Tag Archives: Observations on the human condition

Day Thirty

  By Eden M. Kennedy | November 30, 2011 - 11:39 pm |
20 Comments

Today I had the strange pleasure of going in for jury duty. I’ve been on call since Monday and I got to that irrationally casual mindset where I thought the whole week would sail by without me getting to sit in a fluorescent-lit room with a bunch of other registered voters and licensed drivers. Then this morning, when I called in to the jury hotline, they told me my number was up and to be there at 12:30 p.m., which was right in the middle of lunchtime at Jackson’s school where I was helping to fill bowls with udon noodles and baking sheets with almond cookies. (It was fancy. Jackson hated it. He is not a “soup person.”)

I was late to the juror orientation but I got there just in time for the video. The last time I got this far in the jury selection process was before Jackson was born so I don’t remember the orientation video being so relentlessly upbeat about what it means to serve on a jury. It’s not all just crime scene photos and night terrors! No, it’s seeing the judicial process at work, helping to make decisions that no one person should have the power to make alone, looking deep inside yourself to find the truth, and making lifelong friends with other jurors. It’s like criminal justice summer camp. (Or business deals gone terribly wrong summer camp, or one long let’s-just-cut-this-baby-in-half high school reunion.)

Then the judge came in. He wasn’t wearing robes, he was in a nice dark suit with a yellow tie and he seemed very kind and wise and I liked him right away. He thanked us all for the sacrifices we’d made to come there, but apparently the sight of all of us potential jurors gathering had made someone on the prosecution or the defense realize that shit was getting real, that their case was actually going to trial, and they decided to settle. The judge said that this sort of thing happens a lot. He said he was glad to see so many happy faces reacting to his news, then he apologized to those who were looking forward to serving on a jury, then he said he was open for Q & A and everyone laughed, and then he wished us happy holidays and we all applauded.

But after watching the video (and discovering I had no idea I was so susceptible to woodenly-acted government-produced films) and listening to the judge (who I suddenly wished were my uncle), I actually was a little disappointed. Not that my life needs to be upended by a trial at the moment, but I feel like a seed was planted in me that hopes someday, before my mind gives out completely, I will be on a jury. But not for something awful; and not for some squabble about property. I think my ideal trial would be if someone famous did something funny and then somebody who was watching it died laughing, but the person who died was really old and so they died perfectly happy, and the dead person’s relatives were all very nice but they felt the needed to sue the famous person so that the dead person’s widow wouldn’t lose her house or something, and at first the famous person is all NO WAY because everyone always wants a piece of her or him, but then s/he sees that it’s the right thing to do and accepts the verdict gracefully. So, some sort of feel-good comedy civil suit. I’m just putting it out there, universe.

And thus ends our regularly-scheduled National Blog Posting Month. I hope you’ve enjoyed it as much as I have, which is to say intermittently and with sudden unpredictable spurts of commitment to keeping track of my life and my thoughts. You’re welcome, posterity.

Day Eleven!

  By Eden M. Kennedy | November 11, 2011 - 6:46 pm | ,
3 Comments

Camp Mighty! Here we see the tent in which speakers spoke to us today. I am not a big Oprah fan but I learned a lot from Brian Piotrowicz, a lovely man who works with Oprah and who showed us a clip of himself hugging Carol Burnett and crying. He talked a lot about setting a pure intention for what you do, and I realized that (a) I go into so many things half-assed and wonder why they don’t work out, but when I have a clear intention they always do, and (b) I once saw Carol Burnett in a restaurant where I was having dinner, and I didn’t cry, but if she had come up and asked for a hug . . . no, I probably wouldn’t have cried then either. But I do love Carol Burnett.

Evany gave what is hands down the single most enjoyable PowerPoint presentation I’ve ever seen, and I think they were filming/taping it so if it gets uploaded somewhere I will link the everloving shit out of it. She spoke about being somewhat anti-life list, and being open to what life brings you in the moment rather than planning things too precisely. Here I realized that if you resist life list-style planning, as I do, it still behooves you to embrace chance, opportunity, and as previously stated, intention. I’m still sorting this out, and will provide updates as enlightenment occurs. (I have hugged Evany. Without crying, so far, but the weekend’s not over yet.)

EDITED TO ADD: The Charity Water initiative that a lot of you donated to in the raffle raised more than $20,000, and by 11:11 a.m. today, 11/11/11, was able to help 1,111 people have clean water. That, my friend Sting, is SYNCHRONICITY.

My (Most Recent) Liz Lemon Moment

  By Eden M. Kennedy | October 24, 2011 - 9:30 pm |
11 Comments

People often bring donations into the library. I’m used to just saying yes to whatever it is someone wants to give me. If the library can use it or sell it, great. We thank them in our prayers each night before we go to sleep. If not, we hand the person a donation receipt and respectfully lob their spider-infested magazines into a recycling bin.

Today a guy came up to the counter and said, “I’d like to donate these pens to the library.” Then he pulled the contents of my mother’s kitchen junk drawer circa 1979 out of his pocket. He had everything from dull little golf pencils to promotional medical ballpoints, and there might have even been an old Flair in there, though I could have been expecting one so much (my mom loved Flairs) that I imagined seeing one.

“Well, thank you!” I said, starting to bunch them all together and wrap a rubber band around them.

“Okay, you’re welcome. I’ll just take some of your pens now,” he said, and he started to pick through the flower pot on the counter that we keep our pens in. “I want some black ones.”

Now, what would you do? Because there was not a shred of doubt in my mind that the answer here was No, you cannot help yourself to whatever you like just because you think it’s an even trade that you just invented and then sprung on me before my tea was ready.

“No,” I said.

“What?” he said. “Oh, uh, you . . . use the black ones?”

First of all, what place of business can you ever go into and swap your old, shitty pens with? Especially a place that’s barely staying open due to budget cuts. Second of all, just no. If he had said, “Hey, I need a black pen, could I swap you?” I probably still would have said no, but there’s a small chance I would have considered it. Looking back, I’m sort of sorry he got me at the counter instead of one of my warmer and more generous coworkers. With me, he’d have had more luck just asking to borrow a pen and then leaving with it. I imagine he wanted to avoid that black mark on his karma, but at least he wouldn’t have had to withstand me treating him like a kindergartener.

However, while he was still standing there wondering what to do next, I looked over the pens he’d “donated” and saw a black one he’d missed. It did cross my mind for just a moment that he had no need for black pens at all and I’d caught him in the midst of a deadly ruse in which he’d infected the pens with anthrax as a way to protest recent fee hikes.

“Here, take this one back, it’s black,” I said, not unkindly.

He took it. I didn’t want to shame him, and I understand times are hard, but I am neither mentally nor emotionally flexible enough for spontaneous bartering.

Although last month I let another guy take two used red Sharpies, but he gave me a dollar for them.

It’s a constant series of negotiations

  By Eden M. Kennedy | September 15, 2011 - 10:50 am | ,
28 Comments

My husband is kind, generous, flexible, hard-working, honest, deeply loyal, and a steadfast protector of everyone he cares about, and every day he works to become a better human being, husband, and father. But sometimes the way he expresses himself makes me want to poke him with a spork.

(Before we continue I would like to acknowledge that, given the motivation, Jack could make a long list of unfathomable things I say and do every day, but it appears that he has better things to do with his time.)

Here’s an example. The other night he was cooking dinner.

Me: “Fish and green beans just doesn’t seem like enough. Is it too late for me to make some sweet potato fries? . . . Oh, never mind, it would take a half hour and it’s already 7:00.”

Jack: “What the fuck do I care? You gotta be someplace?”

Now, this is Jack’s way of saying, Sweetheart, I’m not in any hurry, you go ahead and make whatever your heart desires and I’ll have a beer and wait until you’re ready before I start cooking the fish. But then I remembered I was living with the bastard child of W. C. Fields and Sam Peckinpah.

So I made the sweet potato fries, and when they were just about done, Jack put the fish on.

Jack (admiring his work): “That looks pretty fucking good.”

Me: (shouting) “I HOPE IT STAYS DOWN!”

I’ve learned, over time, that instead of being offended by Jack’s — let’s call it aggressive solicitude — I’ve found that countering it with brutal honesty, spoken with comically elevated intensity and volume, lets me avoid feeling like I’ve been run over by a Brooklyn-bound F train. (Note: it doesn’t work if I’m actually upset, because then I just sound mean and it turns into a fight, so if my feelings have been hurt I say, “Thanks a lot, Sarcasmo,” and he says, “What? I was joking!” and I say, “Oh, I see, it was a joke that didn’t contain any actual humor,” and he says, “I think you need something to eat,” and I say, “THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.”) So there’s no eye rolling involved, nor is there smarminess. Think less Tim Gunn and more Lee Van Cleef.

What was I talking about?

(And yes, those are 8-ounce filets of escolar wrapped in bacon and being fried in butter, because we win at eating paleo. This was easily a week’s worth of fat and protein for the average adult. But even with some green beans and slivered almonds on the side, it just didn’t seem like enough to me. Thirty minutes later, when I developed gout and burst out of my jeans, I remembered that I don’t actually have to eat everything on my plate and that leftovers are a wonderful thing.)

Anyway, Jack and I often get oddly pleased with ourselves when we have these exchanges, maybe because, as two people who grew up with a fair amount of domestic conflict, it feels great to have (weird but) honest confrontations that wind up with civilized outcomes. But I can’t imagine what we’re teaching Jackson when we talk to each other this way. Maybe we’re teaching him to listen for the subtle shifts between giving someone shit / speaking the truth / slipping into conjugal despair? In the past, when Jack and I have actually argued with each other, Jackson has yelled from his room, “Stop bickering, you two!” The boy can make us laugh out loud with his shrewd observations on our weaknesses, so best case scenario he’s learning to tell it like it is. (Worst case, he’s going to need a really, really tough girlfriend.)

Oh yeah, you need some mushrooms on that.

This is probably true

  By Eden M. Kennedy | July 5, 2011 - 11:49 am | ,
37 Comments

Probably the most useful instruction I’ve gotten in recent years as a traditionally employed human being who deals with the public is this: “Everybody lies.” Especially when confronted, no matter how gently, with a mistake they’ve made, no matter how small, most people’s first instinct is to deny it. When pressed, when confronted with incontrovertible evidence to the contrary, some people will then relent and wonder how they could have been so stupid. Yes, of course, I guess I did keep that library book an extra day; Oh my God, I did bounce that check, how thoughtless of me. And some will admit fault while still keeping the flags of denial at half mast: “Well, yes, I was wrong, but here’s why I couldn’t get back to the library/bank/store within 30 days to return this dress I’m going to pretend I never wore . . .”

I seem to have an inexhaustible interest in dealing with people in this state, because I do it, too, and I like to watch the shift happen. I like to see it slowly dawn on people’s faces that the thing they were absolutely sure of ten seconds ago was completely wrong. I watch it with total compassion because I know how vulnerable it feels to let down your guard and find the truth of a situation in front of another human being. What I used to like about being that witness was the smugness of being right, but now that I’m older I like being that witness because I love being able to refine my ability to be as non-judgmental as I can when she shift from denial to humility happens, no matter which side I’m on. One of us was brave enough to confront the other with a mistake, the other found the strength to hear it, and we found the truth together, oh my God! We did it! And all it cost was my bank’s processing fee and a little bit of pride!

I read a great quote the other day in The New Yorker, purportedly from the Torah: “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

Or, (to paraphrase): A web site is also a mirror: if an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.

The Internet has really gotten me down lately, watching some people try to talk about their lives in an interesting way and then watching other people come along and pick them apart like they’re doing the world a service for treating someone like shit. It makes me feel terrible. I happened to find a post written by someone (person A) I’d met last year and who seemed nice enough, and this post contained terrible thoughts about someone I consider a friend (person B). Person A’s utter lack of self-awareness really troubled me, and I didn’t know how to process her shrieking about person B. I unfriended A on Facebook, which is pretty much the weakest way to protest anything. When I woke up at 1:00 a.m. with a headache, I thought about it some more and then that still, small voice inside me woke up and said, Let’s throw some love at the problem.

Years ago I read about a study focused on schoolchildren and expressing anger. It turned out that encouraging child A to voice his anger at child B (who’d been instructed to do something bothersome) actually amplified child A’s aggression, and the children’s relationship with each other rarely recovered. Child B could never un-hear the mean things child A had said to him. But the children who were encouraged to express themselves more calmly toward the bothersome classmate, or to wait until the classmate stopped doing the bothersome thing, were able to preserve their relationships or even go on to become friends.

I’m looking for a way to wind this up without boring yet another reader to death.

1. Everybody lies, but
2. Kindness leads to
3. Honesty and
4. True friendship,
5. Kumbaya.

Here are some birthday outtakes of Jackson and me resting up after our walk downtown to the candy store last week.

I don’t want to set the world on fire, I just want to start a flame in your heart

  By Eden M. Kennedy | May 29, 2011 - 12:27 pm | ,
11 Comments

Well, here we are, you looking for something to read and me looking for something to write about. My ovaries? They’re still a little sore, thanks for asking, but the doctor didn’t think my symptoms sounded serious enough to warrant a sonogram, or an ultrasound, or whatever they’re doing these days to get to the crux of the biscuit. So then I asked my acupuncturist to do her peculiar magic on me, which stopped the bleeding right away. I don’t know why I didn’t go to her first. Well, I do know — it’s because I thought something was really wrong. Feeling a little bit off sends me to acupuncture; being afraid I might need surgery sends me to the HMO.

And I might have to hop back on the vegetarian wagon because that seems to be the cure for — I hesitate to call them hot flashes because it’s more accurate to call them waves of warmth or sudden feelings of pleasant normality. It’s nice to feel, for thirty seconds or so, like I don’t need to wear a sweater, or sleep under the extra quilt, or wear the fuzzy slippers when it’s 78 degrees outside. (Right now it’s 72 degrees inside and I am wearing the slippers AND the sweater AND I’m tucked underneath a quilt while Jackson plays a Naruto game on his Xbox. I’d have Peewee asleep in my lap if I didn’t feel like the weight of him would pop my ovaries like two sad old grapes.)

Jack was out of circulation yesterday so I took Jackson downtown to see Thor. I’d been avoiding reading the reviews because sometimes it’s better not to know what you’re getting into, and for that reason I had a pleasant viewing experience untainted by A.O. Scott. (I just went over to see what A.O. Scott thought and then I closed the browser tab because I STILL don’t want to know.) I will never be as demanding of films as a professional critic. Part of the reason is that my mind is being washed away by menopause, and the other part is that my date for these things is usually a nine-year-old boy. So we had a fine time seeing Thor. The characters were good-natured and handsome, the special effects were ridiculous and confusing, and we got to have popcorn, nachos, Red Vines, and cokes for lunch.

Here are some pictures from the last time we were in Pismo Beach, which seems like forever ago. I can’t look at these photos without thinking about Jackson, who’d just finished a science unit on sea creatures and the sea shore, telling me how fishermen used to tear starfish in half and throw them back into the sea, presumably in disgust about how useless they were, but then the starfish would just grow back their missing portions and then you’d have TWO starfish where you would have had ONE if the fishermen had just tossed them back into the sea without getting all ANGRY about it. “Can we tear one in half?” asked Jackson, to my horror, resulting in a short but impassioned speech about sentient beings, no matter how simple and faceless, still feeling pain. Then Jack followed up with a story about when he was a kid and people at Jones Beach would take shovels and beat jellyfish that had washed up on the sand until they exploded. Nature! Top of the food chain! Next life we’ll all be plankton.


Dear Diary

  By Eden M. Kennedy | April 1, 2011 - 2:23 pm | ,
13 Comments

Wow, I’ve really let this web site slide. My excuses are legion, but in the end, part of what’s kept me from posting is a slowly growing need for this crazy thing called “privacy.” Have you heard of it? It’s where you don’t put your entire life online for people to have opinions about. However, as we hop onto part two of the Let’s Panic tour, I have promised to keep a tour diary, so today I’m revving up my little diarycycle and racing up and down your street to warm up. Brace yourself for the most revealing Momversation ever! Wherein Alice and I tell Rebecca how to manage her love life during pregnancy.
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P-Day

  By Eden M. Kennedy | March 2, 2011 - 11:16 am | ,
40 Comments

Yesterday was the publication day for “Let’s Panic About Babies!” and I spent it badgering people on Twitter, eating omelets with Alice, harassing a nice young man at the NYU bookstore who knew that five copies of the book just had to be around here SOMEWHERE, and shopping for shoes that I didn’t actually need. (No actual money was spent. Gotta earn back that advance!)
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Coddled egg (head)

  By Eden M. Kennedy | February 11, 2011 - 11:02 am |
27 Comments

I would like to take a moment to acknowledge this web site’s status as a MOMMY BLOG. God, I hate that phrase, but there it is. My own child doesn’t even call me “mommy” — he prefers to poke me with a pool cue, or throw something light at my head, like a pack of cards or a handful of dog kibble. However distasteful and infantilizing the term, I would like to belatedly thank Babble.com for giving me the #28 spot on their list of 50 top MOMMY BLOGGERS. Since I don’t actually write about my child that much anymore, it feels like they put me on there as a sort of acknowledgment for prior work. Like when they finally gave the Oscar to Martin Scorcese for The Departed, even though he’d made at least five films previously that were far more amazing, and not merely for slow-motion bodily fluid explosions, or putting duct tape over Jerry Lewis’s mouth.
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