hace dos anos

i am sitting on my couch watching the pre-oscar red carpet interviews.

i'm a little sickened by the way we glorify celebrity, and the utter extravagance (and wastefulness) of it all. but that's for another time...

i had a more important realization a few moments ago. two years ago, i went to devo's birthday party on a saturday night. i spent the evening talking to an NU geologist, and listening to devo tell me about when he and teddy had bedbugs. images of the mars star in full sweatsuit, socks, and stocking cap ready for bed were rather amusing.

the next night was the oscars. i watched with pabst and popcorn in hand and settled into a post-award show slumber on my mattress on the floor. in the morning i woke up with two small bites on my hand.

and so began the year of sleeping hell. the smell of that blue-capped raid bottle will forever turn my stomach. "sleep tight" will never quite have the same meaning for me, and I'll never say it to my possible future children. small dark flecks on the wall freak me out. everytime i wake up with an itch i get paranoid.

in the end, i'm just glad its over. though it certainly changed my stance on ddt. i guess my ecological idealism doesn't stand a chance en frente lived experience.

notes on the professor's visit

ponger always uses the wrong pronoun. of course, this, he says, is because they "do not have pronouns in my country." in any case, i am always "sir," and jcmc is always referred to as "she" when not referenced as "nell's boyfriend." usually this is all in good fun, and one of the many lovable aspects of frimdog's ideolect (like "come again?" and "cursory perusal"). but, in the presence of transpeople, i was a little scared. would it put him/us in an uncomfortable situation? would he use the wrong pronoun, and be misinterpreted as delegitimizing gender identity?

but in the end, ponger was his usual, charming, funny, drunk on the captain self. and its a shame our paths cross so infrequently. at least we've now officially authored our first paper together. here's to 299 more!

i have the postal service in my blood. i am the grandchild of two postmasters (for lack of a genderneutral term that denotes a more prominent position than "postal worker"). my best friend's father is a postmaster. its something i grew up with.

then i ended up on the rez, and somewhere between the politics of standardized testing among native americans and watching the Ladies Man one too many times, the term mail man took on particularly important meaning in my life.

but after a few years of dealing with the jc usps, i lost hope. when the r___ and i changed our address it took over a month for the forwarding to kick in (and monmouth to pavonia is really only 3 or 4 blocks). on top of that, they lost 4 (important) packages over the course of 8 months. at some point i decided i was going to start fed exing instead.

but today, due to no particular conscious action by the usps, the mail service was redeemed. really i have two of my favorite people to thank. in my mailbox, when i got home from school, i found chocolate and music (along with some very nice notes with them). and though the contents of the two envelopes were quite exciting, it was the thinking behind them that really made the difference.

for me at least, there will always be something particularly distinctive and touching about real mail. holding something someone else has touched, that was meant for you. though in some ways, it communicates less than a phonecall or email, in other ways it communicates on a deeper level. i won't start quoting the note accompanying the cd, but its nice to find alternative ways to communicate with people that are important to you. blogging is one thing. sending a piece of yourself in whatever form is better...

musica

well, i had a rough night a few saturdays ago. i was rather emotional, but two good friends who are all too far away made me feel better, and i came to an important realization.
as yellow was telling me that stoner bear wanted to give me a hug, i realized some of my favorite people in the whole world still respect their bears: davis, stonerbear, stitchy. and i certainly still respect mine. and i think there's something to be said for (pseudo) adults that aren't afraid to hug a plush animal once in a while.

bears aside though, i took a lot of long walks, and listened to some music, and was feeling better by the end of the week. i had my ipod on shuffle for one of the first times, and i've come to the conclusion that the amalgum of songs on my pod reads like a natural history of my past relationships (and not necessarily relationships). from devil's haircut to rabbit fur coat, my music has intertextuality and continues to be entextualized. neutral milk hotel, bjork, and the shins strike a deep chord. those songs are reminiscent of those remarkable moments in life--road trips to california, lakefill sunrises, and chinle campouts--and continue to take on new meanings as the songs are recycled.

they hit me almost as strongly as smells of herbal essences shampoo, coffee scented lip balm, and the smell of rotting corn on a humid summer/fall day.

on the other hand, i thought tonight would be an appropriate time to finally put together a playlist of the songs i put on the "breakup album" for the r_____ last year. and i realized that not only do these songs have very little meaning for me, i only had three of the ten on my computer already. pitiful. and now as i sit here listening to some "i don't love anyone" i wonder how long it will be until these songs become entextualized and evocative.

futbol americano

it was kind of a shitty weekend. it started with a rainy day. saturday was more pleasant, but in the evening crappy stuff occurred. but at least i had a birthday party to attend which was full of merriment, and people (deb) being excited about my new research direction.

i had quite an assortment of booze and past out on kronner's futon. then i lost a contact. fortunately, har-gill drove me home. i took a long walk and cleared my head. i got some school work done.

then i set out for participant observation. har-gill & i both had to do some, with differing topics, but when combined, we had the perfect site. a gay sports bar. and it was the superbowl! so after a tasty dinner of fajitas at his place, we drove to nellie's and participated in drinking while observing behavior. what was most striking to me was that i was the "expert" on football. i was told that the giants were a baseball team, not a football team on the way to the bar. once we arrived, i had to explain the scoring. i had to tell everyone why the cameras kept showing peyton when the giants scored.

and then, after the game, i got a ride all the way back to tenley. so many mood swings, so many unrequited feelings. but in the end, you can't go wrong being a hag, i guess.

dos meses

my life has too much synchronicity right now. i watch a movie, and somehow find myself in the same situation. i make up a stupid metaphor, and it comes true. maybe i just notice it because i'm sad, and don't have much of an outlet, except for the booze i'll consume at the party tonight.

i miss the simple days when things were clear. when people were close. when there was no moral value or deeper underlying meaning to what i wanted. when i didn't have to stop and ask if i was compromsing myself. when i didn't question who exactly i was. when i knew what settling was, and what it wasn't. i said in a phone call today, we all just really want that card that's guarenteed to be redeemable in 5 years for a really great relationship. but they don't exist.

and there's part of me that says, maybe i should change. maybe if i do this, or or give up that, or promise something entirely impossible things could work out. but the truth is, even if we were both committed to the goal, there are too many obstacles.

and i maintain, its better to eat the whole block of cheese than let it get moldy.