Conversations with students

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Me: What does it mean for the researcher to be a tool of data collection? This is a bit of a philosophy of science kind of question. M., my philosophy major, what do you think?

M: [with a stoned, sleepy expression]………Um…..could you, like, repeat the question?

Me: What do you think it means for the researcher to be a tool of data collection?

M: [long period of silence followed by several snickers from other students] Wow. Like, duuuude.

Me: Is that really all you've got for me?

M: [closes eyes and nods solemnly in affirmation]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[S. comes up to me prior to the beginning of class and apologizes for missing the previous class. He hands me the paper that was due along with a doctor's excuse.]

Me: Thanks. Are you feeling better?

S: Huh?

Me: How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

S: Well…I still have diarrhea really bad. So if I have to jump up in the middle of class and run to the bathroom it's because I'm about to explode.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

[T. shows up to take the exam an hour after everyone else, when most of the other students have already finished and handed theirs in.]

Me: What's the deal? Why are you so late?

T: Oh, I couldn't go to sleep last night, so I took, like, a bunch of sleeping pills at 5am this morning.

Me: And that seemed like a good idea knowing you had to take an exam at 9am?

T: Yes.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Me: [as E. is handing in her exam] How'd it go?

E: Oh…okay, I guess.

Me: Just okay? What did you have trouble with?

E: [hesitates] Well, I'm kind of embarrassed to say this, but it's true. None of my other classes test me on whether I understand something I read. You know how you would ask us questions about the main ideas and arguments in each of the articles? And whether the author would agree or disagree with a certain statement? Well, I just never have to do that. I mean, it's bad, I know. It's disturbing. All my other tests are just about recognition. I don't really have to understand anything.

"Home...is where I want to be. Pick me up and turn me 'round..."

She lifted up her wings
I guess that this must be the place...

In the last couple of days I've been feeling so homesick I can hardly think straight. And by "home" I'm being very broad. Part of me is longing for Richmond, VA, specifically, and most of me is just longing for the east coast, in general. Mostly I'm longing for seasons. I am craving fall.

I'm trying to put my finger on the source of these feelings. I suppose a lot of it has to do with finishing up what I originally came out here for, and for awhile I assumed I would return east immediately. As I've applied for four jobs in San Francisco in the last two days, it's becoming clear (by default if nothing else) that I am making some kind of commitment to staying here at least a little longer. I'm having a little bit of a hard time with that at this particular moment.

It's not like I have anywhere to be. It's not like I'm tied to anyone or anything and my decision would have no impact on anyone but myself.

Yeah. It's not like that at all. [sigh]

One of the organizations I applied to work for has locations in both San Francisco and Boston. I confess to thinking, Oh! A way out... Will I always be this way?

Transitions

It has been a strange day. To begin with, I slept from approximately 2am - 4:15am, so I've feeling really tired and unfocused all day.

I sat in my empty classroom this morning at 8am before my students arrived, grading the last of their papers and trying to summon the energy to get through teaching a four hour class. One of my former students, Aurora, stopped in as a surprise to say hello and brought me a cup of coffee as a gift. It was so incredibly thoughtful, and really made my morning. That extra dose of caffeine helped wake my butt up, too.

This afternoon, I finished up the last postdoctoral seminar I will ever have. Somehow--since there are still a few days left in June--I thought it wasn't until next week. But today when I arrived there was a cake and a "graduation" certificate and goodbyes and hugs and well wishes. I felt really disoriented and strange, holding the turkey sandwich I'd just bought for lunch and accepting hugs and congratulations. There was a meeting afterwards about turning in my security badge and keys and telephone passwords and filling out termination papers.

Now I am the last one left at work. The office and the cubicles around me are quiet except for my typing on the keyboard. I guess this is what the end of this looks like. It ended not with a bang but a...oh, nevermind that.

I contacted my old graduate school mentor to confirm that I could use her as a reference as I'm applying for jobs. She was sad to hear that, at this time, at least, I am only applying for jobs in the Bay Area. She held out hope that I would be heading immediately back to Richmond, where I could always find a job with her. It is strange to know that if I wanted to, I could start driving to the east coast tonight and probably have an apartment (and be in talks about said job) by Monday or Tuesday. It is strange. I feel strange. And clunky. And unsure of myself at this moment.

Temporary fixes

alternative title to this blog: I did it all for the nookie.

I'm heading to Cali for awhile. Would you like to have sex?

This is a paraphrased version of a message I just got from some random guy. He doesn't even specify that he's coming to San Francisco, so for all I know he's on his way to Rancho Cucamonga (the best name ever) or Hollister. I briefly thought about sending a message back saying essentially:

"Sure, on the following conditions: You're crazy-smart, witty, sarcastic, and genuinely kind. You also have to have impeccable taste in music. If you share MY taste in music it's a huge bonus. You must be a good kisser and have excellent dental hygiene. You must like to read and drink and wander (in every sense of the word). You must have at least one thing you're passionate about--be it worms or trains or nuclear fusion or Pluto's status as a planet (or lack thereof). You must be observant and able to appreciate subtleties in humor and meaning and emotion and expression. You must promise to never drink the milk out of your cereal bowl in my presence. You must be interested in people in all their shades of black, white, and gray. You must not be dogmatic or close-minded or spiteful or mean-spirited. You must love culture and travel and food and adventure and spontaneity and learning for learning's sake. You must not spit on the sidewalk or scratch your crotch in public. You must wear deodorant. You must be willing to let me burst into song when it becomes necessary (and it frequently does) and you must not be freaked out by my ability to experience every emotion known to mankind. And then some. Within a twenty minute period. You must be loving and warm and have emotional depth. You must never wear trucker hats or visors turned in some wonky way on your head. If you meet these conditions and you're disease free then, sure, come to "Cali" and let's have sex."

I briefly thought about it. And then I thought, "Fuck it. I'm busy."

For a little while

(Thanks to Matt for sending me this.)

Like a horse and carriage

It's a rather exciting time to be in San Francisco. Last Monday was the day gay marriage became legal, and there have been so many beautiful and moving love stories taking place. My favorite story is of Del Martin and Phyllis Lyon, who were the first couple to be married after being together for nearly 56 years.



And my lovely friend Sooze brought this particular story to my attention via her blog:

Rich and David Speakman were the first couple to be married in Santa Clara county, and they used Bush's economic stimulus check to pay for their wedding.

David Speakman said, "It paid for everything so we should probably send him a thank you note."

I just ain't fancy.

This is totally random and quick before I run out the door, but I thought it was funny and wanted to share. So I got my haircut recently--what I was calling my "big girl haircut"--and I really liked it. The thing that always makes me nervous, though, is that I'm not good at styling it the way the hairdresser styles it--with all the products and hair dryers and round brushes and flat irons. It looks nice when they do it--don't get me wrong. I just can't reproduce it.

This time Marissa, my stylist, promised that this would be a style that I could do myself and, even if I chose not to, it would still like good. She took me through and gave me tips every step of the way, and I asked lots of questions. I'm on my way out right now, and I just gave it a shot. I have managed to create some kind of strange hair fortress that probably can be seen from space and has spy satellites all over the world linking up to keep a suspicious eye on it. My hair could seriously bust through brick walls!

Sometimes I want to be a girlier girl--the kind of girl whose mascara and eyeliner doesn't run down her face and make her look like a line-backer--but I'm just not. When I do all the hair and make-up to go out, I just end up looking like a homeless hooker by the end of the night. It's quite humbling. It's easier just to leave the house with wet hair and a bare face.

Multifaceted (dos)

Memories of summer

It has been hot in San Francisco the last couple of days. We get a day like this a couple times a year, but a few in a row is pretty rare. Pulling my hair up and feeling damp and sticky brings about a strong sense of déjà vu for me.

The coolness of last night was welcome, and I trotted down to the store to buy chilled white wine and champagne. Nannette and Scott were on their way, and I ran into Jenny and Bob at the store. I felt slightly electric and filled with possibility, like I used to feel when there was a thunderstorm in the distance that was quickly approaching. We sat and sipped and talked and laughed under the stars in the cool darkness of my backyard until 2:30 am.

It made me remember Richmond, VA in the summer, and all the parties that people had on their balconies. People would sing and call out to whomever was strolling on the sidewalk below, inviting them up for a drink. One hot night I was taking a walk and a group of frat guys was singing drunkenly off of a balcony on Monument Ave.:

“And I’ll hang around as long as you will let me…
And I never minded standing in the rain…”

I paused on the sidewalk and joined in:

“You don’t have to call me ‘darlin’ darlin…
You never even called me by my name.”

Afterwards one of them held up a beer and cried, “Hey! Come on up!” I smiled and waved and kept walking, cheered by this brief exchange.

Feverish plans

On those summer nights, Dave and Judith and I would sit out on one of our balconies and talk about future plans. Things we wanted, things we feared, things we were striving for. In a similar fashion, last night I told Nannette and Scott: “I seriously need to travel. I can’t stop thinking about it. And we have to go to Spain.”

So we started laying the foundation for a 11 to 14 day trip that would take us to Barcelona, Madrid, Lisbon, Marrakesh, and Casablanca. I told them I couldn’t afford it right now, but that once I got a job saving for this trip was a high priority. We agreed to shoot for going in 6ish months.

I love the idea of this, because the three of us know each other REALLY well, travel well together, and can make each other laugh in almost any situation. We’d have a blast. And we could all use something to look forward to.

A bit of writing

Although writing has gotten a little too comfortable for me to rely on as a means of expressing myself—I want to break out of this comfort zone more—I wrote something yesterday that made me happy. I still kind of feel like it’s a work in progress.

Partial confessions

1. I have no idea where the tapes are now. I don’t think they even have cases or labels. Just innocuous black plastic rectangles waiting to be discovered.
2. I kept them catalogued in a special, private folder on my computer.
3. Freaked out by the possibility that, if there is indeed life after death, the dead can now see all. What if they see…?
4. The lie I told my friends in fourth grade to make it seem like I had a whole other life from the one I actually had.
5. I was irresistibly curious. I couldn’t help it. I had to try.
6. I pretended not to know the surprise, but I knew. I guessed long before. But I didn’t have the heart to ruin it.
7. The pillow I held and pretended was holding me back.
8. A drop that I had somehow missed turned to crust and, when I found it later, I gagged.
9. Sometimes I imagine talking to my childhood self.
10. Sometimes I imagine my elderly self talking to the young woman I am now.
11. I wanted to be tucked in more than anything.
12. I hid it flat on the window sill, and it was completely covered by the window when I shut it.
13. The metallic taste of absolute terror in my mouth.
14. The password I always used for such things was, ‘skin.’
15. When I was 13 I told my little brother he was going to hell for it.
16. She ran over my cat and didn’t take the time to stop and do anything about it. She called me later and told me to go out in the rain and pick up her dead body out of the driveway.
17. I tried to talk myself into it a thousand different ways.
18. During times like that I would sing to myself so I would feel less afraid.
19. When I pass others’ windows at night, I crane my head to see inside.
20. I told her I wished on that star, but I didn’t. I was tired of wishing for the same goddamn thing all the time so I just stopped.
21. It made me smile under water.
22. I wrote it all down in a flurry of anger with the intent of tearing it up and throwing it away. But, truthfully, I fell in love with the fury that poured out of my pen and didn’t have the heart to get rid of it. I swore to myself I’d keep it hidden forever. But I’m pretty sure someone else got their hands on it.
23. It’s much less exhausting just to tell the truth.
24. I would climb on top of the dresser, shut the closet door behind me, and pretend I was flying far, far away.
25. I hid all that cauliflower in a knothole underneath the cabinets.
26. Being ignored hurts worse than anything.
27. It made me feel alive.
28. He crawled under my teenage bed, naked except for the stuffed frog he clutched against him. I couldn’t stop laughing.
29. There was no burglar. I was sneaking out.
30. I drained the last drops out of the wine glass and smoked the cigarette stubs and pretended I was an adult.
31. I hid it under the mattress.
32. I felt shy and couldn’t stop looking down.
33. There’s so much I haven’t said yet.
34. Things you probably wouldn’t even want to know.

Dipping a toe in the water

At this moment, I am filled with a wild, pent-up creative urge. (Of course I am. I'm trying to write some cover letters for job applications when, let's face it: I'd rather be doing anything else in the world. Need your gutters cleaned out? I'm your woman. Haven't balanced your checkbook in years? I'll get right to it. Need help applying hemorrhoid cream? Sure!)

Perhaps I took that a little too far.

At any rate, I'm looking around at various things I've started and wondering if they should be picked up at this moment. I had a little box I was making. I had a song I was writing. I haven't made a greeting card for awhile. Do I feel enough inspiration to take a stab at a second poem?

I want to sing, I want to make music, I want to paint with my fingers and toes, I want to record myself talking and experimenting with noises, I want to try to make a souffle, I want to take pictures of people's facial expressions when they don't know anyone's watching, I want to make collages of found objects, I want to speak only through drawings and pantomime...

Oh...

I did a step in the right direction. I have a friend who's organizing a little "show" at a local coffee shop and asked for submissions of various pieces of writing--the only requirement was that it had to fit on one page. I submitted four things. It's just a little tiny event in my neighborhood but it's a step toward making something I created public and it feels weird.

Remember that guy that invited me to submit to his book on stories about mothers and daughters? Well, I looked into it further. He wants stories of inspiration and triumph and strength in mother/daughter relationships. *Gag, cough* No thanks. If I want to blow sunshine out my ass I'll find another way to do it.

Purple Bottle

Sometimes there are things that make you believe--that make you not want to give up.

It’s alarmingly easy to end up cynical and jaded and pessimistic—especially when it comes to the mushy stuff. If you have not yet had the personal experience of meeting someone who—at the very thought of them—you melted a little and got weak in the knees...well, there’s no way around it. This will be hard for you to understand.

But I’m a sucker for love. It’s ridiculous, really. I’m starry-eyed over love.

I reach a point where I’m personally fed up with the whole business. Love can occasionally wear steel-toed boots and unceremoniously kick you in the teeth. Then things like this happen that ignite the flame of hope in you again.

Seriously, I’ll shut the fuck up now and get to the point.

Short version: A close friend of mine met someone online. They wrote to each other for several months. Last night they met in person for the first time. It was intense and amazing and they were very happy. If you see a sudden shadowy shape appear across the sun, it is most likely them floating above the world in their bliss, smiling down benevolently at the rest of us poor beasts trying to get by.

Today he attempted to articulate through typed words how he felt. With his permission, I’m sharing a portion of it that I found especially beautiful with you, gentle reader:

(Let me again apologize for being so full of shit. Really. But c’mon…I got jerked off on by a random stranger on MUNI in the midst of all this love in the air. I’m feeling a bit off kilter!)

My fingers miss her fingers. Mmmmm, my fingers no longer understand why they do anything else. They are Elena*-hand-holding machines….

He describes them sitting side by side listening to a lecture together during which she grabbed his hand, intertwined hers with his, and lay both of them on her thigh.

There our hands stayed for the rest of the talk, our fingers occasionally sliding slowly against each other, feeling the friction and newness and sense of exploration, back and forth. Our thumbs quickly became great friends. They like to slide and swirl and stroke; a little like a thumb wrestling match but with total tenderness replacing the aggression. Oh god! I miss her thumb right now!...

Oh my god, Amie. Oh my god….

I'm feeling DEEPLY vulnerable right now. A fucking feather could kill me right now. I am hers. I am had. That's all there is to it….I feel like I could fucking conquer nations if, ya know, I had any interest in that sort of foolishness.

Wow. If you don’t find that absolutely heart-warming and delicious and fantastic--well, then you are made of stone and you and I would not get along.

[*name changed to protect privacy]

It's easy to forget how easy it is...

...to talk to my best friend.

I spent the day in the Mission District, the Latino neighborhood and also the sunniest and warmest part of the city, and she called while I was walking around. I gave up my plans to go to Dolores Park and grade papers. I pretty much stopped what I was doing and parked myself with an iced latte at a sidewalk table of a nearby coffee shop and we talked for a couple of hours.

For a variety of reasons, we hadn't talked (with the exception of a few quick and fairly vague emails) since sometime in November. I spilled my guts completely. It was only later that I looked around at the other patrons sprawled out enjoying the sunshine at nearby tables before I realized I was revealing the most intimate details of my life on the corner of 17th and Guerrero. But I needed that conversation. It felt like a long drink of water.

Squirt

I had a MUNI incident yesterday on the M train. This one's not that funny. It's downright...nasty.

I was traveling from San Francisco State University to CAPS downtown at about 1:30 in the afternoon. The train wasn't very crowded at all. I had piles of stuff with me--laptop, shoulder bag, lunch, etc. I sat in one of the seats facing forward by the door, and my attention was mostly engrossed by responding to text messages. My hand, my poor left hand, was holding onto the metal bar in front of me while I futzed around.

At one of the underground stations a man got on and stood directly in front of me. He had created this sort of pulley system for garbage bags and had them hanging around his neck--one large one on each side. He had a long trench coat on, and as he stood in front of me I noticed him fiddling around underneath his coat and behind his garbage bags. I briefly wondered why he was standing so close, but quickly went back to what I was doing.

A couple moments later I felt the results of what he'd done on my left hand. When he, um, got me I looked up thinking at first that something warm had just been spilled on me. It turns out it had, except that it was this man's seed. I made a weird, gagging sound and jerked (Brief aside: I can't help it--I the words I choose seem to be double-edged.) my hand away. He quickly zipped up his pants under his garbage bag and hopped off the train at the next stop.

No one else seemed to notice what had happened with the exception of the fact like I was now gazing at my left hand like it was my arch nemesis and frantically searching for a tissue in my bag.

I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed. I still feel dirty.

Other than that I had a really good (long) day yesterday. My students were a great deal of fun.

Never-ending math equation

There's lots going on today. In my head (where shit's always going down) and otherwise. A couple things are just things I've been thinking about.

To begin with, I'm getting ready for class tomorrow. Since we only met a few few minutes last Tuesday and canceled class on Thursday, we're hitting it full force tomorrow. It's been awhile since I've had a four hour class and a stack of papers to grade.

I had a student email me today freaking out because she didn't know how to get TWO FULL PAGES out for the paper they have due tomorrow. She said she'd done everything I asked, but just didn't have anything else to say and would I please look at it for her? So I took a look, and told her she'd missed half of the assignment all together. She said, "Oh! Well, I wrote the paper before I read the instructions you gave on the syllabus..."

Sweet Jesus.

As for my thoughts, I've started to get a serious glimmer in the back of my mind about moving.

If you've read even a tiny bit of my writing before, you already know a lot about me in this respect: I've never really felt like I was where I belonged and I'm always restless. I've always been this way.

I'm the same as I was when I was six years old...

When I was planning to move to Spain I was excited for so many reasons--not the least of which was fulfilling a life-long dream--but also because I felt like I'd come back with a whole new perspective on "home." Since then I've felt pretty stuck, partly because I haven't been able to think of anything that captivated me as much. But I've always wanted to live in New England, and I think I'd really like living in Boston. I'm not saying I'm leaving right now or anything. I'm just starting to think a little more seriously about it.

Maybe I'm crazy. I know that I'm crazy. Maybe I'm shooting myself in the foot by moving before I have the chance to feel really rooted to a place. But I'm looking, looking. I hope I know when I find it.

Where do you move when what you're moving from is yourself?

Also, I think I'm scrapping the whole dating thing. I don't think I have what it takes, and I don't think I can bear to be so disappointed again. After my most recent experiences--when I felt so incredibly good about the whole thing and so surprisingly optimistic--well, I just don't trust my instincts in this area. It makes me sad to say that, because I feel like I have much to give from this part of myself, but...well, anyway.

...Well, I know what I have and want but I don't know what I need...

"She's been singing that song on a loop for three days."

You know by now it’s half past late, and I only came here for escape. You, you’re just my next mistake--like me to you...And I hate to speak so free, but you mean not much to me...I guess by the dim light in your eyes and that to you all things come as a surprise, I should set the steel trap of your thighs and dive right in...

Mi abuelo

I was having a leisurely morning and making raspberry pancakes when I took a peek at my phone. I had missed a text message from my mother. She said my grandpa had fallen and hit his head and had to get 16 staples. I was immediately annoyed with her for giving me the news in such a way, but I hurried up and called my grandpa.

He'd recently made the decision that he was going to have to quit the part time job that he really enjoyed because he couldn't keep up anymore--it was wearing him out too much. His health has been declining, in general. I feel guilty that I haven't been home in almost exactly 15 months--the longest I've ever gone without visiting Bridgeport. I also felt guilty because I had gotten upset with him recently. Nothing dramatic; I just told him that my feelings were hurt that he'd never called me when I was in the hospital.

Anyway, he's at home resting and doing okay. He had fallen on the cement steps in front of his house, and he was really embarrassed about it. "Just an awkward old man," he mutter disgustedly. A boy that I used to play with when I was little now owns the house across the street and had seen him fall and called the ambulance ("the emergency car" as my family always referred to it). I am worried about him.

I called my mom after he and I hung up the phone and all she wanted to talk about was how she was at the bar getting ready to watch the Nascar race and wanting to know what I had done last night. When I mentioned my papaw (no comments, please) all she said was, "I told him he needed to put a railing on those steps just yesterday morning. Did I have ESP, or what?"

Funny conversation #9

[After not getting to talk for a few days]

KWT: I'm so glad to hear you're feeling better! What else is going on? Anything new?

AMA: I'm having an existential crisis.

KWT: AGAIN!???


My Mama she took me aside one day
She said you better have fun while you play
'Cause someday you'll wake up and you'll be old
And all of your youth will be gone away

And you'll work in a factory and you'll earn your pay
And your fingers will rot and your mind will decay
You'll be happy, so happy with your family and house
But you'll never, you'll never enjoy yourself

Joy without pleasure
Ain't no fun, ain't no fun at all.

Half hours on Earth: what are they worth? (I don't know.)

Dream 1. I was with my aunt, with whom I'm very close, and we were visiting and catching up. I was showing her pictures of people I had loved. They were pictures of people from various stages of my life, and I loved and missed them all. I was feeling terribly sad and trying to hold back my tears as I leafed through the pictures. I was also showing her a tattoo I'd gotten across my back. It was a picture of my face when I was old, and there were tears running down my cheeks in the tattoo, as well.

After seeing these things, she shook her head and said, "I can't understand why everyone always wants to live in the past. You act like you're the only one who's ever had your heart broken, like you're the only one who ever felt alone and afraid. All you want to do is look backwards at the things that could have been, the things that didn't work out. You act like there's nothing to look forward to in the future. I just don't understand it."

Dream 2. I was on a boat--probably more like a yacht--and, for whatever reason, we were stuck in the middle of the ocean. We knew we weren't going to be rescued. At the time we had plenty of food and supplies and we could have stretched them out for a very long time. But a large group of people on the boat had gotten together and decided to go out with a bang. Instead of rationing food and water and medicine carefully, they wanted to have an enormous party. They wanted music and dancing and drinking and food as long as they held out and to hell with what happened after they were gone.

I didn't like this idea at all. I kept thinking, I'm going to die quickly with a bunch of idiots because they want to have one last party before they kick the bucket!

For some reason, all I had with me was a container of antibacterial cleaning cloths. While everyone else got drunk and laughed while the could, I ran around frantically trying to clean up every sticky spill that I could find. Within a couple of hours I was completely out of them, and then I didn't know what to do with myself. An older lady on the boat said, "You obviously weren't able to clean up after everyone, so why did you try? You have no control over this. Might as well enjoy the party."

Pure sweetness

I get into periods where I can't help but wonder if there isn't more. As in: Is this it? Is this all there is? I go into existential crisis mode: What the hell are we doing here? Do we just grow up, go to work, get old, and die?

I get into periods where I recognize and appreciate the ups and wouldn't trade them for the world, but I can't help but wonder if they really, truly are enough to justify the downs. Are we to always scramble to capture what joy we can, while we can? And will it always be this pattern? Up, down, and on and on and on and on until...

You get the idea. I suppose this has crossed everyone's mind at least once or twice.

Today I got two things that touched me deeply. The first was a postcard from my friend Lynn with this afternoon's mail:





The second came as a little brown box sitting outside my door when I got home this evening. It requires a brief bit of explanation.

A couple days ago when I was so sick, I thought of how nice it would be to have a chocolate chip cookie. At least in theory. I knew I could get one if I really wanted one, but I would never be able to consume it. But it sounded lovely to feel well enough to feel like eating a chocolate chip cookie. Rather randomly, I made my Facebook status update say, "Amie wonders if you have any cookies to share." This evening I got a little brown box of chocolate chip cookies in response to that wish from my dear friend, former fellow graduate student, and adopted older brother, Brian. He sent them from Philadelphia.



They are delicious, and they made me feel indescribably good.

And tonight I am wondering if I found the closest answer I'm ever going to get. I'll have other existential crises, and this particular one's not completely over, but I can't think of a better answer that I'll ever find. It's cliched and trite and sappy, but maybe the best we can do is grab onto those we love and who make us happy and, in one way or another, keep them close and weather out the bad spells until the good ones come around again.

Funny conversation #8 and a serious conversation

[walking out of a taqueria in Half Moon Bay]

A: Did you hear those teenage boys talking in the booth behind you? One of them said, "Hella sick." Good God.

S: Maybe they were talking about you. Like, "That bitch is hella sick."

A: Then they should have been using past tense: was hella sick.

S: [is amusing himself and continues] "That bitch was hella sick in her fallopian tube..."

A: Don't joke about my tubes. Just be glad your tubes are healthy.

S: I don't have any tubes!

A: What?! Yes, you do! How do you think your sperm gets around? In little boats?

S: They travel in viking ships with a big horn going, "AaaaHOOOOOOO!"

* * * * * * * * * *

[after a prolonged period of being silent while sitting back and listening to music]

A: [thinking he'll think it's a crazy question] Do you ever wish you were stupider?

S: [without hesitation] All the time. It would make plodding along, swallowing everything, and being content much easier.

A: Exactly.

Loneliness

Someone once asked me if I thought that all the loneliness people felt canceled each others' out, or if it built up and accumulated into one large, aggregated loneliness.

I think it accumulates.

There's a hole in mommy's arm where all the money goes...

It appears I have more to say today.

Unintentionally, this is the second blog in a row directly or indirectly about drugs. This one is actually a confession.

I have been thinking about Fentanyl for days. My God, it was fantastic. I had it twice in the emergency room; a nurse who was also a medic on a helicopter gave it to me. I remember he kind of acted like a badass, but at that moment I was not in the position to even be annoyed by him. He warned me that I would like it. He also warned me that they wouldn't give this to me on the regular hospital floor--because it is such a strong drug it required the recipient to be under the kind of supervision usually only available in the intensive care unit or in the emergency room.

There was nothing quite like the feeling I felt when he injected it into my arm. It was this sort of rush and warmth immediately throughout my body. I didn't care about anything else. I don't remember that nurse's name, but I remember him coming back into my room after injecting me and me telling him I thought I loved him.

I knew I would love drugs and I knew I would want more of them! That's why I never did them. I knew I could be like Sam Stone! I also find that I have a whole new appreciation for what how dependent on their boyfriends (as their providers and injectors) women who use intravenous drugs can get.

I find it terrifying that I'm still longing for this drug.

Putting too much faith in the Zophran

Because I’m not about to write another whiny blog here or elsewhere about how I feel, I’ve decided to give you, instead, bits of a few of my drug-induced dreams from the last couple of nights.

1. I was riding naked with three other people in a bobsled-type of vehicle through a bowling alley/arcade where a group of trannies was having a fundraiser. There were several bobsled teams, but we weren’t racing. Somehow our activities were part of the fundraiser, although it’s unclear to me how me riding in a bobsled naked could ever attract any kind of monetary donation. Unless it were for me to NOT appear in the event any longer.

2. I was a chaperone on a kids’ school trip, and we were eating lunch in a school cafeteria. Another chaperone and I were at the end of the cafeteria line waiting for our trays filled with sliced ham, mashed potatoes, a hot roll, green beans, and a little carton of milk. When we got up to the front of the line, I was amazed to find that the school cooks were the same ones that had been at my own elementary school, throughout my tenure there: Daisy, Helen, and Helen. They quit serving food just as I had gotten to the front of the line. I was both amazed to see them and disappointed at not being allowed to eat, and I said, “Don’t you remember me!?” Daisy leaned against a stainless steel sink and picked her teeth with her pinky fingernail and drawled, “Thinking you deserve special favors is not going to get you this ham dinner any faster.”

3. I was stealing unopened Christmas presents from my friends. I remember thinking meanly, “I don’t care if they’re my friends and I don’t care who these presents are for and I don’t even care what’s inside them. I want them.” Weirdly, I was storing them in a public restroom that was at a rest-stop along an interstate. I hovered outside the restroom, making sure none of the people stopping there left carrying any of my ill-gotten gifts. Every time someone would go inside to use the bathroom, I would run in after them and watch them suspiciously until they left again. And then I went back to my basement and continued stitching together the skins I had collected for the human suit I was making.

I made that last line up.

I actually had a couple of others, but I feel like I shouldn’t share them. They’re kind of weird.

Warning: Complete Grumpiness Below

I feel like shit ass I got beaten the shit out of fuck.

I'm sorry, but I'm laying it all out here. Don't read if you don't want to know the gory details. Seriously.

First of all, I have a new hobby: pooping. Oh, my God. I'm so tired of being in the bathroom. There is a reason for this. I was on massive amounts of intravenous morphine for almost a full week, and a major side effect of this is constipation. I'm not talking about some mild, "Wow, this mundane activity is slightly more challenging than it used to be." I mean everything shut the fuck down completely. In the hospital they filled me with "stool softeners" and laxatives and even those little missile-shaped suppositories that make your bum feel all waxy and melty and...weird. But my body refused to budge.

When Jenny and Nannette brought me home they supplied me with this organic Smooth Move tea that tastes like [squinches up face] black licorice and instructions to drink a cup a day for a week. This stuff is the, ahem, shit. So to speak. It totally works. I think I have uncovered some kind of archaeological poo time capsule. I think there are strata deposited during the Nixon administration down there, and I wasn't even born yet.

What makes it all worse is that it happens when I don't even feel much like sitting up, letting alone anything else. So I lay my head on the sink in the most pathetic and tragic way possible, feeling sorry for myself and wondering how my life ended up in the shitter. (Alright, alright.)

The second thing that I'm crabby about is that my body is like one giant bruise. My belly is full of bruises (not to mention the incisions) from surgery. My arms, hands, and wrists are filled with bruises and scabs from both successful and unsuccessful IV attempts. (And the unsuccessful ones were sooooo much worse.) It just hurts all over, and it's a sad day when pulling a soft, fluffy pillow against you causes you to grunt in pain.

The third thing I will bitch about (I'm nearing the end, I promise) is that every food item that is not Cream of Wheat or saltine crackers makes me positively ill. Turns my stomach. Makes me nauseous. And then makes me have nightmares about whatever food it was I tried to eat (soup, peanut butter, yogurt). Bleck. I find myself having thoughts of, "Well, at least I'll lose a few more pounds." And then I'm furious with myself for thinking such a thing. Not for thinking about losing a few pounds, but at trying to make it a positive thing out of being SICK for God's sake! For being so susceptible to societal and personal pressures about this issue that I would think such a thought at this time. I get pissed and absolutely indignant! Then I feel worn out and lay down and take a nap.

Fuck this shit.

The good news is that I'm not actually lacking anything. I have all that I need: medicine, clean clothes, soft bed, crackers and Cream of Wheat, foolish parrots who are glad to be with me, toilet, toilet paper. (I guess some comforting hugs and hair strokes would be nice. But those are not in my future anymore.) I'm just grumpy and cranky needed to complain a bit.

I hope you aren't sorry you read this far. (And if you are: fuck off!) I'm just kidding. Mostly.

P.S. The class I'm teaching starts tomorrow. Dear God, help me.

It is a strange feeling this...

…this being completely in the care of other people.

I have been in the hospital for the past week, and what a week it has been. I’m not really sure where to start. I have so many people to say thank you to—both strangers and friends—and this seems like the most ridiculous mechanism through which to do it.

I started by taking myself in a cab to the emergency room on Saturday, and I would end up spending two days in the emergency room before being transferred to UCSF Mt. Zion and staying until today. I was sicker than I realized, and I am happy to say that I am now home and recovering.

To begin with, I have a whole new respect for the nursing profession, as so many of them took such good care of me. There was the nurse from Guyana who stroked my hair as I curled into a fetal position on the gurney and sobbed in pain and fear and frustration. There was Vino and Harlan and Chan and Mayra who answered my calls in the middle of the night begging for more pain medication, who brought me jello and crackers, and who joked with me even when I was completely doped out of my mind and made the IVs and medications and hospital gowns more bearable. There was the nurse who held my hand and wiped tears from my face as the anesthesiologist placed the mask over my face and said, “We’re going to put you to sleep now, Amie,” as I went into surgery. There was Neehani who came to visit me when she was not on her shift and laid her hands across my abdomen and said soothing words and wished me good health and told me of going to visit her family in Thailand. I want to write to them all and thank them personally.

And then there are my friends. I will never forget Yan and Jenny bursting into the emergency room to find me when I didn’t know anyone knew where to look. Nannette stocked me with reading materials, Jenny made washing and brushing my hair her personal project, Matt took care of my birds, Scott kept me supplied with coffee infinitely better than that available at the hospital.

Scott and Matt visited me and sat with me every day. Every single day.

I was never alone in the evenings, and they never minded how stoned I was on morphine and oxycodone and vicodin or if I drifted off in the middle of a conversation. They all made me laugh in various ways—Scott raised my hospital bed as high in the air as it would go (5 feet!) and Matt let me kick his ass at the song lyric game (you can’t really be that bad, can you? C’mon! I was at such a disadvantage!). Patrick brought me a little box and the latest issue of Jet for all my hip-hop needs. Everyone called and texted constantly (especially my sweet Kelli), and took walks with me and my IV machine around the 5th floor.

Jenny brought me home today, and helped me get groceries and bird food and prescriptions. Nannette was waiting when we got here, and the two of them did my dishes and laundry and changed my sheets and helped me take care of my birds and made me tea.

Now I am in bed, and I feel loved. And very, very lucky. Thank you all so very much.

Job-hunting

Perhaps you are already tired of hearing me complain about looking for a job. Perhaps you are tired of hearing me joke about giving blow-jobs on the street for crack, coffee, and turkey sandwiches in the event of not finding a job. (Incidentally, I pick these commodities because, to my way of thinking, they will be essential for life on the street.) Perhaps you are tired of hearing me worry about whether or not I'll be able to find a shopping cart to keep my life's possessions in, and hoping that I'll be able to find a sturdy plastic shopping cart as opposed to a completely metal one to minimize rust in the damp, cool San Francisco weather.

Well, that's just too goddamned bad.

It's too bad, in part, because if I think about relationships for ONE MORE SECOND at the moment I will implode and end up a pile of swingy black pants, chipped toenail polish, diamond grandma rings, internal organs, and probably some other really disgusting things.

Anyway, I can barely recall the last time I had a resume. When you go into academia, you have a curriculum vitae (or "CV"). It's basically like a resume, except that it has information about courses you've taught, chapters and articles you've published, conferences you've attended, etc., that most private sector jobs couldn't care less about. Embarrassingly, my CV is easily accessible online to anyone who wants to see it--a downfall of working at a government-funded institution. (My home address and phone number really do need to come off there.)

Anyway, I'm working on adapting my experience to fit a resume format. This necessitates weird decisions that I haven't considered for a long time: Do I put my first job at McDonald's on there? (Probably not.) Do I put all the summer/youth camps I worked at in college on there? (Probably so.) Do I put my part-time pole-dancing job on there? (Um, doubtful.)

And then there are the cover letters. My "selling myself" on what valuable skills and experience I could bring to any given organization. The beginning of the "pick me! pick me!" pleading that I fear I will be reduced to. Cover letters suck. I have a bad short-term memory, so I'm creating a file of all the ones I send out and the names/addressed to whom I'm sending them to help me remember which jobs I apply for.

So that's what I'm doing. If anyone would like to hire me--or know someone who would--please get in touch with my people. When I figure out who "my people" are, I'll let you know.

Multifaceted

Funny conversation via text message

This text conversation is regarding S's question as to whether I would, in fact, attend a concert to see Beirut. He was going to the show both Tuesday and Wednesday nights, and I was only scheduled to attend the second day. A word of warning: we speak offensively and there are a couple of inside jokes in here...

A: Do not be alarmed. I am going to Beirut.

S: Tonight?

A: No, fool. Quit yer jibba jabba. Tomorrow.

S: Well, I’m going tonight, so suck it, donkey ass cock bitch.

A: Tonight is the night all the homos are going.

S: Then I guess you should try and trade yer ticket. Wouldn’t wanna miss out on all your people.

A: That was weak.

S: ‘Cause your “tonight’s homo night at Beirut” jibe was downright Oscar Wilde-esque. Your legendary sartorial wit strikes again!

A: I knew I needed to dumb it down for you. Now leave me be…I gotta buy ass meat. Have fun tonight.

* * * * * * *

Update on my convenience store friend

On my regular trip to the convenience store today, my Indian man (whose name I still have not asked) kissed by hand and exclaimed, "Beautiful! I have not seen you for two months now!"

I laughed and said, "No, no. It's only been two weeks."

"But it seems like two months because that is how much I miss you. What are you doing these days?"

I sighed and said, "Well, I'm applying for jobs."

"You will find one?" he asked.

"Well, I hope so. Or I won't be able to afford to shop here anymore!"

He leaned toward me conspiratorially and assured me, "You don't find job, I will take care of you. I will always take care of you."

I rolled my eyes and said, "Thank you, but I've heard that before."

He took my hand earnestly and said, "I am not like the boys you know. I will take care of you."

The Sunshine Princess

I walked down the street today, blinded by the dazzling sun. I felt clenched up and pinched, and yet aimless and directionless. I saw an adolescent boy walking down the sidewalk who looked so sure of himself—-so idiotically confident of his place in this world. I saw a man on the bus who looked like he could stare piercingly into my innermost thoughts. So I brushed the crumbs off the seat, took my place by the window, and waited to be seen into.

For most of my childhood I was certain that others could see my thoughts like speech balloons bulging above me. I felt guilty about the thoughts that went through my head, and I spent a great deal of time trying to hide them from others.

As an adolescent I found someone who could understand my thoughts when I explained them to him, and that was a first for me—-a glorious thing. It ended when we could no longer understand each others’ thoughts even upon explanation.

When I was an adult I found someone who not only understood my thoughts when I explained them, but anticipated them-—didn’t need to have them explained. How unspeakably wonderful to be understood without saying a word. I think, perhaps, there was too much understanding.

I spend a lot of time nowadays wondering if there is a happy in-between. Wondering if you can ever really know another person, and wondering what the limits are to how much you should know about someone. Maybe there are things that should be censored because there’s only so much honesty and openness that someone can take. Maybe I have always gone beyond this and that's where my downfall has been.

medicated dull, your attention
dry winter miles, diamonds and glass
mink eyed, marble eyed
in the gauze, in the weeds
by the drain, red on pale
there’s a nail by the vent
sweet for your heel, in the gauze marble eyed, waiting there
kiss your mouth to shut you up
crossed and lowered
cheaters fine, wings on fire
the stars are out
whisper stung in the wires
all you steal, you never take care

Email remix

I'm trying to write.
The first time I tried I forgot to separate the eggs.
I'm mostly staring.
I made tacos for dinner.
I'm really in the mood to read fortune cookie fortunes.
Maybe I should work for a pharmaceutical company.
They tasted delicious.
I may make another stab at chocolate mousse.
It is worn and shabby and stained and dirty.
I think I would like to get a new area rug for my living room.
My stomach kind of aches.
Goddamn tacos.
I have about five songs that are the only songs I want to hear in the world right now.
One of my favorite fortunes recently was, "One day it won't hurt anymore."
My friend said, "I really admire your strength. I would probably go anyway."
Cricket got annoyed and snapped at me tonight.
(I was drinking champagne and talking on the phone, you see.)
Many of the stains come from the spills of friends.
I am so tired of not having much money.
I wanted to go desperately, but I couldn’t bear the thought of not sharing it with someone.
I put her back in her cage.
It would be nice to make a good salary.
I just sneezed hot pepper flakes.
Goddamn tacos.
And, really, they’re the best kind of stains.

Out of one's ordinary

Last night my book club, the best book club in the world, went camping at Lake Chabot. Every time I get away for even just a night or two, I am reminded all over again of how wonderful (and absolutely necessary) it is to break out of one's routine periodically.

I crashed for a couple of hours when I got home because laying on the ground is not too conducive to sleep. But I had a lovely time and it was good to get away, albeit briefly. Before dropping my stuff in the living room and climbing into bed, I put on clean socks to protect my bed from my dirty feet because I was just too tired to take a shower at that particular moment. But afterwards I scrubbed the dirt and campfire smoke off as thoroughly as I could. I can still smell traces of campfire in my hair.

I really do love the smell of wood smoke. My clothes and my sleeping bag are still in a pile on my living room floor waiting to be washed. Whenever I walk through the living room I pause to sniff the smell unfamiliar to my current environs before I remember the source. I associate the smell of wood smoke with fall in West Virginia. I can remember the smell of bonfires and fireplaces that would start up in October and November at home. All I had to do was walk around Maple Lake and the scent would be all around as my feet crunched dry leaves under my feet.

While I was laying in the tent in the dark I listened to an owl hooting in the distance most of the night; it was lovely. We saw wild turkeys and deer, too, which I don't get to see so often these days.

On a tangentially related note, I was just communicating with a friend about the symbolism of the telephone. He just sent his phone number to the person he really, really likes for the first time. Even though they haven't spoken yet, we were contemplating the new meaning and significance your phone suddenly takes on when a person that you are genuinely excited about now has the capacity to call you. The phone can no longer ring without your heart thumping a little faster, even if you're not actually expecting them to call yet. And the longer the phone goes without ringing, the more torturous it is.

Ahhh...butterflies.

"In a wagon with no wheels and no place to go."

I always find it interesting to look back on various periods of my life when I have enough perspective to see them in hindsight, to characterize them, and to reflect on them. I frequently wonder what this particular period of my life will look like when I look back on it in the future.

It feels like a brief intermission. It feels like a transition. It feels like an interim between the old and the new. And just when I think I get a glimpse of what the "new" will look like, it seems to morph, pull back, or disappear all together.

It's always bothered me that I have such a hard time living in the moment. I've always been fixed on the past and the future. I don't want to be that way. I've been trying to focus all evening on the good things in my life right now. My friends are what most easily rise to the top. I get a little choked up thinking about just how much they let me lean on them. Occasionally they lean on me, too, but it always feels disproportionate to me.

I feel like I could give a thousand examples of how grateful I am right now, but it would probably be overkill. For now I'll just focus on a recent one. I missed the last couple of calls from a dear friend and he sent me a message saying:

Let me know when would be a good time to call. I'm in kind of a weird place and in dire need of something wonderful involving birds, champagne, cigarettes and miscellaneous baked goods.

I feel both privileged and humbled.

You haven't lived until...

...your mom has called to tell you about all the great sex she's having.

Requiem for a kitty

I have this memory box where I keep old stuff, like letters, notes and doodles my sister and I made while we were bored in church, bad poetry, angsty ramblings, band and football programs, etc. Every once in awhile I dig through it a pull out a couple of things. Last night after some champagne, I had the courage to read some of the bad poetry. It makes me cringe to realize how melodramatic and earnest and emotional and serious I was.

In other words, not much has changed.

I found this poem I wrote when I was 14 and my cat died. It was written on a scrap of paper in orange marker. There are words crossed out and written over; there is even one place when I ran out of room on the line I was on and the words take a sudden southward arc down the right side of the paper. I believe there are even some teary smudges in the marker. Jesus.

To fully appreciate this poem, you have to know the story behind this cat. Her name was Kelly, and she had long, silky fur and a little gray “beauty mark” on her cheek. When she was a kitten she had an inner ear infection that left her deaf and her balance off, so when she’d try to run to you she ran diagonally. Since she couldn’t hear herself, when she meowed it came out as sort of a strange, strangled sound.

For awhile we had an above ground pool, and one morning we woke to find that she had fallen into it and drowned. We had to fish her out with the net. I was devastated. So I wrote this poem.

God bless this little cat
Whom we love so much
Soothe her with your kindness
And heal her with your touch.

Blessed are your creations,
From the big down to the small
Better to have loved once
Than to have never loved at all.

Thank you for life
You give to everyone
Let us pray that we’ll meet some day
Under the rising sun.

Please take care of my little cat
For we have loved her well
Bless her whiskers and her fur
And even her little tail.

Please let us remember
That an end comes to everyone
That a finish comes to every life
Though it has just begun.

My little cat
Who will join you now
Please love her as I have
For I already miss her soft meow.

I miss her purrs and her scratches
Even the beauty mark on her cheek
Because she was as gentle
As well as she was sweet.

Dear Lord, I pray you’ll keep her warm and safe
Please protect her
Please guide her in the light
Please don’t let her be so cold
In the ground at night.

Some observations:

1. It surprises me not at all that those last two lines end on such a dark and somber note. I believe that after I wrote those I flung myself on the bed dramatically and wept.

2. It may seem surprising to some of you who met me as an adult, but I was (obviously) still praying quite a bit at the time this orange marker was put to paper.

3. It’s like The Waste Land of cat poetry. It just goes on and on and on.

On the day of my first best friend's birth

Today is Traci Renee’s birthday, and after sending her a piddly little MySpace birthday greeting I was thinking more about her. Quite some time ago, her mom Robin sent me a picture from what I believe was Traci’s sixth birthday. There was a party in her backyard, and Beau and I both attended.

Here we are below. Beau and I were watching as Traci opened her gifts. I am wearing an outfit that could have only been chosen by yours truly, and I was extremely jealous of both her party dress and the gift that she had just opened:



I’m not sure if she remembers it or not, but I can remember the day I first met Traci. I was five, and my mom and I had recently moved out of our roach-infested apartment and into a tiny little white house. I was happy because I could run through our neighbors’ backyards and get to my grandparents’ house. It was one such day in late summer when I was running home that I saw two little girls—Traci and her older sister Christel—in their backyard. Their family was obviously just moving in; it was just short of when Traci and I would both start kindergarten at Simpson Elementary.

I wanted to play with these new little girls terribly. I was an extremely shy and rather lonely little girl, so I hid behind a tree in their yard to watch them. They were eating McDonald’s Happy Meals on a table in the backyard. They called to me and invited me to come out and tell them my name, but I ducked further behind the tree. Embarrassingly, Christel lured me out by jiggling some French fries at me invitingly. (My God, that is a humbling thought.) We became fast friends after that.

I have so many memories of playing with them for the next few years, but I’ll just mention a few of my favorites.

I remember tormenting my cranky, elderly neighbor Lucille, and the dirty old man who lived across the street (“Horny Butt.” He had that name for a good reason.)

I remember their sweet Dukes of Hazzard swimming pool. It had pictures of Bo, Luke, Daisy, Uncle Jesse, Boss Hog—everyone—in it, and we would argue over who got to sit on Bo’s face. (We were dirty little girls; we fully realized the double entendre.)

We used to love to play “Witchy.” This basically involved gathering weird berries and anything else we considered fit to put into a magic potion and squishing it up into a paste and daring each other to eat it.

Traci and I invented a game that I always called the “Kill Your Family” game. We had a favorite red maple tree in Traci’s backyard. One of us would climb the tree and sit on the low branches, dropping leaves one by one; the other had to stand on the ground and catch the leaves. Each leaf represented a member of the person’s family. I’d cry, “This is your dad! This is your aunt Kathy!” If Traci didn’t catch the leaf for that person, they were dead. The winner was the one with the most “living” family members left.

I remember that Traci taught me to ride a bike. I desperately wanted to ditch my Cabbage Patch Bike with training wheels and a banana seat to be able to ride her BMX. It took me so long to learn. She showed me over and over again how to do it, and one day it clicked and I went sailing down Olive Street crying, “Do you see me!? I’m doing it! I’m doing it!”

I remember playing Barbies with Christel and Traci on their front porch, especially when it rained. They had a little pink Barbie nightie with a blonde-headed Barbie face on it that our Barbies liked to wear when they were going to be having sex that night. We always disputed whose Barbie’s turn it was to wear the nightie. The stakes were important: no nightie = no Barbie getting laid.

Obviously, everyone knows the story of me punching her for snatching the magic wand I was playing with out of my hand. (I still maintain that it was my turn.) And, uh, I’m sorry about that, Traci. In case I didn’t say that 24 years ago. But you deserved it.

I thought I’d throw in a couple more old pictures, just for fun.

Our elementary school:



My old house:



Traci’s old house:



Our favorite climbing tree that has since been cut down as Traci and Beau’s old houses have been merged into one giant monstrosity. This was also the site of the “Kill Your Family” game:



Anyway, to make a long story short: Happy, happy birthday, Traci Renee! Much love.

Birds

I loved you in the morning, before the sun would come
You were the dawn to me
I loved you in the evening, while the birds were still singing
You gave every song to me

I want to see you
More than anything
Babe I miss you
All day and everyday

It's not that I can't go on without you
Got a lot of things to do
I'm busy, busy all the time
Still I can't stop thinking about you

- Electrelane



It had never occurred to me that the latent content of the things I've made would serve as a visual record of my state of mind, more oblique and therefore more telling than any diary I might have kept.

- David Rakoff

Recuperation

I've spent today just holing up a bit and keeping to myself. I've been with people nearly nonstop the past three days and, although I'm much, much more social than I used to be, I forget just how much it can tax my reserves. It's funny that I feel a little lonely, though.

It was a really nice weekend overall. Lots of friends in the same place at the same time on multiple occasions. Scott's father took all of us out to dinner Sunday evening and, before we all parted, he went around and shook our (Scott's friends') hands and told us that, now that he'd met us, he could understand why Scott liked it here. I found that really touching.

After spending a fair amount of time cooking and helping with cooking this weekend, I find that I've been thinking about cooking and food more than usual. I am constantly reminded just how much food brings people together. I really enjoy cooking for people; I feel like it is a good way for me to show friends and other loved ones that I care about them.

Speaking of cooking, I have some recipes I'm aspiring to try in the near future:

1. Fresh corn, tomato, and basil salad with champagne vinaigrette
2. Calzones (not sure what all I want to put inside yet, but definitely cheese)
3. Roasted figs with goat cheese and serrano ham and drizzled with honey

I'm trying to write this evening. All I really want to do is make postcard secrets, though. And maybe finger-paint.

Restlessness

I can't sit still.
I can't stop thinking.
I can't stop wondering.
I can't stop arguing with myself
about even the smallest things.
I can't decide where to go
or what to do.
I want, want, want
and what I want is unclear.
I know that peace of mind
would be a great place to start.
At the moment there is no one to talk to
(and not a good way to put my thoughts into words anyway)
and I can't think of how to express myself
other than through this particular medium,
as all others seem closed to me at the moment.
When I dream lately, it is of transportation—
buses, cars, planes, trains
Any mechanism that will get me out and away
but from what it is unclear.
So, again, tonight I will drive.
I will wind my way down the coast
with my windows down and my hair dancing across my face
looking out at the ocean
and the moon reflecting off of it.
I will drive and I will sing and I will wonder.
I will try to see across to the other side and, again, I will fail.

[Fans self, spritzes face with water, and dabs delicately]

Today it is in the 90s in San Francisco. Heat records are being broken all over the Bay Area. It's been about three years since I felt heat like this. I am not very pleased.

I am reminded of the first summer I lived in Richmond. We had a couple of weeks of record-setting temperatures--one of them was the consecutive number of days it got over 100 degrees. I didn't know anyone in the city yet, school hadn't started, and I couldn't afford air conditioning. So I spent most of my days camped out in a bathtub full of cold water with a glass of ice water, the cordless phone, and a book. I would periodically call people to remind them of how hot I was, in case they had forgotten since I called them a half hour earlier. When I couldn't stand being in my house anymore I would go to Barnes and Noble and curl up with a book in an overstuffed chair and soak up the air conditioning. Or I would go see a movie. Any movie.

Sssshhhhhhh...can you hear that? It's the smallest violin in the world. And it's playing for me.

My momma has a date.

After several days of being without her cell phone, my mom got it turned on again and called and said, "I have news!" For whatever reason, I said the first thing that popped into my mind: "You're pregnant." She laughed and said, "That would definitely be news."

Turns out she met someone at the American Legion. (I didn't think that was possible!) He just moved to WV from Denver. They talked a fair amount and then he asked her to go to the ATM with him, at which time he promptly asked her out. As she struggled to adjust the seat in his car and ended up turning on the windshield wipers and high beams (I can't tell you how much I hate to say this: Like mother, like daughter), she agreed. It seems they are going on a weekend fishing trip and staying in a cabin at Stonewall Jackson Lake. I said, "It's your first date and you're spending the weekend together?!" Then it occurred to me that I should probably shut up and not pursue that line of questioning. She was kind enough (or possibly drunk and/or oblivious enough) not to point out my near-hypocrisy.

She's nervous and excited and happy and afraid. I'm happy for her, as that is an exciting combination of feelings when you're anticipating something. I was feeling rather doubtful about her dating prospects because, 1) I am familiar with the single men in my hometown, and, 2) I tried to help steer her through a brief stint with online dating during which she refused to put up her picture or consider anyone divorced or over age 40 (despite the fact that she is twice divorced and her 50th birthday is just around the corner).

In her excitement, she was eager to compare notes. "So...how's YOUR love life going?" she asked. I quickly changed the subject to her upcoming visits to both of my brothers. It was a rather masterful move on my part, as she loves that topic passionately and didn't even seem to notice the abrupt topic change.

But the rain washed us off.

We covered ourselves in mud and leaves
and pretended
we were the only people
in the world.

More tales from my neighborhood

On my way home from work today I made my regular round of errands. It was rather difficult today because I have been up nearly all night the past two nights and my butt was dragging.

I stopped at the convenience store where the older Indian man works. (I should probably ask his name sometime.) His latest thing is saying, "Where have you been!? I have not seen you for a month!" (He says this though I religiously stop in at least once a week.) I told him that when I was there on Friday he wasn't there--that someone else was working in his place.

"Ah, yes. That was my father partner," he said. "I was in Grass Valley that day." He recently opened another store in Grass Valley and he goes out periodically to check on it.

"How far away is Grass Valley, anyway?" I asked.

"Oh, it is far. One hour beyond Sacramento," he answered. (Sacramento is already about 90 miles from San Francisco.) "Maybe sometime you will go to Grass Valley with me."

I smiled noncommittally, picked up my purchases, and wished him a nice day. The man is very persistent, and I can't for the life of me imagine what would discuss in the car for 2 1/2 hours together.

Then I went to my regular pharmacy and took my place in line at the window. An elderly lady with a mustache and a cane shuffled up and stood behind me. She bemoaned that we had to wait, and said, "I'm not young anymore. It's hard to get around." I smiled sympathetically, and she continued: "Would you believe that most of the time I wish I were dead? Everyone I know is gone and I'm all alone. I can't wait to join them. It's not all over after this life, you know."

I was feeling emotionally fragile and exhausted anyway, and my eyes immediately welled up. I was grateful that they were hidden behind my sunglasses. "I sure hope you're right," I croaked.

"Oh, I am. I am," she said with certainty. "I've had many experiences with people who were already dead that have talked to me or helped me or comforted me. Why, once when I was asleep my mother woke me up to tell me a man was trying to get in the window. And she was dead. And you know what? There was a man trying to get in the window to rob me."

As she was finishing this sentence, my turn came and I excused myself to pick up my prescriptions. As I left I said goodbye to her. I would have loved to sit down with her and listen to her stories and tape record them. Maybe I should have asked. Instead, I slipped out of the fluorescent-lit Walgreen's and into the bright sunlight of a beautiful May day in San Francisco. I wish I had gone back.

Never have I ever...

...traveled to and stayed in another country completely alone. I always had someone to go with or to visit before. It should be interesting.

And a long-forgotten fairytale is in your eyes again
And I’m caught inside a dream world where the colors are too intense
and nothing is making sense

There’s a floating town of eiderdown in a mist of mystery
There’s an old enchanted castle and the princess there is me
decked out like a Christmas tree

Presentiment

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down.
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

--Emily Dickinson

"Can you lend a nigga a pencil?"

This video made my day week.

My poem (with some revisions)

(There is no meter, so save yourself the trouble of looking for it!)

I like my body better when next to your body
I trace my lips across, inhale, press against
Familiarizing myself with your texture, scent
Your consistent warmth, so unlike my own
My fingers curl into your hair
Desperate and urgent for you to continue
To kiss me as if you always knew how.

It makes me happy that people take the time to do stuff like this.

Man, I need a good title.

I was just amusing myself by reading about former Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin. Apparently, from 1977-1979 he gave himself this title: "His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor[2] Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular."

Sweet.

"Know when to run, motherfucker!"

Two For One

Overheard on the bus (from a man with throw pillows fastened around his entire body):

"Back to Sarajevo, moron! I'm Chinese, motherfucker! Your ignorance is not my problem. Kiss my dirty white ass! You gotta know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. And know when to run, motherfucker! You're an ignorant slut!"

Loveliness:

Tonight I saw a prescreening of one of the sweetest movies I've seen in quite sometime, Son of Rambow. I reccomend it highly.

Do you think you're sexy? And you work at the Olive Garden?

Well, then, this contest is for you...



(I suppose you have to be a lady, too, but whatevs.)

There are days...

...when it feels like the ground keeps shifting beneath your feet. You stumble and recover and try to keep putting one foot in front of the other, plodding along, only to find it shifting again and you don't know which way to brace yourself. On days like this, sanity is more relative than ever. It is really tempting to find something warm and cozy to wrap your arms around--something to love and protect that, in some small way, provides you with love and protection because of the very fact that it stayed in your arms for a few moments and accepted your love and protection before it dissolved through your fingers like fine, soft sand.

The evening redness in the west

I can see it coming from a mile away. And I'll be damned if I let it happen again.

On sexual proficiency

I found this hysterically funny. Jason Mulgrew describes his qualifications to be a sex advice columnist:

I have navigated successfully through the musty realm of lovemaking over six times. I am adapt at several sexual positions, including missionary, me just laying there, and "I’m too drunk to get this condom on, so I’m gonna go heat up some pizza." My Patented Foreplay Technique follows three simple rules: 1) Start kissing; 2) Count to twenty; 3) Stick it in. Critics in both the US and abroad have compared my lovemaking to "forty seconds of life-changing thrusting, then a noise that sounds like a bear falling down a flight of stairs, then a request for a high-five." References available upon request.

Inner dimples

I am feeling creative today; I don't know why. I think I was inspired by reading some lines I wrote months ago. I made my first attempt at writing song lyrics back in October/November. They were written from such raw, naked emotion that I have generally been unable to read them since then. But today I had the courage to go back and look at them and *gasp* I really like them. They helped inspire me to write a poem.

I honestly don't think I've written a poem since I was sixteen years old. I really like this one. It's not meant for public eyes, but I guess I wanted to write about writing it.

I do feel compelled to share some lines from those lyrics I wrote months ago. I hope I'm not repeating myself; as far as I can remember only one other person has ever read these.

I kept it in a private place
And took it out for my own viewing
I warmed it with my breath and polished it
All this is just barely enough to get by
Believe me, it’s barely enough

I feel suddenly shy.

My new mantra is:

Don't be a freak! Don't be a freak!

It's hard, because it comes naturally.

Funny conversation #7

Grocery store cashier to bagger in regard to the previous customer: "Did you see that guy? I wonder what it's like to be too gangsta to even go to the grocery store. He was too cool to even take his penny in change."

Bagger: "Don't you know? Pennies are for suckas."

Funny conversation #6

A: "I saw the best episode of Good Eats the other night. It was all about knives. I learned how to look for good ones, what materials they should be made of, how to take care of them...plus, Alton Brown was pretending he was an infomercial knife salesman and it was really funny."

S: "Do you know what my soul just did while you were saying all that?" [drops head to shoulder with eyes closed and emits a loud snoring sound]

A secret

I am afraid I won't do it right.
I am afraid it will hurt.
I am afraid to tell people.
I am afraid they will see the syringes I will have to have.
I am afraid it won't help.

Compare and contrast

Time 1: Like clinging to a piece of driftwood during a hurricane at high seas. Terrified. Exhilarated. Anxious. Doubtful. Drowning.

Time 2: Like reclining in a hammock on a lazy early summer day under a shady tree. Smiling. Content. Secure. Happy. Relaxed.

Detergent wars

I've had this little ongoing battle with one of my neighbors for a couple of months now over laundry detergent. Namely, someone is always using mine.

I am very lucky to have a (FREE!) washer and dryer in the garage adjacent to my apartment. I have a section of a shelf that is mine where I keep my detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, etc. For awhile everyone had their own little sections and everyone seemed to respect everyone else's.

Recently I'd started noticing that the lid on my detergent bottle was always loose and there were drips of detergent running down the side. At first I didn't think much of it. I thought maybe someone was in a pinch and borrowed some because they were out. After about a dozen times, though, I got fed up.

I began by covering all my detergents with a bath towel in a not-so-subtle "back the fuck off" message. Last night I found my bottle empty and sitting pointedly in the middle of the laundry room.

I'd just bought a new bottle and thought it was ridiculous that I should have to hide it in my apartment so no one would bother it. I mean, we live one block from a grocery store! So I decided to try a humorous approach. I taped a large fluorescent green note to the front of my detergent bottle that said:

Please stop using my detergent, yo! If I have to continue to provide laundry detergent to the entire building, how am I supposed to continue to pay for my anal bleaching and pole-dancing lessons?

Back to cleaning and stressing out...I probably won't be online much for the next few days.

Anticipation...

...is torture. But it's been awhile since I've had anything to anticipate. Surprises are also torture, but I love them dearly.

Now I will try to sleep.

Update following yesterday's torture...

I am beeeaaauuuutifuuullll!

"You're so beautiful..."

I wrote recently about my last trip to Penny, my Vietnamese waxing lady, and the taming of my eyebrows. She was encouraging me at the time to get a bikini wax, and I wanted to think about it more.

Well, I went for it.

Holy shit. It was a very strange and painful experience.

To begin with, at the salon I go to, the ladies sing out a greeting to you as you walk in the door and call out to ask you what you want. It's a fairly humbling experience to make a public proclamation of your desire for a bikini wax. I was prepared for this, but I was unprepared for the excitement it seemed to generate. Three ladies started shouting instructions to each other in Vietnamese, and my trusty Penny came forward to assure me: "Ten minutes. I get everything ready. Be good."

When she came back to get me, she gave a moment of privacy in the little waxing room with her version of instructions to take off my pants--she made a swish sound as she acted out the dropping of one's drawers. I giggled nervously.

Penny came back and said, "You lay down. I have look." Obediently, I laid back, feeling weirdly vulnerable as she eyed me critically under the bright lights. "Oh my God!" she cried in mock horror. "Out of control!" I couldn't help laughing out loud in amusement and embarrassment while protesting, "Stop that!"

I confided, "I'm really nervous."

"No worry," she answered. "Baby hurt much worse."

"I've never had a baby."

"Uh oh," Penny said. "No, no. Is okay. I make nice," and set to work.

There was no room for modesty. She put me into all sorts of strange contortions and focused very intently on the business at hand. After each rip she insisted on showing me each cloth strip and saying, "See? So nice now!" A couple of times I yelped in surprise and pain, "FUCK!" only to temper it with, "I'm so sorry, Penny!"

She patted my crotch and crooned, "Is normal. Is okay. Be good girl for me. Just for me." Then she bent down for the next round and began to sing softly, "You're so beautiful....to meeeee..." At this point I cracked up.

After what seemed like an eternity, we finished and she rubbed lotion all over me. This was a very strange experience. Then she instructed me to stand up and let her have a look at me. I stood carefully, feeling rather raw, and she knelt down on the floor directly in front of me and studied her work closely. "Mmmhmmm...mmmhmmm..." she mumbled, crawling on the floor and gazing up at me from all angles.

When I got the all clear, I gratefully reached for my pants and Penny said, "Next time, we go much deeper," and went downstairs to ring me up. This felt like a very strange way to end the experience, but I got dressed, went downstairs, and gave her a great tip.

"Next time much deeper!" she called after me as I went out the front door.

Mah 'hood.

I really love my neighborhood. Everyone complains about how far out it is, but it's pretty quiet and safe; it's close to the ocean, Golden Gate Park, and I can see the Golden Gate Bridge everyday (and I never tire of looking at it); plus, I can hear the foghorns at night.

I've also gotten to know lots of people in the neighborhood that make me smile.

There is the guy at my local wine shop who always remembers what I was serving when I bought my last bottle. "How did that Chardonnay pair up with those spicy Thai peanut noodles?" he'll ask as I come in the door.

There's the little Indian guy at the convenience store (I've mentioned several times before) who is always trying to get me to take the day off and go to the beach with him, meet him for coffee in the morning, or run away with him. Today he marveled that we were wearing the same color shirt and said for the thousandth time, "Have you had your coffee yet today? We can run across the street and grab a cup!" Upon my polite decline, he shook his head and said, "Some day we will go together."

There's the Chinese lady at my Walgreen's pharmacy who always rings up my purchases. This afternoon I had on a hat and sunglasses, and before getting my prescription, she asked for my last name. When I said, "Ashcraft," she laughed and said, "Oh! I didn't recognize you today! You're in disguise. Plus, you're earlier than usual!" This made me smile.

And then there is my elderly Chinese neighbor whom I watch every morning doing her Tai Chi moves in the backyard. This afternoon I was outside right next to my open window where I could hear my bird Cricket unceremoniously flinging her expensive bird pellets all over the floor. (To my ears, it sounds like quarters hitting the floor.) "I'm going to pick you up by your tail feathers and smack you around a bit," I threatened her, thinking that I was alone outside. My neighbor cautiously peered at me over the back fence. "Oh, sorry!" I cried, "Not you!"

Strangely...

I have a good feeling about this.

The news in brief

Funny conversation #5

[in the middle of a conversation about who "rolls hard" and who doesn't]

A: "I roll hard."

S: "No, you don't."

A: "Yes I do! I totally roll hard."

S: "Sweetie, you roll moderate at best."

A: "No, no. I roll hard. At least sometimes. I'll wake up and say, I think I'm going to roll hard today."

S: "You've never rolled hard in your life. You wouldn't even know where to begin."

A: "Fuck."

Hell's bells and cockleshells...

...I'm old.

On Facebook I just found the little girl, Tess, for whom I used to babysit when she was five. She's a woman now!

But now I have to tell a story about her.

I started babysitting for Charlie and Tess, who lived next door to me, when I was a mere 13 years old. Since I was still a kid myself, we had a lot of fun together. One of our favorite activities was making "sandwiches" out of each other using the giant couch cushions as buns, and small throw pillows, Easter grass, and whatever else we could find as condiments (pickles and lettuce, respectively).

One night I had taken my glasses off and was rubbing my eyes while Charlie and Tess wrestled on the couch. Tess's hand and slipped between the couch cushions and she found something. "What's this?" she asked.

Charlie saw what she'd picked up and yelled, "Tess! Put it back! Put it back!" She started giggling.

"Let me see," I said, reaching out my hand and putting my glasses back on. Tess held in her hand a bright purple vibrator. My hand immediately retreated and I said, "I think you should just put it back where you found it."

"I know what it is..." she teased mischievously.

"What is it?" I asked.

"An electric wee-wee," Tess announced. Charlie covered his face and moaned, "Tess, put it back!" She obediently replaced the vibrator between the couch cushions.

"Now go wash your hands," I instructed.

Funny conversation #4

A: "Am I a lost cause?"

K: "No, you're more like a used car."

Prescription

Today is lousy.

I got some bad news this morning and then had to go have what felt like a quart of blood drawn at the doctor. The Olympic torch is running through San Francisco today, and traffic is tied up downtown and on the Golden Gate Bridge with the protests and making everyone crabby. While coming home this afternoon, I saw two men get in a wreck on Geary Blvd. and jump out of their cars screaming at each other.

*sigh*

Walking home, I passed a little Russian flower shop that had just put bouquets of lilacs--my second favorite flower--out front. Their smell was irresistible to me, so I bought a giant bunch of them to cheer myself up. The man who sold them to me told me in a thick Russian accent, "Enjoy!" I thanked him and assured him I would, and he said, "Very beautiful smile." I grinned and thanked him, and stopped then stopped off at my usual convenience story.

"Beautiful!" cried the little Indian man behind the counter who always asks me to run away with him. "I have not seen you for a month! Where have you been? My day is so much better now!" He kissed my hand and asked, "Where did you get flowers? Not from a boyfriend!?" I laughed about this.

On my way down the street a half dozen people stopped me to admire and sniff my lilacs. I felt like Miss America parading around with this huge bunch of flowers cradled in my arms. (I should have practiced my wave.)

Now I am home and I cut up the bunch of flowers into three bouquets in my kitchen, living room, and bathroom. My house smells wonderful.

I feel better.

And to make myself feel even better I’ve accepted an invitation tonight to "Spontaneous Drinking Night" where I will join a bunch of people I’ve never met at a bar I’ve never been to for a couple of pints.

Suck it, Wednesday, April 9, 2008!

Smooth

When someone leans in to kiss you, it's probably (almost) never the right reaction to jump back in alarm and cry, "Oh, my God!"

Oh well. That's how I roll.

News from home

Last night when I called home I got some surprising news. My uncle Tom had an accident and is, at least for now, paralyzed. His legs and hands are immobile, and he is unable to speak.

I don't know all the details around the accident--how it happened, if other were involved--but I'm trying to figure out what my emotions are around this.

On one hand, this sounds like my worst nightmare and my heart goes out to anyone experiencing something like this. On the other hand, I've always thought he was a hypocritical bastard.

He's been a raging alcoholic and abusive to my aunt for years. He is a huge Bible-thumper, and was known around town for passing out in his underwear in various front yards with a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other.

When I was a kid, he would pick me up and hold me too close and rub my back and legs and say, "Does that feel good?" and I would squirm out of his arms and go hide. (I was already very familiar with men like him.) When I was in high school he looked at pictures of me marching in a Christmas parade in a little booty outfit and said wistfully, "My God, look at those legs..."

My family started hinting that I should come home. I really have no desire to visit him--I haven't seen him in nearly ten years. I'm not even sure that I would go in for his funeral. Maybe that sounds callous. I thought about sending a card, but I mostly find myself just wanting to tell my aunt, "I'm so sorry for everything that you've been through." I probably shouldn't say that right now.

A respite

It's been so nice to have my friend Tony here that I'm sorry to see tomorrow come. We always fall into a cozy pattern together with our weird little habits that probably ensure we'll be single forever, such as flossing while watching the news.

He washes the dishes and I wash his clothes. He makes me breakfast and I make him hot tea. He makes my bed and I read funny articles out loud to him. He falls asleep on the bus and I watch for the stops. I don't make fun of him for practicing his martial arts moves in the elevator, at the bus stop, and while waiting in lines, and he doesn't make fun of me for talking and singing in funny voices to my birds.

Today while sitting in a coffee shop on Fillmore and people-watching, we somehow got to talking about typing. Tony confessed that sometimes when he can't sleep at night he imagines how he would type out the things he is thinking, or how sometimes while bored on the bus instead of drumming his fingers randomly he'll press them into patterns of typing letters to make words. This shocked me, and I cried, "I do that, too! I thought I was the only one!"

While shopping for a gift for Alexis and Ilsa and their new baby Theo, he picked up a book of baby names. He said, "Let's see what our baby's name will be..." and flipped to a random page and poked his finger at a name. "Aya," he announced. "Aya is what you say in Chinese when you've messed something up."

"I thought that's what you say when you break a block," I said.

He frowned. "Huh?"

"You know, like in karate: 'aaaaaaYA!!!'"

He rolled his eyes at my lame attempt at a joke.