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An ‘Encounter’

Monday, 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 Do you think the bride’s parent’s paying for the wedding is an outdated tradition?”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

Friday, 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!

Thursday, 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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Something Borrowed, Something…Brick?

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

We chewed in silence.

I sure wasn’t going to bring it up, and I couldn’t start a conversation without the topic slipping in somewhere. So I chewed, hoping he wouldn’t bring it up. He didn’t. Instead, he handed me his fork with a medium rare piece of meat on the end. I handed him my fork with a medium well piece of meat on the end.

That was the extent of our interaction.

It started innocently enough, as most things do. I wanted a patio—eventually.

“Why don’t we make it a priority and use our savings for it?” he lightly suggested.

I quietly pulled the knife out of my stomach, and said nothing.

“What?” he asked. “You don’t want a patio now?”

“Oh, sure I do,” I said. “One day. But that’s not what I want to make a priority.”

“Well what did you want to use it for?”

I couldn’t believe he actually asked. I stood at the dresser, back toward him, searching for a matching sock while trying not to say a word. I had made myself a promise this time last year that I wouldn’t say anything, especially not in a conversation verging on hostile. So I pulled The Girl Phrase:

“I dunno.”

“A honeymoon?” he quickly quipped back.

“Yeah, a honeymoon. Like you suggested a few months ago.”

He really had to make me go there didn’t he? I didn’t want to go there, if we went there there was no turning back. It would all spew out.

“Well even if that were to happen one day,” (one day? Did he just say ‘one day?’) “we’d be engaged for a long time” (a long time? When do I take a long time to do anything?) “so we’d have plenty of time to save up for that.”

I can’t imagine that my facial expression was a nice one. But I couldn’t go there. If I went there it would escalate into this Thing, and this Thing would quickly turn into what I promised myself I would avoid:

The Girl Freak Out.

You know the one. It’s so high pitched that dogs cover their ears, and has lots of over-the-top hand motions. Shall I demonstrate? Ahem.

HowcouldyoupossiblysuggestusingoursavingsforAPATIO?!?
IhavebeenwaitingforAFREAKINGYEARforyoutoPROPOSE! WhatmoredoIhavetodotogetthemessageacrrosstoyou,WRITEITINTHESKY?! Doyoujustnotwanttobewithmeorsomething,
becauseIcan’thinkofanyotherreasonWHYthisisTAKINGSOLONG!

That’s what I was trying to avoid. With good reason, don’t ya think?

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The Only Fan in the Park

Sunday, April 29th, 2007

“I just love being at Fenway,” said the man in the Boston sweatshirt, seated behind me. If I were a guy, I would have punched him in the face. We were about 10 hours from Fenway at Camden Yards, watching the Orioles and Red Sox go at it at the end of a short, two game series. This was one in a long line of asinine comments made by this particular Boston fan and his jackass friends around him.

It began before the first pitch, when the woman he was with mouthed off during the National Anthem about the Oriole “Oh!” cheer.

“Have some respect!” she screamed in the middle of the song, while wearing a baseball cap. I gave her the dirtiest look possible. If we weren’t in the middle of the song, I would have told her that if she didn’t like Oriole Park customs she could go back to Fenway.

It only got worse. The Boston fans bitched about everything. One fat Boston fan spilled his beer all over the Oriole fan next to him, and then in a different inning, spilled his ketchup-covered fries on the same person. “This stadium has shitty stairs!” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t help it, it’s all slippery.”

Some apology. Worse yet, once the man finally got up to go clean himself off, the Boston fan exclaims, “He’s just a stupid Oriole fan anyway, who gives a shit.”

Um, where are you again? Oh that’s right, Baltimore you fuckheads. Of course we’re Orioles fans, you’re at Oriole Park! Even compliments were really backhanded insults. While commenting on how fantastic the barbeque pit was, one fan goes, “Yeah, it belongs to some old, fat player.”

That “old, fat player” is Boog Powell, who helped the O’s win the 1966 World Series, and had three All Star appearances.

If the Oriole fans cheered, the Boston fans said it wasn’t loud enough, or rather, “pathetic.” Even the skyline wasn’t up to par.

“Nice view in center field,” one said. “Gotta love the giant crane.”

Apparently construction never happens around Fenway.

At one point, he even referred to me, and my family as “stupid Oriole fans.” I was livid. I had never wanted to throw down and start a fight more than at that very moment. How dare these people. You come to our stadium, eat our food, drink our beer, sit in our seats, and you have the audacity to disrespect our fans, our city, our culture, and our traditions. For a second, it seemed like we were playing the Yankees. The Boston fans walked around that stadium like they owned the place, like they were entitled to win.

“Hey look, an Eric Bedard shirt giveaway. I bet that would go for .50 cents on Ebay.”

It was unbelievable. They were just as bad as Yankee fans, if not worse. I never used to mind Boston fans. I always rooted for them in the playoffs, especially if they were playing the Yankees. After all, the enemy of your enemy is your greatest friend. I’ve been to Fenway and it’s a beautiful ballpark. They have a great culture there, and I could appreciate it, even though I’m not a Boston fan.

In the past 15 years, I’ve been to around 600 games at Camden Yards, give or take a few for rainouts and playoff games. In that time, they’ve never won a World Series, and have only been to the playoff twice. They’ve been grossly under .500 since 1997, yet I still go, faithful, hoping they’ll rebuild and get better.

If anyone could understand this kind of dedication, I thought it would be Boston fans. However, ever since Boston won the World Series in 2004, their fans have turned into privileged bullies, just like Yankee fans. They waltz into a stadium that’s not their own, heckle other fans, and expect to win simply because they are who they are. It disgusts me. Even at Yankee stadium, I had respect for my surroundings. I cheered for my team quietly, and minded my own business.

But that’s not something these jerks could do. At the end of the game, one of the men actually asked my father if he would sell him his Orioles/Boston tickets, because he’d “make a ton of money on Ebay.” Obviously, my father said no, but I just couldn’t believe they even asked. Is that the type of reputation Baltimore fans have? We’ll just sell our tickets to the best matchups to fans of the rival team?

N.E.V.E.R. I don’t care if the Orioles place last 10 years in a row. I will still be there, in section 340, row A, seat 1-4, cheering them on. Even if I’m the only fan in the park.

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An ‘Encounter’

The Truth

Gerunds, Pronouns & Adverbs—Oh My!

Something Borrowed, Something…Brick?

The Only Fan in the Park

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