Caring about deer

Today, when I pulled into my parking lot, a deer was meandering about between the cars.

I see them all the time on my way to and fro school, often in various states of decomposition along the side of the road. Never in my parking lot, though. I felt bad for it. It so does not belong in this parking lot. I just kept looking at it, trying to convey to it that if it wanted to follow me, I would lead it to safety. But I don't think it got my drift. I tried English, French, Japanese, hand movements, interpretive dance, etc., but still it just stood there frozen, as though in proverbial headlights, too dense to get the message.

I also have been thinking that I would like to build some bridges across the roads specifically for deer to use for crossing. But I'm worried that, again, I wouldn't be able to communicate this news to the deer population, and the bridges would go unused. You know?

arabic phrase book

Today I left my laptop in my car at the mall while I was attempting to hunt/gather lip gloss. I put my coat over it, the same smoky bar coat that I was trying to air out on the way there by driving pretty fast, with the window all the way down. So,my laptop is my most expensive possession, except for my car. You'd think I would have rolled the window up before going into the mall, right? Nope. Not me. I just left it wide open for over an hour (lip gloss being a harder goal than it sounds). Amazingly, my laptop was still there! So was the coat.

Mysteriously, there was also an Arabic phrase book in the back seat.

Need a new goal

Waaah! I can't get over the sheer productivity of Dave Eggers. I was just on the McSweeney's website - and that dude has started a whole slew of non-profit kids' tutoring centers focused on writing! Maybe they've been around awhile, but this is the first I've heard of them. There's one in Ann Arbor! The website is amazing and the workshops look great. I wish the fourteen-year-old me could take one. Could I still pass for fourteen, do you think?

Yes, productivity. The one magic wish I want for myself is productivity. Although I did grade almost 250 pieces of student work Saturday, which is saying something. Maybe it's drive that I'm lacking. Dave Eggers must have a lot of drive, running a publishing house, writing long books, and now these tutoring centers. I finished What is the What today. I loved it (thanks, Jen!). My students are even referencing it, just because I told them about it. "That reminds me of What is the What," they have said a few times lately.

I have a writing date with Mollie for Thursday night. Perhaps that is the day I'm destined to discover my inner drive at last.

Last night was Mollie's b-day party. I loved everyone there. It was great fun. Kuntry Luv (our band of yore) had a 3-song reunion. We sang our biggest hit, the hymen song. I also co-created a new secret handshake of sorts, and talked lots to M's Arkansassy brother, Charlie.

All night long I had the urge to do a backbend, the splits, or to put my foot behind my head. All signs that I'm feeling pretty good about things. Oh, and I'm a sofa owner. It will be in my possession within a couple of weeks. My long-term goal has been realized sooner than I expected. Now I need to identify a new long-term goal. Any ideas?

listen to records day eve

No school tomorrow. Its "records day." I'm supposed to work on record-keeping, at the locale of my choice.

My choice is to stay home and listen to records.

At 5:45 yesterday afternoon, all dressed for my 7:00 spinning class, I sat to read for a spell and I fell asleep, fast asleep. Asleep-er than I usually manage at that time of day. Anyway, I woke up at 7:58 and totally freaked out. I tore out of bed and stumbled around pulling on clothes, any clothes, cattywampus clothes, and yelling right out loud. "I still have to put in my contacts and brush my teeth! Oh my god, I'm so late! There's no way I'll be there by 8:10!" Be where? To school, for I thought it was 7:58 the next morning, twelve minutes before 28 children were due to file into my classroom, expecting to be taught and guided, or at least guarded, by an adult with a plan. It's not an easy job to show up late for.

I rushed to the bathroom, thinking I should call my coworker, not the mean secretary, and realized my contacts were already in. I was really disoriented. "What's going on? Did I sleep with my contacts in all night? Why didn't my alarm go off?" Slowly it crossed my mind that it could be evening instead of morning. How could I find out for sure? I looked out the window and it was dark - was it still dark at 8:00 in the morning? I realized I didn't really know. It seemed possible, this time of year. I'm always already at work then, or sleeping if it's the weekend. So I had to turn on the tv to base my decision on the programming that my rabbit-eared tv was receiving. That clinched it. Definitely evening.

I'm glad I realized it before I called my coworker and hysterically announced that there was no way I was going to make it on time.

I'm getting a head start on Records Day now, listening to Kristin Hersh. No way I'm getting up to find out about the state of the sun at 8:00 tomorrow!

Not understanding how time works

Today I cooked a brown rice salad that has corn, avocadoes, toasted almonds, onions, and dill pickles in it! I also made a cucumber-fennel salad, and I did the first step in a six-week eggplant curing process. I also mopped the kitchen and bathroom floors and I did some other housewifery type things. I will have good things to eat this week, and could even eat them off the floor if I wanted to!

Last week was all about insomnia, which I associate with deserts. Each night was its own separate desert, stretching agonizingly flat and dry, with barely enough sleep to fit in the shadow of one cactus. It's hard not to approach breakdown territory when these two things are true: 1. You have barely slept for three nights in a row, and 2. Your students, after several weeks of learning about local, state, and national government, think that Washington, D.C. belongs in the "Local" category. Yes, hard not to approach breakdown territory then.

What's saving my bacon* right now is that I don't have a regular day tomorrow, so I probably won't have insomnia, because I won't be worried about having insomnia, because I can sleep a little later than usual, you know? And here's how my understanding of time goes: I don't have to be at the place I have to be until 8:25 - an hour and a half later than I usually get to work. So I believe that means that tonight I can stay up as late as I want, and can also plan to get a bit of exercise in the morning, stop at the bank so I have cash for lunch, and stop for coffee. In my mind, I don't actually have to be there until 1 p.m.

*When I had the translation company job, there was a British guy who did German translation from our office sometimes and if I did him a favor he'd say, "Thanks, you've saved my bacon this time!"

That just reminded me of going into the basement of Drake's in Ann Arbor, the amazing candy store/sandwich shop of 1929 vintage and of questionable health code status, and finding several containers labeled "Fish Grease."

And that made me go online for pictures, etc. of Drake's, which made me kind of blue and nostalgic. I could write a whole lot about crazy Drake's... too bad it's a Bruegger's Bagels now, and they ripped out all the pea-green booths and covered or removed the beautiful tin ceilings. Wouldn't want it to look different than the other Bruegger's Bagels, right?

It's Sunday, right?

What do you do when you're pretty sure it's Sunday, but all signs point to it not being Sunday?

For example, the mail. There isn't supposed to be mail on Sunday, right? So why was a mail truck stopping at each mailbox in my parents' neighborhood when I was there today?

And the busy hair salon I walked past. Are hair salons open on Sunday? I didn't think so.

The newspaper says "Sunday," though, so I'm going to go with it. Plus, I know I had a Saturday, I remember it, and if today was Monday, someone would have called me by now to find out why I'm not at work. I would have had to make something up, like "I had a jumper crisis," because no one would believe me if i said, "I thought it was Sunday."

TV seems like a good way to keep track of days. maybe i need to watch more tv. the office is the only thing i make that much of a point to watch. i used to like lost, but it's lived up to its name and lost my interest almost completely.

It's "spitting snow," as they say, and I'm enjoying it. It seems really sad for some reason. not because i think it should still be warm or something. it's just that kind of day. gray and gloomy and snow settling slightly on people's hair. It seems kind of sad, but fits my mood.

if i could be anywhere now, in the most escapist sense of the phrase, i'd be on the other side of the earth, at my old favorite, yuri jazz cafe, in nagoya, jp. i'd drink the ginger beer (actual beer with ginger flavoring) and write in a notebook and watch the two guys who work there select the next record from the rows and rows against the walls. they'd pick the next record without any fuss, put it on, display the cover, and go back to the tiny "kitchen." i'd sit at my scarred wooden table, one of six, and peek through the shutters now and then to the world outside. i could stay there all day. they didn't care. i could be by myself, writing in my notebook and staring into space, or i could be with someone. it didn't matter. that's where i'd escape to right now. not the beach or san francisco. those don't match my mood. just yuri jazz cafe.