term of the day: “shit magnet”

amybiancolli family, language, random philosophizing 10 Comments

SHIT MAGNET (noun) ˈshit ˈmag-nət. One who attracts shit, any kind of shit, be it death, woe, romantic break-ups, legal tangles, financial or medical catastrophe, accidentally lighting your hair on fire or other grave misfortune, especially any that results in the production and propulsion of large amounts of snot. Synonyms: punching bag; hopeless wreck; gnasher of teeth. Origin: Randy.

Yes, this is Randy’s term. He gets the credit. He reminded me of it in his response to my post about getting swiped and subsequently swooped-upon by the TSA, and I’ve been meaning to give it a full airing. In case you’re wondering who Randy is, and you should be, he’s a kind, funny man, and he’s my brother, and he’s been that way for a couple of decades now. My brother, that is. Not kind and funny; he’s been that way since birth, at least I assume so, because I didn’t actually cross paths with him until I was, like, 14, and he was, like, 13. His dad was headmaster of Wykeham Rise, that itsy-bitsy arts school where my mom taught music.

Randy and I met one afternoon when he was out in the  Wykeham parking lot, kicking the soccer ball around, and he said Hey, and I said Hey, and he said Do you play soccer, and I said Guess so, and he kicked the ball to me and I kicked it back and the freaking thing slammed straight into the Latin teacher’s car so hard that it made a dent in the door. Thank heavens it popped straight back, although the Latin teacher, a diminutive Hungarian eccentric we called Doc, was the worst and most oblivious driver of all time and probably wouldn’t have noticed a dent in his car the size of, you know, the car.

So began my friendship with Randy, who went on to utter phrases of startling pithiness and discernment well beyond Do you play soccer. I will probably quote him again sometime. Several years back he coined the phrase above, hypothesizing that some people exert a fecal attraction more powerfully than others.

My own sense is that everyone’s a shit magnet of one sort or another; it’s just that not everyone talks about it. Seriously: do you know anyone who hasn’t been dealt some monumentally awful hand at some point? Maybe several points? Even that jerk who cut me off in traffic the other day, prompting spasms in my middle finger, is likely carrying around his own sack of pain. And if he isn’t, he will someday. The shit flies in all directions, just not at the same time. 

We take our turns as shit magnets, I believe. I’ve had mine. Randy’s had his. Someone else is next. Tell me, then, that this isn’t the most fitting synonym of all: human being.

snow angels and the theory of northern cities

amybiancolli Albany, random philosophizing, winter 4 Comments
Moses, an Albany resident, striking snow from a rock.

Moses, Albany snow angel.

This morning, I poked my head outside to look for the papers — the print version, or what I like to call the paper papers — and found a snow angel clearing my sidewalk. Snow angels are neighbors with snow blowers, or maybe just a strong back and a shovel. However they’re equipped, they’re a force of good on the planet, especially this part of the planet, especially when Madre Nature, feeling generous, dumps a blanket of fluffy hexagonal crystals more or less overnight.

I smiled and thanked the snow angel and ducked back inside, paper paper-less. About 15 minutes later I ducked back out again in search of these same old-school information circulators only to discover that a second snow angel had shoveled off my front steps. In another half an hour or so I went outside myself and started digging out my cars and driveway, joining my fellow smiling digger-outers engaged in the cold, bright industry of clearing off vehicles and steps and sidewalks and sundry after a storm. It wasn’t long before a third snow angel showed up and helped. I smiled and thanked him. He smiled back. Everybody happy.

Northeasterners in particular love to complain about winter. We love to complain about summer, too. The truth of the matter is, we love to complain about everything, including the fact that we complain so much. But winter kvetching is special, because the frigid agonies of the post-storm shovelrama bring with them a certain amount of joy — a joy that goes beyond our stupidly mocking moral superiority (I’ll admit it) over Continue reading →

the fish has a name! sort of.

amybiancolli polls, Uncategorized 4 Comments
You've got to be kidding me.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Before I announce the long-anticipated results of the First and Last Annual Name My Goldfish Competition of 2013, I would like to note that my kitchen is apparently not the steaming incubator of democratic spirit that I assumed it to be. I had approached my kids with this pet-nomer undertaking before floating it on the blog, and they agreed in principle, but the realpolitik proved thornier than anticipated; as we learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union, democracy is easier said than done. When they heard the results, they rebeled.

But a deal is a deal. A poll is a poll. A dumbass idea is a dumbass idea. And so, with no more ado, if any of this qualifies as ado, the winner of our thunderously important exercise is: “Sushi.”

For this my kids and I have no one to blame but ourselves, as the four of us selected it as a finalist despite the fact that it is, truly, vicious bordering on abusive: How is naming a pet after a foodstuff derived from its flesh any less cruel than not naming it at all? It’s like deciding to call a pony “horse meat.”

But the people have spoken. A tiny number of people with an especially morbid sense of humor, but all the same. They are people. And they have spoken. Now, whether this means we actually call the poor creature “sushi” is a matter only history, and my children, can decide.

the tsa ’n me (or you)

amybiancolli encounters, flying 7 Comments

It starts with the hand-swipe. You know when that young man with the glasses asks you to reach out, palms up, so he can check for chemicals and you smile and say yes, okay, sure thing, ha ha ha, thanks for keeping us safe? And hold up your palms as directed? There. It starts there.

A few beats later, a small clutch of TSA agents swoops politely but firmly over and explains that they found some shit on your hands. They don’t actually call it “shit,” but that’s what they mean, and that’s what you hear, and immediately you question that innocent floral hand-soap you used that morning, or the face-cream, or that fudge you nibbled in the kitchen in the wee small hours before you left for the airport.

Quickly the swooping agents communicate with other swooping agents, and soon they’re picking through your luggage one sloppily packed undergarment at a time, looking for yet more shit, swiping everything with a plug: your iPhone, your brand-new Acer laptop, your GPS.

Meanwhile, two of your offspring have been herded over from the non-terrorist-threat portion of the airport to sit and observe your hilarious good fun with the TSA. You take three steps forward to converse with the fruit of your loins when a fresh new swooper swoops over, telling you, the shit-swiped mother from Albany, to back off in a manner that suggests the fate of the free world depends upon it. Continue reading →

sit still and follow the stick

amybiancolli Albany, music, random philosophizing 2 Comments

Without fail, every single time I attend a city school concert — and I’ve attended lots and lots of concerts over the years, as it’s been lots and lots of years — two things smack me between the eyes or, depending on the sense being aroused and the direction I’m facing, the ears.

One is the sound of winds and strings and beatific voices playing and singing in tune, or damn near close to it. And that’s not nothing. No matter how often grown-ups crack jokes about the squeaks and squawks emitting from student instruments in the midst of practice — as though these sounds are any more aggravating or less mellifluous than any other noises emitting from a child at any point in his or her early life, like, say, whining, farting, shouting for cookies and marathon virtuosic tantrum-throwing  — the fact is, learning an instrument isn’t easy. If a kid is bold enough to wrap hands around a viola or a French horn or an oboe or some other ancient and altogether convoluted melody-making machine and actually create something akin to music, well, huzzah. Let us applaud loudly. Let us applaud the teachers, too.

This leads me to the other fact that smacks me in the face whenever I’m squished in the crowd at a school auditorium — as I was earlier tonight for my son’s middle-school winter concert. It’s the fact that APPROXIMATELY ONE MILLION KIDS are crowding the stage, sitting still, performing an insanely complex, cooperative task, doing so with total coordination, concentration and good nature, and — this is the best part — TAKING DIRECTION FROM A SINGLE ADULT HOLDING A STICK. And not even a big stick. TAKING DIRECTION FROM A SINGLE ADULT HOLDING A PATHETICALLY FLIMSY STICK. 

I watch this spectacle of civilization at its best, and I wonder: Why don’t schools encourage more of this shockingly effective crowd control disguised as art? Why don’t workplaces do it? Whole troubled neighborhoods? Congress? If a mob of squirmy children can get along for several long minutes to perform an arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” then shouldn’t leaders of belligerent nations give it a whirl? Leaving out the cannons, maybe? If they have trouble with it, no probs. The kids can show them how.

counter-clockwise

amybiancolli Albany, random philosophizing, winter 6 Comments
round and round and round we go

guess we’re going this way

I love to skate. And so long as I’m skating counter-clockwise, I’m not half bad, looping around the rink with a freedom and fluidity that dupes me into regarding myself as graceful. Which I’m not. Believe you me, I’m not.

But on the ice, crossing right foot over left, right foot over left, I’m taller, less klutzy, more confident. I know how to move without crashing. I know how to stop without falling. And I know where I’m going: to the left.

Today at the Empire State Plaza, I found this westward motion strangely reassuring. As my youngest and I tooled around the smallish oval alongside the bundled, happy crowd, I felt the crushing grip of the week behind me loosen its cinch. This was a one-way street. I either skated counter-clockwise or not at all. I couldn’t just go renegade and skate to the right, not without toppling gooey young couples and retirees on vintage skates and pre-schoolers wobbling on double-runners, their parents wobbling along behind them.

How natural, after a loved one dies, to look back and log the days without her. My best friend  died on Monday; I’ve spent six days Pam-less, so far. So I backspin to the last time we gabbed, or the last time I glimpsed her, saying goodbye, or that day we kicked the soccer ball around with our boys, flushed with exertion.

But we live on an orb that rotates counter-clockwise. It presses to the left with an insistence that feels impossibly cruel. And yet, and yet. It keeps us whirling forward. We have no choice. We go to work, chat with colleagues. We go home, make supper for our children. Later on, a little too much later, we go to bed.

And in between, if we’re lucky, we skate.

vote here! goldfish poll!

amybiancolli polls, Uncategorized 1 Comment

After deep linguistic analysis and months, I mean seconds, of rigorous and discerning discussion with my three children, I am pleased to announce finalists in the First and Last Annual Name My Goldfish Competition of 2013.

Some of these names, “Sushi” included, were suggested in comments right here on the blog. Others, such as “Chunk,” were suggested in a thread on my Facebook page. “Pudge” is my daughter Madeleine’s idea. The idea of highlighting the plight of this sad creature to begin with was suggested by my friend Jane, whom I should have credited from the start but didn’t because I’m an ungrateful and insensitive wretch. If I weren’t, I would have named the fish years ago.

Go ahead and vote. Just once will do. Voting will close same time tomorrow, unless I change my mind and extend it, because I am flighty as well as ungrateful and insensitive, and because, as you are no doubt aware, the First and Last Annual Name My Goldfish Competition of 2013 is bigger news than the Grammys. So you’re all clamoring for the chance to express your opinions on piscine pet monikers. So I’m going to shut up now. So you can vote. Go on. Vote.

you talkin' to me? probably not. No one does.

you talkin’ to me? probably not. no one does.

name my goldfish

amybiancolli polls 9 Comments
Such a sad face.

Such a sad face.

Okay, people. I need a break. Tonight I give you a post that has NOTHING TO DO WITH DEATH, GRIEF and/or SNOT POURING FROM FACIAL ORIFICES.

Instead, I want you to name my fish. This is the ill-appreciated aquatic pet to which I alluded disrespectfully in  last night’s post, which also involved DEATH, GRIEF and/or SNOT POURING FROM FACIAL ORIFICES.

Give me your ideas below. I will consider them harshly, weed them out and boil them down (or employ other such violent gardening and cooking methods) until I have a few worthy finalists. Then I’ll post a poll.

I’ll start you off with my son’s nominee: Jesús.

(I’m not enough of an authority on goldfish sexual characteristics, either primary or secondary, to establish its gender.)

what i have

amybiancolli friends, loss and grief, random philosophizing 12 Comments

After any loss, we fixate on the absent. I do this. I did this on Monday, when I first got the news that Pam had died. I’ve done it every moment since. I’m doing it now. I’ll do it tomorrow, zeroing in on everyone I ever lost.

They’re all there, gathered around a blazing fire pit in some grand backyard, having a high old time without me: My best friend. My husband. My sister. My father. My mother. My second mother. And so on. And so on. And so on.

But I can’t always focus on the departed, no matter how dear they are. I need to tally up my blessings here and now. And not just the good things; I have to include the annoying things, the meh things, even the bad things. Because when life shakes out in the end, whenever that end may be, the good and the bad will have muddied and merged, and we won’t know the difference — or we won’t care.

So, just for a moment, I’ll aim to be grateful for everything that put me here, keeps me here, makes me Amy, makes me sane.

What do I have?

I have my three children, indelible, spirited, compassionate and brave.

I have my family, so large and so loving, whether related by blood or not.

I have my friends: each of them individually; all of them as a whole; the possibility of new ones tomorrow.

I have a bad habit of apologizing too much for everything.

I have a foul mouth. You’re shocked by this revelation. I can tell. Sorry. Continue reading →

Pamsadoodle

amybiancolli friends, loss and grief 18 Comments

Tonight I have too much to say and no right words to say it: I just lost my best friend, Pam, one of the brightest gifts in the long arc of blessings that illumined my way. She helped me through my husband’s death. She helped me through my sister’s death, becoming my sister, too. She was the sweetest, humblest, kindest, funniest person I knew, with the most infectious laugh, and the thought of moving forward without her boggles my mind and breaks my heart.

But I know I will move forward. Because I know she’ll be helping me and everyone she loved and loves still. I know she’ll be laughing with me, though I won’t hear her wild giggles again until I’m a cranky old fusspot and I die in my sleep and she finds me in the crowd at the pearly gates, eyes crinkling, sidling up with some wacky story of some weird guy in the line ahead of me. Someday we’re going to double over again with laughter, and heaven’s occupants won’t know how to handle it. We’ll make too much noise. They’ll have to send us back.

I just saw her a little over a month ago — and sure enough, after eating subpar sushi on a Saturday night, we fell into a bout of laughter that left us with aching bellies. “Amesadoodle,” she used to say. “Amesadoodle, wait’ll you hear this. I have a funny story to tell you.”

She always did. She will again. I’ll be waiting for it.

So tonight, in Pam’s memory, I’m asking you — whoever you are, be you friend, family or random stranger — to call up the person in your life with whom you laugh the most radiantly and contagiously. And let it rip, the both of you.