someone is whistling "Thriller" in the alley

I have a really terrible memory, which is probably related to my tenuous relationship with time. I have no idea what year anything happened in my life, unless I can piece it together with other things. I have very little idea of what order things happened in. I talk with my husband about stuff that happened early in our relationship, and he remembers whole events that I don't, and occasionally I'll recount a story from that period to him and he'll be like ummm... no.

Flashbulb memories are notoriously inaccurate in terms of time and context. I don't have many, but I do have one -- with no specific time associated and very little context -- of seeing on TV the cat eyes from the Thriller video. It seems like I was at my neighbor's house. It also seems like it could be my absolute earliest memory. Until a few years ago, I wasn't even sure that there was a shot of cat eyes in the Thriller video -- for years, I thought it was from "Bad." All I had in my head was that image, which makes me think that it's not a false flashbulb memory.

All the comments that people-on-the-street have been making in reaction to Michael Jackson's death mention in some way the way that his music intersected with their childhood, and even though I was pretty much under a rock in terms of pop culture until... well, I still kind of am... nonetheless, his music strikes the chord in me that can only exist if it's put there early. Early melodies form your brain, I really believe that.

So to think that the source of that image of cat eyes is gone from our world makes me really sad.

We may not believe in human sacrifices anymore, at least not of the body. But he was one of the human sacrifices that we do tolerate, grist for the mill of the cameras, originator of content. They found a vein of spirit and they tapped it, starting when the kid was 10 years old. I can't wrap my mind around what that must have been like. Now we've all seen how it plays out. And we'll see it again and again.

it may take a little longer, but I know how to find my way back

I suppose I've been wandering in the wilderness. How can you tell the difference between wandering in the wilderness and whatever the opposite of that is? Maybe we're always wandering in the wilderness.

It's linear and recursive; you get older, and every once in a while you take a step back and make corrections -- see where you've been and decide how to keep going. You notice that you've been wandering in the wilderness and say, hmm, how can I wander in the wilderness better? (How can I be a more effective wanderer-in-the-wilderness? How can our organizations synergize and maximize our wilderness wanderings?)

Why aren't people ever talking about the important things?

I've been doing a lot of watching people tear each other down recently. It's very entertaining, and can be very funny. People are fucking nuts, man. I've learned a lot about conflict.

Yes, that's it - I've learned a lot about conflict. People are defensive! People don't read very well. People take things personally, judge without knowing, take cheap shots, have to have the last word. People get excited, riled. People phrase things poorly and don't know anything about anything. Fundamental attribution error everywhere.

Conflict is recursive, too. It follows much the same path. Comment; affrontery; saying of things you probably don't mean and wouldn't say to someone's face; more affrontery, application of logic and ad hominem attacks; turning of attention elsewhere.

Conflict flares up like life does. That's kind of how I metaphorically see existence, in a sense - we are flareups of energy, flareups of consciousness. Blips. The waxing and waning of blossoms on a plant nobody understands. Sophisticated organizations of particles. Up we come, down we go. Bodies go back to the ground.

So: the wandering. At the same time as I've been taking more baby steps along this path (a True Calling!) and slowly refining my understandings of important things (How Ought One Live?), I've been watching people tear each other down (Drama!) and learning about where I come from (Where Ought I/We Live?).

It has been a lot to take in.

What I have put my finger on: I am tired of the tearing-down. Recently, Other and I both read Snark, which has helped me think about this. People have been tearing each other down in the same kinds of ways for centuries. And we still haven't figure out how to move past that.

For everything there is, there is a voice saying "it sucks." A lot of stuff sucks. People should have the right to say that something sucks. Someone saying something sucks doesn't mean that I have to agree that it sucks. But it still kind of hurts to hear about how something you like sucks; you start to feel like you need to preface everything you think, say, and believe with "I know probably some people think this sucks, but..."

Or you could say nothing and pull your head and all your tender, fleshy limbs into your imperfect shell. Huddle buffeted by accusations of sucking.

Or, or, or, a third path? There's no reason to go where the chorus can be heard. There's no reason to wade through waist-deep discussions of suckitude.

Live and let live. Let live over there. Concentrate on the important stuff. That's the direction I'll wander in.

Rick lived on a boat in A.J.'s yard.

I'm listening to a live streaming mix of all my carefully calibrated favorite music, typing words back and forth with my husband, reading about Simon & Simon on Wikipedia. What a weird life.

Also, I had no idea that my taste in contemporary music was so bloody predictable. Free will is a pipe dream.

Welcome, Minnie!

Before we left our insanely cheap three-bedroom townhouse, with the eat-in kitchen, in-house laundry, yard, quiet neighbors, and all the parking anyone could ever ask for, Other gathered helicopter seeds from the silver maple in the front yard. This tree shaded his room and his work area, and he would often sit and watch the cardinals who nested in it.

He planted about a dozen of them, and one was a fireworks display of genetic excellence -- it shot up and crashed into the roof of the little sunhouse they were in. This was to become Ash (the dominant male, of course). One other seed grew a bit, trailing steadily behind Ash; Other named him "Mailman," because Mailman did not look like the same kind of tree as a silver maple. (We now think he is, just that he grew different leaves first. We, I especially, know virtually nothing about plants, trees, leaves, or causing anything to grow, so our gardening tends to take on a mythic quality.)

Finally, Other tried the method of sprouting a seed in a wet paper towel, rather than in soil. This one sprouted and became Bounty. Bounty has had a couple of rough patches, but appears to still be alive and kicking. These three plants made the difficult trip out to the east coast on the floor of the back seat of Other's car, spending winter clinging to their curling leaves on the window sill.

Other has a wonderful green thumb, whereas I have killed more than one cactus/succulent plant, the lowest-maintenance ones I could find. Other has kept a plant going that was the centerpiece for one of my cousins' weddings, back in 2002. He also still has a plant I pulled out of the trash around the same time. My grandmother's something-or-other plant (you see them a lot in offices, yeah?) is still alive and healthy, and keeps requiring new pots, and there's one he's had since he moved into an apartment by himself around 1998.

My contribution to the operation is okay-ing occasional purchases of potting soil and rescuing/acquiring plants for him to take care of.

A few days ago, I was walking to the bus stop and noticed that a plant had sprouted in one of those holes left in pavement by a long-gone post. I'm guessing this one was a bike post and not a street sign, because the hole was round. I was amused and impressed by the alacrity of such a seed, and considered plucking it to plant in actual soil.

The seed probably originated in a yard about half a block away; this yard is covered in growing trees, wee little t-shaped sprouts, that I'm sure will be mowed down with the first grass-cutting of the year. For now the grass is spotty and weak, so the trees are left to do their thing. The thought of all of them dying under a mower has been making me really sad, but from observing grown trees in actual forested areas, I know it's impossible for that number to survive anyway. But probably three or four would. Oh well.

This plucky little tree, growing in a plot of gravelly dirt no more than three inches across, though, that was something. I checked on it on my way home last night, and it was going strong. I went to show it to Other this morning, figuring that with the crush of people who will be along our main avenues today, I needed to claim it now if I was going to.



I was too late to prevent any harm to it -- someone or something had probably stepped on it in the night, and its top and hopeful little leaves were gone. Other remained optimistic, though, so I went back with a knife and a flower pot to dig it out.



Under the street litter, the soil was dark and damp, if half sand. This tree was growing straight down the side of the concrete, and has a root even longer than its stem.



Other and I potted her and soaked the new soil with water -- I put some of her original sand in with her, to ease the adjustment -- and she's out on our balcony along with Ash, Mailman, and Bounty. I named her Minnie, because she's a year younger than the others and also that sounds like the name of a tough little girl who could beat the crap out of you if she wanted to.

I don't know if she'll survive, but I hope she does. If anyone can help her, it's Other.

Amazon ranking

For a definition, go here, and for an explanation, go here (probably NSFW).

Apparently, Amazon is removing sales rankings from (a seemingly random subset of) books mentioning homosexuality or feminism. The books are still find-able if you know what you're looking for, but then it's not really a search, is it?

Here is a blog post about this, and here is a list of books currently affected. (You can go to Amazon yourself, find one of the titles by searching the exact title, and do a find on the page for the phrase "sales rank." It, as of right now, won't be there.)

And, finally, here is an alternative bookstore that doesn't categorize materials mentioning homosexuality as "adult" and worth excluding from sales rankings while ignoring such things as straight pornography and sex toys. Enjoy!

Day Four: Ow.

Our neighbors pee off their balcony while talking on a cell phone. And that just tipped the scale from oh-noes-we-have-to-find-a-new-place-and-move-again to is-it-August-31-yet?

Stompy has taken up step aerobics.

Hey, did TV go away? Wasn't that supposed to happen in February? After four years of panicky advertisements and converter-box-related brainwashing, I vaguely remember something about the demise of analog. I didn't hear of any deaths resulting from it, so I guess it didn't happen. Huh.

I've been thinking about taking up Twitter. But then I remember that I have a blog that I neglect way too much, and think that maybe taking up another medium would be foolish. But then I think that perhaps all of my ideas are small enough that Twitter is the better venue for them.

I read something today (or yesterday, spring break tends to bleeeeeed) about how silly vegetarians are who wear leather shoes because duh, leather comes from dead animals. And yeah, totally, I swore off leather shoes for the first four years I was a vegetarian, but people, do you know how hard it is to find decent non-leather shoes? Yeah, if I didn't mind looking like a fourth grader, I could buy a lifetime supply of canvas Keds and be done with it, but that's actually not a viable footwear choice in any kind of professional realm.

I find it interesting how people demand ideological purity from the people who are trying in good faith to wage some kind of protest, however token, against the way things run. Like this other thing I read with a person complaining about logging practices, and the response OH YEAH WELL HAVE YOU EVER USED A PIECE OF PAPER, YES, SO WTF DO YOU THINK YOU'RE COMPLAINING ABOUT LOSER. Yes. I've used a piece of paper. It's called being alive in the age of direct marketing. Hell, even people who have died still get junk mail. That's not really the point, is it? Shouldn't it be alarming on some level how difficult it is to opt out of anything?

Like, if Al Gore believes in global warming, how dare he expend fossil fuel for transportation!!??!1. What exactly is that argument supposed to prove? Is Al Gore supposed to build an airplane that runs on water before he can travel to a symposium on global warming? (Sorry, climate change. No, shite, wait, which one is the one that people who believe in it are supposed to use?)

I wonder if it's just that ideological purity, being impossible, is a convenient way of ignoring the protest altogether. So we don't have to take you seriously or consider your ideas unless you're a dirt farmer living in an electricity-less hut you built out of sticks and mud, weaving your clothes out of wild-growing, pesticide-free grasses. We all know how much respect those members of society get.

Anyway.

This week I got to put to use my two years of reading convoluted theory regarding the creation of the subject. That was yay. But kind of the only thing it's good for is reading more convoluted theory. I wish it were worth monies.

quaznik, n.

(kw-a'z-nIk): 1. the light that reaches one's eye after the death of the star from which it emanated. 2. extrapolated from the first def. work that appears after an artist's death, or an award given to an artist after his or her death. 3. a living artist who is reaping the benefits of past work long after their creative output has declined in quality, innovation, or quantity.

zomg, SUNLIGHT in my APARTMENT

I forgot to tell y'all about going to the DMV. Or BMV or whatever it was.

When I was home over break, we had to do a bunch of stuff with my car title and insurance and blah blah blah, so we headed over to the Motor Vehicle place. It was a cold, gray day, and had been snowing for a few hours by the time we got there. We got to the point with the teller had to go outside and verify the VIN number, and as she stood up, she said quite clearly, "Ah, I hate customers."

Um, hello.

So she shuffled on outside, and when she was gone, Mom turned to me and said, "Did she just say she hates customers?" And I said, "Oh, you heard that too, huh?" We agreed that it was kind of strange to have a person up and say that directly in front of two customers. And when she came back in, one of the other tellers said "So, soandso, you sure have had to go out in the snow a lot today, huh? Ha. Ha." Nice try, mortified other teller lady. I'm still going to write about this on my blog two months later.

I didn't win the lottery, btw.

It's like a piece of my life fell off, and I've just now noticed. I'm writing this paper about my ethnic identity (news flash: I have one. Not really, I'm the living, breathing unmarked signifier here -- my grandparents had a pair of freaking wooden shoes on the hearth, does that count?) and Bob only knows how, but I got to thinking about how I used to chat with people and what an important part of my life that was. Not people I knew (at least not until my bbff went off to college and we continued the awkwardness into cyberspace), just people I ran into -- how the hell did one "run into" people on AOL? I have no idea. But I remember talking for long hours with a girl who lived in Florida, pululalu. No idea what her real name was, and I'm sure I never gave her mine.

I miss her.

So it turns out that all I need to do is pop some Jackson Browne in, listen to it through headphones, and write about high school to have a revelation and completely bork my perspective on daily life. Of course, the perspective I've been going around with recently has needed a good borking, so this has worked out nicely.

Oh, and apparently I haven't outgrown the old social anxiety. Sitting around working on a class project, no problem. Put the class project away and chat on the way to the bus stop? Total internal freakout. But on the internet, nobody notices that you're sweating profusely and clenching your jaw unattractively!

All of this is to say, I want new chat friends. I'm orooni on the messaging program associated with that juggernaut internet searching website. Message me. I promise not to judge you -- I'll be too busy trying to keep my hands from shaking so much I can't type!

heeee

Well, that was nice while it lasted.

Twenty days of admiring, trusting, and believing in the new president was more than I was expecting, I guess. Oh well.

oh please jeebus let the rumors be true

http://www.nydailynews.com/gossip/2009/01/29/2009-01-29_arrested_development_movie_is_on_.html

And you can bet your ass I'll be singing my own theme song.

Other: Well, I'm gonna go use a pair of tweezers and get popcorn kernels out from between the stove and the counter.

Me: You better not be using my tweezers for that.

Other: Nope, using mine.

Me: Do you even have tweezers?

Other: Nope, using yours.

This is why it's good to ask that crucial follow-up question. Although it won't actually stop them from using your tweezers. That's why it's also important to hide the good ones.

numbers numbers

Ugh, if I had a genie in a bottle to grant me three wishes, I would seriously use one of them to never have to ask for a letter of recommendation again (without it hurting my progression through all these various hoops). Seriously, I would wish that the people I wanted to write me letters would come up to me and be like "hey there, chica [yes. they would call me chica], I have an extra hour tonight and would just love to spend it writing a letter of recommendation for you!" I hate hate hate asking for them, maybe because I hate receiving requests for them. My only hope is that they aren't as dreadfully lazy as me and really don't mind spending time that way. Maybe they don't hem and haw over every word and sentence, that would certainly help.

Seriously, I've noticed that nearly every time I send an e-mail here, I cringe and think, well, eff it, that's the best I can do and it has to be done. That probably isn't good, right?

and boy are my arms tired!

Snow was falling last night when we took the dogs out. There's already a 3" layer of uneven ice coating the streets, which makes walking Alpha Harebrain both unpleasant and dangerous. I was up front with AH and Other was behind with StinkDog, when I lost my footing on some black ice and almost fell.

Other: Oh! Are you okay? You--WAAH!! ... I guess I should have seen that coming.