Confessions of a Nail Biter

I have a confession to make: I am a nail biter. Yes, that’s right, I bite,

chew and mutilate my fingernails. I know, I know – unsanitary, looks bad, I
know all of that. Hey, it even hurts sometimes. It’s pretty much super disgusting
to many people, I get it. But when you’ve done something since you were in
kindergarten, it’s kind of hard to stop. And don’t think I haven’t tried to stop. I
have. My family even tried to help me. “Chew on a straw,” they would say. But it
wasn’t the same. “Here let’s put some hot sauce on your fingernails,” my older
sister said. Hot sauce washes off – Thank God! All their nagging and helpful
advice did nothing really to help stop me from gnawing on my fingers.
And then, one day, I did just quit. Cold turkey, right at the end of my high
school days, I quit. And I didn’t miss it. For a number of years, I had to trim my
nails with clippers, keep them clean, and admire them looking so … un-chewed
upon. For a long time, I didn’t even sneak a tiny nibble.
But years, later, after marriage, fatherhood, job stress, and who knows
what else … It happened. Weakness, shame: First one finger, then another,
and pretty soon, only my right thumb was somehow immune. I was once again,
stuck with my old, terrible habit. I tried to figure out how to stop or remember
how I quit before, but until then, I nibble, I bite, I chew.
And I want to clear something up right now: I have never – and I mean
NEVER – even tried to bite my toenails. That’s disgusting!
 ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
A monologue from the play by William Shakespeare
    

PAROLLES: It is not politic in the commonwealth of nature

to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase,
and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost.
That you were made of is metal to make virgins. Virginity by
being once lost may be ten times found; by being ever kept is
ever lost. 'Tis too cold a companion. Away with't! 'Tis against
the rule of nature. To speak on the part of virginity is to
accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience.
He that hangs himself is a virgin; virginity murders itself,
and should be buried in highways out of all sanctified limit,
as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds
mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself to the very paring,
and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity
is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most
inhibited sin in the canon. Keep it not; you cannot choose
but lose by't. Out with't! Within ten year it will make itself
ten, which is a goodly increase, and the principal itself not
much the worse. Away with't! 'Tis a commodity will lose the
gloss with lying: the longer kept, the less worth. Off with't
while 'tis vendible; answer the time of request. Virginity, like
an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion, richly suited,
but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which
wear not now. Your date is better in your pie and your
porridge than in your cheek; and your virginity, your old
virginity, is like one of our French withered pears: it looks ill,
it eats drily. Marry, 'tis a withered pear; it was formerly
better; marry, yet 'tis a withered pear! Will you anything with
it?
 Comedic Monologue Example

I suppose, in the end, my recent alienation is my fault.

It still stings, though. Stings when I wake up, stings when I’m in the shower, stings when
the wind whips at my face on my long, cold trek to work.

I shouldn’t have done it. I know it. Though I can’t help but think my punishment is…
overstated, perhaps, I also know that in the end my actions were the crime that caused it.
My daily reminders are like twin daggers in my belly, the discomfort of a cold look from
my wife, coupled with the knowledge that it’s all my fault.

I have tried to make amends. Lord knows I’ve tried to make amends. Every day of my
life is another attempt to repair things. Many times this feels like sticking a piece of gum
over a failing dam, or tending to a broken arm with string and aluminum foil, but it’s
really all I know how to do. The other option, lying in bed and crying all day, doesn’t pay
the bills. No matter how much I wish it did.

And so I’ll continue crying on the inside. Weeping silently at the copy machine or in line
at Burger Town.

But I’ll remember, too. Just as surely as my wife and the other shiftless layabouts I call
friends remember in their gazes and tones in our daily interactions, I’ll remember. I’ll
hold onto my little shard of hatred—wincing when I squeeze too hard and it pierces my
fingers—and I’ll let that fuel me through the rest of this gray slog I call life.

I’ll remember their initial reaction, the shock and anger they displayed in dealing with
me. I’ll remember their ensuing coldness. I’ll remember the shadow government that
seemingly runs my life now, the way the consult and conspire only when I’m out of
earshot. I’ll remember it because, without the memory, living doesn’t have much of a
point, as sad as that is to say.

Friends, roommates, wife: I am sorry for drinking the last Diet Pepsi. May I suffer for my
transgressions.
 Dramatic Monologue Example

I won’t lie and say I didn’t know what I was doing was wrong from the very beginning. I
did, I do, and even now, standing in front of you all, I’ll freely admit to it. Doing
otherwise after a conviction is wasting energy on an unfixable problem—and I didn’t get
to where I am in life by not fixing problems when they spring up.

Instead, I want you to consider the law. Pleasantville Penal Code 6.4.z says that, for the
mere crime of stealing millions from billionaires (multi-billionaires, I might add), that I
should be thrown in prison for thirty years.

How much is thirty years worth? To me, it’s a lot. Almost twice my age now. I’ll come
out of prison having missed what many men consider their primes, their thirties and
forties, when the hormones of the teenage years and personal drama of the twenties go
away and a man can start building a life of success, if he’s smart and hard-working
enough. I was smart and hard-working enough (and maybe a little dishonest), and now
I’ll be robbed of my time to really shine because of one mistake.

These men won’t miss those millions. They spent more than that in their attempt to get
me in the most trouble possible. Think about that. I may as well have stolen five dollars
from the wallets of any one of these jurors for the inconvenience my crime will cause my
so-called victims.

And what do they get for their inconvenience? Only my first 30 free years, when I slaved
and smiled and nodded to improve their prospects for a fraction of my worth. Nevermind
the inconveniences their own thefts caused me, because the system says that is the fair
way of doing business. What, I ask, is fair about paying a man fifty thousand dollars for
the brunt of his waking hours in a given week?

Though I must submit to the punishment, and I will be a model prisoner—even though I
know this won’t bother a single one of you—I will only survive by the bitterness I hold
toward the grossly disproportionate nature of this punishment.

If the system is a series of gears, you are the teeth, and you have crushed me into pulp. I
hope you all carry this condemnation to the grave, as I carry my hatred.
 JUSTINE SANTY M. MUHI

SAVE OUR PLANET

Global warming's going to submerge the planet? I don't think so. Not

that I don't believe in Global Warming. I do. Ocean levels are rising, you can

see it. But submergence doesn't happen overnight.

A natural cycle, of deserts and melting pole caps, is followed by

another cyclic Age of Ice. Maybe we are destroying the planet: we'll get

what we deserve.

But either way, catastrophe thins our herd. In a big, world wide

disaster movie. Now's the time to take action! Everybody! Drop what you're

doing and cooperate on a plan. A happy ending. What do you suppose are the

odds? Considering that homo sapiens is lazy and ignorant. Could the

energetic and brilliant come to the rescue? We'd all have to cooperate.

By the billions. Ain't that a bitch? Let's face it, we've run up our

numbers to the point where we don't have a lot of wiggle room. As the

waters keep rising, a few hardy souls gather up survival gear and head for

the Antarctic.

Will any actually survive? Not if they hunt to extinction. Not if the

bastards left to drown set off the nukes.

Monologues for Men & Women
One-Minute Mouth-Offs
free one-minute monologues for students and auditions

By G. L. Horton
copyright © 2006, 2007 Geralyn Horton

The following one-minute mouth-off monologues are on a range of

topics, suitable for either men or women. Some of them may
eventually find their way into a play, but for now I've shaped them
into monologues that challenge the actors to fill in the missing details
from their own imaginations: who, what, where, when, why, how?

 This symbol means this monologue has been recorded. Click on

the triangle to listen.

Oh, I do love Christmas. The best part starts with putting up the tree,
listening to seasonal music while we drink egg nogs and munch on
popcorn. The ornaments we put on include ones my sister and I made
back in elementary school, but the oldest are a set of painted
gingerbread boys that my mother made for her parents' tree before
she married Dad. Places of honor go to the bedraggled survivors of
the flock of all-too-realistic birds that our family cat thought were her
particular playthings. There's a picture of Tigress with her mouth full
of feathers and a mangled birdie-lump between her paws in our
Christmas photo album. We have annual snapshots of our family
around the tree, going all the way back to before the advent of color
film. You can see the changes from year to year, the friends and
family members that have come and gone. One year we all caught the
flu: we woke up, threw up, went back to bed, and celebrated
Christmas a few days late, once we all felt a bit better. There's a
"before" and "after" picture of that memorable occasion. But I don't
really need pictures-- the smells and the sounds and the decorations
bring it all back. It's the layers of shared experience that make
Christmas special.
  Click on the triangle to listen:  
My dream? You'd never guess, to look at me. But when I was a little
kid? I spent summers on a farm. My Dad's grandparents'. Till I was
six. When I was seven my parents divorced, and the summers
stopped. My Great-Grands passed away not very long after. I don't
remember much about it, really. Except that I was happy. I fed the
chickens and rode a pony. And I remember smells: the country air.
Sometimes, now, a fresh rain on grass in the park? Takes me right
back. Anyway, that's my dream: to own a farm. A small one, where I
can grow my own food, and ride a horse. Maybe grow some fancy
stuff for gourmet restaurants? Asparagus and herbs and free range
chickens. A couple of big old brown-eyed milk cows. I want an old
fashioned wood barn-- I love that smell: a wood barn filled with hay
and animals. I want plenty of trees, a brook with a pond, some
mountains in the distance. I dream about it day and night. I calm
myself looking at seed catalogs. Or I sketch out designs for my farm
house. I search through the real estate photos, looking for just the
right place: far, far away from the city noise, and from the stink. Be
best if my nearest neighbor is out of sight. Thing is, I've had enough
of people. And I wouldn't be surprised if they've had enough of me.

Brace yourselves, everybody. The Second Great Depression starts in

2007. During the overheated stock market of the 1990s workers
stopped saving. Next, the Fed's dramatic drop in mortgage rates
encouraged people to refinance their homes-- and to plunge deeply
into debt. That's what will trigger the Depression-- all those
consumers who are living a lifestyle on easy credit, the future be
damned! As interest rates increase, many families will be pushed into
foreclosure or bankruptcy. Even those who heed the warnings and
practice thrift will add to our country's woes. Reducing spending will
slow the economy and throw millions of workers out of their jobs--
causing more bankruptcy! Whole areas of the economy will simply
cease to function. The same kind of future-be-damned policies in
government have run up a record national debt and a mammoth
foreign trade deficit that will severely limit our options for dealing
with the crisis. This coming Depression will bring America to its
knees. Probably we have within us the will and intelligence to put our
economy back together on a sounder basis - but it will be a poorer and
a much less arrogant country that emerges after The Fall.

I was a student intern at a free clinic last year. We started the

morning with a "check in" circle. You know: Where we're supposed to
tell each other how our week was going and how we're feeling? One
volunteer told us how her basement had flooded the night before and
she was feeling very depressed because she had lost her family
photographs. They were gone forever, because there were no
negatives or copies. Another worker spoke up with something like:
"There are children in this city who have lost both parents to drugs or
violence. They have no one to care for them, no food, no warm
clothes, no place to sleep at night. And you're feeling bad about some
photographs?" Get the message? "Your feelings don't matter. My high
ideals are what matter; you only count when you're doing what I think
you should!" These are the same kind of idealists who tell you you
shouldn't love your cat and buy food for him while there are people
starving in Darfur. I just don't understand how doing without comfort
really helps the planet. I'd like to have a job doing something to make
the world better, like helping the unfortunate or saving the
environment. But I see too many caring people stuck in dead ends.
They work long hours under terrible stress, for such low salaries that
they can't pay the rent on a one room apartment, let alone support a
family. I'm afraid I'll end up like my aunt: on Thanksgiving she got a
little tipsy and started crying. "I'm nearly 60", she said, "and I'm a
bitter, penniless wreck. Why didn't somebody tell me to take care of
myself?"

We moved across town recently, and at his new school my son Arnie
became the target of a bully. His teachers paid no attention. When
Arnie reached the breaking point and lashed out at that boy, the
school suspended him-- and they called Arnie a "terrorist threat"! A
thirteen year old! While my son was out on suspension, one of his
friends phoned and said that the teachers were saying that Arnie had
threatened to bomb the school and shoot people! When I charged off
to the school and confronted them, they swore they hadn't said such
things-- at least not in front of students. I knew they were lying. I said
my son had never been in trouble. Arnie's young for his age; a mild
mannered friendly kid who goes to Boy Scouts and Sunday School.
Probably that's the reason he was bullied. Why hadn't those teachers
stepped in and put a stop to it? They got defensive, claiming they
didn't know, my son had never told them. I said, "Don't you have eyes
and ears? Don't you have hearts? How can you not know when a kid's
being bullied: it's obvious!" At last they apologized, and asked me to
tell Arnie to trust them. "Come to them if he had a problem." Come to
them? Those bare-faced liars turned right around and stabbed us in
the back! I hadn't been home half an hour when the police were
knocking on my door. Somebody had planted a fake bomb, and the
school accused my son! Arnie! Who was home the entire time! When
the cops came, my son was sitting on the living room floor, playing
with his Legos. That's how childish he is. Arnie started weeping and
saying he couldn't go back to that place, ever. Who's to blame him?
The police spent more time calming us than questioning us. I'm going
to file suit against that school. And I'll move heaven and earth to get
Arnie back into his old one.

 Click on the triangle to listen:  

Some idiot politician goes on television and says "Pay no attention to
Al Gore. Global Warming is not science. Leftists want to ruin our
economy and take away our God-given freedoms. But God is still up
there." Totally crazy, right? Wrong! What this jerk is saying is correct:
but who would suspect that when it's being said by an obvious
whacko? That's what these right-wing ranters and Fox News people
are all about - they're the bad guys that we're being conditioned to
disbelieve. Global Warming isn't a hoax. The Cause and Cure
according to Gore--That's the hoax. Our planet goes through 36-year
cycles of warming. Mini ice ages and sizzling drought. The cause is
solar magnetic radiation. Greenhouse gas --CO2-- doesn't rise! It's
heavier than the rest of the air. Fossil fuels are depleting the ozone
layer? That's pure BS: on purpose to scare you. For whose benefit?
The energy industry! They'll rake in billions from "alternative fuel"
and massive "clean-up" contracts-- after they're finished playing the
"bad guy" and bribing morons to be their "spokesmen". It's all a scam.
Stop buying it. Left vs. Right politics is pure theatre. There's only one
ruling party, the Money Party!-- with two wholly owned subsidiaries.
Global warming's going to submerge the planet? I don't think so. Not
that I don't believe in Global Warming. I do. Ocean levels are rising,
you can see it. But submergence doesn't happen overnight. A natural
cycle, of deserts and melting pole caps, is followed by another cyclic
Age of Ice. Maybe we are destroying the planet: we'll get what we
deserve. But either way, catastrophe thins our herd. In a big, world
wide disaster movie. Now's the time to take action! Everybody! Drop
what you're doing and cooperate on a plan. A happy ending. What do
you suppose are the odds? Considering that homo sapiens is lazy and
ignorant. Could the energetic and brilliant come to the rescue? We'd
all have to cooperate. By the billions. Ain't that a bitch? Let's face it,
we've run up our numbers to the point where we don't have a lot of
wiggle room. As the waters keep rising, a few hardy souls gather up
survival gear and head for the Antarctic. Will any actually survive?
Not if they hunt to extinction. Not if the bastards left to drown set off
the nukes.

Have you seen the collection of costumes they're selling for little girls
this year? It is shocking. I mean, it shocked me. And if it doesn't
shock everybody, I'd like to know why not. I'm not talking about all
the teens or tweens who want to dress up like Brittany Spears or some
diva from American Idol -- that's what we've come to expect. Mass
marketing sells the American Dream. I'm talking about something
new; something I find appalling: young girls' costumes that are really
small scale versions of on line fantasy porn. Something is seriously
wrong, here. These are kindergarten to fifth grade size outfits-- and
they're the kind that before the Internet used to appear only in
magazines that came in plain brown wrappers or were kept hidden
behind the counter! "Red Cross Cutie"-- a lust crazed nurse; "Major
Flirt"-- a female soldier with echos of the photos from Abu Ghraib;
"Miss Behaved"-- a plunging necklined prison inmate out of a
bondage scenario. And "Naughty School Girl"---! That one may be the
ultimate. "Naughty" for a girl this age should mean chewing gum in
class or calling another kid a "poop head" -- not posing as Lolita.
What's going on here? Are parents really buying costumes designed to
titillate pedophiles? I know sex sells: but if there's a mass market for
sex of this sort we're in Big Trouble, friends. It isn't just a pathetic
congressman who has a problem.

Halloween is wasted on kids today. It's much more fun to get into
costume when you're an adult. You may have the skills to make your
own, or you can design it and a costumer will make it. At least you
have money to spend and you can shop where you want instead of
where Mom takes you. But the big plus is that you know how to get
into character. You act up. You act out! Find out what frightens you,
and dance your nightmares away! I've never seen a group of trick-or-
treaters who have anywhere near the fun adults have. Halloween for
kids is all regimented, now. Safety first, last and always. Adult
supervised, like soccer. One more status game. My grandmother says
in her day it was a once-a-year bust-out. Kids could dress scary and
get away with pranks that at any other time would get them arrested.
They'd tip over outhouses, throw turd-bombs, paint stuff on cars. In
school or church, nerds-- they weren't called nerds then, but what?
wallflowers? weenies? -- out-group kids, anyway--they could come up
with clever home made costumes that got them a little positive
attention, for a change. Poor kids who didn't have money to buy stuff
could throw on an old sheet and stay out late trick or treating in the
richer part of town. Score enough candy to last them through
Christmas. Now neighborhoods are, like, class enclaves; kids all wear
the same store bought costumes sold in their income-appropriate
local stores, and their families hand out the exact same treats to their
exact status equals. I see them, shadowed by Mom's minivan,
listlessly trooping door to door, mumbling "trick or treat"-- as if
either could happen! What tricks are they able to play? What treats
would they greet with delight? One year I tried giving out popcorn
balls. The kids looked disappointed. How could that be? Warm fresh
home made popcorn balls are heaven! Turns out, kids today don't get
to eat anything that isn't wrapped with a manufacturer's tamperproof
seal! They throw home made away! Forget it. I won't be home on
Halloween. I don't dole out packaged crap. I'll be off at a grown-up
party, dressed in the most spectacular and original costume I can
conceive of, living my thrilling one night role as if I expect an Oscar as
a reward.
  Click on the triangle to listen:  
There's a very basic disagreement between Progressives and those
who judge by success and status, and endorse the status quo. For
those status people, individuals who have succeeded, be it in business
or politics or sports or whatever, are by definition the good. They are
the pillars of the community. They are on top because of innate
superiority, hard work, warmth of heart or praiseworthy behavior.
Winners can do no wrong. They should be looked up to and
celebrated by lesser humans. When one of these people ends up in
jail, the "flock" is always stunned. It goes against their most basic
understanding of how the world works. On the other hand,
Progressives are always suspicious of people on the top. They suspect
that the causes of wealth are a combination of ruthlessness and good
luck. Of course intelligence, hard work, creativity and good will may
be involved, at least at first, but nobody gets rich just through hard
work. It is impossible to amass large amounts of money without
extracting it from other people-- or from the Earth. Some kind of
exploitation is necessary. Progressives are never surprised when a
CEO goes to jail. But they can still be shocked: to hear eulogies like
those at Ken Delay's funeral, praising the exploiter as Godly,
generous, upright-- a saint and martyr of Success.

Everything in Creation is made from energy -- and that's sex. When

the scientists recognize that quarks and quirks and such are sexual
energies, they will start to understand things. Will they ever be able to
prove it all with math, like they want to do? Who knows? Sexual
energies may not give a hoot about math. But if you look out into
space, and see those dancing fireworks out there? That's an orgy.
That's sex personified. Everything living thing is the result. And the
dead stuff, the debris of moons and comets? That's what's left of
cosmic cum and afterbirth. The fact that there is life is simply a
miracle, it's not part of a Plan. The cosmic Soul isn't a being, it's just
more energies: this kind, of thoughts-- that's why you can't see it. But
we are responsible for its well being. When we love, when we
appreciate and preserve, we're good for the world's Soul. When we
run around blowing things up and killing each other, it suffers. Not
doing a very good job of it, are we?
  Click on the triangle to listen: 
I went into my local bank this week and saw a big sign that from now
on they will charge a $15 fee for cashing checks for someone without a
bank account there. Why? Why is this legal? Personal checks I can
see, they may be fake. But a paycheck from Wal-Mart? A tax refund?
The bank knows that check is pretty darn sure to go through, doesn't
it? The policy's a rip off, penalizing the poor for being poor.
Respectable banks are joining rent-to-own shops, check-cashing
joints, loan sharks, numbers runners and the state lotteries--
deliberately targeting the poor. Why not? Take advantage! They went
to bad schools, they're gullible: why not con poor people out of the
little they have? Overdrafts are the biggest scam. The bank explains it
like they are doing you a service by letting the transaction go
through-- but really, they're piling up fees. They allow the big
transaction that dips your balance below zero, then they bounce all
the little ones and charge fees that are bigger than the checks you
wrote when you thought you had the money. Banks and finance
companies operate completely backwards. They charge the most for
people who are the least able to afford it. Wealthy people get their
fees written off-- they can be overdrawn by thousands! In our
country, rich people get privileges, and poor people are despised. I
don't understand this. Is it Social Darwinism? Our Calvinist heritage?
What is it that invites us to abuse the poor? It's as if poverty itself is a
crime, and proof that the person's not worthy.

 Click on the triangle to listen: 

I'm afraid homo sapiens has had his day. All over the world,
fundamentalist belief is gaining power. The stupid and ill-educated
are easily scared of things like eclipses and earthquakes and flying
machines, and this complicated world is overwhelming them. They
long for the good old days-- some time around the 12th century. The
modern world does not frighten me, but these folks do. As an
environmentalist I've complained bitterly about how humans have
stupidly degraded their own life-support systems. But now I think the
great die-off that's underway is just part of the grand cycle of
evolution. No religious prophecy of "end times" -- any one can see
what's coming. The question is, will some new species, one that is
truly sapient, emerge? Stripped of the power to do harm, equipped
with a vison of stewardship? Or will life devolve into forms more
suited to an inhospitible environment, forms like the ones that
survive in the deserts, in the mountain peaks and ocean depths? Is
intelligence a failed experient?

 Click on the triangle to listen to a man: 

Click on the triangle to listen to a woman: 
I'd rather not say. Your question makes me uncomfortable. Not that
I'm not used to sharing my opinions, just not face to face. I don't
think very well on my feet. I can come up with the perfect witty
phrase-- only I don't, until about ten minutes after the conversation.
On line, though, I can just sit in front of the screen until I know
exactly what I want to say, and then hit "send". So I spend a lot of
time on line. I enjoy the anonymity. On the net, you're got no
baggage. Nobody knows your age, location, race, gender, job, social
status, or criminal history. They can't tell if you're fat or skinny. All
they know is what you tell them, and it could all be a lie. But in fact, I
usually tell the truth. The deepest truth, about my thoughts and
feelings-- things I would never dare say to someone in the flesh--
someone I had to face, like I'm facing you. But I've come to think,
through being on line, that there's something both morally good and
good for the self in approaching others with openness. I'm trying it
out in my everyday life, now. I just avoid asking or answering
questions that label people. Like what? Like the one you just asked
me.

 Click on the triangle to listen: 

I'm on the bottom of the food chain. I live on what was once a family
farm in upstate New York, and I'm broke and powerless. (The
"powerless" part will soon be literal-- the electric company's about to
shut me off.) The government says unemployment is four percent--
That's excellent, that's "full". Except that you're only counted if you're
collecting checks! What's with that? Half the people I know are
working jobs that don't qualify-- so when we're out of work, we're not
"unemployed"! We're just out of luck! I figure, the oil men who run
this country only notice how well their friends are doing. People like
me just don't come up in conversation when they're out on the golf
course. I admit I'm just guessing: The only oil man I've actually met is
my delivery guy-- who looks so apologetic about the price that I give
him a cup of coffee and tell him it's not his fault. Do our leaders have
any idea of what it's like to live though February with the thermostat
at 55 degrees? Heating oil has more than tripled-- from 90 cents to
2.62 a gallon. It's not just North Koreans who are going to have to
choose this winter between food and warmth. It's Northern New
York.

My family's poor. My mom was one of 9 kids, who lived in tents and
trailers because her dad was a handyman. He moved to where ever
there was a job for a man with limited skills and no education. Mom
married someone smart, so my brother and I are intelligent, but my
Dad divorced her when we were little. To go to college I had to work
and take out loans. I have my degree now, but only a part time temp
job. I can't even get a clinic to take me on as a volunteer! I've had to
learn about things like networking and being professional and how to
"fit in" in white collar circles, to communicate with those folks. Class
isn't on the college curiculum, but it sure rules on the job. Agencies
are run by people from "good backgrounds". They hire people who are
like themselves, who are recommended by their friends. There are no
directors of clinics, or their daughters, among my friends. In social
services, the "clients" are working or under class, and looked down
on; "counselors" are middle or upper. It's subtle, but it's as pervasive
as the racism. When I came in to the office with bruises on my arms
from karate class?-- One of the Junior League types saw them and
was all over me with pity and advice. No way would she believe I got
bruises from karate. I wonder if she'd have believed me if my clothes
weren't from the Salvation Army? I'm bright, knowledgeable,
hardworking, and honest. I'm nobody's victim. But that's not good
enough for the Junior League.

I always accept gifts. After all, it's pretty much the same as a tip, isn't
it? In the past I've had bouquets of flowers, bottles of wine, whiskey--
which I don't really like but it's nice to have at home in case
somebody comes over who does-- ! and chocolates. Lots and lots of
chocolates. To be honest, I'm just as happy with an email saying
thanks for a job well done. But either way, it's always nice to have
your work appreciated. My husband has his own business, and he
regularly gets products from customers. Books from a publishing
house (very nice), artwork from a sculptor (which I like, he doesn't)
and sometimes generous gift certificates to expensive restaurants we
would not have been able to go to otherwise. But recently he did a job
for a nonprofit. They were really stingy, paid him less than promised
and made him change what they ordered for free, even though the
mistake was their fault. As a kind of peace offering they gave him two
tickets to their annual black-tie fundraiser? (face value: $350). Then
had the nerve to say, "Here's the name of a place where you can rent a
tuxedo for only $45!" Well, my husband had his own tuxedo, and I
wore my magenta silk bridesmaid dress-- but it was the the most
boring evening I ever spent! Thank heavens, he'll never work for them
again!

 Click on the triangle to listen: 

I live in Minnesota, and I have to say to those people who don't
believe we have global warming-- Come up here. People who live up
here will tell you that the summers used to be wonderful. Nothing
above 75 degrees, and always a cool breeze. Nights that are perfect for
sleeping. A few summers ago we started getting weather that was
warmer than usual, days with temperatures in the high 80's. This
year? Since the middle of June we've had 80 degree weather four days
out of five, and today it's in the 90's. Next week it is supposed to go
over 100! All the hardware stores are out of air conditioners. WalMart
got three shipments sold out and they say they aren't getting any
more. We've never had an air conditioner-- we never needed one. I
don't like air conditioners: nasty noisy things. But it looks like now we
either get one, or move to Manitoba.

I understand the process of Evolution, and I know that the theory is

backed up by facts and is sound. Yes, I have more enlightened views
than seventy percent of Americans. Why do I, then? Because I was
educated by Catholic nuns. Sure-- everybody's heard nuns
stereotyped. They're stern, ruler-slapping tyrants, or sex obsessed old
hags. But the nuns who taught me were progressive! They'd been at
the front of the anti-war movement in the 60s. They had advanced
degrees-- from good universities. They showed their devotion by
giving their students the best education possible-- rich and poor alike.
Minority students, even the lone Jew-- all of us kids were treated with
respect. Unlike the public schools, our nuns didn't teach a one-sided
Americans-are-always-right version of history. We learned about the
Robber Barons and the internment of the Japanese. In science, they
didn't pussy-foot around either: they taught Darwinism. I learned
about the Beagle, the Galapagos finches, and natural selection in the
sixth grade from Sister Ursula. Creation wasn't even mentioned--
science and the catechism were completely separate areas of study.
Does that surprise you? Open your mind.

You have to be very careful when you are in Purchasing. Gifts and
offers were showered on me whilst I was working for the provincial
Government. In a minor capacity. I wasn't in charge of the
department's purchasing, but I could add things to the unit's budget
list if I wrote up a justification, and I could sign off on the payment
for purchases by others. The unit had a clear policy and I followed it.
Some people wondered why, of some twenty or thirty gifts handed
out, I was the only one to write an official Thank You letter. It's
because I turned the gift over to the department. All the others were
government people working under the same policy, but I was the only
one following it. One clerk got into big big trouble when his boss got a
recall notice on a defective IPod that had been sent to the
department. The guy had taken it home and "forgotten" to mention it.
If I were you, I'd be a real stickler. Send your official thanks, and then
be sure that somebody gives you a receipt when you turn it over to the
the company. That's the safest way to go about it. You don't want the
other staff speculating about what's happening, not if they're thinking
you're pinching the stuff yourself or passing it to friends.

 Click on the triangle to listen: 

Somehow, the ideal of being a good and useful person has been
replaced by the ideal of being a winner. Money, now: that's how we're
supposed to keep score. Book publishers, newspapers, talking heads
on TV, even "educators"-- seem to think that they are doing the public
a service by advising everyone to model their lives on the idiots whose
lives are about making money. Virtue? Kindness? Friendship? Talent?
Character? Fine, so long as they don't get in the way of profits or
share prices. Nobody even mentions what the idiot's company
actually makes. No talk of the quality of craftsmanship or the
satisfaction of helping people: all that counts is growth, & success.
Growth and success of What? At what cost? To the planet, to the
people who live on it? These CEOs and market manipulators are guys
who have been wrecking the environment, busting unions, using the
slogans of "free trade" to force workers around the world to compete
in a race to the bottom. Face it: a knack for making money is one part
narrow-minded craftiness and nine parts luck. The capitalist dream
is, for most people, a nightmare. Yet the stories of these narrow
money-grubbing lives are told as if they should be hailed as heroes--
and they are! They are! Not just by the lickspittles who are hired to
admire them, but by the ambitious young-- whose lives will be sucked
dry by them. What fools we mortals be!

 Click on the triangle to listen: 

I showed up for my one hour appointment with my boss to do my
annual review. Before the meeting, I did the required self-assessment
of my job performance, which he was supposed to discuss with me.
He's supposed to add comments, sign off on the review, and send it to
Human Resources. First thing, my boss arrives 20 minutes late.
During the "discussion", he's writing emails on his BlackBerry! What
is that about? Not to mention his phone-answering. He takes three
telephone calls, and when I stop talking he looks up at me like I'm an
idiot and waves his hand at me to go on. Like, I should be talking but
why expect him to be listening? Colleagues come by the cubicle--
twice-- and they must have really "urgent" matters, cause both times
he lets them interrupt. That's the whole hour. We never do finish the
review, and he never signs off on it. HR calls me and says it's
"incomplete" but they never go after him for it. What am I supposed
to think? I figure I must be going to be fired: why else would he treat
me like that? But in fact I got a raise. A small raise. And a big drop in
morale. Not the way to make me feel that I'm a valued member of the
team! I've got to tell you-- if something halfway good comes up, I'm
out of here.
  Click on the triangle to listen: 
I had this big black cat named Damian, who came and went as he
pleased. One day he went out and didn't come back. Days went by,
and I went up and down the street, calling, "Damian, Damian!" I put
up signs and knocked on doors and stopped cars, waved 'em right
down--"Have you seen a big black cat?" I was crying all the time--
which shocked me. I didn't realize I loved this cat! He wasn't cuddly.
He walked around with an attitude, like: "oh, yeah. I own this place.
You're my person." But he was absolutely silent. No meows or howls
or little noises to carry on a conversation. No interest in petting, or
rubbing up against your ankles. After more than a week of frantic
looking and calling my neighbor said, "Maybe it's my imagination, but
I think I caught a glimpse of Damian in my house." We searched all
up and down, basement to attic, calling him. But of course the cat
won't answer. Then up in the attic I'm looking around with the
flashlight and I catch the gleam of a yellow-green eye! We had to pry
up the boards and lure him out with tuna, and when he came he was
so covered with ground-in insulation he looked pure white! Brushings
and bathing and more brushings, he was still a thin gray ghost of
himself for weeks afterwards.

Who would have ever thought that I, a Jew, could walk around freely
here in Berlin? Feeling completely comfortable? Making German
friends? When I walk across what used to be the no-man's-land on
either side of the Berlin Wall on my way to a Woody Allen movie, I
can scarcely see any sign that a wall used to be there. You can't tell
where West Berlin used to stop and East Berlin started. And as for the
kids? You can't tell East from West or Americans from Germans, or
Gentiles from Jews. Visiting Warsaw I know that terrible things
happened there, some of them touched my own family-- but I can't
feel them. In some sense they are over, the way the Black Death and
the Inquisition are over. Europe has formed an economic union out of
countries that for centuries were at war. Things really have changed. I
know our generation will have to work to make these changes
permanent, and that in a lot of places things are as bad as ever. But
I'm sure anyone who has experienced this change knows that it's
good, and will cherish it.
My father believed in Progress, and thought that humans were on the
road to moral perfection. Before he died, he decided that the evidence
pointed the other way. We are all hell bent on our own destruction--
so full of pointless spite that we'll blow up the world rather than let
some other tribe run it. But I don't think it's pointless spite. We
behave the way we do because our biology is shaped by natural
selection. There's the same evolutionary basis to hostility towards
other groups as there is to love in families and cooperation within the
group. Behavior like that was good strategy for thousands of years.
We're not limited to what worked for our ancestors. We can overcome
our tribal tendencies. But the effort must be made over and over,
since our biology does not change. Consider traffic. Incidents of road
rage? That was how Oedipus killed his father: in a fight over the right
of way. Rude driving infuriates us, but it happens against a
background in which most drivers, most of the time, cooperate
beautifully in helping others get where they are going. That's
Progress!

The rest of the family took off this weekend, leaving me "In Charge". I
woke up to the sound of rain, and pitiful mewings from Alice the cat.
Checked on the leak in the roof. It was dripping: I put a bucket under
it. The rug wasn't wet, so I must have caught it early. Now, Alice is the
family cat, not my cat. I'm more of a dog person. But Alice is pretty
dog-like. Rolls over to be scritched, follows me around. No Siamese
superiorities. Except-- Alice has a so-called a "delicate stomach".
Meaning: give her too much cat meat she'll wolf it down and barf it
up. Not nice. But she was friendly and I was sort of lonesome so I fed
her first. Then I fed the fish. Fed the birds. Fed myself. Brushed my
teeth. Read my email. I'm still in my socks and pajamas so I go to
check the time and see if I'd better dress, when -- yuk! I step in
something wet. Wet and nasty. Can't bear to look-- I figured Alice had
hurled. Not the case, thank God. But the rug's wet, very wet. Darn
Alice dumped the drip bucket! When I go to find the cat to tell her
what I think of her, she's up on her hind paws with her head in the
toilet. All right. I get the point. I fill up her empty water bowl. But I'm
not going to take the rap for the wet rug! The rug is HER FAULT!
Does your grandma read the obituaries? Mine does. Don't you think
that's creepy? It's not like Gram's planning to die or anything-- she's
not even that old. Well, she is old, she's sixty-- but in lots of ways she
seems younger than my mother. Probably because she doesn't have as
much to worry about as Mom does. She's past a lot of it. I tell Gram
it's creepy to read obituaries, but she says it's no more creepy than
going to church. It makes her think about what really matters, she
says. I say obituaries aren't just creepy, they're dull. Mostly lists of
jobs and titles and awards and survivors, and who cares? What's the
point? That's the point, she says. All the things that seem important
to people in the rat race seem pretty boring when printed out in the
paper. A janitor gets a paragraph if he's lucky, a CEO gets a quarter of
a page. Most women get nothing at all: 4 out of 5 obituaries are of
men-- it's like women don't die. Maybe they don't, Grandma says.
Maybe because they don't leave much of a paper trail in the world,
they live quietly on in the hearts of those they leave behind.