Monthly Archive for July, 2007

neither a heartwarming tale of gratitude for what i have nor an exploration of white privilege and guilt; rather, i make fun of some hoboes

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on July 31, 2007
in Cheese Sandwich
. 4 Comments

It’s a good thing I am getting more used to the local dialect, because otherwise I would not have been able to fully appreciate this one hobo’s oratory fireworks last night. As he worked his way up to asking me for cash, he entered into a complex monologue befitting what should surely be the next David Milch project [forget the "family of troubled surfers" (try saying "a family of troubled surfers" with a straight face; I dare you); what Milch really should be working on is a twisted, Shakespearean drama about the impoverished people of New Wye].

Zembla is full of people struggling to get by, too: there, a person has to get used to being asked for spare change several times a day. Due to the very tough job market and the area’s apparent draw for runaway teenagers, the streets are filled with a fairly even mix of punk-ass kids (some of whom probably commute to the campus area in dad’s Range Rover to do their begging) and actual hoboes, all asking for your help. I have never personally seen anyone give money to those who ask for it, but I’m sure enough people do to make the crafting of those ubiquitous cardboard signs a worthwhile venture.

I think what the Zemblans have figured out is this: a person is either going to give them money, or not. A whole lot of rhetoric and speechifying aren’t going to change that person’s mind. Thus, the Zemblan hoboes mostly stand around on busy street corners or medians with signs, or they linger around the campus or downtown areas (where there are more pedestrians than cars), halfheartedly mumbling their requests at passers-by. The only ones who really interact with people are the hippie kids, who tend to step out into your path all, “hey, maaaaaan,” looking and smelling homeless and absolutely pathetic (except for the $200 hiking boots, for example). For the most part, if you don’t want to give out your spare change in Zembla, it’s easy keep on walking uninterrupted.

The fact that I have been living among and successfully ignoring hundreds of Zemblan hoboes for the last seven years makes me probably a heartless bitch, for one, but it also makes me unprepared for the local New Wye hobo tactics. Outside the convenience store last night, rather than employing the easily avoidable stationary-with-cup-and/or-sign method of begging, this dude just sort of launched himself into my general area and started orating, all calling me “Ma’am” (which I can not stand) and telling me how he’s going to tell me a story I never heard before, and introducing his characters. (”I am going to tell you something; can I tell you this? This is about me: I go to church; I don’t drink; I am a Capricorn; I have a story; yadda yadda.”) There is nothing I hate more than an unnecessary preamble, the relic of high-school English classes where we learn the inexcusable “rhetorical” “strategy” of Tell Them What You Are Gonna Tell Them, Then Tell Them, Then Tell Them What You Done Told Them. I’m sorry, but this structure makes me want to strangle a person. I told him to get to the point, which he did not, in fact, ever do. In the middle of listing his characteristics and expounding on his own righteousness, I had to interrupt and tell him I didn’t have any money, at which point he exited stage left and went off to court other investors.

I don’t really know why I wound up listening to as much of his monologue as I did; he sort of had a way of carrying on with his narrative that made me think something interesting was going to happen, even though he never actually got anywhere with it — he never did technically ask me for money, despite my requests that he get to the point. (”Okay, ma’am, I’ll get to the point. The point is, I am a man who doesn’t drink, blah blah blah.”) Perhaps his technique was aimed at more than simply convincing a person that their spare change wouldn’t be spent on booze; perhaps he was trying to charm, or even to annoy to the point of desperation, getting people to pay him to shut up. Me, though, I have never given cash to any stranger on the street, and I certainly wasn’t going to start for some church-going teetotaler who monopolizes a conversation.

uh ah oo ay?

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on July 24, 2007
in Grammar
. 4 Comments

I think I have finally pinned down the reason I can’t quite understand a significant segment of the population here in New Wye: no one pronounces consonants. It’s as if they extract only the vowels from their words, ending up with a chain of mumbley sounds, and it takes me a few seconds to reverse-engineer what they have said, during which time I stand there looking blank and glassy and squinting ever harder at their mouths until I finally give up and, for the millionth time, ask apologetically, “Pardon?”

It should be noted as well that I am from the South. I have a damned southern accent myself; I just don’t know what kind of hooey they are talking here, boy ah tell you what.

is that stain moving?

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on July 20, 2007
in Cheese Sandwich, Paedagogy and Travel
. 8 Comments

I have settled in to my new apartment as much as I can, at least until the furniture arrives in the moving truck, hopefully sometime Monday or Tuesday. Until then, it’s just me and this pile of blankets on the floor, and this box I am using for a desk. And this lamp, and that’s all I need. And this paddle-ball game, and this ashtray, and that’s all I need. And this matchbook. That’s all I need.

My apartment is very large, as they claimed, but it definitely has some skanky elements to it — a mystery stain in the middle of the living room carpet, a stale smell, and some mildew on the shower grout among them. I quickly rid my shower of the mildew, however, with a few squirts of “Scrub Free” cleanser, and, as the name suggests, I did not even have to scrub. This tells me that there is no excuse for that shower not being clean when I moved in. No excuse.

Anyway, I think it will be quite nice once I have everything set up. For once I don’t have “Basic Apartment White” paint on the walls, but some nice khaki-type color with white baseboards and trim. It’s as if the paint is trying to class the place up a bit, in apology for the mystery stain. (That’s not quite working however, as my eyes gravitate to The Stain every time I’m near it, and sometimes when I’m not. Sometimes I’ll be in the bathroom, and I’ll find myself straining to see out the door and around the corner, just to stare hypnotically at that stain again.)

Judging from some of the people I have encountered, teaching my writing and lit classes is going to be another uphill battle. Today, for example, I had to go send a fax to the Home Planet for some school paperwork, and so I looked online for print shops (we ain’t got no Kinko’s). I called this one place and asked if they offer fax services, and the guy was all, huh? and made me hold forever, and finally he came back and confirmed that they do, in fact, have fax capabilities. When I got there, I saw their huge sign painted both on the storefront and on the wall behind the front counter, where, in letters a foot tall, they had written a list of their services: PRINTING, BINDING, GRAPHIC DESIGN, COPY, FAX. I can see my close-reading-based methodology is going to take hold here with a quickness.

In other news, I have already learned the name of one of my neighbors — I greeted her and her dog when I saw her the first day, and we had a brief, friendly conversation. This was an extremely un-me-like thing to do; I tell you. I prefer to ignore and be ignored, but I think it might be nice just to have some people around here who know who I am and all, you know, in case I slip in the shower and die. Someone will have to call the coroner so he can come and pull the cat off my face and give my nose-less corpse a proper burial.

j’arrive, y’all!

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on July 18, 2007
in Travel
. 2 Comments

I made it! I am here, sort of — it’s too late to check into my apartment, so I’m in a hotel outside of Town, so I can roll up all fresh in the clear light of morning, etc.

Southern Sky at Sunset

I have plenty of stories about my road trip, including a tale of my newest Known Enemy, the city of St. Louis, but of course I’ll have to get to those later. Thanks for all the well-wishes!

road trip status: imminent

Published
by
Alfina the Vague
on July 12, 2007
in Cheese Sandwich, Music and Travel
. 6 Comments

I leave for my new job and new town on Sunday morning — planning and preparations continue apace. I’ve just loaded up my truck (thanks to the help of a couple of good friends) and I just have a couple of days of random errands and whatnot left to do. I will probably not have much internet access until I get connected at the new place (Tuesday the 24th), so don’t worry about my absence. Not that you would or anything, sine my posts have been sporadic here at best. (That’ll all change once I am settled in, promise.)

I will be driving myself and the pets cross-country, which should take about 4 days, and the truck with my stuff will arrive a few days later. I really wish I had learned about these you-pack-they-drive moving companies before I moved to Zembla — they’re cheaper than U-Haul and you don’t pay for gas. Seven years ago, I moved cross-country with my dad and brother’s help, and we all three squished ourselves into the front seat of U-Haul truck and towed my car behind it. There was some serious family bonding, let me tell you. Ugh. It was the middle of August and very, very sweaty. There was no tape-deck. Reader, I ask you, imagine.

I am really looking forward to this road trip — as long as I have my iPod and phone and the cat is zonked out on kitty valium (the dog is a great passenger normally; it’s the cat who yowls and hisses when in sight of a car), it should be a nice time to look at the country and be all introspective and shit. The route is almost like the one I took to get to Zembla from Places East seven years ago — much of it follows a certain historical trail, which is, of course, conceptually more fun if you are traveling West than I imagine it will be in reverse. The only real downer on the road is Nebraska, the most boring state in the entire world. There is one long straight road in Nebraska and it goes on forever; there is one radio station in Nebraska and it plays country music, the bad kind; there is one field of cows in Nebraska and they are packed shoulder-to-shoulder, ass-to-face, so tight the cloud of cow steam and methane gas floats above them like a nebulous, evil omen, one you can smell for two miles coming and going. I loathe Nebraska.

On the bright side, I will get to drive through some of the most beautiful places I have seen on this continent: the Columbia River Gorge, some mountainy places in Utah, and a place in Wyoming where you can look South and see the Colorado Rockies all displayed perfectly in the clear air between you and them.

I am also going through my music library putting together a Driving Playlist — so far I have gotten to the beginning of the Ms — this takes a lot longer than you would think. A person has got to have all contingencies in mind when planning a road-trip playlist. There must be a wealth of sing-along songs, like the Indigo Girls (I switch around between Amy and Emily’s vocals) and Rilo Kiley, but there must also be some car-dance-inducing booty shakers, like Kanye West and Mos Def and maybe some old-school Dr Dre. Obviously some Pixies and Smiths and Dinosaur Jr for nostalgia and such, and some hard-rocking things like Tool or Rick Derringer or The Scorpions, because every now and then, on a good road trip, there will be the opportunity to bellow out your rallying cry, HERE I AM, ROCK YOU LIKE A HURRICANE. This is a delicate science.