It's Time to Go

I've been having trouble leaving work this week. I've wrapped up the things I could conceivably get done today, and I'm ready to go, but I just can't seem to get up from my desk and GO. There's just too much unfinished business, too much that needs doing. Plus I took a very late lunch, and so I don't feel like it's the end of the day -- how can I be leaving if I just ate an hour ago?

I really wish I was leaving for a weekend in the woods (though that would interfere with my post-every-day schedule). It's just that I need space, and quiet, and maybe a little dose of sanity. Birdies chirpin' wouldn't hurt, either.

If you need a laugh

Go check out this post over on Tricia's blog. It totally turned my frown upside-down, and then proceeded to laugh me half off my chair.

Vegetal and Unfiltered

This has been one of those days where I keep having to stop and deconstruct my emotions. In a meeting, I'll find myself angry and defensive, only to find, when I try to put into words what I'm feeling, that there is no there there, that what ever I'm feeling has sprung into being independent of any external stimulus. I keep rolling my emotions around against my tongue as if I were tasting wine: an over-judgemental mouthfeel up front, with a tannic guilt-ridden open mindedness lingering on the palate.

But maybe it does spring from somewhere. There's such a tension on campus these days. In today's staff meeting a free-floating accusation that some people aren't pulling their weight hovered over the room alongside all our overstuffed workloads, pushing everyone's brows down until we all looked angry.


Plus my office smells funny.

Look! I made newness.

As you may have noticed, I updated the template a bit. It's basically one of the Blogger default templates, with a different pattern in the backgroud that I found on Squidfingers. I've never really played with Blogger templates before. It's fun!

I hope I didn't infringe anything.

Course Reading Wednesdays

Ok, if I'm going to be posting every day in October, I need some built-in multitasker slacker time. So: a new Wednesday tradition, in which I post a sample passage from the reading I've foisted on my poor students for today's class:

(From Basic Teachings of the Buddha: A New Translation and Compilation, with a Guide to Reading the Texts, by Glenn Wallis

Parayana Suta; Samyuttankiaya:

The Buddha spoke as follows:

I will teach the destination and the path leading to the destination. Listen to what I say. What is the destination? The eradication of infatuation, the eradication of hostility, and the eradication of delusion are what is called the destination. And what is the path leading to the destination? Present-moment awareness directed toward the body. This awareness is what is called the path leading to the destination.

In this way, I have taught you the destination and the path leading to the destination. That which should be done out of compassion by a caring teacher who desires the welfare of his students, I have done for you.

There are secluded places. Meditate, do not be negligent! Don't have regrets later! This is my instruction to you.

Toons for Tuesday

According to an online personality test I took some years ago, my ideal career is "cartoon artist." I don't know if that's the case (I lean more towards ballerina astronaut), but I do enjoy the doodling.

Brian's encouraging me to start posting my drawings up here. I have a few projects that I've been working on (like Ovid's Metamophoses, narrated by an octopus!), but as I haven't yet gotten around to scanning 'em, here's a little MS Paint self-portrait I did on my lunch break today.

Dreams of (Georgia Maeby) Green

My friend Tricia was the first of my college-friends-who-I'm-still-in-touch-with to have a baby (with my former pseudo arch-nemesis Cait coming in at a close second). It's not too surprising, then, that her daughter Georgia has lodged herself fairly deeply inside my subconscious.

Since Georgia was born last December, she's been the star of a series of (mostly half-remembered) dreams. They spring from all sorts of semi-concious desires, from my frustration in having not yet met li'l G (unless you count prenatal hellos directed at her mother's belly), to my own ambivilant half-formed desires for a wee one of my own.

More often than not, the dreams just consist of sitting and playing with G, or hanging out with a toddler her and Tricia in a future playground someplace. Here are the exceptions:

1. I'm working on an photo-illustrated version of 'Snow White,' with Georgia in the title role (she's a shoo-in for the part. Seriously, check out that complexion). I engage in a long internal debate over whether Prince Charming should have Down's Syndrome, like Georgia, or not. Strangely, in dream state, I don't seem to notice that G's a bit young for princes (Edit: or princesses!) of any stripe.

2. I'm catsitting for a friend when I realize all of a sudden that it's not cats I'm watching, but Georgia. Soon after, I give birth to my own baby, identical to Georgia in every way, excepting the fact that she can play the trombone.

Not Good at the Busy

Oh, I am just not good* at being busy. This semester I'm working full time in addition to teaching a class -- that's 43 hours out of the week that I have to be someplace and be working, never mind the unstructured class prep hours I need to work on top of that.

Now, technically, there are enough hours in the day to get everything done. But my brain just can't stay in work mode long enough to make it happen. I keep napping on Saturdays, or sinking into a novel for just a minute, only to look up and realize hours have passed.

This morning, walking to work, I kept looking longingly into coffee shops, at people sitting in the corner with a notebook and their coffee, at teachers reading stacks of papers and hipsters with their dork-glasses and laptops. O, for an unstructured day!



*I started this post a few minutes ago, was called away, and came back to an entry that said "Oh, I am just not god". What an awesome excuse for not getting stuff done. Thanks, id!

Getting Down With My Bad Self

In an effort to a.) write more and b.) write more here, I'm participating in Get it Down, Trixie's write-every-day challenge for October. Not only is it an excuse to write every day*, it's also a way to celebrate Down's Syndrome Awareness Month (don't tell me you already had plans). Join us!

*I had a writing teacher in college who told me that 'not only.. but also...' constructions hardly ever work. But I love them so!

Ar ar ar ar ar ar

You know you're too busy when having the flu is the best thing ever. Tuesday our new housemate (did I mention we moved?) had it, and by last night both Brian and I were laid out on the couch, too weak do do anything but sip rootbeer and watch Season 3 of Buffy (luckily, new housemate, in addition to being plague-ridden, has an excellent collection of DVDs).

So yeah. Slept from 1 til five today. Had crazy dreams, where main street Brattleboro was at the end of Haight St., and I was getting fitted for an much too small pair of shoes (were they denimn? Ew). Woke up to a cat fight, and to Hope's dog at the foot of my bed, mouth full of toys, wanting to wrassle.

Oh, my writing muscles are rusty.

It's the little things

Nothing breaks up the monotony of xeroxing like little anecdotes like this one (gleaned from a text for a Theories of Psych class):

His father was a naval officer, and Martin's favorite form of plat was floating his toy boats in the bathtub and torpedoiung them. Both parents had become frustrated with Martin because he consistently expelled his feces in his pants and not in the toilet. In desperation, they offered him twenty-five cents for every bowel movement he made in the toilet. Martin soon caluclated that it was not in his best interst to become toilet trained, because to do so would mean that he would ultimately lose money. Instead he would use the toilet for three days to earn the money. But the only way to keep the money flowing was to lose control periodically, and this he would do at home or at the homes of friends. One day, Martin's best friend'smother instisted that, at her house, he use the toilet. There she overheard him muttering to himself about Napoleon's battles. When he came out of the bathroom he informed her, "I'm Napoleon and Napoleon shits wherever he pleases!"

I am so cross-stiching "Napoleon shits wherever he pleases" on a sampler to go above the cat's litter box.

1,928 Years Ago Today

We are, of course, going for drinks at Vesuvio tonight.

The 79 AD Eruption of Vesuvius
by Pliny the Younger (AD 61-113)

My dear Tacitus,

You ask me to write you something about the death of my uncle so that the account you transmit to posterity is as reliable as possible. I am grateful to you, for I see that his death will be remembered forever if you treat it. He perished in a devastation of the loveliest of lands, in a memorable disaster shared by peoples and cities, but this will be a kind of eternal life for him. Although he wrote a great number of enduring works himself, the imperishable nature of your writings will add a great deal to his survival. Happy are they, in my opinion, to whom it is given either to do something worth writing about, or to write something worth reading; most happy, of course, those who do both. With his own books and yours, my uncle will be counted among the latter. It is therefore with great pleasure that I take up, or rather take upon myself the task you have set me.

He was at Misenum in his capacity as commander of the fleet on the 24th of August, when between 2 and 3 in the afternoon my mother drew his attention to a cloud of unusual size and appearance. He had had a sunbath, then a cold bath, and was reclining after dinner with his books. He called for his shoes and climbed up to where he could get the best view of the phenomenon. The cloud was rising from a mountain-at such a distance we couldn't tell which, but afterwards learned that it was Vesuvius. I can best describe its shape by likening it to a pine tree. It rose into the sky on a very long "trunk" from which spread some "branches." I imagine it had been raised by a sudden blast, which then weakened, leaving the cloud unsupported so that its own weight caused it to spread sideways. Some of the cloud was white, in other parts there were dark patches of dirt and ash. The sight of it made the scientist in my uncle determined to see it from closer at hand.

He ordered a boat made ready. He offered me the opportunity of going along, but I preferred to study-he himself happened to have set me a writing exercise. As he was leaving the house he was brought a letter from Tascius' wife Rectina, who was terrified by the looming danger. Her villa lay at the foot of Vesuvius, and there was no way out except by boat. She begged him to get her away. He changed his plans. The expedition that started out as a quest for knowledge now called for courage. He launched the quadriremes and embarked himself, a source of aid for more people than just Rectina, for that delightful shore was a populous one. He hurried to a place from which others were fleeing, and held his course directly into danger. Was he afraid? It seems not, as he kept up a continuous observation of the various movements and shapes of that evil cloud, dictating what he saw.

Ash was falling onto the ships now, darker and denser the closer they went. Now it was bits of pumice, and rocks that were blackened and burned and shattered by the fire. Now the sea is shoal; debris from the mountain blocks the shore. He paused for a moment wondering whether to turn back as the helmsman urged him. "Fortune helps the brave," he said, "Head for Pomponianus."

At Stabiae, on the other side of the bay formed by the gradually curving shore, Pomponianus had loaded up his ships even before the danger arrived, though it was visible and indeed extremely close, once it intensified. He planned to put out as soon as the contrary wind let up. That very wind carried my uncle right in, and he embraced the frightened man and gave him comfort and courage. In order to lessen the other's fear by showing his own unconcern he asked to be taken to the baths. He bathed and dined, carefree or at least appearing so (which is equally impressive). Meanwhile, broad sheets of flame were lighting up many parts of Vesuvius; their light and brightness were the more vivid for the darkness of the night. To alleviate people's fears my uncle claimed that the flames came from the deserted homes of farmers who had left in a panic with the hearth fires still alight. Then he rested, and gave every indication of actually sleeping; people who passed by his door heard his snores, which were rather resonant since he was a heavy man. The ground outside his room rose so high with the mixture of ash and stones that if he had spent any more time there escape would have been impossible. He got up and came out, restoring himself to Pomponianus and the others who had been unable to sleep. They discussed what to do, whether to remain under cover or to try the open air. The buildings were being rocked by a series of strong tremors, and appeared to have come loose from their foundations and to be sliding this way and that. Outside, however, there was danger from the rocks that were coming down, light and fire-consumed as these bits of pumice were. Weighing the relative dangers they chose the outdoors; in my uncle's case it was a rational decision, others just chose the alternative that frightened them the least.

They tied pillows on top of their heads as protection against the shower of rock. It was daylight now elsewhere in the world, but there the darkness was darker and thicker than any night. But they had torches and other lights. They decided to go down to the shore, to see from close up if anything was possible by sea. But it remained as rough and uncooperative as before. Resting in the shade of a sail he drank once or twice from the cold water he had asked for. Then came an smell of sulfur, announcing the flames, and the flames themselves, sending others into flight but reviving him. Supported by two small slaves he stood up, and immediately collapsed. As I understand it, his breathing was obstructed by the dust-laden air, and his innards, which were never strong and often blocked or upset, simply shut down. When daylight came again 2 days after he died, his body was found untouched, unharmed, in the clothing that he had had on. He looked more asleep than dead.

Meanwhile at Misenum, my mother and I-but this has nothing to do with history, and you only asked for information about his death. I'll stop here then. But I will say one more thing, namely, that I have written out everything that I did at the time and heard while memories were still fresh. You will use the important bits, for it is one thing to write a letter, another to write history, one thing to write to a friend, another to write for the public.

Farewell.

Photobooth and I go to an all-day meeting

Dude, I need a haircut.

You'd be awake at 4 in the morning, too

If you had this song stuck in your head:

I look like a Hermione, but I identify as a Luna

The sorting hat says that I belong in Ravenclaw!

<

Said Ravenclaw, "We'll teach those whose intelligence is surest."

Ravenclaw students tend to be clever, witty, intelligent, and knowledgeable.
Notable residents include Cho Chang and Padma Patil (objects of Harry and Ron's affections), and Luna Lovegood (daughter of The Quibbler magazine's editor).

Take the most scientific Harry Potter
Quiz ever created.

Get Sorted Now!

Reviving Ophelia

Sometime around the fourth or fifth grade, my girl scout troop participated in a sleep over at the Museum of Science in Boston. It was a rowdy night, and my memories of the event are a haze of petrifide dinosaur poo, cutaway models of the reproductive system, and the view of the city skyline after dark.

One memory, however, stands out with crystal clarity: I am lying in my sleeping bag near the "Welcome to the Universe" exhibit, my feet too hot inside my pink Dr. Dentons, my perpetually clogged nostrils making intermittant whistling noises in the dark. It is after the offical lights out. I'm staring at a dimly lit model of the solar system, listening to whispers and giggles in the surrounding darkness. I can't remember what came before this moment, but I know that I have just done or said something incredibly stupid.

I make myself a promise: someday, I will be cool. I will wear a black leather jumpsuit with massive shoulderpads and I will have hair like Max Headroom. I will live in an apartment with high ceilings and concrete floors and a view of the city skyline, and I will never say anything stupid. And most importantly, I will invent a time travel machine. I will come back in time to this very moment, and I will tell myself what not to say, and what not to do, and I will never, ever, have to be embarrased by what a dork I used to be. Because I will have always been cool. This will never have happened.

The Nora of 2007, however, has much more in common with the post-nasal dripping, feety pajama wearing Nora of 1987 than she does with the plastic haired saviour of the future. So, in aid to any future time travellers (I'm not giving up on that leather jumpsuit yet!), I have compiled the following list in order to aid in distinuishing the 10-year-old and thirty-year-old me.

Then:
Mom nags me to clean my room.

Now:
Mom nags me to update my blog.


Then:
I have a disconcerting habit of humming to myself, and live at least half the time in an elaborate fantasy world.

Now:
Hm.


Then:
I am tall for my age, with unkempt hair and a goofy grin I have trouble controlling.

Now:
I'm um, taller?


Then:
My career ambitions vaccillate between artist, advocate for the disenfranchised (mostly kittens), and mad scientist inventor.

Now:
I'm pretty sure I don't have the right degree to become a mad scientist inventor. I had this really great idea the other day for fried beer on a stick, though (you could deep fry beer ice cream! Then put it on a stick! Don't steal this idea!).


Then:
I have trouble finishing things, to the constant frustration of my parents, my teachers, and myself.

Now:

You Are The Fool

You are a fascinating person who is way beyond the concerns of this world. Young at heart, you are blissfully unaware of any dangers ahead. You are a true wanderer - it has be difficult finding your place in this world. Full of confidence, you are likely to take a leap of faith. Your fortune: You are about to embark on a new phase in your life. This may mean changing locations, jobs, friends, or love status. You are open about what the future will bring, and free of worry. You have made your peace with fate, and you're ready to start down your new path.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Another poem

The White Fires of Venus
by Denis Johnson

We mourn this senseless planet of regret,
droughts, rust, rain, cadavers
that can't tell us, but I promise
you one day the white fires
of Venus shall rage: the dead,
feeling that power, shall be lifted, and each
of us will have his resurrected one to tell him,
"Greetings. You will recover
or die. The simple cure
for everything is to destroy
all the stethosscopes that will transmit
silence occasionally. The remedy for loneliness
is in learning to admit
solitude as one admits
the bayonet: gracefully,
now that already
it pierces the heart.
Living one: you move among many
dancers and don't know which
you are the shadow of;
you want to kiss your own face in the mirror
but do not approach,
knowing you must not touch one
like that. Living
one, while Venus flares
O set the cereal afire,
O the refrigerator harboring things
that live on into death unchanged."

They know all about us on Andromeda,
they peek at us, they see us
in this world illumined and pasteled
phonily like a bus station,
they are with us when the streets fall down fraught
with laundromats and each of us
closes himself in his small
San Francisco without recourse.
They see you with your face of fingerprints
carrying your instructions in gloved hands
trying to touch things, and know you
for one despairing, trying to touch the curtains,
trying to get your reflection mired in alarm tape
past the window of this then that dark
closed business establishment.
The Andromedans hear your voice like distant amusement park music
converged on by ambulance sirens
and they understand everything.
They're on your side. They forgive you.

I want to turn for a moment to those my heart loves,
who are as diamonds to the Andromedans,
who shimmer for them, lovely and useless, like diamonds:
namely, those who take their meals at soda fountains,
their expressions lodged among the drugs
and sunglasses, each gazing down too long
into the coffee as though from a ruined balcony.
O Andromedans they don't know what to do
with themselves and so they sit there
until they go home where they lie down
until they get up, and you beyond the light years know
that if sleeping is dying, then waking
is birth, and a life
is many lives. I love them because they know how
to manipulate change
in the pockets musically, these whose faces the seasons
never give a kiss, these
who are always courteous to the faces
of presumptions, the presuming streets,
the hotels, the presumption of rain in the streets.
I'm telling you it's cold inside the body that is not the body,
lonesome behind the face
that is certainly not the face
of the person one meant to become.

Quiet

I'm having trouble sitting still. There are -- let me count them -- seven windows open in my browser right now, one unfinished email waiting (five if you count the ones I'm intending to write, but havent started), and (if we might go outside my computer screen for a moment) two open books and a magazine perched on the armrest next to me. I can't concentrate on any of them, but I can't put any of them away, either. I'm just too restless, too unsettled, and I can't let them go.

So, here's a poem to quiet me down:



In the Garden, by Anne Pierson Wiese


On the edge of the pond a great white
egret catches catches five-inch fish, it's trick neck
now a bone-china handle just thick
enough to curve without cracking -- sleight

of spine and cup -- now a javelin in flight
traveling with frugal grace: quickness
made slow by the instinct that missing
what's aimed for's what comes of haste, or eyes

too big for your stomach. Among the weeds' dead
shoots giant carp feed--a tea party of stiff-
tongued brutes sipping algaed shadows, exempt
by size from a predator whose slight kisses
yield up what's small enough to swallow instead
of choking alone on a single wish.

It's too darn hot

Summer days, in their full bloom of sticky hotness, are rarely seen in San Francisco. This week, however, we've had an embarrasment of riches -- a string of miserable, moist, still-hot-in-the shade days. Of course, according to my google weather bar, it's only 77 degrees, with 35% humidity. But we're San Franciscans! Don't you understand we're not made for this sort of punishment!?

My office has no windows, and only one door. The uninsulated ceiling is only inches from the hot tar roof above. I've ben here two hours, and I may have already bonded with my office chair at a molecular level. Send lemonade, Stat!