Cathy, like most girls, speaks frequently about clothing choices, her own and others. She decides that the only way to fit in with the cool crowd is to wear what they’re wearing.
“After my first day of school, I told my mother I had to find those matching outfits that the popular blonde girls wore. Some of the girls wore little ladybug pins on their collars that were the exact same size as a real ladybug. I had discovered that this pin represented the Ladybug brand. I found Villager floral dresses and Ladybug blouses in a lady’s golf store.” (pg.36)
When she moves to Ohio U in chapter eleven the talk of fashion continues; as does a reference to singer Billy Holiday. ‘…there were several varieties of southern magnolia that would bloom in the springtime with huge white flowers like the kind Billy Holiday wore in her hair on her album covers.”(pg.170) “I had four London Fog trench coats, all in slightly different shades of khaki with my initials monogrammed on the collars, and boxes and boxes of matching Pappagallo shoes.” (170)
When Cathy visits New York City she is paired for work with Laurie Coal whom she assumes upon arrival is a white girl but instead is a six foot black man. In their time in the city they attend an “off-off Broadway” show called Dutchman. The plot is written to draw sympathy from the primary black audience for the black main character who is killed at the end of the play. Cathy finds herself semi emerged in the black culture of New York through her meeting Laurie and her feelings for him. “Not exactly what I bargained for. However, it was totally believable and on the spot for that moment in history. James Merideth, the first black student at the University of Mississippi, had been shot earlier in the summer while on a peaceful freedom march. I had never before heard black anger. I had heard Martin Luther King say things like ‘I have a dream…’ but this was new.” (224)
Gildiner finds it necessary to blatantly state the brand or brands to which she’s referring. If I had one criticism it would be her tendency to do that. I find it doesn’t make a sentence or the image created any more meaningful if she points out that it was a Tareyton cigarette that she was smoking. “’Jesus Christ, let’s have a cigarette.’ She opened a Band-Aid can that held her cigarettes. ‘Amazing case,’ I said, taking a Tareyton she offered.” (pg. 175) It seems like she was paid by someone to include all of these name drops. “Whe we got back from Arby’s, I put on my thick ski jacket and went out to the garage with my Lark cigarettes.” (pg. 165) I don’t understand why it can’t just be a cigarette, not a Lark or a Tareyton. She sounds like a new smoker inserting which brand of cigarette she smokes even though it doesn’t add anything to the conversation.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Cathy's Relationship with her Mom and Dad
Early life
Gildiner makes it clear at the beginning of her memoir that she has had a strong but unusual relationship with her parents. In her early years, when Cathy worked at McClure’s drug store, her father was her employer. Her mother on the other hand was a very loving mystery to her. “Why my mother had not been included in the house hunt was a mystery to me. It wasn’t like she was busy. She’d never in my memory cooked, cleaned or held a job.”(Pg. 9) Both of her parents seemed out of place to her. “…I realized how much my parents, who were in their forties when they had me, had aged. They looked more like grandparents than parents.” (Pg. 5) During and after the move however things began to change for Cathy and her parents. With her father it was particularly noticeable. When the moving van arrived and told the McClure’s they wouldn’t be able to fit their “French armoires and early American dressers” into the house Cathy saw a difference in her father. “I had never seen him look as though he was not in charge”(pg. 10) “Since there was nothing else to look at I went back to the living room, where my mother stood looking lost while my father was in the bathroom. Even with the door closed we heard everything, as though we were standing right next to him.” (pg.11)
Later Life
After the incident with Rhonda and the boys Cathy found herself being irritated immensely by almost anything her father said. Her mother began reassuring her that at some point in everyone’s teenage years they began to hate one or both of their parents. “She really didn’t get that my father was not just annoying- everything he did sent me into orbit.” (pg.144) She told her mother about her father’s bizarre behavior but her mother dismissed it as teenage angst towards parental figures. Cathy also buys into that theory shortly after the discovery of her father’s brain tumor. “What was I going to say? Since the age of fourteen I had found him unbearable, but that had just been teenage stuff. However hard it was, I had to separate abnormal behaviour from teenage loathing.” (pg.152. In reference to her father’s tumor.) From this point until her father’s death Cathy’s relationship with her father changes very drastically. Cathy’s mother seems almost unresponsive to the news that her husband is going to die and does almost nothing to help Cathy control her father. “ I ran out into the backyard where my mother was on a chaise longue, reading. ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ I cried./’He isn’t going to listen to me.’/’Do you have suggestions about what we should do?’ I asked, since she was clearly taking no responsibility and had gone back to reading the paper.” (pg. 155) This realization of her mother’s passiveness in the situation makes Cathy mature at a surprising rate for a teen. At the same time her responsibility is now at an unfair level for any teen.
Gildiner makes it clear at the beginning of her memoir that she has had a strong but unusual relationship with her parents. In her early years, when Cathy worked at McClure’s drug store, her father was her employer. Her mother on the other hand was a very loving mystery to her. “Why my mother had not been included in the house hunt was a mystery to me. It wasn’t like she was busy. She’d never in my memory cooked, cleaned or held a job.”(Pg. 9) Both of her parents seemed out of place to her. “…I realized how much my parents, who were in their forties when they had me, had aged. They looked more like grandparents than parents.” (Pg. 5) During and after the move however things began to change for Cathy and her parents. With her father it was particularly noticeable. When the moving van arrived and told the McClure’s they wouldn’t be able to fit their “French armoires and early American dressers” into the house Cathy saw a difference in her father. “I had never seen him look as though he was not in charge”(pg. 10) “Since there was nothing else to look at I went back to the living room, where my mother stood looking lost while my father was in the bathroom. Even with the door closed we heard everything, as though we were standing right next to him.” (pg.11)
Later Life
After the incident with Rhonda and the boys Cathy found herself being irritated immensely by almost anything her father said. Her mother began reassuring her that at some point in everyone’s teenage years they began to hate one or both of their parents. “She really didn’t get that my father was not just annoying- everything he did sent me into orbit.” (pg.144) She told her mother about her father’s bizarre behavior but her mother dismissed it as teenage angst towards parental figures. Cathy also buys into that theory shortly after the discovery of her father’s brain tumor. “What was I going to say? Since the age of fourteen I had found him unbearable, but that had just been teenage stuff. However hard it was, I had to separate abnormal behaviour from teenage loathing.” (pg.152. In reference to her father’s tumor.) From this point until her father’s death Cathy’s relationship with her father changes very drastically. Cathy’s mother seems almost unresponsive to the news that her husband is going to die and does almost nothing to help Cathy control her father. “ I ran out into the backyard where my mother was on a chaise longue, reading. ‘Why didn’t you stop him?’ I cried./’He isn’t going to listen to me.’/’Do you have suggestions about what we should do?’ I asked, since she was clearly taking no responsibility and had gone back to reading the paper.” (pg. 155) This realization of her mother’s passiveness in the situation makes Cathy mature at a surprising rate for a teen. At the same time her responsibility is now at an unfair level for any teen.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Truth and Beauty
““The flames jumped,” She said. She didn’t seem alarmed. No one did. The waiter looked at us suspiciously and I promised him that we had no intention of skipping out on the check.”
I read through this excerpt a couple of times trying to find a line or two that moved me emotionally. There were a few. Not many but a few. I think that this is one of the only ones that both moves me and serves as a thumbnail of the emotions that were reflected for months after the attack. Mainly suspicion and awe. When I was reading this I could just imagine the waiter’s look, but it isn’t the check he’s worried about. He’s worried that he’s got two terrorists in his restaurant.
“History is strangely incomprehensible when you’re standing in the middle.”
I’ve never been part of a major historical event, but I think everyone has seen some really weird stuff happen on the street, or on airplanes or wherever it may be and, when things like that happen, they are always out of context. I won’t get into the details of the story but I thought I was about to witness a rape on the subway and it turns out the two people involved were life long friends. There is a human tendency to watch or hear things occur and try and piece it together after the fact. Doing it in the moment would be next to impossible. Especially with something as traumatic and world changing as 9/11. Try to reason through why planes are crashing into buildings would be like standing on train tracks trying to figure out why the approaching car is honking at you. Your blinded and wondering, “why it doesn’t just stop.”
““The flames jumped,” She said. She didn’t seem alarmed. No one did. The waiter looked at us suspiciously and I promised him that we had no intention of skipping out on the check.”
I read through this excerpt a couple of times trying to find a line or two that moved me emotionally. There were a few. Not many but a few. I think that this is one of the only ones that both moves me and serves as a thumbnail of the emotions that were reflected for months after the attack. Mainly suspicion and awe. When I was reading this I could just imagine the waiter’s look, but it isn’t the check he’s worried about. He’s worried that he’s got two terrorists in his restaurant.
“History is strangely incomprehensible when you’re standing in the middle.”
I’ve never been part of a major historical event, but I think everyone has seen some really weird stuff happen on the street, or on airplanes or wherever it may be and, when things like that happen, they are always out of context. I won’t get into the details of the story but I thought I was about to witness a rape on the subway and it turns out the two people involved were life long friends. There is a human tendency to watch or hear things occur and try and piece it together after the fact. Doing it in the moment would be next to impossible. Especially with something as traumatic and world changing as 9/11. Try to reason through why planes are crashing into buildings would be like standing on train tracks trying to figure out why the approaching car is honking at you. Your blinded and wondering, “why it doesn’t just stop.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)