March 14, 2003

Today is the day to go, Gadget, go.

Ever have that didn't-get-what-you-wanted feeling? Read my piece "The Disappointed" in Opium Magazine, anointed by the sacred and lightly scented hands of guest editor Mike Sacks.

Also, week two of Mary Gustafson's and my Tale of Two Catholics. It gets more serious this week, but don't worry, I still talk about chocolate.

We wrap up the anniversary week at Zulkey.com with, of course, Clara Van Zanten. Why do I say "of course"? Because if you read a certain story, you might recognize the name. Anyway, Ms. Van Zanten and I met in our very first class ever in high school, and she was my very first friend with a name like mine. Thanks so much to her and all the other Claire/Clares who helped me out with this week. I couldn't do it without you. Well, I could, but that would be a little weird.

We Are Claire, You Are Not Week Day 5:
The Clara Van Zanten Interview: Slightly Under Twenty Questions

You are part of "We Are Claire, You are Not" Week at Zulkey.com. Can you regale us with a little anecdote about why your name is fantastic? (Clara is a perfectly acceptable substitute for "Claire.")
I don't have any particularly interesting anecdotes, and I wish that I could say what it means to be Cla[i]re(a), but alas I do not possess such brilliant and esoteric knowledge. Something I think we've all experienced, though, is the fact that whenever I hear the word "clarity" I think for a moment that my name is being called, and I find this delightful because clarity is something I value very highly, and secretly I like to
think that maybe clarity is me. Also I've gone months, sometimes years of my life with certain people calling me Claire, because honestly it's hard to differentiate the two when they're spoken - but Claires never call me Claire, and I always feel an affection and an affinity for Claires, like I do for people with March birthdays. Truly I live on this wonderful threshold between the Claires (many) and the Claras (few), feeling in a way that I belong to both. It might be more accurate for me to say "I Am Almost Claire" - but certainly I don't fall under "You Are Not". Thank goodness.

Tell everybody why we call each other "Shmee," won't you? It's the only longstanding, oft-used nickname I've ever had.
On the Origin of Shmee:
Well freshman year in high school I met my pal Claire in Mr. Stamos' English class (we also had history and gym together - but that's another story), and at some point during the year Chris Rock did a sketch on SNL called "Shmee the Bee", about a kid in the projects whose only friend was a bee [played by Chris Farley.]. All I recall now of the sketch is the opening song: "Shmeeee... he's my beeee... he gives me advice and occasionally he stings meeee..." Claire and I both witnessed this sketch, and not long thereafter Meghan Haynes (also in our class, now Claire's housemate) came to school wearing head-to-toe yellow and navy stripes (it's true!), to which Claire and I, naturally, responded: "Shmeeee... he's my beeee..." (This is how I remember it anyway; other reports may exist.) And well before we knew it we were calling each other Shmee, me and Claire and Meghan and I think [our classmate] Katie Eskra too for a while there, but it's only really stuck between me 'n' Claire. I've never had such a long-running nickname either, and I love it; it tickles me that we call each other Shmee, like it's some sort of title, I dunno like "Comrade" or, hey, actually more like how everyone calls each other "Jacques" in A Tale of Two Cities, I think it is, which incidentally we read (some of) in Mr. Stamos' English class! Also it's just a funny sound, "Shmee", and hence delightful to utter. Footnote: Often we refer to each other as Cousin Shmee, but I don't know why. Do you, dear Cousin Shmee? [No, I do not, but let's keep doing it anyway! -Ed.]

You're a knitter: why do you think that it's become 'cool' all of a sudden?
Man, I don't know why knitting is suddenly cool. I heard Julia Roberts does it or something. It was cool at Oberlin when I got there in 1997, and I get the sense that people have been doing it there for a long time. I mean, it's just a wonderful meditative process, and it's so cool to have a skill that you can put to beautiful work, and what is better than to make what you need? Ideally that's why it's cool now, but the cynic in me figures it may have much more to do with Julia
Roberts.

You have a younger brother 10 years younger than you. What are the benefits and drawbacks of having a sibling so far apart from you in age?
The main benefit is the almost total lack of sibling rivalry. I've been away from home since he was eight years old, so though he kind of rules my folks' house I'm not there enough for it to bother me. It is a bit painful to witness him going through adolescence, since I've still not entirely gotten over my own, but I think it does me a lot of good to spend time with someone so young and open and (for the most part)
unselfconscious. I find the progress of his life and the development of his mind totally fascinating (and on top of that he's just utterly brilliant and funny), and I'm pretty excited to see how he turns out and to be adults with him. And I can't wait till we can get drunk together
.
A lot of people draw parallels between Oberlin and Reed colleges. As an Obie, how are they similar and how are they different?
I don't know enough about Reed to answer this question very well - and I only know my particular experience of Oberlin. After graduation I lived in Portland, OR for a year, and I was bewildered to find that most Reedies didn't even know where or what Oberlin is. It seems like almost everyone at Oberlin applied to Reed, or has a best friend there, or something. As for similarities and differences, for the most part I think we share the lefty-indie-androgynous-pomo profile, but Obies just seem a little less crazy, a little more relaxed than Reedies. I mean, plenty of Obies crack up, but not all of them, as seems to be the case at Reed. There isn't so much working yourself half to death and then deadening the other half with drugs and alcohol at Oberlin. Obies and Reedies both get utterly consumed by their work, but somehow we're more likely to come out of it unscathed. And Oberlin's a little flower in rural Ohio, and Reed's in hippie-intellectual SE
Portland. Folks live and think very differently in those settings, even if they're all from New York.

Amazingly, you might be the first fellow Camp Echo ( a summer camp in Fremont, Michigan frequented by Illinois' young North Shore community) alum to be interviewed on Zulkey.com. What's one idyllic, summer memory you have of Camp, and one less pleasant, maybe adolescently awkward or cliquey memory you have at camp?
No question about the idyllic summer memory: sitting in the hot sun at the end of the boating and canoeing dock while other counselors took the kids out, not doing a thing but feeling the space of the lake. I don't have any specific cliquey
memories, though much of what I remember of Camp Echo
is soured slightly by that unrelenting cliquishness. Mostly I recall conversations between desperately self-centered libido-driven 16-year-olds that made me feel ill and sad. Years later I discovered, through my friends Alex and Robin, that not all camps are like this. Amazing... Well, wait, this might qualify as adolescently awkward: my last summer at Camp Echo, there was a guy I kind of dug for a while who turned out to be one of said self-centered libido-driven types, and at the very end of camp, when everything was cleaned and packed up and a group of us were loading into a van to head back to Chicago, it was discovered that this guy and an older female counselor (she was a really nasty person) were missing. We scattered in search of them, and I entered a cabin that seemed deserted at first, and called their names,
then looked down and discovered clothing strewn on the floor in a trail leading to the back porch and realized... Man the whole thing was just gross. And awkward. It all flooded back to me a few years ago when outside of Denali National Park, AK of all places I saw that older nasty counselor at a bar, looking old and nasty as ever.

I've never lived in a co-op. If were going to, what tips would you offer me to make the experience go as smoothly as possible?
Honestly, I don't think co-op life can be smooth. But as for "as smoothly as possible", you most of all got to love it for what it is, including the messiness of the decision-making
process, the clashing egos (there's nothing like veto power to turn a meek human into a monster), and the rampant laziness. I belonged to a co-op in college (and I actually never lived in one -- just ate three meals a day there) and it was so much better, more friendly and free and interesting and healthy, than the alternative that I was and am eternally grateful
for the experience. So love it, do your job, do unto others as you'd have done to you, be reasonable, and above all be an idealist! That's what being in a co-op is about. Don't expect everything to be perfect, because it never will be, but expect it to be incredibly weird and wonderful and human, and you're set. And be a bagel maker! It's great.

What's the secret to baking good bread?
Ah, I wish I knew. My friend Galen listens to his bread - takes it out of the pan and puts it up to his ear - and he makes really good bread.

If you were to make a mix tape for somebody today, off the top of your head, which songs would you have to include?
Well I make different mix tapes for different people, so here's what I'd put on a tape for Miz Claire "Shmee" Zulkey:

Cool It Down, Velvet Underground
Cold Water, Tom Waits
Gun Street Girl, Tom Waits
Can't Buy Me Love, The Beatles
Life to Live, Storyhill
Brokedown Palace, Grateful Dead
High Time, Grateful Dead
The Finest Worksong, REM
Angel Eyes, Ella Fitzgerald
something by Patsy Kline
etc.

You've taken dance. I've always wondered; what are leg warmers for? And don't say 'for warming your legs'! Are people's legs really that cold?
Um... I don't really think leg warmers are for anything, though if you can keep warm you're much less likely to injure yourself, and the ankles are pretty delicate. I knew some folk who would pull them down over their heels when they needed their bare feet to have a little more slide. Mostly though I just think they look very cool. And you can knit 'em!

You are the child of an educator. Growing up, did you feel pressure to do well in school, or to be nice to your teachers? And has it instilled in you a desire to teach?
I've always felt a sometimes-paralyzing need to be nice to everyone, so I don't think teachers stand out particularly. My parents, especially my dad, value academic achievement very
highly, as well as creativity and to some extent innovation. This certainly has been instilled in me, though I'm uneasy with what I see as the more stodgy aspects of my parents' outlook, particularly their consciousness of prestige. I feel I'd be perfectly happy working at some small, unknown institution someday, as long as I can do good work there.
Arguably though I've come around to my dad's way, since beginning in the fall I'll be on the road to professorhood. But that's not so surprising; he's had a great mad life in many ways, because of and in spite of being an academic, and I find that very appealing.

You're a well-traveled, well-educated, somewhat hippie-ish (is that accurate?) young lass who happens to be working in a deli. That sounds like the basis for a sitcom. Have you experienced any sitcom-like hijinks thus far?
Yeah that's pretty accurate, though it should be noted that I happen to work with two unusually well-traveled, well-educated, and somewhat hippie-ish deli men. I don't know about sitcom-like hijinks, though. You couldn't write two
funnier, odder, more interesting guys than Bob and John. I think they'd be better suited to a Car Talk-like format, a call-in sandwich-making advice show... It's a bit like Cheers though, now that you mention it, complete with regular customers and their various strange tics. And if you ain't seen Bob kick someone out, you ain't seen nothin' - that could be
good for sweeps week. I didn't witness this, but the story has been passed down to me: Years ago, Bob kicked out a woman who was persistently rude and holding up a long line (lines at Al's Deli often reach out the door). A few days later, her husband (a regular) came in and roared, "Did my wife come in here on Friday?" To which Bob, naturally, replied, "Oh that's your wife? I feel sorry for you, man." So this guy, utterly incensed, picked up a box of oranges and threw it against the wall, almost hitting a little kid waiting at the candy counter. He took off and Bob called the police, who came and interviewed the kid (always good to have a kid tell your story) and went looking for the guy at his place of business, where he was discovered hiding under the counter... Bob and
John have loads of these stories. So I'd say yes, on the face of it, it's an appealing, quirky sitcom situation: college-educated young woman works in French-style sandwich shop with frustrated intellectual/former playboy and childlike, knee-jerk socialist. It's so crazy, it just might work!

Of the remaining Beatles, who's your fave?
I guess Paul, though I haven't much liked anything I've heard of his post-Beatles work. His songs for the Beatles are my favorites, though, because he sings beautifully about people's small lives (Paperback Writer, Lady Madonna, Eleanor Rigby), and they're all damn tight compositions (I don't like John's tangents so much), and goddamn that boy could wail (Helter Skelter, I've Got a Feeling).

Speaking of well-traveled, which have been some of your favorite adventures?
Well, this wasn't my favorite at the time, but I love it in retrospect: During the summer after I graduated from Oberlin, [my boyfriend] Tim and I set out to ramble around the western US, but on our second day out we broke down in a little town called Meriman in Nebraska. The car just quit, so we coasted into the parking lot of the diner (far as I could tell, the only restaurant in town) across from the hulking body of the grain silo and went inside for milkshakes and to regroup. Coffee was free with your $3 breakfast and the waitress was careworn like few human beings I've met, and really truly kind, as we found out the next morning. We tried starting 'er up again but we only got about 100 feet, so went to the nearest house to make a call (who we wanted to call I don't know - no AAA offices in northern NE), and were let into a strange, dim, cluttered living room where a faded middle-aged woman sat in a recliner doing needlepoint, and she let us use the phone but, after we failed to get a dial tone, informed us that it didn't work. She recommended going to find her husband and son at the bar down the road to see if they could do anything with the car, so we headed that way, but that broke-down corrugated shack with a Bud sign flickering in the window was possibly the most sinister facade I've ever encountered, so we decided against it and set up camp for the night in a tiny park nearby. In the morning we went back to the diner and talked to the waitress, who told us where to find the auto repair shop (next to the bank and across from the hairdresser - open one day a week, if I remember correctly). Man, you should have seen the look on this old dude's face when we asked him if he knew of anywhere that could fix a Saab. We made many calls that afternoon from the payphone outside the diner and eventually discovered that by sheer dumb luck we were a mere 75 miles from the only foreign car repair shop in northern Nebraska. So we called a tow and waited a couple hours, sitting on the butt of the car in the parking lot (we'd managed to drive it back that far). A couple of kids came out and honestly started playing with dirt and gravel and various bits of trash lying around nearby, and the older one, a boy, picked up a long piece of plastic casing from an electrical wire and informed his sister (and us) that he could slice someone in half, illustrating this by slashing it through the air in front of him. The little one was starry-eyed for her brother. They were good, friendly kids. When the tow showed up the driver (Levy) asked if they were ours, which was a shock, 'cept then the boy informed us that his mom was 23 years old, one year older than ourselves... The drive to Chadron (where Rick's Foreign Car resides) was pretty wonderful - it felt good to be moving again - and Levy told us about the sand hills region and identified all the plants out the window. His 12-year-old son Christopher was with him, skinny and shy, a champion light-weight wrestler (we were told). Chadron's a cut above Meriman, with a public swimming pool and a bookstore and coffee shop and Walmart. We dropped off the car and were told we'd have two days at least to wait, so headed out of town to set up camp at a trailer park (we were halfway there, humping all our stuff along by the side of the road, when Rick pulled up and offered us a ride - folks in Nebraska are damn nice). The park was owned by Loretta, a chain-smoking ole lady who wore tinted glasses and fuzzy slippers while she drove around in her delapidated sedan. Our neighbors were all in huge R.V.s, and a couple of them tried to befriend us, driving their pickup into our site (almost squishing our tent) and offering cans of Bud out of the passenger seat. They invited us over to watch movies, but we found 'em a bit sinister and declined. The car repairs took longer and longer, and we spent our days lying out baking our brains in the hot plains sun (the sky was unbelievably vast - at times you could see as many as four weather systems dancing around each other - and the sunsets were awesome) and straggling into town to buy groceries and eat pancakes and fries at various family-style restaurants. We got fed up on day four and got a motel room (sweet Loretta under-charged us - we went to her trailer to pay, and the interior was one of the strangest, saddest places I've been, almost completely bare but for a TV and a pile of stuffed animals, and her ancient dried-up husband sitting staring). The owner of the motel let us borrow his pickup to bring in our stuff, and told us anytime we wanted to use it the keys were always on the dash. We spent most of our last two days watching TV with the air conditioning on, and at last the part came in and the car was (supposedly) fixed. I remember distinctly Rick's partner, a big, soft, young-old guy in a baseball cap, shaking hands with Tim and grasping his elbow, saying "Bless you." I've never felt so truly blessed by another human being. The car did hold out for the rest of the summer, but we never really trusted it again, which is a shame. But it was a hell of an adventure.

Can you explain to outsiders why Evanston, IL is not just a suburb?
Lately Evanston has been dressing up as a suburb more and more, but I still adamantly believe that we can hold our own against big fat Chicago to the south. Even before all the gentrification, we had a university and a movie theater and even a Theater-theater and some coffee shops and a hell of a lakefront. And John Cusack grew up here! Need I say more? Hey and did you know there's a town called Evanston, Wyoming? Founded by a restless Evanston, IL native.

You're currently awaiting the acceptance letters
of many a grad school. What did you apply for, and
how was applying for grad schools different from
applying for college?
I've applied to PhD programs in English literature, and I'm particularly interested in the impact of the American landscape on American literature. At the moment I'm pretty giddy about it and feeling wildly ambitious, intent on taking into account journals of early pioneers, government documents, geologic and natural histories, poetry, fiction, and song as well as those texts that generally fall under the "nature writing" designation. But all that aside, the thing with applying to grad school is that theoretically you got to know what you
want to do before you get there. Which is good, since departments vary widely, but well it takes some courage to stick your neck out and say, goddammit, this is what I want to do, take it or leave it. I went to Oberlin because I had a good feeling about it, and found my way once I got there. This time 'round I feel I should have found my way already, or barring that I should be pretty well there by September. It's a bit daunting.

Explain your love for the haiku, and write us one
or two, won't you? Please?
Unfortunately, it must be said that

My love for haiku
has been complicated by
my education.

I've read some brilliant gen-u-ine haiku in translation and have come to realize that I

Thought I was writing
haiku but I was merely
counting syllables.

At this point I'm much more likely to write something like

The red-winged blackbird
settles on a branch beyond
the hurricane fence.

than

Croissant sandwiches
are good except sometimes the
meat sticks out too much.

But really they're not so very different, and I think we've always had the right idea, dear Cousin Shmee. Haikus are basically one-liners, and ours just happen to stress the humorous and absurd. I think my love of haiku comes down to that: I love one-liners, or near-one-liners, be they jokes or tight, clear, radiant observations.

You're one of a few Zulkey.com interviewees over the age of 16 without a driver's license. Do you not have one due to any particular reason, or you just never got one?
I put it down to timidity and the fact that I've always had someone willing to drive me around, though I expect some of my loved ones could offer a more profound psychological analysis. But for the record, I'm attempting to single-handedly reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

How does it feel to be the 47th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
Fabulous! I'm so flattered to be featured on a website with a kangaroo.