The European Trilogy

1) While in Boston, I saw a t-shirt on a mannequin that read "France Sucks". The ignorance the shirt represents provoked a smile and I took a picture of a friend standing next to it, arm around the mannequin. It stood in front of a store in Downtown Crossings that specialized in lottery tickets and chewing gum.

2) Yesterday, a man told me, "you're new. I come here every so often to buy something when I get a bonus or whatever. You're new here." He'd glance up at me from time to time as he carefully inspected the banzai trees I sell. I explained that the girl who worked here last year found a more meaningful existence outside of the mall and I, ignorant to any such plane of existence, ignorantly took her place.

"Oh. You have an accent. Are you from England?"

"No, I'm from Boston," I answered, dumbfounded.

"Oh, Boston. I heard you had an accent. I thought it was English."

What he probably had trouble articulating was, "sir, you sound gay," which, while I am at work, is often true. When I am trying to make a sale I become soft spoken and develop a softened lisp. The gayety of my voice becomes even more evident when I answer the phone at work. "Hello," I'll answer, animated to excess. "Blah blah blah blah shop. Hooooow can I help youuuuu?" The people with who I work as well as friends who make calls here make fun of my gay voice whereas customers assume I am from England.

3) My father collects and toys with guns as a hobby. The other day, I heard one of his gun-buddies ask him, "Charlie, did you see that ad for that French rifle in the paper the other day?"

My father thought for a second, only to tell the man, "No, I didn't."

"Yeah, there was an ad for a French rifle. Never been shot and only dropped once."

end

Meanwhile, Back in America...

I cant remember what prompted the subject, but I was talking with someone with whom I graduated high school. He began talking about the Patriot Act and a protest performance staged at the college he attends. Two protesters dressed up as government agents went into a classroom without the counsel of the professor and staged the arrest of a girl for having protested against the war. Thinking this arrest was real, circulated around the school was the telling of this occurrence. This sounded like a pretty good idea and it was great to hear this classmate was getting involved, not only with politics but with demonstrations.

We then began talking about the seeming impending collapse of the American dollar, about the damage a raised interest rate will do to our already suffering dollar. I (half) joked about putting all of his money in the Euro. He told me, "it's all in the Bible, you know. This is all in the Bible. A one world currency is the first sign, you know."

He went on, "My brother is in this bible study, and they were talking about the dynasties. There are four dynasties", he explained, "and, well, I can't remember the first three but we're the fourth. We're the fourth of the Roman Catholic Dynasties."

I should look this up. I have no idea what he was talking about.

"I don't understand," he said later, in discussing US foreign policy. "I don't understand why we end up sticking our noses with everyone else's business."

Another of our friends standing there responded quickly. "Other people's business? They came here and flew our planes into our buildings. They proved Saddam was giving money to Al... Elll... Osama."

I'd love to meet Bush's staff of tacticians and rhetoricians. Teflon, baby. Admirably teflon.

Laci

Until a week ago, I didn't know who Laci Peterson was. Any name of national prominence I hear but can't seem to place, I assume is a competitor on American Idol. As it turns out, it would be a miracle if Ms. Peterson were to preform on the reality/talent show.

Maybe miracle is too strong a word. The same way "evil" is over used in the president's administration, "miracle" is overused on caught-on-tape shows and prime-time dramas. Miracle has become meaningless and bland.

While I am relatively unfamiliar with the case (Ms. Peterson was pregnant, and "her husband killed her, or that's what they're saying on the news", quoth a girl who works near me), I do know Ms. Peterson's beauty seems to have played a major part in the overwhelming presence of her story making assimilating all popular news media. After all is said and done, and after we finally know who did what, and execute who news viewers demand be executed, we'll have been once again reminded of one very important fact about media coverage of the American justice system. The existence, especially the murder, of American citizens means nothing to our press absorbed peers unless we are beautiful.

Nobody wants to accuse your husband of your murder if you're ugly. Nope. Not here.

While helping a big, pretty woman clad in OR scrubs and wearing a monroe piercing with a purchase, her cellphone rang and I listened to her end of the conversation as I rung her up. "Hello. Yes we do. We've got blondes, brunets, redheads, asians, black girls. Have you ever used our service before? They're all young. I've got mulatto. She's twenty-one. Fantasia. Where is she going?"

She then took out an appointment book and wrote down a time and directions.

end

"...skill in oneupmanship has raised extraordinary problems when analysts compete with one another at meetings of the psychoanalytic associations... Most of the struggle at an analytic meeting takes place at a rather personal level, but the manifest content involves attempts to (1) demonstrate who was closest to Freud or who can quote him most voluminously, and (2) who can confuse the most people by his daring extension of Freud's terminology. The man who can achieve both these goals best is generally elected president of the association."

Jay Haley, "The Art of Psychoanalysis"