Into the Blue

In a fortuitous turn of events, I had won the trip in a school essay contest. My 4th grade essay on Why I Love Living by the Ocean had apparently moved the judges so profoundly that they had no choice but to award me with the sought-after week long voyage on the Erica Lee, the area’s most prestigious (read: only) educational fishing vessel.

The first day of the trip finally arrived after several weeks of preparation and painful anticipation. We all intrepidly jammed onto the boat in our neon-colored wind breakers and jean shorts and stoically nodded goodbye to our land-lovin’ counterparts. We were people of the sea now.

Wobbly-legged and wide-eyed, we watched the passing scenery as we motored slowly out the mouth of the river and onto the open sea. The bearded, salt-encrusted man who called himself the “First Mate” started to unfurl the mysteries of all things nautical to a never-before-so-attentive bunch of tweens and teens. Unfortunately, during the unfurling, I became searingly aware that the gentle rocking of the boat, which I had initially found pleasant, was now making my stomach slosh around the inside of my abdomen like it had somehow decided that it just had to try skydiving. I must have been turning colors because the First Mate asked if I was ok, to which I somehow slurred a response without letting the surging vomit in my throat escape, and flopped down on the nearest bench. I spent the remainder of the day face down, sweating profusely into the foam rubber seat, communicating in monosyllabic grunts and wishing that death would somehow find me.    

I think all of the boat crew was surprised to see me the next day. But I was drunk on Dramamine and any sense of nausea-related dread had quickly dissipated with the excitement of learning that we were going out to set lobster traps that day. Inwardly, I was glowing with the notion that this would truly be a skill I could rely on for the rest of my life.   

As it turns out, lobster traps are like casinos. The poor, scavenging lobsters get lured in with the promise of some free food and a watered down margarita and the next thing they know, they’re trapped inside without the slightest idea how to get back out the way they came. Unfortunately for the lobsters that lack extraordinary critical thinking skills, they don’t stand a chance.

What made lobster trapping so unfathomably awesome was that the bait used in the traps was fish heads. The heads were loaded into the trap by laying the fish head on its side and impaling the head through both eyes with a metal rod, thus assuring the lobsters can’t abscond with the head. One does want ones fish head as secure as possible. That being said, lobster traps, we learned, were specifically designed to allow for entrance only, and as such, the fish head impaling/securing/eye-gouging activity seemed slightly superfluous. But getting to shove a metal rod through a the rotting head of a fish was an unprecedented and wildly exhilarating experience so I wasn’t about to question the system. Especially not when it meant fresh lobster for dinner.  

One of the other kids, Scarlett, was slightly older than the most kids on the boat. She was somehow related to one of the members of the briny crew, and got to go out on the boat everyday to help out with the activities. She was rough around the edges; swore like a sailor (occupational hazard, I suppose) and far too leathery-necked for someone her age, which made me think her mother didn’t spend 15 minutes every morning slathering her with sunscreen and telling her to hold still or for Christ’s sake she wasn’t going to get to go on the boat at all. Naturally, all of the kids flocked to her like lost little ships to a lighthouse.

As she was older, wiser, and had already developed an impressive knack for lying and manipulation, in an effort to keep herself entertained she had told several of the kids that she was, in fact, a mermaid. The virulent rumor, of course, spread like wildfire. Some kids said they had seen her fins, and some had heard her mermaid song. There were the naysayers of the group, but no one could really be certain where they stood, having no real irrefutable evidence one way or the other. She had created a quagmire of half-truths and scaly, slippery secrets. It was mermaid-gate.

I was below deck one day, waiting to use the head, and Scarlett came out. She held open the door for me, looked me squarely in the eyes and said very matter-of-factly: “It’s true, you know.” I watched her walk up the stairs, her long, sun-soaked and tattered braid swinging behind her as she ascended.

The problem, I realized as I relieved myself and let this new information wash over me, was that I could not, with any real certainty, refute this claim. I was pretty sure she was lying, but I couldn’t shake the fact that she had said it so candidly and was so unaffected. It was precisely how a mermaid would act.

Nevertheless, the week continued. We saw whales, explored the Isles of Shoals, and went fishing. Never having fished before or having been an angler of any sort, perhaps the most traumatic portion of the week long edu-experience came on the day we caught bluefish. Bluefish, as it turned out, had a reputation as an unyielding and vicious predator. They were known to hunt utilizing a technique known as the “bluefish blitz” where they create a gyre around their prey, washing-machine style, disorienting the prey to the point where they can’t put up much of a fight.  Fish had been said to accidentally run themselves ashore in an effort to escape, further cementing the bluefish’s rep as one of the baddest ass fish in the Atlantic. With their razor sharp teeth and shearing jaw movement, we learned (perhaps most notably) that  bluefish would eat almost anything they could catch and swallow. In other words, mind your digits, kids.

There is something invigorating about plucking something living out of nature’s salty blue bounty. Wrangling a fish up out of the water and into the air as it squirms and thrashes in the fight of its life is a truly awing experience. I watched one of the crew members wrestle the fish off of my hook and onto the boat deck, and felt for that brief instant, that this was the life for me. I could fish! Fishing wasn’t just something that people did, it was what I did. I fished. The moment was fleeting though, as I then watched one of the deckhands drape a towel over the fish’s head and learned in dramatic fashion why it was that they kept a baseball bat handy on deck. As they bludgeoned my fish until it stopped moving, I couldn’t help but think - an unyielding and vicious predator indeed.  

My week aboard the Erica Lee was a week in which I experienced nuances of  emotions that I had not yet in my 10 years on earth been exposed to. There was a good deal of terror, punctuated with moments of utter confusion, exasperation and glee, all interspersed with a hearty dose of nausea; I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Unfortunately, we never did solve the mermaid conundrum. I assume Scarlett ended up as a fishing boat captain, a stripper, or congresswoman, any of which would have suited her quite nicely, but I suppose I’ll never know. Something tells me that’s exactly how she’d want it.

Pilgrims and Pee. A Memoir.

In the burgeoning town of Newbury, Massachusetts, somewhere around the mid-1600s, John Woodbridge VI took time away from his busy witch persecuting* schedule to act as town clerk and have a whole litter of kids, one of whom was also creatively named John Woodbridge. The latter Woodbridge was a Harvard grad, a pastor (naturally), a grammar school teacher and the fellow for whom the town's Woodbridge School was eventually named.

(*Just sayin'.)

The school was built at the end of the 19th century initially as a two room schoolhouse and was expanded a couple of decades later to accommodate the growing population. With its semi-iconic yellow clapboarded exterior, the building has remained relatively unchanged, and since being shut down in the 1990s, isn't used for much other than a landmark for giving driving directions.

After the new elementary school was built in the 1950's, the townsfolk at some point decided that the youngest, softest, supplest, most impressionable students should go to the oldest, ricketiest, most haunted school (Woodbridge) and that the older kids should go to the state-of-the-art, shining beacon of light school with smaller amounts of health risks and terror. Character building, I suppose.

I spent my first and second grade years at the Woodbridge School and became quickly aware that the idiosyncrasies of the building abounded, none more memorable than its infamous basement. Since the walls were (presumably) made of mud and hay, the basement was almost always flooded with groundwater. Anticipating the less than desirable effects of soaking wet children roaming the halls, the engineering savants at the school exhibited their dynamism by laying elevated wooden planks in place to line the floor. Adding to the ambiance, there was one flickering light bulb hanging from the middle of the ceiling that provided about as much light as a birthday cake candle.

Unfortunately for anyone with a bladder, the bathrooms were located smack dab in the middle of this glowing example of basement design and technology. Descending into the bathroom, as the darkness enveloped you, you became increasingly encased by the gurgling sounds of the bowels of the building: furnaces and generators and whatever other croaking, squeaking, squawking mechanisms there were in place to keep the building from dissolving back into the earth.

The almost complete lack of light in the basement, coupled with the unbridled imagination of a 7 or 8 year old, made a trip to the bathroom a true test of courage. I can still remember teetering nervously towards the bathroom stalls via the narrow planks; my surroundings completely open to interpretation. It wasn't a far stretch to assume that the stagnant water was a limitless abyss of poop-swamp, rife with treacherous creatures just waiting to violently feast on my supple flesh. It was like hell's version of the It's A Small World ride at Disneyworld.

We had bathroom breaks twice a day. We'd all march into the creaking abyss, do our business, and be generally relieved that there was some safety in our numbers. The odds were that it wouldn't be us who would be picked off by a rogue alligator or giant pterodactyl-bat, it would be one of the other kids who hadn't raised their hand before talking or chewed gum in class. Those kids had it coming.

The problem for me, though, on one particular day, was that there would be no waiting until the bathroom break. I had slurped down my entire bowl of tomato soup at lunch and chased it with a couple of cartons of 2% milk. I was a ticking time bomb of expanding liquid.

By the time we broke off into reading groups, I was squirming around in my chair trying desperately to find some position that would provide even the shortest moment of relief. My teacher eventually noticed my unusual amount of disruptive wiggling and queried, "Magen, do you need to go to the bathroom?"

I momentarily stopped wiggling, shocked that someone had burst unannounced into my private world of painful pee thoughts. 

"N-no..."

My response was barely audible. I knew if I spoke any louder, the pee would be forced out by the extra vocal exertion. It was in that quiet response that I knew I was committed. I would let my bladder burst before I made the journey to that bathroom alone. I had too much life left to live to get preyed on by an evil mega-toad lying in wait in an old bathroom. I wasn't going out like that. I had to make it to the break.

My resolve began to falter by the time we had started our math lesson. I was being asked to add some nickels, dimes and quarters together and beads of sweat were forming on my brow. I never liked math, but this was a different beast altogether. The chair squirming became increasingly futile and I eventually began to hallucinate. I was drawn off into a utopian world of glistening white tiled bathrooms,  sparkling latrines, fluffy toilet paper, and toilet brushes that came to life and sang to you while you sat on the toilet... 

Then, in a brief moment of what I mistook for lucidity, it hit me. I couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to me sooner. It was such a perfect, unflawed plan.

Maybe I could just let a little bit out. Just the tiniest little raindrop of pee would provide such an immense relief! I'd even be dry by recess!

And so it went.

Crazy with the relief that the droplet provided, it wasn't long until the full deluge was released and creeping its way across the old, wooden floor.

Someone must have informed the teacher, but I didn't care. The warm, wet bliss of relief had enveloped me. It wasn't until I smelled the sprinkling of sawdust that I was wrenched out of my euphoric coma. My teacher was standing over me asking if I had a change of clothes. "NO!" I shouted my back to her, relieved that I could finally speak at normal volumes and was no longer a prisoner of my swelling bladder. She informed me that I'd need to go to the nurse and call my mom.

I sloshed my way down the hall to the nurse's office, and, as if a urine-soaked 7 year old required a great deal of deciphering, explained the situation to the nurse and asked to use the phone. When my mom arrived with an extra dry pair of clothes, I reiterated my explanation of what had happened, further cluing everyone in to the mystery of the saturated, pee-smelling clothes. I changed my clothes, apologized enthusiastically to them both, and skipped back to class.

The embarrassment of publicly peeing myself was a small price to pay for relief. The sideways glances from my peers bounced off me like bullets off of Superman. I wasn't the first person to pee my pants between those four walls and would certainly not be the last. It would be old news by recess. When the second bathroom break rolled around and everyone else trudged down the stairs, reflecting on their short lives on this planet and hoping to stave off their imminent doom, I stayed at my desk with a thin, smug smile on my face. Not this time, I thought.

Not this time. 

Guns Don't Kill People, Spiders Kill People

I recently saw a t-shirt that said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself. And spiders." I promptly ordered one for myself and wondered why that statement rang so true for me. Surely, there are scarier things in the world besides spiders, right? (Spoiler Alert: there is nothing scarier than spiders anywhere or ever. And stop calling me Shirley.) Most spiders just want to be left alone to go about their business of building webs, turning people into superheroes, and other such spidery affairs. But since I turn into a quivering pile of chicken-shaped Jell-o Jigglers whenever a spider is around, I figured it was worthy of some reflection.

Initially I posited that the fear has to do with the overall creepiness of a spider's appearance. Because when I look at a spider, I don't just see 8 legs, a few sets of eyes, and an exoskeleton. When I look at a spider, I see a spindly, looming creature, poised for attack, with venom-infused saliva dripping from its fangs, wielding a quadruple barreled shotgun that shoots ninja death stars, light sabers, and fear. So, needless to say, this can be cause for alarm.

What is equally concerning to me about spiders is that I'm quite certain that they lurk around my house waiting for a prime opportunity for me to let my guard down so they may crawl into my mouth/nose/orifices and have a huge, raging spider disco orgy which will result in the production of thousands of illegitimate spider babies suffering from coke withdrawal. I'm all for a good party, I just don't particularly want that going on in my sinuses.

If spiders at least had the decency to have audible footsteps like the rest of us, I'd know they were coming and could prepare myself mentally. Instead they just sidle up to you like the creepy, skulking produce guy at Safeway that always just seems to "be there" when you can't find the shallots.

Spiders never make their appearances when you've just come home from a rousing game of tennis or badminton and are jacked up on endorphins and wielding the perfect instrument of spider destruction. It's usually when you're at your most vulnerable, like when you're in the shower and happen to look up and see one hanging from the ceiling baring his fangs and telling you that you should really condition more than once a week. Or, when you've settled in on your couch to enjoy a glass of wine and the latest Nicholas Sparks novel and boom! There he is, spinning his web like Charlotte, but instead of it saying something helpful or uplifting, it says something menacing like "god is dead" just to mess with you.

If that won't ruin your night, I don't know what will.

Because of this, I don't handle seeing spiders in a particularly "adult" "manner". In the event that there is a spider in my proximity and someone is around who can translate my little girl shrieks into human language, they are pretty much expected to run point on the subsequent spider slaughter. I'm sure it's a little confusing when, in the heat of the moment, I'm shouting at them, "that's not going to do it!" as they approach the spider with a shoe or a magazine or (god forbid) a tissue. I'm just trying to prevent them from going into battle egregiously unprepared for their safety and mine. But mostly mine.

Once, filled with an inflated and very much misplaced sense of having finally conquered my fear, I made an attempt at killing a spider on my own. I was looking at the spider in the bathroom pondering my attack when the spider leapt across the room, tackled me to the ground and then banged my head against the toilet seat until I lost consciousness. It then made its escape into the night never to be seen again, taking with it my hubris and my iPod.

Due to this harrowing experience (conveyed without an ounce of hyperbole), I'm unwilling unable to take on a spider independently. I recognize that because of this I should not be overly critical of those that come to my aid. But on what crazy, backwards, spider-free planet are people taught that a broom is a good tool for bringing about the demise of an arachnid? I understand that if a spider is on the ceiling it may be difficult to reach, but really? The broom bristles are completely lacking in the puissance needed to finish the job. The spider will not only be decidedly undead, it will instead be catapulted to an unknown location via the snapping action of the bendy bristles!

To recap, utilizing a broom to kill a spider has done one, if not all of the following:

1. Not killed the spider.

2. Given the spider key intel regarding your intentions to kill it.

3. Sent the spider into a blind rage.

4. Catapulted the spider to an unknown location via the bendy bristles.

5. Allowed the spider ample time to consider how nice of a place my nostrils would be for its next spider disco orgy.

So, in the interest of preventing the propagation of another generation of coked-out hapless spider disco babies, please... no brooms.

Seeing how irrational I become in these circumstances, people often try to help by saying things like, but they kill other bugs and they're so helpful to the ecosystem and blah blah blah science. Typically, however, I fail to consider the global benefit in a moment in which I'm being assaulted by the absolute scariest creature on earth. Frankly, I think we'd all be willing to sacrifice the robustness of a few ecosystems to put our minds at ease. I am certainly happy to absorb any of the bug-killing burden that was heretofore being shouldered by spiders if it helps ensure my own spider-free existence.

I suppose it's evident that I may not have the best, most rational reasons for my fear of spiders. But really, fear that is based in utter nonsense tends to be the most potent (and the most fun when it's happening to other people). Realistically, unless I move to Antarctica, I will still have to deal with spiders in one way or another. All I can really do is hide my iPod and make sure I always have a tennis racket handy.

Diary of a Mad Black Cat (#2)

I believe it was Plato who said, "what can't be said about poop briefly shouldn't be said at all." Or was it Confucious? Either way, poignant, so I'll try to keep it short.


My cat is technically an "outdoor" cat, but ever since I moved into my new condo a couple of months ago, he seems to regard the outdoors as daunting, depressing, and like something he only wants to deal with if he absolutely has to. Like Walmart.

Suffice it to say that since he's not going outside, he's doing all of his business in his litterbox in my one-bedroom, 740 square foot condo. Said condo does not afford me the luxury of being able to cloister off said litterbox in a hepa-filtered walk-in closet specifically designed to eliminate any unsightliness and odors, as would be my preference.

So as to avoid putting it in the kitchen or other areas frequented by my esteemed guests, his litterbox invades my bedroom's peaceful landscape and is a giant, stinking, pooped-filled eyesore. Like Walmart.

I try to stay on top of keeping his box clean to avoid any prolonged assault on my olfactory sensors (smell it, scoop it, bag it, curse at cat, repeat). Lately though, he seems to be inclined to void his bowels right after I've hung up my poop scoop for the day and crawled into bed.

Just as I can feel myself letting the last shreds of the day go, I hear him climb into his box. What he does with the litter in there is beyond me, but it sounds like a production that is could pass for the creation of a Dubai man-made island. It is precise, it is orchestrated, and for him it seems to be all about producing an atmosphere in which he can enjoy bowel releasing perfection.

Sometimes it starts as a trickle and then hastens into a torrential release. This is of course a massive relief (to both of us, I'm guessing) because I know I can roll over and deal with the clean up in the morning. The times I'm not so lucky, however, are when I hear a few quick kitty grunts followed directly by the plopping sound that can only be made by a good old-fashioned kitty bowel movement.

Then it's a race against time. The permeating smell of his latest creation waits for no one.

I jolt out of bed and make my way to the kitchen for a plastic bag as the smell chases me like a villain in a horror movie. I am clumsy and making too many mistakes and cursing myself for not being prepared for once in my life for Christ's sake.

My cat, thrilled with himself, usually sprints around the house in what I refer to as his "victory lap". What I don't know is if he is celebrating his endeavor, footloose and fancy free, or is afraid the poop will somehow jump back into his kitty bowels if he doesn't get away quickly enough.

Either way, he is too caught up in his celebration/escape and is of absolutely no assistance to me. I'm almost never able to extricate the poop in a timely enough fashion so that my living space does not smell like something out of Slumdog Millionaire.

Anyway, it's nothing with which the average pet owner or parent isn't well acquainted. And I've already said too much on the topic. Luckily for me, when the snow thaws and the spring comes, there's the possibility that he'll head outside and conduct his business in somewhere in nature's bounty. Most parents will not be so lucky.

The Little Mermaid Is Kind of a Ho

I don't know that I'll ever understand what the hell is going on in Fantasia. Or really be ok with the (not exactly subtle) racism in Dumbo, Aladdin or, like, every Disney movie made before this millenium. And when it comes to the portrayal of women, Disney is about as concerned with feminism as a Beluga whale is concerned with St. Patrick's Day. If you're ugly/fat/have a mole, chances are you're a mega-bitch. Not exactly progressive.

But let's face it, Disney's not in the business of expanding minds and shifting paradigms, they're in the business of manufacturing happy endings. And I'd say it's turning out ok for them.

Recently, I was cleaning my bathroom and clanged my metal trashcan against the toilet. It sounded like a steel drum, so, naturally, the song Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid popped into my head. I thought, oh, I love that movie! It's so cute with all the singing and bubbles! Unfortunately for me, as is usually the case, more cleaning led to in-depth, Adderal-level, uninterrupted thinking. My bathroom was magnificently clean, but The Little Mermaid, for me, was forever tainted.

Since that fateful bathroom day, it has occurred to me that Disney movies are like Mexican 7 layer bean dip: the deeper you dig, the more likely you are to end up with just a chipful of refried beans. (The rules of Mexican dip are simple and finite: all the good stuff slides off the top if you get greedy, get your chip in, take a quick scoop and get out.) As I continued to mentally delve into TLM, I became increasingly discontented, then borderline apoplectic, and ended somewhere around being completely okay with overfishing.

And here's why.

Ariel, the protagonist, is super tired of being a fish. Basically, her dad's overbearing and she has to deal with a retarded seagull and a (for some reason Jamaican) crustacean bossing her around. Call me old-fashioned, but I don't think I can really accept those as adequate criteria for lobbying for a species change. We all have problems, you entitled aquatic adolescent.

The worst part is that she's heralded as some sort of a bridger of gaps between fish and man; a celebrator and embracer of ecological differences. That would all be great except that her only narrow motivation is her hormone-induced hysteria brought on by her run in with Prince Eric. She's not a pioneer for peace/love/understanding between fish and fowl, she's just trying to get it on with the guy with the best man bangs. For shame, Flipper!

The ends will not, as it turns out, justify the means for Ariel. Consider the facts: he's handsome, wears tight pants with high boots, loves his dog, and definitely has a "manservant". Perhaps the most damning evidence, the coup de grace on his thinly-veiled attempts at heterosexual perpetrations, is that Prince Eric has just one criteria for his wife-to-be (spoiler alert... it's not her searing wit): he simply and elegantly wants a wife who can sing.

Sealing his fate as a homo-for-lifer, all Eric has to do to help Ariel undo her deal with the devil (the very fabulous half-octopus, half-drag queen Ursula) is to kiss Ariel. That's it. So while the audience painstakingly watches her throw herself at him for three days, Eric's busy catching up on episodes of Queer as Folk and dreaming about the next time he'll be alone on a ship with a bunch of shirtless sailors.

Disney may have been able to slide that flaming little subplot by me in the 90's, but not now.

I'd love to see the look on Ariel's face when Eric, with the support of his personal trainer Raul, tells her he's leaving her to pursue a career in professional figure skating. You can almost see the realization come over her face when suddenly all of the times he asked to borrow her purple conch shell bikini make perfect sense.

The only character in the movie with some hutzpah is Ursula. Amply bosomed and tentacles a-swirling, she is the ultimate villain. As a kid watching the movie, I'd cower against the couch cushions while siding sympathetically with everyone she tormented and think, what is this inky bitch's problem?

But upon further review, she's a pure and simple anarchist. Her minions Flotsam and Jestam are agents of chaos. Her motivation might be deeper and darker than the Mariana Trench, and her revolutionary tactics geared towards overthrowing and then consolidating power to herself and taking over the ocean, but at least she's interesting. And sometimes it's a good thing to throw the establishment on its head.

In the end, Ariel and Eric sail off into the sunset all fireworky and smiles. The pure saccharine enjoyment of that moment is forever lost for me knowing that Ursula's dead, Eric's queening-out, and Ariel is as annoying as ever after authoring the New York Times best-seller, Why He Didn't Want Me. King Triton will be involved in a sex scandal, Flounder will get lost in the maelstrom that is meth addiction, and Ariel's once endearing seagull pal will, after being cast in Finding Nemo, move to Hollywood and become a Scientologist.

Is nothing sacred anymore? I'd like to believe that some things, animated or otherwise, will under any circumstances maintain some degree of virtue and purity. But I suppose in my case, it's either deal with their potential downfall or never clean my bathroom again.

I Love New York, but New York Only Thinks of Me as a Casual Acquaintance

I love you, New York. There. I said it.

I'm unabashedly, irrevocably, embarrassingly smitten with you. And you don't even know I exist.

You're not perfect though. You think you are, but you're not. Yes, everything I could ever want is at my fingertips 24 hours a day. Luxury in every capacity, over-stimulation in all the right ways. Sure, your inhabitants truly are a rare breed: intelligent, sophisticated, and sexy, like the sleek lines of your familiar avenues. But you're not without your flaws.

You're too complicated for me, for starters. Like a game of chess, you demand strategic perfection of my every move. I find myself planning 5 steps ahead all the time, just to fit into your delicately balanced jigsaw puzzle of commotion.

And really, you don't seem to care what I do as long as I'm doing it at the speed of light. Sometimes, New York, I don't want to move that quickly. I like the option of staying in first gear every once in a while.

I need my space, too. I like being able to stretch my arms out and spin around in a circle without fear of someone telling me to "get a job" or trying to put their spare change in my coffee cup. Central Park, while beautiful, doesn't afford me the necessary wide open spaces I require. It is merely a mirage. A reminder of what those who live there give up to hold you close and feel your powerful heartbeat.

Nevertheless, I still crave your attention. I stood on an upper east side apartment balcony, with a glass of champagne in my hand and the perfect fall air energizing me, and watched you. I was captivated as you moved and breathed in and out. I felt my adrenaline surge with Empire State of Mind thudding in my chest. I'm sure you know that you have that effect on people.

I'm a small town New England girl and was trained from birth to believe that there is a special place in hell for all things New York. But if I can make the leap, so can you. All I can do is be me, and hope that when we cross paths again, I might catch your eye.

New York, I love you. You're so beautiful it hurts, but I'm sure you hear that all the time.

An Honest Performance Evaluation

Dear Sirs,

First, as a note of clarification, I’d like to shed some light on the greeting I’ve elected to use for this alleged “performance evaluation”. While I find this entire endeavor mindless, irrelevant and, quite frankly, insulting, I'd like to acknowledge the patriarch(s) that is Corporate America/Canada and its undeniable influence that has crept its way into our everyday lives like muddy rainwater seeping up from the ground into an old, musty basement. This salutation is meant to address those individuals who have their bloated, clammy collective finger on the button; those who I consider to be somewhat, if not wholly, responsible for this exercise.

I received an email a short while ago with an innocuous-looking Word document attached. The body of the email contained instructions directing me to “evaluate” my “performance”, and promptly return said document to the appropriate managerial party. The following categories were to be assessed: Adaptability, Communication, Compliance, Aligning Performance for Success, Decision Making, Delegating Responsibility, Managing Conflict, Planning and Organizing, and Work Standards. It contained a box with bullet points where I was to delineate my Future Goals and Objectives. It also contained a Comments section.

I printed out the document and looked at it more closely, as if I expected the words and characters to have changed as it crossed over the wires and made its way to the nearest HP LaserJet. I threw it away, promptly.

To my dismay, I find myself still holding a sense of obligation to you and your need for me to "evaluate" myself. It's the same obligation I feel towards something like wrapping Christmas presents. One can't help but despise the glaring irony that, despite the effort put forth to wrap a present, to make it neat and shiny and to curl the ribbons to Martha Stewart perfection, it will only ever result in a saccharine acknowledgment of "how pretty" it looks. Ultimately, at day's end, ones effort ends up in the same place as the picked-over turkey carcass.

So, I won't evaluate myself or my performance, at least not based on any of the criteria you've provided. I won't be homogenized and broken and mashed into square bits so you can squeeze me into a box to fit your categories. I won't be a perfectly-wrapped, tidy package so it's easier for you to assign a value to what I do.

My successes are my own; my value has nothing to do with Compliance or Work Standards or any other corporate buzzwords. What I have achieved is not through an obligation to you or to this organization, but through an obligation to myself to conduct myself in a manner each day that reflects a desire to improve myself and those around me. I will take that with me in lieu of a slightly above cost-of-living pay raise.

I cannot list my future goals and objectives, as my present goals and objectives are really all that is relevant. Goals should not be lofty ideas hanging in the balance, like a carrot on a string, but initiatives we practice daily. If we operate within a box, we operate within limitations that never expand outside its walls. If we submit to conformity, we accept mediocrity and stagnate. Accepting the value that someone else assigns to us based on inane criteria is to accept an illusion of success. It closes the box, and locks the lid.

This letter is not meant to be hostile or flippant, only to inform. It is an attempt to improve you; to encourage you to truly evaluate yourself and your performance. It is an invitation, if any of this information is new to you, to wake up.

Please consider this my "Comments" section.

Kindest regards,

Magen