I know I’m being abominably slow for the summertime, but I haven’t actually been posting nothing, I’ve just been posting elsewhere a bit. Please see the combined effort of Miles and me (Maggie, whose idea the thing was, still hasn’t gotten around to it…) for fun summer stories:
I’m not about to go into my deep personal angst about how I’m afraid I’m slowly becoming an easterner, which I’m pretty sure makes me a worse person. I just want to say that I don’t understand the gas stations out here.
I drove past two gas stations to-day, directly across the street from one another, and one was selling gas for 4.17, the other for 4.19. And there were at least as many people filling up at the 4.19 station! I just don’t understand this. In Wisconsin, if two gas stations are kitty-corner or across the street from each other, they will be selling the same priced gas, almost without exception. Because who wants to be the guy with the obviously more expensive gas? Apparently New York Mobile does!
Who are these people who pick the more expensive gas? Do they really have that kind of brand loyalty? Or just hate turning left across traffic? What is it?
Well, I mean, I know what it is. They’re just all a bunch of nutzos.
The act of dancing makes me feel connected to my human heritage. In this house, we are always dancing, which is perfect, and marvelous. We dance during the day, waking up, getting ready for the night (last night, we danced for courage to go face the lobsters). Earlier this week, Ryan and I danced to African drumbeats together. Miles and I dance whenever there’s music, and there’s always music.
And when I think of dancing, I don’t just think of these things, but also of the country dances Hardy described, and the tribal dances in Africa and the Americas, of the Irish who kept dancing even when it was outlawed, of all the times people have turned to dancing in sadness, and also in elation. I need to keep dancing.
The weather is such a vital part of our sense of home. Bernard always used to tell a story about when he did military service in the Côte d’Ivoire with a company of Bretons, and how they slowly realized that all the sun was giving them mal du pays. They were homesick for the overcast, rainy Breton sky. Of course, I was at home in Britanny for similar reasons. And though when I first came to New York, some plants looked outright exotic to me, I quickly adjusted to those, and don’t feel too out of place here, since it’s just a little bit warmer than at home. Of course, I feel most comfortable when it’s foggy. You don’t even notice a thing like that until you leave, but it was always foggy at home. I miss the marshes.
Then there’s the land. I’ll always be for lakes, for instance. The ocean just doesn’t do the same thing for me. Of course, standing alongside Lake Michigan, you can’t see the other side any more than you could standing next to the ocean. But it’s calmer, and freshwater, with coarser sand on the beaches.
So, however badly I might want to go study in the south to get their sense of the English language, I don’t think I could do it. I wouldn’t survive that heat.
I’m frustrated cos I can’t find the article corresponding to the story I heard on the bbc world service podcast to-day, but it was hilarious. Apparently, the Russian army has decided to change their uniforms, but in the process, they’ve realized that a lot of their top-ranking officers are obscenely overweight. Now they’re putting them all on a diet!
Oh, well, if I lived in Russia, I’d be fat, too. It’s cold there! Speaking of fat (but don’t expect too close a connection), another funny thing is Danny Kaye.
I’m behind on the news. I have four editions of the BBC World Service podcast piled up in itunes after a hectic week. But I am so bored of the olympic torch stories. Which is interesting, because I never seem to get bored of the news from Zimbabwe.
And upon further consideration, I do take some interest in the ideas behind the events surrounding the torch relay. It is fascinating that something that really is no more than a symbol can mean so much to people on both sides of the question. And even those people who feel that the protesters are wrong–that they are, in confusion, attacking the symbol of the olympic games, conceived to promote peaceful relations, and not China–must admit that it’s impressive what an object like that can stir up.
Please see: the bbc radio podcasts
This didn’t get finished, so now it’s only good for this:
When everything is quite thawed, and now warm enough that the scents of plants rise in the air, then comes expectation, floating joys that quiver only before reality. Then I can feel the shapes of old imaginings rise under my ribs–almost all spheres, expanding in all directions at once. The only thing that’s real is my blood, but the entire world lives behind my eyes, only nobler and more succinct.
So it’s April. And I just really can’t wait for May.
Nevermind. Silly me. I don’t even like blogger very much! Now if only I can find my ftp infos somewhere…
Very good; carry on.
Filed under: egg-lish
In case it wasn’t obvious from the lack of posts in roughly a century, I am suspending this blog. Please see my other if interested.
Unwilling to explain the loss of my wallet once again, I will quote from a mass-email I sent out to my former and future housemates:
Some of you might know that my wallet is red. Fewer of you know that my car is red. I also have my car at school this summer (and am going to for school next year, and senior year if it still works, too! rock on.) Well, I was certainly noticing the abundance of redness as I placed my wallet on my car while filling up with gas before I drove down to C’s for the fourth of July. I was thinking, “Gee, it blends right in; I could easily forget it there. I should be careful not to do that.” And then, after I’d gotten in the car after filling up, I got this feeling like I wanted to check the gas cap. I just really wanted to get out of my car real quick and make sure I had closed everything ok and all. But I didn’t, because I’m trying to be less obsessive compulsive. Or I was. But since about two hours later, when I realized I never got my wallet off of my car (by that time I was about 20 minutes from C’s), I decided I can be as obsessive compulsive as I damn well please! Forever. G D it! Anyway, despite the 2-hour lag, I don’t seem to have incurred any unauthorized charges, though I should check again to see if something else went through since right before I canceled my credit and debit card. Maybe whoever found my wallet was just douchey enough not to turn it in at the gas station, but then stopped at taking my cash, and left the cards alone. Not that I expected it to be turned in; it just would have been cool, you know?
And then yesterday, when I checked my phone after a meeting with my advisor, there was a message from a State Trooper, informing me that he found my wallet. On the Thruway. My goodness, does this happen often? So, I got very unclear directions (something about a teepee and a road name that, even once spelled, eluded me) and an ex-roommate took me to go pick the thing up. It was the saddest thing I have ever seen. Probably not true. But I didn’t want to touch it, afraid for my hands. I received it in a very efficient fashion from a mad with a face like a bucket of used coals, and we were off again. My Eta Sigma Phi membership card is all but ruined, as well as my Alumni Association card from my highschool (in future, I will always laminate these things), but it’s helpful to have my driver’s liscence back. Now I can get on a plane, get a blockbuster card, oh, do all kinds of things!
I couldn’t take a photo of the rain-and-sun-destroyed wallet. I threw it out; it was too painful (it had been a Christmas present). But here’s a photo of an upside-down bug stuck to an advertisement posted on the door of my building:
