Category Archives: between the lines


by Leave a comment

Where’s Your Allegiance?

 allegiance

What is going on with this country?

A federal judge declared it unconstitutional to recite the pledge of allegiance in public schools today. What greater purpose does that serve? Really?

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by feelings of frustration at the direction this country is moving towards… a direction determined by special interests and lots of money. It’s a criticism of both political parties and the nation as a whole.

What are we becoming?

Perhaps I’m being naive. Maybe the U.S. (the land of the free, the home of the brave) has always catered to the whims of the loudest bully or the wealthiest citizen. It could be a case of magnifying a state of being because I just happen to be living through it instead of reading about it in books.

Or maybe I’m taking politics too seriously because it’s constantly in my face – from the whir of motorcade sirens, to casual conversations in grocery store lines, to headlines of local newspapers, to the weekend rallies and protests.

Does anyone else feel like our fearless leaders don’t have a clue? That everyone has sold their soul to a devil of choice and the rest of us be damned? Do I just need a vacation?


by Leave a comment

Speaking in tongues

 Empire of the World

In kindergarten, I would start off a conversation in English, switch over to Portuguese, insert a few French thoughts mid-stream before concluding in English. It drove my teacher and classmates insane. I was the oddball… the strange kid. But that was how we spoke at home.

So one day my teacher called my parents in for a meeting.

“Speak to her only in English,” was the message. And my immigrant parents heard it loud and clear.

So now I struggle to converse fluently in Portuguese, while my brothers have an understanding of the language but can’t speak it at all. I rue the day that well-meaning teacher instructed my parents to converse with their children in one language only.

To add to my language mania – I’ve also suffered from wanderlust for as long as I can remember. While other kids begged their parents for trips to Disney World, I wanted to visit the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Instead of building sand castles on the beach, I wanted to stroll the sands of Morocco.

My parents did not understand my desire to travel. I applied for a passport on my own and before my first day of college, I had visited the U.K., Germany and Yugoslavia.

I have a love affair with words and stories and language. The story of the world is the story of language.

While at the university I studied Chinese for four semesters before throwing in the towel as my GPA plummeted. One bookcase is filled with Pimsleur CD’s and instruction manuels. Another bookcase holds volumes on the history of language and mysteries of ancient tongues.

The Incan khipu is one such enigma that has baffled experts for centuries. Reports today tell of American anthropologists who have identified a three-knot pattern confirming the assumption that the colored strings were used for accounting information.

Communities live and share a common history through language. The khipu are the key to the historical information and stories of the Incas – a device no one on earth remembers how to translate.

Last month I met Nicholas Ostler, chairman of the Foundation for Endangered Languages and a linguist with a working knowledge of 18 languages.

(18 languages! I have a working knowledge of THREE… I dream of understanding 15+ languages)

His book, Empires of the Word, tells tales of Sumerian innovations in education, culture, and diplomacy; the resilience of the Chinese language through 20 centuries of invasions; the birth of the modern languages of Europe; and the global spread of English.

Language failures are equally fascinating.

Why did the knowledge of the khipu not get passed down to Incan survivors? Why did Egyptian, which survived foreign takeovers for three millennia, succumb to Arabic? Why is Dutch unknown in modern Indonesia, though the Netherlands ruled the East Indies for as long as the British ruled India?

I know English and Portuguese. I have a working knowledge of French. I’m learning Spanish and Italian.

If I have my way, I’ll still manage to study and learn – Greek, Egyptian Arabic, German, Dutch, Russian, Mandarin, Farsi, Hungarian, Korean and Japanese.


by Leave a comment

It’s the end of the world as I know it

 martini

The phone rang at 1:30 p.m.

“So what are you doing?” my best friend asked.

“Working, but I’ll meet you for lunch.”

“How about a drink instead?”

“Well I need to touch base with a few reporters in Chicago this afternoon, so why don’t I meet you at 4:00?”

“Ok”

*click*

My best friend moved back to DC a few months ago. She’s the sister I never had. We lived together as roommates for almost four years with our brothers, at one point or another, crashing on air mattresses on the floor or on the sleeper-sofa for months at a time.

This afternoon, we met at a shi-shi new bar for a martini supper. And talked about… the glory days. For hours.

I mean, we discussed the new job she’s starting next week, and that her parents’ cat died this past weekend (don’t ask), and the guys we’re each interested in.

But the night was devoted to stories. About the man on the street we begged to carry two kegs to our third story apartment because we hadn’t considered how heavy they’d be. We paid him with beer. And the time her brother’s friend crushed Advil on the gross coffee table and snorted the powder for fun. The martinis we drank poolside in Puerto Rico, and the guys we met in Montreal three years later. The time we cooked dinner for an Irishman (her date) and an Englishman (my date), and how our one request was ‘bring bread’ and their reply was ‘WonderBread.’

As I walked home in the 100 degree heat, I thought, “how odd – our conversation, almost the entire four hour conversation, was based in the past. Is this it? Am I doomed to relive the glory days because my present is too stable and boring to talk about? Have I inadvertantly turned into Al Bundy? Are all my stories now based in what has already happened?”

So now I’m feeling bummed and motivated to make new stories. Because the old stories are so… yesterday. And the thought of going over those past episodes one more time is depressing. It makes me feel really, really old.


by Leave a comment

A hellish paradise

 books

I’ve had a love affair with books my entire life.

As a girl I dreamt of the enormous library I’d create in my grown-up house, complete with wall-to-wall bookcases, overstuffed leather chairs and window seats.

My home is perfect for me. When I imagine an ideal home, it is my apartment.

When you step into my apartment, the first thing you notice is the books. They’re everywhere… overflowing off book shelves, piled high on the floor, in stacks covering the dining room table, organized in columns rising from the oversized glass coffeetable, laying neatly on the bedside table.

I own hardcover books, and leatherbound books, and paperbacks; non-fiction and fiction written in English and Portuguese and French. And they’re all priceless to me.

And I promise myself I won’t buy more. Not until I finish reading all of them. But I can’t resist. Because a favorite author will release a new novel, or the reference books will be on clearance, or I’ll be in one of four area bookstores where I have a discount card.

I’m like Carrie – but instead of $40,000 worth of shoes, I’m investing $40,000 in BOOKS.

And then I look around and realize I’m toeing a fine line between someone who really really really loves books, and one of those crazies featured on Dateline.

I think it’s time to move into a larger apartment.


by Leave a comment

A personal essay

write

Suzanne Chazin taught a seminar about writing personal essays at the Smithsonian Institution. It was early… too early for a weekend… but I just made it on time.

To me, she is like an old friend… an acquaintance you catch up with over coffee every few years. Since our last meeting, her baby daughter grew into a toddler of two, keeping her from publishing fiction until now.

As I stepped through a back door and searched for an empty seat, Chazin started off with the comment…

“It can be dangerous to read too much bad stuff.”

… which immediately brought to mind Lev Grossman’s Codex (to date the only book I put away after finishing a mere 90 pages).

I settled into a seat in the back and looked around the windowless room at the other 150+ people taking notes or leaning forward, waiting anxiously for that secret formula that would turn them into published writers.

Most of the attendees were white, under age 50, and female – almost five women to every man. They wrote on legal pads and spiral notebooks and slim PDA’s, using fountain pens or pencils or hi-tech wireless keyboards. The men mostly sat in the front rows, wearing pastel plaid or bold blue stripes, while the ladies favored shades of pink.

Then there was me, a smudge across all this gentle color, dressed head to toe in black.

The usual suspects were present. The graying woman in front who thought she could sell a 10,000 word essay to a publication for $10,000 (“but they pay $1 per word”); the fluffy blond who insisted on protecting all her work through the copyright office (“I heard this one editor in Boston stole this one idea…”); the college coed majoring in English who asked uberliterate questions and refered back to lingering incongruous symbolism (or was it incongruous lingering symbolism?); the retiree looking for a how-to manual on writing a memoir (“there’s got to be a right way to start”).

In a nutshell, here’s what I took away from the day-long event:

    1. Write.
    2. Write everyday.
    3. Write some more.
    4. An essay is like an onion… it’s a layer… a slice of life… like a short story, but not fiction.
    5. Don’t preach.
    6. Be vulnerable.
    7. If you can write funny, you should immediately move to Hollywood where you can pretty much write your own ticket.
    8. Adverbs and adjectives are not your friends.
    9. When you read published work, you’re reading Draft #17.
    10. The best writer is a rewriter.


by Leave a comment

5:00 a.m.

 traffic

I pulled out of my parents’ driveway at 5:00 a.m. after four days of familial bliss. Seven hours later I was in DC.

There’s never enough time. Though one thing I’ve learned this last decade is that quality beats quantity every time.

I used to run around like a mad woman, trying to squeeze in visits to all 8 aunts and uncles, and 13 cousins, and grandparents, and mom, dad, and brothers… not to mention high school friends. I’d meet an aunt for coffee, leave 20 minutes later to have coffee with another aunt, leave 20 minutes later to meet a high school friend for lunch before picking up my grandmother to accompany me on errands. It was insane.

I’d manage to see everyone – just…. but I’d be exhausted and get shit for spending more time with one than another.

I spent two days cuddling with my beautiful niece… treated mom to dinner twice… hung out with one of my cousins for hours and hours… spent a night eating malasadas and flipping through old photo albums with one of my aunts… passed a beautiful day with my dad… went to a birthday lunch for my godmother… and saw my brothers in passing.

And saw fireworks.

But didn’t get to the beach. No time. I’ll fit in some fun in the sun next time.

How did you celebrate Independence Day?


by Leave a comment

When I grow up……

spy

If I could go back in time and prepare for a different career…. I’d want to work for the CIA. I know, I know – that just sounds stupid.

But bear with me here.

I have some compelling evidence that – at the very least – my studies and training exercises would have kept my interest.

Last night, I was blindly looking at the thousands of books stacked throughout my apartment and noticed a pattern:

  • 1/4 are spy thrillers
  • 1/4 are world history and civilization
  • 1/4 are languages
  • and the rest are a random mix of biographies, literature, science, and reference books.

Okay. Not quite sure if I could succeed undercover with what I’ve learned through books, but there is no denying an interest in the field of international intrigue.

Then I looked over my VHS/DVD collection. No one would ever accuse me of liking chick flicks. I’d say 75% of what I own are spy thriller-action/adventures like:

Now I do realize (I really do) that having an intense interest in espionage as entertainment, like ALIAS, is completely different from dealing with the reality of day-to-day spy work.

But – if I could go back – whenever some pesky adult would ask, “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” instead of answering “Lois Lane,” I would reply, “a spy.”

And instead of dropping Chinese, I would have worked harder to learn it…. and Russian and Arabic – and maybe supplemented my bazillion writing and political science courses with some computer-tech-surveillance-stuff.

Instead of dropping track once I hit college, I’d make an attempt to improve my endurance and running times. Oh – and most important – instead of aerobics, I’d find the nearest martial arts studio and sign up for Krav Maga and Kali.

Then who knows…. instead of being a communications specialist who travels on the side, I could have been an international spy leading a life of intrigue and world-saving adventures.

It could have happened.

So what did YOU want to be when you grew up? And are you there yet?


by Leave a comment

Bag Ladies of DC

baglady

Look around and you’ll find them everywhere.

Women who ride the metro, walk down the sidewalk, climb into cabs, share the elevators, while carrying two, three, sometimes four bags.

I’ll admit, I’m guilty. I’m a bag lady.

Every morning I sling an oversized black bag over my right shoulder as a small purse swings from my left arm.

But even I stop and gape in awe when I notice a relatively normal-looking female wrapped in an oversized black bag, a gym duffle, a laptop case, and a small purse while gripping a Starbucks paper bag filled with what I presume to be lunch.

Why are we compelled to live like nomads?

I need most of the things stored away in the trendy purse – house keys, metro pass, pen, lipgloss, mobile phone, wallet, digital camera.

But why do I insist on carrying a large black bag around with me daily? Will I ever really need any of the things I stuff in there?

Let’s see (dumps contents of bag on floor):

Dell laptop, Nike sneakers, Filofax, one paperback novel by James Rollins, one collection of short stories by Carol Shields, kleenex, two silver barrettes, Kate Spade shades, five different shades of Lancome juicy tubes, TDK Mojo mp3 player, three AAA batteries, four bandaids, last week’s issue of The Economist, an issue of The New Yorker, suede case filled with three Cross and Caran d’Ache fountain pens, one red leather blank journal, businesscards, two Advantage chocolate peanut butter lo-carb bars, a black spiral notebook, a bottle of Advil, a pedometer, two pads of post-it notes (one hot pink, one yellow) and $2.89 in loose change.

Hmmmmmmmm……..

What’s in your bag?