perpetual huddle: 02

waking up

the snowy day

i owe my childhood studies
professor a personal apology.
in our picture books class
i ranted that the snowy day
was the perfect example
of dull and politically correct
children's literature, with a token
african-american character.
i had a point to make, loudly,
and at length. i accused anyone
who defended ezra jack keats
of being a tedious liberal.
now that i work at a minority preschool
and scour the library for good
books to read in class, i see
i couldn't have been more wrong.
"the snowy day" is a rich
and delightful little book,
the kids love it and i return to it
over and over again at story time.

(bright eyes, brown skin on the other hand... ...)

self-inflicted

slowly ripping all the hair
on my legs out at the root
with the medieval torture-device
know as the epilady
drastically raised my
DIY beauty-treatment
pain threshold.
plucking my eyebrows
or waxing my armpits
can never really phase me again.
in the same way, sitting through
all 116 minutes of the excruciating
chinese avant-garde masterpiece
what time is it over there?
this weekend in new york
forever raised my
experimental film
pain threshold.
when my best friend
sat me down for a bit
of kenneth anger's new dvd,
the nonsensical and sluggish shorts
(rabbit's moon, puce moment &
fireworks) seemed almost quaint,
and barely made me wince.

i want a TARDIS machine

TARDIS machine
dr. who
so hip!
so bbc!

nyc trip

this weekend, i flew to new york.
i traveled across six months
and into the melting snow
to meet a boy again.
he and i spent
most of our time together
getting lost and eavesdropping.
in roughly chronological order,
other activities included:

as soon as i arrived, adding my avatar to his wii
alongside jesus, tyra banks, & his roommates.

killing time at the odessa cafe
until tony, of kropps & bobbers,
could cut my hair. the salon peaked
my sophomore year, when i had a shaved
head, still wore hipster political t-shirts
and lived rent-free next door.
nostalgia.

browsing at st. mark's comics.
i picked up a transmet
to read on the plane ride home.

wondering how i become the girl
who drags a boy to the louis comfort tiffany
exhibit at the metropolitan museum of art
then demands to know if he really likes it,
or is "just pretending." high maintenance!

watching a broadway show (thanks
to an infusion of cash from a relative.)
the first half of the musical spring awakening
was raucous and delightfully squirmy.
the second half was pointless and dated.
the music was loud and too poignant,
the staging, distracting. all those blue bulbs.

browsing at the strand.
i was shocked to find
that in their 18 miles of books
there wasn't one copy of
joe brainard's i remember.
the man behind the counter
suggested barnes & noble (!),
then wrote the isbn number
on a post-it in cursive so beautiful
i instantly forgave everything.

lunching at the telephone bar and grill,
one-on-one, trying to talk about feelings.

watching mafioso, a funny, sad
tender and suspenseful old movie
about the mafia, and about life.

smooshing into prune,
with a gang of seven,
trying to act sophisticated.

getting dropped off at the
blue & gold bar by my aunt and uncle,
with enough hugging and reminders to "have fun!"
that we could have been toddlers
on our first day of nursery school.

lounging around in the bachelor pad
of my best guy friend from college
listening to recording's of big bang tv's
first gig, a smashing success.
keep it up, snoogles.

trying not to lose my composure
in the cinema cafe as my rolling
padded armchair kept drifting
backward from the table.

clenching every single muscle
in my body with unbearable tension
as elderly francophiles get into a shoving match
during a screening of the already
nerve-wracking what time is it over there?

block quote: mormons

On the morning of the July 24, Pioneer Day, Dan got up, prayed, and felt prompted by the Lord to saw the barrel and stock off a 12-gauge, pump-action shotgun that he had been storing at his mother's house. While he used a hacksaw to cut down the weapon in Claudine's garage, Ron, Ricky Knapp, and Chip Carnes loaded their belongings into the Impala. Among the items they placed in the car were a .30-.30 Winchester and a .270 deer rifle. As they were lashing some items onto the vehicle's roof, a troubled Carnes told Ron, "I don't see any reason for anybody to kill any baby."

--john krakauer, under the banner of heaven

pure nonfiction smut!
(thanks ianhifi!)

long live citizen journalism

i spent the morning at the mayor's
bayview town hall meeting
and the afternoon trawling
the internet for recaps.
(do not read as "looking for
photos of myself online.")
the sfist post captures
the way the actual meeting felt,
like a bit of political theater
in a school gymnasium,
spiffed up for the occasion
with vinyl banners,
half full of aggrieved citizens
and half full of commissioners.
before the show, some guy
commented on gavin's drink,
to nobody in particular,
"how much you wanna bet
that's an irish coffee?"
activists interrupted
gavin's self-congratulatory
"brief introduction,"
then left, still shouting.
we all laughed nervously
and started over as people moved
to fill the empty folding chairs.
gavin was irritated,
"i didn't come here because
i want to avoid the issues.
i came here because
i want to confront them."
people yelled that they hadn't had heat
all winter, that all the kids' computers
were stolen, five times over.
the coos charts were colorful
ribbons, with print too small to read.
the charts were followed by a huge
satellite photo mounted on foam-core,
"this is your neighborhood."
people who knew each other waved
across the crowd. an old woman in
a leopard-print hat spoke passionately
against the planned shutdown of
the alice griffith housing development,
then slipped outside for a smoke with the cops.
halfway through, i slipped out too.
at the "jobfair" out front, i grabbed
a couple free samples of dentyne ice,
and chatted with a cynical cameraman.
his videos will be up on youtube soon.
meanwhile, the san francisco chronicle
piece is painfully dull, "Newsom
promised to have his staff
look into the issues."
and too pretty. even through
i recognize the faces, it looks
more like that episode of the wire
with the town hall meeting.
you know the one,
in season three, where
all the residents cautiously
applaud city officials for the
concrete results of all their
innovative new policies.
that's the meeting he wished
he was at... at one point,
he even muttered "you can't win
with these people."
you could just sense
him posing the whole time,
hoping when he looked for
photos of himself online
they would be flattering,
hoping that the images would tell
the story he wanted. poor guy.

good news: thanks to community
pressure, the city admitted that the
the child development center
is "an embarrassment" to them
as its landlords. they have committed
to providing brighter lighting
and tighter security on the weekends,
in order to prevent theft and vandalism.
they'll also promptly complete routine
maintenance on the grounds,
like powerwashing the building and
cutting back the trees that threaten
to take over the parking lot.
not a glamorous victory,
but much-needed.

colts

which superbowl team
should you root for?
now off to last minute
snack platter shopping.

what did one fly say to the other fly?

hey, fly, your dude is open.
-- prarie home companion joke show

perpetual huddle

Monday, February 26, 2007

waking up

Saturday, February 24, 2007

self-inflicted

i want a TARDIS machine

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

nyc trip

Friday, February 16, 2007

block quote: mormons

Saturday, February 10, 2007

long live citizen journalism

Sunday, February 4, 2007

colts

Saturday, February 3, 2007

what did one fly say to the other fly?