Wide-Awake City

The Waking (A little morning Roethke)

2010-07-22T07:59:00.000-06:00

As I'm procrastinating going to work this morning, some of my old favorites are coming to mind. This is one of the first poems that I remember remembering. If that makes sense...

The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

-Theodore Roethke

The library, a reacquaintance

2010-05-26T21:54:00.000-06:00

A friend recently gave me a list of poets. He didn't annotate or explain. I guessed I should read them.
I then spent a happy hour getting reacquainted with the downtown KCMO library. Some certain hours in the library are worth more than a whole day of whatever it is that I usually do. Do you know what I mean? It had been awhile, but now that my fine is again under the boundaries of good graces, the KCMO library and I are back on friendly terms. So I found several of the suggested poets, along with others, and some handy books about landscaping, etc. which also came home with me.

So. Two poems. One from Stephen Dunn (recommended by said friend; not sarcastic, not bitter, but pleasantly in the neighborhood-- seriously this guy is amazing)- this poem reminds me of the concept of Acedia and Kathleen Norris' "Acedia and Me." And then one from Heather McHugh (happy accident find; her wordplay and rhythm are so satisfying!).

P.S. I'm not working this summer, so be warned -- I may be chatty in the weeks to come...

      ******************************************************************************
Zero Hour
It was the hour of simply nothing,
not a single desire in my western heart,
and no ancient system
of breathing and postures,
no big idea justifying what I felt.

There was even an absence of despair.

"Anything goes," I said to myself.
All the clocks were high. Above them,
hundreds of stars flickering if, if, if.
Everywhere in the universe, it seemed,
some next thing was gathering itself.

I started to feel something,
but it was nothing more than a moment
passing into another, or was it less
eloquent than that, purely muscular,
some meaningless twitch?

I'd let someone else make it rhyme.
                                           -Stephen Dunn

Message at Sunset for Bishop Berkeley

How could nothing turn so gold?
You say my eyelid shuts the sky;
in solid dark I see stars
as perforations, loneliness
as blues, what isn't
as a heavy weight, what is
as nothing if it's not ephemeral.

But still the winter world
could turn your corneas to ice.
Let sense be made. The summer sun
will drive its splinters straight
into your brain. Let sense be made.
I'm saying vision isn't insight,
buried at last in the first
person's eye. You

should see it: the sky
is really something.

                                      -Heather McHugh

"Poems from the Japanese"

2010-04-18T18:00:00.001-06:00

A guy named Kenneth Rexroth translated a whole slew of short poems from Japanese in his cleverly titled book, "One Hundred Poems from the Japanese."

I love how much these writers crammed into a few words. Lots of talk of memory, waiting, changing seasons, and of course, nature images. Spring ties all these things together -- how do the trees remember what to do? What would we do without the seasons to mark the time?

Here are a few good ones:

In the eternal
Light of the spring day
The flowers fall away
Like the unquiet heart
-Ki No Tomonori

You say, "I will come."
And you do not come.
Now you say, "I will not come."
So I shall expect you.
Have I learned to understand you?
-Lady Otomo no Sakanoe

When I see the first
New moon, faint in the twilight,
I think of the moth eyebrows
Of a girl I saw only once.
-Yakamochi

I have always known
That at last I would
Take this road, but yesterday
I did not know that it would be today.
-Narihira

Poems on Good Friday

2010-04-02T23:04:00.009-06:00

Poems for Lent and Good Friday-- one from me, one from Christina Rossetti. Enjoy. Or rather, dismay; it is Good Friday, after all.

The dash from ash to Easter light

Lord, God-thing,
conch shell ear of the earth,
needle eye of the sky,
it is winter--

Weaknesses and ashiness
are petrifying
nuggets of hard resentment
kidney stones of heavy lead
and we are yelling, we are waving our arms.

We the little people
sign of the cross
on our every organ
eucharist crumbs
stuck between our teeth

We carry things.
We hurl them at You
with great grunting.
They plunk into the separation sea.

We hope the ripples
reach you.

We carry winter with us
freezing with our arms full
but reluctant to release.

We will clench our teeth tight
We will carve our wills
We will keep raising our eyes.

Good Friday– by Christina G. Rossetti

Am I a stone, and not a sheep,
That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross,
To number drop by drop Thy Blood’s slow loss,
And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved
Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee;
Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly;
Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon
Which hid their faces in a starless sky.
A horror of great darkness at broad noon –
I, only I.
Yet give not o’er
But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock;
Greater than Moses, turn and look once more
And smite a rock.

Starting Clean

2010-02-21T08:43:00.000-06:00

It's start-over day!

This blog is going through a transformation. Same address, new plan. From here on out, I'm going to use it to post (mostly) poems. Usually other people's poems, maybe sometimes mine, maybe sometimes some other wordy things or facts or lists. (For example, look for "Your favorite word that rhymes with ___________" posts.)

The new title comes from an Annie Dillard essay. I love Annie Dillard, and I think she is one of the most wide-awake-sounding authors I've ever read. Her powers of observation sometimes make me feel like my eyes aren't even open.

This line comes from an essay called "Total Eclipse" in Teaching a Stone to Talk. In it, she and her husband are going to great lengths to get a good view of an eclipse, including driving five hours through the mountains where an avalanche had just happened, and hiking up a hill on a very cold morning. It was actually February 26, 1979, in the same month that I was born.

After describing the eclipse in apocalyptic words and colors, she writes this:

We teach our children one thing only, as we were taught: to wake up. We teach our children to look alive there, to join by words and activities the life of human culture on the planet's crust. As adults we are almost all adept at waking up. We have so mastered the transition we have forgotten we ever learned it. yet it is a transition we make a hundred times a day, as, like so many will-less dolphins, we plunge and surface, lapse and emerge. We live half our waking lives and all of our sleeping lives in some private, useless, and insensible waters we never mention or recall. Useless, I say. Valueless, I might add- until someone hauls their wealth up to the surface and into the wide-awake city, in a form that people can use.

Hope you like it.

31 of 30: I'm 31, and this is the End of This.

2010-02-04T21:08:00.005-06:00

For my birthday, I gave myself a present: absolution! I'm free!

I didn't finish my blog!

It's ok!

Better luck next time!

Sometimes you don't finish stuff!

You can move on and do something else!

Sure I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't manage to post 30 days in a row like I originally hoped (see this time last year). Or even 30 times in one year (that's once every 12.17 days). Sure the feelings of guilt and inadequacy stacked up and started to feel like a not nice person staring over your shoulder. But that was then. Now I'm 31, and I'm way too old for that junk.

So. This is the last post on I Grr, You Grr, Uyghur as you know it. Next time you check back, this will be a whole new deal. Fresh start. (But same address.) The new blog will be a poetry blog. It's kinda an obvious choice- I hope that means it's the right choice. I hope to entice you with examples of brevity, wordiness, alliteration, assonance, outlandish facts about poets, and maybe some palindromes if you're lucky (a man, a plan, a canal, panama!). The new name is not yet decided. You'll have to wait and see.

Here's to absolution! Try it, it's nice!

20 of 30: We apologize...

2010-01-26T17:40:00.006-06:00

Found on the walls of a local educational institution, which shall remain nameless, was the following printed sign:

"Attention

The Staff of Student Affairs will be leaving today at 4:00 pm,

and will return on Jan. 25, at 8:30 am.

We apologize for any incontinence this may have caused."

19 of 30: Edna!

2010-01-24T18:50:00.002-06:00

Today I'd like to share a couple of gems from Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950). The woman had a pretty terrible name, but made up for it by being a fantastic wordsmith. The first, infortunately, is a bit too close to the truth of my life. The second seems appropriate, following the meeting of my book club this weekend, in which really fantastic chicas unabashedly go gaga over books.

Grown Up
Was it for this I uttered prayers,
And sobbed and cursed and kicked the stairs,
That now, domestic as a plate,
I should retire at half-past eight?

from The Cairn
Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
"What a big book for such a little head!"
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and *prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone and you may whistle for me.

* no, that is not a typo. she really wrote 'prink.' i had to look this one up...
prink - (v) To adorn (oneself) in a showy manner. To dress or groom oneself with elaborate care or vanity; primp.

18 of 30: Angela Davis

2010-01-23T18:49:00.003-06:00

I went to UMKC last night to hear the fiery Angela Davis, activist, professor, and author, give this year's MLK keynote address. Pretty fantastic. I loved her ideas about the expanding boundaries of "freedom," collective historical memory, that our memories can be wrong. That history may seem to be spurred on by a short list of individuals (i.e. MLK), but it often starts with legions of regular brave people (i.e., black women who collectively didn't take the bus) who make it possible for these leaders to get any traction. That freedom "is not a state for which we yearn," but is an ongoing pursuit that involves every area of life: legal, financial, physical, relational, etc etc. I can see how she has been an incendiary figure at times. Quite inspirational, in terms of doing small, important work daily for big goals.

Also, I learned that the slave uprising in Haiti (1791-1803) was the only one to ever actually succeed. Timely info indeed.

Also, she has awesome hair.
Observe:
"Back in the Day":

"These days":
Thanks, Dr. Davis.

17 of 30: Books vs. TV

2010-01-21T21:57:00.007-06:00

I don't really get into tv. Never really did. I have lived in my house for a good 6 months and have turned the tv on exactly twice. Maybe it's because I didn't watch all that much when I was younger -- the Bridges actually had a "ticket system." My parents bought tickets - as in the carnival/raffle tickets - and we only got so many every week. One ticket = half an hour. You watch a show, you put the appropriate number of tickets in the box. No more tickets, no more tv. Done deal. For books, no such penalty was assessed and no such control was taken. So I like to read.

Today a friend asked me why books are "so much better than tv" and elevated in some way. By this, he meant "why are you so snobby about tv?" So now I have to think about it. Here's what I've come up with so far. Should I give tv a try? Please send me your thoughts...

First, books:

Pros:

Books leave much to imagination.
Books must be read in intervals, leaving time for me to process and be absorbed by the story.
Because of the time investment, a feeling of accomplishment usually follows finishing a book.
Connect with one writer despite time/space separation
Books look good on shelves.
You get to nerd out about things like a really well put-together sentence.

Cons:

Take forever to finish
A big investment, so if you end up not really liking it, you "lost" hours and hours
Can't be a social event; at least not while reading. (Eh, this is actually debatable. But it's not like those parties of people watching the latest Lost episode.)

Next, TV...

Pros:

A TV show is short- you can finish the experience in less than an hour. Instant gratification is nice.
A TV show is short - if you didn't like it, you didn't lose that much time.
More senses involved in watching tv.
TV can be a social event.
You can talk with all those other people who watch "that show," whatever it is, so you don't turn irrelevant when the conversation (inevitably) turns to tv.

Cons:

Addictive. People's hours and days get swallowed up, barely noticed.
Here and then gone. Doesn't leave time for processing along the way.
So overwhelming! Where to start? Which of the 3792 tv shows is worth the while?
A nice tv is really expensive. A book can be cheap, or free.

That's where we stand for the moment. I know I know, this doesn't need to be an either/or debate. I'm just fascinated by all this love for something that I can't get into. Am I shorting myself of pleasure and culture galore? Let's be honest- I'll probably stick with books. But f you want to sway me, ask me over for a viewing party and I'll consider.

P.S. Yup, this means I want to finish my "30 posts," which were supposed to coincide with the 30 days after my birthday. The new goal: finish before my next birthday. Time remaining: 13 days.

16 of 30: wish list

2009-12-13T15:31:00.007-06:00

Wish List

come like knowledge
come like a thing with edges
come down a long path
leave tracks
and a shadow.

come at the time
we didn't know was the right time.
come like the sign of the cross-
we know what to do.

come with texture, color, line
come like architecture
slice the air into meaningful parts.

be the clear thing that you are
and be it to me
or
be the clear thing
then be eyes for me to see it.

15 of 30: patient delicious

2009-02-28T10:17:00.007-06:00

Last night, Michaela and I stayed in. We spent over 2 hours cooking dinner. That's because we made our own pasta for ravioli, and then filled them with our (quite tweaked) version of this: sweet potato carrot ginger curry filling. Boiled them. Baked them. Ate them with steamed brussel sprouts and a salad. Ate them while sitting on the couch tucked into blankets, in an official condition called "ultimate comfort." My oh my. I always love a high-maintenance dinner, but I'm sometimes too lazy to put in the necessary work and patience. Fortunately, there are folks around me who won't let me get off so easily. A long slow dinner is always the right idea. Cheers.

14 of 30: Proud

2009-02-28T09:59:00.003-06:00

Yesterday afternoon, Kansas Senator Sam Brownback visited my school, Donnelly College. He was there to hold a press conference about a nice chunk of change we have received ($223,000!) in a grant for our Lansing campus. We are one of only two schools in Kansas and just a handful nationwide who offer for-credit classes an a correctional institution. Turns out, getting some education while being in jail has a significant effect on recidivism rates. So in case you find yourself in Lansing, just know that it's not too late to earn your Associate's degree. (And if you're really lucky, maybe you'll have some Gitmo hand-me-downs for your neighbors. Imagine, my co-workers teaching "terrorists" some basic math or business skills...)

13 of 30: A Wrinkle in...

2009-02-23T22:59:00.001-06:00

I just (finally) finished a book a college friend lent to me over New Years:

Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle.
This was a delicious book. Because it is about faith, freedom, and creativity -- and how maybe they are kinda sorta the same thing. Because it is about "art," but also making creative choices, the gumption to do the thing you know you need/want to do, regardless of what makes a whole lot of sense.

Blips:

Freedom is a terrible gift, and the theory behind all dictatorships is that “the people” do not want freedom. They want bread and circuses. They want workman’s compensation and fringe benefits and TV. Give up your free will, give up your freedom to make choices, listen to the expert, and you will have three cars in your garage, steak on the table, and you will no longer have to suffer the agony of choice.

Over and over again throughout the centuries we have made choices which were meant to free us, but which ultimately have limited and restricted us. But the artist has retained some of the freedom we have lost in the industrial dailiness of our living.

We live under the delusion that if we can acquire control, we can understand God, or we can write the great American novel. But the only way we can brush against the hem of the Lord, or hope to be part of the creative process, is to have the courage, the faith, to abandon control.

12 of 30: no-more-face

2009-02-23T22:51:00.004-06:00

Saturday Night:
Went out.
Danced my face off.
Here's why:
Hearts of Darkness Afro-beat.
Plus it was a pre-Mardi Gras fest.
There are, I believe, 17 of them.
There were outfits, and horse heads, and sparkles.
The end.

11 of 30

2009-02-18T21:55:00.002-06:00

James Homer Bridges, 1925-2009

You were loved.

10 in 30: Rilke*

2009-02-16T22:22:00.006-06:00

Rilke, from the Book of Hours:

I am too alone in the world,
and yet not alone enough
to make every hour holy.
I am too small in the world, and yet not tiny enough
just to stand before you like a thing,
dark and shrewd.
I want my will, and I want to be with my will
as it moves towards deed;
and in those quiet, somehow hesitating times,
when something is approaching,
I want to be with those who are wise
or else alone.
I want always to be a mirror that reflects your whole being,
and never to be too blind or too old
to hold your heavy, swaying image.
I want to unfold.
Nowhere do I want to remain folded,
because where I am bent and folded, there I am a lie.
And I want my meaning
true for you. I want to describe myself
like a painting that I studied
closely for a long, long time,
like a word I finally understood,
like the pitcher of water I use every day ,
like the face of my mother,
like a ship
that carried me
through the deadliest storm of all.

* No, 30 does not have to be consecutive days. I get to make up the rules. So hold your horses, I'm working on it. But I am working on it!

9 in 30: Towed

2009-02-13T06:27:00.002-06:00

Whatever you do, don't park on the south side of Willies at 15th and Grand. You will get towed and it will cost you $205 for them to bring your car right back to you while you go back to Czar Bar and wait with your friends. That is all.

8 of 30: Person(al) Inventory

2009-02-11T23:15:00.004-06:00

30 people (of the many) who I never talk to but will never forget:
(don't feel obligated to take it all in; it was done for the doing. do consider making a similar list.)

1. Josh Wickler, 1st best friend
2. Einalee Painter, sunday school teacher
3. Theron, 1st crush
4. Mrs. Cawood, 3rd and 5th grade teacher who had to break up some girl fights
5. Karen LaFasso, missionary to Papua New Guinnea
6. Mr. Pearson, eccentric Communications teacher
7. Andrew, super-nerdy kid I loved to talk to on the bus, usually about fractals, I think
8. Melissa, girl in neighborhood who wouldn't let me play on her gymnastics equipment in her basement
9. Madame Black, French teacher
10. Old Bible study crew - Boyers, Klayders, Iliffs
11. Hugheses, family friends with awesome children and killer lakehouse where I learned to water ski
12. Nathan, high school friend with whom I traded philosophical/religious banter and debate
13. Mrs. Lucas, English teacher who introduced me to the world of literature
14. Kirk, amazing random man I met at a homeless shelter who had been traveling the country for years just to see what the cities were like
15. Claire, girl in French class who was beautiful, quirky, and fun to talk to
16. James, friend who I wasn't allowed to go with to prom because he wasn't a Christian
17. Ryan, 1st kiss
18. Dirk Speilhagen, German boss who had a delightful accent, listened to classical music, and treated me like a human even though I was the only female at the tooling shop where I worked
19. P. Kevin Heath, fantastic writing teacher who induced both discipline and creative juices
20. Kristina, beautiful girl I knew in college who got pregnant, dropped out, had lots of kids and managed to create a beautiful life
21. Katia, Cathy, and Joanna, my introduction to girls who could be both deeply "good" AND deeply off the wall
22. R., my very unfortunate 1st college roommate (no names, just in case...)
23. William and Joanie Brown and kids, young family I lived with in Grenoble, France
24. Michael, friendly German with whom I explored Paris and went to the Louvre
25. The crazy family who runs The Blushing Rose floral shop in Nashua, New Hampshire
26. Meredith, Texas roommate whose laugh still makes me smile when it rings in my ears and always painstakingly cut vegetables in very small pieces
27. Paul Kroeger, grammar teacher at Wycliffe in Dallas who showed me my own deep love for grammar and often used the verb 'to tickle' in example sentences
28. The Mormon boys who became porch friends in Xenia, Ohio
29. Bill, the physician's assistant at the GI doctor's office where I used to work, one of the kindest souls ever
30. Ayubjan, my Tajik roommate in Urumchi, China, who, for study breaks, moved the kitchen table out of the way and cranked up the Tajik music to dance around every single day

7 of 30: Old Stock Ale

2009-02-10T23:39:00.003-06:00

Last night, Maux and I shared #3 of my 4-pack of precious Old Stock Ale. Sis and Bro-in-law got it for me for my b-day and I'm trying to savor it. "Savor," as in it may last 2 weeks. This stuff is an elixir for my soul. Lots of people hate it, but if you are into rich, bitter but sweet, "mahogany" in color beer, I can't recommend it highly enough. Especially if it's chilly out.
Thanks again, Ginnings.

6 of 30

2009-02-08T21:25:00.004-06:00

Prologue:
So my timing is interesting. I decide to go on a 30-long blog-binge, then find myself (not usually too given to public postings of private life) mostly preoccupied with private life, i.e., the end of a relationship.

I may not have much discipline in the getting started of things, but I'm usually pretty good once I get some momentum. So now that I'm 1/5th into this binge, I'm in. I'm doing it.

So I'm in an interesting spot. I can skirt the issues and write about the Grammys or a good recipe or something, or I can just go for it and let you in on what my mind is actually up to. I don't plan on being emotionally self-indulgent every day, but I think I may have to a time or two. Today is one of those times. Let this be a blanket apology for all over-indulgences. It's not like me, but then again, last week, being 30 was not like me, so everything changes. (Let it be noted for future reference, however, that good recipes are by all means fair game.)
End of Prologue.

i.
who is who
shape shifter move maker
soothe sayer blame taker

minus us
things are still whole
minus the us
the shape of things remembers
the sting of things forgets

ii.
snuck a peak
you were tilting your head
rearranging your bed
looking nothing like dead

flew away
need a bird's eye view
there's nothing to undo
may our true selves accrue

5 of 30

2009-02-08T00:32:00.004-06:00

Challenge:
Call someone in your (extended) family who you feel very connected with but hardly ever talk to. Talk to them during a longish drive. See what happens. I did it. We talked for over an hour and a half! After I hung up the phone, I wondered what had taken so long. We managed to mull over so much- my very ill grandfather, the fragility and preciousness of relationships, how our family works and doesn't work, how the world works and doesn't work. It took some fortitude, but it was dense and intense, good for the both of us.

Let me know how it turns out.

4 of 30: Now

2009-02-06T21:58:00.003-06:00

There is a paddy wagon across the street from my house. Not sure what it's all about.

I am going to bed at 10 on a Friday and happy about it.

Just wrapped up a wedding shower for housemate Laurie. The all-female crowd: under-30 (mostly 816ers) plus grey-haired sages (friends from Catholic Worker). A beautiful combo. I did an abysmal job of helping prepare. Not your normal wedding shower - no gifts, just a pot-luck dinner and blessings. Blessings, as in poems read, prayers given, group gestures made, stories shared. Despite my general loathing for occasions like this, this one was good and meaningful. Like an actual ceremony of shared experience and trust, not goo-goo ga-ga about towels and flatware and underwear. Although I admit I could ga-ga about some flatware. But still.

Given the state of the union (read: my life) today, some of this was hard to hear. I kept myself busy cutting bread, finding a soup ladle, trying to disappear. But it was good - Nick and Laurie are on the same page and can function as one thing. This was a decent celebration of them, of giving her some footing. I may not have been the most present and interactive person in the room, but I was watching and it was good.

Now. bedtime.

3 of 30

2009-02-04T22:58:00.004-06:00

Secretaries

I am no more than a secretary of the invisible thing
That is dictated to me and a few others.
Secretaries, mutually unknown, we walk the earth
Without much comprehension. Beginning a phrase in the middle
Or ending it with a comma. And how it all looks when completed
Is not up to us to inquire, we won't read it anyway.

--- Czeslaw Milosz

2 in 30

2009-02-03T15:42:00.008-06:00

So here is 2 in 30, and also late post #1. Surely not the last.

I spent my actual birthday by working, chatting with John, eating dinner at Garozzo's (free spiedini on your birthday!), and then meeting up with our small group.

New Life Resolution #1: No wine.

I am giving up. My body chemistry + wine = a nap. Several times during the last week, I have been rendered useless by a glass or two of wine. No joviality, no wit, no consiousness. It's damaging to my social life and my ego. (Look at Michelle! Her eyes are so droopy! I think they are actually closed... Am I so boring, or does she just have some problem?) It's a shame because I love the stuff, and also because I just invested in a pretty large amount of two-buck-chuck. C'est la vie. I didn't drink wine for the first 22 years of my life, I think I'll be ok.

1 in 30

2009-02-01T20:26:00.005-06:00

My friend Andrea gave me a book*. In the intro, I read this quote:

"We take delight in things; we take delight in being loosed from things. Between these two delights, we must dance our lives."

I had a rough day today. Things were getting to me, things small and things large. Not much reason behind it, just a rough one, the kind that leaves you way too mopey and negative, and therefore unable to deal with people. This quote centered me.

It centered me because of what it actually says, but also the idea of being "between these two delights." In general, I am captivated by opposites that both exist at the same time. Yin and yang I suppose. But finding balance or marriage between them is a concept that brings unity and meaning to my mind. It calms me. My first encounter with the idea of reality (God) embodying all things contradictory was in Chesterton, and it has only grown since. So I made a list:

"Between these two delights..."

things ~ being loosed from things
reason ~ mysticism
alone ~ together
the light ~ the dark
fair ~ generous
feasting pleasure ~ hungry clarity
make ~ analyze
depth ~ width
connection ~ solitude
articulation ~ insinuation
work ~ play
starting something new ~ finishing the job
innocent youth ~ wise age
anticipation ~ surprise
home ~ travel

After having moped enough, I looked over this list. What of all of this is not a delight? The hope is in experiencing all, to all extremes, in due time.

*book=Traveling Light: Journeys in Simplicity by Philip Harnden

30 in 30

2009-02-01T20:21:00.004-06:00

As part of my entering a new decade, I decided to take on a bit of disciplined adventure. I am going to do a few things every day for 30 days. The first of these will be posting something, whatever that may be, on this here blog. Who knows what will show up here. There are no rules other than something, everyday, 30 days. Tomorrow is my birthday, but I'm going to get the ball rolling today. Feel free to join me in this - either in the form of comments or on your own blog - it may be good for all of us.

I'm not so good at discipline, so here goes...

Nerdy Thirty.

2009-02-01T19:52:00.003-06:00

Today is my last day in my twenties. It's been a good decade.
To celebrate, I went to the library.
I do wonder, how many people have a birthday party at the public library?
Well I did. Complete with lemon cupcakes and other delicious snacks, a delightful scavenger hunt (Library Quest 2009), and a trip to the library roof to drink in the unseasonally lovely weather. To the planners and attendees and well-wishers - thank you!

Small Fires

2008-11-30T20:46:00.003-06:00

During the past week, I have
- eaten 5 thanksgiving dinners
- learned how to do sudoku
- learned the basic moves of chess
- watched part of my house on fire.

It's this last one I'd like to comment on today.

Tuesday night. All four of us 816ers were home, a rare occasion. I smelled something. Michaela smelled something. We went upstairs. 3rd floor candle had turned into 3rd floor flame.

Thankfully, Michaela and former housemate Kelly are paranoid-I-mean-really-safe, and therefore we have a fire extinguisher on every floor. We put out most of the fire, which had caught Rachel's dresser and the wall behind it in a medium-sized flame. But we didn't get all of it.

I want to give some credit to the KCMO fire department; they were here pronto after we called. A steady stream of stocky men in rubber armor, armed with axes, all knew what to do. After checking out the 3rd floor, they came down and dictated: "We're gonna need a line."

Long story short: smoke spread out, hose went up, water came down, fire went out. One wall smashed/burned up, some holes chopped in random places to make sure the fire hadn't spread, Micheala's water-logged ceiling, other smoky walls and ceilings, ruined carpet and and stinky stuff (my room and Rachael's), but four intact roommates and one perfectly stable house.

Our landlord was wonderful. We were afraid of his reaction, but he has apparently been through this before. He was just glad that Michaela's instruments were safe. After learning that, he told us "you girls called the fire department too early. I needed a new roof on that place!"

Since we had no power and were reasonably freaked out, we spent the night at the house of some kind neighbors/friends and then all did the responsible thing: promptly left for Thanksgiving vacation.

afterthoughts...

We're fine. Most of my stuff is fine. I'm living in the "stupid room" (awkward room on the 1st floor). I like it here. It's small and it's not a mile from the front door. All of this had led me to a few thoughts. The first is that I'm not too disappointed that I have to get a new mattress/bed. I hated that old bed. The second is that I want a smaller house. I love where I've lived for almost 4 years, but a tiny, cozy little house sounds so appealing. Small. As in, large portions of the house aren't mysterious black holes. Small as in everything fits just so. Small as in fewer places to look for lost keys. Small as in a good ratio of "wall" to "things to put on wall." Small as in my voice could reach all walls at once and wouldn't remind me of all of the space that I don't take up. I know, I've said it before. Well I'm just saying.

Also, I realized that I keep thinking about what if everything got burned up. What if all of our stuff got burned up every year? All of it. My family played a good amount of Monopoly this weekend. My uncle said that when he learned to play, his dad had said upon losing, "well it all goes back in the box." It became a metaphor for life, etc etc. But what if it all went back in the box. Every year. Start from scratch. I'm not saying I'm for it. But there is certainly a small part of me that wouldn't mind starting over, starting fresh. Go ahead, burn it. Burn the books I'm so proud of and the random gadgets and cords and half-used bottles of lotion and the jug of spare change and the art paper projects and the 5 pairs of jeans and the sweater handmade on that island in Ireland and pictures of me when I was 13 and the movies I never watch anymore and the Chinese shadow puppet lady. No don't. No do. No don't. No do....

Tricks

2008-09-23T14:11:00.003-06:00

The smart guy who figured this one out says...

"While working in 3D last year, I discovered this optical illusion: A large grid seen rotating at a certain speed will appear to group itself into smaller grids, spinning independently."

Your brain is always pulling tricks!. Slick, eh?
I found it on one of the 324234324 TED blog posts I haven't even read yet...

A list I promised

2008-09-22T19:41:00.004-06:00

I said I'd write a list of jobs I had. Here's what I've got so far.

cardboard box factory secretary
bank teller
tool shop secretary
insurance call center worker
barista
gelato scooper
KayBee Toys employee
root canal office admin. assistant
tax organizer envelope stuffer
property surveyor
ESL tutor, teacher
florist
literary magazine editor (ok so it was college and i didn't get paid, but it rounds things out well)
theater stage crew
linguistics teacher
gastro-interologist colonoscopy scanner/
colonoscopy procedure explainer/scheduler
apple picker (maybe my first job ever - thanks for the five cents an apple in my early days, grandma and grandpa!)

there are probably more. aren't there always?

just to name it

2008-09-22T19:30:00.005-06:00

"... It's also true that sometimes people felt things and, because there was no word for them they went unmentioned. The oldest emotion in the world may be that of being moved; but to describe it -- just to name it-- must have been like trying to catch something invisible."

These words of Nicole Kraus (from 'the history of love') describe some of the most condensed, happiest, most intense, vulnerable moments of my short little existence. It's like being lost with no clue about how to right my way, but not minding at all. Sitting somewhere, maybe reading a book (it so often starts that way!), suddenly aware of the improbability that things would be as they are at that moment, and the improbability that I would happen to be paying attention. But they are, and I am. !. Little things - breeze, a dilapidated car, a kid swirling around on a crooked tricycle, the smell of the other customer's breakfast casserole. I can't say it's happiness - it is, but it's also sadness. Like I get to be just a giant eye for a minute and just see.

Olympic sidestory: Uyghur news

2008-08-08T15:43:00.002-06:00

The Uyghurs have been in the news again the last few weeks, as the Olympics are almost here. There have been a couple of substantial incidents in Xinjiang province attributed to ETIM (East Turkestan Islamic Movement; "East Turkestan" is an alternative name for this province used by those who support independence from China, but a name that will get anyone using it inside of China in serious trouble). Once of these incidents was an attack in Kashgar that killed 16 on Aug. 5. Today, the NYT has a story about a video from this same group, warning Uyghurs to avoid the Olympics in order to avoid getting hurt by their "fire targeted at China," supposedly a terrorist threat.

This is a tricky spot. No one is tying to excuse terrorist behavior. But the actions of this small group based in Pakistan, and these violent-tinted stories, do not fairly represent the VAST majority of Uyghurs who are not radical Muslims and who, although they have quite justified grievances against China, do not blow anyone up or threaten to do so. There is a good discussion of the increased security in Xinjiang and how most Uyghurs are reacting here, and a really nice summary of things here if you're curious.

Walkability, Employability

2008-07-22T20:52:00.003-06:00

According to Walk Score, my address gets a 72 out of 100 on walkability, based on proximity of grocery stores, schools, libraries, restaurants, bars, etc. This is considered "Very Walkable." (There are a few strange calls, such as considering the 7-11 a grocery store, and stating that there are "no bars" in my area, when I live within spittin' distance from Martini Corner, thanks but no thanks.)
Still, I'm pretty pleased with a 72! Apparently, the KC average is only 44. You can get an overview of some KC neighborhoods here.

How often do I actually walk? Not so much. But I am honing up my bike skills, and it's nice to see all those numbers showing me exactly how close things are.

I shouldn't forget the following:

You Say Tomato: .35 mi.
Texas Tom's: .17 mi.
Save-A-Lot grocery: .43 mi.
Tivoli Theater: 1.51 mi.

How does your neighborhood match up?

In addition, there is some other news in the neighborhood. It looks like starting in the middle of August, I'll have a NORMAL JOB with no night classes! I may be able to look a little less like a driving/grading/teaching maniac, and more like a citizen of this fine city. I'll stay at my current school, but have a "full-time job" (read: less hours, better pay). This is good news.

Icebreaker

2008-07-21T15:28:00.002-06:00

Like Modest Mouse said,
"If you go straight long enough, you end up where you were."

If you don't do squat, though, you also end up where you were, except much less well-informed.

That is to say, I know, I know, I haven't written squat. Sorry. Consider today a breaking of the ice. (It's nice to just think about ice on a day like this.)

I've been summering, I've been teaching the difference between "too" and "very," the difference between "I have known him for a week" and "I knew him for a week," and how to change nouns like "optimism, pessimism, idealism and realism" into adjectives as well as names for people. I've been explaining the concept of a topic sentence. Or trying. I've been wooing/being wooed. I've been at the lake(s). I've been roasting coffee, and just feeling roasted in my own house. But I've missed my little bloggity blog, and instead of thinking too hard about what to say today, I'm just going to call this an icebreaker.

There. Broken. Look out.

Wheels

2008-06-04T13:51:00.002-06:00

I gots (more) wheels!

I had been meaning to get ahold of a decent bike for awhile now. Decent = good for jaunts and actual transportation around the city, and not too too pricey.

After my housemate Michaela's shiny endorsements of their knowledge and goodwill, I finally headed over to the 816 Bike Collective last Saturday. It's right up the street from my house. No need to waste gas traipsing all over KC in order to buy something that helps me stop wasting gas traipsing all over KC. They were dreamy. They fished an ideal bike for me out from their secret stash of bikey things. It's a silver Trek hybrid, nice and comfy, sturdy, and reasonably agile. Their goal isn't really to sell bikes; it's to teach people to take care of their own . A bike genius named Suzanne helped me look over it and adjust the brakes, etc. Theoretically, I can now do this myself. However, I will most likely be seeing Suzanne and friends again at the first sign of trouble. They deal in donations, so I was able to pay less than I had planned and more than they often get for donations, so good news for everyone. Wahoo!

It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that...

2008-05-30T08:05:00.007-06:00

I'm starting a new book this morning, one I would probably never have picked out for myself, but which was recommended to me by a co-worker:

Why Birds Sing: a journey into the mystery of bird song by David Rothenberg (the link includes a few "interspecies duets" and a bunch of interesting bird recordings at normal and slowed-down speeds, which sound like a jazz solos).

I think it will be a good read. I love a recommendation you can trust. This co-worker of mine teaches remedial math classes, but he is in no way remedial - we sometimes chat about language, phil-science-osophy, you know -- stuff. So when he lent me this book a while back about a musical approach to birdsong, including playing music along with birds, I may have been skeptical (I may still be a bit skeptical), but I said I'd try to get to it eventually. So here goes.

Setting the stage -- here are some blips from Chapter 1:

"Call the sounds of bird life music and there's a place for humanity within them. Call them language and it's a foreign tongue with no hope of being understood... Let's take bird song at face value, engaging with what it sounds like rather than obsessing over what it's supposed to mean. It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that... humanity? logic? story?"

Hmm. Like I said, here goes.

Words with sparkle and grit

2008-05-27T09:17:00.004-06:00

From the party...
Some of the words people wrote as their favorites, placed neatly in four categories (I am a linguist, after all):

Nouns:
weasel
interaural intensity difference
puddin'
melon
polka-dot

Adverbs:
awkwardly
corporeally
quickly
unabashedly

Verbs:
shred (the verb, as in, on guitar)
rue
fart (note: also a noun)
receiveitintomyheart
smirk
skeeve (listed as verb; after some research, this word may or may not be an actual adjective, noun, or verb.)

Adjectives:
dubious
dostoevskian
interstitial
shmarmy
poopsie

Long Time Coming

2008-05-27T08:54:00.003-06:00

I'm on vacation.

I think it's been 3 years since I had absolutely nothing hanging over my head. I can tell that this break was maybe overdue because usually after having no schedule for a week or so, I'm ready to be back to work, doing something "productive." No such feelings this time around. Let's hear it for non-productivity! For once, I'm all for it.

Thanks to outlandish gas prices, etc., I am spending my entire 2.5-week vacation in my own city. Fortunately, I love my little city more every year. It's a great place to just sit and stew a bit. So the last few weeks have been a subtle good time. I have read books and magazines, I have gone on unrushed runs, I have cooked and slept and spent time in the park and bought too many things from thrift stores and thrown myself a party. I visited the WWI museum, which I have never been to, despite its being minutes from my house. I went to a drive-in movie on a weeknight. I have spent time with flesh-and-blood humans, and abandoned my computer for days at a time. There have been moments when I almost felt guilty for having such a long break (relative to the normal "working world"). But then I remember domains where this is not at all unusual: the rhythm of the school calendar which originated to follow the agricultural calendar. The long vacations I read about in all those Russian novels, where people go off for month-long (or longer) trips to Europe or "the country." Seems like longer vacations are not so far-fetched.

I still have a few days left, although some of it will be spent getting ready to teach sumer school starting next week. I plan on continuing the current trajectory: chill to the max.

One highlight: my graduation / wordy-nerdy party on Sunday night was lovely. Thanks for coming, thanks for calling, thanks for chopping all those cucumbers and carrots, thanks for playing Scrabble, thanks for running outside barefoot to see the fireworks, thanks for making chocolate-covered strawberries, thanks for the books. Oh you people.

Thommy and Johnny and Co.

2008-05-15T21:58:00.005-06:00

I'm not quite sure what day it is. I got home at 4am and slept all afternoon today. (I'm officially on vacation!!) I don't mind a bit.
I went with a slew of friends to see Radiohead in St. Louis last night. The last time I saw them, I was completely taken by the post-modern-zeitgeist-yadayada soundtrackishness of it. This time I was taken by something else: They just rock. Plus they make a great stage:

Thanks to a friend, Moe and I got to trade in our merely decent tickets for 2 pit tickets. Printed on my pit-only wristband: "Enter mosh pit at your own risk." Not a warning I often get. It was a warning I'm sure the 18,000 or so people behind us wished they were wearing around their wrists too. (Don't worry mom/grandma, it wasn't violent at all. Just bouncy.)
I have a new-found love for Johnny Greenwood, aided by the fact that we stood right in front of him for much of the 2+ hour show. I've always had a soft spot for Thom Yorke, of course, but man, that Johnny knows what he's doing. for example:

So good. More pics on my Flickr, if you're interested.
The set list was perfect. Lots of old, lots of new, just lots.

For the overzealous (thanks to a good review in the Pitch)...
Setlist:
All I Need
Jigsaw Falling Into Place
Airbag
15 Step
Nude
Kid A
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
The Gloaming
You and Whose Army
Idioteque
Faust Arp
Videotape
Everything in Its Right Place
Reckoner
Optimistic
Bangers & Mash
Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
Exit Music (For a Film)
Myxomatosis
My Iron Lung
There There
Fake Plastic Trees

Encore 2
Pyramid Song
House of Cards
Paranoid Android

Pangea Day!

2008-05-10T18:08:00.002-06:00

Maybe you didn't know: today is Pangea Day.

Pangea Day is/was a massive project to change the world via film. (TED always does have such low expectations.) It involved a set of short films, music, and discussion being shown around the world at the same time. The idea is to let people see stories and ideas from all over the place, in an attempt to diffuse at least a bit of the 'us vs. them'-ness of things. It was pretty fantastic. Really. The short films are online, some of which are just wonderful, and hopefully they will also have some of the musicians who played live. The queen of Jordan was there. There was one woman accompanied by a harp that was one of the most beautiful performances I've ever heard. Also, conversations between folks working on reconciliation in tough places (Iraq, Israel/Palestine...) were amazing. It was an emotionally draining few hours, and gladly so.

Those who can, do

2008-05-07T22:19:00.003-06:00

My friends are always up to something. Such as...

Rachel and New Roots for Refugees

Michaela and Leigh, and all their food obsessions, at savourthis

Please join me in badgering them all to be prolific.

Where (NOT) to eat

2008-05-07T22:10:00.002-06:00

Pssst. Don't go eat fried chicken at Stroud's. I know it's a famous KC establishment and everything, but it's boooooring and not that tasty. But to make up for that, it's way overpriced. If you just have to try out that new location on Shawnee Mission Parkway, fine, just don't say I didn't warn you. (Sorry dad, I hope you still had a nice birthday.)

This I believe, too

2008-05-06T14:20:00.008-06:00

NPR's 'This I Believe' series is consistently full of soul. Yesterday's edition caught me off-guard, on account of its humane depiction of Christian community. It's by a woman who decided that Christianity wasn't so bad after all, that food is a centerpiece for mystic connection, and that she should open up a food pantry in her newly-found church. The part that made me all teary was that I feel like I get to live her picture of faith all the time. People of all kinds, amazingamazing people, often involving the sharing of feasts in either the divine (aka Communion) or non-divine (aka dinner, etc) sense.

"I walked into a church and a stranger handed me a hunk of bread... faith turned out not to be abstract at all, but material, and physical... I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome..."

The story is pretty worth your 5 minutes.

Loves

2008-05-04T13:52:00.004-06:00

There are two things that warm my heart, that somehow simultaneously make me feel at home and in a pleasant foreign country:

a well-written sentence.
new words.

I am (still) plodding away at Steinbeck's Winter of Our Discontent, and I found both of these loves just in Chapter Nine. Here are some new (to me) words:

solvent "Don't blow my dirty suspicions to Marullo, will you? He's too solvent."

perfidious "On Monday perfidious spring dodged back toward winter with cold rain and raw and gusty wind that shredded the tender leaves of too trusting trees."

concupiscent "The bold and concupiscent bull sparrows on the lawns, intent on lechery, got blown about like rags, off course and on target, and they chattered wrathfully against the inconstant weather."

Not bad for a writer who was supposed to be representing down-home America.

Johnny's spot-on again.

2008-04-26T15:33:00.003-06:00

John Raux updated his flickrpics and redid his website, both of which include pictures from his trip last summer and show earlier this month, plus other miscellany. I think pretty much everyone on the planet was there, but just in case...

"Nina, you know how i feel" or, "the day spring came"

2008-04-15T21:59:00.002-06:00

I listened to Nina Simone sing "Feeling Good" a good 5 times today. This was in honor of spending at least 6 hours of the day outside, in the most perfect day so far in 2008, the year of our Lord. The time outside was thanks to our Donnelly College ESL picnic. It was a delightful time. I remembered why I mostly love my job-- really, these people are endlessly great. Plus, we wrote some killer clues for a treasure hunt all over Antioch Park. After the masses left, I laid out my blanked and revelled.

So back to Nina. You really must know this song. Fetch it quick.

I'm supertramp and you're super apple!

2008-04-12T23:33:00.001-06:00

I finally watched Into the Wild this weekend. It mostly killed me. And this scene extra killed me.

Uyghur News

2008-04-03T11:29:00.002-06:00

Another blip on the Uyghur radar...

SHANGHAI — Chinese officials said Wednesday that they were grappling with ethnic unrest on a second front, in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, where Uighur Muslims protested Chinese rule last month even as Tibetans rioted in the southwest.
One Uighur demonstration, which appears to have been quickly suppressed, took place in the town of Hotan on March 23, at the same time China was deploying thousands of security officers across much of its southwest to put down Tibetan unrest... The news of the protest in Xinjiang underscored the breadth of China’s problems with ethnic and religious minority groups in the country’s vast western regions, where there is a long history of unhappiness with Chinese rule. Ethnic groups Beijing has sought to pacify with economic development programs and suppress with a heavy police presence appear to be using the coming Olympic Games, to be held in Beijing in August, as an opportunity to press their grievances and attract international attention.

Hoping for some spring in KC

2008-03-30T18:58:00.006-06:00

Cleaning up this weekend, I rediscovered an old favorite:

One Hundred Poems from the Japanese
translated by Kenneth Rexroth

a couple I like:

LXXXV
No, the human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always.
(Tsurayuki)

XLII
When I went out in
The Spring fields to pick
The young greens for you
Snow fell on my sleeves.
(The Emporor Koko)

A Moment of Silence Please

2008-03-30T17:52:00.001-06:00

Popeye's Chicken Founder Al Copeland Dies

"...Through good times and bad, Copeland led an extravagant lifestyle: sports cars, speed boats — and garish Christmas light displays at his suburban New Orleans home that were so popular that authorities had to direct traffic and neighbors filed lawsuits. There were lavish weddings and bitter divorces that were the talk of the town.

Copeland died in Germany, where he was getting treatment for a rare form of salivary gland cancer."

What To Eat

2008-03-24T22:10:00.002-06:00

Today: Le Fou Frog

Last Friday I joined a few folks for happy hour at this fine French Bistro right by the City Market. We squished 6 into a table for 4 so that we could qualify as sitting in "happy hour zone." This is a magical section of the restaurant where, instead of the usual $25-40 per dish menu (featuring P.E.I. muscles, "Ostrich Tenderloin served with a sauce of lingonberries and coffee extract" or the good old "seared kangaroo loin in a game stock reduction with sweet and savory spices"), we got the menu that features $3 for a great drink, $5 for a perfectly balanced salad involving goat cheese and citrus vinaigrette, and some killer pommes frites for I believe it was $2.

But this was not the Good Friday Miracle I am really here to mention. That would be the honey lavender ice cream. I couldn't talk. I mean it. An honorable mention: the shockingly-true-to-its-name basil citrus sorbet. I think I had some basil stuck in my teeth after that one, it was so fresh.

And they even celebrate Bastille Day. So Eaters. Get to it.

China's Other Tibet

2008-03-19T09:17:00.003-06:00

The Uyghurs are in the news.

First, the review:
The Uyghurs live in Xinjiang, in western China (north of Tibet), and are not really Chinese at all (like the Tibetans). They would prefer independence from China, and have been struggling with China over this for half a century, but wouldn't be terribly disappointed if China would at least leave them alone enough to run things themselves (not unlike Tibet).

So. Apparently, there were a couple of "foiled terrorist plans" carried out by Uyghurs within the last couple of months. The most recent (within the last week) involved an alleged hijacking of a flight from Beijing to Urumqi, assumed to be an attempt by Uyghurs to capitalize on the attention China is getting for the Olympics in hopes of getting international attention. However, the Uyghur leader and activist Rebiya Kadeer thinks the incident was cooked up to make Uyghurs look bad. She said, "The real goal of the Chinese Government is to organize a terrorist attack so it can increase its crackdown on the Uighur people." The goal: get the "terrorist" label to stick internationally, and make sure Uyghurs won't get the empathy that Tibet and the likable Dalai Lama is prone to get.

It's hard to know who to believe here, because everyone (by necessity) holds an extreme position. While one account paints the Uyghurs as victims, another ties links to larger rings of terrorist activity in Central Asia and the Middle East. I can't be sure, because even I though I certainly don't know them, I can't say that there are no Uyghurs who would be up for this kind of stuff. However, I can be pretty confident in my distrust for heavy-handed Chinese policy toward these minority groups within the country.

From the Uyghur Human Rights Project:
"Xinjiang: China's Other Tibet"

A different take:
"Terrorists to target Olympic games, China says"

I don't always know what to do with my time and knowledge gained from learning about Uyghur, but it seems that one thing I should be doing is at least pointing out these facts. It's a reasonable start.

Stereotype Guess Who!

2008-03-17T18:19:00.003-06:00

I kicked off my spring break with a trip to good old Bolivar, Missouri. Leigh agreed to come along, and we made sure to bring our Guess Who game so that we could try out...

... Stereotype Guess Who.

Surely you know how the original version works- you ask yes or no questions and try to narrow down the set of given characters to the one your opponent is holding. Maybe you have already stumbled on the thrill of this weekend's version of the game. It was a first for us. The rules: no objective questions, like "does he have glasses?" or "Does he have a big nose?" Only things like "Does your person hunt?" or "Does your person listen to too much Queen?" or "Did your person sleep with his secretary?" all based on appearances, of course.

Brilliant, in so many ways. The game only comes with white dudes, with the exception of 5 white women and two men of questionably Hispanic origin, so you don't even have to mess with the stereotypical stereotypes. And the best part is, you can win! Leigh and I teamed up against my sister and the first round ended in 100% wrong guesses. But at the end of round two, we simultaneously said our final guesses, and we were both right!

Go ahead, judge a book by its cover. And pray that they don't make the multicultural version. Or pray that they do- then we can start really getting everything on the table. After all, like they said on NPR this week: "Race is hard. It's harder than rocket science." Maybe we should stick with the monochromatic version for now. America isn't ready for a Black Guess Who.

Unlikely candidate

2008-02-26T22:46:00.003-06:00

Today I went to Broadway Cafe for the first time in forever. I took a break because it had started feeling stodgey, but today it was lovely. I noticed someone with a short stack of books (2) on his table. The titles were the following:

"Super Job Search"
"Instant Palm Reader"

I can't imagine why he's still unemployed.

Rats Laugh When You Tickle Them

2008-02-18T23:09:00.001-06:00

Hee hee, ha, heh heh, stop it!

Long Time Coming

2008-02-16T10:35:00.003-06:00

Where will I will be on Wednesday, May 14, you ask?

With the lovely Maureen, Here:

for this:

doing this:

The end.

Raux to go

2008-02-09T23:33:00.001-06:00

My friend JohnRaux, who spent a good chunk of last year hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, put up some pictures from his adventures. I'm sure they pale in comparison to his actual days and nights while he was gone, but the pictures themselves are not pale at all...

Two things.

2008-02-05T19:36:00.000-06:00

Thing 1:
The trip to Terrapin Creek Ranch was a raving success. I turned 29 without a glitch, and the place was fantastic. Being surrounded by such dear people in such a peaceful place was good for the soul. Plus, they really know how to cook at Abigail's.

More Rocheport, etc. pictures on my flikr

Thing 2:

This morning I almost got in a wreck as I was driving to work. And this time it wasn't because of the usual "oops I was trying to do 4 things at once and man was that a bad idea" routine. It was because I was listening to 10 people play the guts of one piano at the same time on NPR. I was floored.

Coming Soon

2008-02-01T13:57:00.000-06:00

I will want to see this.

Newsworthy

2008-01-31T23:42:00.001-06:00

President, shmezident. Superbowl-- I'll take a bowl of soup. However, there are some current events worth noting...

Some people turn out a thesis like a toaster pops out toast. For some, it's more like a constipated elephant. So maybe I'm the latter. But eventually, even the elephant gets it all out. I have successfully defended a thesis! (Thus the long and boring lapse in writing.) I still have to jump through a few hoops to get the deal done, but I'm so near the finish line that it's time to pack up and go here:

Oops, I mean here:

I'm stealing away with the 816ers, the sis/bro-in-law, and a couple other indispensable people and heading to Rocheport tomorrow. We are planning on sleeping, frolicking, going to some ravishing eating establishments, and you know, whatever. Can't wait.

Narnia is melting

2007-12-13T13:57:00.000-06:00

KC has been covered in ice for a few days. Looking out from the 5th floor at work yesterday I found an amazingly white and icy view of treetops and rooftops, a monochromatic but really beautiful sight.

Today is a different story. The sun is back and all of the white and silver is melting away. It reminds me of the scene when Narnia starts to defrost and everything magically begins to come back to life. The sun reflecting off the ice is almost blinding, in a happy-giddy kind of way. Narnia and real life have one important difference- in real life, the ice falls off in big chunks and if you are walking under a tree or awning, there is a legitimate fear of getting a concussion. On the roads, if you can't see the trees or buildings above, it feels like the ice shards are falling from the sky. Like a joke on all those folks who think they understand the weather.

I really can't get enough of this song.

2007-12-13T12:12:00.000-06:00

The New Pornographers – Challengers

the vegetable orchestra

2007-12-03T23:20:00.001-06:00

If Sigur Ros can play a marimba made of Icelandic rocks, then why not this?

Heima

2007-11-26T15:02:00.000-06:00

This was magic-- Iceland style. (Especially when watched in a big old church with dimly backlit stained glass windows and high dark roof beams, after all the masses had made their exits.)

Fact about Wayne and Barb

2007-11-03T10:02:00.000-06:00

I am hiding out. I am taking an academic retreat at the reclusive destination of my parent's house while they are gone this weekend in an attempt to make serious progress on my thesis. This morning I was looking into the backyard, and I saw the rain gage close to the back fence. This reminded me of an endearing Fact about My Parents.

When it rains, they love to know how much total rainfall accumulated. In order to do this, they may just walk to the back and check, but they are more likely to use another strategy. They get the binoculars out of the cabinet, go to the window, and focus on the gage. They basically spy on their own backyard. Imagine your middle-aged accountant or family counselor at his/her back window, with binoculars, evaluating the lastet rainfall. If your accountant or counselor happens to be my parents, you have got the right idea.

brains, etc

2007-10-27T15:40:00.000-06:00

This issue of National Geographic has captured my mind, literally.

The cover story is about memory. I sat transfixed at my kitchen table reading this morning. The central figures are two patients with abnormal memory; one is a true steel trap. She remembers every day of her life, every experience, every feeling. She says:

"When I'm blow-drying my hair in the morning, I'll think of whatever day it is. And to pass the time, I'll just run through that day in my head over the last 20-something years—like flipping through a Rolodex."

For the other, his mind is to memories as a butterfly net is to a tidal wave. He has absolutely no ability to make new memories, due to brain damage from a herpes virus.

Here are some excerpts from the article:

EP wears a metal medical alert bracelet around his left wrist. Even though it's obvious what it's for, I ask him anyway. He turns his wrist over and casually reads it.

"Hmm. It says memory loss."

Ever since his sickness, space for EP has existed only as far as he can see it. His social universe is only as large as the people in the room. He lives under a narrow spotlight, surrounded by darkness.

a. At least I'm not that guy. (right? anyone need to tell me anything?)

b. If he can't remember anything, who is this guy? An accumulation of forgettings? What is the difference between habit and memory? The author later said:

"The afternoon I spent with EP was a real revelatory experience for me. Memory is the essence of personhood. You can't understand just how true that is until you meet someone who has no memory at all."

c. Memories are physical/chemical things. Brains do their magic (crackle crackle pop pop), and then I remember your face. Or where my keys are. Or how to get to work. Or that this smell reminds me of one time, or person. However, I will not forget how to ride a bike, even if I can't remember your name. Does this seem insane to anyone else?

We don't really know a thing about brains. Trillions of connections, doing who knows what, and poof, I am who I am, reacting/remembering/forgetting whatever or however my brain says. This is a great mystery. Who can believe it?

In which I discover real-life superheroes

2007-10-20T17:55:00.000-06:00

Two of my housemates (Sarah and newly-arrived Lee), and several thousand other people, became superheroes in my book today. They participated in and finished the Kansas City Marathon.

I did not make it to the starting line (7 am on a Saturday did not seem like a great idea at the time), but Michaela and I hunted them down later in the show. We beat them to mile 17, ready to make a good fuss over them.

Cheering runners at a marathon may be a life-changing event. Before Sarah and Lee arrived, we started hollering, clapping, fist pumping, and other antics to encourage the runners who were en route ("Hey tall guys! You are looking good!" etc.). Half of them actually said "thank you." They had enough stamina to get words out. That alone floored me. As we waited for our friends, we saw fit youngsters, a nun in a habit, a guy in a turtle outfit (NOT a teenage mutant ninja type, I found out, but the tortoise and the hare type), a girl wearing ruby glitter-covered shoes and a Dorothy-esque skirt, and lots of very normal-looking people. Chubby. Squatty. Red-faced. Cramped. With water bottles strapped to their waists. Dehydrated. Determined. Really going for it.

Perfectly normal people running 26 miles. This is 41.8 kilometers. 138336 feet. This is 2 miles more than the distance from Union Station downtown to the Great Mall in Olathe. I just learned that in the smallest state in the US, Rhode Island, not a single part of the state lies more than 30 miles from salt water. This means that these superheroes could basically run to the ocean from any point in Rhode Island. They ran this distance, as in with their feet. Their feet were not oblivious to the event; Sarah's blisters are epic, and her toes look like aliens. She already said she'd do it again.

As usual at events with huge numbers of people doing amazing things, I got all teary. Multiple times. (Thanks for those sentimental genes, dad.) I wanted to make speeches, commemorations, toasts, give trophies, put people aloft on actual pedestals.

Runners, thank you. You injected some badly needed optimism into my blood.

Like drugs, but without all the fun

2007-10-17T11:38:00.000-06:00

It's just embarrassing. How can such a young, generally energetic person be so inept at remembering things? It's like I did amazing amounts of brain-damaging drugs at the age of 11, and now it's all coming back to haunt me. Except that I didn't.

This week I have forgotten (and it's only Wednesday):
- the name of a student
- A reminder note I left for myself. (Twice. This was the kicker.)
- my mug full of hot, delicious coffee in my car (on a rainy day)
- my schedule, resulting in 2 double-booked chunks of time
- my sweater in my classroom
- the other things I was going to put on this list

I do my best. I try to round up all my energy, and I tell my brain, "remember this! don't forget this one thing! please! just this once!" But my brain does not listen. It's like asking a 4-year old to scale the side of a 12 story building. Like asking my mother to use the word 'butt' in a sentence. Not possible. But often, I walk off before I even remember to tell my brain to try and remember this one thing. The self-talk doesn't even get started before it's over.

So I am asking: First, is it hopeless? Second, if it's not completely hopeless, do you have any ideas for me? Should I just resign myself to being a note-taking, back-of-hand writing, string-around-finger tying, text-to-myself typing person, or are there better ways? Basically, people, how do you do it, that whole "remembering" business? Got any tips, methods, books, inspirational speakers, conferences, or excercises for me? I'm all ears.

Q and A

2007-10-06T09:14:00.000-06:00

Question: What do these things have in common?

- a dog in a pumpkin costume
- a handsome man playing soccer
- a beautiful pale valley overlook
- a breakfast of pancakes and bacon
- a kid in full snorkeling gear
- a fancy dog competition
- some shiny rocks
- 4 old guys at a bar
- a boring group of people sitting around a tacky table
- fishbone graffiti
- a HUGE waterslide
- an surprisingly well-lit empty toilet paper roll
- a mosaic of peter rabbit

Answer: (Sorry- not a joke, no punch line...) I just saw everysingleone in a fascinating real-time slide show of pictures folks just put up on blogger. Kinda like peeking at the whole world at once, in a slide show.

Discounts for lovers! or, I may need new glasses.

2007-10-01T11:27:00.000-06:00

The billboard for State Farm Insurance, which you can see if you are driving west on I-670, may or may not say the following:

"New lover auto rates in Kansas!"

now listening: textures

2007-09-21T23:22:00.000-06:00

sometimes i give this matter some thought. this is what has jumped out at me so far:

The Books: a collage made of magazine cutouts, corduroy, sheet music, wallpaper, and sandpaper

Radiohead: a smooth metallic sculpture

Ryan Adams: a yellowing photograph

Explosions in the Sky: a snow globe with a real life thunderstorm inside

Feist: a tray of watercolors

Iron and Wine: a pencil rubbing of 4 different leaves

Midlake: a hammerpress print

Joanna Newsom: ornate handknit things of articulate handmade yarn

what to eat

2007-09-21T23:15:00.000-06:00

(This is the first installment of a new special feature here at aminaamina. It is where i get to tell you what to eat. You pretty much have to go find and try what I say. Unless you are in a different time zone or drastically different latitude, then you pretty much won't be able to find some of these KC specialties. Shame. Unless of course I write about some of my more right-in-front-of-you favorites, such as Sonic's cherry limeades, in which case you are all accountable.)

Strawberry-cranberry-lemon-lavender cake at Eden Alley on the Plaza, best with coffee. Go. Godspeed.

birdsong

2007-09-18T22:02:00.000-06:00

yesterday:

an approved kidnapping. an unfortunate opener. an Andrew Bird. a bliss.

Animal Kingdom

2007-09-15T15:28:00.001-06:00

My friend Moe talked/coerced me into running a race with her this morning. This is interesting, since I have not been running even once since early in the spring, except yesterday's "remember how to do this" run around Moe's neighborhood. But how could you turn this down-- "Run for the Orangutans," 4 miles in the Kansas City Zoo?!

She knew I couldn't possibly pass it up, so I joined her and Toby (who came prepared with grapes, pecans, and peanut butter sandwiches for 3)-- and we were a complete success! I didn't walk a bit! I was bursting with pride, as well as appreciation for my runningmates and those people in the orange shirts who kept telling me that I could do it. I was a satisfactory #524 out of 936 participants (I'm pretty sure we could have shaved about 1.5 minutes off for the potty break, putting me at about #466, right in the middle of my age division.)

But more importantly, I ran past and saluted the following animals this morning:

- giraffes
- an ostrich
- baboons
- chimps
- a hippo (which obviously made me think of this)
- two tigers
- an empty orangutan cage (an extreme disappointment, since the run was in his honor)
- a lot of interesting birds, the names of which I couldn't read due to my blinding speed.

I think I am ready to start another running phase.

The Clinton County Sheriff reports...

2007-09-12T13:27:00.000-06:00

Updates from last week's Rural Reporter (Again, absolutely as is; thanks for the mail clippings, grandma!):

Wednesday, Aug. 29
1:34 AM
The sight of a police car's red flashing lights and the sound of it's siren behind her car has caused a severe internal vacuum to a nearly traumatized,pretty, 20 year old blond, cosmetology student. Only after the polite Plattsburg officer kindly asks her to get the burned out light bulb in her license plate bracket replaced is the internal vacuum lowered... allowing the wedgie in her Derek Heart Capri pants to be released.

Thursday Aug. 30

[The following was in response to a recent letter to the editor complaining of a general lack of professionalism in the Sheriff's Clerk's crime reports... -mb]

3:00 PM
A polite, knowledgeable and incredibly handsome older woman from Cameron called to insist that the Sheriff's Clerk 'not change a single, solitary word in the Clinton County Sheriff's Report...' She enjoyed it 'just the way it is.' She enjoyed it so much that she asked permission to send some paragraphs of the report to the Reader's Digest. Permission was most eagerly granted.

4:58 PM
Heard of cows are out, again, on Bethany Church Road.

Sunday, Sept. 2

3:15 PM
A Trimble resident reports that the neighbor's dog entered a rabbit cage and is now dead... there is no word on the rabbit.

3:54 PM
Another Trimble resident checked on the dead dog in the rabbit cage. the dog was not dead it was sleeping... the dog would not say what happened to the rabbit.

5:41 PM
Rural resident needs legal advice. She wants to know if the neighbor refuses to fix his fence and his cows keep coming over into her pasture, can she keep the cows??? (Sheriff's Clerk: when the neighbor comes over to get his cows back, quickly slam the lid on your freezer and ask him-- Cows! Cows?? What cows??)

we got skills

2007-09-10T11:25:00.000-06:00

I teach English. This means that my students may be perfectly good at many things, such as working long shifts at Walmart or speaking Arabic, but speaking English is not one of them. Today I learned that using Google or Word are also not included in the skillsets of many of my students.

Some things I got to explain this morning, such as...
- To capitalize a letter, you can hold down the letter and the shift key at the same time.
- To make a space, the space bar is a better choice than the tab key.
- To move to a new line, you hit the 'enter' key. However, if you are typing a paragraph, you should not use this key after every sentence. Or every word.
- Google is spelled 'google.'

We have accumulated a huge amount of assumed knowlege which we assume eveyone else has stored up as well. They haven't! I can't even remember needing to learn to type. I do remember that my grandpa used to teach typing when he was a schoolteacher. I do remember my big-haired 'typewriting' teacher in 7th grade, who made us type along with a sing-songy voice on a recording, chanting "a, s, d, f, g, h, j, k, l,..." until we were almost asleep. But still typing, of course. I remember that the music made me think of a circus.

I don't think that we are that special-- every time and every place has/had its own set of assumed skills. The existence of ours was just highlighted for me today. It's good to remember to be patient.

Maybe we should see how it feels, and learn something that seems like a given to lots of folks. Cow-milking lessons anyone?

Better than Christmas

2007-09-08T13:54:00.000-06:00

I got a surprise in the mail this week in an unexpected, unsolicited package from my friend Mandy. Mandy is teaching English in Tsu, Japan. I got to see her when I visited in July. We spent one afternoon shopping, and we happened upon the 'perfect purse' which was beautiful to the eye, but too painful to the wallet, so we passed on by. In the letter that came with the package, she said she had found a cousin of this dreampurse in a second-hand shop, and so she was so kind as to send it to me! And to be extra charming, she stuffed the pockets with my new favorite gum. This is the dazzling purse:

But wait there's more. In another secret pocket, I found this:

Confused? So was I. But when I turned over the packages these little guys came in, I found their use in English: mayonnaise case. Perfect. My joy was immense.

pavement fatigue

2007-09-02T21:58:00.000-06:00

pavement fatigue

definition: the unreasonably tired and slightly cranky feeling you get after spending too much time at a place/event involving pavement, such as: KC Irish Fest, parades, Worlds of Fun, carnivals, ethnic fests, outdoor shopping plazas, etc.

A week in the life

2007-08-26T22:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I went to visit my charming grandparents, Leola and Weldon Allen. Among many special moments was the one when my grandma shared something from the local newspaper with me.

Gower, Missouri is not a big place. So they have to team up with near-by Easton to create the "Rural Reporter." Inside we found the report from the Clinton County Sheriff. Please enjoy a week of the priorities of a rural Sheriff-- I am sharing some excerpts with you, exactly as it.

"Monday, August 13
4:51 PM Gower officer stops a car from Iowa. Upon checking the drivers license of a passenger it is discovered he has warrants out for his arrest. So he was.

6:04 PM There are cows out on I-35 at the 43mm [mile marker]. No deputies are available for the round up- State Trooper and deputies are going to the vehicle accident on Route C.

7:10 PM Cows are back in the pasture. They stepped back over the very low fence- the same place they went out.

Tuesday, August 14
7:28 PM Fence is still low. The cows still know how to step over it. I-35 at the 43mm. The cows stepped back in when the deputy showed up.

Wednesday, August 15
3:22 PM There is a dog on Osage Street being "very mean to other people."

Thursday, August 1
00:36 AM A large barn is a ball of fire 2.5 mile from Gower on Route DD. Gower fire request aid from Edgerton / Trimble and Plattsburg fire. The barn is a total loss.

2:31 PM A low flying Air National Guard C-130 cargo plane on a practice run down Route W has prompted an elderly citizen to grab her grandson and run for the house. The genuinely concerned grandmother dialed 911 to warn of a possible Al-Queda terrorist attack. The woman did an excellent job of describing the aircraft... and it was headed straight for Holt. Holt was not attacked, but the heads up warning was appreciated.

6:17 PM Horse is out on Bacon Road. A resident wishes to speak to a deputy, in person, about the horse.

6:57 PM A cow is out on State 116 near Happy Hollow. Deputy will be in route to the cow- as soon as he gets done with the horse.

7:05 PM A rattled lady reports that she almost hit a cow on State 116 at Happy Hollow.

Friday, August 17
2:11 PM Investigating officer states that nothing smells right on this call. A disgusted caller insists that a former Clinton County deputy has climbed onto the roof of her home, dropped his trousers and defecated on her shingles, and that he does this everyday. However, there is no ladder, the former deputy lives nine miles away, and there is no "proof on the roof."

Yummy

2007-08-25T08:35:00.000-06:00

Last night was a foreshadowing of fall, and it was delicious.

It was literally delicious, as in the tasty pasta-salad-killer brownies that Maureen cooked up for a slew of people at her house.

It was meteorologically delicious, as in the weather that decided to lay off the killer heat for an evening and give us coolish air and lovely clouds.

It was musically delicious, as in listening to the Avett Brothers outside at the Crossroads. While I was gone, I apparently missed the transition of that venue from a grassy/muddy knoll to a woodchip-covered haven for bluegrass and Americana (Wilco is coming soon!!). The Avett Brothers, which consists of two brothers and their buddy who plays the stand-up bass, completely filled up the airspace. Man, I haven't seen that particular brand of leg twitching, head shaking, occasional yelling bluegrass-rock for a long time. Especially the hair. We decided that brother 1 and brother 2 have Devendra Barnhart and Jack White, respectively, as their fashion and persona role models. They pulled it off nicely.

Speaking of nicely, I was also nicely impressed with that girl who danced while twirling a large hula hoop all over her body. Obviously the result of lots of practice. One part belly dancer, one part 5-year old, one part hippy. We were impressed, obviously.

Lesson Learned

2007-08-24T14:17:00.000-06:00

I learned a new trick. It's called "make a Flickr site for your photos, since everyone else on the planet already has one and you should too." So there's a link in the sidebar, which is a secret passageway to see some sights. At the moment, they're all from my China excursion. Enjoy.

suck it up

2007-08-16T22:54:00.000-06:00

I have been deep-cleaning and re-arranging my room for the last few days. Tonight I topped it off with a good vacuum job. Not only is "vacuum" one of the most fun words to spell in the English language, but it is so so satisfying. So clean! So tidy! And those parallel proof-that-i-vacuumed lines! (Thank you Barbara Jean the Beauty Queen Bridges). Have you vacuumed your floor today?

2 month jet lag? A trial run.

2007-08-13T23:11:00.000-06:00

How long could jet lag last? Let's say you are a morning person, normally prone to narcolepsy by about 9:30 pm. Then let's say you go to China for 2 months, then come home and don't have a normal schedule. No strong motivation to get up early, and no strong narcolepsy to make you pass out before the sun goes down. Throw in a few day- and weekend- trips to further mess with your natural clock. How long could it go on? Could this be the period where I renounce the morning and embrace the night? Identity is such a fickle thing.

One of these little time-warping trips was going to New Hampshire this weekend, in order to see my friend Catherine marry a welder/cross-country bicyclist named Dan. She was one of the last bastions of the not-married crowd from my days at Cedarville College. No longer. She had an extremely lovely and Catherine-esque wedding on the coast (Rye Beach), and rode off to mariagehood on a tandem bicycle in white flip-flops. 'Ata girl, Cat.

Meanwhile, David decided to take the New England plunge and make a little weekend trip himself up to good old NH. An old-meets-new world encounter for me, which is always a little surreal, but how could New England air and a collection of good people, and crab cakes and the beach at Plum Island and a borrowed Jetta go wrong? I was certainly glad for the company on the marathon shuttle-bus-subway-train-bus part of my return trip (that much got me to the smaller but cheaper airport in White Plains, NY). I am back home again, feeling something like a homesick tornado. I know I know, tornadoes don't have homes, and you should be away in order to feel homesick. Exactly. Give me a few days or weeks. I think the result will look less like a tornado and more like a girl with a real job and a monthly calendar that is devoid of airline itineraries. At least for now.

Unsung Praises

2007-08-09T07:58:00.000-06:00

This is as good a time as any to start writing again. I would say that getting stuck at airports probably accounts for 8% of blog entries. That is me at the moment- sitting at KCI, waiting to head out en route to my friend's wedding in New Hampshire this weekend. The worst kind of delays are the ones at the airport where you start. You just keep thinking about what you could have done instead. For example, I could have slept past 5am this morning.

However, I think today's early trip to the airport was actually a raving success. This is why. Listen up, all travelers from Kansas City: you can take the bus! The bus!! It's so simple. It so cheap. It's so satisfying.

That's right, you can take the Metro from downtown straight to the airport. You can go to The Metro's trip planner to figure out a route for yourself. It will cost you the normal bus fare, $1.25. I left my house at about 5:55am, changed buses a couple of times, and then arrived at terminal A at about 7:07. Not bad, eh? And with none of that thanks-for-yet-another-ride-to-the-airport guilt. And I got to watch the sun come up over the river while crossing the bridge on 169 North, which is the best perk of early morning airport trips.

Why didn't we figure this out long ago? I don't know. But spread the word. KC does have public transportation, and sometimes is is dang useful.

2007-07-16T06:36:00.001-06:00

I got a haircut this weekend, all by myself. It was brave. It was probably hasty. It was in a chinese salon, which tells you the level of communication we had. It is shortish, and I think it requires gel. I am still in post-haircut depression, but I think it's going to be just fine, as usual.

2007-07-16T06:33:00.000-06:00

Anna and Erkin
7/15

Here is the problem.
Levin and Kitty are such heart-felt and thoughtful people- they really watch the world around them, take it in, and then (this is the most impressive part) immediately adjust their thinking and lives accordingly. They do this all the time and I'm inspired by them and wish they could fit in my pocket. So you know that scene at the dinner party, where everyone is having lively and witty conversation except stupid Kerenin? Where Levin and Kitty have an entire conversation by writing down only the first letter of the words they want to say? And it's kind of an important conversation? I'm calling their bluff. Maybe my translation missed something. But come on. It's romantic and lovely, but it's ridiculous and I'm a little embarrassed that Leo decided to let it go like that. No way. That's all I'm saying.

So aside from poking along in Anna Karenina, I'm working on squeezing everything out of my last few days in Urumqi. I leave Tuesday evening for Beijing. Friday the 4 students in my class invited a whole slew of our friends out for snacks and dancing, and it was a mighty good time. I know I know, I'm dancing all the time here. My central asian dance skills are pretty stunning, but please don't think that this means I want to go clubbing when I get back to KC.

Last night we tried to take our teachers out for dinner at a nice restaurant near the bazaar. Our teacher Erkin suggested another place nearby, and when we got there, we realized that this restaurant selection was one of those "I'm going to save you some money" choices- he sneakily took us to the equivalent of The Corner Cafe, when we had planned on going to the equivalent of The Bluebird Cafe. (Not equal in terms of the organic-local mantra, which doesn't really exist here, but in terms of charmingness and deliciousness.) Therefore, a very filling meal for 10 and then some tasty ice cream for dessert cost a whopping total of 150 yuan, = $19. Big bucks.

2007-07-09T10:42:00.000-06:00

7/9 Back from Kashgar

I'm Back from Kashgar! I have a million images to try to remember, so I'll write a few of them out in hopes it will help my pathetic memory to keep things around awhile.

Behind Id Khah Mosque in Kashgar there is a long street full of people with things to sell. Shoes. Men's shirts. Hats— Newsies-style, fur-style, and doppa-style. Hand-made musical instruments. Antiques. Rugs. Lunch. And knives.
One man was really enthusiastic about his knives, and especially about selling them to us. He ran up to us and waved a few around to get our attention. We did not give him our attention. He started telling us about how high quality they are, and how sharp. To demonstrate the sharpness, he pulled one knife out of its sheath and grabbed my friend's arm--- and then cleanly shaved about 3 square inches of his arm hair. Still not quite sure how that happened, but it did.

In Urumchi, some women wear headscarves, but many do not. And when I say headscarves, I do not mean the full-covering burkas, just a pretty silk scarf tied around their head covering most of their hair. In Kashgar, there are plenty of women who do not wear headscarves, but I would say that the majority do. And some women go to the next level.

They wear a piece of cloth that completely covers their head and shoulders. Unlike the colorful headscarves, this head-covering is always a maroonish-brown color. It is apparently thin enough to see out through, but it is impossible to see the faces of the women who wear them. I am not jealous of them.
A friend of mine who is living in Kashgar for the summer said that at first, she also wore a headscarf when she went to visit mosques or tombs, but people just laughed at her, and told her that she didn't really need to try to fit in because she really couldn't fit in. When she told me this, I was surprised at first. I had also brought a few scarves with me in case it was necessary to wear them. But her 'don't-bother' advice fits with other experiences I've had. We are not Uyghur. And it seems best to not pretend that we are, but to try and be as comfortably ourselves as possible while trying to learn as much as we can about our Uyghur friends. I think that there are some nuggets of truth about intercultural relations in this, but I'll have to think about it some more.

A friend and I went to an area called High House in the Old City part of Kashgar. We were expecting to roam around, but of course after paying an entrance fee a young man named Masali came up and introduced himself as our guide. Fine. How can you turn down someone who wants to tell you what you are looking at? We were not on the same page though; I was dying to practice Uyghur and he was dying to practice his English.

So we both did. He used terrible English (for the first half of the tour, I thought the city was started by poetry masters. He meant to say pottery masters. I usually had no idea what he was talking about) and I responded in broken Uyghur. My friend and I took turns pretending to listen to Masali so the other could try to take pictures.
About 4000 people still live in this old section of the city where the houses were made of brick then covered in a mud layer, and when space ran out, they just built another floor on top, so that some houses in the interconnected web of buildings have 5 stories and 50 inhabitants. Masali was kind enough to take us around another part of the Old City for free, and he explained the posted signs in Uyghur that encourage people to go to Mecca in groups organized by the Chinese government instead of by themselves. "For their own protection." Hmm.

We stayed at a 'foreigner approved' hotel, where I think most of the foreign travelers stay when they visit. Travelers are such interesting folk! We ran into a couple who is taking a 5-year bicycle tour around the world. Aaah! Around the world! For 5 years! On bikes! They are about 11 months in. Curious? Here is their website: www.tour.tk .

We also ran into a French-American couple whose son, who is probably 6, has a good handle on French, English, and Chinese. As my Italian friend would say, sure, why not.

I could write much more about my short 4 days in Kashgar, but I know how difficult it is to stare at that computer screen too long and read these dang things. So I'll leave it at these little blips. I'm so glad I got to go. Kashgar was what I thought I was coming to China to see.

2007-07-06T07:10:00.001-06:00

Hi all,

I'm sitting in my hotel in Kashkar, southern Xinjiang, China, the World, the Universe. I got fanstastic emails from lots of you the last few days, mostly about how much fun you were having on our nation's holiday. I loved them all. Meanwhile, here is what I was up to...

- Taking a 24 hour train ride in the comfiest train EVER. no joke!

- Getting my picture taken from all angles with a chinese girl i met on the train. photos courtesy of her mom.

- Not watching fireworks - over KC, or Bloomington, or NY, or anywhere else. Although random fireworks explode around my neighborhood all the time, so there's a good chance that there were parallel fireworks here.

- Wandering the streets of Old Kashgar, where the pace is somewhere between donkey and bike and motorcycle, where the people don't really have a clue where Italy is, and where you can buy handmade knives from men who still have most of their teeth. The city is totally different from Urumqi. It is also schizophrenic, with the Chinese neighborhoods looking big and intrusive and the Uyghur areas stubbornly holding on. But it feels different. We saw Id Kah Mosque, built in the 15th century, and read the false propoganda that the Chinese tourist assiciation put on a sign at the entrance. (Yes the Chinese took the Uyghur Mosque as its own tourist site and gets to decide what info the tourists read.) We sat and listened to two men demonstrate a few of the billion instruments in their little shop yesterday and tried to have a little chat. We watched huge blocks of ice being drug up - I hear from some underground storage place, but i don't really get it- and then hand-shaved and thrown into bowls of liquidy yogurt and sold to folks who sit and sip it out of bright orange bowls. We chatted with a woman who sells naan for a living, and two head-covered girls who pretended to be impressed with our Uyghur.

Today we're off to see several tombs of famous dead folks, and Sunday I'm heading to the biggest bazar in Central Asia. I hear that the livestock part is especially feisty. I'd love to write more, but I'm borrowing the computer of someone on the staff at the hotel because the guest computers aren't working, and the kind hotel employee is giving me sideways 'get off my computer please!' glances. So I'm off for now. Peace.

Solitude and Party Hardy

2007-06-30T15:34:00.000-06:00

6/29
I spent the entire afternoon in my apartment today. It was blissful. I know that being an introvert is not always ideal for living in a different country- probably I should be seeking out people and sights and sounds and smells every chance I get. But sometimes I just want to stay home. Listen to music. Drink instant coffee. Listen to the drizzle and the couple loudly fighting in the apartment behind mine. Work on my survey about Uyghur auxiliary verbs. Talk to no one. I love these days, and I need them. I eat them up and I feel almost giddy the whole time. It's afternoons like this that let me enjoy nights like last night. Last night was a different kind of good time. I went to a birthday party of an American friend in a private room in a Uyghur restaurant. There were tables piled with food and VCDs of Uyghur and other central Asian music playing loud enough to almost but not quite drown out all conversation, which was kind of ok because it was a bit awkward in the beginning anyway, but things got more interesting. About an hour into the night, someone told us to go out onto the patio – we were on the top of the 5-story building so the patio was part of the roof. Outside, we were almost eye-level with the tightrope walker performing for the crowd on the ground and our little audience on the roof. That's right- a tightrope walker. Apparently Uyghurs are big fans. No net, just a fancy pink outfit and a long pole to balance. When it came to the part where he blindfolded himself, I got nervous. When he brought out a chair and stood on it, I was terrified. Back inside, the night evolved into a Uyghur dance party, which evolved into an all-out as-you-like-it dance party. I can do the Uyghur dance thing for about 10 minutes before my complete ignorance about what how I'm actually supposed to be doing it makes it a little more stressful than fun. I try to keep it slow and smile and move my arms but not my hips, and do that head bobbing thing, but I swear I look like an idiot. So when the western-ish music came on, and everyone under 40 (Americans, Uyghurs, Chinese, and an Italian) was dancing like crazy people, I got to quit thinking and just go. I love the inevitability of dancing at all Uyghur events. It's not really an option. I did not, however, join in the karaoke. I'm flexible, and I'm up for an adventure, but I have my limits.

Xanas Lake

2007-06-21T06:45:00.000-06:00

Note from Rachel: I think Michelle's blog needs pictures. I googled Xanas Lake, looking for a pic to accompany this post, and these dancing grills came up. So be it!

From Michelle:

I know this will be too long, but now that I figured out how to con friends into posting for me, I just can’t help it. I’ll try to be less wordy from here on out.
(My long absence was due to China apparently banning Blogger. So we’re getting creative. AND if you want to comment on something on this blog, feel free, just know that I probably won’t be able to get it. So if you want to say hi, just shoot me an email.)
Last weekend my friend and I took off for an excursion. We headed to the far north of Xinjiang for Xanas Lake, a nature preserve full of mountains and lakes of various sizes, in an area where the Kazak andMongolian sheep- and cow-herders almost outnumber the Chinese.
The area was beautiful, and the drive to get there was the kind of scary-but-gorgeous trip you’d expect in mountain country. Sheep! Camels from the Gobi Desert! Yurts!
Unlike in Urumchi, where construction and factories and nuclear power plants fill the air with dinginess, it was clean and blue and green. However, where there are Tourist Sites, there are tourists. Busloads of them. Armed with cameras and thermoses of tea. So we explored the park for a day and then headed off for Humu, a very old city about two hours from Xanas.
Humu was what we both needed. Even bluer and greener, and far fewer tourists. We sat under a covered patio-ish area and drank tea all afternoon, then joined a group to ride horses part of the way up the mountain with our Kazak guides. Afterwards, homemade yogurt (which cost about $.15), more tea, Chinese-style vegetables and mutton kebobs for dinner, and a sky full of stars. We did not take up the offer to buy an entire lamb for dinner.
My friend and I got pretty into the horse riding part, so we hired two of the guides to take us back up the mountain the next morning to watch the sun come up. Standing halfway up the mountain, nowhere to rush off to, trying to chat in Chinese–Uyhgur–Kazak with our Kazak guides, I felt the kind of peace you only get when you’re allowed to not think, and you can just Be for a little while. You know- the mountain-ocean-stars-sunrise-waterfall kind. I wondered if the folks who live there are used to it. I’m not saying that it’s the easy life though. It was easy for us, but I watched the people who ran our little hotel, and they work. Hard. All day. Washing linens and drying them in the sun, chopping vegetables, adding to their garden, carrying unidentified heavy things from one place to another. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that the majority of the hard workers that I saw were women, and the majority of those who were lounging together, smoking and chatting were men. Just an observation.
Later that afternoon, we returned to reality when our driver, who would be coming from 2 hours away, decided not to come pick us up but didn’t tell us. We were returned to the frustration and lack of logic (to us, anyway) that seems to saturate simple tasks here. After several other options fell through, we found out that there was a bus leaving for Altay, the city we had flown into. Don’t ask why no one mentioned this as we were frantically trying to find a driver all afternoon.
The bus: packed, with someone’s tall ladder lying in the aisle and a shovel under my feet, smelled of bodies and sheep cheese and alcohol and smoke, but fortunately the air was cool and the windows stayed open. We stopped for a “bathroom break” at one point. “where is the bathroom?” we asked the man running a litlle shop. The answer: bathroom? There’s no bathroom here. Got it. Everyone head for the bushes. Later, the half-intoxicated man in front of us lost his lovely hat out the window, which was really tragic. Such a nice hat!
I’m back in the middle of another week of classes, with only a little over 4 weeks to go. Of course, it’s flying

Time is on my side

2007-06-21T02:54:00.000-06:00

Xinjiang is schizophrenic. Not only is it multi-ethic, it’s also multi-timezones.
Beijing is the “heart of China,” therefore the powers that be decided that everyone in the country should acknowledge this by running by Beijing clocks. If it’s 2:00 in Beijing, it’s 2:00 in China. Period. You may remember that China is a big place. Usually, big places are divided into several time zones, but not China, because China is unified. This is the mantra that runs in Chinese blood. So even though Xinjiang is about a million miles from Beijing, and even if that means that it isn’t dark until 11:00 pm, so be it.

However, some people in these parts don’t really like this arrangement (especially those whose blood isn’t quite so Chinese, i.e., Uyghurs). So they run on “Xinjiang time.” But no official place is willing to recognize anything contrary to Beijing dictates. So if you want to meet someone, or have a party, or even have Uyghur class, you need to say which time you are running on. This can get a bit muddy, but it usually just serves as yet another way for people to identify themselves with one ethnicity or another.

As bizarre as this system is, it works out pretty well for me. I go by Xinjiang time. This means that I get to get up at about 5:30, but it also means that I’m allowed to go to bed at 10:00. My inherited Bridges “get up early and crash after dinner” mentality is appeased, and this particular kind of schizophrenia suits me just fine.

Feasting

2007-06-04T05:45:00.000-06:00

First off: Please promise to still love me if I come home fat. I'm telling you, this food is yummy and oily, and only comes in the Large.

This weekend I went with another student to meet the family of our teacher at KU. When we arrived, we were seated (just us- the family only joined us for a few minutes at a time) at a very long table which was filled with these things: raisins, walnuts, almonds, pistachios, dates, strawberries, mulberries, bread (naan), honey, jelly, and four kinds of pastries/cookies. And endless cups of tea. After we were almost full on all of that, lunch was served. Polo (the most popular Uyghur dish, with rice and meat and vegetables), followed by yogurt. We could barely move. After a walk around the neighborhood, we treated our still-full stomachs to some more tea and possibly the most delicious soup I've ever had, with little dumplings, cilantro, ginger, and who knows what else. (Oh, to be a food writer!)

We bumbled along in conversation with the family, and they were extremely gracious. I was reminded of the story my mom tells me about when I was really little and just learned that words were actually connected to things in the real world. Once I got the idea, she took me all over the house, pointing at things and naming them, and I repeated everything she said. I was entering the world of the non-mute, and it must have been thrilling. The idea of a random string of sounds being associated with a real thing comes so easy at that age- now it is such an uphill battle! Press on...

Uyghur fact: The word for mother-in-law is literally, "difficult mother." I don't have one, so I'm allowed to pass this on to you.

Where the streets have no name...

2007-05-31T01:32:00.000-06:00

... at least not to me, becuase they're all in Chinese.

First off, I have some good news. This is not a desert! The weather is very lovely actually and I do not think there is much threat of sandstorms around here. No camels yet though. The bad news is I have yet to see a single camel, and that I underestimated the Chinese-ness of this city, so Uyghur is harder to come by than I thought. It is here though, and I am working on finding it.

I am getting settled in, working on communicating from my flatmate who is from Tajikistan (yes, that is a real place). We manage to communicate in some form of Uyghur-English-pantomime system, and we actually have a blast. He is studying Chinese and is convinced that I should too. He eats tons of soft-boiled eggs, watches lots of Tajik music videos at high volumes, and cracks himself up constantly. I like him very much.

I finally started classes today. Yay! If my two teachers today are any indication of what is in store for me, I am delighted and I will learn tons. Our 'conversation' teacher is so so good. He speaks almost exclusively in Uyghur, but in a way that builds on what we already know and gives tons of examples so that I think I will learn alot from him. The other teacher is a jolly soul and also speaks French, which has been fun so far, and also serves as a good backup when we get stuck.

Other high/lowlights so far:

- wiping out in Beijing after a long day of sightseeing (I still have bruses on my knees)

- successfully buying tomatoes, garlic, and green beans from aUyghur vegetable seller
- not dying while crossing the street

- being able to see a good friend from Indiana last summer who is also here all summer

- everything is cheap cheap cheap! Including some very tasty food, both Chinese and Uyghur

- ineffecient paperwork requirements (as in 4 copies of endless documents, one of which required me to spend a morning in a Chinese clinic getting poked and prodded, but don't worry, my lungs and chest "are symmetry" and an ultrasound said "camer no scho abnormal findings".

new country, no problem. all is well.

in which i get ready, and we plan to party

2007-05-22T21:47:00.001-06:00

Time till departure: very little.
Ratio of unknown details to known details about this trip: 37:1
Of all emotions about going to China, percentage that I would call excitement: 72%

I am still reveling in all of the pre-departure celebrations, send-offs, and gifts that I've been getting for the past week. The truth is that I'm starting to feel a little guilty about all of that stuff, and I want my friends to know that they are all worthy of parties, evites, new shoes, and lunch dates. When I come back, feel free to loudly mention any little trip you're going on or recent accomplishment, and I'll do my best to throw you a party or treat you to lunch. It could be because you are going to see your grandma in Wichita, or because you thoroughly weeded your garden, or you found a really good deal on big boy tomatoes at the market. Just let me know. The party is on.

I'm in.

2007-05-15T14:15:00.000-06:00

So fine. I'm in. I'm doing this. I. am. blogging. (deep breath...)

In 9 days I'm leaving for Urumchi, the capitol city of Xinjiang province in western China. I'll be gone for about 2 months, studying the Uyghur language and meeting folks and whatnot. And I figure that this is as good a time as any to get this blogger business up and running. It will be about my travels, but also the other fascinating things in life, like how to get the glue off my fingers, or good things I read, or new favorite recipes, etc. Wish me luck.

Emily-- thanks for the kick in the pants and the how-to notes.