Apple Of My Eye

In the fall of 2009 my friend Amber and I stopped in at a Best Buy, looking at laptop computers for Amber’s boyfriend. We made cursory passes by desktops, examining them in the way that all window shoppers do, when we came around to the computers adorned with little glowing apples. Before Amber went to the job of actually considering her options, she paused a moment at the Apple kiosk and stood there, as if dreaming.

The computers contrasted sharply with the simple, polished wood of their display table, which further set them apart from the rest of the brands. Everything else sat on black metal shelves, secured by black metal arms so that no one could pick them up and carry them away. The Apple notebooks had nothing keeping them there save for a thin white wire attached to a sensor. I’ve never attempted larceny, but I assumed that severing it would result in a lot of attention with loud sirens and flashing lights. Sitting that way, it truly felt like having one would be no more difficult than filling out a credit card application.

“My computer’s so old,” she said, tracing a finger along the lid of one of the shiny silver laptops. “I’d love to have a Mac, but…” She paused. “I don’t want to become one of those Mac snobs.”

I watched her finger as it followed the graceful curved edges of the otherwise rectangular lid, and I felt that familiar stirring, like heartstrings but in my back pocket.

Gadgets, to this day, are a big draw for me. As a self-proclaimed nerd, I have an eye for anything with glowing lights or blinking buttons, and the attraction is probably best described as “unhealthy.” Right up there with sugar and a mild self-loathing, technology could be described as one of my major addictions. Walking into an electronics store, I imagine that the sight of me is something like a kitten plopped into the middle of a room filled with yarn, if the yarn was dancing and the kitten hopped up on speed. God knows how much of my income I’ve squandered on technological trinkets that, really, are nothing more than flashy toys.

How, then, does one admit to already having become one of those snobs? I’d made the switch to Apple computers a year or so before, and I felt immediately uncomfortable in that moment, standing there looking at several overpriced products I had lying in wait for me back home. I went from feeling ashamed, then, to slightly defensive. I certainly didn’t think of myself as a snob, and as we walked away I ran through all my reasoning for wanting things like these and the justifications for already having them.

As a child, I loved toys that lit up and had switches and levers and made science-y noises. I would pretend that educational toys — things made of bright plastics that were supposed to teach a child how to count or multiply — instead made excellent controls for spaceships or a computer workstation at a distant outpost. Things didn’t even have to be toys. At my great-grandmother’s house, I would play with her melodica, a handheld musical instrument that looked like the result of a flute and a piano’s wild night in Vegas; the rows of black and white keys looked like buttons that would fire missiles or close a bulkhead against an advancing army of mutant soldiers.

Years later, in the middle of a camping trip where my mother and I seemed sentenced to boredom, she and I drove into town to look at the local shops. We were in the middle of a junk store, basically a glorified indoor garage sale, when I stumbled upon an entire computer priced at twenty-five dollars. The find felt like a prospector’s discovery of gold, and, without prodding, my mother asked if I’d like to have it. Never one to pass up a good deal, my mother, I think, overestimated the computer’s capabilities. When we got it back to our camper, we set it up on the foldaway dining table and plugged it in. From school and even at home, I was used to having a mouse and onscreen pointer to navigate things. But this thing was from a different era. All the monitor gave me was a black screen. That and a lime green cursor for typing commands in what I thought of as the old-fashioned way. At twelve years old and a child of the nineties, I had no idea how to work a computer that had possibly seen its prime during the Kennedy administration. So I was left typing little stories onto the screen, only to have no idea how to store or retrieve them when I shut the thing off.

The computer was a disappointment at best. Still, the sight of it, boulder-like and bowing the dining table, felt comforting in a way that got me through the rest of the camping trip. It even outweighed the fear I felt when using it, when the thought of it crashing through the table and crushing both of my legs covered me like a shadow.

In high school, when I got my first job, I passed up the opportunity to go to London on a class field trip so that I could buy my first real computer. The idea of going to another country felt promising in the way that adventure does when you’re a teenager and your departure date is still far off. Partly, it was my parents who diverted my desire to go. The trip was in the summer of 2002, not even a year after the events of September 11th. America had forced its way into the War on Terror, and being a U.S. citizen abroad — to my parents, at least — was like bringing a toasty roast beef sandwich into a bear cage.

“You could go to Europe,” my father said. “Or...you could get a brand new laptop.”

My mother chimed in, her voice masking her intention of me never leaving the country or even setting foot on a plane. “It’d be about the same amount of money. And it would last longer.”

All the wonders of the British Isles paled against the glowing promise of a shiny new computer, and in that moment, no matter how much I might have pretended to think about it, I was sold. As a family, we made the trip to a Best Buy, the nearest of which was almost forty minutes away, so that I could make my first foray into the world of zero percent financing.

In the way that these things go, the laptop ended up being outdated within eight months, and within shouting distance of its fourth birthday it quit on me, essentially retiring into the job of a thousand-dollar paperweight.

By this time I had a little better income, and so I purchased a new computer, an Apple laptop that I would turn around and resell less than a year later when a newer, better one caught my eye. I had no justification for doing it. I’d just finished paying off the desktop I’d bought, and there was nothing wrong with my laptop except for the fact that it lacked a few features of the shinier, slimmer models.

Standing there in the Best Buy, I had to wonder if I really was one of those Mac snobs. And not just a Mac snob, but a tech snob in general. What other reason could there be for my attitude toward technology? Should a man’s worth be measured in flashy gadgets, I guess I thought I might rank a few rungs higher than other people. But, as we walked away from the Macs and toward the other computers, perched on their demure black shelves reaching onward to infinity, it became clear that all my toys really are are testaments to the fact that I don’t have a life. While other people are out getting drunk in a friend’s cornfield or sleeping around in the backs of sports car, I’m sitting alone in a sea of glowing lights and blinking buttons, waiting for my next toy.

Can We Stop For Tacos On Our March On Washington?

Never in my life have I been much of an activist. I've always been fascinated by the dedication and drive protesters bring to their beliefs, but for the most part I just can't summon up the energy to rail against the status quo. Things have come and gone for which I've had one feeling or another, but something that would spur me to get up out of my chair would have to be a rally for free tacos or a demonstration involving drinking pina coladas. Indoors. On lounge chairs.

To say that I am a lazy person, I feel, is a bit unfair. True, I don't march on Washington or take part in sit-ins. Whereas some people organize their next rally against homophobic politicians or a war taking place in a far-off land, I take pill bottles and outfit them with construction paper and googly eyes, transforming them into cartoon characters. To me, this is a productive use of my time.

Still, that's not to say that I've never been involved with demonstrations.

My friend Amber is more politically inclined than I am. She and her boyfriend Andy display a motivation that would inspire those looking to make changes in the world. Their level of commitment is such that I can only describe it as "overwhelming," something I can attest to since I was with the two of them for the first rally I ever attended.

Together we were protesting the suspension of a former English teacher of ours for his classroom use of an article exploring the element of homosexuality in the animal kingdom. The article at its worst was timid (nothing more than what a person might read in National Geographic), but from the furor that a single parent raised after reading it, one might have believed the article was an excerpt from a Jackie Collins novel. And so our teacher, Mr. DeLong, had been suspended, and on the night on the school board meeting to determine whether or not he would keep his job, a small army of protesters gathered outside the building to show their support.

My decision to go was based on the emotional connection I had with Mr. DeLong. As a former student and someone who had once imagined himself becoming an English teacher, it felt even more unfair that he should be chastised for encouraging his students to think outside the normal bounds of small-town Midwestern life. As a homosexual the fact that someone would make a fuss over her child having to learn about the inevitabilities of gayness among peacocks and turtles made me angry.

While the motivations behind my going were sizable, the protest itself felt a bit underwhelming. In my head I'd conjured up scenes of people boasting signs and making catchy chants. People would throw bottles in fits of rage. And might it be too much to ask that someone set themselves on fire, like in those schoolbook pictures of Buddhist monks during the Vietnam War? What I got instead was a crowd of maybe seventy people, all of whom were in favor of Mr. DeLong's reinstatement. There were no angry counter-protesters. No screaming mobs. Nothing but a group of students and middle-aged parents standing outside a converted house in the middle of a field.

I guess, in a way, it's good that nothing got out of hand. But a part of me had to wonder, where's the fun in this? If I'm giving up my free evening, can't I get a little excitement in return? After all, the November air was chilly, and my feet were on the edge of a mild discomfort from standing for an hour and a half.

The more professional protesters, the ones who do this kind of thing all the time, might vilify me for that kind of a statement, and so it seems like a fair thing to say that it's a good thing I am not involved in many demonstrations. All in all, I make for a pretty poor protester. This being no more evident than when, at seven-thirty, I told my friend Amber that I was leaving to go to a birthday party. In all fairness, I'd made the commitment long before I agreed to come to the rally, but I did feel slightly guilty when I learned later that Amber and Andy and a good group of the protesters were there, showing their silent support, until a little after midnight.

So maybe it's a good thing that I don't make it a priority to involve myself in political demonstrations or rallies against injustices. After an initial bout of shame, I'm coming to terms with the knowledge of my place in the grand scheme of things. When I imagine myself at any of the great movements in history – Vietnam, D.C.'s civil rights marches, the 1969 Miss America Protest – I cannot help but hear my voice among the chants of civil disobedience, dampening their power, saying, "Hey, I thought there were going to be pina coladas! And where are the lounge chairs? Well, can we at least stop for some tacos?"

The Roast of Jason

Because everyone thinks all I ever do is pick on other people--I thought that this week I'd pick on myself. Actually, I'll let my sister Amber do the picking. She wrote the following "roast" for a speech class.

Enjoy:

"Imagine a six-foot one, nine-teen year old college sophomore who still lives in his mom's basement. His hair has not been cut in one year and he is just starting to be able to put his hair into a ponytail. And His favorite past time is playing on his Xbox. He also enjoys watching the Adult Swim on Cartoon Network every Sunday night instead of doing his homework. He is very sarcastic and most of the time acts like a complete jerk. He takes afternoon classes at Longview so he can sleep in and walk around in his underwear.

He's so rude that one time while taking me home from school one day he saw a woman on the side of the road and instead of leaving her alone like every other normal human being of course he had to say something. He proceeded to honk his horn at her all while yelling your fat! The woman just looked at us in horror as we drove by and I felt so bad while on the other hand my brother was laughing so hard he started to cry. And then there was the time he went out with my best friend and decided he wanted to break up with her so he did it while I was in the car. And of course neither one of them told me they were going out so you can imagine what kind of car ride that was.

And then there was the time he was working at Walgreen's and he accidentally locked himself in the freezer and he had to crawl through a vent on the floor and when he got out there was a customer just standing there looking at him. There are a million other incidents that I could tell you about if only they were school appropriate. So that is all I have to say about the strange creature that is my brother Jason."

Art Appreciation and Me

Whenever I find myself wandering the pristine halls of an art museum I’m always there with someone else, someone who is both better looking than me and more finely attuned to the intricacies of artistic expression. The attractiveness part I can come to terms with; it’s the latter that makes me more than a little jealous. I just don’t have the ability to dissect a painting or see past its surface. At best I’m either pleased or turned off by a shape or a mixture of colors, a nice image or maybe an expression on a subject’s face. I cannot tell what the artist was thinking when he captured the soft circle of a woman’s bare breast, or when someone shattered glass around an iron scaffolding. And instead of experiencing the subtle joy and elation that others feel, I’m left like a hillbilly child visiting relatives in the city, mouth toothless and gaped with uncertainty.

As a rule, I tend to stay away from places that remind me just how uncultured I am — a fine wine tasting, Shakespearean plays, restaurants offering anything other than cheeseburgers or spaghetti — mostly out of fear that I’ll make a fool of myself, that I’ll be found out. At best, the image I’ve carved out for myself through years of careful lies and deceit is one of me keeping up with culture, nowhere above anyone else but barely treading water. In reality, I’m the guy who steps into a fine restaurant wearing a t-shirt reading “I’m not a gynecologist, but I’ll take a look,” and when I’m asked to please leave I’m not sure why. On the rare occasions I’m not dressed like a slob or an overgrown teenager and I do manage to get seated, if I’m not careful a gazing couple might spot me trying like a buffoon to crack open a lobster tail. And so it’s just easier to avoid such places.

Shakespearean plays hold a similar danger. By default anyone looking forward to attending a performance of Shakespeare must have an IQ of 150 or above; as for me, I’m usually dragged there by friends, theater people themselves who can recite perfectly metered love sonnets and soliloquies in their sleep. In high school, though I never would have admitted it then, I was really in the same league as the jocks and the hardcore stoners when it came to matters of Shakespearean tragedy. Had it not been for our textbook’s annotations I would have floundered in the lines of iambic pentameter forced upon us, and even with the textbook’s help when we were asked to write a report on a play it was like being given a handful of wooden blocks and told to build a fully-functioning locomotive. Overcome with anxiety, I might find myself searching the internet for someone’s online notes or, if a deadline was fast approaching, an entire paper that I could purchase and pass off as my own. At live performances that same sense of helplessness falls over me, and before the first act is up I’m listening not to the actors but to my fellow theatergoers, searching for that collective intake of breath that precedes a laugh or a groan, something that they’ve all caught and I haven’t. Then I’ll laugh with them, and keep my charade as a genuine purveyor of intellect and refinement. One of their peers. An equal.

At an art museum, however, it’s a little easier to slide by unnoticed. For the most part museums are quiet places where the people around you have something to look at and distract them from the fraud in their midst.

Several of my friends are quite good at judging artwork; my friend Rusty, an artist himself, can take a look at a painting and tell me any number of things about its technique, placement on the artistic timetable, and its similarity in style to other artists’ works. Whenever he does this, I’m left in awe. “How do you know all that?” I’ll want to ask, but I don’t, because my inquiring would make me seem less upscale and erudite. Instead, I simply nod, scratching my chin as if contemplating, and mumble, “True, true. Yeah.”

Amber, a high school friend of mine, might lose herself in the swoops and circles of a painting for what seems like hours on end. And even without the aid of drugs — prescription or otherwise — she can find something to focus on, something the canvas triggers in her and makes resonate. Meanwhile, I’m wondering what the hell a series of concentric squares scribbled in harsh yellow lines is supposed to mean to anyone, and I’ll look at my watch for the hundredth time to see how soon we’re going to eat lunch.

The one part of the museum I can enjoy is the statues. Although I can appreciate the fine craftsmanship and extensive detail in all of them, my favorites are the ones that appear to have been in severe personal accidents. There’s nothing more interesting than a statue of a woman, staring off to the side longingly, with arms that stop at her elbows, or a bust of a face with its nose and finer features askew and exaggerated. Maybe it’s just the morbid part of me that’s engaged by these, but I find them the most interesting part of the museum experience not because of what the particular artist was trying to express, but because onto them I can project any number of gruesome scenarios.

Here, a woman unfortunately decides to reach under the lawnmower for her fallen wedding band. There, a man realizes too late that the uncaring escalator will not relinquish his dangling shoestrings. And my personal favorite is the baby born with an elongated head to a drug-addled mother, or maybe because of a rare genetic disorder. True, sometimes these ideas don’t exactly make sense, but they make for an interesting way to pass the time. When I’m at the museum, I can’t exactly share these thoughts, as it tends to place upon my listener’s face a look of harsh disapproval followed by a mellower but no less scathing glare of superiority. I’ve learned this time and again after mentioning to, say, the birdlike woman standing next to me, craning forward to investigate each ridge in the clay, or the frumpy professorial man running a hand through his thinning hair as he contemplates the artist’s intention in giving his subject only a top row of teeth.

Instead, I keep my thoughts to myself and try my best to fit in. Just as I would with Rusty, I might find myself staring down a Monet, my eyes held open to increase the chance of them watering. If I’m lucky, it’ll look like I’m crying, moved by the grace and beauty of something so wonderfully captured. If not, I’ll be seen as either the wide-eyed eccentric lost in his ruminations or the out-of-touch sociopath wrangling his twisted visions. Neither, I suppose, is that far off the mark, and they both beat out being viewed, simply, as stupid.

By the time we leave the museum, my compatriot and I, I’m usually feeling tired and weak. Not physically, but mentally, like I’ve spent hours trying to churn out plot points for an entire season of a soap opera. In a way, I guess it is sort of the same, and I have to wonder if that’s similar to what happens with my friends and all those other people who come to look at these pieces of art. Are the experiences they have with a horizontal mosaic of primary colors or a dark-hued portrait of a man dressed in a hooded white robe just their projections reflected back, not so different from me pushing tragedies onto arcane statues? Maybe so, I’ll think, but I’m always ready to move on, to stop thinking so hard. And in stepping out of that brightly lit building so full of creativity and introspection, I find myself wishing that, instead, we’d just gone to see a production of Hamlet, where I’ve almost learned exactly when to chuckle and when to cry.