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.