An ‘Encounter’

March 10th, 2008

It was 9 PM on Saturday night. Jason and I had been in the same room since 7 that morning, yet the day was far from over. We were spending the weekend at the Maryland Catholic Engaged Encounter retreat, and it was now time for the group discussion section of the program. Yay. A heavy-set girl with curly black hair wearing a yellow sweatshirt and jeans pulled a folded-up piece of paper from a cardboard box. “Who do you think should pay for your wedding, and why? Do you think the bride’s parent’s paying for the wedding is an outdated tradition?”

The questions were submitted anonymously from the 25-odd engaged couples attending the weekend. I looked around the room wondering who the hell had asked that. It seemed like a bit of an invasive question to me, but people were more than willing to answer.

“I think it comes down to a matter of luxury,” one guy said. “It’s not really a matter of who should pay for it, but who can.”

“We wanted to keep everything fair so both sets of parents are contributing equally,” said one couple.

“We are paying for it ourselves so we don’t have to listen to anyone else’s opinions,” another chimed in.

It was amazing to me the amount of people funding their own weddings just so they could make their own rules. Seeing that I had a very difference experience from anyone else in the room, I decided to share. “My parents are paying for ours,” I said. “And yes, there is a certain amount of allowances I have to make for that. I am getting their input on most aspects of the event, and they want a certain amount of control over what goes on. But the day isn’t just about us, it’s about two families, so I don’t feel the need to have it my way or nothing.”

“Well that’s just crap,” said a guy in a corner. “The day is about you and your fiancé, not anyone else. You should do things the way you want to.”

“I have the rest of my life to do things my way,” I rebutted. “To me, the wedding day itself is about committing yourselves in front of everyone special in your life, and then sharing that with all that care enough to be witness to it. I respect my parents. They have done a lot for me. And if all they ask in return is to be in on some decisions and have certain things done their way, then who am I to argue?”

Amazingly, this didn’t go over very well. I was quickly lambasted for selling out.

The program directors, two married couples and a priest, who had remained silent throughout the discussion, had the last word.

“I think we quickly forget that there are more people involved in this process than just the bride and groom,” said Father Joe. “We forget that it isn’t just the bride and groom that have been anxiously waiting the wedding day, but the parents involved have been as well, perhaps since the day you were born. I think it’s commendable that some of you have enough respect for that to be considerate of your parent’s feelings. It’s a mature viewpoint.”

HA! Take that, jerks who said I sold out. The priest agrees with me. Granted, at first I was pretty pissed that one aspect of doing the wedding my parents way was getting married in the Catholic Church. I am not Catholic and, especially after listening to the propaganda this weekend, vehemently disagree with the majority of stances the Church has on birth control, children, homosexuality, evolution, and marriage. But if sitting in a room listening to lectures on Natural Family Planning and “God’s plan” for 16 hours on Saturday and 8 hours on Sunday is the worst thing I ever have to do to show my parents my appreciation for the past 26 years, then I’m getting off lucky.

The entire weekend was pretty painful, however. Sixteen hours straight of anything would be though. The format wasn’t bad, it was more the content that sucked. The directors for the weekend—Rick & Patty, Cheryl & Gene, and Father Joe—lectured on each topic for 30 to 45 minutes. Then, each couple would separate and answer a string of questions in essay form for 20 minutes. After that, you and your fiancé would meet privately to switch answers and discuss them. Jason and I found the first few questions helpful. It forced us to thrash out some issues in detail, and acknowledge ways to fix them.

But then the directors broke out the Jesus and my eye rolling began. There were definitely some writing sessions where all I did was write “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and the lyrics to “The Star Spangled Banner” because I had nothing to say about my feelings on God’s presence during “lovemaking.” Gross.

But we lived. And now I know how to measure my vaginal mucus level as a “natural” birth control indicator. Awesome.

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The Truth

March 7th, 2008

I’m pretty sure not many people can say they’ve had an epiphany while listening to D.C. shock jock Elliot Segal. Last Tuesday I did.

Elliot interviewed journalist and author David Sheff about his book, “Beautiful Boy,” which chronicles his son’s drug addition. Throughout the book, Sheff struggles with how to help his son and how to handle the increasing drama swirling around his new wife and two young children. It began with Sheff finding a bag of weed in his then-12-year-old son’s backpack. By 17, the kid was hooked on crystal meth and living on the street.

“This is why I don’t want kids,” I said to Jason, who was in the passenger seat. “One minute it’s cute and playing tee-ball, and the next it’s stealing money out of your wallet to go by heroin.”

As my words festered in my head, I realized their true meaning: It’s not that I don’t want children, I’m just utterly paralyzed with fear at the thought of it. Forget bringing the kid home in a blanket, I’m swaddling it in bubble wrap and strapping at helmet on its head. And then I’m locking it in its room until its 35.

Honestly, though, it will hate me. I will be the one setting and enforcing rules, and Jason will be the one playing games and taking it to soccer practice. It won’t live on soda, McDonalds, Oreos, or powered “cheese” stuff out of a box. It’s not going to dress like a skank or a thug at 13 either, and it sure as hell isn’t dating until it’s a junior in high school at the earliest. TV will be strictly limited when it’s little, as will video games. Here’s a book; read it. And don’t think I won’t secretly be searching its room and backpack like every day. It’s called “not being an idiot.”

But of course, my doting and extreme overprotectiveness will just push little Johnny or Jane away further, and my spawn will probably run off and join a sideshow or turn tricks at a truck stop when it’s 14. Or it will inevitably outfox me and mange to stay within curfew and do bad shit anyway. It’s grades will probably suck and then I’ll have to eat Raman for the rest of my life to put it through a shitty state school, that is, if it doesn’t get a meth addiction before college is a possibility.

Or, even worse, it will be exactly like me.

God help us all.

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Gerunds, Pronouns & Adverbs—Oh My!

March 6th, 2008

Whenever I describe my job to family members or friends, I brace myself for puzzled looks followed up by the enviable statement of shock and surprise.

Why?

Because I’m a copyeditor. And I can’t spell. Yep, that’s right; I’m the Lois Lane of my publication. Sure, I write articles too, but my primary day-to-day job is fixing other people’s grammar, spelling, and punctuation, and yet I have no idea how to diagram a sentence.

Last weekend my editing and production group had to attend a two-day grammar and style seminar. Even though we had to spend an entire sunny Saturday reviewing hyphens and semicolons, most of my coworkers were “excited” to go. Nerds! I work with a plethora of anal retentive type-A personalities who just live for gerunds, past participles, and misplaced modifiers. I, on the other hand, don’t know what the hell a gerund is.

So how do I possibly do my job when I obviously have no idea what I’m doing? It’s the same way I can read music without actually being able to read music; it’s all by ear. Give me the starting note and I’ve got the rest of the song covered, but I could never come up with the starting note on my own. Give me an incorrect sentence and I can fix it, but I can’t give you the exact name of what was wrong with it.

You wouldn’t think so, but my way has its advantages. Most of my articles are conversational, as well as grammatically correct. However, I have some coworkers who write technically grammatically correct sentences that sound like Yoda is talking.

“John Smith last week released the report.”

Ew. Jesus, why would ever write that? Sure, it’s technically right, if you’re a robot. Why not, “John Smith released the report last week.” Ahhh, much better. No one cringes over that, right?

I did learn a lot from the workshop. I found out that most of my instincts are correct, even if I can’t give them labels. It was helpful to review basic rules and discuss various types of editing with coworkers. But I primarily discovered that this shit bores me to tears. I figured I could stay at my magazine doing the copyediting thing until a full-time writing position opened up, but I’m getting more and more bored with each passing sentence.

I’m not a detail-oriented person. I’m not anal-retentive enough to care about nit-picky archaic rules such as using “his or her” rather than “their” to describe third-person indefinite pronouns. There are people in this world that are really bothered by stuff like that, and those are the people you want copyediting your publication. Personally, I think those people should get a life and lighten the hell up. But this is why I probably need a job change.

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Population 663

February 13th, 2008

A couple of weeks ago while I had some downtime at work, I was poking around the Internet and stumbled upon www.findyourspot.com. It’s a website that asks you a series of questions and then pairs you with your “ideal” places to live.

My results were pretty telling. There was only one hit with a population above 40,000—Charleston, West Virginia. (For comparative sake, the estimated population of D.C. for 2007 is 588,292.) The majority of my hits had populations under 15,000 and were located in Vermont, Massachusetts, and Oregon. The number five ranked location was Berkeley Springs, West Virginia, with a population of 663. In a place like that, the number of cows probably outnumber the people.

According to this quiz, I couldn’t be living and working in a more inappropriate place for my needs, which is interesting because I hated growing up in a small town. When I went away to school, I transferred from Washington College in podunk Chestertown, Maryland because the nearest Blockbuster was 40 minutes away and I had to pay a toll to get there. Chestertown boasted one bar, a Roses, and a Hardee’s. The downtown, which consisted of kitschy antique stores and new age shops, closed at 5:30 PM. The college was surrounded by corn fields and soybean farms. My dad actually had a hunting cabin near the school, which he used twice a year or so to hunt geese with his buddies.

Campus police were nonexistent and parking was in abundance. I remember never carrying keys with me. If I wanted to get into my dorm, all I had to do was open the basement window and climb through. I loved that school, but the lack of nightlife quickly got to me. My friends and I played board games and went to Giant at midnight because it was the only thing within 30 miles open. And once I decided to major in journalism rather than English, it was the nail in the school’s coffin.

I moved. Where? To Baltimore, population 640,961. Corn and soybeans were replaced with skyscrapers and row homes. The Orioles were right down the street, and so were oodles of eateries with personality: Paper Moon, Daily Grind, XandO—-I frequented them often.

So what the hell happened? D.C. and I never really clicked. Some would argue I’ve never given it a fair shot. My commute is draining so I don’t go out in the city often; I’m in and out for business only. But I would argue that it’s not just D.C. that hasn’t clicked, it’s the entire area. The roads are jammed (D.C. has the third-worst traffic in the country), the cost-of-living is outrageous, and the people are far from friendly. Also, when you grow up on 16 acres, it’s hard to make the switch to a townhouse where you share walls with your neighbors.

I can’t keep up my commute. Thanks to the Metro fare increases, it’s affecting me financially as well as physically and mentally. Moving into the city isn’t an option I like either, however. There is something very unsettling in walking past armed guards on your way to work every morning. Some would look at that as great; the city is well protected. I, on the other hand, would rather live somewhere that doesn’t need such protection. I’m paranoid enough as it is.

Think Charleston, West Virginia is hiring?

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The Election Center

February 6th, 2008

If there is one thing I love about working in, and living around D.C., is that during election time, this town is a-buzzing. Happy hour patrons ask bartenders to switch the TVs to primary coverage. No one looks at me like I’m nuts when I explain I’m tired because I watched the election coverage until midnight. This morning, instead of discussing the latest round of auditions on American Idol, the water cooler talk revolved around Obama, Clinton, and the 0.4% margin between them.

This is shaping up to be one of the most fascinating elections in decades, and I find myself getting personally vested. I remember being an 18-year-old college freshmen and watching the Bush/Gore election results in my dorm for hours. I hosted a little party consisting of 5 or so of my peers, who like me, desperately wanted to see Gore in the Oval Office.

We all know how that turned out.

This might sound ridiculous, but when Gore lost, I was utterly bewildered and crushed. Tears were shed. I felt an extreme sadness for my country, and could not wrap my mind around how we could elect such an idiot.

Eight excruciating years later, America has another chance at change. And my God, do we need it. Once again, I am staying up half the night watching a nail biter unfold. Once again, I find myself wanting to throw election parties. Once again, my hopes are high that the right person can actually take hold of this country and change it.

While walking to the metro today, I saw a group of Hilliary Clinton supporters handing out fliers. “Hilliary for President,” the fliers said. Even though I am a hardcore Dem, it just didn’t sit right with me. “Hilliary” and “president” just don’t belong together.

With only a hair between Obama and Clinton, my hopes are high. But is it too good to be true? Could Obama really beat-out the Clinton juggernaut? God I hope so. If he doesn’t, my bet is McCain wins. … And here we go again.

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An ‘Encounter’

The Truth

Gerunds, Pronouns & Adverbs—Oh My!

Population 663

The Election Center

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