Postmodern Sass: The First Two Years

Two years ago today I began writing Postmodernes Sprachspielen, and I remember vividly the catalyst: It was Jack standing me up for Carly and Simon's wedding.

It's something I've done since I was eight years old: I write when I'm upset. When I'm hurt, or depressed, or lonely, or sad, or angry, or afraid, or I feel like a fool, I write. And when I've finished, and after I've reread what I've written a dozen times or so, I feel better. It is both pennance and catharsis.

Until I sat at John Steinbeck's desk last week, I thought that, if I were ever to be happy, I'd stop writing.



See, that's usually what happens with me. I know, because I was happy for almost seventeen years with X, and I hardly wrote at all during that time. I felt that I couldn't, you see, because I wouldn't be honest in my writing, because he might read it, and I didn't want to become like Alice Munro, who I hear isn't welcome in her hometown.

The irony is, he left me anyway, and it was because of something I wrote.

That was when I began work on my PhD. A major writing project, in which I need not be honest.

And now I have Jack, and I don't have Jack, and though he doesn't read what I write, when I write something about him, he reads it then, and he tells me, "I would never tell you what to write," and I know he means it sincerely, and yet, now that I live in California, his adopted home, and it is no longer an odds-astronomically-against coincidence that someone who reads my stories might know the real world "Jack," well, I'm writing in my Moleskine more these days.


Because that's just for me, and no one else.

* * *
Postmodern Sass's Greatest Hits Volume IV

In April, Jack comes back into Sass's life just as she's about to fly to California for a job interview.

In May, it's time to start packing, so Sass sells some furniture to a woman from Planet Claire and paints her bathroom.

In June, the packing continues and Sass tells her dead mother she's moving to California, and her friend Genie discovers her blog.

In July, an old friend from Montreal is in town, performing in the theatre of the car. Sass flies back to San Jose to go apartment hunting. Cinderella and Sass argue about baskets, while Sass's friends argue about her farewell party.

In August, Postmodern Sass goes to the Moon with Jack, then bids farewell to Zee and Lulu, and her karaoke buddies, and waits for the moving truck. She arrives in California, only to be told to go away.

In September, in San Jose, Postmodern Sass gets a message from her dead mother, hangs the ceremonial orange towel in her new apartment, and gets back on the roller coaster with Jack.

Wake Up Little Susie

Every year since I started teaching at the university level — that was on September 11, 2001 — I have taught at least one semester of an introduction to advertising class, and half way through the term we do a mock judging of the Cannes International Advertising Festival.

I schedule a "viewing day" during which I show them a short list of Cannes contenders in the film (i.e. television commercial) category. The students form judging teams and their assignment is to choose which of the ads they believe shoud be awarded the honour of the best television commercial in the world. The assignment is worth 10% of their grade for the semester.

In the course outline, which the students are given on the first day of class, there is a detailed description of this assignment, in which the following sentence appears: "You must be present in class on the day of the viewing or you will not get credit for this assignment." I bring this to their attention, as well as the scheduled date of the viewing, during our first class meeting. A week prior to the viewing day I send them a reminder email that goes like this:

You MUST be present on the viewing day in order to get credit for this assignment. You cannot join a judging team afterwards. If you miss the viewing day as a result of extreme circumstances beyond your control, I may be willing to work something out with you. An example of what constitutes an extreme circumstance would be, you're in the hospital. However, "I got stuck in traffic and couldn't get there," is not an acceptable reason for missing the class that day. Get up earlier.

I'm finding it a continual source of amusement, the complaining people in San Jose do about the traffic. I walk to the campus and most days I could crawl across the street while the crosswalk light is red, and still never see a car. But I digress.

It happens every time. The student who sneaks in half way through, and tries to explain to me afterwards why she was late. The student who sends me email, begging me to let him view the ads on his own. The students who cry in my office because they didn't get the email.

Today, I heard a new one. You gotta give the kid credit for honesty, at least:

"I really wanted to be here, and I set my alarm and everything, but for some reason it didn't wake me up."

Breaks my heart.

Next, it's Postmodern Sass's two year blogiversary. In November, Sass has an even more confusing conversation with a student.

Happy Together

Last night I spoke to Jack on the phone for an hour. Just as I began to debate hanging up on him my pre-paid cell phone, my only phone for the time being, until I get that damned social security number and can begin to function on credit, ran out of minutes.

I took it as a sign. I decided I'd break the navel-gazing cycle, and instead of boring you with the gory details of our conversation I'd blog surf. Something I haven't done enough of lately.

As good a place as any to start, I thought, and better than most, is Neil Kramer's blogroll. He has me listed under "With Coffee at Breakfast" so I decided to explore those bloggers who also share his coffee.

City Wendy in the Windy City is a teacher, like me. She writes:

"I got my first batch of student papers yesterday afternoon, which means I have basically been holed up in my livingroom, alternating between grading, drinking white wine, obsessively checking my email for notices that I won a million dollars or that someone -- anyone -- loves me, and checking the mirror to see if my hair has grown at all today."

But I can't relate, so I'm not sure I'll read Wendy again. See, I drink beer, not white wine.

Let's see... Fictional Rockstar. Great name for a blog. But she writes about shoes, and does so with "a dash of sass." Nah. Nothing in common there.

Communicatrix was disappointed in The Black Dahlia. But how could a movie that bends so far over backwards to be stylish, and obliterates its storyline in the process, be all bad?

Billy Mernit calls his blog Living The Romantic Comedy. I am afraid to read further in light of last night's conversation. Ditto Dating Dummy.

Let's see... Danny Miller calls his blog Jew Eat Yet? I don't guess I'd enjoy reading a blogger who plays clever word games. Nah.

I'm gonna try one more.

Paperback Writer.

This one has possibilities. She likes Hello Kitty. I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'.

But wait; she fails to mention karaoke when discussing The Turtles' song.

Geez, Neil, nothin' good here at all. Guess I'm gonna have to start drinking Wine with Dinner.

* * *
Friends of Neil, please note: my regular readers (Neil among them) will understand that I am making fun of no one but myself, and that I am complimenting your blogs. You're new here; you don't know about my shoe collection, or what I mean by sprachspiel, or how my students have driven me to drink, or my karaoke obsession, or what a dork I am when it comes to dating. I hope you'll stick around and become an FOS, Friend of Sass, and find out, though.

A Mystery To Me

"We have really great health care benefits here at USJ," began Ramon, the human resources specialist.

"With all due respect," I replied, carefully, "I come from a country where you don't need to be a state employee to have great health care benefits. In fact, you don't even have to be an employee. There are no forms to fill out, no payments to be made. You just go to a doctor and they take care of you. And if you break your leg, say, you have a friend carry you to the nearest emergency room to have it set. You're going to need to start at the beginning, and explain it to me like I just landed here from Mars."

Which is exactly what I felt like. Co-payments. HMOs. PPOs. And did you say, if I change benefits plans I have to change doctors?

Ramon was outlining the various pros and cons of the six, count 'em, six different health care plans from which I was to choose. And by pros and cons I mean the prices. That is, what I would be required to pay, under thus-and-such circumstances, in addition to the great benefits provided by the state.

Years ago, when I was working in New York City, a colleague told me, with a look of horror on her face, that she'd heard that in Canada you can't choose your doctor! I don't know how she got that idea, and I couldn't seem to convince her that she was mistaken — nevermind try to comprehend why she would think such a thing in the first place. I sensed a lexical gap.

Now, after my meeting with Ramon, I am beginning to understand the nature of that gap. Having a choice of doctor, and being able to change doctors, within the restrictions of your health care plan, of course, is very important to Americans.

It's like being told how great the menu of a restaurant is, and being expected not to mind that you're going to have to eat there every day, three times a day, and that you can't eat anywhere else.

I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that changing doctors is a "benefit" of one program over the other. If I understand Ramon correctly, and I'm certain that I don't, the main criteria, other than price, that differentiates one program from another, is the range of doctors from which you may choose, their location, and the ease with which you can change them.

I remember Jack telling me, long before I ever considered moving here, that America is a great country to live in, so long as you have money and you don't get sick.

I'm going to need some translation help from Jack before I can make this decision. And a stiff drink.

That photo, Gentle Reader, is the roof of the Winchester Mystery House, a tourist attraction here in San Jose. My best friend Kay is visiting, and we've been acting like tourists for the last week or so. It all starts with our Thelma & Louise photo.

Just Go Away [redux]

I hear it's getting chilly there, already, and I know it will snow in a couple of months, and maybe then I won't miss it so much, but right now I'm terribly, terribly homesick.

Plus, I feel like stomping on bunnies, so please keep yours safely out of my path.

I just got off the phone with the local Social Security Administration office. The office where, five weeks ago today I brought my passport and my I-94 form. They looked at my original documents. They photocopied them. The day before that, the Homeland Security officers at the border had looked at them, scanned them through their system, and allowed me legally to enter this country.

But now, five weeks later, for reasons beyond the comprehension of any reasonable person, I remain without a social security number because "my application hasn't been verified yet."

Keep those bunnies safe.

Please, I beg you.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass navigates the mystery of the American health care system.

Then I Saw You

You won't recognize that song title, Gentle Reader, unless you were in Montreal in the 1980s and remember a local band called This "Blue Piano." That was my favourite of their songs, and not just because they let me sing backup on it.

But my friend Ken, who was the bass player in that band, and who falls into that category defined by lead singer Steve L. thusly: once you've seen someone naked you're bonded for life — just emailed me from London, where he'll be living until next spring, to tell me he's blogging his Harrowing Experience.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets homesick.

More Fun In The New World

In the 1980s hair was big, Dynasty ruled, and I was at university, being not exactly an A student. I went to my classes occasionally, and spent my days in the basement of what is now called the William Shatner building, or so I'm told. In those days we just called it the Union. The campus pub was upstairs and the radio station and newspaper offices were in the basement, and at night we'd lock the doors and turn off the lights, and listen to that week's new releases in the studio, in the darkness lit only by the glowing dials on the mixing boards and the glowing ashes on the tips of our cigarettes.

I was the music director for the campus radio station, a music reviewer for the Daily, and I sometimes did interviews and voice-overs for the city's alternative FM station. They didn't pay me, but I did get to see all the concerts I wanted to for free, and I got invited to a lot of parties. I danced with Bernard Sumner, lunched with Nina Hagen, ate bananas with Billy Bragg, had a laminated backstage pass to an R.E.M. show, and got invited to New York by The Fleshtones, but the best time I had was when X came to town and the alternative station sent me to interview them.

The A&R guy from their record label let me into Le Club Montreal at about 4:00 in the afternoon, and told me I'd have to wait while they went through their sound check. I thought when they were done I'd get ten minutes or so with John Doe or Exene Cervenka, maybe sitting in the wings while their roadies manoevred around us, and if I was really lucky one of them might say something soundbite worthy, thereby guaranteeing my continued unpaid employment as a stringer.

Instead, I got two full hours at a nearby restaurant, at a quiet table, with both of them. No A&R guy, no local promoter, no roadies. Just me, John, and Exene. It was the coolest brush-with-greatness story I'd had in my repertoire, until yesterday.

Yesterday I had the blog world version of seeing U2 play at my local pub. With no cover charge.

I had a Märzen at Gordon Biersch with Robert Scoble.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass reconnects with an old friend.

Stand By Me

The real name for the tool is the reciprocating saw, but I first heard about it on a podcast on The Jin & Jerry Show, wherein Jerry described at great length his home improvement project, which involved cutting thorough drywall deliberately, and pipes inadvertently, and he referred to it as a sawzall. As in, it saws all, even that which you might not wish to saw.

So when I found myself invited to Jerry's house for a barbeque over the Labour Day weekend, and learned beforehand that the host was an audioblogger, I checked out his site and then accepted on the condition that I be shown the storied device. You may think I jest, Gentle Reader, but upon arriving at Jin and Jerry's lovely home in the mountains somewhere between San Jose and Santa Cruz, and after being introduced to the other guests; and after Jerry had been kind enough to place a glass of red wine into my hands, my first question was, "So, where is it?"

"Oh, we'll get to it, don't worry," Jerry laughed, "But first we must consume vast amounts of alcohol."

The thing you notice first about Jerry is that he's always laughing. Mostly at his own jokes — which, in themselves are not all that funny, but you can't help but laugh once he starts. It's his most endearing quality next to his wife, Jin, who had worked with Jack at Big Ass American Software Company, until she left to have babies.

Jerry was particularly amused by the difficulties we'd encountered trying to find the house. Difficulties which were only slightly complicated by Jin calling Jack just as we'd taken what turned out to be the wrong exit, to ask whether we could pick up some ribs.

"Sure," said Jack. "What else do you need? Burgers? Dogs? A new grill?"

It seems Jerry had left the ribs on about an hour longer than he should have. When we arrived, one of the men at the table, whose name turned out to be Rick, was joking about dried venison, camping supplies, and how the ribs would do if survival became absolutely necessary.

The ribs actually snapped when you tried to separate them.

But the company was excellent. There were Jerry and Jin, Rick and Adele, and Stash and his wife Nola. They were all neighbours, in country terms. Nola showed me the flashlight they'd be using to navigate their way home later.

The conversation and amusement was an endsummer night's dream. Jack and I did an adequate Doug and Bob Mackenzie, which never fails to entertain Americans. Jerry played us recordings of his cousin from Michigan, who is a standup comedian. And Stash told jokes, too, mostly Polish ones, which he's allowed to do because, as he says, he's proud to be a Polack. My boyfriend Josh, from high school, was Polish, and he taught me to say Noz-drovia! Which is a toast, and which means, of course, "Nice driveway!"

"What do you get when you cross an Italian with an octopus?" asked Stash, and then he answered himself, "I don't know, but can that sucker lay bricks!" You may not find that one as funny as I did, Gentle Reader, but that's because you didn't grow up in Beamsville, Ontario, during the 1970s, and maybe your daddy wasn't a German bricklayer who worked with them. Italians, that is, not octopuses.

Then Stash lit a cigarette, and so, since that was clearly okay with Jerry — we were out on the back deck, overlooking the spectacular box canyons — I did, too, and so did Jack, as he came to stand by me. We all smoked quietly for a while, taking in the view of steeply rolling hills covered in golden grass, and then I said to Jack, "I'm looking at those hills, and you know what I'm thinking?"

"Tobogganing," he replied. "Except it doesn't snow here."

* * *
We'd spent the day in Santa Cruz, on the beach, Jack and I, and I stepped into the Pacific Ocean for the first time since arriving in California, two weeks ago. We walked along the beach, and the boardwalk, and out to the end of the pier, and we listened to the sea lions barking, and laughed as they tried, and very often failed, to hurl themselves up onto the struts and shelves of the pier supports.

And we rode the roller coaster again. Twice. In the front seat of the front car, and by the second time I was brave enough to let go during the small hills, but not the really big one. Jack rides the whole way with his hands in the air. He has no fear. Not of roller coasters, that is.

The tide had come in by the time we decided to leave, and so instead of walking through the water we took the long way around, across the train trestle, and I remembered that other time Jack and I had taken a walk along the tracks. And so did Jack, because when we were half way across he said, ""I dunno, Vern, by the time we get to Jerry's the guy won't even be dead anymore!"

* * *
"So, how did you two meet, anyway?" asked Jerry. We had begun to approach the vast amounts of consumption to which he had referred earlier. It was nearing the end of the evening. Jack was inside, talking to Jin. Jerry, Stash, his wife, and the other couple, Rick and Adele, were still outside on the deck, with me. It hadn't been difficult for me to discern which of the guests Jack had been aquainted with before tonight, and which he hadn't, and so, mindful of the fact that those with whom he was likely knew very little about him, because that's just Jack's way, and those with whom he wasn't wouldn't care at all, but would be entertained by a good story, I shot the rest of my wine, selected a set of appropriate data, and began:

"We met in a class at university, fifteen years ago," I said.

"In Toronto?" asked Adele.

"No, in a small town not far from there, where we were both living at the time. And we got into an argument in class that continued after the class had ended, outside, into the parking lot, into my car, and..."

"Into bed!" finished Rick, who I guessed hadn't known Jack before tonight, and the others laughed.

"Well, no," I said, "You see, at the time I was married to someone else."

They oohed and tsked, and that gave me time to select from the data but their next question was unexpected:

"What was the class?"

Phew. An easy one.

"Rhetoric," I replied. And that was the tangent they needed. Jerry ran inside to get Jack.

"Who won the argument?" asked Stash in the meantime.

"He did," I replied. Without hesitation, because that issue had been settled long ago.

Then Jerry returned, dragging Jack with him, and they pounced upon him demanding to know what rhetoric was, and why he'd taken it, and then in a weirdly Newlywed Game sort of way, Jerry asked Jack, "So did you win the argument? No, wait, who do you think she said won?

* * *
"But that's called a jigsaw, isn't it?" I asked, when the sawzall was finally displayed, in all its glory, in Jerry's backyard shed at the end of the party. Jerry had led Jack and me outside, into the darkness, guided by a flashlight, to the shed, which was secured by a combination lock.

"It's 18-32-36, right?" Jerry asked.

"Sounds right," I offered, though of course I had no idea. "Remember from high school? You have to go all the way around, after the first number."

Three or four tries later, we were in, and the demo had begun.

"It's not a jigsaw!" Jerry insisted. "A jigsaw just goes back and forth, like this." He demonstrated, using the sawzall. "But this, this reciprocates, like this," and he powered it up and again demonstrated.

"So what you're saying is, it's a jigsaw that cuts through not only drywall but two-by-fours, nails, and pipes."

"Exactly!"

"Even when the pipes are not so much what you wanted to actually cut through."

"Yes!"

He was still weilding the power tool, and it was still humming.

"You don't have a goalie mask, by chance, do you?" I inquired over the roar.

He didn't, but he did have a circular saw, and a chainsaw. It was a terribly well equipped shed.

"I'm the kind of guy who likes the idea of the thing better than the actual thing," Jerry explained. "I'll go buy $7,000 dollars worth of equipment..."

"Like, say, for podcasting?" interjected Jack.

"Yeah. And then not use it. But hey, if you guys ever need to borrow some power tools, just come on by!"

A few minutes later, with the sawzall safely and quietly returned to its case, the combination lock secured on the shed door, Jack and I said goodbye to our host and climbed into Beauty. It had been a perfect day, but we still had a long way to go.

We stand on guard for thee

Neil, this is for thee. The ceremonial hanging of the orange towel.

Beach baby, beach baby, give me a hand

Seriously, if you want to be immediately popular with your friends and family, move to California. Kay is coming for two weeks, in two weeks. Cinderella is driving up from LaLa Land the week after that. And Tim was here last week, but I didn't see him because it was the only day that Blundering American was in town, and it's not every day one of your blogger friends from the other sunshine state comes to visit, and he and his a cartoon character buddy help you put your desk together.

Ghost In The Machine

I refer, of course, to the washing machine. You see, my mother has been haunting me.

Go ahead, Gentle Reader, laugh. But you didn't know my mother, and if anyone could figure out how to come back and play practical jokes on the people they'd left behind, it'd be Hildegard.

She had what you might call an... interesting sense of humour. Sense of irony, to be more precise. In truth, she had no sense of humour whatsoever, at least not in any traditional understanding of that attribute.

My mother died four years ago, on a warm evening in May, the day before her 62nd birthday. Which means, if you consider the concept of the 365-day calendar, that she lived for exactly 62 years. My mother taught me many things, but I didn't learn any of them until after she died.

She taught me to love reading, and to love magazines, and to treat magazines as though they were books. Keep them forever, but you may cut them up for school projects. Keep them even after you've ripped pages and cut articles out. But never, ever, write in a book, unless you're getting it autographed by the author.

I have a great many books, and a great many of them are autographed. Gloria Steinem, and Mordecai Richler, and Russell Smith and Thom Jones. I once had an email conversation with Michael Chabon, but I've never met him in person. And I have an autographed copy of Steve Martin's first novel, Shop Girl, which I bought that way, off the shelf at the Border's in Santa Barbara.

My first autograph was Pierre Berton. My mother took me to a reading, back in the 70s, when I was so little I didn't understand what a reading was, or who Pierre Berton was, but when my mother said maybe we can go backstage afterwards and get his autograph, I was so excited it was all I could think about during the reading. I don't remember which of his many volumes he read from that evening, but I have it, and it's autographed.

At least one member of each of the three sets of movers who moved my household possessions last month asked me, "Are you a teacher?"

"A professor," I replied, "How'd you guess?" You see, 54 of my 137 boxes were labelled "books."

My mother was a teacher, and she gave me that yellow t-shirt, the one that I'd used to wrap up some small breakable items years ago, and that had been packed in a box since the last time I moved. Or maybe even since the time before that. This time, I swore, no more packed boxes stashed in the backs of closets. If it was important enough to me to pay by the pound to move it 3,000 miles, then it deserves to be unpacked.

I had forgotten that t-shirt. I had forgotten how insanely proud my mother had been, when I told her I was planning to go to teacher's college. I insisted, to myself, that the fact that she was a teacher had nothing whatsoever to do with my decision. After all, I'd been telling her since I was six that I absolutely, never, under no circumstances, no sirree was I ever going to grow up to be a teacher.

So I decided I'd keep that t-shirt. I decided I'd wash it. I did a load of laundry consisting of several pairs of white socks, four or five of my mostly white but with something printed on them t-shirts, and it.

Can you tell from the photo that all my white t-shirts are yellow now?

In the next story, Jack takes Sass to Wonderland again, this time, California style.