“A doubtful friend is worse than a certain enemy. Let a man be one thing or the other, and we then know how to meet him.” –Aesop
When Jen opened her eyes the next morning, Skipper was standing at the foot of the bed, facing away from her, pulling on his clothes. She looked at his naked back as he wriggled into the skinny pants. He had a tattoo she hadn’t noticed last night, along the right side of his back. The design was a snake and a bird. They were either fighting or embracing; she couldn’t see it too well in the dim morning light and with him moving around like that. Jen usually disliked tattoos, especially on men she was sleeping with. This one seemed to be well-executed, with crisp lines and intricate details, but the Asian-style embellishments made it look like something off of a cheap vase. Looking at it, she felt disappointed and irritated.
Skipper turned to pick his rumpled yellow cowboy shirt from the foot of the bed. As he caught her watching him, his face took on the guilty expression of a cartoon bank robber caught tiptoeing out of the vault.
“Good morning,” Jen said in her most pleasant but casual voice.
Skipper mumbled something. Jen though it was something about the door.
“What about the door?” she asked, confused.
“Morning,” he repeated himself, enunciating a bit more. He closed up his shirt, which had snaps instead of buttons, and began looking for his shoes. He found them on the floor, near Jen’s large armchair by the door to her room. He looked up to watch her staring at him, and then sat down on the armchair and began pulling his socks on.
“How are you feeling?” Jen asked. She herself was feeling puzzled. Skipper’s flee-the-scene-of-the-crime bedroom manner was not unfamiliar to her, but she had never seen quite such a desperate example of it. His socks were on inside-out, and he was trying to cram his foot into one of his still-tied sneakers. Really, there was no need to be this anxious to leave; she certainly wasn’t going to propose marriage in the time it would take him to dress himself properly.
Skipper answered her question with a little grunt. She tried again. “Do you want some coffee or anything?” she asked.
Skipper mumbled something else that definitely included the words, “gotta go,” “work,” and “fun girl.” His voice trailed off as he managed to cram his left foot into his second sneaker, crushing the heel inward before his foot slid in. Jen winced in empathy for his shoe; she was always careful to fasten and unfasten her own shoes, even when she was in a rush.
With his clothes and shoes sloppily arranged on his skinny frame, Skipper headed for Jen’s door.
“Going now,” he mumbled, giving Jen a little wave. Then, as though recognizing his rudeness, he walked back to the foot of the bed and extended his hand for a goodbye handshake. Jen reached across the bed and squeezed his hand lightly. Satisfied that he had fulfilled his duty, Skipper headed back toward the bedroom door.
“Bye,” said Jen, but Skipper was out of the room and, by the sound of his footsteps, halfway down the hall.
When Jen heard the front door slam, she rose from the bed, pulled on her nightshirt, and hurried down the hall to watch him from the window. His tank-car was already pulling out of the driveway, backing down the long private rode that lead to her secluded house. Jen noticed how well it handled in reverse; that must be important for maneuvering under fire, she thought. She scanned the sky to check if there were any helicopters waiting for good photo opportunities. She didn’t see any, but she had missed them before. She crossed her fingers and hoped, for once, that her personal life was being documented; a nice, juicy tabloid headline would at least make this fiasco worthwhile.
Walking back to her room, she noticed the door to Becky’s suite was open, and she didn’t hear any sound from inside. It seemed that Becky had not come home last night. Well, at least somebody’s having a good morning, Jen thought bitterly.
As she lay back down in her bed and stared at the peaceful, eggshell-blue-colored ceiling, Jen sleepily debated whether it was something about her personality that made seemingly appealing men turn into horrifying assholes, or whether they were like that with everybody.
Wondering what time it was, Jen looked across the room toward the alarm clock on her dresser. It had been a present from her husband, purchased, she was sure, by his personal assistant at some trendy gadget store. Its shape was a long, asymmetrical triangle, and it was the color of dark stone. But the most important feature of this clock was the noise it made to wake up its owner. Instead of beeping, the clock would omit a series of increasingly loud chiming noises, so that waking would be peaceful, not jarring. The hands of the clock were shaped and colored like twigs, making it difficult to read the time from a distance. After squinting at it for a few moments, Jen was pretty sure it was seven thirty.
Jen suddenly remembered the name on the box that the clock had come in: the Zen Alarm Clock. She knew that was the clock’s name, but had never given any thought to what it signified. After last night’s conversation with Skipper, Jen didn’t see what was so Zen about an alarm clock—although like Skipper, it was difficult to read. And perhaps the very notion of a peaceful alarm clock was a contradiction, gentle chimes reminding you to violate your body’s innate instincts about how much sleep it required. Acceptance versus desire, Jen thought, working on fitting the ideas together in her head, until she grew incredibly drowsy from the effort.
A few hours later, Jen was awakened by the sound of loud, laughing voices and the front door crashing open. Jen listened. One of the voices belonged to Becky. Jen couldn’t make out exactly what Becky was saying, but she was sure that Becky was still drunk. She was swearing loudly between every sentence, and she normally never swore, plus she was using the crass and reckless tone that Jen had usually only heard from her very late at night at a party or club.
The voices grew louder and the conversation more distinct as Becky and her friend moved down the hallway towards Jen’s room. The other voice didn’t sound like Chase. Jen wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman; it moved from a high to low pitch, never hitting an extreme that would identify the speaker’s gender.
“Shut the fuck up,” Becky yelled loudly. “You’ll wake her up.”
“Girlfriend,” the other voice drawled, equally loudly, “it’s you making all the noise.”
Who has Becky brought home, Jen wondered. And what happened to Chase?
When the pair had almost reached Jen’s door, their footsteps stopped, and they began to whisper loudly. Jen could tell they were debating whether to wake her up. She hoped that she knew this other person with Becky; she didn’t want a stranger bursting in and seeing her in her flimsy nightshirt, most likely with smeared makeup and her hair sticking out at funny angles.
“Becky,” she called, “I’m awake.” Afraid this would be interpreted as an invitation, she added, more loudly, “Don’t come in.”
But Becky evidently didn’t hear her, because at that moment the door burst open and she rushed into the room, calling, “Jen, wake up, we’re back!”
“See, and you were so worried,” said the other person, entering behind Becky. Jen was startled to see that it was Chase. He was wearing the same button-up shirt and black leather jacket from last night. But something looked different about him. And why was his voice different? She blinked her eyes, trying to focus them better so she could see him all the way across the large room; they were still blurry from having just woken up, and from the alcohol she could now feel beginning to seep its way out of her body via her sweat glands and forehead muscles. Not wanting him to see her looking like a mess, she glanced at her reflection in the mirror on the bedside table. She ran her hands quickly over her hair, flattening it.
When she looked up again, Chase had his arm around Becky and the two of them were looking expectantly at Jen. She suddenly realized what was different about Chase’s appearance: he was wearing eye makeup. As Jen’s vision sharpened, she became quite certain that Chase was modeling the dark, smudged eyeliner, shadow, and mascara that Becky normally wore for a night on the town. Becky had spent a week learning how to apply this combination. She had done it on Jen a couple of times, but the dark eyes over the hollow cheeks made her look like a prisoner of war, which Becky said was how it was supposed to look, but Jen thought it was grotesque. This look was all the rage in fashion magazines, so much so that it had a special name.
“The smoky eye,” said Jen, pointing at Chase.
Becky smiled sheepishly, looking proud and embarrassed at the same time. Her own makeup was faded and worn away, although Jen could see the sparkly gray remnants on the tops of her cheeks.
“He wanted me to do it,” Becky said. Chase turned and threw a light punch at her arm. “Shut up!” he said. Then, looking back at Jen, he added, “No, she’s right, I asked her to.”
“Where were you?” Becky asked accusingly. “I turned around and you and Skipper had disappeared.”
“Yeah, where is he?” Chase asked, glancing around the room as though Skipper might be on the bookshelf or under the dresser.
“I dunno,” said Jen, mumbling as horribly as Skipper had just hours before.
“See,” said Chase to Becky, “I told you she wouldn’t go home with him.”
“Well then, what happened?” asked Becky, to Chase rather than to Jen.
Jen interrupted them hastily. “Where have you guys been?” she asked, trying to deflect Becky’s accusing manner back towards her.
Becky’s business-like manner changed immediately, as she got excited to tell the story. She regained the brazen, curse-laden tone she had been using when she first entered the house. “Well, we left the Game at fucking midnight, and we went to Spanky’s.”
“You went to West Hollywood?” Jen asked, incredulously. She had only been to Spanky’s once, years ago, with one of her hairdressers, and had found it fun but incredibly trashy; it was the gay dance club with the cheapest cover charge and least attractive or famous clientele. Why would they go there?
“Oh,” said Jen aloud, as everything suddenly made sense. She clapped her hand over her mouth, realizing too late that this was horribly rude.
“Yeah, I’m a fag,” said Chase, in a sing-songy voice that implied he was ironically vocalizing Jen’s own thoughts.
“I, um” said Jen, embarrassed. She wouldn’t have used that word. She felt annoyed that Chase would imply she would be shocked by this news. Why should it matter? It didn’t. She wasn’t sure what response would properly convey her utter nonchalance. “I knew that already,” she said finally.
“Oh, did Bradley tell you?” asked Chase anxiously. “I mean, I never told him, but I always thought there was a kind of energy between us.”
Now it was Becky who punched Chase, but more subtly, knocking his thigh with the side of her already lowered fist.
“Sorry!” Chase exclaimed. “I was probably making it up, anyway.”
“So,” said Jen, trying to get back to Becky’s story before she had time to think about what Chase had said. “You were at Spanky’s all night?” She looked over at the Zen clock. The twigs were pointing at ten and six.
“No,” said Becky. “They close at four. So we walked around until six when Dino’s Diner opened, and then we had breakfast.”
“And where have you been since then?” Jen asked.
“We were still too drunk to drive,” said Chase. “So we slept in the car.”
Jen couldn’t quite imagine how someone as enormous as Chase could sleep in Becky’s miniature car. She wondered if he curled up in the backseat or just stayed in front.
“So were you guys dancing until four?” she asked.
“We danced a lot,” said Becky.
“But mostly we just talked,” Chase chimed in, as though finishing Becky’s sentence for her. “We have so much in common.”
“Yeah,” said Becky, “We totally have the same taste in guys.”
“Toxic pseudo-intellectuals,” Chase said. Jen wasn’t sure who exactly this category was supposed to encompass, but Skipper seemed to fit right in.
“With commitment issues,” Becky added.
“Oh, totally,” exclaimed Chase happily.
Jen was beginning to feel a little jealous; Becky was her best friend, but they never acted in this old-married-couple fashion. Of course, she rationalized, she wouldn’t want Becky to act in this flippant manner around her; it would make her a terrible personal assistant.
As though sensing that she might feel excluded, Chase sat down on the edge of Jen’s bed and looked seriously at her. “Sweetie, Becky’s been telling me all about your breakup,” he said. Jen shot Becky a nasty look over Chase’s shoulder; Becky shrugged and mouthed the word “sorry.”
“You’ve got to forget the guy,” Chase continued. “Let me tell you, I’ve been there. You can’t let him make your life miserable for one more day. You’ve gotta sleep with someone else; it’s the only thing that works.”
Jen felt highly annoyed with this advice, coming from Becky’s new Groundbreakers buddy.
“Becky told me that wouldn’t work,” said Jen. “She said it was ‘mind-havoc.’”
“It is,” said Becky, insistently. Her tone indicated that she and Chase had debated the issue at length already, probably at Spanky’s over tequila sunrises.
“Well, it is if you’re trying to make Bradley jealous,” said Chase. “That’s an insincere motive; you’re doing something to affect someone else, not because you want to. You need to want it.”
“But I don’t want to sleep with someone else,” said Jen. She felt a little odd saying it under the current circumstances, but it was true, nevertheless; now more than ever, she did not want to sleep with anybody. Ever again. As far as she was concerned, she could take her vow of celibacy right this very minute.
“Why not?” said Chase. “What are you afraid of?” He paused for a moment. “God, you women are so crazy! You can have sex with anyone but you don’t want to. What’s the worst thing that’ll happen? You take someone home with you, have some fun, and if you don’t like him you never have to see him again.”
“You take a nice guy home from the bar,” Becky interrupted, in a contradictory tone, “and he ties you up, throws you in his trunk, and drives his car into the river.”
“Jesus, Beck,” said Chase, “why do you have to be so morbid?”
“You meet an interesting, well-spoken guy,” Jen said, while Becky and Chase were still arguing. “You bring him home with you. The next day, he is unable to construct a complete sentence.”
They both fell silent and turned to look at her.
“Oh, honey,” Chase exclaimed, a look of intense sympathy growing on his face. “You slept with Skipper?” The way he said it, it definitely sounded like a serious mistake.
“What’s wrong with him?” Becky asked anxiously.
“Nothing!” Chase exclaimed, in an overly-chipper voice. “Nothing’s wrong with him. It’s great.”
“So you did sleep with him?” Becky asked Jen, as though hoping that they had misunderstood. Jen nodded.
Becky turned angrily to Chase. “Why did you leave him with her?” Becky asked accusingly.
Chase looked indignant. “I’m not her keeper,” he said, his tone implying that it was Becky who was indeed Jen’s keeper.
“Personal assistant,” Becky snapped back. Jen decided she needed to stop this argument; it was making her even more depressed than she had been before they showed up.
“It’s okay. I’m fine,” she said to Becky.
“Of course you’re fine. You’re great,” said Chase encouragingly. He paused, looking a little unsure of what other positive comment he could make. “Anyway, it’s a start,” he said finally. He rose from the bed and gave Jen a little pat on the arm on his way to the bathroom, which adjoined Jen’s room. He disappeared behind the dividing wall that led to the vanity area and then the toilet, but he didn’t close the door. Jen could hear the loud sound of him urinating.
“Is there some problem with Skipper?” Becky yelled at Chase, across the bathroom wall. Based on Chase’s initial reaction, Jen felt suddenly worried that Skipper’s undiplomatic departure might be the least of her problems.
Chase came around the corner, zipping up his pants. Becky rose and took her turn to head into the bathroom.
“Oh, no,” said Chase, clearly lying to Becky as she passed him. His tone had become as evasive as it had been yesterday when Jen and Becky had first asked about Skipper’s job. “He’s,” Chase paused, looking for the right word, “unusual, in number of ways, but there’s nothing wrong with him,” he said to Jen.
Jen suddenly worried that everything Skipper told her last night had been a lie, a trap devised to entice her into bed and then make her look like an idiot for believing him. “Has Skipper ever told you he was a Buddhist?” Jen asked Chase.
“Oh yeah, totally,” said Chase. “I am, too. We first met at the ashram.”
“Ashrams are Hindu,” Becky called out angrily through the bathroom wall. Becky had lived in an ashram for two years while she did her yoga teacher training, so she should know. Jen remembered tiptoeing through it the one time she visited, scared she would mess up someone’s meditation and they’d have to start all over.
“Not this one,” Chase yelled back.
He sat down on the bed and put his hand on top of Jen’s, a gesture that reminded her of how Skipper had done the same thing last night. In a voice too quiet for Becky to hear in the bathroom, he said, “Whatever Skipper said to you about Zen…” He trailed off for a moment, looking toward the bathroom.
“Yeah?” asked Jen.
“You should listen to him,” said Chase, turning back so that his head was bowed towards hers and speaking in a low tone that wasn’t quite a whisper. “He may be messed up about a lot of stuff, but whatever that guy says about Buddhism…” He stopped again, as though his sentence were so powerful that it didn’t need an ending.
“What?” asked Jen impatiently.
“He knows his shit,” said Chase. “Whatever else you hear about him.”
Becky came out of the bathroom just then, smiling approvingly at Chase and Jen sitting on the bed together, evidently happy that they were getting along so well.
After Becky and Chase had retired to Becky’s suite to take a long nap, Jen lay in her bed, not wanting to get up and start her day despite the fact that her Zen clock told her it was almost noon. Chase’s words about Skipper were troubling her. What did he mean, “Whatever else you hear about him?” What fresh horrors could she possibly uncover about this drug-dealing, womanizing, bullshit-spewing, skinny, funny-looking…
Suddenly another thought interrupted her own mental list of insults. It was something from yesterday— an unsolved puzzle, or something that she had forgotten to do. What was it? In her mind, she traced her steps from the tennis court to the café, to the gift shop.
That was it. Michigan. The magazine had said she was moving to Michigan. Why would it say that? She had never been to Michigan, didn’t know anybody from there, had no plans to leave L.A. This inaccuracy seemed beyond even the scope of the tabloids, whose lies usually had some sort of basis in reality, however remote.
Jen vowed that as soon as she worked up the energy to get out of bed, which would be soon, definitely within the next two hours, she would get to the bottom of the Michigan rumor.
Chapter 6:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/05/6-for-your-pruning.html
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
4. Resistance without Fighting
“Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” –Sun Tzu
Zen Buddhism?
Jen burst out laughing. She waited for Skipper to laugh, too, but his face was still serious. She stopped laughing and looked at him expectantly; any second now he would crack and start laughing himself. But he stared back at her, unflinching, holding his ground. His dark eyes were looking very deep and pretty now, and arrogant, challenging her to defy him. Suddenly she felt a little embarrassed for laughing.
“You don’t seem like a Buddhist,” she said.
“What do Buddhists seem like?” he replied.
Jen didn’t know much at all about Buddhism, but what she did know didn’t seem to match her image of Skipper pacing the tennis court in flamingo shorts, yelling angrily into his cell phone. She could remember exactly three acquaintances who had claimed to be Buddhists, all friends of Becky’s. While they had some small differences from one another, their common traits included vegetarianism, strong and judgmental views about the environment, flowy hemp clothing, and a dislike of conflict except when they themselves started it.
“Hippies,” Jen said.
Skipper scoffed. “You’ve been in Hollywood too long,” he said. “There are eighty million Buddhists in Japan. Do you think they’re all hippies?”
Jen tried to think. Skipper sounded as though she were being unreasonable, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that this ecstasy salesman or whatever he was would suddenly declare his devotion to some obsolete Asian religion. She was quite sure that her own argument made sense, and that his did not. Despite Skipper’s stubbornness, she resolved not to give in, to remain confident in her own beliefs and perceptions.
“Aren’t Buddhists minimalists?” she asked, proud that she could find words for her thoughts. “Wouldn’t they consider it excessive to sell drugs, or organize raves?”
“Parties,” Skipper said. “They’re not really raves.”
“There’s no difference,” said Jen, her brazenness alerting her to how drunk she was becoming. Normally she did not argue like this, especially with men, who always seemed to care a lot more about winning than she did.
“Can you prove to me that there is no difference?” Skipper asked.
“What?” said Jen. She couldn’t understand this question. She wondered whether Skipper was high right now. Probably not, she decided; he was just being contradictory for no good reason, in an effort to seem profound. She tried to stay calm so that Skipper wouldn’t get to enjoy her frustration.
“I say that a rave and a party are not the same thing,” he continued. “Could you prove me wrong?”
Jen felt her annoyance growing, but said in a controlled, even voice, “I don’t understand the question.”
“That’s because it doesn’t make sense,” Skipper said.
Jen was about to argue with him when she heard what he had said.
“What are you talking about?” she snapped, her poker face lost.
“What I said didn’t make sense,” Skipper repeated. “That’s Zen. It transcends logical understanding.”
“How can it be your philosophy if it doesn’t make sense?” Jen asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question when she said it. But in fact she realized she wanted to know the answer.
“Zen Buddhism is all about paradoxes,” Skipper said, “about embracing contradiction.”
“Like being a hippy rave organizer?” Jen said, regretting her petty sarcasm as Skipper shot her a disapproving look. I don’t care what he thinks, she told herself, but she knew she was lying.
“I embrace the natural flow of life, but I interfere with it through giving people the means to alter their sensory environment,” Skipper said. “That’s the central paradox of human life: acceptance versus desire.”
Jen thought about this for a moment. She of course knew what both “acceptance” and “desire” meant, but they seemed so abstract in this context that she could not think of an example. She must have looked puzzled, because Skipper stopped speaking and was silent for a moment, as though thinking deeply.
“You do yoga?” Skipper asked. Jen nodded, wondering how he knew, but perhaps it was an easy guess.
“Yeah,” she said.
“So you believe your yoga teacher when she tells you that you are complete and fulfilled right now, with no need for change.”
Jen wondered if Skipper knew that her yoga teacher was sitting twenty-five feet away, drinking tequila shots with Chase. Jen wasn’t sure that Becky had ever explicitly told her, or even the class, that they were fine exactly the way they were. Becky certainly spent enough time trying to change the way she was, to improve herself. Still, Jen had definitely heard yoga teachers say this sort of thing. These were the teachers whose classes she did not usually return to.
“I guess,” Jen said, for the sake of hearing where this was going.
“But you have desires you feel compelled to act upon. And even needs that you must act upon or you won’t survive. So how can you reasonably sit there and listen to someone tell you that you are complete and must renounce your desires? Why don’t you tell your teacher that she’s full of crap?”
Jen laughed, not because this was funny but because she had so often wanted to tell her yoga teachers that they were full of crap. All except Becky.
“It’s because you believe two contradictory things at once,” Skipper said. “You believe that you are satisfied and fulfilled. But you can’t rid yourself of desire.”
Jen knew the answer to this contradiction, and she recited it dutifully. “You can embrace the needs and desires without feeling you have to act on them,” she said. As she heard her own words she felt horribly disingenuous, realizing that these were not her own words, but an empty parroting of something she had been taught but had not learned. In fact, it seemed Skipper was correct again. She herself certainly couldn’t embrace her desires without wanting them fulfilled. Her desires usually hurt her until she could not ignore them any more; then she would go in desperate, irrational search for an outfit or a man or a candy bar.
“I don’t think you can,” said Skipper, and Jen was unsure whether he meant “you” in the general or specific sense. “You have needs. And you have desires. But you are also fine and complete as you are. And so your desires are a fine and natural part of yourself, and you should accept them. But you cannot; you must renounce them or act on them, and either way that is change, not acceptance.”
Jen still wasn’t sure she understood. This was all so knotty and convoluted, and Jen was feeling more than a little drunk now. She turned her head to make sure that Becky and Chase were still sitting at the bar. She could just see the tops of their heads over the growing crowd. The bar had filled up since the four of them had arrived; it must have been over an hour ago. A baseball game was playing on the large screen behind the bar. From the sickly sweet smell, Jen knew that someone was smoking a cigar; she wondered if it was Chase.
Suddenly Jen felt something on her hand. She turned back, and saw that Skipper had laid his hand on top of hers on the table, as though to pull her back to the conversation, as though he would not let her get away from these complicated ideas so easily. Jen turned back to him, smiling apologetically for her rudeness, yet hoping he would get the clue. She was tired; she was drunk. If this was his way of hitting on her, couldn’t he just make his move and get it over with? But Skipper just kept talking.
“You’re waiting for your divorce papers to go through,” said Skipper. It wasn’t a question but a statement. Jen found this rather presumptuous for someone she had only met this afternoon, and whom she had not discussed her marriage with. Still, there was no sense in denying it, so she nodded.
“This is the worst time in your life,” Skipper said. “You are totally miserable.” Jen nodded again.
Skipper stood up from his chair. Jen wondered if he were about to leave in the middle of their conversation. Such odd behavior certainly wouldn’t be out of line with the way he’d been talking. Still, she found herself hoping she was wrong, that he would stay.
Instead of leaving, however, Skipper circled the table once, slowly. Returning to his chair, he sat down and turned back to face Jen. She felt happy he had stayed. She even returned his gaze with a smile, despite his totally bizarre and inappropriate behavior.
“How are you doing right now?” Skipper asked her.
“I’m good,” Jen said.
“How good?” Skipper asked.
“Very good,” Jen responded, wondering why he was suddenly so concerned with her well-being. “Excellent.”
“Are you sure?” Skipper asked her. What was he getting at?
“I’m positive,” Jen said, and reflecting for a moment, she recognized that she was definitely telling the truth.
“How can you be excellent and miserable at the same time?” Skipper asked her. “Did you stop being miserable while I was walking around the table?”
Jen couldn’t stop herself from laughing, despite her many years of training at keeping a straight face.
“That’s what I believe in,” said Skipper. “Contradictions.”
“Hmm,” said Jen, noticing that she suddenly felt very relaxed and comfortable sitting here with Skipper, more comfortable than she had felt with a man in years, even her husband.
“You won’t be at peace until you embrace the contradictions in your life,” Skipper said, quietly.
Thinking about it now, Jen’s life seemed to be brimming with contradictions. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that every aspect of her life was rife with paradoxes: acting, eating, yoga, Bradley, Becky...
“It’s all contradictions,” she said, her voice taking on some of Skipper’s intensity. “None of it makes any sense.”
“That’s because everything in your life is extreme,” said Skipper. “Extremes invite opposites.”
“What do you know about my life?” Jen asked, but more out of habit than actual annoyance. She felt compliant now, as though the rhythmic beat of the dance music in the bar had hypnotized her.
“Everyone knows everything about your life,” Skipper said.
“No one knows anything about it,” Jen responded.
“You’re an artist,” Skipper said.
“I’m a hack,” Jen said.
“You’re surrounded by people,” Skipper said.
“I’m very lonely,” Jen said.
“Let me come home with you,” said Skipper, and Jen nodded.
They snuck out together like thieves through the back door of the bar, without even saying goodbye to Becky and Chase.
Chapter 5:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-certain-enemy.html
Zen Buddhism?
Jen burst out laughing. She waited for Skipper to laugh, too, but his face was still serious. She stopped laughing and looked at him expectantly; any second now he would crack and start laughing himself. But he stared back at her, unflinching, holding his ground. His dark eyes were looking very deep and pretty now, and arrogant, challenging her to defy him. Suddenly she felt a little embarrassed for laughing.
“You don’t seem like a Buddhist,” she said.
“What do Buddhists seem like?” he replied.
Jen didn’t know much at all about Buddhism, but what she did know didn’t seem to match her image of Skipper pacing the tennis court in flamingo shorts, yelling angrily into his cell phone. She could remember exactly three acquaintances who had claimed to be Buddhists, all friends of Becky’s. While they had some small differences from one another, their common traits included vegetarianism, strong and judgmental views about the environment, flowy hemp clothing, and a dislike of conflict except when they themselves started it.
“Hippies,” Jen said.
Skipper scoffed. “You’ve been in Hollywood too long,” he said. “There are eighty million Buddhists in Japan. Do you think they’re all hippies?”
Jen tried to think. Skipper sounded as though she were being unreasonable, as though it were the most natural thing in the world that this ecstasy salesman or whatever he was would suddenly declare his devotion to some obsolete Asian religion. She was quite sure that her own argument made sense, and that his did not. Despite Skipper’s stubbornness, she resolved not to give in, to remain confident in her own beliefs and perceptions.
“Aren’t Buddhists minimalists?” she asked, proud that she could find words for her thoughts. “Wouldn’t they consider it excessive to sell drugs, or organize raves?”
“Parties,” Skipper said. “They’re not really raves.”
“There’s no difference,” said Jen, her brazenness alerting her to how drunk she was becoming. Normally she did not argue like this, especially with men, who always seemed to care a lot more about winning than she did.
“Can you prove to me that there is no difference?” Skipper asked.
“What?” said Jen. She couldn’t understand this question. She wondered whether Skipper was high right now. Probably not, she decided; he was just being contradictory for no good reason, in an effort to seem profound. She tried to stay calm so that Skipper wouldn’t get to enjoy her frustration.
“I say that a rave and a party are not the same thing,” he continued. “Could you prove me wrong?”
Jen felt her annoyance growing, but said in a controlled, even voice, “I don’t understand the question.”
“That’s because it doesn’t make sense,” Skipper said.
Jen was about to argue with him when she heard what he had said.
“What are you talking about?” she snapped, her poker face lost.
“What I said didn’t make sense,” Skipper repeated. “That’s Zen. It transcends logical understanding.”
“How can it be your philosophy if it doesn’t make sense?” Jen asked. It sounded like a rhetorical question when she said it. But in fact she realized she wanted to know the answer.
“Zen Buddhism is all about paradoxes,” Skipper said, “about embracing contradiction.”
“Like being a hippy rave organizer?” Jen said, regretting her petty sarcasm as Skipper shot her a disapproving look. I don’t care what he thinks, she told herself, but she knew she was lying.
“I embrace the natural flow of life, but I interfere with it through giving people the means to alter their sensory environment,” Skipper said. “That’s the central paradox of human life: acceptance versus desire.”
Jen thought about this for a moment. She of course knew what both “acceptance” and “desire” meant, but they seemed so abstract in this context that she could not think of an example. She must have looked puzzled, because Skipper stopped speaking and was silent for a moment, as though thinking deeply.
“You do yoga?” Skipper asked. Jen nodded, wondering how he knew, but perhaps it was an easy guess.
“Yeah,” she said.
“So you believe your yoga teacher when she tells you that you are complete and fulfilled right now, with no need for change.”
Jen wondered if Skipper knew that her yoga teacher was sitting twenty-five feet away, drinking tequila shots with Chase. Jen wasn’t sure that Becky had ever explicitly told her, or even the class, that they were fine exactly the way they were. Becky certainly spent enough time trying to change the way she was, to improve herself. Still, Jen had definitely heard yoga teachers say this sort of thing. These were the teachers whose classes she did not usually return to.
“I guess,” Jen said, for the sake of hearing where this was going.
“But you have desires you feel compelled to act upon. And even needs that you must act upon or you won’t survive. So how can you reasonably sit there and listen to someone tell you that you are complete and must renounce your desires? Why don’t you tell your teacher that she’s full of crap?”
Jen laughed, not because this was funny but because she had so often wanted to tell her yoga teachers that they were full of crap. All except Becky.
“It’s because you believe two contradictory things at once,” Skipper said. “You believe that you are satisfied and fulfilled. But you can’t rid yourself of desire.”
Jen knew the answer to this contradiction, and she recited it dutifully. “You can embrace the needs and desires without feeling you have to act on them,” she said. As she heard her own words she felt horribly disingenuous, realizing that these were not her own words, but an empty parroting of something she had been taught but had not learned. In fact, it seemed Skipper was correct again. She herself certainly couldn’t embrace her desires without wanting them fulfilled. Her desires usually hurt her until she could not ignore them any more; then she would go in desperate, irrational search for an outfit or a man or a candy bar.
“I don’t think you can,” said Skipper, and Jen was unsure whether he meant “you” in the general or specific sense. “You have needs. And you have desires. But you are also fine and complete as you are. And so your desires are a fine and natural part of yourself, and you should accept them. But you cannot; you must renounce them or act on them, and either way that is change, not acceptance.”
Jen still wasn’t sure she understood. This was all so knotty and convoluted, and Jen was feeling more than a little drunk now. She turned her head to make sure that Becky and Chase were still sitting at the bar. She could just see the tops of their heads over the growing crowd. The bar had filled up since the four of them had arrived; it must have been over an hour ago. A baseball game was playing on the large screen behind the bar. From the sickly sweet smell, Jen knew that someone was smoking a cigar; she wondered if it was Chase.
Suddenly Jen felt something on her hand. She turned back, and saw that Skipper had laid his hand on top of hers on the table, as though to pull her back to the conversation, as though he would not let her get away from these complicated ideas so easily. Jen turned back to him, smiling apologetically for her rudeness, yet hoping he would get the clue. She was tired; she was drunk. If this was his way of hitting on her, couldn’t he just make his move and get it over with? But Skipper just kept talking.
“You’re waiting for your divorce papers to go through,” said Skipper. It wasn’t a question but a statement. Jen found this rather presumptuous for someone she had only met this afternoon, and whom she had not discussed her marriage with. Still, there was no sense in denying it, so she nodded.
“This is the worst time in your life,” Skipper said. “You are totally miserable.” Jen nodded again.
Skipper stood up from his chair. Jen wondered if he were about to leave in the middle of their conversation. Such odd behavior certainly wouldn’t be out of line with the way he’d been talking. Still, she found herself hoping she was wrong, that he would stay.
Instead of leaving, however, Skipper circled the table once, slowly. Returning to his chair, he sat down and turned back to face Jen. She felt happy he had stayed. She even returned his gaze with a smile, despite his totally bizarre and inappropriate behavior.
“How are you doing right now?” Skipper asked her.
“I’m good,” Jen said.
“How good?” Skipper asked.
“Very good,” Jen responded, wondering why he was suddenly so concerned with her well-being. “Excellent.”
“Are you sure?” Skipper asked her. What was he getting at?
“I’m positive,” Jen said, and reflecting for a moment, she recognized that she was definitely telling the truth.
“How can you be excellent and miserable at the same time?” Skipper asked her. “Did you stop being miserable while I was walking around the table?”
Jen couldn’t stop herself from laughing, despite her many years of training at keeping a straight face.
“That’s what I believe in,” said Skipper. “Contradictions.”
“Hmm,” said Jen, noticing that she suddenly felt very relaxed and comfortable sitting here with Skipper, more comfortable than she had felt with a man in years, even her husband.
“You won’t be at peace until you embrace the contradictions in your life,” Skipper said, quietly.
Thinking about it now, Jen’s life seemed to be brimming with contradictions. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she realized that every aspect of her life was rife with paradoxes: acting, eating, yoga, Bradley, Becky...
“It’s all contradictions,” she said, her voice taking on some of Skipper’s intensity. “None of it makes any sense.”
“That’s because everything in your life is extreme,” said Skipper. “Extremes invite opposites.”
“What do you know about my life?” Jen asked, but more out of habit than actual annoyance. She felt compliant now, as though the rhythmic beat of the dance music in the bar had hypnotized her.
“Everyone knows everything about your life,” Skipper said.
“No one knows anything about it,” Jen responded.
“You’re an artist,” Skipper said.
“I’m a hack,” Jen said.
“You’re surrounded by people,” Skipper said.
“I’m very lonely,” Jen said.
“Let me come home with you,” said Skipper, and Jen nodded.
They snuck out together like thieves through the back door of the bar, without even saying goodbye to Becky and Chase.
Chapter 5:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/5-certain-enemy.html
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
3. The death of intelligence
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” --Robert Anton Wilson
Even before Jen and Becky got back to the table, they could tell Chase and Skipper were arguing. Skipper was gesturing energetically with his hands, looking much the same as he had on his cell phone except now his mouth was full of pizza. Chase’s muscular forearms were spread across the table in the studied manner of an underworld negotiator making it clear he meant business.
“Chaos, chaos,” Skipper was saying in a disgusted voice as Jen pulled out her chair to sit down. “Why do you hate chaos so much?” They’re arguing about Groundbreakers, Jen thought, and Skipper’s against it. She tallied one point in Skipper’s favor.
“It’s disorganized,” said Chase.
“Hey,” said Becky abruptly, in an overly loud attempt to distract them from their argument. The waiter, who was setting little pink jars with lit votive candles in them on each table, started and blew one out accidentally. Embarrassed, Becky lowered her voice a bit. “You ate all the pizza!” she said in a quieter but still accusing voice. She stood next to the table, surveying it, her hands folded over her slim hips.
Jen looked at the table. The pizza tray had one full slice left on it, plus a number of discarded crusts in a pile. Next to it was Jen’s salad, barely touched, and her gin and tonic, half-drunk and watery with melted ice.
“Skipper ate it all,” Chase said. “He’s got no manners.” Skipper shrugged indifferently. He was wiping his face and hands with a pink cloth napkin.
“Besides,” Chase said, “we saved you a piece. How much were you planning to eat, anyway?” He looked up at Becky. Jen waited for Becky’s retort—after all, Becky had no reservations about eating, and she stayed thin no matter what. But Becky just looked embarrassed and sat down.
Crap, she’s into him, Jen thought. In the fifteen or so years she had known Becky, Jen had never seen her acquiesce so readily to anybody. I hope they’re not falling in love, she thought with a shudder. She imagined having to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with this guy, the lazy Sunday mornings when he would cook breakfast with Becky in his-and-her bathrobes, his parents visiting the house. It was all too gruesome to bear.
These thoughts about love reminded Jen of what she was supposed to be doing. Her plan had gone horribly wrong, and now she was most likely stuck with this frustrating crew for the rest of the night. She looked at Skipper and wondered seriously if she could substitute him for Chase in her plan. She gave some thought to his credentials for the job of making Bradley jealous, compiling a brief checklist of what she knew about him. He worked in some type of important business; that was good. She wondered what kind; she would need to find that out. He wasn’t famous; that seemed like a negative, but could actually work in her favor; he would be mysterious. He lived in San Francisco, not Los Angeles; that made him exotic. He knew Chase from “events” of some kind; that would mean Bradley knew him, too, since he and Chase were party friends. He wasn’t as good looking as Chase; but based on his brief comments about Groundbreakers, he seemed smarter. He might do, Jen speculated.
Chase and Skipper argued a while more while Becky surreptitiously polished off her slice of pizza and most of Jen’s salad. Soon after Jen started on her second gin and tonic, Chase suggested that they continue their conversation at a trendy little sports bar down the road. Jen knew that she had to go to support Becky, but she wasn’t sure yet how she felt about being on a de facto double date with Skipper. She had been trying to follow his argument with Chase to see if she could pick up any clues about his job, how much money he made, or what kind of house he lived in, but the tedious conversation took a lot of energy to pay attention to, and her head was getting woozy from the gin. Her thoughts kept wandering to Bradley and the new girlfriend. Jen had never met her, but she knew a lot about her, or at least about what she looked like. She was young, too young to be worrying about things like marriage and children and settling down. Not as skinny as Jen. But with a larger chest and sluttier clothes, always wearing things like tiny shorts and shaky stiletto heels. She can get away with that at her age, Jen thought. How old was she, anyway, twenty-five?
Jen was getting deeply depressed. Refocus your attention, she thought. She looked around for something to direct it to. There were Chase and Skipper one-upping each other in a very masculine attempt at cleverness. And there was Becky watching them quietly, picking at Jen’s salad and nodding her head when Chase made a point. And there was her gin and tonic, looking sparkly and festive with its green lime twist. Jen decided to focus on that.
“Look how pretty my drink is,” she said cheerfully, pointing at it. Skipper and Chase stopped their argument mid-sentence and turned to stare at her. Even Becky looked startled.
That must have been a weird thing to say, Jen thought. She must be drunk. It made sense; except for a few bites of salad, she hadn’t eaten solid food all day.
“Let’s take this conversation to the Game” Chase said, rising from the table. For a moment, Jen couldn’t figure out what this statement meant. Then she remembered that it was the name of the bar Chase had suggested earlier.
Chase and Skipper went off to shower and change while Becky and Jen sat quietly by the pool, finishing their drinks and dwelling separately and silently on their preoccupied thoughts. Then the four of them drove two cars a mile down the road, Chase and Skipper leading the way in a vehicle designed to look like an armored tank, Becky and Jen following in Becky’s car, which was as tiny as Chase's was large, but equally trendy and expensive.
The Game wasn’t crowded yet, and Becky and Chase found seats at the bar, where they resumed their earlier conversation about their individual self-actualization plans, huddled together with all the manic intensity of horny teenagers. Jen and Skipper left them alone, carrying their drinks to a quiet table in the far corner of the bar. Jen had ordered a third gin and tonic and a bottle of water to help her sober up a little. Skipper was drinking something pink and frothy. He had changed into a pair of skinny dark pants and a yellow cowboy shirt.
They sipped their drinks quietly. Jen wanted to find out more about Skipper’s job, but she knew asking him would sound like the dullest type of small-talk. But I really want to know, she thought to herself, so I can decide if I want to sleep with you. If she could just say it like that, it wouldn’t sound so boring.
“So, Chase told us you work in business,” Jen said, giving up on any type of inventive delivery.
“Doesn’t everyone work in business?” Skipper asked. Jen laughed, but Skipper just sat there looking somberly at his ridiculous fruity drink.
“Well, then, what kind of business?” she asked.
Skipper shrugged evasively. “I buy and sell things,” he said.
This guy was frustrating. Jen added a tally mark to her “cons” list.
“And you organize some kind of events?” she tried again.
Skipper laughed. “Is that what Chase said?” Jen nodded, annoyed. She found it remarkable that just an hour before, this taciturn man had been waving his arms around in an animated debate with Chase. She couldn’t get more than five syllables out of him at a time.
“Well, do you?” Jen asked impatiently.
Her obvious annoyance seemed to loosen Skipper up; he suddenly looked much more engaged.
“Yeah, I organize parties,” he said, smiling now.
“Like weddings?” Jen asked. There were a lot of kinds of parties.
Skipper laughed again. “No, like in warehouses, with electronic music.”
He organizes raves, Jen thought. She thought of the few she had been to with Becky years ago. The music made her want to snap somebody’s glowstick in two and gouge both her eardrums out with the pieces. That was it, then; this guy was a definite “no.”
It dawned on her suddenly what kind of “business” Skipper must be involved in.
“So when you say you buy and sell things,” she said, “you mean illegal things.”
Skipper laughed heartily, as though he were really enjoying himself. Jen was pretty sure that the more irritated she sounded, the happier Skipper became. As though trying to annoy her further to maximize his pleasure, he didn’t answer her question but instead changed the subject.
“I guess I don’t need to ask what you do,” Skipper said with a slight leer. “You’re famous.”
“I suppose,” said Jen, embarrassed. She never liked talking about her job, especially with regular people, who would only think she was spoiled if she complained about how stressful it was to have her every move watched. She imagined which of the regular questions Skipper would ask next: Which film was her favorite? What was it like working with Famous Actor X or Famous Director Y? Or the worst, especially at times like now when she didn’t know the answer: What would her next project be?
But Skipper’s question was in fact totally unexpected. “What is your philosophy of acting?” he asked her.
Jen was struck silent. In all of her years in Hollywood, she had never been asked this question, and she didn’t have the faintest idea how to answer it. Normally she would come up with a joke to dismiss such an oddball question. But for some reason that she couldn’t quite identify, she very much wanted to provide an acceptable answer. Her mind began to race as she tried to think of a philosophy of acting, any philosophy of acting. She knew she had read articles on theories of acting in college, before she dropped out. But she couldn’t remember what they said. She had done that exercise where you pretended to be a chair, but she couldn’t recall what it was supposed to mean. As Skipper looked expectantly across the table, Jen began to have the uncanny memory of being at a job interview, uncanny because she had never in her life actually interviewed for a job, but had only pretended to do so a number of times in movies.
“I don’t really have a philosophy,” she said finally, giving up. “I usually just go by instinct.”
“That’s too bad,” Skipper said.
His smugness made Jen indignant. “What’s wrong with following your instinct?” she asked.
“It’s always good to be conscious of your own philosophy,” Skipper said. He picked up his frothy drink and sipped it loudly through a long, clear straw, looking at Jen over the top of the glass.
Jen felt that this conversation was like a game of tennis, and that she was losing. She tried to lob his serve back at him.
“Don’t you think living by a philosophy is a little,” Jen searched for the proper word, a word her last acting teacher had always used to describe an exaggerated performance, but it wouldn’t come to her. She settled for the best approximation she could think of, “fake?” As she spoke, she could hear her words slurring, the consonants imprecise and uncertain, hurting whatever credibility she was trying to salvage in this game.
“You think it’s affected?” Skipper asked, smirking a little. Damn, that was the word! Advantage Skipper, she thought.
“Maybe,” she replied, sipping on her gin and tonic to hide her embarrassment. She tried to maker her mind a blank so he wouldn’t read her thoughts any further.
Skipper leaned in closer over the table and looked intently at her. His eyes, which she hadn’t noticed before, looked strikingly dark and deep in the dim bar lighting.
“Everybody lives by a philosophy,” he said. “It’s just that most people don’t pay attention to what it is. They go through life making decisions based on a set of unexamined principles.”
Jen thought about this for a moment, trying to figure out whether it applied to her.
“I believe that the only way to take responsibility of your life is to commit yourself to a single, coherent philosophy,” he continued.
“So what philosophy do you live your life by?” Jen asked.
Skipper looked at her very seriously.
“Zen Buddhism,” he said.
Chapter 4:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/iv-resistance-without-fighting.html
Even before Jen and Becky got back to the table, they could tell Chase and Skipper were arguing. Skipper was gesturing energetically with his hands, looking much the same as he had on his cell phone except now his mouth was full of pizza. Chase’s muscular forearms were spread across the table in the studied manner of an underworld negotiator making it clear he meant business.
“Chaos, chaos,” Skipper was saying in a disgusted voice as Jen pulled out her chair to sit down. “Why do you hate chaos so much?” They’re arguing about Groundbreakers, Jen thought, and Skipper’s against it. She tallied one point in Skipper’s favor.
“It’s disorganized,” said Chase.
“Hey,” said Becky abruptly, in an overly loud attempt to distract them from their argument. The waiter, who was setting little pink jars with lit votive candles in them on each table, started and blew one out accidentally. Embarrassed, Becky lowered her voice a bit. “You ate all the pizza!” she said in a quieter but still accusing voice. She stood next to the table, surveying it, her hands folded over her slim hips.
Jen looked at the table. The pizza tray had one full slice left on it, plus a number of discarded crusts in a pile. Next to it was Jen’s salad, barely touched, and her gin and tonic, half-drunk and watery with melted ice.
“Skipper ate it all,” Chase said. “He’s got no manners.” Skipper shrugged indifferently. He was wiping his face and hands with a pink cloth napkin.
“Besides,” Chase said, “we saved you a piece. How much were you planning to eat, anyway?” He looked up at Becky. Jen waited for Becky’s retort—after all, Becky had no reservations about eating, and she stayed thin no matter what. But Becky just looked embarrassed and sat down.
Crap, she’s into him, Jen thought. In the fifteen or so years she had known Becky, Jen had never seen her acquiesce so readily to anybody. I hope they’re not falling in love, she thought with a shudder. She imagined having to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with this guy, the lazy Sunday mornings when he would cook breakfast with Becky in his-and-her bathrobes, his parents visiting the house. It was all too gruesome to bear.
These thoughts about love reminded Jen of what she was supposed to be doing. Her plan had gone horribly wrong, and now she was most likely stuck with this frustrating crew for the rest of the night. She looked at Skipper and wondered seriously if she could substitute him for Chase in her plan. She gave some thought to his credentials for the job of making Bradley jealous, compiling a brief checklist of what she knew about him. He worked in some type of important business; that was good. She wondered what kind; she would need to find that out. He wasn’t famous; that seemed like a negative, but could actually work in her favor; he would be mysterious. He lived in San Francisco, not Los Angeles; that made him exotic. He knew Chase from “events” of some kind; that would mean Bradley knew him, too, since he and Chase were party friends. He wasn’t as good looking as Chase; but based on his brief comments about Groundbreakers, he seemed smarter. He might do, Jen speculated.
Chase and Skipper argued a while more while Becky surreptitiously polished off her slice of pizza and most of Jen’s salad. Soon after Jen started on her second gin and tonic, Chase suggested that they continue their conversation at a trendy little sports bar down the road. Jen knew that she had to go to support Becky, but she wasn’t sure yet how she felt about being on a de facto double date with Skipper. She had been trying to follow his argument with Chase to see if she could pick up any clues about his job, how much money he made, or what kind of house he lived in, but the tedious conversation took a lot of energy to pay attention to, and her head was getting woozy from the gin. Her thoughts kept wandering to Bradley and the new girlfriend. Jen had never met her, but she knew a lot about her, or at least about what she looked like. She was young, too young to be worrying about things like marriage and children and settling down. Not as skinny as Jen. But with a larger chest and sluttier clothes, always wearing things like tiny shorts and shaky stiletto heels. She can get away with that at her age, Jen thought. How old was she, anyway, twenty-five?
Jen was getting deeply depressed. Refocus your attention, she thought. She looked around for something to direct it to. There were Chase and Skipper one-upping each other in a very masculine attempt at cleverness. And there was Becky watching them quietly, picking at Jen’s salad and nodding her head when Chase made a point. And there was her gin and tonic, looking sparkly and festive with its green lime twist. Jen decided to focus on that.
“Look how pretty my drink is,” she said cheerfully, pointing at it. Skipper and Chase stopped their argument mid-sentence and turned to stare at her. Even Becky looked startled.
That must have been a weird thing to say, Jen thought. She must be drunk. It made sense; except for a few bites of salad, she hadn’t eaten solid food all day.
“Let’s take this conversation to the Game” Chase said, rising from the table. For a moment, Jen couldn’t figure out what this statement meant. Then she remembered that it was the name of the bar Chase had suggested earlier.
Chase and Skipper went off to shower and change while Becky and Jen sat quietly by the pool, finishing their drinks and dwelling separately and silently on their preoccupied thoughts. Then the four of them drove two cars a mile down the road, Chase and Skipper leading the way in a vehicle designed to look like an armored tank, Becky and Jen following in Becky’s car, which was as tiny as Chase's was large, but equally trendy and expensive.
The Game wasn’t crowded yet, and Becky and Chase found seats at the bar, where they resumed their earlier conversation about their individual self-actualization plans, huddled together with all the manic intensity of horny teenagers. Jen and Skipper left them alone, carrying their drinks to a quiet table in the far corner of the bar. Jen had ordered a third gin and tonic and a bottle of water to help her sober up a little. Skipper was drinking something pink and frothy. He had changed into a pair of skinny dark pants and a yellow cowboy shirt.
They sipped their drinks quietly. Jen wanted to find out more about Skipper’s job, but she knew asking him would sound like the dullest type of small-talk. But I really want to know, she thought to herself, so I can decide if I want to sleep with you. If she could just say it like that, it wouldn’t sound so boring.
“So, Chase told us you work in business,” Jen said, giving up on any type of inventive delivery.
“Doesn’t everyone work in business?” Skipper asked. Jen laughed, but Skipper just sat there looking somberly at his ridiculous fruity drink.
“Well, then, what kind of business?” she asked.
Skipper shrugged evasively. “I buy and sell things,” he said.
This guy was frustrating. Jen added a tally mark to her “cons” list.
“And you organize some kind of events?” she tried again.
Skipper laughed. “Is that what Chase said?” Jen nodded, annoyed. She found it remarkable that just an hour before, this taciturn man had been waving his arms around in an animated debate with Chase. She couldn’t get more than five syllables out of him at a time.
“Well, do you?” Jen asked impatiently.
Her obvious annoyance seemed to loosen Skipper up; he suddenly looked much more engaged.
“Yeah, I organize parties,” he said, smiling now.
“Like weddings?” Jen asked. There were a lot of kinds of parties.
Skipper laughed again. “No, like in warehouses, with electronic music.”
He organizes raves, Jen thought. She thought of the few she had been to with Becky years ago. The music made her want to snap somebody’s glowstick in two and gouge both her eardrums out with the pieces. That was it, then; this guy was a definite “no.”
It dawned on her suddenly what kind of “business” Skipper must be involved in.
“So when you say you buy and sell things,” she said, “you mean illegal things.”
Skipper laughed heartily, as though he were really enjoying himself. Jen was pretty sure that the more irritated she sounded, the happier Skipper became. As though trying to annoy her further to maximize his pleasure, he didn’t answer her question but instead changed the subject.
“I guess I don’t need to ask what you do,” Skipper said with a slight leer. “You’re famous.”
“I suppose,” said Jen, embarrassed. She never liked talking about her job, especially with regular people, who would only think she was spoiled if she complained about how stressful it was to have her every move watched. She imagined which of the regular questions Skipper would ask next: Which film was her favorite? What was it like working with Famous Actor X or Famous Director Y? Or the worst, especially at times like now when she didn’t know the answer: What would her next project be?
But Skipper’s question was in fact totally unexpected. “What is your philosophy of acting?” he asked her.
Jen was struck silent. In all of her years in Hollywood, she had never been asked this question, and she didn’t have the faintest idea how to answer it. Normally she would come up with a joke to dismiss such an oddball question. But for some reason that she couldn’t quite identify, she very much wanted to provide an acceptable answer. Her mind began to race as she tried to think of a philosophy of acting, any philosophy of acting. She knew she had read articles on theories of acting in college, before she dropped out. But she couldn’t remember what they said. She had done that exercise where you pretended to be a chair, but she couldn’t recall what it was supposed to mean. As Skipper looked expectantly across the table, Jen began to have the uncanny memory of being at a job interview, uncanny because she had never in her life actually interviewed for a job, but had only pretended to do so a number of times in movies.
“I don’t really have a philosophy,” she said finally, giving up. “I usually just go by instinct.”
“That’s too bad,” Skipper said.
His smugness made Jen indignant. “What’s wrong with following your instinct?” she asked.
“It’s always good to be conscious of your own philosophy,” Skipper said. He picked up his frothy drink and sipped it loudly through a long, clear straw, looking at Jen over the top of the glass.
Jen felt that this conversation was like a game of tennis, and that she was losing. She tried to lob his serve back at him.
“Don’t you think living by a philosophy is a little,” Jen searched for the proper word, a word her last acting teacher had always used to describe an exaggerated performance, but it wouldn’t come to her. She settled for the best approximation she could think of, “fake?” As she spoke, she could hear her words slurring, the consonants imprecise and uncertain, hurting whatever credibility she was trying to salvage in this game.
“You think it’s affected?” Skipper asked, smirking a little. Damn, that was the word! Advantage Skipper, she thought.
“Maybe,” she replied, sipping on her gin and tonic to hide her embarrassment. She tried to maker her mind a blank so he wouldn’t read her thoughts any further.
Skipper leaned in closer over the table and looked intently at her. His eyes, which she hadn’t noticed before, looked strikingly dark and deep in the dim bar lighting.
“Everybody lives by a philosophy,” he said. “It’s just that most people don’t pay attention to what it is. They go through life making decisions based on a set of unexamined principles.”
Jen thought about this for a moment, trying to figure out whether it applied to her.
“I believe that the only way to take responsibility of your life is to commit yourself to a single, coherent philosophy,” he continued.
“So what philosophy do you live your life by?” Jen asked.
Skipper looked at her very seriously.
“Zen Buddhism,” he said.
Chapter 4:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/04/iv-resistance-without-fighting.html
Saturday, March 1, 2008
2. The first impression
“Few have strength of reason to overrule the perceptions of sense, and yet fewer have curiosity or benevolence to struggle long against the first impression.” –Samuel Johnson
Late Friday afternoon, Becky drove Jen to a tennis club in Beverly Hills where Bradley’s friend Chase spent weekends. Jen didn’t know Chase very well, which made him the perfect target for her mission. Furthermore, Jen had always had the impression that Chase was kind of a playboy. Every time Jen had seen him at a party or out somewhere, he always had some woman hanging around him, a different one each time, and sometimes more than one at a time. Jen felt pretty confident that she could get him drunk and convince him to come home with her; then, with any luck, someone would see him leaving her place in the morning, or, even better, get a picture of him.
When they arrived at the club, Chase was playing tennis against a gangly, young-looking guy in odd pink shorts. Chase was easily dominating his partner, who was panting heavily, heaving his skinny limbs reluctantly across the court with a lot of exasperated huffing every time the ball came to his side. Chase’s performance suggested that he knew he had an audience. He made a show of landing last-minute backhand shots and jumping up like a basketball player to return shots that would have been out of bounds anyway. Every time he jumped up high, his right arm swinging in the air, his shirt would rise up to show a bit of his unnaturally tan and muscular stomach, a move that had to be premeditated. That’s a good sign, Jen thought to herself, watching with Becky from a bench on the sidelines since she didn’t like to play. She had considered using the treadmill inside the club while she waited, but she didn’t want to get too sweaty. Still, sitting outside in the hot glare of the cement courts, she began to feel warm and a little dizzy.
When Chase and the stranger finished their match, they came over to greet Jen and Becky. Jen introduced Becky and tried to give Chase a hug, but he had already stuck out his hand to shake hers, and her waist collided with his fingers as he pulled his hand back.
Up close, Jen realized that the skinny kid’s shorts were covered in an Escher-like pattern of interlocking pink and white flamingos. This matched his overall appearance of being some sort of floppy rag doll, with his skinny body and large, sheepish face. Next to Chase’s chiseled superhero jaw line, the kid’s head looked round like a cantaloupe. They both belonged in comic books, but drawn in very different styles.
“This is Skipper,” said Chase, pointing at the owner of the shorts. “He’s down visiting from San Francisco.”
“Pleasure,” said Skipper, extending his hand to Jen and then to Becky and shaking their hands rather stiffly. He was still panting a bit.
After a moment of awkward small talk about the nice weather, and a round of predictable jokes about how the weather was always nice in Los Angeles, Skipper’s cell phone, which was housed in a holster stuck precariously onto the waistband of his shorts, began to ring. It was playing one of those pulsing, spastic techno songs that made Jen think of a hundred rubber balls bouncing around an enclosed parking lot.
Skipper pulled the phone out of its carrier and looked down at it, frowning at the number on the screen. With his head bowed, Jen could see that his wispy hair was already thinning on the top of his head, despite his baby face.
“Gotta take this,” he muttered, walking to the far end of the court, where he paced back and forth for a while, his hand to his ear.
“Is his name really Skipper?” Becky asked in an overly dramatic whisper.
“No, his name is Andrew or something,” said Chase. “He just likes ‘Skipper,’ not sure why. Interesting kid,” Chase concluded, looking over at him. Skipper was still pacing, gesturing angrily with his free hand like a day trader in a movie, his officious mannerisms making a striking contrast to his zany clothing.
“What’s he so pissed off about?” Jen asked. “He’s not a stockbroker or something, is he?”
“Yeah, he’s something like that,” Chase said in a vague, evasive tone. “He’s in some kind of business.”
“What kind of business?” asked Becky, who had majored in economics in college.
Chase hesitated. “I don’t exactly know,” he said. “Something with a lot of buying and selling, always on his cell phone, you know…” Chase trailed off uncertainly. “Plus he organizes events,” he added, his voice suddenly more committed and cheerful. “That’s how I know him. He meets all the beautiful people.” He winked at Jen. Becky shot Jen an exasperated glance. Jen ignored both of them and kept her face blank.
“Let’s get a drink,” said Becky, sounding annoyed.
The three of them walked towards the little ritzy café by the swimming pool. Jen and Chase walked close to each other, Becky a bit behind. Jen felt pretty sure that Chase knew why she had planned this visit, and that he’d be amenable after a few drinks. But she also felt less than sure that she could go through with it. She hadn’t spent time with Chase in at least six months, but she had felt some kind of continuity in their acquaintance because she always saw him on the cover of magazines, usually looking healthy and tan as he enjoyed a shirtless run with one of his male actor friends. The magazine covers had seemed cheesy enough, but Chase was even more annoying in practice than in theory. She certainly didn’t feel attracted to him at all. And yet, she told herself resolutely, she needed to look past those visceral, physical fears and concentrate on the task at hand, because it was really important that she sleep with him, or at least give the public the impression that she had slept with him.
It was at times like these, when she needed to really focus on a goal, that Jen’s yoga training proved invaluable. With a deep inhale, she calmed her panicky nerves; with an exhale, she released all of her self-doubt as to whether she could rise to this occasion. Thinking of Becky, she devised a mantra to accompany her breathing: I can do it, I can do it, she told herself over and over.
As they reached the bar, Jen was a bit calmer, but her earlier dizziness was turning into a headache. A man in a blue jumpsuit, kneeling on the edge of the patio, was straightening a drainpipe with a small mallet, making rhythmic metallic clanking noises. The café was piping trendy dance music onto the patio, the beats clashing with the uneven banging of the hammer. For a moment, Jen wanted to just leave and go home, but she reminded herself that all of this annoyance was for a greater good. Thinking of her substitute yoga teacher, she decided that she had to ignore the pain in her head and focus on her plan for ten minutes. If she could get through ten minutes, she could get through anything.
She looked at her watch. It was 5:50. The three of them sat down at one of the patio tables to have a drink. She was not going to think about her headache until six.
“Do you guys want to order food?” asked Chase.
Becky nodded yes, while Jen said, “No,” aloud.
“Oh, come on,” said Chase, smiling condescendingly at Jen. “You should eat something.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Jen, trying to keep her tone more on the light and playful and less on the I-hate-you-you-overtanned-idiot side.
“What have you eaten today?” he asked.
Jen rolled her eyes. Because she was very thin, she got asked this sort of question all the time. People imagined that she must starve herself, when in fact she just maintained a healthy eating and workout regimen. However, on this particular day, she had been doing a cleansing fast which restricted her diet to water with maple syrup and lemon juice. She usually only did this fast every Monday and Wednesday, but sometimes added Fridays if she needed to look cute for the weekend.
“That’s none of your business,” Jen replied.
Chase seemed to be about to shoot back some kind of sarcastic retort, but just then the waiter arrived, and Chase interrupted himself with a little hiccup. The waiter was very strong and athletic-looking, with the muscular arms, lean abdomen, and bowlegged gait of prizefighter. His face, on the other hand, was so young and babyish that it looked photoshopped on, like the body had gone through years of rough experience that the face was just catching up to. Jen thought he was ridiculous, but Chase greeted him like an old friend, beaming at him and grabbing his giant bicep in an affectionate gesture.
“What took you so long?” Chase asked, smiling.
The boy smiled back politely as he asked for their order. Chase ordered for everyone without consulting them: a pitcher of microbrewed beer with four glasses and a large pizza covered in arugula and prosciutto.
“Also,” said Jen, “I’d like a salad.” After his comments, she wanted Chase to see her eat something, but there was no way she was going to break her fast with pizza, even if it was covered in a bunch of yuppie greens. “With no goat cheese or bacon,” she added.
Realizing she might need a drink, she also ordered a gin and tonic, a drink rumored to have zero carbs.
Chase gave the waiter a friendly wink, as if in apology for Jen’s order. Jen noticed him watching the waiter as he hurried back inside the restaurant. She wondered if Chase knew him from outside of the club.
“What’s with your order?” Chase asked her, turning his head back to the table. “Don’t like bacon?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Jen told him, which wasn’t true, but she hoped it would stop him from further scrutinizing her diet. She looked down at her watch; it was only 5:56.
“Sounds like a lot of mind-havoc to me,” said Chase.
Jen looked quickly to Becky, whose eyebrows were raised in an expression of open, pleasurable surprise. A lot of people in LA went to Becky’s self-actualization seminars, but very few of them had the same particular area of focus as her.
“You do Groundbreakers?” she asked, the excitement in her voice barely restrained.
“Oh yeah, I love it,” replied Chase. “Totally changed my life.”
“Mind-havoc is one of my major renovation areas,” Becky said, breathlessly. “It’s, like, all over my self-awareness blueprint.”
Jen flinched a little at the Groundbreaker’s jargon, which Becky usually kept smartly to a minimum around her.
“Oh yeah, mine too,” said Chase. “I used to be knee deep in mind-chaos. I’ve been stripping it out of all my support structures; I think I’m getting close to where I can start rebuilding.”
The man fixing the drain stopped his hammering, looked up, snorted loudly and audibly, and then looked back down at his work.
“My coach says I need to focus on what I want, not on what I think other people want me to be,” Chase continued.
“Oh my god, so do I,” said Becky, sounding like a teenager on a cell phone. She scooted her chair a little to the side so that she could look him more fully in the face.
Ten minutes later, Becky and Chase had established that they had been at many of the same seminars and events, including the one just this past week, that they both had liked the female guest speaker from India but not the male doctor who had presented on “emotional dry rot,” that their coaches were friends-of-friends with each other, that they both took the same vitamins and supplements, and that they were both certified as yoga instructors. By the time their food and drinks came, Jen’s ten minutes of involvement had long expired and she had completely shut out their conversation. Instead she was doing seated meditation exercises, focusing on the rhythmic beat of the techno music and its intermittent alignment and discord with the throbbing in her head. Whenever Chase or Becky seemed to be directing a comment at her, she nodded in a gesture of empty agreement.
Skipper returned to the table shortly after the food arrived.
“Asshole,” he said, pointing at his phone as he sat down, scraping the feet of his metal chair across the concrete patio. Without any further niceties, he pulled a slice of pizza from the tray, took an enormous bite, winced as it burned his mouth, and washed it down with a huge swig of beer from Chase’s glass.
Becky coughed loudly. Then she stood up from the table and coughed again. “I think I need some cough drops,” she said to Jen. “Will you come with me and get them?”
“I’ll go with you,” Chase volunteered eagerly, jumping up.
“Actually what I’m really getting is tampons,” Becky said. Chase sat back down, waving his hand in a gesture of mock dismissal.
“Carry on then,” he said.
Jen and Becky walked across the deck of the pool to the club’s little convenience shop.
“What is it?” Jen asked her when they were out of hearing range.
“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” said Becky under her breath.
They entered the store, a wave of cool air-conditioning hitting Jen as the electronic doorbell ding-donged to announce their arrival.
Facing the door was a rack of tabloid magazines. Jen automatically scanned the covers for her own face, finding it quickly on one of the trashiest ones at the bottom of the rack.
“Heartbroken Jen flees to Michigan,” it said.
“What?” said Jen aloud.
“Don’t look at those,” said Becky, who had walked on ahead to the other end of the little aisle and was holding a small packet of cough drops.
“Why would it say I’m moving to Michigan?” Jen asked.
Becky gasped and dropped the cough drops on the ground. Jen watched her lower herself into a perfect, easy squat and then pop up smoothly again, holding the packet.
“I don’t know anyone in Michigan,” Jen continued.
Becky interrupted her before she had finished. “Don’t read that garbage,” she said, walking over to Jen and pulling her away from the magazines by the arm. “I’ve got something important to tell you,” she added, once they were back by the cough drops.
“What is it?” Jen asked, absentmindedly picking up a box of sugar-free mints for herself.
Becky paused for a minute. Then she began speaking very quickly, as though she were trying to get all of her thoughts out before Jen interrupted.
“Listen, I know you came here to sleep with Chase but I think I have a real connection with him and I don’t want you to do it, you owe me, I got that magazine for you and I was sooo tired and I have always done every favor you asked me to.” Becky paused to take a breath.
“Becky,” Jen said.
“And I really like this guy and you just want to have some kind of revenge sex with him and I don’t disrespect you for that but I never meet anyone I like and I never ever ask you for anything.” Her face was red and flushed.
“It’s fine,” Jen said. Becky paused, breathed deeply, and threw her arms around Jen like Jen had just given her the best present of a lifetime, instead of a crappy white elephant.
“You’re the best,” said Becky, giving her a little kiss on the cheek.
Jen wanted to think that she was doing Becky a favor, but the truth was she had already decided she wasn’t tough enough to go through with her plan. Since the moment they had walked away from the table, Jen hadn’t wanted to go back and face the unappealing prospect of how she would spend her evening. There aren’t enough gin and tonics in the world, she thought to herself. Jen hated to admit defeat, but frankly it was a huge relief.
They paid for their mints and cough drops and walked back past the pool towards the bar. “You can have the other one,” Becky said in the no-nonsense tone of a legal negotiator.
Jen snorted as though this were funny, but in fact it wasn’t a bad idea. That kid seemed annoying, but there was no way he could be more annoying than Chase.
Chapter 3:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-death-of-intelligence.html
Late Friday afternoon, Becky drove Jen to a tennis club in Beverly Hills where Bradley’s friend Chase spent weekends. Jen didn’t know Chase very well, which made him the perfect target for her mission. Furthermore, Jen had always had the impression that Chase was kind of a playboy. Every time Jen had seen him at a party or out somewhere, he always had some woman hanging around him, a different one each time, and sometimes more than one at a time. Jen felt pretty confident that she could get him drunk and convince him to come home with her; then, with any luck, someone would see him leaving her place in the morning, or, even better, get a picture of him.
When they arrived at the club, Chase was playing tennis against a gangly, young-looking guy in odd pink shorts. Chase was easily dominating his partner, who was panting heavily, heaving his skinny limbs reluctantly across the court with a lot of exasperated huffing every time the ball came to his side. Chase’s performance suggested that he knew he had an audience. He made a show of landing last-minute backhand shots and jumping up like a basketball player to return shots that would have been out of bounds anyway. Every time he jumped up high, his right arm swinging in the air, his shirt would rise up to show a bit of his unnaturally tan and muscular stomach, a move that had to be premeditated. That’s a good sign, Jen thought to herself, watching with Becky from a bench on the sidelines since she didn’t like to play. She had considered using the treadmill inside the club while she waited, but she didn’t want to get too sweaty. Still, sitting outside in the hot glare of the cement courts, she began to feel warm and a little dizzy.
When Chase and the stranger finished their match, they came over to greet Jen and Becky. Jen introduced Becky and tried to give Chase a hug, but he had already stuck out his hand to shake hers, and her waist collided with his fingers as he pulled his hand back.
Up close, Jen realized that the skinny kid’s shorts were covered in an Escher-like pattern of interlocking pink and white flamingos. This matched his overall appearance of being some sort of floppy rag doll, with his skinny body and large, sheepish face. Next to Chase’s chiseled superhero jaw line, the kid’s head looked round like a cantaloupe. They both belonged in comic books, but drawn in very different styles.
“This is Skipper,” said Chase, pointing at the owner of the shorts. “He’s down visiting from San Francisco.”
“Pleasure,” said Skipper, extending his hand to Jen and then to Becky and shaking their hands rather stiffly. He was still panting a bit.
After a moment of awkward small talk about the nice weather, and a round of predictable jokes about how the weather was always nice in Los Angeles, Skipper’s cell phone, which was housed in a holster stuck precariously onto the waistband of his shorts, began to ring. It was playing one of those pulsing, spastic techno songs that made Jen think of a hundred rubber balls bouncing around an enclosed parking lot.
Skipper pulled the phone out of its carrier and looked down at it, frowning at the number on the screen. With his head bowed, Jen could see that his wispy hair was already thinning on the top of his head, despite his baby face.
“Gotta take this,” he muttered, walking to the far end of the court, where he paced back and forth for a while, his hand to his ear.
“Is his name really Skipper?” Becky asked in an overly dramatic whisper.
“No, his name is Andrew or something,” said Chase. “He just likes ‘Skipper,’ not sure why. Interesting kid,” Chase concluded, looking over at him. Skipper was still pacing, gesturing angrily with his free hand like a day trader in a movie, his officious mannerisms making a striking contrast to his zany clothing.
“What’s he so pissed off about?” Jen asked. “He’s not a stockbroker or something, is he?”
“Yeah, he’s something like that,” Chase said in a vague, evasive tone. “He’s in some kind of business.”
“What kind of business?” asked Becky, who had majored in economics in college.
Chase hesitated. “I don’t exactly know,” he said. “Something with a lot of buying and selling, always on his cell phone, you know…” Chase trailed off uncertainly. “Plus he organizes events,” he added, his voice suddenly more committed and cheerful. “That’s how I know him. He meets all the beautiful people.” He winked at Jen. Becky shot Jen an exasperated glance. Jen ignored both of them and kept her face blank.
“Let’s get a drink,” said Becky, sounding annoyed.
The three of them walked towards the little ritzy café by the swimming pool. Jen and Chase walked close to each other, Becky a bit behind. Jen felt pretty sure that Chase knew why she had planned this visit, and that he’d be amenable after a few drinks. But she also felt less than sure that she could go through with it. She hadn’t spent time with Chase in at least six months, but she had felt some kind of continuity in their acquaintance because she always saw him on the cover of magazines, usually looking healthy and tan as he enjoyed a shirtless run with one of his male actor friends. The magazine covers had seemed cheesy enough, but Chase was even more annoying in practice than in theory. She certainly didn’t feel attracted to him at all. And yet, she told herself resolutely, she needed to look past those visceral, physical fears and concentrate on the task at hand, because it was really important that she sleep with him, or at least give the public the impression that she had slept with him.
It was at times like these, when she needed to really focus on a goal, that Jen’s yoga training proved invaluable. With a deep inhale, she calmed her panicky nerves; with an exhale, she released all of her self-doubt as to whether she could rise to this occasion. Thinking of Becky, she devised a mantra to accompany her breathing: I can do it, I can do it, she told herself over and over.
As they reached the bar, Jen was a bit calmer, but her earlier dizziness was turning into a headache. A man in a blue jumpsuit, kneeling on the edge of the patio, was straightening a drainpipe with a small mallet, making rhythmic metallic clanking noises. The café was piping trendy dance music onto the patio, the beats clashing with the uneven banging of the hammer. For a moment, Jen wanted to just leave and go home, but she reminded herself that all of this annoyance was for a greater good. Thinking of her substitute yoga teacher, she decided that she had to ignore the pain in her head and focus on her plan for ten minutes. If she could get through ten minutes, she could get through anything.
She looked at her watch. It was 5:50. The three of them sat down at one of the patio tables to have a drink. She was not going to think about her headache until six.
“Do you guys want to order food?” asked Chase.
Becky nodded yes, while Jen said, “No,” aloud.
“Oh, come on,” said Chase, smiling condescendingly at Jen. “You should eat something.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” asked Jen, trying to keep her tone more on the light and playful and less on the I-hate-you-you-overtanned-idiot side.
“What have you eaten today?” he asked.
Jen rolled her eyes. Because she was very thin, she got asked this sort of question all the time. People imagined that she must starve herself, when in fact she just maintained a healthy eating and workout regimen. However, on this particular day, she had been doing a cleansing fast which restricted her diet to water with maple syrup and lemon juice. She usually only did this fast every Monday and Wednesday, but sometimes added Fridays if she needed to look cute for the weekend.
“That’s none of your business,” Jen replied.
Chase seemed to be about to shoot back some kind of sarcastic retort, but just then the waiter arrived, and Chase interrupted himself with a little hiccup. The waiter was very strong and athletic-looking, with the muscular arms, lean abdomen, and bowlegged gait of prizefighter. His face, on the other hand, was so young and babyish that it looked photoshopped on, like the body had gone through years of rough experience that the face was just catching up to. Jen thought he was ridiculous, but Chase greeted him like an old friend, beaming at him and grabbing his giant bicep in an affectionate gesture.
“What took you so long?” Chase asked, smiling.
The boy smiled back politely as he asked for their order. Chase ordered for everyone without consulting them: a pitcher of microbrewed beer with four glasses and a large pizza covered in arugula and prosciutto.
“Also,” said Jen, “I’d like a salad.” After his comments, she wanted Chase to see her eat something, but there was no way she was going to break her fast with pizza, even if it was covered in a bunch of yuppie greens. “With no goat cheese or bacon,” she added.
Realizing she might need a drink, she also ordered a gin and tonic, a drink rumored to have zero carbs.
Chase gave the waiter a friendly wink, as if in apology for Jen’s order. Jen noticed him watching the waiter as he hurried back inside the restaurant. She wondered if Chase knew him from outside of the club.
“What’s with your order?” Chase asked her, turning his head back to the table. “Don’t like bacon?”
“I’m a vegetarian,” Jen told him, which wasn’t true, but she hoped it would stop him from further scrutinizing her diet. She looked down at her watch; it was only 5:56.
“Sounds like a lot of mind-havoc to me,” said Chase.
Jen looked quickly to Becky, whose eyebrows were raised in an expression of open, pleasurable surprise. A lot of people in LA went to Becky’s self-actualization seminars, but very few of them had the same particular area of focus as her.
“You do Groundbreakers?” she asked, the excitement in her voice barely restrained.
“Oh yeah, I love it,” replied Chase. “Totally changed my life.”
“Mind-havoc is one of my major renovation areas,” Becky said, breathlessly. “It’s, like, all over my self-awareness blueprint.”
Jen flinched a little at the Groundbreaker’s jargon, which Becky usually kept smartly to a minimum around her.
“Oh yeah, mine too,” said Chase. “I used to be knee deep in mind-chaos. I’ve been stripping it out of all my support structures; I think I’m getting close to where I can start rebuilding.”
The man fixing the drain stopped his hammering, looked up, snorted loudly and audibly, and then looked back down at his work.
“My coach says I need to focus on what I want, not on what I think other people want me to be,” Chase continued.
“Oh my god, so do I,” said Becky, sounding like a teenager on a cell phone. She scooted her chair a little to the side so that she could look him more fully in the face.
Ten minutes later, Becky and Chase had established that they had been at many of the same seminars and events, including the one just this past week, that they both had liked the female guest speaker from India but not the male doctor who had presented on “emotional dry rot,” that their coaches were friends-of-friends with each other, that they both took the same vitamins and supplements, and that they were both certified as yoga instructors. By the time their food and drinks came, Jen’s ten minutes of involvement had long expired and she had completely shut out their conversation. Instead she was doing seated meditation exercises, focusing on the rhythmic beat of the techno music and its intermittent alignment and discord with the throbbing in her head. Whenever Chase or Becky seemed to be directing a comment at her, she nodded in a gesture of empty agreement.
Skipper returned to the table shortly after the food arrived.
“Asshole,” he said, pointing at his phone as he sat down, scraping the feet of his metal chair across the concrete patio. Without any further niceties, he pulled a slice of pizza from the tray, took an enormous bite, winced as it burned his mouth, and washed it down with a huge swig of beer from Chase’s glass.
Becky coughed loudly. Then she stood up from the table and coughed again. “I think I need some cough drops,” she said to Jen. “Will you come with me and get them?”
“I’ll go with you,” Chase volunteered eagerly, jumping up.
“Actually what I’m really getting is tampons,” Becky said. Chase sat back down, waving his hand in a gesture of mock dismissal.
“Carry on then,” he said.
Jen and Becky walked across the deck of the pool to the club’s little convenience shop.
“What is it?” Jen asked her when they were out of hearing range.
“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” said Becky under her breath.
They entered the store, a wave of cool air-conditioning hitting Jen as the electronic doorbell ding-donged to announce their arrival.
Facing the door was a rack of tabloid magazines. Jen automatically scanned the covers for her own face, finding it quickly on one of the trashiest ones at the bottom of the rack.
“Heartbroken Jen flees to Michigan,” it said.
“What?” said Jen aloud.
“Don’t look at those,” said Becky, who had walked on ahead to the other end of the little aisle and was holding a small packet of cough drops.
“Why would it say I’m moving to Michigan?” Jen asked.
Becky gasped and dropped the cough drops on the ground. Jen watched her lower herself into a perfect, easy squat and then pop up smoothly again, holding the packet.
“I don’t know anyone in Michigan,” Jen continued.
Becky interrupted her before she had finished. “Don’t read that garbage,” she said, walking over to Jen and pulling her away from the magazines by the arm. “I’ve got something important to tell you,” she added, once they were back by the cough drops.
“What is it?” Jen asked, absentmindedly picking up a box of sugar-free mints for herself.
Becky paused for a minute. Then she began speaking very quickly, as though she were trying to get all of her thoughts out before Jen interrupted.
“Listen, I know you came here to sleep with Chase but I think I have a real connection with him and I don’t want you to do it, you owe me, I got that magazine for you and I was sooo tired and I have always done every favor you asked me to.” Becky paused to take a breath.
“Becky,” Jen said.
“And I really like this guy and you just want to have some kind of revenge sex with him and I don’t disrespect you for that but I never meet anyone I like and I never ever ask you for anything.” Her face was red and flushed.
“It’s fine,” Jen said. Becky paused, breathed deeply, and threw her arms around Jen like Jen had just given her the best present of a lifetime, instead of a crappy white elephant.
“You’re the best,” said Becky, giving her a little kiss on the cheek.
Jen wanted to think that she was doing Becky a favor, but the truth was she had already decided she wasn’t tough enough to go through with her plan. Since the moment they had walked away from the table, Jen hadn’t wanted to go back and face the unappealing prospect of how she would spend her evening. There aren’t enough gin and tonics in the world, she thought to herself. Jen hated to admit defeat, but frankly it was a huge relief.
They paid for their mints and cough drops and walked back past the pool towards the bar. “You can have the other one,” Becky said in the no-nonsense tone of a legal negotiator.
Jen snorted as though this were funny, but in fact it wasn’t a bad idea. That kid seemed annoying, but there was no way he could be more annoying than Chase.
Chapter 3:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/3-death-of-intelligence.html
Sunday, February 17, 2008
1. The art of learning
"The art of teaching is tolerance. Humbleness is the art of learning.” –B.K.S. Iyengar
In Los Angeles, Jen held an extremely uncomfortable position. Her left leg was bent, her right leg extended in a deep lunge. Her left arm twisted under her, reaching down and across her back where it hooked tentatively into her right hand like a grasping, sweaty meat hook.
"Try to slow your heart rate," said the voice from across the room, steady and trustworthy like a TV news weather reporter. “Don’t look at the floor. Look at the wall.”
Jen's eyes stared straight ahead at the wall, which, when she faced this direction, happened to be about three feet from her face. Sweat dripped from the braided tips of her hair down to the floor. The wall was glistening wet with condensation.
"Remember," said the calm, even voice. “One benefit of yoga is to suppress your impulse to panic under stress."
The voice grew silent. All Jen could hear was the heavy rasping sound of loud breaths through the nose, growing louder, faster, and more urgent as the minutes passed.
A man somewhere behind Jen released a loud groan of pleasure that started as a grunt, built to a kind of high-pitched yawn, and then ended with a throaty gurgle. It was a funny sound that reminded Jen of something she’d heard on a nature show, like a walrus mating or something. Jen found it incredibly funny but in a way that pissed her off. She didn’t laugh, nor did anyone else. After all, she was about to die at any second. In the sweat-saturated air, with her arms twisted tightly around her ribcage, she could barely draw enough air to fill her lungs. This wasn’t funny; this was an emergency. She shot silent death threats at the man.
"We're going to hold this pose for a long time," the calm voice said. "And your muscles are going to get tired. And your mind is going to send you signals that say 'danger!' And you're going to feel like if you must hold this pose one minute longer, you will surely die."
How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? Just as the teacher predicted, Jen suddenly felt a frightening wave of danger chemicals escaping from her lymph nodes. They were gaining in numbers, joining forces, mobilizing a trigger-happy hunting party in her circulatory system. She tried to hold them off, but they were too powerful; she couldn’t stand up to them much longer. Her legs began to shake violently, and she breathed as deep and long as she could to steady them.
"Your challenge is to work past that panic. If you can hold this pose for three minutes, you can confront any obstacle you face in life. Think about your breath and try to work past the fatigue in your body."
Three minutes? It hadn’t even been three minutes yet? Jen’s legs buckled indignantly and for a moment she was sure she was falling. She was about to fall face-down onto her mat, which would provide minimal cushioning against the wooden floor below. She would break her nose for sure. The only solution would be to release her clasped hands, lower them to the floor, and break her fall; she decided, however, that this would be too embarrassing and would make her look weak. Instead, with a little squirm, she shifted her weight back a bit until she regained her balance.
Getting bored and annoyed now, she shifted her shoulder back and forth, and stared at a spot on the floor near her foot. She checked out her dark burgundy pedicure. She had just gotten it done yesterday, but it was already chipped on her big toe. Like everything in her life--damaged, she thought, sniffing indignantly to herself. She began to list the damaged items in her head: my marriage. I mean my ex-marriage. She couldn’t think of any other damaged items; everything else in her life was going okay. She started crying silently. Her arms and legs were aching furiously. She had never felt more miserable in her life.
"Jennifer," the voice interrupted her thoughts. "Don't look behind you."
Jen looked up. She had forgotten the instructor would know her name, even though this sort of recognition happened to her every day. This teacher was a substitute, and Jen had never met her before. Becky usually taught this class, but she was attending a Groundbreakers self-actualization workshop. She didn’t want any of her yoga teacher friends to know about it. She had told Jen that if anyone asked, she was at a transcendental meditation retreat in Pasadena.
"Look across or forward, never back," the voice said.
Jen moved her head upward to a straight position. Condensed moisture dripped down the wall like slimy tears. She stared hard at the wall and breathed.
After class, Jen walked from the yoga studio to the small market across the street to buy an expensive bottle of sparkling water. She knew from experience that her favorite brand was kept, not with the other waters, but in a separate Italian specialty section, in between bags of fancy-looking dried pasta and some little anise cookies.
As she waited in line with her glass bottle, her eyes strayed from the impulse items—Dutch and German chocolates and licorice candies—to the magazine rack, which had a photo of her soon-to-be ex-husband on the cover. He looked happy, smiling, wearing a stylish suit. She knew the picture was from several years ago because he had given that suit to charity last Christmas. Printed above his picture in large, white letters it said, “His new flame.” And below that, in smaller letters, was written the question, “Is it love?”
At the bottom of the magazine cover was a tiny photograph of Jen. Her head was lowered, her arm was across her face, and she was wearing a sweat suit and her Dodgers baseball cap. She was pretty sure the picture had been taken outside her gynecologist’s office three weeks ago. “Jen—devastated,” it said below the photo.
Jen was furious. She felt betrayed. After all, now that she thought about it, this store never had a magazine rack before. That was the precise reason she had started coming here. How was she supposed to go about her shopping like a normal person when she knew she might be confronted—ambushed, sabotaged—with intimate and incorrect details of her personal life at any moment?
Jen looked back at the magazine cover, wondering despite herself who this theoretical “flame” was. That must be inside of the magazine. She wanted to pick it up and flip through it, but the man in line behind her was already staring at her in recognition and she didn’t want to look any more pathetic. She would have to make Becky buy the magazine later. And then make Becky read it and tell her what it said.
She took her anger out on the cashier, glaring at her and refusing to answer any questions verbally. Asked if she needed a bag, Jen huffed, rolled her eyes, and grabbed the bottle out of the young girl’s hands. She stormed out of the store, almost knocking over a slow old lady as she tried unsuccessfully to pass her on the right.
Becky returned home around seven that evening, looking exhausted and carrying a large canvas school bag. Jen was sitting in the high-ceilinged front living room, waiting for her.
“Who is Bradley dating?” Jen demanded.
Becky sighed heavily and heaved the bag off her shoulder and onto the floor, where it landed with a disconcertingly loud thump, as though it were filled with books, but Jen knew it must be filled with thick packets of handouts. With her trim, muscular body draped in a long tunic over leggings and sandals, Becky looked like a yoga teacher even in the most un-yogic of situations, like all the times Jen had seen her snorting lines of coke at a party or doing Jen’s taxes with a printing calculator.
“Where did you hear that?” Becky asked her.
Jen told her about the magazine. “Well of course I couldn’t look in it, and I couldn’t buy it,” Jen said. “I thought you might have read something about it.”
“You know I don’t read that stuff anymore,” said Becky, her calm yoga-teacher voice taking on a slight edge.
In addition to being a yoga teacher and Jen’s personal assistant, Becky was also an aspiring actress. She ran off to auditions in between her classes every week, but she hadn’t had any real luck, just a few commercials and bit parts on instructional yoga DVDs. Reading about the personal lives of famous actors made her jealous in a compulsive sort of way. She used to collect piles of celebrity magazines, often containing insulting stories about Jen and her ex, and read them secretly in her bedroom. Becky’s Groundbreakers self-actualization coach had recommended she purge herself of this habit. Now whenever she got the urge to fixate on celebrities, Becky wrote self-affirming mantras in her notebook instead. Jen had found the notebook Becky’s bedroom a few weeks ago while she was looking for a pair of jeans. She opened it to a page that read, “I do not need to be famous to be an important and worthwhile person,” written fifteen times over in Becky’s neat, round handwriting. Under the lines were a number of vaguely Sanskrit-looking symbols that Jen did not recognize.
Jen told Becky about the magazine. “He must be seeing somebody,” Jen said. “I need you to go buy the magazine and find out who it is.”
Becky, who had not left the entranceway since she had gotten home, turned on her heels and left again. She shut the door calmly but slammed it a little bit at the end, after it had already closed.
“Thanks,” Jen yelled after her.
Forty-five minutes later (there were no stores near Jen’s house), Becky had finally returned with the magazine and was sitting across from Jen on the stylish eggplant-colored couches in the front living room. Jen watched anxiously as Becky flipped first forward and then backward through the magazine, looking for the article. Finally she stopped, opened the magazine wider, and stared silently at it for a moment.
“Who is it?” Jen asked impatiently.
“Wait, I’m making sure,” Becky said. “It doesn’t say it right away, just hints at it. But there’s a picture…” Becky’s voice trailed off as she read to herself. “Okay, here’s where they say it.”
Becky read the sentence aloud. It reported that Jen’s ex-husband Bradley had been seen at an exclusive Hollywood party vigorously making out with…and out of Becky’s mouth spilled the name of a very famous, very young actress, five years younger than Jen and fifteen years younger than her ex.
“Ew!” Jen squealed like a teenager. She felt disgusted. She knew Bradley would start dating quickly, and had been bracing for it, but had hoped he would pick someone older, more serious, and a little less famous.
Becky closed the magazine decisively and slipped it into her bag full of self-actualization handouts. Jen wondered if Becky would read the rest of it later in her bedroom.
“Well,” said Becky, “you know now, if it’s even true. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Hopefully this will help you move on.”
“I’m not going to move on,” Jen said, furiously. “I’m going to get even with him.” The thought, and the angry strength of her own voice as she articulated it, made Jen feel a tiny bit better.
“Oh, you’re not,” Becky said disapprovingly. “There’s nothing you can do to get even with him.” Becky paused for a moment, and Jen could see her eyeing her bag of handouts. “Jen, I know you don’t want me to talk to you about this Groundbreakers stuff, but there’s a lesson in here that I think could really help you.”
“I’m going to sleep with one of his friends,” Jen said.
“No,” said Becky. “That’s not what you really want to do.” Becky had been learning a lot about differentiating one’s own true desires from what her course called “mind-havoc.” She had spoken to Jen about this several times, and Jen had caught hints of it sneaking into her yoga lessons as well. “Acting out in a self-destructive way is only going to make you feel worse.”
“Okay, it might,” Jen admitted. “But I’m going to do it anyway so you might as well help me.”
Jen knew Becky was a sucker for this kind of reasoning, because it was the truth, and Becky, for all her new-age training, was ultimately an extreme pragmatist.
Chapter 2:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-few-have-strength-of-reason-to.html
In Los Angeles, Jen held an extremely uncomfortable position. Her left leg was bent, her right leg extended in a deep lunge. Her left arm twisted under her, reaching down and across her back where it hooked tentatively into her right hand like a grasping, sweaty meat hook.
"Try to slow your heart rate," said the voice from across the room, steady and trustworthy like a TV news weather reporter. “Don’t look at the floor. Look at the wall.”
Jen's eyes stared straight ahead at the wall, which, when she faced this direction, happened to be about three feet from her face. Sweat dripped from the braided tips of her hair down to the floor. The wall was glistening wet with condensation.
"Remember," said the calm, even voice. “One benefit of yoga is to suppress your impulse to panic under stress."
The voice grew silent. All Jen could hear was the heavy rasping sound of loud breaths through the nose, growing louder, faster, and more urgent as the minutes passed.
A man somewhere behind Jen released a loud groan of pleasure that started as a grunt, built to a kind of high-pitched yawn, and then ended with a throaty gurgle. It was a funny sound that reminded Jen of something she’d heard on a nature show, like a walrus mating or something. Jen found it incredibly funny but in a way that pissed her off. She didn’t laugh, nor did anyone else. After all, she was about to die at any second. In the sweat-saturated air, with her arms twisted tightly around her ribcage, she could barely draw enough air to fill her lungs. This wasn’t funny; this was an emergency. She shot silent death threats at the man.
"We're going to hold this pose for a long time," the calm voice said. "And your muscles are going to get tired. And your mind is going to send you signals that say 'danger!' And you're going to feel like if you must hold this pose one minute longer, you will surely die."
How long had it been? Five minutes? Ten? Just as the teacher predicted, Jen suddenly felt a frightening wave of danger chemicals escaping from her lymph nodes. They were gaining in numbers, joining forces, mobilizing a trigger-happy hunting party in her circulatory system. She tried to hold them off, but they were too powerful; she couldn’t stand up to them much longer. Her legs began to shake violently, and she breathed as deep and long as she could to steady them.
"Your challenge is to work past that panic. If you can hold this pose for three minutes, you can confront any obstacle you face in life. Think about your breath and try to work past the fatigue in your body."
Three minutes? It hadn’t even been three minutes yet? Jen’s legs buckled indignantly and for a moment she was sure she was falling. She was about to fall face-down onto her mat, which would provide minimal cushioning against the wooden floor below. She would break her nose for sure. The only solution would be to release her clasped hands, lower them to the floor, and break her fall; she decided, however, that this would be too embarrassing and would make her look weak. Instead, with a little squirm, she shifted her weight back a bit until she regained her balance.
Getting bored and annoyed now, she shifted her shoulder back and forth, and stared at a spot on the floor near her foot. She checked out her dark burgundy pedicure. She had just gotten it done yesterday, but it was already chipped on her big toe. Like everything in her life--damaged, she thought, sniffing indignantly to herself. She began to list the damaged items in her head: my marriage. I mean my ex-marriage. She couldn’t think of any other damaged items; everything else in her life was going okay. She started crying silently. Her arms and legs were aching furiously. She had never felt more miserable in her life.
"Jennifer," the voice interrupted her thoughts. "Don't look behind you."
Jen looked up. She had forgotten the instructor would know her name, even though this sort of recognition happened to her every day. This teacher was a substitute, and Jen had never met her before. Becky usually taught this class, but she was attending a Groundbreakers self-actualization workshop. She didn’t want any of her yoga teacher friends to know about it. She had told Jen that if anyone asked, she was at a transcendental meditation retreat in Pasadena.
"Look across or forward, never back," the voice said.
Jen moved her head upward to a straight position. Condensed moisture dripped down the wall like slimy tears. She stared hard at the wall and breathed.
After class, Jen walked from the yoga studio to the small market across the street to buy an expensive bottle of sparkling water. She knew from experience that her favorite brand was kept, not with the other waters, but in a separate Italian specialty section, in between bags of fancy-looking dried pasta and some little anise cookies.
As she waited in line with her glass bottle, her eyes strayed from the impulse items—Dutch and German chocolates and licorice candies—to the magazine rack, which had a photo of her soon-to-be ex-husband on the cover. He looked happy, smiling, wearing a stylish suit. She knew the picture was from several years ago because he had given that suit to charity last Christmas. Printed above his picture in large, white letters it said, “His new flame.” And below that, in smaller letters, was written the question, “Is it love?”
At the bottom of the magazine cover was a tiny photograph of Jen. Her head was lowered, her arm was across her face, and she was wearing a sweat suit and her Dodgers baseball cap. She was pretty sure the picture had been taken outside her gynecologist’s office three weeks ago. “Jen—devastated,” it said below the photo.
Jen was furious. She felt betrayed. After all, now that she thought about it, this store never had a magazine rack before. That was the precise reason she had started coming here. How was she supposed to go about her shopping like a normal person when she knew she might be confronted—ambushed, sabotaged—with intimate and incorrect details of her personal life at any moment?
Jen looked back at the magazine cover, wondering despite herself who this theoretical “flame” was. That must be inside of the magazine. She wanted to pick it up and flip through it, but the man in line behind her was already staring at her in recognition and she didn’t want to look any more pathetic. She would have to make Becky buy the magazine later. And then make Becky read it and tell her what it said.
She took her anger out on the cashier, glaring at her and refusing to answer any questions verbally. Asked if she needed a bag, Jen huffed, rolled her eyes, and grabbed the bottle out of the young girl’s hands. She stormed out of the store, almost knocking over a slow old lady as she tried unsuccessfully to pass her on the right.
Becky returned home around seven that evening, looking exhausted and carrying a large canvas school bag. Jen was sitting in the high-ceilinged front living room, waiting for her.
“Who is Bradley dating?” Jen demanded.
Becky sighed heavily and heaved the bag off her shoulder and onto the floor, where it landed with a disconcertingly loud thump, as though it were filled with books, but Jen knew it must be filled with thick packets of handouts. With her trim, muscular body draped in a long tunic over leggings and sandals, Becky looked like a yoga teacher even in the most un-yogic of situations, like all the times Jen had seen her snorting lines of coke at a party or doing Jen’s taxes with a printing calculator.
“Where did you hear that?” Becky asked her.
Jen told her about the magazine. “Well of course I couldn’t look in it, and I couldn’t buy it,” Jen said. “I thought you might have read something about it.”
“You know I don’t read that stuff anymore,” said Becky, her calm yoga-teacher voice taking on a slight edge.
In addition to being a yoga teacher and Jen’s personal assistant, Becky was also an aspiring actress. She ran off to auditions in between her classes every week, but she hadn’t had any real luck, just a few commercials and bit parts on instructional yoga DVDs. Reading about the personal lives of famous actors made her jealous in a compulsive sort of way. She used to collect piles of celebrity magazines, often containing insulting stories about Jen and her ex, and read them secretly in her bedroom. Becky’s Groundbreakers self-actualization coach had recommended she purge herself of this habit. Now whenever she got the urge to fixate on celebrities, Becky wrote self-affirming mantras in her notebook instead. Jen had found the notebook Becky’s bedroom a few weeks ago while she was looking for a pair of jeans. She opened it to a page that read, “I do not need to be famous to be an important and worthwhile person,” written fifteen times over in Becky’s neat, round handwriting. Under the lines were a number of vaguely Sanskrit-looking symbols that Jen did not recognize.
Jen told Becky about the magazine. “He must be seeing somebody,” Jen said. “I need you to go buy the magazine and find out who it is.”
Becky, who had not left the entranceway since she had gotten home, turned on her heels and left again. She shut the door calmly but slammed it a little bit at the end, after it had already closed.
“Thanks,” Jen yelled after her.
Forty-five minutes later (there were no stores near Jen’s house), Becky had finally returned with the magazine and was sitting across from Jen on the stylish eggplant-colored couches in the front living room. Jen watched anxiously as Becky flipped first forward and then backward through the magazine, looking for the article. Finally she stopped, opened the magazine wider, and stared silently at it for a moment.
“Who is it?” Jen asked impatiently.
“Wait, I’m making sure,” Becky said. “It doesn’t say it right away, just hints at it. But there’s a picture…” Becky’s voice trailed off as she read to herself. “Okay, here’s where they say it.”
Becky read the sentence aloud. It reported that Jen’s ex-husband Bradley had been seen at an exclusive Hollywood party vigorously making out with…and out of Becky’s mouth spilled the name of a very famous, very young actress, five years younger than Jen and fifteen years younger than her ex.
“Ew!” Jen squealed like a teenager. She felt disgusted. She knew Bradley would start dating quickly, and had been bracing for it, but had hoped he would pick someone older, more serious, and a little less famous.
Becky closed the magazine decisively and slipped it into her bag full of self-actualization handouts. Jen wondered if Becky would read the rest of it later in her bedroom.
“Well,” said Becky, “you know now, if it’s even true. And there’s nothing you can do about it. Hopefully this will help you move on.”
“I’m not going to move on,” Jen said, furiously. “I’m going to get even with him.” The thought, and the angry strength of her own voice as she articulated it, made Jen feel a tiny bit better.
“Oh, you’re not,” Becky said disapprovingly. “There’s nothing you can do to get even with him.” Becky paused for a moment, and Jen could see her eyeing her bag of handouts. “Jen, I know you don’t want me to talk to you about this Groundbreakers stuff, but there’s a lesson in here that I think could really help you.”
“I’m going to sleep with one of his friends,” Jen said.
“No,” said Becky. “That’s not what you really want to do.” Becky had been learning a lot about differentiating one’s own true desires from what her course called “mind-havoc.” She had spoken to Jen about this several times, and Jen had caught hints of it sneaking into her yoga lessons as well. “Acting out in a self-destructive way is only going to make you feel worse.”
“Okay, it might,” Jen admitted. “But I’m going to do it anyway so you might as well help me.”
Jen knew Becky was a sucker for this kind of reasoning, because it was the truth, and Becky, for all her new-age training, was ultimately an extreme pragmatist.
Chapter 2:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/03/2-few-have-strength-of-reason-to.html
Friday, February 15, 2008
i. epigraph
I get no kick in a plane.
Flying too high with some gal in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
But I get a kick out of you.
Chapter 1:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/02/1-yoga-class.html
Flying too high with some gal in the sky
Is my idea of nothing to do,
But I get a kick out of you.
Chapter 1:
http://kickoutofyou.blogspot.com/2008/02/1-yoga-class.html
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