we've been adopted

My days are really, truly blessed here. I realize how silly that sounds, but it's true.

I had a late night editing last night, and slept in a bit today. When I finally lurched awake at ten AM, Brian had already gone out (he had an appointment to help a neighbor move a cat at 8:30). I shnurfled around, retrieved the $3 Brian had left out for me to get an iced coffee with (we're out of milk, and I've never really mastered the espresso maker), and made my way down to the park.



The park is a funny little part of our daily routine. I say funny because it's simultaneously the most useless part of our day and the most important. For an hour or so, almost every morning, we sit on park benches and chat with the other park regulars. We talk about physics, gossip about the neighborhood, give each other amateur phsychological and legal advice, and watch all the dogs that frolic off-leash there get their 'dog' on. Almost all the new friends we've made since we moved here have been folks we've met at the park. Heck, our two most promising housing prospects are places we've found through park folk.

This morning, the weather was incredible. I walked the requisite three blocks to Bean There, got my iced-double-latte, and headed across the street and up the path toward the park benches where we all gather. As I got close, the bench erupted with shouts of "Nora! You're up!"

As of this week, our housing situation's been resolved. Mike, a guy we know from the park (natch) found us a -- wait for it -- six month cat-sitting gig. Nice.

Living

So the possible-living-situation with T has fallen through, and we're still looking. We've got a possible house share out in upper market (pro: $800 a month for the two of us, nice-seeming housemate; con: a bit of a hike from our preffered 'hood, wall-to-wall carpets, shared), a possible studio a few blocks from our current apt (pro: across the hall from friend Jason, private, cute old-timey details, hardwood floors and crazy-cool tiles in the kitchen; con: only slightly larger than a shoebox).

The whole looking-for-housing thing really doesn't agree with me. I hate that we have no money. I hate that we don't have great credit (thanks a lot, twenty-year-old self. I hope you had fun with those credit cards). I hate that we have to move now and that every time I sit down at my computer I spend two hours searching the classifieds for every minute I spend writing.

I hate change. I really am a creature of comfort.

Becalmed

So, I'm having trouble doing just about anything today. Yesterday, too -- that trip to the grocery for lemonade and lesbian catcalling was just about it. This isn't turning out to be a good month. Or maybe it is. I'm honestly not sure.

Last Thursday, June 30, our housemate told us he's moving to Rhode Island at the end of July. For the past two months we'd all been talking about his boyfriend moving in (which would have reduced our already-managable rent to quite-pleasantly low). Now, Brian and I have thirty days to find a new living situation.

Unfortunately, Brian & I aren't planners. It would be great if at least one of us was (preferably him), but we're more 'oh-I'm-sure-it'll-all-work-out' types. We thought our rent would be going down. We just went to Boston for a wedding. I've been living of student loans and parental generosity since December. In short, neither of us can afford to pay first months rent & deposit on a new place. Not a (market rate) $1250-a-month studio in the neighborhood we live in & love.

Fortunately, we have great friends. Two immedeately offered to put us up for a while. One of them might even take us on as roomates in perpetuity.

So it looks like we'll be moving in with our friend T, just about four blocks down Haight from where we currently live. She's smart (I mean really smart - the woman listens to calculus lectures on her ipod when she's going to bed. Me? I'm not even sure how to spell calculus), funny, and suffers from varying degrees of agaoraphobia, OCD, and ADD. So I'm a little worried that we'll have to move again before August is over. But she thinks she'll be ok with having roomates (as she put it, "I didn't even panic about it when my meds wore off"). So probably it'll work out. And (woo-hoo!) her apartment is rent controlled. So it might be a solid plus in the long run.

But it's still depressing. We're adults. We should know enough to have set some money aside. But we're scraping through this only inches away from homelessness. I'd already started on a 'whats-it-all-about' kick after my cousin's wedding (nothing like the marriage of two type 'A' personalities to make a chronic underachiever feel a bit fraudish). To top it off, I've had writers block for days. Not that I believe in writers block.

Or spellchecking. Sorry kids.

Nothing so Rare as a Day in near June

It's absurdly gorgeous today: the sky is clear and blue, the sun is shining the world is green and green smelling. A few minutes ago, climbed out from under the pug we're dog sitting and walked down to the grocery store for some lemonade. On the way back, an old black lady in a wheel chair smiled at me and said, "Lots of pretty girls out today. I gotta go home and put my teeth in."

I love San Francisco.

Verlassen auf einem jetplane

or something like that.

So, I know it'll be hard for you all, as accustomed as you've become to fresh! daily! content, but I'm leaving tomorrow to go home for two weeks in sunny Massachusetts.

And it's my dog Merlin's 14th birthday tomorrow! Happy birthday, Merls-a-pup.



I was fourteen myself when we first brought him home (and if I recall I was much more limber).

Nerd, continued

Brian and I, on a whim, went to see Revenge of the Sith (or is it Return of the Sith?) at midnight tonight. It completely took me back to that childhood space of I totally want that spaceship.

Oh, and cousin Jake? I'm totally sorry I played with the Star Wars guys I found under your bed all those years ago. I hope I didn't mess 'em up at all. *Whew* that guilt's been on my chest for like, twenty years.

Lest any one doubt that I come by 'nerd' honestly

I just got off the phone with my parents. We had a long conversation about the reasoning behind the Pythagorean prohibition against eating beans.

A long, animated conversation.

Five Questions from Tricia

1. What are the values/morals your parents (or
whomever) taught you as a child, which somehow
affected you in the future?

This is an interesting (and somehow difficult) one. One of the strongest lingering values (or at least one I've been noticing recently) is my strong 'intellectual' streak, something (oddly) that sets me apart from a lot of the people in my writing program. This isn't to say they aren't smart -- far from it, really. It's just that I have a sort of academic way of looking at the world: a love of reading and writing about strange and esoteric concepts, and an unabashed enthusiasm for things like literary theory and the history of ideas.

Of course it's not a black or white 'people see it either my way or another' type thing. But its always been one of my defining characteristics, from my brown-nosey elementary school days on up. And I take it really personally when people act like 'intellectualism' and 'elitism' are synonomous. Because thinking crtically is gonna save the world, man.

2. What is a common first thought you have in the
morning and the last thought before bed?

I don't know if there is a common thought that runs through my head when I'm lying in bed. I do love bed thoughts though - those funny little surrealist streams of consciousness that seem to show up in the liminal states between consciousness and whatever lies beyond it.

As we're falling asleep, we usually listen to Coast to Coast, a conspiracies and aliens call-in show that Brian's been listening to for forever. He usually falls asleep right away, no matter what topic is being discussed, but I'll often lie awake staring into the darkness as people call in to discuss alien abductions and haunted factories. Our bed is by the window, and I like to stare up at the sliver of sky between our apartment building and the next as I fall asleep, but some nights, when the eerieness on the radio gets to me, I just close my eyes and try to think of rational, daytime things.

When I wake up, I usually just wonder what's made Brian so damn chipper. And try to will myself out of bed in the direction of coffee. And I try to hold onto my just-before waking dreams for as long as I ca, but I never have the forsight to leave a notebook by the bed. This morning I woke to a dream of someone spraypainting the windows to a car I was in, and then me cooking appetizers and snacks for a large crowd.


3. If you were stranded on a deserted island and could
have 5 things and one person with you, what would you
have and with whom? (The ol' standby.)

Well, 'who' is easy -- I don't know if I'd even know how to get lost on a desert island without Brian. And besides, he's totally the sort who can figure out how to build a shelter and make fire, while I would, I dunno, weave together palm fronds into a cute bikini or reinvent deconstruction or something.

And lets see - five objects:

1. A phone (you don't expect me to live on a desert island without calling my parents at least once a week to talk about it, do you)?

2. A portable lavatory, well eqipped with toilet paper (I have anxieties about poopin' in the woods).

3. (ahem) a lifetime supply of feminine hygene products (can i include toothpaste and floss and make it a sort of toiletry bag? Ok, ok, I'll try to think outside the bathroom for a while).

4. I bookshelf stocked with (waterproof?) copies of Madeline L'Engle's books, the complete Anne of Green Gables series, random paperback mysteries and sci fi, and a few "infinitely re-readable" books, like the Illiad, the Divine Comedy and the like.

5. pants.


4. What is something you regret?

Sometimes I feel like regret is my default setting. Seriously -- today I had this great convestation with a girl from school, one of those totally wide-ranging and in depth funny conversations you get to have with folks every once and a while. And within an hour, I was feeling twinges of... I dunno ... free-range guilt? Even though it was a great conversation, I can't help but feel I said something stupid or potentially offensive or something.

That said, there are plenty of things I do and should regret. I fogot to call Shana on her birthday. I'm terrible with money. I often speak without thought or reflection. But if I had to choose one, everyday, practical regret : I wish I'd learned time management skills somewhere along the line.

5. What were you like when you were 10?

Ten was really my favorite age. I was at the height of my preadolescent powers. The fifth grade was the oldest class at Greenwood Elementary (the school around the block from my house that I’d been attending since kindergarten). We fifth graders were sort of uber-children, and school was a familiar world of teachers, janitors and administrators I'd known for years.

Though not popular, I was well known among my classmates, and universally accepted, even liked. Every day I wore the same uniform: a mismatched pair of Converse ‘All Stars,’ one pink, one blue; an old bomber jacket from world war two (the pockets stuffed with pens and paper), and a man’s fedora that my older sister had adopted and then abandoned some years before.

My teacher, Ms Riordan, and I had a special bond. We'd talk -- it seemed at the time -- like equals, with special jokes and secret smiles. Like every teacher I’d ever had, she scolded me for not reaching my ‘potential’ - a word I heard over and over again every year, as I turned math homework in late or missed assignments entirely - but she knew me, understood me. It was marvelous.

Except that I never did learn that 'potential reaching' schtick.

MeMeMeMeme

alternate title: boy am I wordy
Frog over at Between The Lakes was nice enough to pass on this meme to me. Anyone out there reading who'd like to play, let me know, and I'll send five questions of my own devising out your way (and thenyou get to ask me five questions and oh! this could go on forever...).

1) Tell me about your spiritual journey. I have a feeling there’s a story there.

Good question. I'd never really thought of my spiritual journey in any concrete way (and me! Dante obsessed over here. I know).

I grew up in a religious household. Which is to say that both my parents were religious, and actively occupied their respective faiths. My dad's a Quaker and my mom is Episcopalian, so I grew up attending both services as I liked -- Quaker meeting with dad when I was in the mood for quiet contemplation followed by organic peanutbutter sandwiches, Episcopal services with mom when I was in the mood for South African freedom songs followed by kool aid and raucous games of tag in the parish hall. And like I said, my parents were both very much involved in the life of their churches -- my earliest outside-of-family communities were formed in and around church.

This continued up through high school - I was in youth choir for a long time, and even after I dropped out of that, I regularly attended youth group and religious retreats (that was with the Episcopalians). Then, when I was a senior or junior in high school, I got very much into Quakerism -- in part because I was fairly shy, and in part ecause our old Episcopal church had hired a relatively conservative minister, and we (my mom and I and a fair amount of our friends there) were feeling a bit alienated.

When I went away to college, I stopped attending church regularly, and I have to say I haven't ever really gotten back in the habit. I do, however still consider faith and religious thought to be a big part of my life -- as I mentioned above, I'm fairly obsessed with Dante, and I read other stuff, like Aquinas and the Journals of John Woolman, which keep me on my spriritual toes. And I have a subscription to Soujourners magazine, which my mother says is just as good as church, really.

And when I was picking up my veggie box today, I noticed that there's an Episcopal church just a few blocks form me. So who knows, maybe there's more kool aid and tag in my future (though in SF, I've learned, one does not menation kool aid and religion in the same sentence).

I feel like I'm getting away without doing any sort of real meaty rumination here. But this was a great question to start mulling over - I'm sure more stuff will come out of it. I'm ruminating right now - I swear.

2) What brought you to SF?

This ones a little embarrassing, because so little brought me here, and so much makes living here so wonderful.

A little over two and a half years ago, I was living in Medford, MA with Brian in a perfectly nice apartment and working at a difficult but interesting job. I'd dropped out of Marlboro College about two years previous to that, and while I had a nice apartment and a happy relationship and a job that could be considered carreerish (that is, I wasn't slinging lattes), I still felt like there was something pretty tremendous lacking in my life. And I couldn't see myself going back to school -- there was just some sort of block there.

A week or so before thanksgiving, my old childhood friend Chris came out from California with his new boyfriend. Brian and I put them up for the duration of their stay, and Chris mentioned that should we ever want to move to San Francisco, it would be fun for all of us to live together.

That really planted the seeds. Brian had been fantasizing about California since he was a young and freezing teenager in rural Vermont, and started really talking about San Francisco as a long term plan. My job was getting more and more unpleasant, and I started fantasizing about San Francisco, too. Poor Chris had probably forgotten the whole conversation as soon as he got on the plane back to San Jose. But we started talking with him about it, anyway.

Then, at thanksgiving, my cousin Claire mentioned that she was taking a year off before medical school and moving to New York City. Everything in me that wanted freedom and something new and no more job and no more snow and arrrg! rushed to the surface, and I blurted out, "Yeah? Well, Brian and I are moving to San Francisco."

After that, things pretty much fell together. I gave notice at my job, Brian and I started saving money, and Chris started looking at two bedroom apartments in San Francisco. By March, we were here, in this small-but-cute-and-location! little apartment on Haight St. And in the two years since, I've finished my BA, started on my Masters, and made more 'neighborhoody' friends than I've had since college. Go figure.


3) What was the best thing about your trip to Hong Kong?

Thats a toughie. I went with my old college friend Liza, which was awesome in and of itself, because she and I hadn't laid eyes on one another for more than two years. So, seeing Liza, getting over (mostly) my fear of flying (because when you're in the air that long, you just cope), and getting outside my well-worn grooves. Those were the three best things.

That and looking for a lost turtle on Lamma.

Lost Turtle
Originally uploaded by Nora Sawyer.

Or at least wondering how one might find a single, specific turtle on a tropical island. Which leads us to...

4) How long have you and Brian been together and how did you meet?

Brian and I have been together five years as of April first (april fools day makes for a memorable anniversary).

I actually wrote down our 'how we met' story a few years ago, when I wanted to get all my family's love stories together in honor of my sister's wedding (a project that never really took off -- the collection that is, not the wedding). Anyway, you can read it here.

5) Tell me about the photo in your profile. I’m intrigued by it.

Ack! I just wrote a whole long bit on this, then accidently deleted it. Boo. Apologies if it comes out rushed.

That's probably my favorite photo from my trip to Hong Kong. Its of an alleyway in a town called Tai O, which is on Lantau Island in the Hong Kong archipelego. Liza and I went on a daytrip to Lantau one of our first days in Hong Kong. My guide book, "The Top Ten Guide to Hong Kong," reccomended that one take the Star Ferry over in the morning, then take a bus to "the quaint fishing village at the end of the island" -- Tai O, then hike up to the Buddhist monastary (and its 72-foot statue of Buddha) and enjoy a vegetarian lunch provided by the monks.

We got up early and took the ferry over, munching on red bean buns and sipping tea as we tried to get pictures of Hong Kong retreating in the distance. Once on Lantau, we poked arount Mai Wo, the village where the ferry dropped us, then hopped a bus bound for Tai O, on the other side of the island. The bus, filled to the brim with elderly people and their groceries, chugged up and down steep mountain roads for about a half hour before finally dropping us off in Tai O. We poked around for a bit -- Liza bought shrimp paste and I tooke that picture -- and congratulated ourselves on discovering something so far off the beatenpath (at least to those not in possesion of a "Top Ten Guide"). After a while, we started to get peckish and headed up the only road out of town (past the 'Fat Ho' middle school, for all those adolescent sniggerers out there), and towards the monastary.

After about fifteen minutes, the sidewalk ended. Another ten minutes, and we started to consult our maps, trying to figure out how many miles were contained in the half-thumb-width between monastary and town. Finally, after about forty five minutes of conversation about what an adventure this was and attempts not to look annoyed in front of one another, we managed to flag down a monastary-bound bus. Ten minutes and several(!) steep hills later, we were at the monastary. And man, was that monk-food good.

We must imagine Sisyphus healthy

Oof. In my continuing campaign to be a guaranteed size eight for my cousin Claire's wedding, I've taken to jogging, and the propensity of hills and three-storey stairways in the neighborhood make for quite a work-out. Holy hindu cow-in-a-bucket, is it a work out.

In other news, San Francisco is freakin' gorgeous. I'm wishing i had a more eensy camera for in-the-pocket transport. The sunsets I'd show you!

Obligatory Guilt Post

This blog is starting to feel like the journals I kept intermittently from about third grade on. The entries all read something like this:

Dear Diary (ugh - I hate cliches, don't you?), sunny today. Went for a walk with Merlin (did I tell you we got another dog!!!?). I can't beleive I'll be FOURTEEN tomorrow. Oh well, gotta go.

[next entry]
Dear Diary, Well - I just found you under my bed. I'll be sixteen next week, and lots has happened! I grew my hair out! Have you ever thought about sunsets? The're so pretty, yet so specific. Anyway, I'll write more later. Bye!

[next entry]
Omigod! I just found this diary under my bed again! I really should be better about -- oops! Time for dinner! Write soon!

You get the idea. Though I suppose, with the actual expectation of audience (hi guys!) inherent in blog writing, neglect is a slightly greater sin. And it's not like I need to go fishing under my bed for blogger software (digression: remember disks? That came in boxes? Playing Kings Quest III back in the day when it took four disks to play, plus at least one to save your games on? Sigh, and time marches on).

In other news, omigod! I'll be twenty-eight this Saturday. Brian and I are going to see Camille Paglia read from her new book (Break Blow Burn: Camille Paglia reads forty-three of the worlds best poems) Friday night, followed by a late dinner at the Metro Cafe. On my actual birthday, Brian will be testing for his blue belt in jujitsu, so I'll probably just stay home & worry. And write, of course, since I have 25 pages due for workshop on Monday (between-semester break? ha!).

I'm also working on some graphic stuff I hope to post up in here in the near future. Watch this space.

Been a while

72-foot Buddha
Originally uploaded by Nora Sawyer.

I finally uploaded some of my Hong Kong Photos to flickr. Click the Buddha to see more.

In other news, I [heart] flickr. So easy to use, so fun, so free. God bless the internets. They live, I tell you.

Nel Mezzo

Alternate title: Sestinas: what can't they do?
Alternate alternate title: Sestinas: say less using more words than other people say with less.

In France they have drugs that improve memory
(I read an article about it at a time in my life
when I thought I’d carved a space in the wilderness
though I was as unsure of the path
as I was of anything). Anyway. The article described
miracles: sparse thickets of thought thickened into woods

But that was the problem really. I already had a wood:
a place bereft of reflection or of memory
(for those who walk unpleasant places do not describe
a path; these are not reflective joints of life)
a place absent even the memory of a path;
where all that is belongs to wilderness.

Wilderness
far from being just a wood
becomes an essential piece of any path
(path: a place within cohesive memory
that defines the whole of life;
that which edges describe)

And so: a line describes
an angle, and so a triangle is made. And out of wilderness
we make our life,
in amongst a wood
of shivers, thought and memory
and suddenly there becomes a clear way, a path.

(or I suppose it should be a path
though mine does not for sure describe
the way through brambles of memory
through the dark of the sleeping wilderness
in the thickness of the wood
or whatever. Life).

Midway along the journey of our life
I strayed, abandoning the rightful path
And found myself within a gloomy wood.
So hard it is in its aspect to describe
This savage harsh and fearsome wilderness,
That fear rekindles with the memory.

in the thickness of our life (strange as it is to describe),
there is (or perhaps could be) a path, a way inside and out of wilderness
into the wood, out of memory

Excuse me? We could use some resurrection over here.

It's rainy and chilly here in San Francisco, and I'm feeling rather homesick, like Easter and spring just aren't real without family around. We'd planned to go see the Sisters' easter celebration in the park today, but it was all chilly and we had trouble getting motivated, and then the rain pretty much settled things.

Oh well. There's always next Sunday.

Doppelganger Sestina

written in class, March 19, 2005

When I was eleven, I saw my double
(Double didgets granting second
sight) rising from the yellow grass, waiting
Under swaying pine trees. It was still.
A strange hiccup, one two three.... three
Calling me, my echo, a child

The Magus Zoroaster, my dead child
In his garden chanced upon his double
And Shelley (the poet) saw his, too and died three
Days later. So: an inauspicious second
That hearts and minds and thoughts lays still
(Grass blew against its stiff legs, waiting)

Outside the house it’s waiting
Inside I’m just a child
Under blankets lying still
Counting breaths, double double
Eyes clenched against the seconds
Listening as the clock strikes three

The clock strikes three
And outside the dark is waiting
Somewhere out there stands my second
Night’s never so long as when you’re a child
At every hour the darkness doubles
At every hour, unbearably still

Chimes and echoes breaking still
Counting breaths, one, two, three, three
When I was eleven I saw my double
Standing outside, just there - waiting
I was just a child

Not prone to seeing seconds
The eye is cones and rods and retinas, still
I was a literally minded child
Who knew prime numbers (1, 5, 7, 3)
Numbers for with no factors waiting
No other’s double

As a child I saw my 2nd, counting one, two, three, three

The night still, waiting

And I was just a child. Two ones, double.

Hang spring-cleaning!

Ahh. spring in San Francisco. The weather's been between 60 and 80 (steadily! With almost no bizarre and sudden turns) for almost a week now, the clouds in the sky are there purely for their aesthetic value, and woodland creatures all over the city are feeling the first stirrings of that thing called love.

But alas.

The apartment is filthy. My papers are a complete mess; I can't find half my school things half the time, and the other half of the time someone's asking me to move them so that we can eat dinner or find the sofa or some such nonsense. And to top it off, an overnight guest is expected at the end of the week. But the Mole in me just keeps looking outside and thinking, well, how jolly it would be to be idle.

Poetry at 2 AM

Usually a bad idea

Inferno V:85

Dido
In her flocked and tattered robes superlative
Hovers idly
Without encomium or fond remembrance
For whatever oily stain was left
On Carthage’s sea salt cliffs

Love cries ring out empty
The high wind
Mocking fire’s memory
With August procession
In the flickering dim.

Just a miiinute! I'm in my niiiiighty!

Eeep! Here Tricia's gone an linked to me, and I've nothing to say. I'm working on a collection of short stories (an early version of my thesis for the conclusion of the MA portion of my MA/MFA program), and spring has completely sprung, complete with sun & flowering trees and a return to sandals as daily footwear. It's hard for a girl to stay focused.

But blogging! Must! Continue!

So, what can i tell you about my little life? Brian and I went for several walks today, one of which ended with a sausage and a beer at Toronado's. They had something on tap called 'nogginbonker,' but I was afraid to try it.

And that, my friends, is all you're getting.

The Hits Just Keep On Coming

So, I get these moods. Sometimes, even though the sun is shining, birds are chirping, and small puppies frolic in the park, I'll start to feel a case of the ol' ennui. And even though everything is going swimmingly, even though spring is here, and Herr Brian is all a girl could want, and I'm in a program that satisfies my every creative desire, I crash.

I'll sit on the couch, sinking lower and lower into despair until there's nothing left of me save a tuft of hair poking out from underneath the beige cushions. And poor Brian, who's trying to work, gets interrupted every five minutes: "I'm sorry I'm like this. You shouldn't see this." and a minute later, ""Do you love me?"

I tell you, the man's a saint. An atheist, but a saint.

Anyway, I've been like this all week. And then there was class this weekend:

Saturday:

Morning class: I'm more subdued than normal, and when I do speak I stutter, and then giggle. I hate myself for seeming weak. The instructor announces a new structure for discussions, wherein we raise our hands and wait to be called on instead of just speaking up. I can't help but feel that this is an inderect rebuke to my normally effusive classs presence.

Afternoon class: Four times, I start to speak, only to be cut off mid sentence. Twice, I am cut off mid-sentence by a prospective student. No one else seems to notice or care, particularly the instructor, who I thought liked me.

After school: I stand talking to my fellow students. J, an older man with a sort of rough and tumble sense of humor, asks "where's Brian?" in a way that makes the woman next to him hit his arm and giggle. I'm self-conscious about being the only one who's boyfreidn meets her at school. Do other people think that's weird? J gives me a ride home, along with two other girls. Getting out of the car, I trip and almost fall. I'm the only one who laughs.

Sunday:

Morning, before school: I'm running late. The toilet clogs and must be delt with. I have no clean laundry, and end up wearing a shirt that is low cut and has a tendancy to ride up at the belly. I spend the whole day intermittently pulling the collar up and the bottom down.

Morning class: I arrive ten minutes late, at the tail end of an in-class writing exercise. It looks interesting, but I don't get a chance to find out exactly what it was. During class, I work hard to make constructive comments about other's writing that I didn't particuarly enjoy, but that doesn't seem to be garnering much response. When we discuss a piece I really loved, my comments seem redundant and I have trouble articulating my thoughts.

During class break, I go outside and stand in the sun. No one esle from my class is around, except for A, a tough-seeming, pretty girl from the midwest who is sitting on the curb smoking a cigarette. I think about sharing with her my discomfort with my overly-revealing shirt, but go inside instead.

When it comes time to discuss my piece, comments are generally favorable. David, an older man who's work I enjoy, ways "Nora really has what I think makes a good writer: whe can write a good sentence." I am genuinely touched.

After class, I get back people's written responses to my piece, a work of fiction that combines first-person narrative and fragments of the protagonist's academic work. The crit from A reads as follows:

- Don't give a fuck
- If you're an academic "at university" then fucking stay there
- you're no writer if this is your kick
- this shit is hard to understand BECAUSE it has such a specific audience! We are not your audience! Academic Journals about Greek/Latin philosophy and mythology are.

then, on an interior page of the story:

It's been done - interpret something new - something folks give a fuck-in-the-hole-of a running donut ABOUT.

I go to lunch, and manage to giggle over beer and sushi with some of my classmates. We discuss (humerously) the feasability of ordering ritalin over the internet using scholarship funds.

Afternoon class: Memoir and Testimony. during the in-class writing exercises, I can hardly get myself to write. My voice seems false. Sentences don't come. Tears are pricking at my eyes. I want to go home and go to bed, but doubt my energy could even take me that far.

Did the commenter get that the piece was a work of fiction? Is my voice too obscure? Surreptitiously, I flip through the other comments, but all I see are negatives: beautiful writing, but..., the narrative sections aren't as vivid as the other bits..., Very few love notes this time. As usual, however, I'm impressed...

I feel something akin to suicidal. I want to remove myself from the picture. Deperately, I want to be gone.

Class ends. I see Brian, Chris and Ruben across the street. Chris is anxious to make dinner, which means he's anxious to plan a dinner that I'll end up cooking. They ask about class. I change the subject.

Home: I'm grouchy and unreasonable. I keep going to the bedroom to cry. Chris makes steak, I make salad. Everyone seems a bit nervous. I'm acting like the crazy head of a disfunctional family.

Oof. Anyway. Today, Tuesday, I'm meeting with my instructor to discuss my piece and the crits. I feel a bit silly, like I've been up all night staring in horror at a hooded figure lurking by the closet door, only to realize with the creeping dawn that I've been on guard against my own bathrobe.

I mean, all told, its not that bad, is it?

For the Record

I hate the sound of people chewing.

I had a strange dream last night.

I was in a small store - one of those strange boutiques you wander into, only to realize that the place is far too small and you can’t possibly browse without engaging in some manner with the proprietor. Always a source of frustration; I rarely come to buy. Anyway. This store was a magic shop (ein Zauber Kasten). It was also, I believe, a hair salon.

Anyway, as I spent time in this shop (which, by the way, had beige carpeting) I became aware of a mirror that the shopkeeper kept tucked inside an alcove. If one looked in the mirror, they would see the manner of their own death. Several people came into look in the mirror. I realized that this was one of those unpleasant rights of passage: sooner or later, I was going to have to look in the mirror, too.

Suddenly, I was in the alcove. The proprietress was cradling the back of my head, as one does in a baptism. I looked in the corner, where someone had placed an abstract sculpture made of driftwood. My head was pulled back, towards the mirror. I screamed, and then was quiet. An old woman looked back at me. I was relieved; my death would be from old age.

I looked closer. My reflections hair was gray, but her face was still young; she couldn’t be older than fifty. Her roots, strangely, were still brown. I searched the reflection desperately for clues - what could possibly cause my death at such a young age? All I could see was a strange misquito-like bite on my back leg.

I would have to dye my hair, I concluded.

Golden Ears

I am feeling the hard edge of my own selfishness lately: my need to be seen, my need to have my own specialness acknowledged. I think this may be contrapuntal to my awakening listening ear. At least I hope that it's a sign of growth.

When I signed up for this writing program, I expected to get all sorts of things out of it: heightened writing skills, to be sure, but also adulation, praise and attention. I am accustomed to receiving such things when I set my mind to a task and do it well (I offer the distinction of 'setting mind to' because I have not been accustomed, at all times, to doing so; often, especially in school, my mind has been elsewhere). I did not expect to be humbled. Particularly not with such consistency.

The other day, I spent some time with my friend D, who is also a member of the writing program. As she was driving me home, D observed that she and I had both been born with distinct advantages: I my supportive and loving family, she her high IQ.

And I was strangely upset by this. Not because I feel that my family was not an advantage, nor do I think that D is anything but brilliant. But because it was the third time in as many days that someone had pointed out their own intelligence, without mentioning anything about my own.

As my ex-boyfriend Gahlord used to say when I was upset: “feel that sting? That’s pride, fucking with you.”

Yeah, he was kind of a jerk sometimes.

Anyway: yes, it is pride. And it stings particularly, because I’ve always told myself and others that I don’t imagine myself to be smarter than anyone.

And that’s true.

But hidden deep within that was the assumption that OF COURSE others might think that I was (smarter, that is). And that my perception that, really, I am just about as smart as everyone around me, well that’s just due to my innate perspicuity. That’s right: I’m especially clever, because I can see how smart you all are. Now tell me that isn’t astute.

I am kind of a jerk, aren't I? I always imagined the onset of humility would be more enjoyable.

SO I took a nap this afternoon (as people do, when they work at home and live in california and it's spring and all is decadent) and I had the strangest dream:

We were looking at an apartment next door. We decided we didn't want it, but I started having strange dreams about the landloards late brother-in-law. We were dogsitting for my parents, and I was trying to write the dead man's brother-in-law a letter, but kept making horrible and frustrating typos. Also, I wanted pretzels.

Here's the letter (I wrote down what I'd managed to get down in my dream as soon as I woke up. It seemed very important):

Dear Mr ___

Over thepast few weeks, I have been having a series of strange dreams. The content of these dreams has led me to beleivethat I am being visited by you late brother in law, Mr Harry Davidson. Through these dreams I beleive that Mr. Davidson may be trying to communicate something of great importance. Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

Sincerely,

Belle Anne

Hello, You.

I know, I know. If any of you are actually still out there you're wondering what on earth I'm doing in a writing program when I never write, I never call. Communication: not my forte, even now.

So - it is spring (at least today) in San Francisco. Poisonously green foliage. Great blue sky punctuated with columnular, fluffy clouds. A sense of bigness in the world. I wish I could show you the pictures in my head.

There's a park near our house: Buena Vista. The first week we lived here, Brian and I used to go for walks there every morning, and it was incredible, everything I expected California to be. When I'm walking there, I feel like a child: every tree, every snail crawling on primeveal leaves seems new, representative of a vast knowable unkown.

Reminds me of a hymn we used to sing in youth choir:
Name unnamed, given and shown, knowing unknown: gloria.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness. a combination of school and spring has untapped something for me, grammar be damned. Or maybe dammed. I probably need to drink some tea.

I've been oddly out of it lately. I haven't felt like writing. Not that I don't have any ideas (though that's definitely part of it). It's more of a self-censorship, a problem I've had on an off since my late/teens early twenties. I can't seem to take pen to paper (or in my case finger to keyboard) without asking myself: with so much noise in the world, why add to it?

I dunno. I'm probably just making excuses. Lots of schoolwork to be done. Lots of writng. And me, sitting here, feeling like I should read the Phaedrus again, but too lazy to go over to the bookcase and fetch it. And even if I did fetch it, I'm not sure I'm in the mood to read it.

Perhaps a nap is in order. Or a tub interlude.

Mmnmp.

Sleepy as heck. Brian has bad cough, and wakes the both of us up several times during the night. Need to be writing, but lack story ideas. Also, sleepy.

whaddup?

So. Oddly unverbal days of late. I've been having tremendously vivid dreams, though.

Location-wise, my dreams are fairly repetitive. I tend to have dreams that take place (at least in part) in the following areas:

1. The basement of the church I grew up attending with my mother and sister (the best of these was one wherein I was dating Axl Rose. Guns N' Roses had a 'clubhouse' in the closet where the youth choir kept robes and whatnot. Lest anyone think this was a teenybopper fantasy, let it be known that I had this dream last year).

2. The neighborhood on the border between Wakefield and Melrose, MA (a few blocks from where I grew up). In my dreams, however, this neighborhood has several added blocks, and is somewhat modular.

3. Outside my parents' house (when I was younger I'd havve reoccuring dreams that I'd be outside and unable to open the door. Or rather, I'd keep opening the door, only to find the wrong house inside. I'd have to sort through a pile of doors, trying each one on until I could get the right interior.

4. The stretch of Main Street between my old Jr High & my parents' house. The woods by my old elementary school (and the shortcut contained therin) usually play a role as well.

Hm. Is my corner of the Jungian subconscious stopped somewhere circa 1987?

Congratulations to Rose and all the other Iraqis who got out and voted today. I've never been happier to have been proven wrong (and here's hoping that I continue being wrongheaded in my pessimism).

Now I've Seen Everything.

Seeing as how you're reading this on the internet, I'm sure I don't need to recap for you the whole "Postcards From Buster" coontroversy (ok, ok, just in case: some conservatives think that the PBS cartoon's portrayal of two lesbians in a now-pulled episode exploring the state of Vermont is further evidence of the 'gay agenda' at work on the hearts and minds of Our Nation's Children).

I just stumbled across this choice bit, on a blog called "Crosswalk":

And does PBS think the public is stupid enough to not catch what the catch phrases "maple-syruping", and "I like it Vermont style" really reference?

I'm sorry, but I lived in Vermont for several years, and currently live a scant 10 minute walk from San Francisco's Castro district. Heck, I even share an apartment with a gay man. I'm pretty much down with the current lingo. And I have no freaking idea what this man is on about.

You really have to wonder about folks who see the gay agenda lurking in the maple syrup.

More poetry, posted before my editor's eye kicks in (as part of my new year's bid for upfrontness in writing).

Confirmation

At twelve,
I knew something of the longing
That marks adolescence.

I wanted to belong, yes,
But more: I wanted.
I wanted.

The sad-eyed Jesus
Upstairs
In the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum:
A laundered Kurt Cobain,
Jim Morrison, alive,
Understanding.
I am not like the other girls;
I know Latin.

I was twelve
And eager to understand
What made my sister so interesting,
Suddenly
Even though she was only two years older
And I was unusually precocious,
If a bit obtuse.

So I opted for early confirmation
The first step, I was sure
In my eventual sublimation.

And in my confirmation class,
Filled with graduate students
And doctors of Theology
And a man who I now realize
Couldn’t have been more than twenty,
But who was much older than twelve

I broke down
Remembering
The night my goldfish died,
Though I prayed to God for a miracle.



To Abelard, Heloise
(unfinished, I think)

To her master,
nay father,
to her husband,
nay brother;
his handmaid,
nay daughter,
his spouse,
nay sister:
to Abelard, Heloise*

Relations, we call them:
These lines run between us.
Tongued.
Diminished.
Spoken.

Spoken as though
There were something
In speaking,
An essence called forth;
A foundation laid
In the wilderness.

In the begininning was the word
A breath over waters.

In the beginning,
This morning
You breathed
And I woke up
Awaiting definition.

* From The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, trans. and intro. by Betty Radice, (New York: Penguin, 1974)

Autobiography

When I was born, irises were blooming in Missouri. This amazed me as a child. In Massachusetts, where we lived for most of my childhood, the most I could hope for on my birthday was a crocus poking up through the damp spring mud. Sometimes it even snowed. Once there was a blizzard, and the snow came up to my waist (which to be fair couldn’t have been more than two feet off the ground).

Now that I live in San Francisco, spring starts coming in January. I still find it amazing that, on mornings when its so cold I can see my breath, I’m greeted with the sight of purple flowers blooming outside the bathroom window.

I was born at noon on April 23, 1977. My mother tells me that while lying in bed in her postpartum daze, she had a vision. As the nurses bustled and my father futzed and I cooed, she was watching the credits to an old black and white cartoon. A song was playing in the background: “Fairy Tales Can Come True.”

She didn’t tell me this until I was a teenager, but I can remember, when I was about ten or so, watching a commercial for Sprite or Mountain Dew built around the same song. It made me feel so wonderful: melancholy and amazing all at once, as if a world full of possibility were about to open up before me, but just for a moment. I’d like to think that this is my song. My mother says it is.

Growing up, I was an oddly puritanical child. Odd because I can think of little in my upbringing, save a general aesthetic sensibility, that dictated one mode of living as better than any other. My parents taught us (my sister and I) that sex was a natural part of adult life, though probably something that should be avoided until one was ready. Wine was served with dinner, and available to us once we turned sixteen. Nonetheless, I imposed strict censures upon myself. I would not drink alcohol, ever. I would not have sex until marriage. I would not cut or dye my hair. I would carry only wildflowers at my wedding, and only ones I’d picked myself, that morning. Preferably, I’d live off the grid, reading and writing at night by oil lamp or candlelight.

I came up with these rules when I was about eleven, and believed in them, to a degree, well into my teen years. I’d always be setting rules out for myself, like a young Gatsby, or an Hepestus, trying to shape my perfect self from the sticks and mud of my perceived inadequacy. I’d mark my summer calendars with structured activities:

‘prayer and meditation, 9 AM - 10 AM, ‘study 10 Am -11, bicycling 11 AM - 12, lunch.’

I fasted intermittently. Luckily, I have a short attention span.

I fantasized about becoming a nun, but if I were honest I'd admit that I really wanted to be a monk. I remember seeing a movie on TV wherein a man joined a monastery, only to discover he had romantic feelings for one of his fellows. Upon finally owning up to this desire in the darkness of the confession booth, he learns that the monk taking his confession is, in fact the one he’s been lusting after. The monk slides away the screen separating confessor from Confessor, and pulls back his hood to reveal... a woman’s face. That’s what I wanted to be: the woman in the monastery, an object of desire, yet chaste; hidden, yet innately sensed and desired.

Link

sigh

Spring seems to be coming to San Francisco. It must be the rain making that's everything green and the early flowers bloom in spite of the awful cold (51 degrees today -- I know, we’re wimps). All this wet is making me nostalgic for New England.

The other night, I was talking in my sleep. I do this from time to time, and my boyfriend, Brian, likes to try and draw hypnogogic conversations out of me, and relay them to me in my waking state. I’m trying to train myself to speak when I feel myself start dreaming - on that threshold between awake and asleep. Its a tiny thing we share.

Anyway, I was talking. And I said two things:

1. "Underneath the branches the people are wet, and made of bark."

And some time later:

2."My legs were twigs, but I didn't realize it at the time."

Eek! A Meme!

The lovely Tricia sent this my way:

1. How many music files on your computer?

Um. I don't know. How does one tell?

2. Last CD you bought?

If we're talking 'album of music purchased in any format, 'The Life Aquatic Soundtrack (purchased of iMusic). If you mean last physical CD purchased, then CocoRosie'sLa Maison De Mon Reve (unless you count Songs of the Pogo, which I got my Dad for Christmas. I'm all about specificity, really).

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?
Right now, I'm listening to theBoards of Canada Remix of Last Walk Around Mirror Lake (offa Boom Bip's Corymb). I downloaded it from this site. Which is where I get most of my new-to-me music.

4. Five songs you often listen to or mean a lot to you and why:

Well, according to iTunes, these are the songs I listen to most often. I don't know if the prejudice is mine or the iTunes' shuffler (probably a bit of both). Notice how smoothly I got out of having to choose favorites?

Note: I wanted to post MP3's of these songs, but couldn't figure out how to convert iTunes files into MP3 format. If any of you know a secret magic way, please clue me in.

i. Arcade Fire's Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (off of Funeral). This is a fabulous album, though I'm not sure why this particular track gets preferential treatment. But there it is.

ii. Bran Van 3000's cover of Cum On Feel The Noise (off of Glee). Do I really need to explain why I love this?

iii. Nina Simone's cover of Here Comes the Sun. I defy you to listen to this song and not feel happy. In a melancholy kind of way. This is what the world would sound like if my Grandmama Mary had been one of the original Beatles.

iv. Bob Dylan's House of the Rising Sun . I've loved this song since I was a little kid. I can remember hearing it on the radio when I was about eight or so and begging my mother to get me a recording of it. She found me a really upbeat 'New Main Street Singers'-esque cover. As the Fresh Prince once noted: sometimes, mothers just don't understand.

Although to be fair, she accepted her youngest daughter's obsession with fallen women without blinking.

v. Good Friday by CocoRosie. Yum. (UPDATE: this song can be downloaded here

5. What 3 people would you like to answer this and why?

1. Colin Bayly...because I haven't gotten a phone call at 2:AM in a while, and he's got impeccable taste in music
2. My seester.... because I don't know what she's listening to these days, and I miss her
3. J.D. Salinger...because, well, wouldn't that be cool?

Where the longhorn cattle feed/On the lowly jimpson weed
So, I'm feeling a bit more like myself today, and (in spite of the fact that it's Sunday for everyone), starting to appreciate this school-full-time-and-not-workin' lifestyle I've got goin'. One thing I need to do is spend more time every day just writing, so expect to see more of the not-wuite-ready for prime time fiction and whatnot featured below.

As for tonight, nothing to report. Making dinner. Brian on shoulder. Pants on fire. The usual.

I don’t know what I expected not working to be like. Sunnier, I suppose. And more productive. But I hadn’t accounted for myself in the equation: the lazy boring awefulness that is moi. And the disorganization. And the ennui.

Brian and I are going to be housesitting starting tonight. Hurrah! Yard! And hurrah! Wacky dogs! I'm looking forward to writing (sans these distracting internets) in Shelly's secret garden.

Ooof. I can’t decide if I’m still jet lagged, or if I’m always this way: convinced that I suck irredemably & prone to run on sentences. I know a tremendous egoist lurks within me; I’m sure of it. Perhaps I need a bath? Yes. Perhaps I do.

You can't make me spellcheck.

Test Pattern

I'm typing from the Hong Kong Library, where I'm trying to get some stuff for school typed up and sent to Brian so that he can drop it off for me (proof positive that he's the best boyfriend, ever). I cant seem to open Word, and the error message in Cantonese isn't much help (neither, unfortunately, are the librarians, who don't seem to speak much English. They must've moved here post-1997).

Liza and I are staying at Mirador Mansions - a ramshackle warren of hostels, low-end tailor shops and stores selling tacky souveniers and knockoff handbags on Kowloon's 'Golden Mile.' Our first night here, having come from the internationally-renowned airport via sparking subways, we were a bit taken aback by the buildings deshabille (I really want that to be a word) charm.

Liza had detailed written instructions on getting to the hostel, and so (feeling very much the seasoned international travellers), we easily travelled through Hong Kong Island and across the bay to Kowloon. Night had fallen while we were underground, and through the bus window, the whole city sparkled. We'd asked to be let off at the Holiday Inn (as the hostel had instructed), and as soon as we disembarked, we were swarmed by solicitous bellmen.

"We're not staying here." Liza said, lurching after the uniformed attendant who had already taken her bag and was heading for the Holiday Inn's bright doors, "Sorry - we're not staying here."

We stood on the street corner and examined her directions. Apparently, our hostel was right nearby.

"Yes? Can I help?" Two doormen stood by, watching us.

"Can you show us the way to the Kowloon Garden Traveller's Friend?"

The solicitous doorman looked at us blankly, then pulled the directions out of Liza's hand.

"Ah. Mirador Mansions. Just down the street. On the left, there."

We followed the direction of his outstretched arm own crowded alleyway. A decrepit looking dog ignored us as we hurried past, its eyes rheumy and distant. We'd almost passed a brightly lit door when I stopped.

"This is it, isn't it? 'Mirador Mansions'"

The directions had instructed us to ignore "beggars selling fake Rolexes and offering rooms unaffiliated with the hostel." This relatively benign description had not prepared us for the scene that greeted us now: In the brightly lit entryway, vendors displayed every cheaply made souvenir of China imaginable: silk sheets, gongs, hats, even sex toys. Men crowded around us, calling out, "Fake watch? Tailor? Madam, yes? You need a room? Yes?"

"Can you tell me the way to the elevator?" Liza asked the nearest and most capable looking man. "The Kowloon Garden Traveller's Friend?"

"Ah! You need room." He hustled us over to a sign for the Lotus USA Hostel. "You want window?" He pressed a set of keys into Liza's hand.

No. We have a reservation somewhere. Where's the elevator?"

Just then, we spotted a bank of elevators. We hurried over, ignoring the men's disappointed cries.

Liza's directions told us to go to the thirteenth floor, where we'd find our hostel immediately to the right of the elevator doors. The doors opened to an dimly lit, sparsely populated hallway. We looked to the right -- an open corridor, looking out onto a ramshackle courtyard. A man detached himself from the group standing by the stairway to our left.

"Hello, Yes?" You need a room?"

"We have a reservation at the Kowloon Garden Traveller's Friend," said Liza forcefully. "Which way is it?"

"Yes, yes" he brisked efficiently. "This way."

He led us off, down the hallway toward the stairwell.

"Here. Your bag. I can take it for you." He pulled the handle of my wheeled suitcase out of my reluctant hand and headed down a the corridor. I wondered at first if I'd have to tip him when we got to the hostel, and then if we'd get to the hostel at all, and if I'd ever see my bag again.

He turned through a doorway into a narrow hall. The thought flashed through my head that this was precisely what my father had been thinking of when I'd insisted that he needn't worry, that Hong Kong was one of the safest cities in the world.

We were at the end of a trash-strewn hallway. The man opened a door, revealing a tiny room: two platform beds, made up with well-worn cartoon printed sheets bolted to a tiled wall, a small window letting in the sounds of the street below.

"No." I said. "This is not our room."

"You don't like the room? I have another. What do you want?"

"No, thank you." Liza and I simultaneously had had enough. I grabbed my suitcase from the man's protesting hands and we hustled back down the narrow corridor and up the stairs, making our way back to the elevator.

"Okay. It has to be somewhere to the right," Liza said decisively. We followed the open hallway along the courtyard, past laundry and darkened doorways decorated with small shrines. We turned a dimly lit corner, and there, at the end of the hallway, brightly lit and painted yellow, stood the Kowloon Garden Traveller's Friend.

Relieved, we rushed toward the card table and mismatched chairs that stood beneath the large, brightly lit reception sign.

After a bit of confusion, we confirmed that we had a room reserved for the night and the night clerk led us down a polished narrow hallway to our room. Inside, the room was small, with twin beds bolted to the wall, and well-worn (but clean) cartoon-print bedsheets. But was clean and safe, and for now, it is home.

Update

So, Christmas was great. Off to Hong Kong tonight. Meeting my friend Liza there, leaving Brian behind for ten whole days. Strange. It'll the longest we've been apart in at least two years. But I get to eat tofu and noodles & visit museums with Liza, so bliss & fun for me.

I'll write more when I get back, I promise. Love to all.

PS: I hate flying.

Mute

No voice today. I had a cold most of last week, feeling *mostly* better, but can't talk, save for a high-pitched wheeze. It was kind of fun at first, playing mute, but it's gotten old.

So - tickets bought for home (for Xmas) & hong kong (for ten days post-Xmas). Two weeks notice given (hurrah!). Work schedule for next semester worked out with advisor.

Apparently I deserve this (folks keep telling me). Still, I feel perpetually guilty & undeserving, as if I'll be exposed as a fraud any moment and sent packing.

I do want an office. Brian and I have been looking at (artists') studio spaces online, and it seems like we could find some sort of shared workspace in SF for not too much ($145 - $200/mo -- albeit in semi-crime ridden areas). It all seems to good to be true. Could everything really be coming up Milhouse?

While I'm here, more bad poetry...

Here's the latest villanelle revision (and how come not one of you pointed out that it was Leda with the swan, and not Europa?)


Leda walked along the wayside,
Wondering at the fair and fowl
Pulling feathers from her hair.

Inside her, Helen, Clytemnestra:
Smooth outside and dark within.
Leda walked along the wayside.

She lies awake upon her mattress.
It’s the smell, that dust she breathes
Pulling feathers from her hair.

Tramping slowly, gently - careful
Should her god-eggs fall and break
Leda walks along the wayside.

Helen grows up white and downy,
Standing on the walls of Troy
Pulling feathers from her hair.

Cursing Zeus, and Aphrodite
Who cast soft eyes to earth one day,
Leda walked along the wayside
Pulling feathers from her hair.

It's been a while

I'm sick -- sore throat & no energy. Slept all day. Too tired to write anything grammatical or interesting. Guilt blogging, really. I think I'm going to quit my jorb and throw myself at the mercy of the world. Feeling guilty that generous parents & patient boyfriend make this all possible. But really. For someone who advocates living as part of a community, I am stubbornly stuck on the idea of independence sometimes.

oof. Gonna go take a bath & eat some toast. Welcome to the 21st century. This is blogging. What hath the internets wrought?

three words about work

We're being audited.

Couln't have happend during a better week (see the post below). Anyway. Just got home. Back to writing my presentation for tomorrow. Right now its something between a sermon and a lecture. A hellfire and brimstone examination of Greek Tragedy, poetry, modern-day mythmaking and (or course) Dante. In 40 minutes.

Ack.

So, I'm gonna be a little busy for the next week or so. I've got a 40 min. presentation to prepare for this Saturday ('suffering, catharsis and transfomation'), ten pages due the following monday (new fiction for workshop), and a whole buttload of reading (how much is a buttload, you ask? A lot). And yes, I'm still working 40 hrs a week. At least.

But while I'm here: What's up with my near-pathological need to reach out to unpleasant people? What compells me to befriend the intolerable? Why do I go out of my way to do them favours, when I know full well that they'd never do the same for me, and are probably patting themselves on the back for pulling one over on ol' gullible? Is it the guilt I feel for dislking them? Is it a recognition of the unpleasantness within me? Misdirected charity? A need to be liked, no matter the source? A 'holier than thou' impulse to live by example? Or am I just a chum......p?

Brand New Bag

For a blogger template, this is actually kinda pretty.

by popular demand:

pants on fire

More Poetry

I'm not so happy with this one. But maybe y'all can offer some constructive criticism.

Untitled Vilanelle

Europa walks along the wayside
Wondering at the fair and fowl
Plucking feathers from her hair.

Inside her, Helen, Clydemnestra
Grow inside an alabaster shell
Europa walks along the wayside.

At night she dreams of beaks, god voices.
She cannot bear to sleep on down,
Plucking feathers from her hair.

Moving slowly, gently - careful
Lest she break her wee god eggs
Europa walks along the wayside.

Helen grows up white and downy,
Standing on the walls of Troy
Plucking feathers from her hair.

Cursing Paris, Aphrodite,
And her fate born long ago --
Europa walked along the wayside
Plucking feathers from her hair.

Bad spellers of the world, untie!


Thanks to the eagle-eyed Tricia, I've substituted the phrase 'public discourse' for 'pubic discourse' in my post below.

But now I'm wondering - does this mean I've sold out? Why must we reign in our pubic discourse? Let me not to the marriage of behinds permit impediments!

“In a situation like this, unbearable is good”
-Tony Kushner

I’ve been thinking about religion a lot lately (see below). It’s hard not to - faith is at the center of our public discourse, whether we’d have it or no. The news is riddled with rhetoric about ‘evil doers,’ ‘morality’, and some nonsense about restricting marraige in order to form a ‘decent society.’ Fire and brimstone have become a part our everyday lexicon.

One of the many insults inherent in this national talk of morality is the co-option of Chrtistianity. I find myself wishing I were more actively religious, a better whole-er person who could stand up for religion as a means to a more deliberate, conscious and humane way of living. Or I wish I could be completely atheistic, able to scoff from a safe and cynical distance.

I grew up in a fairly religious household. Prayers were said at every meal and before bed, and church the centerpiece of our Sundays. Bible verses were quoted in conversation, and theology discussed at the dinner table. We even sang hymns on long car trips. And it was good. My religion - my funny little late-20th century mishmash of beliefs - is important to me. It’s part of who I am.

The faith I was raised in is more 'love thy neighbor' than 'smite the sinner'. My mother ran meal programs and distributed food to the working poor. Every year, my father and his fellow Quakers would stand silently in the town square, witnessing for peace. I can remember being sternly scolded on the way home from school one afternoon for jokingly referring to my unmarried aunt and her live-in boyfriend ‘living in sin.’ My mother pulled to the side of the road and turned to look at me. “It’s not a sin. They love each other. A sin is something that keeps you from loving.”

Damn straight.

Oh, and PS: for a glimpse of what I think the better sort of Christianity looks like, go click around over at 'Real Live Preacher'.

That's Me in The Corner

So, this whole election thing. Sheesh. Where to start.

I'm going to pretend for a moment that the people who read this blog aren't just a small assortment of old college friends and family members, and take a moment to declare my little (still forming) system of beliefs.

Religion was a big factor in this election, and "moral values" were named as a key issue for voters in the exit polls. Well, I'm religious. and I struggle with 'what's right' every day. When your favorite author is Dante, you tend to think about the cosmic stuff.

But my religion is not George W. Bush's religion.

Now, I'm a little leery of trying to say what, exactly, George W.'s religion entails. I only know what I read in the papers, after all. But G.W.B. seems to believe in an unbending and punitive God -- one that divides the world into 'evil doers' and 'chosen.' One who doles out punishment and reward. If my God were at all like G.W.'s, well, ol' G Dub'd be a big ol' smite hole in the ground by now.

So what do I believe in? Uncertainty. Mystery. Perplexity. Like Will Durant, "I believe in God not as a God of vengeance in the skies, but as the creative will and power of life in the world." I believe that we are, each of us, called to live our lives in a way that moves the whole word forward. I believe that God is the force that calls us.

And yes, I have doubts. I hear that voice that tells me that organized religion is nothing but a source of strife in the world, that religion is a chemical fluke in our haphazardly evolving limbic brains. And I listen to that voice, from time to time. But I find comfort in my own little version of Pascal's wager: if I'm wrong, I might still better myself a little. I might even leave the world a little better than I found it.

I was raised by two very religious people. My mother is an Episcopalian, my father a Quaker, and both actively live their religion, so that through their lives they might create a better world. Growing up, I was given the choice of attending either service on Sundays, and as I got older, I tended towards Quaker meetings more and more. The branch of Quakerism that I grew up in is distinct from most Christian sects in that there is no priest, no preacher – no hierarchy within the church. Worshippers come to meeting on equal footing. More than that, meeting for worship is a communal experience, a Divine Comedy in which every participant is both poet and pilgrim, both Beatrice and Virgil.

The 'Religious Society of Friends,' as Quakers are properly called, took their name from a passage in the Book of John:

You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I call you servants no longer; a servant does not know what his master is about. I have called you friends, because I have disclosed to you everything that I heard from my Father. . This is my commandment to you: love one another. (John 15: 14-17)

Thus we see the first cause of Quakerism: simultaneously giving power to the faithful (“I call you servants no longer”) and binding them to a community (“love one another”). Liberation is contingent upon regard for others.

The Quaker emphasis on community lies in the central doctrine of Quaker theology: the belief that a divine light is in us all but that, as Quaker historian John Punshon describes it,

It would be a mistake to regard it as a part of human nature, a personal possession, a fragment of divinity, our bit of God. The light is in all. . .but it is the same light that is in all. . . There are not many lights, but only one. . . Because it is common to all of us, the light calls us into unity with one another, into the community. . . So you could not practice the sort of religion George Fox preached in isolation” (Punshon, Portrait in Grey, p.50, 1986).

This faith does not have a category of 'Evil Doers'. This faith cannot tolerate the abuse and torture of prisoners anywhere. This faith does not contibute to the destruction of the environment. This faith has room for questioning, and nuance.

Eh. What do I know?

I have nothing to say

Apparently, I'm out of touch with America's 'moral center.'

Hm. Who knew.

ways that I helped the red sox win today:

1. I woke up with a stomachache, but went to work anyway (demonstrating that noble perserverence... something something).

2. wore a red shirt

3. I studiously ignored the game, except for to very quick visits to Boston.com to see if it was over yet.

4. I moved to San Francisco (didn't hurt, obviously).

5. I wrote an only half-bulshit post over on Shaw's Blog (which I'd just finished when my mom called to tell me THE SOX WON THE SERIES)!

'Have You Herd Sheep' is Right

Look! A title! I don't know what came over me. Twenty-five cents to anyone (besides you, dad) who can tell me what song (or songwriter) that's from.

Know what I've noticed lately? My grammar is getting horrid. And my writing's worse. I think this might be a sign that the writing program I'm in is working. Or that my orange juice is irradiated. Which would explain why my brand new computer has been so slow lately.

In other news, I hate my last ten or so entries. I don't proofread my posts here, and it shows. I need to either start editing, or stop reading past posts. And that Edna St. Vincent Millay (ahem) homage that used to be posted below? Forget you ever saw it. Not fit for public consumption. Urg. Not that the other two are.

Ugh. The musty tea cozy of despair settles 'round. Lemon, anyone?

Oh, and I've added a new link to the sidebar: Mimi Smartypants.


It had me laughing so hard, I actually drove Brian from the room.

I can't decide what I find more disturbing about Dawn Eden's latest blog entry: that she thinks Christopher Reeve died of AIDs (because he appeared emaciated in1994 - a few months before his riding accident), or that she thinks it's any of her business what he died of. Actually, come to think of it, the latter is what's disturbing about the former. But screw it, I like the rythym.

Now that Shaw has gone and linked me, I guess I really should post some content up in here.

But I'm busy.

So, join me in embracing mediocrity as I make my first foray into the world of poetry (Aaron& Tricia,you might want to look away). Here are some sonnets I've written for my poetic forms class:


Bargain Basement Poe

Freud tells us that love is a recalling
Of sweet unspoken needs by mother met;
When the heart, alight, is through love soaring
It rides a sniveling, poopy infant jet.
And Ovid sings of satyr Marsyas
Who by Apollo flayed, his outsides in,
Sensed the truth we know when love’s upon us:
We are not the masters of our skin.
I never had a kiss that I, rememb’ring
Could feel again as warm, and not corpse cold.
O warmth! O kiss-heat! Abet forgetting
(Forget that I will die, that you’ll grow old).
Just sit with me a while, infant lover,
Your sweet kinder-corpse hand in my own.
And tell me that our lives are far from over --
I need to call my mother. Where’s the phone?

Bargain Basement Shakespeare (the Earl Of Oggsford)

Shall I compare thee to a Tuber-rose?
Thou are’t not an age restricted product
Inhaled into an unsuspecting nose
(An odd feeling - nicotine in bile duct).
Your presence, though, at best disquieting
An untraceable tick’ling in the night
Lingers sweetly, preciously inspiring
A world at once asunder and aright.
Smelling rain, a memory of your sweater
Cheek to blue wool shoulder in the night
A promise to be here, in this moment
And a blessing, interrupting - Gesundheidt
From floating dust condens'd, the heart inspired
You -- though smokeless -- kindle smold'ring fire.

Oh, and FYI:

Yeah, I know I haven't updated in a while. And all you're getting is this:


You are Fish 'Tacos.' You might think you're
exotic and worldly-wise, but in reality you're
just a bunch of crap on toast. Repeat after
me: 'just because you put something in
quotation marks doesn't make it so.' And
'taco' isn't Spanish for 'toast.'


What Weight Watchers recipe card from 1974 are you?
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who says life is fair?

I’m a very jumpy person. A door opens suddenly and I squeal. Someone sneezes unexpectedly, and I jump a foot in the air. I can’t watch scary movies. I end up behind myself with fear.

I read something in the Science Times once - nervous mice, the ones that don’t adventure out on their own in uncertain circumstances, are much more likely to die young than mice that are more nonchalant. Apparently being nervous does them in.

Apparently, there's a French version of the beatitudes that reads (roughly) 'blessed are the nonchalant.' Which actually might be closer to the Aramaic, which I understand translates closer to ‘blessed are the bendable’ than ‘bessed are the meek.’

Which means gymanasts alone will be saved.

Brian and I are watching The Secret Window. Maybe I don't want to be a writer after all.

"Being a writer" sure is fun - if only I could take those quotation marks away.

Wasn't there a time when this was all simpler? Was there ever a time when rent wasn't a worry, when clothes and washing and food just somehow happened? When a girl could stay home and watch the pigeons outside her window?

How can on viva la vie boheme in San Francisco, where the rent on a studio in darkest Sunset is $900?

I need a benefactor. With low expectations.

think more: "amoral pagan world" v. world of reason

Once upon a time, the gods were closer to the earth; once they walked among us and sat at our dinner tables. Their movements were discernible in the world: an old couple was turned to wood, their limbs eternally intertwined; a handsome boy, catching the fancy of a nymph, changed into a bug that lived forever.

As much as it could, the world made sense. People lived out their lives in the place they were born, or left their homes, more than likely never to return. Poets, called the Sons of Homer, moved from town to town, reciting stories and poems (there wasn’t much difference then) in exchange for food and shelter. It was widely acknowledged that they were blind, as Great Homer had been, though most of them were not. This paradox didn’t disturb anyone. These poets - blind but not blind - brought the world to common hearths and town squares: it was small, it was vast, it was knowable, but unknown.

ανδρα μοι ενεπε, Μουσα, πολυτροπον −
The man, O Muse, sing to me of that man, ever turning .

I'm (foolishly) hopeing that writing here will somehow make writing easier. I've been running into that old 'N train' problem, where during my morning and afternoon commutes, my head is positively swimming with ideas, but somehow, when I flip open the ol' (new!) computer.... blorp. Nothin'.

Of course, the problem really is that my N Train ideas are just fleeting ideas, and even when they do form themselves into complete sentences, 't ain't enough to actually fill more than a centemeter or two on ze page.

Ok - here are all the ideas I can remember (save these for me, ok?):

Lessing's Lacoon - something to do with words and image. And symbolism. And being a German philosopher in the 189th(?) century. Friedrich II. Anyway - look over the scene in the Aneid.

Invocation of the muse/ Invocation of oral histories & stories passed down in the family (lets call it the "sing in me grandma" idea)

Excercise for self (or for my craft presentation next month?): go through canto one of Dante (or another canto that seems better) and find all the symbolism & brief refrences to other literature. Make a list (She-wolf, leopard, St Lucia, the selva oscura... all that). Write a story using one (or more) of them. Or trying to make my own.

Arma virumque cano - a man and his dog walk in to a bar. Gack. ever get a phrase stuck in yer head? This's been running about in my head all day .

First day of school was great and invigillating and scarey. Unnfortunately. a financial mishap (which I was alerted to on my lunch break when my debit card wouldn't work) put me on edge and made me feel raw and vulnerable for the rest of the day. Except when I forgot about it, which was surprisingly often. I like my classmates. I like their writing, for the most part. Suprisingly, I like my writing so far. Now if only I didn't have that gap in my bank account to worry about until payday.

Word of advice: when you transfer money online from one account to another, be sure to hit the 'confirm and submit' button. Otherwise things go all screwey.

I start Friday.



Hurrah! Back to school, back to school.

Not what I expoected:


Joe Strummer... you've been through the cleansing
fire of punk, only to pick up a few venerial
diseases along the way. You're more of an
optimist when it comes to fucked-up genius.
But you can write wicked-deadly riffs and lycs.


Which fucked-up genius composer are you?
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Lists:

Times I might have believed in magic:

1. When I was growing up, we would often spend a portion of the summer - anywhere from a week-end to a month - in a friend of the family’s summer house near a town called Tupper Lake. The house stood at the top of a hill. At the bottom of the hill stood a tall forest of pine trees. When the wind blew a certain way, the trees would sway in a disconcerting fashion. The summer I was eight, I developed a horror of this woods. At night I couldn’t bear to look outdoors, for fear of seeing the trees move against the starlit sky. In the morning, I would avoid looking at the trees, for fear that they had advanced during the night.

2. When I was very small, I can remember making a sandcastle (in reality, it was more a mound of sand, dumped out of a pail and patted into a rounded hump). In frustration, I tried to remember how to make rooms on the inside of the castle. I was convinced I’d done it before, and had made a home for a small farmer.

3. Walking in the woods with my dog, I thought I heard a noise. It sounded like a single note, played upon a flute or recorder. I quickly hurried home. Even in the suburbs, the sound was uncanny.

4. If my boyfriend goes to bed before me, I always have to turn on the light before I lie down next to him. Some primitive part of my brain is not convinced that the sleeping hump beneath the blankets is him, and needs reassurance.

5. Despite ample evidence to the contrary, I believe I can 'sense' the future.


Things I wish I haddn’t said:

1. To my mother (age 13): “Up yours.”

2. To an ex-boyfriend (age 19), when told he missed me: “Get a dog.”

3. To a prospective landlord (last week): “This storage space is so large, I could take in a family of refugees”

4. Numerous other things that require a lifetime of context for their true horror to show.



Things I saw this afternoon:

1. A wonderfully ancient woman meditating. Her face was unwrinkled, but she looked as if she’d seen eons pass before her.

2. A moth dying in a pond. Its wings seemed motionless, but a multitude of tiny ripples radiated out from it, evidencing a stuggle just below the surface.

3. Three grouse, hiding beneath a bush.

4. A bride and her bridesmaids, having their photos taken in the park.

So, I can no longer blog from work - blogger's homepage has run afoul of the company's site-blocking software. It joins a hallowed set of sites I can't acess from work, incuding Aaron's comment section (oddly, other blog's comment windows are not verboten), resources on urban gardening, and craigslist's writer's forum. Hmpf.

In other news, I am now the proud owner of a !new! G4 ibook (this is my first real new-to-everyone-not-just-me computer ever - I'm very excited). Thanks to dadoo and mamita for the graduation gift!

Now to work on that application - there are two slots still oopen in the grad school program I've been procrastinating about appying to for the past few months. No excuses now.

So, in brief, here's what I haven't blogged about since blogger access was blocked from work:

One of my co-workers, discussing a recent news item: "I think emulation would be just about the worst way to go"

Another co-worker, upon learning that I am not a fan of the electoral college: "Well you don't understand the Bill of Rights then. And regardless, you have to agree that we were damn lucky Bush was president on September 11th" (I had to go outsided and breathe deeply for several minutes after that one).

Luckily, most of my life takes place outside of work. Dadoo has been visiting since Friday, and we've had great fun revisiting the city with him, and discovering new treats, like the fabulous (and free!) streetcar museum.

Anyway, c'est tout for now.

From Michelle's Daily Dose for Writers:

Living the middle class life in America, many of us tend to get complacent about physical danger. That complancency is occasionally shaken by some unanticipated event: a mugging, the violent death of someone we know, a natural disaster such as an earthquake or hurricane. 9/11 reminded us all just how imminent and unannounced death can be.

memoir: Write about a time when you or someone you know was in grave physical danger.


I just checked my teeth in the mirror of the green plastic compact I bought at Walgreen's last year when I decided it was time for me to start wearing makeup (I haven't started yet). One of my two front teeth is still slightly chipped. I say 'still' because the other one used to be more chipped, but I had it fixed.


'Grave physical danger' it wasn't. It was one of those stupid accidents that has you second-guessing your self for days: 'If only I'd stood up sooner, or not let the dog jump on me when we were playing, or had the sense to wear a mouth guard, like boxers do.' It happened easily, like chipping teeth were a natural progression in the life of a sheltered urbanite.

Brian and I were living in Chelsea. Not the fun hip Chelsea outside of New York, but rather the seedy/scenic yet chronically unhip Chelsea in-the-near-of-but-virtually-inaccessible-from downtown Boston. We got a dog, Bowie (aka Mr. Boo) because our neighbors had one that we loved and because we both like running our hands over warm furry things with brown limpid pools for eyes and easy, unedited grins. And it was good, most of the time. Mr. Boo (as we call him) was wiggly and full of energy, and bore a disturbing resemblance to one of those flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. But he was also stronger than me, with a tendency toward misbehaviour ("he's one," I told Brian "he'll grow out of it").

Anyway, one morning, Brian and I were dancing (as me and Brian do, from time to time), and just as I bent over to shimmy at the dog, he (the dog) jumped up to meet me.

crack!


ow.

My two front teeth were only slightly chipped, but one had a hairline crack that in the ensuing weeks started to widen and shift. One visit to the dentist wasn't enough to repair the damage - ultimately, it took a surprise root canal and a porcelain implant over most of the tooth to make me whole seeming again.

The worst part was when the dentist had to file down my tooth in order to fit me with the implant. For some reason, he felt compelled to give me a glimpse of what I looked like 'before.' The memory of my flushed, anxious face, one tooth filed down to a smooth, un-toothlike nub, still haunts me.

Losing teeth has been a recurring nightmare of mine. For months - years now, actually - the remaining ding on my smile has been a source of mild horror for me - a reminder of the transience of all flesh (mine in particular) and the empty, hollow sound one's vanity makes when struck.

blech.

Liar, Liar



So, this morning I awoke at 7:45 (from a lovely dream, natch) with the realization that, even if I left right then, I'd be late to work.

I shuffled to the baffoom and set about my morning ablutions, halfheartedly wracking my brain for some...any... not-too-overused excuse. Vauge abdominal distress? Done. Wracking headaches that mysteriously appear and disappear? They'll probably insist I get a cat scan if I drag that one out again.

And then it happens. I slip, just barely catching myself on the edge of the sink. An involuntary 'eep!' escapes my lips.

Brian rushes to the doorway - "You okay?"

"Yup"

"That was quite an 'eep!' you had there."

"Yeah? Well I was startled okay? I could've twisted my... THAT'S IT!!!!!"

Which is why I'm going to have to wear an ace bandage to work tomorrow. Send left-foot limpy vibes my way.


And find it comforting that I'm such a lousy liar. You, gentle reader, will never run afoul of my wicked, weary ways.

Am I blue?



For some reason, I haven't been able to log in for days and days. I swear I had funny things to relate, but I'm drawing blank.

For those of you keeping score at home, my hair is red again, with violet undertones.

Tales of the Strange: Inappropriate Workplace Conversations

I'm sitting here trying to remember how the conversation I'm about to relay got started. Somewhere, somehow a door was opened. A doorway to someplace terrible. Like one of those space-bending Cthulu* stories. But more disquieting.

A bit of background here. As some of you know, I work as a secretary (excuse me - 'assistant') at a small brokerage firm here in San Francisco. It pays me bills, provides a paycheck, and is the kind of work I can forget about entirely when I walk out the frosted glass doors at 5:00.

Overall, I like the people I work with. Brokerage tend to have a bit of a frat house/locker room atmosphere, but I pride myself (to an extent) on being the kind of girl who can hear dirty jokes and ribald anecdotes without batting an eye. Words can't hurt me. And some of those jokes are pretty fucking funny.

Anyway, there's this one guy in my office. I'll call him Tom ('cause that's his name). If my lines are ever crossed, he's the one doing it. And the thing that gets me is that he has no freakin' clue where those lines are. I've met homeless transvestite schizophrenics with more tact. I'm not kidding.

So. Sometime today, I get cornered into a conversation with Tom. He's at my desk with no sign of leaving. We're having this stupid argument about the words 'awful' and 'offal.' Tom maintains that when people use the word 'awful' to mean 'terrible,' they really mean 'offal,' since awful really means 'awe-full,' or awe-inspiring. I am holding the line that while 'awesome' and 'awful' may have been synonyms once upon a time, the current usage of awful is fairly widely accepted. Plus, terror and awe are synonyms, form time to time.

Anyway. Somehow, this conversation takes a turn. And I do mean for the worse. I forget how or why, but suddenly, I see it coming - Tom's going to tell me an anecdote. About sex. And there's nothing I can do to stop him.

I turn my eyes toward my computer screen. Oh dear, he's going there. I make noncommittal noises. He's going into graphic detail. I'm trying not to look at him. Oh. No.

And then he laughs and saunters away, obviously feeling like he just told a great story. That he just showed his studly side.

Ugh. Cluelesness. God's gift to the truly offal.


* my spell check tinks Cthulu should be "cutely." How droll.

I want one:




available here:

SacramentoGirlieMen.com

Fun quotation of the week, courtesy of my dad (via a biography he's reading):

"the idea of sports struck him as ludicrous."

Body dismorphic disorder:










Photoshop. Cheaper than plastic surgery, (slightly) less creepy than extreme makeover.