while i have much to tell you, and much of it involves the joys and woes of new york, i feel that it is more worthwhile to say something topical, i.e., a mention of the fact that the year is ending, and ending much the way other years have ended, which is to say, with my college friends, on the east coast, which is the way it should be (sans jen, mara, caitlin, and leon -- hello to you in pennsylvania, india, and boston).
lessons learned in 2006:
-things get better. then better and better.
-friends are good. friends are important. also family. usually.
-i like burritos. a lot. too much.
-it's going to happen.
-everywhere can be good. not just new york, even if especially new york.
new year's resolutions:
-repeat.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Friday, December 29, 2006
waiting for tim curry to jump out of the shadows
it was never totally clear what the time warp was supposed to mean, on a space-time continuum, in the rocky horror picture show. maybe that was on purpose. if you were really stuck in a time warp, you wouldn't really understand how it had happened, or why, or what it meant on a larger scale, anyway. when i stepped off the train in new york city on wednesday night, it wasn't exactly a time warp that had occurred, but more like time experienced in hyperspeed; all the time between august and and wednesday had never occurred. i had never moved to san francisco, never met anyone that i have met there, never written the things i wrote there, never had any of my california jobs, none of it. i was home again. i had never left. i had expected, before arriving, to feel elated, but i did not feel elated. i just felt normal.
it occurs to me now, having been here for two days, that it was not a momentary feeling -- that i do feel normal in new york, utterly normal. as for elated, that's how i feel in san francisco. how's that for a surprise.
i have spent most of my time in new york so far working, which is much like when i lived here. yesterday i worked on a manuscript at the columbia library, back in my old post on the sixth floor until they kicked everyone out of the building. today i went down to work itself. all the cubes are in their normal positions, with the same familiar backs of heads floating over the tops of the dividers, and the same corporate phones blinking their away messages, and the same company creed emblazoned on the carpet. out on the sidewalk afterward, i saw rebecca. it was extremely fortuitous. neither of us was doing anything, so we hung out for a little while. i forgot to tell her that last night i frequented the abbey pub, my old neighborhood bar from which, in april, rebecca and i were ejected for not looking old enough to drink (even though we both had our (valid) IDs). the abbey was being boycotted for a while, but since it is more or less the only decent choice in that neighborhood, it was soon back in our good graces again. vivien, michelle, and i went there last night and as usual managed to piss off the pissiest waitress, a redheaded woman who reminds us of a particular unpleasant colleague of ours and who was not delighted when vivien, before later ordering beer, ordered only water. however, perhaps due to the extremely sophisticated and librarianesque shirt that vivien was wearing, i was not only not ejected, but not even carded. could it be that these four months in california have aged me? is it my new gray hairs? my improved girth? or the fact that i order drinks thirstily like a dying alcoholic? i don't know, but this is an exciting development.
it occurs to me now, having been here for two days, that it was not a momentary feeling -- that i do feel normal in new york, utterly normal. as for elated, that's how i feel in san francisco. how's that for a surprise.
i have spent most of my time in new york so far working, which is much like when i lived here. yesterday i worked on a manuscript at the columbia library, back in my old post on the sixth floor until they kicked everyone out of the building. today i went down to work itself. all the cubes are in their normal positions, with the same familiar backs of heads floating over the tops of the dividers, and the same corporate phones blinking their away messages, and the same company creed emblazoned on the carpet. out on the sidewalk afterward, i saw rebecca. it was extremely fortuitous. neither of us was doing anything, so we hung out for a little while. i forgot to tell her that last night i frequented the abbey pub, my old neighborhood bar from which, in april, rebecca and i were ejected for not looking old enough to drink (even though we both had our (valid) IDs). the abbey was being boycotted for a while, but since it is more or less the only decent choice in that neighborhood, it was soon back in our good graces again. vivien, michelle, and i went there last night and as usual managed to piss off the pissiest waitress, a redheaded woman who reminds us of a particular unpleasant colleague of ours and who was not delighted when vivien, before later ordering beer, ordered only water. however, perhaps due to the extremely sophisticated and librarianesque shirt that vivien was wearing, i was not only not ejected, but not even carded. could it be that these four months in california have aged me? is it my new gray hairs? my improved girth? or the fact that i order drinks thirstily like a dying alcoholic? i don't know, but this is an exciting development.
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
"stop, thief!" and other things you can exclaim when you have a slamwich
slamwich!, the game that david gave me, was played last night by a group that included the whole family minus daniel. my main Game Foes, ari and david, were present and wearing their Foe Faces. ari and david do not like me during games. they like to say mean things. they like to insinuate that i cheat, which i would never. they do not like me to win. they do not like me to lose. what they like is to roll their eyes at me and say unfriendly things, and they did this.
the cards were shaped like small pieces of bread and bore pictures of, by turns, lettuce, hard boiled egg slices, peanut butter, jelly, swiss cheese, tomato, pickles, and bacon. i originally suggested not playing with the bacon cards because Juan is kosher, but she conceded this once to play with the bacon cards. there were also cards with pictures of very nonplussed people eating sandwiches, and then cards with pictures of sneaky, masked robbers stealing away with sandwiches. (my perfect game! californians, watch out; it's coming back with me.)when one of these robber cards came up, the objective was to slap it and yell, "stop, thief!" whereas when the cards were really slapped, people tried to yell "stop, thief" but instead yelled make-your-own types of phrases, like, "help!" and "there he goes!" and "oh no you di'n't!" only once did i manage to slap the robber, at which point i yelled, "up yours!" and did not receive the pile. another of the injustices visited upon me by the Game Foes, who apparently make all the rules.
at the place where i was supposed to meet chris today, i waited for him outside with my coffee. i was not fully awake. i was watching the people go by. peoplewatching in bethesda is like watching the same insufferable person walk by over and over again. i was watching with so much grave gusto that i did not see chris walk up. he walked directly in front of my face. he was smiling. chris is usually smiling. "oh! hello!" i said, embracing him. "i didn't see you there. i was watching the people."
"but you were not watching me," he said. "or maybe i'm not exactly a person."
"that," i told him, "would be a compliment right about now."
chris is perhaps one of the only people in the world who is pursuing a j.d. and an m.b.a. and is hell-bent on not becoming evil. most people, i feel, are more like, well, if i become evil, it wouldn't be the best, but what happens, happens. chris has always been highly principled and socially liberal. sometimes sensitive. extraordinarily smart. he froze his dead goldfish, elvis, in his refrigerator freezer for many years because he could not bear to bury or flush him. that was less smart. he speaks chinese. he is in love with a rad and beautiful blonde biologist. he has a lot more gray hair than i do. he is tall, very tall. if he becomes evil, he is aware that he will be both tall and evil, which often increases the evilness. and he knows this. i think he will be a very powerful ally for the force of good, particularly because he told me that if he becomes rich but not evil, he will be my Writing Patron, which i could absolutely need. ("i need more and better patrons," i remarked solemnly.) but not in a skeezy, renaissance italy, young boys and old men way. no, no.
in the greatest slamwich! of all, i think that maybe things between my extraordinarily esteemed girl-friend and i may be back on the ups. often i have remarked on this website how things would be easier if we could just take a break from our regularly scheduled programs and have ten minutes of earnestness, and just tell the truth, and just simply say things like, "every day i think about how amazing you are, and how lucky i am to be friends with you, and i hate this weirdness, and i don't want it, and let's not do it, and be mine permanently." well, it would be easier. without having had the freedom to say such a thing, however, this Peace was sort of difficult to broker, but i hope it will last. perhaps one day she will stumble upon this website and see how much i really love her, and how much the lack of her friendship, however temporary, consumed me, and that, when it is missing even for a short time, only beyonce's ass can save me.
the cards were shaped like small pieces of bread and bore pictures of, by turns, lettuce, hard boiled egg slices, peanut butter, jelly, swiss cheese, tomato, pickles, and bacon. i originally suggested not playing with the bacon cards because Juan is kosher, but she conceded this once to play with the bacon cards. there were also cards with pictures of very nonplussed people eating sandwiches, and then cards with pictures of sneaky, masked robbers stealing away with sandwiches. (my perfect game! californians, watch out; it's coming back with me.)when one of these robber cards came up, the objective was to slap it and yell, "stop, thief!" whereas when the cards were really slapped, people tried to yell "stop, thief" but instead yelled make-your-own types of phrases, like, "help!" and "there he goes!" and "oh no you di'n't!" only once did i manage to slap the robber, at which point i yelled, "up yours!" and did not receive the pile. another of the injustices visited upon me by the Game Foes, who apparently make all the rules.
at the place where i was supposed to meet chris today, i waited for him outside with my coffee. i was not fully awake. i was watching the people go by. peoplewatching in bethesda is like watching the same insufferable person walk by over and over again. i was watching with so much grave gusto that i did not see chris walk up. he walked directly in front of my face. he was smiling. chris is usually smiling. "oh! hello!" i said, embracing him. "i didn't see you there. i was watching the people."
"but you were not watching me," he said. "or maybe i'm not exactly a person."
"that," i told him, "would be a compliment right about now."
chris is perhaps one of the only people in the world who is pursuing a j.d. and an m.b.a. and is hell-bent on not becoming evil. most people, i feel, are more like, well, if i become evil, it wouldn't be the best, but what happens, happens. chris has always been highly principled and socially liberal. sometimes sensitive. extraordinarily smart. he froze his dead goldfish, elvis, in his refrigerator freezer for many years because he could not bear to bury or flush him. that was less smart. he speaks chinese. he is in love with a rad and beautiful blonde biologist. he has a lot more gray hair than i do. he is tall, very tall. if he becomes evil, he is aware that he will be both tall and evil, which often increases the evilness. and he knows this. i think he will be a very powerful ally for the force of good, particularly because he told me that if he becomes rich but not evil, he will be my Writing Patron, which i could absolutely need. ("i need more and better patrons," i remarked solemnly.) but not in a skeezy, renaissance italy, young boys and old men way. no, no.
in the greatest slamwich! of all, i think that maybe things between my extraordinarily esteemed girl-friend and i may be back on the ups. often i have remarked on this website how things would be easier if we could just take a break from our regularly scheduled programs and have ten minutes of earnestness, and just tell the truth, and just simply say things like, "every day i think about how amazing you are, and how lucky i am to be friends with you, and i hate this weirdness, and i don't want it, and let's not do it, and be mine permanently." well, it would be easier. without having had the freedom to say such a thing, however, this Peace was sort of difficult to broker, but i hope it will last. perhaps one day she will stumble upon this website and see how much i really love her, and how much the lack of her friendship, however temporary, consumed me, and that, when it is missing even for a short time, only beyonce's ass can save me.
Monday, December 25, 2006
christmas in two parts
part one: media and despondency
it's really hard to be despondent when you're staring at beyonce's ass. i mean, i'm just saying. or, wait, am i objectifying women? i take it back, then. i take it all back.
juan's Idea for christmas was that, us being jews and all, we should all go to a movie. we got tickets to dreamgirls, which was totally phenomenal and which i highly recommend. i even cried, and as you all know, i have no emotions at all, so this was a major event. actually, as was (rather cruelly, if you ask me) pointed out to me about a week ago, all those who say they have hearts of steel do not, and only wish they did; and likewise, all those who say they have no emotions at all probably have tons of emotions, and only wish they didn't. and in fact, in the past week, i have been rather in the running for the highly coveted position of Town Crier of San Francisco -- but if you'd gotten mugged, gotten into an as-yet-unresolved altercation with a highly esteemed friend, and had to fly into Dulles, you'd be in the running, too, i assure you.
anyway, dreamgirls was tearsworthy and beyonce's ass highly despondency-preventing.
back at the house i have been ensconced in my usual form of media, which is, young adult children's books. it being my job to copyedit them, i read a lot of them. they sort of blend together after a while. the one i'm reading now takes place in a mental hospital, and i wish it were not outside the bounds of my contract to tell you more about it, and then all about it, because this is the kind of book kids should be reading. it's the kind of book (on the kind of topic) that i hope i would write if i wrote kids' books, which i don't (yet), but maybe better. it completely lacks guile, which i respect. not that i copyedit books i like more thoroughly than books i don't like, but this book is getting a very thorough copyedit.
part two: technology
ari and daniel are connected at the hip to their cell phones. most of us carry our cell phones with us all the time, but we don't do anything with them. they ring, and then we pick them up. or if you're me, you don't pick it up. (if you have ever been with me when my phone rings, you know that my m.o. is to see who it is, cringe no matter who it is, look like a deer trapped in headlights, then say, "can't do it, can't do it" and put the phone away. i do not come across well on the phone, and i know this.)
ari and daniel have bypassed this eventuality with the text message. on average, i don't know how many text messages they send per day. maybe untold hundreds, i don't know. usually to their significant others, or people who they would like to be their significant others. this is very different from when i was daniel's age, in high school. there was no way to correspond like this, at all. i sat at the kitchen table with my ear open, barely daring to chew, in case a very far-away ring should sound. and if it sounded, i asked to be excused in my absolute fastest-delivered voice, and sprang from the table like kobe bryant from a law suit.
imagine my surprise when last night, after midnight, copyediting blithely alone in my room with the dog, i got an anonymous text message asking me if i would like to have lunch or get a drink on tuesday. delighted at having been contacted but not called, i wrote back that i absolutely would, and who was this? oh, the irony! it was chris, my delightful friend and ex-boyfriend -- indeed, my very first boyfriend; my boyfriend from when i was daniel's age, and before that, and after that. when chris & i were going out, we would talk every night for hours on the phone. sometimes we would fall asleep on the phone. on purpose. what did we talk about? i have no idea. i also wrote him long letters during the day, if you can imagine my having anything additional to say after having spent hours on the phone every night previous. and stories. i wrote him stories. and cartoons. and he made me things out of paper. we would have rocked this text-message trend, except that there were no cell phones -- in fact, there was hardly even the whole e-mail craze -- and so we have had to wait until now, when it is far less exciting because we are pretty much a whole decade removed from when it would have rocked our worlds. however, text-messaging back and forth last night about this lunch/drink idea, i felt strangely like ari and daniel, and i appreciated how i could talk to someone at 1 am without other people having to hear my loud phone voice, and without having the wait of e-mail, which remains nonetheless my favorite means of communication. maybe ari and daniel are on to a real phenomenon. there is something almost satisfying about being ten years too late for something.
it's really hard to be despondent when you're staring at beyonce's ass. i mean, i'm just saying. or, wait, am i objectifying women? i take it back, then. i take it all back.
juan's Idea for christmas was that, us being jews and all, we should all go to a movie. we got tickets to dreamgirls, which was totally phenomenal and which i highly recommend. i even cried, and as you all know, i have no emotions at all, so this was a major event. actually, as was (rather cruelly, if you ask me) pointed out to me about a week ago, all those who say they have hearts of steel do not, and only wish they did; and likewise, all those who say they have no emotions at all probably have tons of emotions, and only wish they didn't. and in fact, in the past week, i have been rather in the running for the highly coveted position of Town Crier of San Francisco -- but if you'd gotten mugged, gotten into an as-yet-unresolved altercation with a highly esteemed friend, and had to fly into Dulles, you'd be in the running, too, i assure you.
anyway, dreamgirls was tearsworthy and beyonce's ass highly despondency-preventing.
back at the house i have been ensconced in my usual form of media, which is, young adult children's books. it being my job to copyedit them, i read a lot of them. they sort of blend together after a while. the one i'm reading now takes place in a mental hospital, and i wish it were not outside the bounds of my contract to tell you more about it, and then all about it, because this is the kind of book kids should be reading. it's the kind of book (on the kind of topic) that i hope i would write if i wrote kids' books, which i don't (yet), but maybe better. it completely lacks guile, which i respect. not that i copyedit books i like more thoroughly than books i don't like, but this book is getting a very thorough copyedit.
part two: technology
ari and daniel are connected at the hip to their cell phones. most of us carry our cell phones with us all the time, but we don't do anything with them. they ring, and then we pick them up. or if you're me, you don't pick it up. (if you have ever been with me when my phone rings, you know that my m.o. is to see who it is, cringe no matter who it is, look like a deer trapped in headlights, then say, "can't do it, can't do it" and put the phone away. i do not come across well on the phone, and i know this.)
ari and daniel have bypassed this eventuality with the text message. on average, i don't know how many text messages they send per day. maybe untold hundreds, i don't know. usually to their significant others, or people who they would like to be their significant others. this is very different from when i was daniel's age, in high school. there was no way to correspond like this, at all. i sat at the kitchen table with my ear open, barely daring to chew, in case a very far-away ring should sound. and if it sounded, i asked to be excused in my absolute fastest-delivered voice, and sprang from the table like kobe bryant from a law suit.
imagine my surprise when last night, after midnight, copyediting blithely alone in my room with the dog, i got an anonymous text message asking me if i would like to have lunch or get a drink on tuesday. delighted at having been contacted but not called, i wrote back that i absolutely would, and who was this? oh, the irony! it was chris, my delightful friend and ex-boyfriend -- indeed, my very first boyfriend; my boyfriend from when i was daniel's age, and before that, and after that. when chris & i were going out, we would talk every night for hours on the phone. sometimes we would fall asleep on the phone. on purpose. what did we talk about? i have no idea. i also wrote him long letters during the day, if you can imagine my having anything additional to say after having spent hours on the phone every night previous. and stories. i wrote him stories. and cartoons. and he made me things out of paper. we would have rocked this text-message trend, except that there were no cell phones -- in fact, there was hardly even the whole e-mail craze -- and so we have had to wait until now, when it is far less exciting because we are pretty much a whole decade removed from when it would have rocked our worlds. however, text-messaging back and forth last night about this lunch/drink idea, i felt strangely like ari and daniel, and i appreciated how i could talk to someone at 1 am without other people having to hear my loud phone voice, and without having the wait of e-mail, which remains nonetheless my favorite means of communication. maybe ari and daniel are on to a real phenomenon. there is something almost satisfying about being ten years too late for something.
meanwhile, i lift the ban on calling. if you are reading this, and you are not angry at me anymore, you may call me. it's okay. because can't you see how despondent i am? beyonce's ass only goes so far! only so far! if it's you, i promise i will pick up, and will not now, or ever again, grimace and say "can't do it."
Saturday, December 23, 2006
events in the round
around the holidays, juan will occasionally Get Ideas. today her Idea was that she, ari, and i would attend a play, which originally sounded like a very pleasant Idea. then it came out that this play was to be a musical play in a small d.c. theater in the round. a musical in the round. i'm not sure i need to say more.
this musical in the round (look, i'm saying more) was set in 1930s budapest, although you would never have known it from the decor, characters, script, etc. itself. it involved many whimsical songs and madcap dance numbers, mainly danced by old people. after every song, ari leaned over to me and whispered, "aaaaaand that's a wrap." but it was not a wrap. it was not a wrap for several hours. for some reason, however, we were in high spirits on the way home, anyway.
tonight was honorary hanukah, since we hadn't gotten a chance to exchange gifts on real hanukah. there was a lot of excuse making. people had not gotten anyone else gifts. or they were coming, or lodged firmly in people's hearts with no way of getting out. i declared my gift to several people to be amazon.com gift certificates and was met with very dubious looks. david, the only one who had physical, tangible gifts (or gifts at all) for everyone, gave me some sort of game that involves sandwiches, and robbers. this, truly, is a brother who has me figured out. soon, we will probably play it, and i will be very competitive, and not win, and fume, and give the evil eye all around, and then forget that i felt this way when it is time to play again, ten minutes later, and approach looking eager with an extremely naive glimmer in my eye. i am rather like a dog, like that, with games.
david and daniel inexplicably presented juan and ari with small bears wearing masks and halloween decor -- witch hats, brooms, capes, and the like. it was the most ostentatious instance of unseasonal regifting since the 1998 regifting of foul valentine's day candy, except that both david and daniel insisted that it was not a regift; that they had procured these halloween bears on purpose at boyd's bears in gettysburg, pa. when they had gone back to retrieve david's orthotics from his gettysburg abode. apparently, boyd's bears is quite the place. david reports that it features a man-santa who small children can visit with; after the visit, they careen down a slide and into a pit of tiny santa bears, one of which each child is allowed to take home with him. a pit of tiny santa bears. that's all.
meanwhile i am becoming more and more melancholy re: the events of earlier in the week in the san francisco bay area. do you ever get the feeling that you have really screwed something up, maybe irreversibly? and when you think about it, you are aware of the time ticking by, and the things you aren't doing about it? and then when you consider what you could do, you realize you can't do anything, and that sometimes you just get one chance? and that you blew that chance? i think i may truly have alienated my girl-friend. maybe forever? i cannot say. what do you do when you suspect things such as this? me, i observe other people receiving halloween bears for hanukah. i consume sushi. i copyedit. i listen to my sister whisper, "aaaaand that's a wrap" in my ear. i get pictures enlarged. i do situps in my childhood bedroom even though i am well aware that my dog recently vomited on the rug (has dog crohn's, can't help it). i read ishiguro. i make revisions. i think about you.
this musical in the round (look, i'm saying more) was set in 1930s budapest, although you would never have known it from the decor, characters, script, etc. itself. it involved many whimsical songs and madcap dance numbers, mainly danced by old people. after every song, ari leaned over to me and whispered, "aaaaaand that's a wrap." but it was not a wrap. it was not a wrap for several hours. for some reason, however, we were in high spirits on the way home, anyway.
tonight was honorary hanukah, since we hadn't gotten a chance to exchange gifts on real hanukah. there was a lot of excuse making. people had not gotten anyone else gifts. or they were coming, or lodged firmly in people's hearts with no way of getting out. i declared my gift to several people to be amazon.com gift certificates and was met with very dubious looks. david, the only one who had physical, tangible gifts (or gifts at all) for everyone, gave me some sort of game that involves sandwiches, and robbers. this, truly, is a brother who has me figured out. soon, we will probably play it, and i will be very competitive, and not win, and fume, and give the evil eye all around, and then forget that i felt this way when it is time to play again, ten minutes later, and approach looking eager with an extremely naive glimmer in my eye. i am rather like a dog, like that, with games.
david and daniel inexplicably presented juan and ari with small bears wearing masks and halloween decor -- witch hats, brooms, capes, and the like. it was the most ostentatious instance of unseasonal regifting since the 1998 regifting of foul valentine's day candy, except that both david and daniel insisted that it was not a regift; that they had procured these halloween bears on purpose at boyd's bears in gettysburg, pa. when they had gone back to retrieve david's orthotics from his gettysburg abode. apparently, boyd's bears is quite the place. david reports that it features a man-santa who small children can visit with; after the visit, they careen down a slide and into a pit of tiny santa bears, one of which each child is allowed to take home with him. a pit of tiny santa bears. that's all.
meanwhile i am becoming more and more melancholy re: the events of earlier in the week in the san francisco bay area. do you ever get the feeling that you have really screwed something up, maybe irreversibly? and when you think about it, you are aware of the time ticking by, and the things you aren't doing about it? and then when you consider what you could do, you realize you can't do anything, and that sometimes you just get one chance? and that you blew that chance? i think i may truly have alienated my girl-friend. maybe forever? i cannot say. what do you do when you suspect things such as this? me, i observe other people receiving halloween bears for hanukah. i consume sushi. i copyedit. i listen to my sister whisper, "aaaaand that's a wrap" in my ear. i get pictures enlarged. i do situps in my childhood bedroom even though i am well aware that my dog recently vomited on the rug (has dog crohn's, can't help it). i read ishiguro. i make revisions. i think about you.
Friday, December 22, 2006
and our state flower is the black-eyed susan
other notable features of the state of maryland:
-a passenger van parked in downtown bethesda marked unironically, as far as i could tell, "yuppiemobile"
-"hott!" 99.5 FM, the energy of which boggles the mind and delights brother daniel
-annual christmas envy
-my new santa hat (i have this idea that 2006 might be the year i reprise my role as "the santa who took pity on the jews," but i don't know if we're ready for that here at the l. household)
-eastern standard time, which is, in a word, a bummer
-a passenger van parked in downtown bethesda marked unironically, as far as i could tell, "yuppiemobile"
-"hott!" 99.5 FM, the energy of which boggles the mind and delights brother daniel
-annual christmas envy
-my new santa hat (i have this idea that 2006 might be the year i reprise my role as "the santa who took pity on the jews," but i don't know if we're ready for that here at the l. household)
-eastern standard time, which is, in a word, a bummer
Thursday, December 21, 2006
flight of a thousand infants
does it seem to you like i am always in maryland? because it seems like that to me.
i was placed upon the Flight of A Thousand Infants today from SFO to Dulles. the stipulation for the plane taking off was that an infant, preferably wailing, had to be seated in every row. in my row, since there was no infant, an exception was made, and an eleven-year-old girl with six hours' worth of questions was placed in the middle seat next to my window. did i have a job? what was my favorite season? why was the plane bouncing like that? what made wind? how come jews didn't go to church? did i like to sing? why? and so on. for six hours.
i talked to her and explained why wind lifts things over mountains and also about what "kosher" means and we did some math problems and also talked about the beach, and our favorite kinds of shells and why, and debated the merits and demerits of eating sand. but the unanswered questions, on my end, were, where are your parents? and why in god's name are you so awake when you clearly, like me, had to leave your apartment/house at 6 a.m. to make this flight? and are you for real with sticking the earbud of my ipod into your ear unbidden? and isn't it weird that it's physically possible that someone your age could be my child?
anyway, i'm home now. bis'l, in fine form and wearing a most unfortunate hanukah bandana of sorts, has already broken several rules in the interest of greeting me and/or obtaining additional foodstuffs; arielle has already departed for points jamal; david and daniel, a.k.a. the dueling jew-'fros, are already watching/arguing/wrassling re: some football game, juan has made latkes, my dad has grumbled about a book, so basically all is normal here.
thank you for your concern, by the way, re: my little escapade on tuesday night coming a'back a'from the BART. i am basically okay. this is why you shouldn't walk down dark alleys alone when you are emotional and tired, or at all. many want to know: is my love affair with the BART over? are you kidding me? my love affair with the BART has just begun. BART to SFO? my favorite. BART to embarcadero? to berkeley? to oakland? getting stuck under the bay in the BART? or on a BART about to jump the tracks? there is no better form of entertainment than riding BART and watching the people upon it and laying your head upon those delightfully greasy windows and watching the corner delis go by, and also, the escapade had nothing at all to do with BART, which was at least two blocks away by the time it went down. and also? can i just say? "escapade" -- was it not a janet jackson song? that's all i'm saying. not only am i going to be basically fine, i'm living the jacksonian dream.
i was placed upon the Flight of A Thousand Infants today from SFO to Dulles. the stipulation for the plane taking off was that an infant, preferably wailing, had to be seated in every row. in my row, since there was no infant, an exception was made, and an eleven-year-old girl with six hours' worth of questions was placed in the middle seat next to my window. did i have a job? what was my favorite season? why was the plane bouncing like that? what made wind? how come jews didn't go to church? did i like to sing? why? and so on. for six hours.
i talked to her and explained why wind lifts things over mountains and also about what "kosher" means and we did some math problems and also talked about the beach, and our favorite kinds of shells and why, and debated the merits and demerits of eating sand. but the unanswered questions, on my end, were, where are your parents? and why in god's name are you so awake when you clearly, like me, had to leave your apartment/house at 6 a.m. to make this flight? and are you for real with sticking the earbud of my ipod into your ear unbidden? and isn't it weird that it's physically possible that someone your age could be my child?
anyway, i'm home now. bis'l, in fine form and wearing a most unfortunate hanukah bandana of sorts, has already broken several rules in the interest of greeting me and/or obtaining additional foodstuffs; arielle has already departed for points jamal; david and daniel, a.k.a. the dueling jew-'fros, are already watching/arguing/wrassling re: some football game, juan has made latkes, my dad has grumbled about a book, so basically all is normal here.
thank you for your concern, by the way, re: my little escapade on tuesday night coming a'back a'from the BART. i am basically okay. this is why you shouldn't walk down dark alleys alone when you are emotional and tired, or at all. many want to know: is my love affair with the BART over? are you kidding me? my love affair with the BART has just begun. BART to SFO? my favorite. BART to embarcadero? to berkeley? to oakland? getting stuck under the bay in the BART? or on a BART about to jump the tracks? there is no better form of entertainment than riding BART and watching the people upon it and laying your head upon those delightfully greasy windows and watching the corner delis go by, and also, the escapade had nothing at all to do with BART, which was at least two blocks away by the time it went down. and also? can i just say? "escapade" -- was it not a janet jackson song? that's all i'm saying. not only am i going to be basically fine, i'm living the jacksonian dream.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
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an open letter to parties who are unlikely to respond
dear gods of enormous highs followed by enormous lows:
first of all, respect. second of all, i'm really flattered that you like me so much, and continue to visit upon me the most amazing highs and then, as per your wonts, the most phenomenal lows. i recognize that this is a sign of your favor, and believe me, i am not ungrateful.
because, don't get me wrong, the highs are amazing. i fucking love getting sweet writing fellowships and getting my stories nominated for shit, and i love coming to live in cities with terrifyingly steep hills and terrifyingly out-of-orbit palm trees. and you know what else is great? michelle, and nate, and michelle's kitchenaid, and the ten superhott pounds i've gained as a result of its existence. please don't forget wallito. or any of the spectacular friendly citizens of san francisco and environs. or girls who once attended college in particular southeast corners of pennsylvania. or the entire city of new york, including the hudson, and maybe even staten island. okay, even staten island. or d.o.c. pizza. or steve winwood. or jumping on the bed. naturally i'm thrilled that you've visited crazy donald barthelme stories on me, and fish, and of course i haven't forgotten certain redheaded boys with high hair who make an incomprehensible dork out of me.
or, it appears, my utter inability to stop breaking my own rules on this website.
but can we talk about the lows? just for a second. i realize they don't occur without my participation. do you have to have old ladies yell at me for being late, and then, inadvertantly, and only because they are old and not because they are malicious, spit on me and those to my left and right for the entirety of a two-hour monologue? do you have to have people outright slander my projects and tell me they will fail? and do you have to make me respond in the nastiest, coldest voice you can imagine, "do you really think so? i guess we'll just have to see; stay tuned," which is just not appropriate, especially when i am wearing sneakers? you know what, gods, i don't even care about that. let that come. but please lay off the moments when you allow me to maybe, potentially ruin my friendships with girls, yea, young lady folk, who amaze me, who are amazing, who i could not hold in higher esteem, in a single afternoon, and please stop permitting me to make decisions that i know are bad and make them anyway because i haven't yet learned my lesson even though i think about my lesson every day, every single day. and, if possible, stop me from pressing send when i get home and i am beaten up and dissolved in tears and have written potentially the cruelest e-mail of my life, and don't make me wake up in the morning literally covered in blood and never be able to figure out where it came from. if you're going to do that, please lay a terrifying horse's head beside me. but keep going with the making me feel sorry. make me feel sorry, and then make me feel sorrier and sorrier.
yours,
kara
first of all, respect. second of all, i'm really flattered that you like me so much, and continue to visit upon me the most amazing highs and then, as per your wonts, the most phenomenal lows. i recognize that this is a sign of your favor, and believe me, i am not ungrateful.
because, don't get me wrong, the highs are amazing. i fucking love getting sweet writing fellowships and getting my stories nominated for shit, and i love coming to live in cities with terrifyingly steep hills and terrifyingly out-of-orbit palm trees. and you know what else is great? michelle, and nate, and michelle's kitchenaid, and the ten superhott pounds i've gained as a result of its existence. please don't forget wallito. or any of the spectacular friendly citizens of san francisco and environs. or girls who once attended college in particular southeast corners of pennsylvania. or the entire city of new york, including the hudson, and maybe even staten island. okay, even staten island. or d.o.c. pizza. or steve winwood. or jumping on the bed. naturally i'm thrilled that you've visited crazy donald barthelme stories on me, and fish, and of course i haven't forgotten certain redheaded boys with high hair who make an incomprehensible dork out of me.
or, it appears, my utter inability to stop breaking my own rules on this website.
but can we talk about the lows? just for a second. i realize they don't occur without my participation. do you have to have old ladies yell at me for being late, and then, inadvertantly, and only because they are old and not because they are malicious, spit on me and those to my left and right for the entirety of a two-hour monologue? do you have to have people outright slander my projects and tell me they will fail? and do you have to make me respond in the nastiest, coldest voice you can imagine, "do you really think so? i guess we'll just have to see; stay tuned," which is just not appropriate, especially when i am wearing sneakers? you know what, gods, i don't even care about that. let that come. but please lay off the moments when you allow me to maybe, potentially ruin my friendships with girls, yea, young lady folk, who amaze me, who are amazing, who i could not hold in higher esteem, in a single afternoon, and please stop permitting me to make decisions that i know are bad and make them anyway because i haven't yet learned my lesson even though i think about my lesson every day, every single day. and, if possible, stop me from pressing send when i get home and i am beaten up and dissolved in tears and have written potentially the cruelest e-mail of my life, and don't make me wake up in the morning literally covered in blood and never be able to figure out where it came from. if you're going to do that, please lay a terrifying horse's head beside me. but keep going with the making me feel sorry. make me feel sorry, and then make me feel sorrier and sorrier.
yours,
kara
Monday, December 18, 2006
...a new car!
my friend magical majkin the pastry chef has a new claim to fame, and it involves bob barker. apparently her brother is obsessed with bob, and on a recent journey west, made a pilgrimage to the price is right studios for a chance to appear on the show and, perhaps, even meet bob himself. being the brother of majkin and therefore, i can only assume, not one to do things halfway, not only did he make it onto the show, but he won a red, white, and blue striped patriotic rug. and (wait for it) a hovercraft. majkin's brother won a hovercraft from bob barker. the show airs on january 18, his name is darien, and he has red hair. be there, and prepare to feel that much closer to fame.
meanwhile, i am torn. on the one hand, there is my love for bis'l, the small brown-and-white dog who enjoys sitting at table, sleeping in the bed like a person, growling at babies, and having dog crohn's disease. on the other hand, there is san francisco. on the first hand: juan and my dad, the dueling jew-'fros (aka my brothers), and arito, the world's winningest person. on the other hand, san francisco. on the first hand, new york at large. on the other hand... okay, maybe now i'm excited to be going back east. however, i have not yet accepted the fact that i must, over the next two days, pack, clean my room from top to bottom, copyedit about five hundred children's books, and probably emit tears, as i always do when i leave places that i like, even if it's just for two weeks. and i have not yet accepted that when i get to new york, i will not be able to just get on the 2 train and ride up to 96th street and then go home, because home is not there anymore, or rather, it is there, but someone else is living in it. in my apartment. with my view of my creepy neighbors over my airshaft. and i will not be able to hear the pipes clank like someone is dying in there. and i will not be able to see the drug circles get busted across the hall from the eyehole in my front door. nor will i be able to slip over the tile in the kitchen that looks stable but is not stable, at all. will it still be new york even though i don't live there anymore? will it still be new york even though someday i will probably go back? as you can see, it's not enough to be anxious actually when i reach the bridge to be crossed; i have to gear up to be anxious well ahead of time, like a softball pitcher winding up for a particularly important throw. and i wonder why i'm going gray.
meanwhile, i am torn. on the one hand, there is my love for bis'l, the small brown-and-white dog who enjoys sitting at table, sleeping in the bed like a person, growling at babies, and having dog crohn's disease. on the other hand, there is san francisco. on the first hand: juan and my dad, the dueling jew-'fros (aka my brothers), and arito, the world's winningest person. on the other hand, san francisco. on the first hand, new york at large. on the other hand... okay, maybe now i'm excited to be going back east. however, i have not yet accepted the fact that i must, over the next two days, pack, clean my room from top to bottom, copyedit about five hundred children's books, and probably emit tears, as i always do when i leave places that i like, even if it's just for two weeks. and i have not yet accepted that when i get to new york, i will not be able to just get on the 2 train and ride up to 96th street and then go home, because home is not there anymore, or rather, it is there, but someone else is living in it. in my apartment. with my view of my creepy neighbors over my airshaft. and i will not be able to hear the pipes clank like someone is dying in there. and i will not be able to see the drug circles get busted across the hall from the eyehole in my front door. nor will i be able to slip over the tile in the kitchen that looks stable but is not stable, at all. will it still be new york even though i don't live there anymore? will it still be new york even though someday i will probably go back? as you can see, it's not enough to be anxious actually when i reach the bridge to be crossed; i have to gear up to be anxious well ahead of time, like a softball pitcher winding up for a particularly important throw. and i wonder why i'm going gray.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
fortunes of the day
things learned today:
-according to michelle, the appropriate phonetic spelling of a burp is "brap." that's b-r-a-p.
-san francisco looks amazing at 6:45 a.m., and even more amazing if you can get back into bed after noticing this, going outside while it is freezing, and then thinking better of it.
-do not joke lightheartedly about wanting to make out with someone if the truth is that you actually want to do it.
-nate found a song, on the internet, that features my entire name in its title and chorus. it is a terrible, migraine-inducing song. in it, the protagonist with my name steps in front of a subway car and dies. great.
-experimental fiction is hard to like, sometimes.
-be careful.
-be really, really careful.
-according to michelle, the appropriate phonetic spelling of a burp is "brap." that's b-r-a-p.
-san francisco looks amazing at 6:45 a.m., and even more amazing if you can get back into bed after noticing this, going outside while it is freezing, and then thinking better of it.
-do not joke lightheartedly about wanting to make out with someone if the truth is that you actually want to do it.
-nate found a song, on the internet, that features my entire name in its title and chorus. it is a terrible, migraine-inducing song. in it, the protagonist with my name steps in front of a subway car and dies. great.
-experimental fiction is hard to like, sometimes.
-be careful.
-be really, really careful.
Saturday, December 16, 2006
near-death experiences
last night if you were on mission street between eleventh and sixteenth streets around 8:00, you might have seen a girl in chuck taylors running top-speed like an extra in a bad eddie murphy film, dodging all oncomers, eyes on the prize. the prize, with all due irony, being BART. and the girl being me. i was definitely going to miss my train.
except i didn't. i made my train, as did untold hundreds of other people. why were so many people going to the east bay at 8:00 pm? to die, apparently, as within about ten minutes the intercom system came on and, while the train was still steadily careening east-bayward, calmly announced that the train had a technical malfunction, and that we had nothing to worry about if all of those riding in cars xxxx and yyyy would steadily proceed through the inner doors to other cars. that way, the intercom concluded reasonably, the train would not jump the tracks. naturally this would be the train i had nearly busted a hamstring to get to -- the death train. most of the other passengers in my car, which was not even one of the cars mentioned, milled about anxiously, muttering partially-convinced "does this mean we're going to die?" speculations at each other and chuckling nervously. except for my seatmate and me. my seatmate, a particularly non-plussed teenage girl who had the earbud to her cell phone in her ear, announced in the boredest voice i have ever heard to whoever was on the phone with her -- one ray, i saw on her monitor -- that it had just been announced that the train might be jumping the tracks, so she was going to be a little late to macarthur.
needless to say, we didn't die. as many of you know, nothing delights me more than not dying, except for maybe announcing that i haven't died. which, upon my arrival in berkeley, i promptly had to get out of the way before the delight overwhelmed me. twenty-five years, two months, and twenty-one days of not dying. can i just give a little booyah? just a small one?
sometimes before i have had coffee in the morning, things are very clear. other times, very vague. this morning they were clear. we walked outside and there was a chicken who had escaped from his fellow chickens in the coop, and was merrily pecking at some vegetables in the garden, looking for all the world like a twenty-five-year, two-month, twenty-one-day-year-old chicken who was simply delighted to have escaped death thus far. except that -- enter clarity powers -- no tableau with a merrily pecking escaped chicken would be complete without a remarkably grim looking cat standing on a nearby high wall, eyes on the prize (here being the chicken, not BART), ready to perhaps eat that chicken at any moment and end the streak. add to this the fact that the chicken should not have been eating those vegetables at all; those were contraband vegetables, as far as the chicken was concerned.
there is a song you sing at passover seder about animals in turn eating other animals -- as in, the dog who ate the goat who ate the bird who ate the... you get the picture. it took about two seconds for me to imagine the vegetables in the stomach of the chicken in the stomach of the cat and utter an inner l'chaim! (pre-coffee, remember.) but clearly this could not stand.
if you really want to know about somebody, i highly recommend watching them attempt to chase a chicken around and then catch it. what would you do if you had a catch a runaway chicken? i think i would have started much the way rob did, which was to approach it steadily and carefully, sort of slowly, much like you would approach a deer ("don't... move... an... inch... you... little...") except that chickens are not deer, and when they sense you coming toward them, being chickens, they're like, "oh my b'kaw fucking goodness!" and start off full-blast on their wild chicken dance. which is basically what i do when i sense that something in the universe is trying to effect my death, so i really can't blame chickens for this. i stood there rather idly watching while rob proceeded to chase the chicken around in impossibly small circles and over piles of sticks, announcing (to the chicken), "this is the part where you submit to me!" another thing about chickens: they very rarely read the script about what they are supposed to do when they are inserted into an ACME-cartoon-style tableau featuring themselves, escaped, merrily eating vegetables, about to be eaten by an evil cat, and finally chased around in impossibly tiny circles by a redheaded boy whose carrying phrases are "submit to me!" they're just lazy that way. he opened the door to the coop and politely invited the chicken to walk back in, which -- surprise -- also did not work, and only encouraged the other chickens, who were following the progress of their escaped chicken comrade with about as much interest as chickens can muster, to exit in kind. things were not looking good for the capture of the chicken. i was about to go in guerilla-manhattan style and start throwing illegally-held objects at the head of the chicken (not to kill it, mind you, just to stun it) when bay-area style won out and suddenly, to my amazement, rob was holding the chicken (how this happened, i did not see) and releasing it back into the coop. one thing about manhattan-style: you're not supposed to be impressed with things like that. or, if you are, you can chastely say, "i'm impressed," in a flat sort of mtv's daria voice. but i was way, way more impressed than that. and i think i only have about 30% manhattan powers left in my juice box. "you're my hero!" i cried, swooning, and boy, did i mean it. but he was on the other side of the car by that point, so i don't think he heard me.
except i didn't. i made my train, as did untold hundreds of other people. why were so many people going to the east bay at 8:00 pm? to die, apparently, as within about ten minutes the intercom system came on and, while the train was still steadily careening east-bayward, calmly announced that the train had a technical malfunction, and that we had nothing to worry about if all of those riding in cars xxxx and yyyy would steadily proceed through the inner doors to other cars. that way, the intercom concluded reasonably, the train would not jump the tracks. naturally this would be the train i had nearly busted a hamstring to get to -- the death train. most of the other passengers in my car, which was not even one of the cars mentioned, milled about anxiously, muttering partially-convinced "does this mean we're going to die?" speculations at each other and chuckling nervously. except for my seatmate and me. my seatmate, a particularly non-plussed teenage girl who had the earbud to her cell phone in her ear, announced in the boredest voice i have ever heard to whoever was on the phone with her -- one ray, i saw on her monitor -- that it had just been announced that the train might be jumping the tracks, so she was going to be a little late to macarthur.
needless to say, we didn't die. as many of you know, nothing delights me more than not dying, except for maybe announcing that i haven't died. which, upon my arrival in berkeley, i promptly had to get out of the way before the delight overwhelmed me. twenty-five years, two months, and twenty-one days of not dying. can i just give a little booyah? just a small one?
sometimes before i have had coffee in the morning, things are very clear. other times, very vague. this morning they were clear. we walked outside and there was a chicken who had escaped from his fellow chickens in the coop, and was merrily pecking at some vegetables in the garden, looking for all the world like a twenty-five-year, two-month, twenty-one-day-year-old chicken who was simply delighted to have escaped death thus far. except that -- enter clarity powers -- no tableau with a merrily pecking escaped chicken would be complete without a remarkably grim looking cat standing on a nearby high wall, eyes on the prize (here being the chicken, not BART), ready to perhaps eat that chicken at any moment and end the streak. add to this the fact that the chicken should not have been eating those vegetables at all; those were contraband vegetables, as far as the chicken was concerned.
there is a song you sing at passover seder about animals in turn eating other animals -- as in, the dog who ate the goat who ate the bird who ate the... you get the picture. it took about two seconds for me to imagine the vegetables in the stomach of the chicken in the stomach of the cat and utter an inner l'chaim! (pre-coffee, remember.) but clearly this could not stand.
if you really want to know about somebody, i highly recommend watching them attempt to chase a chicken around and then catch it. what would you do if you had a catch a runaway chicken? i think i would have started much the way rob did, which was to approach it steadily and carefully, sort of slowly, much like you would approach a deer ("don't... move... an... inch... you... little...") except that chickens are not deer, and when they sense you coming toward them, being chickens, they're like, "oh my b'kaw fucking goodness!" and start off full-blast on their wild chicken dance. which is basically what i do when i sense that something in the universe is trying to effect my death, so i really can't blame chickens for this. i stood there rather idly watching while rob proceeded to chase the chicken around in impossibly small circles and over piles of sticks, announcing (to the chicken), "this is the part where you submit to me!" another thing about chickens: they very rarely read the script about what they are supposed to do when they are inserted into an ACME-cartoon-style tableau featuring themselves, escaped, merrily eating vegetables, about to be eaten by an evil cat, and finally chased around in impossibly tiny circles by a redheaded boy whose carrying phrases are "submit to me!" they're just lazy that way. he opened the door to the coop and politely invited the chicken to walk back in, which -- surprise -- also did not work, and only encouraged the other chickens, who were following the progress of their escaped chicken comrade with about as much interest as chickens can muster, to exit in kind. things were not looking good for the capture of the chicken. i was about to go in guerilla-manhattan style and start throwing illegally-held objects at the head of the chicken (not to kill it, mind you, just to stun it) when bay-area style won out and suddenly, to my amazement, rob was holding the chicken (how this happened, i did not see) and releasing it back into the coop. one thing about manhattan-style: you're not supposed to be impressed with things like that. or, if you are, you can chastely say, "i'm impressed," in a flat sort of mtv's daria voice. but i was way, way more impressed than that. and i think i only have about 30% manhattan powers left in my juice box. "you're my hero!" i cried, swooning, and boy, did i mean it. but he was on the other side of the car by that point, so i don't think he heard me.
Friday, December 15, 2006
total inability to resist
you may remember that i am the sister of the world's winningest person. by "winningest" here i not only mean "one who wins most often" but also "one whose personality, appearance, general demeanor, ability to relate to others, etc., overall, just wins." she is eighteen, superb, beautiful, smarter than all of us put together, is the life of the party, and a true role model. and guess what she's going to do now? she's going to college! yesterday the school to which she applied early-decision e-mailed her to tell her that they could no longer resist her winningness, and would she like to be a member of the class of (wait for it, get your inhalers out now) 2011? when she called me on the phone to tell me (i was delighted that i ranked only after our dad and one andrew "bob" b., who is one of her oldest friends) she was utterly calm, but i was not. like a small child, i shrieked and jumped around, thoroughly upsetting the copyediting of the unauthorized biography of the child star i was working on. my sister is going to go to college and become someone who does not write stories that no one wants to publish, does not have to copyedit unauthorized biographies to support their groceries habit, and will never, ever have the silly letters M, F, or A after her name. she's going to be a real boy! i am so, so proud.
meanwhile, last night with ruth, helene, and michael at our so-called bay area-columbia m.f.a. book group, i could not resist bringing up a subject that was (this was my caveat) slightly off-topic. i had to tell them about TG's ability to gift the song over the internet. naturally, both michael and i had to do ardent representations of the song in question to make clear to helene and ruth the magnitude of the gift i'd received. once everyone knew what song i was talking about, i explained that not only can TG gift songs over the internet, but so -- oh yes! -- so can we. (writers are constantly baffled and amazed by technology and almost any small, comprehensible discovery on this frontier can make us burst into appreciative applause.) apparently, they already knew this, but i, for my part, was applauding on the inside.
all the way home from ruth's i couldn't help but scheme who i would gift a song to, and what song. it soon became clear that there was almost no choice as to which song would be gifted -- it had to be brenda russell's "piano in the dark." because it is just that creepy. and just that horrifying to receive. and once you push past the creepy and the horrifying, just so, so amazing. when i got home i realized that the answer was obvious. who amongst my friends would appreciate something so horrifying and yet so amazing? there was only one answer.
after sending a message in which i creepily, oh, so creepily transcribed highlights from the lyrics, i sent an itunes gift song of brenda russell's "piano in the dark" to the phenomenally talented writer charles m., the only one who i felt would truly and literally throw up in his mouth a little bit when receiving the song, and then, later, maybe secretly do a little air piano to it. maybe. this morning he told me that he was "at once touched and horrified," which is exactly the reaction i knew he would have. now to find some sort of itunes song about school treats for abby, or about pigs who reside in cities for david.
meanwhile, last night with ruth, helene, and michael at our so-called bay area-columbia m.f.a. book group, i could not resist bringing up a subject that was (this was my caveat) slightly off-topic. i had to tell them about TG's ability to gift the song over the internet. naturally, both michael and i had to do ardent representations of the song in question to make clear to helene and ruth the magnitude of the gift i'd received. once everyone knew what song i was talking about, i explained that not only can TG gift songs over the internet, but so -- oh yes! -- so can we. (writers are constantly baffled and amazed by technology and almost any small, comprehensible discovery on this frontier can make us burst into appreciative applause.) apparently, they already knew this, but i, for my part, was applauding on the inside.
all the way home from ruth's i couldn't help but scheme who i would gift a song to, and what song. it soon became clear that there was almost no choice as to which song would be gifted -- it had to be brenda russell's "piano in the dark." because it is just that creepy. and just that horrifying to receive. and once you push past the creepy and the horrifying, just so, so amazing. when i got home i realized that the answer was obvious. who amongst my friends would appreciate something so horrifying and yet so amazing? there was only one answer.
after sending a message in which i creepily, oh, so creepily transcribed highlights from the lyrics, i sent an itunes gift song of brenda russell's "piano in the dark" to the phenomenally talented writer charles m., the only one who i felt would truly and literally throw up in his mouth a little bit when receiving the song, and then, later, maybe secretly do a little air piano to it. maybe. this morning he told me that he was "at once touched and horrified," which is exactly the reaction i knew he would have. now to find some sort of itunes song about school treats for abby, or about pigs who reside in cities for david.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
in which honesty is attempted for the *very first time EVER*
apparently, there is something that TG wants me to know, and it is:
oh no! caught up in the middle/ i cry just a little when i think of letting go!
oh no! gave up on the riddle/ i cry just a little
when he plays piano in the dark!
silence is broken/ no words are spoken/ but oh!
just as i walk to the door
i can feel your emotion!
pulling me back! back to... love you!
thanks, TG. for real, this is awesome. i had no idea that you could purchase a particular itunes song for someone and then send it to them over the internet, although i did hear tell of this when, on one notable birthday for sarah c., a man with whom she was maybe involved and maybe not involved, and who had an unusually large cranial structure, so large it threatened to topple off of his neck, sent her some really confusing birthday song like "livin' on a prayer," virtually noteless.
i feel as though if TG is man/woman enough to be honest with me about his/her music choices, to send me something that could so freely be described as "lite," then i owe you a little bit of honesty. because you know that thing they teach you in nursery school, about how lies can hurt people's feelings? i was absent that day, because my mom pulled me out early so i could come home and terrorize her (this is actually true). but they're for real in nursery school. except for that part about sharing snack. fuck that.
anyway, it turns out that i hurt the feelings not only of the people i was not being completely honest about, but also the people who i was trying to shield from the people i was not being completely honest about, because, in the words of those people who were being shielded, they are "unusually fair, openminded, and non-judgmental," which, i have to admit, is really very accurate. (most people cannot describe themselves so accurately. me, i'd go for "wild! x-treem! and mellifluous!" which, if you know me, isn't. just isn't.)
this is quite a wind-up, isn't it? as you can see, i really hate being honest. even more than being honest, i hate being frank.
well, the truth is (wishing i had learned how to do this better in 1983, here) there is a boy that i met. he is pretty excellent. he has really high hair. you could probably fit two, three, or on the occasion that other people's high hair was occupied, up to four pigeons in there at any given time. he lives in a big house that is partly painted so blue that it looks like long john silver's crayons and fish sticks should be on offer within it. and i like him.
okay. that wasn't so hard. brenda russell and i are going back to work. if you feel like telling any small fibs today, you can, because i've just expended more honesty than all of us, combined, need to emit over the course of any given thursday.
oh no! caught up in the middle/ i cry just a little when i think of letting go!
oh no! gave up on the riddle/ i cry just a little
when he plays piano in the dark!
silence is broken/ no words are spoken/ but oh!
just as i walk to the door
i can feel your emotion!
pulling me back! back to... love you!
thanks, TG. for real, this is awesome. i had no idea that you could purchase a particular itunes song for someone and then send it to them over the internet, although i did hear tell of this when, on one notable birthday for sarah c., a man with whom she was maybe involved and maybe not involved, and who had an unusually large cranial structure, so large it threatened to topple off of his neck, sent her some really confusing birthday song like "livin' on a prayer," virtually noteless.
i feel as though if TG is man/woman enough to be honest with me about his/her music choices, to send me something that could so freely be described as "lite," then i owe you a little bit of honesty. because you know that thing they teach you in nursery school, about how lies can hurt people's feelings? i was absent that day, because my mom pulled me out early so i could come home and terrorize her (this is actually true). but they're for real in nursery school. except for that part about sharing snack. fuck that.
anyway, it turns out that i hurt the feelings not only of the people i was not being completely honest about, but also the people who i was trying to shield from the people i was not being completely honest about, because, in the words of those people who were being shielded, they are "unusually fair, openminded, and non-judgmental," which, i have to admit, is really very accurate. (most people cannot describe themselves so accurately. me, i'd go for "wild! x-treem! and mellifluous!" which, if you know me, isn't. just isn't.)
this is quite a wind-up, isn't it? as you can see, i really hate being honest. even more than being honest, i hate being frank.
well, the truth is (wishing i had learned how to do this better in 1983, here) there is a boy that i met. he is pretty excellent. he has really high hair. you could probably fit two, three, or on the occasion that other people's high hair was occupied, up to four pigeons in there at any given time. he lives in a big house that is partly painted so blue that it looks like long john silver's crayons and fish sticks should be on offer within it. and i like him.
okay. that wasn't so hard. brenda russell and i are going back to work. if you feel like telling any small fibs today, you can, because i've just expended more honesty than all of us, combined, need to emit over the course of any given thursday.
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
at least i'm not married to percy bysshe shelley
a lot of the time when i am teaching i am creepily aware of how little actual information i am imparting. sometimes maybe even erroneous information. other times i am blown away at how much i know. like who knew how much latin i remembered? no one knew.
today, at the end of the hour, we were working on some vocabulary. my student is very bright and a very excellent kid. i had sort of cribbed and sort of modified a vocabulary list that corresponded to mary shelley's frankenstein, because he's not reading a particular book, and frankenstein is reading-level appropriate. but since they corresponded to frankenstein, all the words were a little dour. words, naturally, that i would be lost without. (side note: on the phone today earlier with abby, we came to another of our very wise conclusions. this one was that dourness is a very attractive quality in a man. i know a particular man in new york who is perhaps the most dour man ever born since the carolina naysayers of the wright brothers. it is a good quality in him, but only in the smallest and most controlled of doses. but back to the vocabulary.) odious gnash futility. transient quiver waft. remember? there was a time when you didn't know these words, either. my student, who, as i said, is smart, remarked that frankenstein must be a super depressing book, and mary shelley super depressed.
"it's hard to have a husband with the middle name bysshe," i said. he looked at me quizzically.
"that's why she was depressed?"
"well," i said philosophically, "no. not exactly. but, you know, everyone has days."
it's probably the most useful thing i've taught him so far.
does it shed any light on the reason why i am camped out in my room like a punished child while my roommate's dinner party merrily unfolds outside the door? no way of knowing. i am sitting on the bed with a container of nonfat plain yogurt -- unsufficient dinner supplies, but it may have to do -- drafts of three stories, the antrim book that i am supposed to finish by tomorrow, a bunch of sudden pennies whose origins elude me, dubious hair, and the death cab for cutie song coming up suspiciously often on the song shuffle: "buh-bah! buh-bah! this is the sound of settling!" it is just a good thing that teachers do not teach their students lifestyles as well as the topic they are hired to teach.
today, at the end of the hour, we were working on some vocabulary. my student is very bright and a very excellent kid. i had sort of cribbed and sort of modified a vocabulary list that corresponded to mary shelley's frankenstein, because he's not reading a particular book, and frankenstein is reading-level appropriate. but since they corresponded to frankenstein, all the words were a little dour. words, naturally, that i would be lost without. (side note: on the phone today earlier with abby, we came to another of our very wise conclusions. this one was that dourness is a very attractive quality in a man. i know a particular man in new york who is perhaps the most dour man ever born since the carolina naysayers of the wright brothers. it is a good quality in him, but only in the smallest and most controlled of doses. but back to the vocabulary.) odious gnash futility. transient quiver waft. remember? there was a time when you didn't know these words, either. my student, who, as i said, is smart, remarked that frankenstein must be a super depressing book, and mary shelley super depressed.
"it's hard to have a husband with the middle name bysshe," i said. he looked at me quizzically.
"that's why she was depressed?"
"well," i said philosophically, "no. not exactly. but, you know, everyone has days."
it's probably the most useful thing i've taught him so far.
does it shed any light on the reason why i am camped out in my room like a punished child while my roommate's dinner party merrily unfolds outside the door? no way of knowing. i am sitting on the bed with a container of nonfat plain yogurt -- unsufficient dinner supplies, but it may have to do -- drafts of three stories, the antrim book that i am supposed to finish by tomorrow, a bunch of sudden pennies whose origins elude me, dubious hair, and the death cab for cutie song coming up suspiciously often on the song shuffle: "buh-bah! buh-bah! this is the sound of settling!" it is just a good thing that teachers do not teach their students lifestyles as well as the topic they are hired to teach.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
adversaries
when michelle called me around three this afternoon, i was finishing my epic running-of-errands-on-foot, a several-hour and multi-mile tour, with buying drugs. once a month i show up at the walgreens and continue my epic battle for drugs, which raged long and hard in new york at the local duane reade and has seamlessly transported itself here to the walgreenses of san francisco.
-would you like these drugs?
yes, i would.
-how much would you like them? so much that you want them even though your insurance is coming up as invalid?
please give me my drugs. i will pay you. i will get reimbursed. i just want the drugs, please.
-are you sure?
i'm sure. please.
-because your insurance...
please. god. in. heaven. i need. the. drugs.
-do you really, really need them?
no, you know what, it was just a passing fancy. i'm actually -- you know, keep those drugs. go on. keep them. i think i'm going to be fine without at least three thousand milligrams of artificial substance pumped into me day and night since 1991. i just thought it would be fun, you know, to try, for like fifteen years. but no, i don't really need them.
oh, sick people are so bitter! don't you just hate them? i sure do.
finally, sated, drugs in hand, we went back to michelle's. michelle & nate were going to their gym out in the middle of nowhere, and did i want to come? i did. dressed in a rather unconvincing michelle costume of michelle's workout clothes, i followed them into their extremely bright and shiny gym hoping that out of the goodness of their hearts, the people there would just let me work out without a big to-do. no dice. a very nice and well-meaning man appeared on the scene to show me every square inch of the gym, and then led me into an office where there was a glossy binder for me to look at. i was growing very restless. never before have i been so ready to break into an ebullient run on the treadmill. the glossy binder held information about how many times a week people should work out, and what foods they should eat.
"what are your fitness goals?" the man asked me.
"health," i said vaguely, trying to speed things along. i had no intention of joining this gym in the middle of nowhere.
"just health? only health?" he was looking at me dubiously as though to say, you must be very, very confident if you don't want to knock off a few of those extra pounds. i was.
"what are your eating habits, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best?" he asked.
"8," i lied. 8 minus beer, burritos, and liquor. hard liquor.
"what could you do to make it better?"
was this therapy? i just wanted to work out, the once. just the once.
"i could eat more vegetables," i said. i felt very much like in middle school, when they make everyone see the counselor to make sure no one is going to kill themselves or get a tattoo of the river styx on their butt crack. i just wanted to get out of there.
"maybe i could just work out," i suggested helpfully, "and see if i like the gym?"
the man was onto me. he let me go, but warned me that in a few days i would be hearing from him by telephone via the phone number i had left in the paperwork, to see if i did, in fact, want to join. why did i not leave a false phone number? i am not quick on my feet, as was later displayed actually in the gym, my objective obtained, as i lifted many things that were once not too heavy for me but now are.
i have one more thing to say. it's about the comments, and the e-mails. there were a lot of them. i like your comments and your e-mails. but i want you to know something. my dad reads this web site. he does. it's just a fact. please, don't upset or intrigue my dad. once his interest in a topic has been piqued, as many of his collegial adversaries have discovered over the years, it is impossible to turn back.
and double p.s., let me reassure you once again that there is no topic about which his, or anyone's, interest, should be piqued at all. at all. at all! if i say it a fourth time, you may not believe me, so i'll leave it at three.
-would you like these drugs?
yes, i would.
-how much would you like them? so much that you want them even though your insurance is coming up as invalid?
please give me my drugs. i will pay you. i will get reimbursed. i just want the drugs, please.
-are you sure?
i'm sure. please.
-because your insurance...
please. god. in. heaven. i need. the. drugs.
-do you really, really need them?
no, you know what, it was just a passing fancy. i'm actually -- you know, keep those drugs. go on. keep them. i think i'm going to be fine without at least three thousand milligrams of artificial substance pumped into me day and night since 1991. i just thought it would be fun, you know, to try, for like fifteen years. but no, i don't really need them.
oh, sick people are so bitter! don't you just hate them? i sure do.
finally, sated, drugs in hand, we went back to michelle's. michelle & nate were going to their gym out in the middle of nowhere, and did i want to come? i did. dressed in a rather unconvincing michelle costume of michelle's workout clothes, i followed them into their extremely bright and shiny gym hoping that out of the goodness of their hearts, the people there would just let me work out without a big to-do. no dice. a very nice and well-meaning man appeared on the scene to show me every square inch of the gym, and then led me into an office where there was a glossy binder for me to look at. i was growing very restless. never before have i been so ready to break into an ebullient run on the treadmill. the glossy binder held information about how many times a week people should work out, and what foods they should eat.
"what are your fitness goals?" the man asked me.
"health," i said vaguely, trying to speed things along. i had no intention of joining this gym in the middle of nowhere.
"just health? only health?" he was looking at me dubiously as though to say, you must be very, very confident if you don't want to knock off a few of those extra pounds. i was.
"what are your eating habits, on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best?" he asked.
"8," i lied. 8 minus beer, burritos, and liquor. hard liquor.
"what could you do to make it better?"
was this therapy? i just wanted to work out, the once. just the once.
"i could eat more vegetables," i said. i felt very much like in middle school, when they make everyone see the counselor to make sure no one is going to kill themselves or get a tattoo of the river styx on their butt crack. i just wanted to get out of there.
"maybe i could just work out," i suggested helpfully, "and see if i like the gym?"
the man was onto me. he let me go, but warned me that in a few days i would be hearing from him by telephone via the phone number i had left in the paperwork, to see if i did, in fact, want to join. why did i not leave a false phone number? i am not quick on my feet, as was later displayed actually in the gym, my objective obtained, as i lifted many things that were once not too heavy for me but now are.
i have one more thing to say. it's about the comments, and the e-mails. there were a lot of them. i like your comments and your e-mails. but i want you to know something. my dad reads this web site. he does. it's just a fact. please, don't upset or intrigue my dad. once his interest in a topic has been piqued, as many of his collegial adversaries have discovered over the years, it is impossible to turn back.
and double p.s., let me reassure you once again that there is no topic about which his, or anyone's, interest, should be piqued at all. at all. at all! if i say it a fourth time, you may not believe me, so i'll leave it at three.
Monday, December 11, 2006
in a rare agreement with thomas pynchon
so now, lest the world of books become too unhyped for even a small moment, the ian mcewan controversy appears. or rather, non-controversy. my opinion -- and believe me, it pains me to share an opinion with thomas pynchon -- is that the whole thing could not be more ridiculous, that of course mcewan did research for his novel -- how else was he to make the details accurate?; that he fully and openly acknowledged the role of research in his writing, and even more particularly, the role of the particular biography in question in that process; and that had he not consulted primary sources in order to obtain the details necessary for his story, he probably would have been blasted for misrepresenting a setting that, in the early 20th century, was very real. sure, maybe i'm biased because i worship ian mcewan and think his books are phenomenal. but i'm confident that my opinion would be the same no matter the status or talent of the writer in question; how can writers of fiction -- made-up stuff -- be penalized for the exactitude of their details? how can they be penalized for responsibly copying details (not phrases) from the works they use as sources to inform their writing? that's what realism is. otherwise, all the books we read about rodeos would be by cowboys; all the books we read about hospitals would be by doctors. and the books we read that take place in the past? there wouldn't be any new ones; all of the writers would be long since dead; the whole genre would die out.
people have become so bored and so controversy-hungry that they can find fault anywhere along the spectrum between fact and made-up content, in nonfiction and in fiction alike. if the details are erroneous, you're damned. if the details are too painstaking, too like the details in another, nonfictional, work, you're damned. when are you not damned? what do we want from literature? do we want a story that tells something factual, or something true?
people have become so bored and so controversy-hungry that they can find fault anywhere along the spectrum between fact and made-up content, in nonfiction and in fiction alike. if the details are erroneous, you're damned. if the details are too painstaking, too like the details in another, nonfictional, work, you're damned. when are you not damned? what do we want from literature? do we want a story that tells something factual, or something true?
Sunday, December 10, 2006
a million billion to one
last night i couldn't sleep. or, i could sleep, and i did sleep, but i did not sleep very much, because i was extremely hungry, and could not focus. as i realized when i told my friend about this this morning, all but dragging him to points foodward, one should really not have to focus at all when one is sleeping, which just makes the predicament all the more pressing. around 6:45 a.m. i got up and stood bleary-eyed in the middle of the kitchen eating an apple with one hand and futilely attempting to do a kind of crossed-arms thing, one-armed, with the other arm, because it was cold. the apple was not enough. the other food in the apartment is a bottle of wine, which i knew even in my bleary-eyed, hunger-crazed state, is not nutritious. i had a weird dream about being a horse breeder. i was a great, an awesome horse breeder, which was even more amazing because, in the dream, as in life, i don't know ass about riding horses. except i was outdone. rob arrived on the scene, and he was an even better horse breeder. damn that rob, the dream me thought. plus, when we inexplicably came under fire from some unseen sniper/sharpshooters, he somehow managed to come up with a spacecar from the future that drove itself in which we were able to hide/escape. all the while, i kept thinking, damn him, damn him. yes, he saved our lives. but why couldn't i come up with the spacecar?
needless to say, this is not one of those dreams that will probably come true. at any rate, let's hope not, because as i think we've seen, my attitude about the events contained within it is one of miffed disgruntlement.
all this is to say that when, in the late morning/early afternoon, i found myself in dead stopped traffic on the way to the bay bridge from berkeley to san francisco, listening with disproportionate headbanging, singing, and glee to michael jackson's thriller, the first-side vinyl of which was being played in its entirety on max fm, i was a little bleary. it took me at least a whole song to realize that someone in the car in the adjacent lane was waving wildly at me. i rolled down my window. he rolled down his window.
"kara?" he called.
i did not, did not, did not know this man. my first thought was that this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. but any joke involving stopped traffic is too elaborate to be possible. i confirmed that i was kara.
"i'm n.," he said. "don't you remember me? from first grade?"
and yes, indeed, upon more careful inspection, i did know this man from first grade.
"wow!" i said. "what are you doing here?"
we inched up in traffic, parallel.
"i'm stuck in traffic!" he called. oh, we've got a funny one on our hands.
"but in the bay area?"
he is an engineer.
"i'm a writer!" i called. i may be mistaken, but several sneers may have come from various surrounding cars. thriller was still responsibly overseeing this entire exchange.
"what do you write?" he yelled. i had pulled ahead; i had no choice; there was honking.
"fiction!" i called. then my lane began to move. and move rapidly. inexplicably rapidly. which enabled, and in fact forced, me to yell out, "fiction!" and then speed away in a cooper mini with no further comment. our paths did not cross again enough to talk, although there was a wave later on. fiction writers, we got the last word today on the bay bridge. boolakashaka.
what are the odds of this? i don't know. a million billion to one. but don't you sometimes feel like everything that happens to you occurs on a chance of a million billion to one? i feel that way. it's a good feeling.
needless to say, this is not one of those dreams that will probably come true. at any rate, let's hope not, because as i think we've seen, my attitude about the events contained within it is one of miffed disgruntlement.
all this is to say that when, in the late morning/early afternoon, i found myself in dead stopped traffic on the way to the bay bridge from berkeley to san francisco, listening with disproportionate headbanging, singing, and glee to michael jackson's thriller, the first-side vinyl of which was being played in its entirety on max fm, i was a little bleary. it took me at least a whole song to realize that someone in the car in the adjacent lane was waving wildly at me. i rolled down my window. he rolled down his window.
"kara?" he called.
i did not, did not, did not know this man. my first thought was that this was some kind of elaborate practical joke. but any joke involving stopped traffic is too elaborate to be possible. i confirmed that i was kara.
"i'm n.," he said. "don't you remember me? from first grade?"
and yes, indeed, upon more careful inspection, i did know this man from first grade.
"wow!" i said. "what are you doing here?"
we inched up in traffic, parallel.
"i'm stuck in traffic!" he called. oh, we've got a funny one on our hands.
"but in the bay area?"
he is an engineer.
"i'm a writer!" i called. i may be mistaken, but several sneers may have come from various surrounding cars. thriller was still responsibly overseeing this entire exchange.
"what do you write?" he yelled. i had pulled ahead; i had no choice; there was honking.
"fiction!" i called. then my lane began to move. and move rapidly. inexplicably rapidly. which enabled, and in fact forced, me to yell out, "fiction!" and then speed away in a cooper mini with no further comment. our paths did not cross again enough to talk, although there was a wave later on. fiction writers, we got the last word today on the bay bridge. boolakashaka.
what are the odds of this? i don't know. a million billion to one. but don't you sometimes feel like everything that happens to you occurs on a chance of a million billion to one? i feel that way. it's a good feeling.
Saturday, December 09, 2006
war of the walnut
about five years ago, for a very brief period, there was a phenomenon where i would dream about something and then it would happen. not dream like wish or imagine, but dream like go to sleep, close your eyes, REM, all that. usually it would just be random, inconsequential things, like an exchange about wanting coffee. but sometimes it wasn't.
for a while after that i was convinced that it was something i was eating. i was living in italy at that time and eating all kinds of things that could produce strange coincidences between reality and dreams, like proscuitto, and raw horse meat, and rabbit with the shot still in the flesh, and large, unwieldy panattones.
it hasn't really happened since then and i doubt it will again. but it never fails to amaze me how sometimes we get a sixth sense about something before it even happens. cats have this power, i think. (like last night, when yoda, the brown cat i am catsitting this weekend, awoke and stood at the top of the stairs a full fifteen minutes before there was a deafening crash signaling that someone had dropped something way heavy out of a window onto their car (and thankfully not the car i am carsitting)).
so you know the walnut of dread? yes, well. i think i must have eaten one earlier in the week without knowing it, after which time i subconsciously made the comic, after which, now, it has grown to full size and is down there joyously celebrating its sneaky entry and causing something that could not be fully described, but could be accurately described, by dread.
other than eating additional animate foods with the power to cause alternate emotions, is there an effective antidote to dread? current ideas include:
-syda's hot tub, which i am hot-tubsitting
-crepes, which bear no emotion but are delicious
-jumping slowly on the bed to phil collins's "against all odds"
-getting one of my pieces finally taken (powerless to effect this one, but thought i'd throw it in for good measure)
and as long as we're getting into the realm of the imaginary:
-being invited to go on a rocketship into outerspace that did not go round and round
-english breakfast tea (imaginary because i never remember to buy it at the grocery)
-ability to fly, invisibly
-ability to say boolakashaka! without getting looked at twice
-ability to feel like saying boolakashaka! at all
oh, how you dance, little walnut. this is war.
for a while after that i was convinced that it was something i was eating. i was living in italy at that time and eating all kinds of things that could produce strange coincidences between reality and dreams, like proscuitto, and raw horse meat, and rabbit with the shot still in the flesh, and large, unwieldy panattones.
it hasn't really happened since then and i doubt it will again. but it never fails to amaze me how sometimes we get a sixth sense about something before it even happens. cats have this power, i think. (like last night, when yoda, the brown cat i am catsitting this weekend, awoke and stood at the top of the stairs a full fifteen minutes before there was a deafening crash signaling that someone had dropped something way heavy out of a window onto their car (and thankfully not the car i am carsitting)).
so you know the walnut of dread? yes, well. i think i must have eaten one earlier in the week without knowing it, after which time i subconsciously made the comic, after which, now, it has grown to full size and is down there joyously celebrating its sneaky entry and causing something that could not be fully described, but could be accurately described, by dread.
other than eating additional animate foods with the power to cause alternate emotions, is there an effective antidote to dread? current ideas include:
-syda's hot tub, which i am hot-tubsitting
-crepes, which bear no emotion but are delicious
-jumping slowly on the bed to phil collins's "against all odds"
-getting one of my pieces finally taken (powerless to effect this one, but thought i'd throw it in for good measure)
and as long as we're getting into the realm of the imaginary:
-being invited to go on a rocketship into outerspace that did not go round and round
-english breakfast tea (imaginary because i never remember to buy it at the grocery)
-ability to fly, invisibly
-ability to say boolakashaka! without getting looked at twice
-ability to feel like saying boolakashaka! at all
oh, how you dance, little walnut. this is war.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
the walnut of dread
today i was drafting flip books for holiday presents. i was also entering data. they may seem incompatible, but they aren't. you see, the one, it's the real me. the other, it's the me that's hungry, so hungry, and wants to be fed. so it needs to be paid. so it can eat giant mushroom caps for dinner. which is what eventually happened.
but i got distracted from the flip books, too, and decided to write a new strip of the Bear Adventures comic, which has been long dormant -- hibernating, if you will, though i know you won't -- even though it does come out at dire moments, like when i am supposed to be entering data.
i am going to try to scan it in so you can critique it and tell me just how pertinent the continuation of my data entry really is, as soon as i finish the ink part. but in the meantime, a synopsis.
the strip is called the walnut of dread. it is twenty-four panels, enormous. it chronicles the life of a small but pernicious Walnut of Dread housed in the stomach of our co-protagonist, Bear. we have a roving 3rd person on the Walnut of Dread and Bear. back and forth. what they tell you not to do in MFA fiction workshops, unless you are a russian master. the thing about the Walnut of Dread that is so annoying is that it is jovial, rotund, exacerbatingly peppy. the Walnut of Dread feels no dread at all. that is not part of its job. its job is not to feel dread, but to cause dread. and it does cause dread. Bear displays several of his fine, pointy teeth. things are eaten to try to join the Walnut of Dread and defeat it down there in the frustratingly hospitable environment of Bear's stomach, including the Burrito of Who-Could-Care-Less (close cousin of ben folds five's "battle of who could care less"), the Broccoli Stalk of No-Emotions, etc. but the Walnut of Dread conquers all, because it is jovial, and hungry, and generally takes delight in its surly task. poor, poor Bear.
it's really a miracle i have friends at all.
but i got distracted from the flip books, too, and decided to write a new strip of the Bear Adventures comic, which has been long dormant -- hibernating, if you will, though i know you won't -- even though it does come out at dire moments, like when i am supposed to be entering data.
i am going to try to scan it in so you can critique it and tell me just how pertinent the continuation of my data entry really is, as soon as i finish the ink part. but in the meantime, a synopsis.
the strip is called the walnut of dread. it is twenty-four panels, enormous. it chronicles the life of a small but pernicious Walnut of Dread housed in the stomach of our co-protagonist, Bear. we have a roving 3rd person on the Walnut of Dread and Bear. back and forth. what they tell you not to do in MFA fiction workshops, unless you are a russian master. the thing about the Walnut of Dread that is so annoying is that it is jovial, rotund, exacerbatingly peppy. the Walnut of Dread feels no dread at all. that is not part of its job. its job is not to feel dread, but to cause dread. and it does cause dread. Bear displays several of his fine, pointy teeth. things are eaten to try to join the Walnut of Dread and defeat it down there in the frustratingly hospitable environment of Bear's stomach, including the Burrito of Who-Could-Care-Less (close cousin of ben folds five's "battle of who could care less"), the Broccoli Stalk of No-Emotions, etc. but the Walnut of Dread conquers all, because it is jovial, and hungry, and generally takes delight in its surly task. poor, poor Bear.
it's really a miracle i have friends at all.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
the various fear and cunning of readers
heavens to betsy. you people are seriously afraid of being in an abandoned car in the no-man's-land between new jersey and new york. the sempre l'altra cosa e-mail address, which largely -- up to this point -- has remained relatively dormant, was stormed with panic today over the very idea that there could even be somewhere between new jersey and new york, and what would it be like, and dear god kara you are depraved, and how could this all be avoided.
if only i knew.
before i respond, i just want to tell you something else about the spartan daily, san jose state's daily newspaper. passing innocently by on the way to the library yesterday, my eye was caught by an arresting headline in the spartan pages. "stop, stop!" i called to charles, who had motored on ahead.
"what, you finally made the headlines?" he asked.
he was close.
BUTTERY FUMES MAY BE HARMFUL.
i'll just leave you to contemplate that, and decide if you'd rather be the victim of the new york-new jersey interspace, or buttery fumes.
but in regard to what you asked over the e-mails, this phenomenon of the high hopes and low hopes is not, as it apparently seemed, related to, er, boys -- the topic of which, as you know, is never broached on this web site. nice try, however. very nice try.
the high hopes and low hopes is in reference to a friend, a very not-nice friend, (a friend who is not interested in girls, for those who are now smirking smugly, thinking they have tricked me into gossip) who for many years, after shunning me for reasons yet to be made clear, has been egging me on about perhaps rekindling our friendship. but then, recently, in a grand, also bold, also peacockian move, gave me a WWF-style fullbody heartbreaker slam. not. going. to. be. friends. again. for maybe, i'm going to say, the sixth time in the past six years. aren't we too old to be doing this friends/not-friends thing? where do you draw the line with people on this? does it matter that i have known this person forever? and do i ever learn my lesson? i don't, but maybe i have this time.
i am basically peaceloving. i like to wrassle, ideally with grocery shopping carts as ballast, maybe snowballs. i'll go for mud. i will go for it. but i do not like to fight. not at all. it consumes me. it is one thing to have a conversation, a very painful and serious conversation. but to have a fight is really beyond what i want to expect out of my life, beyond what's really necessary.
a final thought: what if a car, bound for manhattan but actually pointed toward new jersey and out of gas, could somehow summon enough buttery fumes to turn around and make it back where it was supposed to be?
if only i knew.
before i respond, i just want to tell you something else about the spartan daily, san jose state's daily newspaper. passing innocently by on the way to the library yesterday, my eye was caught by an arresting headline in the spartan pages. "stop, stop!" i called to charles, who had motored on ahead.
"what, you finally made the headlines?" he asked.
he was close.
BUTTERY FUMES MAY BE HARMFUL.
i'll just leave you to contemplate that, and decide if you'd rather be the victim of the new york-new jersey interspace, or buttery fumes.
but in regard to what you asked over the e-mails, this phenomenon of the high hopes and low hopes is not, as it apparently seemed, related to, er, boys -- the topic of which, as you know, is never broached on this web site. nice try, however. very nice try.
the high hopes and low hopes is in reference to a friend, a very not-nice friend, (a friend who is not interested in girls, for those who are now smirking smugly, thinking they have tricked me into gossip) who for many years, after shunning me for reasons yet to be made clear, has been egging me on about perhaps rekindling our friendship. but then, recently, in a grand, also bold, also peacockian move, gave me a WWF-style fullbody heartbreaker slam. not. going. to. be. friends. again. for maybe, i'm going to say, the sixth time in the past six years. aren't we too old to be doing this friends/not-friends thing? where do you draw the line with people on this? does it matter that i have known this person forever? and do i ever learn my lesson? i don't, but maybe i have this time.
i am basically peaceloving. i like to wrassle, ideally with grocery shopping carts as ballast, maybe snowballs. i'll go for mud. i will go for it. but i do not like to fight. not at all. it consumes me. it is one thing to have a conversation, a very painful and serious conversation. but to have a fight is really beyond what i want to expect out of my life, beyond what's really necessary.
a final thought: what if a car, bound for manhattan but actually pointed toward new jersey and out of gas, could somehow summon enough buttery fumes to turn around and make it back where it was supposed to be?
modern afterschool specials of the greater san jose area
yesterday the ubiquitous voyage to san jose had a pit stop: san jose's lovely eBay park, where charles was supposed to meet a man named ari (not my sister) to pick up a coat he had bought online for his mom. only problems here: he did not know exactly where this ari was supposed to be met, and eBay park is a slightly delightful, slightly fearful willy-wonka-esque wonderland in which it is all too possible for two writers in a jeep to get way lost. we drove round and round this road which had buildings on either side of it labeled things like, "entertainment," and "technology" and "jewelry." i was holding out for a building labeled "hamburglary," but we never got that far. charles's phone rang. "it's ari!" he cried. we parked and followed the real-time directions of ari-not-my-sister over the phone. a man talking on a cell phone came into view. we greeted him. he was ari-not-my-sister. we followed him across an unpopulated parking lot to his car, where the coat was housed. (i later told charles that we had just enacted the premise of so many afterschool specials where unsuspecting people on errands like getting a coat for their moms follow strange men to their cars in unpopulated parking lots, and that usually, although not this time, it ends in woe. my mom, somewhere, is so half-proud of me right now.)
on an unrelated note, it's a very incongruous part of my personality that i get very high hopes. impossibly, atmospherically high. if i see potential in something i get elated. elation, as we all know, is basically the direct, carpool-only lane on the highway to the danger zone. relatively recently, i got really elated.
now, imagine your car in the carpool-only lane on the highway to the danger zone, absolutely speeding along toward increasing elation. what would be worse than a car crash? if, lost in an extremely excellent driving song, maybe the magnetic fields, i don't know, you suddenly looked up at one of the green highway signs and saw that you were not headed where you thought you were headed, but entirely elsewhere. you are not headed into manhattan. you are going to new jersey. fine. no problem. wait... what? you are going to new jersey! but there are no exits for miles! and your car is running out of gas! what could be worse than heading to new jersey when you thought you were heading toward manhattan and there being no exits and running out of gas? realizing that there's no one else on the road with you and that you are going to have to stay here, on this weird highway in the middle of nowhere in your gasless car, not even in new jersey, but somewhere else between new york and new jersey, a sort of no-man's land, all by yourself.
which is: today's lesson is not to get your hopes up about people too early. they will surprise you. and then, you will be sad.
on an unrelated note, it's a very incongruous part of my personality that i get very high hopes. impossibly, atmospherically high. if i see potential in something i get elated. elation, as we all know, is basically the direct, carpool-only lane on the highway to the danger zone. relatively recently, i got really elated.
now, imagine your car in the carpool-only lane on the highway to the danger zone, absolutely speeding along toward increasing elation. what would be worse than a car crash? if, lost in an extremely excellent driving song, maybe the magnetic fields, i don't know, you suddenly looked up at one of the green highway signs and saw that you were not headed where you thought you were headed, but entirely elsewhere. you are not headed into manhattan. you are going to new jersey. fine. no problem. wait... what? you are going to new jersey! but there are no exits for miles! and your car is running out of gas! what could be worse than heading to new jersey when you thought you were heading toward manhattan and there being no exits and running out of gas? realizing that there's no one else on the road with you and that you are going to have to stay here, on this weird highway in the middle of nowhere in your gasless car, not even in new jersey, but somewhere else between new york and new jersey, a sort of no-man's land, all by yourself.
which is: today's lesson is not to get your hopes up about people too early. they will surprise you. and then, you will be sad.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
non-message in a bottle
sam's mix has provided a great deal of fortification between yesterday and today. i have a particular way of devouring mixes. first, of course, the listenthrough. then the identification of the Best Songs. the systematic slaughtering of the Best Songs by listening to them over and over. the attempt to get as enthused about the Other Songs. repeat.
all this has inspired me to make the many mixes i have promised. many, many people have been promised mixes. (hello, mara; hello, michelle a.; hello, steinbeckians; other faux-recipients of mixes; i have not forgotten you.) the problem is, it's a delicate business, because there's a lot of residual meaning-extrapolating left over from when we were all in middle school and the trading of mixes largely meant, kiss me in an inappropriate public place like behind the school, where we think no one is watching but probably someone is.
thus, it's very risky to make a mix for someone that includes such first-rate songs as the magnetic fields' "i thought you were my boyfriend" (which is a super, a-plus number-one mix song) without the recipient reeling back in horror and saying, "kara thought i was her boyfriend? error... in... communication..." before turning heel and running headlong for the nearest hill crying out pleas to the gods and wishing for another fate, any other fate, besides that one. other songs like animotion's "obsession" are plainly out. ("like a butterfly she will collect me and capture me? holy god and jesus.")
what is needed is an international agreement that the songs put onto a mix have no meaning, are only good (or for particular reasons, not-good) music. thereby freeing us all to share music without making outrageous and usually erroneous declarations. of course, there is the rare occasion when we are so repressed that we actually need the middle-school meaning-imbued mix CD throwback (even though they were mix tapes then). a particular tape made for ted circa 2000 comes to mind, which had the particularly innocent inclusion of nine inch nails' "i want to fuck you like an animal." a tip: if you're going to go the "i'm repressed and am trying to tell you something with a mix" route, best not to be present when the mix is being listened to by the recipient. the innocent, wide-eyed face you will have to affect will take all of your reserves of energy, and you will probably not be able to come up with anything better than a feeble, "um, yeah, rock. i love this song."
imminent mix recipients, just to be clear: i really don't know why i go to extremes, so should that one appear, it's for reals.
all this has inspired me to make the many mixes i have promised. many, many people have been promised mixes. (hello, mara; hello, michelle a.; hello, steinbeckians; other faux-recipients of mixes; i have not forgotten you.) the problem is, it's a delicate business, because there's a lot of residual meaning-extrapolating left over from when we were all in middle school and the trading of mixes largely meant, kiss me in an inappropriate public place like behind the school, where we think no one is watching but probably someone is.
thus, it's very risky to make a mix for someone that includes such first-rate songs as the magnetic fields' "i thought you were my boyfriend" (which is a super, a-plus number-one mix song) without the recipient reeling back in horror and saying, "kara thought i was her boyfriend? error... in... communication..." before turning heel and running headlong for the nearest hill crying out pleas to the gods and wishing for another fate, any other fate, besides that one. other songs like animotion's "obsession" are plainly out. ("like a butterfly she will collect me and capture me? holy god and jesus.")
what is needed is an international agreement that the songs put onto a mix have no meaning, are only good (or for particular reasons, not-good) music. thereby freeing us all to share music without making outrageous and usually erroneous declarations. of course, there is the rare occasion when we are so repressed that we actually need the middle-school meaning-imbued mix CD throwback (even though they were mix tapes then). a particular tape made for ted circa 2000 comes to mind, which had the particularly innocent inclusion of nine inch nails' "i want to fuck you like an animal." a tip: if you're going to go the "i'm repressed and am trying to tell you something with a mix" route, best not to be present when the mix is being listened to by the recipient. the innocent, wide-eyed face you will have to affect will take all of your reserves of energy, and you will probably not be able to come up with anything better than a feeble, "um, yeah, rock. i love this song."
imminent mix recipients, just to be clear: i really don't know why i go to extremes, so should that one appear, it's for reals.
Saturday, December 02, 2006
"either i'm wrong or i'm perfectly right every time"
this afternoon when i got home i felt kind of dubious, like you always feel when you have not showered. on the way back to my apartment from the BART, a man yelled, "oh, you're working it! you're working it!" it was such a weird, vaguely yelled sentiment that i said, "me?" he said yes, me. "oh," i said, "no. i'm not." that much cleared up, it was the end of the exchange.
but when i arrived, there was something amazing here waiting for me. it was a package from sam. with a donald barthelme book. and with a mix cd entitled "balladeers and brutes." i loved it already. i loved it even more when billy joel's "i go to extremes" came on. darlin', i don't *know* why i go to extremes. i don't. i just... yeah, can't say. don't know.
sam, you have inadvertantly summed up the weekend in advance.
but when i arrived, there was something amazing here waiting for me. it was a package from sam. with a donald barthelme book. and with a mix cd entitled "balladeers and brutes." i loved it already. i loved it even more when billy joel's "i go to extremes" came on. darlin', i don't *know* why i go to extremes. i don't. i just... yeah, can't say. don't know.
sam, you have inadvertantly summed up the weekend in advance.
Friday, December 01, 2006
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