In Which Facebook Acts As The Messenger Of Hymen

[Hymen: in ancient Greek mythology, Hymen (or Hymenaeus) was the god of marriage.]

Last night I logged on to Facebook, as I (regrettably) do more than once in a twenty-four hour period. As do many people, I have a very love-hate relationship with every twentysomething's favorite social networking site: it allows me to keep up with the lives of people I might otherwise have lost touch with. On the other hand, it allows me to keep up with the lives of people I might otherwise have lost touch with. It's a double-edged sword.

In any case, as I began to scour my News Feed for tidbits of information I desperately needed/didn't need at all, I came upon a thumbnail of a picture of a friend from high school and her boyfriend. My friend and I were fairly close in our high school days, but as is wont to happen, drifted apart after we went to college, and (as is also wont to happen) have maintained what is left of our friendship by sporadically contacting one another through - wait for it - Facebook. Now, this picture wouldn't have caught my fancy had it not been for the fact that my friend, with her boyfriend's arm around her, had her left hand laid across his chest. I recognized it immediately as prime bling-displaying position.

I clicked the thumbnail and, sure enough, there were three things staring back at me: a young man, a young woman, and a nice-sized rock on the young woman's ring finger. Now, my friend and her boyfriend have been together since we were all juniors in high school. Even then they were a sickeningly perfect couple, but so obviously meant for each other that it was impossible to begrudge them their happiness. They went to the same college and remained together throughout, so it's really been more a question of "when" than "if" regarding their marriage plans. Needless to say I am very happy for them; anyone who knows them has probably known for some time that this was going to happen. But as I looked at that picture I felt an entirely selfish, if unwanted, emotion: self-pity.

Now, for purposes of clarification, I should mention that I am in no way ready, nor do I now desire, to get married. I feel too young, and that there is still so much I want to do before doing that, and besides, the thought of living with someone every day for the rest of my life is currently unfathomable. It probably also has to do with the fact that I am not right now in love with another person. Just to get the record straight, however, I'm not looking to receive a ring anytime soon. But this is not the first Facebook engagement or marriage I have witnessed. In fact, this one comes closely on the heels of the marriage of my high school crush - the BIG high school crush, the one all my other crushes, had they known or cared, would have bowed down before. And, quite frankly, I'm getting tired of it.

I know I'm only 23, and that is very young. But (although exceptions must be allowed for the change of times) the thought has crossed my mind more than once that my mother, when she married my father, was 23. And now, it seems like all these people I know who are 22, 23, 24, are taking that step as well. I think what bothers me the most - and I shall try to make this succinct, as I think whining about one's love life is just about the most trite (and annoying) thing possible - is that for as long (and longer) as my friend and her now-fiance have been together, I have been single. The logical answer to this way of thinking is that in consideration of circumstances, it is ridiculous to compare onself to other people. But to that I say this: if I didn't compare myself to others, what kind of human would I be? Answer: none at all.

So to all the couples I know who have or are going to announce their nuptials on Facebook: accept my sincerest congratulations and wishes for happiness, but don't expect much sympathy from me beyond those initial wishes. Maybe, just maybe, you'll someday be able to ogle over my wedding photos electronically as I have done yours. Then again, I'm just not sure if a Facebook wedding is for me.

In Which The Dog I Left Behind Me Is Lamented

When a child leaves the "paternal nest," as it were, to strike out on their own (whether for college or whatever), the expectation is that there will be some amount of homesickness, and to a greater or lesser extent, that's usually the case. When I first arrived at college (what seems, by this point, a lifetime ago), I spent the time between unpacking my belongings and rushing off to orientation activities (yes, I went to them) missing my family, my friends from home, and the way of life I had hitherto lived. Luckily, I learned to enjoy college so thoroughly that this initial homesickness didn't last very long.

Over time, as I have gotten older and grown into my less family-centric life, I have come to miss them less and less; I can talk to them whenever I want through the multifarious communication technologies available to us (which, with my siblings, more often than not means text messaging). Even the desire to go home, to the house and city in which I grew up, has grown weaker over the years, especially since my father's preparation and subsequent (ongoing) execution of selling our house. But there is one separation that has never gotten less difficult for me, and one that I think we seldom regard as legitimate: that between me and my dog.

We got Bagel, our Boston terrier, in August of 1999, when I was 13 years old. I remember driving out to Kent (Ohio), to the breeders', to pick him up. He was five months old and weighed a whopping 12 pounds. He has been a focal point of my life ever since; anyone who has known me during any point in the last 10 years also knows about Bagel.

Bagel is, to put it lightly, an unusual dog. He doesn't bark. He can - we've heard it - he just chooses not to. He's probably the laziest creature I've ever seen; while most dogs run to greet their masters when they hear the door open, Bagel barely opens an eyelid from his perch on one of the pillows on the couch, which are now permanently indented from years of his napping on them. He sleeps 20 hours a day, and at night, sleeps in someone's bed with them. He also insists not only on sleeping under the covers, but cuddled up next to the person he's sleeping with, which can make for a rather cramped night in a twin bed. (My dad, in his infinite wisdom, says this need for closeness is Bagel's pack-animal instinct manifesting itself.) Due to his pushed-in nose, Bagel is also a chronic snorer. He loves tennis balls, but not playing with them: he likes to suck on them; like a baby with a pacifier he holds them in his mouth, leaving a large drool spot on whatever surface is beneath him (usually the couch). We don't give him tennis balls often.

For these reasons and a million others, the intensity with which I miss Bagel has never lessened since the day I left him for college. For propriety's sake I like to think that the reason I miss my dog more than my relatives is because I can't talk to him on the phone. But in my heart I know it's more complicated than that: as any pet (especially dog) owner can attest, the affection that exists between a human and their animal is unique. It is unconditional. It is irreplaceable.

Since going away to college, I have only seen Bagel two or three times a year. Since he just celebrated his 10th birthday in March (or, rather, my father and I realized the day after his 10th birthday that we had missed it), it is even more troubling to me that I so seldom see him. Luckily, for an old dog, he is in perfect health - his eyesight excepted. A year or two ago, we began to notice a cataract forming in his right eye. Then one started up in his left eye, and they have grown progressively worse ever since. Today I talked to my father, who told me he thinks Bagel has officially gone blind - but informed me, upon my inquiry, that he still exhibits the same "vigor" for life that he always has. I think the loss of Bagel's eyesight is harder on me than it is on him - a fact for which, assuming it is true, I am grateful.

I don't know when I'll next see my dog. If my work schedule allows it, I may be able to spend a few days in Cleveland at the end of the summer, which will be the first time I see him since December. My dad, in a not unusual moment of wry humor, assured me he (Bagel) would know me by sense of smell.

How handsome!
(Note cataract in right eye)

In Which A Light Is Put Out

"For indeed I myself have seen, with my own eyes, the Sibyl hanging in a bottle at Cumae, and when those boys would say to her: 'Sibyl, what do you want?' she replied, 'I want to die.'"

-Petronius, Satyricon

The Sibyl at Cumae was loved by the god Apollo, and he told her he would grant her a wish in exchange for her virginity. She lifted up a handful of sand and asked to live as many years as there were grains. When she later refused his advances, Apollo still granted her wish for near-eternal life, but without eternal youth, for which she had not asked. She lived so long that she was eventually no more than a piece of shrivelled flesh in a bottle, left to hang in the Cumaean caves.

The last time I saw my great grandmother was in November. She was hunched over, her lower lip hanging loosely from her face, her unseeing eyes hidden behind a pair of oversized glasses. Before we had even sat down she offered us an array of cookies and chocolates and would not rest until we had each partaken of them. Despite the change in her physical appearance - compared to now, she had been lively and spry the last time I had seen her, at her one hundredth birthday party two years before - her personality was unchanged, and I was relieved to see that.

"How does it feel to be one hundred and two?" my sister asked her when we had finished our cookies. She was quiet for a moment; at first I thought she had not heard the question, but unlike her eyesight, which had failed, her hearing was still sharp. "It is enough," she said after a minute, and the words were heartbreaking. She was ready to die. When we left that day, I knew I would not see her again.

Last Wednesday, my great grandmother (called "Oma," the German word for "grandma," by her great grandchildren), died the way she wanted to; peacefully in her sleep. By the time of her death she had been witness to over a century of both global and personal history. In 1936, with her husband incarcerated in a Nazi prison, she left Germany with two children under the age of 5 and no knowledge of the English language to seek asylum in New York (my great grandfather, and most of her immediate family, were luckily later able to join her there). She saw the births of two daughters, five grandchildren, and ten great grandchildren and the deaths of her parents, husband (whom she outlived by forty years), siblings, and a grandchild (whom she outlived by almost thirteen). She lived through two world wars, the Holocaust, the Korean, Vietnam, and both Iraq wars, 9/11 and the election of the first black president.

Her funeral, an affair as simple and unpretentious as the life she lived (she had planned all the details and paid all the expenses years beforehand), was today, and I do not think I have yet begun to miss her as I will in the years to come. She has been a fixture in my life for the entirety of it and the matriarch of our family for even longer. She embodied selflessness, living her life for her family. Oma always knew the whereabouts and accomplishments of her grandchildren and great grandchildren, and took no small pleasure in telling her friends about them. It was her capacity for love, true and unconditional love, that distinguished her from so many other people in this world.

I do not know what happens after death. I suspect it might be nothing, and am okay with that. Whatever it is, I know that Oma, long-loving and ever-uncomplaining, is at peace.

In Which Fortune Favors The Bold

For my birthday last month my roommates, Rachel and Kenny, took me to The Comedy Studio in Cambridge. Hidden on the third floor of a Chinese restaurant, The Comedy Studio doesn't do any traditional advertising, preferring the word-of-mouth method; hence, I had never heard of it. I enjoyed the show and the experience so thoroughly that I actually caught myself thinking, during it, that I had to somehow be a part of it.

My first foray into the Boston comedy scene was less than successful, involving more plumbing and heavy lifting than actually comedy, but I was so inspired by the show at The Comedy Studio that I wanted to give it another try. I decided right then and there to go up to the owner afterwards and ask for a job. When I told Kenny my plan, he suggested I come back on a Wednesday, the night when they audition new talent (and when the audiences are naturally more sparse than the bustling Saturday-night crowd) and try my luck then.

Every Wednesday for about a month, I found an excuse not to go: I was too tired from work, it would take too long to get there, etc. Finally, a week and a half ago, I bit the bullet and decided if I didn't do it that Wednesday, I wouldn't do it at all. Fueling me was the fact that I had nothing to lose. So, armed with a resume and a peanut butter sandwich to eat on the train between work and Cambridge, I set out.

The show itself was alright. Some of the comedians were better than others. The audience, unfortunately, was terrible. I really felt for the performers. With the post-show music still blaring and audience members hanging around finishing their drinks, I realized I would have to wait until everyone cleared out till I could speak with the owner, and that's when I almost chickened out. But I knew I would regret not waiting.

When everyone had finally left and the music was turned off, I went up to the owner. After what I determined to be an appropriate amount of small talk regarding how the show had gone that evening, I went for it.

"I like this place," I told the owner. "This is my second time here, and I like the way you do things." I was quick to add, "And I'm not just saying that to flatter you; I don't think you need the flattery."

"Of course," he agreed.

"And I want to work for you," I blurted out. There was a beat, and I couldn't tell from his expression what he was thinking.

"In what capacity?" he asked slowly. "Do you do stand-up?"

"No," I quickly assured him. "I think when I grow up [Note: I actually said "when I grow up"] I want to be a producer, and I want to somehow work in comedy. I think I want to do what you do."

He looked at me. "Well," he said, "we can start you off working the door, then we can see where things go from there. When can you start?"

On the T ride to Cambridge, I had anticipated every possible scenario, worked out how I would cope with any sort of rejection he could possibly give me. But it hadn't crossed my mind that he would actually give me a job on the spot, and when it happened, it seemed too easy. When I got home and told Kenny, he suggested that maybe I had made an impression on the owner by putting myself out there, which seems likely. But still too easy. I had risked all (or nothing, depending on how you look at it) - and actually won.

In Which I Learn To Stop Worrying And Love The Gene

Last Friday I paid a long-awaited visit to Dana-Farber to consult with them about genetic testing. My aunt, who six or seven years ago tested positive for the genetic mutation associated with breast cancer, has been encouraging me to get the test done for a few years now. So, though I am ashamed to say it, I made the appointment less out of my own desire to find out whether I have this mutation and more to make her drop the subject.

I have never wanted to get this testing done. My aunt first brought it up in 2004 when I was 18 - a ridiculously young age to do such a test - and I sort of resented her doing so. I was just about to begin college and the last thing I wanted to worry about was whether my body was a ticking time bomb. Now that I'm 23 I still don't want the testing done, but I figured there's no harm in arming oneself with a little knowledge, so I took the day off work on Friday and got on a bus for Dana-Farber.

I arrived late because it seems to be a rule with the MBTA that if you need to be somewhere at a specific time, they need to be at least 10 minutes behind schedule. The first thing they did (after I filled out the requisite paperwork) was slap a hospital bracelet on me, explaining that while in the hospital, all patients had to wear bracelets. In addition to my name and date of birth, I noticed that the bracelet had a barcode on it. I wondered whether, if they didn't want to talk to me or take the time to read the bracelet, they would just scan the barcode and get the information that way. They didn't.

I was scheduled to meet with two people that day; a genetic counselor and a doctor. First was the genetic counselor, and when she appeared in the waiting room to get me, I thought she must have been there simply to transfer me to someone else because she seemed unreasonably young for someone in this line of work. She couldn't have been more than five or six years older than me but she was, indeed, the genetic counselor. The first thing she did was make a family tree. She asked me about every member of my family on both sides, about their ages and whether they had ever been sick. Then, in simplified but not condescending terms, she explained the situation to me. She said that two genes discovered in the 1990s, called BRCA1 and BRCA2, are responsible for preventing breast cells from becoming cancerous. If one (or both) of those genes are mutated, the risk of developing breast cancer goes up. Because of my family's history of breast cancer, there's a 50% chance that I inherited the mutation of one of these genes.

She also explained what such a diagnosis would mean. Having the mutation doesn't mean you'll get cancer, only that they'll have to monitor you more closely for it. So once every six months or a year you have to get a mammogram and MRI to rule out the existence of a tumor. If you're tested for the mutation and don't have it, you don't have to go through the screening. But if you're at high risk (like me) and choose not to find out whether you have the mutation, you have to have the screening done anyway for the sake of caution. So the question, for me, was whether I wanted to know for sure if I have the mutation or not. When I was finished talking to her, I was confident that I wasn't ready to know, and she told me that was OK. I could have the screenings done and if down the road I decided I wanted to be tested, I could.

I felt pretty good after talking with the genetic counselor. I had felt a little abnormal for not wanting to get it over with and find out whether I carry the mutation, but she assured me that there was nothing wrong with that. It was reassuring that she seemed to understand and support the decision I was making. So I went on to the meeting with the doctor feeling pretty positive about things. The doctor was a Jewish woman in her late forties or early fifties and she entered the room followed by a medical student with acne and a bored look on his face. I was not thrilled about having him there, but I had just signed the form giving my consent for his presence, so I didn't want to throw him out just yet.

Things started off well. She asked me where I had gone to school, what I majored in. What I'm doing right now, my future career goals. The usual. But apparently Doctor and Genetic Counselor don't talk to each other much, because as soon as she was finished with the pleasantries, Doctor dove right into the same information I had just been given by Genetic Counselor - only she gave it to me like I was eight years old.

"Did you take biology in college?" she asked.

"No. You'll have to start from the beginning with me," I joked. She didn't laugh.

"Basically, you can think of genes as a book of instructions. They tell our bodies what color our hair and eyes should be, how tall we'll be, things like that. Each gene is like a page in the book, but if one page is ragged and torn, that's what we call a mutation."

OK, I thought, I may not have taken college-level biology, but I did somehow make it through high school, so you don't have to talk to me like I'm a child. I was beginning not to like Doctor, and I didn't really fancy sitting through the whole "this is what genes are" spiel dumbed down with the book metaphor (because I was an English major, and saying genes are like books makes them into something familiar!)

When she was finished explaining genes, Doctor then basically told me that I would be a fool not to get the testing done and find out, once-and-for-all, whether one of the pages in my instruction book was all torn up. As calmly as I could, I told her that I understood the ramifications of not having the test done, but that I had firmly decided that at this point in my life, I had decided to do just that. She told me I could always change my mind when I got tired of going through the screening every six months.

Doctor did somewhat redeem herself, though. During the physical examination (before which I had given Disgruntled Medical Student his dismissal), she engaged me in conversation about the closing of the Rose Art Museum. Afterwards, whilst encouraging me to take part in a study, she called me Miss A---, and being the lover of things 19th-century-related that I am, I was tickled by her use of the honorific. I wasn't thoroughly pleased with her, but if I were to give her a grade, it would be a B- or a B. So she passed.

While there is a 50% chance that I carry the genetic mutation that has caused so much carnage in my family, for now I am at peace with those odds, not-so-great as they are. It's really very simple: I either have the mutation or I don't, and if I do have it, I've had it since birth. There is nothing that could have been done to prevent it, if indeed it exists. Someday I may want to find out for sure. But not right now.

In Which Our Days Are Numbered

I recently found this t-shirt design, which immediately caught my fancy:


I would have worn it proudly circa 2006. However, since I am no longer a college student, and can thus no longer really be "defined" by my course of study, the point would be moot.

I have always had a poor relationship with numbers. Though I was a good student in general, I could never bring myself to pay attention during math lessons in elementary school. I paid dearly for it in middle and high school, when my lack of simple mathematical knowledge really hurt me. I always had the suspicion that despite what my teachers said, I wouldn't really have to use the math they taught me in day-to-day life. And I was right. Even so, numbers are still there. I got to thinking about the numbers in my life, and this is what I came up with.*

6 The number of Dunkin' Donuts I pass on my way to work. One of the first things I noticed when I came to Boston for college was that people here love Dunkin' Donuts. No, love isn't the right word. They worship Dunkin' Donuts. They kneel at its alters, which are, luckily, conveniently located mere blocks away from one another. There is literally nowhere you can go here without running into those familiar pink and orange stripes. Not that I'm complaining; their vanilla chai lattes are pretty good (I don't drink coffee). But where I grew up, I knew of only one Dunkin' Donuts. Yet somehow, we were able to manage. And vote Democrat in the recent presidential election. Maybe you heard about it.

9 The (approximate) number of scheduled hours of TV I watch per week. I've mentioned before that I watch a lot of TV. And 9 is just the number of scheduled hours I watch: I have shows I watch every night of the week except Friday and Saturday. I didn't plan it; it just worked out that way.

2 The number of dates I've been on in the past 6 months. Both nice guys; neither worked out. I'm over it.

2 The number of free drinks I've gotten in the past 6 months (see above).

4 The number of days I've spent at home (i.e., Cleveland) in the past 6 months. In some ways that's not enough, in others it is. Of course I enjoy visiting with my father and my dog (the only ones who live there now, as my siblings are both in college). But my dad is in the process of selling our house, an action which is somewhat painful to me, it being the only house my family has ever lived in. When my parents bought it in the mid '80s, it was carpeted in this admittedly hideous brown shag carpeting, which remained there until a few months ago (it wasn't really a selling point). When I visited in July, some very nice looking wood floors (which had been under the carpet the whole time!) greeted me. And while I have nothing against wood floors, it just wasn't the same. Hence my aversion. Like so many important things in my life that have been taken away from me or left me, it is easier to pretend it never existed than to face the pain of its loss.

3 The number of times I have read my favorite novel (Vanity Fair). I mention it because I am about a third of the way through reading number 4 right now. Some people are spoken to by music, or art, or politics, or any number of things that can capture the human imagination. This book is what speaks to me. If I could make a living of trying to understand it, I would. I could talk about it endlessly if I could find someone who would listen. Every time I read it, the story, the characters, the moral are the same as the time before. And yet it never tires me, and there is always something more to learn from it or about it. If only more things in life were like that.




*That was a long and overly-elaborate segue into what I really wanted to write about. I hope you enjoyed it.

In Which Hope Springs Eternal

There is nothing else to say.