the_lovely_whackjob

good things

2009-12-09T19:17:00.000-08:00

1. cowboy boots
2. this weather
3. a God who doesn't play favorites
4. clean sheets
5. fresh paint
6. HGTV
7. my Canon
8. spanish
9. good books
10. daisy mae
11. going home
12. holga cameras
13. jazz
14. scarves
15. waking up early
16. getting off work
17. texts from my brother
18. daydreaming about Argentina
19. twitter
20. following people's blogs
21. jimmy johns'
22. presents
23. the Pink Panther
24. hy-vee chinese
25. good conversation
26. school supplies
27. Christmas
28. cherry pepsi
29. my bed at school
30. joel stein's columns
31. breakfast
32. the feeling after a good run
33. making crepes
34. gerbera daisies
35. cherry bon-bon mochas
36. e-mails
37. improv
38. iowa
39. learning new songs on the guitar
40. taking pictures
41. making people laugh
42. swingsets
43. perfume
44. thinking about the things that were
45. thinking about the things that will be
46. napping on the floor
47. being quiet
48. finding beauty
49. art
50. ideas

La Vida Es Asi

2009-09-04T15:49:00.001-07:00

This is one of the lonely days they told me I wouldn't notice. But after the third meal alone, I'm beginning to. A boy was exiting the cafeteria just as I was entering. Before I got to the door though, he said, "Just because you're pretty, I'll hold the door for you" and held it open as I walked in. I wanted to cry, partly because I couldn't believe was serious, and partly because I haven't been told that since, well, almost six months ago. Of course, someone's being pretty is a miserable reason to hold the door or do anything else for them, but it ticked me off how long I thought about what he'd said. Did he mean it? Why did it matter?

Physical attractiveness is the most arbitrary thing in the world. I know that. And as I've said before, there is beauty in everyone that comes from the life within them. And I believe that when you love someone, you find them more and more attractive, the more you know them. The concept of loving someone for their body is incomprehensible to me. I've fallen for numerous minds, one heart--and physical attraction just followed. It was never a starting point. So there is beauty that comes from existence, from being human, and beauty from loving and being loved. And the rest is just fluff. So why do I crave compliments on it?

Maybe I just crave compliments, generally. Or conversation. Is this not my whiniest post yet? I guess I thought friends would just kind of happen in college like they just kind of happened in high school. Then they didn't, and I told myself they would happen when classes started. That was two weeks ago, and nothing. I'm not sure what to tell myself, now. A piece of me wants to absolutely panic, but at the same time I want to reassure myself, tell myself it will come in time. It's not that there aren't any friendly people here--practically everyone is friendly. But when I meet someone I'd like to be friends with, it's usually by chance, and I have no idea how to find them again. My mom says a lot of this is that I'm not taking many typical "freshman" classes. Any gen eds I didn't clep or get AP credit for (like theology, for which there isn't a clep test) are combined into one class for me, since I'm in the honors program. So honors and the 8-week joke called freshman seminar are the only strictly freshman classes I have.

I am of course trying to make it sound like none of this is my fault. It definitely is. That's one thing we're learning in freshman seminar: take responsibility. And when something good happens, you can bet I will.

the room!

2009-08-23T08:20:00.000-07:00

Lovely goes to college

2009-08-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

I am here! I've been avoiding my blog because it seemed there was so little to say, only to sit down and realize I had too much to even begin to talk about.

I said earlier that we'd come down and filled up my closet and made my bed the night before everyone else was to arrive on campus. Yesterday we went early to get some carpet from an area Lowe's, which was carried up to my second floor room by two kind ROTC guys, who somehow managed to get it under the furniture, which was unquestionably staying inside the room. (I sort of think they placed the furniture before they built the rooms and doorframes themselves, not unlike those ships you see in the bottles). My roommate came a few hours later, and we got the beds lofted and everything arranged before she moved up all her stuff. Then it was time for a late lunch and then back to the ranch to keep organizing.

And finally, it was all done. Absolutely done. Some people were still moving in, but we were frames-on-the-walls, Spanish-Bible-on-the-desk, guiltar-in-the-closet done, beanie-baby-on-the-bed done. My parents and Nate left, and I sat down on my beautifully made bed and wondered what in the world I was supposed to do next.

Facebook, obviously. But no one was really on, so when two girls popped their heads in and expressed warmest admiration for the decorating of our room, I greeted them and asked to tag along on their tour of the dorm. "Just like window shopping," we agreed as we walked from door to door, knocking on the ones that were ajar and introducing ourselves to the girls who answered. I will never remember all those names, but it was good for me.

At eleven was a dorm worship service in the lobby, which was absolutely beautiful. It was just piano and 150 girls singing out to God. I had dreaded going (I was exhausted and would've preferred to be in bed by nine) but God was there, and there was just a sort of peace that fell over the whole place as we sang. I needed that.

The first night wasn't bad, although it took me awhile to get used to the constant flushing of toilets and people talking. I concentrated on the sound of the air conditioner running, though, and was fine.

And then it was morning! I set my alarm for 8:40, figuring that would give me plenty of time before church at 10:30, but ended up waking up much earlier. When I said this room is the sunniest on campus, I meant it. I loved waking up gently to the natural light flooding in through the closed blinds. I'm going to savor it for as long as I can.

And now I supposed there's little else to do except...PICTURES!

2009-08-22T06:37:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on the white hotel bed, waiting for my little brother to get out of the shower. My parents are out, buying carpet with my debit card, and I have a minute to try to wrap my head around the idea of it's being TODAY. We were able to get into my dorm last night, and unpacked the entire trunk before midnight. We didn't do any actual arranging of furniture; just filled the closet and made the bed and threw some stuff onto the desk, but it made me feel a whole lot better.

Today the sun is out, just like I've been praying. Because Gothic conventions seem to apply to my life as well as 18th century literature, I knew that I could never make it in the event of rain. But even with the sun pushing down and in from behind the closed curtains, I know it's going to be weird.

In second year they told us that dreaming in Spanish was a sign that it was all coming together.

2009-06-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

Dreaming in Chinese, however--that just means you're pretty much LOSING IT.

And that's exactly what I did two nights ago. I'm not sure whether to brag about this--Chinese dreams after only one year!!--or keep it to myself, for essentially the reason listed above. Oh well.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Goldfish

2009-06-01T10:59:00.000-07:00

I've found myself wanting to write things of a more and more personal nature on this blog. I want to write them so that they may be read, and, in being read, validated. I suppose I simply wish to be known. But the only way for this validation of sorts to occur is for people to actually read the blog, which is not common. I have about two hundred thank you cards to write at the moment, and briefly considered slipping a card with the address into each one. But there's a give and take here, too--one I've struggled with before: each additional reader is an additional person I cannot write about. And there's nothing more interesting to write about than people. Nothing funnier, either.

Speaking of funny, I had planned on watching Pink Panther again this afternoon. It seemed like a good routine, watching a movie every afternoon while writing thank you cards. Nearly on par with the Eat a Huge Slice of Chocolate Graduation Cake Outside in the Rain and Call it Breakfast routine, which was thrown off this morning by a lack of rain and the rush necessitated by a nine am doctor's appointment. There is always tomorrow.

When I started this post yesterday, it was much more centered, I promise. I got distracted, however, looking for my poor phone, which has been lost five days now. My phone is of course lost multiple times each week, but never before for this long, and I am beginning to worry. The act of calling myself, though, and hearing my own voice pick up and tell me to leave a message, caught me off guard. I was tempted to leave one--"Hey, Jobs. It's me. Just wondering where you've been the last few days. Go ahead and call me back when you get the chance. Bye." I wouldn't let myself do it, though, just in case someone found the phone and happened to listen to go through my voice messages. But the concept was inspiring, and I ended up writing a long, tearful letter to myself. Oh, summer. I would say I need to get a job, but I have one.

Maybe a little structure, at least. I think it'd be a good idea to start walking, or something, as well. To balance out the cake at breakfast. And sometime this summer, I want to take a morning pottery class. I'm not an explicit morning or night person--I am a flexible person--but I hate the feeling of sleeping in, and it feels like I've been doing a lot of that lately. Which is almost understandable, for someone who has begun to establish another routine of staying up till two listening to jazz and doing paper mache.

And so--to non-decopaged fingers and leftover cake!

Goodnight.

The Search

2009-05-09T08:53:00.000-07:00

I bought the book Into the Wild last winter for a friend for Christmas, peeked at it over a glass of water and chocolate chips, and was immediately enamored. I read that book constantly, trying to finish it before I had to give it to him. It was kind of an afterthought, the book--I'd already bought his present, but had seen someone reading the book, thought of him, and found myself at Barnes and Nobles two hours later--so I didn't have much time. I was literally reading it until the moment I stuck the last piece of tape on the red wrapping paper. It was so good.

I am a bit of a hypochondriac. If someone has a headache and says so, I have one, too. I like to think of it as a very keen sense of empathy, but I deep down I know it's just me being pathetic. When I read about the "call of the west," I could literally feel my heart going out, too. The book was messing with my mind, and monumentally. It drove me nuts not being able to talk to Paul about it-- secrets make me miserable. And they made him miserable, too.

"Can I just have a clue?" he begged.

"Alright. It will make you...itchy."

"Itchy?"

"Yes."

"Then I know where I'll open it!"

"Where?"

"Over your bed!"

But it wasn't that kind of itch. I've heard of people getting itchy feet, needing to move, to travel. It was my mind that had begun to itch. The book is essentially a biography about a boy named Alex who in the sixties decided to give away all his money, abandon his car, and head for Alaska. He dies. But the story in between leaving and being found by moose hunters in an abandoned bus is absolutely wonderful. Along with Alex's tale, though, the author threads a few stories of other explorers, revolutionaries, and whackjobs with similar aspirations--and endings--throughout. One in particular resonated with me. It was about a man who'd killed himself on a search for beauty. He was a beauty-seeker, and this reckless love eventually found him dead on a mountain. And it was then I realized--my life has been a search for beauty, too. And moreover, a search for truth.

And what better time to contemplate the differences between the two than summer, when beauty and deception mix fluidly as money and spray tans. What is beauty? The man in the book found beauty in nature--indeed, most of the people mentioned seemed to have found little time for sex, having found something so much higher--but certainly there is beauty in people, too. But where is it?

I was distressed to hear a boy in my government class say that adolescence was the only time a person was attractive, using this as an argument for tanning, despite the risks. "You only look good once!" he said. "After twenty, you know--it's all down from here. May as well look good while you can!"

I don't say much in government (what is left to be said?) but I turned on him now. "You don't think that people are beautiful, simply because they're people?" I asked. "You don't think that people in their seventies are beautiful, just because they're breathing?" He looked at me strangely. I couldn't stop myself, now, though. "I'm astounded everyday how gorgeous people are, just because they're alive. Life is beauty." I was getting awkwardly passionate, so another boy--one I'd thought to be more mature than this--came to his friend's defense. "Well, technically yes, but...."

But what? There is truth in age, truth in nature, truth in wrinkles and unwashed hair. When I was in Peru, I saw truth everywhere-- and beauty was always with it. There was beauty in the children, who had no shoes, beauty in the eyes of their mothers as they watched them play. More often than not it was a painful beauty. But it was beauty nonetheless, because it was simple, genuine, raw and real.

That's what I've been realizing lately. Truth is beauty. Real beauty is truth. And I'll be searching for both the rest of my life.

Stewing

2009-04-21T12:58:00.001-07:00

So I realized that this blog has been in existence for about a year now, and there are a total of sixty posts. (sixty-one, after I publish this). I'm not sure exactly where to go with this. One year, sixty posts-- it is either a huge accomplishment or the biggest embarrassment since the realization no one actually reads it.

Sixty posts, twelve months...it averages out to five posts a month. Which averages out to about a post a week. Which is okay, right?

If I actually did a post a week. The initial days of thrice-a-week posting admittedly do bring up the numbers quite deceivingly. Maybe if I promise to do better? Although I've tried that. Ah, well. Lo que sera, sera.

At any rate, it seemed unfair to let the date pass without some sort of commemoration, so--

Happy Birthday, Lovely.

Lovely goes to San Francisco

2009-04-14T17:07:00.000-07:00

the lovely whackjob

2009-04-13T19:44:00.000-07:00

2009-04-08T05:36:00.001-07:00

A certain sense of entitlement
whose source or validity I've never questioned
Perhaps it's a uniquely American feeling
the idea that we deserve for things to all work out
life, liberty, and a guaranteed happy ending
that I deserve to be always happy
that something must be wrong when I'm not
Or perhaps its developed from presidence
Spring will come because it always has before
and indeed--
here it is again

Hace un ano...

2009-03-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

No tengo que trabajar esta noche! Tengo que comparar un regalo para Paul--hoy es nuestro aniversario (un ano juntos). Me parece increible--un ano. Tanto ha pasado, y me siento tanta mayor. Recuerdo quien era hace un ano...estaba tan emocionada. Nunca habia tenido novio antes. He aprendido tanto el ano pasado: del amor, cierto, pero mas de la amistad.

En Paul, encontre un mejor amigo-- algo que no habia tenido hace mucho tiempo. Era la primavera cuando nos conecimos. Nos gustaba helado y caminar por el parque, y peliculas de Disney.

No era cierto si el se quedara aqui; su familia esaba aqui para el empleo de su padre, pero el trabjo era solamente para un ano. Recuerdo el miedo-- no queria perderle. Era dia maravilloso cuando decidio asistir a una universidad en mi ciudad.

Y ahora, estamos aqui, un ano mas tarde. No se lo que pasara el ano proximo, pero para hoy, estoy contenta.

La primavera ha venido otra vez, y para hoy, soy solo una chiquita enamorada.

2009-03-16T14:25:00.000-07:00

Disaffection

2009-03-07T17:24:00.000-08:00

Having finally exhausted about every webpage containing the words "El Bolson, Argentina," I resorted this afternoon to creeping Joel Stein.

Stein is the lucky guy who is paid, as he bragged last month, to write a weekly column about himself in a news magazine. It was in Time (namely, The Awesome Column) in which I first encountered his witty, embarrassingly egotistical prose. I was in love at once. In love, and not a little jealous.

A whole column in a prestigious publication in which to ramble on about his high school SAT score, his consultations with a psychic, and potential names for a child he doesn't have. It was no fair. I could do that.

I want his job.

The more of his work I read though (online, at his website, http://www.thejoelstein.com/), the more I realized that while I'd love his job, I'd hate his life.

Stein has described his career as a desperate search for attention, and after reading about six of the essays posted online (the site is intended to one day be a complete collection of his work (as a resource for the "many of you who are probably writing a PhD dissertation about me," as his introduction states), I was convinced of this being true. His immense egotism, while appreciable in the weekly doses from Time, does begin to grate when read in bulk, and quickly.

It seems he was recently married, too...I cannot imagine. If his self-centeredness wasn't enough, one would think his frequent and entirely unabashed mention of his porn addiction would be an acceptable red flag.

So while the I remain slightly envious, I suppose I can excuse his having a great job, while I'm still stocking Yoplait and Charmin at six am. Because The Awesome Column might be the only part of his life worth being proud of.

Valentines and Influenza A

2009-02-14T16:15:00.000-08:00

The title really basically says it all, although it omits the fact that the latter overrides the former. But anyone in my situation would know that.

Yes. Influenza A. This would be Day 4, I think. Although the two days preceeding Day 1 weren't great, either--I'm just hesitant to lump them with the Influenza count, as the symptoms were fairly different.

(As an aside, isn't it strange how sickness brings out the blogger in me? This malnourished blog might starve straight to death if good health was any more persistent).

So today has been spent mostly in cleaning my room, lamenting that I was not able to make it to Paul's swim meet. I feel about awful about that.

And cleaning did not help much. While cleaning, I had a series of self-esteem destroying revelations. They are:

1. I have a lot of stuff.

2. I need to take better care of my stuff.

I have to admit: while the economy has been very ugly for many people, it's been very, very kind to me. This hourly just got a quarter raise last week, to pad an already ridiculous salary. And while I do think I spend a fair amount of it on worthy things, today, going through my clothes and everything, I was disgusted with how much I spend on me.

I may decry yuppie values in public, but I have a pretty yuppie closet.

My free spending isn't honoring to God, and my current habits won't do me any good when I get to college, either. I'm still not quite sure what I want to do about this. Obviously, keep better track of my finances, and try to put more thought into my purchases. Learn to wait to buy things.

What I'm thinking is this: a two-month spending freeze on anything for myself. This means I can still run out and buy flowers for my mom or grandmother when she's sick, or randomly pick up some Wisconsin beefsticks for Nate on the way out of work. When I finally get better, I can go and buy the Valentine's Day present I picked out for Paul on the Internet. I just can't randomly buy anything for myself.

As for the second revelation, it will just be a matter of effort. If I can make what I have last longer, I can cut back even more on buying new things. I don't want to be a materialist. It kills me that I've gotten this close. God doesn't give us resources to keep to ourselves; I feel as if I've broken trust with Him by spending so much on myself. I'm currently sponsoring a little girl in Peru, but now I'm wondering about taking on another.

Ugh, days when you hate who you are. Paul says he doesn't have them. That sounds nice, but I'm kind of glad I do. Change rarely occurs without some prior agitation, and it seems like I've experienced a lot of that lately.

Happy Valenine's Day!

Sunshine and Ravioli

2009-01-15T10:14:00.000-08:00

The holidays are over, leaving in their wake a pressing sense of quiet doom. The holidays are over, and everyone is going away again.

Right now I'm cheering myself up listening to Louis Prima singing scat in "Pennies From Heaven," which is such a fun song. I got my first iTunes giftcard this Christmas, and decided that Tuesday was as good as any to sit down and figure out how to use it. I bought Prima's "Pennies from Heaven" and "The Bigger the Figure" first, because I'd fallen in love with both watching Igor. Then I bought a dirty Spanish song. It was an accident; iTunes only gives a thirty-second clip of each song, and when I googled the words I'd caught from the thirty seconds to find the lyrics, a different song came up. The lyrics the site gave me were fine, but ultimately totally different from the ones of the song I bought. It's pretty unfortunate, because it had a really great sound, sort of like Chicago or Huey Louis and the News in Spanish.

Of course I also bought "Hey There Delilah", and cried through it as always. I am going to be such a wreck next year.

The song has changed, now, leaving this good mood entirely unsupported. I had a nightmare a few weeks ago that I knew everyone at college. At least we know that will not happen. I dread being lonely, but I am terrified of being anything else. I've been told there will be plenty of lonely times, but that I should be fine because my personality is such that I probably won't notice. Very funny.

So much I am going to miss. I am trying to rally at least a little excitement by filling up a box downstairs with new things for my dorm that I don't get to touch until next year. So far I have a toaster, a little magnetic picture frame, and a string of Chinese box lights. Which are pretty fabulous, but, I predict, will of be of little actual consolation when the time comes.

More from Oedipus

2008-12-17T20:09:00.000-08:00

Sorrows in a legion,
Sorrows none can cipher.
No shaft of wit or weapon
For a people stricken.
Shriveled soil and shrinking
Wombs in childbirth shrieking.
Soul after soul like fire
Beats, beats upward, soaring
To the god of the setting sun.

You see, I have this tragic flaw...

2008-12-09T11:05:00.000-08:00

I read recently in some book about old dogs that humans are the only species that see themselves as the hapless hero in the grand and fateful epic of thier own lives. Whether or not this is true I really have no idea. But it seemed like a good intro at the time.

Actually, my own expirience would lead me to believe the contrary-- if my two dogs do not see themselves as the heros, saviors, and main characters in some kind of melodrama, they have fooled me. Such self-centered creatures. But perhaps at seven they are not old enough. I do not recall any of the giving, beautiful dogs venerated in the book being under ten. Perhaps there is time for a change of heart yet.

But back to the hero typing this post. Greek tragedgies always ended with the downfall of the main character, as well as his wife, his children, his children's children, their children, and the guy who owned the little grocery down the street where the hero once bought his Thanksgiving turkey. The downfall was inevitable and expected. However, for purposes of keeping the audience in at least a little bit of suspense, the Greeks came up with a few twists on the huge, great downfall. Of course, the downfall always came (couldn't let the play end happily or anything), but there was now a total of three different reasons why.

1. The unthrawtability of destiny
2. The terrible and irreversible misjudgement made by the hero
3. The TRAGIC FLAW

This being Thanksgiving...

2008-11-26T21:34:00.000-08:00

Lately I have taken strangely to lists-- a development in entire contradiction to my personality, but somehow appreciable nonetheless.

stream of boredom

2008-11-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

The jazz coming out of my CD player cannot be labeled as anything but...happy. This is obviously a mistake of gargantuan proportions.

Who listens to jazz when they want to feel happy? But how was I supposed to know the temptingly-priced Miles Davis "Jazz Autobiography" would be such an upper? Being the proudest of cheapscapes, I couldn't resist the price tag. That's what I am: a $4.99 enthusiast. And so now, when all I really want to do is settle down into the melancholy and the cold comfort of my neglected and deservedly under-read blog, I have to put up with pick-me-up jazz tunes. Lovely.

The whole day has been lovely. The whole week, in fact. Monday I went into the hospital for surgery to remove a lump on my butt. In addition to the preceeding discomfort involved with asking time off for an obscure and unmentionable procedure, you can imagine the complications following the actual surgery. Although thankfully I will be able to use a chair at the dinner table on Thanksgiving, leaning from one cheek to the other gets annoying, as does popping Tylenol every four hours.

My entire room reeks from my last attempt at relieving the all-pervasive boredom that comes three days after surgery with nothing to do but lean: Mod-Podge. And though it kept me occupied for some time, I must confess myself generally disappointed with the product.

Exhausted with my peeling fingers and sketchy-looking projects, I turned on the jazz and the computer. So here we sit....

The week, though, has not be without its compensations, despite the lethergy now descending. And it is getting late. Monday, after the surgery and a long, anesthesia-induced nap, brought a box of sixteen chocolate-covered cherries from Grandma, as well as a soundtrack to entertain the invalid from my aunt and cousin. Tuesday brought Paul, all sweetness with two huge containers of Edy's ice cream, and roses. He is the best. How I got so lucky, I will never know. Well, that's not exactly true. As Dad says, they'd been praying for him for a long time. Paul was God's idea. Still, I can't believe how happy he makes me.

Cracked Eggs, Crackpots, and things like Pork Patties

2008-08-21T17:19:00.001-07:00

Cracked Eggs, Crackpots, and things like Pork Patties

2008-08-21T17:19:00.000-07:00

2008-08-21T07:39:00.001-07:00

This is one of those strange, unnerving moments when I realize with a jolt that I haven't said a word out loud in hours. My mind has been spinning away, as always-- mentally drafting this post to you, my lovely non-existent readers, having conversations with itself, replaying work last night at work-- but I haven't actually spoken to anybody. I've always been the type of person who can handle, even appreciate, long spaces of time spent in solitude. I think the reason for this is that I never actually feel alone.

I've had a couple lightening-bolt experiences this week. One is the realization that not all people think like me. By this, I of course do not mean that I have just now realized other people hold different opinions (No, I found that out years ago when I wore the Bush shirt my mom had bought me to school), but that the way they process things, they way their minds work, is different.

In my head, I am continually writing. Since perhaps age eight, there has always been a story being unwrapped, revised, and rewritten in my mind. It is my story, and I will be working on it until the day I die. It has always been like this, and I can't imagine life without it. I was rattling on to Mom about it the other day, assuming she knew what I meant because she is a writer too, and therefore had probably always had her own story going. She just gave me this confused look. "What?" I asked. "You're not writing all the time? What's going on, then? What do you think about?"

I was feeling sorry for the math types at the time of our conversation, particularly my boyfriend, and counting on Mom to join my little pity party for all the physics majors who were born and would die without a story. I had never imagined she could be grouped with them.

"I always have a conversation going," she replied.
"A conversation?" I questioned. "With who? Yourself?" I started sniggering.
"Ah, you know. Invisible friends. Bob, Charlie. No! Just a conversation. I'm always strategizing about what I'm going to do next, and how people will react to it."
"Oh. Well, what do the poor math people have, if they don't have a story or a conversation? I can't imagine just having plain thoughts. How depressing!"
"Maybe they always have an equation going," she suggested. "Maybe they're always thinking about time and miles per gallon and what percent of the workout they've completed on the treadmill."
"Oh," I said.

Still, I wouldn't want to go through life with only an equation when I'm all alone. I can't imagine they make very good company.

Of fall

2008-08-08T19:50:00.000-07:00

But if I can't have summer, I'll take fall. Fall is good, too. A good time for setting new goals, new routines, thinking new thoughts and becoming a new person. Fall is also a good time for trench coats. I have just purchased another one, this one an amazing shade of red, to my mother's disaproving lack of surprise. "How many trench coats do you have now?" She demanded as I handed it to the cashieer. "Like, four?"
"No, Mom, I have two. Two."

It will also be nice to wear jeans again without enduring the predictable summer criticisms to the tune of-- "Man, you're wearing jeans again today? How can you stand it? It's like 90 degrees out. You look so hot. Wait. I mean, not like that!!"

And I haggled for an amazing scarf and matching gloves in Peru, which I am also extremely excited to wear.

Peru... I can't say I don't miss it. Isn't that strange? I miss my roommates and Spanish the most. I find myself talking to the dogs almost exclusively in Spanish, poor things. But nobody else wants to hear it. Part of me feels like there wasn't enough closure to it. My personality is the type that (pathetic as it may be) would honestly have benefitted from a full-flege debreifing, but there wasn't anything. We got back to Miami, and I went to bed without saying goodbye to anyone. The plane ride from South America had been unimaginably bad. Standing in line at customs once back in the States was a nightmare, as I continued to hold my head, trying to keep it from exploding. The feeling didn't let up for at least twelve hours, and one ear remained disabled for a few days. Add to that the stomache that had been lurking around the entire trip... I honestly thought I was going to die. But I made it back in once piece and, miraculously enough, still recieve e-mails from team, despite my shamefully antisocial behavior that last night.

Another part of my personality is this nagging feeling that there can be no closure to Peru until I've written it out of my system. And I of course know this is true. I wonder when this dependency formed, when writing became my first and only coping mechanism. I knew in Peru how important it would be to trudge through everything little by little, instead of letting it pile up, and I wrote faithfully each day, either to Paul or just myself. I haven't had the energy to go back through my notes yet, let alone post them here, but I'm hoping that someday soon I will.

So fall will be nice, and if not nice, at least good for me. In summer, it's easy for me to slip into a certain oblivion, to become comfortable on my own and intentionally avoid places where I might happen to see someone I know. Fall pushes me back into society, no matter how much I kick and scream. It'll also get me into a schedule, which I think I will appreciate. And there's nothing like that first cup of hot, homebrewed coffee. Ah, the smell of predictability and crunchy leaves. I can't wait.

Of summer

2008-08-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

This might be the shortest summer yet. Peru was amazing, but it wrecked my entire sense of time. Usually by the time we hit August there's something inside telling you summer is almost over, some little time gague that has been slowly filling up since June. Peru shattered the said time gague, into which late mornings and sunny afternoons have traditionally slid so easily. But two weeks in Peru was two weeks of winter and clouds. It's tricky. The annual fireworks, too, are always a hallmark of the beginning of the end for summer, but for me, the fourth of July passed quickly and largely unnoticed in a socialist country. My sense of time, never particularily good, has been entirely debunked. I want my summer back.

Hey There Delilah

2008-08-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbJtYqBYCV8

The past few days I've had a fragment of a song stuck in my head, and no idea where it was from. I went through a couple of my newer CDs today, trying to find it, but couldn't. Finally I googled the only phrase I remembered-- "two more years and you'll be done with school"-- and after finding and scrolling through the full lyrics, I remembered how I'd heard the song.

It'd been in Lima, driving back from a long day at a private school where we'd washed, scrubbed, and painted until we felt sick and light-headed from the gas-based paints and the turpentine they'd given us to get the stray green drops off the concrete floor. We were exhausted and, realizing we were still only halfway through the trip, it was hard not to long for home.

The phrase "a thousand miles away" resonated as we drove over dusty roads in a rickety old bus, looking through dirty windows at dirty dogs and a dirty gray sky that matched the flat land rising up to meet it in the distance. Children who would never be without lice waved and ran alongside the bus as we bounced by, thirty-six white kids in face paint and mime costumes whose hearts mourned with the acoustic guitar for the ones we'd left behind. Paul. Of course it'd hurt to say goodbye to him, but the feeling of unreality and excitement for the adventure ahead had temporarily softened the sense of loss, even as we counted the days I'd be in Peru.

Six days in the dust, speaking nothing but Spanish for eight hours out of every twenty-four, though, had burned through the illusion. I wanted home. I wanted trees and a real sky. The night before I'd left, Paul and I had walked the neighborhood until eleven, tilting our heads up often to admire the brightness of the stars. I'd marveled that in just a few days, I'd be seeing the same lights from an entirely different continent, with people I'd never met who spoke a language I'd only heard in school. Would I feel any different? Such romantic questions were a joke, I thought as the bus jostled on. There were no stars in Lima. I'd planned to walk outside each night to talk with them for a minute or two, whispering goodnight to Paul.

Ha. A few days into the trip I realized that my words would never reach the stars, that the clouds of dust hovering in the night sky had obscured their light for years, and weren't about to move now. Nothing here was the same, and it would be a long time before I'd see the moon again, especially from a square of clean sidewalk, surrounded by the strong, protective arms I loved so much.

"That song makes me miss my boyfriend," Noelle sniffed as we stumbled off the bus and started for our cabin, still dizzy and half-painted. "You too?"

"Yeah, I miss him." Dang, I missed him.

"Hey there Paul Miller, what's it like back where I come from? You're a thousand miles away but boy tonight you look so handsome, yes you do...."

¡De Peru!

2008-07-06T19:32:00.000-07:00

I´m here! So sorry, guys. Internet costs and, to be quite honest, the few minutes that I have convinced myself to buy have been mostly devoted to emails to a certain....someone.
There´s a lot to say and no time at all, so I´ve been drafting posts in a notebook on bus rides to and from work sites. This one was written yesterday, so here goes.

Yesterday was probably one of the best days of my life. We went to one of the poor villages to do childcare/laundry/hairwashing/drama. And it was amazing. The drive there was around forty-five minutes, and I was cracking up the whole time. Everything is exactly like Sr. told us back in Spanish II. I saw a moto (small car used for transporting very large numbers of people) with a picture of the gorgeous Che Guevara (ha, Mom!), a sign advertising clean restrooms with a picture of a duck sitting on a toilet with a roll of TP that said ¨Jesus loves you¨ on it in Spanish. Also funny was a wall with ¨no pintar¨(the Spanish equivalent of ¨no painting¨) on it, followed by a cynical ¨jejeje¨(our ¨hahaha¨). Some things are the same in every culture.

When we got to the village, I immediatley volunteered to help with the children, along with six or seven others from our group. They led us into a tiny room crowded with a few cribs and twenty to thirty young children (probably between 1 and 5). There were a few women in teh room also, and although everyone was excited adn happy to see each other, it quickly became apparent that no one had any idea what to do next. Tehy didn´t speak English, we didn´t speak Spanish. The kids stared at us, waiting. This was my chance! I asked the lady to help me get the kids to sit down,a dn then asked them (everything in Spanish, of course) if they wanted to sing. They said they did, adn we quickly began to chant Ï´ve got the joy joy joy joy¨song we´d learned in language training as loudly as we could. The kids loved it. After that, I asked if we could go outside, and we split into groups to play duck duck goose (only we made it pero y gato, as no one could think of the word for ¨goose¨in Span), jump rope, and be taught new Spanish games by the kids.

It was so much fun. Most of the kids´ parents work during hte day, adn you could tell they were thrilled to have new people to talk to ad play with. They were so cute. I knew there was no way they´d be able to correctly say (and definitely not remember) my actual name, so I introduced myself with the name I´ve used in Spanish class all year-- Miriam. They didn´t seem too suspicious, and you coudl tell they were relieved to hear a name familiar to them. Very familiar, actually. I happened to be standing with two little girls. and asked them what theier names were. The second one said her name was Miriam. ¨¿Tu tambien?¨I asked. (you, too?). She got the sweetest shy smile on her face, adn she and her friend giggled over the coincidence for a long time.

I must not forget to mention that I have found, as one of my roommates put it, ¨a new man.¨That is, I met Raul. He is ten years old, and although of course nowhere near as gorgeous as Paul and probably not my type anyway, I have to say he was pretty cute. I´d noticed him following me at a distance, his friends laughing as they looked at him and then at me, then poked him before bursting into laughter again. Finally I had to ask them what was up.
¨¿Que es tan comico aqui?¨I demanded playfully. (What´s so funny here?)
¨Talk to her,¨I could hear them whispering to him in Spanish as they pushed him forward. Raulito himself wouldn´t look at me, but kept smiling as they shoved him closer.
¨Do it!¨They urged.
Finally he looked up, shyly.
¨¿De donde eres?¨He whispered, before looking quickly back down at the ground.
I told him. His friends nudged him again.
¨¿Cuantos anos tienes?¨ I almost busted out laughing.
¨Demasido anos para ti¨I wanted to say, but refrained.

First Post Since Attaining an Actual Readership (or, Whackjob has made it to Miami)

2008-06-29T16:04:00.000-07:00

After a day here, I would have to pronounce Miami okay. It's a little warm for my tastes, but there are lots of Spanish-speakers, which almost makes up for it;- ). The resort is really nice, and it has eleven floors and four very slow elevators. Today my mom and I went to the beach with a bunch of people, although we didn't swim, just walked around. The water is absolutely gorgeous, and I picked up about a million shells and put them in a sock in my camera bag. I think I embarassed her. I probably did look pretty stupid carrying around this soggy little sock, but it was fun. We stopped for ice cream, and I got this flavor called "elephant ears" and it was deliciouis.

The only bad thing about being here is that they've got us sleeping six to a room. Six. It's pretty ridiculous. And out of all six people, I of course just happend to end up sharing a bed with The Cuddler. As I've never considered myself a particularily cuddly person, this is amazingly awkward for me. Sharing a room with another people is horrifying enough, but a bed?

She seems like a really nice person when she's awake, and I know she probably can't help it, but I'm dreading tonight already. Last night she didn't go to bed until around 1:30 (they were all watching a movie on TV, but I read some Don Miller before writing a little and conking out around 11), so it wasn't so bad. Tonight I'm guessing we'll all go to bed a little earlier, though, which means that many more hours of trying to avoid being, um, snuggled.

What is the polite thing to do when you wake up at two forty-five a.m. to realize that someone you met only eight hours before is literally sticking to you? She was sleeping diagonally, and I was practically falling off the bed trying to avoid touching her. If it were Nate, and I've had expirience, I would have simply hit him until he woke him up and I could chew him out, but that didn't seem very nice to do to a girl you'll be spending the next two weeks with. I inched closer to the edge of the bed, wracking my groggy mind for a way to get her to move. The only thing to do would be to wake her up, but I had to do it discreetly, so that she wouldn't know I'd done it and feel bad. I turned around on the half a pillow I had left and tapped her arm a few times, then quickly rolled back over and pretended to be asleep, hoping she'd wake up and discover how appalingly close she'd gotten, but be saved the embarassment of thinking anybody knew. Luckily, the plan worked. Tomorrow we'll be getting different room assignments, with people who are actually on our teams, so this should be the last night with her. I pity her next bedmate, though-- they'll have to endure it for the next two weeks.

Two of the other girls in my room are from Canada, and the other two are from...Minnesota? There's not a whole lot planned for the teens until tomorrow, and I don't think I've ever watched so much worthless television in my life. So walking the beach today and writing this feels pretty good. We stopped in at Bubba Gumps this afternoon, and Mom bought Nate a ping-pong shirt that says "prepare to be paddled." I bought another "Stupid is as Stupid Does" pin to replace the one I lost a few months ago, and I got one for my cousnin, too, (another Cuddler) because she was always stealing the old one, although I don't think that's how it got lost the last time.

I hope that in Lima I can find a shirt that has a picture of Peru with a speech bubble that says "Paul is lucky I've heard of him," but it doesn't seem likely, so he might have to be content with a stuffed llama instead. (He told me Peru was lucky he'd heard of it a few weeks ago when I chided him for not knowing Lima was the capital). We'll see. I guess they don't use pesos at all, but something called a soles... I'm not sure.

And I found out today the lice shampoo is for us. Mom says if she'd known that, she wouldn't have bought the generic. Whoops.

Radio Essay!

2008-05-31T22:22:00.000-07:00

Nothing like the original fruits

2008-05-29T18:31:00.000-07:00

Mike and Ikes are probably the best after-work snack to have ever existed. And when they're three for a dollar. . . .
Tonight I saw we also had some new lemonade-flavored ones, which were pretty good, but it's got me thinking how the spinoff, the sequel, never matches the original. Mountain Dew has discovered this around two million times now. Note to Pesi: people do not like blue, purple, or "pitch black" pop. (Typically they don't love yellow, either, but you got lucky).
What drives us to one-up ourselves, refusing to acknowledge our inability to outdo the first? Maybe it's capitalism. Money has always been the most effective enticement to get us to crawl out on that limb.
Not that Pepsi or Mike and Ike is going to get any more filthy-rich from the new products. They'll be discontinued, surely, before turning any significant profit, and while they're new, the promo prices will curb gains. So maybe it's boredom.
Alas, the second attempt is never better than the first, but it is cheaper.

The non-summer

2008-05-29T18:19:00.001-07:00

It recently occurred to me that summer could be even worse than school. Aside from my much-anticipated country-hopping stint, I will have essentially no excuse to work less than thirty hours a week. This terrifies me because, knowing my managers, they will push until I finally snap and tell them absolutely no, at which point they will back off for perhaps a week and a half before starting to overschedule again. It's as if they assume I'll forget that I ever asked for less hours, and suddenly be okay with living at the store.
I told Paul I'm planning on setting up a sleeping bag, and maybe a pup tent, in the back room come June. He doesn't believe me, but I'm not necessarily kidding. It can be a good or bad thing that your managers like you.

Cherries

2008-05-27T13:49:00.000-07:00

There are fifteen chocolate-covered cherries to a standard Queen Anne box, which are divided into three seperate containers, to "seal in freshness." I purchased one such box Sunday afternoon, and promptly ate my way through the first container and part of the second, for a total of eight cherries gone within two hours. Today, as I peeled open the third section, it occured to me, as it always does, that if I'd held off earlier, I could have done something important with my cherries. Fifteen cherries... if I'd eaten only one a day, they would bring me right up to when Paul comes back. I could track my progress by the empty cherry-spaces in the plastic. If I'd eaten only the first container the first day and then paced myself similarily after that, I'd have enough to get me throgh the end of the school year. Perhaps when I am old and retired with nothing else to look forward to, I will stockpile boxes and boxes of the delicious morsels and have one every night before bed, as a countdown to death.
That is, if I can ever learn to stop with just one.

Mr. Desperate

2008-05-27T13:45:00.000-07:00

Being carless after school one day last week, I was forced to wait for good ol' Grandma to pick me up. It turned out she wasn't the only one trying to do so. As I walked out to the parking lot, I heard just the end of a conversation between two underclassmen.
"Man, do you know anyone who's single?"
"Nah, not really."
"Dang. You gotta help me man, okay?"
"Yeah, whatever."
The helper left, leaving me alone with Mr. Desperate. I avoided looking up, and edged toward the farthest end of the pavement. God, please don't let him talk to me. Please, God....
I sat down on a step and stared hard at the stack of photography projects in my hands. I sensed him coming closer. Ick. Please just go away. Don't talk to me. Where are you, Grandma?
He reached me and crouched down to examine the photo at the top of the pile.
"Let me guess: you're in ceramics, aren't you?"
Let me guess-- you're in special ed!
I bit my tongue to keep from saying, "How did you know? Yes, ceramics. That's why I'm carrying all these clay pots and vases. Don't you just love the glazing on this one?"
Instead, I gave a polite "Nope."
"Oh." He didn't waste time.
"Are you dating anybody?"
"Yes." One more reason to thank God for Paul tonight.
But even this didn't end it.
"Well, do you at least have a cell phone?"
"No," I said, in a tone I was sure would end the whole exchange right there. But this little factoid (or non-factoid, I guess) only seemed to score me uniqueness points.
"Wow, you're like the only girl I know who doesn't have a cell phone."
"Hm." I saw Grandma's car rounding the corner, and quickly stood up and gathered my things. Once in the car, I cracked up. Ceramics?! So I guess I officially have a scary guy story, although he was probably more stupid than scary.

Your tax dollars part II

2008-05-27T06:11:00.000-07:00

Tonight, being a little bored, I decided to do something I've been told a dozen times not to do. I started grading my dad's third graders' tests. These happened to be math tests, and for math tests, I have to admit they were pretty interesting. Austin's is a case in point.
Excerpt:

15. Look at the Litter Sizes table. Figure out the mean (average) number of puppies. Use your calculator to help you.

Dog's Name__________________Number of Puppies
Fifi..........................................6
Spot........................................3
Duchess.................................5
Honey....................................5
Rover.....................................7
Daisy......................................4

The mean number of puppies is ________.

Austin wrote 55.

After observing that "8" was also a common respsonse, I asked Dad how he managed to get such a stupid class.
"Are you a bad teacher, or are they bad learners?"
He said it was a little bit of both.
"Will it be better next year?" I asked hopefully. "Probably not," he said.
"Isn't that a little disheartening?"
"Disheartening! Of course it's disheartening! It's terrible!"
"But there's nothing you can do about it?"
"They're third graders," he said.

Plants

2008-05-21T14:25:00.001-07:00

After church we went to the garden center (again) where I found the most spectacular cactus the world has ever seen. Actually, I found about twenty of them, but I could only buy one (I don't get paid that much). The bottom part of it (the trunk, more or less) is the typical green cactus color. However, on top of that is this massive hot-pink prickly sphere, with a couple other spheres growing off it. It was way too amazing, and made the "flaming sun" pansy I'd picked out simply for the purpose of photographing it look pretty lame. I bought the pansy anyway (it's not the pansy's fault it can't be the coolest plant in the world) but I'm too enamored with the cactus to want to do anything with it. I feel kind of bad. Even though it would have suffered a little disappointment being put back because of its obvious inferiority, it probably would've been better off sitting on the shelf at Pioneer Garden. At least they knew what to do with it.

Kids

2008-05-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

We took the preschoolers outside this morning, which actually turned out an unprecedentedly good choice. We had seven kids in class, Lily and Laci among them, meaning chaos was the basic order of the day. There was also a little blonde boy named Bryan, who had a penchant for getting hurt, when he wasn't sneaking off by himself to go look at the creek. I think he managed three injuries in fifty minutes. Five minutes into the second round of bawling, though, I couldn't help but wonder how much of it was just for show. The third time, though, the cause of the tears was legitimate enough. We'd just finished telling the two girls walking in front of him to stay away from the moving swing, and figured he had heard and would heed the warning. Of course he didn't. Bryan proceeded directly in front of the oscilling swing and its screaming riders. BOOM! He was knocked flat on his stomach. The cry, like the first two, was delayed, but by far the most dramatic. He absolutely wailed.

Your tax dollars at work

2008-05-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

Nathaniel brought home a child last night as a simulation for his health class. It was this horrible little doll with perpetually open eyes that cried about every forty-five minutes (sometimes every fifteen, just to throw you off). Once it started whimpering, he had two minutes to get it to stop by deciding what it needed and providing the required service as quickly as possible. Luckily, the baby only "needed" four things: bottle, diaper change, burping, rocking. Nathaniel, being the surprisingly clever child he is, thought he'd cover all his bases at once. I came home from work to find the doll sitting contentedly in its car seat on an unfolded diaper, sucking away at a bottle ductaped to its face. One of the things the program tries to stress is the importance of keeping the baby's head from tipping back, especially when you lift it out of its seat (or try to force it on your older sister). Nate had come up with a remedy for this long before the baby even came home. Why waste time trying to hold it properly? If you just use a little more ductape to attach a pencil to the baby's neck to keep it straight, you can pick him up by the leg if you want! The system, though, broke down around two am when the doll started screaming simply to be held. Even ductape couldn't save him now. Or any of us, for that matter. (Considerate Nathaniel had declined to sleep downstairs or anywhere else farther from the rest of us, meaning no one got a full night of sleep).

Mother's Day

2008-05-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day seems to be going well, by which I mean that there have been no tantrums yet over the absence of a pond. (Mom has looked into and decided against a pond more times than I can count. Always she has cited the expense as her major objection, but I have a feeling she was still hoping). It must be said, though, that at least this year we were prepared. I was, anyway. I had two lovely presents all ready to go this morning when Dad barged in and woke me up, begging for one of them. What? Give you one of my presents to give to her? You scoundrel! What kind of man has to buy presents off his children to give to his wife? I was understandably angry, especially considering I'd advised him the night before to go for flowers in the morning to forestall this exact event. But the flowers never materialized, and by eight o'clock Mom was getting anxious. He was desperate. (Although he'd already bought and given her a wheelbarrow and was going to pay for her plants when they finally got out to the gardening store, it was obvious she was expecting something from him the day of). I groggily gave him a temporary no, then went out to buy some flowers myself after church. Now having three gifts, I gave him the one I was least certain about (the wind chimes) and reminded him he owed me, big time. The worst part is, she really liked the gift I picked out for Dad to give her, maybe more than she liked the one from me. Since she had no idea why I was laughing, this made Dad look really good, as if the whole thing had been his doing. And since I will be reimbursed and he did thank me profusely afterwards, there's not a whole lot I can do about it. It would probably hurt her feelings a lot to know that Dad didn't have anything ready, too much to be worth telling her for at least a good three years.

Of being a bum

2008-05-05T04:31:00.000-07:00

I have decided that my life's ambition for this month is to be a stay at home mom with no kids. How this will work out, I have yet to determine. It could get a little sticky, attempting to persuade people of the validity of this occupation. I mean, I think it could be pretty noble, but society generally frowns upon bums, particularly female ones who have been known to invent offspring when in a pinch. Surely I'm not the only one who can't wait for retirement to be lazy.

Myself, the iPod incompetant

2008-05-04T19:55:00.000-07:00

Nate has finally left me and my iPod alone, which I can only assume means he's given up. Himself being an iPod expert, it seemed only natural that he would help me transition into this new world of iPod-ownership. Well, not an entirely new world. A few years ago I used the money from a photo/writing contest I'd won to buy the now-ancient, then-new "only a little thicker than a pack of gum!" iPod shuffle.
What? You don't know what I'm talking about? Oh well. Being able to think of nothing else I could want for my birthday this year, I requested an iPod nano, which I pretended to be a little surprised to receive. And it is lovely. Far thinner than a pack of gum (maybe the height equivalent of two sticks stacked), it holds one thousand times as many songs, has a beautiful 5 by 8 cm screen, and is pink to boot. And I have absolutely no idea what to do with it.
Put songs on it! Lucas said. Upload videos! Why, he'd even let me rip some of his MythBusters episodes! What an honor. But I declined, restating the imperativeness of my at least coming close to finishing this blog. Of course this didn't work, and gorgeous little Daisy (Hey, they asked me to name it!) is out about a hundredth of her memory due to the addition of a whopping 189 songs.
That was when I told Nate he absolutely had to go. Songs actually transfer pretty quickly, but they seem to slow everything else down the in process, and I'm already sleep-deprived. Thankfully, he left without too much of a fight, although I think he's disappointed in me. The iPod wasn't his idea or paid for with his money, but he appears personally offended that I haven't tried to upload our entire DVD collection or asked him to explain every nuance of the amazingness that is the nano.

I shall not want

2008-05-04T18:43:00.001-07:00

Nothing better than a birthday when you can't think of anything to want. Absolutely. Nothing. I'm not sure exactly what this says about me, except that maybe I'm un poco consumeristic. If I want something, I buy it for myself, usually within three days of deciding I want it. I don't wait for birthdays or Christmas. Maybe the next paycheck, but usually not. It wasn't always like this. I can remember the feeling of wanting something for months and months, and having my page-long Christmas list pretty much finalized by October. Grandma would call to ask for ideas, and I'd go on and on until she just had to tell me goodbye and hang up. This year she was lucky to get one suggestion, and she had to endure five minutes of silence before I came up with anything. (And even then, I don't think a pony was the most helpful answer). It was like this at Christmas, too. I actually had to put off buying myself things so that other people could get them for me. There was a soundtrack I wanted, but I had to wait a month to get it, because I knew my little sister had it sitting in her closet.
And the things I do want keep getting more and more expensive, and increasingly unrealistic. The only thing I could really convince myself to want this year was a darkroom, which, all told, would cost around $700. This isn't so bad, but would take a bit of coordinating contributions from family members to pull off, and I was feeling lazy. I told them my second choice was an iPod nano, and with no other options, that's what they went with.
It could work out well that I've never loved surprises.

Of freedom

2008-05-04T18:25:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago I did something I haven't done in forever: I got on my hands and knees and picked every dandelion I could see. I had twenty minutes before work-- too little time for any real studying or a nap, but just enough to head outside and lick up the sky and clouds. The sun was gorgeous, the grass perfectly dotted with yellow. Days like that make me feel invincible, as if I could handle anything (although the creaking of my swing and the soft wind assured me that nothing could ever go wrong again). But days like that are deceiving, and it seems like you can count on something unprecedentedly bad happening the next day, and the next. Gorgeous fragments of cloud and light are just temporary respites to encourage us betweentimes, and though I appreciate them, I can't help wishing they were more substantial.

Summer worries

2008-05-02T06:26:00.000-07:00

Worse than sending my camera to a concert for two days with a very expirienced photographer, though, will be lugging it along with me to Peru this summer. Expensive cameras were about the only thing they told us not to bring, and they have perfectly good reasons to advise against it. I've never been "mugged" but I don't like the sound of it. Pickpocketing sounds childish and suggests something petty and relatively harmless, but this cannot be said for mugging. I have a feeling that I will find myself walking up to the first five suspicious people I see, extending the camera bag and pleading, "Take it, take it all, but please don't mug me!" This could be embarassing, especially if they quietly told me they didn't want my camera. Then I might be offended.
I'm thinking of taking out a month-long insurance policy on it, but this will still be little consolation in the event that I am mugged. I will only get a new camera at the end, and any pictures I'd taken on the trip will still be lost, just as if I'd never been stupid enough to bring the camera with me to Lima in the first place. I wonder if muggers are a cooperative sort of people. Surely they will negotiate, although I'm not very imposing. Maybe the first day of the trip I can rope one of the few guys going on the trip into negotiating for me. But that'd be like two insurance policies, and two weeks in Peru is two weeks without a paycheck.

Camera worries

2008-05-02T06:13:00.000-07:00

Once again my lovely camera is being taken from me for an entire weekend, going to places far more exciting than I have ever been. And though the thief promises that it will return safe and sound and quite possibly with a T-shirt from one of the concerts stuffed into the bag, I am not entirely reassured. I can't even say how much I love my camera, and if it gets broken....
But it won't. More rational at this point is the fear that it won't come back at all. Last time she needed it, it was for an actual emergency. Rachel's camera was in the shop, and she had a concert to photograph that night. I reluctantly agreed to let her use mine-- as already stated, my uses for it that weekend were nowhere near as cool or important as hers. I've often thought that I don't deserve my Canon, which has about a zillion features I'll never know how to use. Usually these insecurities are quelled by a little capitalist pep-talk: "You worked for it, you bought it. It's a free country, and you can carry around an eight-hundred dollar camera and use only the automatic setting if you want." But this time they came back with a vengeance, especially as Rachel began to ask questions about how to use it. "What settings to you keep it on?" Settings? "Um, you know, whatever. Depends on what I'm doing. I'm not sure what I left them on last time, but of course you can change them if you want."
"How do you do that?" Gulp.
"Uh, this one here does aperture, I think. Really, just whatever you feel like doing. I'll throw the manual in there too."
She took the camera from me and examined it for a second before twisting the dials and changing numbers faster than I could think. "There. That should do it."
I wasn't sure what would do it, but we were a long way from automatic.

2008-05-02T06:03:00.000-07:00

AP exams are coming up ridiculously soon, although that hardly means I'm studying. History will probably be the worst, and though I've done pretty well in the class all year, it would be stupid to expect a very good score. With only a week to go, I've decided to reread in its entirety the review book I've been using the past couple trimesters instead of the actual text. (Yes, that's right. I haven't read more than six chapters in the real textbook we've been assigned). This will of course be helpful, but I'm wondering whether any of it will actually stick. My mind doesn't work well with history, last year's class on world history being a case in point. I remember how to sing the Chinese dynasty song, I remember when we did a skit about Indira Gandhi. I don't remember what actually happened in any of the dynasties, or when Indira was around. I remember the name Chandragupta, but not how he was connected to the Gupta empire or even where the Gupta empire was supposed to be. It's embarrassing.
This time around will be even more embarrassing, because all of what I'm supposed to remember took place in my own country. At the moment I can't think of any examples of things I don't remember, probably because I've forgotten them entirely. Social trends are easy enough to hold on to, but dates get me completely lost. Anything before the Progressive movement is boring beyond reason.
Basically, it could be a bad week.

Two Questions Response

2008-05-02T05:52:00.000-07:00

The Two Questions really do find everybody. This was probably one of the most relatable pieces we've read this year, because the two questions crop up all the time, in all aspects of life.
Again we saw how pictures can nicely supplement words. Barry's use of images to enrich the storyline and foreshadow the resolution was very cool. I also liked the recurring pictures, which gave a sort of theme to the essay and tied everything together.

Response to McCloud Comic

2008-05-02T05:43:00.000-07:00

I was a little confused about the purpose of the comic, at first. I went into it assuming from the preceding discussion that it would be a persuasive piece, attempting to convince readers of the validity of comics as literature. I kept waiting for it to happen, but it never really did. Finally I realized it was meant to be an explanation of the art and not necessarily an argument. What I liked about it was that it showed the inadequacies of text alone. It's unlikely I could have understood half of the modes and jargon explained without the example pictures. Sometimes writing just doesn't cut it, and the essay was able to display this without making an argument at all.

2008-05-01T06:38:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting here in Spanish, blinking at the clock. There's something wrong with it. I've been having clock hallucinations the past few days, when after an uncomfortable amount of watching, the second hand just seems to freeze, suspended somewhere between the four and the five. It must be summer.
I don't remember summer ever causing so many problems before. I can't sit still inside, and I hate working more than ever, because it usually means the evening is completely shot as far as sunlight or doing anything outdoors. I attempt to compromise on nights that I'm free, and do my homework outside. This works about half the time. The other half I get distracted or fall asleep, right there on the grass. And sometimes, if I'm really lucky, the twins will come out. There is nothing worse than the twins when you're trying to accomplish anything outside. They're nice boys, but three is a horrible age, and two--the age of their little brother--is worse. They run over the instant they see any one of their favorite neighbors exit the house, falling over themselves to get there first. When they finally get there, they compete to be the first one to construct a coherent sentence.
Twin one will start. "We--we--we--we--just got back from a--" Twin two interupts. "We--we--we--it was a birthday party."
Twin one: "Yeah. A--a bowling birthday... party."
Questions would at this time seem polite, but we've learned not to bother. The twins will continue talking without stopping as long as you let them.

Cell phones

2008-05-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

My parents have officially broken down and gotten a cell phone for each person in the family. Camera phones, no less. Mine is red and shiny and fits into a back pocket perfectly. It is gorgeous, and although I'm not paying for it (I wouldn't have a phone at all if I did), I'm sure it costs a pretty decent amount each month. There was a discount involved for getting a family plan, and the previous contract had expired, but I still feel wasteful. My old one (the one that is now Dad's, ha ha) worked just fine.
My brother, however, feels no guilt whatsoever, and has probably accumulated at least fifty pictures already, of subjects ranging from the inside of his mouth to his "six pack" to the giant turd discovered in the bathroom at his school. There is, however, a downside.
Nate has apparently been assigned the abandoned phone number of a very attractive high school girl. He is text-messaged constantly from multiple boys who are getting a little annoyed with Cally's playing hard to get. This will make the third consecutive night I have been wakened by his phone beeping, but at least this time it was something important. At three am, Jason decided to ask Cally to prom! You know, it would be fun. That is, if she didn't already have a date, of course.
Poor Cally, who after switching her phone number, and assumably procuring a restraining order, is still pursued. Poor Jason, who will never know whether to look into that tux or not. You know, he never sees her anymore. And poor Nate, who is not allowed to send any replies.

Garbage Sale

2008-04-24T18:46:00.001-07:00

My youth group is having a huge garage sale at church this weekend, and though I will be conveniently out of town through the duration of the actual event, I did stick around Wednesday night to help set up. And I’ve gotta say—it’s pretty surprising what people are willing to donate to a church garage sale. For example: I would forfeit all the money from my twenty-two hours at work next week to know who brought in the slinky black strapless…thing. Or the gigantic pair of rubber pants, into each leg of which we figured two small children could reasonably be stuffed. Or the box of off-white undershirts with stains under the arms. Of course, though, it was the lingerie that intrigued me the most. Did you know lingerie is see-through? What is the point of it, when it’s obviously going to come off anyway and it doesn’t cover anything to begin with? And who is going to go to a garage sale to look for it, let alone one held at a church? I immediately began a lingerie display, pairing the flimsy pieces with seductive winter hats and golf gloves and hanging them up in the most prominent of places. (Did I mention I would forfeit two week’s salary to see the previous owners’ faces when they see my lovely display?) But there was so much of it, and I soon ran out of hats. That’s when it occurred to me to relocate the lesser members of my collection to an old refrigerator that was also for sale. A refrigerator, after all, isn’t so different from a dresser, and a big sign saying something gross like “cool eats, hot treats” could make for a not uninteresting display. And if the people still weren’t going for it, well, a refrigerator and a lifetime’s worth of very cold-looking pajamas would make a pretty sweet package deal.

Paranoid

2008-04-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

Nothing much funnier than watching my little OCD routine before class every weekday. Pull car into parking space, usually at a perfect diagonal. Turn off radio. Turn off heater. Turn off lights. Remove key from ignition. Turn knob again to make sure radio is completely off. Check heater. Double-check to make sure the knob controlling lights is turned to “off,” but don’t trust it. Turn lights on and then off again to reassure myself. Make sure brights aren’t on. Attempt to turn them on to see the comparison, then think of unicorns or something else absurd while turning them off so I can remind myself later. Climb out of car, lock front door, grab stuff from backseat. Look back to make sure front door is locked, then lock back door as well. Start toward building, keeping keys in my hand so I know I haven’t forgotten them. Halfway to the door, run back and check the lights. Arrive late to zero hour. Again.

Goodbye, Huck

2008-03-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

Last week I was informed that presidential candidate Mike Huckabee had dropped out of the race. Had I been in a less public place, I'm fairly certain I would have cried. His withdrawal amounts to little less than a national tragedy, leaving us with three democrats and a Ralph Nader to pick from in November. This might be the first election ever in which the Republican party has had no candidate to represent it.

The lines, then, have to be redrawn, and all definitions rethought. If John McCain is a Republican.... What does that make me? I must be some kind of extremist. Ann Coulter has declared that in the event of its boiling down to Hilary and McCain (or, for that matter, the devil and McCain) she will be voting for the first. This is scary, although it's important to remember that Coulter is Coulter and we all know she's got a reputation to keep.

The fact that Huckabee is prophesied to have a good chance in 2012 is of little consolation. By then the Party will have hopefully pulled itself together, and somebody stronger will take his place. He'll no longer be necessary. Right now, though, we need him, if only to fill some psychological void. Nader said he threw in his name to give people a "choice." How kind. As far as I'm concerned, there will be no choice in 2008.

Boots

2008-03-27T18:30:00.000-07:00

An every-other-day gym class and the tennis shoes it necessitates have made me appreciate my cowboy boots more than ever. The boots have got to be the most comfortable footwear in the world, and they look uniformly out of place with everything-- just one more reason to wear them every chance I get. Not wanting to subject my friends to a gym locker for an hour twice a week, though, I leave them at home on gym days and wear actual shoes instead. Weird shoes that have laces and arches and are better off worn without knee socks. Shoes that provide something called traction. And I hate it.
Tennis shoes are pathetic, and I miss my boots all day when I'm not wearing them. At this point a confession must be made, though: my cowboy boots are not actually...gulp...real. Not that anyone unfamiliar with western wear could ever tell, but they're not even leather. This fact is more than slightly embarrassing, and makes it difficult not to smile when fielding the rare compliment or more frequent question as to whether they have steel toes.
The boots are really just a pair of cheapies my grandparents bought for me at Kohl's when I was on my little western kick. Given that that was more than a few years ago, though, they've held up pretty well. The scuffs and dents, I argue, give them character, which is why I love them so much in the first place.
Tomorrow is another gym class, meaning another day through which I will wander with virtually no identity. Somehow even I, despite my impatience with fashion, am unwilling to attempt cowboy boots with gym shorts.

Early-outs

2008-03-27T17:21:00.000-07:00

If I ever find myself in a management position, I must remember what a profound impact getting out twenty minutes early has on an employee's morale. Twenty extra unplanned and unscheduled minutes. When you weren't expecting them, they seem like incredible freedom. Twenty minutes is enough to get coffee, start a load of laundry, or call a friend. Or begin studying for the history test you completely forgot about. Yes. Or that. I don't think I've ever liked Ryan more than when he told me I could take off after the next customer. There's nothing better. It's almost like a snow day from school, except that it is not limited by bad weather and can happen at any time. Yes, it's something to remember. People like managers who periodically let them leave early. Revolutionary.

The unending winter.

2008-03-27T16:52:00.000-07:00

The unending winter. Just when you thought it was over, it's back. And not just a little bit, big-toe-still-in-the-door back. Back back. Or at least that's how it would seem. Where does all the snow even come from? I remember studying the water system once in homeschool, and from that understand that all forms of precipitation start as water held in the clouds. And the clouds get the water from oceans and water sources on the ground. If this is so, though, how can we simultaneously have both an abundance of snow and floods? Clouds and lakes can't gain at once-- one has to be giving up at least some of the water. Somewhere, there must be some pretty bad droughts. Or maybe I have a terribly warped view of water to begin with. Water is finite, right? There is a limited amount of water, although it isn't something we worry about, because water technically never really goes away. You can drink it up, but you'll just pee it back out. You can evaporate it, but it isn't actually gone, just absorbed into the air. At least, that's what I'd always thought.

Customers tonight were complaining nonstop about the snow, but it amused me. Snow like this, all light and fluffy and perfectly unaware of its slim chances of making it till tomorrow, is inspiring. It's a good-natured snow, and I'll enjoy it as long as it holds out.

The untimely blog

2008-03-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

Funny how you want something about as long as you can’t have it. A few years ago, I would have done anything to be allowed to have a blog, but my parents refused. And it was going to an amazing blog, too—I was going to be famous, have a following! People in New York City and DC would subscribe to the little 7th-grade whackjob’s blog, thinking she was some great political analyst. My political and journalistic careers would be simultaneously launched before I was even out of middle school! But no, Mom said. The child molesters would find me long before any congressmen did, and people with blogs never got hired anywhere good, anyway.

Alas, time and teachers have now officially forced her to accept my new blogger status, and as it would seem that a language arts grade has a greater immediate effect on employment than a relatively obscure website, she has consented. (Although I was told in no uncertain terms that anything I had to say about communism or creationism was to be omitted). Yippee. Now if I could think of anything to write.

Coffee

2008-03-27T10:05:00.000-07:00

The expiration date on the Starbucks Frappuccino I’m holding is February 11 ’08. I pop off the lid and take a long drink. Coffee has become a necessary evil for me the past few months. I don’t even like it anymore, but force myself to drink with the knowledge that personality, grades, and general ability to function all hinge on my ability to finish the bottle before second hour. Mochas seem more like a daily ration of cough syrup than treats—something to be gotten over with as quickly as possible.

This particular drink is vanilla-flavored, and it is not good. Only with the most valiant of efforts do I keep myself from gagging. Why did I ever elect to such an early class? Actually, the earliest one isn't the worst. The tiredness doesn't really hit until science a little later. But it looks like I’ll be sleeping through class again today, because there’s no way I can finish this.

Phone calls and bad jazz

2008-03-25T19:03:00.000-07:00

It is painfully evident that he is not going to call tonight. So here I sit, trying again to teach myself to appreciate jazz, blaring Miles Davis if only to drown out the brother's friend who is currently receiving his weekly trumpet instruction. Jesse is no good at the trumpet. I knew this before I learned to appreciate jazz. Many times Mom has attempted to pull out of the agreement by which she subjected us all to the weekly half-hour torture session called the private music lesson. She has gone so far as to tell Jesse's family, who loves the low rates and flexibility of taking lessons from a friend and neighbor, that Jesse's future is in jazz, and that he deserves a teacher who specializes in it. This is hilarious. Jesse may have a slim chance at a future in electric guitar (this inferred from his hair, not his actual playing), but the idea of him playing trumpet after high school is ridiculous.

Twice the phone has rung, igniting a terrible forest fire of hope, only to be immediately put out by the sound of some new enemy’s voice on the other side. The last call was from my great-aunt, wanting to talk to Dad about some computer problem. That would have been a long one, clogging up the phone line for a minimum of an hour, judging from past experience. I told her he wasn’t home, then sicced her on my uncle. After his display at Easter, he almost deserves it.

Another mistake.

2008-03-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

A piece of advice from someone who discovers most truths ‘the hard way’: Easter dinner with the entire mother’s side is not an appropriate activity for a fourth date. I thought I could pull it off; I have a good family, and if nothing else, surely dessert would not fall through. I had forgotten about uncle John.
As Paul sat uncomfortably behind a plate of strawberry shortcake, John began to relate to us the story of cousin Luke's food poisoning the night before.
“Man, we thought he was gonna have to sleep in the bathroom. He was so scared. He kept asking me, ‘you think it’s gonna happen again?’ I kept telling him, ‘I don’t know, Luke, but I’ll go get your sleeping bag from downstairs.’ See, first he thought the diarrhea was from running so hard at his basketball game last night. Then when he looked and it was all orange and red, he said maybe he’d actually got it from the Mexican restaurant afterwards.”
Linda, Luke's mom, joined in. “I knew something was wrong when he finally came out of the bathroom. He was like, ‘Mom, I need to show you something.’ I went in there and it was just awful.”
John: “Oh yeah. It was everywhere. It had exploded up and under the seat, all over everything. There were drops on the floor. I had to use a sponge.”
I avoided Paul’s eyes.
The topic finally changed—to sex ed classes at school. Dad chuckled. Being one of the few male teachers at an elementary school and therefore a shoo-in for the job, this was a conversation to which he could contribute something. Current procedures were compared with those of the classes the baby boomers and generation X-ers had attended, before John (the doctor) launched into his traditional speech about STDs.
“Get this—they’re gonna make Grace take home a doll next year to make her think twice before having sex. A doll! They think making kids carry around dolls is gonna stop them? Guys don’t care if the girl gets pregnant. The whole thing is ineffective for at least half the population. What they need is a herpes simulation. A doll that cries every hour for a night is nothing. They need something that zaps ‘em every time they pee. And they should have to wear it for a week.”
Paul never did eat his strawberry shortcake, and the drive home was comparatively silent.
I had to ask for my goodbye hug.

2008-03-18T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today I made the mistake of asking my grandmother to go with me to a funeral of a person who had meant more to me than her. Apparently, a lot more. As I leaned over the casket, saying goodbye to an old friend, she commented rather loudly that she had a sesame seed stuck in her teeth.
Bob had been a military man. As the American Legion representatives went forward to salute him and the assembled crowed fell silent to watch, Grandma pulled me close and whispered in my ear, rejoicing that she had finally managed to disloge it. I congratulated her, then let my head fall into my hands.
It must be admitted, though, that when the tears started to fall, she was right there with a clean napkin.

Research Essay Topic II

2008-03-17T04:27:00.000-07:00

New topic for the research essay. Because communists beat college any day, I will now be doing my paper on Che Guevara, the socialist revolutionary who was in cahoots with Castro to overthrow Batista back in the 50s. He was executed in Bolivia only twenty years later, but I've begun to notice him everywhere. You can find his face on anything-- shirts, bags, even shoes-- and I'd like to know why. How has a Cuban revolutionary become so popular among the rather self-centered youth of a democratic country? Do the people sporting Che have any idea who he was, or is he recognized simply as in image of dissent and social rebellion?

It should be interesting. When searching him online, I found a twist on the traditional Che-wear, a T-shirt with his face bordered by text that states, "I have no idea who this guy is." Where, then, is his appeal? Is it in the photograph itself? There are a lot of different ways I could take this.

New camera

2008-03-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

A church friend and should-be professional photographer has just bestowed upon me a most gloriously ancient film SLR to replace the piece of crap I have been using hitherto. The only problem is, I don't know how to use it. This fact becomes especially embarrassing when one remembers how I have complained for the past two months about the overly user-friendly features of the last piece of equipment. The first camera was a 35mm given to my aunt for her high school graduation, and was apparently quite a gift back in the day. The autofocus lens was considered a plus, as well. However, I griped endlessly about how autofocus was really nothing but an autolimitation of my creativity, and blamed the fuzzy images and poor compositions on the instrument. Now that I have a all-manual camera, I am officially out of excuses, my creativity being completely unfettered. No autofocus to hold me back now! Instead, the limitations have changed, the most prominent of which being my cluelessness as to how to even load the film.
I found a video online that I thought would help, but after repeated viewings and a thorough consultation of the manual, I still could not even open the back. The camera and its hippie-strap had me completely in love with it from the first moment, but I was quickly becoming angry at my own incompetence, and took it on the undeserving SLR.
"Camera, I am about to become very disenchanted with you," I warned, trying in vain to just get the darn thing open.
When it finally did, I over-followed the instructions of the quack on YouTube and managed to make the camera eat the film. Seriously eat it. I wound the entire footer of the film back into the canister, where it was absolutely irretrievable without breaking it open. Unwilling to blow a three-dollar roll of film, I grabbed the can opener and header for my parent's walk-in closet, where I pried off the top, pulled out the digested film, and did my best to reassemble the carcass. It worked surprisingly well, but the inevitable cracks in the canister meant that I would have to load the camera in the dark, which did not go over so well. I eventually gave up for the night, and my beautiful new camera has not left its bag since.

Research Paper

2008-03-06T06:08:00.000-08:00

I'd like to write a cynical little piece about colleges, particularly those which are called “select” or “ivy league” schools. Does admission have to do more with the student’s abilities, or his or her parents’ money? Will dropping these university's names at an interview really increase your chances of getting the job? I would incorporate statistics from various big-name schools about the percentage of students employed in their field within six months of graduation, etc., and compare these rates to those of lesser-known private and state schools to help determine whether select schools deserve the prestigious connotation they carry.

Castro

2008-03-03T16:14:00.000-08:00

Fidel Castro has finally stepped down from power, effectively ending one of the longest-running inside jokes. But it’s probably about time. And although the new guy isn’t much better, we can assume it won’t last long. The chosen figurehead, Fidel’s brother Raul, isn’t more than five years younger than Castro, who we all know has been dying for the past decade. It is assumed that Raul will serve to prolong his brother’s regime after and if Castro ever dies, but really, how long can a seventy-six year old prolong anything? Castro is just over eighty—a decent accomplishment considering Cuban life expectancy, and it’s natural that he would want to pre-select a like-thinking successor. But a seventy-six year old hermano? That’s ridiculous! But not, I guess, too much worse than us electing McCain.