Tongue Thrust

kedging the boat

2012-02-06T10:18:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well... if it isn't time to change the post.

Okay, so here's the deal. Thanks for asking after me and being adorable, friends, and I am finally on the mend. Actually, mostly mended with a few residual aches and pains, plus the regular back stuff. Having shingles wasn't really as horrible as I was expecting it; mostly I sat around and read books rather than taking Herald on walks. Both involved alternations between brooding and sighs of pleasure, but one was less meandery than the other. And now that I am better, I get to try and figure out if it's possible to walk three dogs at a time, since Mom and CR got a new dog and I've been taking the walkable ones with Herald so he's challenged to scamper a bit more.

Anyhow, what I did find strange about the shingles was how it motored around in the body: one day it would result in hip pain, the next shoulder pain, the next stomach pain, the next knee pain, back to the hip, etc. So it gives the illusion of everything going wrong, but really it's just one thing at a time.

Anyhow.

How's everyone been doing?

I'm getting excited about Chicago, and finally have a place lined up for NM and myself to stay... with a friend, so that means I can start daydreaming about wandering the Chicago streets people watching, eating good food in tiny corner restaurants, going to the new Modern wing of the Art Institute (not to mention Jasper Johns and the surrealists again), visiting the Modern Art Museum, riding the El, browsing the lake shore pathways, sigh. All the beloved beloveds. Oh, and yeah, I guess I'm going to attend a conference too!

Why have I always been a snot about that conference? Hmmmm.

I'm curious to see what it's actually like. There's something about professionalized writing and words like "contacts" and "networking" that irritate me. I imagine erudite well-accomplished writers getting drunk on morning cocktails and intellectually masturbating about their accomplishments and the lack of vision or support these days. How few readers there are. Endless discussions about how poetry matters. (Yawn). Hopeful, bright-eyed up-n-comers shyly lurking behind the ficus trees in the lobby, hoping to stumble into a conversation with their favorite publisher or agent. Smug, recently published talents arranging book tours and interviews. Lots of sucking up. Lots of condescension and advice. Lots of talking. Little listening...

But perhaps I should use more enjoyable words like hobnobbing and hawking and hilarity. Likely it is far more interesting and innocent than I think. Likely it's writers who are excited about writing and other writers and potential readers or reading. Likely the alcohol is a lubricant for all those voices that stay shuttered behind the lips attached to a face that receives most of its sunning from reflections off a computer screen. Likely it's people talking ideas about application of poetry and openings of story and the humming sound of frogs on the solstice. Likely it's different than I have imagined it, and I shall see!

In the meantime, NM and I have been strategizing her approach to the possibility of seeing her Ex. And I am smirking at myself for all the years I did the same for absolutely zero reason. I basically told her to simply picture the probability that they won't see each other, and if they do, they'll merely nod their heads at each other and speed up the slash-slash-sway of limbs in retreat. The banality of such moments is inevitably a letdown if one has the tendency to over-prepare. I keep reminding her of how awesome Chicago is... how much else there is, how I get to see JS again, and LH if he manages to climb out of his hole towards the sunshine of me, and LW who is putting us up and will, I think, instantly be friends with NM. All far, far better than dodging a ghostly bullet.

NM is dating, by the way. She's found another Chicana hottie and they're flirting it up awkwardly and smittenishlike. I'm so happy for her... to see her doing so well finally. And it gives me hope for myself... please, for the love of god will some brainy woman look my way sometime soon please?

Speaking of which, I am taking yoga again, only this time I had the guts to sign up for the hot yoga instructor. She's married (to a woman) so my admiration is purely chaste and angelic, but it certainly is motivation to turn the bulging abs into pleasantly-bulging abs. She is a nice girl, though, and my daydreams these days are heavy with the possibility of having friends, actual friends, who live within striking distance of Bville. I've been so damned lonely lately, and when I get lonely I start feeling sorry for myself, and also get resentful.

For instance, I recently received the first invitation to a gathering that I've had in a year. A bloody year, I tell you. And I was so pissed that it was the first in a year that I almost didn't go. How's that for shooting oneself in the foot? So, I went, and it was fun although short... a dinner and off I went.

Oh, SP is getting married. Interesting, neh? I have mixed feelings, as is my want. Happiness for her since she really is such a good person, but also resentment about our time together and the arguments we were always having. I should never doubt myself again. I am always right. Heh. And that is enough since apparently she checks in here from time to time still.

Oh, the title of this post? You're wondering, aren't you.

So, the two most interesting experiences of this year so far are having gone to the orthopedic doctor finally, and last weekend.

I belatedly found out that the orthopedic doctor I went to was the same one who set my brolaw's arm after his 'interesting' bachelor's party... who apparently insinuated that the brolaw was a drunk who didn't deserve having his bones knit back together. My experience with him wasn't all that different: he basically insinuated that my back problems were my own fault, and all I needed to do was start exercising. Now, I know I'm overweight, but all of the weightgain is post-backpain... and while I do not exercise enough, I do exercise. Anyhow, he only gave me five minutes and condescendingly told me to do the same thing that mom told me to do five years ago, and that I've been doing. Not really the listening and brainstorming session I was looking for, and I still don't know what is going on because he didn't find it important to figure that out.

I cried for a day, again. And then fought with my sister, again. For reasons unknown, again.

However, a couple of doctor recommendations -- specifically naturopath -- have come out of the disaster, and that's how a good disaster should end: solidly.

The other interesting experience was that I finally was feeling well enough this weekend to evade the gravitational pull of Bville and head on down to Seattle for a night/day. I stayed with NM in her new house-sitting spot, and it was a truly fun evening. We drank wine and chatted, her mooning over her new love interest, me mooning over Chicago and my plan to build a chicken hutch and raise chickens (not in Chicago, but here). And in the morning we got up, nabbed coffee, and visited another friend who had invited me down to go through the locks on his sailboat.

Instead of sailing through the locks, though, we went the other way (east) to Lake Union, beeping the foghorn and going under a number of uplifted bridges (they'll go up for one sailboat!). And it was an incredibly beautiful day with the sun finally out and the mountains 360 in sharp snowy refinement -- the Olympics to the west, Rainier to the south, the Sisters to the east, and Baker to the north, you could see every last one of them. All three of us just kind of kicked back, sipped at our beers, and reveled in the sublime nature of it all... And the houseboats! Wow!

On the way back, though, I was steering the boat... we were motoring pretty slowly, not enough wind to actually sail... and just as we came up to Gasworks Park, the captain took the helm back, saying "I've figured out just the right distance so we can watch the hot chicks on the shore but not go aground."

Haven't I heard that one before!

So, after we went aground, we had to find someone to take the anchor out about 50 feet behind the sailboat, drop it, and then we kind of winched ourselves off the bottom. (So, that is what kedging is all about.) The captain, who is a tugboater for his profession, was completely and totally embarrassed and it was well worth the fifteen minutes of inconvenience to see him blush profoundly and mutter to himself that he was actually just wanting to run a drill with us:

"You want to learn how to kedge, ladies? You know that's why I went so close."

Yes, yes, we know. Now I just need to figure out how to turn the literal to metaphor here.

And that was my interesting weekend. And now I must go dress, and then work.

Nightmares = 100% Accuracy

2012-01-14T11:58:00.000-08:00

Well, once again the nightmare radar illness detection system proves its complete accuracy. That is, I don't get nightmares unless I'm quite ill. Thus, if I have nightmares, something is wrong.

The good news = I went to Planned Parenthood and had my annual. They were, by and large, nice albeit slightly condescending, which is perhaps a prerequisite to becoming a gynecological nurse or doctor. I suppose they should be allowed this stylistic quirk in exchange for spending so much time looking at women's cootches. Annual exams are, by nature, the second most uncomfortable and embarrassing of doctor's visits, the first perhaps involving anything anal. I have to treat these visits like thirty minutes of hell followed by some sumptuous treat -- in this instance, a three-salad plate at the local co-op. Anyhow, I made it through and will spare you the details, but everything is okay.

I.e. no cancer. Which was what my paranoia was telling me I had.

The bad news = However, the next day, my hip and abdominal pain was worse and I had developed a rash by the evening all along my hip and lower back. I suddenly thought I knew what I had, and so went to the cheaper walk-in clinic, and was told I was correct: shingles. The nurse told me to expect it to get worse before it gets better. Good times.

The nurse was, by the way, delightful. She was an older woman, and chatted at length about the fall she took last year onto her tailbone and the pain that went along with it, and she offered full sympathy for my dire condition, and then she waved away my co-pay with a "don't worry about it." Granted, it was a very easy diagnoses for her, since I had already figured out what I likely had... but how nice can you get?! Good karma points for the nurses...

The other good news = I have medication, including pain meds, and am feeling a thousand times better for knowing what is wrong. I'm still going to keep my back appointment at the end of the month, but hopefully the rest of the problems should be cleared up by then (2-3 weeks).

I'm feeling pretty amazed at my mind for always saving the nightmares for sicknesses. How strange is that? I kept "waking up" dreaming that I was stuck in an underground grotto, and that bugs and small animals (or, in one instance, a crocodile) were gnawing on me... It's hard to believe nothing is seriously wrong when night after night your mind tells you to get used to the idea of a grave, no?

Further Good News:

NM bought us tickets to Chicago for a week for my Christmas present. The idea is to go to the AWP conference as well as visit friends, and I think NM bought the ticket so I can be her bodyguard... she expects her Evil-Ex to be there... but I'll not look too closely at her motivations and say HOOOORAY to seeing my beloved Chicago and friends again at the tail end of February. I'll have to break my life-long personal ban on the AWP conference and try to see it with an open mind, maybe learn something, but it'll be worth it. Entirely.

Classes are seeming good this quarter. Two different preps, which is sweet... no more repeating myself over and over and over again... and very full classes, which is helpful for the sense of job security. I have a good feeling about this quarter, and am feeling quite positive. My yoga class is ridiculously easy, and the instructor is cute... so I think I can continue with it through the hip pain... and a walk with MH at the river yesterday nailed the positive feeling down... swans, eagles, hawks, sunshine, beaver trees, and even an owl. And today: fresh snow, this winter's first in Bville. Herald was wretchedly bad yesterday on the trail, and I'm going to have to find some kind of solution -- either a trainer or a shock collar (recommendations?) -- but he always knows when he's in the doghouse and acts extra extra adorable to make up for it... sticking his head in the snow and holding it there, and then rolling around and romping. I have plans to take some tasty pain pills, make some coffee, and hole up next to the window, alternately reading a book and watching the animals revel in the snow. Delicious!

The Year of Repair

2012-01-09T10:03:00.000-08:00

My friend JS was suggesting that perhaps it ought to be the Year of J again, though reclaimed, but I've bucked and kicked, and decided on a new year title... Granted, it is not very romantic, but I thought if I invested in it, that perhaps next year could be something like the Year of Happiness or Year of Utter Bliss, because I will have started or finished dealing with all these quality of life issues... and repaired.

I'm thinking of The Year of Repair as occurring in three stages: the first four months focused on physical wellness, the second four months on mental wellness, and the last four months on social wellness. When I'm thinking about it, those are the three areas (that cover pretty much everything) that are clearly lagging in my life. And while I will focus more on each during their four allotted months, I will also allow room for them to mingle and combine.

I think it's pretty obvious how depressed I was last year. It became even more obvious to me over the break in Costa Rica, not because I was blissfully happy in Costa Rica -- overall my trip was harder than I imagined -- but because I had a little distance and a lot of time to myself to try to see what was going on, and to think about how to solve it. In general, I think I need to do more of what my trip involved, I.E. taking risks. I feel somewhat like everything is a risk, and I am a phobic.

I also thought about what worked last year, which was pretty much the summer, although it was too condensed for me to fully appreciate it. But all of my socializing happened over the summer - visits with my sister, grandparents, ER and family, Alaska, etc. But because I had all these plans for writing and work, I was tense for part of it, and so this excellent socializing was coupled with a sensation of failure. So, I think the goal might be to spread everything out a bit -- to make daily life a little more enjoyable, and the summer months a little more work-oriented.

So, first, is physical well-being. Sigh.

I was trying to figure it last night while talking to NM, but I believe I haven't actually been to a doctor in ten years. Well, I've sporadically had my annuals (part of the plan is to make them annual) and I went to a doctor to get shots for Ecuador (in 2005), but the last time I can actually remember going to a doctor for a health reason is when I had salmonella, which was during December 1997. And he was a total dick who mocked me, made me cry, misdiagnosed me, and sent me home with pills that I promptly threw up. His office didn't even have the good grace to call us when the blood work came through; rather we got a call from the WA State Health Bureau wanting to know where we purchased our tainted eggs.

Then the Ecuador shot doctor, whom I informed first thing that I wasn't getting shots that day, but only wanting to talk with him about his recommendations. However, he had his nurse pull shots from the freezer that couldn't go back into the freezer, and bullied me into taking them... even though they weren't the ones I was thinking of taking, that I had saved my money to take. (I had planned on the complex Hep shots, which were recommended by my brolaw's doctor father, whereas he gave me shots for some obscure tropical disease that I didn't even hear was common, not even after getting to Ecuador). Once again, I left the doctor's office crying.

In other words, I don't really like doctors too much. But it's about time I got over that.

Because... since I've gotten back, I've gone off the codeine mix that helped so much in C.R. (although I brought back plenty for emergencies) and the pain is slowly eking its way back towards agonizing.

I feel dramatic saying agonizing. Like I need a white handkerchief clutched to my brow or something. Maybe painful is more accurate. But it is strong enough that I can't focus well on anything else; it is perpetually with me. Since I've been back, my right hip (abdomen, thigh, back, groin, and leg) has become painful... a bruised feeling, with jolts periodically, slightly itchy, and stingy. This on top of the usual back pain, worse at night.

All I can think is: something is wrong, and I don't know what it is.

On top of this, I've started having nightmares, actual nightmares that wake me up, and historically I've never had nightmares without being sick. So, of course, I'm kinda freaked out.

Enough that I've pledged myself to the year of repair. I'm signed up for backcare yoga again. I'm signed up at the gym again. And I have two doctor's appointments. Well, one is my annual, which is tomorrow, and at least they will be able to let me know if the pain is connected to something internal, or if it's more likely related to the spine. The second doctor is at the end of this month, and is an orthopedics doctor. After that, I will book accordingly, but the plan is to have a primary care doctor by the end of the year, and to have the back stuff taken care of to the best of the doctor's and my abilities, and to take care of anything else as well.

Then I can move on to the mental care, which I think involves a new look at work as well is dealing with my depression/etc.

Anyhow, wish me well and Hallelujah, I've finally made the call(s).

Costa Rica Animal Pics (Oso Peninsula)

2012-01-05T10:46:00.000-08:00

happy new year 2012

2012-01-01T23:51:00.000-08:00

back from the wilderness, but no internet

2011-12-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

So I am at an Internet Cafe for a few... it´s probably a good thing since I only have today and tomorrow left before I leave Costa Rica to come home, so probably I should be out and about enjoying the heat, which is finally intense... summer arrived here while I was in Corcovado Park.

I have a lot to say about Corcovado... I ended up flying in, and flying out as well. If my pack had been lighter, I am pretty sure I could have done the hike, but actually I was pretty damned sore from the day hikes I did: each day tackling a new one, and by the end, I did all the day hikes around the station: Rio Claro, Along the Beach (several times), Naranja (several times), Sirena (several times), Part of the Patos trail, Espaveles, Ollas, Rio Claro again, and finally Guancoste. Most of the animals I saw on the first couple of days, but the forest and trees were always amazing, and I swam in a cool pool in the Rio Claro, and sat on palm trees drinking coconut juice, and climbed up to where I could see the coast sprawled out in front of me...

And am fairly happy with myself desite the lazy flying in and out. All yesterday I read a trashy book in the heat and lazily watched the white-faced cappuchin jump around in the mangroves (for my last three nights, I booked a mid-range hotel, which is pure shee-shee after the hostel dorms and camping awning I´ve been staying at). Today my plan is to rent a bicycle and go down to the Playa Preciosa again and go bobbing about in the surf. First a few chores though.

Oh, and I got stood up last night! I was walking down the street yesterday, and ran into a guide I had spoken with several times. Just as I was walking away, he asked me out to dinner and he was clearly asking me out on a date. I asked if we might postpone it until today because I had plans to do absolutely nothing last night, but he said ¨pleaaaaase,¨ and so I agreed and changed my plans (didn´t drink the beers I was planning on drinking in the afternoon). But then he didn´t show. Irritated that I had changed plans for no reason, I went down to the bar to say hey to Kenny and there was this guide, drinking with a couple of girls! He didn´t see me, and I didn´t punch him. Heh. Instead I went home, drank my beers quietly in front of a lit Christmas tree, and finished my lazy sprawl. What a strange world!

I have to say, I feel pretty good today. And I´m off...

well, what about that!

2011-12-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

First thing the abuela who owns this hostel told me in the morning is that I need to get married to someone rich soon, because ¨youth is free and easy, everyone loves you, and you can do whatever you want, but when you get older and uglier, nobody wants you and everything is hard. Best to find someone soon.¨ I am trying to remember the context for this pithy commentary, but Im not sure there is an acceptable context, at least not first thing in the morning! I laughed and told her she was scaring me, and she said ¨good.¨

So, the folks I met the second full day I was here...

When I got up, it was raining so I decided to eat breakfast, but found that all the little cheap cafes were closed because it was Sunday. So I went to a slightly more expensive resturant on the main drag, and ordered some coffee and a ¨pinto¨ which is rice and beans with something else to the side, often a meat in sauce or eggs and ham. I finished and had another coffee... it was still raining... watched the people passing by under their umbrellas, or racing through the puddles, played some of my vacation logic puzzles that I find so relaxing, and finally this woman shows up and sits down at the table next to me.

She looks at me several times, and I think that perhaps she wants to strike up a conversation but doesn´t know how, so I started and asked her something. We have a very mellow conversation about this and that, about the park and her travels so far, and then the conversation settles down. But before long, she is conversing in German with the gentleman at the table one over from her. When that conversation ends, the man asks me a question over her table, we talk for a few seconds, and then the woman in the middle table says, ¨Hmmmm, I think you should both come to this table.¨ And so we do.

We actually have a really nice conversation about where everyone has been, where we´re going, who we are traveling with (we are all traveling alone), what has been the best, then what our careers are, and so forth. The Swiss guy, Adrian, is a type of social worker that focuses on educating families on how to create a healthy place for their children. The German gal, Astrid, is a therapist who focuses on movement, or how peoples movement, positions, and physical interactions reflect a type of psychology. They are both smart, unusual, well-traveled and highly interesting. Over the course of the day, it turns out that they are both genuinely nice people as well. In fact, they are two of the nicest people Ive met in a very long time, and we were well matched in age (Astrid is only a few years older than me, and Adrian is in his fifties) and character.

So, a good conversation turned into an agreement to go together to the Botanical Gardens, which ironically is what I had arranged to do by myself, but so had they. And we were the only people in the park! Again, nice conversation, a good pace, monkeys and toucans, flowers and trees, avejas cortepelos (which I could have done without as they burrowed into my hair and clung there for dear life). After a few hours in the park, we split up for a half hour or so, to meet up again and go to a recommended beach in Adrian´s car. The beach was a long sandy, rolling beach, and I had bought some pastries for us to share, and Adrian sat on the log and looked off into the distance, while I wandered down towards the waves and Astrid beachcombed for seed pods and interesting pieces of wood.

After this, dinner together at the seafood place... and that is when the soccer tournament was, so we enjoyed that afterwards, then went to a bar and had a few drinks. We were joined by a Tica girl who is a guide and tourist worker who had met Adrian before... she was totally and utterly tossed, kept repeating herself, and slowly as it came out, was hitting on Astrid to a large degree! Also, it turned out that our waitress, who was acting a little strange and utterly hostile to this girl (Eileen), was a former girlfriend... and either they had only broken up three months ago, or three years ago, or they had dated for three years and broke up three years ago, or they broke up because of incompatibility or because of a desire to play the scene, or whatnot, I don´t know because Eileen told us approximately 2.3 different versions of everything, including her age (either 17 or 27).

Anyhow, Eileen was shit-faced, the waitress was pissed, Astrid was nervous, Adrian was entertained, and I was extremely amused when Eileen set about telling Astrid and Adrian why women-women love is far better than anything they´d ever possibly experienced. I tried to keep the disagreement off my face. Heh. She was pretty funny... would have been great had she not repeated herself endlessly, including a few English tics like saying ¨really really¨ and ¨No No, No, really really, I no lie to you, for sure, its the TRUTH!!!!¨ Regardless of whether we were disagreeing with her or not. She also had the amusing habit of ordering a beer from the angry waitress, taking a mouthful, and then ordering another one. She bought beers for everyone at the table, although nobody was finished with their drinks and Astrid had stopped. All and all, she was an interesting endpoint to the evening, and so it ended and Astrid and I gave each other a big hug, Adrian and I exchanged one of those cheek-kiss things that I still find slightly traumatizing, and we each went our ways... to different ends of the earth.

Strange these small encounters with kindreds. They are so easy, so easy they make you wonder why the rest of human interaction is so damn hard.

I have been having many thoughts on this trip. I will try to note them down in my notebook while I am in the park, but I must tell you, the park has no blog and so I shall be swapping to paper for these thoughts. I think they are good thoughts. Observations about myself, about life. For instance, all those bad recursive, endlessly repetitively thoughts that I struggle with every day in my life back home, well, they are not here. They havent followed me, and this is such a relief to my mind. It is so nice to be full every night with new information, new input. To not have to fret about certain things.

I still feel dreadfully out of shape, fat, and dull as a teaspoon. I still feel unaccomplished. But I also feel relaxed, like I can see my way over the edge of the teapot.

So I will write about that. In my notebook. In the meantime, I will mention that the sun was out all day today, and after spending a day by myself yesterday - renting a bike and going down to the beach for a bit - then biking back in the pouring raining to arrive dripping and happy just in time for a beer on the porch. After that, I went back to Kennys to try and arrange to get the photos to him, and he told me he had a surf tour schedule for today and I was welcome to join and take pictures. Which I did, and after taking some photos... I went swimming with the surfers and bobbed and floating in the warm Golfo Dulce on the Pandulce Beach. And my body thrummed all the drive home in satifaction... when I get back from the park, I am going swimming every day, I tell you!

In the meantime, Merry Christmas, folks. And happy return of the sun.
I ran into Eileen the next day, and to my surprise, she actually remembered me and had the good grace to blush.

I should be renting a bike and going to the beach but...

2011-12-19T11:33:00.001-08:00

...it`s another tropical downpour. Jeesh, it`s friggin` crazy here! The people dont know what to think because normally the rain slows down and stops at the beginning of December, but everything is still flooding. Last night I woke several times to the sounds of absolute fury of water on aluminum roofs nearby and around town.

So, let me start from the hostel that I`m staying in, which I described in brief last entry. I`ve done alot of my normal wandering around, looking at houses, figuring out the layout of the streets, the animals around, and so forth. There is the main part of town, which follows a strip of paved road for about a mile... with stores and resturants, mostly tourist offices, along this drag, and people always standing or sitting around in clusters, drinking beer or hawking wares, or gossiping I guess. The sentiment on this strip is, or feels, a little hostile (or agressive) towards tourists, but once you get off the strip, this changes completely. It`s rather strange. Off the main town strip, there is one main road that runs along the waterfront, down past a small ferry pier, the middle-cost hotels, bars and seafood restaurants. Along this road, the teenagers and youngsters in love gather and hangout, rev their motorcycles, play music from their cars and look out across the gulf.

Last night was a huge national soccer competition... I guess the equivalent of the superbowl for Costa Rica, and everybody went hog wild at about 7pm, after the game ended in penalty shots. Boys and girls were gathered in trucks, riding around on bicycles, waving flags, pounding drums, and singing Ole Ole Ole! In fact, this make-shift parade made two circuits around the town, with everyone in the resturant I was eating in rushing out to join them whenever the passed by. An interesting contrast to the morning, which was utterly quiet and shut-down for the morning services.

I finally met some people here - two different sets actually. The first night I was here, I wandered around and wandered into a friendly looking resturant to ask about the advertised tours. The guy sat down and talked with me about it, but when he saw my camera, he got excited and offered to give me free tours in exchange for photos he could put up on his webpage. Every day he wanted! I agreed to try one day with Kenny, and see how it went. Just to secure the time, I went back to his bar at night and he treated to a beer, and talked and talked and talked. About the third time he tooted his own horn, talking about how just the other day he bought a headstone for the father of some poor friends of his, who he told -Money doesn`t matter, and you should hold your heads up with or without moeny.- I started to wonder if his offer of photo for tour exchange was on the up and up, or whether he was just hitting on me.

Leave it to me to be hit on by the only man in this town who has an ass at least three times the size of my own. Oops, that was uncharitable.

Anyhow, I was skeptical but thought I would give it a shot. I didnt feel threatened, so no worries. So, my first full day here, I wandered over to his place after running some chores in the morning (gathering a huge bottle of water for my hostel room, and getting a sheet to use in place of a sleeping bag, which seems overly heavy). After waiting impatiently for a couple of hours... well, patiently for awhile, because I wandered around the beach, into the mangroves, dipping my toes in the water, and visited a crocodile trail where you can whistle and a bunch of baby crocodiles and small caimen rush up to see if you`re going to feed them... finally we were off.

And in a crappy old jeep with the muffler tied on with wire... I could hear it clanging the whole way. The roads out here, off the one mile paved stretch, are spotted with lagoons, lakes, small creeks, rushing rivers, and in a couple of places actual oceans. At times, the jeep disappears halfway into the standing water, and at least in three places, we had to drive through rivers. Full rivers. It was intense, and I wondered for a bit if my back was up for it, but then put the thought out of my mind and clung to the side of the jeep.

We stopped to look at one beach, and then went to a second in a place called Matapalo, which is named after a type of ficus tree that wraps around other trees, particularly palms, and slowly kills them and usurps their position and no doubt nutrients. It was a sandy beach with significantly large rollers. They took me there to take pictures of the guy they are setting up to teach surfing lessons, and overall there were about six or seven surfers, quite good surfers, in the waves, and so I spend a good hour taking photos and enjoying their skill.

Kenny then offered to go with me on a walk down the beach... along the way we saw, at first, spider monkeys fighting with white-faced monkeys (along the way in we saw squirrel monkeys), and then... to my amazement, a sloth (two claws), which I`ve never seen before. They are absoultely the strangest, cutest, wisest smiling-faced creatures I`ve ever seen! This one was about two feet off the ground when we saw it, and climbing a tree. Kenny said it`s rare to catch them this far down, but they do come down to go to the bathroom, then go to another tree. I could have touched this guy. And yes, he slowly slowly slowly, one leg at a time, went up the tree, smiling at the leaves above, nay grinning at the leaves above with this divinely meditative smugness.

So, a good trip. When we got back, Kenny bought me a beer and returned to the topic of love and relationships, finally asking me about my boyfriend. When I told him that I rarely date, but when I do, it`s women, he looked irritated, is the best way to put it. He told me that`s pretty normal in Costa Rica, but had, within a half hour shuffled me off and equivacated about going on a trip the next day. When I asked him to let me know one way or another so I could make other plans, he said -Let`s take a break. And when I went by today, he definately wanted to locate a card reader for the photos I had taken, but didnt seem even slightly interested in going on another photography trip... kind of part of my impression of him. He seems to hatch a lot of plans, and I`d be surprised if more than ten percent of them actually happen. But I had one free trip!

Okay... it`s stopped raining. I`ll write about my German and Swiss friends-for-a-day later.

twenty minute interum

2011-12-18T09:25:00.000-08:00

I actually quite want to talk about where I`m at now, but only have twenty minutes before I am meeting up with folks, so couldnt possibly catch you few readers, including E-cita, up to date in that time. However, I will say Ive experienced something of a 180-degree turn. At least for awhile.

Lets skip Fortuna and the ride home for now, and fast forward to Oso Peninsula.

I decided to take a flight instead of the 9-hour rutted road drive from San Jose, and am not regreting the decision despite the expense. It was well worth it, and a sweet little ride in a small 16-seater plane with enormous windows... enough so that I could see most of the landscape below as we passed, although there were intermitant clouds.

By the way, I should note that I know I have many spelling errors in these entries, but have been dashing them off with a strange keyboard, so dont feel too guilty about that.

I flew into Puerto Jimenez, which is on the southern pacific side of C.R., on a peninsula next to a large bay called Golfo Dulce, which is warm and spotted with mangroves and river estuaries, and on the other side, the Pacific Ocean proper. Most of the land along the Pacific Coast is part of the large national park, Corcovado, which is known as the most intense and one of the most diverse (biologically) national park in C.R. I chose it under the advise of a friend who had lived here for 7 months, who said it was the place to go if I wanted pristine wilderness.

Ive been a bit worried about the hike in... its about 20 kilometers, and since I will stay at the ranger station for 5 days, ordering only one very expensive meal per day, I have to carry in 5 dinner-lunches, not to mention all my own camping gear. I keep getting conflicting reports re: what basics they have there, and have been told that I might not even need to carry in my tent, but can instead rent one, but we will see. I did find out that if my back is not super-good, I can fly in... pricey and wimpy, but perhaps an acceptable alternative. On the other hand, I really want to hike in, and my back has been so much better its like night and day. They question is whether the feeling better is mostly due to the pills... but I have only been taking them at night, and not during the day at all, so it could be that the better sleeping at night is just helping in general, although I might just be stubborn and need to be reasonable and take a flight out.

Anyhow, Im ahead of myself again... into my daydreams and plans rather than what is.

Puerto Jimenez is a sweet little muddy town, both a fishing town and a tourist town, and I have the impression that high season for everything starts next month, so everything is just poised on the brink and gearing up right now. Its still the tail end of the rainy season, so its been raining every day, but its warmer, so I am usually too hot rather than too cold, which I think helps with my bones. There have been some nice spots between the rains however, and I even had to put on sunscreen yesterday (and probably today, though it is cloudy).

I had reserved a spot to stay called Cabinas Iguana Iguana, but when I got there, the gate was solidly closed, and when I entered, I couldnt find anyone around until I noticed a man on a mattress in the middle of the bar, snoring away under a fan (it was 1pm). I snuck around and checked out the rooms, which were dank, and decided that between the sleeping man, the silence, the puddles, and the dankness, I better locate another spot. And so I did.

I am now in a cute hostel... paying a bit extra for my own room. Its still pretty cheap, and is run by an adorable older woman named Berta, who ruthlessly charges forward with her spanish regardless of whether her customers understand her or not. I have been very amused watching others who speak nothing... glad that I at least understand about 60% of what she is saying. Ive had to translate for her, but Berta acts just like they understood her in the first place, of course! She is well worth staying at the hostel. Aside from this, it is clean and comfortable.

Ah. Out of time... and I havent even mentioned the other people I have met. Tonight perhaps?

the mountain cloud forests

2011-12-16T16:01:00.000-08:00

Okay... backing up... notwithstanding the fact that I am now on the Oso Peninsula and have already seen crocodiles, egrets, kingfishers, and swimming children... I will talk about the first part of my journey.

So, after arriving at Costa Rica Backpackers the first time, not sleeping well and fretting about my back all night, I got up at about 530am and caught the bus up to the mountains at 630, specifically a place called Monteverde, which means green mountain, and is two towns, close together, that are right on the edge of two cloud forests. It is supposedly the place to see certain unique animals like sloths and quetzals, although Ill quickly dispell any ideas you might be having about me seeing animals.

I guess the town of Santa Elena has been there for years, whereas the town of Monteverde nearby was settled some years ago by Arkansas Quakers who were briefly jailed for refusing to join the Korean War. Decided to go to a country where there was no army, they selected Costa Rica, and settled down to start farms in the area. I actually visited the lecheria (or dairy) run by the Quakers the second day I was there, and had myself a delicious blackberry milkshake and bought some gouda that supplied the cheese side of affairs for at least ten sandwiches Ive had since then.

The ride up to Monteverde was bumpy, that much I can tell you, but I was totally exhausted and slept most of the time, so I cant tell you much more than that.

Once I got there, the sun came out of the clouds and I walked around after finding a neat little hostel with clean beds near the bus station. It was strange because the sky was blue, but I felt a constant spritz of moisture, like light lawn sprinklers were poised just above me. However, it was warm and the trees were amazing so I wandered around town and took a look at everything after a brief nap at the hostel. Then I ate at a cute little spot called Cafe Maravilla, and again hit the pillow at an early hour.

The next morning I got up early with the idea that I wanted to swap hostels. I am still undecided about whether this was a good move or not, but Im going to call it adventurous and in the spirit of connecting with others. The pluses of my first hostel were that, for such a cheap price ($10), it was incredibly clean, I ended up with a dorm room to myself, and the breakfast in the morning was fine. The minuses were that I was almost the only person in the hostel (two couples other than me), and I felt like I wouldnt meet anyone, which is something I wanted to do... and second, there werent any comfy chairs to sit on and rest in between doing things.

So I traded for the lavishly recommended Pension Santa Elena, which is run by a Texan brother-sister combo. The pluses and minuses of this spot were pretty much the opposite of the other. Dank dorms with crummy beds, but lively activity and a sweet communal kitchen and common space. Like I said, Im not sure it was a good trade-off, but I did have several good conversations... ironically with Scottish couples (sister: check out Surf Louis in the inner Heberdies - the nicest travelor Ive met here, Rodney, runs the joint). Although I have yet to meet anyone to hang out with (until today, when I was asked by the proprietor of a surf school-tour spot to take pictures for his place in exchange for free tours. I blathered a bit, unsure whether my photography skils are up to snuff, but told him that I would go and do my best). But it was lively people (and dog) watching at the place.

Anyhow, after the first light spritzing of the afternoon walking around post-nap, the weather rolled in: high winds and pouring rains. And it never rolled out. Even down here at the Oso Penn., where it is warmer and muggier, it is still raining off and on and expected to through the weekend. In the mountain towns, it was cold on top of this, though not like home cold, just colder than I expected, and the cold I thought I was down with took a turn for the worst and turned into full-fledged coughing, which I still have. I wonder if its allergies though? Not sure.

So, my time hiking in the area was damp, to say the least. The first day, I hiked up the hill along the road, stopping at the little art and souvenier stores, the co-ops and one little resturant pastry store (pastry stores here are disappointing... the selections pretty lame, if you ask me). I then hiked over to the trailhead for El Bosque Del Ninos, which is the Childrens Forest, where some of the `save the rainforest` moneys go... apprently a good cause for eco-tourism. I hiked along its well kept and fairly steep trails, to the `mirador` where there were some exceptional views of the mountainside on down to... I think the Pacific Ocean! Water in the distance, at any rate.

Towards the end of the two-hour hike, I saw an agouti and a mama black-chested wood quail with chicks... both of which I had to look up in the books. Thats it for animals in the Monteverde area for me!!}

Afterwards I was exhausted and so walked just a bit further to the lecheria I mentioned before, where I waited hopefully for a bus that fortunately came. I went home exhausted, made a sandwich, ate it, then fell painfully into bed.

The next day was similiar, with a trip to the Santa Elena reserve on the other side of the hills... I took a shuttle this time, thankfully, and when I got there, took a trip along what basically became a streambed. It was POURING!! Beautiful, but hard to see anything past the close canopy. I rode back down to the hostel, went out for supper, hung out and people watched, hatched plans for the next day, then fell into bed early again.

Thats it for right now! Maybe tomorrow, I will catch up to today for my one or two readers?

pretty little pills

2011-12-16T05:04:00.000-08:00

I couldnt quite convince myself to write when I was feeling miserable in Costa Rica... felt like a total ingrate, and whiner. But today... today is all new.

And Im on a computer that apparently doesnt allow me apostrophes or exclamation points or parentheses, perhaps an interesting challenge, no?

Okay, the deal is that my back has been a nightmare, getting increasingly more painful, particularly at night when I can barely move and hardly sleep for fear of moving. The whole experience has been of listing the reasons to go back home early in the night hours, and listing the reasons not to around mid-day when Im feeling slightly better. Not a good experience.

So the day before yesterday, I decided to stop staying in Monteverde, where I was cooped up due to the rain - more on that later - and go to La Fortuna where there are hot springs that I felt might save the day. I did this, went to the hot springs - more on that later - and my back actually felt worse the next day. So I went to the pharmacy and asked for something stronger than advil. What they gave me is part codeine, part somethinge else, and I held out on taking it until last night because codeine has always knocked me out in the past, but then I took it and Im totally converted.

I actually had almost zero pain last night... and kept waking up to feel how good it felt. Heh.

So, pre-pills, post-pills.

Im going to try to be better about posting, although I have a limited time this morning. Its about 715am in San Jose, and my backpack is all re-packed for the flight Im taking in a few hours to the lower Pacific Peninsula in Costa Rica... El Oso Peninsula. The weight of my bag is precisely the allowed amount, and Im planning on eating breakfast for the first time in forever before going... Ive mostly been living on sandwiches for two meals, and one meal out - usually rice and beans and chicken - a day. Its been pretty tasty and I have certainly not gone hungry.

Anyhow, a brief mention of whats happened and I will try to fill in more later.

I flew in to San Jose and went to this place called Costa Rica Backpackers... I hated it the first time I was here, but am enjoying it okay this second time. The mattresses are pretty crappy and that might be partially why I disliked it, but I also thought the staff was rude, and I was irritated they charged 25-bucks for the shuttle from the airport, when I hear the going rate for shuttles is closer to 15-bucks. But they stored my camping gear so I wouldnt have to haul it to the mountains, where I was going the first week with no plans to camp... so you got to give them credit for that. And now that I am back, either they are friendlier, or I am, and the noise level wasnt quite so bad as it was on the weekend. There is a bar right next door, part of the hostel, and it must draw quite the unruly crowd because the noise lasted all night that Saturday. Last night was quieter although there were some folks sitting right outside our room talking until about 3am... considering how large the place is, Im confused why they picked right by the rooms to talk, but although I am a light sleeper, I can deal with noise pretty well. After Chicago, some part of me even finds it relaxing...

Okay, anyhow, I flew in, was at this spot for one night, wandered around town a bit and thought what a friggin hole San Jose is... a bit like Guayaquil only more hilly. I try not to compare though... remembering how Sarah criticized me once for comparing places when we traveled instead of seeing what was there precisely for itself. I have a hard time with that and tend to categorize and connect too much... so far Costa Rica reminds me a great deal of Ecuador, only it is much much wetter and thus greener. But it also reminds me of the Canaries, in the way the hills and mountains are terraced and farmed... although with entirely different crops. In the Canaries, it was mostly potatoes but also bananas and other fruits, whereas here it seems to be mostly coffee, and other crops I cant identify.

But San Jose is a big, noisy dirty city with scads of traffic and honking horns. Flying in, it actually looked pretty green from the air, but on the ground - at least in the part I am at - it is decidedly not green. The cab driver I got on my way back into town, when I asked him what the prettiest or best part of San Jose was, told me he couldnt think of one - Its all ugly, he said. At that time, the traffic was horrendous and he took me through some back streets to get me to the hostel, passing a former penitentiary, which is now a Childrens Museum. He told me all about the horrible people who used to live there - the devils henchmen, he said, who were known to rip out hearts with their bare hands and feed them to the cats. Why the cats, I do not know.

He was a lively taxi driver, and I quite liked him, I must say.

The places outside San Jose were incredibly beautiful though, although it has been absolutely pouring - flooding on the Caribbean coast, so glad I decided not to go there - so much so that staying indoors is the only alternative to getting completely and entirely sopping wet and cold from head to foot, regardless of raingear.

But that is another story, and Im out of writing time for this morning. Ciao.

I'm off

2011-12-09T18:50:00.001-08:00

to Costa Rica...

Send out little prayer bubbles that my back doesn't give out. You do this, and I'll take care of the rest. Heh.

Happy Chanukah
Sassy Solstice
Merry Christmas
See you in the New Year!

Peace, and I'll try to post here and there, 'though the pics will have to wait.

I travel and write

2011-12-08T02:56:00.000-08:00

very soon. May I be gifted with very interesting things to watch. And may my back not give out. And may the heat be grand and hammocks hung and animals friendly.

amazing speech, and random natterings of thoughts in appendix

2011-12-08T01:58:00.000-08:00

I have always felt strange about my membership in the queer community. Strange like unwilling. And I mostly prefer my straight friends to my queer ones, erg. ufta. Did I say that?

I have reasons within and without for my wariness, but I must say, I have not faced horrible discrimination as a lesbian in America. I am unusually lucky. Mostly, as one of the two major downsides to being a lesbo in the PNW, I find that friends sometimes go missing. There are always reasons, and friends go missing for everyone, so it's hard to say which of my friends go missing because I'm queer, and which go missing because life involves change and natural attrition (or because I'm a bizatch). I would guess, however, that I've lost at least five people I've really loved due to being gay. Not tons by the standards faced by many queers in the rest of the world. But enough to impact this life.

In my part of America, discrimination doesn't often occur directly if you're a lesbian up until you want to get married although it surely occurs in a thousand indirect ways. I doubt this is true if you're a gay male, but there's less outright rage and public violence (although there's plenty of private violence) against women because, I think, women are less threatening and make less money and women's right here coincide with lesbian rights in that we're both less of a worry or fret, really, so why get worked up?

Mostly, I think the loss most lesbos in my region find is the slow or sudden erosion of friendships or community. For me, this has mostly been in the ostensibly 'queer friendly' or liberal community. I have few conservative friends, but those few have been supportive of me; they don't understand or approve, but I'm here and they're here, and that's that (maybe they don't want to talk about it, but they're willing to accept what I got to give if I'm willing to give it...). On the other hand, most of my friends are liberal and 'supportive' but not always although I do still have many such liberal people I adore about the world.

But for instance... I have friends who don't want to talk about this shit. There are always more important things to talk about, and any mention of gay rights or marriage is always a distraction from the god-fucking-awful recession, or the Afghanistan war, or the erosion of Constitutional rights, or the environmental buttfuck we've found ourselves in. And I agree so much that it's hard to articulate the reality I live in, much less the reality that so many other less fortunate queers live in. Straight folk take straight life for granted, just like white folk take white life for granted, I think. Or Americans take American life for universal shiznit. Why talk about this, eh, when there are so many problems?

But as Hilary Clinton seems to have expressed here, whenever we talk about LGBT rights, we are talking about human rights, higher rights, principles to strive for, right?

Another, for instance... my best high school friend isn't married, and when I asked her why, she said she and the father of her kids weren't getting married until gays had the same right. However, she stopped returning my letters and phone calls, stopped talking to me altogether though I never did a damned thing wrong and did many things right, but still... and as far as I can tell, all of her current friends are straight. It's very hard for me to understand. I mean, I really don't know what's in her head. All I know is that she's been no friend of mine, despite her politics.

Of those interested, I guess some are quite up front, and that's good. Others are infatuated with the queer life as it fits into the culture wars, and that's less good. A fair amount of my friends I discover to have never really been my friend. Some of my friends have dissolved into family and not included me as a part of their life's growth and change; or maybe even told me I'm not welcome in their life's growth and change. That's the most frequent form of discrimination I've found. People who don't want me around their babies, or their hubbies.

Most of my over-the-years close friends have made a space for me, wiggle room for my involvement, pockets for greater discussion. Others I just know or trust will find space for me to participate in their lives when new arrangements of time and space occur.

It's not always obvious when a friend has disappeared because their life is complex and full, or when a friend has disappeared because I am not welcome. This is, I think, true for everyone, but I have to say, I think it's more true for queers.

It is amazing that Clinton gave this speech. It is most meaningful for those LGBT folks who live in countries that brutalize this community. It is very meaningful for those LGBT folks in America who suffer in the many parts of this nation that don't feel that human rights apply to everyone, equally. And it is still meaningful to spoiled creatures like me, who are loved by their family, and have inspirational friends who love them, and don't even feel that being queer is much different. (I am, like many straight people, [eternally] single, after all.)

When I talk to my friends, it is mostly about life and gossip and interesting things about existence, and only about identity or religion when it's important. So I feel strange about words that involve my sexuality, which is not the bulk of me, not anywhere near the bulk of me or my interests. But it's still enough of me to be really touched by this speech. But maybe that's because I believe in the true and free spirit of all creatures, believe it's an amazing thing, something to love and nourish and protect.

I am (quietly) thankful for...

2011-11-24T23:59:00.000-08:00

My ex-girlfriends and ex-loves... for the sexiness, for traveling with me, disillusioning me, sharing their families, for letting me in, for their music mixes and weird books, for teaching me to make tamales, dancing at my sister's wedding, for dancing, for trying to love, for walking across mountains together, and crawling through cenotes, and being homeless with me, carving pumpkins, watching anti-war films, being skin-to-skin, thinking about art, letting me freak out and mess up, taking me to strange canal-ridden parks, watching fireworks and shivering in the cold, for having umbrellas in their rafters, cuddling years after, for respecting, being the first, diving in phosphorescence, pushing me and being drunk with me, and opening your eyes in the sunrise, and having buttresses to climb, for being vulnerable and yet gentle with my vulnerabilities, for their stories and sadnesses, for their baggage, for sharing their baggage, for being like lone laughing suns, or wolves howling at a long yellow moon, or actually, some other inexpressible metaphor...

My family... for having seen me at my worst, and climbing trees with me, and gardening, for taking me on river-rafting trips, and letting me crash, and making me dinner, taking care of me, letting me stay because I can't figure out where to go, for watching after my dog, and being weird with me, enjoying sushi with me, letting me do what little I can to repay, telling me incredible stories, stories sometimes of our shared past, for reading what I write, and supporting queer causes, for kicking goals and sitting in boats with me, for teaching, for teaching me so much, for always always always being there for me, even in my most miserable days, for always being there for everyone, for having kindness and wanderlust and dreams, for having their own history and being amazing, for achieving and inspiring, for tagging basking sharks, for letting me love them, and having cool friends, for loving animals, for being so easy to be around...

My friends... you curs, you dirty dogs, you lovely clouds and floating newts coming up for breath. For lasting, above else. And aside from that, for fleeting most splendidly. For being confusing, and tough, and sometimes brutal to hang on to, like the edge of a cliff... when the cliff doesn't crumble. For smoking on balconies, inviting me, having beautiful children for me to love, for loving and raising their beautiful children, for picting, for wine, for peeing in strange places, having odd conversations, bringing me the books they love, sharing the books they love, for forgiving me, letting me forgive them too, for burping on subways, writing coaster poems, swimming naked, camping rough, swimming clothed, walking dogs, watching risque films and howling from the bleachers, becoming family, staying in touch, reaching out after not having stayed in touch, being in touch even when we're not in touch, striving to live, inspiring me even if I'm jealous, knowing I'm so proud, bringing me soup and telling me fishing jokes when I am sick, loving and accepting love... so I know what that means...

The world... for being, for still being, for offering. I really like all the orange leaves, plus the light through the valley on the way to work. The opportunity to still be alive when so many face war, death, other darknesses. For feeling fear, so I can overcome it. For being lonely, so I can feel solitude. For being sad and disillusioned, so I can rebuild truth and discover moments of joy. For the ocean, its tides, animals (in general), frogs leaping across the road, forcing me to stop or swerve. The winds, oh yes the snow, very much the snow, and light of course, rain too. The sound it makes. The possibility of not polluting, not exporting jobs, not destroying environment, exploring alternatives. The fact that dreary dismal rain makes sound. The advent of underwater, the way water breaks upon the face as you rise up. Seaweed, wild grasses, thorns and burrs and blackberries, hawks that swoop down and herons that pass by. Gardens that grow and provide challenges, growth, harvest, smells. Oh, the smells... most recently: hubbard squash freshly cut, apple pie, post-vacuum, sauerkrauet, Herald's snout. Anyhow, this could go on awhile, though sometimes it is so.fucking.hard.

Though, I guess, it really shouldn't be. At all.

Here are some pictures from a very nice hike last weekend:

Oh, and also because in two weeks I will be writing again.

sloppy language

2011-11-09T11:24:00.001-08:00

"war" via dictionary.com:

(1) a conflict carried on by force of arms, as between nations or between parties within a nation; (2) a state or period of armed hostility or active military operations; (3) a contest carried on by force of arms, as in a series of battles or campaigns; (4) active hostility or contention; conflict; contest: a war of words; (5) aggressive business conflict, as through severe price cutting in the same industry or any other means of undermining competitors.

I must admit: I am utterly sick of War on Drugs, War on Poverty, War on Terrorism, and Class Warfare.

Frankly, I don't count any and all conflict—disagreements, hostility, problems, horrible problems, diseases, addictions, distress, difficulties, active business scuppers, anything with two points of view—as actual war. Wouldn’t it just be more precise to refine the term “war” to the spilling of blood by more than one? I think all the balderdash that surrounds the rhetoric of war necessitates such a refinement in order to promote an exactness of language, a precision in place of a generalization. In a world where “war” is an event with bloodshed, we might instead talk about conflict as conflict, as business infights as business infights, as contests as contests, as addiction as addiction, and struggle as struggle, rather than overly simplifying a language capable of complexity, and thus oversimplifying complex issues.

"War" involves death and murder. War includes bullets and missiles and propaganda and spies and tanks and machine guns and submarines and battleships and jet planes and helicopters with guns mounted on their gunnels. It looks like bombs exploding and people dying and soldiers pushing forward in the dark of night and trenches and caves and clandestine meetings and intelligence reports and guts spewed and torture and imprisonment and Geneva Conventions and genocide and hatred.

War is a tired metaphor within rhetoric, just as metaphors are a tired trope within politics.

What does "class warfare" mean, really? Does it mean bullets and missiles and propaganda and spies and tanks and machine guns and submarines and battleships and jet planes and helicopters with guns mounted on their gunnels? Does it mean bombs exploding and people dying and soldiers pushing forward in the dark of night and trenches and caves and clandestine meetings and intelligence reports and guts spewed and torture and imprisonment and Geneva Conventions and genocide and hatred?

Maybe. But probably not. Yet, if it's so, who is winning the class war? If this is our definition, where are the casualties, who is suffering?

I'm pretty sure I could examine the stats inside and out and find that the wealthy are not the losers on any front of the so-called 'class war'. The wealthy are not the dying, the suffering, the bloody-gutted. And even if they were taxed 50% more than they are, which is not the argument, I'm pretty sure there would be no casualties or intestinal bleeding or dead babies flooding their banks.

By statistics alone, if this were war, the casualties would be entirely on the side of the poor. The lazy minions of capitalism. The do-nots. The fuck-offs. Those without the wherewithal to invest and sharehold. The educators and waitresses, the librarians and farm-workers. The immigrant field-workers, day by day plucking at the strawberry bushes in an effort to relieve them of their excess. The medical workers, sending in their insurance claims for perusal. The factory workers, just hoping for a break between outsourcing and retirement, where they could be called back to work because they are more desirable due to their pension funds being fully paid for, thus no longer a liability. The factory workers, who don't have a job because China is cheaper. Because Chile is cheaper. Because the protection agencies here are more concerned about the future than they are in other countries participating in "equal trade." Because we don't look to see where anything is bought anymore (Just try to buy a child's toy that hasn't been made in China. If you find luck with that, try for a toy Made in America). The transit operators who face de-funding because anything other than concrete and nonrenewable is communist or at best, unfair to gasoline freedom. The small businesses who bare the brunt, especially if they are ethical. The in-between. The grabbing-at-any-work. The innovative who have found no home for their innovation.

I have zero sympathy for the whole "class warfare" debate that argues that the upper class should have access to Bush tax cuts, to corporate personhood, to what I perceive as perpetual exemption from citizenship. And if merely suggesting that the wealthy pay a bit more is “warfare,” then I’m going to start calling my students terrorists when they tell me they missed class due to a death in the family. Because… why not?!! Let’s casually redeploy all language! “Using the telephone” can now be called “consorting with the enemy” and “using the bathroom” might become “poisoning the wells”! I like it! Everyone on guard!

Seriously though… "class warfare" is a joke term, a metaphor that is hyperbolically ironic. There is no war, only conflict. Difference. Difference of perception about what it means to be a part of a society. So be the difference, but don't portray the difference as war. If it were war, I would take my sword and slice off your... big. fucking. dick.

Yeah. So let's not see it as war.

I felt this rant coming on after reading the November 5th-11th issue of The Economist, a journal I respect. I tend to see it as being centrist on the right side of affairs, but genuinely journalistic, factual, interesting, and excellent. But after reading "America’s Missing Middle," and then having an argument with CF about it, I’m still feeling a little pissed at this magazine that CR seems to swallow whole. I don't see the article as being ironic in its use of "Comrade" as an nomer for Obama (15); rather I think the author actually believes that if Obama merely suggests that taxes will have to be raised on those who can afford it, just as programs are cut across the board, that he is suddenly “leftish” enough to be jabbingly compared to a Soviet communist. (And here I was, thinking the cold war was over!) I likewise don't think this article is joshing about Obama "dabbling in class war," about his ‘pivot’ to the left, and “promising his supporters that the budget can be solved by taxing ‘millionaires and billionaires’.” Sorry, guys, I must have missed all that!

I agree with the article that the center is missing in Senate and Congress, but I think these guys are failing to note how Obama's failures (and successes, for that matter) are in large part due to his desire to inhabit centrist politics in an America that rejects centrist politics. Frankly, I voted for Obama not because he was the same as me politically. I am way to the left of him. I voted for him because he was centrist and I hoped he might have a chance in our crazy America. And yes, I do feel that he has been a great big wimp with a pathetic set of old-school stupid cowardly cabinet member nuts/ovaries. Yes, yes, yes. But he is still a centrist old fool, and I am still a leftist. And I still want him to bridge the parties. I still want him to give the the old try, but maybe with a little more cajones, please. However, if he has failed to do this, it is not because he’s Leftist! It’s because he sits in the center and pisses everyone off, tries to gently pull both parties together, when they aren’t even remotely in the gentle mode. He needs to be a bit more of a bully, but I hardly think he can be more centrist.

And for the record: yes, he did suggest taxing the weathly more, but he also suggested this in tandem with cuts to the budget expenditures. And sure, you good folks at The Economist have solidly been pushing “closing the loopholes” in place of raising the tax rates, and surely America is willing to listen to such reasonable solutions, but don’t try forcing your point of view and ideas on me by mocking my own ideas with sloppy metaphorical language such as “class warfare.”

And please, don't even pretend that our mild mannered president is "Comrade" Obama, you A-holes.

I have yet to participate in the Occupy! marches, although I support their actions. But I have not marched because I’m tired of marching… I think we’re going to have to be a little more clever, like leaving banks for credit unions and sending more innovative people to D.C. But maybe I will march… maybe all it will take are a few more bullshit stories about the center actually being the left, and the left being a bunch of implausible comrades.

*

On a completely unrelated note, did you hear about the first-grade teacher who is being prosecuted for saying on FB that she is "warden for future criminals." What teacher hasn't, at some point, been driven by exasperation to say something like this? What... we aren't allowed to vent any longer in America?

the least romantic halloween ever

2011-11-01T10:49:00.001-07:00

no costume, no jack-o-lantern (for the first time ever in my life), no party, no trick or treaters, no events... only a pile of cabbage rolls I made to get rid of some of the masses that are still chugging away in my garden

Actually what I did was teach an evening class, which I let out early so they could go have fun while I went to the Y and worked out. By the way, I'm discovering that a dive class will probably be out of the realm of possibilities for December... my back has been in self-destruct mode and when I went to do laps the last time, I got these massive nerve tweaks that stopped me in my tracks. I had to doggy-paddle to the side and leave after about six or seven laps. Ridiculous. But I'm slowing it down, and still working out... maybe I can't dive, but I sure as shit am going to snorkel.

Anyhow, it was quiet at the Y at nine on Halloween night, and I listened to Nortec Collective, which I pretty much love. And then all night long, I kept waking up with this song running through my mind and dreams of worlds with banned babies and floating cameras.

Maybe I'll carve my pumpkin this weekend?

[adj] fallsome and harvestly

2011-10-23T14:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid, fall was my favorite season... the leaves especially. I liked the crisp way they had of scuttling downwards, how they could be collected, the heavy spice of the air, the colors and harvest and especially the piles of leaves that would blow along the grey concrete into piles against the curbs.

For a long time now, summer has been my favorite season... heat, mostly; light, secondly. The fact that I love to swim, but hate chemicals... that I love to hang out on porches or balconies, or fields, but hate bundling up... that my favorite meditation is gardening... that I love to backpack, but hate carrying so many things that my back aches... especially that I hate the darkness, and long for the sky, the sun.

But this season, I feel like I'm filling up to the brim with the oranges, my favorite color, and reds combined with yellows and greens and browns and dry spots and dark. And the light has been so spectacular against all those colors that sometimes I find myself gasping and laughing out loud out of the blue.

A few days ago, I went down to the river for a walk with the dogs. I've started taking my mom's dog, Jackson, a very complexly stupid dog who suddenly realized how much he loves walks and started escaping from the fence every time I took Herald somewhere... so now he gets to go along too. He keeps Herald honest, in that he is 50% more athletic despite being 150% older than Herald. Herald runs. Herald growls when he can't keep up. Herald pretends he resents the company, but I'm pretty sure he's secretly okay with it.

Anyhow, I realized I need to remind myself regularly to go to this river, because the terrain is so different from where I normally go. And amazing.

I usually take my dogwalks near-abouts. There's a network of trails up behind my house, about 5 minutes driving up a dirt road, then a selection of trails ranging from 45 minutes to hours and hours. I usually go to these trails when I have a shortage of time, and so spend most of my time on the lower trails, the ones with scenic overlooks of the Skagit Valley as it stretches out shortly between the Chuckanut hills (where I live) and some hills I don't know the names of, which have the Cascades lining up in the background, Mt. Baker occasionally ghostly and whitely clear, more frequently with clouds swirling around it like the claws of a great bird.

More and more frequently, I cross the freeway and go to Squire Lake and Beaver Pond, which is a walk that times out to 1 hour, 30 minutes including the 7 minutes drive time there and back. Both the lake and pond are loaded with wildlife and the last time I went there with MH, she suggested we sit down near the water of the lower Squire Lake. Normally, I am whisking along with an agenda that includes getting home to comment on essays before I start to freak out... But that time I stopped with her, and we saw in a ten minute space of time: two different kinds of frogs, newts, wild ducks, and believe it or not, snakes slivering around in the water. I gasped when I saw the latter because I was not aware (after years of walking around these lakes) that there were any water snakes at Squire Lake. I didn't think WA had water snakes at all! I ended up asking a biologist friend what they were, and he suggested they were Columbian Terrestrial Garter Snakes, which he said were ironically the only garter snake that regularly goes into water in these parts.

Beaver Pond, aside from having beavers I've never seen (only the results of their endeavors) is a breeding ground for frogs and toads, and thus attracts herons and geese as well. Herald has an especial fondness for frogs and rummages about the banks, leaning over the water intently and watching with hope in his eyes. Every now and then he is rewarded: a frog beeeeeps at him and then leaps for the sanctuary of the depths. Herald leaps in after. Much of the water is covered in a green mini-lilypad that then coats Herald's nose, head, ears, massive fat body and furry tail in a slimy greenery... at least until he shakes it all off on me.

I also tend to go to Lake Padden frequently: the backtrails are leashless, which preserves my back, and opens the day for strident marchings up and down the muddy trails. For a long time, this is where I usually went, but I feel I've used it up a bit, and so haven't gone as frequently as before. Although I just went yesterday with MH and she brought me a Sungold apple that I ate at the top of a hill, as we rumbled through the underbrush to find a nice log to lean against while I chomped what might have been the best apple I've ever eaten, sharing a piece or two with her dog Lucy and Herald.

Back to where I was: all of these three main walk-spots have similar terrain. While each has a different make-up, more or less frogs and underbrush, more or less scenic viewing spots, more or less muddy spots to flounder in, they are all similar in their collection of foliage: pines mostly, but cedar, maples, alders, salmonberries, huckleberries, stumps, etc. And the soil is also alike, plus the amount of water, the types of birds and animals that might be found.

The river, on the other hand, is quite different. The soil is silty, a different color, cloying even in places closer to the running water. I think there has been a significant restoration project in process because the banks are incredibly diverse in the trees they have, and most of them seem younger than twenty years old. There are more rose bushes, thistles, burs, blackberries, willows, pussywillows, and snowberries. The roses are obviously not in bloom at this time of the year, but they are covered in lovely orangey hips (I used to eat the dried winter rose hips in the Andalusian Mountains when I was working on a farm there... so in need of vitamins that I would fill my cheeks and chew on them all day while working with the animals and buildings. So I tried to eat them here, and discovered that either they are not dry enough, or they are the wrong kind, or maybe I am utterly without taste buds in when living at remote village farms.) And I saw this lovely strange bird... I have no idea what it was, but its tail and underbelly were entirely orange, and it otherwise looked a bit like a large dove.

Anyhow, Herald loves the river because he gets to swim in a thousand different swimholes, and Jackson loves it because he can run far ahead and the trail is so straight that he can still keep an eye on his herd (us). And I love it because of the variety of trees and the way the light hits if you walk there in the afternoon... everything is lit up through from left to right on the way north, and right to left on the way south.

Also, the river is right along the Lummi reservation - the west side being reservation, and this time of the year is, I guess, fishing season. I've never actually seen the Lummi's do their driftnets, although I have seen them setting their gillnets off the shore along the coast. But the drift nets are entirely different.

I passed a place where I could see that on the opposite shore was a boat launch and campground where several tents seemed to be set up and a number of trucks were lined up. About five boats were tied along the shore, and from what I could tell, the fishermen alternate who gets to go up the river and fish, sending one boat up every half-hour or so to get started. Basically what they do is put in a net held up by bobbers, stretch it across the center of the river, leaving about 10-15 feet on either side (no doubt to avoid snags), and let the net simply drift down the river. I felt like it must be fairly easy for the fish to avoid, but I did watch one boat pulling in the net close to the encampment, and noted that though they had a number of sticks, they also had one decent-sized fish that must've either been a king or a silver gauging from its shape and size (I was about 15 yards away, so didn't get a good gander).

But between the drift-netters, the light, the trees, the happy dogs, and the general solitude of the place, I was awfully happy.

*

It is, however, good to get in a little socializing... Sometimes I worry that I'm becoming a hermit and will lose the ability to speak altogether. Teaching probably makes that a ridiculous worry, since I daily interact with between 23 and 46 students, prancing and dancing in front of the class trying to entertain their minds into being tricked into learning. But, truthfully, I wouldn't say that this feels like real human interaction, so much as having friends and attending events and doing fun dancing things does.

(Anne-wife! I missed the funky music you recommended. How did I do that?)

So: two social things that have been fun. One is that one of my students who I really liked last quarter - smart, passionate, (liberal), hard-working, Spanish-speaking, and rather nice looking as well, I must admit - has contacted me and lent me a book. Not only that but she came into my office, chatted with me about the Occupied! events going on, and then told me she really loved my class and was recommending it to her friends. A compliment goes a long way as a teacher, I must admit. Mostly I feel like I'm floundering, so it's good to hear something nice from time to time. It also turns out this student has the same birthday as me, which we both found hilarious because I think we both sensed that we have the capacity to be friends... and it was a strange sensation in class. Now, I think I have a new friend.

In case you're wondering: no, I have no plans to date a student. I do need friends, however, after having decided to back away from most of the ones I thought I have in Bville, with the realization that they're more acquaintances than friends, and I'd only be getting more disappointment if I tried to go for more than that. I'm just one of those people who needs intense, focused one-on-one friendship, or alternately, friendly acquaintanceship, but not the stuff that happens in between. I'm just an all or nothing kind of gal, I guess.

So, a compliment and a book loan. A good start.

And... yesterday I met up with my good friend Ehben, who lives here and there and whereever, and sometimes in between. He's one of my favorite people around these parts but I don't get to see him too often. But we had recently talked on the phone, where I found out he's around these parts again... so we agreed to get together and makes cider. Which we did. In addition, I invited another friend from Seattle to join, Dan, and we all collected apples and showed up at Ehben's.

Ehben and his brother, Trent, own a house and property up north, and share it with Trent's girlfriend. It historically has been one of the biggest shityards I've seen in my day, with a bathroom so grungy it made mine look like The Fountain of Youth. I actually refused to use their bathroom for a number of years, and instead went outside under the trees. But I haven't visited this veritable medieval dung-sty in about three or four years, and going back: it is looking awesome!

They've tidied everything up, and though they still have about twenty vehicles, they are all orderly in a row, and so is their wood, their outbuildings, their greenhouse, the animal pastures, and so forth. They have one of the best gardens I've seen in my life, and three goats (I fucking love goats), three sheep, two ducks, a bunch of chickens, a threshing machine, and so forth. The counters in their kitchen were covered with green and yellow tomatoes, and indian and blue corn hung from their rafters. Corners upstairs were filled with squash and green pumpkins, five different types of potatoes set out to dry, and bags of hops and tomatios, beans of all types, a five-foot hazelnut barrel, rye and barley. It is, in other words, a fully functional farm at this point in time. And it is clearly not a shithole any longer.

So, we pressed cider... I've got too much of it and have to decide what to do with the stuff I don't have room to freeze. If someone invited me to a party... Well, anyhow. I might take it down to Seattle next weekend.

But it was sooooo good to spend time with Ehben especially, and Dan too. Ehben though is just one of those people I feel fully comfortable to be around, like I can be myself. And like I love 100% of what he says, of who he is. He doesn't irritate me, and that's a relief to know... that there are people I love who don't make me absolutely irritable.

Speaking of which, I probably need to go down to Seattle soon and smooth things over with N. Um, yes. Again.

I kind of pissed her off second hand... her bitch of an ex-girlfriend has a nonfiction piece coming out in a prestigious review that is ostensibly about her experience with N. It has the description of 'borderline' in the title or subtitle or something like that, and N is feeling horribly betrayed and furious and vulnerable and revealed and all sorts of things... It doesn't help that she should have known it was coming, that I could have told her that her ex- was precisely the type to ditch and then fully capitalize on the situation without even a brief pause to consider the ethical ramifications of outing a traumatized woman in a mutually-shared forum of academia and literature.

For all her faults, at least the worst EC did as a writer was give an injured toddler my name in a fiction piece. And she is the only writer I've had the bad fortune to date (hypocritical, I know). Heh.

But while I knew Marian was the type to dramatize her own position while not behaving like a loving, kind person to the one who was actually sick... I still feel a little used myself. I did, after all, talk with Marian with the assumption that what we were doing was our best to help N, out of love and concern, and not as fodder for future writing about a topic that was deeply personal. I mean, I know that writers must talk about their experience in some way, or go crazy, but there are forms of expression, and then there are also forms of betrayal. Having experimented with that border first hand in the past, I know it's a fine line... but Marian is knee-deep on the other side of it.

But anyhow, I muffed up and defended Marian's right to artistically process her experience, after saying 'of course, it sucks horribly' but to ignore it. My main thought was to just re-direct NM from the pain, but I guess my job was just to say, "That is seriously fucked up!"

Anyhow, NM was pissed and took a few jabs herself, which makes me wonder if I'll ever be willing to ask for change from a friend again... if all it gets me is snippets of criticisms, jabs, and targeted tear-downs. But I'm going to instead take a deep breath and try to say the right thing next time, and to ignore the barbs. Not like there was anything surprising there. I already know how ridiculous and pointless my own psychoses are.

*

Speaking of which, I've been planning my Costa Rica trip. I wake up planning my Costa Rica trip, would be a better way of putting it. I changed my mind about taking a language refresher course (when I saw that the classes took place in a classroom and nearly had a panic attack), and instead decided to take a diving (PADI) course and actually send in my certification this time.

When I started looking at where to go, and how to get there, I started to feel very overwhelmed and upset... the realization that I will be alone hit this time in a different direction... and worried about whether I will run out of money, about whether I can find good places to stay during the high season, of whether I'm too fat to wear a swimsuit without traumatizing the dolphins and turtles, who might take me for some strange new breed of jellyfish and flee into the far reaches... of whether I'm too out-of-shape to take a dive course (I'm signing up at the Y tomorrow and starting to do laps, and lift weights), of whether my back will give out (it was in sheer misery yesterday), and whether my dog will hate me when I get back, for having abandoned him for nearly three weeks.

Then I calmed down and started daydreaming again.

Time to go to work! Oh, and all the pics are of this year's harvest... but I missed photographing the chard lentil soup, the sauerkraut, and the pesto. But they are here too in spirit.

Dreamlaugh

2011-10-20T00:13:00.000-07:00

The other day I woke up laughing from my sleep. If there are three things I love best about sleep, one is waking up laughing. Like, first there is the thing that is happening, then there is the sweetness of the thing that is happening, then there is the laugh, the way through the darkness, the sudden transition to body, the heaving of chest, the light through the window, the dog stirring next to you, the sudden awareness of structure, of underneathness, of light through the window, of your body returning, the joyness of being, the headboard, the pillow, the twisted tangle of sleepingbag as it emerges twisting from the duvet, the day descending, the laugh finishing, the realization of being alive again and laughing.

In this case, I was laughing because in the apocalypse dream with spirits and corridors twining with spirits that came in the night, a group of us were sitting under a greenhouse decrepit tree, looking out at the view of concrete. I noticed a duck, and then noticed that it was tethered to a truck. Poor duck, I thought, to be tethered to a truck in the middle of an apocalypse parking lot. What is it doing there? I watched it, being duckish, waddling you know, and lipping up lint with its wide-brimmed beak. I started getting angry on behalf of the duck, in the heat, upon the hot concrete of the parking lot, connected via red rope to a damned old truck.

Then the duck started pulling the truck, cleverly maneuvering it through the other vehicles, plucking along, no mind.

That's when I started laughing, and woke up laughing. It felt so damned good. I have no idea why a duck pulling a truck caused this, but it did.

the perfect man

2011-10-14T13:48:00.000-07:00

I went to dinner with my dad this week (after he bought me a sweeeeet hiking backpack for my birthday).

During dinner, I forgot how the conversation got there, he said "If I have one flaw, one great flaw you could say.... it's that I cannot abide tyranny."

As is frequently the way between me and my father, I nearly shot pho out of my nostrils when he said this.

I replied, "Oh, Dad, you have a great many great flaws, I could point them out if you wish, but it sounds like you're actually bragging about that one."

He smiled sheepishly.

that catch in the voice that means happiness

2011-10-12T10:47:00.000-07:00

So, I had something of a realization the other day after talking to SP for the first time in a couple months. She sounds happy, like in a simple kind of away. When I asked her what she was doing, she listed three things... two of which are just those dreams she's wanted for a long time, and the third was the job to make it possible to maintain. It didn't sound so complicated, this catch, that sound. And it actually made me happy...

I think too often I've been consumed with what's fair or not fair. I've had some smug people push events and love in my face in rather nasty ways, and over the years I've developed a habit of resentment. Looking back always. Angrily.

[There's not much else to do in Bville]

But I felt happy for SP, then, and I realized that I felt like in a small way, I was partially responsible for that happy sound. As round about as it is: if I hadn't acknowledged that I wasn't going to be able to make SP happy like that, she wouldn't have moved forward. And so she released something that wasn't going to work, that both of us knew wasn't going to work, and went out and pursued with relentless abandon the very thing she knew would make her happy. Release, move forward.

It's not the same thing that would make me happy. Obviously, or our story would be different.

But it is what makes her happy, and I have to admit I suddenly started feeling respect for her speedy and dedicated search for what she wants. Something doesn't work, go find something that does. Don't stop, and whine, and contemplate, and brood, and process. Just go. And yeah, I left the phone call feeling happy for her [although not yet ready to talk about her new girlfriend (I gave myself two weeks)].

On the way home from work that night, I asked myself: what would it take to make me sound that way, with that sound in my voice? What simple changes would work?

The answer was surprising to me. It didn't involve a relationship. I think that if I found a person I was interested in, I would go for it. But I've been too focused on dating for a long time, and really all the ladies just drive me absolutely crazy. Often I don't even like them. They sure as shit don't make me feel the way SP sounds. And so maybe it's not surprising that romance wasn't the first thing that occurred to me.

The first answer is a little embarrassing: to be a non-drinker. The second answer is hardly surprising considering how important it is to me to inhabit the body. The third answer had to do with finding pleasure in creating again. Fuzzy pleasure. Warm bunny pleasure. Like, this is the only thing I want to do when it is raining outside pleasure. The fourth answer had to do with finding people to watch, buildings to examine, a place that is stimulating with a whole variety of different types of people for me to study and admire. And the fifth answer was that I wanted to learn something new.

All of the answers are alone, and by myself, and okay.

So I booked myself a ticket to Costa Rica for December.

And I'm after it, that sound.

Happy Birthday To Me

2011-09-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

I've actually been having a nice month o'September, including the birthday and starting to teach, visiting with friends, and even the weather (so far).

I started teaching two weeks ago, and it looks like it's going to be a busy quarter. I took an extra class to make more money, so have about seventy or so students, most of whom are sixteen and male. Actually, all three of my classes are about 65% male, at the very least, and the vast majority are Running Start students. I've had my gripes about Running Start over the years, but I still think it's a nice group of kids. One thing that worries me is that, despite me mentioning that I feel uncomfortable teaching people I know, SP's former stepson is in my class--a kid I've known since he was about seven. And, like, I've, um, been intimate with his mother. It's weird. And that's all there is to say about it.

I haven't spoken to SP in a couple months, not since I called from Kodiak to talk about how weird it was to be in AK and yet not to see her. She moved to Valdez after finishing her BA... things were rough between us those last six or so months: me not feeling the way she wanted me to feel about her, her getting passive-aggressive via other women, me confronting her and our talk, breaking up, then more passive-aggressive interactions culminating in me not being able to go to her graduation party because it was sprung on me at the last moment that the party was at her new girlfriend's house... the one she was jerking me around with when we broke up, and even after that. I was so angry at the time I could have ground nails with my teeth, but also depressed and sad because it was her graduation and should have been all about her. I felt like I should have been a selfless, chillaxed friend who goes to say congratulations and celebrate, but I was once again put into an emotionally compromised position, which she should know after all these years is one of the most terrifying positions for me.

I guess we roughly kind of patched it up and have been okay, but now that she is dating yet another person, and I get to find out yet again over Facebook (plus making-out pictures), I find it more difficult to be happy for her than it is to just feel irritated and upset. What is it with people who date for a month, and are in a relationship? Why are public announcements of relationships on the internet so important? Why is it that those who leave me fall fully in love with the second-to-next person they're with, and always so quickly?

NM has been visiting and she has a few things to say about it, and I think she's right about one especially: the constellation of conclusions I draw from such regular occurrences in my life are often flawed. Truthfully, it makes me feel like romantic love is nothing but BULLSHIT, and I am a completely swappable loser. It makes me feel like making yourself that vulnerable is never worth it, nor ever will be, and that everything experienced had merely been an illusion in the first place. It makes me wonder what is so wrong with what I would like out of a relationship... is it so wrong to want something slow and meditative and sweet and honest and independent and mature and mutual? Maybe if you're a lesbian it is... as far as I can tell, lesbian relationships play out either in fast-forward or scene-skip. Is that true for straight ones? I don't know.

Anyhow, NM is right. It's not about me. It's not about something I'm doing wrong within the relationships. It's maybe that I am unhappy in Bville, or maybe that I haven't become the person I want to be yet. It's maybe that relationships take up a lot of time, and I haven't been willing to give up that time. It's maybe that I haven't found the right person, and maybe that 'right' person doesn't exist in Bville, or maybe anywhere. It's maybe what MH says: that you often have to give something up to make room for something else to enter.

Whatever it, is, I am working on not feeling jealous or irritated, and instead being happy for SP and happy for the rest of the world that seems to find success so soon, so quickly, so cheerily. Like I've told myself before, seems is an important qualifier. In the meantime, it is weird having SP's kid in my class, rolling his eyes just like the rest of the sixteen year old boys.

NM and I have been doing incredibly well since we had our talk. I feel about 105% better to not be hiding my emotions, to not be trying eternally to be patient. I feel good that I've understood, and I have been very clear with myself about not being picky or critical, but rather direct and clear.

NM and I have been talking about passive aggression lately, because that's what she accused me of when we had our discussion, which stung a bit. And it's what I've noticed within past lovers and friends. I guess anger and resentment always slips out one way or the other. Just when you think you're being kind and keeping your temper in check, it turns out that it has permeated the interactions you've had.

I don't really think I'm passive aggressive though. But sometimes my comments apparently come across that way. Sigh.

But back to the doing well... It's been pretty stellar, and everything feels better now... both of us are trying, and because we know each other pretty well and care, I don't think the trying feels painful or awkward too much.

NM came up yesterday... surprising me in my pajamas actually (embarrassing)... in part to support me because I was going to a reading that I thought EC and her wife might be attending. I often avoid events or places where I think I might run into them, so it was a step on the wild side to go support an old college professor and listen to her reading when I thought a bump-in a distinct possibility. I mentioned it only offhand to NM and she right away knew what was going on in my head...

"Um, Brenda's having a reading I'd like to go to. You interested in coming?"

"I'll be there, girl. You don't have to go by yourself."

Apparently I'm not as subtle as I'd like to believe I am.

I also invited MH and my dad for back-up. Dad didn't come but MH did, and EC wasn't even there (!!!), and the three of us enjoyed the reading (I bought books!), then went out for a walk followed by some Oktoberfest Leavensworth, and the shoveling of spicy baked chicken wings and celery into our months, licking our fingers, giggling about mutual friends and Paul Simon's Graceland. M observed that N and I were wearing the same red thread as a necklace and asked about it... thinking how close I am with that girl, and how sweet it is for us to run our fingers over the same red thread with its history of texture. Then after the beers, we were walking around the area, looking at the plants in the window-boxes... M and I look over at each other, and we were independently both pulling our fingers through the rosemary and pressing our tips to noses to inhale. We start laughing, and N tells us she thinks we are crazy, and then it is time to go home, where I cuddle up with my dog, reading a trashy mystery and NM nodding off to sleep though pretending to be doing work, and it is quiet and peaceful and okay.

At some point in the conversation at the bar, N mentions how her friend Sean feels like a loser at 45 because he doesn't have a great job, family, wealth, etc. And I say, "Tell me about it! I am ten years younger and that's exactly how I feel!"

Both N and M look at me, and M asks, "Is that really how you feel?" and I say "Yeah."

Because I forget sometimes that my friends don't know how crappy and unaccomplished I feel. How sad that I don't have a partner with family or even a lover or stable job or book out. How much anxiety it gives me on a regular basis to be living on my mom's property with no prospects in sight, and a mere two local friends. But MH looks at me and says, "I want to beat you up really badly right now."

It makes me laugh, but I have to remember that my future is not a black hole, and that I am not finished with the living I have to do. I told Mary that I would try to align my self-perception with hers from here on out.

For my birthday, I was teaching, so mostly I just treated myself to some damned good food that day.

Breakfast: Eggs scrambled with chard, kale, and scallions fresh from my garden, plus herbed chevre, spicy sausage, and a touch of sour cream on top. With Ezekiel bread.

Lunch: Greek soup & lentil salad from the local co-op.

Dinner: Zucchini casserole & cream cheese cupcakes.

Delicious, no? But nicest was the next day, a Friday, which I took off and went down to an old 'insane asylum park' with my dog and camera. It was roasting hot... I was a bit too warm and dehydrated by the end, but wandered around stuffing my face with heated blackberries, and smelling the hay roasting, and laughing at Herald as he rolled around in something deliciously nasty. Afterwards, I went over to a berry farm and bought a flat of jam-strawberries, and a flat of blackberries, and some pancake syrup, and the coup--a blackberry milkshake. This from the place my sister told me had the best milkshakes in the world. She was right: it was pretty perfect, as was the rest of the day, where I rolled down the windows, bent my left elbow into the warm heated wind, and lilted around the sunny flat valley with my golden sunglasses on, and a milkshake raised to my lips.

The next day I made jam.

Here are the pictures from my birthday (equinox) walk at the insane asylum park:

Like I said, happy birthday to me, happy year-on-the-cusp.

Sweet JS

2011-09-26T10:01:00.000-07:00

She says it's not sweetness but the necessity of seeing my work out there. I asked her if she would be a reader for me... I'm kinda hunting for a writing group because this solitario stuff ain't working well for me. So, looking for a local group that includes MH, and looking for a less local few that includes JS... maybe the other writathon crew, who knows?

But she put a piece of my work up at Necessary Fiction, where she is currently the writer in residence. The other work she's been putting up has been great, so you should go back and read it all! (I have my favorites: the list of allergies, the essay on comic books, and the list of things to do when lonely) I would say this is an odd piece of mine, part of something that's ongoing and one of the many pieces I'm allowing myself to multitask work on.

Feeling pretty pleased.

oops, I forgot to mention I survived

2011-09-14T16:09:00.000-07:00

but I did.

My trip and return and the beginning of the new quarter have all participated in the highlighting of certain facts of my existence.
[Some reiteration of past comments here.]

Blips:

--I almost got eaten by bears. That may or may not be an exaggeration.

--How is it possible to forget how time operates on a fundamentally different fashion out at a gill-net site? I forget it every time, how good the tides feel.

--Alaska is also an exceptional place for reflection. I actually could have used a significantly larger amount of tide-time.

Aside from life-angsty type frets, I especially reflected on my friendships, in particular, as I have been getting angrier and angrier with so many of my local 'friends', who haven't asked me to a single party, event, hiking trip, etc this summer (except MH). I even started to wonder if my father figure is right to denigrate the fine people of the pacific northwest (I've defended them to the point of turning red in the face, leaping up and saying "I need to go!!!"), which is actually utterly sacrilegious, self-loathing, and defeatist as well.

I was so angry with NM by the time I got up to AK that I bought a great card of a biodegrading fish, and wrote a long letter that started and ended nicely... with a bunch of complaining in the middle. I read and re-read it, trying to decide whether to send it or not. Then I sent it.

Followed by horrible nightmares and near panic attacks.

Luckily, I sent it c/o my own address and thus was able to collect it when I got home and hide it away in a cupboard.

I recognize that letters are not the best place for such 'conversations', as it has not once in my past worked well for me. One problem is that I get such anxiety about talking in person, in part because most of the time when I initiate these conversations, the topic gets turned around to my own failings. Even my own mother confronts my anger by getting angrier. At best, all I can apparently hope for towards a meaningful conversation about my gripes and needs is a kind of tit-for-tat negotiation. More frequently, I feel like somewhere along the line, such conversations become about my BIG FAT suckiness... and nothing ever gets solved, especially not my self-esteem issue: You have to accept people for who they are and not expect (desire) change, but instead change yourself!

I have problems with communicating I guess. (Ironical? I dooooon't knowwww). Frequently I spend too much time picking at people in lieu of actually addressing the real issues... a bad habit I actually do think I need to work on.

So I've been very irritable with NM, increasingly over this past year, to the point where I don't even want to hang out with her anymore, though I do love her. My thoughts in Alaska centered somewhere around excavating the real problems, and understanding the small problems' connection to the most important ones.

Real Issue #1 - I don't trust that NM will be there for me, whether in crisis, or merely in the events in life that we have planned for and I have gotten excited and happy about, or invested energy in preparing for. I.e. trips, readings, events canceled at the last minute.

Real Issue #2 - NM needs a lot of care-tending, which I don't mind when I feel like I am being tended back. I don't mind cooking for friends (enjoy it, in fact)... but NM and I had a 'disagreement' when I told my mother that NM hated cooking. NM got angry at me, told me she felt like I didn't even know her very well, and that in fact she loves cooking... I got pretty pissed, because in all the many, many meals I or my mother have cooked for her, NM has not ONCE cooked for us. How am I supposed to know a specific part of a person who has not shared that specific part of herself???

Real Issue #3 - NM instead shares many of her emotions with me, and I am an emotional sponge. I suck it all up, remember it, imbibe it, act it out, stew over it, and feel like shit about it. My emotional boundaries are often not solid with the most important people in my life. My response to seeing my mother cry, my whole life in every instance, has been to cry. I can't take all of the emotions NM gives me, and process them alongside the emotions my own life (and sense of failure) has generated. I always feel like a friggin' mess.

False Issue #1 - I jump all over NM about her aesthetic values... specifically the types of women she is attracted to (all baby-doll model types), or seeks to be (intellectual jennifer lopez type). The make-up. The prep. The clothes. The attitude. The dismissal of 'ugly' women. In Alaska, I realized this is my problem. Insecurities generated vis-a-vis having a friend who is more physically beautiful and has higher body standards than I do. NM just doesn't even think about what half the world would give to have even one day looking as good as she does on those days she dubs duds. But that's not her issue, that's mine.

So I decided to feel better about myself. And fuck all the jerks who hit on NM when we go out and don't even say HELLO to her hulking silent friend! On a side note, I have been exercising every day, which is my new goal... particularly biking, which doesn't seem to negatively affect my back. But I decided that even exercise won't work if I can't simply appreciate my own body.

Going back a bit. So, after a good think, I confiscated the letter I wrote and followed my own rule about having a real conversation, even if it opens me up to defensive criticism (which it did). I talked about some of the above... particularly Real Reasons #1 and #2. She reacted badly at first, telling me my standards are too high and under-articulated. Then she admitted that I wasn't the first person, but rather the latest, to bring up these issues. We ended peacefully, I think, with an agreement: I will articulate my needs more, and she will commit more, and be responsible about being a part of my family (taking out the garbage without being asked!).

Now that wasn't so hard!
Sigh. Why does it have to be so hard?
And why do I have to have these problems with friends? Couldn't it at least be with a partner?

--I didn't write diddly in Alaska, and even must admit to having become addicted to a gameboy game similar to Farmville (which I always mocked and shunned).

--I've written since I got back, and have plans to carve out a small portion of every day for both exercise and writing. Two types of exercise. I've also, with a sense of trepidation, decided to not try to force myself to finish the damn story I've been trying to force myself to finish, under a ban of all other projects. If I need to work on ten different projects and never finish anything, then so be it... at least I will be working.

--Working at the gillnet in AK was a totally different experience without a freakish, overbearing boss having panic and screech attacks at all hours of the day. The woman who normally runs it broke her ankle, so stayed in town while I closed it down with her daughter and the crew-guy. Basically, I was running the close-down. It was smooth and sweet, except:

--The tender Sierra Seas was run by a condescending shit who procrastinated on taking our skiffs to town, so we had to delay our flight out, then he procrastinated again, but assured us that he had been doing this for years and knew what he was doing, that he heard everything we said about tow-lines, safety-lines, etc. So finally we had to fly out... and on the day we flew out, he at long last grabbed our skiffs, but placed the 200-lb anchor in the bow (front) of our old wooden skiff, so it took water over the front, sunk below the water line, was hauled up at the cannery without bailing, busted up, and hidden in the storage yard, where I can only assume, they didn't think we would go check it before we left town. Oh, but we did.

By the way, placing all the weight in the front of a boat is so ridiculously stupid that even a water-savvy toddler could have foreseen these events, but when the cannery was called out on it, they tried to shift the blame by saying the lines we had put on the boat were badly frayed and at fault. Like, um, not a single line snapped, you butt-junkies!

Anyhow, I was pissed. I am glad that I am not an owner, though, because then I would have to kick some ass.

--As I approach 35, my mother treats me as if I was getting younger and younger. She's started telling me recently when to go to bed. The whole living in the house next door and sharing dinner has worked super up to now, but it's obviously time for me to move. Move, damn it!

--Did I mention I was almost eaten by bears?

Maybe.

--Here are some pictures:

P.S. Text messages are a bad place for passive-aggressive notifications. Just so you know. Young people of the world.

P.P.S. Probably blogs are too.

P.P.P.S. Can't believe school starts on Monday. ug ug ug

less cranky

2011-08-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

I'm heading out on the float-plane this afternoon...

I enjoy float-planes.

I have a game plan, a week-long commercial license, and the opportunity to eat fish. The PMS-ing is over, and I'm less depressed about missing the last of the summer.

Trying to see this as a last opportunity to see the site again. And eat fish.

Wish me good voodoo.

fuck me.

2011-08-18T11:27:00.000-07:00

So I get to go rushing off to AK to 'save' the fishing site again. Basically I was told by my mother that this was what I was going to do.

When I mentioned that I had planned to write during this time, she said "Oh, well, you can write up there." Ha. Ha. When I mentioned that I had only spent 4-5 days in my studio this month, she said "Oh, well maybe you should give up your studio." When I mentioned that I had a friend who was supposed to visit next week, she said "Well, you can go visit during Thanksgiving or something." When I mentioned I have a dog who needs exercise, she said, "Oh, I guess I'll walk him around the lake a couple of times." When I mentioned I had a garden with tons of things that will need canning and preserving (or cooking), she said "Oh well."

Oh well.

I'll be coming home just in time to start teaching the same old composition classes + the extra one I took on to put me at an overload.

I might as well throw my fucking computer into the trash, set my garden on fire, give away my dog, and lobotomize myself.

back to the trip

2011-08-15T15:27:00.000-07:00

Once I arrived in New York, I had to figure out how to get to mid-state New York, where Ellen was going to pick me up at the train station. I had planned out part of the deal... that I needed to get to Grand Central Station to catch a train, but I wasn't entirely sure the best way to get from JFK to the downtown area. I'd looked online and finally settled on some advice to catch a shuttle-bus, which would go directly there. But when I wandered outside the airport to look for one, I was unable to find anything that looked even remotely like a shuttle bus.

A note on the wandering: upon leaving the airport, the weather report was affirmed. It was Damn Hot. "Damn Hot," in this instance, being a type of official designation just two notches below "I'm Dying Here," which is what had been going on a week prior to my visit. Damn Hot, however, was pretty far away from the "Pretty Stinking Cold" I have been experiencing in Washington this year. From what I hear, this is a record cool summer, or at least June was... with no days breaking out of the 60s. I am one of those unfortunates in the PacNW who adores heat and spends all winter sitting with my legs wrapped around a radiator (literally... zero metaphors there) and dreaming of the steamy summer to come, when I will drift down the rivers on inner-tubes and sip G&T's upon the flowering afternoon patio. However, I have struck a nearly tragic Pretty Stinking Cold status quo this summer (only nearly tragic because I don't live in Scotland like my sister, and she tells me it never does anything but sleet, drool, and flood there... which sounds nearly TOTALLY tragic to me). So... when I walked out and hit the Damn Hot, I was both physically startled/reeling and incredibly pleased. I loved every inch of mutant sweat pathways that notched my PacNW clothes with genuine summer notification... nevertheless, it helped with the disorientation and unwillingness to linger around searching for missing shuttle buses.

So, I decided to brave the subway, which went well for me. I took my time and had to transfer twice, but I got there and realized all again how much I am in love with subways systems, although I feel less affection for the ones that travel all the way underground than I do for those that stream past a graffiti-laden, peopled landscape with the trees and sky drifting above.

The train I took north from Grand Central was incredible... it ran right up along the Hudson river the whole time, and shortly after leaving the city we ran into some thunderstorms that billowed above the greying water. I was startled by how few boats were traveling along the Hudson, and also by how many herons and Canadian geese I counted. The rain started with a speckling, then shifted towards thunder and lightening - stripping across the sky right as we hit the Bear Mountain Bridge, then pouring and obscuring vision much past 30 feet or so. Then it quickly stopped until we got further north and it started right back up again and was finished by the time I rolled into Poughkeepsie.

I felt so happy just watching it, experiencing those thunderstorms I had missed so much since moving away from Chicago (I used to track them from front East-facing porch to the back West-facing porch, or vice-versa). Also, being on a train seemed to pull me pretty far back, towards those days of traveling in Europe with Sarah... little corners that reminded me of the strange illicit places we found to camp upon, light campfires of heady yucca and tighten down against the perpetual nightly rattle of the lines. It almost made me feel young again, or at least not so damn old, which is how I feel lately.

By and large, this is the overwhelming sensation of the trip: of coming awake again, of leaving hibernation, shaking my fat layers in slow-motion undulations of molting thick fur, and discovering... that it's not all grey. That I am not seventy-seven years old and hidden in the recesses of a nursing home (the story I've been working on forever... well, maybe it became too much my life, maybe why I've been having a hard time with it). That I am not alone, that I might not even like being alone. I feel like I've told myself for awhile that I am too old and set in my ways, that I can't bend - and that's why I am not able to sustain a romantic relationship. Perhaps I've told myself that there's just something wrong with me too, that love can't be maintained for some of us, while others find the lucky one person who will actually put up with them, and then they get to grown together so they don't wake up one morning and find that their life is set and rigid, with nobody who could even possibly fit into pattern and no going back.

But I was totally enfolded into Ellen's family and I loved every minute of it. It was exhausting, and sometimes trying, but it felt so delicious and I didn't want to put down the baby, and I didn't want to go to bed and stop talking to Ellen, and I didn't want to stop playing tea-party with Sophia, and when Benjamin teased me, I felt like the little bubble (expended in something much like a giggle) was some pure form of affection I had been missing.

I also found out while I was there that Ellen keeps a picture of me in her wallet, next to her husband... not hidden in the back, but visible when opened, and I honest to god wanted to cry. I might have done so if we hadn't been in a public place. How can I explain that feeling? I'm not sure I trust myself to do so.

So, I think after all that there might not be anything wrong with me, except a bit of fear and paralysis. A bit of the sad lonelies.

It was a really good trip for me to take, and I'm so glad I did.

*

When I got to Poughkeepsie, Ellen and I had some difficulty finding each other. I made the assumption that because I didn't see her immediately she must be in her car with some very tired children, not wanting to drag them down to the tracks, or that she was having some difficulty finding the station in a town she wasn't very familiar with. Silly assumption, because after waiting for 30 minutes by the car pick-up spot, she wandered out of the station with a baby on one hip and a shy, tall little girl hiding behind the other hip, and confusedly said, "Joanna?"

Ellen is my college buddy and, at this point, one of my oldest friends. We met in the late fall of 1994 or early spring of 1995. That I knew who she was pretty early in the year is true, but I don't think we actually became friends until a fair amount later. Her dorm was one building over from mine and she lived with the girl I had a ridiculously adoring crush on for my freshman year, so I was probably always too busy trying to flirt with her roommate to make a very good friend.

My main memory of Ellen that first year - and one I tease her about, but am somewhat tickled that the teasing doesn't bother her - is that she often came somewhat late to morning lectures (not super-late) and she always carted an apple which she would crunch loudly upon during almost the entirety of the hour-long lecture. This introduced me to two facts about Ellen: one being that she is confident and secure (like everyone, she has her moments, but by and large, she seems to know inside her that there is a place for everyone, and this allows her to understand that there's a place for her too), and the other being that she eats super, super slowly.

(I am amused too that she has produced a daughter much like herself, who gets to drive her nuts with her own habits translated into childhood hyperbole.)

Anyhow, I think we all bonded during the year-end party (We 'picted' together, which involved painting ourselves blue and running blue nude through the library, the student union, the cafeteria, the all-college feast, and ending at the naked slip-and-slide and group showers where we washed each other clean, smiling with blue pores and bloodshot eyes at the fervent communion of like souls), but the next year is when I remember our friendship developing more thoroughly... the slow tidal erosion of distance, the sharing of childhood memories and hopes for the future, the knowledge that this is a person I like. Love is sometimes easy, sometimes hard, but "like" I think is the most important.

Ellen was also one of the first friendships-of-three I've been in, and ever since I've seemed drawn to such frienships, which I think provide a delicious stability and dynamic in the present, though sometimes become painful when the dynamic slips over time. Ellen-Me-Sarah, Natalie-Me-Camille, Jess-Me-Louie: with me a happy little sandwiched creature. Ellen, Sarah, and I were always together, it seemed, and we even discussed how it was important to have our alone time together (just two of us). We were asked several times whether we were a threesome (especially after Sarah and I hooked up), but what seemed more important and indefinable was how we all seemed to balance something in each other, and how learning from two friends at the same time could feel like revelation.

Both were there for me during some very self-destructive times, which is part of who I am, and something they seemed to accept about me, and help me through. Having had people see you at your worst is humbling, especially when they still care about you afterwards.

It is good to see Ellen with a baby cocked against one hip and a long-legged, shy girl hiding behind the second.

The long-legged, shy girl is my god-daughter, and I am very nervous and shy to meet her now that she is more of a little person. I met her when she was one and a half, but it seems ages ago and I can't remember much more than that she likes books and seemed a stubborn type. Now there is much more to notice and take in... she is a person, for sure, a handful too. I try not to talk too much about youngsters on here, as I think it is more private, but I will say... she is creative and imaginative, very intense and she pays attention to everything you do and say. There is no wool-pulling with this girl, and I found myself having to be very sneaky indeed a couple of times (chewing gum & buying a goofy kid present for myself) to make sure she didn't notice what I was up to, only to be nearly caught out at it. So inquisitive and observant for such a young creature.

She makes these weavings... with knots and yarn and twining... that are really incredible. Intricate and strange, not random, but neither ordered. Her little hands so coordinated and her attention so focused.

Okay, that's that. I will say in addition that I had many tea parties to go to, some drawing to share, some walks, and front porch drivings, and painting, and story-sharings, and reading, and Events To Attend To with my god-daughter... plus!

*

Okay, I'm worn out talking about the trip though I am almost done. I will save it for later though.

mini gripe session

2011-08-15T14:40:00.000-07:00

I can't decide if it's Bville I dislike or if Bville dislikes me.

I don't think it's the place, because I truly think it's one of the most beautiful spots around, and I spend any lengthy time away from it missing it. But I think Bville and I have a messed-up social relationship. I.e. the people in Bville don't seem to like me very much.

I spent my morning biking loop around the lake (with my cute little helmet and a compilation put together by my sister, which ends perfectly with:

) alternately internally griping, and chastising myself for playing right into the whole thing and acting like a sulky dumbass.

On the side for internal griping, I finally gave up on going to the Stringband Jamboree after trying to find someone to go with me all year, and failing. NM backed out at the last minute, and so I decided not to go alone this year.

It's such great music, such great atmosphere, and sweet camping near the river at an old logging show ground... but it's a collective atmosphere. It's friends and families who have gathered and circled their tents around a central table. It's couples with their arms slung over each other's shoulders, and pals that make alternating beer runs and river jumps for each other. And last year I more or less went alone - I went with one of SP's friends who drove me absolutely wild the whole time until I felt I had to wander away or wring her neck. And I walked around the place feeling a little lost, and more than a little lonely. I made myself feel better by imagining the groups of friends who would absolutely love the place and enjoy a reunion with kids running wild and hot dogs and tofu burgers over the camping stove. It wasn't hard to imagine a great percentage of my friends who would adore it.

But it proves harder to get any of them to go. Mostly, they are not around at this time of the year or live too far away. But also, it's just a busy time. I was pissed at NM, though, I have to admit... for backing out at the last minute like she does about 75% of the time on things that matter to me. But I also know NM well enough to understand that I can't bank on her, so I was hardly surprised.

Anyhow, now for the griping part. I found out - at the last minute and through the grapevine - that actually quite a few local people I know were going. But not a one of them contacted me to ask if I want to join. Ali's and Pedro's friend Dan stopped by on his way back to the Jamboree on day 2 of the festival... and at that point invited me to join, but I had just gone on this tough solo+dog camping trip on a 45-degree trail to make myself feel a little less like a loser. And so I was tired and sore, and didn't feel like scraping up my shit for a few hours of a pricey festival.

But what about my Bville friends? Why didn't a single one of them call and ask if I was going? Ask me if I wanted to join their camping unit?

Is it because I'm a jerk? Is it because I didn't call them first (which always seems like my job!!)? Is it because they're mostly SP's friends and don't like me because I didn't make SP happy? Is it because they're Bville-ers and just don't think about other people? Is it because we've never fully connected, despite the camping, hiking, partying, art-admiring we've done together? But why is that? Why do I only have one-point-five friends in Bville after 3+ years who will actually call me up and ask me to do things with them? (And why does MH have to leave during August? And why does the .5 always call me up so late and only every now and again?)

But more to the point, why am I still here, like a stupid kid with a crush who keeps hanging around the ballpark hoping the star athlete will look over and say, "Why hello, gorgeous"?

On the side of self-castigation, I was clearly sulking by not going. Also, I am a little stand-offish and I think people don't even know sometimes I want to be included. And I didn't call them and ask what they were up to. And I whine too much and don't SHINE enough. So what if I don't have friends yet, maybe tomorrow if I just give it a little more oomph, I will!? And maybe they will be so beautiful, like my other far-flung friends, that they will make my heart ache.

Maybe.

in honor of cc and my garden

2011-08-15T11:34:00.000-07:00

Below is a recipe I used that seemed to work. I doubled the size of some online recipes, combined stuff, and added + subtracted. It worked... it makes a huge pot, so I froze half of it for laters. It's good over rice too.

<1>

4 tablespoons butter (ouch!)
2 loosely chopped yellow onions
5-6 garlic cloves, smushed in one of those smusher-dicer things
4 teaspoons ground cumin
2-3 teaspoons paprika
3 teaspoons chili powder
3 teaspoons spicy curry powder
salt and black pepper to taste periodically through the whole affair (start with a fair amount of salt... being that there are lentils involved)

MELT BUTTER, SAUTE ONIONS, ADD SPICES, LET SET

<2> ALSO, START BOILING THESE:

64 ounces tomato juice
64 ounces water
2 bay leaves
some lemon or lime juice

<3> ONCE THE WATER-JUICE MIX IS BOILINGISH, START ADDING BIT BY BIT WHEN IT SEEMS REASONABLE:

diced carrots (I used four)
diced celery (I used five)
small cut potatoes (I used three medium-sized yellows, more would work)
2 cans diced n' spiced tomatoes (I used one regular canned & one homemade salsa-style [gotta rid the cupboards of those homemades])
[1] - Onion/Herb Mix previously saute-d
3 cups dried brown lentils (they expanded to 4cups when washed)

<4> SIMMER FOR 35-40 MINS {depending on softness of lentils}, THEN ADD:

As much sliced fresh-from-your-garden kale and chard as you can bring to the table (mmmmmm, more is better... you really can't overdo this part... really, try it. I double-dog dare you to try it. I prefer kale here, others seem happy with chard... it seems to work either way or even both ways, which is amazing when you think about it).

<5> Some minutes later (I simmered a few minutes, then turned everything off, lidded, and let it sit for a bit), you have a soup/rice dish ready.

nobody should be bored, and you should feel seen

2011-08-14T00:03:00.000-07:00

So this is the new music I was listening to as I took the first away-from-here trip since Jess's wedding.

I really like the whole album. It reminds me of going to Russia, and it reminds me of going to Ecuador, and it reminds me of going to Chicago, then it reminds me of coming home, the way it is, especially when you are young.

On the plane traveling east, there's arguably a visible difference between who live there and those who live westerly. I don't mean to stereotype as I travel towards the early sunsets, but those who aren't from where I'm from seem to have pearls wrapped around their wrists and to speak genteelly on their cellphones in just those minutes before lift-off forever-in-case-of-interair-mayhem-and-death-goodbyes and attachment... These people seem recognizable by their silken blouses, the frills (or ripples? what do they call those miniature billows that make their way ever closer to the atollic attachments closing upon the cinched places of the body? What do they call the knitted black sweaters, the designs coordinating with ripples? Is this an east coast seismic fabric calling? How do they get everything to coordinate?), and the nylon or nylon-tennis-shoe combos that greet their entry away from the cliches of the west coast.

(Such as galoshes, ratty clothes, marijuana and green trees, anti-Republican snipers and folks who descend trees to get to the school bus: they've made it, phew, probably not as relieved as the Texans would be if the Texans cared about the rest of us; in fact, they are too accepting to be relieved, but are instead secretly pleased (perhaps), as they watch the rest of us disperse like naive pre-barnacles washing in upon the shoals of something larger than ourselves or the west pioneering coast, or even American history if you would even imagine something to beat that in American history!

Except they don't seem to have exclamation points attached to their observations! Even their goodbyes to those who traveled across the country with them! They have seen everything! They make me excited to see their New York! Which I suppose I will never know!)

The little girl on the plane who asks for her misplaced play-doh by smiling first between the crack in front of my seat, and then pointing downwards when she realizes I am realizing music, says thank you loud enough for me to overhear it above the vent once I've turned off the music. I think first of how I once traveled like her. Then I think I might have been a parent, with a daughter traveling next to me, kicking up against the seat, asking the backdoor neighbors for lost items, and finally falling asleep stretched in some ridiculously unrecognizable pattern. I feel a longing. When we arrive, I listen to her tell someone: "Well, I understand where you're coming from, but I was feeling very frustrated. Afterall, we talked about this and you never mentioned... yes, yes... I know, I love you too, but that's not what I'm talking about. We discussed..."

Someone I found myself traveling between these patterns. Wishing I simply had a head nodding off next to me. Guessing that's not what my story is. Just holding my breath, and hoping for something different...

As we arrive, I have no room to speak. Literally. I can't speak. I am holding my breath and hoping my third 'fabric' roll doesn't reveal itself somewhere between hour three and five... a bit of turbulence, jittering, the ice-cubes in the diet coke I've asked for, and suddenly that disgusting fourth level just billows outwards in the direction of my western and eastern cohorts, whom I've been studying for jewelry, and accents... and the eight year old who asked me to pass her play-doh through the passageway between her seat and the canyon that makes my legs miserable: the way she taxiway talks to her friend, or father, or step-father: "No, I wasn't angry. I was disappointed because you promised me you'd be there... No, I understand... I get that... It's just that my emotions hoped for something..."

Is this who the east cost people are? I wonder. Because if it is, how is it they haven't taken over the universe? How isn't we haven't been invaded by rational bang-headed youngsters talking on their machines and reasoning through? I look again at the older woman with her pearls, her silken blouse, the mass of jewelry that has lodged itself upon her chest. You will never be like me, I think. How amazing is that?!

WE'RE SO GLAD TO HAVE HAD YOU ON OUR FLIGHT. WELCOME TO NEW YORK AND GOOD LUCK MAKING YOUR WAY, ESPECIALLY IF YOU DON'T HAVE SOMEONE PICKING YOU UP, AND YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT GOOGLE OR NEW YORK OR ANYTHING THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS OUTSIDE YOUR PATHETIC LITTLE EXISTENCE ON THE WEST COAST WHERE NOBODY EVEN NOTICES YOU.

I've been trying to remember who said it to me. But someone told me within this past year that a person should never live in a place where they feel nobody sees them.

So... how was that trip, anyway? Can you describe it in a campbell soup can?

2011-08-10T21:44:00.000-07:00

in the works, sweetness

I think I might have been meant to be a farmwife to some lucky farmer(wife)

2011-08-10T21:30:00.000-07:00

You climb your plow, I'll make strange avenues and uneven rows.

Here is my August garden this year. All the cold- to medium- crop plants are thriving. All the warm- weather crops are a tad miserable. I certainly will have squash and enough cabbage to make sauerkraut this fall. With my masterful Xmas present sauerkraut crock just waiting to be used, it's bound to be fun.

And by the way: why attend church, when there are gardens to be attended to?

I don't really care anymore

2011-08-10T20:47:00.000-07:00

When I got back, I took a day to start working on some of the calls I am wickedly backlogged on.

Ahem, sorry Anne-wife. Call me. I swear to god I will answer and be semi-entertaining.

My guilt hovers somewhere over my left shoulder on this matter.

So, I called NM, who thankfully held off on calling me for the whole week I was away. And first thing she started talking about (well, no, that is a lie, but its energy permeated the call until it came spilling out) is how she saw Deb-of-the-exfriends. Took a ferry out to meet her actually. And how NM had FINALLY asked her about why she was such a bitch/bad-friend to me.

And I actually. actually. realized I don't care.

I was a little curious.

But only idly.

I realized there would be no surprises.

My eyelids lolled. (can eyelids loll? or is that only eyes? well, regardless, it was my eyelids in this instance.)

One of these days NM will stop talking about that time of my life. And one of these days I will sink into the ability to talk about it like any other period of my life: like it was there, but not like it is still here. Because that's how it is... so long ago. A bad dream that spoke in metaphorics about life. Lessons I have learned, bitternesses I have nearly dodged.

I do feel hopeful.

Goodbye, Deb-of-the-exfriends. Sucks for you. But it's probably a good thing that you'll never realize that.

And NM, I think I get it. I know you feel guilty.

But I don't care. I really don't. Puh-lease, like I have always said: have your friendships, but don't tell me about them. It's o-kaaaaay. Especially if we go to Hawaii on a sweet sunshine swimming trip now that there's a direct flight out of Bville.

This feels good, sorta like the new helmet with a checkerboard pattern on it that I got, and the new iPod holder I got, so I can listen to the new music I got as I huff and puff around the lake, imagining a self as bad-ass as can be.

Hep hep hep.

going to New York

2011-07-28T11:59:00.001-07:00

and I'm going to be doing some writing as I do. an actual bonafide adventure highlights the fact that I need to manufacture more adventures on a regular basis.

although hanging out with the grandparents, reading in the sun, putzing in the garden, and walking Herald have been very peaceful.

f.y.i. if you live in Bville and check my blog nearly every day, you should just give up, pick up an extra coffee (I like mochas) or Mallards ice cream, show up at my studio some afternoon once I get back and shoot the shit... that's the best way to catch up with me these days.

otherwise I haven't had much to say. quiet mode.

job thoughts

2011-07-26T01:01:00.000-07:00

"If you are a self-described novelist, arts and entertainment, or creative writer then this is NOT the position for you."

Well, piss off to you too.

still here

2011-07-19T03:29:00.000-07:00

So no worries, for those who have expressed worry.

It purports to be summer, so I am seeking rays in between the downpours.

And am very much enjoying my sister's visit to The States. I haven't seen her for a year, and have to admit to having missed her horribly.

I love the way my dog adores and prances around her, as if he expresses for me how much I care, which includes licking her when she disagrees with being licked, and dancing when she's too tired to dance, and being strange and indecipherable like the rest of it otherwise. I will be glad when the sis and brolaw are back next year.

(We haven't even fought!!!!!)

We went on a hike in the Olympic inlands... and other than there being too much snow, I had a lovely time. I was (am) out of shape, and worried about my back and feet, but really should have worried about my cardio-fitness and weather protection. We camped out in a clearing shortly removed from snow, and our feet were wet the whole time, and the lake I had bought rainbow trout lures for was frozen over. I panted significantly and attempted to plant feet firmly. I realized I don't like being left behind while someone else explores the difficult path: not because I want the difficult path, but because Herald whines extraordinarily during parting and I fret about cliff-falls and the imminent need for rescue helicopters during the interim. Best to be along the whole time.

I bought a ticket today to see my god-daughter during her visit from Germany to the east coast. I am so excited and nervous about meeting a young person I don't yet know. Developing strategies...

It's going to be good.

The rest of the summer too. My grandparents are coming on Wednesday (the day after I drop my sister off to head back to Scotland), and I haven't seen them either in forever. Very pleased to see them.

And am very determined to develop a creative schedule along with the onslaught. By Jove, I swear it, I do. As I swear many things, including a desire to flirt with many new peoples and write like an inspired person. Or a disciplined person. Or maybe a desperate person. (Like these things are separate)

However, I don't swear to be regular with my blogging. At all.

psychic powers?

2011-06-28T23:00:00.000-07:00

Just before I logged into my email account tonight, I thought: "I'm going to hear back from X Review now with a I'm sorry, but..."

This isn't a normal thought for me before logging in, and it's not exactly Y months since I submitted either. But it's exactly what I thought today ten seconds before I received the rejection.

I've been anxious lately. And my class was incredibly under-enrolled and so was cancelled. And I don't have much money, but the bills keep coming in. And something happened with my eye that felt like I had a paper cut on the pupil, and it swelled up and leaked pus-like stuff all day. I think we can officially call this "a bad week."

I'm going to friggin' spam my work out there.
And I'm going to start writing to an exercise first thing in the morning.
And bike more.
And stop having bad psychic moments.
Or feeling anxious in the middle of the night.
And do better instead.

The perk of the day was that, squinting from under a handkerchief, I finished the book The Poet and the Murderer, and I liked it.

"The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care" (Dickinson).

summer is here, no more classes just yet (or maybe in general)

2011-06-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

[a] Hallelujah.

[b] Wow, this is going to be a summer of decisions and changes.

[c] My dog is very cute. Right now: he is being super cute.

[d] Repeat of [b]

Animal Magnetism

2011-06-08T10:25:00.000-07:00

NM says it's my "animal magnetism" that has caused a deer, a mink, and a coyote to run out directly in front of, or into, or under my car in the past month. All I know is I'm starting to feel superstitious.

The coyote: ran right in front of my car last night, darting out across a major highway on which I was doing the speed limit of 50. I saw him and instantly laid on my horn, which fortunately sped him up so that he made it away alive.

The mink: at least I think it was a mink; it might have been a very big, weird-looking wood rat or something. Whatever it was, it scurried right under my car. I'm fairly sure it got mushed, unless it has mad tire-dodging skills. I couldn't tell in the rear-view mirror.

The deer: actually ran into the front-side of my car, busted my left blinker, rolled up onto my hood (which it dented), then into my window (NM said she could see her little hoofy paws flailing), which cracked in many, many places, and finally up over my roof, rolling and rolling and then landing on her feet behind the car, and taking off. I totally screamed like a girl. Then I pulled over and went out to see if we needed to put her down. She was standing in the woods about twenty yards off, looking irritated. When I went in to see if she was okay, the doe took off racing, no doubt seriously bruised, but hopefully not irreparably injured.

We were on our way to camp on the beach, and I wasn't sure if this meant we weren't supposed to go back home, or what. We didn't though. But like I said, I'm getting superstitious.

***

I have been pretty damn busy. Right now I am house-sitting for my mother's business partner, far out in the grassy farmland county. It's triggered my allergies something ruthless, but has also been very peaceful and quiet.

NM was supposed to house-sit with me for both weeks, but she just joined me for the second week. This has turned out to be okay, because I enjoyed the gentle solitude of the first week, and I think it's made it easier for me to deal with the typical NM-isms that can sometimes drive me nuts. We've squabbled a couple of times -- over her writing, which is slooooow and freaks me out because she only has a couple more months before her dissertation is DUE, and also over kitchen cleaning, which I think is always difficult to sort out between two people who have their own distinct ideas about cleanliness. Overall, she is more germ-anal than I am, and overall, I am more tidiness-anal than she is. But by and large, we've had a really nice time.

Last night, we met up with MH to walk the nearby river path with Herald, MH's dog Lucy, and the dog I am sitting, Oliver. It was beautiful -- half storm-threatening, half sunny -- and the grasses were chin height, the river full and strong, and the dogs and people giddy and happy. We brought a beer each and sipped it as we meandered the path. Our allergies got brutal, noses sniffly. The wide roses blooming, the eagles looming large on the barnyard snags. I get goofy around NM and MH together... happy. I like the dynamics of three, I really do.

When we were done, we came back to the house and BBQ'd shish-kabobs that had been marinating while we walked. I've never done shish-kabobs before. Actually I haven't done much in the way of BBQ before. They were delicious, especially supplemented with bread and salmon dip, strawberries, and leftover rice and salad. We ate outside, bundled, and at one point it sprinkled a tiny bit on us. The sunset was a storm sunset, and the dogs were showing off to earn table treats.

Truthfully, it was supposed to be "writing group" night, but lately that has been a mere excuse for MH and I to get together, have a beer, and catch up on each other's lives. We haven't written for awhile, though I think we will soon.

MH thanked me for my animal magnetism via text once she got home. Apparently I kept the coyotes from running in front of her car.

Anyhow, I like it out here though I am looking forward to getting home and attending to my garden, which should finally be putting forth some growth.

***

Last Saturday, I went home and gardened. I put in the two remaining 10-foot beanpoles, NM helping with one and CR helping with the other until they were both ready and I climbed a ladder to string them up like spider webs. I really hope the beans grow! Otherwise, I will feel sheepish.

Other than that, my flowers are looking great and the vegetables less so. They are ready for some serious sun.

***

I finally got my class schedule for the summer, and lo and behold my class starts at 8am four days a week. Hilarious. The early hours will be good for me though, and I've already started to work on going to bed earlier and getting up earlier... I note that this is easier without rum. Hmmmm. Anyhow, I'm hoping I get enough students registered for the class to be a go. Right now I've only got one, which makes me feel like biting my nails and drinking rum.

I will not drink rum, don't worry.

I am excited though if it's a go... I've got plans. Part of the plan is to do all of the writing I assign to my students, so the class acts as an intensive warm-up for the summer work I want to do. The other part of the plan is to start working out and doing yoga in the morning after class again. My back has been shit and my feet are pretty damn arthritic (or something), so I need to get back into a regime quick-like. This is easier when I have morning classes, even if I don't like the getting up part.

***

My sister comes home this Saturday. The roller derby is this Saturday. SP's graduation party is this Saturday. My sister's 31st birthday is this Sunday. Intrestin'

***

I finally went to the bookstore and bought a couple of books about, hmmm, well, re-programing the brain. Actually the first book is about brain activity, and the parts of the brain responsible for certain mental processes and illnesses. The author, a psychiatrist, shows these brain scans he does on patients with mental disorders and talks about the medication + cognitive therapy work he does to target these different parts of the brain. The other book is about buddhist meditation and its links to psychotherapy.

Anyhow, I told MH I got these and she asked if it was for NM. A fair question, and I have to admit I've learned about NM by reading the first one: she still has piss-poor short-term memory, to the point of not even remembering when she has or hasn't called me. And other issues as well, which seem to make more sense now.

But actually I got the books for myself... with a two-part goal. One, to unstuck myself. Part of that has to do with thinking positively despite my back and foot problems, and despite not finding the type of relationship I want, and not achieving the kind of success I would like. Two, and this is related to the first I think, to help with the obsessive thoughts and grudge-holding that takes over my brain despite all of my best efforts to short-circuit them. I've decided that if I can't redirect my brain away from the brainruts by the end of the summer, I am going to go to a psychiatrist and get on medication. But that means I have to try the recommended cognitive exercises for the next three months and see if I can't re-direct my thoughts.

It didn't take very long for me to find description of the very problem with obsessive-recursive thoughts that I have. Possibly, there's an issue with the cingulate and deep limbic portion of this ol' brainpan. Despite the embarrassing nature of the whole thing, it makes me feel hopeful to see likeways stories.

I don't mind obsession, but some forms are productive (artistic) and other kinds are debilitating (pointless bitterness). The funny thing is my logical side is far more reasonable and forgiving and hopeful and cheerful and sweet than my emotional side, which is brooding and vicious. I would like all the thinking I've done, all the processing and empathy-work I've done, to count for more, to be in control a bit more, to carry the day and activate the productive energy and void the anger, but it doesn't.

It's exhausting to be caught in a kind of circular battle that is actually boring and banal.

So, I'm ready to obsess on oceans and webs and narrative design... ready to change.

***

I did the artwalk for awhile last Friday, though had to get home to the dogs before the time it gets super-busy. I tend to get a little discouraged by the artwalks though. Nobody is really interested in what I do. Some people are interested in my studiomate's art, but she doesn't actually do much new work. So, I get to look at the same stuff and hear the same comments, and have people by and large ignore my new stuff, which I understand since it is mostly children-book stuff.

But if I had a dime for everyone who asks "This is done on a computer?" and then turns up their noses and leaves, I'd be much better off financially. Like computer work is less difficult? Apparently just less impressive. Ah well. I better just press on anyways. The process definitely affirms that my stuff is book-project stuff and not wall-art stuff. And probably just not fine art stuff at all. Heh.

***

Only 1.5 weeks of classes left to the quarter. Hell yeah.

favorite student mispellerings

2011-06-08T10:22:00.001-07:00

I would like to write my paper on Torcher, which I think is bad although others think it is good.

&

McCain is an older male cockasian who was a POW and now is a politician.

From the same student, who has the most remarkable mispellering abilities ever!

this is probably when you know you've stayed up too late

2011-06-03T02:54:00.001-07:00

yes, it's a little macabre

2011-05-18T10:25:00.001-07:00

new link to happiness

2011-05-15T16:27:00.000-07:00

I have the coolest friends ever.

I want to move closer to them. Okay, I mean, I have cool friends here too. But I want to move closer to this one. Heh.

My broccoli and cabbage is planted outside.

I built a new gate.

I killed a mouse in a trap last night, and celebrated this morning. Seems strange. But that little critter kept eating my seeds in the greenhouse.

I wish I could say to the person who said "I tried really hard to be friends with J" : Bwwhaaaaaaaaahhhhaaaa aaahahhaahahhaahahhaaaaaack. Snort. Hic.

But I guess I'll just have to satisfy myself with a sigh, a smile, and a quick, dry roll of the eyes.

I had no grading this weekend.

I went to the derby and picked up a little treat for my god-daughter and am writing a letter to her which I will send off soon.

I like watching women hustle on the rink.

Shared drinks with a friend I've never visited with alone before. Twas a good conversation, and I asked her to help set up the reading NM has been wanting to set up for awhile - a benefit for the local Woman's Crisis Center.

Took that intensive summer class, and now am waiting for the times so I can intensively advertise for it.

I'm glad I have the coolest friends around. Because I know. Because of them.

I will still look for jobs elsewhere. One more summer in Bville sounds about right.

I dug a two-foot hole for one of the three downed saplings I sized to act as beanpoles. It is buried two feet down and has 10-feet above ground. It seems HUGE.

But I got red noodle beans, which can grow up to 22", they say. So, I need someplace for them to grow. I am excited.

I had a nice dinner/desert with SP. We fought afterwards, then made up. I forgot how tough it is to re-create a friendship after dating. Good thing we're both willing to fight the good fight.

It's funny when you realize you've been being a little mean.

Do you really think that everybody wants the same thing, at the root? We keep having this conversation. I say nay, and she says oui.

NM and I have come to an agreement: no more past, except the good stuff.

I feel like what I've wanted has been as different as grey from purple from the wants of those I've been with. She says we all want the same thing, but don't necessarily want it with the person we're with. I say what I've wanted for a long time is to neither be used nor be pushed, but to exist (an offering) and love(back)/be loved(back). She says I'm not open to change/growth. I say I'm not open to being maneuvered into change/growth. Etc.

There is truth in what we both say, but it is not the same truth.

Herald is still fluffy. Tea Party Republicans will be the downfall of the nation. And slugs are everywhere.

Keep on hitching up those shorts, folks!

I just saw one of these

2011-05-10T17:54:00.001-07:00

On my hike with Herald. She was beaUUUUUUtiful.

I got pretty close and we watched each other for awhile. Her eyes were really startling... so when I got home, I looked her up. She is a spotted owl, and she lives near my house, back behind it on a trail I regularly visit. Hopefully she will decide it is a great place, and stick around.

I have to say, it made me feel instantly good to see her. She flew like she had no obligation to make flying look complex.

don't be a big baby. be a big loud baby.

2011-05-10T09:59:00.000-07:00

So, after a good solid week and a half of brooding and getting angrier and angrier about the creative writing class, I decided to write a polite email to the department head (I don't know her official title, since they seem to change that every year) asking for a meeting to discuss the options she mentioned, and also why I wasn't given a creative writing class for next year. After taking a few days (pins and needles) to get back to me because of the flu, she wrote back and we set up a time.

I had to coach myself quite a bit about what to say, and what not to say... i.e. the best manner of asking WTF?! I told myself I just needed information for future reference, and I was primarily going to listen and hear what she had to say. Also, she was a friend of mine and hopefully would lay it down straight, so as I go on to apply for other jobs, I would know what my weaknesses are, so's to improve on them.

Apparently sticking up for myself is one of the weaknesses, considering how hard it was to drag myself into her office.

And then we had a very nice conversation. She said the committee's decision had nothing to do with my qualifications or proposal - which were excellent. And that their decision had to do with an old policy that is starting to come under some scrutiny... that of spreading the candy around to make everyone happy. Giving everyone an opportunity regardless. She said that my qualifications had actually caused a bit of controversy surrounding the issue, considering that I was the only applicant with an additional MFA.

And she offered me a class... for this summer. An intensive 5-week course, which I'll likely have to advertise for to fill, but would perhaps act like an intensive summer workshop.

It was clear she was anxious to make me feel valued, and to toss me a bone. I'll probably accept the bone and go bury it somewhere in my backyard. A full July of teaching sounds like a dubious honor, considering how burnt out I am on teaching at this time of year, but I was going to have to look for a job anyway, so I suppose I might as well let it be in July instead of August.

I feel better. I still feel weird though, like... if I take this class, does it mean I shouldn't look elsewhere? MH told me that's not the way the world works... that though she doesn't want me to go, it would be fair game to take the class and look for work elsewhere. I would be more inclined to give them Fall Quarter though, since that's when they'd be in a bind. Anyhow, food for thought. I still feel better.

And chagrined. And a little proud of myself, that I went in and talked.

***

Jess, you were right about Bluets "comforting something in me." I think you must be a genius, to realize that I'm exactly this obsessive. And for the record, I take it back: it's not poetry. More like an essay, surprisingly. Maybe even a fictional essay, I can't always tell, but I don't really care whether it's fiction or not, it's pretty awesome.

80. What I have heard: when the mines of Sar-e-Sang run dry (locals say the repressive rule of the Taliban, who, in 2000, blew up the two giant statues of Buddha at the mines' entrance--Buddhas whose blue auras were the oldest-known application of lapis on earth--caused a particularly long dry spell; God only knows what the American bombing has done since), the miners use dynamite to bleed a vein, in hopes of starting a "blue rush."

81. What I know: when I met you, a blue rush began. I want you to know, I no longer hold you responsible.

I still sort of do. Dynamite carries a choice in the form of its fuse. 'Course, I suppose one could get more generous with her interpretation of metaphors.

***

Speaking of which, NM went to a reading that she knew would have EC in it. She told me ahead of time, and I limited my comments to "be nice to her," but I got drunk the night before and had to stop myself from sending her a text message accusing her of fucking with me. It feels disloyal, to tell the truth. But anyhow. I didn't send the text, as I never have said anything to prevent my friends from making their own choices.

When NM "reported back," I wanted to tell her I don't want to hear a thing about it, that I want that part of my life behind me, that's its that time's refusal to leave me which causes so much rutted tornado crossings in my brain as is, and that I want her to stop talking about those people, all of them. Just stop. Actually, I have told her this, but I don't think it fully registers with her. Why wouldn't I want to hear about EC or DP or CG or etc.? Why not?

Perhaps it's a bigger problem that I also want to hear. I like poking my eyeballs, smashing at my eyes "to reproduce lost color sensations" (Bluets #74). The whole thing seems so devious.

***

I potted all of my porch flowers yesterday. Ah, colors. This weekend I am going to clean off the porch and set up the tables and umbrellas and pretty things.

I got mom some flowers for Mother's Day, too. Though mostly I worked. Getting close to the end of the quarter. Okay, it's the middle of the quarter. But the middle is closer to the end than the beginning, that's for sure. It's a nice feature of the middle.

And I went for a walk with MH on Friday that was a new walk... along the Nooksack River, and it was in-cre-dible. Herald loved every second of it, as did I. Ah, MH... would that she were single, and would that she were into the ladies. Heh.

And I went on Artwalk... time to start using my studio more for the pursuit of good, rather than evil (grading and prepping). I should aim to open for next Artwalk, I think. Okay... I must be off. Herald is baying at the windows for a walk.

2011-05-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

I really love when my friends turn up. I like their faces. Their green hoods and surprisingly familiar smiles. Their walks along the river with my dog running the bushy grasses under his limbs. Their moving closer, not further away. Their happinesses most. Strugglings for thrivation also. I would have to admit liking the hanganceness-outness on couches or in moving cars with no agendas and much relaxations the most.

well, well, well

2011-05-02T09:07:00.000-07:00

Truthfully, I think Obama has the devil's own cunning at the timing of all this. Well played, Mr. President, well played.

This is an interesting article... a bit long, but I agree with the conclusion it draws at the end. Hopefully bin Laden's death a big step towards peace. Although I am usually of the opinion that violence never promotes peace, this could be one instance when this is not the case... depends on whether Obama can stop being so hawkish.

Also interesting.

Viva el mundo!

package ponderation

2011-05-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Who'd a thought that ponderation would be the noun form of ponder?

I got a lovely package in the mail, one with a hug in it. It made me happy and I've been trying to stretch that vibe out for a bit. The package had an interesting collection... a coaster. Makes me think of all the coaster poems I've participated in over the years, but none for awhile. ...a rune. But I don't know what it's a rune of! Mystery, perhaps, as I've looked online for it, to no avail. I imagine it's Welsh, which you'd think would narrow down the field, but apparently other than runic alphabets, there is no huge compendium for runes out there that I can find. I will have to wait until Jess tells me, or I will have to hang it and assume it's a most excellent rune that will bring me all kinds of good luck. And last, a book called Bluets, which I told myself I had to wait to read, being that I am trying to finish another book of poetry called Mortal Geography. But I did not wait, and actually I started reading a third book of poetry at the same time. Three books of poetry, not normal fare for me, I must say. But here is a highlight from each:

From Mortal Geography, Alexandra Teague, "Bay Window, with Divorce and Pigeon":

Unbloodily alive, its iridescent feathers matted.
I wanted to kill it for surviving, messenger of the obvious

flaws in the world's construction: in love's shelter,
we forgot the most luminous rooms have thin glass.

From Bardo, Suzanne Paola, "In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts":

In the books that lay around me: my poems
inked, slick-clad, that became
small mouthings in a dying tongue,
I had everything, & I lay there crying.
I was hungry for things I could not eat.

From Bluets, Maggie Nelson:

14. I have enjoyed telling people that I am writing a book about blue without actually doing it. Mostly what happens in such cases is that people give you stories or leads or gifts, and then you can play with these things instead of with words. Over the past decade I have been give blue inks, paintings, postcards, dyes, bracelets, rocks, precious stones, watercolors, pigments, paperweights, goblets, and candies...

15. I think of these people as my blue correspondents, whose job it is to send me blue reports from the field.

16. But you talk of all this jauntily, when really it is more like you have been mortally ill, and these correspondents send pieces of blue news as if last-ditch homes for a cure.

17. But what goes on in you when you talk about color as if it were a cure, when you have not yet stated your disease.

See, they are all good, although I'm having a harder time with Bardo.

It is sunny out today, and I mean to finish up here and go work on the garden. I will take a picture and upload it when I get to the study later today to do my Sunday teaching prep and tutoring. And you will be amazed by my garden.

And here are all the babies, in this order: Mom's asparagus, radishes, chard, sugar-snap peas, sweet peas, spinach, last years wildflowers (at least one of which is columbine), cover wildflowers I 'let' grow on the path, kale, poppies in the greenhouse, and broccoli and cabbage in the green house

Other news:

Well, I am still feeling set about getting a new job. I was feeling nebulous before the bad news. But now I feel that I can't afford to merely stem the tide by moving to town and getting another part time job to fill in for the tutoring and placement testing extras I'll be losing soon. The cc has made it clear they don't value me; I'm thirty-four, and need to find a place that values me. So, I'm trying to get things sharp in my head, so I can feel confident. I've been feeling rather not confident for awhile. Not sure why, when I know I am a capable and hard-working individual when I care to be.

I bought new shoes in the hopes that my foot woes become manageable. I've been hobbling around like an old lady, for no other apparent reason than having worked out vigorously on The Elliptical for a day. Maybe pricy shoes will help.

I met with SP and we had a nice lunch, plus I also spelled out my upset. Gently, I think. I wish I had less to spell out and more to celebrate in my life.

Like gnomes, I want garden gnomes... real ones though, not those fake plastic ones made in China.

NM is coming up tomorrow. I was blunt and told her I didn't have the energy to take care of her, so she was welcome if she could manage not being high maintenance. She was funny back: "Well. I am low maintenance. This week." She told me it was her turn to be there for me, so hopefully this visit will be mellow. I mean, it's a work week for me, and she's only coming up because SP's ex-girlfriend invited NM to fill in on their softball team. Bizarre.

I sent some work out for rejection yesterday. I'm getting serious, now, baby.

Herald is shedding like mad. He gets irritated because I am always pulling at his hair-- as I walk by, as I cuddle, as I take him on walks around the park, as I brush him with the brush he bites and snaps at. Man, that dog can shed. It's a good thing he's the best dog ever, including Lassie.

Okay. I'm off.

so far so good

2011-04-29T00:27:00.001-07:00

I've heard quite a bit about the so-called wonders of epsom salts. Today I am testing them out.

My feet hurt. Orthotics don't help, and exercise especially doesn't help. And today involved special punchy, admirably athletic motions with the arms while on The Elliptical, which obviously foretells wicked pain in the foot-pads. I haven't mentioned wicked pain in the foot-pads as a new thing, because of... you know... other things (too much griping). But nevertheless, wicked pain in the foot-pads is not really a new thing. Thus, the epsom salts.

I need more hot water.

I'm going to boil more hot water.

The boiling is now happening.

Why do feets go awry, really?

Mine have been going awry technically since I was born (my mother was told my feet were deformed at birth, and so taped certain toes together throughout my childhood, first the big one and second, then the second and third, sometimes a stick in between, and still I remember the white sticky adhesive of the white tape). But they've been going more awry for the past four or so months. I don't think it's bunions. I have orthotics, so likely it's not arch. It's hard to tell.

Maybe it's just that our bodies break down, and that's what happens. That's what happened with my back, and nothing I could figure out actually managed to change it, although yoga helped, and bending into helps... learning to accept.

Sometimes I get angry, like when someone asks if I'm into softball and then acts like my back is an excuse. Like I don't love softball, and moving, and dance, and the myriad of ways the body is made to be only alive in motion.

But sometimes pain is something both to work through, and to accept as a hindrance. I can't twist, and I'm okay with that (mostly); still, I really really do strive to live, even when it involves twisting. I got all twistish on the elliptical today, and then in front of class (realizing how much, once I'm there, I like be teaching... like a drama student who tells herself that plumbing is an admirable profession), and then in the greenhouse, planting, opening packages in the mail, thinking of poetry and squeezing myself into the pair of ragged pants I've had for 15 years, since college: squeezing myself in and sucking my gut so as to notice my legs might still be active and my butt not out of commission and my stomach... still, barely, just barely, suckable... like I still have a chance, if I just twist a little. I mean, I still can twist, surely so can anyone.

It just hurts.

The water boiled.

Wet footprints from the living room to kitchen and back again.

Pouring the boiling water, trying to avoid splashing on the dog.

Easing my feel in slowly, very slowly.

But damn, if that hot water and epsom salt isn't nice. I'm wiggling. My toes. And arches. And ankles. And the rest.

And I'm thinking of how poetry seems like all I can handle right now. And simultaneously all I could ask for. Poetry and epsom salts, who'd a' thought?

enough of the pity party

2011-04-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

So I realized today that I am once again officially depressed.

I actually did a remarkable job getting over the journal rejection - decided to do everything up proper and set up a database to keep track of submissions and whatnot, and realized that I certainly cannot whine as I have not submitted nearly enough. But that cheerful realization did little to stem the downward spiral of my thoughts.

I think it finally hit today what it means that I was not given a creative writing course for next year... it means, I think, that although I am the only person who applied for the job who has an MFA (in addition to Masters) and in creative writing, I am still not qualified enough. That is, being qualified is not enough to qualify me over those less qualified. I also heard that the people who got the job were two people who've been teaching the class for years, and a newbie: my friend MH [awkward cough]. The whole thing made me wonder who the fuck has it out for me in that department...

Anyhow, thinking about all that just helped me realize what a fucking horrible pathetic existence I have. My three happy thoughts are my dog, my mom, and my garden, but other than that... my friends are too far away, my relationships are blotto, my writing is shit right now, Bville is boring, I get paid next to nothing, I have to read 43 crappy essays (and about 4 good ones) twice a week, I'm not qualified enough to do even the only fucking thing I'm qualified to do, I still miss someone from years ago who never treated me very well in the first place, I experience back pain every day of my life, my best friend still texts me in the middle of the night about her illness and mostly upsets me when I see her even, and... and... and I'm fat. And I make lists of my misery. And type them on my blog so strangers and friends can see how miserable I am. Poor me.

I think I cannot be a miserable heap any longer. Time to start applying and looking elsewhere for reals. May the job applications be hardy, my skin be thick like Cheney's ass, and the love affairs be imminent.

another rejection

2011-04-25T08:29:00.000-07:00

Now I'm going back to grading essays, after having spent the whole night dreaming about grading essays and waking up to a rejection that was 4 months in the coming. I keep finding myself praying for a nice handwritten rejection instead of the form ones.

ten cents for your thoughts

2011-04-24T13:43:00.001-07:00

a) That war in Libya really sucks.
b) She's taking another goddamn picture, isn't she.
c) Aha, little chew! Aha!
d) Does 1+1=2? But what happens when you eat one?
e) This would taste much better with gravy.
f)
g) I'm a pretty clever fellow, aren't I?

***

My second garden is pretty much set up... now I just have to wait for it to warm up a bit so I can plant everything. Below is a picture taken on 4/15 just before I finished prepping it and putting up the fencing. I meant to take a picture yesterday but forgot. And on Friday, I got too distracted by the baby moles I found in some hay.

I didn't know baby moles were so damn cute... I wanted to kill them so they wouldn't burrow in my garden, but they just stretched and scrunched so beguilingly. So I found a nice little spot for them and gave them some of the hay I had saved for my garden. Hopefully, they'll return the favor when the time comes to burrow North or South.

***

On Friday I logged back on to Facebook for my Facebook Friday. (I cheat sometimes, but not very much actually). And lo and behold, what happened? I read something that made me really angry. And nothing that made me happy. Hmmmmm. I was so angry, I logged right off and took Herald on the longest, steepest hike I could manage. Up to this lake:

It was nice, and I got to test out my new hiking poles, which worked great. I wasn't completely drained of anger by the end, but I was close. And the sunny weather yesterday drained away almost all of the rest.

I wonder sometimes if I have anger problems. I certainly did when I was younger, but I thought I kind of outgrew it. Maybe not.

Anyhow, I just got triggered a bit.

[Content removed due to self-policing: the rule about no public griping about the actions of people I know read this blog. Sigh.]

I've been wondering why I write or think more about the one bad break-up I had than all the fairly good, nurturing relationships I've had. I asked myself, is it that you didn't love Sarah or the others as much as EC? And my answer was a resounding "Fuck no, it's not." I got to thinking about SS, and about how much she felt like a part of me, how some of the most beautiful intense moments of my life were spent with her, and how when we broke up, I felt like I had been split right up the middle and forced to regenerate limbs to survive. Remembering all the things we did together mostly brings me happiness and nostalgia, but I guess I don't talk about her so much because I want to keep it private - between us. But why wouldn't I feel that way about a bad break-up? It's strange. Why does the intensely painful stay with me more easily? Why can't I let things go? Why do bad moments in my life bring back other bad moments... like I have to emotionally go over it all again and again?

Anyhow, the hike helped. I busted my ass, and went up to Raptor Ridge after the lakes and had this marvelous view:

And yesterday, I cooked up a friggin' storm - making two incredible quiches (spicy green chile and sausage + chicken and mushroom peccarino) and potato salad for mom and CR, and a brunch today. I went on an Easter egg hunt too, and saw SP, and was fine. Now I'm supposed to be grading the 40 essays I have in my backpack, but just the thought of them makes me feel a little gaggy. Sigh.

Anyhow, I will end with a foible de Herald, who I finally realized makes an appearance in every dream I have. Last night a little girl was pinching his paw to hurt him, and I had to give her a gentle lecture.

So, up at the lake, I bring out a chew strip for Herald... to make it easier to eat my shrimp salad in peace. I give it to him, he walks over to the lake, wades in, and drops the chew strip. Very purposefully, and even nosing it under when it didn't sink fast enough.

Then he looks at me, and looks back at the water, starts pushing his nose in like a bear, pawing at the water, churning up dirt, looking at me again, whining, sticking his whole head in, and finally, walking back to me and begging for some of my shrimp salad.

So I set down my salad (putting the lid on carefully to prevent snoutage), go down to the water, stretch out, and pull out his chew strip for him. He gently takes it from me, as if saying "I get the message, lady" and walks over to this little murky-mud spot that is actually part of the lake... boggy, I guess you could say. And he lies down in it, and gets to work.

why?

2011-04-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

stupid dreams, what do you know

2011-04-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

Ever since we walked past each other with awkward hellos at the REI sale, I've been having dreams of EC. Not naughty ones, thankfully, but dreams in which we are friends, or becoming friends. Last night, I dreamt we met at a mutual friend's house where EC popped by to say hello. When she saw me hanging out with the group of friends she took off running, but I sent Herald out to round her back up. Once inside, it was awkward but got less so over time. And I was so damn happy in the dream, that we were friends. Sometimes it's hard to acknowledge that the one thing I wanted more than anything was something either I, or she, or the rough painful scour of it all prevented. Sigh.

I miss Ellen, Jess, and Louie. I could use a cuddle with them, I think.

good news bad news I hate decisions

2011-04-20T23:10:00.000-07:00

I used to be pretty good about change, but apparently no more.

Good news: I finally broke down and read my student evaluations. They appeared to like me. I.e. the overall cluster of comments was positiv-o, almost as if the consensus was I did my job pretty darn well.

Bad news: My application to teach a "non-sequence class" (creative writing) was denied for the upcoming year. I know I had folks on my side, but the problem appears to be that everyone in the department is desperate to teach something other than the same ol'. The classes aren't really given via qualification, or even seniority although seniority helps. My impression is that mostly they want to spread the love around. The department chair was very nice about this, actually, and asked me if I'd be willing to consider and work for an additional class for the summer. Summer 2012. And she talked about *if* there were an addition of an online class, how I'd be the person they'd look to in order to fill in for the in-person alternative... if and if.

I get that they're trying very hard to cover all the bases. And they recognize the fact that I work hard for them, and know my shit. But that's not really enough in this environment when everything has to be justified ten times over, and everyone needs so badly the little ray of sunshine that newness provides.

That is, it's impossible to be angry about this. But it is nevertheless a deal-breaker for me. I think.

I mean, I've become the biggest coward and stability-hound that ever existed, so it's hard for me to compute the alternatives. But when my own mom starts talking about positions she's 'heard' are available in Texas, maybe it's time to really figure the cut and run.

God. Fuck. Shit. Errrrr. Fuck, again.

Obviously I need a job where I am so needed I actually have a little bit of say... whether the say is financial or otherwise.

I wish I had a reason. That would make everything a little easier, or at least blind. So far, my only reason is the belief that I could, full stop, if the conditions were just so. But I don't think that's enough. Or maybe it would be enough to get me started again (god, I love the keyboard of my new computer; it's like making love to venomous snakes and small streams over polished rocks while listening to jason collet and reading science fiction). Difficult to know... especially if I toss myself out into the maelstrom.

heartwarmingness

2011-04-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

Every now and then something you do turns out to have meaning. Today involved a few of such... specifically, three thank-you's, one being an older (and awesome) student stopping by my office just to say 'thank-you.'

I have in my backpack my student evaluations from last quarter. I know that no matter what it says, what I will take away from it will be overall disheartening. It's the way I roll, I guess. A cluster of positives offset by a cluster of negatives always equals negative, even if the positives are lengthy, specific, and akin to my vision of myself. At this point, I'm scared to even look at them... their thrust always being what I could do to be a more perfect vision of each individual student I have had.

I wish I were such a teacher that everyone would agree how awesome I am. Who are these teachers, anyways?

So I will instead focus on the really amazing thing that happened today, which is that I was treated to dinner by the parents of the girl I've been tutoring for the past three years. Maybe it took a dinner out to realize I've been working with this same student for THREE friggin' years. I met her when she was a student at the community college, via craigslist, and have tutored her through general ed classes such as ecology and gender studies. I then helped her apply to the local university, and once she was accepted... through her varied classes there, and then her more specific upper-division sociology classes until now, when she is two quarters away from graduation (the bulk of her required work happening now, and her thesis happening this summer).

KL is dyslexic in such a way as it truly impacts her reading and writing, and she has worked her ass off to get to where she is. Tutoring her at first involved a huge effort on my part to understand what she struggled with, and then as time passed, developing an appreciation for her strengths as well. I've helped her mostly with writing, but also to a large degree with reading. Meaning that at times, I've read almost her entire syllabus for a class and parsed the meanings out with her.

For me, tutoring has meant learning the difference between letting her learn through hard work, and digesting the work for her. At times, I have wondered whether I was doing all the hard work in her stead. But this problem also lead me to question: what is the harm of being transparent about what I know? Why not tell her how I read the same pieces that she also read? What stops teachers from acting as interpreter as well as judge of interpretation? In other words, as instructors, sometimes we create difficult puzzles in the hopes that our students learn to solve them, but maybe helping them solve a few... or a lot... gives them a pathway to follow later when they are alone, and struggling. My instinct has always been to cast my students into the void, to encourage and cheer, to be happy when they get there. But maybe that ability to "get there" is a skill that not everyone intrinsically has. Maybe sometimes students need the result modeled, or maybe they need to watch the entire process, or maybe they even need to be given the end results... just to know that most problems have a solution, that every resolution is approximate, that knowledge is a seed and fruit simultaneously, and that teachers are not gods but eternal students... also striving to get it.

At various moments tutoring, I have held back or given everything I know about the topic. I have read things and asked pertinent questions. But I have also read things and completely divulged everything I understood. As a teacher, I often feel more hampered by the need to get the students to do the work. As a tutor, I felt less hampered, I think. Regardless, maybe sometimes both teaching and tutoring are about showing how, precisely, I would do the work. And then students can take off from there. To my relief, KL was almost always a student who took off from there... surprising me sometimes as she showed me what she now knew that I didn't know she knew.

Anyhow, I'm rambling. But I met KL's parents, who obviously adore their daughter, and as I adore their daughter too, it was a meeting of the minds. They made me feel good about my tutoring. Granted, I've been paid, but also I have been interested.
And they gave me daffodils in a vase, bought me dinner, invited me to visit during special parties, and KL's father commented softly that helping his daughter was "the best money he's ever spent." I think they might be the sweetest, kindest family I've met in a long time, and it makes me think about all the sweet souls like KL out there who don't have that love and financial support her family offers (hmmm). Well, anyhow, it was pretty amazing to realize what an impact I might have made in this one person's life. Not just one quarter as a teacher for many, but three years with one...

I felt proud, and patient, and also lucky to have found such a student -- one who meshes with me as a tutor and doesn't take advantage or ditch or slack off. Pretty much a once-in-a-lifetime deal, I think. I also got a bit sad, realizing that she will graduate soon, and maybe this means it's time to find a new beautiful thing to invest in.

*

Oh, and Writing Group was sweet tonight. We still don't have our groove, but it's starting, I think. Peanut shells and country blue-grass beer and softball talk, plus catching up talk, plus languagey trying talk, mmmm yeah.

I'm writing this from a new mac laptop that will revolutionize my world and make me a success

2011-04-13T21:25:00.001-07:00

no pressure, McLaptop, no pressure.

I've named her Vociferous. Mainly because I like saying Vociferous.

*

I caught myself thinking this morning as I drove to work that if only I could write like a combination of Thomas Wolfe, Faulkner, Virginia Wolfe and Marquez, I would be satisfied. Then when I realized what I was thinking, I snorted coffee up my nose, thinking... that's all it's going to take? Why didn't I realize that before? Ah, coffee up the nose... how cleansing to the spirit.

*

New quarter is up, old quarter is gone. And what did I think about teaching creative writing, now that it is done? I'm not really sure... overall, I think it's less satisfying than finishing one of my own projects would be. On the other hand, it is satisfying to encourage writers to achieve new feats, to challenge themselves, to find inspiration in every corner, and so forth. I like giving the kinds of encouragement that I would have liked, or have received well from teachers in my past. However, every now and then, I'd end up saying the wrong thing for the wrong person... giving a long list of suggestions because a piece had real merit, only to squash the writer's fragile self-esteem by making it seem like there was so faaaaaar to go, and so little achieved, for instance.

For the most part though, it really didn't seem all that different from teaching any other writing course, composition included. It involved a lot of prep, a lot of reading, a lot of commenting, plenty of nagging and cajoling, weedling and shaking my head. The end products were sometimes amazing, sometimes not so amazing, also much like other classes... the only difference being the sheer variety of genres turned in. However, at the beginning level, there really wasn't so much spread in talent... a small handful of passionates who were progressing well, and a larger handful of less-passionates who progressed not-at-all. Maybe one or two remarkable voices that made me happy.

And so I now find myself in a new quarter, ever so quickly, with no creative writing students... about 45 students in an upper-level comp class, which means I'm going to be reading reading reading this quarter, and I'm already feeling myself slip into the spring lazies. Hmmm.

*

I've banned myself off Facebook for a bit. I've decided I can only handle it once a week... for three very good reasons:

Social Networking is pretty convolute, and there's very little way to get away from people you want to get away from. They're always there, connected somehow, lurking in the shadows. Sometimes they're even your friends.

I've had quite a few friends with significant writing and publication success lately. I'm happy for them, and rush out and buy their books right away, and store them proudly on my mantle and think good thoughts for them. I even take the books to my classes and try to sell my students on them.

However, lately - especially as I "friend" journals I like - it seems like I'm always facing other people's success. It seems like reviews, reviews of reviews, re-shared reviews, comments on reviews, new announcements, reading tours, tours that involve reading, reviews of reading tours, re-shared reviews of reading tours that involve reviews of recently published reviews on recently published colleagues, and so forth, are always scrolling through my feed.

And this, I have to admit, has two deleterious effects on me, one of which is to encourage me to feel jealous. That slow sneaking irritation at other's achievements - achievements that I'd much rather be happy about! - is such a nasty, slimy feeling... guilty and hair-tossing at once. It's easier to be generous and not jealous when other people's books are not something I'm constantly reminded of, I have to admit. The second effect is the slow erasure of what little self-confidence I have right now regarding writing, since my writing has been ever so slow for awhile. I feel pretty well paralyzed by the utter success of others, like there'll never be a way to catch up, to jumpstart my inspiration again, to get disciplined and believe in myself after three years of sloooooow progress.

I don't like the way Facebook fills in my thoughts, the way it scatters my thinking, encourages me to look for micro-bridges between the various moments in the day, rather than finding continuity in living and moving from one action to another action... one interaction to another... one idea to another. I feel like my mind hops all over the place even after five minutes on Facebook, and it's rarely five minutes on Facebook; it's more often 30 minutes on Facebook, about 5 times a day.

Yes, so three very good reasons, and now that I've been off Facebook for almost a week (I plan on logging back on Fridays only because I do actually want to keep up with my friends and the events that are posted there), it feels very strange. It's not called 'unplugged' for random reasons.

I keep finding myself irritated during the off moments at work that I can't turn to my computer really, except for news... and I keep wondering what is happening. My mother has asked me several times what my sister is doing, and in the past I was able to keep her relatively happy with updates on my sister's status, but no more. And at one point in the week, I almost logged back on because I needed to organize a gathering, and couldn't figure how to get everyone together!

But I also feel relieved. Like I finally turned off my phone after fifty phone calls from anonymous stalkers in the middle of the night. And outside the night is quiet, and the frogs are flirting, and occasionally a wind will come in to blow around the chimes in a gentle tinkling that somehow sounds distant and comfortable.

*

I think the writing group has finally found its location and zone, but I also think I'm going to need to add people in order to get just the right mixture of vim and vinegar. After following the suggestions several times of someone who has only shown up once over the past four months, I finally decided to go with what I want... which will likely mean inviting more people from the cc since I don't really know any other serious creative writers in this town other than my father (who would inevitably drive me to impale myself on my writing utensil), EC (who I doubt would join for rather obvious reasons), and my former local professors (who I never knew well enough to ask such an impertinent question). So... I've tentatively started inviting a couple of other folks... it's a nerve-wracking thing because there are a couple of people who I really don't want to be in a writing group with - either I don't like them, or I don't like their work, or they are too loud and controlling. But I also don't want to hurt anybody's feelings either.

What a snob I am.

Anyhow, MH and I finally settled on a local pub, on their cheap beer night, at an hour that is before the music gets rollicking. There're peanut shells on the floor, and dogs lurking in the corners, and guitars hanging on the wall, plus 'cheap' means $3 for a damn good beer and none of that Budweiser's crap. I think the zen and mojo is just waiting to happen, and I got all these shivers at the idea of having a reading there too.

*

My garden has started... here are the first little troopers in the greenhouse (these are cabbages, but I also have broccoli sneaking up too):

And out in the garden proper, I have a few baby chards and a few baby spinaches, and a few baby snow peas sneaking up. Here's what the freshified, ready for planting first garden looks like at the beginning of April:

Also, I decided to basically double my garden size, creating a whole new garden for the beans, squashes, and pumpkins. Here's where it's going to be, in a picture taken just after I got started on the endeavor:

Here it is now, two weeks after getting started:

The 'interesting' part of the project has actually been negotiating with CR over where to set it up, as he is convinced that the new garden place is going to result in the death of thousands of happy little garter snakeses. My new garden is right next to their spot, so we've negotiated a five-foot snake border, about which we are debating back and forth the ideal conditions. Basically it is going to look like this, which I guess I can deal with... there were some pretty big fights for awhile about said ideal conditions, not the less complicated by the fact that it's CR's property and he and mom are only letting me garden because I feed them veggies from it:

And more to come! I'm excited and have some very sneakily geometrical plans to maximize sunlight hours in the new garden. We'll see how it goes.

*

Let's see what else? In summary: wedding of NM's friend, it sucked except dancing, nearly got into fisticuffs with NM who apologized but still owes me big and needs to stop being quite so self-centered where I am concerned and also stop talking about her ex who by now I despise, and she took a two-week trip back in to the south that left her weeping and freaking me out with new phone calls, man am I not cut out for this stuff; SP and I are doing okay... missing each other, I think, but making sure to work in time for hot tubbing and getting drinks and holding her new niece and so forth... we've managed to talk through some things and though I don't always feel peaceful about it all, I'm feel okay with where we are right now; and I've decided to stop drinking hard alcohol for awhile... I'm too irresponsible about it and realized I spend too much money on it... and the difficult tells me it was the right choice; and I'm working to keep working out... I've hit an all new high in bigness, and feeling pretty sick of it, but trying to accept myself as I am even as I struggle to find a better way to stay healthy (who'd a thought that hiking every other day, and working out on the elliptical on the in-between days plus gardening wouldn't get me to at least a reasonable medium?); and roller derby is on Saturday, Herald is happy and fat, and I need to go now because it's late and I need to get up early and grade tomorrow because I was supposed to do it tonight and instead played on my new computer.

And my faith in myself is experiencing an upswing. I don't know why, but it is. Maybe it's the sunlight.

Also, I like this laptop's keyboard. I do. I need a mouse for it, but other than that, I like it.

i don't get it

2011-04-07T01:27:00.000-07:00

"We care less about things that are more complex. If we can't fit loss of lives into a simple narrative, we care less about them." -- Poly-sci dude from Yale, Jason Stearns, in an interview with NPR's Greenblatt.

Why would we care less about things that are more complex? Or more about simple narratives? Is that true? Why? ('simple narratives' seem more boring to me, among other things... so, I don't get it.)

REI garage sale

2011-04-03T00:32:00.000-07:00

what mayhem.

Aside from getting a nice packable sleeping bag, hiking poles, cheap pants, EC sighting, SP hangout, and claustrophobia from the 200+ people I shared the store with, I glanced over while in the very very long checkout line and saw this under the men's ski-pants:

(the shot I took was fuzzy so I photobuzzed it)

Not only did this warm my freezing heart, but it reminded me of every outing I was dragged along to as a kid. It's been a long time since I've seen another such dedicated pard'ner.

not bad for two hours' work

2011-03-24T18:06:00.000-07:00

anxiety and allergies

2011-03-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

Woke up at 1:30am last night both furious and chockablock with allergy snuffles, sneezes, and fever.

Texted my dad bitching him out for assigning me, and my press name, credit on the inside cover for the layout of his recent chapbook cover, which I did not, nor ever would, design: an ugly skinny naked woman on a beach, cut off at the crotch -- an image from one of his old porno magazines. Funny how my dad translates me being a mensch and putting his layout into the computer as he hovers over my shoulder, drooling and pointing, as a product of my studio work. He also called himself my "daddy" in his acknowledgments page, which I've asked him a thousand times not to do 'cause it justifiably creeps me out.

Tried to get back to sleep.

Woke up at 2:30am still sneezing and miserable and feeling scratchy.

Thought about moss spores (I had just ridded my garden of a bunch).

Got up and took a shower.

Felt less allergic to everything, and tried to get back to sleep.

Woke up at 3:30am having dreamt of an earthquake, completely convinced that we actually were experiencing an earthquake and everything was shaking.

Decided everything was not shaking.

Got upset about a helicopter that I kept hearing going overhead.

Started wondering if I was imagining said helicopter going overhead.

Tried to get back to sleep.

Woke up at 4:30am angry and bewildered to find myself single again.

Became utterly convinced that I would spend the rest of my life alone and unsexed.

Got angry at SP for already having a new girlfriend, or at least I think so. How can a person say they love you and swap you out in less time than it takes Herald to dry off?

Reminded myself that things aren't that simple, and that I've done stuff like that in my past, and that SP has always treated me incredibly well, and that we weren't exclusive even when we were together, and that it was I who told her I couldn't give her more right now, and that it's perfectly legitimate for her to go on and search for what it is she wants.

Felt jealous for a few minutes that it comes so fucking easy for some people, this finding of interested parties, this being cute enough and social enough and amazing enough to draw a variety of people who want to love you.

Reminded myself that SP adored me, and it still wasn't enough.

Held Herald's head in my armpit.

Reminded myself that I love SP and want her to be happy.

Felt like a complete and utter failure at everything--writing, teaching, loving, being a friend, keeping in shape, caring about myself, investing in the future.

Reminded myself that my life can change, maybe. And that my garden is almost totally prepped and ready for the early crops.

Tried to get back to sleep.

Dreamt of a collision of ships on a river--one a cruise ship, and the other a smuggling ship. Part of the dream involved a system of pulleys rigged on a hill to get the ships up a waterfall.

Woke up at 7am to a text from my father apologizing.

Felt guilty for having bitched the clueless fellow out because I was irritated and anxious.

Told him it was okay, and that I had dreamt of an earthquake and that in the dream I climbed under his hideous homemade couch to protect myself from falling debris... because not even a twenty-story building could crush that fucker...

Listened to the frogs quieting slowly, and the birds taking over.

Tried to get back to sleep.

0.5 Done

2011-03-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

Pretty spectacularly amazing dreams last night... starting with a slow build-up toward flying powers for yours truly. And ending with my sister saving herself, our mother, Herald, and me... via her broomstick, as she lulls the anti-pagan christian fanatic kidnappers who have captured A's family in an attempt to eradicate all witches, pagans, agnostics, and democrats from the earth--primarily A and her witchery, and secondarily, her irritated family. But A sings them into an at-sea stupor while transferring her family to a dingy under her control.

First, our mother as they discuss transferal: "Now last time, A, this was a pretty bumpy ride," the mother-figure says before committing to the broomstick. "Are you sure it's going to be more calm this time?"

"Fer Fuck's sake," A replies. "Get on the goddamn stick while the offer's still there."

Ignoring the history of head-over-heals-into-the-water (off the back of straw) while climbing aboard the broomstick, our mother sniffs... and finally climbs aboard to be safely transferred to the dingy. Me next, but as soon as I'm taken care of, I'm panicking: "What about Herald? He's still aboard! Heraaaaaaald! The christians still have him!"

Up floats Herald; front paws crossed, he levitates and lands on the broomstick. Then he tries to trample A in order to get to me, grin on his face as A posits her finger in my philosophy: "Don't fucking let your dog walk all over me, goddammit! Get control of him and be an adult, not a stooge!"

Herald and I land in each other's laps, and I apologize for his trampling, not in the least bit sorry. In fact, so happy. And the dingy and broom take off, safe from the christian fuck-heads.

*

English 100 class = all done. Out of 18 students, 15 were high school kids, and the CC doesn't want to talk about the quality of classes under "running start" imperatives because it pays their bills way better than not-taking-high-school-moneys does. Basically, it means I'm teaching a high school class with a few returning students... but with no training to teach high school students, who are at -- guess what -- a high-school reading and writing level. I keep thinking: if I wanted to teach high school, I'd get the degree for it and double my wages (living wage!). But no, they keep pawning off their kiddos to us, and we keep taking them because the admin just loves the extra cash. And I keep going along with everything, totally everything, because I'm too scared to search for something else, especially since there are parts of teaching I love very much (being in charge?).

I raised the issue of high-school student caps in the last department meeting, and totally-slash-completely got fobbed off. Like I was a hater. But seriously, I don't think I should have more than 1/2 high school students in my college classes. This quarter's class was the biggest bullshit and lazy-ass immature group of 'college students' I've ever taught: with the lowest reading comprehension one could possibly imagine, and the lowest turn-in rate. Most of them should have flunked, but is that what the college experience is all about? All I can say is that education in this country is fucked up: why try to teach R before we teach G? There's little point to it, as far as I can figure.

Thank god for my other class, my creative writing once-a-year for-the-first-time but maybe never again if this overall circus is what it's about class. It was interesting and irregular and still not as magnificent as I imagined although today's presentations went well. Really well, for the most part.

But even so... so very many reservations.

*

Time for dreams, NM is coming tomorrow and I've avoided being an in-person friend to her for over a month, time to change that, along with the rest, I guess.

Roller Derby this weekend.

tonight the frogs creak

2011-03-15T01:31:00.000-07:00

speaking their racket, alive
meltdown far away

I don't pray or believe in prayer, only response and action. But this moment in history feels burdened. Watching the waters in Japan, the buildings burn, the news countdown until the nuclear disaster. Seeing the environmentalists say "I told you so, and didn't you know we shouldn't...," like the same told-you-so's my hippie friends said after 9-11. Hearing the pundits mishmash and the Facebook profiles fill in with platitudes and multiple links to horrific images that mean a tomorrow full of nobody-knows-how. Back home, fighting Planned Parenthood's potential loss of funding, because breasts and uteruses and women apparently warrant less than war, or NPR or CBS, which ought to be outsourced to capitalism because they don't bullshit sides. And Obama not really being so much a leader as a beautiful speaker, and a hope, a symbol.

Remembering how my mom had to leave us at night when the tsunami sirens sounded in Kodiak and she was required to (wo)man the hospital, her two daughters sleeping in bunk-beds on high ground. I don't pray or believe in prayer, so I'm merely thinking of all the dead bodies washing up along the shores -- thousands, they speak in thousands. And the thousands more they expect.

It's strange to feel happy that the quarter is ending, that the papers are nearly all read, that there's more daylight available, that I've been reading interesting books, that I have plans for spring break... and summer, that my family is healthy and roller derby is back in session. That I look forward to a change in my own life. It's strange that everything is always happening all at once, but sometimes more than othertimes.

It makes me feel anxious and speechless and pathetic and attentive. It makes me think about all the stupid, horrible things I've done and promise not to do again. It makes me workout harder (panting and picky about music), and get fat harder too. And both hate and adore my students, their needs, their incredible insecurities. Also appreciate and dismiss compliments or attention, maybe even criticism. And feel sad and hopeful about what comes next after the end of before.

All of that, and
something like prayers for Japan

I can't get this out of my head

2011-03-13T17:30:00.000-07:00

past blast

2011-03-13T00:36:00.000-08:00

Apparently my dad's old ex-girlfriend -- the one he was with between 1983 and 1999, his former student, the woman he refused to marry -- phoned him recently and left him a message expressing her interest in seeing 'his daughters.' My father told her that A's in Scotland... but that I was around, and that he would put Beth's bid before me... as it were.

The last time my sister saw Beth was in a RiteAid parking lot a few years ago, where A, who is scared of nothing or nobody, caught sight of her and ducked behind a truck until Beth was gone.

The last time I saw Beth was... somewhere in the time frame of '99, when Sarah and I were visiting Dad's and she kept making comments about "getting rid" of Dad soon, and making no effort to pretend that she wasn't sleeping on the couch whenever she wasn't sleeping in some other man's bed. I can't precisely remember what it was that was holding her back -- probably her new boyfriend didn't have a space to move her in yet. The whole scene was venomous, and Beth was in big time freeze-out mode... going so far as to even leave her cat behind because it was "too old, just like your father." I haven't heard from Beth since, nor have I made any efforts to look her up, though for awhile I asked any mutual friends for news of how she was doing, what she was up to, that kind of gossip.

So, now... after 12 years, she thinks we might have something to say to each other?

My first memory of Beth is of us sledding. She lived on the top of the hill in Bville near the college, in what she called the Key Street home. Afterwards I remember various other college homes, with the various other unremarkable college students she lived with... their names once there... but then not. Mostly I remember first the house on the top of the hill near the college that I was later to attend, where a friend of mine would later live, two blocks over, and host a party which I'd refer to in order to convince my best friend to move in with the friend who later slept with etc. My father took us to the Key Street home, my sister and I, and had us lie down across a student's bed to go to sleep while he was elsewhere... making out, I think, on her couch in the living room. I remember waking up and being scared, and Beth telling us that we'd build a snow-crocodile together -- which we did, and which was large and amazing -- before we sled down the hill, the very steep hill, the old-fashioned sled on bottom, then Beth, me next, Ali on top, again and then once again, sliding eternally down and further down, past the homes, and then past the buildings, into the street, upon which we could see the intermittent cars passing slowly, their tires making creaking-crunching sounds upon the snow. Out we'd race into the streets, holding our breaths that no cars were coming, and then back up we'd climb... me pulling Ali, who couldn't have over four, as she lagged up the long hill.

Shortly after that, I found out Beth was having an affair with my father. When you are about eight years old, this revelation feels painful and perfectly clear. What it precisely feels like is betrayal. That your father has elicited your help in betraying your mother. That every ride you took down the hill on the back of your father's student and mistress was a brutal attack on your mother and the responsibility you have towards your mother. I never forgave dad that discovery... and in fact, I'm pretty sure it was the exact moment I stopped being a daddy's girl. I stuck with him through his verbal, emotional, and occasionally physical violence, but that he would have me spend a day sledding, riding on her back was so repulsive I never forgave him for it.

So many memories. The way she walked around the house naked all the time, her labia splayed out when she sat down, legs apart. The drinking. When I complained about her going topless all the time, she'd drunkenly taken tiny band-aids and strapped them across her nipples, taken off the rest of her clothes, come out to the living room where I was seated, and plopped herself down smirking in front of me, legs apart: "That better?" She liked to wrestle, and looked exactly like everyone's stereotype of a lesbian: short-haired, butch Levi jeans with a strut that jostled each large butt-cheek squarely from side to side, her cute head and small breasts unbelievably small and cute in comparison to that large dykey butt and clomping boots.

It took me a long time to admit to being a lesbian because I wanted to never, ever look or behave like her.

She could be fun, though... fun like a big sister who takes us on hikes and buys us hiking gear. Her maturity was clearly at a big sister level; she was closer to my age than my father's. She and Ali early on didn't get along. I'm not sure why, except that maybe Ali was young enough that she really needed someone to take care of her, and Beth wasn't interested in taking care of anyone but herself. She could be downright nasty to A, truth told. I'll never forget how Beth used to offer me gifts, and how it became my responsibility to turn them down unless A got something too... like a little game to see what it would take to get me to betray my sister as well as my mother.

"Your mother is a great woman," she would tell me all the time, and my mind would cast back to the meeting she had with my mom about a year into the affair, when Beth told mom straight up that she was taking my father. My mom came home crying and it was the first time I ever saw my mom cry. "Your mother is really amazing," she would say, and I remembered my mother trying to hug her once, one year away from the divorce, two years past the beginning of the affair. Beth ducked under my mother's outstretched arms and ran away and I ran outside and hid under a tree.

Later, I asked my mother accusingly why she tried to hug Beth, and she'd responded: "Because she looked so sad." You look sad, I thought.

Beth made ginger snap cookies that gave me diarrhea, and beef stroganoff that I liked. Her favorite movie was Harold and Maude, which always made sense to me.

Beth's father was gay and died of AIDs in the late 80s; he was also a drug dealer, and got Beth smoking crack for a few years in her teens. Her mother was apparently such a heinous bitch that I was never allowed to meet her, though I met Beth's gay sister and her cleptomaniac sister and her wild brother and also her sweet sister. I poured over Beth's five picture albums, most of which were in black and white, or I remembered them being in black and white, and tried to figure out why her father was gay. And what happened to the children to make them who they were? And why were some of the children blond with blue eyes and others looked Native American (including Beth)? Would future children trace my albums and wonder similar questions about me? I felt there were a thousand stories in those albums, and I wanted to find them. Every summer, when I came to visit my dad, I would pull them out of their bookshelf and spread them out in front of me, studying.

Beth started out my father's eighteen-year-old technology student, ended up his lover, then his partner, then his co-dependent, never his wife though she deeply wanted marriage. After awhile she settled for being the person who got drunk with him every morning and evening - six beers for both of them, six cheep beers followed by whatever they could drudge up. They went to movies together and pushed piles of pennies through the window to buy tickets while A and I hid behind the bushes, our ears glowing and the line cuing up for what seemed forever. They did this at dinners too, pay with pennies that weren't even rolled up although sometimes they were. They also took us to drive-ins in the pick-up and instead of backing in, would have Ali and I sit in the jump seats, which we detested, behind them, as they made out and blocked the movie screen. I utterly loathed the two of them, together, except when we went camping or hiking, when we would crack open fresh oysters and fry them in butter over the fire; when we'd all pitch in and gather firewood together; when we'd suck lemon drops and watch the sunsets, and have instant pudding for desert in the daylight, then smores as soon as it got dark.

Beth slowly ditched my father after his heart attack. At first, she just started mentioning that she was going to ditch him. Then she actively set about ditching him, eradicating any sense of self-worth he might possess in the process, as if to systematically ensure there wouldn't be anything remotely worthwhile left over for any other woman after her. By the time Beth finally left, she had been gone for about a year and a half. She left tire tracks running across his lawn from porch to road, a metaphor my father often mentions, and he didn't have a single friend left, and only one of his daughters really even talked to him.

I don't feel sorry for him though. He chose a child to mate with, and devoted himself so devotedly to himself, in the form of her, and she no more than a kid, really... I guess that's what he chose to be himself. I feel... a bit sorry for her sometimes. Sometimes I've wondered about her, maybe missed her in that odd way (like the way you miss obnoxious cats who you really didn't like but who occasionally, rarely, would show some spark or sign of a feline essence that you could love... just for a second though, before yowling and pissing on the rug again).

So, I can't really imagine what there would be left to say? Probably, I should just say "No, I'm not interested in meeting you again. It's been twelve years, and it wasn't a lollipop field back then." But I am a little curious. Why now?

Anyhow. Food for thought.

Question for Brolaw and Sister

2011-03-10T21:01:00.000-08:00

Alright, you two are respectively much of the way through your marine biology Masters and veterinary programs. So I've got a tough question for you. If these two meet each other somewhere in the ocean, which one wins:

???

interrrrrressting, but shtup'd

2011-03-06T12:06:00.000-08:00

With all this talk of ire and February, I stared calculating things. Suddenly realized that 100% of my break-ups have occurred between January and the end of March. As a matter of fact, two of my break-ups have happened in close proximity to, or on Valentines Day and two on March 28. Plenty of other bad news during those months as well, now that I think about it.

I was trying to remember when most of my hook-ups have been so as to have heart, and realized most have been end of August and fall... with a couple of outliers. It all seems far away though.

So, I was thinking maybe I better work up a solid hibernation plan for the rest of my life's winters... perhaps it would help?

staying focused, trouble

2011-03-04T20:17:00.001-08:00

I know it's technically March, but I'm still considering it February since February was sinfully short this year and by pretending it's still February, I am safe to say February sucks, and perhaps still have a passing chance that March will be far, far better.

So, I am not sick anymore, but (among other crankiness) I've been furious about how poorly everyone in Bville drives, the utter bitchy aggression of the vehicles at this time of year. Today I nearly got nudged off the freeway by someone who didn't understand how to merge. I was coming into town and got caught between two cars coming onto the freeway... the fast lane was busy, so I didn't pull over... the van in front of me didn't seem to want to speed up though, but the car that should have decelerated to fall in line behind me wouldn't alter her pace.

After we drove neck and neck for a few minutes, I gave a polite little honk to make sure she could see me (some people apparently don't have mirrors), and before I knew it, she was honking and beeping at me... as if I had an alternative! A slow car in front of me, and fast cars beside me, and this jerk wanted me apparently to levitate and get out of her way instead of participating in merrrrrrrging. I was so angry that when she finally did what she was supposed to (stop accelerating), I birded her, and when she sped up to pass me in the passing lane, we exchanged extremely and mutually scornful looks. But seriously, what the hell should I have done differently, besides not birding her of course?

And THIS is just like something that happened a few days ago, when an SUV had on a left turn signal and was stopped in the lane where one would stop were they waiting to turn left. So, I assumed it was safe to turn left myself, only to have this SUV take off straight through the intersection and nearly t-bone me... AND Herald.

I get even extra upset about bad drivers when I have Herald with me, partially because I'm irresponsible and have yet to find a gate to keep Herald safely confined to the back. When in such situations, I always remember the story my sister told me (twice now, as a matter of fact) about how this woman got into a car accident, and her dogs weren't gated or strapped in, and so the EMTs had to shoot the dogs because they were being protective and wouldn't let anyone get close to their injured owner. Herald is an unfortunately protective dog, despite measures I have taken to try to convince him I don't need any protection. So whenever someone is stupid in their cars, or the road is a little slick, I imagine the EMTs shooting my beloved baby as he stands firm and vicious, trying to protect me as the blood pours from my jugular. Yeah, I should just get the gate, because apparently this world is full of moronic drivers.

The above turn-signal dumbass actually shook her fist at me as she screeched to a halt inches away from plummeting into me. And man, did I ever want a sign, specifically one of these to line all four side of my windows:

My sign will normally be set to alternately scroll through these five public announcements:

Don't be an idiot!
Canadians: Learn to drive!
Get off my fucking ass!
Only morons vote Republican!
I can recommend an excellent driver's ed instructor!

And then I will have the following 10 messages on "quick text," so I can just punch a button and have the normal public service announcements temporarily change to:

Get in the fucking slow lane, you moron!
What part of 'merge' don't you understand?
Um, drunk driving is still illegal...?
Please, put the gun down.
You have on your turn signal, moron!
Are you a senior citizen, teenager, or just a very bad driver?
Go around me, you asshole!
I will keeeeeeel you!
My baby on board is giving you the finger...
My Bad.

Yes, I would be so much happier if I had a scrolling neon sign on all four sides of my Rocanante. In the above instance, I would have simply punched #5, the woman would have looked down to notice that she was in the wrong, and then blown kisses to make me and Herald feel better. Sigh.

Every time I start getting too pissed off, I remember how my dad used to carry a handgun under his seat, and whenever someone started bothering him, he'd pull it out and place to his right by the parking brake, and keep his hand on it until the person passed by.

Nothing worth that kind of shit. As a kid, I was terrified... clearly something to remember before I bird idiots who make me hate February more than any month.

Speaking of hate, I despite my students. It's been a long time since I've... well, for English 100: hate such a bunch of idiots. And for Creative Writing: well, I've never had a creative writing college class. It's a strange thing to like the students as people, and yet be continuously disappointed in them as students... mostly because they turn so little in. I can't help being serious and crazy and dedicated. And they can't help who they are. Community College Creative Writing Breakdown: 1/3 = students who care, 1/3 = students who thought they'd get an easy A, 1/3 = online science fiction nerds who have been gaming for years and mistook a college-level writing class as an opportunity to pass the on their 103-pages of fan fiction to an 'editor' for comments.

I've tried from the beginning to embrace all levels and all interests in writing (I have reading groups for science fiction, romance, poetry, nonfiction/experimental, and literary fiction). But what I have a problem with is people not turning anything in. It makes me sad. And bored. And philosophically irritated. And that's with 1/3 students who care.

Maybe I just take it all too personally to be an effective teacher?

And don't get me started on my English 100-er's, who are mostly high school students averse to any kind of intellectual work. At all.

All of this has me thinking, even more than normal, that I need to find a job where I can use my skills for the good of the universe, kind of like a Jedi Knight or Mother Theresa or Frederick Douglass. What's the point of teaching if most of your intellect is neglected? Even more than that, what's the point of teaching if most of your heart is neglected too?

Anyhow. I am now pretending it is March.

My seeds came in. I ordered half from the organic place, Peaceful Valley, this time only seeds that have seemed to produce at some point in the past two years. The other half I ordered from Territorial Seeds--more hybrid non-organic seeds... which I feel guilty about, but all of my spinach, broccoli, and cabbage bolted like mad all last year to the extent that I couldn't harvest any of them. So, I've diversified. And for Xmas was given pickling and sauerkraut vats/books, so that means I have to have cabbage this year in order to meet the conditions set by the holiday season.

But... in order to have room to plant all of the many, many seeds I ordered, I am going to have to expand my garden. I am now in negotiations.

I plan on moving off my mom's property at the end of this summer. It's strange to plan an expansion before planning a removal. Plus, I have to negotiate land now occupied by adorable self-sunning garter snakes. Hostile takeover, 'cept I won't use mean chemicals. But still expansion into unknown, temporary territory. And then, I don't know where I will go. Maybe just into Bville (I will have to not have a studio in order to afford an actual place of living). Maybe to Olympia, a place I really like. Or Seattle, which has the worst transportation system on the face of America.

I don't have a compelling reason to move, other than I feel stuck. Everything feels stuck. It's okay to feel stuck, if what you're stuck in is something that fills at least two of the categories one needs to survive.

I've got only one category: family. Man, have I been lucky there. I adore my mom and I adore her partner. I love their dogs and their cat, and I've never found anybody, ever, who I adore on a day-to-day basis like this. I've had love interests, and I've had roommates I've thought were sweet (Lee-lee and CC), but I really truly, day after day, get along with my mom and Chuck. It's hard to leave that. It's truthfully been impossible, because, I think, I haven't had anything to fill any of the other categories I might alternately want: success, romance, career, calling.

What I've got is family. The best family ever.

But I guess it's time to force myself away from the security I've found in one area, to find something in another. I'm scared shitless though that I'll find myself lacking--in family, success, romance, career, and calling--if I give up in one category to search for another. Maybe it makes me a coward, but I don't know how to take risks anymore. I'm tired. I want either love or writing to be easy. Not both, but at least one.

Meh.Mrrrrr.Hmph.

So. Spring break is only three weeks away. I am going to A) plan, B) visit my (sister's) friends in Olympia and go on hikes, and C) go to a wedding (NM's Big Friend Wedding) hopefully dressed studishlilike attired. I am amazed at how fast this world goes.

MARCH!!! I've got my eye on you. I do.

P.S. I'm still working to finish my above (top o'the entry) book for childs.

favorite mispellering, procrastination, sickies

2011-02-21T19:55:00.000-08:00

....eyes have a magnanimity to cameras...

It's small, but it made me happy.

1. I hate being sick.

1b. It is yucky and annoying.
1b. Plus it seems to eat the weekends away.

1c. And this one was a larger one to eat away.

1d. Which pisses me off even more.

2. The thing about ending your dating relationship with your local best friend is that you discover you have few local best friends to lean on.

2b. Maybe just one.

3. Nobody to bring you tea, or call and ask how you are.

4. And she's only in the right to tell you she's too busy.

5. And so you have to do your work.

6. But you still feel fevery, coughy and bleary.

7. So it's even less fun than it could be otherwise.

8. And when your closest non-local best friend calls, you feel impatient and cranky.

8b. You worry about this becoming the norm.

9. And then you keep reading about the GOP cutting funding for Planned Parenthood, and NPR, and PBS.

9b. And trying to redefine rape.

9c. So they can force rape victims to bear their rapists' children.

9d. Who would now have no healthcare, Sesame Street, or food programs at school to help nourish them.

10. Which makes you want to destroy things.

11. Which makes you even more fevery, coughy and bleary.

12. So you remind yourself you ordered seeds. Lots and lots of seeds.

13. And they should be coming soon.

14. So should spring.

15. And you're going to take a trip this summer.

16. With your dog.

17. And your computer.

18. And so you shouldn't be cranky about working.

19. Or worried about your perpetual inability to form a nurturing and sustained romantic relationship.

19b. Or upset that your friendships with your closest best friends are strained or shifting.

19c. Or furious at the idiots who are given power in this country.

19d. Or down on yourself for not writing enough.

19e. Or guilty for not having walked your dog this week.

19f. Or guilty for not having spent enough time on your students' work.

20. Plus the cold is going to go away sooner rather than later.

21. And the current GOP will rot in hell.

21b. As will their legislation.

22. And you'll finish all the work just in the nick of time.

23. And one day write marvelous and impressive things.

24. So all is fine, really.

24b. Or at least that's the moral I'm sticking to.

It's hard to know when to answer the phone

2011-02-14T23:46:00.000-08:00

I always think about not answering, but sometimes curiosity or guilt is enough to counteract my instinct towards self-preservation. This instance, I thought very quickly: why not? It's valentines day and I might be soon visiting, plus I am sad about my own love failures...

In this instance, my friend was dismal and muted, having fallen off her bike, having lost her love, having lost her sanity, having lost her assurance, having lost her sense of what she might say. It is very dismal, the conversation. It makes me wonder again why people bother having conversations.

"I think," I tell my mom, "I will stab my earballs out if I have to hear one more time about Marian."

Medium-sized pause.

"Paybacks are hell, aren't they?" I add.

"Yes, I think they are," she says, articulated and punctured at the ends of each corner of the font.

I swear to god... no, I don't really. But then again, I do.

not even..., part II

2011-02-12T02:17:00.000-08:00

When they operated on the wrong hip in Anchorage, I visited you in the Seattle Children’s Hospital, which I had to get my father and his student lover to agree to, which meant I rode in the back of a farm-used white Mazda pickup with a bouquets of flowers and my irritated sister, and I didn’t mind that you were so drugged up you didn’t even remember I was there. After I moved two thousand miles, I would be willing to call you, and after you moved one thousand miles in the middle of our freshman years of college, I would be willing to call you. To ask your mother, to ask the phone machine, to ask your Bernese Mountain Dog with her calico answers, and your sister who hated mathematics and dirty dishes more anything else in the world, and wasn’t she an example of how sexuality is no result of gender characteristics? Even if it took you a year to tell me, the blood you dreamt dripping off your bed, your roommate Yolanta’s bed and the blood that explored the channeled corners of your body, and the ghosts that reappeared. I’d send you pine cones on April Fools and because of your fear of pine cones, and sending you something like a pine cone on your birthday is better than admitting I am a lesbian, and I miss you so badly I pound cockroaches into my carpet and find cul-de-sacs with my 1970’s Oldsmobile and think of the shrimp gathered within bridge nets, cast like water rainbows out upon the oil-glistened waters.

I spend the year away from you gathering recycled materials and returning them in exchange for donuts; I spent the year exploring the state-of-the-art landfill they had upon the border of Alabama and Florida, where I remember a white lily growing in the ditch they called reclamation and all the garbage floating along a conveyor belt they said was ninety-five percent efficient in excavating the donuts I bought along the toll bridges to the white sands that were ninety-five percent warmer than Alaska and the only place I could find where I didn’t feel like a vacuum for the refuge gathered and recycled along ditches made of gravel and lonely flowers; I spend the year being a child.

I held your child. He was so beautiful, and I always felt I did the best I could to hear. Then I tried to get your lover like me, and when you stopped responding to my letters and phone calls, I tried to blame it on myself but then social networking and your acknowledged friendship with the girl who plagiarized a poem in seventh grade, which you were the one to tell me about, which had once made me feel okay again—because she was the one who told the boys at the party turn away from me and say ewwww, and I was just again the outsider, never not in love enough, never normal, even though I knew you too were something different, someone I always thought adult, and maybe I thought adulthood could wipe it all away and turn her plagiarism and also my strangeness silent like the way adult words even out, sound just real enough, and maybe everybody would be worth reaching back for—turned out to be overly educational, like your mother, like your reading list, like the brewers yeast you sprinkled over popcorn, even when we were in sixth grade and trying to flirt at the movie theater. I remember how you played the violin, the resin you rubbed and rubbed against the strings, and the way you pulled and rotated your knuckles for mobility. And how you never once let me hear you play.

even the non break-ups, part I

2011-02-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

You were ageless and spoke to me as I pottied on the first toilet. Let them call you complex, let them call you ageless with your name God's Son. To me, you were very much like me, only "up there." Things between us were philosophical, complex. I told you about my forts and the irritation brought down upon me by my sister. Then I told you about the neighbor boy who locked me in his shed and wouldn't let me out until I touched his and his eight-year-old brother's penis. You were enraged. Actually, you were silent, but I took that for silent rage. When we moved, you disappeared. So quietly I didn't notice.

Your grandfather insisted I call him grandfather after he drove you to school on his motorcycle, slid in the mud of the school's driveway, turned both of you under his machine, right in front of us, we watched the whole thing. So we picked you up. "I'm your grandpa," he said. And that's what I called him as he and 'grandma' arranged macaroni & cheese on silver TV platters during the nights I visited. From watching Footloose in your one bedroom mobile home, I sensed things were more complex, but we still managed to kick off one shoe in the middle of the night, under the black sky, in between your house and grandpa's house, right in the middle of nowhere. And I always loved grandpa and his tractor, how he lifted us high in the claw as he slowly churned us down the muddy driveway, after he let me ride on the back of his motorcycle for a few minutes, making me promise I wouldn't remember, but I did, but I never said. I always wanted you to have a farm, with an apple tree and fields that stretched out past our school with its driveway and apple tree.

We fought over who lost their parents more thoroughly. You won, in that your dad disappeared and Greg + Tori grouped their desks next to you, and together you all sought out the school counselor to deal with my awkwardness. He facilitated, for sure, what with his what-do-you-think's and is-that-what-everyone-believes-about-this's, but I was given a white rabbit's foot with beads rooted to their leather-magic frame by the teacher's aide who took me on a tour of her campus and then a powwow. Plus a new dog. And life temporarily seemed more than love, more than loss or divorce or my mother's operation to never again have another child. So I lost concern for you.

You had a picture of Tom Selleck on the inside of your bedroom door, and I asked you if maybe he was too old, and you said he was hot beyond all that. We were eleven and thirteen and you told me about sex with your brother (step-brother, you amended) and your mother was an old withered blonde who didn't seem to fit your story, and I worried, and when you smoked I grabbed the cigarette from your fingers and ripped it away, snuffed it out beneath my toes. When I later smoked, I thought of you, the way you walked next to me, carrying the boom-box, Salt N' Peppa loud right down the middle of the Alaska gravel road lined by spruce trees we ignored. Then you ignored me during the school year after telling me about being adopted and sex with your brother and dad, and later you got pregnant after you moved to Seattle, and I still thought of you whenever I heard music that made sense in spite of the setting, specifically in spite of the setting. You were the first woman I longed for. The first I longed to save, too.

You played video games with me in your basement, and sat contra me on the teeter-totters. Approximately 29 days younger, we were sacrilege... you grade school, me junior high, you special ed, me - a smart shadow borrowing books from the 400lb-ish diabetic reading teacher who loved me because I loved stories more than I could maintain a cruelty towards her, or others -- barely distracted, but still distracted, we had a real truce. You were still a boy and we went to the movies together to grow like the sponge-capsule dinosaurs that become more than a factory product, supposedly, when introduced to water. I have to admit, I mostly liked fishing for dolly vardens with you, near the coastie gates, trucking down the rivers, boots too large for both of us, both of us intent. Later, we played water shadows and you rubbed my cheekbones and told me you cared. I loved you but didn't ever get too close to believing.

1st person multiple

2011-02-01T11:57:00.000-08:00

I had a moment of pause last weekend when I got totally furious at NM as I drove her through a horrible rainy Seattle while she cried and moaned over her former g-friend. Let's just say I hate driving, I despise driving in Seattle, and I loathe driving in Seattle in the rain with a whining and weeping friend who can't seem to hit the reboot button in order to enjoy the few minutes she has left with her friend before I have to drive a friggin two hours to get home, where I will have to slog super-hard because I took two days off to come and be with my friend. I was so bloody angry, and I realize that part of it (most of it) was the driving... NM knows I hate driving, and I've asked her not to make me do it, but she's such a god-awful driver that I won't risk letting her drive. But that wasn't all of it.

Anyhow, we were heading to her home after a nice morning and she pulled a prototypical NM which is to misdirect me while saying she "knows her way around just perfectly." So there we were, stuck going the long circuitous route, up and down hills, and I asked her to try to avoid any of the super-steep hills because my car almost can't make them in 1st gear, but then she took me up a super-steep hill to near the top where we were stopped by the traffic light on a slope, my tires spinning when we started up again, and then more winding, more rain. And all the while she's going on about how crappy her life is, how she's doomed, how she'll never have another relationship, how she can't understand how someone who says they loved her could be so cruel, could abandon her so easily, how it was only three months, how it wasn't even that bad, how she hadn't even tried, how etc etc etc.

And all I could think was that I never liked her girlfriend in the first place. That she was a dullard, and insecure, and slightly condescending... though certainly cute. That when I was talking to M on the phone during the crisis, everything was all about her. That I had to deal with two freaking-out people on the phone, all the time. That she tried to control the situation and when I tried to encourage her to wait a bit, she lied to me. Mostly just that I didn't think this woman was worth all the whinging and grief. And on top of that, there was something almost insulting about the fact that N was grieving her so intensely that she couldn't step back from her own woes to appreciate the effort and will and love her friends give her. That she couldn't breathe through it for a few seconds so that I could have a nice time, having gone out of my way for her ALL weekend.

All of this was compounded by the fact that we had stayed the previous night with her other friend, who had just been left by a prick who mooched free rent off her for 1.5 years, then jetted when she asked that he begin pitching in a modest amount. Sounds like a real winner, right? Well, N's friend was seriously grieving his loss, near tears and deeply sad. Every other word out her mouth was his name. M this and M that. And all I could think is why are two beautiful, smart, interesting, adventurous, creative women wasting even a minute grieving their asshole ex's?

Starting to ring any bells? 'Cause it was for me, let me tell you.

Let me also take a break to talk about how we went downtown to Chinatown and watched the celebration for the new year (of the rabbit). We took the metro, which was instantly enough to put me in a good mood.

(I was surprisingly cheerful all weekend until the car incident... even though N lost her wallet and we had spent at least three hours tracing her steps, re-unorganizing her room which we had spent an hour organizing (me folding clothes!), and making phone calls. It was kinda funny because N had borrowed $20 from me the previous visit and was hell-bent on not only paying me back, but also taking me out as a thank-you... so we went to Indian food, which is where N realized she had lost her wallet. So I had to pay. Heh.)

Anyhow, good mood, rainy day, metro. We got down there and watched kids doing martial arts in the square, and then drummers, then the dragon dance and ceremony: Two dragons, one from the previous year (black) and one for the current year (white), going around blessing each place of business in Chinatown.

The ritual involved stringing up a ball of lettuce from the doorway of the business, and opposite it in the stairwell a chain of firecrackers. Then the dragons run into the building, go around to the various rooms, backing out through the doorway as they leave. Then they rove around to all the children, who feed them dollar bills. And after that, they leave, backing out the main door. At this point, the white dragon goes over and grabs the lettuce, chews it a little, then tosses it to the other dragon, who chews it a little and tosses it back. They do this -- shreds flying everywhere -- until the lettuce is fully 'eaten' (all over the sidewalk).

Then they light the firecrackers:

After the crackers finish, the dragons move on to the next place of business. I had the pleasure of watching it once from the outside, and once from the inside of a restaurant, where I was eating a dish called Buddha's Pleasure -- a very mushroomy concoction I liked quite a bit, but had N convinced she was eating tripe.

We met N's friend's friend there. And friends of N's friend's friend. A beautiful radio announcer -- for a political NPR type show -- who I found fascinating actually. N told me she was French Indonesian, and she had these incredible eyes that reminded me a bit of a friend I used to have at the Bville U... blueish green with flecks, or something like that. She was in a wheelchair, which, I think, she must've been in since a child; I thought polio maybe.

Anyhow, this woman, R, had a son who was also part Native American, with long black hair and black eyes. He jibber-jabbered the whole time and was a strange collection of darkness and light, having clearly come from a ghetto where violence must've been a main way of communicating. He kept trying to get me to pretend to stab or shoot him, so he could show me what he would do... which was pull a stoic face with lowered lids and try to stare me down. Yet the other half of what he said were blurbs and bits from books, tv shows, films, radio. I wonder what kind of man he'll become.

As for his mother, R too was an interesting combination. Lovely smile and highly conscious of the world around her. I thought her dissembling for a while, but actually I think maybe she has a way of looking at the world straight, but through the corners of her eyes, if that makes any sense. R was interested in me, and I think we shared a connection of some kind... intellectual, certainly, but maybe poetic? Hard to put a finger on that kind of thing sometimes. We talked about this and that, and she said she would look me up if she made it up to Bville.

So on back to N and her friend, their grief... it really made me wonder about a lot.

For starters, I wondered if I had been that god-awful during the two years post-E that I mourned not just her, but the loss of friends and faith in the academic world, in writing, in love. I remember being miserable, but I also remember trying to hide it around other people, trying to suck in some deep breathes and act as if everything was okay. Thinking that maybe if I pretended for long enough that it was okay, that it would be okay.

And then after the two years, I remember giving myself permission just to let it all hang out... thinking that maybe pressing it back down was part of the problem... and I think it turned out better then. At least I finally started opening myself to nurturing friendships.

But in retrospect, what the hell was I thinking with E? Why did it hit me so damn hard?

On the other hand, it also makes me question my reading of everything. See... the deal is that N really did traumatize her former g-friend, and it was her actions that destroyed the relationship. No matter how much she tries to spin it in her mind, she did some horrible horrible things that will certainly never be gone from her former g-friend's mind. Even if her ex figures out how to forgive and act like a decent human being, there will be no going back and getting rid of the violence that N did. And yet, N didn't do any of it with intention. She was sick, hallucinating, wasting away, and completely out of her mind. This too was caused by events outside of her control.

But was her ex supposed to be willing to pay for the actions of others? Is that what love is? And if she was willing to take that beating, what is the responsibility of N now that she is recovering? She keeps talking about owning up to her actions, but 'owning up' to her means saying she did it, but it wasn't really her. Anyhow... it reminds me of things. Of questions I had back in the day. I kept hearing how 'fucked up' the girl who broke my heart was, but ultimately I ended up with too many questions about how long I was supposed to accept that reason and understand, about how I was supposed to side-step the agency taken, about whether need ever becomes love if one waits long enough and tries hard enough... which it didn't.

And looking at N, as an outsider, as a friend, I just say: fuck-it. Her ex is being a bitch and being purposely cruel. I get why she does this, and I suspect that N has her moments as well, but N has to has to has to take care of herself, and spending days weeping and having nightmares again and getting panic attacks is no good indicator of recovery. And this is what happens every time she tries to re-connect with her ex in some loving way.

Anyhow. Mental note.

Another mental note issue I'm having is that N is asking to borrow money again. This time, she really needs it... without it, she cannot get her PhD. But I feel like when she has money she spends it willy-nilly, and I'm a saver, so now I'm supposed to help her out again when she should have been frugal in the first place. I would just straight up say no, but she's worked so daaaamn friggin hard for her degree, and has been set back by disease. So I said if she set up a clear budget and a reasonable plan (not just 'starving to death' until it's paid back), I would think about it. But I'm praying something else happens. How do I get myself into these messes?

Other than that...

Teaching creative writing is going well! I find it exhausting though, for several reasons. For starters, the classes are three hours long, twice a week, which is a really long time to maintain the creative juices. I will have to try letting out early from time to time. The other is that I'm having to prep everything from scratch. The picture at the top of this post (with the two radar camera eyes) is one of the ten I put together to talk about Point of View. I did a Powerpoint (laughing here). Forty-five slides of each different point of view, a picture illustration, advantages and disadvantages, example, and exercise. It took up the whole three hours, but dang... tiring to put together. I was pleased though; I had the students tell a myth, fairy tale, or fable from a bunch of different perspectives.

But it took me such a long time to put together that now I'm backed up on commenting and grading. So that's what I'm supposed to do today after I finish this and take my dog on a walk on this beautiful but cold winter day.

The perks of teaching creative writing are getting to talk about some of my favorite pieces of literature, exploring and re-enforcing my own knowledge, generating exercises that are good for me too, and helping others see writing as I think it should be seen - a mode of exploration, expression, and interaction, and not a race to the finish.

I nevertheless feel like I'm still racing... and that I'm far, far back on the track... huffing and puffing with a stitch in my side keeping me from still going. But I'm coming to a realization. I will always be a writer, and I will always write, but maybe I won't precisely be a successful writer. Maybe I just need to shut down the studio, get a career, and keep on writing without the pressure to be a success at it. Then maybe success will happen one day, and maybe it won't, but at least I won't have my identity and ego invested in it. Anyhow, I'm almost there, but not quite.

My mother is in the hospital today (and yesterday), coming home tomorrow. She had knee replacement surgery, which seems to have gone well. I stopped by yesterday with flowers/chocolate/smoothie and she was fuzzy and lightly awake. I'll visit her later tonight after walk/commenting/writing group. Strange to have her in the hospital. I had flashbacks to N when I went into her room. I think that hospital in AZ will always be firmly etched onto my mind.

Writing group tonight.

And last-like, SP and I are having struggles. It always seems like we are having struggles. Damn frustrating, truthfully; I don't think two more opposite personalities ever existed on earth. Or maybe we become opposites. That's a question I've always had about relationships - do people become different so you don't have too much of the same energy in the same room? But why then do lesbians in a relationship so often end up resembling each other? (Is that just me?) But the main problem seems to be that SP wants more from me than I feel, and I can't force the way I feel. But I don't know anymore what makes for a successful relationship: is it being madly in love, or is it respect, hard work, and affection?

You tell me.

Two other things I nearly forgot to mention but were notable this past weekend:

I visited with C and her two-week old little boy. A dor a ble. I could totally get me one of those.

And secondly, SP told me this story about how she was in a restaurant and one of the managers got all verbally abusive with the staff for no good reason in front of everyone. Everyone was apparently aghast, and the more SP thought about it, the more it pissed her off. So she stood up, went over and politely told the manager off, who groveled at the time, but then came back over later and said it was all a "misunderstanding" and a "joke." Apparently people were pulling SP over and saying "Good job" and "Thank you" on her way back to the table. Yet another thing I like about SP.

favorite student mispellering of the week

2011-01-31T10:05:00.000-08:00

Every now and again she would stop and just listen, allowing the swarms of misquotes to feast on their unexpected snack.

&

The genital man sitting behind her on the bench was actually a stand-in.

another rejection

2011-01-29T18:59:00.000-08:00

Last Wednesday night I dreamt everything I ever submitted kept getting rejected. Even the pieces I haven't submitted (and am still working on) were getting rejections... and each rejection kept getting meaner and meaner (beginning with Thieves Jargon's actual "This does nothing for me. I'm going to pass."). Finally, in my dream, I got a rejection that ended with the editor giving me a link to an online writer's course, suggesting that I might avail myself of some basic assistance.

So, nothing that mean. Fairly polite form email actually. But I'm getting depressed.

Thusly... I'm glad to be starting my first session of a writer's group on Tuesday with a poet and a songwriter. Otherwise I might have to stop altogether... pathetic, I know, seeing that Jac just hit 250 rejections along with all kinds of success... but I can't help but wish for tad bit of success these days to encourage me on to the 250 rejections.

2011-01-21T23:29:00.001-08:00

Every now and then I get scared that I'm not achieving anything or living up to my potential. I watch babies being born and relationships formed, achieved, grown, lost, reclaimed. Friends with publications or businesses born, formed, achieved, grown, lost, reclaimed. I see people feeling proud of themselves. And people risking everything. Losing everything. Moving or consciously staying. I see things changing.

And then I remember I'm following my own path. And I feel better.

The story I'm working on is slow, but I'm proud of it. I'll be more proud when it's done. I feel sure that one day it must be done. I like this picture because it reminds me of my ego:

cool

2011-01-17T17:22:00.000-08:00

the moon year

2011-01-15T16:51:00.000-08:00

So far it's been a pretty a-ok year. I started it out the right way by going to Hidden Beach with my friends... we camped out on the spit in 15-degree weather - bundled and wrapped in about as many blankets as we could carry. Also, we took about 2 loads (times 4 people) of firewood.

Though freezing, the day was completely blue-skyed before, during and after, and the lights both at twilight and dawn converged orange to purple to red. Stars were out all night, the trains were sneaky (one tried to mow us over... normally they whistle coming around the curve, but this one didn't and there were a few scary moments as T ran out across the tracks to catch her girlfriend's dog... with the train swooping up behind her). The birds noisy and the fireworks off in the distance just a slight smudge of colors along the rim of the water.

N came out for a couple of hours with her friend Sean. We've been having nice visits lately, for which I am grateful.

She is still sad about her girlfriend, and I can see her processing too much - she talks about it all the time and I worry for her that she's etching these monologues onto the skin of her brain like a tattoo that traces her future. It seems too familiar, and considering how hard I've been working to keep my head full of excitement, happiness, adventure, forgiveness, light, and forward thoughts... I get scared that she's making her future a little bit darker. I guess it's never easy to let go of love... to say goodbye to the ideas you had of your partners. Poor girl.

But she came out to the point and sat with us around the fire, shared hot dogs and chili and conversations and rants. I liked her friend, who was the person who really stepped in when she was in AZ and showed up for the mornings and evening hours when her pain was worst, and held her hand. Reminds me of how, though I usually like to be by myself when I am sick or sad, some of my friends have been there -- almost uncannily -- during those moments I needed them to be near me. Sis and Brolaw to play air hockey and pool during the year I was so damn sad. Louie when I got sick in Chicago, making me soup and telling me long fishing jokes until I fell asleep. Receiving a postcard and CD from Ellen on exactly the day after my heart got split right open. SP, loving me when I felt all emptied out. Curling up to SS when we both just needed someone to be next to. Whiskey and bagels on the balcony. More more and more. For some reason, all of this came to me when I first met NM's friend and I felt this instant appreciation... like I already knew who he was in a way I'll never get to know firsthand. I gave him a big hug.

And so, we all sat by the fire, some singing, K and SP took very very cold dips in the freezing bay the next morning while Herald and I looked on bemused. The birds were everywhere... all different kinds, eagles, loons, cormorants, ducks, herons, etc. The loons kept calling out during the early morning. Between them and the trains, I felt very tucked in by sounds.

Anyhow, a very good way to spend the New Years... not wandering around the dance halls looking to make out, not lonely and unsettled at home. But assertively adventurous. I enjoyed walking N back up to the trail that lead to her car, then slowly walking back in the dark... holding Herald next to me when the train came, listening to its screeches and creaks, gritty wind.

I did a Tarot reading; I usually only do one for myself a year, although sometimes other ones if I'm feeling confused or inspired. But as for Year of 2011 for J, only one: Everything seemed right on rockin', and then I was startled by the last card. So here goes.

The past for me, the past from which this year is emerging, is one that was characterized by being overburdened, full of various and overwhelming pressures, and fraught with much striving and new problems. Um, yes.

As for the present (this year), it is influenced and held in place by two elements: aspiration and grounding. The grounding card was the same damn card I almost always draw in every one of my self-readings: The Queen of Chalices. I see her so much, I've come to greet her with a smirk and a wink. Chalices are the instrument of emotions and the overflow energy of life -- including its spirit and light. Thus, the Queen is a maternal, devoted character of love and gentle poetic hearts. She is intelligent, particularly with emotional intuition, and her gift is of vision and sight. I rather think that having her as my root card suggests I stay mindful and in touch with who I am capable of being. As far as aspirations or guiding lights, it was an odd one: judgment, suggesting that this year leans towards the type of rebirth and rejuvenation that comes from owning up to and facing my past errors, and also reaping the rewards I might have earned as well. Rather than judgment of others, this card is about personal atonement, and coming into a new life through recognition and consideration of the past.

Here's the strange development, which I didn't read until the end... the present, i.e. this year rooted and illuminated by the above elements. I pulled the Moon. Sounds nice, right? Except that in the tarot tradition, the moon is a warning card, a sign of danger and recommendation of caution. It indicates a moment when arrival could occur through movement forward in the dark, but also a time when everything can be completely and utterly lost. The main characteristic of the card is deception, as the world can unclear under the moonlight, the light cast by the reflection of the sun onto the earth. The moon suggests fertility (sometimes over-fertility) of imagination, and the worry is that one can follow the wrong path, misguided by reflections, mirage and shadow. The main caution is to not rely on vision, but instead intuition and inner light.

However. The future card was the second one I read, and it suggests the possibility of a positive outcome... peace, tranquility, due achievement, and the presence of community. Phew. I'm glad I read that before reading the moon.

I've always liked Tarot because it is not about what is, but about what could be. About likely paths, likely issues, likely reasons. Possible futures, possible ways to re-interpret what it is you are feeling. It asks that we take what is known and see it in a way that comes from the unknown, instead of always churning around in the same information you've always turned to. Good stuff.

In addition, I shall say what my New Years Resolutions were, because I like traditions and omens, rituals and chaos:

Resolution 1. To strive to put a Sock on Herald's nose at least once a week.

Resolution 2. To drum up at least one new Adventure.

Resolution 3. To pursue intellectual, artistic, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being with Rigor and Vim.

I have been incredibly successful with my first resolution, I might note. And in light of the 3rd, I have been adhering to 30 minutes of elliptical work-out and 15 minutes of Yoga stretches a day so far... with hopes to up that as I go. Plus, I'm trying this new thing where instead of holding a grudge (I hold a mean grudge), I send out a li'l bit of affection and good karma whenever I think of someone who pissed me off. We'll see how long that one lasts. Heh.

Let's see.

My creative writing class appears to be going fine. My nightmares about teaching it poorly have slowly tapered off, and I think I might be doing okay on my proclivity to assign too much reading and not allow enough free space for the students to wander productively. I like the students -- a couple of seriously talented people, a couple of gentle little hearts. A lot of science fiction buffs, and interestingly, when I had the students place themselves in special reading groups, the science fiction group was all male. Like, lots of guys. And I behaved a bit weirdly, and took the gay guy out of that group and instead gave him his third choice - poetry; I feel a little naughty about it, but he seems like a tender sweetheart, and I couldn't see him thriving with all those slightly self-interested boys talking about their two books, eight chapters, unique universes, etc. His letter of introduction indicated an interest in writing a musical, and I really like the other people in the poetry group, so I just lifted him from one group to the other. Is that prejudiced of me? I suspect it will work out for the best regardless of whether it is or not.

I went to see a band called The Head and the Heart on Thursday... N traveled up from Seattle again just to see it at a smaaaaaaall local pub, and apparently not only were they sold out, but they had also sold 40 tickets more than capacity. Fortunately for all concerned, SP came with us and she knows the pub owner. What a smoozer she is!! I sometimes wish I had her ability to talk to anyone and everyone and make everyone adore me. But the rest of the time, I'm glad I am a quiet, observant friend of people like SP. The band was better in person, and there were precisely 1.75 of those moments I like so much at live concerts... when everyone in the room -- musicians, audience, bartenders, soundboard person -- just leans in, tilts into the sound of each other................. We had that for one full song and most of another, and the other songs were pretty darn good too.

Not much else. We had snow and then we had rain. It is raining now. I am less than fond of rain during the winter... it makes it seem eternally dark around these parts. But, I am pleased that every day includes just a few more minutes between sunrise and sunset, and pretty soon it will be time to order my seeds, and then it will be time to mulch, and then time to plant my seeds, and then time to start plants in the greenhouse, and before I know it, the winter will be over and another school year over, and another summer begun. Can't believe how fast it goes.

Oh, and another of my friends just had a baby. A friend who lives in Seattle, which means I can go and dandle this one from time to time. My dreams of the writing class have changed into dreams of babies. Last night there was one with an amazing shock of hair across his face, and I was climbing ladders and playing cards to find him.

Happy New Year, all.

goodbye, year of J

2010-12-30T16:30:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe I dubbed it that. And I'm skeptical about whether it truly turned out to be the Year of J, but it was an interesting year, full of bumps, ruts, jumps, and intrigues. Maybe that's what made it the Year of J?

Oh, and a Solstice Eclipse:

Most Important Happenings

I exercised steadily at the gym for three months, which lets me know that I can do it if I set my mind to.

My friend became significantly sick for months and then mostly recovered, which shocked, confused, instructed, amazed, and resonated within me: life so tenuous, stability so fleeting, and the simple details so important... and I'm grateful for charities and resources... and I'm reminded how tied together we are... and I'm curious about how we will all grow... and I'm resolved to be more healthy and stake out a space for that health...

My writing is frustrated and needs a change. I tried the writing conference, which was good, but didn't solve the lack of will, or willpower, or desire, or discipline. For that, I need something new. Ho hum, what will it be?

I'm definitely a gardener. It was my saving grace while trying to deal with N's stuff this year. I went to my little 15" x 20" enclosure, gardened for an hour or so, then called her and let her say horrible stuff to me, while I kept my hands in the soil or on the leaves. I'm getting better at setting boundaries. I'm getting better at respecting them. I'm getting better at letting go, and asking my mind to calm down.

I became quite a bit closer to SP and her friends, finally allowing myself to participate in that community. It's still hard for me, and I still need lots of space, but I reckon it's been healthy. We've camped, barbequed, partied, sung, played games, shared artwork, squabbled, traveled, and supported each other. I can't think of any real drama. Only good shared moments.

I've made friends with several of my work colleagues and I like them. Very much so.

MH has to be one of my favorite people (I have many favorites, and she is one of them). I was talking to N about her, and NM suggested that she was very much my "kindred spirit," and I knew she was right. N said, "It must be nice because I don't think you have many of those, other than Ellen." I suddenly was worried about whether she was feeling left out or jealous, so said I thought maybe we were too, and she said, "Really?" in such a way as I had to think about it. Then I realized that sometimes friends, even best friends, aren't "kindred spirits" and that doesn't mean we don't love each other, but that finding a kindred is special and different. I think N is right -- she is a best friend, but sometimes we have to struggle to understand and be patient with each other. She drives me bonkers, but she also respects me. I think sometimes she idealizes me, and that can be uncomfortable. She also wants to talk to me too much.

With MH, we are silent much of the time. Mostly, we go on hikes. Here's the one we went on yesterday:

We took a hike up to Fragrance Lake and then ducked around to see Lost Lake as well. It was a long hike and I'm quite sore today. When Herald got home last night at 6:30, he sacked out, and barely could wake himself up in the morning. But it was incredible - started snowing after an hour, first with a thick hail-like snow, then with gentle tufts. After it did that for about an hour, the clouds cleared and there was blue sky for the first time in forever, with thin clouds shuttling through it. As you might imagine, it was cold but we had both dressed perfectly for it and so didn't have to shed clothes nor whine about being too cold. Herald and Lucy (her dog) ran and ran, growled and gambled, showed off and protected. I knew it was cutting things pretty close to add the Lost Lake trail to the Fragrance lake trail, but MH had never been there, so we had to go.

I was startled to realize the last time I had taken that trail was with SS, and that time, we'd decided to take a 'shortcut' and ended up walking miles and miles, so far in fact that once we hit a logging road, the dog we had with us simply sat down and refused to move. It was nice walking with MH in the winter and remember walking with SS during that long-ago summer.

So, we added the 5 miles (there and back to the other trail) and sure enough, just as we finished the main ascent back from Lost Lake to the Chuckanut Ridge, we hit the sunset.

Perfect, right? And then we walked back home in the dark, our feet aching, the dogs subdued, the night quiet and cold and embracing. I haven't had a night walk in too long...

Anyhow, not to say that MH and I don't talk at all, but we do frequently alternate in comfortable silence. And we don't know each other super-well, so there's lots to discover, like, for instance, the discussion about how she would become super-enraged when her family members let branches flip back at her as they walked through them. We discussed whether she would become super-enraged with me if I did the same, which we decided up on as a negative since we didn't have the "long complicated history." Shortly after that was decided upon, I accidentally let a pine branch flip back at her, and she had a laugh while I waited to examine her fury, which never arrived. I decided I can't imagine her angry, but I can believe it.

Sometimes NM and I are quiet as well, but either we're filling that silence with grading or more frequently, sad thoughts. I can tell; I know both of us well enough to know that our silences with each other are often not as productively spent as they could be. N came up here just after Christmas, and she is still chasing emotions between sadness, fear, and anger. I think it's catching up with her that her g-friend acted like a git, but I still can't figure out how much she's re-writing her experience, and how much is what she is simply remembering and seeing anew. Dealing with memory is strange like that. And she hashes over much of that thought with me, and sometimes that hashes up thoughts in me that I don't want brought back anymore. That's a difference between friends you've known for years--over 8 years for NM now--and those you've just met. Both silence and discussion is quantitatively different with MH than with NM.

So, it's nice to have so many different types of friends. And strange.

I was a bridesperson! That was pretty darn significant. It was.

I realized I like being friends with people. I like my friends and who they are, and I like myself and being by myself. I like being liked as I am by my friends who I like as they are. Especially this winter month, I feel the world circling around me and liking me, me liking it back, it liking me liking it back and liking my friends who like me as I am just as I like them for who they are, and even liking the idea of liking things. I've received the right kind of love lately.

Okay, this doesn't really fit under realizations of the year, but I went down to Portland recently. I stayed with AKR and her partner and their cute dog Charlie, and I visited my sister's best friends, who have a newborn baby, along the way, and then I also visited with SS, her husband, and their two babies.

I was in a touch of a panic about the trip because I wanted to see SS before she left the country, but we haven't been in touch for awhile. She's been really busy with motherhood and moving, but also some distance has grown between us as friends (and former partners) for whatever reason. Our last visit was distant and polite and broke my heart a bit. So, I wanted to see her, but I didn't want my heart broken even a bit. So, I begged SP to come with me, thinking that having someone with me might help everyone feel more comfortable. And it did, I think. Or at least it made me feel more comfortable.

It was a really big deal for me to ask SP for this. I have a hard time asking for favors for fear of the strings that are often attached. But I think this was worth accepting a bit of string.

And it was an excellent trip with SP, and we only squabbled once. Seeing SS, her husband and kids was sweet and pleasurable, though hurried: we swam together and also visited a bookstore, where her older boy read a book to me and ate chocolate pastries from my fingers. Seeing AKR and her partner was great; we had Cajun food and then played Apples to Apples together while sipping beer and wine. Seeing my sister's best friends was splendid (I forgot how much I like Olympia and holding babies!). Sometimes trips aren't messy and frenzied; sometimes they are smooth and svelte.

Christmas was good... although it was hard not having my sister and Pedro. I can't help thinking of the alcohol-induced brawl I had with Pedro two Christmases ago and looking forward to the future Christmas when we can regard it with amused nostalgia and chagrin. It was pretty bad, but completely ridiculous and nonsensical as far as family fights go. As NM once again (for the fourth Xmas in a row) had a nasty fight with her brother, and SP had a cruel mashup with her family... one has to reflect on how lucky I've had it. And how much I love having the whole crew together. Which this year meant SP and NM coming down after Christmas morning. And hopefully next year will involve a happy and adorable sibling and sibling-in-law.

To end this, I will tell you of the embarrassing thing my father has done for two Christmases in a row, which I just found out about. Apparently he gives my mother's partner CR some cheap Irish whiskey each year, which CR is okay about. But he puts it in a fine scotch box before gifting. The first time, he didn't tell CR this; just let him pull the cheap whiskey out of the fine scotch box and be surprised. This second time, he let him know it wasn't "the same as the box." But then he spent all evening drinking CR's fine scotch, until it was gone the next day. Apparently, he prefers the expensive stuff hisself.

What a douche.

AND also, I got the cutest book from my god-daughter - one of those digital photos albums... Weird how fast children grow up! From beautiful babies to beautiful children! Weird how many friends have babies these days! December O' Babies and Baby Sadness. January O' Creative Writing. I will have to think of new resolutions and nomers for the coming year.

grading, check; writing, check; reading, check; enough time, no check

2010-12-16T17:11:00.000-08:00

So glad to be done grading. So very glad. Though it happened on Monday, fairly early into the day, I am still very, very glad. I need to get one student's comments back by tomorrow, but other than that, I am on to planning the new class, which I feel slightly panicked about. Last night, in fact, I dreamt about teaching said creative writing class, and it was a bit of a mess. I only pulled my way out of it by clowning around.

Do any of you know of a good essay or small book about how to read as a writer? I.e. how to read with an eye to craft?

Okay. Nuff of that. I've experienced a bit of a crisis about my spider book and realized that maybe it's not the book I should be shooting to finish by February. The story of my life, right? One project to the other to the other, never finishing any of them. But the spider book wasn't feeling right, and I have to say maybe it's not the kind of nonfiction I can write. How is it possible to write about my thoughts on friendship, community, and interconnectivity without talking about my experience, which I don't want to talk about? Every time I start talking about my experience it starts sounds whiny, but that's not the point... the point(s) are the thoughts that experience has produced, but I can't get there without talking about the experience, which then starts to sound whiny, and so it's this big circle. What is it about creative writing that makes it so damn hard to discuss things? All that show show show the story (and pretty precise lovely language) stuff getting in the way.

So, in my frustration, I swapped back to the short story I've been working on as an alternate piece, and suddenly I realized that it was good. It's maybe only a third done, but it is good, and has direction. When I get going in the wrong direction on it, I just back up and start over where it got bad, and slowly bit by bit, this has been working for me. Funny thing is that I think it's about some of the same issues I am working on in the nonfiction piece, though not all of them, and it's covering them more adroitly than the nonfiction... through someone else's eyes, and experience, I guess.

And the nonfiction was making me sad. And I don't want to be sad. So... I think I'm going to swap back to the short stories for awhile and just try to trust myself on them. My voice is changing in my writing and it feels a little, hmmmm, bulky. But I like it too.

Everything else is going okay, but I wish WA wasn't on the quarter system; two weeks between quarters just isn't enough time to prep, get some of my work done, visit friends, and go through the holidays. Not to mention resting.

I've been spending more time with SP, which is always good but still confusing. We have certain things worked out, like we're not an exclusive couple, but other things not worked out, like how precisely we feel about each other. See, I decided a while back that I'd been shown enough of the ways that romantic love can fail and/or can damage the crap out of you, but that I really need to keep myself open to what romantic love can still teach me, regardless of what that might be. So, I feel open, but I don't feel directed like I used to... like I'm not sure whether it's going to ebb errr... flow; that I don't even know what love is, what it's capable of; and that all I really understand is that it's not what I used to think. Like I was wiped free of any preconceptions of romantic love, and all the Cinderella stories disappeared, and all the Beauty and the Beast stories disappeared, and all the round, fat little hearts with their chocolate bubbly centers disappeared, and in their place is just a quiet little blank spot.

SP has had a hard time with me, I think, for this reason; she sees that spot differently than I do, and I have a hard time recognizing whether what she sees is what I want, whether it is even realistic, how it coincides with what I feel, etc. I remember too how multiple people (ex's predominately) have told me that I was closed to love, and that I would end up alone and bitter because of it. But I feel open, just not sure like other people seem to be. If I don't see commitment with people who do see commitment, does that make me closed? Anyhow. Right now, I try to just enjoy the time, see SP and myself for who we are, and not push and prod, or even resist, the future.

And I've been feeling restless again. Like I ought to be applying for other jobs outside of Bville... that it is time for me to look away, and that maybe I don't need the safety I sought here. It was strange, but I moved and moved and went here and there, by myself finally, and tackled everything on my own, bravely. And then I just felt like I needed refuge. Stability. Not having to scrape and scrape just to keep going, although I do recognize that is what everyone (but the rich) does. And now, I might be ready to scrape and scrape again. Not right away, but maybe in another year. So... time to start looking where to go, what to do.

That's about it. Other than that I'm fit to be tied with NM again. It's impossible to talk to someone who is just day by day holding on about how she is driving you absolutely up the friggin' wall. But I need to say something, just don't know how. Sigh. Friendship shmendship.

Okay. I promised myself some write time before I go have dinner with my father, so off I go.

more luminarius

2010-12-16T16:47:00.001-08:00

This immature specimen of the Luminarius spectatorina was photographically recorded in 1963 by a Japanese tourist walking along the coast of Wales. She told authorities that it didn't move "until she kicked it" and then it curled around her so quickly "she lost her brain pebbles." When she came to, it was nowhere to be seen and she had small puncture wounds along the back of her knees. These were inspected at the local hospital by one Dr. Sneville, who called in the locally-renown psychozoologist Dr. Breton to take a second look.

Dr. Breton reputedly became very excited, although neither she nor the medical doctor could locate anything untoward about the puncture wounds, other than that there were seventy-three of them, measuring .5 mm in length and .23 mm in width, and every last one of them was located on the back of the knees only. Dr. Breton asked the Japanese tourist to stay in contact and notify her if anything further occured, which the tourist did. Unfortunately when Breton returned her call, the tourist had already succumbed to what her family reported as "pulsing lights inside her veins." Breton is still unclear what this means, though she has several theories.

2010-12-11T17:53:00.001-08:00

Seeing faces in windows today. Strangeness and grading. I'll be happy when Monday is gone and I can contemplate what next. In the meantime, I'm balancing between grading, movie-watching, cuddling, and making wry faces at my dog. (He makes wry faces back).