#biscaldiwrites

“Where are you from?”

It was my first day of college, and the question echoed around my head, almost menacingly. My shoulders tensed while I thought of an appropriate response. I grappled with the idea of lying—deciding not to when I realized that if I’m not from New Jersey, then I’m from New York (“Excelsior,” Est. 1778; State Bird: Eastern Bluebird; State Insect: Ladybug). My face began to puff up with hives and my mouth went dry, the peculiar sensation of hours passing rather than seconds overwhelmed me and I spit the three syllables around my tongue: “New Jersey.”

 “Fuck.”

It was one syllable, muttered from somewhere behind me, a biting remark I had heard before. I felt like an alien—there had never been so many people staring at me so curiously in my life. I imagined that I was on display at the National Zoo, a bronze plaque hanging below my cage: “Jersey Girl—homenium carniverum” People were pointing and laughing, and I was standing there, dazed, clenching the bars of my cage, not really sure what I had done wrong. I tried to speak, but the only sound that came out gurgled, stalling somewhere in the back of my throat, and just as suddenly as the vision had started, I was back in the present, standing with my roommate and my neighbors in the alcove between our two rooms.

If you find yourself unfamiliar with New Jersey Syndrome, these symptoms may seem overdramatic. Larger than life. Obnoxious, really, when you think about it. For us, though (and by “us,” I reference those who suffer from New Jersey Syndrome on a daily basis), this seemingly disagreeable circumstance that we live with day in and day out really is nothing. Once you’ve been told that you live in the “Armpit of America” (the name attributed to us by the rest of the eastern seaboard and most of the contiguous forty-eight states), you feel practically invincible.

But perhaps I am giving you the wrong idea. Perhaps by explaining these symptoms I am perpetrating the misconception that we are embarrassed by our cultural heritage. Allow me right now to put these rumors to bed. New Jersey Syndrome is a result of neither embarrassment nor humiliation, but an evolutionary reaction, instilled in us since before the days of Darwin; a defense mechanism, our way of reacting to oft-made comments suggesting that our state’s toxicity level causes us to glow in the dark. Contrary to your (potentially) popular belief, dear reader, my proximity to Newark Bay has not caused any unfortunate side effects in my physical development, and although I have been known to make this joke perhaps once or twice before, I take offense to your ignorance. We are, in fact, more than capable of operating vehicles traveling at high speeds on the New Jersey Turnpike, and no, I cannot tell you where the nearest tanning salon is located. I am unfamiliar with the ghettoes of Newark and Camden, because those are places that I avoid, quite literally, on pain of death.

There is no known cure for New Jersey Syndrome, but in recent years, great strides have been made towards classifying and diagnosing these symptoms. Existing treatment includes allotting time during every day for healthy doses of road rage and unabashed cursing. Drivers should flip off no fewer than three out of state drivers during any given morning commute. Go to a 24-hour diner and order a pot of coffee, then sit in traffic that has no beginning, no ending, and no apparent purpose. Apologize sincerely to the rest of the world for the existence of “Jersey Shore,” and at least one unfortunate symptom will be sure to disappear. Doctors recommend the simple lifestyle choice of appreciating a good thing when it’s right in front of your face.

 *          *          *

I might tawlk funny, ask for a cup of cawfee, and complain about my obnoxious bawss, but not everyone from New Jersey is an uneducated, tequila-swilling moron, as MTV would have you believe. The state bird is the Eastern Goldfinch. The state flower is the Purple Violet. There are twenty-one counties in New Jersey, and I possess the unique ability to sing them to you, alphabetically no less. This knowledge I can specifically attribute to the Bayonne Board of Education and its public school curriculum, committed in both its excellence to education and the arts. Nine years after my slightly traumatizing debut in “New Jersey and You,” the P.S. #14 fourth grade musical, I can still recall and recite what most would consider mundane information. (The PNC Bank Arts Center is one of New Jersey’s premier centers of cultural learning, betcha didn’t know that, did you?) We lined up in our nine-year-old finest, taking turns standing awkwardly on stage while our parents snapped pictures in earnest. I was dressed in a matching jean-skirt and jacket ensemble, but the person I truly feel bad for now is the girl dressed up as the state of New Jersey, her chubby, fourth-grade face poking glumly through the cardboard cutout’s middle.

 We sang songs with titles including “We Want Some Jersey Tomatoes,” “The Twenty-One Counties,” and “New Jersey and You,” conveying relevant information to our parents and grandparents, people who certainly already knew all of this anyway, in a slightly cheesy, very campy way that would make even the grumpiest old sucker smile. Even from a young age, New Jersey Pride is both encouraged and championed, but there is one lesson that even our “New Jersey And You” textbooks left out: our fierce devotion to the Garden State often leads us to turn on our own. Inner-state turf wars flare constantly—Northerners hating Southerners, city-savvy Easterners scoffing at the farmers of the West, South Jersians telling Trenton to go back to Philly where it belongs. Facebook groups have spread these feelings of animosity further than the confines of our state’s borders—groups such as “Da 2O1” proclaim their allegiance to the Hudson and Bergen County areas, while groups like “908: The REAL New Jersey” cite themselves as the true citizens of this state.

Since the day we became a state—December 18, 1787 for those of you keeping track—we have been a premier exporter of raw, undiluted talent and personality. With the likes of Aaron Burr (shot Alexander Hamilton), Meryl Streep (no explanation needed), from Frank Sinatra (maybe mobster, maybe not), William Carlos Williams (“I have eaten / the plums / that were in / the icebox”), Wendy Williams (no relation to William Carlos), and Zebulon Montgomery Pike (yeah, that guy) on our team roster, I dare you to find a state more able-bodied than we are. For as much that is known about these cultural icons of New Jersey, however, our knowledge on their encounters with New Jersey Syndrome (if any) is severely limited. It is commonly thought, however, that things in the ilk of disgraced political careers, Oscars and Golden Globes, rumored mafia connections, published poetry, television talk shows, and remote mountainous monuments often serve as appropriate barriers against the symptoms fared by myself and my kin.

*          *          *

Oft pitied for its cross-genus nature, the neither-fruit-nor-vegetable tomato is one of the premier exports that our state has to offer. It remains overshadowed, though, by exports in the chemical, pharmaceutical, and petroleum-based industries. It is our name in these highly profitable fields that supports the countrywide stereotype that New Jersey is, at its core, a special kind of cancerous, festering ulcer. Based on eighteen years first-hand experience, I can claim a fair amount of confidence in my assessment of our overall toxicity: acid rain should be considered our state rainfall, and, in some places, our state soil should probably be upgraded from “none” to “highly dangerous,” but the overall quality of life remains enjoyable. I firmly believe that it is you, out-of-staters, who suffer from both a misconstrued perspective and an impermissible quality of life. It is I who cough and wheeze in your state; perhaps it is a simple case of your air being too clean. To my Pennsylvanian friend who crudely suggested that my great state be, quite rudely, bombed flat: think before you speak. Pennsylvanians may gain a beach, but the rest of the East Coast may inherit a gruesome, toxic death as our factories implode and spew out centuries of once-contained greenhouse gas.

All roads in Florence lead to the Duomo. It is one of the many Renaissance triumphs that engulf the city, a massive cathedral visible from any vantage point. It rises meters and meters above the ground it is built on, towering over the Piazza del Duomo, which is spread out in front and crowded with people. I approach the church and look up at it – I’d always believed that a church is a church is a church, after all. It looks like painted candy, I think to myself, playing tourist and snapping photos with abandon, afraid that my first impression of this behemoth will somehow accidentally slip from my mind. The white-green marble façade looks like candy-brick, and upon closer inspection, the pinky-gold-maybe that’s the sun-maybe not marble becomes visible too. It is an exercise in self-control to not run my fingers up and down the cool exterior and touch surface, grazing the gilded double doors depicting religious scenes that mark each and every entrance. Candy cane spirals like brocade engraved with flowers and petals run up and down the length of the spires, just touching the pointed roof. The distinct red dome looms over the entire structure, dwarfing everything around it, including Giotto’s Campanile, the five-story bell tower that stands next door. I lean back to photograph the highest stained glass window, and I wonder for a moment if the baker cheated, or if he used white frosting to hold this masterpiece together instead of hot glue.

Perception (per•cep•tion) – noun: the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses, a way of regarding, understanding, or interpreting something; a mental impression.

I stand inside the Duomo, treading lightly on the same kind of centuries old green and white marble that covers the outside of the building. It is not as crowded in here as the Piazza outside, and I am thankful for the reprieve from the masses, however brief it may be. Like every other monument in Florence, the Basillica di Santa Maria del Fiore rattles off its history without even speaking. A cathedral since the early fifth century, even the Duomo is not what it seems at first glance. Before it became the most famous church in Tuscany, it was the Santa Reparata, crumbling with disrepair and neglect, no longer large enough to serve the growing population of the city. Approved by the city council in 1294, the architect Arnolfo di Cambio proposed a new design for the building, but never lived to see his design completed, and it turned into a one hundred and seventy year saga spanning the time from before di Cambio’s death in 1302 until Filippo Brunelleschi finished it and Pope Eugene IV consecrated the cathedral on March 25th 1436. I stand under the dome and look up at The Last Judgment, the fresco spanning the 147-food wide ceiling. The heathens trapped in Hell are much more real when you stand beneath them, their naked, flesh-whipped bodies so close but still so far away. They’re flailing, raw-red and exposed, twisting as they gracefully fall to the underworld, the winged angels above just as naked but far less desperate for salvation. The Lord in Heaven is crowned above them, the most gruesome hell juxtaposed against the delights of paradise, and I realize that a church is not a church is not a church after all.

The Duomo is nestled—if a building nearly 90 meters tall could nestle—in the center of Florence, surrounded on all sides by museums, monuments, and history. The neighborhood surrounding the church is neither quaint nor uniquely Italian; rather, this beacon of Roman Catholicism sits surrounded by the tackiest of tourist souvenir stands, not even possessing the dignity to masquerade as more respectable stores. They sell two-euro leather Firenze bracelets, Italian flags, and cheap Venetian masks, surely committing some kind of mortal sin peddling their wares at such an over-marked price. It is a bustle of activity, a constant hum of noise and people and money changing hands, and the locals stroll through, just another player in the Florentine charade.

Everything within Florence is a contradiction to something else: the brown, dirty, concrete buildings to the cobalt blue Italian sky, the candy marble of the Duomo Cathedral to that very same concrete that forms the buildings surrounding it, the greatness that oozes out of every available crevice it can to the simplicity of humanity at every turn, the Ben and Jerry’s poised against the Caffé Royal Gelateria across the street. The key to understanding these contradictions is perception; the one thing unsuspecting tourists often forget to pack in their camera bags. It is the missing puzzle piece, preventing outsiders from seeing the full, clear picture as it is: there is a measure of modernity within this serene mountain town, stuck just under the crust of the Renaissance that coats the city’s famous red-topped roofs. To visitors who have left their perception at home, the marriage of the contradictions that make up the city are lost to them, and they leave assuming that in Florence, art is all there is.

Several hours later, the sun has started to set and I walk out of the Uffizi Gallery on to the Piazza del Grano, looking left then right then left again in search of the Duomo, my guide for the weekend. Locating its massive dome rising about even the highest construction around it, I pick a narrow alley stretching out in front of me and walk. The dome hangs low and massive in the sky, framed on either side by buildings rising into the sky; it reminds me of nights when the moon is gigantic and orange and close enough to touch, bent into an optical illusion by the layers of the atmosphere. The street I’d picked is quaint—here is a gelateria, and then a jewelry store, a souvenir shop, and a bakery. A few storefronts down, a harsh white light catches my eye, a direct contrast to the soft light glowing from every other establishment and the orangey-red hues of the setting sun. Giglio Sport, reads the sign out front. Writer Alexander Herzen said, “Everything in Italy that is particularly elegant and grand borders upon insanity and absurdity, or is at least reminiscent of childhood.” I step into the store, tiny silver bells overhead pealing merrily, and realize that nothing about Italy is truer. The vibrant purple of ACF Fiorentina is everywhere, splashed on bags and hats and scarves and pins and Alberto Gilardino jerseys, all bearing the crest “ACF” accompanied by the red Fleur-de-Lis—épanouie, as it is called, the blossom that ensures a person will flourish—the coat of arms of both this Renaissance city and the #12 side in Italian Serie A football. I take in the purple Viola tapestries hanging from the walls, and think about how in Italy football is nicknamed “the beautiful game,” both impressed that a place so dedicated to its history and its art could be equally as dedicated to its football, and angry at myself for doubting that if any place could be capable of such a feat, it would be this one.

In the world of football, you are born and you die and you bleed your team’s colors, whether they flourish or struggle or not. While Florence is a city that might surprise the unsuspecting tourist with these feelings, they are no exception to this rule and almost everyone who lives there suffers the fiercest dedication to their team. In 1990, after ten years under manager Flavio Pontello, Fiorentina fans rallied to say that enough was enough, invigorated by poor managerial decisions, near bankruptcy, and the loss of that season’s title game. Only something as elegant as the beautiful game could cause these beautiful Italians to lose their cool, riot for days, and run Pontello out of town.

The Piazza Santa Croce is dwarfed by the Santa Croce Church. The basilica, the largest Franciscan church in the world, stands in the style of the Florentine Renaissance: taller and more impressive than anything around it, decorated with frescoes by Giotto of Campanile fame. It is a sacred burial ground, reserved for geniuses such as Galileo, Machiavelli, Bartolini, and Michelangelo, but the lure of these funerary monuments was not what drew me to this place. I wanted to see the Piazza, however overshadowed it might be; it is the place where God and Dante Alighieri watch over Calcio Fiorentino, the “Florentine kick game,” or, as we know it today, one of the many primitive precursors to contemporary football. Conceived in 1530 by Count Giovanni de’Bardi, calico Fiorentino was a game for wealthy aristocrats, played between the religious holidays of Epiphany and Lent. Each of the teams represented a powerful Florentine noble family, eager to demonstrate both their monetary power and their brute strength. The game, whose rules allow tactics such as heat butting, punching, elbowing, and choking, was played for almost 200 years before interest fizzled out sometime around 1739.

Tonight, they are setting up for a show. Audio Master Services has their truck parked on the square, rigging a scaffold to wind with lights and microphones and wires. Four men climb the poles like monkeys with their legs wrapped tight around for support. They are silhouetted by the sunset, looking comical in their dramatic poses. In June, two Sundays before the Festival San Giovanni, a different kind of group has their truck parked on the square, transforming the solid ground into a 100 by 50 meter sand pit for the three annual Calcio Fiorentio games that take place here every year. The four noble families of Florence have been replaced by the four main churches and their neighborhoods—Santa Croce, Santa Maria Novella, Santo Spirito, and San Giovanni—and the working class is encouraged to play, but not much else has changed about this revival game. Before each contest, a pageant of 530 proud Florentines parade through the streets to Piazza Santa Croce with the fanfare and pomp, costumes and banners, arms and music, saluting the grandeur of the Florentine Renaissance and the original game. It is called the Manliest Game in the World, and the men who play wear Renaissance bloomers: baggy shorts to the knee in bright colors—blue and purple pleats for the Azzuri of Santa Croce, pleats in purple and white for the Santo Spirito Bianchi. They fight to the death, or as close as they can get. The object of the game is still to score more cacce—points—than the other team; the winners of the three-game series still awarded a ceremonial white heifer. Then they kiss each other, their girlfriends, and their mothers, celebrating their barbaric elegance, victorious on this holy ground. 

“The Creator made Italy from designs by Michelangelo.” -Mark Twain

 My breath catches in my throat as I walk into the Galleria del David of the Accademia di Belle Arti Firenze. A long, wide hallway lies in front of me, lined on both sides with shapeless blocks of marbles, all of them with just-barely-visible faces, arms, legs emerging, pushing their way out of the white mass that they are trapped in. They are trapped eternally, wearing incomplete expressions forever—grotesque, almost, and pathetic, and I feel bad for them, compared to what I am there to see. I walk up the center of the aisle, avoiding making eye contact with the incomplete statues, the bits of faces and eyes I can see making me uncomfortable, instead focusing on the slab of marble before me that had been turned into a masterpiece.

As I approach the pedestal, the room opens up to the left and to the right, just like a crucifix, and David stands tall in the middle, in all his muscled, sculpted glory, the most beautiful hunk of marble in the city, or maybe the world. It takes a minute to absorbeverything, and I notice that he still has his pupils as I circle him, trying to find just one tiny flaw. The gallery light hits his chest in the most peculiar way, and it looks almost like he’s sweating. I’m convinced that he’s watching me while I circle him again, in the other direction this time, noticing that not an errant marble hair was sculpted out of place. He’s watching me watch him, and it’s hard to look away because something in the expression on his eternally boyish face fits not the body that Michelangelo created for him, but something else. David looks sad, I conclude, and I am impressed that this perfect sculpture, created purely by talent and the forces of God from a luckily abandoned block of marble left in a Florentine churchyard has feelings too, even if he was simply created to feel that way.

 Florence is a city that knows what it is. It knows that it is sophisticated and scholarly, emotional and physical, elegant and brutal, all at the same time. As a true Renaissance Man, Florence lives up to the movement started here so long ago, accepting its football with its art, its good with its bad, and its beauty with its realism that exist here side by side. “There is no truth, there is only perception,” said Gustave Flaubert, and when talking about Florence, Flaubert is right.

Saturday, February 2nd: This past Saturday (February 2nd), Hollywood saw Ben Affleck and Argo beat out competitors Katherine Bigelow, Tom Hooper, Ang Lee, and Steven Spielberg to take home the top prize at the Director’s Guild Awards (DGA) Awards. Passed over by the Academy for a prestigious Oscar nom, the five-time director has been taking the 2013 awards season by storm, snagging key wins with the Producers and Screen Actors Guilds. Other winners included Jay Roach for HBO mini-series Game Change, Rian Johnson’s episode of Breaking Bad titled “Fifty One,” and Lena Dunham, creator, writer, and star of Girls.

Friday, February 8th: Ladies and gentlemen, start your speculating: final voting for the 2013 Academy Awards begins today. From February 8th to the 19th, members of the Academy will vote on categories that include Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Animated Film. Want to play along? Visit Oscar.com to for your printable ballot.

Sunday, February 10th  While 2012's Grammy Awards were chock full of controversy surrounding Chris Brown's return to the stage, don't expect the 2013 festivities to be any less exciting--any ceremony that issues a Wardrobe Advisory to its performers, presenters, and attendee's is bound to be a good one. Including a tribute to the late Levon Helm, music industry giant and drummer for band The Band, performers will include Zac Brown, Elton John, and Mumford and Sons. This year, The Black Keys, Kelly Clarkson, fun., Gotye, Frank Ocean, and Taylor Swift compete for Record of the Year; The Black Keys, Fun., and Frank Ocean meet Mumford and Sons and Jack White in the Album of the Year category. Confused? This blogger has finally demystified the difference between these two categories: Record of the Year nominates a single or one song from an album; Album of the Year celebrates one entire album. Go forth and feel superior, my friends.

Saturday, February 23rd: What are the Independent Spirit Awards, anyway? Founded in 1984, the awards celebrate “artist-driven filmmaking” and “recognizes the finest achievements of today’s independent filmmakers.” With a self proclaimed Not-So-Red Carpet, the Independent Spirit Awards could be considered the hipster Oscars, with self-submitted films creating the bulk of the nominations. Co-chaired by Salma Hayek and Jeremy Renner (swoon) and hosted by Andy Samberg, this year’s ceremonies will continue the indie spirit and pass out a number of familiar sounding awards (Best Feature, anyone?) as well as three grants between $25,000 and $50,000 to aspiring filmmaker nominees.

Four: Ziggy, the instructor, speaks in his soft maybe-German-maybe-French accent. “Whenever you are ready.” I nod and lick my lips and exhale. I’m not sure what’s stopping me—I’m not nervous and I know it. The platform shakes again, so slightly I almost don’t feel it, and I shake my head, wondering where the fear is and why it hasn’t yet flooded every single nerve ending my body has. The platform is a sheet of large metal grating, no more than a few inches thick—the kind that covers sidewalk subway air vents—and is drilled into the side of a cliff by nothing more than brackets and a steel beam support system. It juts out of a solid rock wall, sitting ominously over the wide, carved out space beneath me. I am sure the fear will be coming soon… but it doesn’t. Three: The brightest thing at the top of this chasm is the neon orange spray painted arrow that points towards the cavity below us. It is silently bossy, reminding us that this is the only option we’ve got.  Someone haphazardly sprayed it directly on to the platform, and it is partially obscured by the snowfall around it. Everyone takes tentative steps out there, even Ziggy—especially Ziggy—with no harness in sight. He knows his way around this stage, though, delighting just a bit in our trepidation. These are his mountains, his territory, his livelihood, and we are just temporary visitors, just guests, just taking delight in what these rocks have to offer.

Two: Numbers run through my head and I stare into the gorge below me—two hundred ninety five feet down, two million years old, two hundred and eighty foot, four second free fall. I am nineteen years old and I am at the top of the world, or at least the top of Europe, preparing to fling myself into oblivion. A river surges powerfully below me, tinted greenish blue from a combination of snow, ice, and grey sky. In two weeks, Ziggy says, it will be frozen solid, a mass of blue-green ice. I give the rope a tug, secretly checking its strength, but it is a small force compared to the forces of nature surrounding me, making me feel much smaller than I am. I look at Ziggy, his camera poised in my face, ready to capture the moment I jump, and then I let go. One: I am free falling for the longest four seconds of my life. A strangled scream escapes my lips, and I’m not sure why. It is surprise, not nerves, because the fear never came—the paralyzing fear that makes your stomach bottom out from under you—and I only notice that I am dropping through the air. It is not nearly as graceful as I imagined, but somewhere in between the scream and the realization that I am still not scared, the rope invisibly catches and I settle in to a swing, propelled back and forth between two towering rock walls, no longer braced with my knees bent and instead leaning back to stare up at the sliver of grey Swiss sky.

Zero: Pressure pushes against my ears, and all I can hear is the sound of rushing water, now twenty feet below me, much closer than it had been before. It sounds like static, and I embrace the moment of solitude I have to enjoy alone, a moment of oneness with everything around me. Wind spirals around me in every direction, cutting through my thin mittens to my fingertips, but I’m still moving through the air and barely notice the cold. I stretch my body, pointing my toes and fingers in opposite directions as far as I can get them, thinking of the last words I said before I jumped:

The worst fight to lose is a fight against yourself. It leaves you spent and useless, doubting at least your existence and for sure your mental sanity. There is nothing like warring—day-to-day, night-to-night, month-to-month—with the very organ your body works so hard to protect. It’s perched up there, thoughts tied up and wrapped in a neat little complex package, perched smugly atop your spinal column. It is its own entity; living, breathing, thinking, conniving, obsessing. It pulses, every moment, beating you down, thickly packed in brain-juice and bodily fluid. The Neanderthals might not have appreciated it, but you—you know that it is worth your life to protect the thing that provides your substance. You can’t live without a heart, either, but without your brain you couldn’t be you.

You are a miracle. You wake up every morning, and sleep every night, and during your waking hours perform tasks that from ganglia to nerve ending that are beyond human understanding. You see, you write, you move, you breathe. You make decisions, buy coffee, cross the street. You talk about last weekend, you analyze Shakespeare.

This is why the hardest fight for you to lose is one against yourself.

Don’t ask questions. Two guys to a fight. No shirts, no shoes. Fights go on for as long as they have to. If it’s your first night at Fight Club, you have to fight.

This is why the hardest fight for you to lose is one against yourself. Two guys to a fight. Just you and your brain. How fair can it be if one guy is your Tyler Durden? You can’t fight your Tyler Durden. He controls you. He is you. He tells you that you are not special or unique, and then the bell rings and you are off, bare-knuckle boxing the very thing that makes you wake, write, eat, breathe, and on top of all that question your very existence.

No shirts, no shoes. It’s all or nothing, and you’re all in—you have no choice, your Tyler made that choice for you a long time ago. Your brain cooks your body, fries your mind, gobbles up your free will. It accepts nothing and questions everything, overanalyzes everything, obsesses over everything.

You panic. Your brain controls everything. Your hands shake, your heart races, your breathing is shallow and every eye in the room is on you—it has to be on you. Your brain—this is your brain on anxiety—shoots adrenaline through your brain-juice and down your spinal column and into your blood right down to your last nerve endings at the tips of your toes, and then you are flying; tapping shaking drumming kicking tossing turning trapped, losing another fight against another organ that’s just not on your side today, or any other day when you think about it. You suppress those tapping drumming restless leg feelings and they intensify, infinitely worse than what they were, you’re uncontrollable and labored and its just another worst-fight-to-lose feeling, and then it’s over. If someone yells stop, goes limp, taps out… the fight is over. It’s over and you’re drained and you’re spent and you’re tired—exhausted—and yet you feel warm and content. Somehow you survived. You beat your brain, if only for a moment, and as the tension releases from your shoulders you can slump, practically defeated.

It’s some time years after the feasts and the boardwalk had stopped being exciting that I lie on the floor with a roommate—adulthood looming, arm over my eyes, desire to read no more diminished than my desire to dress my brother, now in GQ suits—and declare that this is it. 

“What’s it?” 

“I’m running away to join the circus. Barnum and Bailey’s in town, you know."

Silence.  

“You hate clowns. You compulsively shower. You have no talent.”

Silence. Hurt silence.

            “No circus talent,” she clarifies.

I pull an eye out of the crook of my elbow and glare.

            “You? Are a bitch.”

*          *          *

Today the Circus, Tomorrow the World (Alternatively titled, Bitch, Please. Just Try and Stop Me.)

Pro: General Lack of Personal Hygiene. Most of the time, the word “lady” can be applied only loosely to my person. I am only on the best of days a classy chick. However, on the worst of days, I could pass as a card-carrying member of the Animal House fraternity. I burp with abandon and find nothing funnier than a well-executed fart joke. I sometimes lack basic table manners, and would rather walk around in my underwear than put on pants to venture outside. I do shower daily, but have perfected the routine to a quick five-minute in-and-out. It’s not that I don’t like to be clean—I skeeve dirty things. It’s just that I have much better things to do than stand still under a spray of warm water for half an hour a day.

Con: General Lack of Personal Hygiene. Body Odor makes me gag, I judge people with dirty fingernails, and if I can see the dirt crusted on you skin without us getting up close and personal, I suggest that you acquaint yourself with a washcloth, stat.

Con: Most Carnies are Former Criminals. Let people think what they will about the carnies. Let them not, though, think what they will about me. I’m one of those people who cares what others think about me, no matter how many times in my young life I’ve declared that untrue. People are judgmental, and as a circus-joining college dropout, I can only imagine the things polite society would whisper about me. Although I guess if I’m being honest, polite society is only a marginal concern. More importantly, I’m worried about this: If people think I’m a tough, hardened, carny criminal, what’s to stop them from engaging me in tough, hardened, carny battles to the death? What if they knife me, expecting me to fight back? What if local law enforcement decides to investigate me in an attempt to catch me in my threatening, criminally suspicious ways? I am a delicate flower, so lets get one thing straight: my sensibilities cannot stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Con: Clowns. It is a universal truth that clowns are terrifying, with their white pasty faces, exaggerated eyebrows, and big, creepy, perma-grins. And as if their physical features weren’t upsetting enough, I am inherently suspicious of anyone who is so perpetually cheerful—even if that cheer is simply a by-product of a poor choice of career. I don’t find balloon animals amusing and the first person to squirt seltzer at me from a fake boutonnière is going to die a painful death. Real life circus clowns are scary enough, but Hollywood has helped push my fear of clowns into an unreal dimension—Pennywise from It, the Joker from Batman, the entire cast of Killer Clowns from Outer Space, and Jigsaw from the Saw movies—I dare you to find more terrifying depictions of something meant to bring small children joy.

Pro: Cirque du Soleil Has No Clowns. I believe this point is theoretically self-explanatory.

Pro: I Can Finally Realize My Dream of Becoming a Contortionist. If I’m honest, this is a fairly recent dream—having developed in conjunction with my desire to join the circus in the first place. Folding myself into a pretzel is now my new most-relevant life goal. 

Con: I Am Not Nearly Flexible Enough to join Cirque du Soleil—Or Become A Contortionist. Folding myself in half and touching my palms flat to the ground is the extent of my impressive acrobatic routine.

Con: Sleeping Outside. Two words: Nighttime Bugs. More menacing than most bugs, Nighttime Bugs move deftly and without fear, operating with the advantage that their victims are (usually) in deep slumber. Unfortunately, I have yet to learn how to sleep with one eye open, allowing the Nighttime Bugs to keep their distinct upper hand—for now. Because when I’m not on the prowl for Nighttime Bugs, I’m busy being the Goldilocks of the mattress world—not too hard, not too soft, they need to be just right. Not only does this rule out sleeping on the ground, but it also rules out sleeping in the ride I operate. Unless it’s the only bumper car in the world made of cloud, I’m not interested.

Pro: Traveling. I love traveling so much that I once considered travel journalism as a viable career option simply so that I could be paid to go on vacation. Once I realized that National Geographic wouldn’t let me write exclusively about the European Union, the idea sort of lost most of its appeal. As a carny though, I can still be paid—however little—to travel for a living. Who wouldn’t be willing to put up with a little communicable disease in exchange for a bit of permanent vacation?

Pro: Funnel Cake. Funnel cake may actually be the most delectable fried good since the first Oreo was doused in pizza dough and deep fried. I would go so far to say that funnel cake is the premier fried dough on the circus scene. Not only is funnel cake lighter and crispier and than the doughy Fried Oreo, it is made from the same batter that is used to create zeppoles—the second most delicious thing you will ever eat.

Con: Screaming Children. There is nothing I hate more than screaming children, except children that puke and then scream. 

Pro: No Longer Tethered to Worldly Possessions. I imagine that joining the circus is similar to joining a convent. Of course, becoming a nun requires that pesky marriage to Jesus thing, while becoming a carny involves more dedication to a sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll-type lifestyle. The true similarity between the convent and the carnival, of course, is the ceremonial release of my worldly possessions—and as someone who sometimes love loves their iPhone, this is kind of a big deal. I’m surprisingly willing to give up my material possessions, at least for now; the lure of the open road is far greater than the lure of an electrical socket.

Con: …I Do Love My Worldly Possessions. And Wi-Fi. How else would I have redefined the term 'binge-watch' than with my binge-watch of Breaking Bad?

Pro: I Love Fried Food. One can only conclude that the carnival has a criminally excess supply of fried food on hand. It’s really in the carinval’s best interest to keep me around.

Con: I Do Not Like Having a 3x Waist. Not that I speak from any sort of personal experience here. But I do imagine that self-appointing myself Leftover French Fry Consumer will also self-appoint myself into a larger pants size. On that note, my assumption that carny’s subsist on fried food is just that—an assumption. What do carnies eat, anyway?

Pro: I Would Likely Be The Most Intelligent Person in the Room. I realize this makes me sound like an asshole, but I pride myself on being smart. No doubt that being in a room of former criminals will at least marginally boost my self-confidence.

Pro: Nobody Would Care If I Wore Matching Socks. You’re actually not human if this isn’t a pro for you.

Pro:I Can Probably Get Away With Not Wearing Clothes. This is just a guess, but carny people probably don’t have terribly high standards about these things. And I really, really hate wearing clothes sometimes.

Pro: Carny Slang. “Bo, the green help carny barker, turned out to be a bit of a hammer-squash after getting taken for a ride by Dakota, the biggest lot lizard in the midway.” (Translation: “Bo, the new temporary employee, turned out to be a bit of an idiot after letting himself be led on by Dakota, the biggest floozy in the carnival.”)

Con: I Have No Marketable Circus Skills. I can’t juggle (fear of self-bludgeoning), sword swallow (concerned I might slice my windpipe in two), grow a beard (not a man), walk a tightrope (balance, grace, and coordination of a newborn elephant), train lions (allergic to all things furry), or ring lead (I am a commanding presence only in my dreams).