badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books

HmmmSomething is not right with

Hmmm

Something is not right with my templates and posts are not going out...

Gilgamesh This finding of Gilgamesh's

Gilgamesh

This finding of Gilgamesh's grave has me kind of excited.

He who went with me through all hard[ships],
Enkidu, whom I loved (so) dearly,
Who went with me through all hardships,
He has gone to the (common) lot of mankind.
Day and night have I wept over him.

[My friend, whom I loved, has turn]ed into clay; Enkidu, my friend, whom I loved, has tu[rned into clay].
[And I], shall I [not like unto him] lie down
[And not rise] forever?"

Like a warm bathAhhhhhhh.... the

Like a warm bath

Ahhhhhhh.... the absence of pain is like a fabulous warm bath. Am able to hobble about on one crutch; can make coffee, heat up frozen dinner, etc. Locked in babysitting for tomorrow afternoon, so I have one more day to heal up without having to drive or sit on the floor playing Candyland.

I keep trying to write the cursive alphabet in the air with my foot. Last night I did up to "f" and then quit. Today, up to "m". Go, foot!

Back to Iraq entry is good today.

Excuse me a minute while I wax semi-pompous. Don't say I didn't warn you.

L. got me thinking about going to R.I. this summer. Last time was a whirlwind of horror and nostalgia and pleasure. I did think seriously about going back and not telling any relatives. I could wear some kind of disguise so as not to be recognized, though they might not recognize me anyway. The pond at b.s. and the kind of scungy beach with coarse yellow sand - seaweed smelling - beach roses. I remember coming up out of the waves after hours of standing just beyond the line where they break, and then when the wave comes, at the peak of it, being lifted gently off my feet. Weightlessness. Then set back down again. Just beyond me, the violent crash of that wave. I'd come up from the water hours later, shaking, my lips pale blue, my ears aching and ringing, a little dizzy suddenly as I hit the warm sand up in the dunes and just burrowed myself into its clean smell. Life was good. At least, the parts of it that were good were good.

I wonder, am I enjoying the good things about now as well as I did then?

Yes, but it seems more difficult.

I used to just sit and think messages toward my future self. "Remember THIS moment." I used to have all sorts of conversations with the me of now (at least as I imagined I would become). Now I also imagine my future Very Old self with all the burdens of being old and perhaps alone. She is also talking to the me of Now and telling me "Remember THIS moment - It's important."

These thoughts seem not like a buddhist-style living in the moment, but a living not in the moment, as if the important thing were storing up and hoarding all those moments because somehow, remembering them will be important later. Or maybe it's not more important than actually living those moments, but it's as if the hoarding of memories makes everything more intense. I feel sad for all the experiences I have that are passing away so quickly. I look out of my window and see the tree out there that has become so familiar from hours of looking out at it in the year we've lived here - and as I look at it I feel aware of some future me, driving by feeling nostalgic and seeing that tree all bigger and different, or shrunk and old, or just oddly not there. I felt that way about "my tree" in Michigan in 1979 and about many other more trivial objects, and I still feel this way now.

As I get older I find that the pleasure of returning to memories this way intensifies. Small things like marigolds when they are fresh or when they are dead, and the way the seeds are in there and how they smell - a source of amazing happiness. I used to not be so sentimental, but now contemplating a marigold can make me burst into tears. (And I consider this a good thing.)

It is rare that I can escape this feeling of pre-grief or pre-nostalgia.

This is the bond I feel with J. de I.'s poetry which I continue to translate in odd moments. In June I will go all out on finishing the ones that are half done.

This is all really self centered, but that's how it is to me. It is the only way I can cross time and have a unified identity instead of always leaving moment after moment.

*****
Of course, despite all advice from random people to "really make time to enjoy your precious child while he is this small", I am blathering on and on here while child zones out in front of Winnie the Pooh movie. After the 2nd hour of playing Hungry Hungry Hippos and making snails out of playdoh, you can't really expect any more "precious memories" out of me, unless you count his memory of me going slowly NUTS.

arrr, matey!These are the best

arrr, matey!

These are the best filters I've ever seen! The pirate one and the Miguel one were very silly.

more inventions, unspeakable euphemismsA fabulous

more inventions, unspeakable euphemisms

A fabulous invention: a t-shirt with a couple of blue-footed boobies on it in strategic locations, and then "I (heart) Boobies".

I'm going to make ONE MILLION DOLLARS.

CafePress, here we come.

I also nearly made L. wreck her car yesterday. She was in uncontrollable spasms of laughter.

Me: L, so, when we lived in Texas, did you ever hear any other kids refer to their genitals as their 'front butt' ?
L: Whaaaaaaa.....!!!??? *struggles to keep from spewing out iced coffee*
Me: You know, certain people would say "my front butt". It was bizarre.
L: "Uhhhh! I'm driving! Uhhhhh!!!! Nooooo!!! Like they didn't have ANY OTHER WORD for it?"
Me: Yeah. Do you think if I try looking up "front butt", I'll get anything?
L: Uhh!! Stop it! Stop it! My stomach hurts! Stop saying it! I'm DRIVING!

I have no explanation for it, but clearly remember at least 2 kids, around 10 or 11 years old talking about their 'front butt", simply meaning genitals. I picture their moms sitting next to them while they were in the bathtub as toddlers, telling them "Now Pam..." or "Now, Charlene, be sure to wash your butt, and your front butt too, y'hear?"

Now it appears to have taken on a whole nother meaning, either cameltoe, or a big roll of fat.
But if you go here to iusedtobelieve then you can get confirmation of my story!

issuesThis is the first winter

issues

This is the first winter I have spent totally able, not limping or on crutches part of the time, since 1993 or 94. I have been feeling actually very proud of this. I still regularly go up a flight of stairs and feel secretly puffed up and proud and when I run across the playground, however briefly and old-lady-joggingly, I feel like a giant healthy powerful frolicking animal springing carelessly across the grass, like some kind of happy gazelle. This ankle thing is a fluke - an accident - not part of general pattern, yet I am reacting to it with complex and unpleasant panic.

Anyway my knee has held out all winter and I haven't been a giant pain in the ass and I wish that everyone would appreciate this amazingness, as I temporarily become a pain in the ass.

Am also overwhelmed with complex and horrible feelings of how horribly I failed m.m. and everything he's gone through on a scale beyond what I can imagine and how he does everything alone and just fucking suffers and takes it. I feel bad for having left him in that situation and also that while we were married I wasn't more considerate.

Yes everyone did comment on me in class and I was unable to react normally but felt all surly and gruff and looking at the floor. It is very funny to have people ask to carry my backpack. Yo, it's on my BACK not my crippled leg and it would be harder to put down crutches and unstrap the backpack from my back than it would be to walk the few steps into the classroom carrying it. The more things I have to ask for help with, the more fierce I feel about protecting what independence I have. But I did ask for help getting books from the library. People can be really nice. Thanks B. and thanks J. and L. and K. for giving me rides and bringing me a Toblerone with the crunchy things in it and giant much-needed bottle of ibuprofen.

Anyway if I'm acting like a freak it's because I'm freaking out a little. Crutches to me equal weeks or months of life being difficult but in this case it doesn't mean that, I just have to rest the ankle a little. Am staying in bed as much as possible though because if I wear out wrists by bearing weight on crutches, or other knee is strained from taking all the walking, then I'm really really fucked. So taking it easy is the rule.

The better to write those papers with I suppose. In bed surrounded by piles of books!

On some level it is still all my fault for not swimming enough and keeping more fit. I resolve to go swim on Wednesday no matter what.

not only cripple, but idiotI

not only cripple, but idiot

I am an idiot... I just now realized that it's not the crutching to class from the parking garage that's going to be difficult, it's pushing the gas pedal and brake as it's my right foot.

Duh!

I just always want to think I can cope with everything. Goddamn it. I refuse to miss class.

Probably I CAN do it, that is the problem, but then I will cripple myself further, pointlessly. Then I will be lying in bed for days totally fucking helpless. Will ask for help right now.It is humiliating. Already used up quota of asking for help last night and this morning by making J. get things for me.

moms ranting, crutch pockets, lonely

moms ranting, crutch pockets, lonely ducks

Ankle worse. It is still not how I always pictured a sprained ankle (instantly swelling, can't put weight on it) but it felt okay while wrapped and elevated and now I walk on it and it hurts like fuck. I re-wrapped it and got out the crutches. Grrrr. Hate crutches, but it's better than limping.

Was thinking more about yesterday on the playground park bench with s.'s mom and how most of our "gossip" was odd abstract stuff about altruism vs. selfishness, corporate greed, power, and novel-writing. Now that's gossip!

Then in the morning her written article rolls off her powerhouse assemblyline and is hot and smoking in my inbox:

Corporations do have, at their helm, some highly paid humans who must be
either kept in check by the law, or by their own consciences, which ever
comes first.

I love how I never know if it's going to be an essay about social involvement in community, or a kid's story, or the latest installment of the novel. Going to her house is the same way, we loaf about, 'gossip' in this vein, and watch kids run riot. It's like if Michael Moore were your mom and would make you pancakes. Very pleasant.

Anyone who ever needs crutches, I have another genius-like invention (that will someday make me exactly ONE MILLION DOLLARS): crutch pockets. They are so handy! Mine are made of a small thin box cut in half and firmly duct taped to the part of the crutch below the handle. One is wide enough for a large coffee with lid, the other fits a book. Someone should take this idea and make it in sturdy plastic and market it to disabled. I love that company who makes "Quickie" walkers and chairs - next, cool crutches.

Going to class is going to be annoying. Will be treated like brave crippled girl. When actually, am whining, non-brave, wuss that injures self while walking on paved flat pathway. Being treated like brave crippled girl is actually embarrassing, guilt-inducing; no one really deserves such pitying admiration. Maybe it's irritating because plenty of people endure pain and suffering that is invisible; like, no one gets any pat on the head for coming to class when they have terrible hemorrhoids, though they are plenty brave and determined and plucky and uncomplaining. This is so unfair! Or maybe it's just me; no matter how bad my injury, I suspect myself of faking it on some fundamental level, and so any pity feels worse than undeserved.

One more random thought:

j.c. was telling me last night at the game that at the animal shelter where g. works, the ducklings actually die of loneliness if there's only one duckling. If there's more than one duck at the shelter all is well. To get the lone ducklings to eat, they put a mirror in the cage and a feather duster, and the duckling cuddles up against the feathers and stares in the mirror without moving all day. L., perhaps you could wear a feather boa and yellow socks, and become a professional 'duck socializer'?

because a walrus likes an

because a walrus likes an iceberg

This, I think, why M. was laughing himself nearly to barfing in his crib tonight. I can't explain it. It seemed to have something to do with Tigger and hippos and icebergs.

Today: did I write a paper? No. Birdwatched. Stupidly twisted ankle. Ate lunch. Read in a carefree manner. Took M. to new skate park and gossiped with s.'s mom and ate ice cream sandwiches. Ogled 14 year old goth chicks wearing horns, glitter in hair, black lipstick, hundred jelly bracelets, and bondage belts from Hot Topic. Ogled 16 year old skater boys. Admired their perfect nonchalance. Continued walking around park on increasingly painful ankle. Flew foam airplanes and helicopter thingie. Played in sand. Home to paint, without skill or talent, a watercolor cartoon giraffe, and sigh with envy as L. painted another luminous perfect dead leaf in swirly water. Played role-playing game newly plotted soap-opera style by J. Am now loafing about, reading and writing blogs with ankle wrapped, ibuprofened, and elevated.

In breeding plumageL. and I

In breeding plumage

L. and I saw semi-palmated plovers, marbled godwits, avocets in breeding plumage, cliff swallows, and some kind of tern. There were also barn swallows. You could walk right up to the cliff swallow nests. Their little heads poking out were SO CUTE. I watched one come swooping in with a giant glob of mud in its beak; it plastered on the mud and pecked it into shape. We could see the nests in progress - they were the ones with the dark rim of wet mud. One had been taken over by a sparrow and bits of straw were sticking out. Do the cliff swallows not line their mud nests?

The terns were amazingly elegant, soaring and hovering and stooping right in front of us. They were very white underneath and a little bit bluish-grey on top on the wings and their beaks were black and orange and the tops of their heads were black. Their tails and beaks were not as short as gull-billed terns but they seemed small. They dove about 20 feet in front of us and came up with fish in beaks. We sat and watched for a good long while. Sometimes they chased each other in huge circles over the bond, kreeeyah-ing loudly and crashing into each other.

Also cinnamon teal, gadwall, ruddy ducks, coots and a cormorant.

Some bird with a very smooth orange head and a grey body but too big and fat for a house finch. Oriole? Some other finch? A scarlet tanager, orange variant? This was all at Shoreline and Charleston Slough in Palo Alto.

I should have taken M., and I resolve firmly to take him there tomorrow, as I have a feeling that the cliff swallows in nests would blow his mind.

cranked up midnight funHad another

cranked up midnight fun

Had another one of those writing epiphanies last night where I was all worked up. This one was:

Withholding information IS power!

and was sort of exploding in big neon letters or like a very large bell bonging repeatedly in my head.

This, as I rant to John about poetry, schools, authority structures, role-playing games, collaborative authorship, every bad job I've ever had, Bakhtin, the Ars Magica rulebook vs. the LOTR rpg rulebook, some science fiction novel I read with a future soldier girl from the USA being captured and raped and marched into Tibet somewhere and she thinks she is a prisoner and being tortured, but it turns out to be Shangri-la and she and others are there for hundreds of years in this semi-Maoist self-criticism process, her, other 'prisoners', and the 'guards', but they aren't really, and then there's a huge world-destroying nuclear war and they're the only ones left. And the words keep coming out of my mouth, "I hate the Cultural Revolution and I'd be the first up against the wall if we had one but what if they are right, we can't have justice, or levelling, without tearing down, tearing apart, destroying, we can't have justice and at the same time high art and people who sit around writing pointless novels about the battles between the Witches and the Demons on the planet Mercury? Am I both a Leveller and an aesthete and a snob? No wonder I'm alienated!" (I begin to cry.)

Pity J., for he was ripped through this succession of mad ideas forcibly at around midnight and I wouldn't shut up. I have this vague feeling that to anyone who lived with me in the past, I was like this EVERY NIGHT. Thank god for those sleeping pills I have now. Otherwise I would be a junkie or an alcoholic. Manic insomnia is insufferable.

Anyway, I am drawing these information flow or data flow diagrams to describe everything and I suddenly realized that annoying thing where people try not to reveal their sources of information, so as to look omniscient or something, or so as not to reveal how little they actually know; that gains them power.

This led into a whole other thing where I was like, Duh! of course this is my pet peeve, because it is my means of production! Information and ideas and words ARE my means of production, so when people hold back information... uh... does this mean I am a Marxist? Didn't think I was. J: "Yeah, I think you are a little bit marxist." Me: Ack! Really?

Sedated self at 1am with shot of vodka and The Worm Ouroborous.

Did a funny parody sort of thing of the last chapter of Homi Bhahba's "Dissemination". did some more homework. did not write paper. Washed all dishes. Cleared out nests of black widow spiders from in front of L.'s house. Attacked potted plant in giant clay pot; it had wormy looking inch thick roots snaking out of the pot all over and was very disturbing. It is only half-dislodged from the pot. Still fighting urge to read binders of old letters, clear out file cabinet, alphabetize CDs, or anything other than paper-writing. I worked all Friday, but ended up with what kindly prof says is way too big of a topic ("outline" I sent her was 3 pages.)

Meanwhile, M.'s worst fears were realized today as he fell in the toilet. I am going to Bad Mom Hell.

How am I so lucky as to have this quiet toddler who plays by himself on the floor for hours, only requiring me to occasionally kiss an alligator or shove a tinkertoy into place? And s.o. who whisks child off to cafes and playgrounds so I can sit around avoiding writing my paper in peace? I feel amazingly lucky.

break easy, fix easyMy hands

break easy, fix easy

My hands are getting better fast.

I found this guy Chris Holstrom's whole thesis on collaborative narrative. Very useful! Also this article by Dariel Quiogue and this one by Lisa Padol.

And some juicy quotes on MUSHing by Cari - my dream interviewee, goddess of coherent, intelligent, pithy statements!

To some people it's a very ephemeral form of entertainment (maybe make an analogy to improvised music forms like jazz, here.) That's actually a very good analogy--with, say, written drama being like classical music, where
there's a script to follow... MUSHING falls into the "improvised
narrative" school, like a commedia dell'arte without any division
between players and audience. We are the audience.

You can't get better than that. Thanks Cari!

As paper deadlines approach I feel unusually compelled to organize junk drawers, lie in bed reading, paint my toenails, write Ozma/Dorothy slash porn, and do all sorts of other useless things that are not paper writing.

The better to plant fake

The better to plant fake evidence, my dear

Why, why, why? Why did Bush just forbid U.N. inspectors to go into Iraq? What the fuck?

Why, why, why, does this continue to surprise me? What core of idealism buoys me up?

Grrrr.

owMy hands were sore from

ow

My hands were sore from the other day's book hauling but now are unspeakably terribly sore - wrists and forearms - must restrict computer a bit and take a lot of ibuprofen and maybe go swimming for a few days.

The cat has just eaten and thrown up something green that looks like fluorescent playdoh.

I see now that Ouroboros has been printed recently in an annotated edition and has good reviews on amazon and seems generally appreciated. Yay! I am happy to see Eddison was an Icelandic scholar - that explains everything!

poetry, books, books, booksI went

poetry, books, books, books

I went back to that book sale and got more, after dropping off a truckload at w.'s bookstore. He shared my glee. "w., why are all these Anchor Books so damn cool? " "Well of course anything good is usually the fault of just one person." He explained to me how the line of Anchor Books was inspired by Edmund Wilson's plea for some "serious" paperbacks. Fascinating. I got the feeling he knew more of this history, but it's difficult to pry information out of him.

I go to look it up and find this nifty tidbit:

Jason Epstein, one of the great editors and probably the most brilliant innovator in the world of books during the last half century. In the 1950s at Doubleday he created Anchor Books, which he describes as "the intellectually oriented series of paperbacks that precipitated what to my surprise became known as the paperback revolution." In the 1960s, he was co-founder of The New York Review of Books, which valued literature and other arts and science and sought good writers who could make the subjects come alive for readers. In the 1980s, he pursued the vision he shared with his friend Edmund Wilson, the eminent man of letters, and created The Library of America, making available in uniform editions authoritative texts of the works of major American writers.

Now am wondering if w. was about to tell me about Epstein, and got distracted, or whether he had the story wrong and only knows about Wilson?

There is a reading at SFSU on Friday at the Poetry Center and I will go and read something. I plan to pimp w. and his translations to the Poetry Center reading series as well as to the PCSJ. Muahahaha!

Still reading Canaima, Worm Ouroborous, last week, rr Lathe of Heaven, Les Guerrilleres, translating more Nicanor Parra, The Rasp (cheezy mystery novel from early 20th cent), and The Far Distant Oxus. Far Distant Oxus is one of those truly Great Books that have disappeared from print and general consciousness. Someone should reprint it quick.

Canaima making me so happy that I am trying to read it slowly. I think Ma Ingalls needs to come and tell me that it is too rich for little girls.

I was also thinking about how the Worm Ouroborous would make an awesome movie. Someone out there, write the screenplay and sell it while high fantasy is hot. I also need to write a real review of it and describe the amazing coolness of E.R. Eddison.

Last night I had unusually lush and complicated dreams, but the only part I remember was me being asked by somebody what the word "reveille" meant. Indescribably pleased, I puffed up like a rooster and explained that it meant awakening, like the same word root as in "revelation", and that the Spanish was "diana", which started out just meaning any sort of trumpet call type of thing which then differentiated into taps, and reveille, and other calls with various meanings. Then, in the dream, I snuck off to go look it up, hoping that I was actually right.

I think this is funny - for me to do this even in my dreams.

drooling on books, excessive flirtingYesterday:

drooling on books, excessive flirting

Yesterday: happened across an sfsu prof's estate sale of books, books, books. Ran about room full of books, actually squeaking with joy and nearly having heart attacks every few seconds at the fabulous books.

An old Pancatantra. The Robert Graves "Song of Songs" with illustrations by Hans Erni. A nice Velazquez dictionary to be my spare one (old one is worn out, spine cracked and broken) Old hardback copy of Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy". An old Everyman's Library translation of the Kalevala. Minty fresh paperbacks of Bly's "Leaping Poetry", Sea and Honeycomb, Kabir book, Light around the body. Ahhhh!! Brain on overjoyed overload!

And those are only a few of the keepers. Some I will read and pass on to Walter's bookstore (like the Dryden and the Anne Sexton's letters). Some I will save for presents (e.e. cummings first editions to Dossie, ezra pound to Janel) Some go straight to the bookstore. Some are worth hundreds of dollars but I don't know if I can get it. I found a copy of "Country of Survivors" by W.S. DiPiero and noticed there are no other copies of it for sale anywhere, and in fact no bios of him even list it as his first book. I wonder why? Does he not like it anymore, or just not bother to list it since it's not available? Should I keep it - I took a look and liked the poems (and I like his translations). Should I call up DiPiero and ask him if he wants it, as a nod of respect from a fellow translator? Should I donate it to Markham House? Should I try to sell this one online? Hrmmm. Well, dear reader, if you are here because you are searching for it, you can email me and I might be persuaded to sell it.

Dude, dead professor, kindred spirit, whoever you are, lover of poetry, scribbler of notes in margins, translator of Chinese, secret collector of lesbian erotica, I'm sorry you're dead and thanks for the books.

I love to try to see the person behind the estate sale.

Ended up at La Fondue in Saratoga for Max's birthday. Was boggled by the decor. Why the red velvet upholstered archway? Why the tent motif? How do the orbs and crenellations and christmas ornaments come into it? A castle (crenellations, orb/scepter concept) and a carnival (tent) ? And some kind of sideways whorehouse (the red velvet wall)? Yet what does any of that have to do with FONDUE? Then in the back where we sat, squares of plastic and hanging beads in a mod, "In Like Flynn", Flynn's pad sort of way.

Ate things dipped in cheese and chocolate. Squeezed and was squeezed by guys and girls alike. Was awash in sea of pleasant flirtation. Usually I feel a bit old and dowdy and mom-ish, or alternately seem to be around people who would consider all this lap-sitting and squeezing and smooching to be either shocking scandal, or signs of Eternal Love. So this friendliness with mild hint of sleaze was unusually nice. Especially nice to have one hand in S.H.'s thighs and one in S.N.'s, simultaneously. They were so soft and cushiony, I wanted to roll around and wallow on their laps and just sort of gasp in astonishment. Okay, sure, I have my own thighs, but it's not the same. Girls! I love them! I think they were all drunk, especially Max. I don't get enough friendly flirting lately.

ponies, ponies, ponies!Today: brainstorming ideas

ponies, ponies, ponies!

Today: brainstorming ideas for long paper. Reading mind-cracking crap about modernism vs. postmodernism. Still can't figure out why the fuck all the critics (those that deign to mention her) call J. de I. postmodern. Wrote more rambling crap for other long paper on RPGs and collaboration. Bakhtin? Wrapping mind around heteroglossia. Err.

Then off to the pony farm. Led pony + M. around ring many times. Conversations about piles of poop. M. spent most of the time on the crappy playground, making me regret the 18 bucks I spent for the buffet of ponies. Rode crappy train with entertainingly lying conductor "and to our left you will see some fossil horses, 6 million years old. This train is the oldest in the U.S.!"

To the game store. Bought enticingly non-busty elf warrior girl figurines to paint. L. had to ruin for me when I got home by reminding me that they will NOT look how I picture them because it is fucking hard to paint anything nice looking. Tactfully, she did not remind me directly of how awful I did when I tried to do a watercolor of 2 apples and M. said they were oranges. Hrmph. I will get him back someday.

My little lead-free pewter figurines will the the BEST at the Goblin King's Fantasy Ball. Orange or no orange!

Doing that watercolor was still fun because I felt that I saw the shiny wooden bowl and the fruit so clearly and they were so beautiful. I was in love with them and desperately wanted to prove my love to them by painting them beautifully. Alas. Fortunately this type of vision also works with poetry.

Did not finish moving compost heap to back of house.

Binders, poetry, translations still horribly disorganized.

Off to game land, ham, bunnies, at J.'s house and then to Barbershop of Poets!

p.s. Idiotically wrote some kind of wild sounding fan letter to W. K. who kindly sent me Canaima out of the blue. Why, why, why, do I write emails at 12:30 in the morning? I don't remember what I said, but it was probably retarded and arrogant both at once.

ouroborosMeanwhile, am rereading The Worm

ouroboros

Meanwhile, am rereading The Worm Ouroboros. Was reading new translation of Canaima, but it was so exciting I couldn't stop reading last night until like 3am. So am hoping that the descriptions of Lord Goldry Bluzco's amber buskins will soothe me right to sleep.

*yawn* I love this crazy book!

hive-proof monkWe saw about the

hive-proof monk

We saw about the first half of Bulletproof Monk and it was very cool. Of course I like Chow Yun-Fat in anything, so you can't take my word for it. It's not The Killer, it's not Hardboiled, but so what. It's still about a million times better than any recent crapola from Jackie Chan. We had to leave early because L. got hives (popcorn maybe with yellow dye? who knows?) but it didn't look like C.Y.F. gets to kiss anyone. Why, why, why? Why didn't he get to kiss Mira Sorvino? What gives here? Could he at least kiss Stifler?

Monks with shaved heads, bowing, wearing dresses all living together in some sort of dormitory - yeah! Sexy! Sneering and smirking while fighting - Excellent! Looking all savage and cool while vaulting on top of a car and catching two guns and then posing and shooting - How could it get better? It's not like I demand seeing his naked body, though I wouldn't say no. Just one kiss - no licking action like in stupid chick flicks. I hear you thinking "But he's a monk. A MONK!" Hmmph. Fine.

Fights okay, but as usual in U.S. films they cut too often and too fast. Wire scenes good and funny. Nazis - v. evil, could be sexier esp. in young Nazi - why the bad hair? Must remember to tell director to go read some Donna Barr cartoons next time. Mr. Funktastic - good, very funny incomprehensible british slang. Stifler (sorry famous actor dude, I will never know your name, you are Stifler forever) was quite good, cute if you like smirking. Smurfette girl also cute in a pouty yet strangely wholesome way. I hope she gets more fight scenes. Evil Amnazi International girl oozed villainy, can't wait to see her fight too.

enough, though I must say also while I'm on the subject that I liked Romeo Must Die and that other Jet Li movie that just came out. And what did Romeo Must Die lack? Did Jet Li get some hot moments with Aaliyah? Noooo.... the barest minimum of romantic tension. Kirk and Spock have had more romantic moments together. In the other movie Jet Li didn't even get a potential mate. again, hmmph.

take it backI take it

take it back

I take it back, I do have something to say about the war today.

"The war? What war? Isn't that all over? That's so... last Monday!"

Uh, yeah. U.S. military tries to keep media from covering anti-american protests in Baghdad I have been monitoring Google News, which started out being pretty good a couple of months ago. Now they seem to be collapsing the news a bit too much, so that on any one day, there are very few news threads, and it's easy for this kind of article to get lost in the shuffle. It seems clear that U.S. military didn't expect this outcome - what, no Stalingrad? - and aren't prepared for the actual occupation of the country.

It is really odd to me that people expect war to attack so precisely and be over quickly and neatly. As if you can just rebuild some kind of social contract so quickly after bombing, burning, years of people distrusting the government, the new police you call to service being the same guys as the old police. How can this be a quick, neat, and ethical process? As if war is fair? The whole thing stinks. Any war or revolution I've ever read about has been this way, whether the war is just or not.

pukebarDid not realize till just

pukebar

Did not realize till just now that the word "pukebar" is a word invented by L. and her friend from elementary school. Dang it. Maybe we should go register it as new urban slang on some web site. Because I just searched it and... no pukebar, at least not in our sense of the word...

It's a good thing to call someone: You pukebar! As L. seems to, I picture it as looking disgusting like a granola bar but made of chunky vomit. The one I picture has a marshmallowy layer as well and possibly a chocolate coating. The marshmallow adds revoltingness, and the chocolate makes it all much more ironic, because the rest of it is so disgusting.

It can also be an adjective or general exclamation of disgust, a useful synonym for "Grody".

I have nothing to say about the war today. Am still strangely obsessed with wondering about Salam Pax. It doesn't make any sense to worry about the fate of one person who I don't know, because I basically read their diary for a few months, but there it is: I worry about him, maybe because he's the only person I know enough to care about over there. I worry about everyone else too.

In general I am waiting for more shoes to drop. Am sure that my heavy-footed upstairs neighbor is an octopus. With lots of shoes. We're not going to know what the hell is going on until 10 years from now, or maybe later.

In one nostril and out

In one nostril and out the other

Okay, for many many years I have been squirting warm salt water up my nose with one of those $1.99 infant nose cleaner things you get in the drugstore... Yes, it's disgusting, but it's great when you have sinus problems.

I'll tell you right now that when the water comes out the OTHER nostril it's a very strange feeling and sort of surreal. It is also good if the water goes down the back of your throat - this is hard to achieve somehow, like I must be in some Zen Sinus state of mind. It feels like having a really bad nosebleed, but in a good way.

I never in a million years thought that 1) people would sell a special fancyass expensive thing to do this and 2) someone would attempt to look all sexy while doing it. And don't miss the streaming video of this strangely healthy and wholesome woman using the device, which looks like an evil cross between a watering can and a g-spot hitting junior dildo.

Ewwww! A more realistic picture would be me crouched over the sink, redfaced, hawking, and sneezing, with snot and salt water all over my face. Come on! Who could possibly look all poised and coiffed while having diluted snot pour out of their nose???

I know I seem overly obsessed, but... I wish I could have my sinuses surgically removed. How do you remove a hole in your own skull?
Strangely, this hilarious trend makes my day... What next? What frontiers of disgusting personal hygiene will advertising and marketing hit next?

Actually I can think of some really gross ones... Hmm! I'll make a MILLION DOLLARS with my... no, I just can't do it, I've already lost you on the bit about the nosebleed.

good article on gender in

good article on gender in games

Genderplay: Successes and Failures in Character Designs for Videogames by jane

Review of this article in a bit...

Gaythenids? Les Getheneres?Trying to decide

Gaythenids? Les Getheneres?

Trying to decide on name for silly parody of Monique Wittig's Les Guérilleres as if all the women were instead Perverts on Gethen (planet of the Left Hand of Darkness) and have the names of various science fiction writers and characters.

I was trying to make it not women against men but gender deconstructors against gender essentializers. But some of it ended up gender-wars anyway, with Podkayne of Mars ripping apart Heinlen and Arkady totally pissing all over Asimov. Mainly because I could not resist that image and also having Nurse Chapel kick Spock's ass. I put Gwyneth Jones and Samuel Delany doing the lambada around a campfire after the big maenid scene and I think Suzy McKee Charnas was eating roast haunch of Stanislaw Lem. Something like that...

Screw pulling my punches... ya know? Why not just go all out with the silliness!

Political news and war news is very hard to keep up with - I'm still doing it, but am worn to a frazzle.

Took M. to see horses at the Webb Ranch. I was trying to find a place to sign up for a couple of riding lessons for me and L. First Menlo Circus. Nooooo... way fancy and one must be a member. Then some bunch of stables that were VERY fancy - the ones you can see from 280 and Alpine Rd. Little kids come trotting up to the totally Barbie dream stables where I think Brenda Breyer must keep her spare horses - everything painted white and green and sparkly clean.

Horses wearing bright green velcro blankets stick their heads out of minty fresh stalls, nickering gently. Little blond kids wearing fancy chaps and two hundred dollar riding boots swing off giant shining arabian monsters named Aladdin (just like that stripper!) and Destiny (just like another stripper I once knew!) and then the kids walk away and get a coke and wait for their mom's SUV and meanwhile Juan and Jose, no habla ingles, come and tend the giant horse, whisk its tack off of it, polish it to a newly high sheen. Mira esta chica payasa... que pelo! I try to look like I'm not listening. I watch them OIL ITS HOOVES. Thought they only did that for fancy shows?

Ya know, when I took riding lessons we had to clean the horses ourselves... isn't that part of it? *boggle* It's nice that José has a job. But the kids looked like total snotwads.

We finally got to the Webb Ranch, which was all scuzzy, stables everywhere in varying degrees of decrepitude, riding lessons in progress everywhere, giant crowds of 10 year old girls milling around and fighting over who gets which horse. M. and I watched a riding lesson. The little "office" smelled of wet horse and moldy saddle blankets and leather and saddle soap - just like "Mi Rancho" where I used to take lessons with Pam and bring our pleasantly butchy teacher these kind of pathetic little pencil drawings of horses with long flowing manes.

There were signs up on all the falling-apart stables "Maintained by Julio", "Maintained by Nestor". I guess here the kids brush the horses and they pay guys to muck out the stalls... however, they apparently don't pay them to LICK EVERYTHING CLEAN like that freakish other place - I think it was called Clarendon or Clareton Ranch. Man! I still can't get over how fancy it was! Did not know that horse stable could look so much like some kind of theme restaurant in Disneyland.

Am a bit concerned over brushing the horse. Will it be like that time I touched the chickens? Will my eyes swell up from allergies so bad I won't even be able to move? Maybe can find Julio or Nestor, or some little kid, and slip them a 5 to do it for me... Arrr matey!

M. scared of the horses. They are humonguous, and roll their eyes so you see the whites, and bare their huge yellowy teeth, and you can see up their slimy nostrils, and greenish grassy slobber comes drooling out of their mouths around the bit. I hope he does not have nightmares. I think he would be more into a "My Pretty Pony" sort of horse that was about 2 feet high.

noteSort of fixed comments, but

note

Sort of fixed comments, but where are archives? Grrrr!

Meanwhile back at the ranchAside

Meanwhile back at the ranch

Aside from all that, tonight was delightful as we wore scarves and bandanas down the back of our pants for tails, and pretended to be:

1. Mice. "Scurry, scurry, squeak, squeak, I'm on my wheel, I'm upside down"
2. Fish. "Wiggle wiggle, swim swim." (we all shake our butts)
3. Camels. (clomp around heavily on all fours, saying "Humph" in a Kipling-ish way)
4. Giraffes. (set up pile of pillows, nibble from top of trees, say "I'm very tall. I have spots.")
5. Kangaroos. (Stuff burrowing owl, reindeer, and manta ray in front of pants, say "Look, I have a joey in my pouch" and hop around. "Boing boing boing". Nearly choke from suppressed laughter at kid with burrowing owl stuffed animal sticking obscenely out of his pants)
6. Walruses. "My name is Walpole." "I'll be the baby walrus. Help, save me from polar bears!" "Grrrr, polar bears, go in your cage. Be a nice polar bear Auntie Wawa. Come back here on the ice." (adopt noble "Walpole the Walrus" stance with chest stuck out proudly - same as Bambi on the cliff)
7. Whales. (Breach, flopping heavily down onto the bed. Make spouting noise. Fluke your feet. Sing "Baby Beluga")

I think there were more, but I can't remember. My face still hurts from the pain of laughing too hard at the whole "joey in the pouch" thing. What will happen tomorrow in school when he stuffs animals down his pants and starts hopping around?

So much for my jackboots, and L.'s dignity. Anyone who ever thought either one of us had any dignity, just amuse yourself right now by imagining how damned silly we looked while pretending to be breaching whales. You don't have to imagine j. losing his dignity because he never had any...

p.s. in down time, read Keeping it Quiet, Richard Hull, and The Red Redmaynes, Eden Phillpotts, both in that Dover books detective novel series. After about 10pm I get to read whatever - no more school stuff or war stuff, must try to quiet down the brain.

Feminazi on the ragLove how

Feminazi on the rag

Love how we've declared the war is over and now whatever fighting and killing and bombing happens is "a postwar phase of enforcing security".

Tonight I boldly put my foot in my mouth in class, trying to explain in my presentation how Oxherding Tales was like all postmodern and stuff, in every way possible except in deconstructing gender and sexuality. I got in some puns but forgot the one about "Oxherding Tales - it's a lot of bull". Heh. Also wanted to tell "feminist joke" ie, "Q: How many feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb? A: That's not funny!" But resisted.

What actually happened was, I somewhat incoherently pointed out some stuff about postmodernist theory - then went right into the "Undermining the Earthwoman" thing, which was so tenative! So full of qualifying statements ! I tried to be so carefully talking about gender without being a big asshole! But no. It did no good. I might as well have burned my bra, shit on the flag, mom, and apple pie, and worn my biggest and shiniest feminazi jackboots for all the good that did. Wow!

It was like I had tossed a bomb into the room. Except, a very poorly made bomb made of like, nails and duct tape, and badly aimed. Oh well!

I liked when that one guy J. said that he saw a lot of good things about the character of "Minty" - the black woman who, as I pointed out, distintegrates as a sort of sacrificial symbol so that the other people in the story have a happy ending --- Anyway when he said "I see a lot of good things about her, she's oppressed and enslaved but also very free because she knows how to cook and clean..." I kinda lost it and shrieked "Oh yeah, I always feel REALLY free and liberated when I'm cooking and cleaning!" Uh, oops! Hey, not to mention that she was cooking and cleaning and mopping while she was dying of pellagra right after years of gang rape and getting whipped and beat up and starved, and she only got to experience this great freedom for about a week before dissolving into a sort of earthy puddle of her own body fluids and dying! You know, how true and heart wrenching! What a noble sacrifice! She got to be really FREE by dying! Do other people lack cynicism or what? This all confirms my feeling that the "postmodern irony" in Oxherding Tales is slathered on so thick that it becomes cutesy and damned meaningless. Hrmph, am tempted to quit pulling my punches, should have said what I think, which is that Oxherding Tales was not just irritating, it was as pretentious a piece of smug, masturbatory academic "fiction" as I've ever seen! (I stick out my tongue at everyone).

I'll never make a good academic...

It didn't help that I went and looked at Middle Passage too and found it even worse. By page 2 I was gnashing my teeth and ranting about all the breasts like melons and hauntingly sexy women and the main char, who has basically the same voice as the guy in O.T., walking around with a big ironic postmodern woody all the time. Ah, how delightful! Or was that ironic? Can't stand it when people use the word "randy"... Then the fun really started with our fat, pudgy, non-makeup-wearing bluestocking uplift Iola Leroy mockery... Don't even get me started on this one... My tenative question of "was Johnson engaged in some kind of backlash against feminism and particularly against black women writers" became a much more definite suspicion!

Grrrrr. Am in ranting mode -- should never drink coffee at 3pm.

Other pun I flubbed the chance of: "If you're going to deconstruct gender and sexuality, you have to go all the way."

original and ambitious, but not

original and ambitious, but not well organized

My prof's excellent comments on my embarrassingly mediocre paper on Dr. Seuss could pretty much apply to everything I do and to my whole life. Something like "original and ambitious, but not always well organized or thought out".

Next time I will give myself an extra week to mull it over after "finishing" it, and at least one whole day to re-write and proofread... Arrrr matey!

It is hard to be older and to care more on a sort of professional level about
it as representative of my writing - rather than just going "oh, well,
it's a paper, i can just toss off a paper in a few hours and no one will
ever see it again". 15 years ago I was not only a "write the paper the night before" kind of girl, but "the night before" was always actually the night before my 2-semesters ago incomplete was about to expire. So it felt like a miracle of hard work and organization that I had this paper done on time.

But I am NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH. Not when it actually seems to count for something.

Am still suffering from "former child prodigy" disease. Not to mention the "narcissistic wounding" thing. I repeat, ARRRR, matey!

Sent final edits back and forth for that journal, on my translation, which I am equally dissatisfied with as that GE&H paper. I give it an A for inspiration and originality and general genius-like-ness, but a B- on really following through, fact checking, etc. Having my stuff be out there fills me with fear! (Unusual for me) Dumb things I write will come back and haunt me! And I begin to see or imagine how the typos in my friend w.'s big book of translations must haunt him and torment him constantly.

mating habits of squidReading Kingdom

mating habits of squid

Reading Kingdom of the Octopus - a popular science book from 1960. It starts with Aristotle, rapidly moves on to Victor Hugo and the fashionable octopus hats of the French seaside in the 1860s, and then, on a book by Henry Lee:

Lee was the Naturalist at the Brighton Aquarium in England, and octopuses were the passion of his life. I doubt if anyone has known the octopus more intimately than Lee, who has rightly been called "the Boswell of the Octopus".

Ah, if only I could be called "The Boswell of the Octopus" ! Or something equally damn cool. Okay, okay, fine, it's cool ONLY TO ME. Hmmph. Anyway, this book is ultimately soothing, late at night. Full of anecdotes of octopuses escaping, squeezing into tiny spaces, mating, phosphorescing, and squirting clouds of ink.

I also wish that I had chromatophores. Like a cuttlefish.

P.S. We're fucking going to invade Syria. I can't believe it. I keep singing the Tom Lehrer song "Who's Next" in my head. I wrote in a poem lately "My eyes have been defiled by the future of my country". Does it have to keep coming true? I can't soothe myself with cephalopods for very long, that's for sure.

stoned hippie literary theorists, playing

stoned hippie literary theorists, playing with shadows

Well, if I wait until I fix the template problem, I'll be waiting a long time. Ditto with installing Moveable Type on my own server - I am too busy!

Tonight, reading the rest of S/Z. It has so many goofy/confusing/pretentious bits - but when I plow right through I find I am really enjoying it. I often disagree with the specific interpretations Barthes is making - for example on p. 53 in the paperback I have, "starring"

(66) muttering some unintelligible words. His worn-out voice was like the sound made by a stone falling down a well. * The noise of a stone falling down a well is not a "worn-out sound"; however, the chain of connotation of the sentence is more important than the exactitude of the simile; this chain links the following elements: the inanimate inertia of the stone, the sepulchral depth of the well, the discontinuity of the aged voice, antinomic to the perfect, unified, "lubricated" voice: the signified is the "thing", artificial and creaky as a machine (SEM. Mechanicalness).

In case you are reading this and saying "What the fuck" -- you're not alone. B. is taking apart this story bit by bit - not even sentence by sentence but in arbitrary pieces - and just riffing off the meanings in there. "Analysis", sure, but it seems more like the spaced-out, stoned jamming of the Grateful Dead, if each little piece of the story is a theme that they play a whole song on. So, if you see it that way, and don't obsess on understanding everything Barthes says, it's fun.

Just one little quibble of many, but I see no mechanical sound and no chain here (though I am swayed a bit by this chain and see it when Barthes describes it). The voice and the stone falling down the well are the fear of age and death - mortality- the descent to the underworld - the exposure of depth to our unwilling consciousness - possibilities narrowing - a trap with no escape possible.

Also got a translation of de Ibar. accepted by a literary journal - yay. Tonight must send them my revisions. I am suddenly embarrassed and anxious that my intro to the poem is longer than the actual poem. Went over that damned intro and took out about 10 instances of the word "I" and all its baggage. That is what this blog is for... the "I think this and I think that". Eh?

Aside from all that, I cleaned out the garage with L., played "animal circus" with blocks and cardboard box trains and of course animals, swordfighting, playdoh, clues, sneaking. Jumping on each others' shadows and making shadow bunny ears and antlers after we looked at the pigeon's nest on top of the lantern at the British Bankers' Club.

blogspot problems ongoingNow my

blogspot problems ongoing

Now my archives disappeared. Hmm. Maybe time to go set up Movable Type somewhere else! We'll see.

wordlessAm wordless lately from stuff

wordless

Am wordless lately from stuff like this stuff on the Project for the New American Century.

Bio weapons the U.S. sold

Bio weapons the U.S. sold to Iraq in the 80s

Here's a link to the Riegle report on germ war junk the U.S. shipped to Iraq in the mid-80s.

Ugh! I have been reading the whole really long report. Why don't people know this? Okay, they don't know much of anything. But still.

I swear I didn't

I swear I didn't do it!

Okay, why is my template suddenly a bunch of tacky looking fruit?

Grrrr! I didn't do that!

Ah, I see now, blogspot had some error -- supposedly they are fixing it.

Stinky diaper-face poo-poo head haters

Stinky diaper-face poo-poo head haters of the world, unite!

M. nearly the only thing that cheers me up lately. His polite chirpy little voice saying "Excuse me, Mr. Mama, I want a cuppa juice please." Then shows me the latest tinkertoy creation of genius, usually a duck or an elephant, and makes me kiss it. What could be sweeter? Sure, in 10 years he could turn all surly on me, and everyone makes dire predictions about how soon he won't want me to even kiss him because he will be afraid it is un-boyish or something. I scoff at this one. Could it be possible? I say no!

He got picked on by some tall 4 year old on the playground at school. In the car on the way home I explained to him how it's best to go and find some other nicer people to play with, kids who don't hit him. He seemed to chew on this for a while. "Max pushed you and hit you. That was mean! And you told him "Don't hit me!"" "And he made me MAD!" M. answered. "Yeah, mad!" "He's naughty!"

I thought of how the teacher told me this kid says M. can't play because he's a little baby (he's quite short). Grrr. "You can tell him next time, if he hits you, Hey! Don't hit me, you stinky poo-poo head!" M. cracked up and repeated this phrase about 40 times.

What have I done? Heh.

L. points out that our mom had no advice other than a) ignore it and b) tell them they're idiots. Like me and L., he is probably just doomed to be picked on. I worry that this 'picking on' might actually be worse for boys because they seem to attack each other - at least I've had many a boy geek weep on my shoulder about those terrifying locker room beatings, or the moment when they realized they were being forced into a fight, with a hyena-like circle of other kids trapping them in a ring and chanting "fight, fight, fight".

My mom keeps saying over and over how I have to enroll M. in karate classes, but I had thought that was just out of some odd desire of hers to make him seem more Asian, like when she kept talking about how he was going to look just like Keanu Reeves? i.e. because she is still at heart uncomfortable because of her own racism, so she tries to prove how un-racist she is by gushing about the cuteness of Keanu, and saying how keen it would be if he does some sort of martial art?

Actually I couldn't figure out what her deal was. Just another inexplicable obsession, like, she must talk at me for like 5 years about how I need a spice rack and should buy only Bounty paper towels, until I finally cave and set one up especially for her visit so that she will shut up? Is the karate thing going to be like that -- I just claim that he's in karate and photoshop him into one of those kung-fu outfits to prove it? 8-) Anyway, my thought now is, maybe she is afraid for him because he's so tiny and thus the whole kung-fu thing. But yesterday I found myself thinking all day, "Hmm, karate. But would I be thinking this if he were a girl? "

It's puzzling.

Really, being short and odd is a blessing as well as a curse... I think I will focus on teaching him avoidance of bullies rather than mouthing off to them. At least for now. Sarcasm lessons can come later, in kindergarten.