Category: TODAY

costumer service skills

tuckovaLeave a comment

On Halloween we were all getting ready for the party, planning our costumes, hair, makeup, the works. I was getting a little nervous about mine, because even though I had an amazing dress, I was going to do a fancy makeup trick I had only tried once, and part of me felt like I should practice it and part of me knew there really wasn't that much time. I spent a bit of mental space on this, on what I would do if it didn't work, how bad it would be, how I would process it. And then I remembered that I didn't care how I looked, since I don't have to look at myself, and that in fact nobody else was going to particularly care how I looked. It's nice on Halloween to dress up, especially if you are hosting a Halloween party, but one of the best revelations of my adult life has been: nobody is actually looking at me all that hard. This feeling of my childhood and young adulthood, that people are looking at me and judging, that almost anything has anything to do with me, this epic solipsism, has largely faded, and ohhhh, what a relief.

And now, closing in on fifty, the evidence is that not only is nobody looking at me, but I am in fact invisible. Taxi drivers, restaurant workers, people in the doors of trams, whatever. In a few years I will rob a bank and nobody will have any idea what happened. Ha oh, I am telling this joke for the first time right now.

No but anyway. I mean: the realization that it is easier for me to live in the world when I can remember to focus on seeing rather than being seen is one of the best ones in my life. Not least because from time to time I forget it, and I get to stress out over the fact that my eye makeup went on crooked and then a little kid shows up at the door as a gecko with muscles and I get to learn my lesson all over again. Nobody really noticed, and I could have ruined my whole night feeling bad for not being as perfect as I wanted to be, instead of oohing and aahing over adorable gecko muscles and ferocious pirate hooks. And my dress was awesome. 

Or when your hands are cold and you rub them together.

tuckovaLeave a comment

Last night I went out with a friend and we talked about the things we used to do to amuse ourselves and why don't we do them anymore. Mainly I feel like my time should be spent on something Useful and I now know that the raindrops don't really care if I moderate their races, no matter how intense they seem to be. I did officiate on the bus window today, for old times' sake, and yeah, I still got it.

I used to imagine that somebody might be interested in my every thought. I imagined biographers following me about, intent on capturing the very fascinating nature of me. I developed the habit of speaking aloud as I did things if I was alone, in case the biographers were there but invisible, and I still have that habit even though obviously nobody is there, no biographers and probably not even Bruno Ganz. It has been largely a relief to realize that there is not and will not be anybody with a microphone curious to know how I wash windows or why my closet is organized in a particular way or any of the other things I've caught myself narrating aloud in the last while. I think at this point it's just habit, and maybe it's also to ensure that my mind doesn't wander off mid-task, as it is wont to do without some guidance. But I don't really think anybody's interested, even if somebody were there.

In fact lately I have been thinking about attention and interest a lot. I am deeply and sometimes awkwardly interested in people. Partly it's just cause people are super interesting and partly because I believe that people enjoy and rarely get that attention so if I like someone I like to pay attention to them as a kind of gift. In the love languages TIME is my number one and so this is what I give out, time (sorry if you like presents; I just can't). I read people's facebook pages if I know I will see them so I am caught up on what they are presenting and I also will re-read emails so that they are fresh in my memory. Apparently this level of attention can be a little… intense? … but whatever, I'm closing out my 40s and I'm not wasting time changing anything I don't actively regret. 

Sometimes I feel so much that other people are interesting that I can't really say much about myself, nothing meaningful and definitely nothing meaningless. I can talk about how my day was but that's not what I mean. I mean I have all this crap in my head but how do I work it into a conversation. The closet is organized by color and then subcategorized by type of garment. In drawers, I roll socks, underwear, and pajamas; I fold jeans and sweaters. The Shack is one of the worst books I ever read but I kept a copy of it in case I ever meet somebody who wants to hate-read a book. I have not yet repaired the thresholds in this apartment because it's the last thing to do and once that's done I am afraid that I will have to move. I almost never kick the covers off no matter how hot it gets, because of, you know, monsters. Is this interesting? I'm not sure. There is a part of me, a small arrogant ugly part, that is a bit hurt when someone doesn't find it so, and covers my mouth with its greasy hand so we don't get hurt again. On the other hand, there is a better, growing, nobler part of me that has learned be pleasantly surprised if you read it and leave it at that. Hello, you, reading this. Thanks.

Next week I am going with one of my dearest and oldest friends to Corfu. I plan to eat basically a pound of feta drizzled in olive oil every day, and if I don't get relaxed enough to start writing interesting things again it won't be for lack of trying. 

brought to you by the letter b

tuckovaLeave a comment

My friend is visiting and we are having adventures all over Europe. Bus from Berlin to Prague, its relentless beauty and complications. The exquisite detail in the stained glass window in St. Vitus representing the biblical disasters for which insurance can be purchased, turn of the century corporate sponsorship.

Train to the ghost town of Brno, stumbling over stepping stones and stopping at stumblestones. I love my town more than I've loved any place and it's a weird possessive feeling when I'm showing people around, but we spin in the square with our arms out and drink cocktails named Liza Doolittle, Mary Poppins, Alex Owens, and I think my love does not make mistakes.

In Budapest, I walk across Liberty Bridge and am unstuck in time. I am 26 after a night of hitchhiking and I am in my 30s, 40s, different visitors and reasons for coming to this diacritical city, but this is the first time I visit the thermal baths so it is new again, different, like every time you step in a river. Or walk over one.

And today, the view from an airplane window of clouds, fluffy and white, the blue horizon snapping in the distance. I experience the same irritations as anyone I guess, the man in line behind me kicking at my bag when the line moves forward, the rush and halt of travel. But here I am on a plane, going from one country to another, the beauty of waking up in Budapest, a cigarette on the balcony at sunrise overlooking the city, and knowing I will sleep in Berlin.

this town

tuckovaLeave a comment

It rained last night, the kind of deafening, soul-clearing rain that I love the best. We watched the storm coming in from our bench outside the wine bar, the faraway blue sky gradually replaced by low gray clouds that grumbled at us and took flash photos. The waitress came out and set up an umbrella so we could continue drinking outside when the storm hit. Then the rain the rain the rain. When it stopped, it was past closing time and I wanted one more so we hopped across the street to the bar with more expensive wine and a later closing hour. The wine tasted like pear juice and after I spilled the first glass all over I felt like I could get pretty used to sweet wine after all.

I left the bread I bought for breakfast this morning in the first bar, apparently. Rice for breakfast, oh asagohan, how've you been.

Sometimes it takes a while to figure out how unpleasant someone is. It would be neat if I could spray people who come aggressively close to me, the way skunks can. Then other people would only need to be downwind of them and say, "Oh hey, this person gets aggressively into other people's spaces." Saves time. Once, I warned a woman when I saw her on a date with a skin-covered bag of excruciating boredom, and I have thought about getting cards printed that say RUN to hand to people on obviously toxic dates, but now what I really want is the ability to mark somehow, as a courtesy to the next passenger, the people who should be avoided.

Although of course then I want to code it, what kind of bad they are. Like my spray paint for cars — one color for people who get too close to bikes, one color for bad parking, one color for the ones who drive through crosswalks, my upcoming and certain demise. 

It's summertime officially now. One friend gone, another friend gone, and one more to go next week. Ghost town. I'm going to get my closet so organized. I might even learn to play The Specials on the ukulele. 

chafe. waif. strafe.

tuckovaLeave a comment

When I was in fourth grade, I think it was fourth grade or maybe third, I wrote a poem about candy for a poetry contest in my school. My small town's poet laureate, possibly self-appointed, came to the school with much ceremony and we all recited her poem about the foundation of our town ("the first raw sight to meet their eyes was the head on the bloody spear"). She announced the winner of the poetry contest and I guess presented me with some kind of prize and I felt very proud. Afterwards the girl who hated me so much she spit on me told me that I had only gotten that prize because my mother worked at the school, which was probably not true but felt pretty bad. I had rhymed dandy and handy with candy and everything tasted like dust after that.

In junior high I wrote a poem about a father who had died as a soldier, the sad child narrator trying to comfort the grieving widow mother. "Love is like a passing song" I wrote and my teacher called my parents in with concern for my well-being, at least this is what I remember. I had rhymed song and along and strong and boy was I ever wrong, about what really hurt and what pain I was ready to experience.

In college I wrote a poem about my friend's grandfather, who was entirely insane and would sprinkle visitors with the ashes of his dead wife, which he said was fairy dust. At that time I was giving poetry readings for actual money from time to time and I thought very highly of myself for that. I wasn't even rhyming stuff because I was a Real Poet. A local magazine offered to publish the poem and changed some of the words around and I felt like someone had pierced my baby's ears without asking. Anyway that was the end of trying to get anybody to publish anything I wrote for a really long time. 

Last year I wrote a short piece for a small website and was again edited without consultation which is really not a nice thing to do to an editor. I was about to persuade myself that in terms of my own writing I really I need to stop dealing with other people all the time forever. But this year there's a short story contest and they want people to write about Brno and since I can barely stop talking about Brno it stands to reason that I find this irresistible. At this point it's not even about winning, it's just about not walking away feeling violated. There's no poetry in it this time so I hope I'll be safe. Maybe I'm a little naïf.

anyhow in a corner

tuckovaLeave a comment

Some years ago I read (on one of my beloved ranting feminist blogs) a sentence that I can no longer find, which was basically: I will no longer waste my time faulting women for whatever they are doing to remain functional under the patriarchy. And I thought about that, and I thought: but lots of women do really crappy things, including to other women. They shouldn't get a pass because they are women. Which is absolutely true, but I kept coming back to that idea: how about if I excuse myself from spending my own time on that particular critique? And sometimes I fail, and sometimes my success involves some serious tongue mastication, but for the most part I'm successful at turning my time and attention away, and it has given me the opportunity to focus more on positive actions than on tearing people down and a greater ability to concentrate on my own actions.

I've been thinking about this a lot in terms of politics, especially in the face of the recent surge in activism and the horrorshow that is the current US administration. Some of my friends are still barely out of bed, where they have been curled and weeping for three months. Some of my friends were writing letters and going to town hall meetings and putting their money where their mouths were since they were old enough to walk and they've stepped up their game. Some left Facebook for being a soul-sucking corporate tool that contributed to this mess; some became more active as it's a great tool for coordinating things and encouraging each other. Some are digging in their heels to fight, some are looking into getting out of the country. And some are posting cat videos and jokes about hangovers, turning away quite leisurely from the disaster. 

All those seem valid to me. What I'm doing: mourning the death of satire, reading the news as much as I can stand to, donating when I can afford to, intending to accomplish more than I actually do and berating myself for it. That seems okay to me too. I am trying to pay attention to the helpers (because Mister Rogers is my lifetime hero), to thank the people who are representing me and to not give any attention to the bad actors, and I am politely ignoring anything that is like, "marching doesn't work" or "you're wrong to pay attention to this, pay attention to that" or "you're expressing your feelings wrong!" because hey, if thinking that way, if shouting that from the rooftops makes you feel better, that's what you should be doing, but it makes me feel shitty so nope. I am trying to listen, but it's not a discussion I want to join.

Anyway. I promise to write a nice extended metaphor about a television show or something next. I just wanted to try to get this out first.

the storm we call progress

tuckovaLeave a comment

I'll tell you what, it's hard to write about anything when what is uppermost in my mind most of the time is something I want to give as little time to as possible. 

In 1988, which was my first presidential election, I volunteered for Dukakis. I really liked him, he seemed reasonable, smart. Flawed, sure, but at least he seemed honest. I had hated the "folksy charm" of Reagan, and George Bush scared me — he'd been the head of the CIA, and I thought that seemed like an untrustworthy kind of smart. When he won, I cried so much and I felt like I didn't know America. If America wanted a sneaky manipulator, I didn't belong, and it is not my way to stay where I don't feel wanted. So I left.

You can maybe extrapolate from that how I am feeling now. On top of that, genuine fear for some of my friends for whom it is much more than their principled stance that is threatened. 

So that's what I don't want to think about. On Friday a couple friends came over and we ignored the inauguration, since that's the most hurtful thing to do to a narcissist: ignore them. We talked about anything else. We worked on a 3000 piece puzzle of the world; once that's solved everything else should be a breeze. Meanwhile I write letters and donate and try not to say his name, acid and bile in my mouth.

So other things. 
  • So much of the American hot sauce I've been brought lately tastes more like an endurance test than a flavor. I don't know whether I've lost my taste for that particular pain or whether they've upped the hot to a point beyond me. 
  • When I was 20 I had my first published poem, and the editor had changed some of it. And I was as upset as if someone had pierced my baby's ears without asking me. I have submitted very few things for publication since, and last week I was reminded that that was a good decision. 
  • Oliver Sacks is so so so good.
  • I really think we should be hibernating and I am trying to treat everybody as if they were small creatures recently jolted from hibernation, blinking tiny into the dim winter light, wondering what the hell just happened, wanting most of all in the world to go back to sleep. That's certainly how I feel. And I am so angry at being awake and not in my burrow or den or whatever, but I'm not the only one feeling this so I'm trying to remember to be kind even when I really want to give everybody who talks out of turn a big bite of rabies. 
  • I don't know why 5 is more satisfying than 4. 2+3 or fingers or avoiding death or who knows. It is, though. 

trepanning for gold

tuckovaLeave a comment

I'll tell you exactly how it happened. The needle went in precisely where it was supposed to. We'd agreed in advance about how it would be and I wasn't frightened. This is what I was thinking: that I was hoping it would help, that I was ridiculous for thinking it would help, that hope and thought are different (hope being like faith rather medieval, thought being like science more 20th century). These thoughts, and the pinch of penetration through the skin, the pain and the recognition of pain, which, even dulled, is present. You'll  never think of things being boring in the same way again, I thought. And then. Then as the drill pierced the bone, then. Be here now, be in this moment. This is how it felt to me: it felt like the new pain was loud and insistent, but it also felt like the old pain, the curtain of pain that I had lived with for so long that I had ceased to notice it, was … gone. It felt like I might be able to complete a thought without wincing. It felt radiant; it felt divine. I wish it had really happened.

working on it

tuckovaLeave a comment

You're working in a restaurant that closes at midnight, and at 11 a bunch of people arrive and want a table. And you say: We close at midnight, so you can obviously sit down now but I want to be clear that I would like you to be gone at closing time. They act offended that you would even imply that they might be planning to take advantage of you, like of course not, they're going to leave at midnight, they really mean it. Midnight strikes, 12:30, 1 a.m. and you're standing near the table with your eyebrows basically rolling off the top of your head and they're still there, ignoring you, nursing their last beers, laughing at their own witticisms. When they finally leave, they don't tip. 

How many times do you let this happen with that group before you stop trusting them? How does it affect your attitude toward another group? At what point in your story do you refuse to let people drive over you? What if they personally haven't done anything to you yet? Why, in this story, does it feel to you like telling them to leave makes you the bad guy? Why, when telling this  story, do people act like if you fail to fight back there's something wrong with you? What about if this is not a job at a restaurant and customers and closing time, but your house, your friends, your bedtime? What if it's mine?

starý dobrý časy

tuckovaLeave a comment

I'm remembering the feeling of Sunday mornings at the end of a long weekend at the cottage, anybody's cottage, the comfortable stupor of a three-day weekend of eating and drinking and eating and drinking, playing cards or watching old Czech movies until late at night. How as the slivovice bottle got emptier the jokes got funnier; the warmth of shared laughter. Or in other places, waiting for the children to go to bed, the hushed conversations in the dim light, secrets. How in the morning we would start making gestures towards packing up, going back to city life, and the inevitable scrap of paper with the train and bus schedules would emerge, or one of the teenagers or more overly energetic kids would be sent down to the station to write down the upcoming connections, always different on Sundays, sometimes extra different on the long weekends. Stealing a few cold potato wedges from the pot, still on the stove from last night's dinner. The sway of the bus on the ride home, the feeling of having been away for years.