Aaaargh!

I was reading in the New York Times about how pirate impersonation is an up-and-coming fad. I don't know if that's really the term, and I'm too lazy to go look it up. The point is, there's this growing movement of people who, whenever they get half a chance, hold get-togethers in places like South Carolina and Wyoming and pretend to be bloodthirsty, yet colorfully-dressed, brigands.

How does one pretend to be a pirate? Well, apparently, the main thing is the pirate outfit, closely followed in importance by pirate lingo ("argh") and, as an optional, wooden legs and rotten teeth. I think anyone with the latter attributes receives immediate promotion into the Fake Pirate's Hall of Glory.

The problem (Ay, matey, there's the rub!) is that the Pirate Wannabes have become divided in recent years into factions, the Johnny Depps (apparently local vendors do quite well with their black eyeliner sales) and the Old Skool Pirates. The latter feel that their territory has been unjustly usurped.

Here they were, pretending to be pirates all these years when nobody really cared about pirates, sewing their own underwear, cooking up grog and whatnot, and then all these upstarts come along in their Walmart costumes to take all the best parking spaces at the Pirate Fest. It just doesn't seem fair.

The one thing the Old Skoolers and the Johnny Depps seem to agree on is the need to say "Argh!!" with great gusto and at frequent intervals.

For this reason I have been contemplating a brilliant solution to my "Gym Problem". My Gym Problem is basically that many of its members feel the irrepressible urge to say "Argh" with great gusto and at frequent intervals. This siren call is supposed to express--what? I am not quite sure. I think it's code for, "Hey everybody! Look at me! No, not at him, at ME ME ME ME!" In any case, it is most distracting. Sometimes you can hear it all the way in the group fitness room with the doors closed.

Another gym sound, not quite so popular perhaps with the masses but very effective, is the "hoccchhhkkkkk!" sound. There was a white-haired man in Oakland who used to walk around with a puffed-out chest and spandex shorts hocking incessantly. Then he would spit in the water fountain. He clearly considered himself a fine figure of a man.

And then of course, there is the belching, the farting, the lewd comments, the flinging of weights with great abandon--do you see where I'm going with this? I believe that my gym, unbeknownst to itself, is harboring a potential enclave of award-winning pirates!

The next thing to do is get them on a bus to Idaho, ASAP!

Let It Snow, Not!

Yesterday morning we had our first flakes of snow. I texted my Brazilian friend with the news. "The White Shit is here!" That's what she calls it. Brazilians are always beside themselves with joy the first time they see snow and then they wish they hadn't.

She texted me back: I hate the White Shit!

I know she does. Welcome to Ohio, amiga!

People from the warmer climes take our weather as a personal affront. Those of us who were actually born here have the kind of resignation you end up developing for a chronic disease. Yeah, sure, it sucks, but whaddya gonna do?

Of course, I wasn't expecting it to snow QUITE this early. I was thinking the Snow Gods would let us get by until at least November, as a reward for all our sacrificial mowing.

My neighbor actually mowed Sunday in the rain. I thought he'd lost his mind, but now I know: he was trying to outrun the snow. It's not easy, at about 7 mph, but he does have an 8 thousand dollar zero-turn, which is the Rolls-Royce of mowers. Or, he might have been doing something entirely different, like blowing leaves (onto my property, probably). I have no idea why anyone would want to blow leaves. It seems a singularly futile occupation.

I rely for all my lawn and garden care on the deer, the snakes and the wild turkey. I haven't seen much of the wild turkey lately, which tells me Thanksgiving is approaching, so I assume the snakes are breathing a snakey sigh of relief. I haven't seen any since this spring, when I moved in, but I know they're there.

The guy who does my hay, Joe, said a lot of snakes ended up getting stuck in the bales this year. They had to be actually pulled out by hand. He wouldn't do it himself, since he hates snakes, too. You wouldn't think he'd mind after all these years farming but he does. So he got a hired hand to do it, whom I suspect was engaged for the sole purpose of de-snaking the bales. He said the guy doesn't mind. Some people don't.

The deer are still pretty much around, despite the best efforts of the local hunters. They look at the frosted over grass-sicles without enthusiasm but they munch anyway. It's only gonna get worse, deer, so bon appetit!

Emotional Intelligence, Ha Ha Ha

At some point in the seventies, unless it was the eighties, a man named Howard Gardner developed what he called the "Multiple Intelligence Theory," which was a way of proving that smart people were secretly stupid and vice versa. This theory made the stupid people of the world (which is a lot of people) very happy.

There are, I am happy to report, many ways of being intelligent that do not involve passing your math class. You can be athletically intelligent, artistically intelligent, musically intelligent, socially intelligent, and so on, in a practically infinite variety of ways.

None of this do I dispute.

My athletic intelligence became proof (if any were needed--after all, Gardner had a job at Harvard) when, in P.E. class, I was forced to wear royal blue bloomers and participate in a form of medieval torture known as "softball". I was always picked last, which put me in the outfield, whose name I took to its literal limit by backing stealthily up until I had reached the outer orbits of the planet Uranus. At this point, some Eager Beaver would inevitably lob the ball straight to my precise location, as if guided by heat-seeking technology, and I would do what any sensible person would do, i.e., close my eyes, scream, cover my head with my arms, and try to look nonchalant all at the same time, actions which did not endear me to the rest of my bloomer-wearing comrade-esses.

Meanwhile, there are people who, if unable to differentiate adjectives from, say, hippopotami, are perfectly capable of awakening from a sound sleep to casually catch a stray ball with one hand while scratching their nether regions with the other.

So I'm down with the Multiple Intelligence theory, except for one type that I must dispute: Emotional Intelligence.

The very term is an oxymoron. By nature, emotions are illogical and contradictory, not to mention damned inconvenient. Your average emotion would compare unfavorably in intelligence to a bowl of oatmeal. Emotions have the discernment of baby ducks and the tenacity of piranhas, latching onto whatever is large and warm and doesn't run away quite fast enough, and never, ever, letting go. Sylvia Browne has reported many cases where this obsessive-compulsive urge has lasted far beyond the grave. Even death cannot shake the limpet grip. And we call this Intelligence??

We fall for inappropriate people, in a way that is inversely proportional to their innate worth. A nice guy, with good credit and solid values, gets short shrift. “He has red hair!” we say to our well-meaning friends who are trying to set us up, in the tone of one who has clinched the matter. And our friends nod in sad but complete comprehension. They wouldn't date him, either.

But a bad boy, with the requisite sob story, credit card debt, and crazy ex-wife (and possibly, a motorcycle), will inspire us to the heights (or depths) of our so-called Emotional Intelligence.

We will endure every betrayal, every indignity, every disappointment and humiliation, with the resigned determination of the early Christian martyrs. When challenged by our increasingly irritated friends, who eventually get to the point where the mere mention of Billy Bob and his Antics sends them over the edge, we respond, bleating like yogic sheep, with the mantra: “But I love him!”

And our friends grit their teeth, pour themselves another full glass of wine, and bear it, since they have their own Billy Bobs, and the deal is, I’ll listen to yours if you’ll listen to mine.

But when Billy Bob eventually reaches his expiration date, not because we tire of him, but because there is, after all, a God, and our own darling Antichrist rides off into the sunset with the defiant roar of a motorcycle that is behind in its payments, what do we, the Emotionally Intelligent, do? Do we heave a huge sigh of relief and book a flight to Paris? Get a full-body massage? Go out with the red-headed millionaire?

Or do we lie on the sofa and mope, sipping box wine and playing "Jesse" over and over again, even though we could never stand Carly Simon on a good day, feeding off our dead love affairs like vultures with yesterday’s roadkill?

The answer, to anyone with a gram of Emotional Intelligence, is plain to see. Pass the roadkill, please.

Why I Live in Ohio, or: Why DO I Live in Ohio??

Last week, the answer would have been easy. The gorgeous sunny weather, the fall colors, the falling gas prices, and did I mention the gorgeous sunny weather?

Last week, perfect strangers congratulated each other on the weather as if they were personally responsible. We were practically hi-fiving each other at Lowe's. Mowing, which was our favorite topic of conversation over the summer, has given way to heating. "Have you turned on your heat yet?" they ask me, in a kind but patronizing way, sure that I, coming as I do from California, have had it blasting since August.

Well, what they don't know is, I was born in this proud State, way back when we heated with dinosaur poop in our E-Z-Bake Ovens, and what's more, I have wool underwear, which the crafty Italians invented to keep their digestive systems in tip-top shape.

So I too am a participant in the statewide game of Heating Chicken.

The rules are very simple. The last to turn on the heat, wins. They have a plot at the cemetery all ready for this year's heroic Heating Chicken Champion.

I should say, "I was a participant," in the past tense, because, after eco-friendly notions of heating my home entirely with the body heat of dogs (I figured that 40 or 50 St. Bernards should do it), I gave up last night and turned it on full blast, thinking of my mom who backed out of the Heating Chicken competition early with the immortal words "the heck with this!"

Ok, my pride had to go to the wall, but losing at Heating Chicken has certain advantages. One, I may live to see 42. Two, I once again have something to talk to my neighbors about: the scandalous cost of heating!

The Farms of Ohio Have Been Replaced by You-Know-What

Every blog needs a mission statement, but mine is more of a mission question:

How the hell did the aliens take over this country without my noticing?

True, I spent a lot of years abroad, and by "abroad" I mean Italy, of course. That's where all young blonde American women go when they want to become expats. I'm not young anymore, except by Italian standards whereby 70 year-olds can describe themselves as "ragazzi" with impunity, but I'm still blonde. Ish.

Have you ever wondered about the glam life of an expat? Basically, it amounts to working shit jobs for no money which involve taking seventeen forms of public transportation, all of which are on strike on any given day, and combing the local supermarkets for peanut butter and tortilla chips. Another favored pastime is to date and eventually marry Italian men, because the boy expats are too dorky, or gay, and besides it would be missing the point entirely. Why slurp BP coffee when you can have cappuccino instead?

I'll tell you why. These Adonises, these Michelangelo's Davids, these Marcello Mastroianni look-alikes, seem to miraculously transform from cute to demonic in the time it takes to say "I do".

It's true: if the baggy pants and bedhead inspire tenerezza and even lust today, tomorrow you may be shocked to find a sneer playing at the corners of your mouth. You can try to pretend it's a facial tic, or better yet, your liver (in Italy, the liver can be blamed for anything, including genocide), but deep inside, you may find yourself longing for a man whose pants fit correctly.

And so what do you do? You hang out with other expats, of course, who are the only ones who can understand about Luigi's personal hygiene issues and Stefano's obsession with his mother and Giuseppe's refusal to put the toilet seat down.

No matter how embedded you are in the local culture, you will feel a longing for home. For clean air, and the dollar store, and twelve packs of beer, and men, as a friend of mine once said, "who care about your orgasm". Whether American guys really care about your orgasm is another kettle of fish (sorry, but some puns just will not be denied)--the point is, they know they have to at least pretend. Why else did our foremothers burn all those bras? (Well, not my foremothers, but somebody's. Mine took advantage of the political climate to shop for Warner's on sale).

And then Alessandro's mother comes to stay in your one-bedroom basement apartment for three months and you just want someone to talk to--someone who will understand about the toilet seat, and the effect of Rome city water on blonde hair (not good) and the next thing you know you're standing around sipping bad wine in conference rooms at the meeting of the "Rome Purple People Eating Professionals" or some other such silly name, and you're back home, and you're happy.

Except that it's not really home, because it is, after all, Italy, and the home you remember no longer exists. It's not just the farms that are now Giant Senseless Malls (in Ohio, we need malls to put the foreclosures out of our minds). It's the human beings, supplanted by automated answering systems, and parks, overrun by the cell phone jabber of people who have nothing to say, and the kindly family doctor, replaced by an android whose dearest wish is to get you out of his office as soon as possible so he can hear his favorite song again, the Credit Card Machine Lullaby.

Our beautiful American kids, at the age I was learning to say "cappuccino" correctly, are getting blown up in a senseless war, our lands and waters are being gang-raped, and it's all ok, as long as I personally have a giant screen TV.

So I'm home at last, in America, except it's not really home anymore, and it sure as hell isn't America. At least, not my America.