Cigarettes in the pharmacy
variagated suburbs
Who can say anything definitive about the United States? It is chequered with the complexities of a self-governing people: one nation, perhaps, but not one set of rules or laws. From the condo board to the state legislature to the President there are dozens and dozens and hundreds and hundreds of Americas. Everyone knows this: it is foundational to American culture. And yet, the Americans never tire of telling you this. Every time I write about America, I am reminded of this fact by someone. Even the briefest note, a passing observation about my neighbourhood, elicits the response: “ah, but not everywhere in America.” Perhaps this is what the Americans fear most. It is not tyranny they scent on every breeze, but the fear of being mistaken for their neighbours.
In Wisconsin, New York, and Virginia, I have had the same experience walking the suburbs. The houses are not uniform, and so the streets are more interesting. In so many English suburbs, the houses are all the same. Sometimes they are of the same floor-plan, or a set of floor-plans. They are built to the same “style” too, which is just rectangles and boxes with some features of architectural styles — the idea that any modern English suburb is neo-Georgian is like calling a Lego model neo-Georgian. I am not a vegetable just because I wear cauliflower greens on my head. Walk an American street, though, and while you see some sameness (the Cape Cod style, the Sears style) and so on, what you get is essentially a jumble. Where there is uniformity, it is in attitude: my plot, my house, my way of doing things.
It was the hell of a weekend. We have all been ill. Thanks to the great inefficiencies of the property management company who our landlord relies on, we have no hot water and no laundry. Also no key for the laundry block. We shower at the swimming pool. A kindly neighbour lent us their laundry key. We cannot use the dishwasher. The children cannot have a bath. On Sunday evening, children fed, wife in bed eating plain crackers, I walked up to the diner and read the paper. I came home through the woods reciting Robert Frost. I saw a rabbit and a series of unfamiliar birds: bright yellow, speckled grey, a flash of red. It was a brief outing, but a splendidly American one. The Washington Post had a good article about how George Washington became America’s first great leader. There is something perfect about the combination of reading the paper in the diner and walking home through some (brief, tame, with a path) woodland.
I told the man behind the desk at Walgreens that English pharmacies do not sell cigarettes. “We had to get a special licence.” No doubt. “And we sell wine.” He laughed. This is unthinkable in England, and perhaps in some other states. But it is probably better this way. People will buy those things anyway. Why not have it all in one place? I got a bottle of ibuprofen which cost $11. I was astonished that Americans would pay so much for a generic. Then I realised: unlike the British packets of sixteen pills (and nowhere will sell you more than one or two packets), this bottle had one-hundred-and-fifty pills! About what should a prurient mind be more concerned? That cigarettes are not restricted to the shop over the road, or that I am now allowed to buy ten times as many ibuprofen pills as in my home country where that is deemed a suicide risk?1
At the farmers market, one head of celery costs $5. I thought farmer’s markets were a rip-off in England and I think so here. I hope I shall never see the day when I pay $5 for a single head of celery.
Hostas grow so well here. Huge clumps multiply. They flower in profusion. Their leaves are a little scorched now, but they still look magnificent. They are an Asian, not American, plant, but they fit in perfectly in all the yards and lanes. They grow, as they ought to, in large quantity and make a great display.
I don’t know how many pills are dangerous to take because when you Google that question you are, quite rightly, presented with support lines, not the answer. It’s late and I don’t want to scrabble around for the answer.
I keep trying -clearly unsuccessfully - to copy and paste and then add quotation marks, with commentary! But those two sentences are SO good they deserve to be reprinted twice! They capture our national self-importance, our consumerist focus on material details rather than difficult democracy, our false sense of individuality, our general complacency. All of which are being exploited as the Republicans eviscerate our Constitution, the military occupies our cities, children are illegally separated from their families, and our highest court stamps the imprimatur of legality on it all. It is remarkable how comfortable Americans are with authoritarianism if we are still allowed the illusion of individuality and hence self-determination.
Ibuprofen isn't great for your stomach lining or if you have dodgy kidneys. Otherwise it's a great anti-inflammatory. I find it useless for pain relief. I love these commentaries on finding America and walking home through the woods reciting Robert Frost is just so 'an Englishman Abroad'!!