I'm having steamed fish and broccoli for lunch

Here’s my Zen meets Don Draper assessment of life: Everyone Eats the Gummy Worm.

I’m thinking about this, because  I’m getting sort of a mish-mash of people on my Twitter Feed with no organization at all. Yes, I know there are list-y things, but I am not where I can use those to my (diss-)advantage yet.

SO, there’s @Zen_Habits comingling with @DonDrapersLiver… what the hell is wrong with this picture?

What Does it All Mean?!

Hmmm well…

Maybe it’s a little bit like killing the buddha on the road when you meet him, and then going to the bar afterward to ponder the consequences. Which then leads to getting so drunk you forget where you parked the car, so you let a really hot guy drive you home and make out with him in front of your house until your Mom comes out and pounds on the window and says “Where the hell is the car?!” and you pull away from the handsome redhead and suddenly think:

“Wasn’t I 40-years-old and in India at the beginning of this story?”

Then, of course, other questions follow

Why am I so human? Did I ever actually READ “The Hitchhiker’s Guide” or did my husband just talk about it a lot?  Why am I so interested in what in your closet today, you supremely wonderful, semi-famous-y other normal person?

Poor Buddha. He had no idea I was coming, that I bludgeoned him with that thrift store andiron, and that afterward I slugged back that unworthy bourbon, and and cheated on my guru.

My Twitter feed prompts me into such trouble. It is a rambly-pambly edible metaphor of who I dream of being, along with the hauntings of my distracted life. I love both parts of that life so much. I love consuming the beany fiber of daily inspirations and rah-rahs that spur me to action, reminding me I’m GOOD!

But at the same time, I roll my tongue luxuriously over the wriggling sweet candy of black humor, word play, exhaustion and personal angst that TASTE so good.

Handily, It’s a also great place to grab a pile of  life coaches and to stare into their beatific smiles.  I love them for that.

But I crave, too, the rolling-rumbling beer bellies and grease-slick smirks. I am not going to eat quinoa (I don’t know how to pronounce it yet) at every meal, even if I lie to you and say I will.

Yeah, I crave black beans on Tuesdays, with tortillas and a margarita and time with Tammy.

But I like dessert. I like crunchy sugar worms that no self-respecting carp would ever fall for.

Shouldn’t  we all?

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Day 9, #reverb 10: Party.What social gathering rocked your socks off in 2010? (Thanks, Shauna Reid)

Here’s the best party advice I ever learned:
Never –ever– hang your invite up on a wall.

Parties are simple mathematical equations. They are algebra.

On one side of the = sign is everything you need for the party:

• alcohol
• friends
• alcohol
• food
• streamers and noise makers and kebabs and funny hats and chairs
• tequila.

And on the OTHER SIDE of the equals sign is your future as a popular human being, covered up in a sparkly wrap of flimsy self-worth.

Here’s some geometry for you, to further understand what I mean.

IF you just let any random nincompoop show up, THEN the most unpredictable group of discordant ne’er-do-wells will undoubtedly come, hauling behind them a pony keg and a parade of perfectly coiffed mullets.

And everyone else will be at Applebees.

So, IF you hang your invite on a wall, THEN the party will actually be at Applebees. Where you will not be.

Here’s the second best piece of party advice I ever got:

“B.Y.O.B.” is for amateurs.

Of course people might bring you a bottle of wine, or have their own favorite beer they want to cradle on their lap and not share with anyone (true story. He really did hold the 4-pack in his lap! And it was Keystone Light!).

But guests shouldn’t have to come with booze in hand. Arriving at a party should be worry-free, where guests perch at the precipice of an evening, ready to pour themselves into relaxation and slide down into a happily mysterious night.

Guests SHOULD have the joy of rifling through your leftovers in the fridge to find the last bottle of microbrew they’d never tried before.

Or better yet, they should come rushing over early, just to slurp down the annual white sangria garnished with celery, which you only make on the occasion your Arbor Day Smash Up.

My gay friend, Mike, was the Yoda of parties for me when we were roomies. He taught me the secrets. We were pretty poor (I was working at Chi Chi’s for extra cash), but I saw how the investment paid off. A quality party needs the “guest” factor: with every guest feeling like the party arrives when they do. They arrive thinking:

This is going to be fun. The guests are going to hand-picked. I don’t know what is going to happen, but I know I don’t have to deliver it. I only have to deliver my amazing self.

This Year’s Main Event…
So, since Shauna asked, I didn’t really go to any AMAZING parties that didn’t involve (headache commencing) goodie bags and bounce castles this year. Most were low-key affairs.

In July, we did host one fun event. It was a 2nd annual torch-lit folk concert fundraiser. More people showed this year than last. Colin’s pancetta-wrapped grilled shrimp (just hand-wrap big prawns in thin pancetta, dunk in olive oil, season, and grill. The bacon melts into the shrimp and “disappears”) sent waves of swooning guests back to the food table repeatedly.

And naturally bug spray was made freely available.

For now, I guess I am needing more low-key than PARRR-TEE!

The best time, for me as a guest, was in Maine, at a lake’s sandy cove with Ellen and Peter and their boys. It wasn’t a party: more like gathering of people who love our family and are happy to see us — ALL of us — and ready to give Colin and I some peace and tranquility in a very beautiful place.

That, to me right now, is the perfect party.

Speaking of parties, this post is part of a daily writing project called #reverb10. Find out more & join in this creative exercise here.

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I just got back from what I like to call “unshopping” — a painful and ludicrous part of consumer culture.

This is when we de-stuff-ify ourselves. In this particular hour, I made four stops:

1. To the church recycling dumpster, which takes cardboard and #5s, so I don’t have to throw them away.
2. To return cans and plastic bottles, which has the cursed (ker-SEHD) bottle deposit on them. This 5 cent bottle and can deposit went out of fashion like everything else in Connecticut in 1874. However, if I want to get the money back I paid on the containers, I must stand at the automated machine that sucks them in and regularly spits them BACK out to get my loose change back.
3. To the Burlington Coat Factory parking lot, where the Goodwill pickup truck is always parked. To drop off the outgoing clothes, toys, shoes, etc.
4. To the liquor store, to return the beer bottles, because they don’t take them at the automated machines where they take the cans and bottles.

Net result of UnShopping: $6.80 and a temporarily slightly more tidy garage. (It was a big week, as we have recently had a party.)

I know some of you will tell me that I can take the cans and bottles ALL back to the big drop off center. I have done this before. However, this place is a horrific spot, filled lod clanging noises, and with people who collect cans for a living. There is ALWAYS a queue, and inevitably I wait there, squeezed in tighter and tighter between hundreds of bulging garbage bags filled with Diet Coke cans.

As I kick my blue bin of cans forward, other collectors eyeball my bags and sneer.

whywhyhwhywhywhywhywhywhy

I don’t much care for UnShopping, but I do it, because it is apart of putting things away properly, the things that I am responsible for. Also, I want my two dollars!

But ask Colin sometime what he thinks of it and he’ll say something like:

I AM NOT STANDING THERE FEEDING THOSE STUPID CANS INTO THAT MACHINE. I HAVE LOOKED INTO THE THIRD LEVEL OF HELL AND IT IS A STICKY MACHINE THAT LAUGHS AT YOU, COUGHS, THEN SAYS (as Eric Idle), “PARDON ME, BUT I CAHN’T QUITE READ YOUR BARCODE, MY DEAR FANTA CAN! GOODBYE!”

Colin says “Leave em out on the curb… someone will take them!” But I’ve seen the trash guys throw REAMS of cardboard into the garbage compactor and I quake with fear.

It takes a lot of effort to undo our consumer habits. Driving around, following our state’s rules of returns (in order to get the full 5 cents back on beer bottles, they must be returned IN the cases. In order to get money from the automated machine, the machine must be able to scan your retinas and be given a cheeseburger.)

Being a conscious consumer is the perfect recipe for madness brought on by inanity.

I want out!!

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Or, On How to Avoid Becoming a Lesbian at College

My friend, Frances, and I have married the same man.

Frances: Alex is bobsledding in Lillehammer. He’s a bit nervous.

Me: Why? He’s loves to ski black diamonds in brightly colored one-piece snowsuits.

Frances: The first time they go down in a big bathtub thing with five or six people, but the second run is on an actual bobsled. By the end of the slope, you are actually pulling 5 gs.

Me: Colin would like that. He’d be grinning like an idiot by the end. (I demonstrate)

Frances: Look. (Shows me a photo  on her Blackberry). He just sent this. “This is my lunch.”

Me: Is that lime pizza?

Frances: (texting) “mmmmm lime pizza.”

In a previous post, I mentioned how I felt that marrying IT guys is the new black, and I stand by that conviction.

Especially after reading a recent article from the New York Times website about the dire state of dating on college campuses. Based on the percentage of women in college, it appears that if you are a lady who attends a college that DOESN’T have an engineering school, you will be forced to be a lesbian to get a date.

Well, of course the key there is the geek factor. When choosing a school to attend, ladies, find the best engineering schools. Engineering schools are heaving with men like Colin and Alex (well, not all as handsome, I’ll grant) whose job prospects are far better than the hot dude with a six pack, scrabbling for a “communications” degree.

And even if your nerd seems a bit unpolished when you meet him, note that more than any man I have met, IT guys are very malleable in the social and fashion departments. That is, they have little to no skills in those departments and they aren’t embarrassed to say so. So if you love a project, they will sit very still for you.

As long as you let them have their computer/Crackberry while you work.

Frances: I am really Alex’s second wife. After the Toshiba.
Me: Colin gets mad at me if I talk to him when he’s building his iTunes playlist.
Frances: We married the same man.

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… has nothing to do with $$$, and never has, although travel always requires work, which requires money in exchange for goods and services.

… spent 3 years in London, and very much likes the Idea of British.

… is sometimes melancholy, and loves thick lyrics that make me want to sing along.

… eats frozen pizzas alone in front of guilty-pleasure television– occasionally and with abandon.

…writes often and in bursts, with music in my ears.

… involves a bicycle, compost, blue jeans, Frances, used vehicles, and iced tea.

… means never having to say “I told you so” or pay for parking.

… has a quiet place to hide and be alone, but always has access to loving friends.

… is bigger than me, but not so large that I can’t imagine it.

… sounds like birdsong and smells like sheets from the clothesline.

… time-travels through all the love imaginable and would be happy to share.

… doesn’t mind being tired, if only it gets Spoon when its sleeps.

… thinks an East-facing bedroom is best.

… loves twilight and popcorn and cold hefeweizen.

… would love if you could come over.

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Or, The Case of My Dad and Neosporin
I’d like to say, for the record, that I always thought it was weird that Neosporin had the word “spore” in the middle of it. That might have been, partly, why I always liked it.

I also know that I liked it because my Dad was totally obsessed with it when I was a kid. Back in the old days, before “store brands” were reinvented, my Dad basically followed us around with a tube of Neosporin, a box of Band-Aids, pliers and a bottle of Seagram’s 7.

The pliers and whiskey were really only handy for loose teeth and such, but for just about every other malady, Dad took a page from My Big Fat Greek Wedding and used a cure-all approach– Neosporin for everything from broken skin to broken curfews.

The Details

Now, Momcentral.com sent me a few of the latest versions of Dad’s favorites: Neosporin + Pain Relief (regular and Maximum Strength, which has the additional Bacitracin in it, making it a “triple antibiotic”) and the Neo-To-Go Spray, which is a liquid spray pump for easy stowage in your satchell, fanny pack or man-bag.

Neo To Go! I thought was quite handy, and my sister, Mary agreed– even said she had bought one already.

I checked the Walgreens website, however, and noticed that the .26 fl oz. size costs $6.50 (you can get it on Amazon for $3.50). That’s an awful lot for convenience. Also Mary said some piece of the packaging broke off whilst living in her purse, although it was still useable. Dad would have had a field day with that piece of news– no namby-pamby Neosporin he ever used would have had time to break before he used up a tube on the six of us.

Neosporin + Pain Relief is basically the same old Neosporin you have always used, even in the same old tube packaging (which I personally think is superior in its simplicity to the plastic casing).

It has Praxomine in it, some form of external analgesic. I just happened to have a very painful hangnail (don’t laugh! It really hurt!) and I tried it.

It did take the pain away at first but it was back in a few minutes. I think Dad’s pain removal technique of just telling us to “Stop crying or I’ll get out the iodine!” might work better, but I am not sure that is legal anymore.

WWDD?

So all in all, I was glad to see these “new” Neosporins were still the old Neosporins really, just with minor updates.  My Dad always had great, simple solutions to life’s little problems … like WD-4o for mobilizing anything NON-human, and a Labeler for quick and easy organization techniques! I can’t imagine the marketers at Johnson & Johnson could ever outdo Dad for the best answer to scraped knees.

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... or Why I Wear My Hot Sexy Boots for A Gay Guy I Only See Once Every Eight Weeks

Today I went through the torture ritual of getting dressed–prior to my haircut. There was a shower too, and shaving, and an awful lot of tweezing.

I am off at 12:30 to see The Man– Mickey, my hairdresser. In the span of an hour he’ll wash and cut my unruly curly mop up there, and like always, he’ll do an amazing job. And like I do every two months, this morning I am gnashing teeth, thinking “What will I wear that Mickey will like, or at the very least not sniff at?” sigh…

I am fairly sure that Mickey could give a rats patooty about me and my cheap Kohl’s boots (which I am spinning about right now because I am SURE he can tell by the click of my heels that they are cheap boots and not some high-end brand… the name of which I cannot name because I don’t own a stitch of clothing that didn’t come from Kohl’s).

And I am sure it was because I only figured out recently (like last hair cut, one year later) that I was supposed to go in the coat closet and put some sort of hairdressing gown over my clothes that Mickey never talks to me during my cut. I ask questions and he says “mmm hmmm.” Full stop.

I never-ever feel frightened or even remotely interested in wearing nice clothes when I go to the Asian nail and wax salon for an occasional $15 pedicure and my $8 eyebrow wax. In fact, the pedicure is really just an excuse to read US Weekly and catch up on bad women’s magazines. Everyone there is SO cheerful… I think. I do, however, make sure I am fully waxed before I go to see Mickey. I don’t even do that for Colin any more!

Don’t Go Breaking My Ends

I suppose my problem with visiting Mickey is a combination of fear and incomprehension. The fear is that he might disappear one day and I’d have to live again through a series of horrific trial-and-error haircuts (ala SOS pads) while trying to find a new Mickey. The incomprehension is that there is possibly a gay man out there that doesn’t meet me and instantly want to take me home to meet his partner and gayly forward (never go straight, always go gayly forward!) out to the clubs for dancing and cocktails. So I guess, in that sense, Mickey is my gay Everest. And where the heck do you get a Sherpa for that sort of thing?

And if you are wondering if I have finally cracked, possibly. However, I am fully aware that what-to-wear-to-your-gay-hairdresser paranoia is just on the other side of “Too Much Free Time”-Land.

Anyway, so that’s what I am up to today… how are you?

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Frances and I were coming home from the West End recently, about 10:30 or so, on the Bakerloo Line. We were chatting in our normal voices — louder than most Londoners would shout if they saw the number 189 bus careening toward their dear old granny but much quieter than my beloved and now-deceased Uncle Bob Borth talked over Thanksgiving dinner. We were alone in our car when two “young women” boarded at Baker Street.

They staggered in and plonked down in seats opposite each other next to the door. In their late teens or early 20s, they were white girls, tarted up for a night out, their eyes only more highlighted by red rims than sparkly blue eyeliner. Frances continued to tell me one of her humdinger Joe-and-Claudette tales. I slid my eyes over the girls and noticed them one listening to us (while mouth-breathing — females are great at multi-tasking). She smirked, slumped back in her seat and scoffed to her friend, chucking her chin in our direction:

“Ugh. Americans.”

She then dragged a 750 ml bottle of Malibu Rum from her backpack, unscrewed the top and slugged back a long draw. In fact, she drank on that bottle for a full two seconds before she passed it across to her friend, who followed suit. I smiled at her and implied with a cheeky grin I might take a swig (in a gesture of goodwill). She sneered, swigged, and slumped some more.

The interesting thing about the English is their absolute inability to recognize that the reason they dislike Americans — the deadly cocktail of our supposed wealth, isolation, ignorance, and superiority — is they look and see their own reflection, expanded. Nearly every time I ask an English person why they chuckle-guffaw-sputter-choke-sneer-cringe over the word “American,” they can’t give any reasonable reason that doesn’t sound suspiciously like their own history. “Because the damn imperialists think they own the world!” “Because they are all stupid” Well, not you of course.” The exceptions always spill out, as do the excuses for a history which is not all that distant.

I spend a lot of time arguing with English people about American politics and pointing out to them how cushy their life is (hello! free medical care, dentistry that they apparently never use, and prescription drugs that cost no more than 6.40. Why are they so cheap? Because Americans are regularly paying for the research). As a result, I have made of many English friends who respect my intelligence, but also question me over and over again, jokingly, whether I am, in fact, actually American (“Oh! That’s right!” They laugh. “You married a Canadian. He must have rubbed off on you.”) It is surprising that, for some of them, this never seems to get old.

I also tell them that my life in the United States (the term America refers to all of the Americas, including places like Venezuela and Chile, two countries that seem to understand real democracy, though W. would just as soon not include them in our protectorate. Most people in the States, though they call themselves Americans, never call their country “America”) is something that I miss. I miss friendly people who smile and say hello on the streets. I miss real customer service and technology that hardly ever hiccups. I miss some of that instant gratification culture that I wanted to get away from coming here. The truth is, in England– London especially — everyone is striving for that culture here and failing, so it is just plain depressing sometimes. The combination of huge metropolitan city clinging desperately to its Victorian past is exhausting.

If am in mixed company — meaning there are a few “Europeans” in the mix, say an Italian or an Irish or a Dane– I am generally met with funny, blank stares from the English and nods of sympathy from Europeans. “I went to New York last year,” one English acquaintance says, “It was really great.” New York City: the English glaze for America. It is all a heaping of Krispy Kreme donuts: odd, funny, other-worldly, worth sampling once without ever knowing the history. Of course, my European friends protest heavily: they never mock Americans in English company, though they sometimes discuss American politics with me. (England may be over here, but it most certainly is not European.) Europeans ask intelligent questions about my experience and wonder why I want to live in England. I ask them the same and together we shake our heads and drink another swig of our pint. We don’t have a good answer, other than the strong English pound. And, on my extensive travels in the 16 months since I have landed in England — Scotland, Wales, Italy, France, Egypt, and the Czech Republic.I have only been treated with disdain in England. My husband, a Canadian with a British passport, is met with a sigh of relief

When I think about England and the U.S., I think about my friend Cathy Lionello, a New York State native I met in 1999 in Florence at language school. God I couldn’t stand her. She grated on my nerves, her loud voice, her boisterous laugh, her pushy personality. All those outspoken opinions. We took one of those arranged group tours to see the opera in Verona. We hung out together because we were two of the few English speakers in the group. Flavia, an Australian woman, joined us. By the end of the late night and a very tight bus ride home, Cathy and I were weeping on each other’s shoulders. Both alone in a country where we struggled to communicate, both outgoing, independent single women, we discovered we were — well, exactly the same person, basically. When she met me early that week, she confessed, she couldn’t stand me either. But thrown together in our lonely, strained predicaments, we recognized our own weaknesses in each other’s reflection. And became fast friends because of it. Too bad the only people making friends here are Tony and George.

As for me? When English people ask me where I am from, I tell them I am from Iowa. Most don’t know where that is (hey! Do you know where God’s Blessing Green in Dorset is? We all have our geography blackholes). I just tell them my hometown is a three-hour drive from Chicago. I am from the Midwest, where the cheapest petrol is still the green-friendly, 89-octane ethanol, where blue-collar and agriculture is still the main work product, and hundreds and hundreds of miles separate people from city to city. Surprisingly, this does not create demented, closed-minded, fundamental “’mericans.” It creates an exceptional work ethic; well-educated, kind, friendly people; strong family units, and the core of the democratic value: liberal values tied to an understanding that a stable government provides protection of the freedom a free, wholesome life. It was only in the last two elections that Iowa went from blue to red state.

Because, unlike this tiny island nation, the United States is enormous. Americans may have some sense of national identity, but their real identity is wrapped up in their family units and their close communities: the regions they are from. These are distinct and very different. They love their college basketball and football teams. They have different dialects and accents. We don’t all talk like W. (he’s from Texas, and from the Houston area, a different accent than West Texas) and different speeds. I can’t tell you the number of English friends who think I don’t sound “American” because I don’t sound like either Bush or Clinton (they are both from the South and have distinctly different southern accents). They are sure, once again, I must be Canadian. No, I assure them. I have a Midwestern accent;my accent is considered “standard American,” like Chandler or Monica on “Friends.”

If you ask someone from the States (not America, but the “States” or the “U.S.”) where they are from, if they don’t answer a city or a state, they might answer by region. Some regions are actual census regions, others are so big or so well-defined, they are just their own states, or cities: New England (Maine, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Massachusetts; or by state, like Pennsylvania — which is so big it alone takes 8 hours to drive across at 75 mph on the turnpike, a toll road of four-lane highway and tunnels carved into the side of the mountains; the much-ignored Midwest, an absolutely gigantic swath of land from the Ohio River to the Rocky Mountains, miles and miles of forests, rivers, farmland, small towns and cities, home to 65 million Americans: Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Kansas, and Missouri); Southern California (anywhere between San Diego and 50 miles north of L.A., Northern California (from San Simeon north through the wine country to the Redwood forests); the Northwest (Washington, Oregon, and rest of northern Californian from wine country on up); the Southwest (centered on Arizona and New Mexico, including Oklahoma, Nevada, parts of California, Utah, parts of Colorado not in the Rockies or the Midwest, and parts of Texas); Texas — a country in and of itself, that takes more than two days to drive across; Alaska — a huge state north of Canada, even larger than Texas; rocky mountain Colorado; the West (Idaho, Wyoming, the flatland of Colorado, parts of Utah); Hawaii, another place all its own; Florida, part of the the South, but not, – another 81/2-hour drive from top to bottom not counting the Keys (on excellent flat interstates with no traffic going 70 mph); and finally, The South, ecompassing 1.5 million sq. miles , each state is its own cultural breeding ground, with different food, music, dialects and accents: West Virginia, Virginia, Delaware, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana and Mississippi.

I wonder, considering the size and the power, would you dare to tease the Chinese the same way?

If you are English and don’t like “Americans,” I can tell you the real reason you don’t like them is the same reason so many have turned on themselves and the idea of patriotism, why literally millions (more than the majority population of England) don’t use that word loosely to describe themselves.

It’s the same reasons that 54 million Kerry voters (plus the 112 million Americans you never count, the despairing majority who can’t bring themselves to vote at all) cringe about: the failing two-party federal system, the mounting federal taxes that don’t seem to pay for anything except to line the pockets of the president’s oil buddies and vice-president’s defense supply company, and a corrupt health care system. All of this is piled on top of 50 independent states that each have their own Constititutions, their own corrupt senators and representatives, governors, laws and taxes. These people you mock aren’t ignoramuses: they are just like you. They get home from work, exhausted. They turned on the TV to see couples virtually fucking on primetime at 7 p.m. They let their children rape and slaughter hos and bitches mindlessly in the latest video games and gorge themselves on greasy junk food as their arteries clog. They listen to the soldier body count again and watch that Idiot cock his grin again and talk again about terror, now in Iran, now in Libya, and how “freedom” now means telling other people what to do, but with guns and bombs.

And they, just like you do, let their minds go numb. It is all too big.

It was only recently that blue collar vote started clinging desperately to their religious morals as they have watched their states let loose on their freedoms and our federal government system crumble. The Rove-Cheney-Bush Administration cashed in on this where Gore and Kerry refused to. Truthfully, it is no wonder people voted for Bush. In the last 50 years, the forefathers’ concept of being “American” has dissolved. No one has killed it. It is just gone. The American dream was once about working hard, pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and achieving a comfortable and secure life. Now a $100,000-college education doesn’t even guarantee a decent paying job or health care. The first post-World War-II grown-ups are hitting their stride just at a time when comfort is a sickening given, but truly living well is not. The girth of the “easy life” is devouring the American middle class — the regular families who used to work hard with their hands and backs — and they are gutted. The fat life is a quicksand that is creating a backlash that looks like to a joke to the outside world. It isn’t. How quickly smart chap Jamie Oliver noticed this cultural disease is not limited to the United States.

The truth is, I am tired of hearing it. If you think there is something to dislike about Americans, I have two pieces of advice: first, ask yourself, what do you really know about those people? I mean, real, first-hand knowledge. One shopping trip to New York and reading a few newspaper articles does not constitute knowledge of the United States. Maybe you can’t afford a roadtrip across the States, but you can afford to do one thing: stop excusing the real knowledge you have. If you meet an American, and you find them intelligent, interesting, funny, complex, why excuse them as the exception? Try associating America with its people again, and you will again remember that a country is made up of its people and not its government. At least, that is what a democracy is supposed to be.

Second, stop trying to make Americans be from some imaginary place you have never seen. Instead, ask them where they are really from. If they are from Idaho or Oregon or West Virginia, don’t ask how far that is from L.A. or New York. The English sense of scale won’t work here, so give it up. Instead, ask what town they are from, what it is like. What American football team do they support (they are bound to name a city you recognize: Dallas or Detroit or Chicago or New Orleans)? Sure, it isn’t your football, but does that matter? People who like and respect other people are interested in their lives. They don’t make fun of them. And while you are at: try being truly kind. Explain cricket whenever you can, comparing it to baseball, if possible. We are curious. Making these little connections are the first real inroads to understanding.

By the way, if you are very nice to me, I might make you a real martini. And I don’t mean a 25 ml measure of vermouth on an ice cube. I mean, the real thing, shaken over lots of ice. Because this American knows how to make a proper cocktail, and it does not include swigging Malibu from the bottle on the Bakerloo line.

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