What Recession?

R.I.P.

Money Tree (June 2008-February 2009)

This is actually our second-generation money tree. The first one officially killed itself when we moved into our new apartment. Who could blame it? What with the major rent increase, it just couldn't self-motivate to promote prosperity any longer.

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I bought this money tree immediately after because I'm totally superstitious and believe in shit like money trees. This one was lush and full, reaching and striving out if its little pot toward greatness. And then in January, as I was fretting my way through the Christmas holiday, preparing for school, obsessing over adult acne and downsizing, a little brown border slowly began to develop around its leaves. At first I came home to one, then two rigid crusty leaf remnants on the floor under the TV cabinet. I ignored it. I continued to play a relentless stream of morning NPR with its elevated recession talk and analysis. I poured more and more coffee. I applied more and more Retin-A. And then my face began to dry up too, peeling away, layer after layer, revealing a rippling map of arid wrinkles on either side of my brow. I eyed the money tree. Dry. Me. Dry. NPR. Dry.

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With each passing day the money tree surrendered another leaf or two. I found one on top of my American Poetry Anthology and yet another in a little crystal bowl of seashells. And each morning I'd wake up and gaze in the mirror to see myself peering out from under an onion skin, recessing too. The money tree must've shed its last leaf the same morning I woke up to NPR as my alarm, declaring, "Good morning. Nissan lays off 20,000, posting a loss of $8billion." The radiator steamed and clanged, sucking moisture out of the air. As I rose in the dark and stumbled into the living room, I saw the tree's skeletal, spiny trunk and branches laid bare on top of my bookshelf. I felt a short wave of despair rise and wash over me. 'This is it', I thought. The vapors of the recession had finally made their way up through our vents and floorboards that morning. It was really true. We had another suicidal money tree.

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I let it sit on top of the bookshelf for nearly a week, partly as a reminder of how dry we really were, partly because I hoped it could be revived. Finally, I stuffed the entire tree in its pot into the kitchen trashcan where it was kept company by Ramen wrappers and other evidence of the drought. In its place I now have a little rose plant featuring two delicate miniature red blooms. Its tag declares it a "love rose" plant. I've been nearly drowning it in water.

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I can deal with two suicidal money trees. But a love plant with a death wish would finish me off.

Learning Curve

Hola Chrysalis Comrades,

I've been thinking of you all over the last few weeks and missing my little blank Blogger box with all its fancy do-dads and formatting tricks. I've wanted nothing more than to fill the box full of bon mots in the small Georgia font I adore and tell you everything that occured to me as I sat in desks, in classrooms, in buildings, behind strangers.

But I've been filling notebooks instead.

I can't believe all the business involved in being a student. I have a packing list that now guides my morning preparations. Highlighter? Check. Student ID? Check. Homework? Homework? Did I actually ask myself that? Check. My husband has my class schedule and what nights he's responsible for dinner written out on a sticky note posted above the stove. We promised we'd never post those kinds of couple-y notes anywhere in our kitchen. Well, the days of verbal kitchen communication are over. Sticky notes and take-out abound.

I've made a couple of acquaintances. The sad news is that absolutely nothing about making friends is different at age thirty th...from the experience at age thirteen. You walk in, scan the room for empty chairs, try to make a minimal scene with your coat and its clanging belt buckle as you unload into your seat and...pull out your cellphone? This is an adjustment I haven't yet made. Getting used to a room full of students typing away on BlackBerrys before class will never seem normal to me. It's so isolationist. It keeps you from ever having to ask, "what was your name again?" or "did you do all the reading?", those crucial inquiries that bond strangers in a classroom to each other forever.

I'm looking for kindred spirits. I know for sure the VOGUE intern in my Writing for Women's Magazines class isn't gonna be my girl. She didn't respond when I asked if someone was sitting next to her and then sent text messages through the whole class. The young woman who walked with me to get books after my Writer as Traveler/Explorer class was another story. She lit a cigarette outside the building, asked where I was going and I liked her right away. I've spent the week deciding how I'll address her when I see her tonight. Mix this concern about social ineptitude with an obsession over learning the difference between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims and you'll pretty much be inside my head after two weeks of classes.

I've at least survived all of the "hi my name is__and I hope to get __out of this class" requirements. I now know what my professors look like and have turned in homework. It's all happening. I'm taking my cues from my fellow students. Oh, cool, yeah, I'll bring coffee to class. Everyone does that. Funky glasses are mandatory. Pea coats and combat boots, iphones, messenger bags--all part of the uniform. The learning experience is a broad one, no? And boy, I've got a lot of learning to do.

Yours,
OneKate