catcher in the rye as an almost 20 year old

I finished re-reading Catcher in the Rye last night, and it was so much of a different experience than it was the first time i read it in 10th grade. I gave that book a hell of a lot of respect because at several points in time, it had been banned from schools. My English teacher said that she went out of her way to get her hands on that book back when she was a kid because she was stuck in Catholic school, and she wanted to read it as much as they didn't want her to read it.

It hit me while reading yesterday that Holden isn't the guy I thought he was. He's a miserable bastard, and that this whole idea of a permanently angry kid is now more exhausting than it is refreshing. I guess when you're younger, you look at Holden and think how great it would be to be as big a pain as he is, because not everyone can sit there faulting everyone and everything all the time, all day. His character is kind of romantic because he seems to be that one real guy in a sea full of phonies, calling everyone out in his head because he's hopelessly cynical and he can't turn it off. And I guess that because he's 16 with this ridiculously precocious mind that rejects everything while everyone around him at Pencey Prep or whatever is absorbing it, he's got nowhere to spit it out. Back when I read it the first time, I think I decided that you had to be sitting outside of the ring to be able to do that. But now that I'm in college, and since I need a job after that, and since you need to be able to shoot the shit in an interview to get a job in the first place, I've struck a compromise with myself.

My deal is to call out those phonies in the narrative going on in my own head, say to myself what despicable people they really are. But I'm also going to play the game. You have to be phony to get where you want in the world. If you want a comfortable little life, you got to be able to shoot the shit in an interview, talk nice, play nice with bastards you hate, but think dirty in your head. I don't care if I come off as the biggest phony in the world on the outside, as long as I know that somewhere inside, I have a genuine set of feelings and contempt for the people and things that deserve it. It's because of this new outlook I've adopted that makes Holden such an annoying character. Holden's a smart kid. He should put his anger to good use, somehow. He's a kid now, but he's going to get tired and anxious of walking around alone when he gets older.

This new view I brought to Catcher in the Rye sort of parallels something Holden says nearing the end of the book while he's in the Museum of Natural History:

"You could go there a hundred thousand times, and that Eskimo would still be just finished catching those two fish, the birds would still be on their way south, the deers would still be drinking out of that water hole, with their pretty antlers and their pretty, skinny legs, and that squaw with the naked bosom would still be weaving that same blanket. Nobody'd be different. The only thing that would be different would be you. Not that you'd be so much older or anything. It wouldn't be that, exactly. You'd just be different, that's all. You'd have an overcoat on this time. Or the kid that was your partner in line the last time had got scarlet fever and you'd have a new partner. Or you'd have a substitute taking the class, instead of Miss Aigletinger. Or you'd heard your mother and father having a terrific fight in the bathroom. Or you'd just passed by one of those puddles in the street with gasoline rainbows in them. I mean you'd be different in some way--I can't explain what I mean."

As I get older and fatter and more wrinkly and get a real job and maybe a family of my own and go through menopause and all that, Holden's going to remain the angsty little twit he's always been. I wonder if I'll feel completely different about him in a few years when I'm kissing corporate ass.

oh right, blogger

I just finished my sophomore year! It's been so long since I've even thought about blogging that I forgot what I titled this thing and everything. I'm glad I remembered it because I have thoughts on Scott McClellan that I would like to preserve on the internet. Also, it's summer again, so maybe I'll indulge myself and write here more often because I seem to be losing this writing habit that I never really had.

So, anyway, what up with Scott? Can you really hate that dude? He's got this pudgy, fresh sort of face that you can't really hate. But for him to write a book that damns the Bush administration and Washington after he stood for three years in front of the press, feeding tightly wound lines to reporters, refusing basic information to Americans, and lying about the administration's role in the Valerie Plame scandal, is sorely detestable. I don't think what Bob Dole said was harsh in the least:

"There are miserable creatures like you in every administration who don’t have the guts to speak up or quit if there are disagreements with the boss or colleagues. No, your type soaks up the benefits of power, revels in the limelight for years, then quits, and spurred on by greed, cashes in with a scathing critique.

"When the money starts rolling in you should donate it to a worthy cause, something like, 'Biting The Hand That Fed Me.' " Another thought is to weasel your way back into the White House if a Democrat is elected. That would provide a good set up for a second book deal in a few years."

"I have no intention of reading your 'exposé' because if all these awful things were happening, and perhaps some may have been, you should have spoken up publicly like a man, or quit your cushy, high profile job. That would have taken integrity and courage but then you would have had credibility and your complaints could have been aired objectively."

"You're a hot ticket now but don't you, deep down, feel like a total ingrate?"

There's no reason that an adult man like McClellan can offer for continuing to work for an administration that was so clearly misleading us. What happened to that morality that his people always talking about? Right and wrong? Good and evil? He knew what he was doing the whole time he was working there, because being press secretary means crafting a carefully worded message so that you can cover both yours and the White House's ass. He's also kept quiet for a few years now while adding up anecdotes for his book. What's kind of sad for him is that he's getting it from all sides. Bob Dole hates his ass and so does everyone else who thinks he's taking way too little responsibility for his own role in our country's politics.

I think that the job of the press secretary is a really awkward position. Who are you ultimately serving? The president or the people? There's talk that McClellan violated some sort of sacred "covenant" when he wrote this book. But if there's serious shit going on in the White House, Americans absolutely deserve to know. Duh.

i should drop out

I should really drop out of college. I should sing on the streets of some American city and waitress part-time. I should save up and buy a roadside stand and make stuffed naans or burritos. There's a guy with a stand like that on 15th and K in DC, Pedro and Vinny's and he's been there for like a decade. And he banks. Then I could write a book about it.
Out of 6 billion people in the world, I'm in the one-third (or fourth) that has it good. I'm a spoiled piece of junk. I'm clothed, fed, sheltered and I'm getting a higher education. The worst thing to do with luxury like that is to sit around crying about the unsolvable problems on this globe and corner myself into an ivory tower. Yea, that's what's up. Intellectualism without practice is a dead language.

It was just that while I was at the bookstore today, I walked by around 8 books that I knew I wanted to read that I'd probably never get to actually sit down with. I thought about how nice it would be to take a semester off and wake up in the morning (yes, theoretically, the idea of getting up before 10 is fascinating to me), sit down with a coffee, an iced tea, a smoothie, whatever seems appropriate for the climate and to READ. I have time to read, but I don't have time to read everything I want to. I guess no one does. There's no point spending all your time reading.

This summer, I read a lot of fiction and my head started spinning. I decided that I'd make this the semester of non-fiction and biography, in the spirit of equal time. So far, I've been bad about it. I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and I'm continuing Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. I'm only 1000+ pages away from the end! The only non-fiction thing I've been reading is God is Not Great by Christopher Hitchens, the funniest angry man I know. When I finish that, on to my homeboy's new release, Giving. It's shorter than My Life.

Kaay, I have to go get some work done!

i haven't posted in here forever!

Quick update: I'm a college sophomore now. I apologize to my one or two readers for not updating more often. I'm making Blogger into my homepage so I remind myself to update more.

So anyway, I left my room today to grab dinner at the Diner and got on an elevator with this large-ish white guy holding a tuba. So down we went, from the 5th floor, stopping at the 4th floor and then the 3rd. By the time we were at the 3rd floor, the tuba guy was pretty frustrated, to the point, I think, that he took on an Irish accent when he said, "Lord, why's it keep stopping!"

The guy getting on at this point asked, "Is this elevator going down?" The tuba guy replied, "Seems to be a popular direction."

To this, the first guy said, "Well, I guess there's only two ways to go. Up or down."

And for some reason, this to me seemed a satisfying comment on life.

real beauty ad campaign

I found this on YouTube today and it made me feel gorgeous.



Dove has had this Real Beauty campaign going on for a few years now. They found a real niche with their billboards featuring these bodacious babes with their REAL afros and their REAL asses and REAL attitude and all that. It reads a little like the Spice Girls "Girl Power!" anthem minus the vanilla underwear. The Spice Girls would have blinged out underwear. However, as this blogger notes, the ads looked a little different in Hong Kong. Oh well, they're a homogeneous society, so I guess they can make excuses. Still, with the long hair and the skinny body types, clearly they missed the point of the campaign.

Or did they? Dove is betting it's corporate image on this Real Beauty schtick. Women applaud that, but at the end of the day, we'd much rather look like Eva Longoria, or fool ourselves into buying products that make us think we're closer to looking like Eva Longoria. A quick look at Dove's website shows it's eventual compromise: healthy looking women, the occasional torso tattoo, but above all, no real eyesores. Big points for Dove if they ever sign on Ugly Betty.





Also, I realize I'm like an entire year late catching up on this whole campaign in the first place, which is like ten years in cyberspace. I guess the rock I've been living under was pretty big.

the weathered attractiveness of mcgruff

Either yesterday or today, somebody said out of the blue at work that in a recent poll, 80% of the adult population recognizes McGruff the Crime Dog. 70%ish think he's "cool." I fished around for exact stats today, but couldn't really find any. Most non-profit organizations should be green with jealousy.

What makes this McGruff so cool? What's he got that, say, Smokey the Bear doesn't have? Well, if you take a look at Smokey, he's got a potbelly going on. He's obese, that thing. And can he prevent forest fires with his Billy Bob Jones' jeans and shovel? He sure can. He just can't look good doing it. In that particular second picture of Smokey fronting a legitimate national issue-turned-scary neo-fascist propaganda ("This Shameful waste WEAKENS AMERICA"...along with Arabs, out-sourcing to India and Ann Coulter) by standing before the flames of death with a sullen, generic look on his face, Smokey seems just scary. Like your mom, after she finds out you fed the green beans to the dog. Finally, it has never been clear to me why Smokey holds a shovel. No way that's going to quell the monstrous conflagration behind him. Am I missing something? Just wondering.

In contrast, McGruff is he-man, alpha dog, a weathered man of crime-preventing wisdom. He's gruff, he's inoffensive and everyone loves dogs. Just look at that chiseled dog face. There are signs of wrinkling and old age, but I'll bet McGruff is as persistent as the buff 60-year old ex-military man who jogs miles around the neighborhood. If McGruff were a man, he'd be a cross between General Wesley Clark and Ice-T. Authoritative and mellowed. McGruff distinguishes himself from other dogs because he has digits, and more importantly a thumb and an index finger. He's properly personified, now that he can point at YOU. Yes, YOU. McGruff has enduring fashion sense, because cops wearing trenchcoats is still a staple on Law and Order. It also makes him a little mysterious. What's behind the trenchcoat? When did he start wearing it? What does he hide behind it? Maybe it isn't for us to know.

first day of work + the recovery of my faith in humanity

Today was my first day of work at the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC); it was a summer internship that I nabbed very late in the game. I will say that not having any sort of job lined up for the summer was starting to wear on my self-esteem, especially since I've been employed continuously since I was 16. I filled out more applications for odd jobs in Farragut, Dupont, Rockville and Bethesda. Anything! I'd take anything! I walked into one restaurant in Dupont Circle after I saw a big sign advertising their "Singing Servers!" If there were to be a perfect job, it could very well be that. However, they, like all other people, never called back. I also applied to a non-profit bookstore (whatever that means), and it was a pain in the ass to get there, but they didn't call back either. They all want retail or restaurant experience. Well, there's something I don't have-- maybe someone could donate me some? Really, being a college student doesn't have any relevance in the retail world. It doesn't mean anything if you're an honors student, or even a nice and bubbly honors student :-(, Baskin Robbins will do you no favors. It was a nice surprise to get this internship though, and I don't at all think I'm settling.

So today was the first day of work. I'll be working Mon-Wed from 9-5. It's reasonable, I think. I don't think I should be as young as I am and cooped up in an office all day. The summer goes by excruciatingly slow in an office. Last summer, I worked in an office only two blocks down and worked eight hours a day, all five days of the week. They were paying $8.50/hr, which is amazing money for a non-profit and the most I've ever made. Hell, I was ready to work seven days a week for that kind of money, and this past semester in my Intro to MicroEcon class, I found that there's indeed a name for this phenomenon. It's called the Work-Leisure model. The more money you make, the more expensive it is when you go on vacation. Naturally, you won't be calling in sick much. The office is in a great location, right across from the Farragut North metro. (They're moving to Crystal City near the Pentagon in the fall, though.) However, no Metrocheks, no using computers for personal email, Facebook, Myspace, or to stream any kind of video or audio. This is entirely draconian. If you work from 9-5 and have to sleep by 11pm to get a good night's sleep so you can get up at 7:15 again, you have about 6 hours of personal time a day. Normal people have to cook, take care of the kids, run errands (and exercise to lower the risk of heart attack!) When do they get the time? I'm not liking the real world. And I'm extremely resentful of not being able to stream music or Facebook in my free time.

But I still have faith in humanity. Last Friday, I went out with friends to White Flint Mall (Borders, Bertucci's), and then out to a movie. By the time we got to the movies, I realized I didn't have my ID wallet with me. It's one of those things you see college students swinging around with their college's name printed all over the lanyard. It wasn't in the car, and it wasn't in either store when I called. I was horribly afraid and resentful towards the universe. I'd finally gotten my permit again! (Yes, I'm 18 and have a permit.) And before I could drive it was gone. Fucking Spiritus Mundi. I tried recreating a possible pickpocketing. It just couldn't happen. My purse was too long; no way could anybody reach into that and pick it out. Besides, why would you want to pickpocket a college student? I have maybe $300 in there. But I got it in the mail today, in an envelope with a heck of a lot of stamps. Today, I want to thank my Good Samaritan, who I believe may be a teenage girl or a youngish woman (only girls have fatsy, cutesy handwriting like that.) Thank you.

I also found $16 lying on one of the shelves of milk at the grocery store today. I pocketed it. I know, I know.