that point in my life, best moment ever. Determined much of what my life would become.

15) Again, I cheer when Bush wins, but a little more wearily. Ellis was rocking my world.

16) Freshman year, I learn that Aztecs did bloodletting rituals by piercing their penises. Thank you Dr. Bedell.

17) I read East of Eden and suddenly the world of literature opens its arms and gives me a big hug. The world of Academia squeezes me to death for the next 6 years.

18) I get a Myspace. Gross!

19) I meet Fahima Vorgetts and suddenly I'm helping Afghan Women and Girls by raising money for a school building for them. I set up a club at Ellis that still exists today and funds the girls with computers. Something in me changes as I find a direction for myself.

20) Hurricane Katrina. Was it true that global warming did it? I worked on building a money collection at my school to send in to Hurricane victims. I felt so helpless against nature. Environmentalism was nipping at my toes, urging me to do something.

21) This was the decade of causes wasn't it? I attend anti-genocide rallies. Host teas for Afghan Girls. Raise money for Katrina victims. Go to anti-war protests. I was quite a little liberal... even before I could drive. I would say I'm a little more right now and a little more informed, but there is something inside me that yearns for those days of freedom and beauty, when a protest could ACTUALLY change my world and the answer to such problems was as simple as a rally. I have a higher calling now.

22) I run off to Spain. There are bombings in Valencia. Mom is afraid. Beginning of my life.

23) I drive. Hallelujah.

24) My grandmother dies. For the first time, death is a strong reality. My life is shut down in Junior Year Academia. I go into the role of Vivian Bearing.

25) I get a Facebook. Problem number one.

26) Gov School. No comment.

27) I discover that I must apply to college. Multiple identity crises ensue, ending with an acceptance to Yale. I hug the UPS man. I run to my Grandmother.

28) I drive cross country to an witness insane Iraq War Vet following me (I sometimes wonder if he still is... not literally), ghost towns, poor beggars in New Mexico, the blight in trees in Wyoming. America looks sicker than Steinbeck wrote, but more beautiful and kind than I had imagined. I find a sense of wonder I had left somewhere along the line. Bubby dies. I turn 18. I graduate. One week.

29) I run away to Egypt for a while to satisfy my interests in Arabic. They are never satisfied. I go to Khan el-Khalili to eat pigeon and reminisce about the bombing that had been there when I was there, 4 years ago. I meet some of the best friends of my life. I learn more about the Arab world and have a rude awakening into the horrors of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict... on both sides.

30) Yale. Freshman year. The big choice. Obama or McCain. Guess who I chose? Dad wasn't too happy. I remember Yalies streaking, drinking, dancing, and singing in a BIG circle on Old Campus. Some professors join in the celebration.

31) I play a Jew on stage and discover that I ACTUALLY have a sense of Jewish Guilt--not Catholic. It complicates my religious persuasions, which were already unscramble-able. Perhaps it was my great-grandmother's influence on the family? (She was a Jew in a sea of Ukrainian Orthodox Christians).

32) Iranian revolutions while I'm in Turkey. I jog each night watching Euro News. The Kurdish workers who served tea in Taksim explain why they want their own country. I listen to Turks who speak the opposite.

33) An attempted terror attack from a boy no older than me from Nigeria fails. My age catches up to my conscience and realize that its my generation's turn to take the reigns pretty soon.

34) A major note, to remind you all where I'm from. THE STEELERS WON TWICE THIS DECADE. ;)

So I know there are more memories (this was my "teenage" decade yo!), but its hard to sort when you are running on very little sleep and freezing the tan off....

Here is to my 20s decade. Here is to a happy and healthy world. Or as happy and healthy as it could be.

Christmas Eve

Before I tell you about how I was turned away from a church three times the eve of Christmas eve, I would like to introduce you to my family at Christmas Eve, to give, shall we say, a striking image of the family eccentricity.

We go out on a tar and chip road to Aunt Tammy's house in the middle of ??? and beat off several dogs while we bring presents into the house. Inside is Uncle John, and his kids Jimmy and Lexi and then of course my cousins Rachel, John, and Alysha, who has a new baby to a solider who just came back from Iraq (we shared stories about Kurdish people and Falafel all night).

My cousin Rube brought his new Latvian girlfriend. They arrived just as my cousins broke me down to show them a picture of "The Mysterious Russian" I am seeing. My cousin Alysha tells me that she accidentally bought my cousins the wrong gifts (thinking they were still 5 and 7, when they were 12 and 10) saying she "Lives in the Past." Later, I argued with Uncle/Father Tim (the orthodox priest) about the gospels of the bible. I didn't win, but I think I just like to see him get all anxious (another family trait).

Speaking of family traits, my uncle brought boxes of photos and keepsakes from my deceased bubby. Inside, she still had kept the christmas cards we had made and sent to her, along with every clipping from when someone was in the newspaper. The pictures dated back to the 40's and had women with kankles in them. I surely hope that doesn't run in my line. The pictures were in an attempted organization scheme (like most Tomson organization efforts) and had a general chronological order, though my baby pictures were with pictures of my father at 15. I found another piece of evidence that I was Jewish--some distant relatives that looked like they were wearing skull caps and had sweaters where those tassles should be coming out, but were shoved up inside. My family thinks I am Jewish now too.

Present opening happens and I sort of stare into space at children as other people try to prevent them from dangers I should be seeing (like ice cubes???)--finally I get to talk about uncle T-Bone about the composition of salt; i bought him himalayan salt from Dean and Deluca's.

I'm asked to watch children for a while until I pass them off to my perhaps even more incompetent sister who passes them off to someone who knows that children cannot open pistachios. Meanwhile, some old man my aunt Tammy has cared for over the years sits in the corner in a sitting room that no one sits in and watches the Christmas tree as if it is going to suddenly take him back to some other time or place that was a lot friendlier to him.

I give the rest of my dad's Sam Adams Cherry Wheat six pack to my cousin Alysha and the Iraq vet, go through a lot more hugs (some tight and some pats), go through more hugs, and then go to the car and shoo off dogs. In the car, we pass up houses that flicker in sight between black and white pictures and now. Some still keep logs outside. Some look like "Home Improvement" or "Country Living" covers, most of which are out dated or from the 50s, when the area juuuuuust started to get electricity.

I pocketed a bunch of pictures that didn't belong to me (i.e. my family wasn't in them), mostly of the Hunkie men and of the women with kankles and keep them next to my bed, flattened in the "Confessions of St. Augustine," along with the pictures of my other grandmother, who is sipping on Coors and wearing pants in the 40s, when God knows women didn't wear pants--or at least good housewives. A stray away from the kankled women in Mosgrove, where electricity was just taking hold....

What a long way we've come.