veiled exuberance

none shall pass.

people have been asking for tax forms at the library since October, so i am accustomed to thinking of "tax season" as something that is months and months and months away.  my 1040 booklet arrived today in the mail (yay!) and i thought, 'wow, the IRS is really on top of things this year - look at how *early* i'm receiving stuff!"  really, though, January is right around the corner.  January is, in fact, tomorrow.  holy crap.   i don't know where the last 3 months have gone, but i want.them.back. 

my fingers are orange from the cheetos i just ate.  they taste much better than the kraft macaroni and cheese (whole grain!) that i had the other night.  i don't think it's the whole grain part that's the problem.  it was the cheese sauce.  it was...tasteless and not at all what i remember it tasting like previously.  did i get a bad batch?  how can you go wrong with atomic orange cheese powder?  the last few times i've made mac n' cheese it's been the annie's mixes (the ones with the happy leaping bunnies on the box - i think there may be a bunny-shaped pasta variety, too).  they're really good.  i'll be switching back.  as soon as i make it back to Trader Joe's.  they've also got the bread and chipotle hummus that i like. 

day three of the four day weekend!  yay!  i'm trying not to think about work.  i'm trying not to think about the (at least) two things that i absolutely have to finish because they technically start ON January 1st (but we're closed).  i'm not supposed to go in until 11:45 on Wednesday.  i'm trying not to think about going in early, working a split shift (taking off a few hours in the middle of the day) and finishing all of that up.  i might do it anyway.  December has been a really draggy month for me.  it sped by, but i felt like it pulled me - kicking and screaming - the entire length of it.  my new year's resolution will be to find a new job.

i went to the grocery store to get some bread (because i have no bread and i want a grilled cheese sandwich).  just so you know, EVERYONE is out right now.  they are all at the grocery store.  they are *not* all buying bread, but they seem to be in New Year's Eve frenzy - must get ready for the party!  i don't think i have ever done anything memorable on NYE.  monkeybaby's invited me over to watch colored explosions and eat brownies.  we may also catch a movie - depending on her husband's back (which is out and not in the lunching with the ladies sort of way).  i spent this morning eating salad, knitting on a scarf for bom, and watching Little House on the Prairie (season 2).  Mary got glasses!  and Nellie was a bitch (what else is new?).  and Laura befriended the "maniac" who lives all alone in the posh house on the hill just outside of Walnut Grove.  and the men won a baseball game and had a brawl with the other team, but it was all in good fun.  that's just disc 1!  i'm wondering when half-pint is going to get older, and when Mary's going to go blind (i know it's going to happen, i just don't know when, and it's driving me crazy), and doesn't something bad happen to Carrie?  oh god, the suspense! 

the gym was relatively quiet, even if the grocery store was not.  i finished most of the book i was reading (this is for the kid's book club) - it's a ghost story, but i'm not clear yet if the ghosts know that they're ghosts or not...and something bad is about to happen, because the ghost of the evil old woman who was responsible for the ghosts' deaths has just been released from her parlor prison.  she might come after them...and then again?  she might go after the living instead!  drama!  it's pretty good.  kids should be deliciously shivery while reading this.

this is a post about not much of anything.  ;)  but i had to do something about the absence of words.

posted by: juuitsu at December 31, 2007 16:46 | link | comments |

it is crazy foggy out right now - has been since yesterday and it doesn't appear to be going anywhere.  i love it.  i feel like i live in an entirely different world - one without houses that all look the same.  you can still see where you're going (mostly), it's just that the world blurs at the edges of the road and at about 50 feet in front of and behind you.  so you've got your own little driving microcosm.  it's hard to be hostile and pissed off when you're all alone in this weird, weird place.  everything is hidden.  everything is terribly terribly moist.

 

posted by: juuitsu at December 22, 2007 15:15 | link | comments (6) |

we got a call from...(can't read the writing) mrs. (what looks like) burrito.

 

ok.

 

and the people at the checkout desk took it.  and they don't want to talk to her.  and neither does the other person on the desk with me.  i walk out of the back room and they announce, "oh!  juuitsu can call her back!" 

 

"what?"

 

"here.  call her back."

 

"you guys suck."

 

*laughter!*

posted by: juuitsu at December 22, 2007 09:17 | link | comments |

Munson: Dr. Zarkov!  There's no sun!  It's 8:24 in the morning, and there's no sun!

last year i pegged solstice simply because it *felt* like there'd been almost no light all day.  nice.  this year we've been talking about solstice all week, so it's been on my mind and i couldn't make myself get up at 6 (or 7, for that matter) this morning because it's too dark.  where *is* the sun?  can't wait until 8:24 to see if it makes an appearance or not.  work, you know.

i've spoiled myself a lot this week with the sleeping in.

the holidays should be disorienting.  someone asked me the other day if i'd taken extra time off for the holidays - presumably, to spend with my family.  it didn't even occur to me.  that's how distracted i am.  i get some extra days off anyway for the holidays themselves, so it's not like i'm working straight through.  this isn't really an anomaly, though.  in the past i was either in school or working retail.  so, for the former, you get a ton of time off around the holidays anyhow and you don't really *have* to schedule anything.  you're pretty much booted off campus and then only your folks will have you for the next 3-5 weeks (and everyone's ready for you to go by the time that's over).  and the latter...yeah, they *own* you around the holidays.  what retail outlet doesn't hope to prosper around the holidays?  forget extra time off.

so i'm going to a solstice party tonight at the bookstore.  assuming i can find it again on my own.  i did find it once (and made it back!) so this shouldn't be too difficult.  but, if you never hear from me again, i'm probably lost between here and there.

posted by: juuitsu at December 22, 2007 07:50 | link | comments |

AVG was running some kind of test and had just finished and i must have hit something on the keyboard because i got the weirdest error message.  it said:

"Test can not be started because it already does not exist."

uh-huh.

*pause*

moving on, then...

posted by: juuitsu at December 21, 2007 22:39 | link | comments |

it is morning in the school and i am on my way to the library to prepare for an instruction session i'm to give later in the day.  the school is an ancient place, full of cold stone columns and floors.  there are endless classrooms and levels, staircases that go somewhere, staircases that go nowhere.  the weight of centuries hangs as heavy as the stone, yet there are atria that let in so much light that it's hard to find the edges in some parts of it.  i always get lost whenever i need to be somewhere.  i know it will happen again today.

the preparation is hardly anything.  i can't concentrate and there's so much to do, so much that could be done.  i'm supposed to guide a class through religious resources.  for some reason i have a stack of picture books.  i'm not sure what exactly they illustrate, but i'm not terribly worried either.  something will (must) come to me by the time class starts.  i promise myself that next time i'll be ready, next time i'll do this properly, next time it won't be one of these fly by the seat of my pants things and i'll know exactly what i'm going to say and do.  i close my eyes briefly and hug those picture books to my chest.  oh please god let it be a small class.  i need to engage with these students, not lecture to them.  and i can't work my particular magic on a large group. 

i leave the library. 

it's now lunchtime and i find the food court, because, yes, oddly enough the old, old school is somehow patched into a mall.  the mall is *also* somewhere i've been lost many times.  i can feel nervous frustration beginning to build behind my left eye.  i will have a full blown headache in a short while.  but before that i need to find the classroom, the class, my way.  i find, instead, frinaldo, which is almost as good.  he knows where everything is.  he also knows that they've moved my class to level 5.  room 543, to be precise, because they needed more room.  this...is bad. 

the 5th level is tricksy.  there's only one way to reach it and it involves a dangerous stair and a leap of faith into or onto something that isn't quite there.  i have no other way to describe it and i've only been there by accident before.  frinaldo gives me detailed instructions, and even so, i am desperately lost within moments of leaving him.

i wander among the throngs of students, shoppers, professors, people, holding back my tears with my rapidly draining will power.  i climb a secluded marble staircase into the heights.  when i reach it, there is no one on the landing.  and, in fact, the stair ends there - a circular pause that can't *really* be the end.  there are windows all around the circle, each shining with some unnatural light.  i'm frozen there.  helpless, directionless, late, very late.  and, somehow i've forgotten my books.  wherever i am, however i got there, i'm going to have to get back to my locker and pick them up before i can do my presentation.  but first, i need to find room 543. 

and then someone does come, bumps my shoulder, soldiers past me across the circle, which becomes a hallway, which opens into another large atrium.  a stone courtyard, almost, with walls that climb beyond level 5 - for that is where i am.  i stumble after someone who has inadvertently shown me the way and scan the room numbers that burn with their own fire above very human-sized doorways.  543 is directly ahead.  543 is, in fact, filled with people talking, finding seats, making themselves comfortable before the presentation.  before *my* presentation. 

there is no way. NO WAY i can do this.  there are at least 600 people in there and i'm going to talk about picture books.  picture books without the actual books because it's way too late now to go back and get them.  i'm going to...i can't even think what i'll say about religion now.  i can't see how i can talk for more than 5 minutes about anything.  i can't see how i can speak without shaking.  i just plain can't. 

in the crowd, standing just to my right, a tall smiling man.  he's been juggling.  i know him.  his smile is a greeting.  my face twists itself into a response.  i do not have the courage to go on, but i also do not have the strength to run away.  i walk to the center of the room and it settles around me.  the light there is so bright compared to the rest of the room that i can't really see anyone or anything anymore.  it's hard to be so terrified in the middle of so much light.  the room quiets instantly when i begin to speak. 

i'm not talking about religion at all.  i'm not talking about reference.  i'm not talking about plagiarism.  i am describing in minute detail the process of dissecting a fetal pig.  i am performing the dissection on one of those huge projectors, so people can observe/record every minute detail.  i point out the lungs, the heart, the rib cage, the liver.  our pig is female.  we call our specimen Odessa.

posted by: juuitsu at December 17, 2007 20:11 | link | comments (4) |

pyong pyong vs the parsley.  winner?  pyong pyong.  mange mange mange!

posted by: juuitsu at December 16, 2007 21:32 | link | comments (1) |

i don't know if i should be thrilled or horrified that i'm now mixed up in this...all i can say is that i'm glad ducks and mongeese (mongooses?) aren't sexually compatible.  but squirrels in battle armor?  HOT.  i'm going to download those clips right after i finish this...

pikachu, i choose you!  and oberon, and nina, and limine, and liquidmindquest, and monkeybaby.  please post what's already written here in your own blog and add your own contribution (at the end) to this (and then tag 5 more peoples!):

The Duck Meme...

[Splotchy:]

I woke up hungry. I pulled my bedroom curtain to the side and looked out on a hazy morning. I dragged myself into the kitchen, in search of something to eat. I reached for a jar of applesauce sitting next to the sink, and found it very cold to the touch. I opened the jar and realized it was frozen.

[SamuraiFrog:]

My first idea was to put the applesauce in the microwave. Hey, I was still tired. Could I scoop some out and put whipped cream on it? No, too solid. Why was it so damn cold in here? I walked over to the thermostat and saw that the heat hadn't clicked on all night and the temperature had dropped substantially overnight. Now, tired and hungry, I opened the access panel on the heater. There's the problem: why was someone cooking a duck in here?

[Some Guy:]

I bent down and scooped up the uncooked duck carcass. There was no way I was going to let it go to waste, especially considering I had applesauce on hand. I placed it in a roasting pot and went back to reset the heater. As I continued to wake up, I realized that my roommate had spent the night at his girlfriend's place and couldn't have put the duck there. "How the hell did it get there?" I wondered. Just then, an already odd situation became even stranger. The lifeless duck animated, flapped its featherless wings, and began to speak.

[Cooper Green:]

I had a choice to make: do I go along with this impossibly reincarnated duck drama that's unfolding before me, or do I phone Dr. Leary and get my prescription changed? Feeling more comfortable believing the Chemical Dementia theory, I pressed Dr. L's speed dial button. That's when I noticed that the duck was wearing my watch. And he had a knife. And he was telling me to lie on the floor.

[Pooklekufr:]

 There are rare moments in a man's life when he understands, in the core of his soul, that there is a subtle order to the machinery of the world. This was not one of those moments, despite a feverish attempt to quickly ponder the meaning of life, the universe, and everthing. No, this was one of the vast majority of moments in a man's life when he is completely baffled and deeply terrified that the universe really does have a grudge against him.

"Can we talk over a pot of coffee and some breakfast?" I asked the duck, now settling the wristwatch more securely on his neck.

"Glubbergurglewurgle mmmph mmmmph. Hrmmph, wubbaflubba-"

"I can't hear you very well with that knife in your mouth."

The duck let the knife fall to the floor. In a show of good faith, I slowly put down the phone as well.

"I said I'm afraid not. The end, my fellow featherless biped, is nigh," the duck said in a curiously un-ducklike baritone brogue.

"Ah, a Scottish duck. I probably have some tea around here for-"

"I haven't the time. You and all humanity face a grave threat."

"Right. Can you hand me that mug over- oh, sorry. I'll get it myself."

Shortly I helped the duck onto a chair and helped myself to a proper breakfast while the duck began to explain.

"So one of your duck scientists, experimenting with Planck-scale quantum gravity, blew a hole in the quantum foam and caused a ripple in the multiversal wave function?" I asked at the soonest possible pause.

"That is essentially correct."

"And this ripple is producing a meshing of actual and alternative quantum states, such as a hitherto possible but very improbable Scottish talking duck appearing in my heater?"

"Yes. It is believed Dr. Donaldson's work has begun to unweave reality."

[Roma:]

I pondered this tidbit of interesting information regarding the Planck-scale quantum gravity experiment and then had an epiphany.

"Does Dr. Donaldson by chance wear a blue sailor suit that doesn't quite cover his abdomen, and does he suffer from a serious speech impediment?"

"Yes," replied the duck, whose Scottish brogue grew thicker in his excitement. "You are familiar with Dr. Donaldson?"

"Yes, he is quite famous for his antics," I replied. "His work with Disney is widely known. With your permission, shall I escort you to the living area in my home where I can show his work to you?"

"Oh yes, please," replied the Scottish Duck.

I picked up the duck and walked to the living room where I turned on the television and inserted a Disney dvd starring Donald Duck.

[Two Dogs:]

However, the player was not connected because I had been using my 52" plasma screen to watch downloaded 30 second clips of squirrels wearing battle armor. My captor was intrigued to say the least in my perverted viewing. We shared a connection.

As the sexual tension increased, the duck moved closer and closer to me. I noticed a growing bulge in the general vicinity of his....well, whatever you call a duck's groin.

Having never had the pleasure of being raped, by a duck, at knife point, while watching squirrel medieval fighting, I looked forward to checking this off of my Sexual Bingo Card.

He looked deeply into my eyes and said

[Pooklekufr:]

"Stay back. You are now a mongoose."

"What? I distinctly recall there being a moment of sexual tension between us."

"I was startled when you began to assume the shape of my people's enemies, the Mustelidae."

I raised a not-hand and examined my new fingers. Each ended in a suade-soft pad tipped with a claw. A wiggle of my not-feet indicated I now had a couple more than I am accustomed to. Doing something I had long dreamt of since the first time I ever saw a weasel, I arched my back far enough to see my own ass. You cannot let an opportunity like that go just because the world is about to end.

"We must move quickly now. The universe is about to become extremely and uncomfortably weird," said the walrus next to me on the couch.

"I think it already has. What exactly are you planning on doing to stop this?" I asked through a new and exciting mouth full of sharp, pointy lion teeth.

"I am," the teddy bear paused to wiggle his arms, "going to collect one member of each intelligent species in this region of the known multiverse and place them in a quantum normality field."

"Just one?! You've never heard of Noah, have you."

"I do not know of this Noah. Perhaps you mean Our Prophet Charlton Heston, who-"

"I'm not going by myself. Find a woman too so our species doesn't die!" I yelled in Tagalog through a mouthful of krill.

"You don't understand. Your body contains trillions of cells. Each one harbors the human genetic blueprint. Our scientists will dissolve you into your component cells, induce genetic variation sufficient to ward off genetic abnormalities, and induce fertilization after activating the necessary cellular processes. You will be the father of trillions, to be spread throughout one of our back-up universes." The percolator said in one long whistle.

"Dissolve?!"

The elephant stared into space thoughtfully, as if it had lost its wallet somewhere. Finally it rubbed its forehead with its trunk and said, "Well, you won't be conscious when it happens."

"That doesn't matter!" I hissed as I sank my fangs into his neck.

[juuitsu:]

The elephant that was the teddy bear that was the walrus that was the duck trumpeted his alarm.  I felt my body shrink into itself as my fangs penetrated his thick skin.  Sabre-toothed mouse.  Huh.  Who'd have thought?  The elephant was, by now, terror-stricken in some unfathomable, unconscious, deep-brained way.  He rampaged around the room, crushing everything in his panic, as my tiny mouse body whap-whapped against him and my ginormous fangs pinned me like some kind of ridiculous Cenozoic brooch to his throat.

With all of this excitement going on, I was almost relieved when the jar of applesauce literally exploded.

posted by: juuitsu at December 13, 2007 08:19 | link | comments (2) |

You have now donated
2480 grains of rice.

posted by: juuitsu at December 09, 2007 18:16 | link | comments (4) |

You have now donated
1580 grains of rice.

 

watched Kamikaze Girls (film by Tetsuya Nakashima) last night and it was super.  i was expecting some kind of live action anime craziness, but it was much more understated.  Momoko is this 17 year old girl who wishes she'd been born back in the 18th century.  she sighs over the Rococco period and wears poofy ruffled dresses and bonnets and carries a parasol.  she's a bit vain and self-absorbed, but it's amusing.  she lives way out in the country and naturally none of the nearby shops carry anything she'd be caught dead in, so she travels to a specialty store in Tokyo whenever she needs to perk up her warddrobe. 

 

now, how can a country girl afford all of this kitsch?  i'm glad you asked.  Momoko spins these elaborate lies to her father - a real emotionally susceptible man - about how all of her friends are on their deathbeds or need to see specialist doctors to bring them back from the brink (real tragic stuff) and he ends up bawling and forking over fistfuls of yen.  awesome.  and Momoko knows just how to spend it.

 

her life is going along rather prosaically, when she meets this tough-talking biker chick, Ichigo, who regularly spits and knocks Momoko in the forehead whenever she's pissed off.  hysterical.  somehow they become friends.  Ichigo is always hanging around and coming up with crazy (and stupid) schemes, and Momoko gets sucked into them.  while trying to make some money, they end up in an all-night Pachinko parlor - it's Ichigo's idea, but Momoko is the one raking in...er, all the little balls?  i just realized i have no idea how Pachinko works...

 

anyway.  there's a big to do when the bike gang leader wants to consolidate the girl gangs.  Ichigo thinks they should remain small, and they challenge her.  they're in the midst of beating the guts out of her, when Momoko arrives (she's just blown off an important commission for the designer at her favorite store to be, you know, THERE when her friend needs her).  she gets spattered in blood and then all hell breaks loose.  she grabs a baseball bat and starts swinging at the girls. then she makes this incredible speech and scares them all shitless.  and it's all lies.  she and Ichigo bike off into the sunset.

 

ok, there's a little more, but that's essentially it.

 

this was funny and cute and pretty and goofy and all about being yourself - whoever that is.  and it was oddly empowering.  i really liked it.  and i definitely recommend it.  girl power!  (omigod, did i just say that? *smacks self*)

posted by: juuitsu at December 08, 2007 10:05 | link | comments (2) |

You have now donated
1420 grains of rice.

posted by: juuitsu at December 06, 2007 22:36 | link | comments |

You have now donated
1300 grains of rice.

posted by: juuitsu at December 05, 2007 21:05 | link | comments (2) |

You have now donated
2220 grains of rice.

yay, me.

posted by: juuitsu at December 04, 2007 20:25 | link | comments (2) |

You have now donated
2040 grains of rice.

oberon and i have been designing a nomic for the past few months - a game where you can create/change the rules as part of gameplay.  o. created a wiki for it, which i was editing last night, and in the process of re-reading the homepage, i saw that he had quoted Peter Suber (this actually links to the preamble to an interview he gave, which i thought was more interesting/better written than the wikipedia article about him), who was one of my college philosophy professors.  it's interesting to see how our spheres of influence/interest overlap, sometimes - here's this connection i wouldn't have thought we shared.

so i was reading this morning about what Peter has been up to these last 10 years or so and saw that he'd left Indiana and his teaching position to work on Open Access full-time - from a comfy (one hopes) chair in Maine.  nice setting, eh?  and in the article/interview i linked to above there's a section on Kierkegaard, which made me all squirmy...

quoting from the preamble, and not the big K. himself:

"In the hope of finding a clue I read some of Suber's non-OA writing before speaking to him. In doing so I came across a baccalaureate address he gave at Earlham College in 1987. There he discussed how Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard had argued that in the modern age many of us are able to arrive at a position where we have no external constraints on us (a state that Immanuel Kant called negative freedom), but that most of us never move beyond that point — to find a new authority, or a new direction (positive freedom). As such, believed Kierkegaard, we never reach the state of being able to "self-legislate" about our lives, and our lives are therefore too often meaningless."

*big sigh*  i'm free, but what do i *do*?  that sums it up nicely, and makes me wish i'd found Kierkegaard more personally relevant/readable back when i was in college...because obviously we share some thoughts.  or maybe, i had to first arrive at this point in *my* personal journey to appreciate what he had to say (up until this moment he'd have been pounding on my brain like my mother with her, 'you'll see!' threats).

posted by: juuitsu at December 03, 2007 09:14 | link | comments (7) |

dream

we've been having a big slumber party at my parents' house.  there are more people at the party than their house would normally accomodate, which is fine, as there are now also more rooms than i normally associate with their house.

people are staying, sleeping, hanging out all over the house.  someone is always cooking something, or watching tv, or trying to rest, and it's been going on for at least a week, now, so we've even put together a newsletter so everyone knows what events are going on when.  it's both crazy organized and crazy disogranized.

oberon and i have been off exploring and there comes a point where i just can't concentrate anymore because i have to pee so badly.  so we come back and as i'm stepping into the bathroom, two people follow me and set themselves up in front of the mirror to do their hair.  the commode is just adjacent and i'm not interested in using it with an audience.  so i go right across the hall, where there's a smaller room, with just the toilet.  naturally, the nice wooden close-y door disappears once i'm inside.  and i start peeing and i just can't stop.  the door is now a piece of fabric that can be swished aside, and oberon is standing there swishing it side to side, so anyone out in the hallway is getting random flashes of me sitting on the toilet and peeing.  since i'm stuck in the middle of the peeing anyway, i just keep at it.  o. comments that i've been peeing for a long time.  i have.  but i still have to go.  after that gets boring, i come out and there's a line.  that's embarrassing, too.  at least 3 other people are waiting to use that toilet and i get so flustered i forget to flush.  the little girl who goes in after me comes right back out and announces this fact to everyone.  my face is burning as i go back in to take care of that.  she looks annoyed and disgusted.  turns out i *still* have to go, so i leave oberon upstairs and head to the basement.  it's dark down there, so someone must be sleeping. i see a body move on the couch as i pass by on my way to the bar.  behind the bar is a sink, and i figure no one is going to notice me peeing in the sink - especially if i turn on the taps at the same time.  great plan, right?  so i crouch over the sink and start peeing again, start the water flowing, and only then notice that the sink is full of puzzle pieces, which are now floating, and none of the water/pee solution is going down the drain.  as it fills up, people in the basement start stirring.  i've got to finish with the peeing before anyone sees me and before the sink overflows.  it's a lot to ask, really.   i stop just in time (still have to go - obviously, in the waking world if you haven't taken care of your needs they're not going to be resolved in your dreams).

i do other things for awhile.  i run into the house...ferret, perhaps?  who is wearing a little jacket.  it's really cute - the ferret moreso than the jacket.  and it's waddling or undulating or whatever that fluid-y ripply movement is that ferrets do is called, slowly though, under a chair.  once there, it stretches out completely and goes to sleep.  not far away is something bear or dog-like *also* dressed in some kind of outfit.  it doesn't look happy either, but it's obviously not as intelligent as the ferret creature.

sometime later the ferret wakes up and asks a man if he will take off its jacket.  the man refuses and explains to the ferret that none of us can (or will) help it.  the jacket stays.  the ferret is furious, but responds quietly, that there are ways and there are WAYS.  it turns to the bear/dog and something passes between them.  the bear uses its paws to pull the zipper of the ferrets' jacket down.  the ferret removes the bear/dog's clothing as well.  as soon as the clothes are off they revert to their more natural/violent tendencies (perhaps this was the man's fear?  or perhaps his refusal caused it?) and begin attacking people.  the ferret wields a long sword and we all give it room as it moves toward us with Intent.  i can feel panic all around me, and i step in just before it breaks and disarm the ferret.  someone must have neutralized the bear/dog, for it is not in evidence anywhere.  someone else takes the ferret down.  i hold onto the sword, knowing that it must be presented to someone, but not knowing who.

we are all called then to the sanctuary (yes, because it would seem that my parents' house is now connected to an enormous church!), where there are rows and rows of pews, an altar at the front as well as more seating for choir members, and just beyond that, seating for a breakfast buffet.  everyone knows that the buffet comes after the service, so we mill around a bit as we wait for the minister to arrive.  i've still got this sword i don't know what to do with.  and all of the people are starting to make me nervous.

i realize that they're all talking about me and pointing.  not at the sword, but at my bare torso.  i've lost my shirt somewhere.  this hadn't bothered me until everyone noticed.  suddenly there are all sorts of comments flying back and forth about my breasts.  someone directly behind me is saying that she knows exactly what's wrong with them and could fix them if only i would allow her to set me up with the right doctor.  it sounds like she thinks i'm really ill - with something you can only see evidence of in mammary tissue.  it's starting to freak me out so i run from the room into a small pink parlor at the back of the sanctuary.  the woman who knows follows me. 

once we're inside, her lips curl back snarl-like and she proceeds to criticize everything about me - my person receives a complete dressing-down.  there's nothing about me that satisfies her.  i don't really *care* what she thinks, but i also can't get away.  and i'm so tired.  and i've been carrying this sword for forever.  and i really would just like a shirt to put on because i'm sick of everyone staring at my chest.  so, even though it shouldn't, her tirade does, eventually, make me cry.  and then it's like the peeing - i can't stop.  i cry and cry and cry and cry and in between the tears and the ragged breathing i tell her exactly how wrong she is about everything.  she starts looking impressed.  and i tell her how wrong this place is, this LIFE is for me.  she steps back, away from me now.  i rise and wipe my face with a bare arm and head back out into the sanctuary. 

the minister has finally arrived.  this is the person who must take the sword.  when i offer it, however, he does not.  he just looks at me, without recognition, then smiles with his teeth and offers *me* platitudes.  i'm sick of everyone by now, and this is the final straw.  his unfriendliness will be his undoing.  i throw the sword at him and he fumbles it.  it slices through his hands, his robes and he crumples to the ground, bleeding.  i barely  notice, because i'm already on my way out. 

in the parking lot i'm strapping on my seatbelt, getting ready to motor from the scene, when a car pulls up in front of me - effectively blocking my escape route.  i'm ready to be really pissed off, when i notice that it's oberon.  he opens my door and pulls me out.  the car he's brought is something he built himself - he's been working on it and it's all souped up batman/james bond style.  the interior is somehow the size of a professional chef's kitchen.  the floor is a shiny hardwood.  the driver sits up in a comfortable cockpit - passengers (were there any) recline in comfy chairs around a fireplace.  i look up at o. with wide eyes.  he smiles (without teeth) and hands me the key.  "you first," he says, and walks toward one of the comfy chairs.  hell yes, i think, and slam the door.

posted by: juuitsu at December 03, 2007 08:05 | link | comments (4) |

InMyLife responded to something i wrote the other day about how it's easy for me to be myself with certain people...and i've been thinking about it a lot, so i thought i'd write about it here instead of back in the comments (just in case anyone else wants to think about it with me).

when i was a kid i went through this really shy phase where i didn't want to talk to people i didn't know.  i liked to sit back and take stock of situations and people before i got mixed up in them...so maybe i was just overly cautious or something.  what didn't help was my mom always pushing me to "speak up" or "go over there and tell them what you want!"  i see parents do this all the time at the reference desk and it only recently hit me that those kids are probably just as embarrassed as i was when my mom suddenly thrust me into the spotlight to perform or ask or display myself when all i wanted to do was be and absorb and learn from some quiet and safe place. 

i moved on to being a perfectionist who always wanted to be prepared for whatever i needed to say, or do.  because it would be utterly embarrassing to, you know, make a phone call and then forget what you wanted to say, or even your own phone number because you were so nervous about getting it all right.  so, i'd write down everything that i wanted to tell them, and all of the stuff that i thought they'd ask so it would all be handy. 

and somehow i outgrew a lot of this.  thank goodness.  i stopped worrying about how my words came out and if they came out perfectly the first time around.  i still have a tendency to be a little quiet while i assess situations and people, but i'm not shy about jumping in when i want to.

it's also been more interesting to just ask or say whatever it is that i want to know or contribute because people tend to respond better to honest interest/conversation than they do to whatever it is that you make up - and even if they don't, *i* feel better about actually having tried to communicate. 

when i was taking philosophy courses, it really bothered me that so many philosophers' writings were so opaque to the general populace - often difficult to dissect, or even enter into conversation with.  it took so much out of you to wade through their clunky prose (or the clunky prose of their translators) that the ideas hidden within were easily missed.  but the ideas that generated all of that mumbo jumbo were things that people wonder about - why am i here, what is the point of my life/all life, what does it mean to be happy, how do i achieve that...etc.  and it irritated me that these things should be so inaccessible to other not-philosopher people (probably, i'm thinking 'other not-philosopher people LIKE ME'). 

and then earlier this week i was at a website redesigning workshop and the speaker/facilitator person was saying that most of our websites are written at a 12th grade reading level, and that we should all go through and make them more accessible for our intended audience - because, face it, most of our ADULT patrons only read at a 9th grade level.  and this annoyed me.  [we've also had a slew of people - that'd be a lot for anyone who wasn't sure - in looking for books by LEXILE - recently.  how i HATE that word.  so, i'm totally primed to go off just because of that.]  taking the opposite side completely i, inwardly, raged that it was stupid to have to dumb down what we write for this imagined audience because it might be too challenging.  who can't handle a little challenge?  are we going to assume without asking people that the biggest problem with our websites is that we use big words that no one understands or the passive voice?  i think exposing people to new words/language is a good thing.  even if they haven't seen/heard a word before, context is often enough to show them what it means.  i mean, we're libraries and librarians - don't we want people to be transformed by what they read?

now, i totally agree with changing words that are exclusive - like acronyms no one uses except librarians, or librarianese (and especially for kids' and teen sites).  i'm all for changing "reference" to "information" or "online catalog" to "find a book" or "news database" to "newspaper articles."  but if we're talking about book reviews or discussions or program descriptions or that sort of thing, i don't see why we can't throw in a few big words or just write in our own particular idiom. 

i guess my point (if i have one) is that i prefer honest communication (hey, wasn't that succinct?) where people speak up if they don't understand and even if they think they do.  the stuff will get worked/hashed out and hopefully there will be better understanding in the end.  isn't that more agreeable than simply deciding *not* to use words/language because people might not understand it?  in the case of philosophers being obscure, i think there's a professional-ese for most subjects, where phrases/words/language come to mean other things or come into existence to describe very particular particulars.  that part is fine with me.  i mostly objected to writing styles that kept people out.  why should something that *should* interest people be made to be pedantic and boring?  meh.

posted by: juuitsu at December 02, 2007 21:26 | link | comments (7) |

You have now donated
2280 grains of rice.

i haven't had time to make a list, so i'm assuming that things that would have made said non-existent list are not all getting accomplished in a timely manner.  sorry, things.  i am, however, catching up a bit.

i meant to get to bed a lot earlier, but instead i made it by 3.  i was home a bit after 2, and i'm not sure exactly what i did that led to...being up another 40 minutes, but that's how it goes.  i decided not to set my alarm, just because i figured there was no way i'd sleep past 9.  ha.  what do *i* know?  at 10:30 this morning i was wrestling with some dream - in that space of dreaming and awakening where you thrash a bit mentally until you realize, oh, yeah, i'm awake.  and once i was able to open my eyes, i noted that the light was *all wrong* for the time of morning i was hoping it would be.  i consulted the clock - ack - and hit the shower.  supposed to meet lars at noon for lunch.  lunch destination?  Stir Crazy.  Stir Crazy destination?  about an hour away. 

despite that, i made it to the Meeting Place on time (most triumphant!) and had had enough sleep so that i wasn't a complete zombie.  that's always nice.  so i'm not really displeased at all with how things turned out.  lunch was delicious.  we got potstickers to start and fresh ginger ale and i ordered my usual pad thai (hey, it's good!  some day i may find something else that i like better - there was something with ahi on the appetizer menu that sounded tasty, as well), and lars got a vegetable somethingorother that wasn't half bad (we traded a bit). 

the big event was high tea at the Holiday Inn in Naperville.  we went to see Kate DiCamillo (she wrote 'Because of Winn Dixie' - my favorite of her works - and a bunch of other things), who did a short question and answer session and read her newest book, "Great Joy."  it's a picture book about a girl who sees a homeless man from her window - a street performer - and invites him to church to see her Christmas pageant.  it induces a gushy squishy feeling.  i thought of a question for her after the Q&A session was over - lars and i discussed this - whether the authors of the text of picture books get to choose who illustrates their words or whether their publishers decide that.  really, i'm wondering how much they get to manage that process - like, do they get to pick from a selection of artists?  or do they get to ok the final design?  i wonder this about cover designs, too.  i'm pretty sure that's more of a marketing decision and not something the author can do much about.  anyone know?  (good topic for Modern Jackass, o. - incidentally, i'd still like to do this, if you'd like to do this - and maybe even if you don't...i'm not sure how often i'd update it, but it's not anything i actually need to know anything about or make perfect or scholarly or anything, so there's less aversion...)  Kate is a petite powerhouse with wild blonde/gray hair and she's funny and to the point.  i liked how she answered stuff. 

i've been to so many librarian related functions in the past year that this was feeling like just another job-related activity - i kept expecting to be surrounded by a bunch of women in their 50s, all or mostly children's librarians.  there were a lot of those.  but!  there were also a lot of kids who loved Kate's books.  i sat next to a 4th grader who likes her stuff and we got to talking about Battle of the Books, and places we've traveled - she'd been out of the country several times already and seemed pretty precocious and worldly...and about photoshopping people into pictures.  there were a couple more across the table from us who got involved in the conversation, too.  and it was really cool to talk to them.  it was even better when many, and even MOST of the questions for Kate came from the kids.  i don't know why this seems so novel to me - maybe i just remember being really quiet and shy when i was a little kid, or maybe i never really went anywhere where people cared about what i had to say...i was, after all, just a kid.  but it's like that never occurred to these kids - they were ok, even enthusiastic about asking her stuff.  it was pretty obvious that most of them were there because they wanted to be.  it was really nice to be in a room full of kids who like to read and talk about books. 

this was yet another Anderson's bookstore event - how *do* they get all of these big name authors to come out and do events?  i'm way impressed.  i'm even more impressed by how many people show up for them.  this was a ticketed event and they charged $25-$40 per person and they had a full room (about 200 people).  that probably covered the expense of having the author, plus the bookstore sold a bunch of her books (the new one especially)...  i think about how the library might do something similar and i just feel like no one in the community would care.  or 5 or 10 people would, but it's not enough to merit a big author visit. 

we had lots of time to gab, since we were 110 and 111 in line to get books signed (actually, lars was both 110 and 111, as she was keeping both copies of the book that were included in price of our tickets).  so we did.  and time passed.  and when we got to Kate, we exchanged a few words (they were really rushing things along and there wasn't much time to chat with her), and then lit out for the Jewel parking lot where i'd left my car.

i stopped at the outlet shops on my way home and bought a new jacket.  it's time to retire this one, i think.  it's an old jacket that belonged to my dad - probably 20-30 years old - and it's super shabby in places.  time to upgrade?  yeah, i guess.  the new one is brownish, full of down, and will - hopefully - keep me warm.  we shall see.

posted by: juuitsu at December 02, 2007 20:36 | link | comments |

i just spent the last 11 hours doing things, so i almost (but not quite) didn't get my free rice challenge in... 

"You have now donated
1620 grains of rice."

you try doing this at 3:00am and see how well your brain can parse words.  mine is none too happy with me.

lars and lunch later today.  hooray!  :)  hope i'm fit company after being up half the night.

posted by: juuitsu at December 02, 2007 02:49 | link | comments |

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