Opportunities Not Taken Exercise

Brooklyn was 23 years old when she let her first potential big break slip away. A dramatic child out of the womb, Brooklyn was destined for stardom. She starred in all of her high school musicals, and her instructor down the street at the local community theatre informed her parents on a weekly basis how gifted their daughter is. Overcome with bombarding stress that accompanies living on one’s own for the first time, Brooklyn found herself struggling to balance her dream of pursuing an acting career and maintaining her current job that supports her newfound pile of bills on the kitchen table.

She had heard of an audition in L.A. seeking an actress with a background in singing to star in an upcoming sit com. Brooklyn fit the character description perfectly: height 5’7’’-5’9’’, brunette, hazel eyes. The audition, however, was that following morning when Brooklyn was scheduled to work. Having been in trouble before with her boss, and concerned about losing her job—her one source of income—Brooklyn found herself in a quandary of what to do. Afraid of losing her job, and nervous of failing in the audition room, she decided to miss the audition. Just hours of making this decision, it dawned on Brooklyn that in order to commit to pursuing her dream, she would have to overcome her two fears of being fired and of failure. After all, the industry waits for no one.

Now We Are Five Response

The telling sign that David Sedaris is a great writer is the fact that he can turn any situation or story into a great piece of writing. As I was reading Now We Are Five, I noticed that Sedaris’s story itself did not intrigue me. I imagined myself faced with the task of writing the same story, and all I foresee on my imaginary paper is a sad a boring story. Sedaris’s writing, however, kept me engaged throughout the story.

One means through which he accomplishes this is dialogue use. Sedaris is able to capture many key characteristics of his family members through the dialogue he includes, making his story more personable. He explains his sister’s desire to not have her family attend her memorial service, and then imagines his mother’s response: “So put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Through this quote, I imagine Mamma Sedaris as a sturdy woman who takes crap from no one.  Also, this quote perfectly compliments the sassy, yet strict personality I imagine this mother-of-six to embodying.

Sedaris paints a situation in which his brother, Paul, plays a trick him involving a fake sneeze that unintentionally splashes a woman next to them. Sedaris writes:

“Sorry, man,” Paul said when she turned around, horrified. “I was just playing a joke on my brother.”

The woman had many thin bracelets on, and they jangled as she brushed her hand against the back of her head.

“You called her ‘man,’ ” I said to him after she walked off.

“For real?” he asked.

Amy mimicked him perfectly. “For real?”

I love this exchange of dialogue because it captures the playfulness existent between the three siblings featured. Paul is seen as fratty-goofball, seeking attention and laughs through the creative means of fake sneezing on his brother. Sedaris calls his brother out on his initial mistake, making him the realist in the scenario. And Amy finishes the exchange by further picking on Paul, mimicking his lack-luster response. This dialogue reminds me of how I would communicate with my brother: lovingly, yet trigger happy to jump on the opportunity to make myself sound smarter.   

The Things They Carried Response

Though I have read this book before, I was reading this excerpt as though I hadn’t. O’Brien’s text is so rich with various details that my eyes frequently skimmed past new words and details that I had yet to digest from my previous reading of the book. It is through O’Brien’s relentless use of details in his writing that makes The Things They Carried personable. With a glimpse into each character’s backpack, one can so easily grasp the personality of each pack’s owner. O’Brien does this in list format. Without any explanation or justification, he notes every item each solider carries with himself, leaving the item to speak for itself:

“Mitchell Sanders, the RTO, carried condoms. Norman Bowker carried a diary. Rat Kiley carried comic books…Kiowa also carried his grandmother’s distrust of the white man, his grandfather’s old hunting hatchet” (p. 80)

From this quote, it is implied that perhaps Mitchell sanders is a ladies man, or at the very least is optimistic of his escapades with women (why else would he be carrying a condom with him in times of war?). Sanders could also be gay, I suppose, in which case the application of a condom in the state of war may be used more frequently. However, this detail, if it were true, I’m sure would be mentioned by O’Brien, seeing that homosexuality carries a lot of weight in the army. Additionally, aside from Bowker’s apparent love of journaling and Kiley’s guilty pleasure for comic books, O’Brien paints Kiowa as a man with conviction, whose family must have endured oppression from the white man some time ago.

Each packing item holds tremendous significance with each character, seeing that no solider would bare the extra weight of a journal or comic books unless it was crucial to their existence in war. O’Brien’s The Things They Carried holds a unique relationship between the reader and the text. The reader’s trust is built because O’Brien discloses plentiful detail; sometimes leading the reader to know more than what seems fit. It felt as though O’Brien was giving me a gifted secret with each detail he released to me.

Question: What do you think of the role Martha plays on Lieutenant Jimmy Cross when he is away at war?

And Then There was Rain

Every person, at some point in time, should experience working in the restaurant industry. It is a dark hell of a place, but it sure does build character.

This past summer I worked as a hostess at a small seafood restaurant called Café 56. Though the pay rate was decent—especially after tips—there were days when no amount of money could make the job desirable.

One day, everybody (and their brother) decided to come eat at the restaurant. This always resulted in difficulty at the front desk. I was doing the best that I could to accurately quote each party their wait time, however there are always unforeseen factors that alter the accuracy of party quoting. This being said, a stalky couple fresh off the plane from New Jersey (they were sure to inform me) had inquired about their wait time, stating that they had endured a long day of traveling and where to be seated immediately. I regretfully informed them that, in fact, there were a few parties ahead of them but I was to get them seated with in the next 15 minutes—not an unreasonable amount of time for a beautiful Seattle day.

A few moments had passed, and knowing the New Jersey couple’s desire to be seated, as well as the restaurant’s customer service policy, I decided to approach the couple to inform them that their table should be available shortly. In fact, I pointed to a specific table and informed the impatient couple that the woman currently seated there had just paid and was expected to leave momentarily. Little to my knowledge, this woman—tall, slender and foreign—had no intention of leaving in the near future. Rather, she grabbed her iPhone from her overly expensive purse and made a phone call—perhaps to her Roman husband.

Furious with their misquoted time and inability to take a seat a table, the man—the larger of the two masses—laid me a new one.

“This is completely unacceptable! My wife and I have been traveling for hours and we demand that we get seated immediately. I want to speak to management!”

           

Please note that while this is occurring, everything and anything that could possibly go wrong in a restaurant was taking place in this moment. Servers were neglecting their tables, bussers had gone missing, and the bartender had a 20-minute ticket time on her drinks, which resulted in both the kitchen and servers getting extremely backed up.

It was a shit show, so much so that en route to getting the manager, I was flagged down by two separate tables requesting they either get their check, or get greeted by their server whom they hadn’t seen in since being seated 20 minutes prior.

After patching the wounds at these other tables, I was finally able to grab the attention of the manager. Before I could even form my words into a sentence, tears began to rush down my cheeks, my voice uneasy and shaking. My manager soon grasped the issue and headed towards the couple. After catching my breath (or so I thought), I returned to the overwhelmingly busy front desk that I understandably neglected for a few moments. With a smile, I looked up at the friendly gentleman patiently awaiting my return.

With a gentle voice he inquired, “How long would the wait be for 12 people?”

Doe-eyed I responded, “I truly wish I could accommodate that...” but before I could finish, I could feel the sadness in the back of my throat begin to swell.

“Are you okay?” asked the pleasant man, observant of my change of emotion.

“Yes…I mean…no…I mean …” the man’s simple caring question released the floodgates once more. Now crying, I continued, “I’ll find someone else to help you”. With that, I dashed to the back trenches of the kitchen, determined to be unseen by the rest of the staff.

After catching my breath (for real, this time), I returned to the front desk. As I looked out the glass front doors, I noticed the clouds had shifted and darkened in color. Soon thereafter, it began to pour. From the front desk I observed as Mr. and Mrs. New Jersey, who had finally been seated at a table on the patio, became drenched in the horizontal downpour. From head to toe, the implacable couple was soaked in Seattle’s infamous rain. Now that’s karma, baby.

NYtimes Lives Response

It was the title of this Lives post that attracted me to the piece: ‘The Driver Just Didn’t See You’. Just yesterday, my roommate was hit by a car while riding her bike. She is fine, however her story is eerily similar to that of René Steinke.

Aside from the coincidence of the two stories, though, Steinke’s resonates particularly poignant due to her ability to show and tell her story. She captures the complete characterization of the vet through one quote: “I know that if the situation were reversed, Coco would want you to be out of pain, too”. Though this quote does not directly tell me what the vet looked like, it showed me that this vet is a caring individual and good at his occupation.

Steinke continues with this technique when describing the impact of the accident: “I followed the ‘Walk’ sign, my eyes fixed on the white letters. I was halfway into the crosswalk when I saw the yellow grille of a school bus to my right, impossibly near.” Her precise detail conveys so much in a small amount of text. I find it clever that Steinke describes the bus as “impossibly near”. She uses two words to paint the image of the bus in its approach, though I am sure there were plenty more in mind. This idea of saying more with less interested me as a reader. It allowed for my mind to fill in the imagery of the environment, while the specifics Steinke did include guided me through her story. 

Also, I always appreciate enjoyable endings to stories. Steinke brought her story to an end in a simple and optimistic manner. The loose ends were tied together, and though being hit by a school bus and putting her dog down on the same day, Steinke left me feeling happy, for I know she was able to carry on with her life in a positive light.