Phenotype

A new song.

I wished upon a star that wasn't mine.
It was just passing through on someone else's dime.
So I can wait at my window
or I can turn my head away
and fall asleep to someone else's song
and dream about my father when he was just a boy
and know that he was fragile just like me
and dream about the springtime in the land that I love
(I'll be there for a while,
I'll be there for a while
and then I'll go).

I walk this world in a rented soul,
leased down from generations.
I took it from my mother
and I'll pass it right along
to a little bitty unsuspecting stranger
Because there's not enough room in this life for this shame
(So I'll feel it for a while,
I'll feel it for a while
and then let it go).

Sometimes we write the book
before we know the whole story
and fill the lines with all we thought we'd be,
but for all the things we carry
and what we left behind,
we're painting daisies over the pages of our lives.
Because when I dream of heaven
you're cradled in my arms
(and I'll hold you for a while,
I'll hold you for a while,
and then I have to go).

Harry Potter dreams...

Mama, Shosha, and I went to Charleston this weekend and listened to about 10 hours of The Order of the Phoenix and I've been having dreams ever since. I keep dreaming about Professor Umbridge, that maggot-of-a-woman. In my dreams, I just throw fits whenever she appears, but I never seem to affect her demeanor--calm, collected, and absolutely loathsome. And then I have dreams where I am totally and completely infatuated with Snape. Of course, I think I just have an unhealthy attraction to Alan Rickman. And sometimes in my dreams, Alan Rickman is Sherlock Holmes from Laurie King's Mary Russell series, which makes me want to go reread all those books...but I will not. I have a list a mile long already. I don't have time to reread things.

But if I do end up moving to San Francisco, I will need to reread Locked Rooms and The Art of Detection.

I'm not really any closer to figuring out what I need to do with myself. I'm just in a vile mood lately, which I am working on as it is no fun to be in such a state. Things have stopped making sense to me. The things I have wanted for so long, I'm not sure I want anymore (or I just feel indifferent in the face of this seemingly impossible reality). But I haven't found any knew things to want...so I just feel lost in it. Unsure of my direction, restless in my present, distrustful of my mind.
Nothing is making me excited...not grad school, not New Zealand, not California, not anything. It's just one big void.

I just realized that Alan Rickman is very very old.

I had an idea for a good blog last night, but now I've forgotten it...

For the first time in a long bit, I will not be writing about Stevie.

Since the job search has been going so abysmally, I decided to follow through on an ad I saw in the news for plasma donors (or plasma sellers, actually). I don't mind needles and I'd heard that you could get something like $30 bucks per session, and when you are so utterly and completely broke like I am, $30 dollars is really nice...and you don't need a resume. You just have to have not had sex with an African male since 1976.

In a perfect world, I should really donate my plasma, but when you can get paid for it...I had to at least check it out. And check it out I did. I went to a place called Talecris Plasma in downtown G-ville, but was told that they weren't accepting new donors and to come back at 8am tomorrow. I was a little weirded out by the whole scene. There were definitely some dodgy characters and no one was friendly. Some of the people looked like they were homeless (or close to it) or patients in an Alzheimer's ward. Lots of lanky men with grotesque, greasy facial hair, and old women with crazy eyes and missing teeth. I was looking around for the poor student types and saw none. But I said, Maura, damn it, you lived by the projects in Harlem and you can handle this. You can get a little money to work towards paying your next insurance bill. So what if it is unethical. Deal with it.

So I rolled out of bed (literally, I'm sleeping on the dog bed these days) at 6:30 am and drove back to G-ville. There was practically a line out the door of more shady folk. I got handed a pamphlet that specified where the plasma went, and mostly it goes to pharmaceutical companies to make drugs (overpriced and useless, most likely) and not people who actually need it. And the people running it treated everybody like shit, and this guy beside me kept harassing me and informing me that I was too pretty to be there. And it just hit me...the clear message from God or whatever that I shouldn't be there (and not because I am pretty). So I left. And then I felt stupid for going all the way to G-ville just to leave. So I drove over to the Blood Connection and donated my platelets instead. It was just a whole different experience. Everyone was so nice and the building was clean and friendly looking. And I was glad I did it. Sometimes you just have to listen to your gut, I guess.


And then I came home, feeling tired and a little woozy, only to find out that I didn't get the GS job. I am upset because of the lost opportunity to return to that place and those people (and maybe it is for the best that I don't take that step backwards), but mostly I am just overcome with frustration, anger, and self-pity. If I can't get a job at GS where people know and like me and I am more than qualified, where can I get a job. I am just completely demoralized and beyond exasperated with the whole process. I just spent my last dime in the world on Stevie's book and couldn't even afford to bind it properly. And I just don't understand how I got here. I mean, even three months ago, I had no financial problems. I was slowly starting to replenish my savings that I had lost due to not having work for a while. And then overnight...it happens. I have a major medical emergency while under-insured and get dumped out on the street by a new set of jerks a few weeks later. I don't understand. And maybe I don't care. But I feel like I am twelve years old. I almost forget what it was like to take care of myself. I know I'm so lucky to be here. I really I am. But it is still hard.

I don't know what to do. I almost never have to say that. It is a strange sensation. But I don't know what the right move is for me. And I don't think it is something that anyone else can tell me. And I get caught up on what I should have done to begin with. It seems like every decision I have made in the last 18 months has haunted me. Hindsight is always 20/20. After Stevie, I should have immediately started looking for another nanny job instead of flittering away my savings while desperately trying for a "normal job." I should have taken the agency-sponsored job with those filthy rich people with a child-care staff at $20 an hour instead of falling for a few kind words and an adorable baby. And I should have stuck it out in NYC and found another nanny job as soon as possible instead of coming back here. Or maybe those were all the right decisions, but I just can't see it yet. Because I thought the GS job was the light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

I hope that is the case. I don't know what to trust in anymore. I don't even feel like I can trust myself, but I know I have to. I feel like I need to pray, or soul-search, or maybe they are the same thing. I just feel alone and scared and too weak to go it alone.

day-o

I've been missing in action for a few days, I know.
Shosha came home, which has been wonderful. For some reason, it feels like summer camp around here. I like my new little home, though I still might like to live in the camper. Despite still having no job (which is getting a little ridiculous), I feel more satisfied than I have been.

I have been having baby pangs again (as if they ever stop), but I'm sort of working through the psychology of that. The truth is, for the past 5 or 6 years of my life, I have had a baby or two to love. I can just list them all off: Haleigh, Cameron, Hamish, Jenny, Anna, Catherine, Franz, Kira, Eli, Stevie, Stephen, Madeleine. I have the caretaking gene. I always have. I'm your typical ultra-sensitive, middle child who wants to be able to fix everything and takes emotional responsibility for things that aren't hers. I think I have sort of transferred that persona into a kind of super-maternalism. And I think it is mostly positive. It doesn't feel like a crutch, even if it is difficult to be without it. I find a kind of peace and purpose in loving children, even if they are not my own. I find solace in the uninhibited closeness. I feel stronger and more alive in that kind of relationship. I have found joy in loving the little ones who have pranced into my story.

And working with very young children and babies, even though it isn't really what I want to "do" with my life, has been meaningful to me. I have not been restless or unsatisfied, which is no small feat. Maybe that is what is so scary about this phase of my life. I don't know what will come next, and I am afraid that it might not be meaningful. I may get this corporate real estate job for the summer and while, at this point, I am not in a position to turn down a job offer at Fuckrudders, I don't think I've ever done anything that I wasn't emotionally or intellectually invested in. Well, I take that back...I took those two classes at Clemson two summers ago. Totally pointless. And aside from the fact that I would love to be a part of the GS community again, I am terrified that if I don't get the job at GS, I'll have no choice but to settle for something utterly meaningless for the next year. The thought is almost enough to make me march myself back up to NYC and lay my heart down in the middle of Lexington Ave to be trampled again. Because I know that I can always get a job as a nanny there. Sometimes I think that maybe my heart would just stop minding so much...that leaving wouldn't hurt anymore. But that's stupid.

Where is my love?

places I'd like to visit before I die...

New Zealand
Italy
Greece
Denmark
Romania
Egypt
Chile
South Africa
Kenya
Zimbabwe
Indonesia
Iceland
Japan
Australia
Israel (probably never gonna happen, but I have always wanted to see Jerusalem)
Tonga
Bolivia
Macedonia
India
Ukraine
Argentina
Thailand
Vietnam
Poland
Lebanon
Austria

places that I have no real desire to see...

Saudi Arabia
Algeria
Greenland
China
Russia
either Korea
Pakistan
Chad (I hate the name Chad)]
United Arab Emirates
Germany
Kansas (did you SEE Jesus Camp?)

Summer's lease hath all too short a date

I'm trying to find out if my insurance will pay for the Gardasil vaccine. Seems like something it would make sense to have. But I always feel kinda iffy about new medicine. I was on the OrthoEvra patch for a while and Serevent for my asthma, both of which ended up killing people. Maybe I should talk to my obgyn...oh wait...I don't have one anymore.

Speaking of which, my cycles have been abnormally consistent. 31 days on the money. Aunt Flo comes about 3 days after the full moon, and for the past three months, it has also been when my student loan payment is due. I blame it on J. When she fired me back in January, I started my period almost two weeks early. I thought maybe that my heart had actually broken and was bleeding out, you know, hemorrhaging. It was more of a metaphorical thing, but I still wondered what it would be like to be the first person to die of a broken heart via profuse bleeding.

It's not that I mind really, but it is a nuisance. I was getting used to my 45 day cycles. It was kinda nice.

I finished Angels in America a few days ago. I can't even really process it, and I feel like I would need to read the screenplay or watch it over and over again to really get the full effect...it was so verbose, and sometimes you miss out on the poetry just caught up in the emotion. I was slightly disappointed in the ending. I don't know what I was expecting, but that kind of resolution wasn't it. And I want to know what happened to Joe. I'm not sure that I like the way that Kushner abandons him in the end. He has an opposite trajectory from Prior, and I can sort of appreciate that as Prior reclaims life Joe abandons his, but I was dissatisfied. I thought Meryl Streep was just phenomenal (surprise, surprise) and Al Pacino easily gave her a run for her money.

I interviewed at GS yesterday. It is hard to tell how things went. It was like a tribunal hearing, six of them and one of me. They all read off these silly questions that came straight out of the "Interviewing Candidates for Dummies" book. But luckily, I know how to tell a good story. I refrained from using the word "like" (thanks Marina Van Zuylen!) and was very articulate and coherent. I'm really really good at bullshit, but I didn't really have to do that here, and hopefully it showed. When I interview, I try to pick out the person or persons who appear to be the hardest won. In this case, it was the HR lady and the one RLC that I didn't know already. I couldn't get a good read on the RLC, but I had the HR lady hook, line, and sink. What sucks is that I could possibly not know anything until the end of June. I need to get a self-help book on developing patience, because I am just terrible at patience.

e hine e

I miss Stevie like crazy today. I want her here with me. I keep getting these depressing emails from D about how badly things are going and how J is claiming that Stevie has developed neurological problems since she started spending the night at D's place. I know it is just another one of her sick attempts to sabotage the case in anyway that she can, but I still worry about her. Hopefully Stevie is just oblivious to her mother's psychotic behavior and happy as a clam as usual. And hopefully soon she will just forget me. D left a message on my phone a week ago where Stevie just yelled into the phone. "Ma-ah! Ma-ah! Hi! Ma-ah! Hi!" He says she still goes into my room and says "Ma-ah!" That bothers me. I know that I had every reason in the world to come back home, but I need her to forget. I still have this awful image of our last day together, in Park Slope, after I had moved out. We played on the playground and she'd get really upset when I'd move out of her sight, which is so unlike her. And when I walked away, she just sat down on the ground and cried.

And sometimes I can't remember why I left. I forget the reasons that I knew this was best for me, or even the relief I found in the decision. Sometimes I feel so strong and determined to really take control of things in the wake of life's curve balls, but sometimes I just seem to drown in self-doubt.

This weekend was particularly hard because it was graduation up at Bard, and I really wanted to be able to be there. I said my goodbyes before I left NYC and have kept in touch reasonably well, but it just feels like I should have been there. Instead I am here...restless and unsure. I'm ready to get over this hump. I feel like I am close, but the last mile is proving to be the most difficult.

Whine Whine Whine (or whinge, if we were in UK)

I'm wondering if this actually works...

I think I'm finally figuring out my Garage Band on my Mac. I recorded this song. Except, it doesn't like me doing more than one track and when I tried to put down my vocals, it doesn't quite sync them properly (maybe a 4th of a second off), so I sound like I'm forever jumping the gun...which I'm not.

I kinda wanted to write a bluegrass song when I wrote these lyrics, using that lovely little Smoke on the Mountain image of God as the hand at the end of the string tied to a junebug's leg (and if you pull too hard, you'll just break your leg right off.) It's funny as hell. But it turns out I'm not really the best at quirky bluegrass songs. This is my submissive side coming out, I think.

I think that when you graduate from college with a degree in English, they ought to tape a prescription for Xanax to the back of your diploma.

This will be a short post. I'm sleepy and irritable. I think I injured my pecs at the Y today. My boobs hurt...deep tissue hurt...too deep for Icy Hot.

Actually, so far it has been a pretty good week. Still unemployed, but I interviewed for the truck job on Monday, have an interview at American Grocery Restaurant on Thursday, and have an interview at G.S. on Tuesday. And I might have a tutoring job for a 1st grader. I'm beginning to feel less hopeless.

I've also been hot and heavy into my grad school research. I have a list of about 25 programs that I am going to research. I'm hoping to narrow down to 10 so I don't break the bank come December. Some of these schools have $90 dollar application fees. So I'm creating fairly detailed profiles on all of them, including faculty contacts, financial stuff, and current student dissertations. I've done Washington University in St. Louis and Columbia so far. It is actually really helpful to read faculty bios and research interests. I'm getting a better idea of what I should call my own interests.

I also struck gold today at the Inside Bard website. Evidently, they have revamped ReserveWeb and now all the readings from all classes since 2001 are available for student use. This means that I can read all the articles and chapters that I SHOULD have read. It is also just a really good resource for me. I can go back to my Into to Cultural Anth readings and refresh the basics. And I can go back and read the selected texts from Michele Dominy's colonial mythology class (back when she still taught). I also dug out my GRE books, determined not to go postal about the math section like last time. I was doing so well back in October. I did the entire Verbal section of the Kaplan one, and I took one look at the Math section and went into traumatic shock. I'm good with the algebra and basic math, but the Geometry is going to kill me...and I'd say about half the questions are geometry-oriented. I haven't had Geometry since I was 14 years old!!!! I will not fall to pieces. I will not fall to pieces....

Speaking of falling to pieces, I may have crossed the blurry line into insanity. I've been toeing it for a while. I had Kayla bring over her fake baby. I'd call it a doll, but it's just fuckin' scary how life-like it is. I have him to counteract my baby-withdrawals. I named him Atticus (don't worry, he'll grow into it).



Heartache and trauma aside, sometimes I just miss being around the little ones. I feel a bit like a partially-recovered alcoholic who drives by her old favorite booze stores before catching herself. I found myself on a nanny classifieds board the other day and had to throttle myself and say, "Maura, look at me! Don't do that! Stay away!" So my fake baby can be like a plastic cigarette, satisfying the oral fixation without compromising the internal organs.



And here's a little preview for photo post for my recent adventures. I finally got around to uploading the pictures from "The Great Escape: April 2007." I also have pictures from the first Jocassee run of the summer and my adventure in 3-par golf (or more like 18-par in my case).

This is me and my lovely door front in Harlem...dear, dear Harlem (gag!)



And this is me and my lovely little street with the lovely little project development behind me.



This is me in the frigid waters of Jocassee, praying that the buried ghosts of my ancestors don't rise up and bite me on the ass. There is a bowling alley at the bottom of Lake Jocassee...maybe there is a Loch Ness Monster as well.




This is me using the flag to putt instead of the putter. I am shit at putting.




This was a common occurrence--gives a new meaning to "out of bounds." Mulligan!

what great doom lies in a land of settlers with never a soul at home

I have James Belich's email address. So of course I have to write him and ask him something...anything. But first I have to reread Paradise Reforged. Luckily I still have Bard's copy, which I am assuming I will have to give back before I can get my transcript. I am a shameless library criminal. James Belich is the author of The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict and two really wonderful, thorough, and hard-hitting historical volumes: Making Peoples (polynesian settlement to 1880) and Paradise Reforged (1880-2001). I don't even know who we would compare him to here.

I've been thinking a lot about my new piece which is just now in its pre-pre-development stages. It's that frustrating time at the beginning of a project where you have to hunt out the questions that you want to be answered by the process...find someway to start articulating a purpose before you can even start developing a research plan. And while I'm still overwhelmed by all the many possibilities, I think I know where to start.

In the last section of my senior project, "Becoming Tangata Whenua," I talked about a recent publication by the leader of the Green Party of New Zealand, Nandor Tanczos, about the need for a more tangible Pakeha indigeneity. He writes: "Until Pakeha are able to feel certain about our place here, we will continue to show signs of anxiety, defensiveness and intolerance, always underlined by the question 'when do I become tangata whenua?'" And it's really a good point. The politics surrounding the Treaty of Waitangi (might be compared to the politics around our constitution) delineate a bicultural New Zealand, tangata whenua (roughly translated as people of the land) and tangata tiriti (people of the Treaty). So it makes sense that Pakeha, people of the treaty, in the process of claiming indigenous status, are going to be making a discursive and emotional turn to the land. It's fairly straightforward. It begins to make perfect sense why more and more white New Zealanders moving out into the country to run self-sustaining farms or moving into communal eco-villages. While fundamentalist Christians have increasingly been pulling their kids out of school in the expanding American Bible Belt (Homeschooling), liberal middle and upper-class white New Zealanders have been opting out of the cities and suburbs of industrialized New Zealand and developing really interesting relationships to the physical landscape (Homesteading). It's really quite fascinating.

And the cool thing is that I've seen this kind of reclamation of cultural identity through the land played out historical fiction. And I made a lot of kinda shaky connections to a contemporary New Zealand reality based on what other academics were writing. I'm really excited to explore it on my own.

My littlest boyfriends...

My baby pangs are always so Stevie-oriented, but today I caught myself thinking about little Stephen and Eli. I was only with Stephen for about 6 weeks before being unceremoniously dumped out on the side of the road. Certainly my heart was guarded, or at least more guarded than it had been with Stevie. I had definitely lost my innocence. But it didn't mean that I didn't naturally bond with him during those weeks. I'm a total sucker for a squishy newborn, in fact, my nn for Stephen was Squinchy. He was actually a really good baby and he had the sweetest, most expressive face. Mostly I miss the closeness, his warm little body squinched up in the sling while we walked around the city. As unhappy as I was during those hard hard weeks, I enjoyed my time with him. But my feelings about Stephen are so wrapped up in my feelings toward his parents. I am still so angry at their cowardice and insensitivity and outright inhumanity towards me. I am so emotionally consumed by J and D's stuff, but I can just be unadulteratedly pissed off and stung about S and J. But it doesn't change the fact that I loved their child for a time.



My mother and Kayla both say that Stephen was funny-looking, but I just thought he was so adorable. He had these wonderful eyes.


"Tell me a story, bub."


And then there is Eli. I loved Eli so much, but leaving him was relatively easy. Eli's got the most wonderful parents. That makes all the difference in the world. Eli will be in good hands for the rest of his life. I always joked around that Geoff (as my project adviser) would have to give me an A or else I would kidnap Eli. There was a certain forced accountability involved in being Eli's sitter. I was there at the house twice a week. There was no chance at being elusive. I'd show up on Thursday to "So, Maura, I didn't get your chapter yesterday...what's going on?"

But Geoff and Sarah were just so wonderful to me during what turned out to be a very hard year. I sort of became family. And I got plenty of that grown-up interaction that I so crave. I get along well with my "peers," but I am just more engaged with adults in many ways. Geoff and Sarah were (and are) good friends to me.

And Eli was just a joy. I just had such a good time with him. It was so emotionally uncomplicated. I could just love him and enjoy him with no strings attached. And it was really amazing watching him grow. He was 3 months old when I started working and 13 months when I left. And it is strange because I just didn't really notice he had grown. When you are with a baby on a consistent basis, you just don't process the time that goes by. The toddler still feels and looks like the newborn. It's hard to explain.

Eli has the best eyelashes ever...he also had an oral fixation



My little Arm and Hammer man...



I've been giving it a lot of thought lately, and I can honestly say that I'm glad I made the kind of "work" choices that I did, even if it is causing me grief and inconvenience in many ways now. I had to work in college and instead of doing something that might look better on a resume, I did what I loved. I don't think you can ever regret loving and taking care of a child. It is such an emotionally validating thing. It feels so good to embrace the beauty of babyhood and childhood. For me, it's a really magical thing to be a part of. I've never gotten into my car after 8 hours with a child and said, "God, that was torture...what a waste of time." And even on the most dull of rainy days with Stevie, I never went to bed wishing I was somewhere else, and that surprised even me. I remember going up to Bard for a long weekend and getting restless by Sunday because I wanted to be back with her. That level of attachment has burned me, but I don't think it is wrong. In fact, I think is wonderful that I am able to give myself so completely to something. Being with Stevie was like being in the middle of writing a story. It's hard work and emotionally draining, but you are just so into it, so consumed with the doing of it, that you lose track of time. Nothing feels better.

Living it up in the garden...

The newly built bean/pea trellis gracing the garden...


I will admit that the carpentry is inexact architecturally, but it has a homely charm.


Or maybe we just need a different angle.


I call this nail "Northern Aggression" (Little Cold Mountain reference there)


The roses that Cocoa nibbled on...you'd think aloe and roses would make her breath smell a little better, but no...


Doesn't she look penitent?


Doesn't she look oblivious?


Doesn't he look dignified?


Shootin' the breeze on the front porch. While the Rents yak, Fiona has a little lick of beer.


"Help me! They make me do the laundry."

News from Lake Cappsbegon

The first bit of news here at the dead end of Huntington Drive is that we have gone high speed. Yes, we've moved on up in this world. Even cavemen have broadband these days, and while we still clobber each other with clubs around here, at least we have fast internet. The Rents just don't know what to do with themselves. They just didn't know what they were missing.

The second bit of news is that my piece-of-shit mac is back, and so far it has been behaving really really well. Lets not jump the gun, though, and get too excited.

The third bit of news is that I my feet have grown since I was 11. It's kinda sad really. My heels still fit in the slots, but the rest of my foot doesn't.




Another interesting development is Daddy's culinary failure. Who would have thought such a thing to be possible. But here you have it. I've named it Vegetable Porridge (please, sir, may I have some m-m-more?). It looks like something Cocoa barfed up, and while I can't attest for how Cocoa's vomit tastes, this tasted like spicy regurgitation.




Stevie's new book is almost complete. I think I have maybe 2 or 3 more pages to do. I don't know what to call it yet, though. The first one was just called Stevie and Bobo. I was thinking "Stevie and Bobo's Grand Adventures," but that doesn't quite cut it. This painting makes me sad though, because I'm the one who would most likely be there with her...that exact position. J and D, as mentioned before, have weird sleep issues.


This is the remains of the aloe plant. Cocoa, in one of her frequent moments of insanity, decided that she needed to eat it. You have to wonder, don't you, what goes on inside that head of hers. I mean, aloe tastes really bitter like rubbing alcohol, and she didn't just nibble at it. She consumed about 7 or 8 of the fat, 12 inch spikes.





Have no fear, Shosha, the Africa water hasn't eaten through the plastic of the Voltic bottle yet, though the sometimes I hear the foreign microbes and microscopic parasites talking to each other at night.







This is what I would look like if I was an Anne of Green Gables doll. Oh wait, I think I would be Diana.








I really think I should be getting workman's comp for having to sleep upstairs. This is the stripped room with a hole in the floor. I have to dodge rusty nails sticking up our of wooden planks...really. I actually don't think I'm up to date on my Tetanus. Wouldn't it be fun to go to the emergency room again. Wonder if hospitals are cheaper here?


In my own little corner of my own little room. This is what Shosha's room looks like now that I have moved into it. Though I'm not sure where I'm going to go when Shosha comes back. Somebody is going to have to move out into the camper. I hope it is me. I wonder what Jennifer would say if she saw the product of my unique interior design style. I hope she'd be traumatized.




I have re-established my "thinking space." I used to sit up on the roof, but I've become nervous in my old age, so I just stare out from the sill.



The best bit of news is that I have taken up my hammer with a vengeance and glorious things have happened in the garden. I mean business. More later, because this post is seriously busy already.

I just want to thank the Academy for this tremendous honor

I wouldn't be here today had it not been for my dog, Cocoa. I just don't even have the words (voice cracks). My god, it's just so heavy.



Yes, I have put my hands on Shosha's bronze statuette she brought back from Ghana. It is Oscar-sized and you better believe that I've been practicing my acceptance speech in the mirror. It's actually a very interesting piece of art. I can't tell if it is a woman or a man. It seems to have breasts in addition to a short and squat penis. Maybe it is confused.

And here is my muse: Cocoa and Daddy howling together.



I'll be posting the News from Lake Cappsbegon with lots and lots of pictures as soon as the high speed is installed (oh damn, I just gave away the most exciting news).

What it takes to cross the great divide seems more than all the courage I can muster up inside...

...But then we get to have some answers when we reach the other side. The prize is always worth the rocky ride.

I’m just so upset about Jerry Falwell’s passing. I can just imagine him sitting there in his office, bent sinisterly over his donation checks and then BAM!...struck by lightening. You know, they say that evilness raises your cholesterol. That and french fries. That’s just too damn bad. I can’t wait to see Jon Stewart tomorrow. Actually, I guess it’s really mean to get pleasure out of someone dying. He probably had a mother who loved him. I find myself fairly ruthless when it comes to crazy, revolting chrustians (as George would say).

Today was a hard day for me. I felt weepy all day. I wanted to be back in New York, alone. I don’t know why I would want that again. I don’t want it really, but it is just so frustrating to be here with no clear direction. And I’m doing all the right things: I’m writing every day, I’m taking care of my little garden, I’m playing music, I’m sending out resumes and filling out applications, I’m going to the Y, I’m watching depressing movies, I’m getting out with friends. I haven’t been so on top of things in ages. I’m doing all these things that I know are good for me...the concrete things, but I still just can’t shake this lost feeling. It creeps up on me in quiet moments or it just lingers under the surface, waiting to bubble over.

And it comes when I least expect it. Tonight I went upstairs and had a dance party of one. I turned my ipod up and just danced around to happy/angry music without any inhibitions for about 30 minutes. It’s been a while since I’ve let myself go like that. It’s always very therapeutic. And I got this welled up feeling in my chest that I thought was just pure joy, and maybe it was, but then I came down and came down hard. Before I even realized it, I fell apart. One second I was high as a kite and the next second, I’ve got snot and tears dripping onto the floor and I’ve cried my contact out. And for some crazy reason, the music went from Sin Wagon to A Long December, and I’m like “Maura, why would you put that fucking song on a dance mix?” Maybe this year will be better than the last. Hold on, excuse me Mr. Duritz, but is that calendar years? I think I’m still in the eternally long last year and it’s a hell of a long way till next year.

But I believe in the other side. I really do. My heart trusts that I just have to wait it out and hold on for the ride. I’ve believed that for my whole life, even as a little kid, that one day you can look back on the hard times with a sense of peace and accomplishment. It’s a gift, I think. Or maybe it is just my version of faith. It doesn’t necessarily make things easier. I’ve spent a good bit of my life wading through dark places and I know those places well. But I’ve never really entertained the possibility that I was beyond redemption or healing, not deep down.

Or maybe I don’t believe in the other side. It’s a big concept and I feel like I’ve visited it some. I’ve found that I can be two breaths away from drowning in some aspects but have my feet on desert dry land in others. So maybe I believe in lilypads, little resting spots. Maybe some are big and wide and leathery with plenty of room to spare for friends. And some are kind of shaky, thin and moist. And maybe one day you find a lilypad that is so sturdy and green and lovely that you decide to build your life there and let the water take you where it will. Okay, I’ll shut up with the metaphors now.

Good afternoon and welcome to The Waffle House! My name is Maura and I'll be your server today. I do ask that you refrain from peeing in your booth.

I watched Tsotsi last night and did not get the nice cleansing cry I was going for. I guess I need to go dig out the VCR and my copy of Steel Magnolias. Tsotsi was more of a “I think I’m going to be sick all over the floor” cry. First of all, there is this sweet sweet sweet little baby that makes me bite my lip. And I know Tsotsi is the hero and everything, but he does not treat that cute little bub very well at all.





There is this god-awful scene where an 8-year-old Tsotsi’s father kicks their dog (looks like a Rottie/Lab mix) twice, breaking its back. And it just writhes in pain, whimpering, and crawls out the door and the father yells at Tsotsi not to go to him. Meanwhile I was frantically digging around for the flipper to fast-forward and eventually just dove at the DVD player to skip a chapter ahead. It was terrible. Do not see Tsotsi. Do not!


And it also bothered me that the guy who plays Tsotsi looks a whole lot like my old friend Themba the PIE student at Bard. Except Themba would have taken much better care of that baby, I’m sure.


But enough of this. What I really want to talk about is the assholes at the Unemployment office. They have a lot of jobs there for waitstaff and catering and hotel mumbo-jumbo that you can’t apply for from anywhere else. I wasn’t going to receive benefits. One, I’m an optimist and think that gainful employment is just around the corner, and two, I’d have to apply to New York which is a big pain in the ass. But this guy, my “career counselor,” is a total moron and can’t seem to understand this concept. And he can hardly string two sentences together without getting distracted. And he can’t seem to figure out how to get the printer to work because he keep pressing the print to file button. When I point this out, he tells me that I am not allowed to look at the company profiles. And all the while I am thinking, why can’t I just have this guys job as I could easily be 20 times as competent. And then I yell at myself in my head because this man probably has kids to feed at home.

So I spend about 30 minutes on their computers looking for jobs and copying down job codes to give to him so that he can print out the application information. I found about 10 or 12 things that looked reasonably promising. Of course, the actual company name is hidden from us lowly, unemployed peons, until we give it to our “career counselors.” So it’s always a shot in the dark. Then I take my paper with all the numbers on it and he says, “Sorry, we can only look up five jobs for you per day.” So I sigh and let him look up those jobs. The fourth job was listed as “wait staff” in Greenville (I’m thinking Red Lobster or Sticky Fingers, etc). And in his robotic voice he says, “Greenville...Server...$2.35/hour plus tips...will train...The Waffle House.” I burst out laughing at the absurdity of it all. The guy looked rather put out. I don’t blame him.
“No, sir, I think I’ll pass on that one...the smoke...yeah, the smoke. I can’t be around that much smoke.”
Can you imagine? I’m willing to stoop low, but not that low. Besides, no one ever tips at the Waffle House. Ava worked at the Waffle House in Greenwood and said this woman used to come in, order a cup of coffee, and then peed all over the seat. I just can’t.
And then, to add insult to injury, I try to get him to look up another one of the jobs instead and he’s like “no, sorry, I can only look up 5.”

Why the fuck can’t I get a stupid job anyway? I mean, I have a college degree...the most useless college degree ever. I feel like I’m walking around town with a big E stitched on my shirt. Beware, this unruly woman majored in English. I’m telling you, they scatter like flies.

Maura! You are on notice

Happy Mother’s Day! That's me and my mama ;c)

I must really love my mother because I went to Anderson and shopped on Mother’s Day Weekend. Good thing I didn’t pack my automatic weapon in my hand bag or several people would have been hurt. I got her a mix of the traditional (lavender smellies and assorted candle smellies), the untraditional (cruelty-free tea-tree smellies) and the really untraditional (freezable beer mugs). This morning we met the grandparents and ate at L’hôpital, saw GG at the home for a little while (we played toss with the beach ball and lubed her up with lotion), and then sat through 2.5 hours of classical music (it was actually very good, but I enjoy complaining). Nicholas was good...I could sort of see him up there. Then, because I must recover from these things, I went home and took a nap in which I dreamed about being inside a Bruegel painting....the peasant wedding one.





I was sad today. I guess I am still sad, but I’m going to go watch Tsotsi so that I can feel okay about crying my eyes out.

Salman Rushdie was on Colbert this week, the same program where Jane Fonda gave Stephen a lap dance...to die for. Which brings me to another goal I have set for myself. I really shouldn’t be getting all of my news and political/cultural analysis from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Though as my father said, it is a sad sad day when the most hard-hitting, significant interviews being performed on this administration and the thinkers (or non-thinkers, as it may be) around it are on Comedy Central. I know about the power of Satire (think Voltaire and Jonathan Swift) but this is a bit ridiculous. (Speaking of Voltaire, I’d really like to reread The Baron in the Trees if I find it in the piles of books upstairs.)

Mostly I’ve just a little disappointed in myself when thinking how participatory I used to be when it came to political issues, how hungry I was for knowledge and alternative perspectives. I guess growing up in the reddest county corner of SC gave me a bit of eat or be eaten mentality and so I was really proactive in my political engagement. Then I went to Bard where all of a sudden I am surrounded by people who make ME feel conservative.

I kept up my activist inclinations for my first year (long enough to be spotted on national television at the WTO protest by my super conservative Christian cousin...something they will never forget) and noticed that nothing I was doing, nothing I was reading, nothing I was feeling had any impact at all on the downward spiral of the world as a whole. My idiotic fellow American’s re-electing that bumbling fuck-wad didn’t help. I also think part of it had to do with a seriously depressing course on the Modern Middle East which chronicled the region from the 1790s to the present and everything seemed so hopeless and my teacher, Nerina, basically said that it WAS hopeless. It was about this time that I started focusing my energies elsewhere. I became somewhat of a British Colonialism scholar. Instead of focusing on the quagmire in my own country, I began looking at the messes of the 19th and early 20th centuries in India, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand (New Zealand in particular, actually), etc.

I also did some really in-depth work on internal American imperialism. I’m trying to read A People’s History of the US start to finish (my education so far has been smattered with excerpts) and I’ve just finished a chapter where Zinn basically says that the American Revolution was less about sawing off the yoke of Britain and more about getting their silly laws and treaties out of our way so that we could start kicking up the dust and pave the road out west with our own reign of terror. And the eventual development of the Constitution served to bring economic and political injustice into law from its premodern place as a practice of brutish force. So then I became a bit of an expert on frontierism with a primary interest in nuclear colonialism of the native southwest.

Anyway, I traded in my sorrows. And I’ve really enjoyed it and plan to keep enjoying it, but I do feel rather guilty. I never thought I’d be the one to succumb to political apathy. And I haven’t...not really. Apathy is a bad word. I do care...more than care. I guess I’m more politically disillusioned. The articles and interviews and protests and letter writing that I used to thrive on have lost their enchantment. I’m trying to rekindle the flame. I guess the easiest way to do that is to start reading again.

Things That Smell Like Eggs

FINAL JEOPARDY

A couple, in their 50s, sit in two recliners in front of a TV set. DAD is an intellectual type, tweed pants and cream-colored shirt, thick glasses and graying facial hair. MOM is the turtle neck and vest type, a cup of tea in her hand. The couple are watching an imagined TV. On a stool downstage left sits a GIRL in her twenties, in professional attire with bad posture.


GIRL: (to the audience) Dad’s the kind of person to bellow out all the answers to Jeopardy before anyone on the show does.

DAD :(to the TV) Murdoch, Iris Murdoch.

MOM: She had Alzheimer’s you know. They made a movie last year.

DAD: Shhh, I can’t hear.

MOM: I saw it with Peggy down at The Colony. Peggy’s mom’s got Alzheimer’s

DAD: Seamus Heaney!

MOM: Wow, good job, honey. You should write in to them, see if you can get on. You’re better than all those guys.

GIRL: She always says that.

DAD: Uh…oh shit, who is it…

MOM: Where do you suppose they film it?

DAD: It’s not Yeats, it’s….

MOM: New York?

DAD: Ah, Jesus, I’m blanking out on his goddamn name….

MOM: Or L.A. I think I remember it being L.A. I’m sure it says at the end.

DAD: What? Damn it! Sheila, I missed the answer.

MOM: Oh, sorry.

DAD: Do you have to talk through the whole thing. I don’t talk during the Wheel of Fortune.

MOM: Don’t be silly, honey. See, that guy’s doing the Chemical Elements one. You won’t know any of those. You don’t know Chemistry.

DAD: Yes, I do…..uh, uh, Beryllium!

GIRL: Sometimes Mom says the answer softly after someone answers it on the show, as if it had been on the tip of her tongue.

MOM: Uranium…

DAD: FE, what’s FE?

MOM: Iron.

DAD: Iron. How did you know that?

GIRL: Dad’s always surprised when Mom knows something he doesn’t.

MOM: Folic Acid. Remember I took Folic acid when I was pregnant with Amelia.

DAD: General Electric

MOM: That’s the only reason I know.

DAD: Westinghouse? What the hell.

GIRL: When Dad gets an answer wrong, he assumes that there must have been a mistake.

DAD: That can’t be right.

GIRL: And Mom looks smug.

MOM: Remember when Amelia was a baby and got shocked when she pulled out the coffee maker plug.

DAD: What? No.

MOM: Westinghouse makes Mr. Coffee.

DAD: Um…Oh God, what is it?...The beer company…oh…Busch, Anheuser-Busch

MOM: You don’t drink beer.

GIRL: Dad does drink beer, but Mom thinks it’s an undignified drink, so she pretends that he doesn’t.

(A long silence…MOM and DAD just sit, staring at the TV.)

GIRL: During commercial breaks, there is always silence at first, until Mom realizes that she can’t just talk during the show itself, she has to talk through it all or else he’ll get mad at her for talking during the important stuff and not during the commercials. So a few awkward moments pass.
(more silence)
Until Mom can find something to say.

MOM: I can’t believe they put that filth on between the Jeopardy show…I mean kids watch this stuff.

DAD: Kids don’t watch Jeopardy.

MOM: Amelia watched Jeopardy with us.

DAD: She did not.

MOM: She did too. She always liked to watch you, see how smart you were.

GIRL: Don’t, Mom.

MOM: Amelia came by the other day, wanted to see you. She got accepted a job offer in the city.

GIRL : Accept, to allow or receive as in a gift. Except, to omit, to exclude, not including

MOM: Copyediting for a publishing company.

DAD: Amelia? Copyediting? Amelia can’t spell dog.

MOM : That’s not true, honey. You were always harping on her and she was only trying to please you.

GIRL: Complement, that which makes up or completes. Compliment….praise.

DAD: Good grammar is essential.

MOM: I get by okay without it.

GIRL: Dad always grunts when Mom says something like that.

(DAD clears his throat)

MOM: I tried that stuff, and it didn’t work at all. I should write in.

DAD: Just use bleach.

MOM: I know that, honey.

DAD: It’s cheaper.

GIRL: Between Jeopardy and Double Jeopardy, they introduce the players…two males, one woman, always the same. The woman never wins. Mom says it is because women have better things to do that become trivia pros…we work and have children…but Mom never worked.

MOM: Who the hell knows what a systems analyst is. I wonder if Jeff even knows.

GIRL: Hell is the only curse word she will use.

DAD: Don’t be ridiculous.

MOM: Well what do they do?

DAD: You know…portfolios, software fuctions, company profiles…

GIRL: His voice trails off.

MOM: Oh honey, she’s from Myrtle Beach….remember Myrtle Beach.

DAD: One big strip mall.

MOM: It was Amelia’s first trip to the beach. She got bit by those little sand fleas and cried all the way to the airport before we gave her some Benadryl.

DAD: Was bitten.

GIRL: I remember the little red bumps on the backs of my thighs, the sand still in my socks.

MOM: But she slept all the way home.

DAD: An audio category? Since when do they have that? It isn’t Name That Tune, it’s Jeopardy.

MOM: We should have taken Andrew to Myrtle Beach.

GIRL: My younger brother, Andrew. He died when he was 2. Pneumonia induced asphyxiation. Our family tragedy.

DAD: All About Alice…Famous Alices. They say it helps to think of possible answers ahead of time. Alice’s Restaurant, Alice in Wonderland, Alice Munro...

GIRL: Mom gets passive aggressive when Dad won’t talk to her about Andrew.

MOM: They should have a category called “All About Chafing.”

DAD: Alice in Chains

GIRL: I listened to Alice in Chains. He remembered.

MOM: All About Mucus

DAD: Alice Walker.

MOM: All About Gum Disease

DAD: Alice Roosevelt

MOM: Things That Smell Like Eggs

Mending My Ways

When signing up for my last semester of classes at Bard, knowing that I needed to take the easiest classes imaginable, I just couldn’t resist Yuka’s Environment, Development, and Power Senior Research Seminar. The reason senior research seminars usually only have about 6-8 students is because any senior in their right mind wouldn’t subject him or herself to the ridiculous reading and writing load while writing the project. But I suppose my six classmates and I were so brain-fried and delirious from our first semester of senior projecting, that we exercised severely poor judgment. Or maybe we just thought seeing Yuka’s sweet, smiling face every week would make it worth it, would make us forget that behind that smile was 400-500 pages of incredibly dense reading every week. I’ve had lit classes with 300-400 pages a week, but we are talking fiction…you know…plot lines.

Needless to say, I NEVER got all my reading done for that class. I took 20 hours all of my semesters at Bard (except for the first…I took 18), so not getting your reading done was a reality that couldn’t really be repaired. It was an adjustment. In high school, I read every single word of assigned reading and then some. It used to drive me crazy when I’d be sitting in on a class where I had finished the damn book and all my classmates were on chapter 3. Sooo frustrating. And all of a sudden, I get to college and spend hours upon hours at the library and still can’t manage to read anything.

But I developed a sort of system. Read the intro, first chapter, and one other chapter (the one with the most interesting title), and then the conclusion. For all other chapters, you read the first and last sentence of every paragraph. I find that doing this makes it possible for you to go into a classroom with a pretty good idea of what the book was about. But in that class, sometimes I couldn’t even find time to read the intro top to bottom. I tried really hard, because EDP was exactly up my alley and was this amazing opportunity to be exposed to what is happening right now in contemporary anthropologies. Most of the writers we were reading were fairly recent graduate (most within the last 7 or 8 years). It’s really an exciting time to be an anthropologist. And I did really well for a while. Then we read Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern which I forced myself to read every last word of and I still can’t tell you what the fuck that book is about. It was translated from the French and it might as well have been French for all the sense it made. It was about pre-modernity and post-modernity and how we have never been modern, that modernity is just another act of faith and how our world requires hybrid modes of thinking…blah blah blah. I kid you not, the book had not a single proper noun in the entire thing…not one. Okay, I understood it a little better than that, but I’m not sure I saw the point. Maybe the translation was just bad. Some of the sentences had a bit of a Bablefish lilt to them.

The reason I just slipped right into history and anthropology from a heavy literature background was because I found the stories. Historiography and Ethnography are stories, crafted and highlighted in ways that create analytical meaning, but deep down, they are just stories. And I love stories. We Have Never Been Modern did not have stories. I can stomach intense theory as long as there are stories to somehow ground it. I even appreciate theory, because theory, when reiterated properly can become taken for granted and then put into practice. But I’m not sure I want to go there and I firmly believe that my broad generation (lets say born after 1970) of scholars must somehow find a way to make our work more organic and more fluid than our predecessors if we are to really make an impact. We have to be willing not only to take risks but to make our findings more accessible. But that’s another story altogether.

The point is, there is a lot of important work being done in anthropology right now, especially surrounding identity politics as they are manifested in critical environmental and rural development issues. And I have a bunch of books sitting on my shelf that haven’t been read properly. I’ve Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing’s Friction: and ethnography of global connection, which we read the week projects were due. I think Yuka was sad. “None of you read this, did you?”
And then there’s In Amazonia: A Natural History by Hugh Raffles, and Suffering for Territory: Race, Place, and Power in Zimbabwe (which I did actually read most but not all of, as it was my week to do a presentation). Anyway, I have lots of reading to do.

I’m going to have to go to Clemson and buy a library card so I can use their library. Maybe they’ll have a decently current anthropology section and a few periodicals of interest. I need to boost my knowledge base so that when I finally get to writing my piece for grad school, I can really show them I know my stuff. I generally disapprove of writing with other academics as your primary audience, but in this case, there is a great deal of money involved. I can be disapproving once I have my stipend. For now, we are going for impressive. I really need to learn how to speak the language. Anthropology is so focused on terminology and I don’t know a lot of it. I read these terms over and over again (neoliberalism, spaciality, political economy, political ecology, etc) and have never really had the time or energy to really find out exactly what they mean.

I think I am going to create a reading system. I tend to have 5 or 6 books floating around at any given time, none of them ever finished.

For example, right now, I literally sleep with these books in my bed (yes, yes, I have no bed partner so I find the next best thing…but my books don’t snore or hog the covers):

Mockingbird by somebody, Harper Lee’s biography….I’m about halfway through. She’s moved to NYC. This couple who kind of adopted her gave her a little envelope for Christmas with a note inside that said they would financially support her financially for a whole year so that she could write TKAM. It was pretty climactic, so I stopped reading. But I was pissed off to begin with because the guy writes in the intro “Harper Lee did not want this book to be written and adamantly refused to speak to me…but I’m writing it anyway because I want to.” I paraphrase, but it was pretty damn presumptuous.

The Essential Agrarian Reader…I’ve read the first 4 essays but honestly they’ve all said the same thing.

The Rural Life by Verlyn Klinkenborg (totally wrong spelling, but the books are upstairs and I am here)…I really like this guy and this book, but I feel weird about it, mad at it even. The day before I left for Christmas break, Jennifer got it for me. He was her professor at Harvard. She gave me the book and inside was the infamous $600 dollar gift card to the Strand. I’ve only read the first essay about January. It’s about hay bale twine.

Arthur and George by Julian Barnes…I was reading this before I read People of Paper and now the momentum is gone. But after about 100 pages, I just found out that the little boy Arthur is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s really fabulous. I’m finishing it next.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban…I can’t help myself. I’m trying to get through them all before Deathly Hallows comes out in July.

Shame of the Nation by Jonathan Kozol…I think I’m too depressed to go on.

See! I have strange bedfellows, indeed.


I think I need to limit myself to 2 at a time, one fiction and one academic…and I can’t move onto another fiction book until the academic one is finished.

And another thought of mine was to start taking advantage of Clemson and Furman when they go back in the fall. I miss lectures.

Speaking of Yuka...turns out she had a baby. It probably came out smiling.

Necessity has the face of a dog...

Tivoli

This plot was once a whaling town, you said, was filled
with men who dared to erect upon the shore
(where clots of skin and teeth and tears have built)
their village: a row of fences, windows, doors.
Perhaps a woman trembled and surveyed the long gray
shamed carcasses, blood like thick ribbons of sorrow,
hauled up to Straatsburg to be split and splayed,
tainting the rising river, the silt and stones of tomorrow.
She knows, of course, that the great desolate tail
churns the bones of Mohawk maidens at the river’s crest,
like a man’s love in her body, like a dry nail
chafing against the walls of her womb, rusting in her breasts.
And you, with your seaman’s lilt, would describe
the journey to higher ground, a home split in two,
bereaving the bedroom and the fondness inside,
leaving slanted doorways and lingering fumes of glue.
Three hundred years later, I live at this lofty address.
I live with the painted-over cracks and the leaning stairs,
unseen from the outside, hidden by morning glories and a dress
of May lilacs. But when I pull open the door it is there--
the penitent stench of adhesive. You are gone, but I am still bleeding.
It fills my shoes and I guide my breath,
the ghost of a corpse-stained river lost in my belly, needing
a way to reach over the crevasse of wrath.
They tell me this will pass, that my body will forget,
But my heart is hooked and stiffened, like the whale I never met.


This was supposed to be a sonnet, but then I forgot the rules of a sonnet and then I remembered that I always sucked at sonnets and then I remembered that I always sucked at poetry and then I remembered that I don’t care if I suck because I like writing sucky poetry.

So now that I finally convinced myself that this GS thing was the right thing to do, it’s all I want. I don’t want to send out any more applications or spend another minute of my precious time parked in front of the computer going blind at the SC Job Bank site. I could take some shitty paying job at Starbucks or somewhere like that (or maybe driving a truck for B and F) and sleep easy until August.

But here I am, just waiting, and working myself up about it. “I dropped the application at the front office on Monday…they haven’t called me….surely they should have called me by now….or did they already give it to someone else….what if I made some awful typo on my cover letter…why haven’t they called me…what if it got put under a stack of papers and is forever lost…” I hate this! And so I’m grumpy. I stare at my phone and check my email twenty times a day. I’m still sending out resumes but my heart’s not in it, and it really is a complete waste of my time. Do you know that I have sent out probably 40 applications since I have been home and have been contacted only three times. What the hell! Manners, people, basic manners! Just a little email that says “Thank you for your application. Unfortunately, we don’t want you.” I’m a big girl. I’m not gonna cry (well, I might cry, but it has nothing to do with your stupid company).

I should just be grateful that I’m not back in NYC. It was the same story there, only I was lonely, scared, and paying a monstrosity in rent. I'm so relieved to be out of there, but part of me is a little homesick. Sometimes I miss the independence, the anonymity...answering to no one in the world. And I miss "things to do." There are only a limited number of activities to occupy my time here. I'm working on Stevie's book (I'll post later), going to the Y, gardening, reading, writing, sending off resumes until I get frustrated, playing with Ialli until my chin and forearms start breaking out into hives. At night, I can go out with friends, but the days get long and boring. I'm not even sleeping very late. I wake up around 8am feeling nauseous and have to stand up and walk around. I guess it's a good habit to get into, but it makes for a long morning. And I don't want to watch TV. I have a very short attention span these days.


Here's the things I can be in Pickens County now that I am grown up and edjumacated:

Termite Technician -those termites sure are technical

Estimator- I imagine estimating how many marbles are in a jar day after day could get old.

Truck Driver- I really need to be a truck driver. They make 1000 dollars a week. But I don't know if I could pee in a bottle, at least not while driving.

Bakery Product Manager -gotta watch out for those bakery products, they need a little outside management to keep them in line

Journeyman- a noble occupation and each day is different.

Spinner- I'm good at spinning. Just yesterday I spinned around in the computer chair until I felt like I was going to be sick.

Planner- I'm also very good at planning, only it seems like my plans haven't been working out so well these days.

Inmate Labor Foreman- does this mean I get to sing sea-shanties while the inmates lay down railroads?

Fabricator- now this is something I could be really great at. I didn't know you got paid to lie.

I think I would like to either be a journeywoman or a fabricator. They sound nice. Although I think maybe you'd eventually get tired of journeying and fabricating things.

My mama always said life was like a box of Maura.

Which movie was this quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Listen to them. Children of the Maura. What music they make.

Which movie was this quote from?

Get your own quotes:

First rule of Maura Club is - you do not talk about Maura Club.

Which movie was this quote from?

Get your own quotes:

Gaaah! Google reads my email!

and gives me appropriate ads on the sidebar on each thread. I am forever amused and sometimes frightened.

ex: this from a series of emails between me and a friend

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sometimes they make me bite my lip...

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More about...
Baby Sleep Night »
Infant Sleep »
Poems »
Baby not Sleeping »


can you guess what I was talking about in this one?

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And what the hell is Gyrotonic center?

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This was a long series of emails about the shithole in Harlem I was living in

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