May 25, 2004 - The Strange and the Good

Two of them were riding the same bike, one of them at the pedals and one of them on the handlebars. They were lazily circling in the street not far from my car.

When I passed them, one of them asked, "Is that real?" At first I didn't know what they were talking about, until I looked down and saw what appeared to be a chalk outline of a human next to a chalk outline of a dog. Both of them had some kind of red, gooey substance at the center.

"No," I answered automatically. "Someone did that as a joke."

"OK," they said and cycled off.

I stood there looking at it. The first thing that had tipped me off, of course, was the outline of the dog. I can't think of too many crime scenes where that would have been done. But it was also the consistency of the red stuff, which was too gooey and bright red, more like ketchup than like blood, which is generally thinner in consistency and which darkens over time to a brown or black color.

As I thought about it longer, I realized something else. In addition to the red mark in the middle of the chalk person, there were a couple smears of red at intervals down the street, as if someone had driven through the red substance when it was still wet. This, I figured, could not have been the case with an actual crime scene, because if the body had lain there long enough for police to set up a crime scene, it's highly unlikely anyone could have driven through it while it was still wet.

My guess is that some kids took a large amount of ketchup packets and placed them in the road to be splattered. Then afterwards, they completed their devilish prank, made all the more troubling when one considers it was found directly opposite a house where a teenage punk girl lives, with the small dog she's frequently seen walking.

This wasn't the first time I'd seen a fake chalk outline used as an ambiguous joke. The first was at Penn State. In my initial years there, you could find it at the bottom of some steps which formed a sort of tunnel shortcut underneath Pattee Library. I'm fairly certain that renovations since then have eliminated that undercut.

Still, the outline of a body lay at the foot of those steps. It had, in fact, been spraypainted. Over my years there, the outline slowly faded, though still, I'd imagine, making an impact on gullible freshman as long as it existed.

And the other fake chalk outline I can remember was at a Halloween party, where people had taped off a fake chalk outline using white masking tape. This one, as I remember, was missing a head.

I think the reason this sort of macabre joke works is that it tells a story with the most economy possible, making you imagine something which never was.

Speaking of fake (ooh! what a segue!) the finale to The Swan aired last night. This was a show where women were given extreme makeovers involving plastic surgery, dental work and physical fitness to transform from self-described ugly ducklings to L.A.'s version of beautiful.

Every week, two women went through the program and one was chosen to compete in a pageant, where they could win just oodles of prizes.

Last night was the coup de grace, where they competed in a pageant, involving such traditional components as an evening gown competition, bathing suit competition and questions. The Gryphon watched unwillingly, as I was taping it to watch later. I had evening assignments that prevented me from paying full attention to it as it aired.

He said to me that the thing that bothered him about it was he felt that they did the mental health counseling with them simply to legitimize it, and he disliked the fact that these women were essentially told they couldn't be beautiful without plastic surgery.

He also disliked the results, which in most cases, he said, did not look natural and gave them the "classic plastic surgery face," as he put it, pulling his skin taut over his cheeks to demonstrate.

This is why I love the man.

"I agree with you on all of that," I said. "But isn't it like a train wreck; you just can't look away?" I'm almost certain the viewers of that show almost all fall in the "guilty pleasures" category, watching it but afraid to admit to it.

After the first round, with the VCR still recording, The Gryphon played his videogame instead. He told me the most natural looking one was eliminated the first round. I suppose that, according to the rules of The Swan, she hadn't "transformed" enough.

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And now for the grand finale, the good news I just can't keep to myself.

My brother and his wife, who have been hoping to start a family, celebrated their third wedding anniversary with the news that they are, indeed, going to have a baby!

They called me last night to announce the news, which, coupled with the fact that my brother's wife has also earned a raise at her job, made me giddy. I was dancing around the room, and my dog, Una, was dancing with me, not knowing what we were happy about. The Gryphon, who was also there, wished them congratulations.

I'm going to be an aunt. The only drawback, of course, being that I will be a long distance aunt, living eight hours away from my niece or nephew. As I explained to a friend last night, you can't tickle a baby over the Internet.

Still, I'm excited about being called Aunt Alyce (or Crazy Aunt Alyce, perhaps) and entering a new stage in the Wilson family. I find myself already wondering: boy or girl? Blue-eyed, brown or green? Red-haired, blonde, brunette? Mild-mannered or boisterous? Artistic or scientific?

One thing I can say for certain at this point, being born to my brother and his wife, s/he will certainly be a lucky baby.

Moral:
Good news: I have nine months to think of ways to spoil a baby long distance.