The Vine: April 21, 2005
Dear Sars,
I have only the highest admiration for you, truly. Which opening
sentence, of course, will alert you to the fact that I’m about to
disagree vehemently with something you’ve said and probably insult you
somewhere along the way (but in this case, with no disrespect intended).
But, in reference to “I Hear That” and the Oscar Wilde quotation: I Hear
That’s professor is on crack, and I disagree with your suggestion of the
[,].
“I can see all the ugliness and all the misery of my city, and though my
heart is made of lead yet I cannot choose but weep”
There should be no comma after “lead”. Partly because that is the
original line, and it’s questionable at best to be correcting Oscar
Wilde’s grammar. The man knew his way around the English language —
sometimes it was a rather circuitous way that took in the scenery as it
passed, but he knew it.
And partly because if you did insert a comma in that sentence, after
“lead” would be the horribly, meaning-alteringly wrong place to put it.
It is not:
and though my heart is made of lead/yet I cannot choose but weep
It is:
and though my heart is made of lead yet/I cannot choose but weep
It’s a marginally archaic form, which is unsurprising, considering when
it was written, but a translation of the “yet” into modern usage, which
would be vulgarising, would be something like “though my heart is still
now made of lead I cannot choose but weep”.
The correct response to I Hear That’s professor is “no, there
shouldn’t”, and done.
Regards,
If There Was Supposed To Be A Comma There, Wilde Would Have Put It There
Dear And He’d Probably Have Put It Inside The Quotation Marks Where It Belonged,
That isn’t what I was asked. I was asked how to mark a comma, one not in the original text, that the advisor wanted put in. I was not asked where to put it; I was not asked whether I agreed that the comma was necessary (for the record, I don’t); I was not asked if perhaps she should just punctuate it with the virgule. Her advisor wants a comma there, so she asked me how to denote that said comma did not appear in Wilde’s text, and I told her.
Which explanation, of course, will alert you to the fact that you should have read more carefully before hastening to point out a mistake I didn’t actually make, but at least you didn’t intend any disrespect.
Hey Sars —
So there’s this boy, except I guess he’s not a boy at all, that’s partially the problem. He’s 34 and I’m 23 and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I live in a very isolated preppy snobby little town in New Jersey. My family is from the south. Can you see where I’m going with this? He’s black AND he’s in the navy and he has a child.
I guess the problem is that I really like him and I’ve never had a boyfriend ever and now I’m supposed to be like here’s Jamal, my 34-year-old lover, feel his skull, Ma, he got shot twice? I’m already the black sheep (no pun intended) of the family but I don’t want to sneak around like a teenager and I don’t want him to feel I’m ashamed of him because that’s ridiculous. It’s just everyone else that seems to have a problem with it. I might be overreacting, my parents might surprise me and be cool with him being black but he is considerably older. Any advice you could offer would be great.
Jungle Fever
Dear That Signature Is Not Really Helping,
Why do you have to sneak around like a teenager? Why is the fact that you like him a problem? I’m not trying to be disingenuous; some parents are not fans of their children’s interracial relationships, and that can cause problems, I get that. But…you’re 23. If you live at home, and that’s the issue, maybe it’s time you moved out. If you still let your parents’ approval dictate who you like, maybe it’s time you stopped doing that.
It’s definitely time to think about who exactly it is who has a problem with this relationship, because I have to tell you, it sounds like it’s…you. You brought up feeling ashamed of him; you claim that it’s ridiculous, which, word, but…you brought it up. And then you say that “everyone else” seems to have a problem with it, but your parents don’t even know about Jamal, from what I can tell, so…who’s “everyone else”? Your friends? Strangers? Because if it’s strangers, those people can fuck right off, but if it’s your friends, maybe what they have a problem with is you acting kind of spazzy about how Different and Scandalous he is instead of just being his girlfriend. I mean, what do you like about him? Because the whole letter is basically about how he’s wrong for you.
Yeah, he’s older. Yeah, he’s black. Yeah, some people in this world will get all twisted about that stuff, and yeah, it can be hard to deal with other people’s biases. But if you like each other, and if these issues don’t bother you, or Jamal, enough to stop dating, then let everyone else deal with their own shit. But if they do bother you, or if you for some reason unconsciously picked someone who would be really challenging to have a relationship with because you fear closeness, whatever’s going on here — that’s your shit, and you should take a look at it.
Your parents don’t get to tell you what to do anymore. You need to grow up a little bit and start living your life like it’s yours, instead of reacting to other people.
Dear Sars,
I bet you get a lot of letters like this.
All right, I’ll make this quick — nine months ago, I
moved four thousand miles cross-country for the hell
of it from New England to Alaska. Okay, maybe it won’t
be quick.
Backstory: I was going to community college and living
with my parents. One of my friends from my old college
was moving up to Alaska because it was the only place
she could “truly be happy.” I was feeling very
restless with my life at the time and didn’t know how
to get out of the hole I had dug myself into. So I
applied to a prestigious college that all of my
friends from the community college had gotten
into…Didn’t get in…and decided to move to Alaska.
I had just drifted apart from the boy I was seeing and
was making lots of new guy friends in my town. I
didn’t want to get involved with anyone because I was
leaving, but somehow I ended up with a crush on
someone anyway (“Neil”).
The last day I was in town I asked Neil if he wanted
to hang out with me and we ended up sitting by the
river smoking a joint. He kissed me until I was drunk
with the taste of him, and asked me why I had to
leave. I said it was because I felt so restless and
that I had massive writer’s block from all the stress.
He said, “You can write here.” I said, “I’ll never see
you again, will I?” and he said, “You will. Don’t say
that. We’ll see one another again. I know it.” He
refused to say goodbye and gave me his email.
Now: We have been emailing back and forth ever since I
left. For awhile we would email back every single day,
sometimes in under half an hour multiple times.
I went back to New England for Thanksgiving and he
acted strangely — I had just run into a mutual friend,
Ian (who is a bit of a player), and when Neil saw me
talking to Ian he came over and put his arm around my
waist. Then he proceeded to talk to other people and
ignore me. I asked him if he wanted to come over and
hang out at my friend’s place that night since we were
having a get-together. So he came with me.
“Why do you think I would ever forget you?” Neil asked
me softly. “I could never forget you. You’re
unforgettable.”
“But I went to Alaska,” I said.
“I know, but you came back, didn’t you?” He asked.
Sure I came back! But not to stay!
Then he kissed me and said he never wanted to stop
kissing me, never wanted to stop touching me, et cetera. I
told him I liked him and he said he liked me too. But
it was a lie. And this is how I know: two weeks passed
before he emailed me again. But I still have a crush
on him.
Do you think I should tell him? I have tried to make
it go away by dating lots of other people but every
time I get an email from him I get excited like a four-year-old on her birthday. I know I am four thousand miles
away, but that doesn’t mean I am going to live here
forever.
Thanks Sars! Even if you don’t answer this, at least I
got it out!
Sincerely,
VT Girl in Alaska
PS Not all white people with dreads are posers!
Dear The Exception Proves The Rule,
Yes, I think you should tell him. I bet he didn’t email you because he doesn’t want to put himself out there with someone who’s at the other end of the North American land mass, and maybe he isn’t sure how you feel, since he acted all oogy when you were talking to Ian. It’s possible that all the sweet talk was just him trying to get a leg over, but it doesn’t read that way to me.
And you’re sort of ideally situated to tell him how you feel, because if he isn’t interested, you have zero chance of running into him later and pulling a muscle cringing; it’ll sting for a while, but at least the land mass would work in your favor there.
If you think it shows promise, tell him how you feel. Remind him that you won’t live there forever, because if that’s what’s holding him back, well, that’s easily enough solved.
Sars,
I got to wondering about the future of
the Sox/Yankees rivalry, and, having enjoyed your many articles on baseball,
wondered what your feelings were on the subject.
With the Curse finally broken, do you see the rivalry between the two
teams (and their fans) simmering down, maintaining, or even gaining in
intensity? And if this epic enmity fades, does the game lose some of its
poetry and romance? Just wondering how a Yankees fan sees the future.
Win or Lose, I Gotta Love My Boys
Dear Win Or Lose, Womack Is Killing Me,
I wasn’t raised with the Yankees, so for me, the poetry and romance have very little to do with the Yankees themselves; I didn’t come to the team until college, so I just like the game on its own merits. And when you hear the words “now starting in center field — Daryl Boston” enough times, you’d better like the game. You’d better love it.
It wouldn’t bother me if the rivalry faded; it’s fun, sure, and BSD and I still bet on weekend serieses and call each other after home runs all “HA-ha!” But it’s way overemphasized now, and if fans of the teams in question think that’s the case — and a lot of us do — fans of other teams have got to be sick unto death of it, so I don’t think it’s a bad thing for baseball as a whole if it calms down a bit.
With all that said, it doesn’t look like it’s going anywhere. Varitek alone is determined to keep it alive, it seems to me.
But for many Yankee fans…it’s like when a younger sibling is trying to attack an older sibling, and the older sibling is just holding the younger one at arm’s length by the head while the younger one is flailing and squalling and he can’t reach because his arms are too short. Yankee fans are the older sibling. All the self-righteous yapping about how we’re evil and must be destroyed…I guess some Yankee fans get really mad at that Evil Empire stuff, but mostly we’re like, get a life. I mean, that sounds bitchy, but Yankee fans are just kind of over it — like, yeah yeah, we’re mean and bad and we eat babies. Vengeance is thine, saith our shitty starting rotation. Can we just play some baseball and stop it with the Joseph Campbell for five minutes?
The signal-to-noise ratio on that just got out of control, is my point, and I’m hoping, now that Boston has a World Championship, that maybe we can bring the rivalry back to the actual game and have a little less pearl-clutching going on.
Dear Sars,
I have a question about cat litter. Not really of general interest to a lot of people and there are other resources available to me but you mentioned in one of your old essays (http://www.tomatonation.com/thesame.shtml) that you preferred non-clumping litter because it didn’t smell as bad and there were no lump issues. Can you give me an idea of how you deal with your litter (i.e. scooping and replacing schedules and what you do with the solids)? I manage to control the smell but just barely, and if there was a less smelly way to go I would be thrilled.
Thanks!
Would go non-clumping if that would help…
Dear It Might,
I have two cats using a box that’s about a foot by a foot and a half square. The box itself is just a plastic tray, no liner, and there’s an inch or two of Fresh Step clay in it. No clumping, no crystals, just the grey and blue stuff. I scoop it once a day, flush the poops, and stir the litter around to air it out, because they tend to always pee at the front of the box. Once a week, I change the whole box, which means washing it out with dishwashing liquid, spraying it with Lysol, wiping it down, and refilling it with fresh clay. In humid weather, I have to change it more often (like every five days) because it doesn’t air out as well.
Clumping litter is less flushable and, in my experience, tends to hold smells more, get tracked around the house more, and bother the cats more in terms of getting stuck in their toes; Hobey straight-up refuses to have anything to do with the crystals. So, clay it is.
I also feed them higher-end kibble, which makes the poo smaller in volume and marginally less smelly. So, I’d advise using Fresh Step or Hartz clay, switching your cats to a non-mass-market dry food, and just scooping diligently once a day. And a stick of incense in the bathroom before guests come over usually zaps any lingering ammonia smell if you don’t have time to change the whole box; green tea or lavender are particularly effective.
Tags: boys (and girls) cats grammar the fam
