your "i want to tell you something i found a dead body" update

The commute on Tuesday to that city where I teach was a tense one. The laptop was open but very little was being written. My eyes were locked to the window. The closer we got to Palo Alto the worse I felt. Because if the body was still there I had determined I would not be able to hold office hours. I would shriek the police into listening to me. Because if the body was still there, it would already have been there for a week. I didn't even want to know what I might see. Already, in a terrifying dream on Friday night, I had been visited by the angry ghost, who had pinned me to the bed and threatened to kill me, screaming "Why me and not you?". (At least we know the hyperactive imagination is still working. After waking up in a cold sweat, I stayed up all night with every light on, reading Cooking Light until the sun began to rise. Reading Cooking Light, I tell you.)

But when the train passed the spot where I had twice seen the body before, fellow supersleuths, it was not there. It was not there at all. I was relieved, although of course this didn't mean it had been taken care of in a good way. It didn't mean that the body had died of natural causes rather than having been murdered next to the creek. It didn't mean that my two-day delay in calling the police, if so, hadn't allowed the perpetrator of the crime to escape. And all other sorts of anxieties that introverts are bound to come up with.

apparently, I see dead people

As you have often heard, I take the CalTrain to work two days a week. The illustrious CalTrain has been known to provide many Important Life Experiences, such as train robberies, conversations with persons resembling Severus Snape, sleeping past one's stop, eating tortillas, and last-minute lesson planning. One thing it was not known for, however -- until the events of last week -- was making its riders into police informants. Never put anything past the CalTrain.

On Tuesday last week, I was riding down to that city where I teach, intermittently staring out the window and working on my story. There is not really much to be seen out the window on the way down there. Strip malls, trees. I feel like I've memorized every sign and every graffito all along the route. There are several intriguing institutions on the way that I hope to visit one day, such as the temptingly named bar/restaurants Steamie's and Pizza & Pipes. On this day, however, there was something else. Just before the train reached Palo Alto, lying faceup and shirtless in an unnatural position by a creek, there was a body. 

Except, I reasoned to myself, I could not possibly have seen a dead body from the CalTrain. Not so close to the station and to Stanford, where someone else surely would have seen it already and notified the police. Or perhaps the body was not really dead, but simply sleeping... with its leg twisted back at an angle that the human leg cannot comfortably achieve. Maybe it was a contortionist! A shirtless contortionist on a cold day by a creek by some train tracks. In any case, I'd seen all of this over the course of maybe three seconds, maximum. I told myself to forget about it. 

On Thursday, however, taking the same route down to the university, I sat in my usual seat and was once again looking out the window. When the train passed the spot where I'd seen the body before, I was horrified to see that it -- exactly what I'd seen, in exactly the same position and exactly the same place -- was still there. A dead body. A dead body that hadn't been noticed by anyone but me for over 48 hours. A rotting body! I told myself. A rotting dead body, abandoned, alone! Rotting! Decomposing! Truly, now, the CalTrain had outdone itself with Commuter Experiences. I told myself to stay calm. I had found a dead body; fine. I'd call the Palo Alto police as soon as I got to my office. Everything would be all right.

Except when I got to my office there was a line of students already waiting for me, and paperwork that I for some reason had to fill out right away. And by the time I'd dispatched all the students, it was time to teach two lectures back to back, and then to make sure I caught my ride back up the peninsula with Kate. And by the time I had gotten to Oakland and then taken the BART home and consumed a drink that for some reason -- I could not remember why, exactly -- I seemed to very sorely need, I had blocked the entire experience out.

It was not until 3:30 in the morning, lying in bed but not yet asleep, with a house guest here who was also not yet asleep, that I flashed on to the image of the body lying face-up by the creek with its leg bent back so unnaturally, positioned thus for 48 hours and counting, with no one but me having seen it. I gripped the sheets.

In a moment I'm sure my house guest will forever cherish as the way he would like all his 3:30s in the morning to unfold, I then screamed at high volume, 

"There's something I have to tell you! I found a dead body!"

My house guest asked for some clarification; he must have misheard me because he thought I had just announced that I had found a dead body -- and had waited something like seven hours to tell him so.

"I only remembered now. I found a dead body," I said, and proceeded to explain to my guest, S., all that I have just conveyed here. 

"Well, get up! Get up!" S. said urgently. "Get up! Call the police right now!"

"Right now?" I asked. The truth was I was terrified of calling the police. "It's 3:30 in the morning." (This was something that had not, however, prevented me from disrupting any potential sleep in Fort Phil Collins by exclaiming that I was a bloodhound.) "If the body's dead," I rationalized, "it will still be there, and dead, in like three hours."

If I was not going to call right away, then, S. insisted on at least checking the police blotters to see if any report had been made about the body. For two hours, we read the blotters from Palo Alto and several other surrounding cities. All the lights were off except for the light from my computer, and I was beginning to get a little creeped out. S. was not at all creeped out. In between police blotters (10:54 am: A subject throws a cell phone at a group of individuals. 12:09 pm: Cell phone reported missing) I began to moan nervously.

"What if it really was a dead body? Oh God," I said.

"Yeah, and what if the police think you did it?" S. asked. I was terrified. I had not even considered that possibility. 

"Me? What? You really think they'd think I did it?" Silence. "What would they do? What would happen to me?"

Because it was so dark I could not see that S. was grinning. It appears that at 5 a.m. on zero hours of sleep in the dark talking about dead bodies, certain persons like to make very funny jokes.

In the morning, at S.'s urging, I called the police. I was not exactly sure how to proceed.

"Um, hello. Yeah, police?" I said. "Hello. I'm calling to tell you about something I saw."

I was careful not to say "dead body" so that they didn't think I was crazy, but they didn't seem to believe me very much anyway. At the end of my report they asked for my name and phone number. Then I hung up.

"They're going to run a background check on you," S. told me. "They probably think you did it."

"That joke," I said miserably, "is over." 

About half an hour later, however, the police called me back. This time it was an "officer" in a "cruiser" (my, aren't we official!) on his way to check out my report. He asked me for more specific directions to the place where I'd seen the body. 

"I know exactly where you're talking about," he told me. "I'm practically there," and with that he hung up the phone.

How am I going to know if the body was found? Or if it was even there in the first place? My eagle eye is cocked (yes, cocked) for tomorrow's CalTrain ride. Secretly I think I am a little bit nervous that it will still be there. 

medieval strawberries

Yesterday, apparently, was Earth Day Observed at that university where I teach. If you thought only Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Presidents Day had "Observed" status, apparently you thought wrong. All along the promenade there were celebratory kiosks offering wares and information about vegetarian Indian food, beekeeping, fraternities, tree-planting, radio stations, CalTrain (whose kiosk gave off a literally pungent air of despair), and, near the end of the lineup, medieval strawberries.

Above the sign that solemnly proclaimed Medieval Strawberries to be on offer stood -- and really, I should not have been surprised -- the face of one of my own students. He beckoned me over.

"Medieval strawberries, huh?" I said. I was the only person at the kiosk besides another Medieval Strawberries vendor, a tall, beefy individual in a white undershirt and a backwards cap who was furiously text-messaging.

"Yes! The best strawberries you'll ever taste," my student assured me.

"Aren't they, you know, like maybe a little old? Rotting? I'm amazed they've kept their shape so well," I added, "having traveled, uh, so far to be with us."

"No," said my student, clearly not catching my meaning, "they're very fresh. And local."

"So, what makes these strawberries medieval?" I asked. 

My student was ready.

"Well, they were grown in the medieval manner of growing strawberries."

I could not wait to hear what this manner was. 

"They are made without preservatives or pesticides," he informed me. I waited for more, but there was none forthcoming.

"Aha," I said at last. "So they're not so much medieval as they are, like, pesticide-free."

"Which was how it was done in medieval times," he clarified.

"Why could they not be Renaissance strawberries?" I asked. "Why could they not be Baroque strawberries? I'm pretty sure they didn't use pesticides then either."

Everyone, including the gentleman in the Beefy Tee (who, it transpired, had come up with the genius marketing strategy of the medieval fruit), was at a bit of a loss. But I have to admit that the strawberries were delicious.

Happy Earth Day -- uh, Observed.

the resounding partnership of no

Thursday: Twenty-Four Hours of Awakehood, Some of Which Lecturing, Some of Which in a Dubious and Possibly Vampiric Warehouse

Around here, Thursday night, post-teaching, is not historically a night to find oneself in some kind of dubious warehouse. It is also not a night to be in this warehouse surrounded by weird thumping DJ music, pressed up against lots of overexcited persons while one remains completely still, making facial expressions and wearing exactly what one wore to work that day. I was pressed in so close to the people around me that, to draw blood, all that would have been required would be to open my mouth and then very slightly gesture downward with my incisors. It was enough to make me glad that I'm a bloodless being, although just to be safe from biting I strategically positioned myself in front of Shimon, with whom I had come there -- being fairly satisfied by this point that he is not a vampire, or at least that if he is, he has been waiting an anticlimactically long time for the reveal.

In the end, we were rewarded for having waited (and waited and waited) for two! hours! this way, sweating crazily and watching dudes pump their fists in the air -- with Ghostland Observatory and their excellent musics and lasers. It was well worth it, even for a Thursday night, and even if it ended up meaning being awake for twenty-four consecutive hours, way too many of which were spent in that city where I teach.

Friday

In which it transpires that staying awake for twenty-four hours brings happiness to the house of no one.

Saturday: Chag Sameach, Motherfuckers; or, In Which Berkeley is Once Again Visited and Matzah is Erroneously Consumed

Yesterday marked the beginning of Passover. In the story of Exodus, we learn much about the story of Passover, which involves shank bones, lice, blood smearings, and unpleasant stale crackers, much like the nurse's office in elementary school. Jews made haste across a red sea. There were boils, cattle disease, locusts, and all kinds of unpleasantries to pave their way out. Therefore we now have long dinners involving chicken and flourless cakes. And that's just the abridged version.

Helene's friends Aaron & Jeannie were nice enough to include me in their wonderful Berkeley seder for the second year in a row. I am traditionally not a huge hit at seders, since I'm allergic to matzah, the key player in the meal. Matzah and Crohn's Disease are a giant, resounding partnership of no. No to matzah + Crohn's Disease. To that end, I demurely avoided the matzah, or else believed myself to be avoiding the matzah -- a myth that was summarily shattered on the BART ride home, during which I began to feel specifically and unpleasantly ill in a way that could only have been caused by the pernicious Jewcracker. 

What did Jews fleeing Egypt with Crohn's Disease do during the Exodus, when there was only matzah to eat? I'll tell you what they did. They died. Talk about an anticlimax: For years they're enslaved by the evil Pharoah, worked to the bone, punished, beaten. Being champs, they pull through. Then, finally sprung from the Pharoah, hastening in glee and excitement across ye olde desert, they die because some crackers shred up their intestines. Felled by crackers. This is just remarkably lame and sad. Pull it together, ancient Crohn's Jews. Pull. It. Together.

Don't be too sad, though. Obviously one or two of them squeaked by, maybe by eating lice or locusts or something, thus to pass on Crohn's Disease to more people through the ages. Well, thank God for that! I mean, Dayenu!

bistrocapade

This morning on the bus from the train station to that university where I teach, there were two couples in their sixties, clearly out-of-towners, who were absolutely delighted to be on vacation. What they were doing vacationing in that city where I teach, I hardly dared to imagine.

"Let's find a bistro," one of them said to the others.

"Yes! A bistro! I'm so hungry."

"Do you know where we could find a delightful bistro?"

"Look -- out the window -- a charming bistro!"

I don't know what was making them so intent on finding a bistro as opposed to any other sort of eating establishment, but if they said "bistro" one more time, I was convinced that I was going to have to knock their heads together. I held on to my blue books very tightly as they said "bistro" at least about ten more times -- the nearness of bistros, the toothsome offerings of bistros, the reminders of bistros gone by -- finally ending their bistrocapade by asking the bus driver to let them off  "anywhere near a good bistro."

It is almost the weekend.

the ides of april

Yesterday one of my students gave me a card. "Happy Ides of April!" it said. At first I thought maybe it was supposed to say "Happy Ideas of April," only it had been misspelled. In fact, no. Happy ides.

"Thank you," I said. He had made the card himself. There were cutouts of the numbers 4 and 15.

"Open it," he told me.

On the inside was also written "Happy Ides of April!"

"Ah," I said. There is nothing like a card that says the same thing on both the inside and the outside.

I did not think it would be polite, after he had gone to so much trouble, to tell him that the ides of the month only falls on the 15th in March, May, July, and October, and that in fact the ides of April was on the 13th. Don't ask me why I know things like this. I opened and closed the card several more times, appreciatively. 

"Is this supposed to presage something?" I asked.

He looked at me with a cheery, blank expression, waiting.

"Is this supposed to be a foretelling of something ominous?" I tried again. This time he looked surprised and sad.

"No!" he cried. "Why would you say that?"

"Et tu, Brute and all that?" I said.  By now my student had sat down and everyone else was listening in as well.

"How did you know about the ides?" I asked. The student shrugged. He said that he knew lots of random things.

"So you don't know about the ides of March and the famous story behind it?" I said. I could tell a couple of them sort of knew, but sensing an opportunity to have a few minutes less of work, they requested to hear about it.

Thus began ten minutes of storytime where I cut into my own lecture by telling them about Julius Caesar, Brutus, and the ides of March.  ("And whack," I concluded. "The Liberatores killed him. Whack.")

"I knew all about that et tu Brute stuff," one of the students piped up at the end of my story. They are constantly knowing things and just not saying anything about it. "But I had no idea Caesar was such an asshole."

"Hmm, well," I concurred, "there are a lot of assholes in that story." And, unable to help it, I added, "As in many realms of life." 

And then, to the student who had given me the Ides of April cutout, who was now looking horrified and bewildered,

"But thank you for the card. I really do love it."

I do.

manhandling

Today I had an awkward hug. Later on, I told Michelle and Nate about it. 

"I had a hug," I reported eloquently, "and it was awkward."

We were waiting to eat Chinese food. 

"Was it like this?" Nate asked. He proceeded to deliver me a hug that included many, many back slappings.

Released, I reported that it was not. 

"Was it like this?" He and Michelle demonstrated an ass-out hug, making it very difficult for people to get by them. They grinned maniacally, cheek-to-cheek, with their asses in the air. This was not what my awkward hug had been like, to the best of my knowledge. 

"No," I said. 

"Was it...?"

"It was just sort of limp," I interrupted. "A fish hug."

"Ah yes," Nate said knowledgeably, shaking his head. "A fish hug, yes."

When I inquired after the source of his expertise on this issue, he directed me to the short film you see below. The only problem with it is that it does not give instructions on how to hug outside the realm of the man hug, which, not being a man, is a hug in which I am rarely -- although not never -- involved. 

the type of rejection you *do* want

I do not live on a quiet street. It is not unusual to be lying in bed and hear a skirmish in which motherfuckers are banished from this fucking hood, motherfuckers are fucking lying pieces of shit, and motherfuckers dutifully inquire of other motherfuckers where the stuff is, notifying motherfuckers that they will hurt those motherfuckers -- that's right, hurt them. 

This morning, however, there was a sound that was unusual. It sounded like some sort of R&B serenade, but very near. When it didn't pass within a minute or so as it would if it were emanating from a stopped car -- and in fact looped back to the beginning -- I got out of bed, went over to the window, and peeked through the blinds. 

There was a man down there, a la John Cusack in Say Anything, and he was earnestly holding a boom box aloft and looking with great hope at a window in my building. 

I continued to spy on him through my blind without doing anything. Every once in a while he would thrust the boom box emphatically toward the window in question. Wasn't the song in Say Anything "In Your Eyes"? I distinctly heard this song comment once or twice about the "shaking [of] warm curves." (No wonder no one was getting out of bed to acknowledge receipt.)

After another few minutes, the dude on the street began emphatically calling out my neighbor's name. 

"R________!" he cried. I was surprised at how lovelorn he sounded. You'd think if he was really that lovelorn, he'd do something original, like just be a pleasant human being. "R________!"

R. was not coming out, and other people on the street were starting to call out things like shut the fuck up and it's five a.m. and turn off the god damn music. ("PLEASE!" cried my next door neighbor.)

I opened my window and stuck my head up to the screen. I'm pretty low to the street, so the guy looked up.

I was about to offer a piece of friendly advice when he said,

"Oh... not you."

"Not me?" I didn't understand what he meant.

"I'm not playing this song for you," he clarified. 

Story of my life, in more ways than one.

cockle-warmer

Though I'm sure this article was meant to warm the absurdly frigid cockles (that's right, cockles) of my heart, it was difficult to suppress laughter when I learned that "before she helped open the cage and watched the bird soar away, Parton named it 'Liberty.'"

too amazing for commentary

* found on a stranger's flickr account (I'm grading, Mom, I'm grading!)

when you love somebody and bite your tongue, all you get is a mouthful of blood, or: there's something i want to tell you.

what a smart song (with the exception of a few dubious bits, of course). 

you know, there's something I'd like to tell you.

Anna

Yesterday I learned that my friend Anna, who has been working in Afghanistan for an organization that helps to renew Afghani communities, was killed earlier this week in a horse accident. This is rarely a forum for somberness of any kind -- Anna, who was a regular reader, would never have tuned in hoping for somberness herself -- but at the very least I would like to remember her here: her enormous laugh in quiet libraries, her jauntily arranged shawls, her penchant for Palestrina (and faux operettas) in belltowers after nightfall, her sense of adventure (and sometimes for misguided barefoot adventure -- even on the streets of Northeast DC!), her unflinching belief in the power of politics and religion to change things that suck -- and her unfailing part in that process. This is only the smallest and most partial list of things I remember about Anna, but any kind of list could only be the smallest start. It just doesn't seem possible to imagine that she's gone. In a certain sense, of course, she isn't -- and she won't be any time soon.

a few pictures from new york

Thank you, Economy Candy, for all that you do. Namely, what you have done is candy, which Abby and I spent a significant amount of time eating on the street.

People skating -- merrily, I assume --  like tiny hamsters, round and round Rockefeller Center. With the lit-up trees and the flags, it was a pretty nice sight -- different, to be sure, from the New York I knew when I lived there. Off-camera: my dad in a weird overcoat.

In Union Square, hipsters, others, and persons dressed in giant bear costumes (furries? I shudder) inexplicably gathered to beat the shit out of one another with their pillows. ("Are they going to sleep on those tonight?" I asked. Just then we saw one burst into pillowy flames below, and I had my answer. (Uh, how can we sleep when our beds are burning? Midnight Oil might ask.))  The entire park was covered in dander and feathers; as we approached from the east, a few feathers floated ominously on the wind toward us, along with not a few dust mites, I am sure. Kris, his fiancee Leah, his friend Kevin, Abby, and I watched from the be-horrored safety of the DSW windows, from which these pictures were taken. Don't these hipsters have anything else to do? Obviously not. Pricks.