In My Stupid Moment
April 4th, 2006
This week I feel like a circus act, trying to keep my dozen spinning dinner plates up on their sticks while the Clownmobile circles closer and closer so the leering molester-clowns can honk their big fat bike horns right in my ear and pinch me on me bum. Small children in the crowd are throwing popcorn and crying, She stinks! The dinner-plate lady stinks and her bum-bum is big and stinky!
Oh. I see. Those are my children.
Not long after graduating from Grinnell, I was faced with the daunting task of filling out my first HEY GRINNELLIANS! WHATCHA BEEN UP TO? form for the alumni news section of the college magazine. I remember staring at it for a long time, then hunching over the form and writing
JENNIFER MATTERN (’92) is currently employed as a Kick-Me Clown at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois.
I sent it in. It made me feel better. I knew someone out there in the global Grinnell community would enjoy asking coworkers and friends What is a Kick-Me Clown? Did you ever see one at Six Flags? Did you ever kick one? I think I would like to kick one!
I liked college. I loved college. I was feeling pretty melancholy about the whole post-Grinnell Real World (pre-MTV meaning of the term) scenario, and after repeating it a few times out loud, Six Flags Kick-Me Clown started to sound like a not-so-bad gig, better than Administrative Assistant to the Assistant to the Provost at St. Bacitracin’s Pray-4-U-Niversity (the first post-college job offer that came my way).
My boyfriend at the time was exasperated by my Kick-Me Clown routine. Details of our Kick-Me-Clown–related conversations are pretty fuzzy now, but I think for him it was further frustrating evidence of my inability to accept As-Is circumstances without moping about the past, or lunging toward the future like a coked-up stallion.
I am still working on this temperamental trait. Traditionally, As-Is has not been my thing. I like a good hypothetical question. I like the fast-forward and fast-rewind buttons on the remote control that would control the DVD player if the DVD player had not broken last week. I stay out too late with my Past and my Future while my Present waits up at home drinking warm milk and glancing anxiously at my empty side of the bed and wondering when I’ll be back.
I am trying hard to Stay In the Moment. I tried to meditate on my bed the other day while focusing on the lovely blue-green house across the street (Hi Chris! Hedges look great! Good luck with the moss!) but then I started thinking about square footage and hardwood floors and worrying that our neighbor is growing his hedges for the sole purpose of BLOCKING OUR EYESORE OF A HOUSE FROM VIEW, so the meditation thing didn’t really pan out.
I also got invited to go to a yoga class, but then my friend told me that you have to hold your nostrils closed, one at a time, and breathe like that while keeping a straight face and chanting and pretending you don’t have Granny-underpants pantylines like ship rigging that everyone is snorting their one-nostril snorts at. I think it’s important to know your limitations.
I am juggling a lot of work and projects right now, some for money and some for character-building purposes, and that’s forcing me to be In the Moment in some respects. But now I’m having the irritating problem of being so bogged down In My Stupid Moments that I forget there is life beyond my whirling dinner plates and molester-clowns. (Not to be confused with the entirely more approachable Kick-Me Clowns.)
At least a Kick-Me Clown gets to be out in the sunshine all day. That is what I am thinking right now, In This Stupid Moment. And. You. Were. There.
Entry Filed under: Uncategorized, Time-out. (General insanity), Not right now. (Money)
26 Comments
1. Vickee | April 4th, 2006 at 11:53 pm
I think, my dear, that you have just stated the eternal quandry: Happiness hinges upon living in the now; forgiving and forgetting the past (but learning the lessons, of course) and not ‘what if’ing the future to death. But The Now is filled with drudgery and chores and endless lists of unfinishable tasks; it’s funner to fiddle with the past or play the Chess Game of the Future.
Being a Grown Up Stinks. Little Kids live beautifully and perfectly in the present. I’m glad you posted this. Your writing is enjoyable, and more than entertainment; your stuff is thought-provoking. Thanks.
2. Mom101 | April 5th, 2006 at 12:43 am
There is something with the planets right now (I’m sure of it! It’s the planets!) that is forcing too many spinning plates in the air. I admire your ability to still be clever in the face of all of it. Me? When I’m stressed I mostly write things that get erased. Quickly.
3. Simon | April 5th, 2006 at 12:45 am
“Live in the NOW, man!!”
~Garth Algar (Wayne’s World)
I’m still coming to terms with the fact that my income tax refund is going to go almost exclusively to repairing the transmission of the goddam Volkswagon that’s been parked in the garage for the past four months.
Stupid foreign cars. Which is really a silly thing for me to say. In Canada, ALL cars are foreign cars.
Viva la Bricklin !!
(I’m trying to avoid My Stupid Moment right now.)
4. mom on a wire | April 5th, 2006 at 1:13 am
If I was going to go out drinking with anyone’s Past and Future, it would totally be yours.
5. geogirl | April 5th, 2006 at 7:16 am
Can I go out drinking with your past because it sounds a lot more exciting than mine. I promise I won’t keep it out too late…
6. the Mater | April 5th, 2006 at 7:56 am
Sweet pea, hang in there! I’m juggling quite a few plates on my end too and I totally agree with Mom101 - it must be planetary misalignment! Just try not to break too much of the crockery :>)
This “working for a living” is just the pits sometime ….
Love ‘ya!
7. Spot the Wonder Dog | April 5th, 2006 at 8:18 am
Bah. Grinnell was lame. Too many hippies.
8. R J Keefe | April 5th, 2006 at 9:11 am
“I stay out too late with my Past and my Future while my Present waits up at home drinking warm milk and glancing anxiously at my empty side of the bed and wondering when I’ll be back.” Perfect!
9. Vikki | April 5th, 2006 at 9:19 am
I agree with the planetary alignment thing. I left work crying on Friday because I just wanted off of the merry-go-round. Too much spinning for my liking.
As for Grinnell, I will always have warm fuzzy feelings for it but this week I am just plain mad at the Grinnell Magazine and all of the stereotypical success stories taunting me.
10. karina | April 5th, 2006 at 9:49 am
Maybe your Present just needs to hit something harder than warm milk.
11. Jen | April 5th, 2006 at 1:21 pm
Trying to stay in the present is one of my hardest challenges (which, since I’m trying to be a practicing Buddhist, is….well, a problem). A lot of the readings I’ve done on mindfulness, though (Thich Nacht Hahn, Tara Brach), have been really helpful, and you might enjoy them.
12. Another Jen | April 5th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
I, too, am somewhat guilty of concentrating too much on the past and the future and forgetting about the now. I think sometimes with kids we tend to do that. At least, I do. I sometimes find myself so worried about how fast my kids are growing and having these fast-forward fantasies about when they’re teenagers, I have to force myself to stop it and look at them and appreciate the time I have with them right now.
I know. It’s kind of lame. I sent you an email over the weekend. Did you get it?
13. Lisa | April 5th, 2006 at 2:36 pm
I haven’t figured out what my present needs….wouldn’t we all be a fun focus group? hahahahaaha I can see it now!
14. Dawn | April 5th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
I present a bottle of the recently launched fragrance
“Xhaustion”?
I am wearing it at the moment.
And 92? 92? Me too - but UVM was my alma mater. I sense we could rock the hizz-ouse with Dj Easy E and Rob Base. Who came to get down. It’s not internationally known, but they’re known to rock a microphone.
15. marian | April 5th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
my understanding is that once you settle your mind in the present moment, you disappear.
that was supposed to be funny. like a little buddhist joke.
nevermind.
16. KeriS | April 5th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I totally missed the Kick Me Clown statement in the Alumni Magazine after we graduated. I must have been so busy avoiding my present at the time that I was afraid to look to my past because it would remind me I was not there anymore! It took years, really, to stop yearning for it. So safe.. so warm and wonderful. Even on the bad days, it all just felt so real.
Hang in there with the plates… Unfortunately the people we are all juggling for aren’t that impressed when we do it right - it is expected of us, afterall. Just don’t forget if one crashes to the floor that you are not a bad person, just a bad juggler! That is the hardest part for me!
17. Erin S. | April 5th, 2006 at 6:29 pm
What, exactly, were the duties of the Kick-Me-Clown? It might be better than what I’ve got going on right now…
18. ChristyD | April 5th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Please let us know if you discover the secret to Staying in the Moment. I wish I knew how to do it. I love your metaphor about staying out too late with your future and your past.
19. Amy | April 6th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Brilliant! You have managed to articulate exactly what’s been going on in my brain that I havent been able to put into words- I knew I was spinning but I didnt realize it was the whirrling of the plates! thanks!
20. Kate | April 6th, 2006 at 9:59 am
I wouldn’t even know what to tell my alumni magazine. But I think you captured the surrealism of it all quite nicely.
21. petal | April 6th, 2006 at 10:31 am
I continue to stop by and laugh. So few writers as inspiring out there.
22. Mimiom | April 6th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Have you been to the Peace Pagoda in Leverett?? http://www.peacepagoda.org/directions.htm
The Buddah there will have all the answers you need - uh, er, at least it’s a cool place to make-out (so I discovered when going to college at Smith).
23. Deb | April 6th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
Clowns are just so freaky!!! They so give me the creeps so this makes loving you so much more difficult!
However I do have to absolutely agree with your answer to it all….Be Here Now, my friend. If you went to hippy college as some of the others have inferred, you know the book.
Classic truth, my friend. Thanks for the reminder. We mama’s can’t hear this enough.
24. cant_talk_knitting | April 6th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
Mmmm, delicious Grinnell content. I always skip directly to the class notes/unions/births section in the magazine to see what’s going on with people I know (or think I know, or used to know).
Then I have to call a Grinnell friend and say, “Who’s so and so? Hmmmm, well who did they hang out with? Where did they hang out?”
Don’t forget that you did get to send in notices about how you were a published author in places like “Brain/Child”.
And Spot, here I thought you didn’t like Grinnell because it was hippie liberal *enough* for your tastes.
25. geogirl | April 7th, 2006 at 3:42 pm
Imagine my surprise when I started watching one of my favorite animated movies last night (The Incredibles) and this line came up…
“Never look back, darling. It distracts from the now.”
-Edna
Who would have thought a freakishly short, cartoon dressmaker could be so wise.
26. Nancy | April 11th, 2006 at 8:37 am
St. Bacitracin’s Pray-4-U-Niversity sounds like it was a lovely place to work. I can almost see the antiseptic hallways now…
And it seems like you’d have to learn to quietly escape from the present, at least mentally, if you were employed as a Kick-Me-Clown. The danger comes when you start kicking back.
Hang in there, Jenn.
Trackback this post