Hm. Plans for the day: Spanish & then hours at Racy's. I'm a Racy's bum these days and I don't altogether like it. What should I do? Oh yeah, Bekah's hotel thing today! Crazy! Less time there... but then manana half the co are getting apartments, and I think I was talked into feeding everyone.   ¶ 08:09 0 comments

  it's not that I can't play that hard, it's just that I don't want to
or
a Daoist Online

if you teach a woman to read, you create a cripple
buried six dinka deep in newsprint
the infintesimal gets smaller
explanations of irony sterilize irony
but I'd still try to explain myself

cultural slur
sixty days
how many left?
dunno won't go

tracker instinct
retuned for paper
sped up for cyber
you can do it!

elitist importance
yes you must do it
that's just the way we were raised
an innovation at 15

is my intelligence so great I thought I understood? It's not that we're dead so long, or that our lives are so short, it's that we spend so much time alive confused.

'what difference between yes and no?'
'if I could write the words I would...'  ¶ 06:57 0 comments

  The Spectator (our wond'rous school newspaper) is widely known for fabulous headlines such as:
Love Just Got Cheaper! (Post Valentine Sales are Real Deals)
and
War Debate Causes Disagreement

They also enjoy printing photos of people with their predecessor's name. Needless to say, EC ain't no journalism school.

But they did something right: a half-page review of Ani's new album, Evolve. They gave it 4.5 stars (of 5) and said things like 'most ambitious work yet' 'DiFranco truly evolving' bla bla bla. The point is that that is awesome. It makes my day to reach for the Spectator (with the ususual basketball "Blugolds still losing!" headlines) and open it up to see the beautiful Ani, and some girl talking about the beautiful Ani. Hot damn.

So for those of you who talk to me and still don't know: Ani is coming out with a new album the 11th, three days after my sister's bday. I'm excited!

What I want to know is, is how that girl got a copy of Evolve before it came out?  ¶ 09:33 0 comments

  Thank you Alex! Now when I randomly get that song in my head it'll make sense!  ¶ 09:17 0 comments

  I woke up this morning with this phrase in my head:

yachttie from wisconsin, architect from stockholm, peace in the far north
droll doll hate cops!
phosperencence-death

complete with an image of south america, cept upside-down compared to how we see it on our northern supremist maps.

what is that??  ¶ 18:47 0 comments

  ergh! oh dear, someone make that tagboard thingy not look funny. Please!  ¶ 18:32 0 comments

  A lie oft enough repeated becomes the truth
A truth oft enough repeated becomes a banality
the banal long enough ignored can gain significance

or

A lie oft enough repeated becomes the truth
A truth oft enough repeated becomes a banality
banalities lend to silence
the silence is a lie

??

(i'm not suggesting this is a cycle, i'm just wondering if anyone else thinks this way??)

Truths are unchangeable forms
fundamental in value
untouchable in spirit

mutibility, susceptibility  ¶ 18:31 0 comments

  New anger music: Desaparecidos, Read Music, Speak Spanish
Song: The happiest place on Earth

I want to pledge alliegence to the country where I live
I don't want to be ashamed to be American
but oppurtunity, no it don't exist, it's the opiate of the populace
we need some harder shit now, the truth's getting round
each public school is a halfway house
where the masses sober up and up
enough?
there's not enough to fatten the cows
and feed all of us
it's just
a rationing of luck
oh god good good shed greed on thee
your shining waves turned a dirty green
from the
in
dustry
off the shores of new jersey

I got a letter from the army so I think that I'll enlist
no I'm not brave or proud or nothing
I just want to kill something
too bad that nowadays you just point and click
swing lo satellite!
hot white chariot!
in the computer's blue glare the bombs burst in the air
there was a city once
now nothing is there
our freedom comes at their expense
makes sense, does it?
dollars and cents
they're stretching barbed wire
around the picket fence
surrounding your housing development
in case you lack the confidence
oh god good god shed strength on thee
amber waves, purple majesty
are just
backdrops for disney
look up close
it's superimposed
on blank blue screen
fucking magical
like folding dreams
the chemicals
magical
and real
no more
no more
no more

yup, I had this in my head the other day while taking a grammar test. No small wonder I sucked on that test....
  ¶ 17:59 0 comments

  How to Save the World
or
I was talking to my sister, part 2

These are things I have recently explained to my sister: why the name Greenland is false advertising, why overpopulation is bad, and why tomatoes are sometimes actually fruit. Sometimes I regret the things I tell my sister.

Saturday we got a pizza. I love pineapple on my pizza. It is little strange, yes, but bread, sauce, cheese, and pineapple are things I love, and putting them altogether makes me love them that much more.

Nik: so, what'll it be on this pizza?
Me: half for my daddy, so sausage, onions, & green peppers, other half just pineapple.
Rachel: NO!! Pineapple doesn't go on pizza!
Me: oh yes it does!
Rachel: NO! only meat and vegtables go on pizza! No FRUIT!
Me: what about tomatoe sauce? That's a fruit too!
Rachel: I mean nutruitionally fruit! Tomatoes are nutruitually vegtables! NO FRUIT ON PIZZA!!
Nik: I'm going to *go do something usefull* while you two fight.

Then Monday, Rachel decided that she was badly in need of talking to me for hours. Sometimes I wish she had more friends her own age to talk to, and sometimes I understand precisely why she doesn't.

The conversation turned to overpopulation and Rachel's brilliant strategies to solve it.

Rachel: If I was ruler of the world, I'd have a lottery, and 3-4ths of everbody loses. Whoever loses gets sent to Australia to die.
Me: to die?
Rachel: yes, we dig a big hole and put them all in it.
Me: wouldn't that upset the Australians?
Rachel: Well, we'd let 1-4th of them out to live.
Me: (...)
Rachel: We'd dig this big hole, and it could be a huge tourist attraction to watch everybody fight inside of it! It'd be such great family fun time, throwing bread to them... It'd be like the monkey cage at the minnesota zoo! We could have a tram run through it, and watch them die!
Me: we could televise it too.
Rachel: Yes! It'd be a real cool reality show!
Me: The Ultimate reality show!
Rachel: even better than road rules!
Me: Imagine the money we could make on selling advertising! It'd be bigger than the superbowl! Or we could show it on pay per vue!! And we could get the Daily show guy to do commentary!

Then I pointed out that a lottery of death really isn't that fair at all. I, personally, would be a bit offended if I lost this lottery, and I would be even more offended (by offended I mean heartbroken) if certain of my friends lost it. Chances being, of course, that most of them would (except Ian because he can never lose gambling).

Me: But Rachel, wouldn't you be a bit upset if you lost this lottery? And had to die in a gigantic pit you dug in Australia?
Rachel: No. I'd be willing to die.

I am honestly really impressed with this... sure it's morbid, 'I'm willing to die', but how many people are really that benevolent? to say, yes, overpopulation is a real crapper on the planet, and since the only way I see of solving it in time is for a bajillion people to be gone, I am willing to be one of those who must die. First of all, most people refuse to admit it's a problem at all, second of all they say, it's not my problem, third of all, they say, well, even if it is a problem, I have no solution. And I *think* she was being completely serious about this.

And random lottery isn't fair. Okay, yes, being lucky enough to be born in the first place ain't fair, nothing ain't fair, yo momma ain't fair. BUT in a totally random lottery, where 3/4ths of the world population dies, chances are someone real cool like Tori Amos or Derrick Jensen or Nadar would die. Or some real revolutionary that I haven't heard of, or the truest genius ever known to man who happens to still be a toddler when the tickets go out. Rachel says, well, we can exempt the people who matter. But it's damn hard to say who matters & who doesn't: there is no fair way to tell.

We thought about intelligence questions: everybody with an IQ lower than, say, 80, dies. But that wouldn't kill enough people, so we said below 100 dies. The species will be that much smarter for it. But there are plenty of people with low IQs who are amazing, worthy people. IQ is a matter of chance, genes, a little bit how much you actually use your brain. Again life ain't fair.

Or those chosen to live could be those who are *good people*. Another impossible thing to truly measure. And killing all the *bad* people would make all the people sitll alive guilty of murder... ie, *bad*.

Rachel: we could first kill all the people in jail
Me: !!!!! that's not fair either! Lots of people are there unfairly, and lots are in for stupid things like drug posession!!
Rachel: well, it's an easy group to pick on first
Me: don't make it right... plus they've already been picked on
Rachel: but they're still alive!
Me: Not in Texas!
Rachel: (confused, after explanation laughs self silly)

Then she decided that a life/death lottery would be simply too hard: she's gonna kill everybody based on country of residency:

Rachel: First I'd kill Indonesia because I can't pronounce it
then I'd kill China because it'd be a challenge
then I'd kill Australia because they're ugly
then I'd kill Cuba because they don't want to be there anyway
then I'd kill Greenland because it ain't green and they should be honest about that
Canada can live because they have a cool flag
Wales can live because they have a cooler flag
Me: good luck...
Rachel: I should read more Dilbert so I can take over the world faster!
  ¶ 07:01 0 comments

  I was a day off on George's bday... opps. Well, here's to George again!  ¶ 09:17 0 comments

  Let them eat pork
or
I was talking to my sister, part I

My mother, in one of her violent bursts of brillance, has decided that Rachel (a high school freshman) will never have the same paying-for-college problems that I'm having. Therefore, she needs to have scholarships. My mom found the perfect scholarship oppurtunity: raise a pig & win at the county fair!

Yes, my sister is going to buy a pig this spring, raise it, and compete with it this fall. Or she could just keep the $50 dollars she already won (for the essay on "why I want to raise a pig!" that she didn't actually write) and call it even. But no, miss Rachel is actually going to see this pig thing through.

She's going to name it Tinkerbell, in loving memory of Pig, our old stupid fat mutt who died last week.

Yes, Pig/Tinkerbell died. I feel like it's the end of an era. No more stupid creek smelly dog to shoe out of the kitchen, no more stupid creek smelly dog for the thom yorke sickly kitties to steal food from no more Pig no more Pig.

Pig died either of a heart attack in the middle of the road, or of being hit by a truck in the middle of the road. An apt death, really, as she was renamed Pig due to John saying, "is that a pig in the middle of the road?" that fatefull day many years ago, when we saw Tinkerbell in her favourite spot in the middle of the road for the first time.

The cool thing about this is how my mom told Rachel the news: "Pig died but you won a pig!!"  ¶ 07:29 0 comments

  Happy Birthday George Harrison! (still hot still sexy still dead)  ¶ 09:57 0 comments

  *commenting on last post* Okay, I realize that the evils of lawyers, soldiers, and dishwashers are totally incomparable. I, however, decided yesterday would be a good day to sing any John Lennon song I could think of all day, and at one point I was talking to my dad & that line just came out, and hot damn it was funny. I think it was the second funniest thing I've ever said to my dad.  ¶ 09:56 0 comments

  burnt turkey three inches deep
"oppsies!" -Jeremey-
blue cleaner; swoosh swoosh putrid green; one scrape dark brown
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww

I don't want to be a lawyer, momma, I don't want to lie
I don't want to be a soldier, momma, I don't want to die
I don't want to be a dishwasher, daddy, I don't want to spill pureed green beans on myself on a Sunday afternoon  ¶ 06:58 0 comments

  Something is rotten in the house of Darling.
Somewheres Illinois.  ¶ 19:59 0 comments

  How much we hail! That incredible male!

Allowing for a plus or minus five percent statistical error, cookies are defienetly the way to win the votes.

A yellow car has been following me all day!
Sam, that car is red.
Whoa, they painted it!

(Clarissa Explains it All is still... funny)

Watch out for strangers wearing shoephones!  ¶ 19:58 0 comments

  Whoa, Ferguson's voice changed! But he is still stupid.  ¶ 19:47 0 comments

  Ironman was on the radio today. I find it funny that all we listen to at the nursing home is the classic rock station (Jim Casey yay!) when the people who live there are the generation who detested rock most.   ¶ 19:40 0 comments

  My job can totally suckit. Oakwood Villa, I mean. Last time I worked, they somehow forgot to schedule a server, and the cook called in sick. So we had three dishwashers doing the cooking, serving, and yes, the dishwashing. Three little girls feeding ninety old people. God it rocked. How I never wish to be promoted there...

So today we had a new dishwasher that I got to train. Yup... (where do they find these people?)

I'm watching Clarissa Explains it All with my sister--the sibling rivalry episodes. Man, this show was my favorite back in the day. It was my goal to be Clarissa when I became a teenager and to turn Danny into Sam, but my dad wouldn't let me have a ladder to my window & I didn't have a windowsill anyway. It might be a good thing I failed.

But cats are way cooler than little lizards, even if the lisard's name is Elvis.

Sleep now, work at 6 at OV. Jessshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... but then I also work at Rocky's tommorroww. Maybe that will make up for it.... ?  ¶ 19:39 0 comments

  'can he see or is he blind?

nobody wants him
nobody wants him
he just stares at the world...'

(guitar riffs that drive me crazy)

Who wrote Ironman anyway? I've only heard the Cardigans version & a bootleg Young version... which was very very odd.  ¶ 08:49 0 comments

  At Rocky's yesterday, we had a counter- wide Ironman hum-a-long. God it was awesome. I got to play with gluesticks, and it was incredibly nice out so drivethru didn't make us all cry. I had to run to Kmart to buy more glue & tape, and being there for 1.4 minutes reminded me of that 1.9 years I spent hating working there. I will tolerate no complaining about Rocky's as I have had jobs that truly do suck. Merilyn & I had Miguel, the new guy from down south, teach us Spanish, and Sarah & I threw a 'we love Rocky's so much we're never going home' party. When do I work next? I should know this....  ¶ 07:52 0 comments

  Oh, now Abbey too! Blogger is greater than fungus.  ¶ 07:41 0 comments

  OH GOD MOTHER

She got tickets to the viennese ball! How the hell?? Most holy....
  ¶ 08:57 0 comments

  Douglas Adams is my lover (still hot still sexy still dead....)  ¶ 08:54 0 comments

  Ah, Alex joins us. I'm convinced blogger is a highly specialized fungus.  ¶ 08:53 0 comments

  "I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up." ~Mark Twain~
You're telling me, le queen of abnormal abuliae. Hot damn.  ¶ 19:27 0 comments

  Just found this (I don't check that one email addy too much):

"In the 1980s capitalism triumphed over communism. In the l990s it triumphed over democracy."

Do you know who said that Bekah? I think I'd agree with this conclusion... but conclusions without context don't always make sense.   ¶ 18:43 0 comments

  reciprocity
don't forget
no angles in consanguinity
curves and straight lines through small dots
(not points--no thickness)
but what is it when the line curves away, and the motives are hidden in horizontal hills? The shortest distance isn't the way travelled. Deviances invisible to the sedentary observer.
I take my tangents away, you understand.

because my main problem is forgetting reciprocity; i promise to try harder.  ¶ 18:02 0 comments

  my gloves are at Nik's & my scarf is at Bekah's
oh dear
am i feeling the heat  ¶ 07:20 0 comments

  ah!  ¶ 08:13 0 comments

  I was just thinking about my stepfather, John. He's old, 8 years older than my mom, and he's lived on the J & J S. farm north of Stanley his entire life. He's tall, seven feet at least, dwarfs my mother, and fits a shoe size 16 though they don't actually manufacture rubber boots that big; he wears a 14.

He grew up a witness but was never baptized. When my mom wanted to marry him, this created a big problem with the church: technically they don't have God's approval. What-ev.

I know few other people with the kind of belief he has, and I admire it. A big part of me wants to say, "this is the Truth, there is no other", but I've already spent so much time running from certainty.

I wonder a lot how he has never faltered in his belief in the Watchtower, and how at the same time he has never done everything the society demands of its members. Easy answers would be he either doesn't really believe, or he's lazy. But he's not lazy (he's a farmer. farmers cannot be lazy) nor is he someone who could pray so ardently without meaning it.

My sister's and my relaitionship is almost nonexistent. My mom says he doesn't know what to do with two teenage girls, after living for most of his life with just him, his dad, and 60 cows. I sometimes think it's more than that, though... he thinks we have no interest in what he does. The only things that matter to him are piety, and, well, cows... which I'll admit neither of these matter to me very much. But in the interest of familial relations of course I care. One thing all city girls must know, however, is the farm is a much bigger place than you'd expect.

There are, first off, 'silos'. Any decent farmer does not actually call these tall storage units 'silos'. They are Harvestors, or if you've made the folly of building an off-brand one, harvestors. This is the easiest code word used to recognize city kids. Then there are, of course, tractors. Most city-ers would expect to find John Deers on every farm, this is certainly not the case. Most farmers (the small time one in central Wisconsin, anyway) resent John Deer Co. for their obnoxious advertising. There are a plethora of tractor brands, and Johnnie & Craiggy-boy swear by Allis-Chalmers, or old school Agco Allis. The Orange. Things just get funner from here, trust me.... slurry stores, otto the bull, broken fences.... tim and his peacocks... grain weights & qualities... and more confusing. I plead ignorance and talk about my physics class. That impresses 'em.

John's best buddy, Craig, owns the Stanley Machine Works, a parts/weld em up store in the bustling metropolis. Craig had knee surgery about a year ago, and his son's been running the shop lately. So Craig has lots of time on his hands... which he mostly uses to visit John more. Or welding 12 foot pipes to lawn mowers, but that's an other story altogether.

John & Craig got a 1915 Agco Allis model K something-something-something AMAZING bulldozer at an auction a few years ago, and have since bought two more really similiar ones; from the parts they're building two functioning bulldozers in the new shed. John was working on one when he fell and broke his leg a few weeks ago....

I guess I'm way more worried about this than I'd have thought I would be. Because I really don't spend as much time, or effort, really, as I should with my mom & John, but John's injury scares me so much. It's just that my mom is still trying to finish college, and John couldn't do any other job than dairy farming. Not even corporate dairy farming, he needs a farm with 50-80 cows, and enough acerage to grow surplus feed corn. But these last few weeks have been so hard for him, no one else knows the cows (ie, they won't give milk if someone else does the milking, so they don't make an income if anyone else frightens them). I can't see them living any more frugally than they do, except for the money mom spends on me & Rachel, they live off of barely nothing. If they stopped farming, they couldn't afford to live on all that land, and John would hate hate hate the 'city' life, even in Stanley. He wouldn't know what to do with himself all day. It'd be easier for mom to move back to Eau Claire, but John really couldn't live here. A lot of small time farmers who get put out of business become drivers, but I don't think John would like that either. Limited options.

Well, here's to hoping his leg heals. Soon.  ¶ 21:02 0 comments

  flat  ¶ 20:48 0 comments

  not a triumph
a happenstance of circumstance
or maybe  ¶ 01:06 0 comments

  slow to assimilate....

i can understand my failures before i understand my triumphs

fly so high the only thing left to do is fall  ¶ 21:26 0 comments

  (i can't say i'm surprised my dreams melded the phrases of BGH with the style of the VM...)

"...for the love of an intense woman" ~Barbara Grizzuti Harrison~

intense
intense
infinite, inferior, inoppertune, inconsequential, inordinate, in order to, in so far as, in that way...
tense, tender, told, talking, tert, tired, tele, tickle, t t t ...
seen, serene, so, ssss, sarah...

(my brain did this for hours in my sleep so I am more than at leisure to stop now)  ¶ 09:29 0 comments

  "we can get together and party like it's 1994" I don't know why, but this struck me as absurdly funny. (Thanks Sarah P.)  ¶ 08:07 0 comments

  It don't make me no matter nohow. Do not enter lift backwards and only when lit. Some children do worse to their parents, but I personally myself don't like no bad grammar.

Have I mentioned how cool my grammar class is??  ¶ 08:06 0 comments

  i would just like to say i haven't been on the computer at my house in a really long time, and i have somehow forgotten how distracting cats are & what a blessing the left caps button is.   ¶ 23:12 0 comments

  A stunningly wonderful day.

I just got back from perkins (by that i mean country kitchen) where Bekah, Nik, Nate, Ian & Betsy & i finished up our sledding (by that I mean hot chocolates all around & one barn busta). Sledding in the dark is crazy fun and crazy dangerous. We have some bruised bums in our ranks, Ian is generally bruised for life, and i broke Bekah's finger. Bekah & Nik & Betsy & i also ran our sleds sidelong into a fence.

Betsy & I win the day with a trip down the hill, missing the two rather large pines, all of the posts, and straight across the street, where we circled a stop sign before finally stopping. We named that yard the farmer's and tried to sled into it again, but ended up dead in the street instead. Except Nik hit a post & Ian almost hit the tree.

I had a long, fun chat time with Heather & Ashley after work... we decided we're going to take Walker's house by storm for his britney spears video (yes, everybody's favourite acting coach dressed up as ms. spears because he lost a bet... yours truly filmed it.) I really, really like Rocky's and i think i'm over the one thing i hated the most about it. Not that I suddenly liket the economy, don't get me wrong. But Rocky's is a great place. I love it there, talking to Merilyn in choppy spanish, eating pickles, days when Sarah Heart works or Nik, or Meldahl, or well... I suppose I like most all of my coworkers, just I'm not friends with any others outside of there. But today I discovered Ashley is crazy cool. Maybe I already knew that, she did promise to burn the doom song 99 times for me.

Ian & Nate almost made me cry I was laughing so hard... or laugh i was crying so hard.... "we hate you the way you love america" I will never understand....  ¶ 23:11 0 comments

  I am so glad this is in an official state resolution:

"WHEREAS, the people of Hawaii have always been taught and attempted to live the spirit of Aloha showing kindness, love, and generosity towards their fellow man;"

I am a bit confused about that conclusion though....  ¶ 07:19 0 comments

  It's positively balmy outside! Viven los dias sin veinte! No wind....  ¶ 07:11 0 comments

  'if the magic's in the makeup, then who am I?' ~gwen stefani, return of saturn~

if the magic's in the medium, then who am i? ~me, on my blog~

  ¶ 21:01 0 comments

  Okay folks: these are the options: (this is long....yup I have some time on myne hands)

-go to washington next year. prelude to this is taking cdis 402 this summer & probably working a lot too (wait.... do i need to take that class??). while in washington, taking 8 credits, spanish & hopefully hopefully something also in the tefl program, because wwu has a way better tefl program than uwec anyway. go to guanajuato for one month after the end of the trimester & learning spanish ya'know, for real. hm. if I do that why bother taking spanish in w. anyway? oh yeah I'm a forgetful one, ay. come back to ec just in time for le xmas & the wonderful times that go with that, full time spring 2004 @ UWEC, living with jess & greg & bundy. Once I move out I get the idea I won't be welcome back.

-stay here & leach off my father some more. one more year free rent, cheap food... and oh yeah, heather (--)... james (---------------------) ... dogs (---)... and my cat (+++++++++++++++ad infintum)! Corpus bones, can't move out that stupid cat would die if I did.

-simply move in with the aforementioned gang. The advantages of moving out would be:
I assume they all have better music taste than my sister, heather and thee lovely, lovely james.
I usually like spending time with them all more than my family... but then again I don't live with them.
um.
NOT DRIVING

negatives: money. hey, sarah, when you get right down to it money money money is a disadvantage everywhere.

Then there is, of course, Sarah Heart's new disers (desire!) to journey to Morocco. Just crazy enough to work? Too crazy to consider? Okay. You say, 'Hey sarah! Mexico, see you there Tuesday?' I'd say, 'yo baebe sure I'm on it!' BUT you say, 'hey sarah! the Sudan, ay?' I'd say, 'ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, well you KNOW. Because I don't'.

Because: (god i love that word for some reason: because)

This is Morocco to me:

South of Spain, barely visible beyond the mediterraen waves/you could see it on a clear day. I'm on the beach, costa del sol, thinking, I could swim 15 miles, I have done it before. Not in the salty brine right throught one of the world's most important trade routes, but hey, lake michigan is colder than this, ay? Then I think, naw, Jefe'd be worried if I dissappear. They'd find me somehow. Whence in Africa what would I do anyway? Africa is so far beyond me I can't even imagine it. I can close my eyes and see Spain, France, Wales, Germany, I start to make things up east of there, but then I know the countries of Asia and the islands of the South Pacific, I know New Zealand and I see myself a silly psychologist in the 60s proving it's possible to sail from Easter Island to Chile, and then I see the long, thing country, from the stark deserts in the north to Antarctica, their claims there, the way a fragile country is proud before the world, then to Argentina, and I imagine fights, and Buenos Aires, with the horrible pollution and the absolute squalor of the poor, and sometimes I cry for los desaparecidos, whose plight I don't understand but I know a sad mother when I see one. So I leave: the Andes are tall and beaken, the trails left by the Incas beg for a walk and I'm a rock climber, gorges below and undiscovered ruins above.... ecuador, beaches, colombia, markets, the quecha singing in the mountains, alpaca braying however it is they do that... i don't know the sound. Then there is of course, the Amazon, the amazon, nope no books! I see tribes, strangly painted to my american eyes... I'm bored so I go north, the caribe call, la la la, their poison of innocence, and I know that's not the world anymore, that's not who lives there now. But I think, maybe a dozen lifetimes ago, I must have lived there: I have such a fear of water, but it's only the water there. Obviously I love love love the water everywhere else, all the water I have ever seen. I'm not afraid even of the Bermuda triangle, I want to sail there, defy those ghosts, the fish, however you spell that, ha ha! I'll say, I can do without even a sextant! they'll say, nope, GPS for you dahling, you weak. What-ev. Then panama, costa rica, belize, guatamala, mexico.... o oaxaca. god, gonna cry. I want to go to Oaxaca so very very bad. I for some reason have no interest in the Yucatan... maybe it's those ghost myths we read in Spanish last year. But oaxaca. I mean, really, say it with me. WA- ha- KA. Who would make up a word like that? I think of great minds dancing, each part of the body a different sound, crazy dances in slaugtered trances, singing the ankles they point to, laughing at their own made up game: these are those days.
But:
Africa:
It's the heart of darkness, the great dark place I'm afraid of. Not even rationally, because I don't even know enough about it to be rational. I say, you can only fear what you know, as you can only love what you know, just as you can only hate what you know. Rationally. The mynd is both rational and emotional: it can love, hate, fear what it knows it may never see.

I must say soothfully that all I know about Africa is from either the Poisonwood Bible or AP Euro history sophomore year. The Poisonwood Bible is the crazy best book ever, ah, I'd even say better than Italian Days, yes written by my hero herself, Barbara Grizzuti Harrison. So you know that's real high praise. But TPWB is romanticized (heh I'm not!); it's the story of a family fracturing rather than of the land it's in. Yes, any good story is about:
1 people
2 events
3 ideas
and lastly, 4 place
so ay, she's got it. But it doesn't tell me too much about Africa, unless I'm real careful to stay awake during those parts. Which I'm not. I love to sleep. Sleeping is in fact just about my favourite activity. Too bad for school. Anyway, in AP euro back in the day Scholze made us memorize all the 'spheres of influence' in africa... i coloured a map, yellow french, green germany, red italy, y'know... but name the 40+ countries now? You are joking Dahling! I know starving in eritrea, famine in kenya, forests forests forests, high plains and faltering waterfalls, the edge of the world. Black black people, their skin so beautiful, deep brown to my opaque clear; yet their manners so hating of me, for years of french/dutch/other imperialism, yes I know. But I'm american. That's different. But if I can't tell them apart, how could I ever expect them to tell me apart? I'm so big on heritage: I'm 1/4th Welsh, 1/4th Irish, (mom's side) then some more welsh, german, american, french and "other" on my dad's side. The "other" or the "we're really not sure" really bothers me. Then I think: Natalie (natalie is one of my few mulatto friends). ouch, you go back, what? four generations? That is nothing. that is no time at all. they were slaves, it hurts my mynd so much.... if my grandma's family was richer... jesus. I mean, our values. Rather, theirs. But memes don't change so much in so short a time. I'm so proud of my family:
Albertina Edwina, wife of some guy with a funky german name, migrated to michigan to avoid her hubby getting drafted (why can't I remember his name?????) 1848.
Frank C.W. Johns: did lots of cool stuff. moves to wisconsin from wales to avoid being a coal miner like his daddy. forty years later, sells his land in waukesha county, which is now the waukesha county gravel pit, 1970 (read that again if it didn't strike you damn funny)
i mean... i could go on. I love my family, the dead personalities fascinate me. I do things like wonder: how the hell did I end up a blond hazel eyed little girl? Most everyone has black hair or brown on daddy-o's side, and mostly red & very curly on my mom's side, or brown & really straight. which what my hair is turning now, but they say it's always been that way...
this was meant to be a tirade on travel, not personal history. I'm even selfish in my mental meanderings. ay....

I am back, after all that, in Morocco:
When I hear morocco, the first thing I see are carpets. Then I see men, men, men: it has been said by many a travellor that only men live in the Arab countries. I see the Blue Nomads (funny story that: some scotsman in the 16th century discovered how to make blue dye; unfortunately the scots were very set in their "we like red plaid!" ways, so this unusally enterprising man headed south. Hey, frenchys, blue dye? No, too... not chic. The spanish were busy killing all their jews, so the man kept going south. The arabs scared him so he talked to the berbers: "hey, guys, do you like blue??" "ay, we do!" so he sold them his blue dye. he sold the nomads his dye. they've been wearing it ever since. too bad about high speed shipping and all that, poor nomads are going out of business. but there still are blue men!)

and from blue i see the yellow of the desert, the sahara, it just can't stop till it reaches egypt... i see red of marrakech, white of fez, australian surfers and snobby french, scolding mosques towered over by functioning minarets that i could never enter. International city, could be said to be a no where, Tangeir, across from Gibraltar, british protectorate, so little, too many currancies. Casablanca, port town extraordinare, i imagine the milwaukee of africa...

Sarah Heart says she wants to go there for the culture. Because there you see camaraderie (not the sort that burns down) and you return it; there you ask strangers to share your taxi ride, split the fare, share life stories as you speed to your destination. You see the devout never shirking from share with beggars, you see the liberals smile at westerners. But... it's an Arab country after all. Almost all women still wear burkas, and nobody is seen without at least a head scarf. Arabic, the language, frankly frightens me. It's legendary for being impossible for English speakers to learn. Did I ever mention I suck at Spanish? despite my love for it... it's hard. And Japanese... yup that's one to write home about. i love language, but i think i've accepted that i certainly have no feel for it. no natural inclination.
Arabic script is beautiful. I'd love love love to read that... I personally find it prettier than the kanji that's so pop u lar these days, and almost as pretty as sinhalese, my favourite script. Mongolian is also real cool...

Travel is such a precarious idea.

And i'm in love with the idea, more so than i was in love with any idea so far. (so far, so far, so far; just listen to Ani & you'll know how I think sometimes). Because I know the world is changing, and part of me says, be as close as you dare to the change! and i know there are incredible things I don't know about the world, and part of me says, go & find it! Because i am so, so lucky, to be allowed to have these deliberations, and I am so rich, and I am so American, that I fear that across the world I would find no friends and I would find no similar curiosity.

Because one of the first things I ever learned, ever realized for myself is that curiosity is limited by what you already know. You can only wonder about 5 things if you know 1 thing, 56 things if you know 23 things, it's a exponential curve. I remember the first time I saw an exponential curve, when my math teacher (hays??) explained it: it was such clarity in my head: "yes, that is how the world works for me"

[later... i'm at home now]

I think where i was going with that was to say, women have a completely different standing in their society, i don't know if i could adjust to that. (haha, today in my second language acquistion & theory class, we were talking about 'language inhibitions' blah blah blah... okay, only funny to me) I mean, I don't know if I could adjust to that to learn the language. Which for me is the total point of travel.

And Morocco... crazy enough to work? or too ridiculous to consider?  ¶ 18:28 0 comments

  The best compliments ever:

"quintessially good"

"you have such cute curly toes and a wide breadth of knowledge"

"the least insane person I know"

thank you  ¶ 06:59 0 comments

  I hate hate hate war. I hate hate hate war. Not just because war is scary, and people get killed, and guns and bombs are scary (I'm repeating myself...) but because it's a distraction. Yes, it's distracting you.

From what? Well I'm not so sure.

I once told my sister that the only issue, politically or otherwise, is the environment. I'm not sure if I still believe this, but fundamentally, what matters the most? Your short skirt? Some movie? who insulted who last week? or the environment, as a whole?

I'm not talking just one or two dolphins in some river in China, either, I'm talking holistically. Yes, the dolphins are included, just as you are, and everything that is yours, even your skirts and your movies. BUT. When we start talking war we forget health, we forget emissions controls, we forget the rain forest...

I just had this vision of that scene in SLC Punk! where that one guy (the most hardcore of us all) decides all the cars on the block would look better without windsheilds. He smashes them all in, gets caught by the police, escapes from the police by kicking the rear window right out of the cop car, effortlessly sheds his manicles, and runs away. It takes a week for the others to get him to admit it's him, BUT they all know it's him. It can't be anyone else.

Then he goes to Notre Dame to study the rainforest. "Someone's gotta protect the trees... they can't speak for themselves"

It's this huge letdown in the movie. They feel the punk days are over. But I think, wow, there's a true punk. Because he does the punk thing, has fun (okay, fine, he's real uptight, nevermind) but then realizes there are things much, much bigger than he is. And he does something about it.

But this war... it's a great big distraction. Before the elections, I thought it was simply because Bush wanted the Republican majority so bad, he needed a 'real issue' to get people out & voting for the GOP in the house & senate. He has it.... what's he doing with it? I have this horrible feeling something big's happening that we won't know about till Bush has a nice retirement pad (in Texas) and all the young radicals have them too, and the rest of the world's turned to crap because we somehow missed the big one in 2003.

It may be oil, yes yesss yes, it may be the Arctic drilling thing. It may something.... I'm stuck on the environment today. So it's *certainly* that.

Really, the nonsigniture of America in the Kyoto treaty should have been the outrage of the century. Or at least of the Bush administration. But who really has heard about that?

I want to be a crazy punk, the craziest most hardcore punk in Eau Claire. I want to get arrested for being stupid and drunk, and do graffeti like Abbey's Eric all over the buildings on Water street. Then I want to go save the trees.   ¶ 09:01 0 comments

  I wish life was one ongoing Monty Python sketch....   ¶ 08:35 0 comments

  god the brits are funny....  ¶ 08:17 0 comments

  So Rachel has a blog! I thought Rachel & Nik & Kirk were going to throw "we're way to cool to have blogs" parties for their "blogs are stupid" club. Now it's just Kirk & Nik, and they rock out every day anyway.

(yes I know how to spell 'too')  ¶ 08:01 0 comments

  I've finished The Salmon Of Doubt. If there is anyone out there who hasn't yet read anything by Douglas Adams, I suggest you start with the Hitchhiker's Guide, but the master of all is his impromtu speech "Is there an Articficial God?" in TSOD. That is honestly the best thing I have ever read. My head is still spinning.... I'm sure I'll talk more about this later.  ¶ 07:53 0 comments

  I like this... I may actually do it.

Then I brought it up to my dad.

Me: Blah blah blah
Dad: Sounds like an adventure.

But he didn't say adventure! he said adventure. As in, fun fun fun but don't you think you should actually finish college? College schmollege. You know I willlllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll, but I'm not serious about any major anyway. Why bother...

The 'blah blah blah' part above is "I think next fall I want to go to Washington, but I'll come back in the spring & go full time here. Sarah P. wants to go to Morocco or somewheres after high school, and I'm thinking of going with her. I know all that'd be expensive, so I'd work this summer & next, & while I'm in Bellingham..."

(yes I said somewheres, which is really weird because I haven't talked to Elyse's dad or anyone from the U.P. in forever)

I also (again) explained who Sam & co are, and then who Jessica & Bundy & Greg are. ("why are you thinking of moving in with people you don't know?!" "dad, you're the one who doesn't know them") My dad's brain is only capable of remembering 6 of my friends at any given time. He's got Sara Lynn B. (same name not too hard) Sarah Heart P. (ditto) Sarah Marie C. (ditto, though I've not seen her in months) & Bekah & Rachel & Nik. He starts getting fuzzy when I mention Tony or Mary or Megan, and well... after that just give up. Just kidding, he knows Barbie & Alex & Glen & Blake, but he has code words for them.

Then again, I'd probably have the same problem if my dad had more than two friends. This whole Kim's family thing is really confusing. Guess what? Daddy's going to Tennessee to meet some more of Kim's family! He's probably going to make poor Rachel Grace go, and she is very angry already. I don't have to/get to go. *crying*

I got home from OV yesterday, and poorRachelGraceyyyyyyyyy was almost in tears.

Me: (opens door)
Rachel: (screaming) YOUR CAT
Me: (walks in)
Rachel: (turning purple) ATE
Me: (shuts door)
Rachel: (is purple) IAN'S
Me: (thinks about leaving)
Rachel: CAKE!!!
Me: Who's Ian?
Rachel: Kim's sister's son!
Me: Why does he need a cake?
Rachel: It's his birthday!

If you haven't had the privelege of seeing my sister angry, which she does a lot, she turns bright purple. It's almost funny if you yourself aren't mad too, which usually happens. I did end up buying more cake mix..... some girl I vaguely knew in middle school was the checker, she's all, hey sarah! what's up? I'm all, just came here to buy cake mix for my dad's girlfriend's sister's son's birthday, because my cat ate the first cake! what's up with you?

Thomas is such a hero!  ¶ 07:52 0 comments

  English was cancelled today! I could have slept in.  ¶ 07:12 0 comments

  So Ani's touring with Bob Dylan. She's opening for him. My dad saw him in concert once & said it was "mediocre at best". I saw Ani in concert twice, and it was amazing at worst. So Bob should be opening for Ani, in my opinion.  ¶ 10:25 0 comments

  My head is screaming donCRY donCRY donCRY the way Ani's opening guy (hammer? who was that anyway?) sung "hey ya'll, I'm God! donKILL donKILL donKILL donKILL I thought I already wrote this in stone!"   ¶ 09:03 0 comments

  I spent most of the day sad because I lost a mitten. Then I found it & it didn't cheer me up enough. (this was not the only reason for sadness... but it's the easiest thing to complain about.)

I spent the last four hours angry, because I had to work but didn't know it, and Judy called my house while I was talking to Kevin P. on the other line. I very rudely hung up on him (I'm sorry!) just to find the other call was a why are you not here yet! Then we had a toast fiasco... which made me so angry I can't think about it anymore. Just a job, Sarah. Just toast.

The weird thing about that job is Judy is my boss, right? But my dad is technically her co worker, but in most regards is really her superior or her boss, depending on which other managers are there. My dad does not respect Judy at all, he in fact applied some rather choice words... for my father, and my father does not really put people down except the one time he told me I'm just like my mother. But I digress.

The point of blogging is digressing!

Note to self:
Do not buy books in the school bookstore. They are very expensive. You are broke, dear.

RE: Note to self:
Buy any book, at any time, for any price, if it is by Douglas Adams, because although both you & he are atheists, reading his prose is as close to God as you will ever get (or maybe that's because of). He is the funniest Brit to ever live.

Note to everybody else:
DNA came out with a new book, The Salmon of Doubt. By that I mean his publisher posthumously published a bunch of his writings, including parts of what's supposed to be the Dirk Gently novel. I'm gonna go home now and read that till morning. (I'm at school now *doing homework*)

ps, does anyone else notice the fish theme lately? I'm not sure I like it.   ¶ 19:02 0 comments

  Yesterday was such a great day. I cannot even begin to tell you.

I saw Kazz & his son while I was doing my Spanish homework (you heard right, I was doing my homework), and it was great fun to talk to him. Then later, while I was still doing my homework, some crazy girl noticed it was Spanish and started to talk to me in Spanish, much to the dismay of her accomplice, who does not speak Spanish. I guess we could say Sarah loves it when she can form sentences in Spanish.

I had VM practice, and I am very sad because I don't actually have a monolouge. I'm in the choir. I have slightly more lines than my famous "third trumpet" character and significantly more than my silent "woman with flower" character, but nothing like Hippolyta's or Bea's. I am, however, on stage, and O how I've missed that. I think I am kidding myself a little if I think I can go for an extended length of time without being in a performance. I miss it so much. So if I'm in EC this summer I'm in all the ECCT plays. Yes.

I also talked to Maggie T. for a very long time yesterday. She's doing the whole "where should I go to college??" thing, and I think I volunteered myself to convince her parents Madison is not the place for young Maggie. I am, however, wondering, how to win a debate with two lawyers. No one ever wins debates with lawyers, except of course better lawyers, and in a fair world, of course the lawyer representing the right. I believe I'm right (on Maggie's behaf) so I'll win?

Maggie has a new public action thing going on, and I may help out with it, she's gonna deliver the goods later today. She's one of my favorite people ever, because she has this faith in democracy and people not often seen anymore. She's interested in almost everything, politics, history, people, swimming. I almost find it ironic I know her through swimming.

I also realized the best way to find out if you're lying to yourself or making weak excuses is to tell someone else your rationale. If it sounds weak vocally, it's probably weak logically.   ¶ 07:19 0 comments

  Go see the vagina monolouges!  ¶ 06:50 0 comments

  My faith in Wisconsin is renewed. We have snow!

It's heavy yet fluffy and wonderfully packable! I really want to go sledding or start a snowfight. My sister & Heather got a snow day, but Rachel spent the first hour of hers playing some lame ps2 game right outside my bedroom door. (My dad is remodeling the formerly black family room into something a little more 'we wish we lived in the country', so the hallway now houses the tv & Rachel)

I'm happy for my sister and all (and all you highschoolers) but really... we got four inches of snow! I think I'll hold Bekah's mom responsible. Last year we got this much snow quite often, and you don't see us not going to school.

Somebody already built a snowman behind Racy's, next to the bike trail. Awesome.

Now, a very important update:
You should all be very proud to know me.

Scene: At work, Friday night.
Jeremy: Go mop.
Me: Yessir! (walks to janitor's closet, finds mop & bucket, pulls hose down from wall)
Hose: I'm stupid and won't turn on.
Me: (pulls on hose, fiddles with pressure- controller- thing)
Hose: (points self at ceiling and suddenly turns on)
Me: (gets all wet)
Mike (a janitor) : (enters stage left) What are you doing?
Me: getting wet
Mike: (looks up) I didn't know the cieling was water- soluble.
Me: (drips)
Mike: It's a good thing they don't let you out of the kitchen often. It'd be expensive to Sarah-proof the whole nursing home.
Me: I thought it was already old-people proof.
Mike: The old people don't often wet the ceiling.

Yup. Then Jeremy 'it's ten to six why aren't you done mopping!' M. came back, surveyed the mess, and gave Mike a 'you deal with it' look. Mike is a good guy, though he likes to talk to my dad a lot (my dad also works at OV). I can barely wait till my dad hears about this.

Anyway, the non-sarcastic reason you should all be proud to know me is that I actually went to my mom's house this weekend, in one easy step making my mother happy. I did my homework too. John's leg is way worse than I thought.... I was told he broke one & got pins put in, so I assumed he had a cast, which he doesn't. Both legs are completely bruised, and he had a scar on one knee from the surgery. By completely bruised I mean he was wearing navy blue shorts and his legs were the same colour right to his socks. Ouch. So I spent time with John & Mom this weekend, and hopefully distracted them a little from their current worries. It's a nice change to not be their main worry.   ¶ 06:48 0 comments