My favorite part about this piece is the argued importance of video games. Clark does not write to an audience that is convinced that all video games are fun, instead he is arguing that video games have the potential be artful and intellectual. He uses Blow's profile to argue this. I think he is successful. I imagined a video game that stimulates refined thought.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The Most Dangerous Gamer
This piece is hilarious. Clark describes Blow as such an interesting character. I'm not convinced that his description is fair because Blow seems very eccentric and I'm not sure at what pains Clark went to in order to understand him. For example, Clark writes about Blow's childhood, a moment in the piece we the reader begins to understand Blow. However we do not hear from his family members or those that knew him when he was younger.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
This Must Be the Place
These series of videos were pretty amazing. I think the audience is for the curious, the explorers and the educated. Since these videos are meant to be watched in a series I am interested in how the each person makes their home regular. The filmmakers are interested in the images that show repetition like the chairs, pictures, lamps... there are many freeze frames on imagines that repeat themselves. This forced me to think about how when items, thoughts and ideas are repeated they become home. Repetition like the cleaning of objects, the making of hamburgers and the taking of the same pictures create home.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Keep Moving
When I started training for the Kalamazoo Half Marathon, I assumed that I with every new step on a ten mile run, I would hate my legs a little more, hate that I spent $50 on the registration fee and hate the women one step in front of me on the side walk. But instead, a long run gave me time distance from my on campus worries for enough time that I was ready to return home. On today’s ten-mile run, I spent the first mile thinking about homework. Would Pip and Estella get married in the end? I would find out in the 200 pages I had to read in Great Expectations that night. Once I could shake my to do list from my head, I used the next nine miles to think about why I didn’t confront Brett when he peed in my bed.
Brett studies math, but he is happiest when playing the saxophone in the college Jazz Band. I met him through a wet, drunken kiss at a summer party after I had been trying to leave for an hour. His lips caught mine in the middle of my thoughts about the injustice of women’s safety at night and my responsibility to be at the campus community garden at dawn. Brett’s kiss told me to forget about the morning, to take a deep breath in and stay a while.
It helps to think about moments like my first kiss from Brett in mile five of my ten mile run. My calves had started to cramp and it was up to me to convince myself it didn’t hurt. The idea of Brett’s kiss doesn’t rest in my chaotic thoughts without the memory of another drunken night with him that ended less romantically.
That night, he came over my house for a campus party already substantially drunk. He cornered me in the narrow hallway on the first floor and kissed me. He asked to go upstairs. It seemed like he need a bed more than anything else. I put him to bed with the intention of coming back later.
When I returned, he was out cold. I had to push him over to climb in. Lying in bed, listening to him breath, I began to think about what each kiss meant added together. I couldn’t figure out the math. Brett was the math major. I wanted to wake him up and ask him. I guess, it meant I would put him to bed like a baby. It meant I would kiss him in the morning. It meant…I was drifting off thinking about the two of us and I heard the squirting of the keg tap. No, I felt it. No, Brett was peeing in my bed. It hit my arm and I sprang out of bed, shocked. I grabbed a change of cloths and ran down the stairs and into the bathroom. When the bar of soap helped me reclaim my skin I crept into my housemate Molly’s room on the first floor.
“He peed in my bed,” I said still shocked and embarrassed to say it out loud for the first time.
“Peed in you bed?” as if she needed clarification. I clarified anyway.
“Peed in my bed.”
“Let’s think about it in the morning,” she said and I agreed. It was too much to take in tonight. What was there to do anyway?
I lay in her bed and tried to stop thinking about Brett wrapped in my urine soaked comforter, still sound asleep. I was directly beneath Brett and the piss, one floor below. I was habitually under Brett, under his control. This allowed me to take his kisses as a moment to stop thinking, to let go. Did it also mean that I had to clean up after him?
I’m brought back to mile seven with a cramp in my side. I should have drunk more water today. I should have eaten a better lunch. I should have taken better care of myself for the run. I thought about Pip and Estella again. I thought about the heartless Estella explaining her cruelness to dear old Pip.
“You must know,” said Estella .. “that I have no heart. I have no softness there, no-sympathy-sentiment-nonsense.” I thought about the first time Brett and I talked about being in a relationship. We sat beside each other on a campus bench and I said,
“I like you, but I don’t trust you.” He looked me in the eye and said, “I like you but I don’t trust me.”
“Well at least we agree,” I shrugged, confused.
“You don’t want to date me,” he continued.
“I’m not good at relationships.” I am Pip, aren’t I? I remembered thinking in my Victorian literature class. I hated that he told me what to think almost as much as I hated the idea that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from him. We weren’t going to date. Six months from the day on my bench on the eighth mile of my run, was still living in this sentence. He likes me but he doesn’t trust himself.
“Sometimes they just don’t have a heart. They just don’t care,” I thought about my professor yelling about Estella. “We’ve all been in relationships like that before. We aren’t happy in them but we don’t leave them.” English is therapy. Running is therapy, I thought.
It was mile eight and my knee was bothering me. Just keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. I took as second to focus on the spring around me. The most naïve, flower blubs where popping up with their young, pastel colors. It was a good time of the year to train for a half-marathon. There was a rejuvenating freshness in the air, a freshness that resolves complexities of the winter and fall.
“How are you feeling?” Ellen. Molly, my roommate that coaxed me into training asked. Her question made me realize that I hadn’t said anything in a while.
“I’m struggling,” I breathed out, “but we’re almost home. How are you doing?” I said, returning the mental favor.
“My legs are tight. Distract me,” she answered.
“I’ve been thinking about why I didn’t confront Brett when he peed in my bed,” I said. She laughed through her panting.
“You couldn’t! He would have told everyone and made you look dumb, or you would have had to sit him down and teach him a lesson like your mother. That is not your responsibility.” She was right. I didn’t want either of those roles, but I did want an apology. “Your problem is that you let him sleep in your bed to begin with,” she said rolling her eyes.
I applied Molly’s advice to the resolution of Pip and Estella’s relationship. The problem was that Charles Dickens wrote two endings. The ending widely published is a revised ending where the last scene closes on Pip and Estella holding hands as a sign of mutual understanding and friendship. In the last scene of the original ending, however, Estella is up in a carriage and Pip in down on the London street. Pip is still under Estella. Is it Pip or Estella’s movement in the hierarchy that creates the different dynamic?
Whether Molly was right or not, whether I should have confronted Brett or not, I was almost done running. I was close to home, close to our celebratory chocolate milk and close to a shower. We were only a few weeks shy of being prepared to run 13.1 miles with thousands of people and only a few months shy of graduation. Now running downhill with my driveway in sight I got a sense of lightness. Without a kiss, I took in a much-needed breath of spring oxygen.
Brett studies math, but he is happiest when playing the saxophone in the college Jazz Band. I met him through a wet, drunken kiss at a summer party after I had been trying to leave for an hour. His lips caught mine in the middle of my thoughts about the injustice of women’s safety at night and my responsibility to be at the campus community garden at dawn. Brett’s kiss told me to forget about the morning, to take a deep breath in and stay a while.
It helps to think about moments like my first kiss from Brett in mile five of my ten mile run. My calves had started to cramp and it was up to me to convince myself it didn’t hurt. The idea of Brett’s kiss doesn’t rest in my chaotic thoughts without the memory of another drunken night with him that ended less romantically.
That night, he came over my house for a campus party already substantially drunk. He cornered me in the narrow hallway on the first floor and kissed me. He asked to go upstairs. It seemed like he need a bed more than anything else. I put him to bed with the intention of coming back later.
When I returned, he was out cold. I had to push him over to climb in. Lying in bed, listening to him breath, I began to think about what each kiss meant added together. I couldn’t figure out the math. Brett was the math major. I wanted to wake him up and ask him. I guess, it meant I would put him to bed like a baby. It meant I would kiss him in the morning. It meant…I was drifting off thinking about the two of us and I heard the squirting of the keg tap. No, I felt it. No, Brett was peeing in my bed. It hit my arm and I sprang out of bed, shocked. I grabbed a change of cloths and ran down the stairs and into the bathroom. When the bar of soap helped me reclaim my skin I crept into my housemate Molly’s room on the first floor.
“He peed in my bed,” I said still shocked and embarrassed to say it out loud for the first time.
“Peed in you bed?” as if she needed clarification. I clarified anyway.
“Peed in my bed.”
“Let’s think about it in the morning,” she said and I agreed. It was too much to take in tonight. What was there to do anyway?
I lay in her bed and tried to stop thinking about Brett wrapped in my urine soaked comforter, still sound asleep. I was directly beneath Brett and the piss, one floor below. I was habitually under Brett, under his control. This allowed me to take his kisses as a moment to stop thinking, to let go. Did it also mean that I had to clean up after him?
I’m brought back to mile seven with a cramp in my side. I should have drunk more water today. I should have eaten a better lunch. I should have taken better care of myself for the run. I thought about Pip and Estella again. I thought about the heartless Estella explaining her cruelness to dear old Pip.
“You must know,” said Estella .. “that I have no heart. I have no softness there, no-sympathy-sentiment-nonsense.” I thought about the first time Brett and I talked about being in a relationship. We sat beside each other on a campus bench and I said,
“I like you, but I don’t trust you.” He looked me in the eye and said, “I like you but I don’t trust me.”
“Well at least we agree,” I shrugged, confused.
“You don’t want to date me,” he continued.
“I’m not good at relationships.” I am Pip, aren’t I? I remembered thinking in my Victorian literature class. I hated that he told me what to think almost as much as I hated the idea that I wasn’t going to get what I wanted from him. We weren’t going to date. Six months from the day on my bench on the eighth mile of my run, was still living in this sentence. He likes me but he doesn’t trust himself.
“Sometimes they just don’t have a heart. They just don’t care,” I thought about my professor yelling about Estella. “We’ve all been in relationships like that before. We aren’t happy in them but we don’t leave them.” English is therapy. Running is therapy, I thought.
It was mile eight and my knee was bothering me. Just keep moving. Keep moving. Keep moving. I took as second to focus on the spring around me. The most naïve, flower blubs where popping up with their young, pastel colors. It was a good time of the year to train for a half-marathon. There was a rejuvenating freshness in the air, a freshness that resolves complexities of the winter and fall.
“How are you feeling?” Ellen. Molly, my roommate that coaxed me into training asked. Her question made me realize that I hadn’t said anything in a while.
“I’m struggling,” I breathed out, “but we’re almost home. How are you doing?” I said, returning the mental favor.
“My legs are tight. Distract me,” she answered.
“I’ve been thinking about why I didn’t confront Brett when he peed in my bed,” I said. She laughed through her panting.
“You couldn’t! He would have told everyone and made you look dumb, or you would have had to sit him down and teach him a lesson like your mother. That is not your responsibility.” She was right. I didn’t want either of those roles, but I did want an apology. “Your problem is that you let him sleep in your bed to begin with,” she said rolling her eyes.
I applied Molly’s advice to the resolution of Pip and Estella’s relationship. The problem was that Charles Dickens wrote two endings. The ending widely published is a revised ending where the last scene closes on Pip and Estella holding hands as a sign of mutual understanding and friendship. In the last scene of the original ending, however, Estella is up in a carriage and Pip in down on the London street. Pip is still under Estella. Is it Pip or Estella’s movement in the hierarchy that creates the different dynamic?
Whether Molly was right or not, whether I should have confronted Brett or not, I was almost done running. I was close to home, close to our celebratory chocolate milk and close to a shower. We were only a few weeks shy of being prepared to run 13.1 miles with thousands of people and only a few months shy of graduation. Now running downhill with my driveway in sight I got a sense of lightness. Without a kiss, I took in a much-needed breath of spring oxygen.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Telling True Stories. Pg. 17-74.
I like reading this book as organized advice from writers. It's like a class with a lot of guest speakers. However, I find this book more poetic than technically helpful, more inspiring than informative. There are inspiring quotes, advice, and messages. I paid close attention to the advice about writing profiles and hung on to the message, "You don't lost respect for you subjects or their story, but your allegiance must be with the reader." This is inspiring as I begin to think more about my narrative arc of my profile.
However, some points in to book make me anxious for more experience; sick of reading about doing something. An example of this on pgs. 28-30 when four writers give advice on whether or not to use a recorder. The advice is complied to be a pro recorder then a con, a pro then a con. As I read through the pros and cons of using the recorder from each writer, I understood each point, but I could draw no conclusion or take no side. I wanted experience.
While reading this book I realized that journalism is active writing. It's searching for stories. Sometimes the search is in oneself, but most of the time the story is out in the world. This book made me anxious I wasn't finding my story.
However, some points in to book make me anxious for more experience; sick of reading about doing something. An example of this on pgs. 28-30 when four writers give advice on whether or not to use a recorder. The advice is complied to be a pro recorder then a con, a pro then a con. As I read through the pros and cons of using the recorder from each writer, I understood each point, but I could draw no conclusion or take no side. I wanted experience.
While reading this book I realized that journalism is active writing. It's searching for stories. Sometimes the search is in oneself, but most of the time the story is out in the world. This book made me anxious I wasn't finding my story.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Franklin Outline of Pee Story
Wow - it's awful that I can title a blog post that...
Conflict: Ellen uses an unhealthy relationship as a way to escape the stress of school
-Ellen runs 10 miles and thinks about her relationship
Resolution: Ellen finds a healthy way to relieve stress by friendship and running.
It sounds lame but I hope the details make it more compelling.
Conflict: Ellen uses an unhealthy relationship as a way to escape the stress of school
-Ellen runs 10 miles and thinks about her relationship
Resolution: Ellen finds a healthy way to relieve stress by friendship and running.
It sounds lame but I hope the details make it more compelling.
Story Pitch for Profile
I'm writing about Uncle Emmett. He is just the best. Not only that he is a product of industrial capitalism. He spent 30 years in the same factory working 15 hour days, 6 days a week. And on his 7th day, he rested with me! (ok I don't want to write him as God, though he basically is) It's going to be more creative nonfiction than journalistic on the spectrum of creative to hard journalism but I know I have a complex story with Uncle Emmett. It might be more subtle than a story with a character grappling with death or pain or something else, but it is heartbreaking and I want to write about him.
Story more explicitly:
Uncle Emmett has contrasting life and interests. (cognitive dissonance)
-Emmett works in the factory but studies the stars.
-People are growing but Emmett stays the same. (his brothers children)
-Emmett lives through other people saying yes to everything.
-Emmett is very busy but when he has time off he is truly resting.
Emmett retires the same year I graduate from HS and grows a garden.
I still have some figuring out to do. But I know there is a story.
Story more explicitly:
Uncle Emmett has contrasting life and interests. (cognitive dissonance)
-Emmett works in the factory but studies the stars.
-People are growing but Emmett stays the same. (his brothers children)
-Emmett lives through other people saying yes to everything.
-Emmett is very busy but when he has time off he is truly resting.
Emmett retires the same year I graduate from HS and grows a garden.
I still have some figuring out to do. But I know there is a story.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
CYOA - Shooting an Elephant
http://orwell.ru/library/articles/elephant/english/e_eleph
First I thought it was interesting that this piece is now categorized narrative journalism because it was written before the genre was developed/named. With this in mind was wanted to ask what you thought what message George Orwell wanted to deliver to the reader by writing a creative nonfiction piece?
Another reason I wanted to share this is because there is a dispute that Orwell never shot an elephant. Credibility is a heated issue in creative nonfiction, especially memoir because memory very difficult to document. In journalism there is an even higher demand to be factual. Do you think Orwell actually shot the elephant? Why or why not? Does it matter? (I can feel the heat with this question).
i.e.: "When one biographer questioned his wife, Sonia Brownell, she replied, "Of course he shot a fucking elephant. He said he did. Why do you always doubt his fucking word!""
Finally, in what ways does Orwell talk about imperialism in the shooting of the Elephant? How does he develop his metaphor? Is it successful?
Enjoy!
Ellen
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Writing for Story - Jon Franklin
Writing for Story is not only a wonderfully concise book about crafting a compelling story but a book about human nature and expression. The structure of a story Franklin writes on in terms of complication/tension and resolution is the story of well, everything. Maybe with out an analogy this seems like a sweeping generalization. This idea that human nature runs on tension and resolution did not strike me as true until today in my guitar class. Today was the first day I had ever talked about music theory. The way I understood song writing theory after a 40 minute lesson on it today is exactly the way I look at writing a story. There are six strings on a guitar, all of which are strummed in the playing of a chord. If a guitar play is to play a G-chord, she plays the g, a minor, b minor, c, d7, and f#, together. To write a song in the note of G, each of these notes are assigned a number, g being one, a minor two. and so on. To use these notes in a progression, some of them create tension that can only be resolved by returning to g. Some notes are more dominate and some of them are less powerful. All of the sounds evoke a different feeling for the listener. All have a place in the chord. It is much easier to explain this while playing the guitar because it really is about a feeling you get when listening to music. I guess I am arguing self expression is always about creating and resolving tensions to bring a viewer/listener through a set of real emotions. It's interesting that we have these innate senses of emotions already (more clear when listening to music) yet we still need Jon Franklin to lay it out for us. Lesson: trust your instincts.
Emergence
http://www.radiolab.org/2007/aug/14/
It was a long radio program but a very interesting subject. There were many different tensions in the radio piece Emergence. The radio host came at the idea of organization developing without a leader from different species and different hosts of dis/organization including ants, fireflies, google search, humans and bodies. The question is answered in many ways, but use of smell in ants, the actions of lame individuals adding up to a smart community decision or is there a divine author of this spontaneous organization. These resolutions are interesting but I don't think the explanations are more interesting than the tension themselves. The radio show allows the listener to have comfort in this unknowing. This might the toughest sort of journalism in the opinion of Jon Franklin, author of Writing for Story who discusses the importances of an action oriented resolution (pg 83). I guess the action oriented resolution of Emergence is different for each host of dis/organization. The idea the connects all hosts is that the community is smarter than the individual but each individual uses different skills to be part of the organization of the whole. There might not be a science (an idea presented by the host, not me). Which makes it magical - the way I suppose organized fireflies make a viewer feel. Yet, all the explications we have about these phenomenon are scientific.
Summary of Tensions:
individual vs. community
divine vs. scientific
organization vs. disorganization
unexplained vs. resolution
As of the actual radio show, it's awesome. The sound effects they use provoke different feelings. The hosts bring the listener around the world with many different voices and opinions on the subject. The voices are will integrated with each other. They do a good job of having an informal discussion about the subject and then jumping to a scientific opinion about it.
I really enjoyed it! Thanks!
It was a long radio program but a very interesting subject. There were many different tensions in the radio piece Emergence. The radio host came at the idea of organization developing without a leader from different species and different hosts of dis/organization including ants, fireflies, google search, humans and bodies. The question is answered in many ways, but use of smell in ants, the actions of lame individuals adding up to a smart community decision or is there a divine author of this spontaneous organization. These resolutions are interesting but I don't think the explanations are more interesting than the tension themselves. The radio show allows the listener to have comfort in this unknowing. This might the toughest sort of journalism in the opinion of Jon Franklin, author of Writing for Story who discusses the importances of an action oriented resolution (pg 83). I guess the action oriented resolution of Emergence is different for each host of dis/organization. The idea the connects all hosts is that the community is smarter than the individual but each individual uses different skills to be part of the organization of the whole. There might not be a science (an idea presented by the host, not me). Which makes it magical - the way I suppose organized fireflies make a viewer feel. Yet, all the explications we have about these phenomenon are scientific.
Summary of Tensions:
individual vs. community
divine vs. scientific
organization vs. disorganization
unexplained vs. resolution
As of the actual radio show, it's awesome. The sound effects they use provoke different feelings. The hosts bring the listener around the world with many different voices and opinions on the subject. The voices are will integrated with each other. They do a good job of having an informal discussion about the subject and then jumping to a scientific opinion about it.
I really enjoyed it! Thanks!
Monday, April 9, 2012
Jacob Zuma
Jacob Zuma
The article's focus was on humanizing Jacob Zuma. I have not followed media portrayals of Zuma in the past, but I got the idea that many news reports and articles depict Zuma as a womanizing, war-lord while others instill ideas of godliness. Douglas Foster, the author of Jacob's Ladder, speaks of the character of his children, his history as a young boy and his growth, both politically and personally. Foster forces to reader to look beyond his flaws like his alleged rape and into his character. Foster allows the reader to dismiss this rape by quoting his daughter saying, "It's only politics." Although Foster moves beyond a standard media portrayal of good or evil. He uses comfortable language and is quick to dismiss Zuma's flaws, which made me feel uncomfortable.
One assumption that Foster held was that the reader understood the politics of race in South Africa. I was curious about how economics played into class vs. how much race factored into class. How is race different from the United States? I've heard South Africa depicted as the California of Africa. In this article there is very much a different story to be told about the country. I would have liked more information about race especially politically.
Overall, I thought the writing was interesting. The personal is political and that was most definitely Foster's angle.
The article's focus was on humanizing Jacob Zuma. I have not followed media portrayals of Zuma in the past, but I got the idea that many news reports and articles depict Zuma as a womanizing, war-lord while others instill ideas of godliness. Douglas Foster, the author of Jacob's Ladder, speaks of the character of his children, his history as a young boy and his growth, both politically and personally. Foster forces to reader to look beyond his flaws like his alleged rape and into his character. Foster allows the reader to dismiss this rape by quoting his daughter saying, "It's only politics." Although Foster moves beyond a standard media portrayal of good or evil. He uses comfortable language and is quick to dismiss Zuma's flaws, which made me feel uncomfortable.
One assumption that Foster held was that the reader understood the politics of race in South Africa. I was curious about how economics played into class vs. how much race factored into class. How is race different from the United States? I've heard South Africa depicted as the California of Africa. In this article there is very much a different story to be told about the country. I would have liked more information about race especially politically.
Overall, I thought the writing was interesting. The personal is political and that was most definitely Foster's angle.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Writing Process - When Men Need Mothers
I needed to write about this boy peeing in my bed. Seriously. I kept this quiet when it happened and I struggled with that. I couldn't figure out why I was so afraid to confront him. It wasn't because I was afraid that he would stop liking me or something or that I would get made fun of. It was more complicated. I didn't want it in our relationship, yet - the idea of me cleaning up after him.
Then over time, I realized that theme of me cleaning up after him was so prevalent in our relationship. He would mess up and I would put it back together. I would get upset and then reshape it. I would force apologies when I needed them and clean sheets when he peed on me.
When he told my friend that I reminded him of his mother - in a romantic way - (talk about some fucked up freud shit) I was like BINGO. I want to be his friend, to be playful and to have fun. I wanted to use the relationship as an escape from my academic and professional life in similar ways I use alcohol... Yet, he wasn't letting me because as we got closer and I cared about him more, I asked for more out of him than to be my "alcohol."
Is this personal essay enough? In hindsight, and revision, I want to add more reflections on a woman's role in our culture. I also want to add a scene on the progression of our relationship as more real and less about partying. Because although it's hard to get him to admit it - it was real too.
Oh and it's funny. Urine is so funny!
Then over time, I realized that theme of me cleaning up after him was so prevalent in our relationship. He would mess up and I would put it back together. I would get upset and then reshape it. I would force apologies when I needed them and clean sheets when he peed on me.
When he told my friend that I reminded him of his mother - in a romantic way - (talk about some fucked up freud shit) I was like BINGO. I want to be his friend, to be playful and to have fun. I wanted to use the relationship as an escape from my academic and professional life in similar ways I use alcohol... Yet, he wasn't letting me because as we got closer and I cared about him more, I asked for more out of him than to be my "alcohol."
Is this personal essay enough? In hindsight, and revision, I want to add more reflections on a woman's role in our culture. I also want to add a scene on the progression of our relationship as more real and less about partying. Because although it's hard to get him to admit it - it was real too.
Oh and it's funny. Urine is so funny!
Monday, April 2, 2012
When Men Need Mothers
I met Brett through a wet, drunken kiss at a party where he leaned in without apology or explanation. Then I met his giant head in my hands the night I asked him to be my euchre partner at a bar tournament. We lost and ended up entangled on my couch. I hadn’t realized how giant he was before then – his head, his hands, his voice, his feet.
He drags his giant feet when he walks like he didn’t get enough sleep. I know when he arrives at the coffee shop in our college library without looking up from my book. This allows me to ignore him, or at least pretend to ignore him as he talks to everyone he can find except me. I don’t mind though, because I can finally focus for a moment. I know where he is and I don’t have to look up from my book to see his six foot stature, dressed in a light colored button up with his brown, leather brief case hanging off his shoulder and a cigarette tucked behind his ear. He dressed to be approachable, not sexy or mysterious. I would work in the coffee shop as he found someone to smoke his cigarette with because my mind could rest when he was around.
Brett and I connected through our alcohol consumption over the summer. He is best at playing to the cinematic – slightly romantic, mostly horny – party boy. My competitive nature fueled his here-to-have-a-good-time attitude when it came to drinking. I could beat him at drinking games like beer pong and flip cup, pick out a playlist on my phone to dance on a table to, and shotgun beers to my hearts content.
This connection and our competition with each other transformed over time, which fueled our light romance. We raced to complete the Monday New York Times crossword puzzles, compared the number of votes for our spots in the student organization we both participate in (I recently won by a landslide), and we would even argue about which friends would take our side in a fight. It was childish, our relationship. The two of us would compete over anything, but it was fun and I wanted it to keep going.
Our campus was small enough that I could keep track of him without texting him. We would go to the same parties and events. When we would get drunk, sometimes I would let him kiss me up against a car or a basement wall and sometimes I’d let him come home with me to sleep in my big soft, off campus bed as opposed to his twin bed in the dorms.
He showed up at a campus party at my house halfway though the fall. He was already very drunk at this point and wasn’t in any state to play drinking games with me. When he cornered me in the narrow hallway on the first floor he kissed me and asked to go upstairs. It seemed like he needed a bed more than anything else. I put him in bed with the intention to spend another hour downstairs and to climb in bed with him later. Without him at the flip cup table my team won easily. Even without the competition I still had carefree fun because I knew where he was. I felt like we were a play family. I could return to him when I got sleepy. He was up stairs waiting for me.
When people started to leave my house and the party was slowing down, I snuck upstairs. He was out cold. I had to push him over to climb in bed. It’s my bed make room, I thought as I pulled the comforter away from him and closed my eyes. Just as I was drifting off thinking about my play family and our possible future I heard the squirting of the keg tap. No, I felt it. No, Brett was peeing in my bed. It hit my arm and I sprang out of bed, shocked. I grabbed a change of cloths and ran down the stairs and into the bathroom. When the bar of soap helped me reclaim my skin I crept into my housemates room on the first floor. I lay in her bed and tried to stop thinking about Brett wrapped in my urine soaked comforter, still sound asleep. I was directly beneath Brett and the piss, one floor below. It seemed like I was habitually under Brett, under his control, under this spell his cast on me to take care of him. He was powerful, moving me physically and emotionally, even if I still won our flip cup games. Now one floor beneath him, I began to ask myself the same questions I would continue to ask for months: Am I the woman that allows a man to urinate on me?
He left in the morning before I saw him. As I stripped my bed, down comforter, Tempur-Pedic pillow, mattress pad, I was disgusted and embarrassed. My first concern was reclaiming my most comfortable belongings as I did with my skin the night before. A close second concern was Brett’s potential humiliation. He didn’t pee in my bed on purpose.
Later in the school year, Brett would drunkenly tell my friend Sasha, that I remind him of his mother. Brett would sleep with another one of my friends and tell me, “It’s not like I was thinking about you when I did it.” I would take him to Hobby Lobby, a craft store to buy art supplies for a creative portion to one of my many job applications but also to have a serious conversation about the importance of apologies, reconciliation and forgiveness in relationships. He would tell me that he loves me three times in one night and I would tell him that I only had sex with him that one time because he told me he wanted to be exclusive.
Looking back I realized that the urine incident was when I suddenly became Brett’s mother, protecting his pride, defending the fault in his decision and laundering his urine soaked sheets. I was attracted to his childlike, carefree nature but I was also cleaning up after it. I never confronted Brett about the urine because I didn’t want to decide what role I would ultimately play in his life. If I was understanding about the pee, I would claim my perpetual motherhood. If I teased him, I would be confined to childhood.
Brett is not the first romance in my life where I have been faced with these options: the child or the mother. From my limited experience with serious relationships, my understanding is that the modern women is forced to act as both of these characters to a varying degree in order to keep up with the modern man, one resisting responsibilities. It is assumed that a woman will navigate the carefree/caregiver personality solo and the back and forth between the two roles is innate rather than learned. I didn’t confront Brett about the urine, which made me feel like a “little bitch,” as a close, male friend once called me. Although I might be the female dog, Brett was the male. He peed on my like a dog pees on public property to claim me as his own, making me navigate between his friend, his lover, his mother and his fire hydrant.
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