Pardon My French

Saturday, while I was in the shower, I somehow scraped my lower back up against the sharp metal faucet. I saw stars for a second, but upon closer investigation, it didn’t look all that bad.

I knew I was in a bit of trouble the next morning, Sunday, when I woke up and the shallow gash was still bleeding. It was also pretty horrifying to see in the mirror: the wound was surrounded by black, purple, blue and a few other shades of the colorful bruise rainbow. It was also slightly swollen. (I’m almost tempted to post photos of my injury, but the sophisticated lady that lives deep down inside of me is telling me “that’s just not classy/attractive, Caitlin.” )

I decided to take it easy and not push myself too hard, but this was a bit of a task in itself. Even sitting down in a cushy, slightly modified position was quite painful.

Later that evening, I had the realization that I probably wasn’t up to date on my Tetanus shot and decided that I needed to make an appointment to see my doctor the next day.

Monday afternoon the medical staff at my doctor’s office cleared me for infection, Tetanus or otherwise. I still needed to get the shot, though and because to this day I am deathly terrified of needles, I had a panic attack in the “shot room” at the doctor’s office.

Sometime after this, my stomach started to feel strange. It was on spin cycle, as though I were nervous or anxious. I soon after started to feel nauseous and I couldn’t bring myself to eat anything. I also started exhibiting some of the more gnarly symptoms of the stomach flu (if you know what I mean.)

This went on for hours and then into the night. I was up almost ever hour and not even the magical pink Pepto Bismol could temper my tummy. The area where the shot was administered had also started to ache later in the evening and felt as though I had been punched in the arm. If I rolled over on it during the night, I’d wake up in a jolt of pain.

I tried to go to work, but I didn’t make it past noon there. I’ve been working from home today, instead.

In an effort to knock this thing out, whatever it is, I went to the store to up some of the items that my mom used to give to me when I had the flu as a little girl: jello snack packs, fruity popsicles, Sprite and ginger ale.

While browsing the soft drink aisle, I came upon a product that I never expected to find in Southern California: Vernors. Because it’s a pop (not soda) that’s manufactured and sold out of the Detroit area, I’ve never been able to find it on the West Coast. Go figure that I find it when I really need it!

I gratefully snatched up the single bottle on the shelf, took it home and immediately put a mug of it in the microwave.

It’s funny. I’m already feeling a bit better.

So there’s this website called “Michagone: Letters to My (Ex) State.” It’s a collaborative writing project that explores how native Michiganders feel about their home state, whether that be from the standpoint of a current resident or from the individual who has moved on to other places. All contributors are asked to personify their mitten shaped mother land and write her a letter.

I was recently asked to write a letter of my own for the website.

During the last couple of years, I’ve become very fond of my home state. It’s strange in a way, because from the time I first entered adolescence, I remember spending a lot of time with friends talking about how much I’d one day like to leave. It was after I shipped myself overseas for three months, and found myself adamantly defending my home state against Americans hailing from the West Coast, that I first realized how much love I have for Michigan.

I have a love/hate relationship with this city, but I do enjoy living in L.A. for the most part. I’m fortunate that I live in Los Feliz and in a really great apartment building to boot. I’m sure that if we had chosen any other neighborhood here, our experience would have been very different.

The fact that the sun is always shining, the mountains, the diversity and culture of the people and the fact that there are always things happening here are all reasons I’m happy to be in Los Angeles. I’m even starting to find the work that I hope will help me to grow as a writer and a reporter. Sometimes, though, I realize that I really do miss Michigan.

I walked into a Starbucks today and saw that they have put their seasonal Pumpkin Spiced Lattes back onto their menu. Back home, this has always coincided with a slight chill in the air and the first few colorful trees. Autumn is the time of year that fills me with happiness. I’ll be sad to miss it.

We’ve all seen them.
Photo essays of some of Detroit’s “best” shit holes in America’s most well known and respected news publications: the ruins of the vacant Packard Auto Plant and Michigan Central Station, the rotting skeletons of abandoned homes that were long ago burnt to the ground, the urban prairies–”wildlife” that’s slowly taking back the city and urban farming.
These are supposed to be the representation of what Detroit is like.

As Vice Magazine’s Thomas Morton so wisely noted earlier this summer in his article “Something, something, something Detroit: Lazy journalists love pictures of abandoned stuff”, because depicting a city that appears to be decaying from the inside out, from the local government to the face of the rubbled landscape, that get all the hits on news websites, these sensationalistic stories therefore prioritize those that have actual newsworthiness.
“There’s a total gold-rush mentality about the D right now,” Morton writes. “And all the excitement has led to some real lapses in basic journalistic ethics and judgment.”

To create some relevance here, what got me all fired up about this subject was my discovery of a TIME article called “Detroit: The Death — and Possible Life — of a Great City” earlier this afternoon.
“So, is this your thing now TIME?” I thought to myself, half kidding, as I scrolled past a photo captioned ‘abandoned homes in Detroit.’ “Write that same old Detroit stereotypes story every couple of months?” My jaw dropped when I realized that this was EXACTLY what the magazine is doing.

Without commentary from any locals, historical experts or city leaders, and using exclusively demographic information that appear to be lifted from a Wikipedialike source, TIME writer Daniel Okrent blogs from the first person perspective, as though he were an expert on the historical timeline and current state of the city. But, he’s certainly no expert.

While he claims to be a “Detroit native”, Okrent moved out of the city for an education at The University of Michigan and from there moved out of state the first chance he got, in the 70s– it’s pretty safe to say that he didn’t experience the ups and downs of living in Detroit duringthe last 40 years. His recent return to Detroit to pose the hypothetical question “Could we regenerate a city, and regain a sense of who we are as Americans?” is like a slap in the face to the people who actually live here.

He’s not actually writing from the perspective of a true native. He’s focused on fulfilling his own agenda, keeping people across the country comfortable through maintaining their ideas of what Detroit is like. While his voice is that of a martyr, he’s not actually doing anything to help rebuild the city. There’s no suggested plan of action to clean up or rebuild the city– there’s not even any words of encouragement. He just wants to retell the same story that’s been told a thousand times before.

What continues to frustrate me is that there’s not even a place on TIME’s website for me to comment on why this is unfair and unethical journalism.

In an AutoMK article called “TIME comes back to Detroit”, it’s reported that there’s a whole team of TIME reporters and photographers actually stationed within the city. Because it’s en vogue, TIME Magazine decided to buy a house in an old-money neighborhood to serve as their Detroit Bureau during this “Assignment Detroit Project” for the next year. Interestingly enough, this isn’t the first time TIME has had employees in Michigan and for similar reasons.
“Until about ten years ago, they had a whole editorial and advertising team in the cushy Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills. Then, a decade ago, they left, tail between their legs, afraid of sinking auto advertising revenues and lonely for their even-more-cushy Manhattan high-rise,” the article reads.

It continues: Rampant gang and crime that was prevalent through the 80s and 90s has dramatically decreased, the murder rate has dropped below the average of most major U.S. cities and there has been a rebirth in business entertainment.
“However, for someone just coming back to the city, it’s hard to see the improvement, so, like TIME Magazine, it’s much easier to apply a story line to a situation rather than put things into context,” it reads.

TIME is in The Motor City “because Detroit affects all of us”, they claim, while all the while The Detroit Free Press has been doing a stand up job with it’s coverage in the last couple of years. What this TIME in Detroit business is really about roots back to the fact that the national media loves to dump on this city from the safe sidelines. It’s like they’re fascinated with the city collapsing in on itself, but don’t want it to actually involve them.