Some stuff about psychics and sex workers

This movie has more references to the place of my birth than any other I know of: Men Who Stare at Goats. An Appalachian trail hiker who is also a sex worker blogs about the changes of the seasons and autumn. She also makes an interesting point in this post about what sounds to me to be a very unfair law in New Orleans.

The Parks

I went to a wetlands park, but was disappointed by the pervasive sights and sounds of traffic.
I went to a beach, but didn't care for the oil derricks on all sides.
I went to a canyon park which had free parking, except it was impossible to find a spot.
But then, after dark, I went to where a gigantic orange balloon rose like a harvest moon over an old air force base runway.
Great Park.
Redeemed!
"Do you know why this is so cool?" I said. "I am a person who has conflicting feelings about military bases and coming from a military background. This place...is like therapy!"

Cute site

But needs an up to date flash player
http://www.superchargedfood.com

Health is nice

Oh today was a good day when I woke up.
I felt like a combination of the positive parts of some songs was playing in the back of my mind...
(Destiny's Child: "I'm a Survivor" and something that the character Tony sings in West Sing Story: "could it be, yes it could, something's coming, something good...")
On other mornings, I didn't feel well, and it was awful.
I have woken up to hear someone far off, screaming, but it was in my head, or something.
I have spent portions of my life actually cringing when I heard children on a playground because I was afraid something bad was happening. Then I looked and it was just kids playing.
As far as I know, I have not eaten any processed wheat or sugar in 2 weeks.
And so far, I have really enjoyed my food today.

I like this woman

Sarah Jones, who I just heard on The Moth Radio Hour.
Sarah Jones "Your Revolution."

Other Winter days

Dreams last night of being in a different part of the country, or maybe even continent. But, could have been up around Seattle, maybe even Canada. Fewer people and more hills. Persons were riding bicycles in a country of long grasses and grey skies. And then going to a stranger's house, and trying to find out if hers was beneath another's, and intending to find out by placing one map on top of another.
Not really accustomed to this sunshine all the time.
Already missing the change of seasons. The leaves and apple picking and smoky autumns. I remembered watching some videos in colder seasons.
Police Me, Starling, Fast Horse, Lady in Blue.
And getting library books, and driving to spacious parks that were either free or much cheaper to get into, and they showed the change of the seasons.
I remember pizza and wine, which are things I am not eating right now.
Pizza box, Tonight, Cool Last Night.
It might be nice to live in a place that has seasons, but have a home in a milder climate to sit out the worst of the summers and winters.
But not sit out the good winter days!
~~~~~
And for some reason, and not necessarily much to do with winter, I kind of vaguely seem to remember how I looked at the world as a kindergartener.

On another coast...

But on the internet, I can still read stuff like this...
http://dcist.com/2010/08/welcome_to_dc_tea_party.php
Yes it is more amusing from afar.

Perseverance

Good grief, it was ridiculously hard to find this movie.
I typed all sorts of things into google and Netflix.
I looked up lists about movies on women and sports.
I thought back...how did I come across this ever so many years ago? I think it was when I got into watching movies about runners and found it on Amazon. (That didn't work the first time either, but I kept searching.)
Voila. I finally found it and now it's in the Netflix queue.
The Long Run.

This one

So, this song, "Happy Phantom." It seems to be hanging around alot lately.
Maybe it's partly because there are many friendly-looking plastic skulls in the apartment.
There's one wearing a pirate hat sitting over me now.
Hah.

Recovery time again

Cultured coconut milk with stevia.
Nori wrapped around avocado, cucumber and herb salad.
Mary's Gone Crackers.
Am I ever gonna give up wheat and sugar permanently?
It seems so, 'til after I forget...

Another re-watch

Ms. Smith rocks the hag in flannel look.
Smells Like Teen Spirit (Patti Smith)
More fun than revising resumes on a Saturday night.

Celebrity

Being in this area reminds you that there is this thing called celebrity. I forget exactly how that "degrees of separation" theory works, but if it has anything to do with "know a person who's met a person," I can think of THREE famous people I've kind of ALMOST been in touch with lately:
1) Sr. Petreus, cause I recently saw my Dad and he was checking his e-mail and they use the same W.P. classmate prayer list, 2) Kanye West, cause one of bellisimo friend's aunts recently had to deal with him over the phone when he kept changing his flights for some reason, and 3) Johnny Depp! Because another aunt works at Disney and rode up in an elevator with him. While he was in full Pirates of Carribean mode. And in character. So that was actually probably a while ago, but how could I not include that? Writers are not often afforded the same degree of celebrity as actors and politicians, but perhaps authors who get their books banned could be on their way...

Still, no matter how much of a celebrity one might be, even meeting him or her is nothing compared to how I can feel about reuniting with a certain food or taste. Right now, for example, I have a strange desire for the Fruit and Nut salad dressing I could get at Aladdin's, which was a really great chain that they don't have out here. It's not a terribly strong craving, but I still want some. And that was not even my favorite dressing there. Weird. I do think it's fun when you read or see a show about a place, and get to visit it. That's like getting in touch with celebrity. I almost had that kind of experience when I tried the fried potato salad at Cafe on the Route. Not terribly healthy for everyday consumption, but still, YUM.

Rite-Aids here have icecream and serve it in square-shaped scoops. Another idiosyncracy.

Comida

Put out some beans, tortillas and other stuff. Bellisimo friend sat down to eat and said, "You know what, for some reason I'm thinking of an old cartoon..." Something about a sombrero-wearing Mexican guy who sits down, the plate explodes in his face, and then he says (in English with a heavy accent) "my wife--she eees a good cook!" I tried to look for a clip like that on the net but only found this: Ask a Mexican. The tortilla (the ones eaten today were made of corn) link was added as an afterthought.

Waking up...

Something about waking up today: I was half in a dream, and a little white ball came to the top of one of those round air-filled lotto machines.
I live in a place. It's got a lot of sunshine. I have a friend on the other coast who filmed yesterday's hurricane/monsoon storm in Virginia.
The video was compelling.
I didn't experience that one as it happened.
A drive thru was closed yesterday. There was a deputy in the parking lot talking to a woman and all the women inside did their best to ignore us and I wanted to just go on, but driver had to ask a question: "Did something bad happen?" Yes. What it was, who knows, but they were closing up early.
This place is so cute and charming but there is a lot of stuff going on. When I first walked the streets, so cute, "old town," I still felt a little suspicious. And I am not used to palm trees, and the weather.
Other things: Street fair every Friday. People walk their pets: not just dogs, but a boar and a macaw. A magician's act in the park: light a frying pan on fire and pull out a chinchilla. Kids love it.
I think there is a memorial service celebrating my FB friend that died, today, in Virginia.
That's a strange place and this one is, too.
~~~~~
Snow Cherries From France.
~~~~~
(Just remembering, once I read a negative (and I thought, really silly) review of the artist's American Doll Posse album, and it was kind of funny. The reviewer kind of scornfully called her something like a "favorite aunt." The reason that's funny is, sometimes, she actually does alternately remind me of two of my aunts. And this is not so funny but it comes to mind: one of them got stabbed by a stranger and the other one had a gun put to her head in a hold up. And I know those things happened. But, of course, they are not the first things that come to mind when I think of them!)

Yellow tomatoes

I met my neighbor and she gave me some of those little oblong tomatoes and told me who else lives in the building. Pretty nice...
Earlier I developed a desire to visit Pie Town.
Found an interesting rendition of Suzanne.
Yeee-ha, T. Amos in spectacles!
And I listened to The Story.
Now I'm pretty interested in Annabeth Barnes.
So just watched the Racing Dreams trailer.

Things about Homer

"Are U Ready?"
A tasty BBQ place in Missouri is advertised by those words on a sign alongside Rt. 44. The interior is decorated with religious art and airplanes fashioned out of old soda pop cans. The owner had a Saudi Arabian son-in-law once. "Ah love 'im." He also has a Jewish doctor who keeps a kosher household. He has preached the word of Jesus to both and probably to most if not all of his patrons. He has served BBQ to people from all over the world, including various government officials, a guy from National Geographic, a large (something like 50 youths) gospel choir, and a haughty French official, who came in with some friends and became offended when, after asking for a Jack Daniels, was told that he wouldn't be served "that slop." The friends thought it was funny but he refused to order. Homer brought him some taters anyway.
He has a grandson from the Phillipines who told him that the reason why the page used to go blank when he tried to read it was because he got brain damage when he began drinking alcohol at an extremely young age.
That was before he found the Lord.
He invited us to Bible study and offered to buy me and the bellisimo friend a marriage license. Quote from J's FB note: "I expected at some point he might ask if we we had accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord, (MY EDIT: "personal Lord and Savior!") but Homer is sharper than that, and zeroed in on a more significant point. Probably noting we didn't have rings on our fingers, he asked 'Y'all are married, right?'"
Ah, Homer. Introducing me to a new/old slang term, either it was "shackjob" or "shackmoll," I can't remember which. (Kindly was mentioned without being directed at me, of course!) I could do without the lecture, but otherwise he was a real nice guy. And we even got a free dessert.
Another account about Homer can be found in someone's older blog entry here.

"Tombigbee..."

I listened to it at some point on the trip.
I'm reading Blue Highways again.
Tombigbee...

What played on the radio at midnight

When I came into LA!
Midnight Radio.

Do girls really faint that much at concerts?

I have never been able to get through watching a video of an entire song sung by Justin Bieber (to be fair, tonight was the first time I tried) but supposedly girls faint over him. I want to know something--do girls really faint that much at concerts or does the media just like to write stories about girls fainting? I can't think of a single girl I've ever met who has fainted at one. Now, getting trampled in the mosh pit is another story.
~~~~~~
It makes me wish they would make other artists, like Invincible, a sensation, but a) she's probably too threatening to them to make it worth their while or b) she wouldn't sell out enough to them or c) she may have no desire for the kind of lifestyle that would entail.

Happy trails to you...

I believe that's what I'm hearing...But tonight, G. Keillor's show dedicated to summer reading is perfect to listen to while I'm organizing (the precursor to more packing.) Esp. the re-do of "A Streetcar Named Desire."
And I do indeed know how photographs of oneself are sometimes insipid.
I may have to listen to it again while I'm packing tomorrow. ;-D

Something to watch, something else too...

if you want to unexpectedly feel tears rolling down your cheeks in spite of yourself...
Stacy Westfall's championship ride.
For me, anyway.
~~~~~
Oh and another thing.
Operation Happy Note.

Old stuff

I went through some files. I got a few treats. Like a couple of "good reviews" of my work from grad school, by fellow grad students. Awesome! I will save. I will try that creative writing thing again.
I also found this lovely thing (twice):
"This is the attendence sheet for those already enrolled in Section 2 / Section 6. Please note: if you are not enrolled on BUSI then you are NOT in my section. Unfortunately, there is not enough space to accomodate everyone & making excuses, expressing your disappointment in a rude fashion, or pretending you are enrolled when you're not, will NOT help your case. If all sections are closed, sign up next semester."
Boy, was I in a good mood that day or what?
Those notes were torn at the top. I probably ripped them off the attendence sheets. I may have expressed similar sentiments verbally though.
Somehow it looks less abrasive when I read it typed then it did handwritten.
~~~~~
Upon watching TV and all the men on TV, and reading articles written by men, I have a real moment of feeling my life is quite wholly shaped by my being female. I am sure not all women feel that way. But many probably do. I do.

Eating cherries and almonds

Eating Rainer cherries and almonds standing up in the kitchen, it comes to me to be thinking of Irene going out to the garden at night to love and sniff at a kind of flower. A night where she will meet someone else in the garden. Imperfections, moments of energy. 19th century, other century. Other bodies, other decisions, other mistakes. A body, a financial situation, a set of circumstances. "I was thinking, maybe if you seem to remember things about other people, it has something you do with your ancestry. If you were B.F., then I was your dog and you kicked me around." There was a message on the refrigerator. A quote from a book others are reading called The Art of Racing in the Rain. "That which you manifest is before you."

Out of Time

Introducing...a book.
Began it in the van of a Wegman's parking lot while beagle-sitting during a heat wave. Read most of it today, after a busy morning, and after attempting to sort through boxes, when the ground shifted like the deck of a ship under my feet. I decided it was time to take a break.
It was great to read on the tail end of my trip to upstate New York.
Out of Time by Paula Martinac.
~~~~~
I revisited Our Home Library in Johnson City. I combed the Young Adult section for a book I can't quite remember the title of. Me the moon my ass....something. It was about a girl who has a weight problem and her brother does something bad when he goes to college and their parents overindulge/excuse him but she doesn't. Well, I didn't find it. But there was an intense reader there. A young woman, probably a teenager. She looked Mexican to me, but maybe that's just because I'm going to be heading closer to Mexican/Californian culture. She was soooo intense about the book scrutiny and I think later maybe she was poring through some CDs or DVDs. I admired the intensity.

By the way.

If you have to go without health insurance for six months (and put yourself at risk for catastrophe for six months) in order to qualify, of if I have, to or if my family member has to do that, that is simply not good enough.

Ah, quirkiness

So, there are beliefs in this world. Beliefs, religious in origin, about sleeping arrangements and matrimonial bonds and whatnot. My bellisimo friend has a large family which has donated furniture and many household items towards an apartment we will both be living in, and he also has grandparents who periodically have taken in kin and also accepted the significant others of their kin, (even if they are not joined in matrimony) actually living and sleeping under their roof.
It will be very quirkily charming when he realizes that, even if we can pack the air mattress and transport it to the unfurnished work-abode of my male parent, we will indeed be welcomed in a very friendly manner, but nevertheless, sharing the air mattress and the same room, is, if I am understanding correctly, going to be a no-go. So it's the floor and shelves of religious books. Monks! We can pretend we are monks! I am so into it. I hope I still feel that way after hours of driving!
Ah, wide world of different beliefs and codes of behavior.
Little Earthquakes...God....

Sigh!

Happiness sigh! I got to go on my trip! It was wonderful. It wasn't perfect, and the heat wave sucked, but I got to go on a trip! I miss that part of the country. But I got to visit and I know I will visit it again. Me and some places have an agreement on that. Upstate NY. Well, who knows, I even remember once in Massachusetts I was rambling to a complete stranger about how great and wonderful a place it was. I think I was outside of a gas station. I may have been in a line to a port-a-potty. The stranger said "it is great." He was a working class guy, in my memory. I actually don't know what he did for a living. Maybe I was high off of seeing the literary sites I'd seen, but I think it was also the place, the land.
I know some very creative things have happened in some places I have lived in.
I don't know much...I don't know...I don't know much...but I know....
In spite of the heat, my mom and the beagle and I visited six carousels and rode on three of them. She purchased a vibrant and unique painting of a fox and soap from Sea Hag soaps in Brackney, Pennsylvania. If we had more time I would've tried to get us to go to wineries and Watkins Glen! Ah well...next time.
On the way back, I ate many locally grown peaches from a stand in Pennsylvania. I may have set a record.

SO good

Three Hits by The Indigo Girls.
For a road trip! For solo singing in a small apartment...
Off to upstate NY tomorrow.
Gosh I just realized something. Years ago, when I heard a Sherman Alexie story on public radio, I was probably driving by the Onondaga nation, and never realized it, or else I didn't remember it.
Unique is the feeling of wishing to reconnect with a part of oneself that belongs to another place.

Tonight

I looked at old bookmarks. I weeded them. I watched Becky Stark again.
I filled out more paperwork.
Can I FINALLY get my stolen paychecks please?
If you are what you eat, I turned into vegetarian pizza.
~~~~~
Maybe I can convince my mom to go to upstate NY on a trip to escape 102 degree heat this week. We will see.

Songs...

Lately I am so, so attached to the live LP versions on the second CD of To Venus and Back. Especially Little Earthquakes live, (which is not that version, though.) But how funny to get so attached when I didn't listen to it for a long time. I always have to listen to that CD in the car and it's been that way for weeks.
My former music teacher mother sometimes points out key changes because I asked her about them. I am told my voice is untrained but I have good pitch. Which means I can hear well enough to hit notes where they should be hit, mostly. I was an alto (actually, Alto II) in the choir and my voice is not as strong on really high notes, but I like (or love) to sing along when I listen to music in the car and I think it's important to at least try to hit the notes. It can be quite jarring to hear someone singing really out-of-key. Since that's my only musical outlet, sometimes I can almost get annoyed if I have to talk to someone instead of singing in the car, but I try to not get that way about it!
Off and on we had a piano in the house when I was growing up but I never really took to it. Too bad. I think I like singing best. It might've been nice to take voice/piano lessons. Also would've been a luxury, though. Circumstances just got in the way. No, I didn't get lots of free lessons from my single parent working mom. Time as well as money can be an issue. I was not a kid who did lots of extracurricular activities but I was in band for a little while. I wanted to play flute but they had too many and the band instructor and my mother made me take clarinet. I have an appreciation for it, and also played bass clarinet, which has completely different music a lot of the time. I am glad, but I might've stuck with it more if they let me play flute. Hell yeah I would have. Damn. Still, since I did develop an appreciation for clarinet and bass clarinet parts, I can't exactly be sorry!
Much of the time I was alone, or with my sister and cats, reading. Maybe I will take some lessons as an adult. Would love to study more about music, dance, painting, drawing, languages...

Impressions

Something interesting churning. That article I found it hard to get through but haven't thrown away since grad school for some reason, with references to "the wasp credited with the honeycomb," is actually a modern introduction to a book I haven't read, called Impressions of Theophrastus Such. (putting the damage on...my best impression...)

Today I was also reading about my friend's horrible experience. And some comments on it...

A quote before returning

And a demonstration of the equal sign, from River-horse, page 153.

"The cook stepped from the kitchen to see who the hell had wandered in. 'Off the river?' she said. We sat at the counter in front of a large refrigerator with a hand-lettered sign punctuated with equal signs as if the phrases were equations:
NO = VULGAR = LANGUAGE
WATCH = YOUR = MOUTH
Pilotis warned a look at me although I hadn't said a word. We thought ourselves and the cook the only ones about, but then from a side room we heard a rough, threatening Appalachian voice: 'Weasel's gonna eat up your liver,' and a child began to whimper. The cook saw our expressions, and she said, 'That's her mom = The kid ordered chicken livers = Weasel's her dog.'"

Nuttier

Sigh. I really felt awful and had multiple symptoms. So I went to the Urgent Care. I waited for hours, was finally examined, and everything I had was, basically, not serious. Of course, I got a prescription or two out of it anyway, but essentially, I didn't need to go. $$$igh!
Oh well. Maybe I just needed official reassurance of my health. Either that or I'm too interesting of a case and need specialists.
At least I got through more of River-horse.

Good and

This is good. It gets in my head.
Upside Down.
And....
It is different from what my favorite experiences are.
My favorite experiences are kind of like
listening to Datura
and either driving (whoosh)
or maybe staring at a picture of a Goddess, like Lakshmi.

Stuff and such

Before I leave the East Coast, I think I'm going to visit the place I used to live. Just a short trip. Exciting! Although I failed to make much of an impression at school or start a great career there, I nevertheless learned much. For example, I admired the work of Susann Cokal, who graduated from their program, but for some reason the English department, who celebrated other graduates, didn't even seem to know she'd published interesting fiction. I wonder if that has changed? Oh well. Oh well about a lot of other things, too; thinking about them just makes me feel tired. But the best is when you find a part of the country that you can love, and that gave you lasting friendships. At least that happened. I love upstate NY.

Whoa

Memoir by Jessica Stern.
Before I read that review, I was looking at a picture of my friend, who is the "unidentified woman" photographed being arrested in this article.
I was also thinking, I sort of have a problem with people using one word (like "assault") to describe completely different things.
Another review.

I could wake up

with this song in my head.
I have woken up with this song in my head.
I think of myself watching clouds move over the park with this song in my head.
Purple People.
~~~~
I have read two Tori O'Shea mysteries. Killing Cousins and In Sheep's Clothing. I will read more. I feel that they are good preparation for the St. Louis leg of my road trip and thereafter.
I also read online some of the history about Baxter Springs, KS, because I might want to stop there at a place called "Cafe on the Route." I am, although not without difficulty, getting through Riverhorse. (Lack of boat knowledge is a bit of an obstacle at times.) And my future traveling companion tells me he has picked up Blue Highways. :-)

Organizing

Cheerfully planning stuff to see along Rt. 66 and memories of my time in Illinois came to mind. I have to organize stuff. I have to throw stuff out. I have to decide what to keep. Any old drawings from art class? That one I drew while sitting beside my FB friend who died, I should keep. And what about another old art class neighbor friend...I have some drawings from that class too. I thought I threw a portrait away. I think, now, no I didn't. The name of old neighbor gets searched and this crazy politico comes up. What the hay? And I used to have dreams that are little like the life of crazy politico. I don't know what that's about either. Nope...So I guess I'm off to plan the Rt. 66 trip.
When I lived in Illinois, I used to drive around and listen to an album called "Heaven's Dust" by Ekova. There was one that went "When I was young and in prime..." And songs from Cats. I had a good cat then, too. It's weird all the little selves I created over these years in so many different places...

Mmmm

Christine de Pizan. A little bell makes a large sound. Clocks.

K

(K as in short for okay.) Okay now I am a good person. WHY am I a good person? I am a good person because I HAVE ENOUGH MONEY TO PAY ALL MY BILLS THIS MONTH!
(That means the minimums. The minimums? Oh, especially good!)
Still. I have to take the good feelings where ever they come. Maybe when I move I will get better at prosperity.
:-D :-D :-D
I wonder what to do about some things. Like, I had a dream a while ago about FB friend. Actually I was trying to convince this dude to publish his stuff. The dude was too busy macking on some chick, who wouldn't listen to me unless the dude listened. I tried and tried and finally threw sand at him. (Then I felt weird several days later, when I saw some guy on TV who owns a record company and his own island, brandishing the beach sand for the camera.) Negative attention. Flipped upside down and started screaming. Hmmm. Well it wasn't exactly the most realistic dream. Thought about it before watching the MTV show about rich peoples' abodes. Was driving around, for some reason feeling like I could go to pieces. (I don't feel that way now.)I saw myself all shredded up, like confetti. What is the folktale about the two cats who claw each other to fur tuffs on a bridge? I imagined something more like colorful shiny bits of floating paper. As a kid I once threw sawdust at a boy going down a slide, in an attempt to enhance his experience. He ran to an adult daycare worker crying. That was me trying to be nice.
~~~~
The house sitting was good. I miss the cats. I even miss throwing the ball for the dog. (Over and over and over...) At night, in the empty house, I got unexpectedly creeped out by a seemingly benign mystery book: Killing Cousins. Then I channel surfed for an hour and felt better--enough to go to sleep. Also the presence of cats helped.
Another night, I saw a tiny bit of a show about haunted houses, which are part of a park of historic buildings in the British Isles. I wished it was just a show about architecture. I flipped to another channel. It was a show about a film festival. The words "I Am Love" and "Farewell" soothed me, also unexpectedly.
~~~~
Cooling. I noticed it playing after I drove past the man surrounded by onlookers as he lay still at the foot of the steps of the bank.

Life

Watching channel 69, which is public media. A play. Indian women acting/talking about being in America. Hmmm maybe it is acted out by the writer (with others on stage accompanying her.) I am in another part of Arlington, house-pet-sitting. A better neighborhood. I explored it, and went by a bank. A man had collapsed at the bottom of the steps. He was surrounded by people of all ages, children through white-haired, and both sexes, and then, when I drove by again, a firetruck and an ambulance. It's probable that he was no longer for this world.

Touchdown Jesus

Struck by Lightening.

Good grief

Town of White Squirrels.
"Laws on the Olney books grant squirrels the right-of-way on every street and sidewalk, and impose heavy fines on anyone who tries to take one out of town. 'Vigilant individuals' are encouraged, according to the town's bylaws..."
White Squirrel Wars.

Some TV; some thoughts

Harp Dreams.
(I think I have Harp Dreams.)
Ask Not.
(I recall being booed in highschool when I stood up when a guy asked what we supported...front row, my heart sank, less than ten standing, I'd say, in an auditorium of well over a thousand, and no one else in front, what an angry sound, maybe if I'd been a boy, someone would have beat me up for that?) Seems good to watch today, which is when I found out the President promoted that guy who was my Dad's classmate. Oh, career. I will be leaving my school without ever having met Ms. Biden, who works there, though I suppose I could have, and people there told me I could get a job teaching English, too. I was pretty sure I could. I mean, I couldn't have been flakier than the ones I met! Hmmm. Will it be weird to not be right next to some of this stuff? DC always seemed more interesting to me from a distance. Ah, Stephen Colbert. Too many of your shows have I missed. Thank you for rounding out the evening's TV-watching experience. I now have a strange desire to attend a revival. In a month, I believe I may be passing by the world's largest cross. (The face icon that pops up in the tab looks like his! Eerie.)

Wah, but interesting.

This guy sounds like he was worth meeting!
Larry Baggett's Trail of Tears Memorial.

Travel

I'm trying to figure out stuff for this road trip. Like, whether I should stay at the Precious Moments hotel again (and maybe see the "inspirational park" this time.) I'm not a Precious Moments connoiseur, but somehow ended up staying there twice. I didn't know what I was supposed to do in my life, and it was comforting, if price-y (for me.) I went swimming in the pool in the winter time, there were holiday decorations, and had a lavish fantasy that a large family in the lobby was actually a family I was a part of, like something in a Dickens story, or a past life, but also like we were all wealthy, and it was both completely lovely and quite sad, and thinking of it gives me a wee bit of nostalgia... (Note to self: e-mail that link. "It's on the way. I want to see it.")

History...

Watching a program about Charles Martel and Charlemagne on the history channel. According to my sister's geneaology stuff, Charlemagne is our 39th great grandfather. Me to my mom: "There should be an organization for people descended from Charlemagne. Pish posh, Daughters of the American Revolution!" It seems we are descended via his son Louis the Pious (a most legitimate heir), through my mom's mother Pansy and (I think) her mother Alma. It probably isn't too hard to be descended from Charlemagne, really. I don't know, though. Apparently there are six different charts linking us back to him, due to intermarriage and such. The Plantagenets are in there too. It is interesting. Alfred the Great is also a grandfather on another chart. But Pansy is (according my mom) probably also the reason I have PCOS, and was a great source of mental illness as well. They didn't know they were related to Charlemagne or the others. I wonder who was the last person to know. Did even the first immigrants to America know? Maybe they were tired of being descended from penniless nobility, and didn't even want to think about it. A new life here might've been more compelling to them than anything they'd left behind.
~~~~~
Okay, something else to think about besides boringish family tree stuff. How does one chronicle oneself? I recently took a look at Susan Orlean's website. After all, I have carried around a photocopy of an article she wrote on surfer girls in Hawaii for more than a decade. I was very eager to find it in her "articles" section. Scroll down...what? It's not there! Why not? This other thing she wrote around the same time, "Girl Power," is, though. But in my opinion it really doesn't compare...it does say she plans to add more. I certainly hope the surfer girls and possibly other pieces can crash "The New Yorker" party soon.

Night time sweets

Sugarfree low calorie fudge bar. Splenda-sweetened low cal caramel custard. Hello Mr. Zebra. Diet Root Beer. Cups of frozen cherries.
~~~~
I know a portion of this personality adores a lack of refinement. Especially when it has to do with shutting off the mind, as in, getting as far away as one can get from irritating people who make nasty, supposedly oh-so-intellectual comments. Honestly, on the deathbed, how many of those things will be indicative of the life you have led. In the meantime, it is occasionally still fun to watch stuff that is laced with sarcasm, or quirky humor. Like when I saw the skit about the BP coffee spill here.

Dancing at 93

Mary Anthony.
I am mystified by why some die young but some can achieve so much of their potential... Winter song again. My sister (married to a veteran who grew up in foster care and punches refrigerators...what else, what more is there, could there be?) can fix a car now and drive herself places again. I'm going to move...there's an apartment filled with furniture donated by a large family. Sofa, kitchen stuff, California-king size bed. I am supposed to send out my boxes of books. I drag my feet, for some reason, on doing this. "But you are going to begin a new life." It is within walking distance to a park, a library and various coffee places. "Send your stuff. Bye."

Hang ten

Been a little addicted to a song, listening to the version on the live CD for "To Venus and Back" which is the one I find myself listening to most lately, which is funny because for some reason I used to ignore it, more or less.
The Waitress live bridge/improv lyrics
Kind of also makes me think of Surfer Girls of Maui by Susan Orlean
(An article I've had a photocopy of since 1999.)
Oooh, but not that one. The one I have is from Utne, and was edited, I now see!
Honestly though, one of the disappointments I felt about Blue Crush, after I found out it was based on this article: the lead actress's straight blond tresses seem like such the anti-thesis of Gloria's hair.
Oh, hey, now I remember another film, Girlfight. Had to look that up.
This picture is not the one I remember advertising that film.
I went out with someone all into Brazilian jujitsu and kickboxing around the time when that came out. I think I was disappointed he was not as into seeing it as I would've liked. A little of the martial arts stuff he talked about (not that I remember much of it now) came in handy when I met the model on the train who made fun of me by calling me "Woodstock," though. He sort of thought he was tough. In my memory, I was able to subtly appear as if I knew, well, more about those topics, anyway, I feel like he got a sort of surprised look on his face. And then I also told him he should do yoga to control his anger. (Oh well, tangent!)
The Waitress...
Hmmm, a kind of really fire and brimstone version.

Poignancy

It is interesting that I had a dream a little while ago about someone, who told me he needed some help. I simply told him then he should get some. It wasn't dire, it was more a quality of life type of thing. Maybe it was a little bit of an explanation for a past disappointment. This was a nice brief "friend" or soulmate-ish type I met and only knew briefly. A cool name. When I liked him a friend called me "Gin." (Gin and...) The person gave a feeling of surprise recognition, and interfered with me when I was looking at bride magazines when I was supposed to llevar/ayudar el peruano, or so I had thought. I was extremely amazed I could be so taken with someone who was almost my opposite in interests. It was really awful and great, too. It was a long time ago. A few weeks ago, I thought I saw an older version of this person in a store. I don't really know if it was, but I felt that we both got this "I don't believe I want to be around you" look on our faces and I very gently avoided venturing near the person. It is good to once in a while remember things which come come under the category of "poignant," but real life definitely shoves "practical" in one's face. It would be easy to forgot this sort of thing, but I figure bothering to remember goes a long way in making this life appear more well-rounded, and anyway, it could be a little bit of a tribute to the fact that sometimes cool things that were painful can still be ringed with lining of happiness.

Hear ye, hear ye

Tonight I went to the bookstore and read the second half of Persepolis. (Sorry first half. I didn't plan on doing it. I couldn't find Yarn. I will get to your first half, too, I promise.) I read a bit of Jesus Land, which is like complete proof of how it could be an awful life in America. I was thinking of my FB friend again when I got home, of how I'd missed a day of English when they were talking about gender roles and it had been reported back to me that he said, snickering, he was glad that I, "that feminist chick" wasn't there in class and I thought "why you little..." Even now! And when I came in I asked my mother about the HBO vampire show, "True Blood." She said it was awful, and she left and let her boyfriend watch it by himself after a few minutes. It sounded so. "Definitely a man's show," she said. I said I was reminded of how the artist said that after the birth of her daughter she noticed all this horrible misogyny and did covers of songs for her "Strange Little Girls" album. I said I imagine a lot of the film industry is a bunch of men and a few women who never speak up for feminist ideals. I said maybe I should if I live in LA. (I don't know. Maybe. Also though, maybe I should just get into being a more happy organic gardener type or something.) And then I started singing "such a cute puppy, such a cute puppy..." to the cute puppy, 'til he got bite-y. I was singing to the tune of "Bug a Martini." Now my cocktail (a margarita) awaits!
~~~~~
Oh, and then I listened to Bachelorette!
And now to Mipa(?) A friend said this is kind of like a Ukraninian version of No Doubt's "I'm Just a Girl," lyrically.
~~~~~
This evening is ending oddly with an old movie. Splendor In The Grass. We have evolved from a dysfunctional society. That little wikipedia entry doesn't even begin to touch on the sordidity. And oh, creepiness. 20 years later Natalie Wood drowned off a yacht called "The Splendor." Well. It's over now. And it is a worthwhile movie to watch. I'm into old movies lately. Good.
~~~~~
The quality of light interests me lately. In the park, or through the lens of the camera on my phone. And movie set lighting. The opening scene of Rebel Without a Cause. It's like urban(?) night but deserted and weird and bright. Were some places once safer at night? And did people dress that way, and speak that way. Natalie Wood is crying. Women cry a lot in these movies and men don't. I say to my friend that it's funny, it's okay for all beings to cry, but it's like we had to put on these costumes for a while. And the costumes say women cry excessively and men not enough.
He says, "It is funny."
"Do you think I'm funny?" asks James Dean.

Save the Bees

My friend told me that she read somewhere that if all the bees died off, we'd only have, like, five years to live. I know other insects also pollinate but it was a daunting thought. And I'm becoming a great fan of raw honey.
This article has a quote by Einstein that says four!
Just quickly, (not checking any ultra-scientific sites) I looked up a post about saving honey bees.
More about bees.

Zenyatta

My friend sent me a message:
"The mare Zenyatta just won her 17th race in a row - that's a new record for both sexes! She's completly undefeated in her entire career.
http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/57479/zenyatta-stands-alone-with-record-17th-win
You can see a video of the race if you click the VIDEO link in the article. She's #5."

noteworthy

Recently, in the last few days thereabouts (days all run together when they are not so structured) I saw someone in a car in a parking lot. I thought maybe she kind of looked like a kind flower essence entrepreneur. It probably wasn't her. But what if?
Hmmmm.
~~~~
Well, holy mother, I just now read another old livejournal post by my FB friend and of all things, suddenly he was in Germany, quoting poetry, talking about Pan! That is crazy.
`````
This is a bad time. I feel okay, then I feel like shit. It's like I'm coming off a drug, but there is no drug. There's just compounding factors of joblessness, no school, health problems, awful financial situation, and feeling like no one can or wants to understand how I feel. I almost think if I didn't have PCOS symptoms that make me terrified of anyone controlling any aspect my living situation, I would try to go to a hospital. Bleah. Maybe I can do some kind of breathing techniques. Or just listen to as much silly humorous stuff as I possibly can. Oh My GOD. Gosh.
~~~~~
Oddly, having to clean up dog mess, a most unpleasant task, has sort of cleared my head. The dog would not get sick if I lived with people with better sense. It can be really fucking irritating. HUUUHUUUH.

S words on a Sunday

Sad and SAD. Sad is so wholly absorbed in sadness that suicidalness is not even interesting enough to seriously be a factor. Sad is only interested in eviscerating people, or chewing them up and spitting them out, but that does not mean killing them. If said person went away, what would happen to the sadness. Sad is most interested in puddly sadness, soaking it up like a sponge. Simpering simpleton persons who have almost no spine inspire sadness to proliferate. Stupidity is something sadness can feast off of but soon, sadness will prowl the premises in search of a new meal. Swearing can inspire sad sometimes. Sad Ms. Kempe of the Middle Ages was probably quite a soggy morsel. Silly, sodden, sullen, sucky, SICK.
Dental work (dis)STRESSSSes. Say someone is supremely sick of misery? So, save someone or something, St. John's Wort.

Looking

I noticed "the artist" has some videos up now of her playing at Bonnaroo. I couldn't go, oh well, I had the tooth thing to deal with. I was reading some of her memoir too, several days ago. It's funny to know that that is kind of old news, but you can read it in a park and it feels fresh, well, little parts of it strike chords in me sometimes. Like electric shocks. (But pleasant ones.) I also noticed that her grandfather's name/initials reminded me of the name/initials of my classmate who passed away. Because we didn't really hang out, I never thought I would be so struck by that occurence, or have so much regret we didn't know each other better. I never thought about it at all. But it shocked me. Perhaps I was sheltered in a way. I never had a friend who was my own age die suddenly.

Dreams

I got home late last night after hanging out with a friend, watching episodes of "The L Word" at the end of the night. (One particular scene involving a character named "Papi" made me reconsider an alternative meaning to Ms. Amos's "Circles" song, otherwise known as "Cloud on My Tongue.") Today my tooth depressed me and ached worse, but I got some stuff organized, which might be the key to everything.
I dreamed last night that I was in a house with a bunch of people, like a community, and my bellisimo friend in LA. I was supposed to take care of a kid. The kid was a boy and cute. He didn't look like me, maybe he had different parents, different heritage, mixed race. I took care of him for a while and then said, but I thought there was supposed to be a girl. My friend said, there is, and then I saw a tinier baby, a girl, also mixed race and she did not look like me. But her parents were like older stressed out hippie-ish white people who had hooked up and for some reason couldn't take care of her now. She didn't look like them either. I asked "what is her name" and my (bellisimo) friend said "her name is Queen Maeve."

Post root canal please

Dearest self:
GO TO AN ENDODONTIST NEXT TIME! Or some kind of genius expert.
For the love of God and decency and humanity.

So today

I get a root canal. I don't know what insurance will cover if any but I can pray about it. Surely it will be better than the guy who did one on me in upstate NY who acted like he had some sort of fuckin' bone to pick with me because he didn't like English majors. Sad jerk. SHAPE UP, FLAKY PEOPLE OF THE WORLD! I like this dentist much better. The dental assistant yesterday was slightly inept but nice enough. The dentist used the word "like." As in "Have you read the manual? Can you like, go over it..." She's young and nice. She told me the root canal wouldn't be a big deal really. I hope so.
Laying back in the dental chair I could feel the heart pounding in my chest. I sure am alive, I thought. And the X-ray picture was illuminating. Something's going on with that tooth, that's for sure.
HOPE!!!!!
~~~~~
Sadly, no insurance coverage. "Oral surgery" does not include root canals.
I really need to step into a new way of thinking and being.
An improved way.
Charging windmills or something better?
Astuteness.
Si, lo necesito.

Wow

Just wow.
Wow depression.
I'm officially impressed.

to get back into

The healthy diet stuff and the anti-inflammatory stuff and the breathing and the yoga and all that. ;-D There were two instances when I kind of remember someone telling me to keep doing yoga, even though that person didn't do it. One was seeing my FB friend at a highschool reunion, and he wanted to know if I liked to smoke. I said I was more into yoga. I was, at the time. I took a class that met twice a week.
The other was about a year later, when I conversed with a guy on a train who said he was in an Alicia Keys music video. He'd sort of made fun of my attire and called me "Woodstock" but we had conversation anyway. He told about about times he'd had problems controlling his anger and I said maybe if he did yoga it would help him with that. Did both these young men really tell me so? "Keep doing your yoga."
The truth is (and I clutch a clove in my teeth as I say this) it hurts my toothache and my heart to say, but there's just a part of me that feels she simply cannot spend a whole lot of time with anyone who is leading too much of an unhealthy lifestyle.
OUCH.
Maybe I can do some ibuprofen and orajel too.
(Watching the "Change Your Brain, Change Your Body" show on PBS.)

OH

Toothache. And throat ache. Oh, depression.
Why wilt thou try me so?
Show me a reason to be happy and grateful now.
Well, at least I am not homeless.
Sigh. Kick. Breathe in peace.

Happiness...

Happy, grateful, better.
I'm happy I settled on what to write on classmate writer friend's FB page. Good.
Death must make sense to those who needed to move on, but it sure can be strange to those of us who have more living to do.
It's good to know people.
I know I should be more social in the future.

Memoirs

Recently read:
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter.
The Spiral Staircase by Karen Armstrong.
Just started:
The Other Side of Paradise by Staceyann Chin.
Found a card tucked inside which said breath in peace.
That was a nice touch.
Also, Yarn by Kyoko Mori.
Also, Through The Narrow Gate by Karen Armstrong.

Death and Life

can be really nice and really mean. For various reasons I don't have a job to go to since June started, so I can mope like a champion and that's for a reason. I used to have to clean up the bathroom after drunk people and work and feel underappreciated and semi-persecuted, with my feet and ovaries hurting. Now that I'm jobless, maybe I have progressed. (But not my computer lab job. Loved that job. Are you kidding? Especially updating software in an empty room with KCRW playing. I could get that job back in the fall if I stayed here.) But I became unemployed and got the notice of a death. And now, everytime I read FB friend's stuff, I'm simultaneously happy/impressed and also pissed off with myself for not noticing I should've tried harder to get to know a fellow writer person. Kind of, it reminds me of when Anne Frank's father said he didn't know how deeply she thought and felt about things until he read her diary after she died. Honestly it's unbelievable. Death is, I mean. I just don't truly believe in it. But people have to. That's what they do on this planet.

Well

Here I am, reading more of the livejournal of the facebook friend that I had classes with in highschool and only talked to at my highschool reunion...Hello. Have you ever felt more stupid for not trying harder to be actual friends with someone in real life. HELLOOOOO!!!
(Although I suppose being better friends with a person doesn't prevent them from dying young of sickle cell disease.)
He wanted to be a writer. He took pictures of parks. I feel like I wish he'd gotten published. The last exchange he had with friends on facebook was joking about writing and Tennyson and "coming of age teenage girl stuff" and Sweet Valley High books.

Another Winter song

Winter by Bebel Gilberto remixed
Lately there are plentiful reasons to be hopeful about the future and also to have regret and little nervous breakdowns.

saddened and surprised

nice guy from highschool, FB friend, passed away. wake up call: life is short.
~~~~
(added Saturday) he had a livejournal.
I remember him in classes. Art class, I made a picture of a skinny, cackling black guy wearing sunglasses walking in front of a mural of Marilyn Monroe's face. He leaned over and asked how did I get the idea for that? I shrugged, dunno.
(Wait, nevermind. I found the picture. The guy is smiling and swinging his arms. Maybe I changed it. Only in my mind he was cackling. Like a good witch. But the picture made me laugh. It's not a great work of art, but it had a happy quality.)
And at the 5 year reunion, he was shocked to see me. I was shocked that he was shocked. Nice. I'd reminded him of when he called me "that feminist chick." He sort of made fun of me. He said "I said a lot of stupid things." But it wasn't anything bad. He was just a wisecracking sort of guy. It was nice to see him. Later he friended me. "Missed ya at the ten year."
`````
When my friend called and told me she heard he died, I was in Panera bread, looking at a picture/painting of a face and beret and a loaf of bread.
You know how it is when you can't believe someone is gone? Really? Even though you never really talked to them?

A moment of the day

Walking around a big room filled with art after exploring the outdoor world at River Farm, which I had never been to before. And lightly, gently, like a soft voice speaking in my mind, Indian Summer was playing.

The history says, "In 1653/54, Giles Brent received patents totaling 1,800 acres from Thomas, Lord Culpepper for his year-old son, Giles, Jr. Giles' wife was a princess of the Piscataway tribe of Native Americans who had been entrusted to Margaret Brent as a child by her father, a convert to Christianity. She was raised in the Brent household and at the age of 16 was married to Giles, 30 years her senior. The grant of 1,800 acres in their child's name was named Piscataway Neck and included the land which is now River Farm."

Aw

Two cool females that grew up in this area and started doing their thing in D.C.:
Wanda Sykes and Tori Amos.
(I love that "before they were famous" stuff.)
Actually they went to highschool in Maryland though.
Gee maybe I should have gone to school in Maryland... :-D

The first time I heard a certain song

I thought, "huh, did the Stones do something new?" I'd never heard it before in my life. I was positive. So I looked it up.
No, it was far from new. It was old.
I started thinking about B.S., vaguely. I knew he liked that group. I started to think, hmmm, weird, maybe he liked to listen to them like I like to listen to...
And then I had a little internal mini-nervous breakdown in front of a computer. I think I had to leave and hide in a bathroom stall. It was a terrible feeling. It's pretty impossible to remember how it even felt. It was utter isolation. I think the words "blood on the brain" and "not even crochet could save me" came to mind when I was trying to describe it to myself afterwards. What was weird, was, earlier that afternoon I had taken a nap and it was the most blissful thing. It felt like angels touched me and I was in a state of mind that it was impossible to be unhappy. But then...just a few hours later, there was that deep pit. But I still somehow knew I could get myself out of it. I watched the "Stuck in the Middle With You" song and it broke the spell, good thing. And I thought, that may be the very last time I ever feel that bad about anything connected with B.S. ever again...Now it's just a song. It's not like the earth dropped me into a pit.
2000 Light Years From Home.

Dear O

Please be nice. Why cause pain? Nice = better.

Gratifyingly amused

By this review! (About John Mayer.) Even though at some points in my life I sort of liked one of his songs. Whatever.
Yay for that!

Yuck

Yuck.

Evening...

Oh skin, largest organ, of the body and PCOS. Wonderful reminder to never take "pretty" for granted. (Even just "normal!" Much less "beautiful.") Keyboard of computer, keyboard of "heart and soul"...Read the critical review of the lack of political stand taken in Lilith Fair. Pick up novel. Is it feminist enough? Undoubtedly no. Bookstore lady comes and tells you what a great read, why not buy a copy. Nod, converse, move away, eventually pick up the new book by the author that wrote "Infidel"...On the way back, take sideroads. Cops blockaded the SUV that got rear ended, with liquid gushing out, attended by the strong smell of gasoline. Maybe there should just be other music festivals...

Weirdness abounds

It can be very tedious and difficult to surmount the obstacle of yourself. Truthfully I have probably missed numerous opportunities because I wanted to hide in the woods with a spoon stuck in my mouth.

SUCH a good choice.

It's really terrific that it is possible watch videos about artists talking about their songs...I just heard about one called Zero Point. I'd never heard it before, until just a few minutes ago. I am, though, SO glad that "Datura" is on that album. I've listened to it countless times on the way to places including my favorite park in this area. The other day, I took a photo on my camera of a big painting hanging in their visitor center. It was titled "Datura." I went "Ooooooo..." I checked out the Scarlet's Walk CD from a library. The picture of a slide in it makes me think I might have seen a slide like that out in the middle of nowhere, when I was kid and visited my father when he was stationed in Alabama. This is just like, when you find the author and you want to keep reading their stuff. It's interesting because a while ago I couldn't find any CDs by her. I on purpose stopped listening for a while. Like about a year. Then I looked a few times and couldn't find her CDs. Then I found them again, in an incredibly obvious place--the big CD book album I'd looked through before. Well there was a reason for that...I don't know what it was, but there was a reason.

In head...

Little Earthquakes
In a bookstore I once trained in and revisited recently, I understood the "Rag and Bone" of "Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart" to be about relics after I saw a book by that name in the religion section, and I thought of Isabella Clara Eugenia knocking one over and normally Philip II, kind and loving (to his daughter) became furious, it's a sort of image I have in my head, not from ever reading such a thing though, and then the poem book opened to this Thoreau poem...Somewhat seperate is to remember the older couple who came in a few years ago and seemed quite nice and amused by me, the opposite of a group of fearful bullies, especially after I mentioned why I saw Los Alamos as a kid. "Thanks for sharing the joy with us!" I was pretty sure General Joy was radiating out of their pores. Maybe not even unconciously either.

Odd

I was looking up stuff about the San Gabriel Valley and the movie Shopping For Fangs came up. Apparently it's set there! Weird. I saw that in Seattle when I was in college and loved it! I talked to one of the guys who made it. I asked where they find their actors. He said, almost apolegetically, "usually a talent agency." Ha ha...I miss being so young and naive...Oh also I asked if it would be possible to get it on video and he kind of laughed as if it were just about impossible for that to happen. Not anymore! Just think how easy it is to get so much stuff now. I wonder what I'd think if I saw it again now...

Unbelievable rigamaroll over stolen paychecks. I can't believe how many people I've been directed to talk to, call, etc. and still no results. Look, I really don't appreciate being given the runaround. Stealing my paychecks is FRAUD. It's not like I just walked into a restaurant and let cash fall out of my pocket.

Amazing.

Electron Boy article.

In My Head!

You'll Be Taken Care Of.
I want the album now.

Wise participant

Circle dance...
(Thoughts thoughts thoughts. I might move. That is simultaneously normal and like going off the high diving board at the park in Saratoga, NY when I was a kid. That was so so so high. Car rides at night, staring at billboards, wanting to grow up, and live a glamourous billboard kind of life? No, maybe just be able to drive the car at night by the billboards and feel free. Would being a certain kind of famous success be like having the cake and eating it too? But I'm not supposed to have cake. I have blood sugar issues. However sometimes I have it anyway. But still. I don't know much, but I know I should spend more time in the mountains.)
Circle dance.

2 ???

Circa 2007. In some kind of order:
1) Working at a restaurant and some guys come up and tell you repeatedly that some guy they know is going to try to "jump the fence" tonight. "Don't let him," they say. Creepy euphemism?
2) Working at the same place and a group of people come in and act like bullies and make weird comments which makes you wonder if maybe they read your e-mail and work for the government. Or maybe they are involved in some kind of media thing? Is it possible to even tell the difference?

Photos

Is it not crazy, to think, of all the pictures floating around on this place we have nowadays called the internet. Yes. Pictures can tell all kinds of different stories. Quirks of personality. It must be a little weird, for example, to walk into a room with big blown up pictures of yourself. Odd. In that case, I guess you should either enjoy it, like someone's giving you a big tray of cupcakes, or take a minute and calm down, maybe have a little spritz of mineral water. Some pictures are more jolly and some are more goofy. I say, can one ever have enough goofy-ish pictures on the internet? Then, of course there is the dark seething side. I lay bricks. this is the look I have when I get obsessed with military industrial complexes. Jackalope!
Cantelope!
Someday I will have the means or fortitude to transfer photos on the internet. For some reason the universe or else my subconscious always gets in the way by putting up little road blocks. Too bad. I love visuals. I did not dream of being a writer when I was little, I wanted to draw and paint and make things out of clay. But then I started reading.

Tanto Tempo

I looked up some lyrics because the song I liked earlier also reminded me of Tanto Tempo.

Ando tanto tempo a perguntar
Porque esperar tanto assim de alguem
Percorrendo espacos no mesmo lugar
Nao sei a quanto tempo estou a te buscar

Num segundo eu vou
Sabendo e percebendo o seu sabor
Sem ter medo estou
Correndo contra o vento sem nunhum rancor

Ando tanto tempo a perguntar
Porque esperar tanto assim de alguem
Sem saber
Sem qualquer medo de ver

Maybe my life...

Could be a little more like how this song sounds...I mean musically, not necessarily the video or lyrics. I have not dissected the lyrics at all. Duerme.

Taps

All's quiet here but I just heard "Taps" through closed windows. Maybe it came from Ft. Myer?
Which also has a website.
Which now also has a page which references RAINN.
~~~~~~
I was thinking about the Watervliet Arsenal. I spent a lot of time there as a kid. On the grounds, playground and at the swimming pool. In fact, when I hear that name, I almost automatically think "swimming pool." I started to look for photos. I found none of the swimming pool I found one of this sign. I thought of how I picked up a book about the history of women and firearms at the bookstore the other day. Swimming pool. Arsenal. Arsenal does not equal swimming pool? How is that so? Did we kids used to crawl on old cannons like they were big toys, or did I make that up?

Special song experiences

Thieves by She & Him was the first one, sounded sad but beautiful, heard in a darkish (not lightless but no artifical lights) room of computer monitors as I updated software....

Later, in the park, I reread some of Caramba! Which I read by the pool last year. I think I will also reread PrairyErth. Both books kind of make me think of hot sun and the smell of cocoa butter or other kinds of sunscreen products.

California Stars was the second one. In Chipotle, thinking about how hard the people behind the counter are working, I worked burrito bar in college, how grateful I felt for my food, and wow do they really put sticks of butter in the rice? and kind of simultaneously thinking about stars (in the SKY) And how at some point in the past I read a book that described a girl getting off a plane in California and being greeted by Hari Krishnas...

~~~~~~
On Mother's Day, played Tori Amos CDs for my mother, the former piano/music teacher, on the way back from Sky Meadows. She said what would be the best if I got one CD? We thought maybe The Beekeeper would be the best. A beekeeper was out there, too.

(Remembering, could almost, by surprise, without knowing or planning on it, cry when describing things, reading a part of a NAGPRA paper to an audience, power point slides as a backdrop, surprise, or describing videos to songs, like one of a girl who is pointing to the sky and her mother is the plane's pilot, surprise, maybe that was halfway to laughing, one could almost, in an unexpected freeing transition to spontaneity.)

Books

Still reading White Mother...

Yesterday, I carried many out from the library. I almost reread the two memoirs by Paula Fox, but the load was already too heavy. I heard an interview with Isabel Allende on "Studio 360" and it was pleasing to me. Last night a friend brought me a bag of books as a gift. Cheesy teenage beach romance novels, Anastasia Again! and Blubber. He also bought me a ticket to Ironman II. It was better than I expected, though I felt quite sick by the end, and vowed to get myself back to better health. I am so mystified by Crying Wind, and wonder, what was her real upbringing. Also wonder, can I get a hold of When the Stars Danced anywhere? It's not in the Library of Congress. It's been quite interesting to read books and articles about NAGPRA when I have to do things like go to notaries and fill out paperwork to retrieve old paychecks which someone apparently stole/forged.
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Hey cool, they are talking about Seattle-area terayaki on "The Splendid Table." I totally remember that after moving to Seattle we started sometimes ordering a strange new food called "terayaki." The guy says it is "working class food." All I knew was that my mother's boyfriend liked it.

Sleep...

I have a headache.
I feel exhausted.
Doors may be opening!
I want to visit a new city.
I have nothing intellectual to say.
Aw, why is everyone picking on J.B.?
I never heard of him before.
I like that article.
The journalist is talented.
I have a minor throat and ear something.
I'm going to drink peppermint iced tea sweetened with agave nectar.

End end end end end !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oooooo I totally fried my brain on final exam type stuff. How to be under the wire. Hmmm. Felt kind of good afterwards! Tho I don't know if turning it in so under the wire-like means an A. But I don't care that much. It's just that I DID it. All I've been DOING has been PAPERS and being a STUDENT and its FUN. Now. That. Spring. Semester. Ended!!!! And I got compliments on the beast of a NAGPRA paper I wrote! Yeay. :-) ;-) :-) Oh, still little unknown me. Little lonely petunia...sike! (psyche.) I always thought it was with an s...
Many more thoughts! For another time or post though...
Maybe I will go knit! Jesus I can't believe I don't have to read something!

Hmmm

Nice...
Beauty of Speed.
Aw...Beauty of Speed in Utrecht!
I've been to Utrecht.
I could have even been there.
I walked into a place that looked like that.
But it was in 2001. Which was before a lot of things.

Dark dream

Sometime before I woke up I had a truly awful dream. I don't even know if it was a dream. It had something to do with the shriek of a mother as a boy drowned in the ocean and a large ship sailed away into the night, or the early morning.
It was cold and awful.

Peculiarities

Somehow over my NAGPRA paper I became a fan of The Real Housewives of New York City tonight. Hmmm. I just became aware that a teacher in Vancouver has been forced to stay home for the rest of the school year because she admitted that she had a child with her same sex partner. Hoooo...funny.

O?

Oh! Sadness of last class.
Oh! Old historic buildings with stories...of white men of black women of thrify people of widows of school masters of suffragists of WAVES of laundresses
Oh! when she sings
Yaldaboath
Saklas
I'm calling you
Samael
You are not alone
I say
You are not alone
In your darkness
You are not alone
Baby
You are not alone
Oh child with corn rows in her hair who turned back to the store and shouted "thank you for my toy!"
Oh dog that destroyed another razor
Oh book, White Mother To A Dark Race
Oh research.
Oh spark.
(Spark?)
Oh classes of fires.
Oh appropriate fire extinguishers for classes of fires.

Clothing swap

It was at my friend's friend's synagogue basement. A basement full of females. I put out my clothes and cut my chin in the bathroom. Uuuuunpretty. After long moments in the bathroom, I finally emerged. I talked to a girl who said she would have been just devastated if her first child wasn't a boy. Me in thought: I just have no clue what you are talking about. I left because I didn't want any clothes and I didn't feel good about my cut, among other things. A guy outside yelled at me something about the way I come walking out of the building with my hair bouncing off my shoulders means I'm going to look like some guy's dream. I just kept saying "Oh, really?" as I walked to my car. Then he said "Look at me, I'm living out of A BAG." He went on, "Now, I'm coming from a male perspective." Me: "Oh really?" Him: "I'm from California." "Oh, really?" "REALLY" he said, with a "You are stupid" inflection in his voice. Then: "You're Jewish right?" "No." "What? You have to be. You just came out of there. Isn't this a synagogue?" "Yeah but I'm not Jewish, I'm just visiting." "There's nothing wrong with being Jewish." "I know, but I'm not Jewish!" Then I got into my not-so-rattletrap seeming car, which next to some guy living out of a bag kind of felt like a limo or something, and drove away in a bad mood.

Other worlds

Worlds were on the island. The houses we didn't move into. A woodstove house. Old Victorian house with orchard around it. Island homes. How can someone live in the same small community his or her whole life? Houses with land around them. Woods and silence outside.

Reread

and (maybe for the first time?) cried (multiple times)
Sign of the Beaver
My old book has this cover.
In 5th grade, I think I got my Grandma to read it.

Why Duran Duran?

In Watervliet, at Eastview, where the water tower broke, which came up later in a therapy session, me seeing the the vulnerable figures of mom and sister and maybe little me on TV, spectators to the flood, water pouring in other peoples' windows, not ours, but also another day, the pool being dug and the layers of clay and the neighbors the older couple the lady had a heart attack, but that was later, earlier, her son (a big third grader, I was to be in grade one, the teacher would hate me for nice clothes or southern accent or something...) wanted me to go with him to see the layers, the clay, the pool, dug by construction workers, but I was forbidden to leave the steps, he wanted me to go with him, he pitied me, he didn't approve of my captor, and he brought the clay and made it into a heart. Later I met a third grade girl who came from a kind a background different from my own and she taught me many things about life and grown ups and deceit, pain....Looked up her name, and wondered if this would be her? Yeah. Huh. All Duran Duran and Michael Jackson. She had a big poster of the latter, in his yellow sweater, in her room.