A Rock To Tie A String Around

Amazon thinks I’m a Teenage Republican Conspiracy Theorist. I have no one but myself to blame for this miscommunication either. I vaguely understand the concept behind the intelligent search thingy that Amazon does, from what I understand, it’s similar to the way that Tivo works – if you like this, then you’ll love this – that concept. Both search engines process your search results, and then come up with similar items that they think you might like.

It’s creepy.

For the longest time Tivo kept suggesting that we record Spongebob Squarepants based off my husband’s season pass to record The Simpsons. Spongebob and Simpsons are not similar, not by a long shot – although, I laugh at both of them, I give them that.

Tivo also thought that I would like every entertainment news report, and took the liberty of recording Entertainment Tonight at least twenty times a day. I finally had to sit Tivo down and have a talk with it and explain that just because I recorded The Soup of E – that doesn’t necessarily mean that I care about celebrity gossip news, so please stop interrupting my shows to record Celebrities Gone Wild and Twenty Something Skinny Girls Grocery Shopping Expose 2010.

Despite frequent and heartfelt talks, Tivo and I weren’t able to work it out, and I had to dump him for DVR. DVR doesn’t try to think for me and I appreciate that. He just takes orders and does what I ask, that ‘s really what I prefer in intuitive technology.

I’m worried about my relationship with Amazon. I look up some fairly random books – sometimes for research purposes, sometimes I’m trying to check prices on books I want to order for school, sometimes I’m trying to find out more about the teenage vampire books my students are reading, sometimes I check out the books that are on the top ten sales ranking.
It’s all pretty innocent.

However, Amazon is doing that thing where it wants to try to anticipate my behavior. The other day, Amazon suggested that I buy Going Rogue by everyone’s favorite asshat Sarah Palin. My first question was – C’mon Amazon, what would lead you to think that I would ever want to spend money on that self-serving piece of fiction disguised as a memoir? So I did a little homework on my search patterns.

It turns out that earlier this month, I looked at a book called The War On Christmas – How The Liberal Plot To Ban The Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought by John Gibson. It was going to be part of a blog that never materialized. It looks like a really funny book, although I’m not sure that’s the intent. On the cover it shows a Christmas Tree (or should I call it a Baby Jesus Tree?) being yanked away by the evil liberal conspirators.

Never mind that the Baby Jesus Tree is a pagan tradition that comes from the Solstice Celebration. Double never mind that Christmas in general was the compromise to get the godless pagans to stop celebrating Solstice and give their mid-winter celebration a Christian tinge. Never mind all that, especially never mind the fact that historically the really hardcore Christians like the Puritans refused to celebrate Christmas because of it’s pagan roots and even banned the holiday.

Check it out – http://masstraveljournal.com/features/boston-cambridge/when-christmas-was-banned-boston

But never mind all that, I was looking at this book and snickering at the 800 comments that followed. One guy said that when we don’t celebrate Baby Jesus Day, we are infringing on his right to practice his religion. I guess it’s all or nothing for that one.

Anyhow, based on that search – Amazon suggested ‘Going Rogue’ by everyone’s favorite gal Sarah Palin, ‘Arguing With Idiots by America’s Mascot’ for the Mentally Unhinged Glen Beck, and ‘Guilty: Liberal Victims and Their Assault on America’ by the Queen of the Delusional – Ann Coulter.

Now, I’m embarrassed for anyone to log into Amazon under my account, what will they think of me?

It’s not always like this though. Below the right wing political books, were ‘more suggestions’. These encompassed the work I do on Amazon for my teenage students. Under More Suggestions they thought I might like ‘Eclipse’ by Stephenie Meyer, ‘The Vampire Diaries’ by L. J. Smith, and ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ by Ann Brashares.

The best I can figure, Amazon thinks I’m sixteen years old with a set of deeply Republican parents.

The art of the holiday newsletter seems to be a shaky ground. And, granted, I’ve never tried writing one, so I’m not much of one to talk; however, the reason I’ve never written one is because I’ve seen them go a bad direction more than once.

In my estimation, the holiday newsletter should be the basics of what’s going on with you and your family, all the good stuff, upbeat takes on the bad, and well wishes for the people you are sending it to. Sometimes, this is accomplished. More often than not, the holiday newsletter becomes a scary little window into the fucked up lives of your friends and neighbors.

I recently got a holiday newsletter that was written from the perspective of the author’s cat. I learned from the holiday newsletter that the cat really liked the tree, loved kibble and wished she had more ribbons to play with. I also learned that the author has way too much time on her hands. I surmise that nothing of great importance has happened to the author this year, and hence she felt compelled to draw upon the experiences of her cat for holiday fodder.

Speaking of cats, some holiday newsletters let some cats out of the bag that probably should have stayed locked up. These are the letters where the author tells us things about their families that have us cringing. The kind of information that makes our next face-to-face encounter uncomfortable because I can’t stop thinking about the anger management class their husband took or the sleep disorder their kid has.

This holiday newsletter reads like literary diahhrea, the author can’t stop talking about their explosive IBS or the itchy rash that was covers their husband’s man bits, or really embarrassing episode of stress related bedwetting that their school age son struggled with last summer.
Uh huh. I don’t want to know this stuff. I want to know that your kid made the honor roll, that your vegetable garden grew enough tomatoes this summer to last the winter through, and that your husband likes his job. In short, lie to me. Please. Next time I see you, I don’t want to be wondering about what kind of itch cream your man is using.

I’m not sure what it is – maybe it’s the festive holiday borders, dancing Santa’s and purple reindeer holding hooves make us think that we can write about ANYTHING and it will automatically become socially acceptable.

The most popular form of newsletter blunder, in my expert opinion, is the ‘All About Me’ letters. While it’s a far cry from the intimate details that belie the IBS Explosion Newsletter and way more sane than the Channeling My Cat letter – the All About Me – is more interesting in what it doesn’t say rather than what it actually does.

I’m great, I’m back in grad school, and I’m living in the best apartment ever. Okay, great for you – but last I checked you had two kids and a husband. What happened to them? See what I mean? I’m happy that my friend/cousin/co-worker is doing great, but you can’t help but wonder if they actually flipped over to the crazy side and their counterparts i.e. kids, husband, etc… are living in another state all of a sudden or are locked in the attic desperately waiting for someone to notice their absence.

I just think there are certain topics that maybe we shouldn’t cover in holiday newsletters, such as: Rehab, Relapses, Cats, Bedwetting, Boils, Rashes, Puss or Rotting Food.

You all think I’m being hyperbolic – but you have not seen the horror I have witnessed in my stash of holiday family newsletters

Just think about it people – and next time you want to write a widespread letter to your family – consider this: What Would Dancing Santa Do?

We currently rent a house in a neighborhood where most people own their houses, or so it appears. By merit of living in this neighborhood, our neighbors make automatic assumptions about us, most of them positive. For one, they assume we are much wealthier than we actually are. They (they referring to the string of families on the block who also have toddlers and thus we spend a lot of standing out in the lawn time watching the kids play) are constantly surprised that I work. And even more surprised that I work for survival and not just for something to fill the time or give me a sense of fulfilled civic duty.

They also assume that since I am but a lowly high school teacher/writer that my husband must be the CEO of some major company or vice president of a bank. He can’t just be a normal guy with a normal job, he can’t be that.

We don’t live in Beverly Hills by the way, not even close. But our humble little west side neighborhood had recently attracted a flock of families that in previous years would have looked at living in Beverly Hills type neighborhoods and because of the current economy, they ended up here.

Most of my neighbors are also Catholic, and their kids go to private Catholic elementary and preschools. By merit of the fact that we’re not Catholic and I teach in a public school, they have all assumed that we must be the only other logical choice: Jewish. Which I suppose technically we are, my husband’s family has ethnic Jewish roots, but they were never religious Jews. My family is about as British as you can get so I’m enjoying the misperception, Jewish is much more interesting than British. But the neighbors are extremely careful to explain to me whenever their kids go around selling candy bars for the their classes, that if I don’t feel comfortable contributing, there’s no pressure to buy the chocolate bar. Good to know, unfortunately I really like chocolate.

I walk the neighborhood with my son and I feel like an imposter. I know I’m probably reading into the situation a fair amount. In the immortal words of Dr. Phil – if you really knew what people thought of you, you’d be surprised how much they don’t. But I feel like I’m keeping up a ruse by merit of living here.

As I walk my neighborhood, however, it occurs to me that I’m not the only imposter. In a three-block radius, there are probably five homes up for foreclosure, five more that are up for sale and have been for a year or more. A house down the street has been on the market for over two years, the price has been slashed in half, and still no one’s buying. Even my fancy neighbors who bought out one of the little houses and turned it into a two-story mansion – they confided that they were running out of money so the wife was waiting tables at night to pay their mortgage.

So, I suppose I wonder who the real imposter is? Is it me, who only rents on this side of town because I’m friends with my landlady? Or is it them, who can’t afford to live where they wanted to live, so they moved to the West side, only to find out that they can’t really afford it here either?

Like I said before, I don’t live in Beverly Hills. In fact, thanks to a History of LA class I recently took at Northridge University, I found out that my little neighborhood has historically been known as the slum of Santa Monica. It was the place that all the black and brown people lived when they couldn’t live in the Santa Monica city limits. If you went about four blocks toward the ocean, the property values escalated dramatically, even though the houses looked exactly the same. This precedent goes back to the fifties and sixties. And while I would like to think that this kind of perception has changed, it’s still much cheaper to buy here than it is four blocks away.

Hence, my new fancy neighbors. They moved in, tore down the original houses, and built mansions that barely fit on the property boundaries. The original houses are dwarfed in comparison, and are starting to resemble the service quarters to the estate of the not-quite-rich-enough-for-Beverly-Hills Crowd.

It’s not really anyone’s fault. Well, maybe it’s the fault of the ever-elusive economy that we’ve all been forced into the position of living as imposters to our former lives. Things we were able to afford for our entire adult lives suddenly are unreachable. Situations we were able to remedy by cutting back a little or working a little more in the past are suddenly now red alert financial crisis because there’s no extra money, nothing to cut back on, and no extra work.

I have faith it’s all going to get better. I also think the only way that it’s ever going to do that is if we start living the lives we can actually afford.

Amanda Knox is either innocent and there has been a tremendous miscarriage of justice, or she’s the scariest sociopath to make international headlines in a long time. I realize that statement sounds obvious, either she’s guilty or innocent, and in a case like Amanda Knox’s, there’s no gray area. Either she tortured, tormented and eventually slashed Meredith Kercher’s throat in cold blood, or she is completely, totally innocent.

I’ve read a lot of blogs and articles by legal types who make the point that if this case took place in South Central, Los Angeles, and the girl being accused was black and poor instead of white and upper middle class, this case would never have made the papers. Instead, that Amanda Knox would have been convicted two years ago and probably would be facing life in prison, not just twenty-six years.

They’re probably right. However, it’s all a moot point, because the truth of the matter is that it didn’t happen in State Street, Chicago – it happened in Italy, to an angel faced girl next door, who might just be a psychotic murderer.

Let me be clear, my legal savvy comes almost exclusively from Law and Order, SVU with a few drops of A Few Good Men, To Kill A Mockingbird, and Matlock on the side. So feel free to set me straight but – the Italian justice system’s willingness to let the prosecution offer ‘theoretical circumstantial evidence’ seems really wacky. I can’t imagine the blond District Attorney from SVU letting that one slide by.

In short, the prosecution was allowed to offer up their theory of a possible scenario wherein Amanda Knox, Raffaele Sollecito and Rudy Guede tortured and killed Kercher while tormenting her with perverse sexual comments. Even though there was little to no basis for their theory, the prosecution was allowed to extrapolate upon things they thought Knox could possibly have said in the moment.

Maybe, they’re right, maybe their guesses were far milder than what Meredith Kercher actually experienced in her last moments. But maybe they’re flat out wrong too. The idea of theoretical circumstantial evidence hits me a bit like the spectral evidence that they allowed during the Salem Witch Trials. Back in 1692, since it was a theocracy, they allowed spectral evidence during the trial. Essentially, it means evidence that doesn’t have any basis in reality. I could go in and say that my neighbor appeared to me in a dream and punched me in the jaw and then I woke up and had a pimple in the same place, so it was obviously my neighbor’s fault. While this sounds crazy, it’s how they were able to hang twenty-nine people.

I think I watch too many horror movies, but Amanda Knox scares the crap out of me. She scares me more than John Gotti – ruthless crime boss murderer, she scares me more than Aileen Wuornos – drug riddled psychotic, she even scares me more than Charles Manson who encapsulates a little of both. Possibly, because with these three, I feel like I would have seen them coming. Amanda Knox looks like someone I would have hired to babysit my son, someone I would have loved for my son to date if he were twenty years old. She looks like someone I would trust.

I think inherently, we’re all capable of murder. I don’t necessarily believe that murderers are made of different stuff than the rest of us; they just have a few triggers that most of us never have to deal with, namely opportunity and willing accomplices. It’s a little like that Seinfeld episode where Elaine is contemplating what would happen if she murdered the cable guy. I think everyone has a moment like that at some point. It’s not so much the evidence of murderous rage, rather astonishment that a stranger would trust us so much as to come into our house, defenseless, and put themselves in a vulnerable position such as half in and half out of our kitchen cabinet while they fix our sink.

I’ve always wondered if plumbers, cable guys and the lot think about this stuff before they enter strange houses. If that were me, and granted I’m a little morbid at times, I would be wondering if every job at a strange house was going to be my last. I would be wondering if I was going to be on the evening news a few weeks down the road as the cops are digging me out of the backyard.

My guess is that if most people thought like this, we wouldn’t have cable guys, plumbers or the people from the city who check your furnace and relight your pilot light.

I think we forget how breakable we are. The Talented Mr. Ripley illustrates this rather well. Tom Ripley wasn’t a murder until he accidentally broke Dickie Greenleaf. But the Tom Ripley’s are way scarier than the Joe Pesci’s anyday. I would never have trusted Tommy DeVito. But Tom Ripley has a very Amanda Knoxlike quality.

I guess I’ll have to wait until SVU does a show based on this case to really see the inner workings of the court system. Till then, my thought are with the families of both the victim and the accused.