I Have Decided: Part I

1. Geraniums smell awful.
2. It takes some serious lack of sense to  anticipate the light by shoving your board across the road. It takes serious skill and command of your 'board to glide down an 8% grade hill in rush hour traffic. It takes some serious luck to not get hit doing either.
3. High-pitched noises are almost never a good omen.
4. I have a weakness for games involving fish tanks. Perhaps it's some vestige of a psychological phenomenon from my childhood - or perhaps it's just that I can have fish without having to actually clean the smelly, dirty tank.
5. I like to watch crowds, but not be part of them...at least, not on foot. Perhaps if they parted like the Red Sea whenever I wished to go someplace I would like it better. I like crowds at baseball games. But not if it's just milling about and people are pressed up against me because there's no room to walk.
6. Getting upgraded to a suite at a 4 star hotel is decidedly awesome.
7. Sitting next to people on airplanes who are a. taking up more than their fair seat room; b. drink coffee; c. smell strongly; or d. all of the above is not my favorite thing to do.
8. I still don't like the TSA.
9. Lady GaGa could really use some more variety in what passes as 'music.'
10. Sometimes, the view is worth the climb.

Clammy

near sweat, close to cold
partially warm, not dry or wet
uncomfy limbo


a state of being
associated with nerves,
handholds, and fever

Echoes

A Poem for Two Voices


Give up                                   Give up
says the hammer of stress
beating a tattoo of drudgery
on your dreams                       on your dreams

Give up                                   Give up
                                                sing the fog horns
in forlorn low tones
letting the light of hope fade
to a glimmer
                                                shimmer
mirage
                                                in the distance

All right                                  All right
says your heart
                                                countering with its lonely tattoo
a solitary thump without echo
                                                ...... echo?
What?                                     What?
 Stop.
                                                Did you hear?                                        
A voice
                                                Small and soft
In the background
                                                Nervous at first, then growing stubborn and
Strong                                     Strong, calling out
In a loud, singing echo:
I won't
                                                I won't
I can't
                                                I can't
think that working
                                                and toiling
and fearing
                                                is the whole story

I'll hope  a new sun                 I'll hope
                                                a new moon
 a new faith
                                                a new song
is just beyond my
Reach                                      Reach

                       

Playoff Time

R,
It's playoff time...my first playoff season without you.
I thought about you all day yesterday...

• the blueberry shakes we used to make together
• the Pens games we got excited about
• the SSMB (brawl) games you always dominated
• yes, even as Yoshi
• reading aloud to you
• singing old timey songs on the projector (but never country)
• listening to Linger
• chattering away to your listening ear
• watching J kiss your smiling face

You're exceptional in so many ways, I can't even count them. And I can count pretty high, because of the stacks of beans I count all day. Seems like there is no problem you couldn't solve, except the problem of cancer. And you gave the crab a pretty good run for its money. Quietly impressive, is how I would describe you. No flash, no bling, just steady as a rock.

Love you, miss you. 

Recipe

How to Bake a Breakup:

Ingredients:
Broken heart
Numb brain
Water

Prep Time: Depends on the maker, and the relationship

Steps:
1.  Break heart into little pieces. Place in medium sized mixing bowl.
      Be numb from shock.
2. Add water.
   Cry your eyes out.
3. Mix heart and water together. 
     After you've wrung every tear out of you,  go to sleep exhausted.
4. Chill overnight. Re-read recipe.
    Be confused. Ask yourself why you broke up. Is it a horrible nightmare you can't wake up from? (Is it just that you forgot the salt, and that's why it tastes so nearly inedible?)
5.  Realize you mixed the heart and water in wrong proportions.
    Be despondent. Wail in frustration. Tell yourself you'll never find another who takes care of you so well, or that there was someone better for you anyway. Add a sniff and foot stamp and if you are really feeling adventurous, add a few ounces of self-pity.
6. Turn on the oven to "bake" and the proper setting. (It won't be 350 degrees for every person). As the oven preheats, stew and plan and reanalyze every little thing you each said in the last few days before the breakup.
7. Re-read the recipe. Repeat steps 2-6 over and over, to varying degrees.

When you have the mixture just about right, dump the heart and water mixture into a casserole dish and bake until hardened. Bake times very depending on how finicky the oven is and if you like it chewy or hard.

Note: Best served room temperature. Please limit servings. And serving size....

when in need of a laugh

For some reason, I find this link extremely funny: http://dagobah.net/flash/fanten.swf

That is all.

(I feel certain no animals were harmed in the making of this film.)

Maybe I posted it already, but if I did...it still makes me smile.

departmenting licenses

Today I was watching Bones, organizing my bills and sorting through my (mostly) junk mail. I was congratulating myself on being productive while entertaining myself, when I came upon my car registration renewal paperwork (sadly, not junk). I put it in my "I will deal with this when I am done with the junk mail pile", but as my hand was moving back to the stack in front of me, I realized that I was proverbially dead meat, and my heart started beating a little bit faster.

On Ides of April, aka Tax Day, I went to get my license to drive renewed. The DOL (not labor, but licensing) mailed my license to me. I put it in my Very Important Paper pile (not to be confused with the "I will deal with this when I am done with the junk mail pile" - not only because one involves capitalization for emphasis and the other quotation marks, but also because, erm...not only always goes with but also grammatically, so I had to stick one in).

*cough*

Then Certain Events happened and my mind got scrambled. I knew exactly where it was as of Sunday afternoon, but now I have no recollection of where my new license is. It's not in either stack of papers - quotations or capitalizations. It's not even in junk mail. It's not with the stack of languishing Christian Science Monitors, nor is it in the newly filed non-junk, but bills pile. It's not where it was on Sunday, and it's not in the garbage, it's not the recyclables. It's not in the couch, it's not on the kitchen counter, it's not in the bed, and it's not in the closet.

My mind can't relax because I can see the license clearly in my mind's eye, exactly where it was on Sunday. I moved it to make room for food (I am now cursing the food in retrospect out of immature spite) and I have no idea where I put it.

My temporary license expires soon. I really don't want to go pay the $45 again, and stand in line again, and hold up my car registration to boot. My apartment just isn't that big. Where could it be?!?!

I am entering the department of crazy, all over this silly license business.

And perhaps the saddest thing about this is that the episode of Bones was to introduce (perhaps) a spinoff show, where there's this guy whose name is Walter, who has the talent of being a "finder." Seriously. You name it, he finds it, no matter if it seems impossible. It's due to some weird brain thing he sustained while he was a POW in Iraq. But anyway...I was thinking, if he came up to me right now and asked me what he could find for me, I'd tell him nothing, because I haven't lost anything. And then I realized a few minutes later that I was missing my license and I wanted to say "oh snap" but I didn't, and then I just rolled my eyes (this was pre-panic) and decided to add the copy of my 2009 tax return to the "needs finding" list. Unsurprisingly, I have found neither, and wish I had a Walter. 

Ridings

A ladybug rode on my light yellow seersucker jacket through the grocery store on Saturday. The two-spotted, still-brown-from-winter female was finicky; she did not buy anything, for she saw nothing she liked. (Though I could tell she was tempted by the fresh pineapple.)

She hung about, seeing the sights, keeping me company as I wandered, circling the store what seemed like five, or maybe twenty times. My thoughts and feet were not aligned, but she was patient, and walked with me: up one sleeve, across the shoulders, along the rim of my hood, perching on the far shoulder.

Perhaps she could sense my distress in the urban confusion of the market, and wanted to comfort me. Or perhaps she is a very smart girl, for she stayed with me until I emerged into the sunshine, and the comfort (safety) of a tree beckoned too beguilingly for her to resist.

Eternity

I'm having a hard day. I called my sister to talk to her about it - vent, really - and then her daughter asked for a turn to talk to Auntie. I always love talking to little kids, even if I don't always understand what they say.

I asked my niece what she did in school.

"I don't know." she said.

"You don't know?" I asked.

"No."

Silence.

I tried a new conversation tactic. "What did you have for dinner?"

"Rolls, potato chips, corn, and milk," came the prompt reply. (That seemed to work a little better.)

She proceeded to tell me about her new mice and their sleeping habits: "They stay awake all night, running on their wheel, and in the morning we can take them out and play with them. And when we get home from school, they are sleeping. That is how they are nocturnal."

"Do you know any other animals that are nocturnal?" I queried.
"Yes. Bats." Slight hesitation - I can tell she is considering how to break the news to me that she is bored of talking to me.

"I have to go now."

"Thanks for talking to me. I love you." I said, even though am not a fan of how "I love you" means signaling the end of conversations. (It was actually a conversation with her that made me recognize this particular verbal cue...but I haven't been able to kick the trend yet.)

I expected her to just say, "I have to go now. Byebye!"

But instead, she said, "I love you more than these two things. Haha. That's a joke. I don't even like these two things!" Which is totally typical of six year old humor, and I inwardly groaned and prepared to hang up, slightly dissatisfied with the conversation ending.

She wasn't done, though - for then she piped up into the phone, "I love you more than eternity!"

Thanks, K. For loving me into eternity. That makes my day a little bit better.

ISWAK

I've been watching an old drama. A Taiwanese drama.

Let me give some background:
I think perhaps Korean dramas started first. A friend of mine told me that her mom watched them when she was little, and laughed at me for watching dramas. Or, "doramas" - as that's how they usually end up sounding when spoken in English.

Korean dramas are long. They're usually 20-30, sometimes 40 episodes, each about an hour in length. They are the longest, in terms of season, of the three types (Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese). They usually have crazy music swelling in the middle - some of it quite good, some of it extremely cheesy - and there are is always...well...drama. And a bunch of weird side characters who are completely, and I mean, COMPLETELY, wacko. They're the "odd relative" stereotype. Every single one.  (I assume they are there for comic relief, but in my opinion, they always get too much screen time, which is why Korean is, generally, my least favorite of the three.) And then there is the evil girl, or guy, who seeks to sabotage everything. And the concerned parents, and the friend who encourages when one or the other party gets discouraged, and then there's the hero and the heroine, who after much trial and tribulation usually end up together, though it's very hard when your favorite actors were once the lead man and then got demoted to the one who gets shafted, or when the ones you didn't like get cast as the new love interest. Grr. There is more variety in Korean actors/actresses than in either of the other types. Meaning, the jobs get spread around more. Also, there are historical dramas, and love dramas, and crime dramas, etc. Historical dramas actually are a surprising chunk of them, more so than J or T. Korean dramas are also the least likely to have a second season.

Japanese dramas are short, usually no more than 14 episodes. They are the most direct in terms of storyline sticking to the main characters. Usually the group of friends surrounding the hero/heroine is really funny, but unfortunately there is almost always one really weird creepy person that has anime tendencies...like wearing very extreme clothing and stalking or skulking around, with very disturbing music and a scary tendency to look derangedly into the camera. Usually, the dramas I laugh the hardest at are Japanese. (Take a watch at Hana Yori Dango, or the one with Oguri Shun where he's a pole vault jumper.)

Taiwanese dramas are middling in length, and in tangents to the storyline, and on weird creepy people. Taiwanese dramas are usually 20 episodes in length. There are a few "golden children" in the Taiwanese acting world who always get the main parts. Not only do they get the main parts, they are also musical and are also models. I wonder how they get any sleep at night. Seriously. For example, Jiro Wang, who always gets the part of the losing point of the love triangle, is a model and also is part of a boy band, Fahrenheit. His voice is actually decent, but the problem is that two of the other three boys (I use the term loosely, some of them are in their early 30s now) have weak voices, but are also part of the media frenzy. My favorite Taiwanese actor of all time (mostly because of a weird experience I had) is like 30 something now but is still playing the role of college students. He was the main character in the biggest smash hit ever, Meteor Garden (which is the Taiwanese version of Hana Yori Dango) and, with the rest of the Flower Four, formed a band called F4, which was wildly popular. Of course they sang their own theme song for the second edition, and were so famous that the author of Boys over Flowers claimed F4 was a copyright issue so they changed the name of the band to JVKV, which is the first letter of the English name of each guy in order of age. Yes, I digress. Anyway, so he is a megamodel and definitely a media mogul. It's bad enough that whenever I go to the equivalent of Little Japan, which usually translates into all of Little Asia, I recognize almost all of the faces on the magazine covers--and they've been the same for years. There are a chosen few who star in almost every drama.

Of course, if a drama is successful, then the neighboring industry makes its own copy. Hana Yori Dango, for one. It Started With a Kiss, for another. Coffee Prince, for a 3rd. The high-jumper one, for a fourth. GAH. OVERLOAD!!!

Anyway. I'm watching ISWAK. Go ahead. Make fun of me. Be concerned for my mental well-being. But actually there are a few gems that are to be had - such as "aim for the person you want" and "spirit is everything" and "life is more interesting with some discomfort" and "it's hard to be perfect - to have the pressure of always having to be perfect, to never disappoint". Also, notes about never buying weird troll figurines and never buy a pink VW bus, and getting your house inspected before you move in, are also in there as well.

Giving up is just not part of the heroine's vocabulary, at least when the hero is concerned. But if every girl was like that...I don't know. Is unrequited love enough? Yes, it is a great angst simmerer, and when it does work out (as it almost always does in drama, though not so in real life), it seems on the surface that it's great...but if I were the unrequited, I, in my skeptic nature, might always wonder if the person just gave in if I pestered them enough. What if, unlike in drama, the hero never came around? Is watching from afar good enough? Or watching from not-so-far, if you are the "friend" who really is pining? How can you live your life in a one-sided way? How can you ever really get to know the person that you think you love if they don't really love you back? How can it just not be a sort of nice, sort of painful fantasy? Is there really love at the end of all the Disney movies, or is it just one person relenting and accepting the little pest that they actually kind of have gotten used to now?

vhat eez thees?

The last two weeks have provided me with new experiences; fodder for blog posts.

Things I have seen recently:

1. a $24.95 sandwich
2. sparrow in an airport
3. pigeon in an airport (these were both in JFK - what is it with birds and Kennedy's?)
4. zippers on hats. why would you ever want a zipper on a hat? what would you possibly stick in a hat?
5. random shoes in a hole in the wall tailor shop . i suppose the idea is that you know how high the shoes are going to be that you're going to wear for the occasion and then put them on in case you hadn't brought any. that seems a little weird. and slightly unsanitary.
6. motel room with a tile entryway
7. whitecaps on a lake
8. snow on mountains, making it it look like a giant petticoat, with the plateau as the waistline
9. times square. why you ever would drive through there is beyond me. a. traffic is terrible and b. the signs would be so distracting!!!! likely you'd have a fit of epilepsy just traveling through and cause a crash
10. statue of liberty!
11. the frick collection
12. part of the met
13. central park
14. broadway
15. the subway. turns out if you paint something black, chances are it feels/looks black.
16. no evidence of bedbugs!!!!!! yay!!!!!
17. my whole family dancing together

The Pickle Song

by Arlo Guthrie.


I don't want a pickle/ just wanna ride on my motorcycle
And I don't wanna die/ just wanna ride on my motorcycle

I feel crunchy. Like a pickle. Not a sweet pickle. Or even a yummy baby dill pickle. Just an in betweener pickle. Sweet pickles make my face contort in an "I'm going to die if I swallow this" manner, so I try to avoid those. Dill pickles, I heart greatly. The little crunch squeak, crunch squeak as I munch is a joy to my "oral auditory ear", as Michael Jackson would say. (Here's a shout out to all the people who watched that part of This Is It).

I feel kind of like a Wild Ginger pickle. I was there on Saturday for lunch, and I had some with the lovely duck with the most excellently flavorful plum sauce on the side. WG pickles seem a little sweet and a little sour. I ate one. It made my salivary glands work a little and my face scrunch a little because I couldn't figure out if I liked it or not. But it's a pickle, so I was bound to try it unless it's super sickly sweet like relish. ** I considered a bit and let my mouth carry on the conversation that I had started while in the back of my mind I mulled over the value of the pickle. I decided I didn't know what to think of it, so I tried another, with the same disconcerting result. It was kind of like eating a ho-hum strawberry and so you try another to see if by eating the next one you will be able to remember what strawberries are really supposed to taste like. In such a situation, before you know it, all the strawberries are gone. Similarly, before I knew it, all the pickles on the plate were gone and my luncheon partner had to fend for himself in the pickle department. But it bothered me, because even though I had eaten all the pickles, I still hadn't figured out if I liked them or not.

I am in a period of my life where I am eating Wild Ginger pickles. I am getting sick of the crunch and of the inability to tell if I like the taste or not. As I work my way through the pickle, I hope I figure out if I like it or not. Life is just one big pickle - you don't have the ability to just eat one little hole, like in Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar. You have to keep going, even if it feels like the cop in the Pickle song (see above) wrote you a ticket, put the ticket in the pickle, and shoved it down your throat. (Luckily, I am not feeling that way at present. Just to be clear.)

Here's hoping I figure out my pickling recipe and get out of this crunchy, disconcerting Wild Ginger pickle phase and make all the rest of my life's pickle a yummy baby dill.

**(I am usually really good at telling a pickle's sweet factor from ten paces. I have had to develop this art because usually when I take pickles I take a lot of them and it looks exceedingly wasteful if I am someplace and I have a pile of pickles on my plate, with one that has a big chomp out of it and a rather queasy look on my face. [Yes, my face can look queasy. Do not quibble with me on grammar today. I am in a pickling mood and you would get nowhere.])

i got change in my pocket goin jing-a-ling-a-ling

There have been a lot of changes in my life recently.

Almost exactly a year ago I moved across the country. I transferred with work, and so while I reported to the same person, my coworkers, workspace, commute, and general responsibilities all changed, too. I do a lot more administrative assistant stuff. I would say more about it, except my blog is public. :)

Climate change is real. I'm here to tell you all about it. Going from mostly sunny to often rainy is an adjustment. Walking to work is different than driving in famously heavy traffic. In my last residence I rarely walked anywhere except for pleasure. Now I do out of necessity. (I have to keep my Scrooge status so I walk to a. exercise b. get there faster and c. save on parking. Though we all knew that c. was really the driver in the first place.)

I've also realized this year that confidence is healing. I'm not sure if healing is the egg or the chicken, or if confidence is, but both are needed in life to succeed. Just like you need chickens and eggs to have a chicken omelette.

Physical therapy is tiring. Really tiring. I've made some changes to my daily routine to accommodate the stretching, etc. required to get my body a little stronger.

Eh, this post is getting boring. I'm going to have to reboot and try again later.