Bookstore girl

"You have to buy this album," the girl in the bookstore said to me. And an hour later, I ran into her again. "This song that is playing, its on the album. You have to buy this album. Here, here is a coupon, now just buy it." So I bought it, and I found this Funny Little Frog song.

Spanish poem

On Friday I read La Guitarra by Federico Garcia Lorca.

Salem

Here is a link to a picture of Salem College, which is a very old, historical, all women's college which my mother attended/is currently attending classes (fitting because this is "Mother's Day.") Salem College is a part of Old Salem which was founded by Moravians. These were my ancestors on my mother's side. They lived in religious communities and had schools for men and women. They structured a society in which unmarried women could be economically self-sufficient, which was unusual at that time.

At the IRA, one of her professors gave a talk on ELL. These are some notes I took down in my notebook:

A Word of Caution:

Classrooms are—
1) complex social settings that can be guilty of “reproducing existing inequalities” (Bourdieu, 1977).
2) Replete with a “culture of power” with rules that reflect the rule of the culture of those who have the power. (Delpit, 1988).

Peer Status:
1)The most popular among his peers becomes the Event Captain.
2) Who the student saw as popular or not popular in the class only aligned with what the teacher said 30% of the time. Who she thought was friends with who was only accurate part of the time.

Identity:
--A constructive process that is fragmented, contradictory and context dependent
--A consequence of interaction between people; a process that is constructed in relation to the perceptions of others

singing

And one day, when they were all sitting in art class, this girl started to sing.
She said to him, "what is the matter, don't you know any songs, Why don't you sing?"
He says, "No, I can't sing."
She says, "Why can't you sing?"
He says, "Oh I can't sing, because I'm Muslim."
She says, "You can't sing, because you are Muslim? Are you serious? Well, I just love singing and...I mean...what kind of a rule is that? I mean...well..." all of a sudden she realizes that maybe she's going to start sounding closed minded again--"I guess I just didn't know that Muslims can't sing!"
He is smiling slightly and he gets up and walks away somewhere to do something, and then she notices that the other people at the table are kind of smirking and almost starting to snicker.
Then she's like, "Hey, are you playing with me?"

old story--day two

So the next day, this girl is walking home from school with her friend and she is talking about religion. And she is saying something like, she kind of doesn't really like organized religion, she thinks it makes people too closed minded, or something. And he seems to be listening very carefully. And for some reason, she feels as if they are almost of one mind, because maybe he seems very accepting, although perhaps she has not yet learned that accepting is not the same as agreeing.
So she feels like she can speak with him very freely about anything. And she says "I mean, there are some religions I think I could just never be part of. Like I don't think I could ever be Muslim." And he says "I am Muslim." And she's like, "What? Like practicing and everything?" "Yes," he says. And she's like, "I thought maybe you were Hindu or Buddhist or something." And he says, "No." And she's starting to feel very uncomfortable all of a sudden because she has a feeling that she's kind of implying that it would be better if he were one of those other religions, or anything except Muslim. And she thinks, well I have this new friend from my art class and he's my neighbor and I'm walking home with him and now I've offended him. And she feels a little defensive, but she really can't think of anything to say. But then, maybe its like a shaft of light kind of pierces through her brain, and she says something like, "I'm sorry, that was a very stupid thing to say." And he immediately says, "thats okay." And its like a huge weight lifts off her shoulders.

Then he also says something like "Some people just haven't been exposed to other cultures very much." And she thinks, hmmm, that seems to imply that I am a closed minded person. I most certainly am not a closed minded person!
So then she says, "Well, I don't know, I know I don't want to be one now. But who knows, maybe I could be Muslim one day. I mean, I never really thought about it. But," now she feels like she's kind of going off on a grand, soaring arc, "I guess anything is possible. Like, maybe if I married a Muslim, or something like that, what do you think?" And for some reason she just thinks he will say reply by saying something like, "Oh yes, that'd be great!" However, that is not what he says. What he says is more along the lines of, "Well, I definitely don't think that you should do anything for the wrong reason." And, in a way. this answer kind of disappoints her slightly because it wasn't quite in the vein of her spontaneity. But then they get to his house and they part and they both agree that they are glad that they are so young that this is not something they really have to worry about.

old story--day one

There was once this young girl who had just moved to a new town, about 3,000 miles away from where she used to live. She began to make friends with a schoolmate, who was also her neighbor and he was in her art class. He was quite nice and maybe even a bit shy, although she could tell that liked to be social too. In class she drew his picture, in which he wore glasses and a backwards baseball cap. Some people came around to admire it because although it was not technically 100% accurate it was a good likeness. "I like the earring," one said (She'd given him one, just for fun. She thought that it kind of made him look like a pirate.)

One evening, she was talking about him to the people she lived with, who were kind of like family, and they were also kind of like her guardians. And these guardians said, "So you have made a new friend, that is very nice. What was his name?" And she said it and they said, "Oh, that name means he is Muslim. Well, we do think that it is very nice that you have a new friend. But, you seem to talk about him a lot. You were not thinking about dating him, were you?" And she said "I don't know, I haven't really thought about that yet, I'm just getting to know him." And they said "Well, those cultures do not treat women well, so we're just letting you know that we really don't think that you should." And she said "Well, you can't generalize about everybody." But they said, "No, we're serious. We do not think that men from those cultures treat women well and we really don't think that you should."

The girl had never been close friends with someone who was Muslim and most of what she knew about "the culture" came from a Social Studies class, which brought back images of things like a video of this guy getting run through with a sword in public and a large parade of men who had cut their heads and were marching down a street, bleeding and chanting. And, maybe there had been some discussions about the oppression of women, too. So, then she said, "Actually. I don't think that he is Muslim." Although a part of her felt wrong when she said it, as if it were some sort of a cop out. And the guardians were like, "No, no, he is Muslim, that name is definitely Muslim," and then she was like "You know what, forget it, I don't ever want to talk with you about this again." And she felt very oppressed and angry with them. And they were like, "What is wrong, we are not trying to control who you are friends with, we are only just trying to express that we are concerned..." and she was like "Just forget it. Don't ever talk to me about it again." And they were very amused with her for being so dramatic, but maybe they were also a bit distressed and could probably tell that she felt they were being wicked guardians.

Not as uplifting as Cats, but...

I'm remembering that The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien was a good (though painful) book that I read when I had to T.A. for Ol' Profesor Pobrecito Sexual Harrassment while I was in graduate school.

He (Profesor Pobrecito) did pick some good books, although I think he could have treated the "dumb coz" stuff a bit more sensitively. ("Why does he call the woman a 'dumb coz?'" he'd say, and the students wouldn't answer, so the air was heavy with silence, except that he kept saying the phrase over and over again, until I felt incredibly annoyed and stressed out and I thought, 'gee, maybe you're just focusing on this because you enjoy saying that phrase so much.'") I was tempted to write the author a letter about it.

These are fun too!!!

The Naming of Cats

Grrr...the link is not working!!! Well here are the partial lyrics...

The Naming of Cats

The naming of cats is a difficult matter
It isn't just one of your holiday games
You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three different name

But I tell you a cat needs a name that's particular
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?

An Invitation to the Jellicle Ball

Partial lyrics...

Jellicle Cats meet once a year
At the Jellicle Ball where we all rejoice
And the Jellicle Leader will soon appear
And make what is known as the Jellicle Choice
When Old Deuteronomy, just before dawn
Through a silence you feel you could cut with a knife
Announces the cat who can now be reborn
And come back to a different Jellicle Life
For waiting up there is the Heaviside Layer
Full of wonders one Jellicle only will see
And Jellicles ask because Jellices dare:

Who will it be?

And...

A more recent photo was uncovered...

some very old pictures...

I forgot...there are a few rather old (was it back in 2002? No I think it was the Summer of 2001) pictures of me lurking about on one friend's website...

This one is a picture of Me & Gina in Yusef's Pants.

Here's another and a
second and a third and (you can barely see me) a fourth. And a fifth.

Cats songs lyrics

The Old Gumbie Cat
and
Old Deuteronomy were undoubtedly among the songs sung.

And what else did this girl sing to her dearest, almost-like-a-good-older-brother-neighbor friend?

She sang: Maria. (From West Side Story.)
She sang: Michelle. (by The Beatles.)
And from Cats, without question, she sang: Macavity!

One day, this girl is sitting in art class across the table from her friend.
They do not have the same friends in the hallways at school. Nor do they have the same amount of friends.
Maybe this girl is like: The Callous Hippie.
Maybe her friend is like: The Conformist NonConformist.

However, for some reason, when she is around him, in art class, she always sings. She is quite silly. She is not like this in her other classes or with other people. She is quite subdued in school, otherwise. But Art class is her big escape. She sings the Beatles a lot. Today, she sings "Paperback Writer." She thinks he glances at her when she sings "And his clinging wife doesn't understand."
"Don't give me that," she thinks grouchily. "I'm not you're clinging anything, I am your friend, you know we could be better friends, and you could actually acknowledge me in the hallways when I try to say hello to you."

She sings, Help and
A Hard Day's Night and Hey, You've Got to Hide Your Love Away

But then a strange and unusual thing happens. She notices that he's not looking very well, and she hears him say "Will you please stop singing, I'm getting a headache."
She stops and she says, "Are you okay? You look like you're not feeling well. What's wrong?"
"Nothing, nothing."
"What is it?"
"Oh its nothing."
"Are you sure? Is anything wrong? You can tell me."
"No, I don't feel like talking about it."
"Are you sure???"
"Yes."
"Well...okay..."

And then it is quiet all the rest of the time until the bell rings, and maybe he says "That helped with my headache, when you quit singing, thanks," and he bolts for the glorious freedom and safety of...his hallway friends.

Train Station

One day, this girl (she is a lot older now) is alone, sitting outside of a train station. A man smelling of the liquor approaches her.
"Hi, how are you today?" he says, inches from her face.
She frowns (and maybe glares) behind her sunglasses.
"Excuse me," the man says more belligerently.
"May I sit here please?"
She says, "Go ahead."
"Thank you!" he sits beside of her.
"Would you like a drink?" he holds out the paper bag. It seems to have a tall can of beer in it.
She says, "No."
"Well, me neither!" he says to her.
She frowns.
He says "Hey, please tell me if I start acting like too much of an f-----g asshole, I mean," he looked pained, "not an f-----g asshole, but..."
She starts to gather her belongings.
"No, please don't leave. I'll leave," he says.
"No, thats okay." She gets up and walks towards the escalators, disappears down into the train station. She walks into the women's restroom and there are two young girls talking about whether or not they will be allowed into a bar.
"I mean, we're not f-----g sixteen anymore," they are saying. Its "f---" this and "f---" that. That is the language of the intoxicated and young, she thinks.
She is thinking of this memory/story she has of a time when she might've said something truly awful, and shocking. She wonders if it could be true, and if so, if what she said might have been like the straw that broke the camel's back.

mucho song lyrics

There was once this girl who liked to sing incessantly in art class.

She'd be sitting at a table with several boys and a girl. On a West Side Story kind of day, she'd sing
I Feel Pretty or
Maria (making her voice sound very low and dramatic) and
America and maybe some sections from
Officer Krupke or Tonight.

Or, she might sing some songs from Cats. "I have a Gumbie Cat in mind, her name is Jenny Any Dots" or "Jellicle Cats come out tonight, jellicle cats come one, come all..."
"That one sounds stupid," any of the boys might have commented.

She'd sing Growltiger's Last Stand.
"I like that one better," one of the boys said.
"How come?"
"I don't know, I just do."

She sang some of
Gus the Theatre Cat and said, "That one is interesting because at the end he says he used to play Growltiger."

And she'd probably sing Grizzabella the Glamour Cat and Memory. Grizzabella was her favorite and the other girl at the table really liked Memory.

She liked to sing some Beatles songs. Like Eleanor Rigby.

Also Norwegian Wood,
Michelle A Hard Days Night, And I Love Her, Back in the U.S.S.R. etcetra.

The other girl would sing some of those Beatles songs too.
The boys mostly listened.

whale things

While staying in a hotel in Chicago for the IRA conference, we discovered that it has a large mural of whales by an artist named Wyland. Here's a picture of it on someone else's blog...

Link to Chicago Wyland Whale Mural

However, the commenters on that particular blog are quite negative about it...well, whatever. We liked it!

Also met Jerry Spinelli (author of Night of the Whale) briefly. My friend snapped our picture and I purchased two other children's books by him. Stargirl and Milkweed.

For a little while, at my job, I was actually compelled to read a passage about a whale over and over again. Also I used to know of a website that had pictures of the four legged ancestor to a whale, a very strange-looking beast, but I've forgotten where it is.

Talking about face

There were once two young friends (a boy and a girl) sitting across from each other at a table, in a class. Although they were normally accompanied by others, today its just them. The girl thinks she would not mind for it to be this way more often. Although it would probably be too bad for him if he didn't share himself with everyone, since he is an outgoing person. But, for today, she enjoys it. Also, they were also very cultured individuals; they enjoyed discussing art.

She said: "Like, it was fun when I drew that one picture of your face."
"Oh," he said, "my face is not that remarkable. I mean, I'm not saying that theres anything wrong with it, but, I always thought that an artist would want to draw a face with more interesting features."
She said, "No, you really do have a remarkable face."
"Oh, its not that great."
"Yes, it is. Its a very remarkable face!"
"Oh, stop it."
"It is a remarkable face."
"You're making me feel like I was fishing for a compliment."
"But it really is a very remarkable face," she said. "It is."

His eyes communicated a look, like, "Thats enough," and he became very quiet.
Then she noticed that people all around them, who normally would be talking, have all grown quiet for some reason. The two who had been speaking at the table became quiet, also. She thinks, "Now we are listening to the sound of people listening."

singing

There was once 3 young friends of different faiths and they were also individuals with different talents. They could make each other laugh. And they could (possibly?) all sing. For their faiths, the initials are: J, C & M. J & C liked each other, but, perhaps, each one liked M just a little better. There were once two girls and one boy, all sitting at a table. The two girls liked music a lot and were fans of mixed tapes and etcetra. One especially always liked to sing, and sometimes both of them would sing. And the boy would rather make fun of the singing but he did it in a relatively good-natured way, and it was funny.

Stories, etc.

I'm going to be off and exploring more of the city of Chicago soon as a result of attending the IRA conference next week...that will be fun...

I have been thinking that maybe I will be writing some stories in this thing. I feel a bit inspired, recently. I have begun to contemplate: suppose you had a friend once, who did not have a remarkable face. (It was a just reasonably attractive face. But the person had, nonetheless, a remarkable soul. To you.) How could you recognize the face after a decade had passed? It would be so much easier, if the face had had something remarkable about it. A hooked nose, perhaps. But alas, there had been nothing of this in the old friend's face. But the soul had seemed remarkable. And because of this strange window of time in which you and the other person had met, there would be, less than any judgement, mostly a feeling of interest on your part, with regard to whatever had occured to this person on their path of life. It would be difficult to recognize the face but enjoyable to see it again after ten plus years. If it were ever possible.

Another children's book I have read recently: The Second Mrs. Giaconda by E. L. Konisburg. Its all about Leonardo da Vinci and Beatrice and Il Moro (Ludovico Sforza) as told through the eyes of a young assistant to Leonardo. I can't help but like the way Beatrice is portrayed, in that book. Its part of a Barnes and Noble endcap about Leonardo Da Vinci. Borders, for all their Da Vinci Code paraphenalia, posters and such, has no copies of it...

Also, maybe one of these days I will post some pictures in here. But I don't know if I can post any right now, because I still use the internet in the library and not at my apartment!

Now I feel like I should post some words of wisdom or a special quote, but none comes to me...so, perhaps another time...

It is not impossible...

that a variety of circumstances could conspire to create a new and strange incidence of something else. And all the little unspoken rules that conspired to keep something as whatever it was could be forgotten and then come back to you and arrange themselves into new and strange forms. And this goes on daily. Under a multitude of roofs and skies and in the name of millions of varieties of religions.
Some "memories" come back and they could be stories and perhaps not provable facts, and yet these stories could be the fruits of a portion of reality that once was, which for some reason has come flooding back into your present, and has wormed itself strangely into your brain, is turning into something else in your heart or psyche, and is part of a remembering of what you once were and then you take that and another self is born out of that.

poems and old pictures

Yesterday I went to a poetry thing and actually read some poems. (They were from T.S. Eliot's Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats.)Some good poems (including one about having German heritage, and a satirical one about T.S. Eliot's Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock ) were also read. And a guy did a spoken word poem he'd written in Harrisburg, PA which was really good.

I remember that I used to listen to the Cats poems a lot in highschool. I listened to a lot of musicals. I used to go into art class and sing them and annoy people. Especially this one from West Side Story. "I am pretty, Oh so pretty..."B ut there was a friend I had who didn't seem to mind being annoyed ;-)

His name was Umar, and he was one of the first people I met. We lived in the same townhouse complex. In retrospect, I thought I was maybe meant to meet him, too. Before I'd left Vashon and moved to Virginia, I'd been told (by a certain source) "there will be one you will know immediately who will bring much laughter to ye, and this is a promise." And thats exactly what happened on many of those days in art class. He had a gift for making people laugh.

On the first day of art class, I sat across from him and drew his portrait by looking upside down into the mirror. First, the chin, next the nose, etc...it was pretty good, I must say. He drew one of me but he wasn't impressed with it. I looked like a "cave woman" or something, I think he said. But he looked at mine and said "its like I'm looking in the mirror!" Actually mine was not technically that great but for some reason it did end up looking a lot like him.

I think he was one for whom I felt agape...but there is not much of a language for that in highschool. I had not thought about him in quite a while but when I went home to Virginia, I found that old picture I'd drawn of him. I looked at it for a long while, and then I threw it out. But...perhaps I should've kept it.

Walk. Book.

Its interesting to walk around this area. I can see the kids playing in the parks around small ponds and lakes. There are birds and big airplanes from O'Hare and small airplanes from Schaumburg and, well, the sky never sleeps, so thats what you get when you walk in the suburbs around Chicago.

In bookstores with many Da Vinci Code posters in the windows, I've been reading Scent of God: A Memoir by Beryl Bissell.

April Days

Sumer is i-cumen in, lhude sing cucu etectra.

Taxes done.

Visited Michigan and also the farm "up north" ("Isn't this an empire? I mean compared to the livingroom?" my grandfather asked us).

Weather was stormy on the way back on Sunday. Nothing was open. It was more like 6 hours from Ann Arbor (as opposed to the more usual 4 1/2). Changed cat carrier paper in electrical rainstorm at a Cracker Barrel in Indiana.

Maybe I should photos of my sister ripping apart an old fainting couch to get at a musty old 1925 newspaper stuffed inside of it.

And of her dog, whose fur matches the feather of red chickens.

Impossible

Some definitions, as given by children.

Impossible--Something-somebody is the same as you.

Impossible--You do something you are proud of.

Impossible--It's impossible.

Impossible--If somebody says their baby brother is psychic or can jump all the way to the sky.

I really hope I get to go here again some day:

Ten Thousand Waves

She was Scottish, rather.

A book I liked very much at age 12 is: Shadow in Hawthorne Bay by Janet Lunn.

I tried to reread it. Was not the same. Oh well. I guess I'm no longer 12 or living on an island in a house surrounded by Scotch Broom. But it is still good. I might've been influenced by the book cover, too. The copy that the Schaumburg Public Library has a different version. I favor the cover on the copy I owned, which is at my mother's house in N.C., and it is also the one featured on the author's website.

I was always rather into the book's cover, actually. I was a visually oriented person. I always tried to be an artist. In all of my favorite books, I would draw many clumsy (but heart-soaring!!!) illustrations inside of them.

She's very interesting, this author (Janet Lunn). She sets her books around her own home. The Root Cellar was another good one.

Also really liked Emily Climbs by L.M. Montgomery, around this time. Here again, I think I was very interested in the book cover. The only version of the book cover that I can find on the web is athttp://skins.perildeity.net/lmm.php It looks all scrambled up.

It would be fun to collect various esoteric book covers and frame them. Well maybe.

Next, I want to figure out the author and title of another good book I read back when I was about 12. It was set in medieval times (in France maybe?) and the main character was a young woman whose uncle was an inventor of a new kind of clock. She goes to live with him for a time. There was kind of a lot of violence in this book. I think it opens up with her family getting killed, for example, and she does not escape unscathed. Oh yes...and she had a little brother who was different--like a mute or an albino or something, and she has to watch out for him.

Cloze Procedure

"The word cloze is related to the concept of closure, the human tendency to complete a partly finished pattern, to pick out key words and rely on language repetition in English discourse. The theory originated in Gestalt psychology and assumes that in figuring out the missing word, the mind goes through a process of sampling, predicting, testing, and confirming the appropriate word choice."

("Assessment Report, Communications Discipline", by Roslyn Dixon, Communications Assessment Coordinator, Douglas College, June 1, 1989)

"There is controversy regarding the use of cloze procedure in determining the readability of written materials. This controversy is based on the fact that cloze is a subjective evaluation that mirrors the language ability and background of information of the person taking the test."

(Annette T. Rabin, "Determining Difficulty Levels of Text Written in Languages Other than English" in Zakaluk and Samuels, p.46-76)

From a section entitled "What is Cloze procedure?" at http://www.gopdg.com/plainlanguage/readability.html

"IN childhood I had a friend, -- not a house friend, domestic, stuffy in association; nor yet herdsman, or horseman, or farmer, or slave of bench, or shop, or office; nor of letters, nor art, nor society; but a free, friendly, youthful-seeming man, who wandered in from unknown woods or fields without knocking, --
'Between the night and day
When the fairy king has power,' --
as the ballad says, passed by the elders' doors, but straightway sought out the children, brightened up the wood-fire forthwith; and it seemed as if it were the effect of a wholesome brave north wind, more than of the armful of "cat-sticks" which he would bring in from the yard."

From Preface to Henry Thoreau as Remembered by a Young Friend by Edward Emerson.


http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/thoreau/youngfriend.html

Robert Herrick. 1591–1674

259. Upon Julia's Clothes

WHENAS in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
The liquefaction of her clothes!

Next, when I cast mine eyes and see
That brave vibration each way free, 5
—O how that glittering taketh me!

http://www.bartleby.com/101/259.html

Mary Rowlandson

"I can remember the time, when I used to sleep quietly without workings in my thoughts, whole nights together, but now it is other wayes with me. When all are fast about me, and no eye open, but his who ever waketh', my thoughts are upon things past, upon the awfull dispensation of the Lord towards us; upon his wonderfull power and might, in carrying of us through so many difficulties, in returning us in safety and suffering none to hurt us. I remember in the night season, how the other day I was in the midst of thousands of enemies and nothing but death before me: It is then hard work to perswade my self, that ever I should be satisfied with bread again. But now we are fed with the finest of the Wheat, and as I may say, With honey out of the rock:"

Quote from Soveraignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson

http://narcissus.umd.edu/eada/html/display.jsp?docs=rowlandson_narrative.xml&action=show

Book

I just got an e-mail from an old friend in Virginia who says she has 4 different boyfriends right now. FOUR. Good lord.

Right now, I'm looking for a book I read when I was younger. I'd really like to find it. It was about an Irish girl named Mary (it was something like Mairie but it gets changed after she immigrates to Canada) who is haunted by the ghost of her deceased cousin, Duncan. She lives by a lake in a cabin. In Canada. She's about 16 in the story, I think. I was very in love with this book when I was about 12. Now I can't even remember the name of it. Or the author. I went on Amazon.com and was trying to find it. I didn't. I did find some old books by Mary Stoltz that I liked when I was about 12. Cat in the Mirror. Pangur Ban. There are no photos of the books' covers. Thats rather sad.

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.

(Anonymous guy in medieval Ireland)

Okay. So, I am 12, I live in that house on the bluff on the South of End of Vashon, I am vegetarian, the wind howls by my room, which is next to a massive bunch of scotch broom, which gets all bent over (by the wind), I have the same cat that I have now, and in the morning, after I cook my oatmeal on the woodstove (instant oatmeal and water that is) I walk exactly a mile to the bus, but I miss it (oops) and stay home, and hang out in the woods, or read my book...WHAT IS THE NAME OF IT???

A belief in transmigration is like thinking that...

Fathers have sons who become fathers who have daughters.
Some women have been fathers. Some sons became sisters.

On a radio show, a man said, if you don't sit around the table with your family and thank God for them, then your children will grow up to seek "amor en la calle!" Amor en la calle. Isn't it what writers have celebrated for centuries? Oh, I grew weary listening to him. "Hay caminos, hay piedras en los caminos" he was saying, to the woman, who barely spoke. "La vida no es facil." His voice was powerful, strong, and chastising. Oh he is just playing God! I was frustrated. I switched it off. I had to remove a heaviness from myself. I said "Ah..." It came out sounding like "Abba."
I also thought today, I could imagine a man mournfully paddling away his existence in the face of denied paternity. I don't know if I like how that sounds though. I mean the latter part. I mean, its not the same as the whole, I'm just a human being on a lake. When you throw words like "denied paternity" into it. Then it becomes all one thing. To the mind...

Wouldn't it be great if the worst could never happen. Only almost the worst could happen. Then all you'd say is "Thank god, it didn't. Let's just put bread on the table."

Firecrack Rock

Is one of the few things that its hard to find anything about on the internet. I was just looking for links about it. Some archaeologists don’t’ respect it. Maybe its because its more about women? (Women tending the hearth, making tools at the hearth and whatnot).

My sister’s going to be studying that in grad school.

Old Work Memory

Once I went on a business trip to San Antonio, I spoke with a waiter who asked me about myself. Do you speak Spanish? I said “mas o menos.”
“You should learn it. Its going to be a very important language in this country.” He told me.
I said “I know.”
We talked about literature He said he liked Walt Whitman. “Because he was against slavery. He was a very advanced thinker of the time. He helped a lot of people change their minds.”
It would seem to me that literature is at least a little worthwhile if it addresses some social issues. It could be slavery, war, “women’s issues” (broad topic, I know) etc.
Not that I don’t enjoy a little bit of marzipan now and then.
I do! In fact, I had a bar of it, covered in chocolate, last night.

Quisiera recoger manzanas.

In the room the women come and go,
Talking of Michaelangelo.

T.S. Eliot

Ah, weather.

The weather tonight kind of makes me think of other times.

Like maybe, the times of the Danes and the Saxons and Jutes or something.

It's all drizzle-y.

My friend James sent me this and I'm posting it...

thefatmanwalking.com

Prescriptions

My friend and her friend made a trip to New York City from Virginia recently, to Sotheby's to bid on some plaster casts being auctioned off by the Met. They stayed with my friend's aunt, who is Chinese, and she and gave them these little radios which played the Buddhist prayers. They were very helpful, my friend says, because the truck they rented kept breaking down (she had to remove the front of the dashboard to turn on the lights). Her friend was recently diagnosed with MS and it was a difficult trip for her. But the radios playing the Buddhist prayers helped them to de-stress.

In some books I have read recently, a Buddhist monk prompts a student to find Buddhism in Christianity in Vows: The Story of A Priest, A Nun, and Their Son. Another Buddhist monk speaks of a time he realized the effects of his "loose and ill-considered advice" (on himself) in "Caught in Indra's Net" by Hwansoo Kim. Blue Jean Buddha. Ed. Sumi Loundon.

Not everyone's poison is the same, so not everyone requires the same remedy. How could there be one blanket prescription for all? That makes no sense. I might know that I can enjoy visiting wineries, and be able to buy one bottle of wine and consume it slowly, moderately over the span of one week. But maybe, at this point in life, a pint of icecream is what really slays me. Last night, I read The Virgin of Bennington by Kathleen Norris with one glass of wine. I will likely do the same thing tonight.

Norris is interesting. She left New York and writes about Christianity in her grandmother's house South Dakota.

Also, the late priest Henri Nouwen, I find, has some rather nice things to communicate.

Poems Post

Today's my mother's birthday. She is a sort of petite, southern, auburn haired woman. Currently living in North Carolina. She's going out for Mexican food tonight with her sister.

Here's a poem she used to read to me (I loved it) when I was little:

Little Orphant Annie

Here's a poem my ex-boyfriend in Peru liked a lot. He had it memorized in school. The translation is by my friend Chris's mother:

Los Heraldos Negros

My Chicagoland friend says April is National Poetry month. She's going to try to have a "Poetry Potluck" and display a poem a day outside of her cube.

Item: When I went home (whereever that is this weekend...pick a state, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, New York...) and took a shower at some point, when I stepped out and looked at the mirror someone had drawn a heart, with a finger, in the steam, of a lopsided heart, with a big scribble inside of it. Freaky.
Item: I do not understand people who have lived in one state their whole life. Therefore, such people probably do not understand me. So I think today. Tomorrow all could change.
Item: Some memories might strike one as old excuses, much like a flabby stack of tortillas, all sitting in a stomach, my stomach, and there they lie, a soggy stack. Mil gracias. Hmmm. I don't know if those italics will work.
Item: I'm getting reacquainted with Spanish. Those working on Spanish tests, or at the Roselle International Market who speak Spanish, deserve many thanks.

On the way to the library I saw a black cat roaming freely near the parking light.
I wish my cat had that life.

HOLA JAIME, gracias por tu mensaje, y felicitaciones en tu nuevo trabajo, espero que tu compras tu motorcycle muy pronto! Check this out, mi gato se llama Max tambien but he's not quite got the health problems of this cat, fortunately.Cat Antics He's got a lion cut like my cat had last summer, though... (My mom gave it to him).

Night Walks With Cat

Supposedly my new apt. complex doesn’t allow you to let your pets out. (I discovered this only the day I moved in). But last night, I went for a night walk with my cat around part of the little lake. No leash, just me and the cat walking around. It was fun. And it seemed to cure him of the adorable habit of batting at the blinds (very noisy) to wake me up in the middle of the night. I shall be taking more of these.

Ahora me voy a la casa de mi amiga para comer corned beef cabbage y varios platos stereotypicos por Dia de Santo Patricio.

stanine
quartile
mockup

erooms
ecalender
etracking

norms forms

ESS &
CRT

grtings frm

cubicle laden
cubicular
cubicledom

sncrly

a of the cubicle

I’ve relocated.
Missed the river being dyed for St. Patrick’s Day.
Still no internet in the apt.

An author of a now rather obscure book I really liked, Night of the Whale, is going to be at the IRA conference in Chicago. This book was about a bunch of kids on a newspaper staff who go to the beach after their highschool graduation. While there, they are confronted with the problem of beached whales. I wish I still had this book. It was very good in terms of describing realistic relationships. In retrospect, it seemed to almost foreshadow some of the types of people I would meet when I was older. And it did not treat the beached whale issue too lightly.

Night of the Whale

Gosh, I am fond of not packing. NOT PACKING, NOT MOVING BOXES OF STUFF, YES!!!

Rejuvenating.

Also I still like watching old clips from the Olympics on nbc.com. Like the ones from Salt Lake City about the Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelltier. And the ones with David Chapelle kind of put me in another frame of mind too. So maybe I'll have to get some kind of internet hook up soon. I go off to-morrow to Roselle, IL, a town with a winery.

Here's my Chicagoland friend's website with old pics from last year of a statue of Thoreau wearing my coat. Ta-da!
Razumihin

Packing and traveling long distance can be a chore.
Overall moving is probably good.
Better job, better place.
Not having to deal with certain things I have to deal with in current living situation.

But oh...new place in chicagoland with landscaping and dishwasher and a pool in the apartment complex....

do not let me forget how happy I could be in my little studio in upstate NY in a sketchy neighborhood and thin walls next to the local bar...

or in other words....do not whitewash me of artistic integrity

this I humbly pray.

Yawn

I'm so bored with stuff, and, I'm so bored with myself hauling around boxes of stuff. Bored. Bored. Bored of bored.

Write a short story about boredom, Kuan Yin, and ravioli in 5 minutes. Ready, set, go!!!

Moving

forces you to recognize clutter
(of thoughts, things, etc.)
Not everything has to be a double entendre.
I have no idea why
human beings accumulate
so...much...stuff!!!

I'm packing a few more things, taking trips down the long ha-ha of memory.

Once, there was a really big rain storm at one of the lodges in Peru. I was sure that I had never seen or experienced such a monsoon in the states. My 19-20 something self decided, lets go for a walk in the rain! My boyfriend at the time really didn't want to--it wasn't that special to him--but I insisted, and so we did. All the other guides (mostly Australians) looked at us as though we were nuts. And thats what it was...A FORCED WALK IN THE RAIN. Maybe it wasn't that terrible. *cringe* I guess that was my 2nd time in Peru. (I went 4 times, the last being in 1999, after I graduated).

"Are you a student of Biology/Ecology/Environmentalism?" the Australians would ask.
"No, English."
"But you speak English."
"I mean Literature."
"Oh."
(Their tones implying "Whats the point of that?")

On my 2nd trip to Peru, I read "Arcadia" by Tom Stoppard for an English class at school. It was very strange to look up from the well manicured lawn on the book's cover and see what looked quite wild, tangled, unkempt, and full of gigantic flying insects. I didn't know very much Spanish yet. It was a lot more fun after I learned more Spanish. Although there was the time in 1999 when I went along as an interpreter with a guide who didn't speak any English, and he told me that we were lost in the jungle, and we were frantically trying to communicate back in forth in Spanish without alarming the turistas, and still get the group back to the lodge before sundown, as we had no tents or torches, but in the end it worked out alright.

Now this is timing to die for. Brought to you by
VHI.com

"On the third day, I thought, “I’m not good enough to be in the music industry!” and threw my guitar - it wasn’t even my guitar, actually - and it bounced off the radiator. I forgot I was trying to write songs because I was so concerned about nearly having cracked my friend’s guitar. I picked it up and my fingers just landed on it. That was the first chord of “Eskimo.” The song literally fell out. From then on in I never tried to write ever again. Stuff that’s special just pops out. It’s not me; it’s the moment. It’s like vomiting! [Watch Clip]"

After watching it, I almost thought this guy has some similarities to my 1st boyfriend. Not so much in the photos, but in the clip, with regard to gestures, mannerisms and such. Except my 1st boyfriend had a New Zealand accent. Well, what do I know. Maybe there aren't really any similarities. 10 years ago, Utah was the last time I saw him. But, possibly, kinda/sorta. Funny.

Funny, too, to have found an old photograph of my Peruvian boyfriend with soap or shaving cream on his face. He was smiling and surrounded by his little cousins.

Also, found some photographs of gigantic trees. (Kapok trees?) He used to climb up a vine on one which was on a nearby farm, where they also grew lemons the size of grapefruits on a different kind of tree. We (the people who lived/worked at the tourist lodge across the river) were always allowed to take some. We peeled them and ate them with salt.

too much

driving
thinking
packing
sugar free red bull
old music (god! no more! please!)
NPR

my day tomorrow will include NONE OF THESE THINGS!!!!!

I wish.

FREE PANCAKES AT IHOP TODAY, EVERYBODY. GO, EAT PANCAKES.

Wilkommen Bienvenue Welcome...

Guess I really am moving. Got a job and everything. One of my friends sent me the lyrics to a Frank Sinatra song "Chicago is my kind of town..." and ended her e-mail with *turning cartwheels*

Tonight I went to the Barnes & Noble in Ann Arbor (suburbs) and I got completely engrossed in the music section . I was remembering more about the people I worked with at the one in Virginia. All this music, especially The Pixies, Beth Orton, and Moby (which used to play in the store constantly) came back to me.

Eventually, Music Section Guy came up to me. "Can I help you?" he said.

"No thats okay, I'm just kind of wandering around looking at different things."

"I just wanted to make sure you weren't getting lost."

"No, I was just listening to all this music I used to listen to when I was younger and I was kind of getting lost." (contradicting myself)

"Yeah I know what you mean. I haven't listened to Pop music in years actually. I mostly listen to classical and music from shows. But sometimes I'll go back to something I listened to in 7th grade and it takes you back to that time."

I wanted to say ,"Actually I'm listening to music I listened to when I was 22 and working in a Barnes and Noble it takes me back to NOW!" But I just said "Yeah, exactly," and left. I could feel my face getting hot for some reason. Then I thought, "Wait, I used to listen to Cabaret alot too!" Oh well I was already in the parking lot starting up my car.

When I came home, and put on the Pixies, I couldn't seem to reproduce the same feeling/effect it had on me. Por quoi??

I think when I went skating, it was more like 5 years ago.

Wo ist my old ice pal??

Recently I attempted to e-mail my old friend/ B & N coworker from Virginia, Brian Kahn, to tell him I might be relocating to Chicago. He had some family there. I wonder if he's been watching any of the Olympics.

Brian loved writing and poetry, martial arts, standing on his head, and playing hockey (among other things.) He worked at an ice rink and drove a zamboni.

He also taught me how to ice skate! Once in my life, I flew around an icerink. It was probably about 4 years ago and I have not skated since. I should. Its long overdue. But...arrgh! His old e-mail address no longer works! California has swallowed him up somewhere.

So, here is a song for the guy who taught me how to skate on ice.

This is the blog of the week

I have no idea of half of what she's saying but I think her page looks cool.

Versos de Lirios

Vashon

Onct upon a time when I lived on Vashon isle...
there was a tetherball in the backyard by a creek with skunk cabbage in it.

Skunk cabbage. Native to the Northwest. My mother's boyfriend's mother, who lived in Des Moines (WA) had immigrated to America, from Norway, at an early age. When she came to Washington someone played a trick on her "see those pretty flowers? go smell them." But I think she just laughed when she told us that story.

The first house on Vashon had several acres of land and a beautiful view of the water. After we moved in I went out into the backyard and screamed at night but I knew my screams would be muffled by woods and blackberries and salmon berries and no one would hear or care and I thought it was fun and funny. I was finishing fourth grade.

Down the hill, a guy who had retired from Boeing had a farm which had Siamese cats and drafthorses. We often saw (or heard) them clop clop clopping by. The horses I mean.

It was different from the apartments we'd lived in in upstate New York (in Latham and Watervliet)or the old woman's house we first lived in when we moved to Washington State in 1986. The old woman's house was in Renton. She was a recluse and she'd died in that house before we moved in. We found old black and white photographs and some old books of hers in the garage (the door between it and the house would often mysteriously open). Some of the photos were from the wars over in Europe and were quite scary. In Renton, we lived by some mean dogs. There were also blackberries in the back yard. I learned to play tetherball at school and read all the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Shortly after we moved to the island, I got up early one morning and went for a walk. I walked several miles, until I got a bit scared, and then I turned around and walked back. Mostly I remember flowers and grass and trees. That was really great.

In the early 90s my mom and sister and I were a part of the Vashon Cohousing group, but we pulled out before they started building, and then we moved to Northern Virginia. When I was looking at the Vashon Cohousing group website and I noticed that a lot of people in it were from New York. Both upstate and NYC.

I think that one day I want to be able to have a place in NY state and a place on Vashon Island. Even if its just a piece of land with a tent!

Weekend task

Looking for apartments around Chicago.

O Canada (?)

So, I think that there might be a band with this name ("Canada"). But I haven't found it on the web. Last night, I was driving around, feeling a little stressed, and I turned to a local Ann Arbor, MI radio station. A bunch of guys on guitars were playing music, and it was oddly stress-relieving. "That was music from Canada" the announcer said when they were finished. But I don't know if that actually was the name of group. Maybe it was some band from Windsor or something. Its kind of a special experience when you hear music that has that effect on you.

Not that it has anything to do with Canada except for those Canadian ice skaters, but I decided that Sasha Cohen must engage in special meditation/visualization practices, and she probably has special esoteric treatments done on her spine, in order to make her so flexible. I imagined her as a kind of secretive spiritual searcher. Was she really practicing triple axels up in those Italian mountains? Sure, all her website says about her is that in her free time, she's mostly into fashion and going "shopping." Perhaps it is a cover up for her real mission...

TV watching initiates cultural breakthrough

I've been seeing a lot of the cute Canadian figure skating couple on USA. I've also been watching some of the coverage of the Olympics on the Canadian TV channel.

Click here to see a map of Canada.

Despite the fact that I have lived for much of my life within a relatively short driving distance of another country (in the states of Washington, New York, and Michigan) I still do not remember, ever, even once in school, looking at a map of Canada like the one in the link. I mean, with all the provinces in different colors and set apart. I've see that sort of map of the U.S. at least a hundred times of course. Canada was always sort of a dull brown mass hovering over 48 shades of pinks blues yellows etcetra.

I mean I'm not saying that they never showed it. I moved around and was absent a lot. Maybe I just missed those days!

So anyways, as a result of watching the Olympics, I decided to finally find a political map of Canada online and look at it just as I've been looking at maps of the United States my whole life.

And there it is! All by itself in pastel colors. Uncanny...

Hey America

Is Idaho kind of like the Vermont of the the West?

I've never been to Idaho but it seems like it might be...

A mi me gusta Olympics pairs figure skating.

Stolen Ohio

My friend works for this website...

www.petchannel.com

I believe this may be a sample of the sort of news he retrieves...

Stolen Ohio Returns Home to Massachusetts

Girls Gone Mild

On my Chicago trip I discovered that my friend's roommate and her brother had come up with an idea for a satirical revision of "Girls Gone Wild." The video would be called "Girls Gone Mild" and it would feature attractive women in very non-revealing clothing doing seductive things such as reading in the library, knitting, etcetra. I thought it was pretty funny and orginial. However, lo and behold, I see that someone else on the internet already came up with a similar idea....

http://www.anti-drama.com/girlsgonemild.htm

Very cute.

By the way, after I clicked on the photos, I couldn't believe they were in college! Some of them look like they're about 14 years old to me. Ah, the lovely process of feeling oneself ever so s-l-o-w-l-y m-a-t-u-r-i-n-g.... (hah)

Today

I paid bills and wrote a letter about water conservation of the Great Lakes and called the insurance company about my car accident and ate pizza for lunch and now I'm eating pizza AGAIN.

Stained glass windows are cool.

I should pick up the clarinet again one of these days.

"Home"

Here's an apt description:

"I love home. I consider it a vastly superior place to any other. At the same time, I have moved, on average, once every 9 months over the past 34 years. I am also an immigrant, and before I was an immigrant I was migratory. I am quick to accept a place as home. A motel room, after five minutes, is home. Home means relief and privacy to me. I often think about the places I have lived, and the places people I know have lived; I never quite understand why we don’t all still live there. But I’ve been happy everywhere. Each state I have lived in has engaged and stimulated me. Emigration is like dying and being born again: everything is a bonus though sometimes not quite real."

Taken from an interview with M. Byrne at http://www.chicagopostmodernpoetry.com/mairead.htm

The El

Yesterday, I visited Chicago for the first time. Well, I went once when I was 12, actually, and I've been in the airport a few times. I walked past the Sears Tower, the art institute and the El.

When it came rumbling by, all the cars on the street below started honking. This happened because the train's vibrations set off the car alarms. Oh, the mighty El.

;-P

trip. book.

Just got back from a road trip. North Carolina, Virginia and New York. Also drove through: New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan.

I've been watching Charlie Rose. I think I might want to read a book called American Vertigo.

10+ happy things

1. A beautiful old white cat with squinty eyes and a nice purr...
2. music you like
3.languages to learn more about, (such as French German and Latin)
4.lakes and seas and such places
5.mystical revelations
6.you're not a prisioner of the past
7.pastels
8.Spanish
9.craftstores
10. bookstores

11.friends
12. beer and wine
13. waterfalls
14. books
15. ladies
16. gentlemen
17. applause
18. blankets to hide underneath of
19. New York
20. Seattle
21. California
22. New Mexico
23. Okay, Virginia and D.C. and North Carolina
24. Interesting histories yet to be uncovered
25. Driving in the car with good music down a long stretch of highway.

new year's jottings

New Year.
New interests:

Using the new juicer I got for Christmas :-)
Hildegard von Bingen
Learning Latin and German.
Brushing up on French and Spanish.
And...possibly...to my surprise...
Embroidery

this is just another one of those songs

that gets stuck in my head from time to time...mucho Maryland references. I didn't actually live in Maryland, in fact at times I had a well known "fear of Maryland" (which many Northern Virginians have, as in, "hey, that place/party/show/park sounds cool...aw, but its in Maryland, thats too far." Even though Maryland is only like, 10 minutes away when the traffic is good. But I kinda got over it when I was making trips back and forth between Virginia and New York when I was in school. Blue Skies Over Dundalk

Right now,

no matter what else is going on around the world...

the geese are migrating....

I might almost have a new (used) car!

Picture this in sapphire blue.

road trip to the midwest song

WELL I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY FAMILY WAS GONE
I STOOD ON THE BACK PORCH
THERE WAS NOBODY HOME
I WAS STUNNED AND AMAZED
MY CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
SLOWLY SWIRLED PAST
LIKE THE WIND THROUGH THE TREES
A, O, OH WAY TO GO OHIO


I WENT BACK TO OHIO
BUT MY PRETTY COUNTRYSIDE
HAD BEEN PAVED DOWN THE MIDDLE
BY A GOVERNMENT THAT HAD NO PRIDE
THE FARMS OF OHIO
HAD BEEN REPLACED BY SHOPPING MALLS
AND MUZAK FILLED THE AIR
FROM SENECA TO CUYAHOGA FALLS
SAID, A, O, OH WAY TO GO OHIO

The Pretenders My City Was Gone

Almanac

This is the Hidden Pond Nature Center Almanac

Did you know...

1% of Switzerland speaks a language that is a combination of Latin and Italian.

getting creative with food

brown rice
+
tomato soup
+
oregano
+
a spoonful of yogurt

tastes like pizza.

ways to enjoy moving & packing

take breaks.
chew fresh parsley and mint leaves.
play with the waterhose (look! when I squirt it in the air and turn it off real fast it doesn't hit the ground until a few seconds later!)

www.furiae.com

Lovely Day

Hoy dia yo fui al Library of Congress in Washington D.C. with my friend and her friend, history/art history students at George Mason U. I checked out a rare (to me anyway, though it is not technically in the "Rare Books" collection) volume that I had checked out more than 10 years ago. I found the old order slip in it, which even had my father's signature on it from when he lived in Virginia. He had to come with me because I was still too young to check out books from the Library of Congress. That was a trip, finding that slip. I guess that not very many people have looked at that book over the past 10 years...

The book was a biography of a 19th century writer named George MacDonald. It was written by his son and it is called George MacDonald and his wife. I spent most of my time reading/skimming it. (When I was younger I was mainly looking in it for photographs because I knew he was friends with Lewis Carroll, who was a photographer, and I was doing a report in my photography class).

Part of the reason I was reading it was I knew that this author had lead a bit of a rags to riches existence (to a degree) and I wanted to find out how he'd done it. Well, it seems that he'd occasionally attract the attention of well-off individuals (like Lady Byron for example). These individuals then provided him with money, and in turn, he wrote many books and gave lectures until at some point, after many years a whole bunch of people (and fans of his work) pooled together money and he got a big house in Italy. And by friends and fans, I mean...a Princess here, a Baroness there...I believe his wife and daughters mostly took care of the house...but maybe there were servants, too. It also said that even some former servants contributed money toward the family buying this house.

So. Thats one way to do it...

Also, I checked out The Triple Goddess Tarot (even the cards came with the book!) and a book about The Herbal Tarot. Also a book in Italian (which I cannot really read) about Elisabetta Sirani, a female painter in the Renaissance, and some books about Isabel Clara Eugenia, the daughter of Philip II of Spain, which were either in Spanish (which I can read) or Dutch (which I can't). Except for the tarot books, I didn't look at those very much but the whole point was, these are all materials you can't check out of any local library I've been to recently! Being in close proximity to D.C. has its advantages.(But, soon I shall make a journey to see family and seek employment in a colder, more Northern state of Michigan...That is, as soon as I figure out what to do about my car, which has a bad transmission, according to not-1-not-2-not-3-but-4 sources!)

There was a small fire(?) in the LOC today, and people were briefly evacuated out of the building, but it didn't seem to do any serious damage.

To be turned into links....

A Book
I recently (re)read:
Mirabilis by Susann Cokal

A Movie
I recently watched:
Being Human (with Robin Williams)

For now, I have to run off to a beer tasting at The Curious Grape, in Shirlington Virginia.

link happy

here's another link to a band that I got introduced to when I attended a Mary Prankster show in Virginia last autumn:

The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band

MARY

PRANKSTER

hah!!

yes, sometimes bothering to look up the directions helps.

This girl is retiring...

thats a link, folks.

lets try it again...


and in case it still didn't take, the link is supposed to be www.maryprankster.com

I have hope, I have faith, but will the link thingy really work this time??

Mary Prankster is retiring! And if that link won't work, then what kind of world do we live in???

Tarot

So, currently indulging in a new obsession (or maybe I should say "re-newed") these are the decks I really would like to own:

Celestial Tarot (I loooove the art work and the astrological references)
Tarot of the White Cats ( I have a white cat and I think these look adorable. Plus, its a nice way to learn 6 languages!)
Motherpeace Tarot (I just get a nice feeling about this one)

and maybe also

The Rider-Waite Tarot (this was the first kind of tarot I ever used...an old pack of my mom's from the early 70s)
The Tarot of Art Noveau (sexy and Italian! but several other languages are on this deck too)
Art Noveau Tarot (love the colors)

I also quite like the looks of:
Gendron Tarot,
Chinese Tarot,
Old English Tarot ,
Tapestry Tarot,
and Legend: The Arthurian Tarot.

Its nice to read something with pictures for a change.

(By the way, the book Ahab's Wife has illustrations in it! I always thought that more books for adults should be illustrated.)

tarot and melba 'snacks'

i thought they were called 'toast'

once upon a time...

today I carefully scrutizinized (sorry I'm under the influence of cheap yet drinkable wine) 'the medieval scapini tarot"

by the way it is not medieval. one card depicts rasputin!!'

nevertheless...a fun time.

then I went out and bought "the pocket goddess tarot" by kris waldherr

"I wish they made us learn about tarot in school" I said, after finding websites such as www.tarotforum.net and www.learntarot.com. there are some interesting decks out there. "tarot of the white cats" (I have a white cat.) "the triple goddess tarot" "power of flowers tarot" "inner child cards"

"oh come on you know tarot has to be an out of school thing"

"thats not true! I could see you doing tarot, llike the inner child one, with kids in art class"

blarghy blar blar...

anyways my friend said "I could see you teaching a class about tarot"

"yeah....but then you never know...you could get some girl in your class whose mother is a psychic and knows more about it than you do."

"you're really out there you know that? but its good."

......

"i mean, you are! you're obsessed!"

(this was a convivial and funny exchange)

mineral spa...

is what I said to someone shoving a dirty laundry bag full of "not filthy" laundry behind my back

"how could you be more comfortable now?"

and a pillow at my side

"I remember this from my mother and my grandmother...pillows all the time...theres a female sense....in in in...um...a a a... well...I don't think its wrong to talk about one's family in conjunction with one's mind...I think freud fucked that up...to be honest...but how...I don't know..."

sound of a lighter...cigarette lighting....

patting adjusting

anticipation of typewriter keys clacking

If you really like a book...

then never, never go online and look up the reading group questions.

especially when its a long book and you are only in the beginning stages.

because, for sure, one of the questions will give away vital information about the story

and then, you will mutter grouchily, to your monitor, "thanks for ruining it!"

BLAH.

another interesting not a link

has now been turned into a link!

http://www.williambowles.info/poems/arlette/cornered.html
Cornered
by A. Lurie

compliment

fr the "The Baroness" in THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLIAM CARLOS WILLIAMS on the Sept. 17 entry on "Conchology" (http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com/) is very interesting. That is not a link. I don't know how to make my links work.

The new book I'm reading is appropriate to the new place. I LOVE Ahab's Wife by Sena Jeter Naslund. I also very much enjoyed her readings and "workshop" at the Binghamton University Writing by Degrees conference. I had a brief conversation with her, as she signed my books (I also bought Four Spirits) about the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. She likes The Long Winter the best. I can't really decide which one I like the best...I think that the first one I read was Little House on the Prairie, and I know I must've read The Long Winter either as the second or third book. (I read them all out of order). I can remember being in third grade and I had just moved to Renton, Washington, from Latham, New York, and I was the only kid in my class who liked those books.

I got teased a little bit by a new friend I made at my school, Campbell Hill Elementary, which was a school that had not one, not two, but THREE recesses. She was called Cheryl, she was skinny with a square jaw with a large mole, and long blond hair, and her family was on welfare and used food stamps. I think that she and I were two white girls who hung out with a larger group of mostly black girls who played on the bars every recess. Not that I think I noticed it back then, so much, but just in my memory as an older person, I notice it now. I learned to
skin the cat, and to do "the pencil" and other things which I don't remember the names of, but I could describe what I did. I don't remember which one "skin the cat" was. "The pencil" was when you made your whole body as straight as a board and flipped over the bar backwards. "Cherry Bombs" were when you hung upside down and, no hands, swung around on your knees and flipped off a high bar and landed on your feet. I only did that one time, on a playground, when my mother's boyfriend was close by and spotting me.

Also, at Campbell Hill, I learned to jump double dutch and play tetherball. I think that the first time I ever saw the older girls jumping double dutch was on St. Patrick's Day, maybe. "I am Irish!" I remember a dark skinned girl saying, with a tone of irony, or self-mocking, the one who was jumping. I secretly decided that I wanted to learn how to "jump Irish."

I almost think I love this book as much as I loved the Laura Ingalls Wilder books back then. A light house figures predominantly in the first part of the book, Ahab's Wife. Since Michigan is full of lighthouses, being on the Great Lakes, this seems very fitting...

moving

I just picked up a little ten foot truck (which is nonetheless the biggest vehicle I've ever driven) to carry my belongings out to Michigan. And my internet is going to get cut off at any second...

I will mention that when I went to NYC, my friends and I saw this rather interesting show in Central Park. It consisted of roller bladers, either in various costumes, stages of undress, or street clothes, dancing in their own distinct ways to music that...well I can't remember exactly but it tended to have a heavy dance beat but it was not techno (?) I think...to a back drop of about 40 people on a hill waving and swirling around multi-colored tie dyed flags.

And what that all was for, other than for the pure enjoyment/entertainment/amusement of the participants and the spectators, we did not know.

on the pleasures of dining

A new friend has had an interesting affect on my eating habits recently.

I have become a fan of eating a dinner salad very slowly. Not a wimpy salad, mind you, but a Greek salad, which includes feta cheese and olives and maybe just a few anchovies. Accompanied by a vinegar and oil type house dressing on the side.

So we talk, and I eat my salad very s-l-o-o-o-w-l-y. If the waiter keeps coming by and asking if I'm done, I say that I'm still working on it. My friend slowly consumes a bowl of french onion soup and a small tossed salad. Then for dessert, we each have a slow cup of peppermint tea.

This is not the way I was raised to eat.

Good yogurt tastes like dessert

I concluded today, after sampling the following:

1) Liberte "Six Grains Stirred Yogourt" (with raspberries, buckwheat, rice, barley, wheat, rye, oats) 1.5 % milkfat

2)Liberte Mediterranee Yogourt "Wild Blackberry fruit at the bottom" 8% milkfat

3) Stoney Field Farm "Vanilla Truffle" organic yogurt with cocoa at the bottom and pieces of a Hershey Bar thrown in for good measure. Fat content undetermined.

Dandelion Greens

Tonight, for the first time, I tried cooking myself some dandelion greens.

Tonight, I also found a very interesting article on the internet.



does it work?

If all goes well...

tomorrow I will be taking my first day trip to New York City, ever! I think in the morning I'll drive to New Jersey and I'll be meeting some friends from Maryland and Philly. How exciting!
This trip has been too long in coming.

I've been to Long Island before and I went to the Kennedy airport when I was six, but that doesn't really count.

Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen

Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen

Du, du liegst mir im Herzen,
Du, du, Liegst mir in Sinn.
Du, du, machst mir viel Schmertzen,
Weisst nicht wie gut ich dir bin.

Ja, ja, ja, ja,
weisst nicht wie gut ich dir bin.

Leonard Cohen - Chelsea Hotel #2 Lyrics

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
you were talking so brave and so sweet,
xxxxxx xx xxxx xx xx xxxxxx xxx
while the limousines wait in the street.
Those were the reasons and that was New York,
we were running for the money and the flesh.
And that was called love for the workers in song
probably still is for those of them left.

Ah but you got away, didn't you babe,
you just turned your back on the crowd,
you got away, I never once heard you say,
I need you, I don't need you,
I need you, I don't need you
and all of that jiving around.

I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel
you were famous, your heart was a legend.
You told me again you preferred handsome men
but for me you would make an exception.
And clenching your fist for the ones like us
who are oppressed by the figures of beauty,
you fixed yourself, you said, "Well never mind,
we are ugly but we have the music."

And then you got away, didn't you babe...

I don't mean to suggest that I loved you the best,
I can't keep track of each fallen robin.
I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel,
that's all, I don't even think of you that often.