student nanny

Nearing the half-way point

2007-01-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

Okay, so it's been over two months since I've posted here. I'd imagine that most everyone has given up on me, and I can't say that I blame you.

For what it's worth, I've been posting infrequently here:
http://blog.myspace.com/loveandvandals

And have posted a handfull of photos here:
http://flickr.com/photos/vivalime

I've been in Hawaii now for nearly two weeks. Here on the Big Island of Hawaii I'm working on a coffee farm, which has turned out to be both more and less than what I'd expected. The boss - a crazy German expat/exprof who talks to himself and swears to himself like a sailor - feeds us well enough. He's unpredictible, though, and that makes life difficult. The other "WOOFers" here, Ryan and Carla, are wonderful people and I'm glad that they're here. We went out together on New Year's Eve and had a good time, dancing till the bar closed.

Here are some things that are starting to wear on me: I sleep in the barn. Granted, it is a room in the barn, but it's still in the barn. We have a composting toilet that is slightly upleasant, though generally manageable. The shower is also in the barn, and the guests at the Bed and Breakfast have first dibs on it if they need to rinse off their snorkeling gear. Also, it only has about three minutes of hot water, and you have to pull down a chain to make the water flow.

Today was my second eight-hour day of weeding the fields by hand, and I'm getting blisters and scrapes and my clothing is covered in burrs, making me look like a piece of sweet-and-sour pork. We also dug trenches around the coffee trees with tools that are dulled from over-use, and the ant colonies that reside at the bases of the trees revolted and bit us. Everywhere. I hate ants.

We've decided that the guests at the B&B feel sorry for us - what with sleeping in the barn like just another tool. Ryan played with the idea of using this sentiment to our advantage. Hans is starving us, he'd say. We get your table scraps, so try to not eat as much!

In reality, it isn't all bad. The weather is great, we've made friends in town, and this weekend Carla has hired a car, and we'll tour the island. I'm on the countdown now, and I have only five days of work left during my time here. Soon I will be home!

2006-11-15T00:21:00.000-08:00

Dear everyone, thank you for the birthday wishes and nice emails. They mean a lot to me.
Three days ago I finished my second hiking track. Let me tell you, the Heaphy track sufficiently exhausted me. At 82k (51 miles) it is the longest of New Zealand's Great Walks. I had scheduled it as a five day hike, but after the first day realized that I could combine two of the shorter days. On the second day I hiked 27 kilometers over six hours, which I think is approximately fifteen miles. Ouch! It wasn't too difficult as far as the trail was concerned, but it was such a long way through moderately bad weather.

Oh, and did I mention that on the first day it hailed and then snowed on me? The shuttle drivers had assured me on the way over that clear skies were "just over the next ridge!" but it turns out they were wrong. The next two days rained, not horribly hard, but enough to make someone without the right equipment wet and cold. Lucky for me I have the right equipment! All of the things that I bought at REI over the past year have turned out to be good investments. Today, though, I bought extra thermal pants and shirt in case I encounter snow again.
While hiking this time I met two German women, Inge and Ellen, who are hilarious. After spending four days together we were close friends. They gave me their addresses and said that if I ever come to Germany to make sure that I come by for a visit. They also encouraged me to have crushes on German boys. Along with Inge and Ellen, we hiked at the same pace as a guided gormet tour. The tour guide carried everyone's food which was much better than my own. In an effort to save my strained back and shoulder muscles, I have been carrying oatmeal, dried soup, crackers and cheese for my various meals. These guys had fresh eggs every morning, lox sandwiches, and for dinner more fresh food. The last night they had salmon, cous cous and steamed vegetables. And cheesecake and coffee for desert.
I have never been more jealous.

All of yesterday and all of today have been spent on the bus, trying to make it south in time for my next scheduled hike, the Routeburn. This one is a bit shorter, only three days, but in an area with more severe weather and a potential for avalanches. Ahhhhh! It should be fine. I'll make a point of being in contact with the hut wardens to get the most recent update on trail conditions before I set out each day.

I'm in Queenstown today. It's really nice here. The farther south I go in New Zealand, the more dramatic the landscape becomes. I took dozens of pictures today.
Hooray for New Zealand!

From me, in the future, to you

2006-10-29T01:59:00.000-08:00

I have been in New Zealand now for nearly two weeks. Recently I discovered that while I had thought before that NZ is only four hours behind the Western US, it is actually twenty hours ahead. So that means that while most of you are out having a pre-Halloween party on this Saturday night (now Sunday morning), it is my late Sunday evening. That's right; I'm in the future.

What can I tell you? I've spent a lot of money. All the expensive, adventurous things have been done, including a tour up to Cape Reinga, complete with duneboarding, swimming with the dolphins in the Bay of Islands, blackwater rafting through the glow worm caves, and a Maori hangi (traditional meal and ceremony). Those are the big things. In the month or so that I have left in this country I plan on saving my money more as I move on to the south island and begin my series of hikes.

Right now I'm in Wellington, the capital city of NZ, and I love it here. When I first landed I spent five days in Auckland which I regret daily. Wellington has a much more interesting culture, with museums, art galeries, cafes of every variety, mainstream and independent cinemas, and horrible weather. It is constantly windy, and if you add any amount of rain to that (such was the case all day today) it's miserable. Last night I went to the NZ Film Archive and watched a 1975 documentary about the Maori Land Crossing - when the Maori tribes walked from the northern most point of the north island to Wellington in protest of their treatment by the government.

Staying in youth hostels has been an excellent way to meet people. Nearly everyone here is friendly and willing to share a story or two. Or a beer or two. Mostly I've made friends with people from the UK and Germany. Sometimes I get teased for my accent, but not too often. Early on I dropped a lot of my American slang and started picking up British and Kiwi words and speaking rhythms. The New Zealand phrase of choice is "sweet as." Sweet as what, I'm not sure, but my entertaining one-person joke for awhile was to pretend that anyone saying this was actually saying "sweet ass." Right...

I've posted a few pictures of my trip on my flickr account. More may follow, but the internet here is very expensive, so be patient with me.

http://flickr.com/photos/vivalime/

Much love to all of you, friends.

I'm a survivor

2006-10-19T21:14:00.000-07:00

In case you hadn't heard, I'm here. While the currency exchange rate is in my favor, the prices of most things in NZ are still obscenely high. The money that I brought, which seemed like so much before, isn't going to afford me too much. A place to stay, groceries, and mostly low-end attractions. I'm making some exceptions for black water rafting in the glow worm caves, and possibly swimming with the dolphins. We'll see.

Here are pictures of my party!

Aaaaaand back to New Zealand. It took me three full days to figure out which side of the sidewalk to walk on. Seriously! I became very self-conscious about it! I mean, I know that down here you drive on the left, so does that mean that you also walk on the left? The answer, I have learned, is yes.

The last two nights I stayed at a hostel that strongly resembled a college dorm, and I was getting sad because with all of the sexual tension, none of the girls were interested in talking to me, and the boys with the flipped-up collars would only talk long enough to decide if they would be able to get it on. (As they say.) Tonight, though, I've transferred to the hostel a half-block down, and things are much better. I'm in a room with two enthusiastic German girls who say things like, "He just told us to get a wan [van]!" and "Oh, I'm just pissing [kidding]." It's great.

Tonight I eat pasta in the kitchen and drink a bottle of wine while watching The Poseidon Something followed by The Davinci Code. Neither of these movies particularly interest me, but the people are fun, and it should be good to kick back and rest before I head up north tomorrow.

P.S. It has been rather chilly here, much to my disappointment.

2006-10-14T10:21:00.001-07:00

This morning I woke up with my stomach in knots again. Sitting up in bed I realized, oh my gosh, I leave tomorrow!

What was I thinking?!

The flight from San Francisco to Auckland is 13 hours, and my longest uninterrupted flight to date. In 2001 I flew from Vancouver, B.C. to London, but that was only 10 hours. I leave on the 15th and arrive in Auckland on the 17th at 6:30 in the morning. A couple months back I made reservations at a B&B for my first night in NZ. I have been in contact with them and they are going to let me check in as soon as I arrive. This means that I won't have to wander, sleep-deprived, around Auckland for six to eight hours like Amanda and I once did in Paris. That was hell.

When I fly from Auckland to Honolulu, I will be leaving on December 21st and arriving in Hawaii a day earlier, on the 20th. It's all very complicated.

In other news, Sufjan Stevens: delicious.
The woman of My Brightest Diamond: my arch nemesis and golden idol.

2006-10-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up with my stomach in knots again. Sitting up in bed I realized, oh my gosh, I leave tomorrow!

What was I thinking?!

The flight from San Francisco to Auckland is 13 hours, and my longest uninterrupted flight to date. In 2001 I flew from Vancouver, B.C. to London, but that was only 10 hours. I leave on the 15th and arrive in Auckland on the 17th at 6:30 in the morning. Earlier in the summer I made reservations at a B&B for my first night in NZ. I have been in contact with them, and they are going to let me check in as soon as I arrive, which is good, because it means that I won't have to wander, sleep-deprived, around Auckland for six to eight hours.

When I fly from Auckland to Honolulu, I will be leaving on December 21st and arriving in Hawaii a day earlier, on the 20th. It's all very complicated.

In other news, Sufjan Stevens: delicious.
The woman of My Brightest Diamond: my arch nemesis and golden idol.

2006-10-12T15:13:00.000-07:00

For those of you who aren't Mspace junkies, I'm having a going away party this Saturday. It will be held at Amanda and Joel's house around eight, and everyone should come. Yay!

I'm too nervous about everything to be excited about Sufjan just yet. I wake up in the morning with my stomach in knots and my mind racing about everything that needs to be done before I leave. The good-bye process started up this week with some of my favorite families. The comic book family gave me a beautiful leather passport holder and lots of hugs. The twins family had a bon voyage dinner for me last week, and the grandparents drove out from Seaside to be there. It is the strangest thing to say to someone, "well... I guess I'll see you in a few months."

Especially with the twins. Over the past two years I have spent more time with them than anyone else, and more time at their house than my own. The last two times that I saw them my heart ached at how much I will miss them, and how much I do already. They are planning on going out with me to the airport, and I am going to cry.

A friend gave me a book, and in the second chapter the author says, "Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock."

If I say anything more about "counting" or "final," I'm going to shoot myself.

2006-10-05T21:13:00.000-07:00

Just so everyone knows, I have ten days remaining in this country.
And only six days of work. Woo-hoo!

The past weeks have been hectic, especially since I've been trying to manage a full work week with three part-time jobs. Tuesday afternoon I had a random babysitting job from my nanny agency, and I got overwhelmed and lost in Beaverton and was twenty minutes late. I am very particular about being punctual with work, and the tardiness just about did me in. The oldest of the three children is a very assertive, self-absorbed five-year-old. He just about did me in. I spent four hours that afternoon fantasizing about working as an accountant.

With the heartbreak of leaving families who have become my family and the stress of working with child strangers, I don't know how much longer I'll be able to take care of other people's children.

My brother is back from Iraq, and will be home for a few weeks beginning this weekend. This is good.

2006-09-25T13:07:00.000-07:00

Sick, sick, sick.

The last time I had a cold like this my car was totalled by a drunk driver and I got pink eye in both eyes. Let's hope that those things don't happen again, because I just changed the oil on my newish car and I don't have any more lactating friends to heal my eyes the "natural" way.

I still miss living with my friends. Why does everyone have to live so far away?

2006-09-05T21:15:00.000-07:00

Oh God. My mother is on the MeanSpace. Nothing is safe anymore.

Special thanks to Bob and Lita for letting me have a sleepover/trial kitty stay at their house.

World-traveling countdown is now at one month and ten days.

Next week I appear in court to testify against the rude man who crashed my car.

Some unfortunate things

2006-09-02T00:27:00.000-07:00

-I have moved in with my parents.
-My parents are under the impression that I am still the nineteen-year-old Bible college student that lived with them before.
-When I moved out five years ago my bedroom was given to my brother. Since he is still in Iraq, I am allowed to sleep in his room until I leave for the trip.
-The day of the move coincided with my last day with the babies and the first day of my menstruation. I cried about twenty times.
-Still no home for Kona. Mom wants to keep her, but because of our only cat growing up, my parents are convinced that she'll urinate all over the house. I have to call the Humane Society tomorrow.
-Melissa and I spent about nine hours cleaning the old house today. We filled a trailer with trash from all over, including random half-rotten food from the kitchen.
-First thing in the morning I have to drive all of the crap to the dump. I am never buying anything again.
-I just want to go dancing. But not now. Now I am far too exhausted.

2006-08-23T23:31:00.000-07:00

I've taught the twins the location of New Zealand on the globe in their living room.
Now Thiel will say, "I found New Zealand! See, Missi?"
And Abby will say, "You going to New Zealand, Missi?"
I reply with, "Wow" and "Yes," respectively.

They start daycare in two weeks and I will be out of a job (but it's a way bigger deal than just that).

These days

2006-08-22T22:53:00.000-07:00

It is strange and sad to have to drive home now after hanging out with Joel and Amanda.

I will be saying this a lot over the next three weeks: I am more than a little heartbroken.

Following up with...

2006-08-19T21:34:00.000-07:00

Kona just brought a squirmy mouse into the house. And lost it under the dishwasher.

Help?

2006-08-19T17:10:00.000-07:00

So, I'm moving in about two weeks. In with my parents (oh god, oh god) for about six weeks before I leave on the trip.

I have a cat, but my parents are no longer cat people and now I must find a home for Kona.

There were a few friends and acquaintances who have expressed an interest in adopting her, but that is as far as anything has gone. From what I can tell, my options thus far are:

A. Carmen's parents' house in Seattle. Kona may be mauled by the strays that her parents take in.
B. Find a home through Craig's List.
C. ...Humane society?

Really, that's it. When I went to post an ad at Craig's List there was a warning on the page from PETA that many animal abusers use the classified ads to find animal victims. There was a story about a man who would take his kids to go and get people's pets to hurt, and the authorities were alerted by the neighbors when he had partially buried a live dog with a noose around its neck. Granted, this is extreme; my assumption is that most people are not animal-burying psychopaths. Nevertheless, I am distraught. What can I do?

Pastor Sylvia found me on the porch just a bit ago, crying about the whole situation. She hugged me and said a little prayer for me and then told me that the neighbors across the street are Major Cat People and that they might be able to help me out in some way. Maybe this will all work out. I hope so. At the very least I'm glad that Sylvia took the time to sit with me in my misery.

Why I don't watch the local news

2006-08-15T02:31:00.000-07:00

Gena had the news on when I came home from work this evening, and as I sat down beside her to eat my dinner the reporter said, "Sleep with your windows shut tonight! A woman in Vancouver was raped last night by a man that is still on the loose!"

That may not have been exactly what happened, but they did offer a friendly reminder to peer fearfully out one's window at the slightest provocation.

So, here I am at 2:30 in the morning. I'll need to wake up in about four hours to go to work. The neighbor's dog started barking in a strange way about fifteen minutes ago and I have convinced myself that there is, more likely than not, a predator stalking around our house, looking for a way in. I got up and shut every window in the house, but even that wasn't enough. Amanda and Joel are on their honeymoon, Melissa is never home these days and Gena rarely is, and my cat won't frighten off anyone.

If I could think of someone to call and have stay over I would have been on the phone with them five minutes ago. Instead, I have carried my blankets and pillow out into the living room and will be sleeping on the floor tonight with the house phone next to my head.

2006-07-06T20:59:00.001-07:00

Last night I was feeling sulky and sad about being so tragically alone, so I went to Trader Joe's and bought a bottle of wine and a cornmeal crust pizza because, my God, it's the best food ever. As I was heading towards the checker with my little red basket I passed a couple whose conversation went like this:

girl - I have issues with texture, OKAY?

boy - GOD, stop making such a big deal about it!

...

When it comes down to it, I really have nothing to complain about.

Death defying

2006-07-06T20:46:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by restating my top three fears:

1. Airplanes
2. Sharks
3. Sleeping alone in empty houses

While I still have another three months before I get a chance to deal with my flight anxiety on the fifteen hour trip from Portland to Auckland, the other two have been put to the test. I've spent the past two weeks house sitting (sleeping alone in an empty house) and have slept soundly the whole time. No waking up every half hour with heart palpitations, convinced that the creaking my subconscious registered is an crazy man with a butcher knife. The bed is huge, though; I put pillows down the center so that I don't get lost in the middle of the night.

On Monday I decided that I had had enough of domesticity - no more cats, plants or children for me, I was going to the beach! I left early and signed up for a last-minute surfing lesson. Yes, that's right, even though the shop keeper in Astoria warned me to be careful of sharks, and even though the fifty-something man in Seaside told me about a shark attack on Christmas, I took the plunge. We wore wet suits and foamy gloves and shoes, and it was the first time that I'd been in deeper than my knees at the Oregon coast. Even though they are not sexy, I am in love with wet suits. The lesson was two and a half hours long and I managed to stand up on each of my attempts and the surf board only hit me in the head once. Now, these were not sharky waters that we lessoned around in, but the main reason that I never tried this before was because of my little phobia. (What can I say? I value my limbs. All of them.)

If anyone has a strategy for getting to Auckland without a nervous breakdown, well, I'd be forever grateful.

2006-06-23T23:10:00.000-07:00

My brother has been in Iraq for nearly four months now. This is his second time there, and if he has to go again after this I think my heart will break. I miss him a lot.

2006-06-12T00:09:00.000-07:00

It seems that lately I've been having more and more Sunday Night Drunk experiences. (By "drunk" I mean tipsy. Spinning heads and vomit are my enemies.) This evening a friend had her bachelorette party at the Alibi. There were never more than fifteen people in the karaoke section of the bar at any point, so in one sense it was like the time that Janaki and I went to the Farmhouse. Except there were more 80s songs and less country songs and corsets.

Janaki: I sang "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. You probably owe me something, something like mad props. And, yes, I owe you a duet.

2006-06-06T23:53:00.000-07:00

My Dad called me over the weekend to inform me that he's disappointed and hurt that I forgot his birthday. I'm feeling guilty and that I'm a bad daughter. More on that later.

2006-05-31T07:19:00.000-07:00

Zero hours of sleep last night due to frustrating paper writing. The good news is, the Most Terrible Coffee did not spill in my computer and ruin everything. However, my breakfast frowned at me this morning as I was preparing it, and I'm counting that as a "bad omen."

2006-05-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

I'm spending the night at the Old Pharmacy Cafe, drinking awful coffee from a cup that is too short and too wide and constantly threatens to spill all over my computer. Tonight I hate school, and I hate that I spent my only day off having generally unplesant times with an old boyfriend when I should have been getting work done.

Craig Thompson, you've ruined my weekend.

Sweet buttery Jesus

2006-05-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

Last week I heard Craig Thompson speak at Powell's as part of a class assignment. The girls in the audience were practically swooning as he delivered the Craig Thompson Comedy Routine. (The captain in Goodbye Chunky Rice says "Sweet buttery Jesus" in regards to the mealtime slop he is about to consume.)

As of today I know for sure that the way to my friends' hearts is through their stomachs. Nothing makes me happier than to have someone ask me to please, please, please make cookies. Food is something that I often do well, and food is often the best that I have to give to the people I love. So, even though the cheesecake had someone else's name on it, please know that I wanted you all to have my best.

And, no, I will not mail you cookies from New Zealand.

Step four?

2006-05-10T23:12:00.000-07:00

Today my new tent came in the mail! It weighs three pounds and I can set it up in less than ten minutes. It's only supposed to sleep one, but it can fit two people who don't mind being cozy together. It has pockets. Pockets!

Tonight I'm sleeping outside and dreaming of New Zealand.

2006-05-08T18:36:00.000-07:00

It is my observation that two out of three child book reviewers on Reading Rainbow are severely congested.

Night 1 Night 2

2006-05-06T02:10:00.000-07:00

Night 1

Was supposed to spend three hours on a drawing for my art class. However, I didn't understand the specific details of the assignment and was in no way motivated to sit in front of an inanimate object armed with a giant piece of paper and woodless pencils. Instead, I read the first half of The DaVinci Code, promising myself at the end of each chapter that the next one would be my last. I ended up going to bed at ten and waking up at five to start my homework before class at nine. I hit the snooze alarm three times and then picked that damn book up before I even got out of bed. "Just one more chapter..."

Oh, and I bought a car.

Night 2

The plan was to see the Snuggle Ups play and dance, dance, dance all night. What really happened is that since one of the Snuggle boys was in the hospital, Satan himself was booked instead. In the words of my good friend Ted, the music sounded like ants attacking a spider. All of the lights were off, and over the chattering, screeching noise a deep voice from the bowels of hell threatened the audience for twenty minutes. But Matt was the DJ, and then these strung-out boys similar to the Snuggle Ups sang and danced, and everyone had a good time in the end. I even danced with an established gay man, and he taught me some ballroom dance steps. (The last time I learned anything about ballroom dancing was in Freshman P.E., where they would line the girls up on one side of the room and the boys on the other, and then everyone would pair up and walk across the gym holding hands. Sweat! Body odor! Five inches away from weird facial hair!)

It is my sister's 21st birthday, but she has two kids and so was unable to meet us for a birthday dinner.

2006-04-29T20:06:00.000-07:00

And now, for some good news:

Insurance things are nearly settled. They're giving me $500 more than I paid for my car a year ago, and in exchange I send them the title for my wreck. Now on to car shopping. Any suggestions?

Yesterday I spent two hours and nearly $200 on a tattoo that is hot. You may want to steer clear of me, because, at this point, I'm feeling rather vain about it.

Karaoke last night, then three hours of sleep, then twelve hours of babysitting. The kids and I walked ten blocks to the park. When the wind picked up and threw leaves and blossoms around the various pieces of playground equipment I suggested that we leave before things got worse. No sooner had we begun our trek back when things did get worse, and we were rained on all the way back. I kept morale high by telling the kids that they were Lewis and Clark (and Clark) and that I, Sacajawea, would lead them back to safety and hot chocolate. Everything turned out just as I said it would, and there was happiness in the land.

I sing with Gena's Day of Lions tonight. In one hour, actually, at Valentine's. Come down! It's free!

Alllllllmooooooost.

2006-04-26T21:54:00.000-07:00

So, so close. Last week the Toyota was finally towed away from the front of our house headed toward its final resting place. I'm supposed to receive a call tomorrow from an inspector who will tell me how much my insurance company thinks my car is worth. God knows I'm going to get screwed over, but, as every sympathetic person has told me, At least I didn't get hurt. I suppose that's all a matter of perspective, though, isn't it?

This evening my comics teacher wrote on the left side of the chalkboard: SET UP.
On the far right side she wrote: PUNCH LINE.
And in between the two she wrote: SHIT HAPPENS.

In addition to the twins, my employer has a daughter, Emily, who is six months or so older than me. She lives in Australia for half of each year and is in Portland for the next few weeks. I told her about my trip plans and she offered to travel a bit with me on the South Island of NZ and then hook me up with places to stay in Australia. That sounds good, aside from the fact that I think she might be a little bit crazy. And she doesn't get my sense of humor at all.

At all.

We have these conversations where she tells an interesting story, then I make an amusing comment, and she says, "What?" Then I explain that I was just making a joke and tell her why I thought it was funny. She still doesn't get it. My time in Australia may just be a series of aborted jokes and blistering sunburns.

illustrations

2006-04-15T16:58:00.000-07:00

For some reason I decided to give up my work-free Fridays in exchange for an art class at PCC. A six hour drawing class, actually. Five of the six hours are spent standing in front of an easel, arm extended (I don't dare rest my wrist), drawing the same things again and again on 18x24 paper. Last class session a girl played her CD on the community boom box, a horrifying mix of Top 40 alternative rock hits from circa 2001. God have mercy on my soul.

The whole experience is exhausting. After the lunch break I hate the objects for being elusive in their dimensions and proportions. I hate the concrete floor for being so unyielding. I hate the charcoal and graphite for being so quick to shatter. From noon to three PM I am a mess - eyebrows shoved together in almost psychotic concentration, a slew of profanities uttered not quite under my breath.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that my classmates call me Turrets Girl when I'm not around.

[In other news, Anne Lamott is speaking for free downtown next week. Anyone want to go?]

"My father bleeds history"

2006-04-12T22:22:00.000-07:00

Pink eye: cured. The remedy? Multiple eye washings every day with a solution of hot salt water, followed by hot, salty chamomile tea bag compresses. Utterly miserable. I went to the video store in my embarrassingly pink eyed state and was hit on relentlessly by a nineteen-year-old who finally convinced me to give him my Myspace info. ("Mind if I message you some time?") The final cure was fresh breast milk dropped into each of my eyes.

Insurance: bullshit. It's been nearly four weeks since my St. Patrick's Day disaster. I have been riding my bike to and from work every day, which would normally be fine and good if it weren't for the bitterness that I harbor in my heart every day towards bad drivers and wicked insurance companies. This morning I talked to the police officer that was at the accident and found out that the other driver was arrested on charges of DUI, hit and run, and reckless driving. You would think that with all of that stacked against him we would be somewhere closer to getting my car fixed, but no. No, no, no. Now I'm having to threaten legal action against the insurance companies which is an enormous can of worms that I'm not anxious to open.

Last week I started two new classes at PCC - Intro to Comics Art and Intro to Drawing. The comics class is the best. When I first walked in to our assigned room last Wednesday I was the only girl among ten guys. I put my face in my hands and thought, I should have expected this...
To my relief, the final count is Girls: 7, Boys: 17. Our teacher is in her fifties and wears John Lennon sunglasses and black denim mini skirts. I get to read exciting graphic novels and argue with socially maladjusted males! Awesome. And there was some talk of phone numbers being exchanged in binary, but that's another story.

2006-03-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life is like this:

Oh! Hooray! I'm finally not sick and feeling better and happy and energetic!
Oh... wait... I have pink eye?!
I have to spend my day off at the clinic in the hopes of getting eye drops?!
I longed for this every day of my grade school life and now get it at the age of 24?!

100

2006-03-22T19:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, here it is, post number 100. In celebration of this great event, I have compiled this:

A List of (100/2) Things!

There is no real order to any of this, so please, bear with me.

1. Today I went to my bank and got a cashier's check in the amount of $1900 and sent it in the mail to the company that has planned my NEW ZEALAND TRIP! Cashier's check? Yes. It saved me $50. Here's the plan: Portland - Auckland - Sydney - Auckland - Honolulu - Portland, October 15 through January 15. Soon. Very soon.
2. Two weeks ago I went back to REI. A guy who hadn't helped me the first time around walked up to me and said, "So, you're back." I had hoped that it had been long enough that I wouldn't be remembered. Hiking boots: check. Enough said.
3. Everyone's been making a big deal about that book A Million Little Pieces, but I don't think it's that great.
4. I've talked and talked and talked about it, but here's a summary for anyone who didn't know: St. Patrick's day, drunk driver, hit-and-run, my car doesn't drive, airbags are scary, might need a lawyer.
5. I promised Jack Saturn that we'd make it to dinner alive, and we did. It's a good thing I didn't promise him we'd make it back to NE without having to ride in a police car.
6. Rooftop shower at my youth hostel in Hawaii. You get clean, watch the waves and get a tan all at once. Hallelujah, Praise Jesus, Amen.
7. Jacques Cousteau is my idol.
8. The perfect sympathy gift right now would be a ride to Seattle to see Sufjan Stevens.
9. When I was five I thought David Bowie was hot. Beat that.
10. When people I don't know walk into my house, look at Kona and immediately say, "WHOA! That is the fattest cat I've ever seen!" I make a mental note to hold a grudge against them for at least thirty days.
11. My brother had to get stitches in his head four times before the age of ten.
12. I told a friend that I've been completely exhausted for about two weeks and he said that I might have mono. Now that would be funny.
13. I'm using my parents computer and my mom has the cursor programmed to be a conch shell and sailboat steering wheel (what are those things called?) and it's all making me completely insane.
14. Singing with Gena at the bar went well. For the last song she picked up her acoustic guitar and Gena, Jon Moore and I stepped off the stage to sing the last song. Every single person in the bar was silent and it was beautiful.
15. I can now count the number of couples getting married this summer on two hands.
16. Things to be thankful for: Friends with whom you can have joint custody of a completely wonderful book.
17. Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson is my new favorite.
18. Finding (100/2) things to list is harder than I thought.
19. A list of 100 would have been impossible.
20. Carmen O'Brien is the most photogenic person I've ever met.
21. Beware: I have the power to psychoanalyze you.
22. When I first became a nanny I didn't think that I'd end up actually raising someone else's children. It's terrifying.
23. I learn a lot from singing with Todd and Angie.
24. I will never raise mice.
25. I will never skydive.
26. I sing in the shower with my quiet voice.
27. I sing in the car with my loud voice (that's why I miss it so much).
28. I like buildings that don't have a 13th floor.
29. Once my Dad and my brother tricked me into watching Event Horizon. It's probably the most horrible movie I will ever see.
30. Last month in Seaside, Oregon in the middle of the night with a bottle of wine and Gena Gestaldi I saw Orion's bow for the first time.
31. When I was a kid my mom used to take me out to watch stars with a thermos of hot chocolate and a giant telescope. I would always fall asleep halfway through and snore like a bear.
32. I had hiccups in the womb.
33. Godzilla flavored shave ice is a bad bad bad idea.
34. What scares me the worst: airplanes.
35. What scares me the second worst: sharks.
36. What scares me the third worst: sleeping alone in empty houses.
37. Apparently children in Britain say things like, "Snow is my favorite and it is my best" which is so endearing it makes me want to live there.
38. I'm sick and can't smell anything, and in my profession, that can be a serious setback. For instance, Thiel had pooped in his diaper but I didn't know it until I went to change him out of his pajamas and found that the poop had squeezed out of his diaper all the way up his back, clear to his armpits. I had to hose him off. (Sick.)
39. If you ever go in a helicopter they might make you wear an awesome yellow fanny pack.
40. My parents' house is full of "collections." I will never be a collector.
41. I hate the word "poignant."
42. I am well loved.
43. My holga is the best thing that has ever happened to my photographs.
44. There are some boys who call our house the Vagistery.
45. Sometimes I drink beer with my Dad. Sometimes my Dad buys beer for Michael Whipple.
46. In New Zealand I am going to swim with dolphins. (They are a shark's natural enemy, so I should be okay.)
47. Dancing? Yes and yes.
48. I need a movie friend who lives in Portland.
49. We read every day.
50. I witnessed this child's entry into the world.

From my toes

2006-03-08T23:26:00.000-08:00

In case you haven't heard, Gena is letting me sing with her at this next Day of Lions show.

The Bitter End
9pm
$3

I'm a gimmick! Come out! Witness this milestone in my life!

After work this evening I met up with Gena at Jon Moore's house to have "band practice" (oh god, oh god!). Gena and I had worked through some songs a few evenings before, and when Jon added his voice we sounded like amazing.

I've been elated ever since. I told Melissa that making music with people is like dating but without all the pain. Had I known I would have locked myself in my room with a guitar ages ago.

Two days later

2006-03-05T21:20:00.000-08:00

I feel badly that I posted in anger. I'm sure there's some rule in the Bible about not writing in your blog after the sun has gone down without first reconciling with an enemy.

Not that this person is now my enemy! Yesterday I remembered that I am often sensitive. Most of the time I don't need to remember this because I am blessed with such amusing, generous and loving friends (and employers, and parents, and pastors). The last time I cried wasn't even over an emotional wound, but because little Thiel had a temperature of 103 degrees after taking his first dose of Amoxicillin and it scared me.

This person merely had a tactless evening. And I've learned that tactless people make my sensitive self go "ouch" far too frequently. Consider this a lesson learned!

Not all boys are stupid, but this one is

2006-03-04T01:43:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to begin.

It seems that every male that I show romantic interest in is the type that is obvious in returning said interest, but won't take me out on a date. Instead, they prefer to ambiguously "hang out" until they know for sure that they can spend the rest of their lives with me. But, since I'm not about to marry someone, it's clear that I have not achieved the calibre of future life partner yet.

Right. So. There's someone, and it's not a big deal, but it's enough of a deal that sometimes I get a little bit excited and bounce around on my toes and scoot my chair around the table. After a couple of cute and awkward "Hey, how are you" encounters, I told him that we should hang out some time. He told me that he is really busy and likes hanging out at his house, but that I could come to his show in a couple of weeks if I wanted. (Burn.)

Then, tonight, I plotted a small plot. Initially it worked out far better than I had hoped for: the someone ends up at the bar, sits next to me, and we ambiguously hang out for a good ninety minutes. Everyone pays their tab and he asks what my plan is for the rest of the evening. I say, "80s dancing! So fun!"

Him: Dancing?! Are you serious? You should come over to my house and watch a movie.

[Does he really think that watching a movie would be better than the hilarity of people watching to David Bowie and Justin Timberlake at The Fez?]

Me: I've been waiting for this all week! You should come out with us!

Him: I can't believe you're going dancing. Dancing is dumb. You'll get pregnant and go to hell.

[Now, I know that he's joking, but isn't that a little... rude?]

Me: Dancing is fun.

[At this point Amanda jumps in and tries to tell him that I'm suuuch a good dancer, which is kind, but isn't working at all.]

Him: So you're going to go the Fez after all I've done for you.

Me: Hmm. What have you done for me?

Him: Well, I came here and sat next to you when I didn't have to.

I couldn't believe it. Really. It just got worse. I was so angry. I still am.
The point is, telling a girl that something that she really enjoys is a waste of time is a good way to get blacklisted. God save me. If the boys in NZ are nice, I may never come back.

Melissa and I went to the Fez unescorted and undeterred. The dancing was good enough, but I was exhausted. We left, nine blocks to my car in the rain and began the drive home.

A block from the on ramp to the Morrison bridge we are in the far right lane of a one way street and a black car is two lanes over to the left. In the middle of the intersection the car turns right and hits the back end of my car. The jolt was huge - I pull over - the black car drives off.

I
am
so
angry.

2006-02-28T23:17:00.000-08:00

I'm in love with Sufjan Stevens.
I want to have his nineteen babies.
Seriously.

Step Two: Cookware (almost)

2006-02-22T18:31:00.000-08:00

In further preparation for my NZ trip, I bought a backpacking stove on Ebay. It cost over $50 and weighs under a pound. The best part? Though the preferred fuel source is white gas, it can use anything from diesel to rocket fuel. That means that if my flight across the world goes all Lost and rips in half and crashes on a (seemingly) deserted island, if we can find my pack, and if there is any fuel salvageable on the plane, we can cook!

The online backpacking community has warned that the stove sometimes shoots out fireballs when the something and something else go wrong. (What? I can't remember.) If you happen to see me without eyebrows in the next few weeks, please, don't ask why.

Anyone need to add a little something to their ramen ritual? I don't think you could ask for more than a little Missi, a little backyard, and a whole lot of pyrotechnics. Come on over!

Celebrate!

2006-02-14T00:48:00.000-08:00

My church is great. My church has a women's group. A couple of weeks ago at women's group we sat around and made collages that were metaphors of ourselves - a very Starting Over thing to do. Deborah, my fifty-something pastor currently pursuing her PhD, had a line from a magazine glued on to her page that said "Funk you." I asked her why she had chosen that (also very Starting Over) and she said it was because it sounded a lot like "fuck you" and that more women need to develop a "fuck you attitude" in order to protect themselves. If you happen to be an often-passive female such as myself, or know one, you know that this is a good idea.

Case in point:
This evening I talked Melissa into going out dancing with me at the Holocene even though there was a $10 cover, and even though it was Monday night. Because of the great Mercury write-up I had expected a Portland hipster dance party, overrun with sweaters, glasses, and shuffling feet.

Nope.

Somehow the club was swarming with hippies and ravers, and the men outnumbered the women ten-to-one. And they were, for the most part, creepy men. One of the not-quite-hippies wore a white dress shirt partially unbuttoned and alternated between beat boxing and doing the running man. He looked like Napoleon Dynamite when he practices the dance video in his room. To my horror I accidentally made eye contact with him and he held his hands out and asked me to dance.

If only I had had the Fuck You attitude, but no, I didn't, so I smiled uncomfortably and said "sure" and then he grabbed both of my hands and started spinning me around, attempting to ballroom dance. Mind you, this is all to thinly embelleshed, uninteresting house beats. Awesome.

I pulled my hands away after awhile and tried to stay away from him, but then he pulled his shirt up over his head and stomped around like Godzilla... and...

The good news is that I received sympathy glances from a cute boy in a grey sweatshirt. When I looked at my watch to see if I had spent my $10 in dancing it was midnight, and Cute Boy in Grey Sweatshirt leaned over my shoulder and wished me a happy Valentine's day.

I wish this story had a better ending than that - like, the exchanging of phone numbers! - but it doesn't. Oh well. There's always Kona.

2006-02-06T22:32:00.000-08:00

Ok!

Not all boys are stupid.
Believe me when I say I meant nothing bad towards either Bob or Adam.

2006-02-04T23:19:00.000-08:00

There are two reasons that I have been working so much (13 days straight):

1. Boys are stupid.

2. I'm going to New Zealand and am discovering that "gear" is really "expensive."

There are two VD-related festivities happening at our house:

1. Valentine making party this coming Thursday. Sharpen you wit for this one, folks!

2. A "Blood and Wine" party on the big day, the fourteenth. We will watch a slasher movie (particular film as yet undecided) and drink wine. The way I see it, Valentine's is generally a lose-lose situation. Because, unless I get a card that reads "Blah, blah, blah, you are the most amazing person I have ever met. With undying love, Adrien Brody" I'm going to be a little bit disappointed. However, if you take any potential for romance out (after all, it's the "maybe" that gets me every time) and replace it with death and alcohol, well, then you have a winner.

I worked two jobs today:

1. 6:30 am to 6:15 pm, the Soumokils. Three kids, one dog, one cat. Some time around four I had finished washing some dishes and turned off the faucet to discover that the house was completely silent. This is never, ever good. Except for this time! The oldest yelled down the stairs for me to play the first song on the CD, and "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid blasted through the living room. The kids came running down in their bathrobes. I said, "Please tell me you're wearing clothes," and they threw the robes open and danced around in their swimsuits. Then threw the outerwear on the ground and laid out beach blankets and put on sunglasses, shimmying around like sizzling bacon. Then they brought out their kickboards and pretended to surf across the carpet. This was all the summer I needed, and this is why I love my job.

2. 6:30 pm to 10:45 pm, the Comic Book Family. Two kids, TiVo, best Geek collections (and connections) you'll ever see. Dashiell: screams for Mom every forty-five minutes. Elliot: "I just ate your brain! I just cut your arm off! You're bleeding and you have no head!" I sang "Baby Beluga" three times, "Twinkle Twinkle" and "Sally the Camel" each twice. Lengthy discussion with parents afterwards on how to best build a fire and why I now consider myself an expert in children's literature.

My two favorite children's books:

1. The Big Red Barn - Margaret Wise Brown

2. Mr. Putter and Tabby Stir the Soup - Cynthia Rylant

2006-01-31T18:00:00.000-08:00

How far south would I have to drive before the sun came out? It doesn't even have to be warm, necessarily, just sunny.

This weather is making my soul ache.
I don't think I can take much more of it.

Step One: Footwear

2006-01-29T00:33:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I got a gift card to R.E.I. in the amount of fifty dollars. In my ignorance I thought that certainly this would be enough to buy a pair of hiking boots for my upcoming trip to NZ. Of course fifty dollars would be enough!

The cheapest hiking boots were eighty dollars, though most cost somewhere around $150. The most I have ever spent on a pair of shoes is sixty-five.

I was at R.E.I. for two hours trying on different sizes and styles of boots; lacing and re-lacing, stomping up and down the faux-rock ramp, asking the associate to press against the toes or the heels, taking them off to do the whole thing over again. I'm pretty sure they make the laces out of burlap. Coated in shards of glass.

As I put on the third pair I got a little bit whiny and told Michael that my hands hurt from pulling on the laces. He told me that if my hands started bleeding he'd get me some bandages, and that because he worked there all day he couldn't tie all of the shoes that I was trying on or else his hands would hurt. I thought his no-mercy attitude was a joke, but then I scraped off enough skin on my left hand that it did bleed. And he gave me a band-aid. And on we went to the next pair of shoes.

When everything was said and done I left with the gift card still in my wallet, with a name and a (store) phone number, but without a new pair of shoes. Michael looked me in the eyes and said that my blood sugar had dropped and that I wasn't in any condition to make such a major decision. I told him I would come back once my hands had healed.

2006-01-26T23:52:00.000-08:00

Please let me tell you again that I love my Holga. I like to pretend that the red light leaks in the images are the finger of God reaching out to touch me. Romantic, I know.

Think again, batman.

2006-01-23T23:29:00.000-08:00

One of my favorite things is sitting on the cold, cold porch reading Jack Handy's Deep Thoughts with my friends. We each take a turn to read one out loud, and then take a drink of miscellaneous alcohol and the book is passed to the next person. This evening the prize for best Deep Thought was a tie between the man who nails tadpoles to a board and the astronaut who leaves his colleague stranded on the moon because he thinks he might be a vampire. I drank $4.59 champagne from the Ed Mart around the corner.

Temp-temp-temptation

2006-01-22T13:24:00.000-08:00

To be honest, I am completely disappointed with the "I Saw U" ads placed in The Mercury the past several months. I mean, you only get, what, forty words to entice a stranger into contacting you? The average ad reads along the lines of, "You were on the #15 bus. I like your sweater. Want to get a drink?" There is so much wooing potential in forty words! Wasted!

I want to start an "I Saw U" revolution. I want them to read more like poetry.
In fact, I want them to be poetry.
I'm starting the "I Saw U" haiku movement.

Currently I am considering writing to the gay boy at the bagel shop, the checker at Trader Joe's who also thinks that bagging groceries is like playing Tetris, or the ice skating Jack Black lookalike with the giant green foam cowboy hat. Not because I want a romantic encounter with any of them (I've renounced dating in my pursuit of adventure, after all), but because I think it will be fun.

And if you write an "I Saw U" haiku, you can be part of the revolution, too!

2006-01-20T13:14:00.000-08:00

Since things ended with Matt my mom has taken to emailing me articles with titles like, "Rethinking the Gift of Singleness."

Help. Me.

Anticipation

2006-01-17T21:42:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I got a book about hiking ("tramping") in New Zealand. In New Zealand they have huts built along the hiking trails so that you don't have to pack in a sleeping mat, tent, fuel or cooking stove. Each hut holds about twenty-five people and costs between five and twenty dollars a night. Yes!

I'm excited. Now the prospect of hiking solo for two months doesn't seem so... lonely. Last night I dreamed about it. It feels so good to step into this adventure alone, and that is something I never thought I'd say. Till now, loneliness had seemed the worst possible fate. Now I think that boredom is.

At this moment I'm considering putting off school until the fall of 2007, at the earliest. After NZ I will, for what seems like the first time, have no rent, employment, or romantic obligations. It's unsettling to realize that I'll not have this center to draw me back to Portland in a little under eight months. Amanda and Joel getting married will be the end of the MAMAs house, refuge of nomadic friends (and friends of friends). My friends are coupling off or moving away. What if I can't forge a Home for myself when I return?

If I return?

First Try

2006-01-15T22:31:00.000-08:00

With the way that the Holga is designed you can advance the film half or three-quarters of the way between shots, causing the images to overlap on the negative. This works especially well for taking panaramic pictures. My first attempt didn't turn out so well. The colors and scenery are rather boring, and the buildings don't line up from frame to frame. It is interesting, though.

If I practice enough, I might be as good as this guy!

Rost, continued

2006-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

I realized today that my Wednesday evening TV addiction had escaped my control when I got snappy and rude over having to watch some episodes out of sequence. Sorry, Janaki. Really, there is no excuse.

Also, I hate it when they preview the following week's episode.

Also, I hate all the female leads.

Also, I had my heart tattoo touched up today. It hurt like a mother.

Real friends

2006-01-09T01:22:00.000-08:00

stand in as fake boyfriend when you find yourself caught in an awkward,
boundary-violating situation.

2006-01-03T22:23:00.000-08:00

I love love love love love my Holga.

(New photos coming soon.)

watch the eyes

2006-01-02T01:42:00.000-08:00

i found this the other day while looking for a church service on christmas eve...

(he's a youth pastor.)

day 1

2006-01-01T17:03:00.000-08:00

First, the bad things of 2005:
-Broken hearts.
-A very expensive fender-bender.
-Brother Peter sent to Iraq for nine months.
-Star Wars Episode Three

Some good things from 2005:
-Loving and being loved. I do mean that in a romantic way. Even though the broken hearts have been at times almost too much to bear, I would still do everything over again if given the opportunity.
-I became an auntie for the second time. Arisellie was born yesterday. Hooray!
-My house mates and amazing friends. I would be lost without them.
-Getting to know my previously estranged brother Matthew.
-The Bridge, my home and community. I have been embraced and encouraged and stimulated by the people there. They tell me that I need to love myself. They also tell me that I need to love the church. I don't know which is harder.
-Went on a date with a lawyer in late spring. He wasn't very interesting, but I think it's funny that I can say "I went on a date with a lawyer" and have it be true! (I will never mention this again.)
-Adventure! This is not limited to Hawaii, but includes the hikes, the trips, the movies, the parties, the food that I have enjoyed with people around me.
-Freaks and Geeks, Firefly, Lost.
-Voice lessons with Todd Fadel, getting to know the Fadel family, singing my soul out during worship.
-Poems written: two. One that I am ashamed of, one that I am not. Neither are any good, but I can live with that.

What I expect in 2006:
-New Zealand.
-Living alone in an apartment for the first time ever.
-McNeo becoming a Mrs.
-Fun, fun and more fun with Gena as our newest house member.
-Lots and lots of diaper changing.

Also:
-I am going to try to say "no" more. For example, No, I will not watch your children on New Year's Eve. Or, No, you and your children cannot sit next to me on the flight from Honolulu to Portland - I'm not supposed to start work till tomorrow. Finally, No, I will not make out with you.
-I've given up non-caps typing. It was starting to feel sloppy.
-You can use this idea for 2006 (I'll give it to you for free): give the gift of a cheap bottle of wine, but use pictures from an old National Geographic to make a better label. Then use your label maker to write something witty or endearing. Better yet, witty and endearing.

rost

2005-12-27T21:09:00.000-08:00

the last two weeks have been spent obsessively watching the first season of lost.
this evening we watched the final three episodes.

oh. my. gosh.

i don't want to wait until the current season comes out on dvd, and i don't want to jump right in the middle of everything and completely ruin it, so the plan is to download the first several episodes and project them onto our wall. then we will watch them until our eyes bleed.

it will be amazing.

2005-12-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

last night i broke up with my boyfriend.
if you happen to see me in the next few days,
be sure to give me a hug.
i could use it.

i had thought that since i was the one
ending the relationship
perhaps i would feel relief.

but matt has proven himself
as the most amazing person i have ever known.
i worry that i made the wrong choice,
even though it's the best i could do
given the circumstances.

needing some visual stimulation

2005-12-20T23:28:00.000-08:00

i'm looking for Hermano

2005-12-20T23:19:00.000-08:00

my brother tricked me into going along with him for christmas shopping even though i have decided to ignore the holiday and its obligatory gift-giving. after sixty dollars (one gift down, four more to go) we met up with melissa at standford's for happy hour. peter talked about perhaps extending his career in the marines to be trained as a sniper.

once we got home i showed melissa a picture of me with permed blonde hair at the tender age of eleven. along with my photos of camp and home school friends with bad fashion sense was a sideways, half cut off image of my little brother with head gear on, oversized glasses, brown hair askew. pointing a nerf rifle at the camera.

prophetic? i think so.

2005-12-18T22:20:00.000-08:00

this snowing and freezing is just the sort of payoff for this bitterly cold weather i'd been hoping for.

and it almsot makes up for having to leave hawaii.

now, if i can only get out of going to work tomorrow...

what i'm not

2005-12-17T17:43:00.000-08:00

matt has notoriously bad hair. perhaps not "bad" so much as "eccentric."

tuesday evening he picked me up from the airport with his new mullet.
it's fluffy on the top and sides, and longer than my own hair in the back.

last night i said, matt, you have some fuzzy stuff in your hair.
he said, oh, it's probably just some spider webs.
and he left them there.

i probably shouldn't feel like crying, but i do.

[he did say that it's only temporary.]
[the haircut, i mean.]

after this, i'll never sun bathe in the backyard again

2005-12-12T16:59:00.000-08:00

i haven't seen another soul in a couple of hours, a couple of miles.
eucalyptus trees surround me, pale papery peeling bark,
small spear-shaped fragrant leaves.
a breeze rushes down the seldom-used trail,
i forget to breathe.
this place is holy.

immune failure

2005-12-07T14:06:00.000-08:00

things that are good: hawaii! food! clean clothes!

however, i have had a cold the entire time that i've been here. crap.
and i got my period over the weekend, which knocked me out for a couple of days.
then i got a really bad sunburn on my back and was in pain every time i moved my torso for a good several days.
then, this morning i awoke to sharp pains in my stomach and, in general, feeling like hell.

(may i say this?) not fair.

today is my first day alone. i plan on walking a couple of miles up to the surfing area and collapsing in to the sand.

worried that i might have tetanus? or staph? or, as one girls called it, "the hiv?"

yesterday we learned that carmen and missi as a pair cannot hike eight miles in six hours.

the garden isle

2005-12-01T20:17:00.000-08:00

i'm here!

the six-hour flight passed without a nervous breakdown on my part, thanks to my prayers and those of my loved ones. and to this website i found called FearOfFlyingHelp.com.

we stepped off the pressurized, air-conditioned plane into the warm humidity of honolulu, hawaii. hooray! i have never before that moment love humidity, but in comparison with chaffed hands and frosty morning cars, i couldn't ask for anything more.

the good news is, there is more!

when carmen and i landed at the lihue airport on kauai, i called our youth hostel and asked for someone to come pick us up. the woman on the phone said, okay, the guy picking you up will be a blond australian in a white convertible? i said, are you serious?! she didn't think it was a tropical 80s stereotype and said, yes.

we have bunk beds with full-sized mattresses and individual curtains. there is a window at the foot of my bed, and when i'm laying down i can see the ocean. our hostel is barely a fifty yards from the waves, and i get to watch the sun rise. unobstructed. i can't believe it.

yesterday carmen and i took a bus to the big town and rented a car from Island Rentals which offers beat-up, barely functional automobiles for a reduced rate. because the cars are so crappy, we don't have to worry about anyone breaking in or about getting the car messey. it already is. and we're pretty sure the jeep only has a four-gallon tank! is that possible?? it doesn't seem like it, but each time we've tried to fill 'er up the gasoline spills out at 3.9 gallons. and after 120 miles the needle has made very good friends with the E.

the woman who runs the hostel is named layla. she frightens me.

the guy in the bunk across from us has been living at the hostel for about six months now. this hippie works at the vegan icecream bakery and rubs a crystal on his forehead every morning and says things like "trinity of comfort."

this morning i took a shower on the roof. the wind blew in and i watched the ocean while i scrubbed the salt out of my hair.

so far: two sun burns. one bug bite. two avocados. no alcoholic beverages.

tomorrow we go on a 55 minute HELICOPTER TOUR of the island! the grandparents of the twins paid for it. i'm excited.

my boyfriend slipped a cash bonus into my backpack before i left. (i think he felt sorry that i got sick two days before my trip.)

i know this is lengthy, but i had a lot of ground to cover. love to everyone! someone hug my kitty!

2005-11-26T16:43:00.000-08:00

oh my gosh
i'm going to hawaii!
i leave in three days!
sewing two swimsuits!
packing minimal amounts of clothing!
bringing lots of film!
coping with flight anxiety!
will be back
brown and beautiful
on december 13!

over-stuffed

2005-11-25T09:15:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving was terrific. around twenty people came to our house to share food and love and alcoholic beverages. our tiny tiny kitchen was in a perpetual state of food-making chaos (food-making chaos is my favorite kind). i baked four pumpkin pies from fresh pumpkin!

a list:
tofurkey - a lot better than you'd think. thank you, gena.
mushroom gravy - hearty and meat-free.
real turkey - purchased for under $3. soaked in apple juice brine for two days. perfect.
mulled wine - yum!
garlic mashed potatoes - the best. ever.
stuffing - with meat and without. okay!
birthday present - samurais in literature form. one graphic, one not.
neighbors - without them, none of this would have been possible.
bill and ted - they were excellent to each other.

as always, i regretted not being able to eat more than one plate of food. i wanted to, i willed myself to, but it just didn't happen.

and now... pie or fried mashed potatoes for breakfast?

gena's never seen my blog!

2005-11-20T00:25:00.000-08:00

my brother will be home for thanksgiving.

i won't be home for thanksgiving.
i mean, i will, but it won't be with my parents.

i'm addicted to sufjan stevens.

voice lessons are good - now i can keep up with the fadels without going horse.

downside of punk rock tattoos: improper healing which causes love to look like faded red sharpie on the inside of my wrist.

less than two weeks till hawaii.

21+3, in no less than a thousand words

2005-11-14T19:50:00.000-08:00

love is good art

2005-11-11T15:15:00.000-08:00

lately i've been enjoying life. work with the babies can be draining, especially by the end of the week, but thiel and abby are wonderful, gorgeous children. i'm teaching them to count to five, and we're working on colors, and we go to library story time every week. yesterday, after the library time, i brought them back to "mimi house." i showed them pictures, we played records and danced (kansas, baby, kansas), and looked at books.

i love my house. it makes me so happy that our traveling friends stay with us for extended periods of time, and that we'll be having a huge thanksgiving party with love, food, and fire.

church is good, too. this sunday i'll be singing with todd and angie again (the power team), and my parents are going to come for the occasion. yes! i met with deborah this morning; the is the smartest woman i know. listening to her sermons makes me want to go back to bible school. we're still looking for a new building. dang.

and seriously, last weekend, i had the best weekend of my life. or, at least, the best weekend in the past several months.
thursday: beach cabin with matt, sara, and jason. we had hot toddies and got caught in a torrential downpour.
friday: dinner with my parents, matt, and carmen. my dad was happy to see carmen. really happy.
saturday: carmen and i got matching tattoos! punk rock style, in the basement of someone's house. then dancing and drinking at the holocene, and more drinking at the river city saloon. this last place is where i totally lived up the 21+3 life. the bartender announced "we have a 21er!" over the PA system, and my beloved friends wrote on my arms with a sharpie once i had had too much. janaki and bryce had me at my house by 2:30, and poor matt sat up with me in the bathroom till nearly four. he's a dear.

speaking of matt, check this out:

me=nanny=marry poppins
matt=my boyfriend=chimney sweep=oh my gosh, can you believe it?!

today nick said to me, "you know matt's totally in love with you, right?"
yes, yes, i know. and he's amazing. i enjoy him so much.

sick sick sick

2005-11-02T17:40:00.000-08:00

it's times like these that i almost can't handle my job. i'm sick, the babies are sick. they haven't been introduced to TV yet at nearly 20 months of age. most of the time that's great! right now it is awful. my shoulders and chest have been smeared over and over again with tears and green snot trails. on top of all of that, thiel choked on some oyster crackers yesterday during lunch and threw up everywhere. i yanked him out of his highchair in case the situation got worse, but i just ended up with vomity crackers all over me.

you know.

hopefully i'll be well by saturday! since it's my birthday! 21+3!

i've sent the details via myspace. bob and lita: i am so excited to hang out with you on my 21+3 birthday. adam: it's too bad that you won't be in town for this event. i have two words for you:

nick. koch.

21+3

2005-10-29T11:38:00.000-07:00

it's only one week till my birthday!

for my birthday i'm having a 21st birthday do-over (or, 21+3, thank you janaki) since i was the designated driver my first time around. it will be at a bar somewhere. you are invited. look for more info.

more than anything i want firewood and a bookshelf for my birthday. and don't think that a bookshelf can double as firewood. because it can't.

in the meantime, happy halloween everyone. watch out for razor blades.

anti-auto

2005-10-22T21:50:00.000-07:00

the week has been kinda like this:

spent half a day with matt's mom, aunt, cousin, brother and sister-in-law. what i had feared to be terrifying ended up only being out of control. we fed ducks, lit a fire while the damper was closed (thus suffocating the house in smoke), and caused a general ruckus. the aunt shares my name. and ran around smelling the leaves on trees.

after escaping early from the family function, i got gas at the station where my brother works. there was a fight between one of the employees and a couple of customers, and then on my way out i hit a car. we exchanged information and i cried all the way home, then got to work late.

on wednesday while i was watching the twins i ducked into the basement for a few minutes to do laundry towards the end of their nap. as i came back up the stairs i could hear them shrieking, but it wasn't the usual riled up jumping and yelling. i ran up the second flight of stairs and the two of them were wailing at the top of their lungs. thiel had become so agitated while i was in the basement that he repeatedly banged his head against the metal bars of his crib and had a large purplish goose egg in the middle of his forehead. thiel was in pain and abby was frightened and i felt like the most incompetent, awful person in the world. i held and soothed them as best i could, but they were fragile and clingy for the rest of the afternoon.

my car died, too, on the way to work that day, and i've been bumming car rides and loans off my roommates since. perhaps god is telling me something.

this evening i babysat for the comic book family. yes! jen told me about the jewish calendar and the obscure holidays that they've begun to focus on since their kids have become a bit older. at temple that evening the kids had sang the song "i've got that shabbat feeling down in my lev." and yes, it is the same tune as "i've got the joyjoyjoyjoy down in my heart." hilarious. and awesome. tonight i wanted more than anything to be jewish. it seems like a good idea to have more than two religious observances a year - i can see how it would bring a community together and forge a stronger tie to "church history." then again, i'm not jewish, so what do i know?

i had my first voice lesson today. sometimes i wish i could sing for the rest of my life, it feels that good.

pumpkins and canadians!

2005-10-12T21:57:00.000-07:00

some images from last weekend's trip:

two days ago i took the babies to the pumpkin patch on sauvie's island. so much fun!

road tripping

2005-10-10T17:58:00.000-07:00

this past weekend was my third trip to visit carmen since she moved to bellingham around may. the first time we took the $75 ferry out to san juan island and camped along this unbelievably clean lake. and, as i mentioned before, i saw a fox.

the second time up matt and i were supposed to drop his mom's car off at the end of her hiking route, which didn't end up working out. she gave us the money anyway, so we were able to go to vancouver and have fun at the aquarium and eating food. we almost weren't allowed to cross the border, though, because matt was sitting in the back wearing his punk rock clothes and looked homeless. god knows canda hates homeless people.

this last time matt was in ohio training to sweep chimneys, so i brought my friend sarah up for the visit. we made the trip to bellingham in a record four hours, ate lunch there, and then continued up to vancouver to stay with my friend who had recently moved there. i spent far too much money on food. i bought a small sleeping bag so that i don't have to borrow dirty hairy ones that belong to boys in my house. carmen gave me her red backpack for keeps which is capital-A-awesome! we crafted and thriftshopped and listened to kids who really were homeless tell the most entertaining stories ever.

time well spent.

2005-10-05T22:43:00.000-07:00

tickets have been purchased for both myself and carmen.

reservations have been made at youth hostel with luxurious beds.

i think thiel chipped his tooth while we were at the park today. does that make me a bad nanny?

it's official

2005-09-28T17:51:00.000-07:00

i've planned with the employers, with the boyfriend, and here's the plan:

November 29 through December 13 - Hawaii! carmen and/or melissa might come with me. if anyone else has a few days and a few hundered dollars to spare...

October 2005 through October 2006 - work work work. and church.

October 2006 through December 2006 - New Zealand! it's set. it's happening. believe it.

January 2007 - begin classes at Warner Pacific, relocate to SE Portland.

everlasting life

2005-09-24T01:13:00.000-07:00

i've begun talks with the employers about travel plans. hooray!

the other day something happened that has never happened to me before. i took the twins to the coffee shop because all three of us were going crazy inside their house. what usually goes down is they run in, scatter toys and books everywhere while i order my non-caffeinated drink and biscuit, and then they eat my biscuit while i enjoy said drink. then people come in and say that they look just like me (cringe). on this occasion, however, a gentleman sat across from me with this thirteen-month-old daughter. after asking if the babies were twins, he asked if i was their nanny! and then he said that i looked too young to have twins!

oh, hooray! a cause for celebration. my wildest dreams have come true.

then there is the comic book family. the dad who writes comic books also writes novels which apparently do rather well. this summer when i went to the beach with them for the weekend, greg told me that he named one of the characters in his latest book missi. i asked, "after me?" and he said, "of course after you!" that was flattering. and, as an added bonus, i have been immortalized in text.

burned out

2005-09-18T23:48:00.000-07:00

on babies. and that sucks.

all i can think about is kindergarten cop with arnold schwarzenegger (don't harass my spelling) when arnie asks his female co-star why she wasn't a teacher anymore and she said that she began to hate teaching so much that she worried she would never want kids of her own. so she joined the police force.

am i destined to be the new officer hegland? dear god.

so, i work and work and work. sixty hours this week - six days, and on sunday i ran the nursery and kids' church. it's completely my own passive fault.

the first two weeks of december the twins are going on vacation to hawaii. i think that i'll take one, too. though i have the cash for my NZ plane ticket it looks as though i won't be able to go till next fall, which is fine by me, because then it will be spring-turning-to-summer over there. come december, i'm leaving the continental US!

i'm thinking... hawaii? youth hostel? sunshine and alcohol and reading and ocean? yes and yes and yes and yes. yes! if not hawaii, then somewhere european. i enjoyed the netherlands, and i never explored england outside of london. fourteen days! no babies! the options are limitless!

oh me! oh my!

2005-09-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

yes yes yeeeesssssssss!

i have enough money for my ticket to NEW ZEALAND!

next step: solidify travel plans with employer, boyfriend.

it's been a long time

2005-08-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

and here's why!

i've been working 60 hours a week...

and hanging out with the new boy...

and looking at aquatic life in canada!

more than usual

2005-07-29T23:37:00.000-07:00

it's been hot these past couple of weeks, just the way i like it. i get to go sleeveless and shoeless, and the babies can go topless (and bottomless!) at the drop of a hat. yes!

yesterday i filled up their purple plastic wading pool while they were sleeping, and then popped them into their little swimsuits which look like diapers only more awesome: one is pink, one is blue, both have dancing sesame street monsters. once in the pool, the twins did their usual routine of splashing and kicking and biting the styrofoam toys. abby paused for a moment and her face became a portrait of intense concentration as she made quiet grunting noises.

"no," i said. "abby, please don't do that."

but once put into action, there's no stopping the bowels of a small child. she grunted and strained until the back of her pink swimming shorts sagged under the weight of a major load.

i didn't know what to do! they weren't ready to go inside, but i couldn't leave thiel by himself or he would certainly drown, and i there were no extra swimsuits nearby to change her into. i found a roll of paper towels near the fish pond. i tore one off, pulled the swim diaper down, and scooped out a mound of poop with almost my bare hand.

sick.

polaroids, not hemorrhoids

2005-07-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

so, there's this boy, and he gives me flowers and opens doors for me and... yeah, he likes me.

it's been a good past couple of weeks.

animals

2005-07-12T00:31:00.000-07:00

i took the babies to the zoo today, which is consistently more fun for me than it is for them.

last time i took them a bird pooped on my head.

this particular outing was substantially less exciting since my head was not pooped on by any sort of animal.

the parents bought the babies harnesses with teathers (leashes) so that we can take them out with a lesser danger of death by car, or kidnapping.

baby update

2005-07-02T16:26:00.000-07:00

technically, the "student" part of student nanny is not applicable for the time being. from now until late next august, i am Missi: World Traveling Nanny! i'm working on the world traveler part, folks. the first step has been to pay off my credit cards, which is almost finished, and then to have the money for my ticket to NZ by the end of the summer. we'll see how that goes.

as before, working with the twins is the most effective form of birth control that i could imagine. they're delightful babies, but i'm happy to able to go home to my flea bitten cat at the end of the day. thiel and abby are absorbing so much! these days they run around the house in circles on their tip toes saying "no! no no no no no!" and i feel horrible because I am the one that has taught them to say it. they love airplanes and dogs and cats and elephants an giraffes.

next week i start working four ten-hour days with them. that's a lot. i'm worried.

a very fantastical weekend

2005-06-27T22:44:00.000-07:00

carmen had a birthday, and a friend of hers (a stranger to me) and i set out on the six-hour trek to celebrate her birthday. i can't adequately describe the great time that i had, i can only say that i haven't had this much fun in months, easy.

on the drive up, we stopped at a "greasy spoon" (the theme of the weekend) somewhere early in washington. the tomato bisque that i ordered was ruined by a quarter pound of bacon, and so i spent nearly ten dollars on iceberg lettuce. we arrived in bellingham late thursday evening and met a man named david who looked like a character from mad max, and who had apparently beat the crap out of some guy with his checkbook.

friday: breakfast (i love love love eating breakfast) at a place that had vegetarian biscuits and gravy. carmen showed us her secret beach, and we stole driftwood. this was followed by a hike at mount baker - beautiful. we met up with carmen's bellingham buddies later on and wandered the streets some more, then i left early to go to bed.

saturday: coffee, packed the car, and went out to wait for a ferry that would take us to san juan island. the ferry was reported to be expensive, maybe even $35, but all three of our mouths dropped open when the cashier told us $75 for the trip. the ferry was fun. (i can do cartwheels and handstands while on a ferry... yessss.) we landed at san juan and found a camping spot on a lake, then had dinner at a seafood restaurant. we ran into a couple who recognized us from the boat and asked us if we were in the band playing later on in the evening. back at camp, we had a fire and marshmallows and chocolate and watched our asian neighbor repeatedly get the line of his fishing pole caught in the bushes as he tried to cast into the lake. all that day and that evening we had watched him relentlessly whip that thing back and forth, and it became the trip's running joke. matt and carmen went to bed as soon as it got dark, and i stayed out by the fire to watch the stars. and... i saw a fox!

sunday: awakened at 4:50 by birds and bugs and sunshine and... that damned fishing pole. all three of us woke up at almost exactly the same time and i whispered to carmen, 'they're having church without us.' we ate pancakes for breakfast, and tea, and i had a hotdog, too. we rented a metal rowboat with a flat bottom that was blown all over the lake by the wind. we took the ferry back to washington, parted ways with carmen, and drove back to portland. the drive was entertaining both coming and going, stuffed with stories and music and laughing and carrot sticks.

in summary: greasy food, lots of driving, outside to see the sun, i saw a fox!

2005-06-13T23:25:00.000-07:00

check this week's mercury. they published my fake i-saw-u, but turned "reverent hipster" into "reverent hips ter." (it's the very first one!)

too much free time

2005-06-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

this evening i drank a lot of coffee at far too late an hour. i should be in bed right now, but instead i have chosen to resize and post pictures since i'm feeling brave. here are some selected images from the series assignment (the best/worst are still safe on my hard drive).

(our yard is ugly. it will be even uglier now that the 'real' lawnmower is broken.)

2005-06-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

i'm waiting for the day when, in the back of the mercury, an "i saw u" (written by someone besides myself) reads something like this:

to the hottie at imago dei's 11 o'clock service: your passion for god sparks passion in my soul.
you: hot girl with hot bible. me: reverent hipster, partaking in the body and the blood.
let's get together and recite scripture.

like baking soda and vinegar

2005-05-31T22:17:00.000-07:00

while at work today i started thinking about volume. fluid ounces, cubic centimeters, you know the drill.

i decided to conduct an experiment. it went a little something like this:

-fill mouth with as much liquid as it can hold (i used water, you might consider using another liquid, like lemonade or zima)
-spit mouthful of liquid into a different container
-measure the spit-out liquid with whatever is handy (at our house this is a starbucks shot glass with one and two-ounce measurements marked for easy reference)

it turns out that my mouth holds three ounces.

to be honest, i am a bit disappointed. i had hoped for more.

how many ounces does your mouth hold?

counting the days

2005-05-30T13:18:00.000-07:00

this weekend i finished my final project for photography and ended up spending over $70. the prints look nice. real nice.

i still need to write an essay on the vietnam war, an essay on fast food nation, take a math final, a history final, meet with my gym teacher at 7:30 am, and write a final essay for film studies. ten days. shit.

last night i started reading ecclesiastes again.

new zealand, anyone?

2005-05-22T22:26:00.000-07:00

for the first time in my life i'm hating my math class.
hours and hours of work only to get a B... i want to cry.

shirtless sith lords: part two

2005-05-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

while waiting in line for episode 3, a guy dressed up as a storm trooper walked back and forth in front of the theater, waving to the cars driving by. a mom and her two kids walked up to him to ask him about the costume, and he took off his helmet to answer their questions and take pictures, and it reminded me so much of that scene when luke comes in to rescue leia and she says aren't you a little short for a storm trooper?

anyway, i was in love.

two birds

2005-05-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

my photo teacher gave us an assignment to copy the photographic style of duane michaels. specifically, a series of five or more black and white photos that have a "dreamlike" quality to them. my idea was to pretend that i mowed the lawn. with my teeth. in a dress.

the whole process was ridiculous. i had to mow a small section of the overgrown backyard with the lawn mower, then run inside and change clothes, run out and take a few pictures, run back inside to change back, and then repeat the process. and i prayed that the neighbors wouldn't see any of this - especially pastor sylvia.

i am embarrassed by the photos. all you get is the last shot (please note the grass on my face as to create the feel of having actually mowed the lawn with my teeth).

2005-05-09T21:28:00.000-07:00

the babies wouldn't nap this afternoon.
my prayer since 3 o'clock has been,
dear god, please let me start my period soon.

guess and check

2005-05-07T16:37:00.000-07:00

here's what came of my first experiment in night photography. most of these were taken with a 15 second exposure at f-22. i'm not totally excited about them, but i'm going out again tonight to try and find some more interesting subjects.

these are the things i have to look forward to

2005-05-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith: 17 days.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 74 days.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (movie): 200 days.

(something something something: priceless?)

tests and breasts (ok, no breasts. just tests.)

2005-05-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

enough about babies. since it's the week after midterms, i'll give you a quick rundown of my classes.

photography: not much to tell here. the teacher is funny, but i haven't learned much. we are going to do night photography this evening, though, under the bridge (so urban).

film studies: in this directors course, we've studied hitchcock and kurosawa so far, and mike leigh is next, i believe. i've chosen roman polanski for my term project, but now i'm afraid that his movies are too scary for me. this class always gets out twenty minutes late.

general sociology: every term has to have that one class that is a complete waste of time yet requires flawless attendance to keep your grade up. i can't tell you how many times i've been told what a theory is, and how people used to have this really bad theory that black people were inferior to white people. last week we watched a movie called tough guise about gender roles and how they influence men in our society. i don't know about you, but i appreciated the clever play on words.

math 112: trigonometry this term. telecourse. that means i have to log on to our class website twice a week and be assaulted by the moving cat icons of which there are at least eleven. at least. i was the first one done with the midterm, and it doesn't matter if the other people hated me for it, because i'll only see them one more time this term.

us history: also a telecourse. surprisingly more interesting than i had anticipated. the professor has selected some interesting readings outside of the text and videos, and he offers helpful feedback on the writing assignments. (he's not so good at math, though. the midterm was made up of three sections, each worth 40%.)

personal fitness: my third telecourse. i walk three hours every week, and will have an A at the end of the term. on the orientation day, the instructor excitedly asked, "who here likes math?" while taking roll. she apparently used to teach it for highschoolers, but likes making people run much more. she is also the mom of one of the guys in the decemberists.

that's it! 18 credits total, and i'm the worse for it.

flesh-eating zombie babies

2005-04-26T22:24:00.000-07:00

i was with the babies a few days ago, they had just awakened from their morning nap, and i was getting them ready for all of the exciting events of the day. lately, these exciting events have included the teething boy chewing on my face like a scene out of dead alive (which scared the poo out of me when i was eleven). he seems to be much more um, orally fixated than his sister, and i wonder if he'll grow up with to be a smoker. or a saxophone player.

after they wake up, i pick out their clothes and get them dressed, hooray, hooray. in abby's box i found this horrible denim jumper, with a gathered waist and everything. ugly as hell, and i promised both her and myself that i would never make her wear it. really, you should never trust anything i say, every again. i dressed poor little abby in the denim jumper from hell today, and for some reason they designed it like a clown suit. there's so much extra fabric around the middle that she has room for ten soiled diapers instead of her usual one-at-a-time, and the leg openings were too large, so whenever she tried to crawl her feet would get stuck inside. then she'd cry, and i'd have to come over and pull her feet back out of the jumper.

also, i told the babies' mom the other day that when i fed them hotdogs they smelled like Meaty McBabies, thinking that i was being so funny. i'm not that funny.

2005-04-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

this morning while brushing my teeth i found a check - made out to me - in the amount of $700.

whaaaat?!

exactly. it was from my school. i found out that the financial aid office mistakenly gave me a tuition waiver more than double what i should have been given, and sent me a check for my loan. i'm going to be good, though, and give them their money back.

birth control

2005-04-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

film studies class has taught me all of my life lessons lately.

vertigo and notorious by hitchcock, and the seven samurai by kurosawa.

today it was sunny, and i chased the babies in the grass. i also took the babies with me to meet brother for lunch, and it was near-disastrous. all of the dishes had to be pushed to the middle of the table as to stay out of their reach, and they ended up eating half of my french fries, anyway. normally charming, thiel and abby turned in to screeching rugrats once we were in a public setting where screeching is frowned upon. i understand now why people don't take their kids with them when they go out to eat.

2005-04-15T17:46:00.000-07:00

bela jackson just urinated on our living room floor.

in other news, i've visited two colleges this week. it makes me feel like eighteen and highschoolish all over again. i ended up with a tour of kids and their parents today, walking around a campus that was too big and brick and flowery for me. i spent the whole hour thinking that none of the students looked like me, and wondering why they all had to have the same columbia sportswear jackets and the same silver jettas. it was like pulling the petals off of a flower, saying, not like me, not like me, not like me... like me? no. not like me...

i don't know if i'm ready to go back to a campus where students compulsively wear flip-flops and booty-hugging sweat pants year round.

in the st. john's neighborhood there's a shop called blue moon photo. i walked in to buy a grey card, but at the back of the store there was a small hallway with beautiful restored typewriters. i said to the sales guy, "you have typewriters? this changes everything." we talked type and talked about fixing mine (provided i find someone to help me carry it to and from the car). they're hand developing two rolls of film for me. as he handed me the receipt, the sales guy asked me if i'd like a temporary tattoo, and i said yes. you guys, they give out temporary tats with your photo or typewriter purchase!

could life get any better?