Better than fruit salad

We spent about 6 hours moving yesterday. Six. (6.) Hours. Moving out of old place into new place requires a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of elevator rides, and a lot of duck-walking through locked and heavy double doors, and after even 20 minutes of it I was ready to quit. It didn’t help either that I had started to put stuff away at the new place, and it had almost begun to look like a “home” rather than a “place I have recently cast aside crap,” so watching it fill with boxes and piles again was disconcerting. I’ve got to move all the way in though, and since the weekend is really the only stretch of time I’ve got, there was nothing for it but to simply bite the bullet and press on. It was annoying, monotonous, more than a little frustrating and at times hunger-crazed, (at one point I flipped out at Anthony for suggesting that the bookcase’s back panel was not essential to its structural integrity,) but it’s done. The only thing left in the place is a few scant items I am purposely leaving behind, and my army of fans. I can handle carrying out the army of fans. What I needed to do was the essentials that also required heavy lifting (like the bookcase).

We went to the school library after this and enjoyed two hours of non-moving. Anthony read his Wittgenstein, and I goofed off on the internet. I have been playing phone tag with my cable internet providers about switching my service, and while this is possible it is still going to be at least a week before I have reliable internet at the new place, so these blitzkrieg internet goof-off sessions at the school library are very important to me. After library time, we went to the new place to cook up some lamb.

It is so, so nice to have lamb marinated, waiting for you in the fridge at the end of a grunt-work day.

I fronted the dinner labor while Anthony finished up homework, so he was in charge of dessert toil. While he was prepping the cookie sheet we got to talking about fishing the red flecks from the Harissa out of molars, which in a (here, abbreviated) way led to a realization that he should keep a toothbrush over at my place. I didn’t make a big deal of this since dental hygiene is good, and in a pragmatic way it makes sense to have a toothbrush over considering our current arrangements. But as he put it when we were discussing that one moment of Eternal Sunshine about a year ago, “having a toothbrush over at someone’s place is sometimes the closest thing people get to being married.” We are not the sort of people to go ape over Relationshippal Landmarks, but there were a few bugged-eyed remarks in meaningful tones after that. And this coupled with the dental hygiene & Harrisa-molars talk made me need to floss and evacuate the scene. To digest. And to floss.

Flossing takes place upstairs, in the bathroom with the non-leaking toilet and the floss. I had the door closed to sort of stifle my loud thoughts of I suppose he really lives here now and for tooth privacy.

In a short while Anthony came up the stairs with the Pillsbury can for me to pop. Popping the Pillsbury can is unofficially my job. I really love popping the Pillsbury can, though it scares me a little. It’s shocking to peel something apart and purposely cause it to explode in your hands, and the nature of the can itself makes for a wide gap of uncertainty. It might pop from the moment you start peeling the paper until the time to start to whack it against the corner of a counter or wall. The very best part of exploding the can is making anticipatory grimaces, which I execute liberally. This alone is a joy for Anthony, as nothing particularly surprising comes from popping the Pillsbury can. Except. For yesterday. When it really did explode.

Specifically the cinnamony goo went airborne, and dotted anything and everything within a 15 foot radius with clots of uncooked doughy substance. Everything. The walls, the floors, the ceiling, the mirror in the bathroom, in and around the sink, on the toilet paper, all over me of course, and in just about every unlikely place you could think. I found some on the bar of soap while I was showering this morning. After the laughter calmed down a little Anthony said “well, now you really live here.”

I was not ready for a new Bond. I realize it’s not up to me, and that pop-culturally speaking a new Bond is like a new piece of toast or a new Kleenex. Ho hum. But this is my first, and I don’t like it, because I was all used to the other one.
 
Once I left my zip-disk in the computer at the library. I say once, because once you do that and lose every written thing to some unknowing public, you never, ever do it again. Ever. Now I do have the occasion to sort of wander away from it after I have gathered up my things, but at this point I usually have some sort of tether to become taut and then snap me back, flailing, to the object in question, or else I do so on my own accord, with the aforementioned flailing so as to distract from any potential zip-disk nabbers. I tend to leave a pile of Something Important near the computer tower — gloves, coffee, books — so as to help me remember not to be an idiot. I have found my fair share of disks, from people who do not yet realize the horror of file loss, and I have always done the Noble Thing and turned them in at the circulation desk.

IF U LUV ME COMMENT ON MY PICS THNX

People are making plugs on their various internet personalities about how no one talks to them anymore, or how all of their friends have forgotten about them or some similar nonsense a good deal these days. That kind of grates on my nerves a little. Or should I just skip the condemnation and join up? Oh, woe is me, I live in a bunker that no one can get into without three keys*, but somehow I am the one to…bleeuugh no. Screw that. I can’t even make fun of it from within, I have to sidestep entirely and slip onto a soapbox.
 
SOAPBOX PART
 
My grandmother suffers from a similar condition that these people suffer from, which I refer to as Chronic Passive-Aggressive Selfishness. People like my grandmother will sit at home, sighing, because no one is coming to see them. She will write us letters talking about her various ailments (of which we are well aware) and sort of textually roll her eyes to the window and sigh about how busy it used to be in her house. Whether this is actual memory or not is open for debate – any time I’ve been over there we sort of sit inert for days and listen to her attempt to formulate a sentence. This is making me sound rude (I really do love my Grandma) so maybe I need another example. Say you have a friend. Your friend knows how to make a killer cake. And he digs it. He bakes all day and all night, and his house continually smells of frosting and warm baked goodness. He bakes so many cakes that he often has to give them away to charity so as not to let the excess spoil. Now, wouldn’t it be weird if when you went over one day for coffee and cake he got all pissed off because you didn’t ask to taste the spinach croissant?

I think the main point is that most people forget that the number one person that people are thinking of is themselves. That’s not inherently selfish so much as it is really all you can do. You are in your own head, you are listening to your own narrative, and for a lot of people I think it takes a tremendous amount of effort to even pay attention to the outside world, much less tune their inner dialog to include another person, and much less have that person not be a significant other or child. It’s strange to be so demanding of consideration. I understand wanting people to visit (that was one major reason for the decision discussed in the next item,) but I don’t understand the need to be showered with attention. Particularly in a web-sense. This is not actual contact, did you know?

*Or rather, did. Yes, while the hotel-building was a deeply weird experience, something that I would encourage anyone to do at least once (in fact, if you want to take over my lease and save me $400, that opportunity is still readily available to you) I have gathered up most of my belongings and upgraded to a condo-esque thing closer to campus. There will be a fuller report on this later (since I am hastily throwing this together at the library, from floating emailed-notes, and will need to continue to do so until I have my internet service switched over,) but for the moment just know that I am in a place with more than two windows, and with an actual DOOR that leads to the outside world. Yes. Going outside no longer takes a 5 minute elevator ride and various unlocking mechanisms. My joy is profound.  

IMAGES I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DRAWN TO:

1. Small things, especially when they either have intense significance, or are merely small objects in their own right.
2. anything occurring on rooftops
3. an individual struck motionless by thoughts
4. the colors green and orange
5. white
6. wind-related things
7. simplicity
8. coffee

SOMETHING FROM A PREVIOUS ASSIGNMENT I WAS RATHER HAPPY WITH

My own poems somewhat reflect this anthology on a strictly visual level. I am either going to get something said in a few short stanzas, or I’m going to go on and on about it in prose-poetry or blank verse. I feel I can tap into an emotional core or a reaction very easily, but there never seems to be a middle ground between “overly verbose” and “succinct.”

Having a dishwasher has made me precocious. I can’t remember if the new place I am looking at has a dishwasher, and in a weird way I’m sort of hoping it doesn’t. I used to regularly wash my dishes as soon as I soiled them, in the interest of counter space. This was also because I only HAD one plate, two forks, and so on.* Now, If the largish soup pot is dirty, instead of scrubbing it down real quick, I whip out the skillet and make scrambled eggs. (And sometimes, if the skillet is dirty, I might see if there are any taquitos or Blackjack leftovers I can throw on the pizza stone. So some of this might just be POOR MEAL PLANNING on my part, natch.) Having a machine that cleans things for you makes you have less reverence for that “antique” mug here and there your mom gave you. Sure, you’ll keep it in the sink for a while, thinking that you’ll get around to it, and then suddenly you’ve done three loads of dishes in the time it’s taken you to even look at that mug. Pretty soon it makes it in the washing machine along with that fancy glass teapot that has HAND-WASH ONLY etched on the bottom. I don’t pay for water, so the machine runs frequently at my place. Sometimes I only run it half full. Sturdy paintbrushes and acrylic pallets ended up in the dishwasher on Saturday. I sort of wish I could wash my clothes in there too.

*I have since amassed more dishes, more than I actually need, and I secretly think the dishwasher is in fact responsible. Instead of letting them stack up on the counter, I now keep the dirty things in the washer until it’s time to run the machine.

UNTIL THE GROUNDHOG SEES HIS SHADOW

This weekend, after Panera and before DAM (see last entry), as we were leaving the shopping center I peaked in the window of Pier 1 to see if anyone I knew was working. That makes it sound like I’m a swanky decorative-orb person, but actually I worked there for 2+ years, at many, many locations (college: make your sense of place explode) so the likelihood of my recognizing someone inside is actually quite high. Anyway, upon doing this I noticed — brace yourself — Christmas trees at the front of the store.

If you know anything about Pier 1’s conception of “Christmas decor” you’re probably already hemorrhaging. But the point of the matter, that I feel I cannot stress enough, is that it is the SECOND FUCKING WEEK OF OCTOBER. I had a slight epileptic fit, and I made Anthony take an oath that forbade going into any retail place until February. It’s not about saving money, it’s about saving our minds.

SCARVES OF WONDER

Last night we were in Denver again for Mark Danielewski’s book-signing. I came with the good old classic, (the new edition that I recently received in the mail, as all of my old copies have either never been returned to me or have literally fallen apart from intense love) and Anthony brought “Only Revolutions,” although he actually had Ginsburg’s big anthology signed. Mark was a lot quieter and softer-spoken than I had been anticipating, and had a very stereotypical quizzical look he would do when the characters were curious about something in the book. He spoke well, with appropriate pauses, and answered even the stupidest questions with grace. My favorite part about the whole thing though was the blaze-orange scarf he wore during the actual reading. It had a sort of fringe on it and was very large and fluttery. It was sitting on a chair and we passed it in line for the signing, and I wanted to take it but didn’t.

SPEAKING OF MEDIA

1. And speaking of “Only Revolutions.” Get it. Read it. I read it breathlessly in about four days, in the manner recommended by the flap., Now I can’t decide if I am going to read just one side of the story (but it seems to wrong!) or if I will read through all of the Historical artifacts, before making another full read-through. It’s intense. It’s allegory. It’s poetry. It’s crazed. I had a ball.

2. Have you looked at Alex Ross’ “Uncle Sam”? Maybe you should.

3. My latest library find, among other things, was “Heimskringla, or, The Lives of the Norse Kings,” which I think I need to own for a number of reasons.

3a. It is about the Norse kings.

3b. It is written by Snorre Sturlason, who I believe also wrote down a good deal of Norse mythology. While it was published in 1932 it was clearly penned before that, and though it is a translation you still get all of the wonderful mystical stories instead of the actual pragmatic facts. For example,

They therefore took Mirmir and beheaded him and sent his head to the Ashland people. Odin took the head, smeared it with such herbs that it could not rot, quoth spells over it and worked such charms that it talked with him and told him many hidden things

3c. It comes with fold-out maps of the lands where these men lived, which is of course all lumpy and vaguely recognizable as Northern Europe, and in the seas are many illustrations of the sorts of wild beasts one might encounter in the open ocean.

I did a quick run through of the rest of the night in my head just now. Not a to-do list per-se, but a physical location sort of thing. I will be here, then I will go to the green chair and read, and then before I go to point A I can drop off the rentals and go pick up Anthony…which is when it occurred to me that I wouldn’t need to pick up Anthony from point A, since he will already be at point B. Because he no longer has a class at point A. Because this is a new semester. Do you follow this? I didn’t for a moment, and I had this weird moment of WHAT WHERE AM I AND WHERE DO I NEED TO BE?? It was more than a little disturbing. I also just now thought my ramen was breathing. It may be time to lay off the caffeine.

The (Denver) Art Museum’s new wing is finally open to the public as of today, though yesterday was their Celebratory Opening Event. We attempted to make an appearance to see what new art they brought us, and were bewildered to learn that they “sold out” of their free-day tickets hours before we had arrived. I understand the need to keep the number of the masses down inside an art gallery, but I don’t really understand a bunch of people in green t-shirts standing guard at the gates saying that there is no more room inside as throngs of cat-sweatshirt people and their families leave. We hadn’t exactly planned* to go to the Museum this weekend, but it’s not the sort of place we can just shuffle off to whenever we feel like it, so I was kind of bummed. One must make the most of the setting however, and after a few hours in a used bookstore, a diner burger, and a few more hours of reading-on-a-big-poufy-couch-in-the-fancy-perpetually-open-coffee-shop-on-15th, I was a much happier person.

*More accurately we sort of milled around in pajamas until noon, and then Anthony said well what do you want to do, and I said hey let’s use these Panera gift cards, and then we were sitting at Panera with the third or so cup of coffee, and then oh what do you feel like doing? Uh hmm well the museum just opened didn’t? Oh yeah huh let’s go there. This was after a man walked through the dining area dressed in a hot pink gorilla suit, strumming a guitar in a melancholy fashion. Our fellow patrons vaguely glanced up, if they acknowledged him at all. It was beautiful. He had some sort of sign promoting one of the local businesses, it was half-hearted and made with markers and a sheet of copy paper and taped to his guitar with masking tape.

We have again breached the topic of women in the context of mainstream media in one of my classes, so I have again spent a good deal of time clenching jaw and rubbing my fists back and forth on the surface of the desk thinking things like “forgive them for they KNOW NOT WHAT THEY SAY.” I did pipe in to ask people to please very much stop equating female assertiveness to bitchiness, as I think people mistook our professor identifying it as a stereotype for giving them permission to think it was correct. People kept saying things like “she was being bitchy and making it to the top!” in a positive light, as an argument for why the prime time television character was successful.

TWO OTHER THINGS I WISH PEOPLE WOULD STOP EQUATING

1. Pacifism and weakness. Just because I am not one to throw a punch does not mean I can’t hold onto my lunch money.

2. Religion — from acknowledging vague spirituality to being devout to one particular sect, and everything in between — and stupidity or ignorance. I’m really not sure where this idea comes from, but I’ve encountered quite a number of people in academia who assume people who embrace spirituality as people who do so because they haven’t really grasped knowledge yet, and I almost find that more offensive than people who think bitchiness and assertiveness are the same thing.

Almost.

TWO REASONS THE WORLD IS COMING TO AN END

1. North Korea’s Nuclear tests, which in and of themselves are probably not a big deal but people (at the very least, the current administration,) seem to want to make a big deal of it.

2. The smoking ban in France.

Lest you think I spent the whole day grouchy I did in fact spend a good deal of time walking around in a haze of happiness for the weather. This was not the same reaction that most people have to sudden 40*F and drizzle, but I am all about the cold weather and the apparel, drinks and activities that come with it. I also woke up reasonably early, dressed, made breakfast, checked my notebook, and then remembered that my first class is cancelled for most of the week. So, instead of bundling up, I got to crawl back into bed and snuggle for an extra hour.

Also! Did you know I received the espresso machine in the mail? I think you did but I think it bears reiteration.

I simply must focus on the weather, and coffee, for all the worrying I have been doing. I am not usually a worrier, so this really means I am spending all day distracted and unfocused because I am trying NOT to focus on the worry. Big Things, things like housing and rent situations, financial stuff, and Big Picture things (see above) are getting me all worried. But you know what? I will not worry. Are you worried? Do not worry.

WE START WITH SOME EELINGS TO ESTABLISH THE CONTEXT, WHICH IS A TERM I STOLE, BUT FRANKLY I LOVE IT SO LET’S ALL USE IT SHALL WE?

me: “monitor opinions” is just a mind-explody thing. Shouldn’t the guv’nment be worried about more relevant things rather than what people think of them? How old are we?
Anthony: well. technically no. Only the Judicial branch has that luxury. Everyone else is up for re-election
me: I guess so
me: but again. I think I’d like a functional government, please
me: rather than one obsessed with self-image
Anthony: hah. haah
me: that might be too much to ask for I guess
Anthony: Has been. For a long, long time.
me: that would be a great t-shirt. the Ovaltine kids, glasses raised, saying FUNCTIONAL GOVERMENT, PLEASE!

Thus. You are now aware of my next Photoshopped-poster project

Also: oh happy day! A world in which we can simply wake up gay!

I live on the side of the train tracks that most of the city is situated on, but I also live sort of far away from everything else. The quickest way here is technically the highway, which bypasses all of the in-town street lights at 45 MPH and then sends you back over the train tracks that you mysteriously cross whilst on an overpass. Or something. Anyway, while the trains are frequent, I have actually never had to wait on them until last night. There was something wrong with this particular train, because instead of ambling by in a timely* fashion it just stopped on the tracks. I wasn’t really in the mood to wait there for however long, but I also didn’t have a pressing need to BE anywhere. That, and some older Mexican gentleman with a huge mustache pulled up next to me, blocking my escape route.

He looked at the train, and gave me a big (as in very dramatic, exaggerated) open-handed What’s up with that? guestere.

I did a similarly over-the-top, open-handed Who knows? guesture back.

We watched the still train for a good 5 minutes, and then eventually it began to creak back into life, and start moving. I looked over into his car, and he gave me a big grin and two thumbs up. Yeah! And I responded with the same Heck yeah! We tipped imaginary hats as we turned opposite directions two blocks later.

*Oh it is to laugh, to think of trains as “timely”. I traveled to Boston last fall via Amtrak, and it was everything (fun, pretty, nauseating, amusing, frustrating, incredible) but timely.
So. I have now received the espresso machine in the mail. My joy is great. No, I do not have any espresso yet, which is why I will be heading to a larger town to procure some beans later, and no, I don’t know how to use it, so decent espresso probably won’t be around for a while. But I have lusted after this particular machine for something like four years now, so to have it sitting nonchalantly on the counter is really overwhelming.

I got an email saying I had a comment, and because I’ve never had a journal thing with comment ability before, I was sort of excited in a strange way. That is, until I opened the message, and saw that it was a spam-comment, containing only profanity. Ah well.

MORE LINKS AND WE’LL CALL IT A DAY

A really addictive toy. Similar to the Sand game, in that you are manipulating inevitable things.

“Fear is the mother of morality,” and other Family Circus cartoons.

I wanted this shirt even before I knew what it was based on.

Today is Composer day in Brazil, which I must admit is a little less exciting than The Great Standing on the Ugra river. I think we should celebrate by standing in rivers (which is not exactly what occurred, but aren’t Holidays all about perverting the original event with symbolic observance?) or dressing as your favorite Tataro-Mongol Hoardesman. I call Akhmat.