New Jersey 4, or Silly Putty, and Other Things I Never Thought About While Traveling

Dear Max,

I attended a birthday party for an eleven-year-old girl several days ago. Actually, I didn't just attend it, I was hired to work it. I planned and organized games for the kids, and made sure they didn't kill each other on the backyard trampoline. And, at the end of the party, I distributed the extra prizes from the games and contests, making sure every kid went home with some trinket. As I was doing this, I grabbed one of my favorite childhood toys: plastic egg filled with Silly Putty. I gazed at it with rapt fondness, and, before anyone could claim it, stuck it into my back pocket and took it home.

Before you berate me for stealing toys from children, let me assure you that nobody went home empty-handed and that these kids had put me through such a wringer (which included, among other things, trampling me on a water slide) that I thought I deserved a prize for having kept everyone (myself included) sane and alive.

I've been playing with the Silly Putty on my desk for the past couple of days, marveling at it each time - the stretchiness, the ability to pick up newspaper ink, the bounciness. Silly Putty is fun. And it makes me zone.

Zoning is the name I've given to the peculiar mental space I enter when I see something that I think I'd never see in the Czech Republic, even in Prague. When I zone out, I usually stare at something for far too long, with the incredulous intensity of one who is fairly intoxicated. It is the look that says "Whoa! Look at this neat stuff! Who the hell would think to make such a thing?"

I zone out in giant grocery stores a lot. Particularly in the organic/hippie food aisle. Firstly, because such an aisle exists, and secondly because I can read all the ingredients and organic logos and whatnots - so I do. Sometimes I remark aloud for the benefit of my fellow shoppers on the quantity and variety of available olive oils, or marvel rapturously about canned soup (have you noticed that soup only comes in dried mixes in Prague?). I once, very quietly, recited a spontaneous limerick that came to mind when I found some delicious-looking kale and threw it joyously into my shopping cart (for which I did not have to pay 10kc, or any other amount).

Granted, I've been zoning less and less over the past six weeks, which is a relief. But reading your blog, along with several other blogs, has made me think that most US citizens could use a little zoning. What if, for just two minutes, everyone zoned out at the US government? I mean, really zoned, and asked themselves incredulously:

"Whoa...government. How did they set that up?"

It might even lead to dangerous questions that I've entertained about Silly Putty.

"Is it really good for anything?"
"How flexible is it?"
"Is it really possible to make a clean break? Or will it just get less and less visible until I can't see it anymore but know it's still there?"

Anyway, Max, you might be entertained by my notions about government in this entry, but my family probably can't take much more of my political wanderings. Especially while I'm zoning. They don't really get the zoning thing.

Ah, Max, now I know why I'm writing this to you. Not just for your entertainment, or mine, although those are certainly benefits. But to say this: I don't miss Prague. Not yet, and maybe not ever. But I do feel a certain connection (dare I say kinship?) with you, if only because we lived in the same city, once. I recognize the maps you post on your blog, the picture of the Skalka bus, the descriptions of customer [dis]service and the few Czech names and words you slip into your entries.

As I adjust further and further into life here, I lose the loneliness of being a stranger in a foreign city. And with that, I lose some powers of observation. Zoning is one way of holding on to that - a way to remind myself of the constant ridiculous aspects of life. A reminder, you might say, to keep thinking independently. Others might say zoning keeps me from taking my life in the US for granted. In any case, it is one of the two biggest things keeping me connected to Prague.

The other, of course, is your blog.