Happier

Got reacquainted with the movie Orlando (that was a favorite movie when it first came out) and watched it with two friends. Now, I should try reading the actual book. Interesting: Calendar House Knole

The other day

Found out what happened to Amalia. Then, briefly looked at a novel about Chinese prostitution in San Francisco. Went home, ate yogurt, and somehow cut two of my fingers without noticing (maybe it was the metal peel-off lid). Bandaged them. Went back and looked at A Writer's Reality, which is by the author of "Amalia." I liked some of it but I wasn't so crazy about parts about striptease and also some accounts of a brothel. I felt rather disturbed; as if some people just relate to things in a rather cold, intellectual way, and I let myself be bothered by that. I was thinking, I can't let that bother me so much. As I was washing my hands in the bathroom, someone opened a door that said "Out of Order." She said "Did you see this?" and I didn't want to go over because I could make out some stains on the walls but she pointed with her yardstick expectantly. Red smudges and lines (in rather neat, stacked rows, reminiscent of I-Ching symbols) were all over the stall. "Oh my god," she kept saying. On my way out, there was a notice on the bulletin board that leapt out at me, about helping children. I could feel the cynical how do they know if they're really helping them thoughts I didn't want to feel, and I tried to look at an art brochure, but people were talking about a "crazy lady" and loudly (over the whir of a cleaning machine) "she killed herself!" I thought, "no, she didn't, she just tried to but she got some help..." Then the yardstick wielder sang out, "we're closing now!" So then I left again. Eesh.

A Good Girl

Also a little while back, I noted that Ruchira Gupta struck me as happy and admirable and at peace with herself in Holly Morris's series. Which directed me to watch another work by a conscientious twosome or actually, a groupsome. Schaumburg, Illinois public library, I miss thee!!!

Literary Confusion

A while back I read a short story from Spanish Short Stories 2 called "Amalia." If I remember it correctly...well...I wondered, what the author thought might have happened to the title character of the story in the collection, after what occurred. I thought, how did he envision Amalia's future? A sojourn in a mental hospital? Pills, stitches down her wrists? Maybe she got very lucky and met some nice curandera, who taught her how to distinguish between "survivor" and "victim?" Or, perhaps she could have found some nuns and developed a very special relationship with Mary and Jesus. And it's very strange, because, it's supposed to be a chapter from this book but I was trying to find more about it online (I don't have the book in front of me now) but...I've been searching...it's nothing like that. Its been a while...I'm just so very confused with the author of The Bad Girl.

Have I ever seen dandelion dew

waterwaterwaterwaterwaterwaterwater

Yesterday

Went for a walk and watched Water by Deepa Mehta, with a friend.

Recreational Choices

Ways to feed your head tomorrow.
Shortcomings by Adrian Tomine at Politics and Prose in DC
Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland in Middleburg
Ted Garber entertains lovers of discounted beer in NOVA
Big Green Purse at Borders/Bailey's Crossroads in NOVA

Medicine

Medicine should do the work of medicine. Drugs and pills should exist to alleviate suffering and not be used in ways that could make one think that accidentally burning one's foot with a hot poker, for example, would, by comparison, be a joyous experience. (But...what about firewalking?)