As I sat working from my bed this week in my sweatpants, because why bother to get dressed or sit at a desk at this point, I vaguely remembered a movie character called the laziest woman in the world.
This woman was sort of blathering, complacent and yet somehow smart and all knowing because she managed to figure out an entire life where she never had to leave her bed.
.. and it’s Swoosie Kurtz!
Pretty sweet deal, I recall thinking, probably because I was young, tired and had too many other options.
Well, be careful of what I wish for. All of you.
As it turns out this character was actually called The Lazy Woman and she was one of many strange people populating the 1986 movie True Stories, directed by former Talking Heads front man David Byrne.
Of course it was the eighties and of course it was David Byrne.
You know… the guy with the suit #slimming
Where else and by whom else could time be elevated, while laziness and selfish inertia was viewed as among the most coveted of commodities in the world?
Or perhaps Mr. Byrne and the eighties were just playing with us and giving us their own post-modern take on self-indulgence. Propping up an unenviable situation to enviable in order to comment on the ridiculousness of our human situations.
Well, right now it doesn’t matter, does it?
Time is meaningless
This is because in many American cities these days there is real reason to stay inside and not intermingle with the world. It’s taken almost 40 years but when The Talking Heads first admonished us to Stop Making Sense, well, who knew they were correct and this would be where we’d eventually wind up?
Still, staying inside these days does not necessarily mean we don’t intermingle. What we’re all discovering, well those of us in the majority of American cities where it’s advised you don’t freely run out into the streets without a mask or perhaps a Haz-Mat suit, is there are quite a lot of ways to interact with each other without actually moving more than a few feet from your literal comfort zone.
Thanks, Silicon Valley.
And congratulations for knowing in advance a way to give us the tools to do what we’d so desperately need while making your selves even filthier rich at the same time.
Ruh Roh!
I do have to hand it to technology, though. Just when you write it off forever is when you realize its immense advantages in the real world.
This week I attended a virtual college graduation of students I’ve taught over the last few years and rather than it being the intensely — let’s all face it – droningly DULL affair it can so often be (Note: Unless you snag the likes of Michelle and/or Barack Obama as keynote speakers) it was instead fun, familial, touching and, yes, meaningful.
Much better than this would have been
That was because in forcing us to do everything trapped in our homes, where each graduate was seen onscreen for 10 seconds holding up their diplomas or making a virtual toast to the rest of us with their beverage of choice, we actually got to see them INSIDE their homes.
And yes, some of them were even in their beds.
This is not to imply any of this was done in a lurid way. Instead, it was open season to take the 10 seconds and do EXACTLY what you, the graduate, wanted to and with whom you wanted to when your cue came up.
Pretty much like this for 2 hours
You had no script, nothing was rehearsed and all the heavy lifting was done. Instead, it was each graduate’s choice to interact with us and each other in that moment.
What wound up happening was each virtual moment was about as more alive and real than any graduation I, or you, have likely ever attended.
I will never forget the young woman holding her pet guinea pig on her shoulder while it lovingly snuggled against her, nor the myriad of pet cats and dogs doing the same.
Woof!
Equally memorable were the parents, many of them my age, enthusiastically jumping up and down and throwing confetti on or near their graduate in sheer and utter joy, usually cracking up their child into laughter (and probably for the first time in years).
There were also the virtual toasts with champagne, beer, wine and assorted other beverages because hey, everyone’s home and, even if they weren’t, what the heck do you think college students REALLY DO to celebrate even the removal of a hangnail?
This is just a gross stereotype, right?
That said, someone even reached for a dope pipe, though he quickly and aptly had his time shortened. (Note: Yeah, some things never change).
There were simple hand salutes, the traditional moving of the tassel from right to left and even one very inventive young man who, outside his picturesque house, nodded thanks to the screen and then proceeded to cinematically walk towards the lake into the distance under the setting sun.
I mean, you couldn’t do anywhere near that well were this live on some academic quad or inside one of those many overly hallowed campus halls.
I DID IT!
Sure, there were some inspiring Zoom speeches from the elders, particularly from a host of WORKING alums from all over the country providing words of encouragement and promises of survival to the class of 2020 (Note: Hey, imagine YOU are the one virtually graduating this year during a global pandemic and all the promise that would hold for your young twenty something self).
Not to mention a short virtual video each graduate would later see from none other than pandemic expert and current pop culture icon himself, Dr. Anthony Fauci, made specifically for the health science graduates of our school. In it he urged them all to please hang in there because we need your talent, your energy, your resolve and your character to get through this difficult time.
Suddenly they, and by extension us, were personally being invited to join Team Fauci! It might have been virtual and could seem canned in the writing, but in this particular reality it actually felt more real than the liveliest of live rallies. Not to mention, A LOT safer.
In fact, as I think about every virtual image I saw on my laptop sitting on my bed that day it occurred to me that laziness is not about where you are at any given time but what you choose to do with whatever time you’re allotted.
Imagine how ingenious we could all get simply staying at home if we put our collective minds to it. It’d be the exact opposite of lazy.
notes from a chair 