Blocked!

Lots of tele-silence, or e-silence, or iSilence, or WiSi, as the kids are calling it these days. So I go to the public library to, you know, use the taxpayer-sponsored wireless to rectify the situation, when a strange thing happens. I put greatbiggirl.blogspot.com into the browser, and I get one of those No Access messages, with a little cartoon dog on it for some reason, and it says that all access to greatbiggirl.blogspot.com has been blocked. You know, because the public library's filter blocked it.

Now, I am by no means a technical guru, but I'm not exactly a Luddite either, so I knew if the site is suddenly blocked and has never been blocked before, then there must be a reason. So, like any good academic, I read the error message in its entirety. The little cartoon dog proceeds to let me know that my blog has been blocked because it falls into one of the "forbidden categories".

What is the "forbidden category", you ask? Malicious Sites.

Malicious Sites! Malicious! Sites! Well, okay, it fits the Sites part, but Malicious? Malicious?!?! Who judges the maliciousness of Great Big Girl? My nemesis, The Owner of The Company? (P.S. After much deliberation, I've decided his SuperVillain name is Little Bully.) How is this blog malicious? Was I too tough on the chuckleheads who call The Company over and over, demanding "WHERE'S JACKIE?!?!?!" Is it cruel somehow to lay out what you can reasonably expect a secretary to do for $11.50 an hour? Is it too down-and-dirty to tell it like it is about the plight of the pink-collar worker?

Now in most circumstances, I'd think getting one of my works banned was, for lack of a better word, awesome. Getting banned is a signal that you're on the right track, that you've hit on something honest and real and provocative. That's in most cases. But with this blog? Well, first and foremost, I thought this blog was funny--observational humor in which more often than not, I'm the butt of my own joke. Because that is also the majority of my life. But underneath all that, this blog is an example of me being discreet. For reals. For me, as those of you who know me know, this blog is the height of discretion, and I was really proud of the way I've resisted my impulsive nature during this first foray into publishing on the IntaNets and kept things, you know, low key. So unlike me. And all with minimal swearing--also so unlike me. I thought these entries were classic examples of a writer exercising restraint. As such, I can't even imagine the restraint necessary to Not Get Banned from my public library. Maybe I'd have to type with a straitjacket on.

So I'm left now wondering if I should go through the appeals system? There is, of course, a link on the Block Page that let's you submit a site for review by the system administrator. Is it selling out to ask that the public have access to your work? Or are you simply asking for a public institution (as in, the public library) that you support with your tax money, to uphold the First Amendment? I'm pretty conflicted about this.

Once upon a time, a lifetime ago, really, I was a 17 year-old girl in this same little town, and the First Amendment was seriously threatened at my school. Seemingly out of nowhere, this small but very vocal group of adults--here's me being discreet and not giving the name of the group, although I remember it well--waged a war against every creative and expressive outlet the students at the school had--the newspaper, the literary journal (I was Editor-in-Chief of both), the student theatre group (honey, you know I was all up in that business), the student art club. Basically everything but sports. Everything where the students had a voice. And of course, and almost stereotypically, they challenged the literature we read in English classes: Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye, Johnny Got His Gun, you know the drill. In the primary proposal they put before the school board, they demanded that no class material and no student products (art, publications, plays) contain any language that a person would not feel comfortable saying in polite conversation to a minister, a drill sargeant, or a foreign diplomat. (I am not even kidding. I thought all you could say to a drill sargeant was, "Yes, Drill Sargeant, Sir!") I will remember that request until my dying day, and not just because I couldn't imagine what you would say in conversation to a foreign diplomat beyond, "So, what's it like being a diplomat?" or "So who determines what color sash you get to hang your medals on?" And sash color chat does not get a girl into college. And while some of the members of the group were parents of the kids at school, some clearly were not, which made me really uneasy, wondering why there would be these random people insisting that other people's kids couldn't read books or paint whatever they wanted to paint in art class.

So one day, another lifetime ago, The Artist Formerly Known as the 17 Year-Old Me decided something had to be done. A school board meeting was on the horizon, a meeting that would determine the fate of the Foreign Diplomat Small Talk proposal, and while I wasn't really sure what to do, I was the granddaughter of a former Union Steward with the Chicago Iron Workers, so I figured getting the students to band together was the best option. I got together with a couple of other newspaper kids--with the not-so-secret approval of our wonderful journalism teacher--and we drafted a statement about a student's right to educational freedom. We made petitions, and somehow got hundreds of students to sign them in the span of about a week--no small feat, considering there were only about 800 kids at my school. And we packed the school board meeting, figuring that people would feel less liberty to make hay with out educational futures if we were all there. A sense of accountability, you know. It was decided that I would speak on behalf of the student group as the Voice of Reason (being a policy debator, and all), that I would present what we felt our educational rights were and explain their importance to our development as future college studets, as productive citizens, as human beings. So reasonable. So I was covering the logos and the ethos, and the two other journalism girls each prepared speeches that covered the pathos, and they were quite good. And we figured other people would stand up and join in when the spirit moved them, which they did. There ended up being maybe a hundred people at this meeting, and surprisingly, there were a bunch of reporters, and, um, police.

And the happenings of the meeting are still very clear to me, much clearer than they have a right to be, having happened so long ago. The Foreign Diplomat Small Talk group spoke, and I spoke, and the journalism girls spoke, and some other students spoke impromptu, and I remember being really proud of how mature and well-behaved and even-tempered the students were when presenting their points, and I remebered being completely shocked when the some of the adults from the opposition resorted to insults and personal attacks, even getting downright mean, which, being naive and idealistic, I had no idea adults did at public gatherings. And near the end, I remember this guy, this guy none of us kids had ever seen before, show up seemingly out of nowhere and walk slowly to the center of the floor. He walked with his shoulders hunched forward like he was carrying something heavy on his back, and he had a scraggly, unkempt beard and a wild look in his eye. Everyone knew something was up with this guy. He then planted himself directly in front of me, his back completely turned on the entire board of education, and he stared directly at me, standing maybe two feet away, while he read from the bible a passage about a person who was sick, who was possessed by demons, and how the only way to cure the person of the demons was to beat him with sticks. And after reading the passage he explained that that's the only thing to do with the possessed, that the only thing they understand is a beating. There was no commentary about the proposal, or indeed about education in general. He just stood there, staring me--this round little 17 year-old girl, trying to be sophisticated in a suit jacket that I didn't fill out in the bust--right in the face and threatening to beat the demons out of me while a hundred people watched.

I knew that what was transpiring in those moments was indeed Very Important, and perhaps I even had a little glimpse into the future, since part of me knew right then that this would not be the last time I would find myself in such a situation: me, a girl with a demon in her mouth, facing him, an angry man wielding a stick. But what I didn't fully appreciate in the moment was the threat, what with me being 17 and still invincible, having gotten into more dangerous scrapes at that age than I would care to admit, but also having been able to talk my way out of each one of them, using bluster and wit, and occasionally, once I turned 16, a car. But once the meeting was over, I was basically rushed by a couple of cops. I've never been quiet about the fact that cops make me nervous, never having had a good experience with the police, even though I've never been busted breaking the law or anything. So I was confused and assumed that it was some kind of age discrimination, that they thought that because I was a teenager I was going to, you know, vandalize the school or key the cars of the opposition or something. I assumed they thought I was a threat, but after I finally gathered myself enough to ask if they wanted something, one of them said that they thought they should accompany me to my car. You know, he said, just in case. And I saw them both shooting looks over at the demon-beater guy as he disappeared into the crowd, and when I said, in my 17 year-old arrogance, that I was sure I would be just fine, they insisted. And they waited patiently while reporters came up to talk to me (another surprise) and yes, they escorted me to my car.

The whole business went on for quite a while, and even garnered national attention. I kept getting taken out of classes to talk to reporters and such who called the school looking for me, and instead of feeling, I don't know, important or something because of all of this, because I suddenly have the People for the American Way (a very cool, anti-censorship, pro-education group) calling me up during Film Studies so they can get the deets into their anti-censorship annual, I felt every bit like the awkward, rather innocent, teenage girl that I actually was. There would be these reporters talking to me, and even when it was from a big newspaper like the Chicago Tribune, I could tell that there was something they expected from me that I wasn't giving, and I could never figure out exactly what it was. Maybe it was that I didn't talk smack about the opposition (because really, I didn't know the opposition; I just knew the specifics of what they wanted to do to the school), or maybe it was because I didn't lose my temper or get all inflamatory ("Some crazy Chuckles threatened to beat the demons out of me at a school board meeting!") or whatever, but people all seemed a little disappointed after they asked me what I had to say. Because really, what I had to say wasn't that much: that as citizens, we should be entitled to our constitutional rights no matter what our age; that sheltering students from the world does not prepare them for the realities of it; that in order to become educated people, we need to be exposed to diverse, challenging, complicated work. You know. Whateva. And I got the feeling that many people were disappointed that what I had to say was not rabble-rousing, but reasonable if not simplistic, and that they were more disappointed that it was all completely sincere.

That was the kind of business that made me absolutely ache to leave this town all those years ago and never look back. And now I find myself back here again, and the ache to run away hasn't changed. This blog is not Catcher in the Rye. It's not Johnny Got His Gun or A Separate Peace or Spoon River Anthology or even Dr. Seuss. I realize that I am not the best judge of my own work, but since I deal so much with the mundane details of the every day, I'd guess that at its best, this blog is pretty amusing and at its worst, boring to everyone but me. But even in this town, a girl's got a right to be as boring and mundane as she wants to be. And she's got a right to do it out loud.

Hot Line

Right. So, I’ve been getting some serious phone action lately. Of course, I really want to call it “some sweet phone action”, but if I’m being honest, it falls way, way more into the creepy camp than the sexy one. And P.S., it’s from total strangers.

So, if I may, let me present Case #1:

I have a heavy breather at The Company. But here’s the awkward part: he’s a client. So The Breather calls up, and he’s always panting—either like he has just run a mile or is . . . how do you say in your language? . . . a couple of strokes away from the money shot. And he says who he wants to talk to, or he blurts out some kind of emergency, and then I transfer him to someone, usually with him still breathing just as hard as when I initially answered the phone. But the thing is, sometimes The Breather spends a good 20 seconds breathing before he even speaks. Count it out, people. 20 seconds is time enough for a full-fledged Extravaganza of Awkwardness when you don’t know if The Breather is going to place an order eventually, or if he’s just your garden-variety perv. And it has led to some awkward moments with co-workers, like the first time I had to ask another woman in the office, “Um . . . did I just transfer an obscene phone caller to you?”, all the while keeping my fingers crossed that please, please, little bitty baby Jesus, don’t let that guy be her husband. Here’s what happened:

Me: Welcome to The Company. How can I help you?

Him: (Panting. Really hard panting.)

Me: Ummm . . . The Company? How can I help you?

Him: (Still panting.)

Me: . . . hello . . . ?

Him: (Shouting from a distance, as if the phone is far, far away from his face.) I . . . NEED . . . MARY . . .

Me: Um . . . okay . . . um . . . one moment, I’ll get her for you . . .

Him: (Muttering under his breath, the phone suddenly very close to his face.) Maaaaary . . . niiiiice . . .

Case #2:

So this client? customer? whatever? calls up, and she’s giggling, which tips me off right away because apparently, people in industry absolutely never giggle. And she says to me, “Oh. My. God. You won’t believe it. I thought your number ended with a 5, not a 4, and I called it, and I got this phone sex line! It was this woman saying, ‘Hi, I’m Samantha, and I’m ready for some hot . . . chat . . . .’ And I didn’t know what to do!”

My number at work is one number removed from a phone sex line. And I thought it was kind of great, not only because it puts a little edge in the workday, but also because it also explained the unusually high number of hang-up calls I get. So since that revelation, I’ve been keeping track of the hang-ups, figuring, you know, they’re the dudes looking for Samantha, and I’ve had 37 so far.

But now that I’ve been counting, I’ve become offended more than anything else. 37 callers, and not one of them thinks I’m the phone sex operator?!?! Not one?!?! I mean, granted, I had to answer each call with, “Welcome to The Company. How can I help you?”, but surely one of them could have thought “The Company” was a front. One of them could have been so distracted by his, uh, immediate need that he didn’t notice the “Welcome to The Company” bit, right? Come on, don’t I have a phone-sex telephone voice?

Maybe I feel a little disappointed because to some degree, I’ve always considered a job as a phone sex operator as Plan B. Well, okay, more like Plan H, but still, it's definitely there on the Plan Alphabet.

Finally, Case #3:

And this is where I started wondering if that whole Be Careful What You Wish For business applies.

So around 3am one day, my cell phone starts ringing. I wake up just enough to think, “That’s Alejandro calling me from some strip club in Montreal.” And believe it or not, that was almost enough for me to shake myself awake and answer the phone. Alejandro has done this quite a few times before, and it has never been boring. Usually, he’ll try to shout to me over the music for a little bit, and then he’ll get distracted and pass the phone off to some stranger. And the new person chats with me and gives me a play-by-play of what the stripper dudes are doing. And while the thought of physically being in a room with naked guys on stage is almost enough to make me cry with the horrifying awkwardness of it—oddly enough, presentational public nudity, that kind of faux-sexy (read: actually the complete opposite of sexy) nakedness, makes me supremely uncomfortable from a kind of equality-based, social justice standpoint, since I tend to believe that if one person in the room is naked, then everybody should be naked—second hand narration of public nudity is actually pretty fabulous: “Okay, so, um, the fire chief seems to have concluded that something in the building has warranted some kind of fire code violation . . . right . . . oh, well, and it looks like the fire chief has decided that the violation can be remedied by taking off his pants . . .”

But I digress. That was all just to say that I thought the 3am call was just Alejandro out having himself a good time, but when I checked the Caller ID the next day, it just said UNKNOWN CALL. No number.

So at work the next day, my cell phone starts to ring. And since I’m still looking for a faculty job and my cell is the contact number on my CV, I grab it. The Caller ID says UNKNOWN CALL. No number. But I figure that maybe that isn’t too unusual, since I’m sure most of the colleges I’ve applied to are, from the standpoint of my phone, UNKNOWN. So I answer.

And there’s this man on the phone, “Hello, Lulu?” And I say, “Yes.” And he repeats, “Hello, Lulu?” even though the connection is perfectly clear. And then something happens that makes me realize that this call is Bad News.

Okay, so I think I’ve been pretty forthcoming about the patented O’Brien System of Self-Defense, of which one of the key components is:

If anyone ever says, “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you”, then RUN. Because really, the only people who say “Don’t worry—I’m not going to hurt you” are actually about two seconds away from doing just that.

And pretty much right away, this man says, “Don’t worry—I’m a friend.” And in that moment, it becomes perfectly clear that anyone who says “Don’t worry—I’m a friend” is actually NOT YOUR FRIEND AT ALL. Now, I can’t exactly re-create the conversation for you, because the reconstruction of it is a little out of my depth. The man’s first language was not English, and it was also not a Romance language or a Germanic language, so his pattern of vowel substitutions and verb tenses was out of the scope of my regular dialect studies, so I’d hate to try to re-create it here and lead you astray. But here’s what he told me: He was “a friend”. He got my phone number from “a friend”. I did not know him. (And on that point, he got a little philosophical. When I asked, “Who is this?” he admitted that I do not know him, adding, “But who really knows me? I don’t really know me.” Well played, sir.) That I should not worry, that “it” would be “good”, and that “it” would not be “bad”. And he seemed to think that was worth reiterating, as he repeated it quite a few times during the short span we were on the phone.

And suddenly I knew, in that way that you just know things—like how you know when it’s time to get off the El right away, even if it’s not your stop; like how you know that this is not the right motel to sleep in, Little Miss Drives-Across-the-Country-All-Alone; like how you know that out of that little group of five kids on the corner, those two are the drug dealers; my friend Fifi calls it your Spidey Sense—I suddenly knew : this man thinks I’m a prostitute.

And the first thing I thought was, “This guy thinks I’m a prostitute?!?!”

And the second thing I thought was, “This does not bode well for my dating life.”