lamest person ever born

Hi. I'm the aforementioned l.p.e.b. God. I've been planning to go to Chicago tomorrow to see the Waco Brothers as part of Sydney's birthday event, finally see Chris's new house, and probably eat some good things, but as usual I've been all "La, la, la..." about it. La, la, la, eventually I'll get a train ticket so as not to have to worry about the weather this time. Tra la la... Amtrak is certainly anticipating my needs and saving a special seat just for me! MEEEE! Who the hell else takes the train, really, besides Pam and the terrible dude who sat next to her last week?

And who hasn't sat next to a terrible dude on an Amtrak train, anyway? Not to negate Pam's story, but god. I have a bunch of stories, too. The relative comfort of your trip is set in the first few seconds, when you decide if you should react in friendly way to the person who sits down next to you. If it's the wrong person, and you give any hint of encouragement, you are opening yourself up to a very long trip. Like the guy who was really into gummy candy in all its forms, and also had plenty of advice on desert survival. Once, though, I did have a desirable neighbor. He was a writer, and I sometimes see his travel stories in magazines these days. We talked harmoniously the whole way, and I was wearing some kind of zebra-print shirt, and I pretty much had it all worked out that I'd soon have to make some decisions like whether or not I should wear my contacts during flights to Australia, or if I should bring some of my own toilet paper to Vietnam. Obviously, it never came to that. Ours was but a romance of the rails.

Back to today, or, rather, yesterday - it turns out that Amtrak has done a bad job of anticipating my needs. Regardless of whether I leave from a station kind of close or kind of far, there are no seats. Even if I give up the Waco Brothers and settle for a day-after-Sydney's-birthday thing, there are no seats. There are seats coming home, but no seats going there.

And I want to see the Waco Brothers. I hadn't been to a show in a long time, and then Pam and Deborah and I went to the Hentchmen show, and it was really fun, and now it's what I want to do a lot. I want to go back to that for awhile, and have new rocker crushes. I just wish the smoke didn't nestle so deeply in my hair. That part's gross.

snowed-in sleepover

I can't believe it's been almost a month. I had a birthday since then. My new age is very significant to me. I have to admit that I don't much like it, but maybe it will turn out to be just the thing?

Today was a snow day, but I had already taken it off, so it didn't have the usual thrill. I finished my shopping and ate an extended remix of a lunch with Mollie. The Bloody Mary made time not matter.

I didn't go to Chicago like I said I would, but I had a Snowed-In Sleepover at Alice's involving Cosmos, hot chocolate with Bailey's, TV, snacks, and waiting for the snow to fall. Also, Alice put a hot water bottle in my bed, and it rocked my world! In the morning was sleeping late, then tea, coffee, muffin halves, Christmas card preparing, both of us doing stuff on our Macbooks, reading, napping, Indian food, triple layers of socks, and, finally, digging out just before the sun went down.

It's my second or third ever Snowed-In Sleepover, and I can't say enough good things about it. Let's have more snow, and more corresponding sleepovers!

God, maybe I need a roommate. Is my enthusiasm for the Snowed-In Sleepover really just about human companionship?

I got a digital camera for my birthday, bringing me that much closer to not being totally lame. Sometime around 2012, I should finally get an IPod.

f.i.a.t.

We had an especially painful staff meeting on Tuesday. As usual, the agenda was kind of random, unrealistically timed, and basically abandoned after getting off track within the first ten minutes. All the terrible tension between co-workers was floating around unacknowledged in the room. A lot of people can't stand each other right now. As always, I coped through doodling. I doodled hard. I regressed to a time in my past when I could get through anything via sketching. Math classes were made tolerable in this way.

I now feel really bad, by the way, that just that day, I had repeatedly gotten on one poor kid's case for constantly drawing when he should have been doing other things. I understand why he was doing it, but I don't want to accept that he was as bored in my classroom as I used to be in other people's classrooms. Shouldn't he perceive my classroom as a smorgasbord of enthralling activities?

So, Tuesday I found myself drawing this Fox in a Turtleneck (F.I.A.T.) series. Some of my co-workers seated near me were interested in this bold new concept, and wondered how they could be part of it, too. Some wanted me to know that the acronym forms a word that's also the name of a car. Just to be clear, these foxes in turtlenecks don't have anything to do with any cars. They are above/beyond such a mundane, everyday thing.

Remember: Fox in a Turtleneck. Don't get left behind.

I don't iron

Right now I'm wearing really pointy shoes with a shiny, no, *gleaming* snakeskin pattern. I'm shocked that people sitting here in this cafe aren't just lining up to kiss them, to be honest. I haven't worn them to school yet. I am leaving children behind in their knowledge of shoes.

Jen and I saw Wristcutters: A Love Story yesterday. I liked it a lot. Tom Waits was in it, and so was Gob. I liked the weirdness of the alternate place where they ended up - the tiny little train, the outfits, and all of it. And I liked that it was really a road movie in the end. I also watched the Japanese movie Linda, Linda, Linda, which was super fun. I can't get the song out of my head.

My time online is almost up (an hour per beverage purchase, which is silly). Lately I can't get online at home. Is it time to take another step toward adulthood and get my very own wireless account? It's a slippery slope. I'm worried that owning an iron would not be far behind.

blame it on the black star

i tried googling "colt" to find an image to fit my mood, but instead of finding a frolicking young horse, I mostly found guns and boobs, plus some sports team. What do boobs have to do with colts? I guess they have to do with anything. To be clear, i feel coltish, but like a young horse with long and energetic legs. My legs are actually relatively short, but that's not how I feel.

I gambol, not gamble.

See, any time I flirt even briefly with any kind of romantic entanglement, I feel like I'm killing all of the best parts of myself. Then I let go of said entanglement, and I feel coltish, free again. I tried really hard just now to make an artistic photo showing this clash between my true self and romantic crap. I tried to pose with a Godiva chocolate over each eye (i have a box of 48 from my doomed date on sunday), to comment on, you know, how these "romantic" gestures are supposed to cloud my vision, etc. But all the pictures just came out hilarious. Strung together, they would actually be a pretty awesome statement on my typical Friday night, after a nap, plus wine, and why I am still and probably forever single.

so, da

So, I haven't written in awhile, due to all the adventures and everything.

Today my lungs hurt and so did my stomach. I have had a constantly recycling cold and/or mild flu since school started. I wish my stomach was a happier place, in general. Look, I'm drinking soda (ginger ale) in the picture above. I don't usually do that. Only when the stomach gets really ornery. I scored an Avatar necklace today, though, also pictured above. It was the free gift that came with a book set I ordered for my classroom. My students like this Avatar, whatever it is. TV show, I think? Anyway, other than that high point, I kind of struggled through the day today. But when I got home, I had something waiting for me. The MUJI speakers I ordered from the MOMA store! Yea!

I love these cardboard speakers. They can pop onto my laptop or fold up flat for times when flatness is a boon. And they are from one of my all-time favorite stores, MUJI, which we don't have in the U.S., except as a few products in the MOMA store. There's a U.S. website now but you can't order stuff there. Actually, it looks like there is going to be a NYC store this November. Weird that they chose NYC and not Detroit.

Anyway, in Japan I went there a lot and always got that unhealthy rush of shopping excitement. Everything is just so simple and cool and affordable. They even had good snacks. And clothes. I still wear some of those MUJI clothes, and use the colored pencils, markers, notebooks, etc. I frittered my yen away on. I never bought furniture because there was no room in my compartment, but their furniture is cool.

So, yeah. Good little speakers! They made my day better.

tomatoes, cider, and gloom

Today I am gripped by a pointless melancholy, prompted by a visit to a farm stand.

There were tons of tomatoes of several varieties, and I bought a hefty bag of them. But I know, and they know, that the tomatoes' days are numbered.

This time of year, I eat at least a tomato, if not a few, a day.

Tomatoes on toasted wheat bread. Tomato slices eaten straight. Tomatoes eaten right side up, upside-down, with clothes on, naked, in the shower, in bed, chased with beer, snorted, worked into my performance pieces, etc. You get the idea. Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes. I eat them. I love them.

But now it's getting past tomato time and getting into cider time.

And that reminds me that I'm really thirsty right now, and that cider seems to quench a thirst really well, but I didn't buy any today because I didn't know if I had sufficient cash in the wallet for cider and tomatoes.

The most melancholy thing of all is that, as it turns out, I did. If only I had known!

tote bag

I am in a listless place as far as writing goes - except for super cheesy country songs. The super cheesy country songs fall into my head already written, fully formed, with backup vocals and seventies-style strings already worked out. I hear them as they might sound coming out of a jukebox in some divey bar. The harmonies include one of those super deep male voices.

We had our North African dinner party last weekend (next up: South America). There was a ridiculous amount of amazing vegan food. I went to the farmer's market early, then I spent all day chopping and prepping for my Moroccan stew, only to leave it untended for a bit too long while on the phone in the other room. It burned a little. I thought, "Well, at least there's the Moroccan carrot salad," as I threw the carrot sticks into boiling water for a 10-second dip. I took the pot off the stove and was moving toward the colander in the sink when the HANDLE of the POT came suddenly DETACHED. Carrots and boiling water landed all over the kitchen, including my now-blistered left foot. So the carrots also didn't really work out, you know? And I lost my favorite pot. It was one of my grandma's wedding gifts in 1943 or 1944, so I guess it had been around. Still...

THe other ladies had made tons of amazing food, and my stew ended up being fine, really, as long as you didn't have the bad luck to get one of the crunchy burned bits, heh heh. Jen sent me pictures of our meal, which perhaps I will post a bit later. I have to go buy some Spiderman bedding for my neph right now.

School began and the kids aren't broken in to my ways yet. I'm determined not to constantly bring twenty-five tote bags* of schoolie stuff home every night, so I can also focus on the country songs in my head.



*when is the last time you heard someone say "tote bag?" oh my god. i am a person with a lot of tote bags, and not ones you'd find at some alternative craft fair. it happened to me without my realizing it. tote bags are such a teacher thing. do nashville songwriters have tote bags? how about the backup singers?

3 cases of wanting to weep, though not sad

Jen called to tell me about the pricey but perfect nectarine she had today. It set her back more than a nectarine normally would, but it was totally worth it, she said. I understood, and felt happy that she would confide in me about her fruit purchases. I was reminded, too, of the time Norma visited me in Japan, and we went to a little town that had a kind of farmer's market going down. We saw a bin of lovely peaches, and marveled and laughed at the fact that they cost $10 each. Then, before I knew it, I was frantically whipping out my wallet and buying the biggest one. N. looked at me like I was insane. She, being of California, didn't understand that I hadn't had a fresh peach or any exciting fruits in awhile. That peach was amazing. I think I may have eaten it with tears of joy streaming down my face. That's how I like to remember it, anyway: Peach juice and salty tears charting a mingled course down my blissed out face. Sorry about that ridiculousness of that.

Once, years ago, a co-worker put some flowers on my desk at work, as was her occasional habit. Late in the morning, I started getting really red and itchy. It was maddening. I didn't connect it with the "flowers" (more like weeds, I think) until I caught a glimpse of them and had the urge to weep. I connected this emotional surge with the flowers, got rid of them, and the itchiness stopped. Cut to this week, when I have been super dry of eye, with burning skin. I even had to go without my contacts Monday, which I hate. I had no idea what was going on, until in the shower this morning, when I opened my way too expensive Lush "Big" shampoo, and the smell, which I had always liked, unexpectedly made me want to cry. Suddenly it all made sense! The crazy herbs in the shampoo were to blame! I washed my hair with good old fashioned chemicals instead and had no problems with my eyes today.

OK, I just spent too long reading message boards about a medical topic and I feel like I have subconsciously taken on all the bad writing style that is to be found in such places. Also, it's 3:00 a.m., which sucks. Actually, 3:00 a.m. doesn't suck; I quite like 3:00 a.m., which is part of my problem. What sucks is that I went to bed at 1:00 and it didn't work! And I can't sleep in very late tomorrow.

I have been watching the first season of Arrested Development. I like it so much! I had only seen a bit here or there. Who would anyone do - Buster or Gob?

Directions and directionlessness

I'm way, way out of sorts, all dry-eyeballed and prickly-skinned.

My favorite green shoes are slippery on the bottoms, and I know I'm taking a chance whenever I walk on any kind of smooth surface, which makes wearing them feel kind of reckless. Today, it finally happened: In the parking lot of the grocery store, I wiped out, right in front of a car. I think I might have ended up in the splits. I expected the person in the car to roll down his window and ask if I was alright. Instead, he waited for me to pick myself up, then continued following me to my spot so he could park there. Is it so naive of me to want a little humanity in the cut-throat game of parking?

Sunday was rainy, and I spent it in Ann Arbor. I went to my favorite place for Bibimbap - it is oh, so fresh and delicious. Then I walked to the art museum (which is actually not the art museum, but a temporary locale while they re-do the art museum) and saw an awesome, but small, exhibit of young Japanese photographers. Happy under my umbrella, I then walked to the Michigan Theater and saw "Nashville," which I have always wanted to see. I'm usually so-so about Altman. I did end up liking it, even though some of the early scenes were so chaotic I almost couldn't stand it. In the end, it was worth it. The only thing is, I've had that song "I'm Easy" in my head ever since...

During the movie, the drive home, and in days since, I have been wracked with a weird guilt. It all stemmed from that bebimbap I mentioned. As I was walking to the theater, a group of four young and friendly people stopped me and said, "Excuse me. Do you know a Korean restaurant around here?" I think they were from Japan. Anyway, I started gushing about how I had just that day eaten Korean food, and how fucking awesome it had been. So I started giving them directions. At some point during the direction giving, I realized that the place was kind of far. "It's on campus?" the main guy asked (I decided he was the main guy). "Well...no. It's totally worth it, though!" I kept giving directions using sketchy landmarks and descriptions. I didn't know the name of the place, and even if I did, I knew there wasn't a sign outside. It's kind of attached to a market, but with the directions I gave, the market would also be hard to find... I suddenly realized that there were 2 other good Korean places basically a stone's throw away. I offered to give directions to one of those instead, but Main Guy said, "But the other place is better?" "Oh, yeah! Oh my god, it's so good!" Really I have no idea if it's better at all. I was just excited. Eventually, off they set. For some reason I felt like I had sent them into the wilderness, so vague and inaccurate were my directions. It seemed unlikely that they would find it. I worried about that on and off through the movie. Then I started imagining that they had found it, and I wondered whether it even qualifies as a Korean restaurant. Sure, they have bebimbap, but also a lot of stuff like "hot dog wrapped in bacon, deep fried, and topped with kimchi." Even now, I imagine that they are still wandering around, wet from the rain, kind of bedraggled, or else suffering from stomach troubles if they ordered that hot dog thing.

I really need to stop feeling so responsible for shit like this, huh? Besides, if they are from Japan as I suspect, they should be used to directions like these. When someone came to visit my place there, it was, "From the train station, walk away from the giant red torii. Pass Family Mart and Lawson. When you see the big garden, turn right. Pass the sake shop. Stop at the beer machine and I'll pay you back when you get here. Keep walking straight. When you see the futon place, start looking for a big white building on the right. My apartment is the one that does NOT have a futon airing on the balcony, as it should."

off balance, but well shod

Today was a day of klutziness, bad timing, and poor coordination, saved only by seeing friends tonight, including J&J, who are visiting from Cali. I cooked my brown rice/avocado/corn/almond/red onion/dill pickle concoction for Jen, a.k.a. Birthday Girl to Be. Sadly, the red onion was pretty scant, for lo! When I went into the produce drawer, I found the following:

- a zucchini, frozen solid
- a yellow squash, frozen solid
- a red onion, frozen solid
- a carrot, frozen solid

Do you see a theme? Although the day was hot and humid, frozen vegetables did not bring me any comfort. All of these were beautiful specimens, from the organic farm, now changed into -sicles. This onion, for example. So pretty, but it's going to be all limp and weird when it thaws out.



My old friend Tomoko sent me this picture of a meal we shared in Japan two years ago now - an awesome and beautiful vegetarian place, where we had our own little room, with our own sliding shoji, and our own little pit to dangle our legs into beneath the table. The waiters unobtrusively brought course after course of tofu and vegetable dishes, each so different and good. Tomoko chose the place with me in mind. She is super good like that.



I've started setting up my room at school, but I have so far avoided all the terrible places where one goes to buy classroom supplies. My co-workers are getting ready for school through trips to office depotmax, the teacher store, etc. I have been getting ready through shoe buying. This year's group of kids is going to be better prepared in the areas of shoe knowledge and appreciation than any other group I've taught yet. Heels, wedges, flats, pointy toes, squared toes: It's an exciting time to be an educator!

coldhungry times ahead

Tonight I had my own pesto making party for one. All the basil I harvested from the pot outside my window was about to go bad (confession: actually, all that basil died in the dry summer no-rain heat. A professional farmer grew the basil that was about to go bad). First I made this lovely beet pesto. I put it on some broccoli for tomorrow's lunch. It is really good, for the beet-inclined. I myself am very inclined toward the beet. I just wish I had a food processor. My blender didn't quite do the trick. It's not nearly as pretty as hers, much chunkier, but it tastes really good.

Then, since I still had basil left, I made this asparagus pesto. I had made it before with a combination of asparagus and green peas. Today I made it with a mix of asparagus and edamame. Delightful! I did the fancy thing of putting it in an ice cube tray to freeze it for hard/cold/hungry times ahead.

comeuppance (warning to jen: includes birds)

I got a major comeuppance about my supposedly transcendent hair tonight. I met Alice at the WAB for fresh air and beer. I got there first and sat a spell with my Hefeweizen. Then Alice came, and within a few minutes, she said, "I think you have a stick in your hair. Or is it a feather?"

It was the latter! I had a nasty, dirty, fresh-from-a-flying-thing feather woven into my hair. I don't know how long it had been there or where it came from. Was it there all day? I was really grossed out. I'm not like the mom of the kid in my class who came on our field trip and picked up a wild duck and stroked it and cooed to it, OK?

But back to my hair. I'm not planning on talking about my hair in EVERY entry, really. But only because I couldn't ever hope to do it as well as this dude.

Gots to go wash bird-ridden hair now.

heart of glass

I am filled with ennui right now. It could be the hot day, or it could just be a case of intellectual overload. I have been thinking critically for three whole days now, after many summer days of sitting around drooling and stuff.

I found an old pal's blog yesterday and read it beginning to end, going back a year or so. It was awesome to read what she has been doing. She never stops moving around and doing cool and important things. She is "Social Justice in Central America" woman, whereas I'm "Look at the lush alien life force that is my hair!" girl. Kind of embarrassing. The good thing is that this "institute" I am doing right now is all about teaching as a political act towards social justice. The leaders are both really awesome and rabble-rousing, and it is inspiring and makes me somewhat excited for school to begin again. I, too, will rouse rabble in my classroom by subverting the dominant hierarchies! Or, I'll do a better job teaching fractions. Or remember to take attendance. Or a little of all of these.

I have been sitting with three teachers each day who I didn't know at all before. Today one of them pulled an NRA magazine out of her bag and started flipping through it. The other two got excited and said that they also subscribe. "WE ALL subscribe to the NRA magazine at this table!" one of them announced to the whole group. "No!" I said, shaking my head and grimacing. "I don't!" I may have also waved my arms around frantically and made a big "X" out of my arms like they do in Japan when it is imperative that everyone understands the "No"-ness of it all.

What if I only wore yellow and drove around in a yellow car? That would be very out of character. Another thing that would be out of character? Not breaking a glass every other day. I just did it again. It was a thin glass, and it shattered into microscopic shards and flecks all over the kitchen. Just like the day before yesterday, I swept with the broom, then spilled the dust pan and swept it up again, then vacuumed, then mopped, then picked sparkles out of the mop, then thought I had gotten glass in my eye, then took out the garbage, then mopped again. I think that stepping on glass is one of my irrational fears. Wait, actually it's a totally rational one. (Having to touch or interact with a fish, to be judged or acknowledged by its bulgy eye or forced to drape its see-through fins over my skin is my irrational one. To have the see-through fins somehow end up in my mouth. To have one waiting in my path with its grotesque mouth gaping, sucking all happiness out of the day). After all, if the glass gets in your foot, it could enter your bloodstream and make its way to your heart. Is that what you want for me? Also, there was a time during my teenage years when my foot really, really hurt on the bottom. I could barely walk, but it looked ok, so I ignored it. Finally, I couldn't take it anymore, and had my mom look at it. She started pushing around, and soon a river of pus flowed, and out came basically an intact wine glass.

So I hope I'm done breaking a glass every other day now.


P.S. I don't like the trend of people saying, "What it is, is...." Example: "What is glass, anyway?" "What it is, is a product of molten sand, cooled..." Why not just say, "It is a product..."?

Homework and horror

It's been troubling me a little that Pam thought that my profile picture was actually my thumb, dressed in a costume and posed. Ummm... no, it's a little gnome pushing a wheelbarrow containing a candle. I only get out the thumb outfits for very, very sacred purposes. Anyway, it has made me think about changing my profile photo. Lately I've been preoccupied with both my hair and with horror*, leading to these two photos.

I am perplexed about how I suddenly got all this hair. While I have been distracted by stuff and other whatnot, my hair has been following an independent and aggressive growth agenda. Now I think of it more like a pelt. A 1970's pelt.



Because of the Shirley Jackson books, I also took a scary picture. I apologize for any preoccupation with horror it may cause in the night.



I'm supposed to be doing homework right now. Homework! I'm doing a two-week workshop. Here is one of the best sentences I've ever read:

"Quintessentially and overly simplistically depicted through the juxtaposition of synthetic phonics-based instruction versus holistic whole language approaches, this vacillation has resulted in the artificial and detrimental segmentation of concurrently complex and codependent literacy skills, processes, and practices."

So many pretty syllables!


* horror lite, of course

Keepin' on in the mitten

I was away, on a dreamy pinkie finger of a peninsula, also known as the Leelanau Peninsula. It is possibly my favorite place on earth. That is a bit of hyperbole, of course. Let's say someone said, "You have won a free trip to either Kyoto or the Leelanau Peninsula!" In truth, I'd pick Kyoto. But I love this yearly trip I go on, and it's so much closer and cheaper than Kyoto. I should probably make it twice or thrice yearly.

The Leelanau Peninsula is all about the following: beaches; dunes; forests; wine (and it's good!); fresh produce; vegetarian food; locally produced coffee, chocolate, spices, teas, cheese; art (not cheesy tourist art! Real art!); writers (real writers who write books and publish them right there!); beach bonfires with poems and songs (kind of hippie-ish, but I like!); film festivals; music; one traffic light, which just blinks; and no chain stores or fast food whatsoever. Nothing's all that expensive, and it's just about devoid of Detroit hipsterism, which I am feeling terribly fed up with.

I'd like to link you right to it, but no one site seems to really get it right. Although the New York Times has written about it a few times in recent years.

Now I'm home, at any rate. After leaving the pinkie, I went to the base of the pinkie (I'm a fan of my state's mitten shape and don't feel cheesy about it at all), Traverse City, and partook in a family reunion of sorts. That involved tons of lying around on the beach, eating good things out of doors, swimming, and even jumping on a giant inflatable trampoline in the middle of Lake Michigan (probably not the geographic middle).

Now I'm home, and wistful. Summer vacation is kind of traumatic for teachers, as Chris has noted.

I have been reading Shirley Jackson. First I read "We Have Always Lived in the Castle," Pam's recommendation. It was so good. Her style is unique, and I find myself wanting to know more about her as a person. I had to have more, so I picked up "The Haunting of Hill House." It was almost as good. The ending got to me. I didn't think it had, but then night fell, and....the spookiness! "I was chilled," as the main character in "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" would say.

Now I'm reading "The Ethics of What We Eat," by Peter Singer and Jim Mason. It is disturbing and enlightening (also under-edited, but I'm letting it go). Anyway, so far my eating habits are coming out pretty well. I still have a third of the book to go, though. What evil will I learn is lurking in my extremely spartan cupboards? I hope it's not the walnuts. I need the walnuts.

I'm listening to Nick Cave's "And No More Shall We Part," after a long separation. Why a separation? It's so great. I could just write quote after quote on this blog and feel really good about myself.

My Friday night was spent watching an episode of Big Love with my mom at her house, and then an episode of 20/20 about dwarves and giants. That was my Friday night. I like my mom, I love/hate Big Love, and dwarves and giants are interesting (I HATE that 20/20 guy, though!!!), but Friday night? That's why now I'm staying up late, drinking Hemingway quanitities of wine, and trying to figure out the deal with the spelling of "blond" or "blonde," listening to Nick Cave sing about his sorrowful wife, which is absolutely the kind of wife (I almost wrote "whife," which I like!) I would make. Super sorrowful.

The problem with summer is that it just doesn't last.

playing hangman with mu_a_a_i

I took care of my 8-year-old niece today. I picked her up in the morning, and we meandered around town a bit and ate lunch at the fifties style diner (not my stomach's happiest plan, but...it's her fave). Then we came back to my house and played about a million games, including hangman. I told her she could pick any length word or phrase for me, but only if she was sure she could spell it correctly (a stipulation learned the hard way from a few disastrous games of third grade student-led hangman). So she decided to look around for a word. She disappeared from the living room and came back a few minutes later, ready to go. It was a two-word phrase. I immediately got some A's, and went for "I" next. I was surprised to learn that both words ended in "I." Anyway, I guessed a few wrong letters, then tried "R." at that point it looked like this: _ A R _ _ I*** _ _ R A _ A _ I. She hinted that there was another vowel. I guessed "U," and it got me to _ A _ U _ I *** _ U R A _ A _ I. "Haruki Murakami???" I said. "YES!" We both just doubled over laughing, although probably for different reasons. To me it was just so hilarious that she went looking around for a word, and that's what she found and picked. For her, it was sort of nonsensical, and plus she had probably had too much sugar from her fifties-style chocolate milkshake.

The book that she got that from was the one currently next to my bed, Underground. It's his interviews of people who were somehow connected to or experienced the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway system. I had read it before, but got it out again after watching a documentary about Aum Shinrikyo, the cult held responsible for the attacks. I first went to Japan a year or so after that happened, and I remember seeing these Wanted posters for missing key Aum members all over the place: The documentary (called "A," and randomly available at my library) followed Aum's naive and young official Aum spokesperson/follower as he tried to hold things together after the attacks. It was a very psychologically interesting glimpse of this one guy, but the film was surprisingly ambivalent about the cult itself and some of its stranger doomsday sci-fi beliefs. I guess it was intended for a Japanese audience that had already been beaten over the head with stories about those. Oh, but in one scene, the main guy, Araki, showed his oozing, nasty toenails and said that the pus was actually bad karma leaving his body. The filmmaker said, "Really? It looks a lot like a bad case of athlete's foot."

This scene was tremendously helpful to me, because the next day my mom and I went to get our first pedicures ever. Yes, you could say that we country mice finally visited the big city. I had a gift certificate and wanted to treat my ma. Anyway, as I settled into the aggressive yet pleasant massage chair and turned my feet over to a gentle-handed young dude with slicked-back hair, I felt a bit self-conscious about my flaked-off old polish, unmaintained cuticles, rough edges, etc. But after seeing those Aum Shinrikyo karma feet, wow. I knew mine looked pretty damn good. Now they look pretty damn great. Seeing as I will be on my annual beachy/small town up northy vacation within days, this is exciting!

Anyway, Underground is not my favorite Murasaki book by any means, since it's not enough of his own voice, but I'd still rather read it any day than something by, say, ne__on *_em___e or a__*__ul__r, for example.

institution, served sunny-side up

God, I'm really not a Francophile or anything, but now here I am listening to old Stereolab, with their French/English singing. I like the lyrics to this one:

Originally this set-up was to serve society.
Now the roles have been reversed that want society to serve the institutions...

The whole song is that, pretty much, again and again. Now I'm feeling bad about going to Old Navy today. That seems kind of like serving the institution. But I needed a bathing suit. Today I learned that it's very, very difficult to buy a bathing suit in July, one of the hottest months. Eventually I did manage to get one, once again by serving the institution. Target. I keep meaning to stop going there, and there.

Once, in my bon vivant days (DAMN YOU, FRENCH!), I gently yet boldly stalked a non-local singer after a show. I made my friends, two guys, drive around the block a few times to give me some time after I spied said singer in the restaurant below the club. I just sat down with him and chatted him up and ordered a drink. We got to talking about Detroit, then I recommended a book to him, and he asked me to write it down. I found a receipt in my purse and wrote the info down on it. He got all disgusted and said, "Old Navy?! You shouldn't shop at Old Navy." I stammered something about cheap clothing and a tight budget (all on the backs of third-world children, his point). I lost all my cool at that point. Then I saw my poor friends at the window, gesticulating madly. I guess they had driven around the block one time too many.

"Serving the Institution since 1999": My new t-shirt.

By the way, I still listen to that guy's records sometimes, but only while wearing my sweatshop-free, 100% organic hemp, Parisian-designed outfit that was delivered through carbon-neutral transportation (trans-Atlantic rowboat, multi-state relay race, Detroit rickshaw, slingshot).

la fille de summer

Mollie and I discussed the mysterious water chestnut today at lunch. It's a delightfully crunchy, nearly-flavorless treat, but what the hell is it, we wondered? I have done my research on the matter, and found that it is a tuber that grows in marshy, high-nutrient waters. It is not easy to harvest, and, according to one website, it is quite competitive. I assume this means it will challenge other salad ingredients to a crunch-off, and will likely win.

Hemingway set a daily writing goal for himself of 400 words. Once accomplished, he was free to go drinking. This is craziness. 400 words? It's nothing. It takes very little time. It leaves an awful lot of time for drinking, which makes a lot of sense. Yet he managed to write many books. Anyway, I thought I'd try for 400 words a day, although my 400 would be far less manly than his, but it's not enough most days. I feel like I'm just getting going. Maybe it's a good rule of thumb for those days when one does not want to write at all. Sort of like tellling myself that I only have to go for a walk - more often than not, it turns into a run.

La la la. I feel so lazy. I had a lunchtime drink avec Mollie, and it made me sleepy. I saw La Vie En Rose (Edith Piaf movie) yesterday, which I liked, although it was crazy depressing in some ways. The actress who played her was pretty amazing. Anyway, the French stuck in my head, I am the annoying, annoying person now who randomly sticks French words into sentences. Please stop me now.

formal portrait

1. I finally painted the little guy's formal portrait.


2. I am pickled in summer vacation. Pickled in a way that my original flavor has been lost. Like when school time comes back around, I am going to have the blankest look ever on my face. "You want me to what, now?"

3. It is super hot, which people keep noting, including me. I feel like, all over the world, people are toughing out hot weather every day. It doesn't have to be a big deal, right? The best plan is to just live with it, and maybe eat something spicy.

4. I just re-read one of my favorite books about Japan. I'm going through a little thing. A little phase of romanticization of my life there, including the things I used to eat, the places I went, the plush-seated subway, the tofu shop, my bike, and the rice paddies I rode it past... So this book is called A Zen Romance, and it's written by this woman who lived in Kyoto in the late sixties/ early seventies, when she was a college student. She lived on the grounds of a Zen temple and was in love with all the monks. She remembers every outfit she wore for everything, and she did all kinds of Japanese arts. The book is hilarious, because she was so over-the-top into philosophy and poetry and Zen, to the point of ridiculousness, and she makes fun of herself in retrospect, although her writing style is still kind of that way. Anyway, she has a really good memory for little details, and some of those little details remind me of things I loved there. I never made out with any monks, though, like she did. I did make out with a fireman.

5. I also found this crazy notebook where I used to write down my dreams. Oh my god. Super disturbing. How could i have remembered all those details about my dreams back then, when today I swear I remember nothing? Or when I do, it's boring, not all messed up and sexy like those dreams were!

6. Maybe I will add lucid dreaming into my summer sleep experiment. I can't tell you how that's going, by the way, until all the data is analyzed. Let's just say that the little guy's formal portrait was not painted between the hours of 8:00 am and 11:00 pm. Judge me if you must. It's true that I have no discipline.

beginning to see the li-ight

I saw Yo La Tengo last night at the Detroit City Fest thing. It was so, so good. I love them. I would like to try being Georgia for a day or two. Hell, I'd even like to try being Ira. They are just so cool without needing to be cool. They did a lot of songs that I love, a lot of awesome wall-of-sound type stuff, as well as quieter stuff. I love a wall of sound, especially while under the darkening sky. And the haze of barbecue smoke added a lot! Mmmm. At one point it seemed like an amalgam of barbecue smoke and fresh-from-the-can tuna. I must have really liked YLT to put up with that!

I went by myself, which was my choice. I will never not do what I want to do just because no one can join me (I dare you to translate that sentence!). But it was just a little depressing, I must say. I saw one dude I used to know, and it was a continuation on a recent theme of seeing people from the past who I have not exactly missed seeing around. I would love to run into people from the past that I have missed seeing around, but... Nope. Instead my fate is "too-tight-in-the-butt-overalls guy," "ethiopian-food-smeared-up-to-his-elbows-guy," "stare-at-my-tits-guy," and "hide-next-too-my-garage-until-i-get-home-and-then-try-to-make-out-with-me-even-though-i'm-your-friend's-boyfriend-guy." Oh, and "protest-the-state-of-the-world-by-refusing-to-vocalize-guy." Yes, I've seen all of these former would-be boyfriends, although I managed to avoid actually talking to most of them. God. Why are these the dudes I have stories about? Where are all the awesome ones from my past? I guess there really weren't many.

I'm listening to the Velvet Underground. On those 100% humidity summer days in Japan, when I had to put the office mandated hosiery on my sweating legs, I listened to "Beginning to See the Light." Somehow it got me pumped up to do what needed to be done.

So, I also saw the Hentchmen at the City Fest (why do I hate writing "City Fest?") with Deborah and Isidora. We were assaulted by a freak gust of hurricanic wind. Otherwise it was great. I hadn't seen them play in forever. So fun and good!

AND I saw the Buffy musical at a midnight showing, with Jen and Lisa. I liked it, because it's the Buffy musical, and as Lisa said, involved movie-screen-sized Spike! But I'm just not all that wacky. We were encouraged to be wacky.

I spent the first part of today reading Persepolis 2, after just having re-read Persepolis. I liked the story so much. Her drawings weren't as good, though. I wonder if she was rushed to complete a sequel? Some of them looked like planning-stages sketches. Still, it was awesome and makes me want to draw. All I need is some motherfucking motivation. Can I hire you to hang around my apartment and prod me with a pointy stick when I get lazy? I hate being lazy. I do. It is a straight line from lazy to depressed for me. But laziness is so easy. So I need a prodder. You will also be required to fetch beverages for me.

I'm writing at a coffee shop. Now I'm listening to the Johnny Thunders song "Hurt Me," and my headphones came unplugged, and I treated everyone around me to his high pitched, "Oh, hurt me!"

oh, mop...

I bought a new wet-n-dry mop at Target yesterday. It's called the "O Mop," part of the Method line of cleaning stuff. I like those products, so I decided to leave behind the days of on-the-knees floor cleaning and evolve to an upright mopping style. This mop is ergonomically and enviornmentally friendly, supposedly, with this lemon-ginger aromatherapeutic solution that you squirt here and there, hither and yon, on the floor before you begin moppage. The mop head is a soft cloth that is velcroed on and can be washed and re-used.

But the problem is, I keep thinking of it as the I-Mop instead of the O Mop. I feel like I should be able to download music or videos to the handle to enjoy as I mop. It's kind of disappointing that nothing revolutionary really happens. Unless you consider me mopping to be revolutionary, in which case, you do have a point.

I just tried it. It is pretty good. But oh my god, the instructions are kind of sickening. It's that hipster style of marketing. Stuff like, "align flat side of male pole with flat side of female pole (this sounds dirtier than it is)," and "squeeze metal doodads." The whole theme of the instruction booklet is eating off the floor, because this is how clean they will be. So there are all these recipes included, and accompanying photos of the food right on the floor. Wacky!!! They also note that when you do eat off your floor, "liberal use of cushions can make the whole experience much easier on the tush. Can we say "tush?" Guess we just did!"

Why does it make me kind of mad? There's something super obnoxious about it.

But, my floors are pretty clean. I think tonight I am going to steam some carrots, bok choy, and broccoli, and eat it on brown rice with some spicy bean sauce mixed in. Call me unadventurous, but I am NOT going to pile it on the kitchen floor.

*

Last night I met up with Mollie, A, and O after my spinning class. I changed my clothes and "freshened up," but that was all. Gross, right? My hair was saturated with sweat, but during the drive to Ferndale, I just kep combing my fingers through it. Then I got compliments on my hair. I think it's my new style secret: well-distributed sweat!

Wide awake

So, my Sleep Experiment was going well, up until right now. I can't sleep right now. But instead of tossing and turning, cursing and moaning, I am following the advice of Sleep Experts and leaving the bedroom for a relaxing activity.

But honestly, it's not really going that well. I mean, it's stricter than I'm used to. I have been doing a routine like this:

11:00: Stop all activity and move to yoga mat!!!
11:35: Stop all yoga and move to bathroom for Nightly Grooming!!!
11:45: Read just a little!!!
12:00: Lights out!!!

Then, in the morning:
8:00: Alarm sounds!!!
8:10: Leave apartment for bracing morning walk!!!
8:50: Begin Day!!!

To me, the three exclamation points are an important part of each section of the routine. But I haven't been feeling those so much. I do like doing the yoga. The whole evening part is actually really nice. I like it. (I forgot to add "Light a scented candle!!!" during yoga). It's just that I feel like I'm being filmed. It all feels staged right now. Maybe at some point it will start to feel normal.

But the morning part is hard. I wake up every day with my sinuses heavy, anchoring me to my pillow. It's hard to feel energized in that situation. I thought eight hours was going to be a revolution in restedness, but I don't feel that much more rested.

Oh, and I already have made "but it's the weekend!" concessions to this routine. Because who can go to bed so early on the weekend? Not a fun lady like me!

Also, my new routine conflicts with my old habit of drinking some wine in the evening. For one thing, Sleep Experts caution against it. For another, the yoga practice suffers. Perhaps I need to move the glass of wine to earlier in the evening?

***

Today was lovely. A lovely and gourmet Barbecue Event on Patti and Andy's long, lazy front porch. I would live on the porch if that was my house. It's all about sturdy pillars and fancy pillows. Pillars-n-pillows.

I can't sleep partly due to an unhappy stomach, but that has nothing to do with the grilled corn on the cob, grilled foil packets of potatoes/mushrooms/garlic, lentil rice salad, and green salad served by P & A. No, sadly it has to do with a staple drink of my twenties - my beloved umeshu (that's plum wine). How I guzzled it all over the nation of Japan! And so, whilst feeling a bit blue on Saturday, I spied it in the Japanese food section of one of my fancy local markets and decided to go for it. It was a lot less expensive than I usually see it in actual Japanese markets. I drank a little last night, but found it strangely unappealing. I tried again tonight, really tried to put myself back in that cared-for and loved umeshu place, mixing it with water as I used to do, putting it over ice... but, no. Syrupy and sweet. Undrinkable, almost.

Although just now, as I hauled it out, I see that it has PRODUCT OF CHINA written all the hell over it. It looks exactly like the product I so loved, but - is it? I'm starting to wonder. The cheap price! The style is the same, but... I'm sure what I used to drink was a Japanese product. Is it the same company? Do they make it syrupier for different markets? I hope it's something like that. Then I wouldn't have to feel bad about not really liking it anymore.

Here's what the bottle looks like. Maybe you've seen it. My friend Heather ate one of the plums from the bottom and did not file a good report about it. The picture is backwards, and it would take only a few seconds to fix it, but suddenly I am feeling tired. The Sleep Experts would encourage me to leave my quiet activity now, and return to my bedroom sanctuary, reserved only for the purposes of sleep and sex. G'night.

nothing to say, no one to say it to

Even though I have done so many good things that I like so far today (a walk, buying stuff at the farmer's market, writing, grinding ink and drawing, listening to Saturday NPR shows, reading my Moomin comic collection, taking a nap), i think i will scream if i don't talk to a real human being soon.

That said, I guess I'll have to make do with talking to you. Whoever you are.

But now it turns out that I have nothing to say. So, perhaps I'll just mention some things I have eaten lately.

There is a newish nearby market, which calls itself a "lifestyle center." Eeeew! I knew they would have good stuff, but it was hard to get past that. I finally went, and it has some awesome things. I have always wanted to make preserved lemons, but never have, and behold, they sell Moroccan ("what could be mo' rockin'?", Pam would ask. "Mo Rocca?" I would reply, after a pause, because I'm not as quick with the wit as she) preserved lemons in their olive section!

So I made green beans with preserved lemons. Super good! I also made another fava bean dish. The first go-round with the favas, I cooked them with ginger and bok choy. This time I marinated them in a lemony dressing. All about the lemons right now. I also marinated some red onion slices and some cucumbers for use in salads, but I tend to eat them by themselves, it seems. At Deborah's last night, we grilled vegetables and bread and had sandwiches with ancho chile hummus. Super good. Oh, and we had guacamole. It was my first guac of summer vacation, and my first barbecue of the summer.

I just got word that I will go to my second barbecue of the summer tomorrow, at Patti and Andy's! My summer theme is coming 'round. I'm so glad it's "vegetarian barbecue summer," and not something like "billy joel summer."

wild life

Little gross creepy crawlies have taken to squeezing through the place where the floor meets the outside wall in my front room. GROSS. GROSS GROSS GROSS! They are simple-minded, pathetic little beasties that don't understand who they have chosen to invade. Their lives are ridiculous. It's almost laughable, how lame and unrealistic their dreams and goals are. Almost laughable. But mostly just gross. It reminds me of when I had the Screaming, Flying Cockroach problem in my compartment in Japan. I went from horrified - unable to sleep, roaming the streets of my neighborhood until I gathered courage to sleep in a tiny ball on the bathmat, the farthest point from which I had seen it - to trying to humiliate it. "You are so stupid and pathetic. You can't do anything fun. Why do you bother? Your brain is a joke," etc. Then I would be at work and imagine it lounging on my "chair" (a term I coined to loosely represent the thing I put on the floor and then sat on sometimes) and watching my T.V., not cleaning up after itself, just an annoying houseguest of the peskiest sort. This gave way to a total giving in on my "I don't use chemicals in my home" stance, and I staged a full-on bug bomb attack. I moved all my things into the closet, as best I could, set off the bomb of chemical doom, then took off to a friend's house for the night. The next afternoon, it wasn't nearly as nuclear holocaust-like as I had imagined, but it was eerily quiet. I couldn't hear any high-pitched screams. The houseguest seemed to be gone. A short time later, I heard a neighbor lady screaming, "GOKIBURI!" Which means cockroach. I apparently drove it into her apartment.

I don't want to drive my current critters (which I'm reluctant to fully describe, because I'm already in their existential throes enough as it is) into the home of the couple that just moved in next door. They seem super nice. I wish I could send them straight to Frat Boy's place upstairs. That would be great. But I get the sense that these losers stay pretty low down.

The bug bomb, by the by, didn't get rid of my little frenemy altogether. One summer night, a season or more later, I heard the inimitable high-pitched scream and I knew. I found it and, psychological horror now truly piqued, went toward it with my upraised shoe. Is there anything more horrible, really? The thing was huge and hard. Whacking it with a shoe would have been like bludgeoning a small mammal to death with a stapler or something. But I was determined to off the motherfucker. As I approached it, it let out a blood-curdling scream and leapt at my face. I screamed like hell and ran, out the door, down the apartment building stairs, to the curb, dialed my unsuspecting boyfriend, and then waited an hour for him to drive across town to fetch me. Neighbors looked at me funny, or funnier than usual. I smiled weakly and said, "Gokiburi."

It wasn't even because of my current creepies, but I switched around my bedroom and my "office." I now sleep in the small room whose window is not easily accessible to anyone walking by outside, and my office is all big and spacious and I can open the blinds because I don't care who sees me working on my computer versus sleeping in my skivvies. I am keeping the bedroom really bedroomy. That's right - no extraneous whatnot unrelated to sleep. I've decided to use my summer leisure to do a study on sleep, with me as the subject. Does all that wacky good-night's-sleep advice work? I was planning on starting last night, but I got involved in something. I made myself wake up early today so I'll be all ready to start tonight.

I'm also going to buy a new bed. I'm in research mode. The problem is that the bed I want is the one pictured here. It is not a bed that just anyone can have. It is not a bed for a regular person of regular means. But it is the most beautiful bed I have ever seen. All beds should follow suit. Now I have this in my head and nothing is going to seem right.

happy

I'm happy right now. i've only been off of school a week, but i have already brang the fun. For one thing, I've been saying "brang" a lot more, and it feels right. but that's just the beginning of the fun i have brang. I turned in my classroom keys on friday and then hit the road for chicago. mere hours later, i was sitting at the bar with my ladies and two mysterious brothers. Pam and I went to Madison in the morning. Of course, we only travel as guests of the governor of whatever state we are visiting, so we checked into our Governor's Club hotel room and then I went to my Lynda Barry class.

Lynda Barry is so great. I already was in awe of her, but now I also flat-out love her. She was so normal and nice and hilarious. She invited us to stay and talk to her at lunch, and acted like we'd be doing her a big favor by doing so. The second day, she brought tons of work samples for us to look at, and also her chinese ink painting supplies, and spread it all out and taught us all how to do that during lunch, if we wanted to learn. She also said she could never draw birds well until she realized that they don't really have necks. I totally understood this. And i mentioned that I like the sock monkey she draws, and she was like, "Oh, that one is so easy. You can do it, no problem. Here, let me show you how!"

So there was the drawing inspiration, but of course it was a writing class, so mostly it was doing tons of deep work with writing. It was similar to a process I've done before, but I got tons of ideas not only for my own writing, but for teaching writing, too. She was so supportive and motivating and it was very important that I saw her system of organization of her teaching notes. Basically a collection of notecards spread all over the table, with just a few words on each, all cattywampus but sense-making to her. And to me, actually.

We also got to sing the song "Jimmy Carter Says Yes," led by Kelly Hogan, who organizes LB's classes for her.

Pam and I enjoyed free cocktails on the governor, then ate at an awesome place that reminded me for some reason of bars I used to go to in Nagoya. Particularly, it reminded me of Yagiya, the exciting exterior of which is pitured above. It didn't look at all like Yagiya, but that's where it felt like I was. We also meandered about a bit. You know how I love to meander. The second day, we ate Nepalese (or Nepali? Which is best?) food. Awesomely awesome.

That's what Lynda Barry taught me - that "awesomely awesome" is the kind of thing I should be writing more.

I have lots more to say, because then we went back to Chicago, and then I spent days with Chris, and saw lots of other peeps, and just came back last night and saw "God Grew Tired of Us," as part of a Save Darfur fundraiser.

Life has recently been divided into various chunks of enjoyment. But I'm all super distracted for some reason and can't continue writing this now.

I luff summer!

fear my prowess

I got a run today at the mandatory kickball game!

An athletic scourge on the school no longer.

I feel I earned the extended periods of time I otherwise spent chatting and swigging cold coffee in the outfield, sometimes facing away from the diamond. Those fifth graders never kick it out that far, anyway.

I started writing and a bunch of job related stuff came out unexpectedly.

I won't go into the boring details (pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable), but this day was mythic in its exhaustion making opportunities. I felt boxed in and under-challenged, except in the patience department. So I've been all brain-deadily looking on the internet for other career options. Just looking, of course. Just one of those days, really.

But I have to tell you something secret about myself. I SUCKED at my business jobs and can never do anything remotely like that again, ok? I always did just enough to not get called out. I found I didn't really care at all. I lacked passion of any kind. I like to pretend that I have this great work ethic, burdensome in its magnitude, but really I'm just clever enough to get by. I'm clever enough with words that I can hide the lack of content. A professor wrote something just like that on a paper once - she was almost dazzled enough by my language to ignore that I really didn't say that much.

It's not something I like admitting. But I'll tell you even more. I'm organizationally retarded, I HATE making business related calls, and I have no mind for details. I'm daydreamy and unfocused. I avoid with a vengeance. When those daydreams drift to alternate job paths, the sad truth is that I'm not cut out for any of those dream jobs (i.e., southeast Asia correspondant for NPR).

I just looked at my old diary that I kept online while I was working at the translation company, and remembered it all so vividly. Those days were the worst. Here are a few supporting quotes:

"Shit, I messed something up and it's too late to fix it. Well, if you receive your HMO benefits summary in Arabic, and something doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll clear it up for you."

"I nearly bought a pair of dominatrix-looking boots at lunchtime. Ready to whip those projects into shape and show them who is boss. But I'm so not the boss of my projects. I didn't buy them."

"God, I wish my co-worker would shut up. The complicated project involves module 2 and module 3, and each module has sections 1, 2, and 3. All day she has been talking constantly about it. Module 2, section 3 is fine, but module 3, section 2 is not, and modules 2 and 3, section 2 have this issue, whereas only module 2 has that issue with sections 1 and 3. I don't have any idea what she's fucking talking about."

"At my meeting, my jokes fell flat. "We are still working on the lead poisoning prevention brochure," said co-worker. We have been working on this since Jeff was a pup. "Still???" said I. "God, in the meantime, a bunch of kids have gotten lead poisoning!" "We have sent the Arabic translation of the gambling awareness brochure to the State of MI for a final review," said co-worker. It's the 50th or so such review. "Meanwhile, dozens of Arabic-speaking people have developed gambling problems!" I said. Well, no one laughed, but I did. Then I started imagining stroking a cat's belly. A soft, silky, cat belly. I thought about this for a long time. Then I started thinking about stretching exercises. I want to stretch out, and i want someone to hold my hands while we spread our legs and sit feet to feet, then we take turns leaning back, as far back as the other person can take it. This made me start thinking about other couples' stretching exercises and imagining photo layouts of couples in matching warmup suits, doing various couples' stretches. I snickered out loud. I was afraid that when they asked me to give updates on my projects, I was going to blurt out something like, "I like couples' stretching exercises!!!"

God. See what I mean? Unfit. But able to act the part.

This is really depressing me right now. I see that I'm basically unloveable (so much so that I don't even know if I am supposed to keep the "e." This, from a fourth grade spelling bee champ!!!).

At least there's Galaxy 500. I'm good at listening to them.

fava beanz

The Sopranos! We hardly knew ye, and ye will be missed.

What a crazy ending. I have to watch the whole thing again. Was the guy at the end familiar, or not? Meaningful, or not?

I'm all hyped up about it. I just got home from watching it, and I had just today vowed to start some sort of soothing bedtime routine to try to teach myself proper grown up sleep habits. Instead I am drinking wine, looking around online, changing my sheets, and cooking rice, and it's just about 11. The plan was to do some relaxing stretches, put on some quiet music, or some such shit, and lights out by 10:30. Oh well. Tomorrow night?

I was hoping that in my sheets I'd find my ring which for years I have worn on the middle finger of my left hand. It is square on the outside and round on the inside, and I've literally had it on since at least the late nineties, if not longer. One day at school recently I suddenly realized that it wasn't on. "Oh my god!" I said, right out loud. "What?" they said. "My ring!" I replied. They all started talking at once. "The square one, that's round inside? On the middle finger of your left hand?" Then I realized that yes, I'm truly under a weird scrutiny all day, every day, and this makes my job tiring.

But only for 3 and a half more days.

Anyway, the ring was not loose at all. So how did it come off? I imagine I took it off in the night, due to some dramatic dream, and flung it deep into the sheets.

I have had a headache since Friday. The exact moment it started was at the end of our "read-in," which involved an afternoon of sleeping bags, pillows, flashlights, and books (real purpose: keep 'em busy while I started taking stuff off the walls). And pajamas. NOT FOR ME, THOUGH. The moment that 28 kids started telling me at the same time that they couldn't roll up their sleeping bags was the moment the headache began in earnest. And despite copious sleep at strange hours all weekend, it hasn't let up.



I bought fresh fava beans today! It has always been a dream of mine.

Screw the good sleep habits. I feel fantastic!

Ashtray bed

The weekend is almost over, but who am I to complain? 9 more days I have to rise in the darkness of morning and then go teach kids. 9 little days, then I'll be off to Madison and Chicago, then I'll be back with leisurely days at home, a trip up north, a workshop here or there. Just nine old days between this and that.

But complain I do. I don't want the weekend to be almost over!

The dude upstairs is a ruiner of sleep. He had a party last night. Fine; I have no desire to be that person who gets mad at someone else's party. But the party started at 3 a.m., woke me up, and hit a peak of obnoxiousness around 4:30 when they gathered on the front porch to smoke and talk about strippers. The porch is right by my window. The window is by my bed. I was essentially on the porch with them. They were essentially in my bed with me. They were pretty much shouting in my ear about strippers and their crazy stripper-related hijinx. And blowing smoke into my eyes. It was all atrocious. I finally slammed shut my window and they all started laughing. How hilarious that they pissed off some dumb chick! They are so crazy and fun!

I was scared of them, as I am of groups of drunk men, so I didn't say anything. To put my face in my window and ask them to be quiet would be to draw too much attention to the fact that they were basically hanging out in my bed. So I left the window closed and tried to close my smoke-stinging eyes.

Have you ever slept in an ashtray? That's what it was like. I slept in a Japanese ashtray once. An American ashtray is much the same, as yucky places to sleep go.

Fertile at the garden center

After a lunch out with my mom and aunt recently, I found myself at this big garden center with them. They know their plants. They know their flowers. They know their soils, their mulches and seeds. They know their Latin names, even. They wandered around and spoke intelligently about the growing things around us. I wandered around with a little drool at the corner of my mouth, pointing and simple-mindedly saying things like "pretty," "nice," and "orange." I don't know my flowers, or my plants. It's sad, really. But I did see something that quite struck my fancy at the garden center that day. The suburban, upper-middle-class garden center. The golf-shirts-and-khaki-shorts garden center. I saw a dude. Not just any dude.

A dude dressed in a fancy white suit and a black shirt, like Nick Cave might wear, and a white tie.

A dude with a very dramatically long mustache, like Dali might have sported.

A dude with big ol' shades like Elvis favored.

Oh my god. What was he doing at the suburban garden center? So brave and bold. He could so easily have soiled - literally! - that suit! He was so dashing. I mean, Nick Cave-Dali-Elvis? Come on. I was totally ashamed of my own dull fashion statement. I could barely look at him. I NEVER see dudes I like. Almost NEVER. My mom was kind of giggling about him. I don't think she understood that my excitement was in no way ironic.

He was fancy yet manly, you know? He was Fanly.

I'd like him to accompany me to my end-of-the-year staff party. Him, or, of course, Danny Dollrod has an open invite.

Punto

Yesterday was the day that the fourth grade girls at my school found out from their trusted teachers that they will one day begin to bleed from their vaginas, and they will spend about a quarter of the rest of their lives in that condition. Yes, they got the changing-bodies-and-periods talk. After school, I saw the fourth grade girls walking around all dazed, with big-eyed shock all over their faces. They probably felt duped. Who can blame them?

In other health news, I can't seem to get a good stretch in my hamstrings. I don't know what it is. But those who know me well may know that my basic life philosophy is that the key to happiness is well-stretched hamstrings. So I guess I don't need to spell out my emotional state these days. That's part of why I haven't been writing. I also haven't been writing because of poor internet availabiltiy in the home, and because of grand adventures, etc., keeping me too busy. And my period.

scary post

Why do I get so mad when I get home and someone is parked in my space? The person might not know it's my space. But I know, and it pisses me off but good. I guess I just feel like, I don't have a washer/dryer; I don't have a place to sit outside; I don't have any windows in my kitchen; but goddammit, I have a conveniently located assigned parking spot!

So tonight, like other nights, I wrote a note and stuck it under the car's windshield wipers. A note along the lines of, "Hey, this is my space." Nothing crazy. But tonight, unlike other nights since I've lived here and found someone in my space, it's nice weather (the air right now is cool, but in an edge-of-warm way). And I want to open my bedroom window when I go to bed. I've been doing that, and feel just a little uneasy because I'm on the first floor, and the windows are low, and the parking lot is right there. And if I make the parking space stealer angry, he may enter my home through this window, right? It would be very simple to do.

So I just went out and removed the note!

This is how freaked out I am lately. I didn't realize how strong a psychological grip these low windows would have on me. I'm not usually one to freak myself out about living alone kinds of things. I'm only keeping the one window open while I sleep (cramping my fresh-air style), but still, I'm waking up to any sound with a start. I dreamed last night that someone came in. It is not helping that I'm reading A Strange Piece of Paradise, in which the author recounts being attacked while camping and hacked up by an ax.

Maybe I should pick out another book.

Also, I think I should get a piece of wood to wedge in the top of my window so it can't be opened wider from the outside. Or at least sprinkle some shards of glass on the outer sill.

P.S. I was going to put a picture of an ax on this post, but I started looking for one and got scared. I am not going to look for pictures of axes anymore. One picture that came up was of the Virginia Tech guy. That reminded me that I had a dream that I was supposed to meet him for coffee, but I didn't want to go. I was scared of him, and also I was afraid for people to see me with him, because I knew they'd all recognize him. But then again, I was afraid to not go, because now I knew how violent he was, and I knew he would come find me.

I'm not going to look at anything on the internet, read books, or stay up late anymore.

Open letter to inanimate objects everywhere

Dear inanimate object;

Should you find your way into my hands, consider yourself warned. I will drop you. I will not be able to sustain a grip, and you will clatter to the floor. Be you fork, phone, roll of tape, or apple, you are not safe with me, inanimate object. That's just the way it is these days.

xxx ooo merrichan

reading today

I am reading Ma Jian's "Stick Out Your Tongue." A few years ago, I read his memoir, "Red Dust," which I loved. In Red Dust, he writes about his time spent wandering, hiding from government censors in the remotest parts of China and walking, walking, walking. It was all very romantic, and I found Ma Jian to be very hot in a renegade artist kind of way. Today I started "Stick Out Your Tongue," which if I understand correctly was the reason he was running from the censors. The book consists of stories that all take place in Tibet, and they show a side of Tibet much different than the Hollywood Buddhist/prayer-flag version. Ma Jian writes about some horrible, horrible things in these stories. Think lots of maiming, rape, and congealed yak blood. It's a very slim book, and I just now lay in a patch of sun and read about half of it, but I need a break from the desolation. He is such a good writer, and I know he spent time in Tibet, so it makes me wonder how much is based on real events. Anyway, the Chinese government didn't like his take on Tibet, and so he was banned from ever publishing in China. Which I guess I don't really understand - the Chinese government isn't exactly pro-Tibet, so why was he banned over this? I think they just like to harrass artists and writers.

Now he lives in London. I tried reading his novel The Noodle Maker earlier this year but couldn't get into it. Maybe i'll give it another try.

I love reading about China and reading Chinese literature. I'd like to study Chinese, and I'd go there in a second. I'm a little worried about the bathroom sitch, though. That's the only thing.

Inexplicable shame in paper or plastic

Will Ferrell is staying across the street from me at the fancy hotel. He's been eating at the bar that would maybe be my local if I wasn't afraid of seeing school people there whilst drinking too much.

Recently, I'm just kind of ugh. You know?

I got the new Trader Joe's catalogue in the mail today. I do love Trader Joe's, although a lot of the stuff I won't eat because I'm a snob who doesn't understand the logic behind "deconstructed burrito bowls." I don't really like pre-prepared stuff, I guess. See? I'm a food snob. It's just that it takes less than 10 minutes to make a real, fresh burrito, you know? So you just end up left with a plastic container to get rid of.

But there are some things there that I love. Like mango black tea!

Today I was there to get some mango black tea, it so happens, and Friendly Guy was all like, "Hey, welcome back! Great to see you! How have you BEEN?" Does he actually remember me from weeks ago, or is that just Friendly Guy's work survival schtick? He touched me on the arm, oh so comfortingly and supportively, and said, "See you again soon!"

Much different from Mean Guy, who forgot to read the section of the Trader Joe's employee manual about over-the-top friendliness. Recently, this cash register conversation transpired shortly after M won a bag of fancy stuff from her local Trader Joe's from the monthly contest you get to enter when you bring your own bags:

Me, holding out my brought-from-home bags: "My friend got a bag of fancy stuff for bringing her own bags - do you do that contest at this Trader Joe's, too?"
Mean Guy: "We don't just GIVE you that for bringing in your bags. You have to enter and win."
Me: "Oh, I know. Can I enter?"
Mean guy, huffily: "Lots of people enter, you know. Just because you enter doesn't mean you'll win. Some people enter every month and never win."

Yes, I do get the basic idea of contests, Mean Guy. Thanks for the inexplicable shame.

Help!

I have a problem and need advice. My students are doing biography book reports. They all get to choose who they do, but they have to be dead (this is my attempt to get them not to do a Detroit Pistons player, American Idol contestant, or George W. Bush; Reagan is now fair game, though. Damn!). One of my students really wants to do hers on a famous Asian or Asian American. I'm all for it, of course, BUT - I cannot find a single kids' biography book about a non-living person from any part of Asia! I've scoured online resources and my library's catalogue. Anyone have an idea or know something I don't? I hate that I have to tell her no, sorry, there is NO ONE from Asian history who is important enough for someone to have written a book about... I may just lift the "has to be dead" requirement and suggest Maya Lin, because there's a book about her...

Maybe this suggests a writing project for me!

cass corridor crash pad

People in my world often seem to have second homes of some sort. No one in my family does, but school-related people do, in numbers I find shocking. Usually these second homes are on a lake or an ocean, or near a lake or an ocean. For some reason they are not generally in cities. Tonight I thought about how I need a second home - or, a second rental - in Detroit, for use on the weekends. I have always wondered about this grandiose, abandoned castle on Cass. Here's what I found on the Metro Times website:

"Known by locals as “the castle,” the grandiose, turreted GAR (Grand Army of the Republic) Building is still there at 1942 Grand River on the corner of Cass, still boarded up, still owned by the city and still occupied solely by pigeons. Built at the end of the 19th century, the castle has been vacant since 1973."

Maybe I could just have one turret as my weekend crash pad? Hmm... Pigeons. Gross! Forget it.

See, I am trying to go out more, with Pam as my role model. I'm not really interested in going out around where I live. I drive to Ferndale or Detroit. Tonight Alice and I went to two places in Detroit I'd been wanting to go to. Both were great fun. Before tonight, I had never had a dude try to pick me up by telling me about the awesome new walk he tried out at his fashion show today. He is a model, you see. He told me about how he innocently took off his shirt one day at some fashion event, and within minutes was handed a different shirt to model and whisked onto a runway. Ever since then, he's been in high demand as a model.

He must have said "model" at least twenty times in less than ten minutes. I don't think I said it at all.

all-night garage sale of the mind

I just lost a big long entry. I think it's because my pinkie nail is too long. Something got pressed. I don't know.

Do you know the song "Billy Boy?" It's totally haunting me right now. In the constant loop it's playing in my mind, it starts as a chorus of cheery hay-riding children, then slows to a macabre horror movie high-pitched refrain. That's maybe just what happens when one of your job requirements is to dress up like a pioneer schoolmistress two days out of every year and teach readin', writin', and 'rithmetic to a bunch of kids dressed in knickers and bonnets at a one-room schoolhouse. Two. Whole. Days. Including fake beating them with fake hickory sticks. While wearing calico. Things go funny in your head. Trust me. Especially when you have a fever. Like me.

I'm feeling better, though, and I'd like to catch you up on what I have and have not been doing.

Recently, I have not been doing these things:
- having insomnia
- settling on a new master plan for my hair
- maintaining an interest in the small bit of gentle online stalking I normally do
- having planned or surprise thrillz
- the splits (but I just checked, and I still can)
- seeing Hot Fuzz
- cutting my pinkie nail
- maintaining communication effectively

I have been doing these things:
- admitting that I should do something about my hair
- eating frozen black cherries
- switching out the summer and winter clothes
- buying nail polish (next step: apply nail polish)
- dragging myself by the elbows through a desert towards my oasis, Friday, 3:10, which has now come and gone, leaving me much refreshed
- drank outside at mollie's a la summertime fun
- signing up for Lynda Barry class in Madison
- listening to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (at least right now I am)
- deciding that I want the summer to be all about people hosting and inviting me to barbecues of skewered vegetables and soy protein shapes, and beer.
- fondly reminscing about the crush i used to have at whole foods. anything seemed possible back then, in late summer of 2006, when any shortage of cereal or kale would get me all excitable...
- counting down the wake-up days until summer vacation.
- finding a list chris and i made called "A List of Things to Do on the Eve of the Summer Solstice: 1992 Edition." There are 27 options listed. Some highlights include: Flint Expo; home body piercing; visit pam; fix washing machine; balance eggs; shoot: guns, pool, and heroin; and all-night garage sale.

misfit girl doll

Tonight was my school's Family Fun Night. Or, as I call it, Family Freakin' Fun Night. Not that any freakiness really occurs. It's a school carnival, basically, with a cakewalk and games and stuff. Promises of fun be damned; we are always pressured to go, and it always leaves me a little depressed and misfit-toy feeling. It's actually held at my old high school. Around these families in a social situation, I feel just as misfitesque as I did back in the day.

Looking for this picture, I read some guy's opinion that the misfit toy girl, above, was a misfit more for psychological than physical reasons. Touche! (Sorry - I don't know how to do the accented e on my mac and am too tired to look it up).

This week: I got tenure in my district. I also got 1% retroactive pay on what I've made this school year so far - because we finally settled our contract. One percent didn't come to that much, but it's enough to buy a nice new piece of art... and I think that's a good way to celebrate a milestone... but I shouldn't... but I want to... and I have just spent hours looking at art online and pondering... but I probably won't... will I?

I saw a lovely $10,000 Japanese print and had to laugh. People don't really spend that, do they? I am agonizing over whether or not to spend less than two hundred dollars!

There's nothing funny or fun to report! I ate sushi tonight. That was fun. I had work obligations 4 out of the past 5 nights. Neither funny nor fun. Perhaps writing in the ol' di isn't the thing to do after that kind of week. I'll try to build up something to say before I write again.

Back in the day (junior high?) - Smiths "Meat is Murder" t-shirt and a magazine - Star Hits, maybe? My red folder has a Far Side comic taped to it. How zany! And there is a radio/tape player in my bed, just visible behind the blankets. I look really mad. My eyes look weird. Twenty years later, I still don't make my bed. I still have that t-shirt. My hair is not asymmetrical (which it was in those days). Maybe it should be. Also, I still sit on the floor with stuff around me. Sometimes in the midst of a project, I box myself in.

My glamorous friend, Lisa

Lisa apparently has a higher tolerance for pinchy sensations than I do.

Letter Proposition

Do they make pasta sauces in small, single-person sized jars? Or must one be coupley to enjoy waste-free pasta eating? I am tired of throwing away old uneaten pasta sauce. I remember for awhile one could find small cans of black and garbanzo beans, but I haven't seen those in awhile. Could this niche be the answer to my "summertime extra income stream" challenge?

Not wasting pasta sauce now joins "free rides to the airport" as reasons to be part of a couple.

Can you tell I'm on spring break? All kinds of time to think, in conjunction with ample fridge-cleaning opportunities.

This has been the craziest spring break EVAH!!! MTV should totally have a camera rolling in my apartment. Unlike every other break in recent memory, I have been crazy... PRODUCTIVE. Dudes, I am never productive. This is huge. The room with the monster has finally been exorcised, and it now can function as a proper office. What did I discover in this process? Well, I discovered that I have a completely inappropriate amount of stationery. I have a bunch of weird Japanese stationery; I have arty paper; I have homemade "Fuck White Supremacy" stationery; I have weird old travel postcards; I have too-bumpy-to-write-on stationery; I have more stationery than is in any way reasonable, especially considering that I don't write letters.

So here's the deal. Would you like a letter from me, Imaginary Reader? Just leave me a comment to that effect. You will have to give me your email address. Then via email, you will have to give me your real address. I know. It's weird. But if we go through all that, I will send you a letter on carefully selected stationery. Or, most likely I already know you and your address. Still, if you want a damn letter, you have to sign. No sending me a text message. That's just the way it is. Don't even TRY it, bucko.

digging deep

My eating life has been all about noodle soup lately. I'm on a "I spend too much money on food" kick, wherein I'm trying to go deep into the cupboards, eating what I have before breaking down and going grocery shopping. It turns out I have quite a lot of noodles (soba and udon), plus a bunch of soy-ginger broth, plus a ton of frozen edamame and other vegetables, and seaweed. Hence, noodle soup.

It brings back to mind my old idea for a cooking show called "Poorly Stocked Kitchen." The contestants try to make do with the slim pickins in a, well, poorly stocked kitchen. Chris would definitely win, no matter who she took on. She always could whip up some good shit from some mighty incongruent ingredients. That's how I remember our roommate-hood, at least. I would look in the cupboards and see a few blobs of mustard, half a can of beans, soy sauce, and old packets of yeast. Chris would see a delightful Pan-Asian feast, somehow, and it would be really good to boot.

I went to two movies on Saturday night at the DFT. I saw the Thai cowboy movie "Tears of the Black Tiger," and the Jonestown documentary. Both were good. I don't really like writing about movies, or books, even though I love movies and books more than I love most other things. I chalk it up to the art snob dude who exerted terrible control over my opinions for a few years. Yeah, it's still his fault, somehow. Why not? Anyway, I enjoyed a glass of wine before each film and did a lot of people watching. People kept smelling a certain way that reminded me of student co-op parties at U of M. Not really a pleasant smell - in the patchouli family, but different. I hadn't smelled it in years, and oddly, I smelled it all throughout that night. Then in my car, driving home, lo! I smelled it again. Only I was alone now. Which could mean only one thing.

I was the student co-op party smelling girl!

Damn Lush products! You know, I like the idea so much, and they are all so pretty, but this is the second thing I've bought from them that has left an unexpected lingering hippie odor!

I have been watching season 7 of Buffy again (thanks, Jen). As they talk about the impending apocalypse, and how something is coming, I keep getting it mixed up in my mind with April in general. I will have a spring break, then when I return to school I will be slammed with a near-apocalyptic maelstrom of events and stress-inducing obligations, all involving intense preparation and task-mistressing. I am not looking forward to it.

I look ahead in my calendar, feel a chill pass through me, and brace for it - from below, it will devour me. Or from above, or the sides. Someway, April is probably going to devour me.

See you in May?

overtired

This morning on my way to work, I almost ran over a mallard duck, which was standing stupidly in the road.
On the way home, I saw a frog hop right into the spot that my tire was about to occupy. I doubt he made it.

It was a bad day to be an animal in my way, I guess.

I keep seeing the same license plate numbers. I always make words out of license plates - you might call it a hobby - and at least five times in the last few days I've been behind a "bch." I make Bach, bitch, blech, and beach. I don't make broach, birch, or brunch, though I could. Which of those things do you like best? I do enjoy brunch. Birches are good, too.

Another one I have been behind a lot is BFG. There is a Roald Dahl book called The BFG. I think it stands for.... god, I don't know. I think "Big Fuckin' Giant" in my head when I read it to my students (I hope that's just in my head). I'm not sure what the F really stands for.... Freakin'?

I haven't read The BFG to this class yet. Maybe the license plates are giving me a message.

Come to think of it, maybe I was also getting messages today when I was behind "KLL DCK" and "KLL FRG."