Miss O’, Drama Queen
Happy Post-Black Friday, dear
readers! Miss O’ returns after a sweet week of rest and replenishment by way of
Thanksgiving in Columbus, Ohio, with her brother Pat and family, as well as the
delightful Lefflers, and also assorted big holiday meal guests from my
sister-in-law’s family. Surely I should start this letter with the weather
report: To invoke Garrison Keillor, if I may, “It’s been cold this last week”:
Lows in the teens and a high in the 20s on the big day, as well as a couple of
inches of snow cover, made for little outdoor time. In addition, the cooking
top of my brother’s stove broke on Wednesday (at least two items that should
never have computer chips in order to remain mechanical: Automobiles and
stoves), but at least the oven worked. So with two crockpots, an electric
griddle, a microwave, and a toaster oven, we made magic. I say “we,” but all I
ever do, being the eccentric aunt, is a little scullery, a little vacuuming, some
joking with the kiddies, and little walkabouts from bedroom to kitchen to
living room and back. And I drink, of course. It’s the secret to holiday magic.
I even told the family of my great fear of becoming one of Dylan Thomas’s
aunts, whom he described in his story “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” and
though my size is different, the moment seems apt: “And some few small aunts, not wanted in the kitchen, nor anywhere else
for that matter, sat on the very edges of their chairs, poised and brittle,
afraid to break, like faded cups and saucers.” Possibly my nephew Cullen
will one day write of my Thanksgiving visits, “And one large aunt, not wanted
in the kitchen, nor anywhere else for that matter, sat in the very middle of
each chair, vague and massive, inept at tasks, like a snoring bull among the
china.” Except that usually I’m in the middle of all the places he is, doing
accents, so that whatever comment I make, Cullen will say, “Aunt Lisa, say that
like a New Yorker.” And Aunt Lisa does, then goes to pour another glass of
Irish whiskey, and as in Dylan Thomas’s memoir, once again I play all the
parts: “The dog was sick. Auntie Dosie
had to have three aspirins, but Auntie Hannah, who liked port, stood in the
middle of the snowbound backyard singing like a big-bosomed thrush.” Sexy
holiday times!
Travel usually sparks strange
dreams. At least twice this week that I can recall, I had elaborate and
seemingly long, and certainly wildly detailed dreams about high school play
rehearsals. Colors first: The first dream was in greens and blacks, the second
dream in vomit pinks, ambers, browns, some black, some white. I don’t know if
you are into color symbolism, but even if you aren’t: ICK. What both dreams had
in common, aside from being set at high school play rehearsals, was the
complete lack of control, or even role function, that Miss O’ experienced in
both dreams. In Dream One, all I seemed to do was yell, at both students in the
“classroom”—a kind of open place with students on “risers”—and on the stage,
where I seemed to be in the wings when I wasn’t wandering the halls of “Luxe
High,” skinny and confused, doing some kind of ROP, or “Retirement Option
Program” of serving in the school for a compensatory fee. In Dream Two, I
seemed to be in some kind of English village, and there was an old-looking,
wood-decorated red-painted pub called Toby’s
that I very much wanted to stop in, and yet the dreamscape seemed to compel me
to look for something else, and I don’t know if I found it, because after a
brief episode involving one of those disgusting, unusable toilets I seem to
invent in dreams so that I don’t actually wet my bed in real life (my mom,
Lynne, also does this—anyone else?), I was back in an auditorium, but outside,
like at Nissan Pavilion, and yet not, and two former students of mine were
singing from the back, standing by a now-retired teacher, Mr. Snyder, and no
matter where I sat in the house—trying, I guess, to see so I could direct—the
view would be obscured or disappear altogether.
My take-away—and I agree with poet
Joy Harjo, whom Miss O’ has quoted before, that since we spend fully one third
of our lives asleep (take that in), paying attention to dreams would seem to
make sense; anthropologists theorize that the idea of the soul came at least
partly from dreams: that place we go to when we are as close to being dead as
we can be while alive and still functioning naturally—is that 1) Miss O’ is
feeling unmoored in general; 2) Miss O’ is somehow still affected by her
teaching life of yore and is feeling estranged from her formerly-practiced
talents, perhaps; and 3) the ability to digest large, celebratory meals comfortably is a joy of bygone days.
One other source of Miss O’s holiday
indigestion, and of her own making, is in the bringing up of subjects that
cause upset. It is the inadvertent policy of your Miss O’ to discomfit someone
at every gathering, at least once, if not several times, especially after
consuming a few glasses of Chianti. This particular incident surprised me,
though, because it wasn’t about politics. It was about the idea of opinions.
We hear it all the time, since at
least the Hollywood movies and radio shows of the '30s, New York types saying, in order
to close out an argument (however ungrammatically), “Hey, everyone’s entitled
to their opinion.” They may bookend this phrase with “It’s a free country” and
“That’s what I believe” for emphasis. This is America, isn’t it? And as
Garrison Keillor said during a monologue one night on his radio show A Prairie
Home Companion on NPR, “The most un-American thing you can say is, ‘You can’t
say that.’” I agree: You can say anything you want. Speech is free.
But are you allowed to believe it? Miss O’ would say, “Not
always.” That’s what I said. Miss O’ is taking on the adage, “Everyone’s entitled to his opinion.” I
am not sure yet where I’m going, but I’m pretty sure it’s going to be
interesting.
So first off, apologies to my truly
marvelous sister-in-law, Traci, who, during the course of a kitchen
conversation over the aforementioned vino, said that she goes walking with a
gal in her neighborhood who expresses extreme-Conservative views, but that she could
still walk with her because, hey, “everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” And
Miss O’, who has been known to share a few opinions in her time, said, “Sure.
And they can still be WRONG.” Traci told me that that was not my call to make,
and I assured her it was not only my call, but also my responsibility to point it out.
Before
I flesh that story out, let me clarify something: Here is an example of a real
“opinion,” by which I mean something that is a matter of taste, a matter of
sensibility, a belief one holds because one simply cannot “go there,” wherever
that is, and in the holding of this opinion, the holder hurts no one.
OPINION:
“That
clown ottoman is just wrong.” ~ my sister-in-law, Traci, who is awesome
 |
| Clown Ottoman, ca. 1967, a Christmas present from Santa to Lisa O', aged 3, and a presence in her bedroom all her life ever after. The ottoman now resides, unhappily, in a cold garage in Ohio. Alone. So terribly alone. |
What
is there to say? Is she mistaken in her opinion? Probably, she is not. And yet
I am of the opinion that in its garishness and Christmas-colored evil-grinned
hideousness, that clown ottoman simply rocks. The reaction or response one has
to this child’s bedroom accessory is, in the truest sense, a matter of opinion. There is no moral right or wrong attached to
this, no indisputable scientific data to invoke, and no reason to argue one
point or another. What it comes down to is that I thought Cullen might want to
experience the grotesque as part of his toddler’s education, whereas his mother
opted for items of actual beauty. I cede to her opinion, because she is Cullen’s
mom.
My
mom, by contrast, is Lynne. As readers know, Lynne of the poetry-reciting,
Salem smoking, Spanish swearing, casual house-cleaning (unless it’s the one
Saturday a month when it all gets scrubbed) school of mothering (“Go OUTSIDE.
Until tomorrow…”) loved Day of the
Dead types of things: Carnival, Halloween, Mardi Gras stuff, and hanging in my
brothers’ room all through their growing up was this Diablo mask, which my
brother Pat was just asked via email to dig out of the basement to photograph
for his sister’s blog today.
[Actual photo TK, but it's of a carved coconut shell mask, huge
in my memory, with round eyes, mouth with teeth, and three horns poking out from the top, the
face painted red, black, and white, with some dots, if I remember correctly. Note: "TK" is publishing speak for “to come,” possible because “TC” might be mistaken
for “TOC,” or “table of contents” –ed. In the meantime, here is an approximation from the Google, but replace the yellow with white, and throw some polka does around the skull top.]
This
antique from the Lynne Collection, too, was rejected by Cullen’s mom as a
decorative item for her son’s bedroom on the grounds that it is “hideous” and
“terrifying.” That is Traci’s opinion. (Pat said, “Lisa, I love my wife.”) And
there the matter ends. It’s not that Traci is a girly-girl—she’s a big fan of
all things frog-related, as a matter of fact, and loves a little scary—but we all have limits. (My limit
has to do with “cute.” Once, on an old-people trip, my parents toured a
Precious Moments factory. Lynne bought me a nail file, “because it was so
awful, but it’s the easiest thing you could, you know, keep hidden,” I think she said. In our opinion, there is nothing
more hideous, in a bad way, than Precious Moments.)
So: Miss O’s back in that
holiday kitchen and has just upset an apple pie of chat. Remember? Now it was
here that Traci and our friend Cheryl (whose family joins us all in Columbus
for Thanksgiving week) told me in no uncertain terms that I was wrong to hold
the opinion that some people’s opinions are simply wrong. (The irony of this is
not lost on Miss O’, but it’s not the point right now.) So strong was this
feeling, that Traci, who is the possibly the easiest person on earth to get along
with, felt compelled to leave the kitchen, saying, “We are not having this
conversation.” (Miss O’ had fruitlessly used the example, “I put my kids in the
closet for days as punishment because in my opinion that’s the best way to
discipline them.” Granted it was extreme.) (One would think I’d let it drop!
Ha, ha. And yet I cried out, “What about my being a judgmental asshole suddenly
became so unattractive???” No, I didn’t.) So one lets it drop, and one should (though only after making an attempt to make one's point).
It’s Thanksgiving! So here, instead, in my own blogorama, I present five
“opinions” that Miss O’ knows to be, actually, wrong (morally and empirically),
however tightly they are, or were, held:
·
All women
should stay home, have no vote, and cede control of their reproductive rights
to the federal government.
·
Blacks
have intelligence inferior to that of whites.
·
Jews are
the cause of all the world’s ills and should therefore be exterminated.
·
The
Irish are so much manure and should be starved to death.
·
Earth
runs by God’s magic, and so it will serve our human needs no matter how much
carbon waste we put into the atmosphere or how much we pollute all the drinking
water.
People who hold these, or even one of
the above, “opinions” are, in point of fact, stupid. That’s not merely Miss O’s
“opinion.” Whatever you want to label such people who espouse these “beliefs”—willfully ignorant, bigoted, or cave dwellers—what it comes down to is stupidity. And as Miss O’ has said a
thousand times, it wouldn’t matter at all, except that such people also vote
and also can own guns.
The Negative Power of “Positive Thinking”
Here’s a sixth “opinion” for which
Miss O’ has no patience: Being gay is a
choice. There really is no way to argue with a human who states this and
then says, “That is my opinion,” except to say, “No, that is your ignorance.” Miss O’ does not believe
anyone is entitled to ignorance, but
neither does she believe that every display of such ignorance must needs be a
“teaching moment.” To assume that ignorant humans need my vast knowledge thrust
upon them is an obnoxious trait (and if there is a word that sounds more
obnoxious than obnoxious, I don’t
know what it is; seriously—that is one ugly-sounding word). And yet, here I am,
pronouncing away! But here at any time, you know, you can close the site, move
to the kitchen, make a nice cocktail, and head to the living room to watch the
game. Who would blame you?
If you are still with me, let’s consider
this opinion: that homosexual humans can and should “pray away the gay,” and
that they should seek organizations to help them. A while back, for example,
the founders of one such group, Exodus International, called a big press
conference to state that they would no longer be offering pray-away-the-gay
counseling; they wanted to “apologize” for the error of their ways, saying they
realized that gays are gays. Or did they? A Christian blogger named John Shore
realized that their “apology,” upon more careful consideration, was more
probably an attempt to promote their original cause, or at least promote
themselves.
So, as I say, I’m just a tad confused. Not once in your
speech—which I’ll be the first to say was veritably jammed with talk about God
and forgiveness and healing and welcoming and redemption and reconciliation and
peace and love and joy and salvation—did I hear you express regret for you and
Exodus having spent over three decades helping to destroy the lives of gay
people and their families through your peddling and capitalizing upon the
message that God’s greatest desire for every gay person is that they cease to
be gay.
You can read more here:
Exodus
International victimized gay Christians, preyed upon them as they prayed over
them, in order to make a lot of money. (Why does this ever not occur to such
Christian believers?) And yet too often in this country, people express the “opinion”
that there are no victims; that each
and every one of us, individually, can create the lives we want through positive thinking, through wishing,
through believing. And while Miss O’ is the first to honor a prayerful life,
she has no truck with Wishing Will Make It So, as any good fairy tale shows
you, and usually worse: “Be careful what you wish for, for you will surely get
it.” Or in the words of Saint Theresa, “More tears are shed over answered
prayers than unanswered ones.” Too often, people use “I pray” as an excuse not
to participate in the world, not to work to solve problems, not to try to make
bad situations better. Such people are of the opinion that prayer = meaningful action.
This is not to say that prayer does not nourish us; I find myself in a state of
constant prayer, for as they used to say in time of war, “No atheists live in
foxholes,” and as we say in America, “No atheists last on FOX News,” so sometimes
the best that I can do is pray…that I don’t run out into the street, screaming.
So
what can we do about this dilemma? First, we need to understand that this
tendency to “smile, though your heart is aching,” is not generally a useful
strategy to change a bad life situation (though certainly it makes for more
comfortable dinner parties—but life really isn’t a goddamned dinner party, is
it). This morning I stumbled across this wonderful RCS animation of a speech
given by Barbara Ehernreich (author of the book Nickel and Dimed) on the site Upworthy, in which she expounds on
the insidious evil of telling people they need to “think positive thoughts” to
make their lives better. This is particularly true in American corporate life: Just laid off? Smile, smile, smile! What a
great opportunity! What Ehrenreich argues is that that belief is beating us down, is what it's doing. That smile? Tears
of a clown, my friend. You can listen to the speech at the link below, which is accompanied
by very cool animation. It won’t take 10 minutes, which is all the commercials
at half-time, ammirite?
What
she explains, and in a funny, insightful way, is frightening—how this sort of corporate cheerleading is exactly
the kind of propaganda once used in the Soviet Union at the height of its
terrorism and beyond, and which Miss O’ and other readers will recognize in George Orwell,
who satirized this very stuff in his novel 1984. (Another recent example: McDonald's just told its poverty-stricken employees that to make themselves feel less hungry, just break up the little food they do have into smaller bites! Smiley face!) Or, as my friend Chuck whispered to me during a workshop where a poet talked
about how wonderful the book The Secret
was, “Blame the victim.” You got that right.
But
that’s just our opinion. Right?
Are You Really Entitled to My Opinion?
All
humans deserve the same basic human rights and (at the adult level, surely) the
same level of autonomy. And no matter what your age, ethnicity, religion, or
country of origin, for example: Gay is gay; straight is straight. This is not
open for argument, this stuff can no longer be considered “a matter of opinion.”
If so, where is the bottom? (Wait,
sorry, that was a poor choice of phrase. Or was it?) Where the hairs start to
split, as it were—transgendered, for
example—is very often easily answered with, “It’s really none of your
business.” Sex obsession—our prurient interest in how other people have it, and
what it results in—is a national disease: One man’s thing on the side is another man’s you are so going to hell breaking of a Commandment; or one woman’s
choice to terminate a pregnancy is another woman’s “I’d never do that,” and in
these cases we are talking about autonomous
choice, the rightness of which is not a matter of personal opinion, but is,
in fact and more to the point, a personal decision.
What
Miss O’ has begun to sense must be reiterated: Having opinions should not be conflated with making decisions. If someone says, “I hate blacks,” and you hear
this opinion, all you need do is shake your head and say (and certainly you
should say), “Well, that’s your opinion.” However, if someone says, “I’d like
to lynch blacks,” and your response is only, “Well, that’s your opinion,” you
are failing in your responsibility as a human being. Perhaps you think this is
merely Miss O’s opinion, her Judgy McJudger persona flying high in its egotism.
But a line was crossed back there. Did you see it? Does it make you
uncomfortable, this idea of taking action? Let's not spoil a perfectly pleasant meal. Maybe this will comfort you.
Decoration
is a matter of opinion, a matter of taste. Your choice of wall hanging takes
away none of my basic human rights. Opinions fall like water off a duck’s oily
back. But a pronouncement of possible action, such as the carrying out of a
threat to any human right, cannot stand in silence. The very real clown ottoman
in any political living room is inaction
in the face of threats to human dignity and safety, and to our existence as a
species. The true Diablo mask is the mask of silence, and when you do not challenge a threat, the mask is your
own. You are wearing that mask, is what I’m saying, and it’s the worst possible
disguise: “I am only trying to be polite.” Polite? You are wearing a fucking
DIABLO MASK.
Silence = Death. And that will never be up for
opinion. So pronounceth I.
For
the Record: I know that my sister-in-law and our friend said a very reasonable thing: "Everyone is entitled to their opinion." And typically, Miss O' blows up a simple, reasonable comment and heads off into rough terrain, and I can only hope I have made some kind of sense. Also, I have taken the tiniest moment in the whole week and turned out 8
single-spaced pages on Word. Not bad. Imagine now what I DIDN’T write about!
Lest you think I thought very much of that moment before now, readers, let Miss
O’ assure you she did not, and that it was a wonderful holiday. Cullen made
really cool bracelets on a loom using tiny colored rubber bands, with the
YouTube guidance of a video and the help of his wonderful mom (see photo). We
watched horrible (hey, I know, that's one family's opinion) Hallmark Channel Christmas movies with Pat O’, who basks in
their badness, downed shots of Jager, cooked and ate, enjoyed the falling snow.
The only downside of holiday dinners at other people’s homes is the empty
fridge I return to here in Queens, so let me rectify this by going to the
store, shall I? I shall.
Happy
Thanksgiving,
In
love,
Miss
O’
