Wow, it has literally been years since I made a post.
This is not necessarily the dawn of a revivalism of this blog—you’d be much
better off checking out what Rosemary, Cat and I are doing at Lightbox Heroes(shameless plug) if you miss my ramblings. However, this last weekend was a
situation that lent itself particularly well to the written word, so I break my
silence in the name of epic adventure.
And by adventure I mean mostly ridiculousness.
The Epic Tale, or, And You Thought You Were a Fan of Doctor Who . . .
It was Saturday night. I had already had a
tumultuous day of nothingness: my brand of coping in the face of looming
deadlines, job searches, and a vague sense of academic inadequacy is to do absolutely
nothing useful. The idea was that I would devote the evening to my studies, but
having twilight come at four thirty in the afternoon was enough of a bummer that
I had reopened negotiations with my anxiety for another extension of
slackerness. The perfect excuse for another night of nothing had already
presented itself: the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who had
aired today, and my slow internet was just minutes away from completing the download
of those 76 precious minutes of joy and escapism.
In preparation for my “study break,” I had decided
to get comfortable. In the spirit of consistency, I had been putting off doing
my laundry as well as my grading and final papers, which left my selection of
comfortable loungewear a little lacking. Luckily, for my last birthday my
mother had given me a present that demonstrated how tuned in she is to her
grown daughter’s stunted sense of whimsy: a pair of bright yellow pajamas,
liberally decorated with the characters of Dr. Seuss’s classic aquatic tale
“One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish.” Did I mention this pair of pajamas
were in fact onesie footie pajamas? With one long zipper bulging erratically
from naval to chin, these pajamas are the picture of efficiency, simultaneously
keeping me warm in my drafty Milwaukee apartment and providing a big blaring
sign of “VIRGIN” to anyone who chances by. I would have preferred if the signal
from the pajamas could have loudly signaled “VIRGIN BY CHOICE,” but there’s
really only so much one can ask from a single measure of unapologetically
yellow fleece.
It was now seven thirty at night (yes, I had already
donned pajamas at seven thirty on a Saturday, keep your
judgments to yourself).
I was pretending to skim articles on Skopas, while in fact clicking over to the
status of my downloading Doctor Who episode approximately every 2.68 seconds. A
low, mechanical drone started to sound. It was coming from the hallway, and it
was certainly loud enough for me to hear, but I couldn’t identify exactly what
the sound was accomplishing. Living in an apartment building that has over
thirty units, you get relatively used to strange noises that never get explained.
When that building was also built over a hundred years ago, and has fixtures
and radiators that were probably installed by an employee of the WPA, every day
there are a number of auditory oddities that I just shove into the periphery of
my awareness. In essence, while the almost moaning sound was persisting
unabated, I was not terribly concerned.
I’ll be perfectly honest: it did cross my mind that
the sound I was hearing could be some antique approximation of a fire
alarm. My doorbell sounds like a buzzer
used in a 1950s game show when the contestant gets a question wrong, so it
would make sense that the building’s fire alarm sounds equally bizarre. I
contemplated this possibility, sniffed the air for smoke, and went back to
watching my Doctor Who episode finish downloading. In my hierarchy of needs watching
this Doctor Who episode was in slot number one, tied only with my desire to not
get up from my armchair.
I started to hear a fair amount of running and
pounding from the apartment and hallway directly above me. I was unperturbed.
Ten minutes went by, all the previous noises were still continuing in the
larger building, and I remained a fixture in the corner of my living room,
cursing utorrent for teasing me with its “Downloading: 98.9% complete” message.
There was a heavy pounding, this time no longer above me, but actually at my
own door. I half stood up, and then became very conscious of the
virginity-affirming pajamas. I remained there for a few moments, waffling
between being seen in such getup and ignoring the knock. I finally stood all
the way up (begrudgingly), padded over to the door, and carefully stuck my head
out the door. There was no one in the hallway, just a magnified version of the
same mechanical droning and more hurried, stomping feet coming from the hallway
upstairs, with the occasional muffled shout added to the cacophany.
Here’s where I’m going to lose most of you: I then went back inside, sat back down on my
armchair, and kept on waiting for Doctor Who to download. I had concluded
at this point that there was most likely a fire somewhere in the building. But
I was quite willing for the people directly affected by the situation to handle
it. I had a plan for how my evening was going to go, and not enough outside
stimuli had been introduced to prod me toward giving up that plan. It’s a big
building. I still couldn’t smell (much) smoke. As far as I was concerned, they
could come get me if it was that big a deal. Oh, if wishes were horses.
About five minutes later (utorrent now read as
“99.4% complete”), there was a second pounding on the door, followed by a
booming “Fire Department! Open up!” This kicked me into a slightly higher gear,
meaning I didn’t pause when rising from my chair, and I somewhat hurriedly
threw my green plaid robe over the unabashedly chaste pajamas. Answering the
door, the (obnoxiously handsome) pair of firemen barked at me that there was a
fire, and that I needed to be out of the building. It was only at this point
that I got a little flustered. Why I got flustered then, I couldn’t tell you. I
had had fifteen minutes of preparation, where I had actively acknowledged the
almost certainty of a fire, and chose to make like inertia and not act until
acted upon by an opposing and irritatingly attractive force.
With the two offensively hunky firemen looking on, I
scrambled for my keys and started to put on boots to protect the soles of my
footie pajamas. It would be great if I could muse here over how basic motor
skills often get compromised with a rush of adrenaline, but that would
incorrectly lead you to assume that in times when rugged men aren’t watching me
I am fairly competent at putting on my shoes. No. Even at the best of times,
shoe-putting-on is not a strength of mine. Normally, I at least know that I
have to sit down on any available surface to be successful. I suppose it was
that command center of the brain that failed me in that moment, letting me
blithely try to achieve what I can’t do even at the best of times.
I tried to hop on one foot while yanking the boot
onto the other, ignoring the added challenge of mashing in extra fabric from
the pajamas into the same space. The yanking motion completely threw off my
precarious balance, and I abruptly transitioned from being upright and
balancing on one leg to my rear making violent contact with my hardwood floor,
my legs splayed out at crazy angles and the cinch of my robe coming loose so
that the robe parted in the front. The two fetching firemen cooling observed
the tableau, patiently waiting for me to stop being an irritation in their work
as other equally brawny men started to use the back of their axes to get
through the door across the hall from me.
I crammed my toes into both boots, my heels not even
close to being in the right place, and awkwardly pranced out of my apartment. I
then carefully closed the door behind me, and pulled my keys out of the pocket
of my robe so that I could secure the lock. Halfway through that motion, with my
two virile companions incredulously looking on, I started to process how me
locking my door might be a) slightly not helpful in the context of firemen
actively knocking down the door right across the hall, b) certainly caused my
two assigned firemen to doubt my sanity, since I didn’t seem in any hurry to
get out of the building. I quickly put the keys back in my pocket while
avoiding eye contact with the pitying paragons of masculinity in front of me.
Muttering something incoherent, I did an about-face
and headed toward the stairwell so that I could get out of the building. There
were multiple hoses crisscrossing the hallway and stairs, demonstrating that I
was definitely late to the evacuation party, and was most likely the only one
who had needed a hand-delivered invitation. I pushed the swinging door that was
at the head of the stairs, and smacked the fireman standing on the other side
of the door right in the face. Luckily his helmet took most of the blow. It
should be noted that this door has a fair-sized window in it, and that I had
seen the fireman before pushing the door forward. And yet, I was still quite
surprised with how that situation unfolded.
Tripping across multiple hoses as I descended the
stairs (remember, I’m still basically walking on my toes, since my heels are
uselessly jammed into the ankle part of my boots), I navigate my way out of the
stairwell and around the outside of the building to the front entrance,
successfully avoiding getting smacked in the face by all but one of the fire
hoses. I got over to where all of the other less avid Doctor Who fans (or
perhaps people with a stronger survival instinct) were gathered to watch the
impressive flames in the window of a third-floor apartment. More firemen were
hauling a long ladder across the lawn to set up underneath the window closest
to the most violent area of the fire, armed with axes so they could smash
through the window and directly address the fire with their prepped hoses.
I should mention here how quickly watching the
heroic struggle between man and fire gets tedious when it is fifteen degrees
outside, and you’re standing there in fleece footie pajamas and a robe. Any
romantic symbolism that might be seen in this battle with the elements that
makes or break man’s progress freezes in the air along with your breath, and
you just start to look at the flames with a certain degree of longing.
I started to notice how the other tenants of my
low-rent building—all of them types that I would probably cross the street to
avoid directly passing on a dark street—are edging away from me, the crazy lady
dressed in an adult version of pajamas a two-year old should be wearing. This also
dimmed any interest I had with how the firefight is going. I blessed my brain
for at least remembering to grab my keys (even if they were grabbed with the
intent to lock the apartment door and impede the progress of the firefighters,
I was still going to latch on to any small victory), and retreated to my car
that was parked on the street, completely locked in by the four fire trucks and
eight fire department SUVs that lined my no-outlet street.
I squeezed myself into the front seat in the small
opening I could manage between my door and the SUVs, started the engine, and
let the heaters do their work. I leaned back, surveyed the chaotic scene in
front of me, tracking how the swiveling red lights threw into dramatic relief
different areas of the trauma. As the vents started to warm up I leaned back,
closed my eyes, and mourned the fact that my laptop was still in my apartment,
probably with a fully downloaded Doctor Who episode on its hard drive. The
universe can be so harsh sometimes.
I spent the next four hours in my car, calling old
friends to keep myself entertained as I waited to find out the fate of my
apartment. At around eleven thirty we were informed that no one was permitted to
return to their residence for the night, but we could be escorted to our
apartments to pick up anything we might need for a few days away. I returned to
my apartment to find a hole the size of my face kicked into the lower part of
my kitchen wall. Apparently the firemen had needed to transport some equipment
to the apartment across the hall (the one directly below where the fire had
originated, both of which had a great deal of fire and water damage), and the
hall wasn’t wide enough.
My kitchen floor was covered with splintered wood
and paint, but I still consider myself remarkably lucky, especially considering
how idiotic my initial response to the crisis was. My landlord was waiting for
me to finish packing up my things (you better bet my laptop with the precious
episode was the first thing put into my shoulder bag), so I grabbed the
necessities and shoved them all together, doing such an excellent job at
packing that it was impossible to zip up the top of the bag due to the bulging
hodgepodge of clothes and hair products. I deemed it good enough and picked my
way back through the darkened, smoky hallways.
Considering the . . . “iffy” nature of my
neighborhood, I decided driving another ten miles to find a hotel near the
airport would probably result in much safer and cleaner accommodations. Nearing midnight now, I walked to the front
desk of the Clarion Hotel with my bag in one hand and a 24-pack of Diet Coke in
the other (it had already been in the trunk of my car, I figured it was worth
bringing along). I politely asked if there were any vacancies. The woman at the
front desk seemed a little flustered and said she would check, but her eyes
darted between me and the screen at an alarmingly rapid rate.
She told me there was an opening, and hesitantly told
me it would be 95 dollars for the night. I considered her demeanor to be a
little odd, even jumpy, and didn’t understand why she seemed surprised when I
said I would take it. It was only when I went to retrieve my wallet from the
pocket of my robe that I really took stock of my appearance: I looked like a
crazed homeless woman, wandering the cold streets of Milwaukee in infantile
pajamas, a bathrobe, and an inexplicable supply of diet soda. I was the
definition of a potential unpleasant incident for a night clerk.
The clerk was relieved when I explained my
situation. Not relieved that people were out of their homes, but relieved that
I was now a known entity, one that would probably not start screaming
hysterically in the lobby or striking up conversations with the potted plants. I was happy for her peace of mind, and chose
not to tell her how far my love of Doctor Who had led me away from rational
behavior. I don’t think she would have processed that information in a way that
painted me in a kind (or sane) light.
Things
I Learned
1) I suffer from the most pervasive
malady of my generation: obliviousness. I always knew my
connection to reality was a bit tenuous in general, but this certainly hit that
home in a new way. I am obviously an idiot for how I behaved before exiting the
building, but I would argue that I am not that far outside of the norm for my
generation. Sure, most wouldn’t avoid a fire because a Doctor Who episode was
on the cusp of downloading, but there is definitely a generational disconnect
with the unavoidable cause and effect of choices. This is easiest to see
online, when narcissists post every detail of their personal life in their
facebook status, or passive-aggressively attack family members and roommates
through the well-placed tweet or blog post. Ideas of keeping public and private
spheres separate, of addressing conflicts in person and not dragging issues
through the digital sphere, of consciously decided not to permit evidence of passing
anger or malaise to endure forever is something my generation doesn’t
understand. Yes, I am definitely harping on a common problem in order to
distract you all from the fact that I’m such a media junkie I almost achieved a
nice toffee-colored complexion from an even roasting. It’s all about
misdirection, folks.
2) My mother is awesome.
My initial response to the crisis was “oh, I really hope my parents don’t find
out about this.” With them living twelve hundred miles away, I didn’t want them
to be stressed about my situation, or somehow find a way to interpret the
problems with an apartment I chose to be the sign of deeper trends toward
irresponsibility. This is left over from the much more combative relationship I
used to have with my parents during the first half of my twenties, and is an
attitude that is actually unworthy of the reality of my parental unit. I
quashed my initial response, and instead called my mother the next day at
around noon. I briefed her on what had happened (ok, ok, I skipped all the
Mary-made-like-an-ostrich-and-buried-her-head-in-the-sand-for-fifteen-minutes-before-getting-kicked-out-by-firemen
part of the tale). I told her the condition of my belongings and my apartment,
told her where I was currently staying, and that I was still waiting to find
out when I could move back in. She listened, asked a couple follow-up
questions, told me she was very glad I was ok, and we swapped goodbyes and
I-love-yous before hanging up. The whole call took six minutes in total.
Darling
mothers and fathers out there: This is
how you need to parent your adult children. It was awesome. There was no
hysterics, no incessant peppering of questions, no doomsday speeches or blame
or micromanaging of my behavior. Any of those would have driven me right up the
wall with both frustration and anxiety. Instead, there was respect and affection,
and a trust that I would keep her updated if anything came up that I needed
help with. Otherwise, it was my own business. I can’t stress how nice it feels
to not be infantilized by your parents when you’re 27 years old. I’ve observed
enough to know my parents are exceptional in that regard, and I couldn’t be
more grateful for my luck in scoring these guys.
3) My
friends and sister are da bomb diggity. I called and texted
more than a few individuals while I was forced into a Who-less stasis for the
majority of that Saturday night. I wasn’t traumatized by what had happened—I
think the word trauma gets thrown around too imprecisely. No one was hurt, and I
was fairly sure my apartment wasn’t burning down. I was mildly inconvenienced
and shocked out of my normal routine, not staring down the fragility of my
existence. As such, I was calling and texting people just to kill time and
share a fun story, and there’s something magical about how many kindred souls
I’ve collected over the years that knew how to respond. Connected with how much
of a nightmare it would have been if my mother had had a meltdown from the
news, it’s a real sign of friendship and connection that no one I talked to
tried to whip me into hysterics. They settled into jokes and their own stories,
filling the time as I watched the fire engines slowly return to the station in
my rear view mirror.
These
are the kind of people everyone should actively seek out and cultivate in their
life—friends and family that contribute to you keeping your life balanced and
manageable. I can be proud that over the past five years I have weeded out
people who are only interested in highlighting drama, fixating on unfairness,
and ramping up discord. Those people would have loved a phone call that night;
they could have vicariously feasted on the chaos, and victimized my
circumstances stretch out the drama, but I wouldn’t have gotten anything
positive out of that interaction.
4) I have a complicated relationship with my own independence and letting others
help me. But I don’t necessarily think I’m the one that needs to change. Here’s
a truth: despite the fact that I’ve technically been responsible for my own
education and living expenses since I was 18, I’ve only gotten a good handle on
it in the last couple years. Imagine my impressive ability to deny the danger
of fire in the face of Doctor Who, and you have a good idea of the financial quagmire
that was the majority of my twenties. I was raised by parents who were not only
incredibly responsible with their own finances, they went out of their way to
train me in good habits and warn me of the pitfalls that could arise from not
keeping a handle on spending and budgeting. Apparently I don’t learn through
excellent guidance, I learn by drowning for years in my own denial and not even
being able to communicate how much trouble I’m in because I’m incapable of
admitting to weakness and mistakes in judgment.
Why
am I sharing this information that seems embarrassing and uncomfortable?
Context. All told, I now have a line of credit of about $2,000, and it took a
complete turnaround in my attitudes toward money and my general problem-solving
habits to be eligible for that much. I pay off my credit cards every month,
which means late on a Saturday night when I need a place to stay, I can hand
over my Vis and charge my room without any problems. You need to understand: I
am so proud that I was able to financially and emotionally handle this, it’s
been all I’ve wanted to talk about. This felt like an incredible proof that I
have progressed exponentially in areas that I know to be weaknesses in my
character and a danger to my long-term goals.
So,
when I told people at my church and school about what had happened, and I was
scolded for not calling them up at midnight on a Saturday for a place to stay,
I didn’t know how to process their conviction that I was doing it all wrong. I
was met with almost universal disbelief that I would check into a hotel rather
than find someone to take me in. Here’s the thing: I never doubted the
generosity of spirit the people in this area have toward their fellow man,
including me. But I, to my complete delight, was capable of taking care of
myself in an emergency, and so I did. I derive so much more peace of mind and
general comfort in that knowledge than I would have from accepting the kindness
of acquaintances.
I’m
no solider of Ayn Rand. I don’t hold to an insane level of self-sufficiency
that removes compassion for others from the equation. I’ve certainly had to
avail myself of the kindness of family, friends, and strangers in the past. But
in this circumstance, I was able to prove to myself that I will be able to
handle both the emotional and financial fallout in the face of an unanticipated
hurdle. Do you have any idea how empowering that is? Especially for someone who
is coming up on the daunting task of job hunting once I finish my degree this
May? Basically, there’s something to be said for doing all you can before
seeking out the help of others. It doesn’t mean asking for help is shameful—not
at all. It means that you get to carry around with you the knowledge that you
are capable, and able to master many situations on your own, including the
situation where asking for help from the right quarter is what the circumstance
demands.
Huzzah
for independence, for self-reliance! I could really get excited about this.
You’ll see me punching the air jubilantly every time I’m able to pay an
unexpectedly high water bill, or roll with the additional challenge of a
disruptive student. Sure, I’ll look like a crazy person, giving an empty room
an enthusiastic round of high-fives and doing a one-person wave, but I’ve
looked stupider. I’ve checked into a hotel wearing yellow footie pajamas, for
crying out loud. I can do anything.
. .
. Except put on shoes without some sort of support structure