shouting into the void

it's interesting. i'm not actually switching over from the other blog to this one, and i've given up double posting, so i'm ending up writing quite different things here. i suppose it's because i don't think anyone actually reads this--i haven't given the url to anyone, at least, and almost no one i know uses blogger. it's an odd feeling of privacy.

on the one hand, obviously, i know this is a public posting that everyone, everywhere (barring china depending on what kinds of things i post here) can read. but on the other hand, i have no evidence that anyone, anywhere is actually reading it. so i feel like i can write anything and it won't matter. even stupid little things- i know how annoying i find it when people on my flist post a thousand stupid little things in a day, so i try not to do that-- the downside of having the flist structure, i suppose! but here i can make dumb little posts, because no one has to read it unless they come specifically to do so.

lovers i never had -1

I'm experimenting with writing essays, so here's the first one, in what i hope will be a series on lovers i never had-- meditating on the ways romance doesn't work the way we think it will.

Ricky

The first time I really understood that boys and girls had relationships other than friends, I was in kindergarten. I fell madly in love with a boy in the other class—I think his name was Ricky? Rich? Something like that. He was in gym the first day we got out the parachute. We rippled the chute up and down, popping balls out of it like popcorn; we ran in circles, making swirls of the chute’s stripes; we threw it up high, groups of us running underneath, frantic to change places before it came back down. In the hustle, somehow we ended up next to each other. Finally, it was time for the best part of parachute day. Everyone flapped in unison up and down and up and down and UP!—and pushed the chute as high as it could go and then ran inside, pulling it down behind us and sitting on the edges to stop the air getting out. And in that magical moment, sitting next to each other, trapped inside a big red and orange striped bubble and laughing hysterically from the joy at it all, I looked over at him and I knew he was something special. He was taller than the other kids, for one thing, and he had the most beautiful dark hair. And of course, he had the lure of the exotic—he was in the other kindergarten class, after all.

I learned a lot about love from Ricky. About three days after parachute day, I recall sitting in class, daydreaming about him, and about our love and eventual marriage. I loved him so much, I thought, that I wanted to become part of him, just let go of everything but that love, let go of me, let go of life, melt into an appendage. ‘But wait’, I realized after a day or so of wishing I could melt into him, ‘that doesn’t make sense. If I’m not me any more, how can I continue to love him?’ There I was, all of five years old, sitting on the floor in the upstairs hallway at home, having an existential crisis. It isn’t possible to both be and not be, and I couldn’t not love him, so I had to not be absorbed into him. But I could still dedicate myself to him entirely, make loving him everything I thought about, and I spent the next several days attempting to do just that. And again, the tiny voice of reason spoke up (with some help from my kindergarten teacher, who was, I felt, somewhat unreasonable about my desire not to be distracted by taking a spelling test). ‘It’s not possible to let someone else be the center of my universe.’ I realized. ‘The rest of the universe goes on, since I’m not the center of it, and I need to pay attention to is.’ I would have to live my own life, loving him in the background, only letting it take my full attention when I had free time, even when he was there. So from Ricky, tall, dark and handsome Ricky, I learned one of the most important secrets of relationships: it’s important to have a life outside your partner, because if you don’t, you’re not really able to live in the world.

My love affair with Ricky lasted for a whole three weeks. It was a romantic flurry of a time, stolen moments when our eyes met across the hallway, when I passed by his lunch table in the cafeteria, and the most precious of all, when our hands brushed once as I was leaving the art classroom and he was entering. It was a difficult time, never knowing when I would see him. And of course, it was made all the more difficult by his complete oblivion: not only did he not realize that we were in love, he didn’t appear to know who I was. Undaunted, I planned our wedding daily, marching us down the aisle, me in a huge white meringue of a dress, him waiting at the altar. “I do’s” were said, and at that point things broke down into a rosy haze. Married people had children, I knew, so they should probably turn up eventually, but since I had no idea where from, I left them as hazy, indistinct shades. It was a good time, a happy time, but eventually I realized that I needed more from the man I loved than a complete lack of recognition, and I regretfully said goodbye to the idea of Ricky.

love's labor's lost

oh, and for those interested in theater, the info for the play:

www.horrorunspeakable.com email endymion82@aol.com or call 415-621-1503 for tickets, they're $10. it's at the exit theater, 156 eddy st. it's a small theater too, so definitely call ahead.

it's shakespeare, and it is really well done--one of the best i've seen, actually. although, i am now debating the exact placement and necessity of the final apostrophe. shouldn't it be 'love's labors lost'? i mean, it is the plural labors of love which are lost, right? because possessive is wrong. unless that's a 'be' apostrophe-s, but that doesn't make as much sense to me. 'love's labor is lost'-nothing exactly wrong with it, but it's a very awkward phrasing. but i digress.

go see the play! it's really good! highly recommend!

adventures in san francisco

It's funny, now that I have a week and a half with nothing to do but spring cleaning and errands, I sit down at the computer with the intention of writing something, and nothing comes out. I used up all my words on the last paper, it seems! But I am resolving to try and write something a little more often, even if it's not always the most interesting thing. we shall see how that goes. to begin the trend:

I went into the city with Maria and Annette this weekend. Friday, we had dinner at the Window (my favorite restaurant in the city still, I think, with the possible exception of Masa's--but how can it be my favorite if I'm unlikely to eat there more than once!) and then went to a play. Of course, Maria was so paranoid about getting there on time that we were horribly early, so we wandered over to union square and looked around H&M. I remember now how much I love that place. Much of it is crap, but much of it is lovely, and it can be really cheap--so cheap that you don't feel bad if you only wear it a few times. Didn't have time to buy anything, but decided to come back the next day. The play was absolutely wonderful! A good friend did the lights, and her girlfriend was the female lead, and Annette and Maria knew several of the other actors, so we ended up invited to the cast party.

But first we had to meet another of the drama grads at a bar--he chose it, Amnesia, in the mission. FYI, don't go to Amnesia, it sucks. The music was this weird blend of techno and world/folk/trad, but not in a good way, the people were really pretentious, and there was no room to sit or stand, so we ended up perched on a window ledge directly behind some crazy woman who kept telling us about her ashtanga yoga class, presumably so we wouldn't think she stank for no good reason. Then. Then, she farted. I'm talking, lift a leg and try to be subtle, but really let one rip fart here. It hit Maria first, and then it took a moment while Annette was wondering about her expression before it drifted down, and likewise before it reached me. My gods, that woman needs to revise her diet! I'm not one to mock bodily functions, but as Maria said, it was so strong you could taste it. So as soon as the others had arrived we abandoned them and moved to the Phoenix, an Irish bar two doors down. Much nicer.

It may be that I'm old, or it may be that I've always been old, but I like a bar where I can sit with my friends, and where I can hear them talk. If I want loud music I'll go dancing or to a concert, bars are for hanging out. Some of Annette's friends joined us, in the middle of an argument about the fact that one of them has apparently gone crazy and is joining the army. I don't get who would sign up for that shit in the middle of a war, when they have other options. Odd to be in that dynamic, because while they didn't specifically talk about it (I didn't find out until rachel explained later), it was clear that things were a little less than happy.

Then we headed to the cast party. It was a little odd going to the cast party for a play I didn't work on. Of course, I knew a few people there, and they were all nice people, but it's such a celebration of group effort that it is weird to have someone who didn't work at all show up. Plus, we had of course just seen the play, so I was a little starstruck by the actors I didn't know, and a little self-conscious about not wanting to seem like some random who had happened by. They weren't rude, but they weren't very inclusive, although much of that may be due to me being a bit shy (I know, many of you find that hard to believe, but there you are, I have many facets) and nervous of intruding. The first party I've been to with naked hot-tubbing where it would have been weirder to join in than to not, if that explains it to anyone.

Made it home just after 4, and made it up for brunch at ten, although I felt hungover as hell, which is odd since I wasn't drinking at all. I think it may have been a caffeine hangover, since I had a diet coke after midnight--good in that I stayed awake and aware hours later, but bad in that caffeine is bad for me. Read something the other day about some people having a much stronger reaction to caffeine than others, and I suspect that I may be one of those people, given that a single soda after two p.m. can keep me up until two a.m. under the right conditions. ANYway, Annette and Maria and I went back into the city and re-visited H&M. Lots of good stuff, and this season they are using my favorite shade of green, so yay! But boo for my pocketbook, sad and empty as it is. I can't wait to sell the house! We also visited Good Vibrations, which is apparently a san francisco landmark. I had never heard of it, but Annette insisted we had to visit. It was actually pretty cool, not all sleazy like the place we visited during 'national protection from porn week' back in Ithaca, but brightly lit and well signed and with staff who knew what they were talking about (I overheard someone explaining more than I ever really wanted to know about the different types of anal toys). Even a kind of museum display of terrifying vibrators of the past--I can't imagine putting those things anywhere sensitive, they look like hairdyers or curling irons or just plain things to electrocute yourself on. We ended the day with ice cream from Bombay, which is on Valencia between 16 and 18--and wow. I had never before had rose ice cream, but it was pretty good. They had saffron and lychee and some weird fruit that starts with a 'c' and lots of other flavors too, it was pretty wonderful. Definitely going back.

people are ignorant

has anyone else seen the show on f/x, black.white.? i watched the first two episodes because it's relevant to the class i'm ta-ing, and the professor wanted me to see if she should buy the dvd and show it next year. and i'm just kind of confused. it's a show where they take two families and make them up to be the other race, and then have them go out and see what it's like. i mean, ok, it's a reality show, so they picked people who would have problems with each other. but it's about race, which obviously is pretty charged, so they also had to pick people who wouldn't obviously suck. who thought this was a good idea? so many horrifically offensive things said in the first two hours (i mean, the white guy has used the n-word three times and the white mom is openly but unwittingly insulting--she used the phrase 'beautiful black creature', for fuck's sake!), i cannot even imagine how it's going to last the run without starting riots of some kind (although granted, not a lot of people watch f/x).

the play's the thing

we did our final scenes in acting class today (sadly, mine was not recorded, because i suck), and they went really well. we had never gotten through the entire thing in class before, and we were pretty nervous, especially because the scene ended in a kiss (and this is odd, because for the two acting classes i've taken, in both there was one scene with a kiss, and in both i was assigned to it. is there something about me?). it was a difficult scene--tennessee williams, summer and smoke--which involved a dialect and considerations of period behavior and lots of interacting motivations and whatnot. i really think it went well, in spite of everything. my poor scene partner hurt himself playing soccer last week and came in today on crutches, but he insisted that he could walk well enough to go through the scene, so he limped along. and of course the fact that he's french meant we had to kind of re-set john as being french, because doing a southern accent on top of his french one would have been horrific! this stage kiss wasn't a disaster like the last one (in which my scene partner, who was supposed to have pinned me to the bed in the process of a fight, sprang upwards after the half a second kiss as though he had sat on a porcupine), which is kind of nice-it's no fun when they laugh at that instead of being in the scene. by all reports it was 'hot' to watch, which really emphasizes the fact that acting is untrue, because it was so not hot from inside, but hey, good for us for faking effectively!

oh, the weather outside is frightful...

it snowed over the weekend. here. well, ok, not here as such, it hailed here, which was disturbing enough, but it freaking snowed in san francisco, and berkeley, and various other parts of the bay area. this is just NOT. RIGHT. snow! snow in san francisco! feh!

ok, better now. it's just odd, because people here are like people in virginia--they really can't drive in the snow. i hear there was a twenty-seven car pile-up during the snowfall, with several fatalities, and one of the major highways had to be closed because it's not safe to drive with ice on it. and there was, in most areas, less than half an inch. astonishing.

the hills around here suddenly look a little more like mountains with white on their tops though...

electric cars

drove to campus the other day behind a tiny little electric car. and when i say tiny, i am not exaggerating at all--it was big enough to fit a single person and an engine, and MAYBE a medium sized bag, but nothing else. it was the size of a motorcycle that had been completely enclosed, with two little wheels projecting out to the sides in front to bring it to a normal car width--kind of like a giant tricycle.

now, i can see wanting an electric car. i can see the value of saving money on gas, i can see the value of preserving the environment by producing less pollution, i can see all of that. but what i can't see is wanting to drive around in a tin can. that thing can't be safe in any kind of a crash. it's tiny, it can't have excellent visibility or lots of airbags or, well, have undergone crash testing. it seems really dangerous.

somewhere in wales, there lives a family, a family with a long history and many traditions. the scion of this family has been in california for the past week, and has shared one of their deeper, darker secrets with us. (i have SO been waiting for the opportunity to use the word scion, you have no idea!) he was always taught that the word 'cowing' was a dirty one, similar in intent although not in intensity to the more common 'fucking'. until the age of 15 or so he believed this, when his first small attempts to swear in school with the other boys were met with mockery and shame. imagine his horror--what must the cows have done to his family to make them such a dirty word?! but all efforts to discover its cause were met with stonewalling and evasion, and the mystery remains to this day.

now imagine his horror when the question asked immediately after revealing this was 'or, of course, you could ask what your family had been doing to those cows?'

giggle.

have now said cowing (cowing hell! cow you! cow off! shut your cowing mouth!) so many times that the word has lost all meaning. cow. COW! cow, cow, cow cow cowcowcow!

slac

I got a tour of SLAC yesterday! It was actually pretty cool- Morgan took me around the office, so now I have an accurate image of where the guys work, and then into the ir2 control room and the main control room, and various other places with big machinery and huge warning signs. We even stuck our heads in the two mile long building above the accelerator. It was neat! The ir2 control room isn't that exciting, just a sort of quarter circle of neat blinky lights and screens with interesting images on them and then a bunch of desks, but the main control room looks like a spaceship--a big room full of lights and screens and oscilloscopes, all dark with subtle torchier lighting. And not a wimpy beige spaceship like enterprise (they had hardly any fake computers in there), but something really cool like the death star, or the bridge for 2001 space odyssey. awesome. Sometimes, I wish I'd gone into the sciences--but then I remember that I work in Turkey, and I don't feel so badly! They also have a really nice view of the bay from the top of the hill-- lucky someone hadn't built a house there already, because i totally would have.

I've been spending a lot of time with the slac guys recently, since Morgan was here. Sadly, I didn't really get to see Marion, but hopefully when she's here over the summer we'll get together. I hadn't spent too much time with the rest of them before (just gone out for drinks a couple of times, and then dragged eric and dave to the ren faire), but I really hope i get to in the future--they are so much fun. And sure, it doesn't suck to be the only girl sitting at a table with nine attractive men, I'm not gonna deny that! But I really enjoy the fact that they're the same kind of geek I am--they like science fiction movies and fondly remember the transformers (we had an argument about the value of the transformers movie that I think the Boy would have enjoyed), they pay attention to the occasional sucky tv-show or notorious pop-culture event, they go to the movies to see things that make the multiplex and not just the art-house, and they talk shit a lot. A lot. It's wonderful, and very different from most of the folks in my department. I'm just hoping I get to see them occasionally now that Morgan and Marion have left again!

hello

finally decided that i should go ahead and open a blog here! it's a difficult thing, the fact that so many people want to use the same few names on the internet--i suppose most of us just aren't that clever when it comes right down to it! but it is disorienting when someone you know from one online arena goes by another name in a different one.

will probably just double post with the other blog for a while, see how it goes.