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| In my Anthropological Linguistics class, the focus one day was on the role of silence in other cultures. In Western Apache, one of the occasions for silence is in the first stages of a relationship, our professor said.
"How does that work?" a fellow student voiced. "How can you get to know another without conversation? In the beginning, words are everything..." The class slowly droned its agreement. "How can you be with someone you don't even know?"
The professor invited a few more opinions, none straying far from the themes of confusion and surprise. "Let's try a little experiment," she suggested. "If I stopped talking"--five seconds pause--"how long would it take for you guys to grow uneasy?" We nodded. "In America, we have this emphasis on oral communication--on filling every possible gap with speech, with exalting those able to talk for hours without pause as the best conversationalists--on words as immediate, necessary aspects of communication between friends, strangers, lovers... but what else is there? No one talk or otherwise make noise until I say to."
She stops talking, stops pacing. At first, we grin. It can't have been more than eight seconds before things began to intensify. Many would glance at the clock every few seconds, some would shuffle their feet, some would pretend to sleep. The ventilation system was off, it was total silence. A few would cough, then immediately struggle to muffle the sounds from their throat. Our views eventually turned to the floor, then the clock, then the floor again. The professor smiled. The lights grew brighter. The room smelled mustier by the instant. We fidgeted.
Minutes passed, ceased to have meaning. The professor began to pace around the room again, sound muffled by the carpet and her rubber sneakers. Our eyes focused on her, transfixed. We feigned indifference, immediately gave ourselves away.
Her clip-on microphone fell from her collar and hit the ground, imperceptible thud amplified by the wall speakers. We giggled, whooped, convulsed, died laughing and arose to guffaws. Out of breath, our sniggers began to subside. She smiled. Our lungs found hidden pockets of air and we laughed again, even louder.
"So, how was that?" We agreed that it was intense, profound, agonizing. That silence, that supposed nothing had consumed us, had made us feel, had made us beg for interruption. All in ten minutes.
"Now imagine it while sitting next to the Other, your eyes locked, slowly falling in love." | | |
| The gym's an interesting place. No matter how much you think you know about a person, you'll never really be sure until you two work out together. It seems like people forget to be human while they're in a gym. They forget something, at least.
You walk in, and are immediately hit by a wall of funk. The assorted bodily secretions mix with the caked-on sweat on each of the unwiped machines, and fuse with the combined half-gallon of Acqua di Gio, Kenneth Cole Reaction and Axe body spray in use by the frat collective to produce a truly remarkable scent of exercise and desperation. I once saw a man standing by the incline benches, spraying on Cool Water. Are you kidding me? That's the gym for you.
A woman strode into the ARC in knee-high boots with a halter top to match, and proceeded to monopolize a treadmill, set at its lowest setting, for 25 minutes, talking on her cell phone the entire time. She then left. Half an hour later or so, I walked out to see her blowing through a pack of cigarettes. I mean, can't you at least make it fifty feet or so before pissing away whatever gains you might have made?
Another woman was leg pressing ten pounds, with a five pound plate on each side. She managed to pump out a single set of fifteen before stopping. I can't see how this would be more strenuous than walking five feet. She must have been scared of getting huge quads.
A short and skinny guy set the assisted dip/pull up machine to his bodyweight, then proceeded to climb on and nearly launch himself into the ceiling.
At my hometown gym there was a lady who worked out every Sunday in a full ballroom-type formal dress. It was funny watching her cradle the bottom of her dress while she used the treadmill.
At that same gym we had the son of the police chief, who we called The Screamer. He'd always yell and scream and grunt and make as much noise as possible. Well, one time he even outdid himself. There were four people in the gym, total: me, another guy working out, The Screamer, and the girl who worked behind the counter. The Screamer was doing incline, and he had some trouble with one and was screaming it up. He finally finished, and stood up and yelled to everybody "I SAID GET PUMPED..." and then he did this little jump and clap-"UUUUPPPPP!" I couldn't look anybody in the eye because I knew I'd bust out laughing if I did.
The Clapper, as I dubbed him, got the label because of his tendency to just walk around the cardio side of our gym, where all the girls were, and stretch by waving his arms way out then clapping them together. He'd walk all around the ellipticals, treadmills, bikes, and rowers doing this, while at the same time looking at all the girls. Very smooth.
Some things are pretty impressive, though. Once a guy walked in, immediately introduced himself to a girl while doing biceps curls, and two minutes later they were making out on the lat-pulldown machine. Good for him. Unless, of course, you needed the lat-pulldown machine.
Last but not least, the old men in the shower area that are just standing there. They are not moving with any sort of purpose, they are just standing there, in the shower room, for upwards of thirty minutes, doing nothing but looking at other naked men.
These are the true jungle gyms.
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| "on thursday i'll be doing a concert in italy, so you'll have a guest lecturer." | | |
| it only costs 1.50 to ride the train to santa cruz.
it only costs 1.50 to ride the train to santa cruz. | | |
| I just had the weirdest dream. I've been napping on the sofa (it's about 108 degrees here), and I hit a groove where I would sleep, have a dream, and wake up about 5 minutes after sleeping, still in a somewhat delerious state and able to sleep again. So I've had about 20, but the latest one woke me up for good.
Me and two of my friends are walking down my street when we come across some people setting up a garage sale. There's a girl, features pretty nondescript but in no way disgusting, and one of my friends goes "WHOA LOOK AT THE UGLY BITCH," which is something that probably could happen so right now I'm still unsure of whether I'm dreaming or not. She and the other people turn and eye us, and some old man, probably her father, demands "WHO SAID THAT?" and screams "WAS IT YOU", fingering me out of the lineup. Well, I didn't say it, but whatever, right?--so I reply "SHUT UP," and that's when some big buff vin diesel type storms out of the house, picks me up, and demands to know where the fuck I live, what my number is, what my name is, etc.
So we're walking down the street with this huge mass of muscle, and we come across my house, which we walk past because come on, ain't no way I'm letting him know my house. He's all up in my kool-aid the entire time, roughing me up a bit, but as we reach the end of the block he breaks down for no reason.
"what the fuck am I doing with my life... I had a phd, man...now I'm beating up teenagers..."
"really? what in, man?" --one of my friends
"statistics..."
"are you kidding dude? I'm majoring in statistics.." me--and that isn't true, but I signed up for college classes the other day and I was um, thinking about maybe taking statistics 13
"yeah?" and he perks up a little, his ears taking notice. "Yeah man, and I'm also taking Calculus 21," which is the class I actually did sign up for, but I guess I'm trying to emphasize my love of math to this big goon. "Did you take any calc in high school?" and we start shooting the shit, me and my friends not really knowing what's going on but going along with it anyway.
So that business goes down and before we know it, we're all in front of my house bidding this weirdo farewell. I'm about to close the door, but all of a sudden the guy says "oh wait, I need to get my money," and PUNCHES A HOLE IN THE WALL INTO MY MOTHER'S ROOM. I'm thinking "okay so I just got gamed, hard," but I can't let that show, or something, because this is really a battle of wits and has nothing to do with the 200 pounds this guy has on me, so I say "alright asshole, I'm going to get my gun" (which I have no clue how to go about locating), and I run to the back of the house, faintly hearing him snap back a "well you think I'm just going to stick around for long, then?" as he kicks his through-a-hole-in-the-wall thievery into high gear. I sneak a peek and notice that his hands have started to grab shit at superhuman speed, with a sort of tasmanian devil sound effect to accompany. My friends have also decided to go outside and watch him, laughing at his exploits and at what I had gotten myself into.
Now this is about the time I would realize I had been dreaming, but I was freaking the hell out, okay?--so I run into the backyard and call 911.
And of course they have some sort of catchy 911 jingle that plays for 30 seconds or so before an operator answers.
"Hi, this is Renee, and you've reached 911 operating services!"
"Um... hi Renee. Listen--"
"It's actually Rwanda. Rwanda Gonzales. Rwanda Gonzales of Guadalupe, Arizona, moved to Guadalupe, California at the tender age of seven, daughter of Steven and Emily Gonzales--"
"Look, I'd really like to get to know you better, but I have more pressing issues at hand. There's a guy robbing my house right now--"
"And you want us to send an officer to investigate? What's your name?"
"David, and yes, I would--"
"Hi David, I'm Rwanda."
"Hi hi whatever, could you send some guys over? I live on xxx xxxxxxxx drive, Folsom California, 95630--"
"please insert 25 cents to continue"
"WHAT THE FUCK"
and I look outside and this man is dragging my ENTIRE front yard down the street, with the assorted contents of my mother's room strewn upon its various grasses and cement blocks. Great. Just great. I'm about to grab my father's machete (no seriously, I was thinking about taking this guy on? What the fuck am I thinking?) but it turns into a snake, and then I wake up.
Say no to drugs, kiddies.
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