The Hazelnut Electrograph

January 2006

2007-12-06T22:31:00.000-08:00

Anyone who says winter doesn't exist in California is wrong, wrong, wrong. It might not be exactly what we're all used to in Christmas in Connecticut, with snowy fenceposts and bright biting days, but it's definitely cold and nasty here. Dreary, too. Lots of rain. Lots of fog. Some watery pale sunlight now and then. Occasionally a fleeting moment of warmth on the bricks at 3 PM. Mostly just cold.
But I have plenty to keep me occupied now that the semester's underway again. The first few weeks of the month dragged a little (lots of waking up late and mucking about without purpose, which can be surprisingly tiring and uninspiring). Then the semester started again, so there are classes and practices and parties, oh my.
But first, a spot of bad news: I have no dance partner. We went to dinner and he said he didn't want to be my partner anymore. Whether this is because of the screaming matches we started to have during practice, or the height/build disparity, or just lack of that ineffable thing called chemistry, the result is the same. This spelled disaster for the upcoming Winter Frolic until I put out feelers for a new partner and found someone whose partner can't compete that day. So we trained up for a few weeks together, and he's very sweet and fun to hang out with, so that softened the annoyance of not doing very well down in Palo Alto. I have given up on slicking my hair back, because it makes me look bullet-headed, and have instead opted for a slightly larger, more shellacked version of what my hair normally looks like. I wore my green gown this time instead of that awful skirt and top combo, now that we're dancing Silver, and horror of horrors, Novice (which went as well as you'd expect). I also have a much better regulation Latin costume, consisting of a poufy frilly black skirt and the ugliest top that Old Navy ever put out, but it's still better than the tube dress, which, now that I've seen the videos, makes my ass look like a TV screen. At least I have lovely new shoes (Christmas gift from Mom and Dad; along with cowboy boots, this was a shoe-y holiday!) so I don't look quite so frumpy in those big black boats like last semester.
Typical, I suppose, to start the post with all about Ballroom. I do have a scholarly life, too: my classes mostly hold intrigue: the second semester of Japanese at (thankfully) an hour later than last semester, the second Japanese linguistics class, and a wonderful seminar on Basho and other haiku poets. I love the professor; he's soft-spoken and seemingly easy-going but not really. He expects work from us and he's going to get it. I'm really beginning to love classical Japanese. Also, basically all of my Japanese-major friends are in it, including some grads, so it's party time every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon! The other two things I'm taking are stupid and boring: proseminar, AGAIN, and an Edo history class that is a complete waste and I can't bring myself to get excited about. The prof is about a million years old and a crashing bore, just narrates the readings. And I don't like the reader. [Editor's note: I'm not naming names, like I promised, 5but I'm glad for once for the two-year gap in time, because it means I can say things like this.]
And then, there's teaching. Yikes. I've been totally drained after each class. I hope it gets easier. We had a few meetings with Dr. Z to go over basics, and I had to do an all-day seminar on teaching and being a GSI, and I'm taking a seminar in pedagogical methods, which is required for getting the paycheck, but I still don't feel prepared for marching in and seeing those shining little faces every Tuesday and Wednesday. The Tuesday class is the harder one. Those kids are SMART. A good few of them are smarter than I am. And one or two are my age, which is also nerve-wracking. I scared them all but good the frist day thundering on about plagiarism, which I probably overdid. I just didn't know what to say, and I got a little carried away. Whoops. The Wednesday class seems nicer (read: a little more docile and a lot less likely to catch me with a question I can't answer), but also sleepier. I probably prefer that one because I already have my material down from the day before. So far, so good. We're starting with India, and beginning to wade into The Home and the World, which contains an embarrassing amount of allegory, so it's easy to work it over pretty thoroughly.
Next month: Travels in New York!

December 2005

2007-11-06T00:16:00.000-08:00

I'm glad the competitions are over for the moment, because all my work is catching up to me. Thhe nostalgia of papers and exams and study sessions is flooding back to me in an sleep-deprived, ink-stained wave. The fixed-scheduled exam system, though, now, THAT'S a kick in the teeth. You mean I can't just waltz in and pick up the exam when *I* feel like it? I have to take it with everyone else? Barbaric. But they seem to have gone okay, and now I'm on blissful respite from all things academic, here in the gloom of a Berkeley winter. It's rainy and cold and bleak, and I spend a lot of time in front of my tiny gas heater, reading the books I've been assigned for my class next semester. For yes, friends, Romans, countrymen, next semester I shall join the hallowed ranks of the pedagogues, those noble bastions of higher learning: I am to become a GSI. Where heaven is high and the professor is far away, graduate student instructors are on the ground, in the academic trenches, with their raw, plucky foot soldier-scholars, and I can't wait to get in there. The call came while I was Christmas shopping (read: overspending) on Fourth Street, a few blocks of high-end little shops and tree-lined sidewalks that I wish the rest of the world looked like (and smelled like: the Italian restaurant halfway down has its own wood-burning oven that pumps out glorious, James-Fenimore-Cooper-worthy gouts of smoky delicious woodsmoke), from Professor Darren Zook in the PEIS department. He's teaching Asian Studies 10B (Modern Asia) next semester, and I interviewed a few days before, obviously favorably! I am excited to test my didactic mettle, to be earning some serious cash (go, union!) and to be learning more about the countries I know very little about. To that end I'm reading Ranbindranath Tagore's The Home and the World, and the other two books are Mo Yan's Big Breasts, Wide Hips (looking forward to that one) and Oe Kenzaburo's A Personal Matter. I know both the other GSIs, so I'm looking forward to it all!
Christmas is upon us! Mom sent an Advent calendar, I put up my wee tree and spent a few bucks on awful decorations at the dollar store. My room is now festooned along the molding with silver bead ropes and hung with plastic balls, toy drums and two truly tacky reindeer. I love it. I'm still a little homesick, though, and it still doesn't feel like Christmas proper.
But the closer it got, the more I bucked up. We went down to Grandma Polly's in Fresno, for the first time since I was a wee babe, although Mom and Dad did it a few years ago on their way to Japan. Mom came over to California first, and spent the night at my apartment. John was very sweet and picked us up from the airport, although I got my very long scarf caught momentarily in his trunk and scared Mom half to death (let the record show that the car wasn't even moving, and he noticed right away and I pulled it out without having to even open the trunk, so relax, for heaven's sake). I was delighted to show her the gallery exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum, which was Taisho-era transitional paintings, furniture, kimono and tableware. Then we had dinner with Sam at Le Bateau Ivre on Telegraph, and it was perfect: hot, cheesy, savory food and fire and stoneware pitchers all soothing and warming on a wet blustery night. It's not so cold here, but it certainly manages to feel what I imagine England is like in the winter, and it's not hospitable.
Next day we went to Kingpin Donuts for breakfast (I think Mom only pretended to exclaim over the best donuts ever—her loss), and then we headed for the train station. I love going to Fresno by train. The ride is lovely almost all the way down, with a long river view for the first hour, and then fields of every description—best in the spring when the almond trees are blooming, but surprisinly green in winter, which is when they actually get rain here.
Grandma's was calm and sociable for the first few days: we saw Memoirs of a Geisha at a huge sprawl-mall (verdict on the movie: gorgeous production values, crappy rendering of the story, watch it for the sets and props and costumes), ate at Dai Bai Dang, which is surprisingly good for franchised and large, and I saw Vince and we drove down to his little hovel in Merced, and I received an excellent gift from him, a wicked little blade concealed in a pen. A bride's knife! I fervently hope it is never required for defending my honor (I'm certainly not going to use it on myself, like you're supposed to), but it rides in my leather jacket pocket now, and I grin surreptitiously whenever I sign checks with it...
Christmas Day, however, was something else entirely. Being an only child with no living relatives within two hours after pubescence, Christmases are spent, are supposed to be spent, in tranquility, a leisurely plow through stockings and under the tree with pauses for coffee, hot chocolate, bacon, stollen (ick), and clementines. Presents are opened one by one, to make it last and to ensure proper attention is given to every gift and giver and receiver. Bathrobes are to be worn until at least 2 PM. Usually whatever movie was given to individual or family unit is put on in the afternoon, and we all read our books all day. Lately, we've been bestirring ourselves to haul over to the neighbors' across the street for Christmas Dinner, and then home to lie heavy in our beds and savor the week ahead.
But at Grandma's, you're up at 8 or earlier, to chop mushrooms and fold napkins and look lively or else. Fifty people show up in waves, most of whom have known Dad since he was in short pants, and the last time they saw me I was just a baby. Mom, in a moment of sympathy, allowed as how she'd rather be in her bathrobe drinking coffee too...but that wasn't how it was going to be this time, so suck it up. Moment over. Fold some more napkins. The highlights were my multitudinous second cousins, all identically dressed, swinging decorously at the pinata (which Dad cruelly hauled out of range EVERY single time!), and encouraging old Cal alumni to come see the next ballroom competition the next time they were in Berkeley.
If I had a less-than-ideal Christmas, however, New Year's Eve more than made up for it. One of the vintage waltz societies held a ball—a real ball!—at International House, so I gleefully donned my old prom dress and made my way up the hill. I felt like I was in a Dickens novel—or at least the set for a movie version of one. There were many repurposed gowns like mine, but quite a few authentic costumes—even a distinguished gentleman in hunting pinks! I learned the Congress of Vienna Waltz, the galop, and just how much fun a polka can be, weaving and dodging and spinning around like mad things. There was sparkling cider at midnight and I kissed one of the girls on the team (no, not like that) and went home delighted. 2006 holds promise, especially after being rung in with such earnest cheer.

November 2005

2007-07-15T13:40:00.001-07:00

Oh. My. Goodness. Three competitions in three weeks. I'll be lucky if I have any feet left by the time I graduate, instead of just a pair of stumps. After the Berkeley Beginner's competition we went to San Jose State and did very well again, placing third a lot, and the next week back to San Jose (different part of it, though), to compete in the state championships. The floor was huge and cold and there were hundreds of seats all the way around. It wasn't nearly as crowded as I thought it would be, actually. I was amazed to think that all of them would be filled, but only the first few rows in the lower level were even close to being full. The United States Ballroom Dance Association has stricter rules on costumes than most of the college comps, so we couldn't wear anything with sparkly things on it. Boring! R and I danced very, very well, placing first (!) in the Newcomer level for Standard (waltz-quickstep). Okay, Newcomer isn't very exciting, but it's the first time I think I've been first in anything, and if I'm not mistaken, doesn't that make us state champions? I think it does. I think I'm going to continue to think that (and brag about it, where appropriate :-).
This was the first time I'd seen children competing, bar the one tiny couple at the Berkeley Beginner's comp. They're very, very good, but actually kind of disturbing. I can't imagine how much time they spend practicing, and between that and the skimpy costumes and the overly adult routines they perform, I think it might not be very good for them. This might be just sour grapes, though. They're better than I'll ever be simply by virtue of having starting earlier, and I've taken to muttering “therapy. YEARS of therapy. That's what awaits them” whenever I get fed up and envious...
In other news, I've joined a classical Japanese class in addition to my translation, linguistics and language courses. Most of my friends are in this one too, and the professor is just wonderful. He's taking us through Hojoki, or Account of my Ten-Foot Hut, and he manages to be funny and wise and informative and helpful, often all at once and always during every class. After some bureaucratic running around I've managed to get credit for it as a graduate course, if I write a paper on the translation, and also for the linguistics course. My fears about not being able to hack it in graduate school are abating, and I think I might actually do okay!
I just love the library here. It took me a little while to find the main stacks, but they are just awe-inspiring. Floor after floor after floor of books in all languages, and big beautiful study tables and carrels. The stacks themselves are underground but the upper floors are all marble and the great reading room soars over your head like a ship upside down, with coffered ceilings and huge windows. The study tables have beautiful bronze lanps on them. After Haverford's cozy but small library (and those awful chairs on the Boat), this feels like Alexandria. Best of all is the art installation in the atrium. There's a spiral staircase that winds all the way down to the lowest stack level, and an artist has taken books and strung them through wires, and then suspended the wires across and over and down the middle of the spiral. The effect is of books cascading down through the air, some open and fluttering, some closed and tumbling towards the floor. It feels like the scene in Big Fish where time stops and Ewan MacGregor is pushing through the hardened figures to his girl. I love studying there, or at the smaller, Victorian-style Asian Studies library. More marble, more bronze and hardwood, but in an infinitesmally smaller space that looks like a Belle Epoque drawing room.
Thanksgiving was spent in the mountains, at Rock Haven. Baby Kathleen is 4 months old now, big but still sort of compact. She screams when anyone other than Deirdre or Liz holds her for the most part, but there she has her cheerful moments, and she and I spent a quarter-hour gargling at each other by the fire. Mom was there, and patiently sat through my ballroom DVDs and asked me about my friends and dates while washing dishes. I saw Vince the night after Thanksgiving. We ate ribs, went up to Kaiser Pass while listening to Stephen Lynch, and saw a very bizarre cloud formation up there at 8000 feet. Aliens, methinks. It was blistering, bittering cold, so iwas very glad for the fire that was still alive when I got back. I even built it up a little before going to bed.
Now, with exams looming, I'm glad that the competitions are over until after break. I need study time!

October

2007-04-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

I was utterly remiss in not closing my September post with the birth of my new baby cousin, Kathleen Elizabeth! She was born on September 30, and was a whopping 10 pounds, 4 ounces! Big girl! Everyone is doing fine. I went to see her and Deirdre in the hospital when I had a cold, so all the pictures of me holding her are marred by a big ugly mask, and my hands are raw from washing them so much, but she's just darling—all dark hair and little hands. Deirdre's mom is in town to help, and so is my grandmother, so we had a nice little baby-welcoming party with Whole Food and Celtic music. New cousin! So exciting!
In my world, I have friends now! Several people from my linguistics and translation classes have started inviting me to tea with them after class, and I've even been to parties! This is in addition to my teammates in ballroom, with whom I've spent a fair amount of non-dancing time. We went on a retreat early in October, to Chabot Park, and I'm astonished that such an enormous expanse of open nature is so close to civilization. We only drove about 40 minutes to get there, and there were houses almost all along the way until the very end. There were so many people there I didn't get to talk to or hang out with everyone. But we had a great time taking walks through the gorgeous scenery, playing frisbee and icebreaker games (please, stop asking about and referencing the damn circle game. I hate you all), and in the morning, laughing at Pamela and Marz and Darwin and Lyell, who slept outside and got all condensed on.
The weather continues glorious beautiful. I don't spend nearly enough time outside, but I'm saving a bundle on drying my clothes—I just hang them outside! I've noticed, though, that they don't dry nearly as fast I would expect them to given the temperature and breeze. There's something about the air around here that's moister even though it doesn't feel like it.
I went down to Fresno to see my grandmother and attend the annual banquet for the Lee Institute for Japanese Art which is incongruously in the middle of a walnut grove in the middle of nowhere. I wish I had a kimono for the event, but everything I have is mismatched and too old, and I can't dress myself and don't know anyone who can. So i just wore my red and white flowered dress and lavender pashmina for warmth. Fresno is even warmer than the Bay Area, so I barely needed it. The Lee Institute is huge and shockingly well-manicured for someplace so far out of the way. Their grounds are perfect, better even than some places I've seen in Japan. This time we got to go into the private gardens of the on-site residence, that are usually off-limits. Passed hors d'oeuvres and open bar, no one my age. I munched and sipped for a while and let Grandma introduce me around, trotted out a little rudimentary Japanese, and tried to be modest about my studies at Berkeley. At dinner, I was seated with a Japanese dignitary who turned out to be a ballroom dancer himself! We had a very nice conversation about that, but I didn't get any tips about it. Maybe I'm too much of a beginner to need it.
I already posted about my experience dancing with John, and I'm very grateful to him for helping me with ballroom so early on, because I didn't find a partner until three weeks before the first comeptition. R is just a little shorter than I am in my heels, but we're well-matched, I'm told, and we seem to be doing okay. The first competition was at the very end of October. I had a dark blue skirt, silver velvet shirt, and sparkly gray shrug for Standard, and a tube dress in burnt orange. I did my hair just as the intermediate and advanced girls said we should—gel it, spray it, blow-dry it, repeat. My hair felt like plastic all day. I kept touching it in fascination. We placed third in Waltz and Quickstep, third in Rumba, and not in Cha-cha. I was sort of surprised at how put out I felt that we didn't make the finals, even though we messed up badly enough not to deserve it at all. They say most competitions go well into the night, but this one ended around 4, and I crawled home, showered all the mess out of my hair, and dragged off to a party at the ballroom house. About six or seven dancers live together near my apartment, but I learned later that it's not official—they just liked each other and all happened to be looking for housing at the same time last year. I left early though, to go to dinner with Gabe and some of his friends in Milpitas at the best Chinese restaurant ever, according to Gabe. And how did it earn this lofty praise, you might ask?
It serves fish-fragrant eggplant cakes.
Don't you love it when you see a phrase in which none of the words actually make sense in reference to any others? Especially on a menu...they're pretty good, though. Got to see Gabe's digs, which are small and basementy but cozy. I like his room. We mucked about in Santa Cruz, got lunch, and then he drove me back home.
I sort of forgot about Halloween so I dove into Hot Topic, bought a pair of big white angel wings, and wore them over a white shirt and my petticoat skirt for a party on Northside with people from my Japanese classes. Yay, I'm an angel. Meh. There's a picture of my arm in said costume on Facebook, if you're interested.
Okay, Facebook. Weird, but also fun. I think I like it, especially because I can reconnect with people from as far back as high school, and I can put a lot of stuff on it that will satisfy my need to enumerate things without boring everyon in sight. I think it's classier than MySpace, which I REFUSE, CATEGORICALLY, to join. LiveJournal was bad enough.
Other things I like about Berkeley:
*The spicy-hempy smell of Telegraph Ave., and all the vendors on weekend afternoons.
*All the food! Yumyumyumyumyum...
*Especially Kingpin doughnuts. Oh my stars, I'm going to have dance more or less constantly to work off all of those maple- and chocolate- and sugar-glazed glories. There's NUTMEG in them. NUTMEG. Krispy Kreme and Dunkin' Donuts, I'm sorry, but it's just not going to work out. I hope we can still be friends, and maybe I'll drop by when I can't get anything better, but Kingpin has my heart. NUTMEG.
*Zooming down Bancroft Ave. on my bicycle, from I-House all the way to Shattuck. So very dangerous, and yet so very, very, deliciously exciting.
*Lovely misty mornings that haze over the hills and make them look like the Austrian, Swiss and German postcards from the 50s and 60's my mother has in the attic. Getting up sucks, but at least it's nice out a lot when I'm awake.
*Free bus rides, all the time. Wheee!

2,996 and counting

2006-09-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

This is shocking. These kids, assuming they haven't been taken out back and shot somewhere, have managed to crack open the event of the century using nothing but footage and information in the public domain.
I wept as I watched it, just as I did my junior year in Japan as I watched a video on media manipulation, and I realized that our country sticks its fingers into matters all over the world, plying one side or the other for their own gains, which usually backfire.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5946593973848835726&q=loose+change

In memory of not only those who lost their lives, their loved ones, their friends and associates, but every soldier deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq and every family who sits on pins waiting for them to come home. For every peace protestor threatened by police, for every Iraqi whose life has been turned upside down, not just by our war, but by the despot WE put there 20 years ago. For every prisoner at Guantanamo, held illegally, transported to other countries for unspeakable torture, held so often without cause or reason. And now, I include everyone who will shudder at the idea that our government thinks it's not only ok, but imperative, that they engineer the deaths of innocent citizens in the short and long term, for ends they could achieve through compromise and compassion, and they don't even try.

That's a lot more than 2,996.

Intolerable Cruelty

2006-08-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

http://www.glumbert.com/media/tonguetwister.html

Wow. Suddenly I'm not so sorry to be home.

(Safe for work, if work allows clips of men suffering the ultimate pain as punishment for misprounouncing tongue-twisters. Everyone is clothed, and of there are any naughty words or references to sex, they're in Japanese, so you're probably ok.)

The Batsh*t Boob Patrol...GREAT Name.

2006-08-10T00:58:00.000-07:00

I've found something to slash my katana at!

This makes me. Very. Angry.

http://womenshealthnews.blogspot.com/2006/07/babytalk-magazine-cover-controversy.html
http://theogeo.blogspot.com/2006/07/boobs.html

You might have to copy and paste the links. Because I'm lazy. But it's worth it. People are IDIOTS.

love to all! Home in a week!

Katanaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggg!

2006-08-03T07:12:00.000-07:00

From Tokyo, with Love, Part 2

2006-08-03T06:34:00.000-07:00

August. Amazing. I know I pledged to post once a week, but truly, this is the first free evening I've had all month. And all last month. This course is kicking my ass. Fortunately it's kicking everyone else's ass (as one seasoned ICU veteran said, "yes, well; the Japanese do tend to overdo things, don't they?"), so I don't feel too bad when my tests come back with grades so bad I can't even tell my parents. More on that later. For now, I'll try to recap events by week, one per post, and change things up a bit with other posts too.
For now, here's a picture of me about to kick ass with a crappy fake katana. Not the course's ass, unfortunately. Undefined ass. But still.

Shall We Dance?

2006-07-11T04:41:00.000-07:00

Some people ask me—often in the tone of aghast wonder reserved for Scientologists and people who live on wheatgrass—just what the appeal of competetive ballroom dance is. Someone even came to practice and asked me as part of a sociological study. All I can say is, judging by the attendance at the practices and competitions, I'm not alone in my madness. Partly it's the combination of exercise and socializing, and of course, dancing on a regular basis makes me happy. I knew that Berkeley would have an active social dance scene, so I didn't have to be sold on the team when I encountered the team table on Sproul. I signed right up.
The first meeting was at LaVal's on Northside, and I chatted with a lot of other people while waiting for the free pizza, feeling insecure. Information was handed out in dribs and drabs at first, as the team members circulated and gave quick answers to questions, then one pretty girl (our rookie coordinator Andrea, a soul of patience unparalled even in laid-back Berkeley) stood up, gave us all the bullet on the first practice and the various forms and requirements, and answered a few more queries from her mostly rapt audience between bites. I left feeling nonplussed. It seemed like pretty routine official stuff to me, so there was no indication about what kind of club it really was.
The first lesson was hugely crowded. 80 people or so crammed into a bright gym/dance studio, with our instructors. One of them looked so much like my old roommate that I kept pulling double takes all night. We learned a few waltz and rumba steps, got to know the people we partnered with, and exchanged hopes and concerns and interest in the superficial manner of people who might become quite close but aren't sure yet. We could barely move on the floor without bumping into someone else, stepping on feet, ducking errant elbows, but like judo, it was deceptively simple with the promise of infinite complexity, and I was hooked.
Lesson after lesson, practice after practice, week after week in the semester. We learned about form, frame, weight, carriage, styling, footwork, timing, body isolation. We learned turns and fans on top of the basics. Fewer and fewer people showed up for class each week. The more dedicated started staying at the Wednesday and Saturday practices longer. Most of them were pairing off, but I hadn't been lucky so far. I'm much taller than most of the boys, and some of them averred that they weren't as sold on it as I seemed to be. I eventually found a partner, and we went on to do very well for the first semester (see my monthly posts for details), but the real influence on me, the motivation for the passion that I believe has been crucial to my success, was John.
Around this time, an e-mail went out to the team from one of the more advanced leaders, requesting a partner for extra practice, rookies okay. I cannot get enough of dancing. Sometimes my partner asks me for a 30-second break. Good Lord. He included a picture of himself posed in a full split so we would know who he was. Good *Lord*. He was the slightly frightening Chinese guy I saw at Wednesday practice. Built like a greyhound, pale as milk, severe and unsmiling, dancing at practice before I arrived and staying after I left, he could have been championship level for all I knew. I learned later that he was trained extremely rigorously in ballet, had danced with several companies before an injury took him off the stage and into the ballroom. Had I known this I probably wouldn't have been able to do much but gabble and trip in his presence. But I had no partner, and I knew I'd never get better without one, so I replied, and we met in the corridor of Wheeler Hall one evening.
I was late, of course, and as clumsy as a drunken sailor. He had brought an iPod with a splicer for the earbuds, so we each had our own set for his music. But I was definitely not ready for practicing with music. We had to do it in silence. I only had a few steps for each dance anyway, but John was patient, stopping when I lost the beat, correcting my footwork when I stepped on his toes, giving tips on turns and form. It was like a 2-hour private lesson, and even though I sucked, it felt good. He was quiet, though, completely professional with no chitchat or pleasantries offered, no sense of who he was beyond the sure feet and perfect frame.
We met several times a week, for two hours or more, and it began to feel like those montages in sports or dance movies where the young novice, pushed by the weathered mentor, improves with each scene over the stirring music. Except the montage was hours and days and weeks and months long. The day I finished the waltz sequence that we had been working on for weeks without a single misstep, I could hear Eye of the Tiger back in some murky sentimental corner of my brain. By that time, John and I had started talking during our breaks, and I could make him laugh and get him to open up a little. And the improvement was really showing. At the end of October, after six weeks of practice almost 4 or 5 times a week (bear in mind, I had few friends at the time, so weekend nights were best taken up with something that didn't reinforce my general loser-ness), my partner and I placed 3rd in our standard events, waltz and quickstep. I hope all the grueling hours of running through basic figures with my two left feet helped John and Julia, his real partner, with their high placements all through the semester. He tells me, though, that he throws the ribbons away and puts the trophies where he can't see them. It isn't the competition that draws him; perhaps the performance is alluring, but for him, dance, to be sappy, is the purest expression of his soul. He's happy no matter what he's doing, be it taking a rookie through her basics, dancing Argentine tango with smelly men, running endless routines in preparation for comps, or throwing some poor girl around the club floor in a hustle. (I've seen him do all but the smelly tango, but he assures me that it's happened, and he's still happy.) He never gets tired, he never gets bored. He also never seems to eat or sleep.
John never lets me rest as much as I think I want to, just as much as I need to. Starting in September, he tried to get me down to a full split by my birthday in March (and failed miserably, but I think he has high hopes for next year). He ignores me when I whine about my stretches, pushing down harder on my back or shoulders to get that extra inch. You won't die!, he exclaims. You won't die! It won't even hurt tomorrow! To my annoyance, he's usually right. He will come up to me while I'm waiting in line for a heat, or even when I'm just standing around at a practice, grasp my shoulders, and pull them up and back so I'll stand up straight. You are your mother's masterpiece!, he tells me. Make sure you always look like it. He taught me West Coast Swing just for fun over winter break, as a vacation from the ten-dance routines for ballroom. We go to salsa dances at Metronome and Allegro, where everyone tells us how good we look and I claim no responsibility for it, admitting freely that it's all him. This past winter, he actually came and picked me up from the airport at 4 in the morning, keeping the promise he made when my flight was supposed to get in at 10 PM, even after I assured him repeatedly that he was off the hook once the plane had been grounded for five hours. Occasionally he fusses over me, trying to set my up with likely guys both on and off the dance floor (he's since stopped, thankfully), and in affectionate frustration I tell him he's as pesky as an older brother.
We don't practice as much these days; he's rising higher in the ranks and has ever more complicated routines and steps to work on, and I ran through a few temporary competition partners before finding a (hopefully) permanent one, so I had to practice a lot with them. These days he seems frailer to me, lighter, because he's not as big and sturdy as my regular partner. Of course I know to compensate for the difference in a partner's physique, but I worry I'll push too hard on him—he only outweighs me by 10 pounds—and he'll stagger or stumble. But, he promises he'll always catch me if he tries a dip or a hold, and I believe him, even when my hair, short as it is, brushes the floor.

Fron Tokyo, With Love: Part 1

2006-07-08T07:32:00.000-07:00

I'm back in Japan! I can hardly believe it. Back in the land where ambulance drivers wear gloves and helmets but drive on the left, where grown men shove old ladies aside for seats on the trains, and the old ladies are happy to give them up, and buildings under construction are swathed in tarps and netting until they can be revealed in their new glory.

I know I'll fall behind in my journal-keeping, but I'm going to do my best with a weekly digest. Yeah I know you've all heard THAT before...but. Anyway. I wrote part of this on the plane, and the rest after I'd been here for a few days.

I'm well over the International Date Line at this point, so I guess I'm really gone. I'm already in tomorrow. I feel very far away.
We have an hour before we land, and it seems like it'll be earlier than it said on the ticket, so I don't know if my host family will be there when I arrive. I suppose customs will take some time.
But the flight's been great! Upgrades: awesome. Business class: awesome :-) The seats are huge and they recline to almost flat (I slept for 4 hours!), with a million controls for footrests, headrests, lumbar support, etc. I was swaddled in a huge blanket, 3 times the size of an economy class one, and a big ugly JAL sweater, and showered with free wine, earplugs, eye masks (I'm accumulating quite a collection of those), warm towels (they're called “oshibori” in Japanese, and you'll get one at every restaurant you go to, and they're wonderful when flying), slippers; and FED, fed until I could barely walk. I'm so used to the starvation diets on domestic American flights (and also wasn't expecting the upgrade), that I had a sandwich and picked up a few snackies before boarding. Needless to say, I haven't touched them. And after the meal had been served, when I thought my stomach couldn't hold another gram of food, they came trotting by with digestifs and truffles. If plans are cattle cars, I feel like Kobe beef...
The flight attendants are lovely, trim Japanese ladies with the cutest service aprons I've ever seen! I'm tempted to steal one: they have a light greyscale aerial view of some European city, probably Paris, as a background, and big colorful dirigibles and hot-air balloons all over them. Really, really good design. The movies were terrible, so I watched an NHK (Japanese public television) special on bears in Hokkaido, and was gratified that I could understand about half of the narration! Also, it was filmed in a national park that was the subject of a translation exercise I had last fall, so that was sort of interesting. There's some sort of Important Cultural Personage on board, or some such thing; an older Japanese man who gets a LOT of attention from the flight attendants. They're always offiering him something, or, in one case, listening to him for about half an hour, half-crouched near his seat. I wish I knew who he was!
When we landed, I stupidly waited at the wrong carousel for my luggage, and finally found it before it was loaded onto an unclaimed-luggage-pound cart (yikes!), but I got out into the receiving lobby, and there was my host family, with a cute little sign, waiting for me! Kumiko (my host mother) is petite and pretty, and Tatsuya (my host father) has a sort of boyish face, and a big grin. They have a big shiny black Toyota SUV, and we loaded up my luggage, and drove the two hours back to Tokyo. I'm not familiar with the Tokyo highways, so it was a while before I recognized anything, but it was still cool to see all the signs, and the cars full of real Japanese people—wow! (it isn't nice to say that they all look the same, but compared to the sea of American faces, it's sort of relaxing to see that everyone seems to have at least the same basic underlying facial structure). We chatted all the way through the ride home. Kumiko was very relieved that I could speak lots of Japanese and understand it too, since she doesn't speak any English. Tatsuya understands some English, but doesn't speak it much either. I'm glad; it means I won't be called upon to teach English or have to rely on it a lot.
They live in Mitaka, which is only about 15 minutes by bus from the university. They house is totally Western and modern, not a tatami mat in sight. It's European-style, with the living quarters on the second floor. Their son, Koichi, looks a lot like my friend's boyfriend, i.e., cute, and he's friendly and cheerful, not at all surly or teenager-ish, and he doesn't ignore me. I get his room (he's in the guest room downstairs, so that's all right). It's small but perfect for 6 weeks. We had a great dinner of temaki-zushi, which sort of make-your-own using presliced fish and vegetables. No sushi knife experience needed. Afterwards they went over the house rules, which all seem very reasonable (even the curfew, since it's flexible as long as I let them know in advance) and i'm happy to be the new “musume-san” (daughter). Tomorrow I have to get registered at school, so I took a bath (mmm, first Japanese bath in 4 years. Delicious!) and headed straight to bed. It's really hot and sticky here, but I set the timer for the fan for 30 minutes and was out cold (well, not really cold. I wish!) in 10.

September

2006-07-04T05:49:00.000-07:00

September

Ok, the August post was long enough, so some of the stuff from that month is going here. Besides, I might not have enough material for the September post otherwise; once you're in school, the days sort of bleed into one another and become all the same.
When we last left our intrepid heroine, she had safely navigated the treacherous waters of Berkeley housing, and found a place to roost.
It's a room. Just a room. But it was perfect. (Still is. I signed the lease for another year!) I found an ad on CraigsList for a women's boarding house, in my price range, three blocks from the south part of campus. Sylvia, the landlady, agreed to see me the next day, and Dad and I pulled up in front of a chocolate-brown, sturdy Victorian (no gingerbread trim, alas, just a solid-looking box of a house with a brick porch). Sylvia is a lovely, motherly ex-hippie who reminds me of a mother deer, with her tawny hair and big eyes. She led us through a hall with an improbably ornate mirror and marble-topped bench, up some ratty, paint-chipped carpeted stairs, into a totally nondescript hall, and unlocked the door on the far left. And I knew I was home.
It's big, with a bank of north- and east-facing windows. The ceilings are 9 feet high or higher, curved above the crown molding, and the floors are the color of dark honey. Of course rooms look bigger when they're empty, and this one seemed to stretch away from me forever. Best of all, there's an alcove in which some former resident's father had built a closet frame, hung it with poles and racks, and draped a curtain over the whole thing to hide it. And while there's no private bathroom, there is a huge closet with a small sink. The walls with the windows are set back slightly from the rest of the walls, making a sort of square bay perfect for a bed. There's a huge tree outside that provides substantial cover for the street (not that I'm not scrupulous about keeping my blinds closed!). Also, a cute little back garden with fig trees—yummy!—and on-site laundry. It doesn't get better than this, at least in my price range. Dad found nothing wrong with it. He declared it “just shabby enough”, i.e., the slightly run-down entrance and bathroom. It'll keep me humble, I think, is the reasoning. I decided on it within minutes. I haven't regretted it yet.
After I signed the lease, I could begin the delightful (at least for me) process of assembling the trappings of domesticity, namely, furniture. I already had a dresser Dad found on the side of the road (nothing but the best for his little girl, no sir!); a cool old trunk that would probably sell at Anthropologie for $250 but which cost me $8 at the Magic Johnson AIDS Clinic Thrift Shop (“Out of the Closet”); and it was the work of an hour to pick out the quintessential student futon (black, hollow-tubing frame, unbleached cotton mattress). For the rest, I spent a very pleasant day at Urban Ore (highly recommended), and came away with a lovely Danish desk, a hutch for it, a round chair (I've always wanted one!), a comfy old easy chair, and a Mission-style pillar lamp with a gorgeous stained-glass shade. Plus, Sylvia told me I could paint the walls, so I picked out my favorite sky-blue turquoise for the ceiling, and a rich pink to be overlaid with a butter yellow wash on the walls. Aron came over the hill with his pickup to haul furniture, and Gabe came from Santa Cruz to help paint and, saint that he is, chauffeur me to various monuments to capitalism to collect the remaining bits and pieces of home life. It's awfully fun to sort of spend—wisely, of course—but freely. Gabe and I dined at the Scharffen Berger Cacao Cafe. Mmmmmmm. (makes yummy sounds). Sadly, it closed for dinner a few months ago, so I'm glad we went.
Mom and Dad sent a bunch of stuff through the mail, which didn't arrive until I had an actual address at a mail center a few weeks later (the mail system at Dana House consists of a dresser in the foyer on which mail is placed, and requires great faith on the part of the occupants in the two girls assigned to sort it and place it in everyone's designated slot. And there's no way to get a package safely into the house if no one opens the door for the delivery boy. I took one look at it and headed straight for Postal Annex. Worth every penny). So I was still getting packages of linens and other stuff well into the first few weeks of school, but I was basically moved in by the first day.
As for my housemates, unfortunately, I see very little of them. The downstairs apartments have two or three girls each in them, and I hear lots of parties down there on weekends. The rest of us upstairs keep mostly to ourselves. It's hard to socialize when the doors fall closed as soon as they're opened. Also, I never had to entertain someone in my bedroom in college, because I always had an apartment, and so it feels weird to have people step into my nest with all the laundry and unmade bedding in plain sight. I was lonely for several weeks, even though the girl next door and one upstairs and I made vague plans to hang out. I still feel a little lonely when I contemplate how nice having a roommate can be. But as the year went on, I got so busy I'm rarely bothered by it now, and I really need solitude to be truly happy. The product of an only childhood. No hard feelings, Mom and Dad. Promise!
I got a brief visit from Stu the second week of September. It was nice just to have someone around who already knew me, to whom I was not explaining about myself ad infinitum while hanging ou don't mind eating solo, but it also made me homesick in new and creative ways to be with someone who still had a life back East. So we went and saw _The Forty-Year-Old Virgin_ and wet our pants laughing at it and it was better.

Unfortunately, my bike was stolen out of the back garden over Labor Day weekend. Partly my fault for not locking it, and merely leaning it against a tree, and partly someone else's for leaving the gate open overnight after doing her laundry.
Back to school! I feel like a kid again, or at least an undergraduate. Orientation for the department was all right. Meeting my “colleagues” was more fun than touring all the buildings and services, but it made me a lot more comfortable and at home to know exactly where to go. The department advisor told us to study in a different library every time we want to study for a few weeks, until we can pick our favorite. I took her advice to heart; more on that later.
The classrooms are all the same. Classrooms are the same the world over. Same smell of chalk and floor cleaner and gum under desks. The hallways are always full of students, usually sprawled on the floor, waiting for their next class. In front of the big classrooms it can get dangerous, stepping over all those feet and bags. I took the placement test for Japanese a few days before the start of classes, and after handing back two tests (one of the professors, having taught on the East Coast, noted that Haverford was a very good schol, and tried to put me in fifth year. Not a chance. The fourth-year test was similarly over my head), and a conversation with a sweet-as-pie prof, I was placed in third-year. Which, privately, is where I knew I belonged, but knowing the Japanese love of procedure and empirical evidence as I do, I kept quiet and diligently filled out my kanji tables and sentence completion.

My other classes seem pretty typical high-level undergraduate stuff (we're encouraged to take that level of instruction our first semseter). Two classes—Japanese translation and Japanese linguistics—with the same professor, and a seminar that I thought was going to be a lot of work and isn't. So now I have a little too much time on my hands, basically an unfilled week. But there's ballroom! The stuff of my next post!

But for now...to finish out the month, Gabe and I went hiking at Point Reyes as soon as he was free from the shackles of qualifying exams. We went with my cousin Sam and his girlfriend, and my grandmother's dear friend Yvie, who knows the trails like her own street. It was a perfect day, blazing hot and sunny. Starting out, we stopped for the requisite coffee (for G, naturally. I still don't touch the stuff), and I left my wallet on top of his car. No kidding, it was still there when we pulled up at the bridge toll 20 minutes and 10 miles later. God protects fools and little children, indeed.
We arrived in Marin at Yvie's to find her enormous dining room table COVERED with food. Even though we had brought our own snacks and trail mix, we dug in gleefully and fueled up. Then we stopped at Bovine Bakery where we parked, for second breakfast (might have been third by that time...). The trail we picked was neither easy nor hard, in my opinion. I was certainly tired at the end, but aside from somewhat exhausted ankles from plowing through the sandy paths, I wasn't totally wiped out at the end. We got to see elk on the way, but no whales. The ocean views, and sounds, and smell more than made up for it, though. I love cliffs.
We went back to Yvie's to wash up, and off to Sushiko's for dinner. Yumyumyumyum...On the way back, Sam managed to lead us into a warehouse parking lot, or some such thing, and nearly killed himself in the process. Gabe has since extracted a promise from me that I won't get into a car with him. My own cousin...
but. Great way to end the month! I think I'm going to like it here!

Broken Silence

2006-06-27T20:54:00.000-07:00

Because I've been a wee bit busy for the past few months, I've missed posting. Yeah. Sorry. So in the 2 months remaining of my the summer, I will attempt to chronicle my 10 months here in Berkeley: graduate school, ballroom dance, the whole bit. But since I never really got into the habit of journaling or keeping track of it all, it's going to be hard to do this. Plus, I very much doubt that the vast majority of my loyal readers would appreciate the degree of excruciating detail my full account would entail. So , I'll attempt a monthly digest of events. I intended to post those weekly, but after doing the math, I discover that 9 weeks is almost more time than this summer allows, and since I'll almost certainly interrupt it for weekly posts while I'm in Japan, I'll probably post a few times a week, as I write them. You all know the rules: very few people will be named by name, and only in the most innocuous circumstances. No gossip, no drama, no matter how significant it might have been at the time. I know you're all crushed. Read it anyway.

WARNING: I was too lazy to actually write the August post, so it's just a couple of e-mails I sent to people. So it repeats itself. Much like I do, come to think of it. And yes, it's intentional.

August

trapped in the airport
trapped in the airport all night long
we steal blankets and pull chairs together
dad sleeps on the floor
like in the terminal
i should have known that shedding my old life would never be as easy as getting on a plane
shearing off the ground
landing only slightly wilted
i have to be stripped of all the trappings
almost forget how i used to be

Speaking of new homes, I've landed in mine. Sort of. I'm in Berkeley, after a hellish trip from Baltimore to Atlanta to Memphis to San Francisco (instead of Oakland), a VERY uncomfortable night on the floor of an airport (I forget which one. Atlanta, I think), and the (hopefully temporary) "misplacement" of every stitch of clothing and other article I own (at press time 2 of the 4 bags had been returned, and the other 2 located and on their way, I think). But Liz and Dierdre were very welcoming, and Dad is just as happy as a clam to be "home" back on the West Coast and in Berkeley. He was taking great lungfuls of air as we climbed out of the subway and exulting about it all.
Myself, I'm uncomfortably chilly most of the time, and mildly distressed about the seeming lack of consistent sunlight. Maybe if I thought of myself in England I'd cope better. But honestly, right now England would seem less foreign. The lay of the land is different, the people look different, even the squirrels are a different color. I can't shake the feeling that I'm not here permanently, despite spending most of yesterday afternoon apartment-searching as soon as we got here. Frankly, I'm probably a little behind on most of my university stuff, so I don't feel prepared. My aunt is pretty helpful, but she's in athletic administration, not academics, so her advice is pretty general.
As for the apartments, a lot of them are "lacking in charm", as Liz said. Cheap, to be sure, and I'm sure I'll find one I like, but. Yikes. I know it's only the first day, but my dad's leaving for the mountains tomorrow, and he's so helpful when it comes to apartment searching and inspection. It's the contractor in him, I think. And he always remembers the questions I forget :-) So I want to be installed before he leaves. Plus, Dierdre's having a baby, so I can't crash on their couch forever.
But this is my new home, so I'll get used to it and like it eventually. I always do. It's just that I've never been in a place I didn't know inside out already (Japan is an exception, but Japan was so crazy far away it doesn't count. Plus, I knew I would be walked through just about everything, whether I liked it or not). Even at Haverford, I never felt like I didn't belong, I was never homesick, and I already knew the campus from visiting during my dad's reunions.

It's chilly here. It seems to be always this way. I cannot shake the feeling that this is only a temporary visit, not a semi-permanent move.  I've moved 5 times not counting college and Japan, and this feels the least like a move. No boxes. No fresh paint. No posse of friends coming over  to drink beer and haul furniture and go out for Indian afterwards. Just a new laptop and a pile of suitcases, and my aunties and my father, each one falling over the other to ask, ask, ask. Have you seen this apartment,  what about that one, did you call the luggage tracking service, when do you sign up for your courses, are you sure that place is too far away, hey, do you have a cell phone yet? 
Aren't you excited? 
Well, no. Unless you mean, excited in the sense that people who are kidnapped and then dropped by the side of the road in some godforsaken spot are said to be "excited". I try to lose myself in the minutiae of packing and apartment searching to disguise the fact that when we drive out somewhere and I imagine myself BY myself, walking and studying and independent, my bowels loosen. I've never been somewhere I didn't already know inside and out (same school for 12 years, and I picked the college my dad went to, so I had already seen it several times at reunions), with the exception of Japan. But that was so different I couldn't be faulted for my terror. Here, everyone expects me  to be wild with joy at the prospect of at least six weeks of getting lost, overpaying for things, asking questions every five minutes, and buying furniture off the side of the road.

I am adrift.
I don't have a bank account, a cell phone, a student ID, a real home. All of my things (my luggage was mercifully returned to me, in full, yesterday afternoon) are piled in bags and crates in my aunts' spare room, and it's all in different places and I can't find anything. Getting dressed and groomed requires rooting through just about every bag: underwear in this suitcase, pants in another, shirts in another, toothbrush and jewelry in yet another. The Cal bureaucracy is a typical one: huge, creaking, rapidly antiquating and staffed by underpaid, overworked drones who have seen everything and whose greatest wish is to see none of it again. I keep getting shunted from office to office clutching my forms and registration. It makes me homesick for Haverford's cute little system, with the offices no more than 5 minutes away, and secretaries who knew your name and fixed your problems before you knew you had them.
I am the world's most clueless graduate student.
Selah.
The apartment search is going. Not well, not poorly. I've visited a lot of fairly grim, drab boxlike apartments, some close to campus, some far, all for about the same price. The one I really want--a huge place, minutes from campus, all the amenities you could want, seemingly really nice people--is the only one whose tenants I can't get in touch with :-(

(the next day)
Now I'm 3 for 4 (bank account, cell phone, student ID—all acquired within 3 hours in and around Berkeley), I'm registered for courses, and the apartment search is looking up. After a parade of grim, drab little rooms and apartments--and, of course, Julian*--I seem to have found a pretty little room close to campus, cheapcheapcheap and generously sized for what it is. And they'll let me paint the walls.
Mustn't jinx it, though. It's in a "rooming house", which I guess is Cal-speak for what I would call a boarding house, and it's a little isolating. Most of the drawbacks of a dorm--shared bathroom, creaky old everything, kind of cramped--with few of the advantages, like camaraderie. Then again, I'm not sure I'll have much time for that.
But I just want to move in SOMEwhere. I still don't feel permanent(ly) here.
Tomorrow I won't have nearly as much to do as before, since all the business-y things are taken care of. So I'll write in my journal, maybe get a few posts up on the godforsaken blog, and walk around trying not to spend anything.

*Julian requires special mention. CraigsList is, of course, a student's best friend in finding apartments (and just about anything else, I suppose), and it was extra helpful to have my aunts around so I could yell out the street address for a prospective apartment (Ward and Dana? MLK and Stuart?) and have them give me the bullet on location, proximity to campus, general quality of the neighborhood, likelihood of things like drug busts or frat parties. When I discovered a dirt-cheap room in what sounded like a lovely condo on Northside, with an eloquent description and the possibility of sharing it with a European artist, as he described himself, I had to take a look. After receiving a slightly disturbing e-mail (he went on a little too long about the personalities of other Evelyns he had known), I took my long-suffering aunt along as backup and went out one evening to inspect the place. The building was indeed in a nice, quiet, woodsy part of town, set on a hill but close to campus (although, as it turned out, if I had taken it I would have been at least 20 minutes away from any of the buildings I would end up taking classes or practicing in), and I knocked on the door with only mild trepidation.
Which quickly turned into serious trepidation when the door opened and I was confronted by a short, hairy troll of a man wearing a black faux-snakeskin shirt of the kind available at Hot Topic and (I'm weeping as I type) beige denim hot pants. There's no other word for them. I must say, they showed off his abundant leg hair to great advantage. The hair on his head was lovely, long and black and curly and framing the face of a wizened, degenerate 50-year-old. Decorum prevented me from turning around and running back down the steps, although I did consider faking a seizure. Liz and I should have had a signal worked out. We were ushered in.
Liz says his little lizard eyes never left me, and he came down $100 on the asking price after seeing me. Also, he asked if I wanted to model and help out with his art. While going through the motions of asking about utilities and rent and inspecting the applianes (honestly, this was over the moment he opened the door. I'm sorry if it's lookist or something, but a girl can't take chances on this sort of thing), stole a glance at a few of his photographs, which seemed to feature naked women draped against rocks and looking either blissful or catatonic. And that's just what was on the walls. Tasteful, but not the sort of part-time job you can tell Grandma about with alacrity.
I think it was the pile of stuffed animals—big, fluffy, bizarre in their very presence and number—in the dining room that really did it. I rushed through the standard thanks-so-much-it's-lovely-I'm-looking-at-a-bunch-of-other-places-I'll-call-you-soon wrap-up, threw one last longing gaze at the porch with its gorgeous view of the city and the Bay (not worth it, not worth it, not worth it!), and left, with my aunt, who had been pretty quiet, in tow.
We made it down the steps, out the door, and into the car, which we locked. And lost it. We laughed and laughed and laughed until my sides hurt and Liz was crying. Somehow we made it home, where we told Dierdre and lost it all over again. I managed somehow to stay optimistic about the househunting after that, called Julian two days later with polite apologies and a lie about moving in with some friends, and signed the lease on my cozy little nest on Southside exactly two weeks to the day of arriving in Berkeley.

I'll See You in Hell

2006-03-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Moderate
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Moderate
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante Inferno Hell Test

In the Beginning

2006-02-27T15:08:00.000-08:00

Valentine's Day was uneventful as such; a regular, busy Tuesday, trying to catch up after my absence on Thursday and Friday to attend a conference in New York (more on that later), and cope with the horrendous sleep deficit caused by said conference and accompanying snowstorm that trapped me on a runway for five hours. But somewhere in between scrambling to get to class on time and handing out the worksheets in my seminar, I remembered that it was Valentine's Day 2005 that I received the acceptance e-mail to Berkeley (the letter followed), and my life changed. I started this blog, for instance. But seriously, the limbo that I had been laboring in for months was gone, suddenly, and my path was cleared for the next two years. This is a wonderful feeling. I can still remember plopping into my chair to check e-mail at the beginning of another workday, seeing the Berkeley address in the "Sender" column, thinking it was just a "please hold; we will consider your application in the order it was received. Thank you for your patience" notice, or a request for some other scrap of paperwork, and then opening it and grinning from ear to ear, calling everyone I knew, etc. And then spending three months trying to hide it from my boss, for fear he would can me posthaste in order to hire someone who actually knew what s/he was doing.
And then the ceremony of quitting (tossing ID badge in harbor, getting plastered at the Midtown Yacht Club), sailing, loafing at home with Mom while she recovered (swimmingly) from her foot surgery, trips to Woods Hole and New York, a lovely twinkly yummy funny crazy going-away party, one last swelter in the heat wave, and getting here and starting all over again.
I'll do my best to chronicle the past six months concisely, but some of you might wonder just why I'm here, studying Japanese and running up ghastly debt while doing so. So here's an excerpt from my personal statement on a financial aid application (apparently you can't just say, "give me money, you fools!" to the officials here, nor can you kick and scream and beg and plead and hold your breath and turn purple. Well, you could, I suppose. But it won't work. You have to be all articulate and stuff.

At first, Japan hovered on the edges, strokes in the backdrop of my upbringing. My maternal grandfather kept a small jade statue of Kannon in his study, and another one of tigereye next to his reading chair. I loved to walk around them, bending around (I was not allowed to touch, naturally) to watch light glow through the milky, melon-colored jade and set the caramel-colored ribbons in the tigereye rippling through the brown stone. In a woodlbock print of a Kabuki scene, frightening men with white faces and stretched, agonized expressions contorted grotesquely in their quiet dining room. This I stayed away from, but they danced in blue and red, catching my eye every time I went to the kitchen, until I was almost in high school.
My father, stained-glass artist, used bamboo brushes to paint on glass, and let me try them a few times. He had grown up in Fresno, taken judo as a boy from an old sensei. He kept books of kimono, paper patterns, basketweaving and marquetry in his studio to inspire the delicate tessellations of glass he set in lead for his window designs, and more recently, took careful photos of Japanese roofs and porches when I led him through Tokyo. A year later, he proudly showed me a glass portrait of St. Francis Xavier, part of a series of hagiographic church panels. Francis X went to Japan and started a painting school, and the window shows him standing on the veranda of a Japanese house, complete with tiles and sliding doors, gazing up at flame-colored momiji maple leaves.
That was all, when I was little. Colorful origami guides I could never quite master at Christmas. Whispers that the Japanese ate fish raw—why?!—and could kill you with their hands, when I was in middle school. Tidy, quiet Japanese ladies, wives of doctoral students at Hopkins, teaching one semester of Japanese to a sel`ect group of seniors (myself not among them), in high school. Growing up on the East Coast, the closest most of us ever came to Japan was a brother's video game and embarrassing Hello Kitty childhood toys.
Until I took a Japanese history class, taught by a vivacious art history doctoral student from Penn who led us through twelve centuries of Japanese history using mostly slides and an inexhaustible supply of praise for brushstrokes, bubbling glazes, and lacquer. Wandering on a beach the next summer, sorting through potential majors, Japanese came up again and again, for many reasons. I was already familiar with the exotic baubles of Japanese aesthetic culture, and now, more deeply, its history and character. I learned languages quickly and thoroughly, as sixteen years of French would prove, and taking an area-studies major more or less required a study abroad. I was in all the way.
Six years later, having plowed through a dozen textbooks and hundreds of kanji, partied with salarymen in Ueno Park in cherry-blossom season, woken to the scent of incense and the bonging and chanting of a Zen temple's morning prayers, translated a Tokugawa-period manual on wifely behavior, and endured two years of secretary grunt work to get back to graduate school, I still haven't had enough. There are always more kanji, more paintings, more proverbs and gitaigo and ki-idioms.
My current research focuses on the voice of Japanese-ness in Western literature. First of all, the voice of Japanese-ness in the context of naturalization vs. barbarization; more precisely, the choices made by the translators to produce an exotic, Japanese voice markedly different from that of a comparable writer in English. While Waley, in his translation of Genji Monogatari, deliberately strove to create a Japanese Camelot for his readers, I argue that it is possible for translators of Japanese classics to unconsciously slip into an overly and overtly exotic, foreignized tone which places the text above the reach of a modern reader. Secondly, the voice of Japanese-ness adopted by non-Japanese writers for their own fiction. Arthur Golden, of Memoirs of a Geisha fame, is the most famous contemporary example, but many others—Pico Iyer, Laura Joh Rowland, Liza Dalby—attempt to produce a Japanese voice in English. Do they succeed, i.e., does this read in Japanese, or is it simply an over-exoticized aping of a more delicate and subtle literary collective voice?
Currently, I am starting from the beginnings, taking courses in classical Japanese to plumb the depths of the origins of Japanese literary voice. Study of modern Japanese literature will follow, coupled with close readings of the above-mentioned authors to compare the style and voice. With my degree in linguistics, I have been continuing my study of the intricacies of Japanese language, including an in-depth examination of Haruki Murakami's stylistics, the linguistic analysis of style.
My career aspirations lie in art or writing: museum work or publishing, travel writing or a post at a newspaper or magazine, in Japan, Europe or the United States. I want to understand Japanese like I understand French: to the point where the chatter of children and the murmurings of grandmothers are intelligible, where I get jokes in bars, where the subtitles aren't the first thing I look at in the movies, where regional dialects are intriguing instead of frustrating. I miss Japan, with its narrow streets, rows of bicycles, its energy that flows along different channels than in the US but no less intensely.

The rest is mostly puppy-eyed pleading and flattery, but that ought to give y'all a sense of what I'm doing, why and how, and where I hope it goes.

Rainy Monday...not much else to say. I'm going to a sewing circle tonight to fix up the costumes I bought for my upcoming competition at Harvard. But that's another story entirely.

2006-02-22T11:35:00.000-08:00

2006-02-22T11:29:00.000-08:00

And here we are...President's Day at Cesar Chavez Park, with frisbees and kites. Good day.

My Best Friends' Weddings, Part Deux

2006-02-21T23:29:00.000-08:00

So the last post was a melancholy meditation on the wedding of my oldest friend--not my friend who is the oldest, my friend whose friendship with me is the oldest--but the sharper-eyed of you may have noticed that the title is plural, and right you are. This second part is about my tribe, my posse, my apartment, the friends I made in college and lived with for two years. They are all getting married, and all to each other, it seems.
I went back and read the entry I made in April of this year, after going to the Haverford Corporation meeting, where I snivelled about how much I miss college and how rotten my life seemed in comparison, and came to the line where I bravely asserted that I was all down about it just because I wasn't doing what I really wanted to be doing (living independently, using my brain for more than avoiding obstacles in my path) and that as soon as I got out of the holding pattern I'd been in, the feeling would disappear.
Well, it did, for the most part, but yesterday Aron and Stu and Gabe came to town, and we ate sushi and played frisbee and talkedtalkedtalked, and while I haven't laughed that hard in quite a while, I would be struck in quiet moments with the knowledge that this is no substitute for the Way We Were, and we can't go back.

And then A told me Kingsley was getting married. And I literally dropped my chopsticks.

No kidding. I thought that sort of thing belonged with spit-takes under "Cheesy Movie Reactions to Shocking News", but when I heard that Chris KINGSLEY is getting MARRIED, for Christ's sake, honest to god my fingers just stopped working for a second.

Not that Chris is unfit for marriage, or that Maura, his choice of bride, isn't the right one. I'm sure he is, and I know she is. That's fine. It's just the thought of my friends getting married. Some of them already have: David (see last post), John Boyle way back (but he's older), a few other couples from college. But we saw those coming a mile off. What throws me is that when and if we manage to get everyone together again, those gold bands on some of those fingers will make it utterly impossible to be, or even to pretend, that we were The Way We Were. You can play at adolescence for years, like me, back in school and planning to travel and muck around for the forseeable future, and so when you hang with your college buddies, it's almost just like back in school. Not quite, but enough so you can pretend. But one by one (two by two, actually), my friends are passing over a threshold of adulthood, a real one that you can't undo or return from or come back through. They're on the other side of this divide, and good for them. We've all gotta cross it sometime. But their doing it is really unsettling, not least because my turn's coming up. Certainly not soon, but if they can do it, so can I. So should I.

Plus, I have NO idea what to get them.

My Best Friends' Weddings

2006-02-21T22:53:00.000-08:00

My father calls us cradlemates. Our mothers were friends as we grew, first inside and then out. His mother felt ill watching Reagan's inauguration, but it turned out to be him, about to be born. David. Beloved. I myself emerged the day before Reagan was shot; in the days before everyday luxuries were common in hospital rooms, my mother had to special-order a television on which to watch the drama unfold while holding me on my first day of life. Evelyn. Hazelnut.

And now he's married, wed one meltingly hot day in June, next to a stream on his aunt's farm, to his Anne, surrounded by his sister and brother and cousins and friends and family, by a freshly and suspiciously ordained youth who barely looked old enough to drive a car, let alone preside over a wedding. But he did, and it was legal, and binding, and beastly hot, so we hurried back up the hill to the tent, where the food was lovely, of course, and the wine was flowing, and we even danced a little dripping sweat all the way.

David is the closest thing to family I had in Baltimore after my grandparents died. He and I spent holidays and weekends together, play-fighting, play-flirting, reading comic books and watching movies, sneaking treats off the tables and annoying our fathers playing poker. Later we would sprawl around the living room, he strumming on the guitar that seemed to be an extension of his hands, me playing with his sister's hair or scratching the ear of whatever dog had thumped down next to me. We built our wit, riffing off of each other's jokes, trading good-natured jabs or teasing the other kids around. Even later we played off of each other in public, for real, on stage in school plays. I was usually the straight man: Juliet's Nurse to his Mercutio; the Prince of Aragon; a dour stagehand (for real and for show); while he got the leads, the goofball parts, the ones that required lots of lines and lots of energy and lots of hard dramatic work.

And we danced. He was my first real partner (cootie-infested elementary-school boys in my early early ballroom classes notwithstanding), and together we learned the silky footwork of East Coast Swing: the steps, the twirls, the subtle hand cues and leads. We went to clubs and dances in the Scottish Rite Temple and Tall Cedars Hall. He was fluid on the floor, as if he had bones of silicone as supple as the flesh around them. I was more energetic, always hoping for another spin, another tricky step, another lift. I still do.

Then we went to college, and that was sort of it, except at holidays. But it wasn't the same. We were so wrapped up in our lives there--as we should have been, of course--and suddenly our stories about this guy and that time we were all locked out and what that crackpot prof said and so on didn't work. We had all this history, but for once I felt like it didn't matter.
But I think I equalized a little, after the total-immersion first semester, when everything was new, and once I settled in it was easier to come home and be home. David came home and stayed there, pushing through a thicket of depression. I can have no conception of what that was like, and not for the first time, I felt like I stood on the outside of his life.

One of our friends committed suicide. I don't have the e-mail that Dave wrote me after the funeral that I didn't attend, but I still have one he wrote a few years later, when I was in Japan. It's wise and warm and shot through with not only his stiletto wit and cleverness, but, I fancy, a tacit understanding of all we were together. I always thought he was much cooler and more advanced than I was, and that could make me feel like a clumsy, silly child, but to read his chatty, intimate, utterly comfortable prose cut through all that, and I knew that we would continue to drift away from each other, but keep a line, however, thin, between us. We can't cut it.

We're not that close anymore. I don't even have his e-mail address. I saw him briefly at the annual New Year's party, but he and Anne split early. And of course, he had other things on his mind at the wedding. But no matter what, he knew me when I was missing teeth and got scared by loud movies, and it's important to have someone like that in your life. No matter where you are with them, you're home. You've got a link to your own past that's outside your own head. I hope he thinks of me in the same way. My cradlemate. Beloved.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas Random Ten

2006-01-25T23:53:00.000-08:00

Every good mother has an ace in the hole. Several, actually: a few in the pantry (special meals-in-a-box that she knows the family likes that can be whipped out in the event of simultaneous crankiness on her family's part and extreme busyness/stress on hers), some on her nightstand (good books, rich chocolate, deluxe hand cream, to give her an instant mood lift), her purse, and her closet. My mother always has emergency gifts wrapped and stashed somewhere she can grab them easily, and when I was little she would occasionally present me with some little something when it was needed or appropriate. Or when I was being insufferable and needed to be distracted. If I had known this I would have been insufferable more often. No, even MORE often.
In the sense that this blog is my baby, I too have a few cards up my sleeve. Maybe not aces, but there's bound to be something in the vault I can use when I'm too overworked to actually post something real or current because I'm teaching two sections of Asian Studies and I'm taking 4 of my own classes plus grad seminar plus pedagogy AND I have a competition this Saturday and I have a new partner so I have to practice extra with him, and, and, and *pant pant pant*.

Yes. Anyway. No time for real post. So here's one I've been keeping, undoubtedly too long, to throw up on the ol' blog, and keep all my fans happy and pacified for another week. Love you all, natch, but. So. Busy.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas Random Ten

Really, I don't have any good ideas of my own. My work starts with derivation and goes from there. I might occasionally improve on something I stole from somewhere, something or someone else, but not in this case. I'm going to do it anyway, though.
Once more, I'm biting from the Post-Modern Drunkard, who is currently—and wisely, considering the wretched cold and the snarly transit strike in his adopted city—spending Navidad in Madrid, far away enough for me to consider attempting a little flattering plagiarism.
The Random Ten is a facet of iPod culture. Ten songs, from the shuffle setting on your little digital baby. You listen, you rate them, you calculate the average for the week. Yet another blissfully indulgent manifestation of autocultural exhibitionism. Bear with me; I'm practicing my big words for when I start teaching (ulp).
So:

"Gimme Some Money", Spinal Tap
Stupid? Kind of. Overdone? Of course. But it (and the whole movie) is an uncannily brilliant parody, and the songs themselves, including, are actually fairly good. Go Nigel, go! 6/10

"One By One", Enya
Yeah, I know. Shut up. But they're not THAT bad. And I use some of them for dance practice! Like, umm, Tea-House Moon has a perfect slow waltz beat, and Caribbean Blue is good for Viennese, and...oh, there's no excuse. And this one particularly sucks. 2/10

"Siren", ellipsis...
These people are great. They're a trio of Swat grads who used to play in our basement and in Lunt Cafe, and everyone should go right to iTunes and pick up their album, "take what you will". But this pretty, sly little ballad with the clever mandolin solos didn't make it onto their debut. It was on a demo that they sent to their loyal fans. Out of the three songs on that demo it's the weakest, but if they ever make it big, they can run it and no one will care. 7/10

"Old Man River", Django Reinhardt
Now, I love Django Reinhardt. But I also love Paul Robeson, and I squirm a little when I hear the D-man jazzing up and playing fast and loose with the most soulful song on Broadway. Anything but this, Django. Anything but this. 4/10

"Skin", Andrew Bird
Like Henry Mancini meets Thelonious Monk. Playful and interesting and tres hip. Wish I could whistle like this. 6/10

"Oceans of Grey", Green
I really hope these guys make it big. They're friends of a friend, and they've got the look and the sound tailor-made for general appeal, and somehow the lyrics are poetic and intelligent enough to make them listenable. 8/10

Bicycle Country Blackout
This was blackout music in a production of A Bicycle Country that I did tech for. Normally you get so sick of the soundtrack of a show after the first few weeks you want to rip the speakers out of the walls, but Cuban guitar? Love it. I really wish I knew what it's called and who wrote it and who performed it, though. I know it makes it sort of obscure and pointless to put on the Random Ten, but it's, y'know, random. Not much I can do about it. Just take my word for it: 7/10

"Yeah! Oh Yeah", Magnetic Fields
Part of a going-away present of hundreds of songs designed to make me cool for at least 10-12 months until all these bands made it to California. His voice sort of annoys me, and between the 'Fields and the Decemberists, I have more music about failed love than I know what to do with, but this is catchy, in a lugubrious, perverse sort of way. 6/10

"Bell Bottom'd Trousers", The Pyrates Royale
A cappella sea chanteys and comedy. I'm a geek, ok? I've accepted it. This one is a cautionary tale for maids in Drury Lane: don't get into bed with men who wear bell-bottoms. On the other hand, I probably wouldn't be here if my mother had heeded that advice, and I daresay many of you wouldn't either. 4/10

"Istanbul (not Constantinople)", They Might be Giants
An excellent cover of an excellent standby, from the Turkish-sounding fiddle intro to the kickin' drums to the Giants' vocals. My standard quickstep practice song and always guaranteed to make me grin. 10/10

An even 6/10 for the week. The geekitude factor of Tap and Pyrates, the obscurity of Green, "Siren", and "Random Cuban Music", and the musical travesty that is Enya push it farther down than even my cool-making gift music could save. Well, there's always next week.

The Bitch Is Back, And So Is Her Blog

2006-01-18T18:59:00.000-08:00

No excuse, I know. Not even the whole move-across-the-country-start-school-again-be-independent-for-the-first-time song and dance will forgive, oh FIVE MONTHS of blogolary silence. I mean, honestly. I should have been posting all this time about finding an apartment, starting classes, dancing on the UC ballroom team, hiking Pt. Reyes, watching the clouds roll over the High Sierras, holding my new baby cousin for the first time. But inertia took over, as it often does, and I was locked into the mentality that I couldn't start posting about current events until I got the travelogue and my posting about David's wedding finished. Not helpful.
But I finally *did* finish the sailing trip account, and I wrote out the wedding post, although I need a title. So I'll get the gears moving again. I'll try to hit that balance of detail and overview so as not to simultaneously bore or confuse anyone. It's amazing how quickly time begins to flow past you, though. One moment everything is new, and you remember everything down to the name of the cashier at the bookstore you wandered through on that Sunday afternoon after you had breakfast with your aunts and took BART to SF for the first time. The next, you're wondering where 5 months of dancing and homework and Kingpin Doughnuts went (yes, they are the best ever. No, I don't weigh 400 pounds now. But only through great effort, restraint, and exercise. They're so. Damn. Good.)
So here's the rest of my sailing trip, to be followed soon by the rest of my summer (well, the bits fit for public consumption, which were few and far between) and then, my attempts at chronicling my new life in (usually) sunny California. Reader, your loyalty has been severely tested. I lead you now into pastures rich with posts. I hope.

Ship to Shore, Part II

2006-01-05T22:03:00.000-08:00

RECAP: When we last left our intrepid Chesapeake sailors, they were pulling into Ockohannock Creek, preparing for dinner and a pleasant night in the middle of the shallow inlet, and I was dismayed by the stench of the air around us, but it turned out to be John's crab trap...)

So the crabs will feast tonight on gamy bluefish steaks. I'm not too disappointed, being guaranteed more bluefish than I can eat in Woods Hole, and now there will be no disputes over how to prepare it.
We drop anchor in what appears to be solidly in the middle of the creek and Gordan sets about preparing lamburgers, spiced with his blend of cumin and coriander, to be grilled. The grill is hanging over the rail, and John prepped the coals to get the burgers ready. I'm below decks, slapping together a peanut-sesame dressing with chili oil and soy sauce and trying futilely to do something about the clutter born of the day's inertia, when I hear a splash and a stream of language to make a sailor blush. This can mean only one thing: Davy Jones wants a burger, too. Doom. Dooooooooooooooooom. I stay below (read: hide) until the oaths and the stomping subside. When they do, I venture up to comfort Gordan, who is describing the burger's descent as resembling "the face of a loved one disappearing beneath the waves". I don't understand why he insists on being a computer geek; he could easily make just as comfortable a living churning out novels of his choice of quality: from romances with raised lettering on the covers to high "hlitrature". He is so distraught by the loss that he overcooks the rest, which must be carefully divided so that no one is short. Fortunately, they were big to begin with, and the added spices keep them tasty.
For dessert Michael and Otto toss the last pieces of the mace cake on the grill, after I complain that I underbaked it and it's getting soggy. The smokiness and crisp exterior on the grilled pieces enhance its sweetness, and we gobble up the last bits.
After dinner we all sit chatting in the night. Michael begins to tell me about his little girl, Madison, and I watch his face glow as he describes her habits and quirks, likes and dislikes.
The night is so warm that I suggest a late-night swim. We all change and jump in, except for John who goes to bed. The water is pleasant, cool without being stinging, and when Otto cannonballs in, I notice that the water shines more than normal. Then I see little greeny glowy blobs when someone paddles over to a float: bioluminescence! Delighted, I call out for everyone to look at the comb jellies. They're harmless, I reassure everyone; in fact, they're fun to pick up and poke! Soon we discover that lifting hands out of water results in glowing squiggles running off our fingers, and treading water produces a blurry halo around our paddling hands and feet. I mention that we ought to play REM's "Nghtswimming" in honor of our plunge, and Brian obligingly climbs out to put on the CD. Soon we're swimming to soundtrack; we're far enough out that the noise shouldn't be a problem, although I know that sound carries far over water.
After 45 minutes or so of paddling around companionably, trying to stay attached to the float and lines Michael tossed out, we start getting cold, so we hoist ourselves out, dry off, and head to bed. The water, being brackish, becomes neither sticky like saltwater nor muddy-grimy like fresh lakewater as it dries on me. So I skip the shower and fall asleep, idly wondering what shape my now-soaked hair will take in the morning.

Day 6: Thursday

I'm hoping for a morning dip before we start out today, and I'm not disappointed. Ignoring the warnings about swimming after meals (after all, I have no fewer than five able-bodied lifeguards at my disposal, do I not?), Brian and I jump in after our eggs and French toast. Michael claims it's the best he's ever tasted, but he says that about a lot of my cooking, plus my hand slipped when I was adding the vanilla to his, so may have just gotten a big mouthful of alcohol. While on deck, I considered following Brian, who has struck out for the shore, but as soon as I hit the water I change my mind, for two reasons: first, because the shore, from water level, has revealed itself to be much farther than it looked on deck, and also because the tidal current is very, very strong, and it carries me up the inlet alarmingly fast. It requires concerted, though not strenuous effort to remain in safe proximity to the Maverick. I splash around for a while until Michael calls us aboard. Brian has decided to abandon his landfall expedition, and is floating on his back. He doesn't have an easy time of it with the current, and when he's finally aboard he flops onto his back and stays there for fifteen minutes recovering. Yikes.
We arrive at Tangier Island's harbor in mid-afternoon. The sun is high and strong and bright, and it turns the marsh grasses a vivid green and highlights the plum-and-beige trim of a Queen Anne-style house a spit far from any other buildings. I marvel that it survived Isabel, and wonder if it has electricity now, as it serves as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's regional headquarters.
Motoring up to the marina is comparable to driving along Main Street of a small town. The canal is lined with the residents' crab sheds, boats parked outside. All the boats are named for the watermen's wives, with first and middle names common to the generation just younger than my parents--the ones born solidly in the fifies and early sixties: the Donna Marie, the Linda Joy, the Mary Barbara. One, though, is named the Mariah Cheyenne, and I decide that that must be someone's daughter. All the names are painted on in the same light and dark blue wavy script. It seems like a sweet ritual: coming of age in this little place, getting married, acquiring a boat and a wife on the same day, couples beaming giddily at each other when the name is painted on.
We tie up at the slip closest to the dock, and conduct business (pumpout, water, fuel) with Mr. Parks, the owner of the marina. He is probably no more than sixty, but one could be forgiven for placing him at eighty-five or over. Barrel-chested, with a shock of white hair and skin like shoe leather, he chats with us about his children, Baltimore's Inner Harbor before it was cleaned up, and the cost of keeping a car in Crisfield for monthly trips to the mainland (on the island, they use golf carts and the occasional light pickup). Being sailors, we are treated with more genuine warmth than I suspect the day-trippers off the boats are, and he seems anxious to have us know that the island is not dying, as Smith seems to be. Tangier children have their own school, K-12, and even though the crabs are small and scarce, half the young people stay on-island.
We stroll through the narrow streets, admiring the old frame houses and tidy gardens. The residents ignore us for the most part, zooming hither and yon on their bikes and golf carts. All of the heavy men and women are driving, and all the trim ones are pedaling or walking...
Most of the gift shops are closed for 2 hours in the afternoon, unfortunately for us, although no one is in the market for souvenirs. We pass a white chapel with a square steeple, read the names naming those who performed military service (quite a few, since the Army is a good escape from here, should one feel the need), and stare at the graves in tiny plots of high ground. They appear to be coffins encased in or covered with slabs. Some of them are very small.
Ambling through the narrow streets, we can hear the natives' bizarre accents. When selling us soda or giving directions, their patois resembles most rural Mid-Atlantic ones, but when speaking to each other they are almost unintelligible, a thick Irish brogue by way of Deliverance.
We start scouting for a place for dinner and find a charming eating house, but discover that they serve unusually early and we have missed it at 5:30. So we head back for the boat and pick a seafood place for dinner and Sparky's soda fountain for dessert.
One of the advantages of being the only wench on the boat is that I don't have to wait for the showers. I'm very hot, but it's not the wiped-out torpor that comes from oppressive humidity. The cold water pounds on my head, and it's so soft I have to scrub hard to get all the soap off. I feel slimy but cool afterwards. I comb my hair down flat, pull on a shirt with buttons, a skirt, and a necklace. They feel almost alien after a week of shorts and tees.
Scrubbed and sunburned, we join other boaters, tourists, honeymooners, and one local couple on a date at the restaurant. Everything is fried, but it's local, and we tuck into its crispy brown goodness with relish. Afterwards we straggle to Sparky's, a sweet little ice cream parlor stuffed with '50s kitsch. I offer up ice cream as my treat and it's enthusiastically welcomed. It's still warm, so it's refreshing after all the oil.
Back on deck it hits us that this is our last night out. Tomorrow we will be in the Solomon's Island Naval Recreation Center docks, and I will leave my crew after dinner to make it to David's wedding on Saturday. We break out wine and some cookies, sit on deck and enjoy the night and the many cats who visit, especially Baby (named for her cry) who makes several stowaway attempts.

Day 7: Friday

We're up and out of Tangier with nary a hitch. The trip is long but not difficult, and Gordan and Otto and I lie out on deck in the sun. Brian teaches me a little more sailcraft when they hoist the sails, but mostly we all relax.
We pull into the Solomon's Island docks in mid-afternoon. Like the OC marina, this is a new setup, but rather prettier, surrounded by vegetation, and a good deal smaller. We tie up and hop off to collect ice and booze now that were back in civilization. I have phoned my mother to give her directions and get an ETA, and then climb up the bank to join the expedition. We reigister at the office with a wiseass clerk whom I can't imagine in uniform. He gives us a ride and sympathizes with the boys about having me along for the trip; he can barely stand a 5-minute car ride. I like my smart mouth.
Mom arrives only a little late, with Pokey in tow. She charms everyone right off the bad (naturally!), chatting with John about greyhounds and grandchildren (surprisingly similar), and rescuing Otto from certain death on the highway. He was nearly killed crossing the interstate to get to the liquor store, so he clambers gratefully into the car with his cases.
The Naval Recreation Center, or what we see of it, is extensive and expansive. For some reason, they offer yurts as one of the housing options.
While Gordan bustles about with his goulash, Mom admires the boat, which Michael is only too happy to show off. Pokey is less impressed, pacing and fretting when we lift her aboard and finally has to be settled on the dock with her towel.
Gordan makes a pitcher of mojitos to carry up to the picnic table, but first we have to take a picture, complete with the flotilla banner (burgee? bergie? berjee?). Then it's chowtime. Mom is enchanted with the boatmaker Jenneau-insignia tableware, but what goes in them--perfect mojitos, fresh salad and rich, spicy goulash--is even better. We have a lively meal, trading jokes and stories, and I hold these moments close, knowing they are running out.
At last, the last of the goulash is scraped out, the mojitos are drained, the sun almost disappeared. We can delay our departure no longer. I still haven't adjusted to the land; I can walk fine, but if I stand for too long my body compensates for pitch and roll that isn't there. I don't want to have to step into a car instead of a boat, don't want to leave the sea behind.
I hug each of my shipmates in turn, thanking them for, well, everything. The mosquitoes have come out to feast, the dog is getting restless, and I know I can't linger.
Mom and I have a nice catchup session on the long way home. It's near midnight when we pull in.
While I have been on the sea, summer has come and come to stay. Even in the dark I can see that the garden has grown a mile, and the bricks underfoot have that damp, mossy feel from night watering and high humidity. Inside, the kitchen is stuffy and bright. It's bigger than the galley and cabin, minus the staterooms. It feels huge. Tiptoeing through dining room, living room, library, I get the same feeling I got when I returned from Japan, that our house is much too huge for just three people. I slip upstairs, catch my father just before he falls asleep, and sink into a bed that doesn't rock or sway for the first time in days. I fall asleep and dream of waves, wine and sail.

Technical Difficulties

2005-08-17T23:57:00.000-07:00

I hit "Publish", somehow, in the middle of the narrative. Just as well. It's a huge chunk, and, well, the rest isn't quite all written yet. So look for the next installment soon!

Ship to Shore

2005-08-17T16:36:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm not around these days, I absolutely MUST be better at posting. Having shirked my responsibilities as a blogger through most of the summer, putting up place-holder posts with little to no information, and being more or less off the grid while up north for 3 weeks, I have now attempted to remedy the situation by posting the much-awaited (by some) travelogue of my weeklong circumnavigation of the DelMarVa Peninsula by sail, in its entirety. Hopefully this'll keep everyone busy while I try to chronicle my arrival and the beginning of my adventures in California.
NB: I'm going to skip boring you with my annual vacation to Woods Hole because all I did was work at the bakery and frolic on the beach, and the highlights of my New York trip are thus: I saw Lance Armstrong and Cheryl Crow at Da Silvano in the Village, and Lindsay Lohan at a hole-in-the-wall Japanese ink-painting "school"; I lost precipitously at poker (I, who have been playing since I was old enough to hold my cards up and not shriek with glee at my hand!), and I spent most of the rest of the time seeking air conditioning, because I don't think it went below 80 degrees, day or night, the entire time I was there.

Now that we're all up to speed, let's jump back to June, shall we?

Day .5: Friday

Gordan finally arrives after 2 days of frantic hellish baking--largely successful, although one tube of almost paste was rocklike, the biscuits are a complete wash and I had to hand-feed the food processor with ground chicken and raw eggs like it was some hideous mechanical baby bird. We get to Annapolis in damp pitch-dark and unload all the food. The car smells like a grocery store all the way down and Gordan is fussy about where to put it all for the five-minute trip through the marina to the boat. Silly, I thought, until I saw that the path had a nasty little hill, and that maneuvering a handcart full of fruit (heavy) is NOT easy.
The boat, the Maverick, is smaller than I expected but everything, is of course, cleverly stowed and organized. The main cabin is lovely: amber honey-colored wood with strips of blondwood between the floorboards, lockers all around, a banquette that seats six people, and a tiny but fully stocked galley. The staterooms are fore and aft. The fore cabin is belongs to the captain and his father. It comes to a point at the bow, of course, and it's lined with lockers. The aft cabin is cavelike, with a large overhang two feet into the room. Both cabins are mostly bed with a little storage. We stow our gear along the wall, and I hope it doesn't bash into me in high seas.
We meet Michael, the captain, and Brian, the navigator. It turns out we don't have any dry ice. This is a problem; food goes bad distressingly fast at sea. Maybe we can obtain some tomorrow. The rest of the crew, Otto and John, Michael's father,
arrive and there is a little We sleep on the boat, rocking in a most soothing, safe-harbor/womb way.

Day 1: Saturday

We overslept! It's almost 10 AM when we emerge, groggily, from the stateroom. It's cloudy and calm, so we motor out and away. The sun peeks through a little bit around the Bay Bridge to be that perfect pearl-clear light I love. Then it clouds over all iron and gray to port and blue to starboard. Gordan and I grill sausages and peppers, and people have been stuffing cookies in their mouths all day. I beam with maternal pride.
There is nothing to do under motor except steer, and even then there's an auto-pilot. After lunch we sit and talk, and Michael gives me a book on sailing for women and some pointers on seasickness and the basics of sailing. I read these over and then spend two or three hours napping in my cabin. No one wakes me up. The stateroom is directly over the motor (actually, parts of it are right in the cabin, behind one of the lockers), and I try not to think about what it's doing to my hearing.
We pull into a marina for fuel and to spend the night. In the restaurant before dinner. John and I discuss Elvis and Japan with gusto while Gordan and Michael slaughter each other in pool. Gordan misses a sucker shot on the 8-ball, but wins the game--barely. The dress code runs heavily to t-shirts, old jeans, comfy shoes, hairspray, and tattoos. After today's effortless trip I begin to wonder if I'll ever learn to sail, or if I'll just read and sleep all the way down the coast. I haven't felt the slightest bit queasy yet, even while reading.
It's 10 PM before we finally sit down to kabocha (a type of Japanese pumpkin-squash), chicken and cornbread. It's a hit. Afterwards we all slob about, cracking jokes and watching John polish off the cranberry-walnut tart that Brian brought and that I had to beg people to eat after my meal. Gordan and I walk under the stars for a while to digest, and sleep comes easy.

Day 2: Sunday

This morning I'm up early to see the morning, misty and moist. We leave the marina and motor up to another one for showers. It's warm enough, even at 9AM, to change into my new bikini, the first I've ever owned. Of course I slather on the sunscreen; I know just how strong sun on the water can be.
The day stays hazy and pale. We try to shake out the sails, but give up after an hour or so. Too bad, because I enjoy the quiet respite from the motor.
Brunch! Nice and greasy, egg bacon and parm paninni with red pepper soup. A frantic search for the St. Andre to top them yielded nothing. Gordan suspects foul play at his office. After lunch, naps and sunburn. We've left the bay and inlets and are in much more open water now. Salem Nuclear Facility is ominously visible and never seems to move.
There seems to some back-and-forth among the crew about where (or if) we will dock for the night. I find the radio chatter frustratingly obscure. I wish I could be instantly knowledgeable, or at least au courant.
Brian and Michael attempt to use the sails again, with some luck. But we hit the midday doldrums and it's back to the motor. I don't mind; I like the speed and the swells, the boat dancing along in wakes, but the noise is stressful. Brian and Otto nap. John and Michael and Gordan jaw on deck. I read the Triangle, Drexel's student newspaper (barely edited: "Commencement" is misspelled in inch-high type above the fold). John untangles his rod and reel and trolls for a while. Gordan and I drowse under the boom until John hollers that he's caught something! He loses it, but we're in the middle of a bluefish feeding convention, and they're flopping everywhere. But who do you think has to teach these boys how to cast and reel, to watch the birds, and even how to kill the fish that we finally manage to hook? Me, that's who. (for the record,my preferred method involves a ball-peen hammer with the fish on a paper bag.)
The fish we've landed is 12 inches, but we have hopes for more. Sadly, though, we only manage the one, despite cutting the engine and drifting in a circle for almost an hour.
All the lazing about results in a late dinner, again. We've decided to stay in Ocean City, MD for the night, so Michael kicks up the motor and requests dinner by dark. It's my turn again, this time with chicken meatball kebabs on a bed of spinach, and bamboo rice. I can barely honor Michael's deadline, because the damn water won't boil. When it's finally served, though, everyone is highly complimentary again, despite the staggered courses and the divided dining topsides and in the cabin.
It has whipped up a little, and I find preparing food in a bobbing galley somewhat nauseating. I pop a Dramamine and a few ginger capsules, which control the collywobbles, but the former knocks me out cold as we motor through the evening. I doze on Gordan's lap on deck and then crawl back below decks to drool on the banqette until we arrive at our slip.
The OC marina is brand-new and large. The pilings are still green the planks still sharp and fresh. The showers are gleaming and expansive but half a mile away. Gordan and I pad along, past hundreds of boats, a cafe, and a spotless fish-cleaning station, to wash off the salt spray and sunblock before bed. Drunk on Dramamine, we drop off immediately,

Day 3: Monday

Apparently, Norfolk can be reached after dark , so we hang around OC for the morning. Michael and I take the dinghy to Assateague Island with Brian and Gordan in kayaks.
Assateague puts me in mind of Sippewissett Beach on Cape Cod. We're at low tide, so the whole beach is mucky and rotten-smelling. Sandpipers scamper up and down the banks, and ospreys and gulls and big, black-capped terns glide over the water, blood-warm and ankle-deep. But best of all, we see the ponies.
A little inland, around a salt pool, is a clump of shaggy brown ponies. A few chestnuts, some odd blondes--not palaminos, but with brown coats and straw-colored manes and tails--and a pinto are grazing, 8 mares and a stallion. I think the pinto is pregnant. They may all be pregnant, or they may just be round-barreled. They are concerned by our presence but not spooked. The stallion plays lookout, swishing his tail and tossing his head to make his harem amble out of our range. Still, they're close enough for great pictures. We also beachcomb for moon snails, live whelks that we chuck back into the water (despite Gordan's musings about how to best prepare them) and many dead ones, razor clams in perfect paired condition, horseshoe crab exoskeletons and one enormous dead skate. I show off my Woods Hole wisdom, quizzing about whelk and skate egg cases and answering all manner of questions. It feels good to have some knowledge to offer in exchange for the mysteries of sailing. Brian is especially inquisitive. He and I fumble with the dinghy all the way back to he Marina--it won't start so we have to row--while Gordan and Michael kayak effortlessly.
After a quick rinse-off, we shove off and organize watches. I am on the 8-12 with Michael, and I'm very relieved. It's easy, not too late at night, and I'm with the most experienced of the crew. However, it's rough and choppy all the way out and threatens storm.
The boys continue to wolf down my cookies as if I had laced them with cocaine, so it's hours before anyone thinks of food and we enjoy Gordan's coconut-ginger-pumpkin soup at the improbable hour of 4:30. I think. I have no watch or clock on this trip, out of both fear of loss or breakage and because I see no need for it. Most pleasant.
Gordan is on at 4-8, and again at 4-8 in the morning so he stays topsides with John and steers, while I head below to nap before I'm on at 8. The boat is pitching and rolling constantly now; serving the soup was an excellent simulation practice should I ever need to serve the homeless while drunk. Of course we're serving the most impractical meal on this, the bumpiest night so far. Fortunately not much is slopped around.
I hate sleeping with the motor on now. The whole cabin shudders and roars. One of the things I failed to bring or buy when ashore, along with soap and lip balms, was earplugs, and I sorely need them now. It's like trying to sleep during a rock concert. But I awaken just before 8, so I must have drifted off sometime.
Gordan arrives to wake me up, dripping and cold, announcing that the foul weather has only worsened, so I pull on all my warm clothes: jeans, socks, wool Navy blouse, fleece and windbreaker. I climb to the deck with apprehension.
He wasn't kidding. It's wild, windy, chill and ROUGH. I stagger to the benches and concentrate very hard on the horizon over the two-foot swells and the crazily seesawing prow. The sunset it pretty, and for a while I enjoy the salty wind and the bumpy pitch that reminds me of Nina's boat. But it begins to get dark and no less rough, and I'm getting nervous. It doesn't help that Brian emerges from the nav station where he's been monitoring the weather and mutters something in Michael's ear while gesturing at a printout. I catch the words "70-mile-an-hour winds", and images of _The Perfect Storm_ creep into my anxious brain.
I sit for four hours in the cold and damp with an occasional blast of spray when the boat hits a wave the wrong way. One thing to be glad of: the seawater on my face is always warm. At 70 degrees, this is not water you die in. If I fall overboard, it won't be hypothermia that gets me.
Brian and Otto on the 12-4 watch come up to keep us company. Brian brings a peppery, succulent salmon jerky he picked up at Trader Joe's. One moment he's digging into the bag as I make appreciative yummy sounds about it. The next, he's flung it across the deck to me and diving for the stern. I can't hear him, but Michael's rueful smile and good-natured thump on the back confirms that acute nausea has come up on him faster than I though possible. I hand over a towel that was used when Gordan lost his pumpkin soup on his watch whilst concentrating too hard on tying something to the boom, and in a minute Brian is back, smiling apologetically and reaching not quite as eagerly for the jerky again.
Michael goes below for something, and I take the helm. The difference between sitting on the side and actually being behind the wheel grows on me quickly. Taking readings every half hour (time, speed, GPS, bearings and windspeed) from the various meters and displays on the console makes me feel like a pro, and maybe this sailing thing isn't so hard or scary after all. The boys and I laugh and talk through the wind, the rocking and the occasional spurt of lightning. Between our companion boat, the _Sales Call_ up front and the land to starboard, I feel safe enough that the panic subsides.
But I'm stiff and cold, and exhausted, though not sleepy, from vigilance. When it's midnight I'm glad to get up, stretch, and head below to sleep. We haven't been staying up late, so far. John turns in soon after dinner, and the rest of us (occasionally aided by Dramamine) shuffle off early too, mindful of the hard work and alertness that days require. I brush teeth, peel off my thick layers, and crawl in. The cabin is dreadfully loud, worse than an airplane. The night is fitful; I am awakened by the the incessant thrumming intend on grinding through my skull. I am lulled by it to the brink of rest and then dragged back. It is by turns supremely disturbing and strangely soothing. I cna't escape it and I don't sleep well.

Day 4: Tuesday

I'm awakened by the announcement that Norfolk is sighted and we will be there soon. Everyone looks cheerful and relieved that the worst is over. The storm has vanished; the new sky is thin, pale blue, already hazy, with a warm wind.
The approach to Norfolk is smooth and calm. There are "warships" in the distance, on either side (apparently, all naval vessels, even the training dinghies, are now being referred to as "warships"). I ask John how this is possible, as we are not, technically, at war with anyone. I expect a lengthy seminar on war in general, the Geneva Convention protocols, the rules of engagement, and the psychological implications of nomenclature as they relate to the power of suggestion, as my father would have launched into, but John just shrugs and says something about Navy boys getting ahead of themselves before turning back to his lines. Ah, vacation. We hear the Navy chatter on the radio and see the amphibious lanches coming out to meet one of the ships to our port side.
We pull into the large marina along with the _Vixen_ and the Sales Call, our companion ships. After we've settled in Gordan and I climb the hill to the guest area to shower and do laundry. The day is shaping up to be hot, and appraising glances are cast at the small swimming pool across the street. We chat with a woman from the _Vixen_ as our clothes dry and learn a little about racing sailboats. I think I'll stick with just sailing for the moment, no finish line necessary.
We head back to the boat to return the clean clothes and change for a swim. Everyone is asleep in the air-conditioned calm, worn out from the night before. Gordan and I splash around in the gorgeously cold water of the otherwise deserted pool. Fearful of the effects of chlorine on hennaed hair, I don't submerge completely, but it's still refreshing. I discover that the cute little belt on my bikini creates so much drag on the bottom half it feels as through it will shear off. It comes off and goes around my head instead. Once we're cooled off the air seems chillier, and the sun has disappeared. Gordan and I go for lunch at the restaurant, which is quietly attended but loudly decorated with flamingoes, leis, floridly painted stuffed fish, and a mannequin torso with shell bra and thick lipstick. I order a bleu cheese burger. Brian joins us; he was trying to catch a cab to the grocery store but missed it, so he kills time with us while awaiting the next one. We finish, Brian catches his cab, and we slip back down to the boat for our own nap.
The evening brings cool air, but also mosquitoes. Gordan sets about making pierogi and heating up his paprikash. I try to play sous-chef but find it difficult, due to the mess generated by 5 guys in a small space for days. The nght's chaos and the long naps have only promoted the entropy. We eat on deck in the hazy evening, savoring the juicy, tender chicken and the spicy broth against thick, satisfying dumplings. Afterwards I bring out the mace cake and strawberries. Even lacking whipped cream, it garners praise, as does the rest of the meal. We make a good cook team, G and I.
Someone else insists on doing the cleanup, as usaual, so Gordan and I lounge on deck, chatting, as people wander below and off the boat. The sun throws out shots of pink and orange into the sky as it sets, and for a few minutes the boats are aglow and the water looks like one big organic oil slick.
Michael has been seized by the desire to watch, of all things, _The Perfect Storm_. Perhaps he finds it reassuring. Or something. In any case, I can only bear to watch up until the part where they decide to head home, so as not to lose their catch to the broken icemaker. It's late, anyway.

Day 5: Wednesday

Morning is as hazy and torpid as yesterday. We motor over to the filling station for fuel, leaving Gordan and Brian to fetch more groceries. We pick them up on the way out (Gordan acts as if we were planning to leave him there). We serve beer and cheddar crackers once we're underway. I feel out of sorts, nauseated and listless all day. Perhaps it's the stress and tire of Monday night catching up to me. I loll, relax, do nothing, but it does no good. I only recover after a nap, when we're pulling into Ackahannock (sp?) Creek. The sun is setting and the sky shows more color than it has all day. The creek is very shallow, so Michael sends Gordan and Brian in the dinghy to take soundings. The keel is 5 feet deep, so we need at least that much to keep from running aground, but some patches of the creek aren't even knee-deep. The guys get good at their job, Gordan plunging his gaff like a Polynesian fisherman spearing things, Brian deftly maneuvering the dinghy. We do run aground once, but Michael says there are only two kinds of sailors: those who have run aground and those who lie about it.
Once we're sure of the passage, Michael brings the dinghy crew back and we breeze up the creek. Perched on the port bow, I can smell the lovely cedar-and-salt scent of the evening, like the bath at a rural Japanese inn, but every few minutes there's a terrible, poopy stench. I was hoping for a swim, either tonight or tomorrow, or both, but not if the water appears to contain E. coli. Disappointment along with a general despair for the state of the Bay take over until John says something about his crab trap. Turns out he's baited it with the rotting remains of the one bluefish we caught on Sunday. Gordan filleted and then forgot about it until it was too late.

aaaAAAAAAAAaaaaaand, she does it again...

2005-07-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

...waits WEEKS before posting. I just can't explain where the time goes when I *do* have access to a computer (actually, I can: www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal. Thanks a lot, S.I. I can't get anything done anymore, and neither will anyone else, if you try them (try them. They're delightful).
Now I'm in Woods Hole, though, and between shifts at Pie in the Sky, my annual marathon shopping mornings at the various emporia of Falmouth (I know, I know, Tax-a-chussetts, but they have the cutest things!), and of course, slothing at the beach day and night, and no computer at home, I just don't get to tapping at the keyboard like I thought I was going to do all summer. I keep making all these airy promises, but i don't appear to be a woman of my word...
The travelogue of the sailing trip is progressing, but I'd like to have it finished before I put it up. Ditto for some of the poetry. I'm leaving here on Sunday, staying in New York til Wednesday, and arriving home a week from today. My going-away party is that Saturday, so I'll send out E-vites soon!

Salty kisses,
-Ev

Sheepish

2005-07-01T10:16:00.000-07:00

Oh no! A whole month gone, and I haven't posted in weeks! My loyal readers, I offer my deepest apologies. I will not test your loyalties further.
But I just can't get this trip journal written. Lying around, eating, and watching Ballykissangel are taking up too much time these days, and I'm so used to typing now that my hand cramps with alarming speed and regularity when I try to write these days. Must get back into practice; I have to start taking notes in class again soon!
So I'll try harder, maybe even get it up this weekend. Everyone have a lovely happy 4th free of pyrotechnic-related injuries. If you're going to be at Jeff Feige's party on Monday night (and if you're a friend of mine, you're a friend of hs and therefore invited: he lives on 11th and F Sts near Union station, and it starts at 7), I'll see you there!

Much love,
Your delinquent blogger Ev

P.S. I read my first spoken-word poem at SLAMicide this week, and it was VERY well-received! I'll put some of my work up soon, too.

Suddenly Summer

2005-06-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

I go away for a week, and look what happens.
Seriously. I left in cold, soppy rain, after a week of either indifferent clouds or more water-from-the-sky, and more or less leave the area, all to return to this:
The garden has exploded. It's 85 degrees all the time, the house is sweltering, and there are piles of clothes (winter to be put in the attic, and summer to be put in dressers) all over the place, but at least I don't get electric shocks from the car anymore.
I have also completely missed the peonies.
They're my favorite flower, right down to the ants that always seem to be crawling in them. Trust me, if I was an ant or something approximating that size, I'd LIVE for Peony Week.
But I'm too big to curl up into a peony, and they have bloomed and dropped already.
I suppose I can't lament my absence too much; I spent the week aboard the lovely Maverick, a 38-foot sailing yacht, with a crew of surprisingly un-scurvy guys. Now, I'm well acquainted with the ocean, having spent every summer of my life on Cape Cod, and I can pilot a Boston Whaler (a small, open motorboat), but I've never been sailing before, so a week circumnavigating the Delmarva peninsula is akin to chucking oneself in the deep end of a swimming pool after mastering only the dog paddle.
The log of that trip will be blogged soon, as will an account of the wedding I attended yesterday. But for now, I'm just going to enjoy the cool breeze that keeps the mosquitoes away, and the fresh lemonade in the fridge. Suddenly, it's summer.

Seeing Eye to i(Pod)

2005-05-31T14:33:00.000-07:00

(or, An Ode to Apple's Newest Baby, As Dear to Me as One of My Own (If I Had Any))

It's smaller than the palm of my hand. It's blue and has a nice soft brushed finish, with a smooth white clickwheel that makes the sweetest clacking sound when you use it, like marbles falling together in a soft bag.
It is smarter than I am.
Of this I am certain.
It certainly knows more music than I do.
Dad engraved the back with his e-mail and phone number, so no one wants to steal it now. I'm going to buy it a holster and some skins and even a cocoon so I can take it anywhere. But I'm always real careful when I take it somewhere; it's either in my ears where I can hear it (and feel it), or in my purse or pocket. I always check. I don't want to lose the most advanced piece of technology I've ever owned.
Still, I haven't really learned much about how to take music on and off of it. Dad and I put a lot of music on the new computer, but it's not all stuff I want to listen to. Woody Guthrie's Dust Bowl Ballads, for example. Depressing and twangy, unpleasant to listen to. Grace Jones' "Slave to the Rhythm". Urgh. I gotta sit down with the tutorial CD and figure all that stuff out.
So what do I listen to? Well, I got a whole album of Dispatch, of Death Cab for Cutie, of ellipsis..., of Moloko, but it shreds my earbuds. So does M.I.A. Lots of classical, which is nothing but background noise for me. Good studying music, though. Must transfer to a different playlist.

iTunes will bankrupt me. The iPod holds 1,000 songs, and unbelievably, I've filled it to about 850 right now. Some of those are coming off for good (like the Grace Jones and the Jim Brickman piano sludge), and I'm going to put the classical on a separate "Music to Study By" playlist so I don't get a minuet every other time it shuffles the songs. But there's so much else I want! Show tunes, Led Zeppelin, more Death Cab, some good choral music--not to mention all the music i hope to educate myself about in Berkeley. Luckily for me, the editors/publishers of Dirty Linen live down the street. They're giving me lots of names and people to check out.
I love the shuffle feature. It makes listening to music a more active brain process, wondering what will come next and always feeling a little off guard.
Some people claim that their iPods have moods; that when they set it to Shuffle it seems to pick songs for a reason, not just randomly. I am convinced that this is absolutely true. The Apple people swear they ran all sorts of complicated formulae to make sure Shuffle was absolutely random, but I don't know. For sure, it will almost never play more than one song from the same album consecyutively, or even within a 10-song grouping. And if it were truly random, occasionally you'd get a perfect sequence of songs in an album, say, or alphabetical songs, or artists, or something, and I don't think that happens. And it raises all sorts of A.I./I, Robot-type questions about its little anodized brain.
Mine, for example, loves "Rebecca", as covered by the Ford S-Chords (it seems to love all the S-Chords songs, actually), my Arabic music album, ellipsis..., the Pyrates Royale, and amusingly, Garbage's "Androgyny". It also plays lots of classical, but that's because I have something like 180 tracks of that. Other songs, like Nina Simone's, never make it to my ears.
I love trying to figure out its little digital personality. I do worry for the state of my hearing, though. Between the already loud bus ride, the ambient office noise (especially the evil folding machine), and now the soundtrack injected straight into my aural cavities, I'm going to need a hearing aid before I'm 30.
The one thing I prefer about LiveJournal to Blogger is that at the end, you can put down your current music. If my life were a movie, the melancholy parts would have the Lost in Translation soundtrack's "Alone in Kyoto" overlaid on them, and the credits would roll to Nickel Creek's "This Side".

Observations

2005-05-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

I'm reading Prep right now, and it's so depressing I want to go back to bed. If you're thinking about reading it to see what private/boarding schools are like, don't. No prep school, especially not a boarding school, tosses its freshmen and new kids into their first year without some kind of orientation to get them up to speed on the school's rituals and quirks. Also, the protagonist clearly has Avoidant Personality Disorder, because I don't think this kind of alienation isn't really possible after 4 years. She would have been spotted and either counseled to within an inch of her life, or she would have dropped out on her own recognizance. Feh.

I just found a bump on my arm from what I think is an old TB test. When I went to Japan, I had to get a chest X-ray and present it to Customs to prove I wasn't carrying any infectious respiratory disease. This was before the SARS panic.

I have seventeen days left of work here. That sounds like much less than 3 weeks. I have all but lost the will to work.

Holding Pattern

2005-04-29T09:59:00.000-07:00

So...show's over. The last weekend was gratifyingly successful, despite the absence of SEVERAL of my friends who had every chance to come check it out. Hmph. Though I suppose it's not much of an incentive to see a show in which your friend...moves furniture. Dressed in black. I probably wouldn't pay $15 to see me do that, either. But still.
The post-show letdown is no less pronounced now that a) I'm only a stagehand, and an b) the performances were all a week apart. I don't know what I did with myself the week after the show closed. Mulched, watched TV, mucked around at work. The usual, I suppose. I DO know that by Friday I felt like a very old dishrag, but we'll get into that later.
That Saturday, the 23rd, I headed up to Haverford for the annual Corporation meeting. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the perfect candidate for a seat on the body that legally owns my alma mater, because I am a totally shameless proponent of it and all it stands for. It's almost embarrassing the degree to which I can immerse myself in my Haverford-cheerleader mode. To wit: I cried for hours on graduation day, getting snot on the good clothes of everyone within reach; I went back up to visit a mere 3 weeks after the ceremony, and again no few than half a dozen times that academic year. Then I realized that if I wasn't careful, I'd turn into that pathetic alum(na) who's always hanging around because she's not making much of her life, and may in fact be at risk for becoming so stuck on her past that she'll NEVER make much of her life, and so after the Corporation meeting last year, I didn't visit until this year's meeting.
Even so, I can't shake the feeling of absolute normalcy that descends as soon as I step on campus. I can't make my brain register the buildings and paths as unusual or different; my mind slips into such absolute familiarity with my surroundings I begin not to notice them.
And yet.
I've forgotten names of people and buildings (ok, just Hilles, and that's a forgettable name AND building, but still). People I know rush up to greet me, get the bullet on my life and times, and then rush off just as fast, to class or a meeting or lunch, reminding me that I DON'T have class or a meeting or lunch, and that I will never be more than a visitor at the place where I became the person I am now.
I caught a few episodes of Felicity in Japan, and my favorite was the one where they're all doing their exit interviews. Felicity has a whole monologue where she describes how cruel college is, to throw a bunch of smart, fun kids together, make them happy to be there, encourage all sorts of bonding and love, and then scatter them after four years, just when everyone was (usually) deeply happy and comfortable with their lives.
I know this melancholy is the result of being in a barely-tolerable situation at the moment, and that when I get up and out and start a life that's much more fulfilling than the one I'm living now, this feeling will disappear. For now, though, it still sucks.
A really good book that helped me a lot was Conquering your Quarterlife Crisis, by Alexandra Robbins. Highly recommended for anyone who's annoyed by the fact that your life doesn't match all the hype that your twenties are supposed to be the best years of your life. If that's true, what am I doing shopping at Payless and living at home? The book proves that you're not alone in your anxiety and worry by providing dozens of testimonials from people who lived through it all (fairly recently, so you don't feel lectured) and, more importantly, their tips and tricks for getting through it.
I'll go up for Commencement and hug my friends, and tell them that it's ok to spin your wheels for a little, but that the important thing is not to give up while you're doing it. And then I'll go up again for Alumni weekend with my dad, and talk to a few old fossils and remember that what I told those grads 2 weeks before applies to me, too.

One of these days I'll start writing many short posts instead of great big honkin' ones every 3 weeks. Promise.

FUN FACT: When I was a kid watching The Little Mermaid (before I knew all the nonsense about phallic undersea-castle towers and suspicious bumps poking out from the priest's robes), I liked the scene where the seagull is trying to tell Ariel and her friends that Ursula is charming the pants off of Eric, but no one understands. He gets so frustrated and carried away that he picks up Sebastian and starts whacking him on the deck for emphasis as he shouts (capitalization indicates the beats where the unfortunate crab hits the boards): "The PRINCE is MARrying the SEA witch in disGUISE!"
I ALWAYS heard "disguise" as "de skies", and even as an 8-year-old, I thought that was a very nice line, poetic and evocative of the ocean-land dichotomy, even Biblical-sounding. Now I know I'm a)some sort of bizarre verbal savant(e), and b)probably going to need a hearing aid sooner rather than later, if I was making mistakes like this at the age of 8.

evelyn is...

2005-04-14T14:00:00.000-07:00

First of all, I'm sorry. I have lots of original posts in the works, but I'm lazy, and I've got a whole pile of financial aid forms to fill out tonight. So, like the dieter who swings by Burger King because it's faster than steaming kale and kohlrabi, I'm going to do it again.
Steal someone else's blog post, that is. I don't like kale.

My Customsmate from freshman year, Dabe Stone (not his real name) also has a blog on Blogger. He, being way cooler than I am, started it quite a while ago. But I only discovered it a few months ago. Because I'm slow.
Anyway, he went to googlism.com, a hi-larious site that, similar to the actual search engine, will give you your name or any other phrase you input as it appears in myriad contexts on the Web. What's freaky about this is that some, nay, most of them are uncannily right on.

All I did was type in my first name, evelyn. Up popped about 100 of these cryptic little phrases, covering everything from my activtties at school:

-evelyn is well prepared educationally for the duties of a council member (HC '02-'03!)
-evelyn is "still working for you" (this was an Honor Council slogan, at one point. I think.)
-evelyn is a 31 accountant (actually, I never did the books in our apt. at school. Honest.)
-evelyn is a vigilant grammar cop who is often caught yelling at the newspaper when she finds a dangling participle or an unclear antecedent (This is hysterical. I actually started the Abstract Editing Committee when I was on Honor Council so we wouldn't have to spend all kinds of time fixing typos. How does Google know this? I'm beginning to worry...)
-evelyn is the cement that holds this large department together
-evelyn is for all department members and students the source of information (my high school yearbook listed my contribution tio the school as "all the answers")

...to obsvervations about my character; the lavishly complimentary:

evelyn is an intriguing character
-evelyn is a real treat to be around
-evelyn is the best
-evelyn is a very gentle little girl
-evelyn is very helpful when you are feeling worthless
-evelyn is amiable and calm on the surface
-evelyn is someone truly special
-evelyn is sent (sent from heaven!)
-evelyn is not on the stage she enjoys art and please visit (yes!)
-evelyn is renowned around the world for beautiful gifts and everyday luxuries that capture the essence of english style
-evelyn is a project close to pierce brosnan's (heart, I hope. Though I don't know how I like being referred to as a "project". I'm not THAT much in need of a makeover, am I?)
-evelyn is responsible for the day (and the night, and the sun, and the moon...ahem. Was that out loud?)

the appalling:
-evelyn is unlucky
-evelyn is clueless
-evelyn is virtually impossible

and the oddly sweet:
-evelyn is a chameleon
-evelyn is likely the most intensely hyped rose (just look at my AIM and hotmail screennames!)
-evelyn is able to experience the music fully (with her new iPod!)
-evelyn is known almost exclusively for his diary (if by diary, you mean "blog")
-evelyn is the one to do it (absolutely! As soon as I figure out what "it" is...)

...to intriguing career possibilities (except I think that one of the real estate ones is just a word problem):

-evelyn is a continuing education instructor on hair loss and its related issues
-evelyn is a licensed real estate broker
-evelyn is offered a job selling real estate and she will have a 50 percent chance of making $10
-evelyn is a real estate agent that is known in the community of bainbridge for their dedicated client service
-evelyn is also involved in teaching the course elementary methods in computational geometry
-evelyn is an educator; a leader whose greatest concern is what is best
-evelyn is one of the key members of the staff at media services
-evelyn is presently working on her next patricia conley novel
-evelyn is carrying on [his] legacy of love for the museums
-evelyn is an internationally recognized baritone and highly sought after choral conductor
-evelyn is a specialized research consultant
-evelyn is an excellent clinical psychiatric nurse and also a team player (yes, but I can't get you drugs. Sorry.)

...to odd desciptors that I'm clearly not, but might like to be:

-evelyn is clearly referred to as a toy collie
-evelyn is an african
-evelyn is a member of the canadian medical and biological engineering society
-evelyn is a member of the haida nation
-evelyn is responsible for the much appreciated makeovers of '70s icon band journey (LOVE Journey. LOVE. Is this creepy, or what?)
-evelyn is one of the best practitioners in the united states (well, yes; but of what?)
-evelyn is designed especially for patients who require more intensive observation (hee!)
-evelyn is left to sweat it out in the family livery on her own
-evelyn is mistaken in thinking lou's argument to be fallacious (Lou is my neighbor, but I don't think we've ever had an argument...)
-evelyn is copied to the /tmp/bar on the machine running this command

...to some rather alarming assertions:

-evelyn is coping one day at the library when some unexpected events take place
-evelyn is descended from the illegitimate side of the family
-evelyn is attacked (oh no!)
-evelyn is the survivor of a neglectful and hurtful past (no, I'm not!!! I promise!! I love you, Mom and Dad!)
-evelyn is cheating on him (auugh! Who's smearing my good name? Who? Why?)
-evelyn is aghast at her incompetence

...to some very interesting predictions for my future:

-evelyn is beginning her third year as a ph (hopefully this ends with .D, and not with "testing strip")
-evelyn is married to john parsons
-evelyn is married and has two children
-evelyn is a delighted parent of two grown sons (names, anyone?)
-evelyn is spending time in the nursing home waiting room while her husband visits his mother there (I know this is from Fried Green Tomatoes, and I really, really hope I don't end up looking lke Kathy Bates.)
-evelyn is the most senior of the granny gears
-evelyn is proof positive that age is truly in the mind

to the final, comforting confirmation of my existence:

-evelyn is

Oh, what a relief. I am. Thank you, Googlism, for removing my doubts.

Seriously, though. SCARY. Only a handful of these hits were not somehow connected to me by something other than the name. The rest read like a background check on me done by Maryland's Poet Laureate after he smoked a bowl or two.

Because I love publicity, good or bad, I'm opening the blog to more of these. Like an online Slam Book (yeah, Judy Blume!). Feel free at add more of your own devising--I changed the settings so now you don't need a Blogger ID to post. Expect more audience-participatory posts in the future, too.

-evelyn is something the matter?

Aping the Master

2005-04-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

This summer, I became acquainted with one of the more excellent offerings in the blogosphere: The Post-Modern Drunkard.

His roommate is the cutie-pie who gave my my new boyfriend, Phineas Lumpy (see last post), and I have spent not nearly enough happy hours chilling in their awesome Washington Heights apartment. PMD is a Fargo, ND transplant to New York, a sort of modern-day Norwegian bachelor farmer of the Lake Woebegon species. He smokes, he drinks, he grouses, he grumbles, he smirks; he's adorable. Go here to read it. And post comments; He loves it.

For a while, I maintained a small running joke that it was PMD I was really after, not his storky roommate. It was funny because it was ridiculous. No one wants a curmudgeon-in-training, unless one is a crone-in-training, and I'm not. But I started reading his blog, his alcohol-soaked, wiseass, soulful blog, and while I still don't think I'd *date* him, per se, I find myself idolizing him. I want to be somewhere where my friends would be cool, snarky, cosmopolitan people like him. I want to write like him, travel like him, hold my liquor like him (we all know this last one is and will always be a physical impossibility, but hey, a girl can dream, can't she?).
Currently, though, all I can do is rip off his posting topics, visit now and then, and hope he reads this and isn't totally weirded out/annoyed by the whole hero's-pen-worship. But at least I know that the way to his heart, should I ever need it, is straight through his liver.

So, with apologies to the Post-Modern Drunkard, whose idea this sort of confession it was originally, here is a little compilation that in the interest of full disclosure, I publish here, for your general amusement. *bows with flourish*

Potentially Embarrassing Things I Probably Shouldn’t Reveal Until At Least the Third Date:

1. I still, at the advanced age of 23, sleep with a stuffed animal at night. Her name is Lammie. She’s a lamb, and I’ve had her since childbirth. She goes (almost) everywhere I go, has a passport, a full seasonal wardrobe, mostly sewn by me, and a distinct personality, created by my parents when I was little. She likes to drive. She’s terrible at it.

2. I am a terrible nail-biter. I can’t remember a time when I had nails visible above my fingertips. Not only do I pare them off, I then like to work them around my mouth—run them between my teeth, split them etc. before breaking them into little bits and spitting them out. It saves me from flossing but it looks disgraceful.

3. I talk to myself incessantly. It’s an only child thing, I think. When I was in college it helped because I could rehearse presentations and explain things to myself to learn them better, and of course if I’m in a play I’m always the first off-book, but I know it’s really weird to see a young, non-vagrant woman walking down the street muttering to herself with no visible cell phone apparatus. Plus, I emote when I’m doing it, especially if I’m rehearsing something to tell someone, or imagining/reenacting a scene between me and a friend, my parents, etc. So I must look totally insane most of the time. I also read interesting passages of books out loud to myself, occasionally.

4. I have a wretched music collection. While all my other friends have either huge CD libraries, zillions of files on their computers, iPods that hold more music than I’ve ever listened to in my life, or some combination of the above, I have a few dozen CD’s, some tapes stuffed into the seat pockets of the family car, and 10 songs on a computer I never use anymore. I totally missed the Napster boat. I have no knowledge of any music beyond the most basic facts and songs. Most of my albums are show tunes, traditional Japanese, or random bluegrass. No rock or hip postmodern music. In other words, not particularly listen-able stuff. Because of this, I rely on commercial radio for my auditory sustenance, and we all know how low that is.

5. I still live at home. This sounds pathetic at first, but the reasons are sensible: I don’t make enough money to eat properly or live anywhere decent, and since I’m trying to get into grad school (possibly overseas), it strikes me as foolish to waste a few months on rent when I might have to pick up and leave elsewhere in less than a year. But it’s pretty embarrassing entertain guests, especially male guests, in my parents’ house. Makes me feel about 12.

6. When I was living in Japan, I joined the college judo club. Because I was the newest member when the annual college festival rolled around, they made me dress up like a porn-star nurse, complete with skimpy vinyl dress, cap and fishnets, and advertise the club massage booth. There are pictures. I will never be able to run for public office. Anywhere.

7. I had seen every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation by the time I was fifteen. And all the movies. And owned a Star Trek communicator button that bleeped when you pressed it. Actually, I still have that somewhere.

8. I have a loom in my bedroom. And not one of the little craft-store kinds for making belts and headbands. A full-sized floor loom. And I know how to use it.

9. I haven’t seen the Star Wars series all the way through. Not even the older trilogy. Nor have I seen Braveheart, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Dazed and Confused, or Die Hard. These don’t sound like such great cultural pillars to me, but every time I mention that I haven’t seen them, people’s mouths drop open as if I just informed them that I still watched my movies (whatever they may be, obviously not the big ones) on a Beta VCR. Which, just for the record, I don’t.

10. The same goes for television. Being a PBS kid meant no Spiderman, Batman, Transformers, Thundercats or, until recently, The Simpsons. And no, we don’t have cable.

11. I have an odd penchant for child-rearing books. Talk about creepy, guilty pleasures. When I babysat in high school, I used to curl up with the parents’ guides after the kids were asleep and my homework was finished. And I worked, briefly, at a baby and children’s clothing store where I was able to read “Today’s Child” and “Mothering” magazines to my heart’s content. I find them fascinating, and it’s probably a little narcissistic, too. Plus, my mother and I discuss my childhood at great length. I was, as you might expect, a model child.

13. However, I have ZERO tolerance for ill-behaved children. I am firmly convinced that much of the country’s current disorder stems from crappy parenting. I am not classist or racist about this; crappy parents come in all colors and socio-economic strata. I also don’t like toddlers, no matter how well they’re behaving. They’re just so…little, and weird. I’m sure this will change when/if I get a few of my own, but until then, expect no sympathy from me when your two-year-old pitches himself on the floor out of exhaustion and frustration because YOU didn’t take proper care of him earlier. If you can’t handle them, get your tubes tied.

14. I collect stamps. Years ago, my father suggested that I needed a hobby, and started me on baseball cards. It was cool. It was fun. It lasted a couple of years. Then, cleaving to the paper-ephemera theme, he said I should take up stamps. His motives became obvious a little later: my maternal grandfather had literally hundreds, from all over the place, and someone was needed to properly organize and catalogue them. That someone was me. And still is. And proud of it, too. If you'd like to see it, just ask. I'm not a snob about them; I don't go to stamp conventions (they're VERY weird) and I don't buy new ones, because god knows I have enough just sitting around at home, but I love those tiny works of public art, and I don't care who knows it.

15. I was staying in a huge old monastery-turned-summer-house in France, which had about 35 bedrooms and toilets in very odd places, including nowhere near my room. In the morning, I had no idea where the nearest toilet was--I had followed my host sister to hers, then she led me about half a mile away to my room in the dark. There was, however, a small sink in the bedroom, for washing up, etc. It would hold my weight if I braced my feet against a chair. You finish this story.

Now, I had to remove one of these Things from the list, because it involved not getting into graduate school. And I suppose I should remove the one about my music collection, because my new baby iPod and I are fixing that in a hurry. Other than that, though, none of this is likely to change, so if you were thinking of setting me up with someone, give him a copy of this and let him decide. If he laughs, he's a keeper. If he likes short nails, stamps, and textiles, I'm not interested. I'm weird enough for two people.

Happy birthday to ME!

2005-04-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

Halloooo, loyal blog readers! Forgive the silence, and the slightly stale Easter greetings: 'Twas the week of production, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring--at least, not after opening night...
To back up: I am on the crew for an excellent production at the Mobtown Theater, Nilo Cruz' A Bicycle Country, for which I furnished the props, and work backstage during the first act--the second has no scene changes. To explain why would be to give most of the plot away, and if you're in the greater Baltimore area I want you to come see it (see the end of this post), so I won't. Suffice to say, I spent the week in a frenzy of shopping, sleep deprivation, and splinters. Including MY BIRTHDAY. On Tuesday. For which I received AN IPOD. The cutest little blue mini! Thank you, Mom and Dad! Also a lovely bracelet, the promise of a new swimsuit for my upcoming sailing trip, an intriguing Terry Pratchett novel, and a phrenological cranium model (go here for a description of people who still believe in it (crazies!), here for a more skeptical rundown, and here to see my new friend, Phineas Lumpy)! And lots of lovely greetings in various forms! So thank you, everyone!
My iPod is a miracle of technology! We also have a new computer, and are having SUCH fun uploading our music to iTunes and -Pod! I'm compiling a list of songs that will bankrupt me when I start up an account at iTunes.com.

The first signs of spring have emerged--the trees show mists of red buds where before there were only gray branches; the grass after a weekend of rain is now a startlingly rich green, incongruous against the bleak skies and mostly empty garden plots, and we've had our snowdrops and crocuses--we're already on to daffodils, narcissi and paperwhites. I love spring flowers the most (aside from peonies), because they herald spring, my favorite season. It's not my favorite because of my birthday, though my mother used to tell me that she went to the hospital on a night to have me before any flowers deigned to show themselves, and when we emerged 4 days later, everything was abloom in MY honor--this was doubtless a great influence on my character, which I like to describe as "self-affirming" but which other people have other choice words for.
But I digress. The air sweetens, the light softens, and there's mud and the promise of summer. This spring, there's even more promise: of quitting, sailing, Cape Cod, and grad school, in that order. But just like the flowers (and the warmth), it's coming slowly; 8 weeks til quitting seems to be going by awfully slowly.

More soon, and better composed; this was just a place-holder since I've been at the theater every night this week, sometimes til midnight. For a chick who needs 10 hours of sleep a night, trust me, it's painful.

A Bicycle County
by Nilo Cruz
The Mobtown Theater (directions here)
April 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23
8PM Fri/Sat, 2 PM Sun
Tickets: $15 adults, $12 students

Another day older and deeper in debt

2005-03-22T12:56:00.000-08:00

On this, the one-year anniversary of my hiring at the Hateful Job (known hereafter as HJ, Inc., I present a list of objectionable aspects of my job. To be fair, I’ll include a list of positive aspects, but don’t expect a lengthy compendium there.

1. I hate my job. Period. HJ, Inc., as an organization, is not without merit. Problem is, all the intellectual substance of it takes place outside the office, at its various conferences. We drones in the headquarters can check our brains at the door with no noticeable effect on the quality of our work.

2. I hate what I do; or, more accurately, what I don’t do. I have a double B.A. in Linguistics and East Asian Studies from one of the top liberal arts schools in the country. I speak three languages and I’ve lived abroad for a cumulative total of 2 years. And yet, for all my worldliness, my day consists almost exclusively of tasks I could probably train a teenager to do. Well, maybe not a teenager. Probably a chimp, though. But I hate screwing up constantly because the work is simultaneously boring and stuff I’m not good at.

3. I hate the office itself. Being a non-profit, HJ, Inc., is dirt-poor, so all the furniture and accessories are hand-me-downs from the ‘70’s and ‘80s. Desks that disintegrate when you bump into them and file cabinets that shriek when they’re opened are NOT conducive to productivity. It took me a month to find a desk chair that either wasn’t designed by Tomas de Torquemada or that didn’t emit a cloud of toxic foam-spore when I sat down in it. Plus, it’s so cluttered with paper (see below) that there are parts of the office in which, if you get wedged in the wrong way, you literally can’t move. I’ve had to crawl out under tables to escape from paper logjams. Then there’s the air-conditioning that kept the whole office at a nice, polar 63 degrees all summer. I would come in wearing appropriately lightweight summer clothes and then have to don a fleece, leggings and thick socks just to be able to make it through the day. And my knuckles were still blue.

4. I hate the lack of organization and the neo-Luddite attitude toward data-keeping. Paper is king at HJ, Inc., and we’ve got mountains of it. In addition to triplicate copies of EVERYTHING dating back to 1979, banker’s boxes that reach to the ceiling, reams of now-outdated contact records, molding away in no fewer than 3 drawers of a filing cabinet (working copies, backups and sources—aaaaarghhh!), there’s also a mound of ephemera on the conference table that has nothing to do with the company at all. It’s the Bossman’s “research” for his “book”. At least, that’s the most valid reason I’ve been given so far…

5. I hate the fact that while I’ve been pushing for DSL for months and getting rebuffed every time (yes, we had single-user dial-up AOL, and no one seemed in the least bit upset about it), one (male) intern breezed in, talked with Bossman for 10 minutes, and had it installed 2 weeks later. Or the fact that the female interns are routinely put on secretarial tasks while the boys are given projects like corporate target development. There is a deep injustice here.

6. I don’t hate my coworkers. Quite the contrary; I think they’re great people. But they’re no fun to work with, because they’re all older than I am. By 50 years. Bossman is 70; Grandma the office manager is 80, and the part-time program manager—well, she doesn’t qualify for senior discounts yet, but she’s still older than she would need to be to by my mother. We’ll come back to them later.

7. I hate the pay that is so low I can’t move out of my parents’ house, pay off my student loans, or afford a car. I hate the clever interpretation of the labor laws that make it impossible for me to collect overtime, despite the fact that I work 40 hours a week and they only pay me for 37.5. I hate the half-hour lunch break, the events that I’m expected to work with no pay, the fact that I had to beg for insurance and I still haven’t seen a penny of the 75% Bossman said he’d pay of it. I’m being exploited, and I hate that most of all.

8. I hate never being taken seriously when I have ideas or suggestions. In fact, I’m actively discouraged from making innovations or taking initiative on projects. I’m supposed to do my job EXACTLY how I’m told to do it, regardless of how stupid or inconvenient the process may be, or how totally unfamiliar Bossman is with the workings of computers (last time I checked, he couldn’t find the “on” switch on his).

9. I hate the fact that I took over from an alcoholic who had been spiraling downwards for months and taking the office down with her. So I was hired in a hurry, received two days of training to prepare me for running an entire office, and chucked in the deep end. This is me, remember. I can’t keep my desk at home clean, or perform arithmetic well enough to balance a checkbook. What made them think that a college grad with NO administrative or office experience could handle the organization of an entire non-profit office? Drives me nuts.

10. I hate the 40-minute bus ride each way, through some nasty parts of Baltimore. I can’t complain too much, since I’ve never gotten thrown up on, stabbed, or mugged, like some riders of public transportation I know, but I could do without the screaming children, the stares that come from being the only white person on the bus, and (in the afternoons) the suburban zombies who try to include me in their conversations about leftovers and football. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that all I want to do on the way home is read (Dictionary of the Khazars, thank you very much. No, it’s not an actual dictionary. Too complicated for you. Go back to Danielle Steele.), but the occasional idiot keeps trying. Maybe I’ll start reading Playboy.

Amazingly, that’s all the crap I can think of at the moment. So, on to the upsides:

1. Carrie, the office manager, is sweet as pie. She was once a top-notch secretary, but these things begin to diminish when you hit 80 or so. And she can’t use a computer for anything. Still, she’s always fun to talk to—tells me about her three marriages, her son in the Navy, going dancing in the ‘30’s and ‘40’s, and always wants to know about my weekend. She doesn’t approve of coed dorms, though, so I can’t ever make her understand how cool they really were.

2. I like my office. Because it’s mine. All mine. It’s not a cubicle, or a desk in the corner. It’s a real room, with a door that shuts. I have a nice Tibetan wall calendar, a wind-up walking sushi, a mini-Edward Gorey theater (his work can be seen here) and other little treats to make the day bearable.

3. You can’t beat the view from Baltimore’s World Trade Center. My office faces north, and I can see all the way to the high-rises on Prospect Hill in Towson. That’s about a mile north of my own house. City College, the prison, the North Ave. education building, Govans Manor—they may not be pretty, but they’re all visible.

4. I also like working downtown. It’s nice to sit out on the harbor at lunch, it’s convenient to meet people there in the evenings, and every once in a while I can cruise the sales at the Gallery. I just wish I lived down there too.

5. It looks great on a resume (though I may not get a recommendation at this point), and it’s nice to be able to make my mistakes now, and not have them bring the world to a grinding halt. Also, I do get to see top government officials speak for free, and occasionally, they’re even interesting. And the members are cool people. They’re all really, really old (I’m afraid I’ll forget how to be 23), and there are the requisite number of batty old ladies, annoying old ladies, and creepy old men who hit on me when I’m serving them wine, but the rest are neat. And there’s a cutie-pie environmental engineer who doesn’t look a day over 35…

So there we go. Bad outweighs good 2 to 1. I’m not the least bit surprised. Fortunately, I have just over 2 months to go, and then I can walk out and NOT LOOK BACK. Graduate school can’t be any worse than this.

My First Post!

2005-03-17T14:25:00.000-08:00

And with that, my e-dentity is launched.
I am beginning this blog on the day I should have been born, allegedly. But I didn't emerge until almost 2 weeks later, thus setting me on a path of chronic lateness. At least, that's as good an excuse as any.
Now, in my opionion, babies come out when they are cooked, and not before. I am convinced that a little extra womb-time served to make me as cool as I am, giving God a little more time to knit me--finish off, tidy up, maybe add a little fringe or some bobbles. Knitting in the womb. I love Biblical imagery. It all but BEGS for mockery.
But I digress.
This blog will be about me. Now, my best friend Jayne declared a revulsion for what she termed the "obsessive self-chronicling" of this generation, and I agree. To a point. The comment was spawned by a visit to Anthropologie (love Anthropologie. Don't forget, folks, my birthday IS coming up!) and viewing with disgust, several overpriced journals labeled "What I Wore", "What I Ate", "Where I Went", and so forth. I think these are stupid, yes. If you have to buy a special, silk-covered journal at Anthropologie for $15.99 where your checkbook or a small daybook from Target at $7.99 would suffice, you really aren’t in much control of your life. Or your spending. More to the point, if you can’t remember what you bought and where you ate, I don’t think you should be allowed out on your own.
But there is a difference between obsessive self-chronicling, which is, well, unhealthy, and real diary-keeping, which is cool. And I hope that this will turn out to be the latter. If we’re to have purpose-driven lives, as that guy with the bestseller thinks we should; or better yet, if we are to have “considered and consequential lives”, as the heads of my school exhorted us to, I think we ought to have a record of them. This blog is a spot (get it? spot? hee) for me to post musings and wonderings and news-like events about me, since I have too many people scattered over too far, and for some reason, mass-emailing feels invasive and exhausting. This way, you can tune in to the Evelyn Show whenever YOU feel like it, and not have some e-mail with an address header that's longer than the message itself squatting in your inbox like a top-heavy toad.
Ribbit.
So this is my postmodern diary. I’ve tried keeping written ones: daily, weekly, in French, in Japanese, in pretty books and worn old binders with random sheets of notebook paper stuffed in them; and like most of my other “projects”, I eventually give up. But I realized that if I start posting a blog, I’ll have a very good incentive to maintain and sustain interest in my endeavors: an audience. This is why I should be showing my artwork in order to stimulate producing it; why I should take my shows on the road instead of belting them out in my room, why I should NOT be a secretary but instead do something that simultaneously allows me to show off, interact with people and produce a tangible product or result. If I think that someone, anyone, will read my pseudo-intellectual ramblings about trees and academic poverty and summer light, then by God, I’ll do it! Mustn’t disappoint my fans!
Now, given the hope that my fans (and by “fans” I mean “friends”, people who are much cooler than I am but keep me around because I can make them laugh the way an alligator fighting with its own tail could) will actually read this, I will do my best to keep specific people and telltale events out of my writings (starting now; the above reference to the lovely Jayne does not count). No one wants his or her fifteen minutes of fame to be a rant about him or her in someone else’s blog. It would be unladylike of me to mention anyone by name except in the most innocuous context, say, “I went to X bar with Y, Z and 4, and it was awesome! We started off with a round of the house lager…**”. I love my friends, and I don’t want them to be upset by something I said on my blog. This can sometimes make for rather bland reading, but it doesn’t bother me too much, because it will allow me to write more about myself. A topic of endless enjoyment and interest. Well, to me, anyway.
This is also an attempt to keep everyone up to date about me (again, going on the assumption that you want to, and that you’re not doing your best to forget about me!) without the rather invasive and slightly insulting mass e-mail. Now you can get my news at your leisure, rather than mine, and not at the same time as everyone else (because you’re all special, just like everyone else) and if you think real hard, it’ll sound like I’m talking to you!
A word about the title: The Hazelnut Electrograph is my attempt to go down in Googlewhacking history*. The Hazelnut is me, a reference to the very old French meaning of my name. You may not call me that.
The Electrograph is the blog, as I am basically writing with electricity (yes, I know it's more complicated than that, but don't bother explaining, I don't care). The URL is a phrase I always liked, for some reason, and used in the hopes that my blog will be as startling, rich, and sweet as its title.

*Googlewhacking is a new internet-based sport/time waster, wherein one types two words into Google's search engine in hopes of getting one--and only one!--hit. For more info, click here.
**I’ll give a cookie to anyone who can tell me why I would never utter that sentence. And no, it’s not because I don’t have a friend named 4. 4 and I are buds.