Tuesday, June 10, 2008

A few years ago, the public eye settled on the suburbs, specifically the dissolution thereof, and the market responded in kind, with works like American Beauty, The Truman Show, Pleasantville, and The Corrections dotting our media consciousness. The collective complaint went like this: we’ve got to do something before the the suburban lifestyle consumes our identities and erodes our family values, oh god oh god oh god.

Now, years later, I guess it’s okay to live in the ‘burbs again. Maybe it’s just me, but I actually traded my copy of American Beauty for loose pieces of Tupperware, select Precious Moments dolls, and a lawn gnome. I’m kidding, of course, because every Precious Moments doll is select and, indeed, utterly precious. For me, it’s the creature comforts, the routine, and the stupefying calm that make this lifestyle appealing. Air conditioning? Don’t recall ever existing without one. Trash days? Always Wednesdays, reassuringly enough, and the main source of community grief is whether or not the chick down the street left her garbage can out for an extra day or so.

The real challenge, I think, is ensuring your brain waves aren’t resonating at the exact same frequencies as the suburbs at large. Once in a while, you’ve got to view your day-to-day from a thousand miles high, lest you go soft and turn into a snarling minivan operator. Let me explain. Say you’re at a traffic stop, long line of cars, and the left-turn signal flashes green. First car makes the turn smoothly, followed closely by the second car. But then the third car in line simply idles for heaven knows why, only jolting to life when the blaring horns from behind signal the return of the red light.

How would you react? Calmly? Or perhaps your train of thought goes like this: why isn’t that guy turning? What’s he doing? Phone call? Makeup? Model UN? Turn left, or for fuck’s sake at least briefly consider a left turn. I’m going to be late! Why isn’t he turning? The guy basically owes me whatever gas I’m burning for this extra round of traffic lights–and for changing something so mundane into a razzle-dazzle sensory overload of the highest magnitude.