novembre ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the old lady
I've become an old lady I think I got a little bit too used to staying in during grad school. It has infected me with Skittish Grandma and now I am unable to handle what legally consitutes as a gang: three or more people. I just can't deal, and it makes me act like an idiot. Oh well, I have three months to write I mean finish this thesis so I guess I should maximize my internal weather. Then a summer filled with lots of little trips (WHERE ARE WE GOING? IS IT IN THE SUN? I'M DOWN), and then library school starts. HERMITHOOD ABOUND! It's so hard to go into the city, because you wanna say HEY! HELLO! I LOVE YOU to everybody. Let's hang out lo-pro if you want to see me, because now the weekend has become an actual thing to cherish, not just another day in the sea of employment minimalism. I will probably forget this and go to the random show and get sucked into the music and have fun, every once in a while. I want to go to the pets / bare wires show at ghost town, jan 30th. Friday night, I was wearing man-thermals and kept sticking my cell phone in their crotch. Pete and I watched the Dark Knight. He couldn't believe I hadn't seen it, but I'm so dirt cheap about movies because I can just check them out from the library where I work. (Unfortunately, I think The Dark Knight was stolen its first day in circulation. If it's been added to the collection at all. Man, I wish I was in charge of ordering movies.) It's kindof gotten to me, how out of touch with current events, most current events, I have been. Cassie is right: bring your love current. I will totally help with the Kenneth Patchen SFMOMA idea, I think it's brilliant. I guess the presidential election hooskah really got me paying more attention to the present. There's that ripple effect. "Obama's election was a landmark in American history, but it will, we hope, be a self-negating landmark, because Americans will no longer unconsciously treat not being white as an insuperable barrier to the highest office." -- Nicholas Lemann. I hope the ripples that filter down from Obama's presidency infect my city with the opposite of Skittish Grandma, and it feels like it has started solidly: Oakland is different with the pride of a black president. There's still crime, profiling and death but there's also pride butting in, swelling our chests, especially our people of color. This city has bonded with itself a little bit stronger. The day after the election was filled with crying and hugging. Ricky the security guard picked me up off the floor and I just lost it. He was so proud that I was awed. Fuck, I went to Taco Bell and shared a special moment with the guy who handed me my bean burrito with extra red sauce. By the way, if you are seized with the particular nostalgia of an old favorite so you try it again, you realize what does and doesn't hold up over time. Like watching a beloved 80's movie that you haven't seen in twenty years. Here's a slice of my particular palate: Adventures in Babysitting: yes. Everyone's back has become a little straighter at the library: on Wednesday, a laptop projecting onto a big screen played the inauguration all day. I processed, mended books to the sound of marching bands. Coworkers shuttling things around, Michelle Obama dancing in our peripheral vision. Dorothy made a display and borrowed my Obama pin that looked like a 1960's pickle -- CT gave me that one ages ago, during a craft day. Only I didn't do crafts -- sat in the hammock and read my book for school. By the way, I effing LOVED The Dark Knight. I totally want Heath Ledger to win an Oscar now, and not just because he's the dead guy. 11:26 pm - 01.24.09 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||