Theodore M., 28, cable installer, Morris, IL:
Ideas. Ideas make me unhappy. I get so many of them. I'm going to make a film about my great-uncle. I'm going to build a writing shed near the garage. I'm going to send a letter every day for the next year. But I don't follow through on anything. And I know that about myself, so it drives me crazy that I keep having ideas. I keep having ideas, but what am I doing this week? I'm re-watching The Wire on DVD. Starting over, season one.
Natalie B., 37, writer, Ames, IA:
There's a place over here on Lincoln Way, and it's called the Village Inn or something. A little family place, a step up from a diner, but not by much. And they have this big banner in the window, something they had whipped up at Kinko's or whatever, and it says, "Free Slice of Pie on Wednesdays," and I think the deal is if you order a dinner you get a free slice of pie for dessert. I'm not sure if the pie is any good. I don't care if it is or not. My guess is canned filling, pre-made dough. But what makes me almost inexpressibly sad is that I think that probably works. I think a bunch of people actually go in for a free piece of pie. I don't like thinking about that. I don't really have the ability to take that sort of thing.
Wylie P., 39, gym teacher, Valdosta, GA:
I wish I knew.
Anna M., 31, lecturer, Rochester, MN:
The inability of undergraduate students to correctly use commas makes me unhappy. Seriously, I teach four sections of freshman composition each semester, and this about ruins my life.
Hal N., 36, stage manager, New York, NY:
Zooey Deschanel. The actress and singer. You want to know why? Because I don't stand a chance of ever shagging her. Or even talking to her. And I find that harrowing. I think she would be the first person to ever really connect with me, I mean really connect with me. I don't know why I think that. I just do. And the problem is I can't reach her, she'd want nothing to do with me, and I'd probably get arrested for stalking anyway. Wouldn't I?
Alexandria W., 23, waitress, Seattle, WA:
My boyfriend is a total dick.
Ron C., 24, waiter, Seattle, WA:
My girlfriend is a total bitch.
Brenda V., 43, engineer, Manhattan, KS:
When I'm alone with my thoughts, that makes me unhappy, because, you know what, there's some dark shit in there and when it comes out, I don't like who I am. Everybody likes me. I'm easy to like. That makes me unhappy because that's not the real me. The real me is a bitter, jealous, and unsatisfied asshole. I think of the day that comes out. What will my husband say? My mother-in-law? My kids? I think about the shit I'm capable of doing, if I ever act on what I really want to do, and my God, it's terrifying.
Brad V., 34, hardware salesman, Salt Lake City, UT:
The Debbie Gibson video I used to whack off to when I was like twelve or something. Every time I see that video, or, you know, hear that song in a doctor's office or something, my stomach turns watery, this deep pit of shame. I don't know. I don't know why I have that reaction, but when I think of that song, that video, Debbie Gibson in general, this self-loathing comes on and it doesn't go away for a long, long time.
Manuel P., 29, industrial consultant, Los Angeles, CA:
Judge Judy. Jesus. I can't fucking stand it.
Ginny O., 50, homemaker, Tampa, FL:
Real estate agents. Specifically, those professional headshots they put on business cards and in ads and on billboards. I can't even look at them without feeling such intense sorrow for everybody in the whole goddamn profession.
Wanda P., 37, sales associate, Cody, WY:
I guess when I see grownups dressed up for Halloween it sort of makes me unhappy. Unless they're real sexy sorts of costumes, like a slutty bee or a dirty cop or something. And I suppose it's okay if they're with their kids, or at some drunken party or whatever. But I'm thinking about a secretary who dresses up as a witch, you know, standing there in the glare of the insurance office's fluorescent lights? Or a used-car salesman who is wearing devil horns? Or a postal clerk dressed up as a cowboy or whatever? I can't abide that. I can't think about it. It's about as sad as a guy who wears short-sleeve T-shirts and what he describes as "wacky" neckties. There are things adults must not do, you know?
Jenny, 33, blogger, New York, NY:
Early nineties ski apparel makes me unhappy. Anytime I come across an individual sporting an electric blue, hot pink, or neon green winter weather item (such as a dickey/ turtleneck, windbreaker, ski jacket, gloves, or ear warmer) I wonder why, almost twenty years ago, they didn't have the foresight to have bought black. The neon colors are bright yet they make me feel dark—that contrast only adds an extra heaviness to the whole of it. At about the same time the icky feeling sets in, the thought that hey, maybe this guy or gal can't afford a new pair of mittens pushes its way into my mind. And then I realize that I am a judgmental jackass.
Jane G., 42, writer, Galena, IL:
I'm unhappy about my own slow disintegration, about humiliation, clinics, falling off cliffs, being stared at. Arrogant, dopey people make me unhappy, unless they're funny. It makes me unhappy if the people I love are unhappy. But I am not unhappy about animals or movies from the 1930s. Those I like.
Carrie, 33, legal analyst, Normal, IL:
These binders that line the walls of my office. They hold meeting materials for every damn meeting from the last ten years; the paper falling out of them is yellowing and often printed in a font that I don't think exists anymore. We're always in the process of getting ready for another meeting and making another binder to put on the shelves. No one looks at the binders after the meetings are done, as far as I can tell, but we will never, ever get rid of them. On some very fundamental level I don't understand why we make or keep the binders, and since it is my job to make the binders, this makes me unhappy.
Michael, 35, photographer, Kiev, Ukraine (via Madison, WI):
What makes me unhappy: Being alone in a country where I can't speak the language. Realizing another cabdriver scammed me and charged me four times the going rate. Hearing stories about my son when I can't see him. Getting to the end of another day without getting anything done. Skipping lunch, that sounds silly, but I've discovered that if it gets to about four P.M. and I forgot to eat that I just feel down, and I think it's my body telling me the fuel gauge has hit empty. Missing an opportunity because I once again ignored that dictum "He who hesitates is lost." Meeting someone I really admire and realizing that they have no interest in talking to me.
AUTUMN 2008
12. Zeke Pappas is back at work.
September 22, 2008
Dear Friend of the Humanities:
It's been an eventful summer here at the office of the Great Midwestern Humanities Initiative (GMHI). A number of our grant recipients completed long-term projects over the summer and held free public events all across the region. I hope you had a chance to attend some of them, from the Alley Stage Rural Play Festival in Mineral Point, Wisconsin, to the Backwoods Politics Symposium in Escanaba, Michigan, from the Reimagining the Rust Belt Conference in Cleveland, to the Catholic Worker Farmer Harvest Celebration in Story County, Iowa.
This year, the GMHI has also been the subject of a rather intensive federal audit, and while such processes do add a significant amount of stress and paperwork to our lives at the office, they are the cornerstone of the transparency and accountability that life in the twenty-first century demands. As we near our ten-year anniversary, we look forward to sharing the results of the audit with you in our "Decade One" report, which we will publish in 2010, a document of impressive length and content edited and compiled by our longtime administrative assistant, Lara Callahan, who has just been promoted to the position of Associate Director. It's a well-deserved nod of appreciation to Lara's lengthy, cheerful, and excellent service to the cause of the public humanities in the American Midwest.
Meanwhile, responses to our signature project, An Inventory of American Unhappiness, continue to pour in from across the nation, creati
ng an impressive bolus of candid information regarding our collective American psyche, so bruised by a political system nearly destroyed in eight short years, as well as a slipshod economy. We hope to publish our first in-depth analysis of the Inventory sometime next year, if funding permits. And planning is under way for our first-ever "Midwestern Unhappiness Festival" in the fall of 2009, which will replace the long-running Wisconsin Book Festival as our signature event next year.
On a much more personal note, my mother, Violet Pappas, has been immersed in a battle with stage IV lung cancer. Thus, I was not as deeply engaged in the work of the GMHI this summer as I otherwise would have been, and if I've been difficult to reach, or conspicuously absent from our special events, this is the reason. It is no wonder that in moments of deep family tragedy, our intellectual and professional pursuits seem like dross.
Still, autumn with its sad, purple afternoons, brief and fleeting, finds me back at this desk, happy to have meaningful work in a time of sadness. I'm writing this letter in the hope that you will see how the humanities—our understanding and exploration of our own role in the human narrative—challenge and sustain us in times of trial and woe. Please help us continue to do our work, so that citizens across the Midwest may live rich and textured lives while the Lord grants them time.
Godspeed,
Zeke Pappas
GMHI Executive Director
Lead Scholar, An Inventory of American Unhappiness
"You can't send this," Lara says upon reading my letter.
"I most certainly can," I say. "It's an honest assessment of where we are as an organization and of where I am as its leader."
"Zeke, it's way too personal," she says. "It's beautiful at times. I was even moved by it, Zeke. It was poetic, eloquent. But I am your friend, a trusted colleague. I am not a donor or potential donor. In some parts it's a bit, well, depressing. At best. Unsettling, at its worst."
"Lara," I say, "it is absolutely appropriate for you, in your new role as associate director, to offer well-considered and well-crafted opinions about my choices as the executive director. However, I reserve the right to both respectfully disagree and to make all final decisions. And my decision has been made, and this is going to be our fall fundraising letter."
"Can we take out the 'Lord' line? Or change the word Godspeed to sincerely?" Can we at least do that, Zeke?"
"No. Absolutely not. A number of the humanists in the Midwest are rather devout. It will be refreshing to them to see a liberal academic invoking the Lord."
"But you're not religious," she says.
"Exactly!" I say.
Lara looks at me for a long time. Since I have been back in the office she seems to regard me with pity and panic. Apparently, the auditors have been hounding her for information during the summer while I was on personal leave. (We have a generous family leave policy at the organization, and I availed myself of it to care for the twins, and my mother, and to attend meetings with oncologists and surgeons and lawyers and such.) Lara is a little uncertain, I can see, thinking that perhaps I am not ready to be back at work. But that is precisely why I promoted her to associate director. She deserves to be compensated for the graceful and intelligent way she handled my long absence this summer. But I am back at work now, and I must be the leader.
"At least change a few things," Lara says.
"Lara," I say, "you are a warm and empathetic person, and you were moved by the letter, and I hope there are other warm and empathetic people out there on the mailing list who are also moved."
"Do you think that perhaps your intelligence has been crippled by grief?" she asks. "Could your understanding of human behavior be permanently altered by the tragedies your family has experienced?"
"Lara," I say, "I expect these to be sent to the printer and then to bulk mail, and that they will reach all twenty-five thousand, six hundred members on our mailing list. I want the reply envelopes to be green. I want to use recycled paper and soy-based ink. And those are, frankly, the only details you should worry about. I wrote the most honest letter I could write. I can do nothing else."
"You do know, Zeke, that this is a sinking ship. We'll be broke by Christmas. Have you been reading the newspapers? Do you know what is happening to the stock market?"
"I am a fundraiser, Lara, and well aware of the crisis plaguing our investment sector. I will raise the funds we need when we need them. Now, if you'll excuse me," I say, standing up and sliding on my brown twill blazer, "I'm going out for coffee."
This fall, my almost-sister-in-law, Harmony, has come from Michigan to help with the twins and to care for my mother so that I could return to work. Harmony is a real estate agent in Michigan, and there is no real estate to sell in Michigan right now. Or rather, there are no buyers and hence no sales. There is a glut of unwanted houses with upside-down mortgages on the market. So Harmony has some free time on her hands, and she arrived at the end of August, bringing with her a new and vibrant energy that my grief-stricken and tired household so desperately needed. She took April and May shopping for school supplies and new clothes. She took them to the zoo and the Wisconsin Dells and the science museum in Chicago, and then, when they went back to school, Harmony assumed the role of primary caregiver and housekeeper, and I returned to my office full-time.
A few days after she arrived in Wisconsin, Harmony and I met with my mother's lawyer, Phil Crawford, whom my mother met while working at the Old Country Buffet. Phil was a widower and lunched at the buffet each afternoon, which was across the street from his modest office suite, and he developed a friendship with my mother. I had my suspicions that their relationship might have included more than mere cordial friendship, but I did not ask, and I was grateful for Phil's compassionate guidance and his willingness to come over to the house for meetings. By the end of this summer, an outing as simple as a routine appointment at the University hospital, thirty minutes in duration, would be enough to send my mother to bed for two or three days. The exhaustion that came with staying alive inside a rebelling and failing body was taking its toll on her.
It was a simple estate, Phil Crawford assured us that afternoon at the backyard picnic table. My mother was sleeping, and Harmony had just gotten back from a run. I had just finished putting dinner in the oven, and so Phil and I and Harmony sat in the yard, while April and May played in a new playhouse I had bought them at Home Depot. It was a dazzling bright afternoon, and even with the humming static of the baby monitor (which we had placed in my mother's room in order to keep tabs on her needs), I could hear a stunning cacophony of birds in the scrappy box elder trees above us. I remember how lovely the day was, how lovely Harmony looked, perspiring in the sun, a glass of sweating iced tea resting on her stomach. I remember how happy the girls sounded inside their new playhouse, their laughter echoing off the plastic walls. I remember all of this because the news I was about to receive from Phil Crawford was so dark and unhappy in contrast to all the joy and beauty around me: all of my mother's possessions, the ones she had in her permanent residence (my house), were given to me. I could do with them whatever I wished. My mother's few financial assets—a savings account of four thousand thirteen dollars, a retirement account, a modest life insurance payout, et cetera—would be put toward her debts (she still had roughly fourteen thousand dollars in credit card debt) and then into a trust fund for the girls to be divided equally between them on their eighteenth birthdays. And finally, custody of April and May would go to Harmony and her husband, Malcolm, though I would be guaranteed liberal visitation rights and had the right to two weeks with the girls each summer, at my home or at a vacation destination of my choice.
Harmony began to cry at this news. She and Malcolm had been trying to have children for several years, and she did love her nieces. I didn't doubt that. It's just that, well, I have been a constant in the girls' lives for some time.
Didn't that count for something? I asked.
Phil Crawford supposed I could challenge the will in court, but he dou
bted that my mother's wishes would be overturned.
"Zeke," Harmony said, "Malcolm and I will be absolutely certain that you get to spend a great deal of time with your nieces. You can count on that!"
"When did my mother write this will?" I asked.
"Earlier in the year," Phil Crawford said. "When she first began to feel ill."
"I know it must be hard to accept that she picked me, Zeke. But I assure you those girls will have everything they could ever need or want. I assure you that you will be a huge part of their life, and that you will..."
Phil Crawford held up his hands. "Wait," he said. "It's a little more complicated than it sounds."
"I hope so," I said.
"Excuse me?" Harmony said.
"There is a caveat, Zeke," the lawyer said. "The will stipulates that if you are married at the time of your mother's death, or engaged to be married with plans to legally wed within one hundred twenty days of her death, you will be the legal guardian of April and May."
"That's in there?" Harmony asked.
"Yes," Phil Crawford said, "it is. It's not all that uncommon for people to add situational criteria to their estate plans. It's done all the time to prepare them for eventualities and whatnot. Your mother, Zeke, worried she might be unconscious or otherwise unable to change the will if your domestic situation changed before she died."
"So if he gets married, I get nothing?" Harmony asked.
"You'll be a huge part of their life, Harmony," I said. "I would grant you the same visitation rights and relationship that you would grant me."
My American Unhappiness Page 11
