A Job Opportunity Too Good Not to Resist*

My great aunt—bless her—has just given my dad the name and phone numbers of a woman, presumably one she knows (perhaps well?), who runs a child daycare center. Apparently said woman is looking for help. Other than my sister and my dad, my great aunt is the most worried about my not having a job. She must have asked around for me (I appreciate it, I really do), knowing that I am interested in teaching, but daycare? Is she nuts?! Even if I wanted to be around slobbering kids all day, pining away for their nap times, I probably couldn’t secure this job. Excepting this past week in the ESOL classroom, of which round two is starting Tuesday morning, I don’t have any experience working with kids. And certainly not with pre-schoolers and younger aged rugrats. I am not comfortable around them, particularly the ones with whom I can’t have a “real” conversation and the ones who can’t go to the bathroom on their own. If I ran a daycare center, I wouldn’t hire me.

*The title of this post refers to my chronic lack of self-confidence. I’m not in denial; I know it can’t be true that I am really not cut out for anything, which is exactly how I feel. Tell me, how do I change my mind after years of second- and triple-guessing myself and my talents and skills?

Making My Way Through My Personal Library

I’m a very frugal, even miserly, person. I still owe my brother about $9 for some Chinese takeout we had last week; he hasn’t crossed the hall to collect, though, so I’ll wait as long as possible to pay up. Since I don’t have a job, I hardly ever buy anything. I can’t tell you the last time I bought clothes, and my last biggest purchases were birthday presents for my siblings—in February and August. Come to think of it, when my sister received her PhD in May, I also gifted her a huge chunk of money (relatively speaking), to spend expressly at an upscale movie theater in her city. Ordinarily, this would not be newsworthy, but just last week I made an online purchase at a mega discounter that shall remain nameless, splurging $28.22 on three books. I finally cashed in a coupon worth $10 in merchandise that I paid $5 for back in March. I was both excited to receive the books (which even arrived two days early!) and relieved to have used the coupon, finally.

I love to read, and I love to read about books and publishing. Everyday I trawl around The New York Times and other news outlets I follow on Twitter. But when it comes to literature and full-length works of non-fiction, I go through periods of frenzied reading followed by long dry spells. While I lived in New York from August 2009 to November 2011, I was a voracious reader, consuming at least one book a week, as I quickly grew accustomed to reading on the subway as I traveled throughout the city: whether it was historical and theoretical articles on film for school, supplementary materials I borrowed from the library, or novels both classic and contemporary (and somewhere in between).

Additionally, I have always loved the tangibility of books, the texture of pages (especially the thrill of turning them), the smell of the ink, and, let’s face it, the look of them filed and stacked on the shelf. This is why it came as a surprise to everyone—not least of all, myself—that I ordered an economical e-reader device last fall, believing it would be easier to build a collection of classic literature and to travel the world with my personal library (or at least a portion of it, anyway) if I used such a thing. That was back when I thought I was going to move abroad to teach English as a Foreign Language, but I have yet to make good on that goal. Unfortunately, my e-reader purchase coincided with my move back home to the suburbs, where I lack a regular commute that so easily affords me a healthy diet of reading. Long story short: my e-reader has sat unused for months. I only just got around to finishing Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence on it, spurred by the expectation of my newest acquisitions that were to arrive in the mail at any minute.

Last week, I bought Jeffrey Eugenides’s latest novel (new in paperback) The Marriage Plot; the graphic novel Unterzakhn by Leela Corman; and the memoir/feminist manifesto How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran. The title I’ve anticipated the most is The Marriage Plot because Eugenides’s previous effort, the Pulitzer Prize-winning Middlesex, is definitely one of my all-time favorites. In fact, I had originally planned to buy The Marriage Plot for the e-reader (the book and the device both came out around the same time), but I decided to wait until its paperback version was published because I wanted a tangible copy. I didn’t know it was going to take ten months to print! (For the record, I don’t like reading hardcovers, as they are too difficult for me to hold.)

I had heard of Unterzakhn due to a mailing from the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, which I believe was hosting a reading and/or discussion that I inevitably couldn’t attend. I have never read a graphic novel—nor even a comic book—before, and so I have resolved to remedy this situation with a story about twin Jewish girls coming-of-age on the LES and taking wildly different life trajectories at the dawn of the 20th century. When the books arrived in the mail, my dad asked about the contents of the brown box. After I listed this title and its medium, he balked, “A graphic novel?! You?!” Then I summed up Unterzakhn‘s premise for him and said, “This is the kind of story that will make me want to read a graphic novel!” That shut him up.

Last, but not least, I now have How to Be a Woman. Assuming it would constitute lighter fare and, well, be funny, I started with this one first, and I’m now about halfway through. I know it’s a bit old, as it has already been a hit in Moran’s native Britain for over a year, but I only learned about it two months ago when Sarah Lyall profiled the journalist-turned-memoirist in The New York Times. It’s an irresistible idea: a funny and prominent personality has written a treatise on how women (and men!) need to recognize that they are or at least should be feminists. With me, she’s preaching to the choir, but I was intrigued enough by Lyall’s write-up, I had to pick it up.

Since I have read the prologue and the first eight chapters, I can say that, thankfully, it has gradually morphed into a more balanced memoir/manifesto. That is to say, in the beginning, I was a little disappointed that Moran dedicated more words to recounting the often humiliating scenes from her adolescence than to forming a feminist argument based around them. For example, I found it disheartening that her chapter on menstruation dovetails into a long discussion of masturbation, as she recalls her exploring her burgeoning sexuality with great abandon after the onset of her first period. The last few pages of the chapter are devoted to cursing the porn industry for failing to capture real desire between sexual performers on-camera. I disagree with her point to an extent, but more than this, I didn’t understand how adjusting to your period is ultimately about what’s wrong with pornography (nothing inherent, she says, it’s just messed up in terms of business practices and products). Strangely, though, now that she’s making the feminist talking points more a part of her story, How to Be a Woman is becoming less and less funny.

Oh, but to be reading again is grand. I hope this period of intensity lasts a long while. I’ve got so much I need to get through, books just waiting to be picked up after months of laying dormant on the shelf. Stuff like Orlando by Virginia Woolf, Misfortune by Wesley Stace (notice a pattern yet?), and Vaclav & Lena by Haley Tanner. Nothing but reading a good book can make you feel alive, aware of the world and your place within it. Right?

A Momentary Encounter with Natural Beauty

I just clawed my way out of a deep sleep. It’s not typical of me to take naps in the middle of the day. It used to be, but not anymore. Nowadays, if I do such a thing it’s because I don’t feel well. Don’t judge, it’s what we’re supposed to do, right? When we’re feeling sick to our stomachs or having a terrible, pounding headache? Anyway, I fell into this deep sleep approximately two—no, if I’m being honest, it was more like three—hours ago, after gorging myself on some freshly cut watermelon. I had just come home from a nearly seven-mile-long walk around the neighborhood with my dad. This is a very typical activity, and you might even use it as an explanation as to why I don’t spend enough time on my job search everyday. I know I do. But for some strange reason, today’s walk, which wasn’t the longest ever by any stretch of the imagination, was especially brutalizing. I chalk it up to the heat (we were walking during peak sun hours, with virtually no shade). Today was hotter than I was expecting, but thankfully not at all humid. But I don’t want to tell a story about heat and exhaustion; I want to tell one about despair.

One of the reasons for our going out was so that my dad could drop off some food for the Saturday morning kiddush he attends every week after services. As we approached the synagogue, I was already tired, and I preferred to take a shortcut to the entrance rather than follow my dad’s route, which would have us walk around the entire parking lot only to approach the doors from a pedestrian-friendly vantage point. But guess which path we took? So, as we walked around the corner and over to the sidewalk that would lead us up to the synagogue’s entrance, we came upon a praying mantis crawling in the shul‘s driveway, its bright green body in sharp contrast to the asphalt ground. I had never seen one of these creatures live and in person before; I was ecstatic. Dad got close to it, even touching its chest with his finger, all while asking me, “They don’t hurt you, do they?” He defers to me on the topic of insects a lot, because I took one entomology class in college. And no, they don’t hurt you, I told him. Only if you’re a female’s partner in copulation should you be wary, as she is more than likely to eat you up after the deed’s done. “Haven’t you seen Nine Months?” I ask him.

The praying mantis we met looked a lot like this one. Photo courtesy of http://www.herpindiego.com.

Our short introductory encounter with the praying mantis soon came to an end. As we trudged up the hill to the entrance, I thought how lucky I was to have seen it up-close. All because we took the long way around. I looked back, over my shoulder, at least twice, marveling at how from fifty feet away, I could still see it struggling to cross the road. Its movements almost looked counterproductive to its goal: for every step forward, it appeared as if the praying mantis was taking two steps back. And its whole body rocked due to this rhythm. I couldn’t wait to meet it again on the way back down, as we continued on our walk.

On the way back, I could see its wings fluttering from afar. We inspected the scene, only to find out that indeed the praying mantis had been run over by a car. In the moment of that realization, I cursed myself for not attempting to move it out of the line of traffic and into safety when we first met. I think my dad must have been stunned by my visceral reaction. I didn’t cry or anything, but I was very visibly upset that something so beautiful had been struck down. I acknowledged the hypocrisy of my grief (“I know I kill bugs, too, but this was special“), and I couldn’t stop thinking of the poor praying mantis all throughout our walk.

Later on, as we were approaching the end of our walk, I said out of nowhere to Dad, as the thought came to me, “It’s highly ironic, huh, that the praying mantis should meet its end at a house of worship, don’tcha think?” Ruefully, my dad agreed. I continued: “I guess that goes to show you praying doesn’t do jack shit.”

I Carried the Power Cord

Phew! Day 2 of helping Dad cut the grass is now over. Yesterday it was the hilly front yard, today the smaller, more level backyard. We split the activity across two days because we started late yesterday and we wanted to see the men’s singles championship tennis match at the U.S. Open. How relieved we all are that Andy Murray defeated Novak Djokovic, taking away his first Grand Slam title and bringing to a close Britain’s 76-year-old dry spell of not having a male Grand Slam tournament winner. But I digress.

What exactly did my lawn contribution consist of, you ask? And how did I even end up getting involved in this enterprise in the first place? Well, it all started about two weeks ago. Before letting the dog out in the backyard, I made sure that the gate was shut. My dad has a tendency to leave it open when he cuts the grass. As I provided Samson with the combined opportunities to relieve himself, run around, and sunbathe, I wound up lifting the long cord connected to my dad’s electric power mower off the ground and throwing it out of his path so that he could more easily get around. Just like that, I got roped into doing yardwork that I had heretofore successfully avoided—for 26 years. This doesn’t include those rare late fall days when we kids gladly volunteered to rake leaves, building giant mounds of them so that they resembled hobbits’ knolly enclaves, which we ecstatically dove or fell back into as if they were beanbag chairs.

Dad was grateful that I came to his aid. I didn’t do anything as glamorous or important as carry a watermelon, but I did help chop off minutes—maybe hours—from his arduous task. It meant he didn’t need to turn off the mower every time the cord got in his way and then walk over to pick it up. So I agreed to assist him this week, too, and every other lawn mowing time still to come in the season (there are maybe three more instances of this to look forward to). It’s so like me to help him cut the grass, my dad told me yesterday, because I’m not as lazy as my brother, and my sister (who lives in LA, it must be said) would think it’s beneath her to do it. “Well, when you put it like that, Dad, it makes me feel a whole lot better” about thinking that I’ve got nothing else better to do. Which of course isn’t true. I need to look harder for a (paying) job.

Contributing to our shared effort was, I’m sorry to say, boring and slow-going. I had thought of bringing a book, but there was no way I could hold it, register the story, and concentrate on what needed to be done. I couldn’t listen to music, either, because it’d have been too dangerous; Dad and I needed to communicate regularly. So, most of the time, I was alone in my thoughts. In fact, I conceived this blog while just standing on the lawn, scribbling a few ideas onto a tiny notepad. I think the main reason I actually started The Rumination Refinery is because I wanted something interesting and inspirational to come out of my having done very little other than hold the 125 ft. power cord for two and a half hours yesterday.

At various times, I felt like a cowboy (or girl) at a rodeo, looping the cord around one hand as if preparing to lasso a calf with the other. Or like a prima donna at the opera making a grand entrance with her skirt’s long train, whenever I gathered the cord and dramatically flung it behind me to keep it out of Dad’s line. It also occurred to me that it’s so like Dad and me to be bound this way to each other (we’re very close, our personalities similar). It suddenly dawned on me today that it’s like there’s an umbilical cord running between us. Or a dog leash. When we’re working, it’s unclear who is really in charge, though. He tells me where he wants to go, but I lead the way. And when the end of the cord plugged into the mower spontaneously falls out, whether it’s because I pulled too hard on it or neglected to give him a longer lead, Dad’s intense eyes shoot lasers at me. I feel like such a failure. It doesn’t help any that the machine sucks up rocks, acorns, and bits of tree branches only to spit them back out at me, hitting my chest, arms, and legs in the process. I now know how people who collect golf balls at the hitting ranges feel. Kind of.

The only time I felt triumphant was when we were finishing up yesterday around 4 in the afternoon, just in time to watch the beginning of the tennis match. I could see we were literally inching closer and closer toward the finish line, and I started to mouth the words to “World in Motion” by New Order. Love’s got the world in motion, and I know what we can do. Love’s got the world in motion, I can’t believe it’s true. It’s the little victories, no?

So what did I learn from this experience? Helping Dad with this almost biweekly household chore (pretty much the only one any of us does), I can now appreciate two things: first, it’s a lot of work just to mow the lawn, which sits at just under a third of an acre, and second, I never want a lawn of my own.