I had a robot whose most prominent feature was its metal teeth. It chased me out of the house into the midnight air, and I became afraid of it. It also got away from me on the street and looked as though it were biting a man’s rear end. It attacked so voraciously that I thought it must have chewed up his buttocks and left a bloody mess. Then it turned sideways and deliberately spit out, not blood and gore, but plain saliva. Was I ever to trust it?
I felt the building move, which frightened me because the cause was greater than just strong winds. Outside the window I saw trees and knew that it had been uprooted and that I was about to crash with it and be killed. I waited for the impact of the landing and to be dead — but it didn’t come. Everything flew crazily through the air.
I was at the community in Reno, where the roof seemed to be all skylight. The surrounding buildings crowding in on ours were urban and futuristic. A jet passed low overhead, so low that it was enormous. Just as I had waited for the building to plummet to the ground earlier, I waited in terror for the impact that never came.
I was with some couples traveling, and we came upon a notice that Michael Jackson concert tickets were available to the first people who claimed them for $3. I called a friend to tell him. The price seemed unbelievable, of course, but so was his willingness to perform, given his legal troubles and all the talk about his appearance. In the photo, however, he looked normal; everything was back to the way it had been, but he seemed older. We did not think we wanted to go to Indiana for the performance.
[I am not sure where that came from; I’ve never been interested in Michael Jackson.]
One of the couples seemed to be having some marital difficulties. The woman kept dropping things and expecting her husband to pick them up to an extent that seemed deliberate and unnatural. While we were sitting in the balcony, perhaps at a theater., she dropped a piece of paper — a program? — to the floor below and told her husband to retrieve it. This request seemed unbelievable to him and to us. It wasn’t clear how he could descend to the floor.
We drove around at night in a preternatural darkness.
The last few times I’ve gone to Ravinia with J., we’ve brought a few things, but we didn’t plan ahead. This time I decided to overcome my work-related aversion to planning and to try to have a real picnic, taking into account our mutual desire — and need — to watch what we eat more closely. After a stop at Caffe RoM (Hyatt Center) and three trips to Walgreens and Treasure Island (four blocks away), I packed the following:
Picnic gear
2 blankets (1 has never been enough, I finally realized)
J. brought film, digital, and disposable cameras; the Caribou coffee in an enormous vacuum bottle, an extra shirt, green tea from Italy, gifts, etc.
I had told him that, to make the 2:35 p.m. train, we had to be on a bus by 1 p.m. When I talked to him at 12 noon, I thought he was on his way from Homewood. When he hadn’t shown up by 1 p.m., I decided a cab to the train station was the only way left, so I called to tell him — to find out he was at home. He’d run errands and gone shopping after his dentist’s appointment and was just now ready to leave. Even if he drove off immediately (which he did), and even if we flagged a taxi right away, it would be close, and I tried to manage my anxiety and to resign myself to taking the later train, which wouldn’t give us much time to set up, relax a bit, and hear the show’s off-air preliminaries.
J. appeared at about 1:45 p.m. and had me bring up a gift that needed refrigeration, so we lost a few more minutes. I met him at the back gate, assigned him the heavy cold goods bag, then raced ahead of him toward 55th Street and Hyde Park Boulevard. A cab passed us as I was halfway down the second block — unfortunate timing. As I was looking anxiously down Hyde Park Boulevard, J. labored up and asked from 20 feet away, “What time is the train?” “I told you — 2:35,” “Oh!” he said in the tone of a man who has had an epiphany. “We need to catch a cab in the next five seconds to make it! I thought it was at 3!” Researchers: Take note of a classic case of male homo sapiens selective hearing syndrome. He really has no memory of what I’d said, and I have no idea where the 3 came from.
Before I could get myself too upset, I spotted a taxi, which was piloted by the only cab driver in Chicago who doesn’t drive at breakneck speeds like an FBI fugitive with the agency behind him. He took us down Lake Shore Drive, Roosevelt Road, and Canal Street like a Sunday driver, which feels very strange when you’ve become used to breakneck speeds.
I bypassed the women’s room (long line, no time) and bought tickets. As J. longingly eyed a pretzel counter and mentioned how hungry he was, I reminded him that, if he hadn’t noticed, we were carrying 20 pounds of food. He had to settle for one of the bottles of green tea with dextrose and sugar, which he drank on the train.
We settled on the train with eight or nine minutes to spare. This sound like an ample margin, but the train was already nearly full; it would become standing room only after the north side stops.
This brings me to Metra, which doesn’t offer a Ravinia Park stop for the 2:35 Saturday train. Normally, this would make sense because most Ravinia performances are in the evening. A Prairie Home Companion is an exception, broadcast live from 5 to 7 p.m. CT. As a bureaucracy, Metra is unable to conceive of or adapt to exceptions. The conductor informed those going to Ravinia Park that they would need to get off at Braeside, walk through a parking lot, and take the bike path for “about a block” to the park. So, instead of making the unscheduled stop the occasion would seem to call for, Metra representatives helpfully tell the hundreds (or more) people crammed into the train with their lawn chairs and picnic gear to take a hike. It’s worked this way for years, as far as I can tell, and it makes no more sense now than it did when I first noticed it. Surely somebody besides me thinks this is mindless and inflexible bureaucracy at its best.
At one point I lost J., and vice versa (I stopped mid-trail to look for him in the sea of humanity, but didn’t spot him because he’d stopped at the beginning because he hadn’t noticed me right in front of him). His feet hurt, so he walks slowly; I walk fast to keep my lower back from seizing up, so separation was bound to happen. After I picked up the tickets at Will Call, I found him by the gate, so that too worked out. I had to laugh when one of the employees handed him a plastic trash bag, and J. said, “Thanks, sweet — er, thanks.” (He’s so used to calling me “sweetie” that it’s become a habit.) He’s lucky the man didn’t say, “No problem, darlin’.”
Although a swathe of the lawn was “extremely wet” and off limits, we found a spot in the shade close to the path (my preferences). After an obligatory rest stop, I unpacked, and the feasting began.
Of course, we didn’t eat most of what I’d brought. My intention had been to offer some choices. We didn’t touch the goat cheese, red Leicester, second sandwich (we split the first), yogurt, or Walker’s. Speaking for myself, I was well sated.
Before the show started, I noticed an elderly couple nearby, each with his/her nose buried in a book. It looked as though they hadn’t brought anything else with them, and their reading was intense. I should have checked on them later to see if they’d put the books down after the performance began.
As usual, the off-air warm up began with the singing of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which was complemented on air by renditions of “America, the Beautiful” and “My Country, ’tis of Thee.” As the countdown segued into the intro, I was amazed by how seamless this always seems to be, given the nature of a live broadcast. Even for radio veterans like the A Prairie Home Companion crew and some of the guests, this must be an anxious moment — fraught not only with the jitters before any performance but worries about the technical and other issues that could derail a live broadcast. I imagine that it’s hard to forget the possibilities.
After noting that the country seems to be headed in a better direction, Keillor stayed away from political humor and references, talking and singing about the “working class” in the pavilion and the “elite” on the lawn. He’s not far off — I spent a lot on food, but it’s not only that — on the lawn you can eat, drink, and be merry. The reward for the holders of the cheap seats is freedom.
You can also wander around. As soon as the show began, J. took off with his camera collection, reappearing just before the intermission. Later, I went up to look at the stage. On the lawn, you do miss some of the humor in the body language, but mostly I’d trade that for the liberty of the lawn experience.
I hope Da Mare does not hear about the “Guy Noir” episode, in which an ad agency tries to change Chicago’s image from the city of the broad shoulders to something a little more Parisian. Da Mare has enough ideas already, some of which we could do without. It was funny, as was the skit about the bewildered groom and the dialogue between the controlling mother and her hapless adult son. Keillor and Jearlyn Steele also paid tribute to Mahalia Jackson.
All through this, the weather was perfect, like the best summer days in western New York that I remember — comfortable and sunny, idyllic in every way.
When we got back, we walked over to Promontory Point. I was irked to see a boy breaking branches (at least two) off a tree while his family ignored him and tried to regale J. with my views about empathy, but the few stars visible in Chicago were out, and so were the fireflies against a backdrop of dark Lake Michigan water, so we sat on the rocks and watched the fireworks at Navy Pier.
And so back to the necessary insanity tomorrow . . .
I had returned to college and was trying to find a reception on the second floor of a building, but there were no stairs that I could discover. I came across a long line of students who might have been waiting to get into the reception, but I needed to bypass them.
I found some concrete stairs flanked by dirt banks, but students appeared and began painting them black. I attempted to climb the dirt banks, but was not strong enough. When the students noticed my efforts, they silently began painting them, too. Who paints dirt banks? I thought, wondering why everything was tacitly against me.
I remembered that I had returned to college for three quarters and had missed most of the first quarter’s offerings. I vowed to do better, but that meant the money, thousands of dollars, had been wasted already. I tried to explain this to friend I met, along with my horrible feelings of guilt. As I came closer to waking up, I asked myself why the degree I earned 25 years ago was not good enough for me, and a voice — my own? — asked, “Did you really earn it?”
Before I get to my latest nightmare, I should mention that I read a judge has ordered Google to turn over to Viacom the names and IP addresses, along with everything they’ve ever watched, of every YouTube user. I’m not a lawyer and don’t know the law, and presumably the judge is and does, but my common sense and practical sense immediately asked, “Why? Why should the representatives of a corporation get their mitts on that volume and kind of data, the vast majority of which is irrelevant to their case?”
I’ve not been a registered user of YouTube for very long and signed up mainly so I could track a handful of favorites. My personal viewing habits are not the stuff of litigation–I click on links in e-mails and blogs that lead mainly to videos of cats and other animals, engineers talking about cats, lions attacking Cape buffalo, Jason Trusty’s Puppet Bike in Chicago, awful vintage TV commercials, and the like. While Viacom should have the right to find out who steals and uploads their copyrighted material, what does this have to do with me and what I watch?
The popular argument in these situations is that it shouldn’t matter to me if I have nothing to hide. It does matter, however; it matters on principle. If my viewing habits, or those of people like me, were essential to the case and if the records were to be turned over to a law enforcement agency, I would feel differently. Viacom is using its power as a corporation to obtain information that no one should have access to without clear cause–even if that information is no more significant than that I watch animal videos.
Google’s position strikes me as reasonable–if you complain that your copyrighted material has been uploaded to YouTube without your permission, they will remove it. Viacom’s response is that they have had to employ an entire department to watch YouTube. Yet, whether YouTube existed or not, or whether they operated differently, it seems to me Viacom would still be stuck monitoring the Internet. People will always find a way to steal and a place to which to upload. YouTube makes it easier, but that is its purpose for most of us who upload our animal, vacation, music, and other personal videos. Monitoring is the cost of doing business; I imagine that big corporations with touchy reputations like Microsoft and Wal-Mart have public relations people whose eyes are peeled for negative coverage online.
I don’t know what the answer is, but I don’t think it’s giving out irrelevant personal information on the off chance that, among the chaff, there’s a kernel of relevance.
All this leads, I think, to a dream I had the afternoon of July 4, Independence Day in the United States. The first part has nothing to do with anything, but it’s interesting that my subconscious think that the world operates in weird, unwitnessed ways. The second part touches on rights.
I was watching one of our high-rise buildings under construction when I saw it rotate 180 degrees, then rotate back. It happened quickly enough that I couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw it happen again later and couldn’t deny it. Someone from development explained it to me, although I am sure I didn’t understand.
I was by the pool at home, wondering about what I had seen, when The Flamingo rotated 180 degrees and back before my eyes. I looked at the person next to me, who had also seen it. When it happened again, I speculated about how I didn’t notice this when I was inside, although surely one would be able to feel and see it. That I could be oblivious to my building turning back and forth on its axis periodically was both marvelous and horrifying.
I had just passed through security at work when I noticed that the person ahead of me had knelt to clean an escalator rail and was trying to hide his face. An enraged security guard threw me to the ground in his haste to get to this person, who he picked up and slammed violently down. “I know who you are!” he kept shouting.
The person was no more than an adolescent boy carrying toy masks or flat shapes in not-quite-pastel colors. I saw a line of them hanging, including a pink owl. Every time the boy tried to say something, the guard would kick or punch him or throw him to the ground, often hitting me because I was stunned and still in the way. I could not imagine who this boy was or what he had allegedly done that would warrant such violent treatment, and the toys/masks I had seen seemed symbolic of his innocence. I found myself unable to speak up to stop the violence. My silence made me guilty. As I tried to recover myself, I debated with myself whether I should report my ill treatment to the office manager upstairs, but I thought she would dismiss my complaint as trivial and me as a whiner.
When I woke up, I was thinking that we are not quite yet the society the founders had envisioned as they risked their lives.
I came upon a stand full of people listening to an orator, who was declaiming against an elderly woman accused of a murder that had happened long ago. I interrupted her, but she continued speaking. I interrupted her tirelessly until I could finally say what I had to say and engage her in discussion. I pointed out that the woman, who was suffering from dementia, had already been tried and could not be tried again (although I was not sure in my mind of the outcome, that is, whether she had been found not guilty). My passions were high and people were listening to me, but I could not think of the term for a second trial (double jeopardy). My antagonist remained unconvinced, and the people looked torn, while the woman herself seemed confused. I was determined not to lose this argument.
I needed to go to the bathroom, but the room labeled for women was behind a barrier so the door couldn’t be opened outward. I used an ornament to jury rig it open somehow. When I came out, a handsome but frightening vampire who I understood to be my prospective husband accused me of stealing the ornament, which seemed to be in pieces. I returned the ornament, although I had thought it was a gift, but he still claimed part of it was missing. He seemed to want something from me, but I proved that nothing was missing and left with my friends. Jeanne drove much too fast; there was no traffic, and we were almost flying.
I came upon my brother, who was using a rag and a couple of fingers to scrub the kitchen floor. You could see how yellow it had been compared to the snow-white patches he had already cleaned. His motions looked effortless, but I could imagine how hard the work would be on my arthritic knuckles.
I walked into my old elementary school to look around, but thought I should check in at the front desk out of courtesy. At first they welcomed me, but when I told them I was a former student, they demurred politely. I could, however, use the bathroom. As I turned to leave, they asked me my interest and my age. I answered, “English,” but I couldn’t think of my age. Then I said, “32,” which didn’t seem right. Only later did I remember that I should have said 47. I also mentioned my degree and university. They seemed most impressed by my age and acted as though they might change their minds because of it.
The bell rang, and hundreds of girls ran for the bathrooms, which were small, domed, tent-like enclosures into which they crawled. No matter where I stood, they would get into them before I could. I wondered if they would let me in if I mentioned that I was 32.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice this pencil during my previous stay at the Ann Arbor Bed and Breakfast. Perhaps it wasn’t there before, or the golf pencil along the ledge next to it. The pencil is imprinted with Western Michigan University and seals.
