An interpretation

More film stuff

The Fox Theater is showing



with a live piano accompaniment on January 27th at 7:00pm. I say we should make a night of it.

Very exciting.

Film Stuff

A splash of red wine

Yesterday at the coffee shop somebody ordered a soy latte. I made it and took it over to the side where drinks are called.

"Soy latte!"

"Soy latte!"


Next to me one of the regulars started laughing. I looked at him.

"That is so funny now that I am a Spanish student."

My mother taught me to always carry an ID card in case of disfiguring accidents

I went to the dentist on Thursday. After looking at my chart the oral hygienist took me out to a big white machine, dressed me in a vest, and stuck a clear plastic stick into my mouth. The result was a 360 degree x-ray of the entire contents of my mouth.

She explained what she was looking for as she examined the picture. Cysts, cancers, dark and light spots, cracks. Everything looked fine.

But...

"OOH! Look at that. You have wiggly roots."

I ran my tongue along the base of my teeth. Suddenly my my mouth felt all wrong.

Later the dentist also looked.
"Everything looks good."

"That lady said I have wiggly roots."

He looked closer.

"Oh, you do..."

and he looked right at me when he said,

"YUCK."


Imagine if a doctor looked at the insides of you and all he could think to say is 'yuck.' Shouldn't there be training against that?

Broken?

I don't know why this thing always says I post at such unreasonable hours of the day.

Whatever happened to Santa Claus?

I'm feeling kind of stressed out. I'm only visiting Virginia for 10 days this winter break. It is extra tough because I work for two of those days and tomorrow I have to go to the dentist/take my computer for repairs. I have very little time for last minute Christmas shopping (read: ALL my Christmas shopping).

Last night my mother hands me some cash.

"Carina, I have a problem. Right now your sister has one more present than you do. I don't have time to go shopping so I need you to pick something up for yourself, wrap it up, and put it under the tree for Christmas morning."

And she is serious, because this kind of thing mattered ten years ago. And, more importantly, why would I argue? I'll just grab something while I'm shopping tomorrow. This is fine, I know me, I know what I like.

So here is what I do this morning: I wake up early and drive to Tysons. I shop for four hours, spend way a lot of money (I figure if somebody doesn't like what they get at least it will be expensive, thus I don't feel so bad), and take almost an hour getting home in pre-rush hour traffic.

What I don't do is remember to buy myself something. I lie, though, and tell my mom I didn't forget.

I fret, then decide I'll order shoes online tonight, print out a picture, and wrap it up in an old shoebox. My mom will be annoyed, but it will be cute ...and thinking about Tysons makes me feel sick.

Tonight I talk to my mother.

"Look, I bought a four dollar picture frame on clearance and put a picture of a cat in it."

"Don't talk to me right now."

So I don't. I sit awkwardly.

"Something is wrong. Carina, I forgot I gave Amy one of her presents early. She's been wearing it for weeks."

"..."

"You have an extra present."

Out comes the cash.

"I need you to go shopping tomorrow. Buy your sister something, then wrap it up, and put it under the tree."

!

(Goddamnit 10 year old me. This is your fault.)

Whatever happened to Santa Claus?

I'm feeling kind of stressed out. I'm only visiting Virginia for 10 days this winter break. It is extra tough because I work for two of those days and tomorrow I have to go to the dentist/take my computer for repairs. I have very little time for last minute Christmas shopping (read: ALL my Christmas shopping).

Last night my mother hands me some cash.

"Carina, I have a problem. Right now your sister has one more present than you do. I don't have time to go shopping so I need you to pick something up for yourself, wrap it up, and put it under the tree for Christmas morning."

And she is serious, because this kind of thing mattered ten years ago. And, more importantly, why would I argue? I'll just grab something while I'm shopping tomorrow. This is fine, I know me, I know what I like.

So here is what I do this morning: I wake up early and drive to Tysons. I shop for four hours, spend way a lot of money (I figure if somebody doesn't like what they get at least it will be expensive, thus I don't feel so bad), and take almost an hour getting home in pre-rush hour traffic.

What I don't do is remember to buy myself something. I lie, though, and tell my mom I didn't forget.

I fret, then decide I'll order shoes online tonight, print out a picture, and wrap it up in an old shoebox. My mom will be annoyed, but it will be cute ...and thinking about Tysons makes me feel sick.

Tonight I talk to my mother.

"Look, I bought a four dollar picture frame on clearance and put a picture of a cat in it."

"Don't talk to me right now."

So I don't. I sit awkwardly.

"Something is wrong. Carina, I forgot I gave Amy one of her presents early. She's been wearing it for weeks."

"..."

"You have an extra present."

Out comes the cash.

"I need you to go shopping tomorrow. Buy your sister something, then wrap it up, and put it under the tree."

!

(Goddamnit 10 year old me. This is your fault.)

I guess it's time to go

I went to the Media Arts department on Thursday looking for Vicky Westover so I could talk about grant money to attend a conference in February. Frustratingly she is holding limited office hours right now and was no where to be found, again. On the way out I decided to turn right instead of left and walk out towards the cafe, unusual, but I thought I deserved a coffee treat for my day’s misfortune.

As I walked toward the glass doors I noticed a boy standing at the bottom of the outdoor stairs. He didn’t notice me, however, because his eyes were closed. He was standing squarely, feet shoulder-width apart, holding his right middle finger up to the Marshal Building. His face pointed up, but he wasn’t looking at anyone or anything.

When I got through the doors I paused for a second at the top of the stairs in front of him. He didn’t move or look at me. I wished I had my camera on me (which I usually try to).

I couldn’t stand there for very long because three girls came out right behind me. They got very quiet when they saw him.

I wish I had a picture, though, of that boy taken from where I was standing, looking down at him from the perspective of the Marshal Building.

I came home and my hot water heater was broken

In addition to peanuts Southwest Airlines has started handing out small bags of graham cracker snacks. Sometimes the treats are shaped like hexagonal honeycombs. Sometimes they are shaped like mini jet planes. Today they are jet planes. I open the package and quickly realize that, en route to my mouth, the little crackers pass directly through the light-path of a sunbeam shining across my full, upright and locked tray table. Delight. I eat each cracker slowly, carefully pinching the belly of the plane between two fingers trying to obscure as little of the silhouette as possible. It looks like this:


And this:


And this:


And next to me an older man is relieved when the real plane shifts course and I lose my light stage. So I turn and look at the window and the tiny water droplets trapped between the plastic window panes. They have already refrozen into frosty crystals as I put my fingers against the cool window and tell myself I’d rather eat peanuts anyway.

no care for perfection or the presentation of finished products

I’ve always wanted to have a really gorgeous, classy Christmas tree. The kind you find inside the White House Christmas party, or at Generals’ houses with real candles instead of strings of mini-lights. I think secretly my mom always wanted the same thing, because this year as we pulled apart the folded box tops and picked though the top layer of Hallmark Garfield and Snoopy ornaments, she stood up to grab her coat as soon as I offered the idea of buying some new decorations.

We spent over an hour at the store debating the best color scheme to go with the teal walls and reddish chair of the living room. In the end we walked out with armfuls of gold balls, 50 feet of ribbon, and ridiculously expensive mini-lights that come with a lifetime guarantee never to go out. At home I hand picked every ornament and arranged and rearranged the ribbon until the tree looked more like an artistic masterpiece and less like a holiday hostage.

When I was done my mother called the family over to look at our elegant tree. My sister looked up from rewiring the old mini-light kit and said, “Oh, we’re having a ‘department store Christmas’ this year.”




I did this except for the large, sparkly poinsettia at the middle bottom.



I, also, did not decorate this.

Sometimes

one must make sacrifices







for her art.

We are artists

Found Art

Theory

The Poisoned Story



Con

Name Me

I spent the weekend in Vegas. With me were my mom, dad, and sister which makes for an enjoyable yet not surprisingly restrained time. My mother thought it would be good place for transition, a pit stop between a grey summer in Virginia and what I expected to be an orange-ish (burnt orange maybe?) fall in Tucson. So I limboed in Nevada.

Part of Vegas means casinos - means gambling - means free drinks. But what do drinks mean? Especially the free kind? Frequent trips to Vegas restrooms. On one such excursion I followed my mom and sister to a restroom in New York, New York. They went in together while I leaned, arms crossed, and waited.

A short time passed before I was surprised by a hovering figure. A figure draped in white satin with a meshy, lacey veil. I want to say she had a slight glow, but instead I'll remind you of the earlier mention of free drinks. She leaned forward, told me sternly, "You need to smile," and produced a shiny new belt buckle from between the drawstrings of her purse. I took it just before she marched off into a forest of flashing lights and identical burgundy dresses. Gone forever.

I wondered as I turned the gift in my hands, did God just send me a belt buckle?
And if so, I pray:


Dear Lord,

Please send me a sign so I will know where to stand to receive the belt to match.

Sigh

The 'cool' button on my hairdryer is stuck down.

My boss is the ice cream man

Something about Cub Scout camp yesterday made me think of my seventh grade science teacher, Mr. Garton. I think it may have been the “outdoors” station where a mustached old man taught us about the ecosystem and the food chain. (I am an omnivore) Or perhaps, it was the way that out of my fourteen webelos, eleven of them could easily have stepped out of the same mold. Apparently short, round, sandy hared little boys are all the rage right now. (I, by the way, have access to a white panel van already stocked with ice cream. Small fee required.)

Part of our curriculum that year was an extensive inquiry into heredity and genetics. We spent weeks talking about beans, bees and purple verses yellow flowers. We wrote mini biographies on Charles Darwin and papered the walls with full color Mendel squares. By the end we could follow from start to finish the recessive gene’s losing war against dominance and plot its probability every step of the way.

We didn’t talk about human conditions until the last week. We naturally stuck to simple, safe subjects like the color of our hair and whether a baby will have blue or brown eyes. A few minutes before class ended one day a boy, Geoff, asked a question.
“Both of my parents have blue eyes, but my eyes are dark brown. How is that possible?”

I distinctly remember turning my full attention to Mr. Garton in the front of the room absolutely ready to take whatever came out of his mouth as fact. I know I didn’t notice it then, but there must have been at least a moment of hesitation as he debated inside what to tell him. I do remember, however, the carefully chosen phrasing of his answer.

“It must be caused by some kind of slight mutation in the gene that controls your eye color.”

A dangerous sentence to direct at the new boy who had been walking the outcast/in-crowd fine line since the beginning of the year. Naturally, it didn’t take long for my classmates to take to ending all his arguments with:

“What do you know, Mutant?”

At time I was a little mad at him for being so clearly the cause of the nickname. I couldn’t figure out why he didn’t just lie and tell him he didn’t know what his mysterious brown eyes meant.

Now, when I think back to his question and all the possible reasons for his impossibly brown eyes, I try to imagine what I would have done. It amazes me how quickly the nickname was picked up and its actual cause was dropped. Thinking about this (and the fact that its been this long since I have thought about Geoff and his eyes) I find myself revising my slightly damaged opinion of Mr. Garton. Now, surprisingly, calling the boy a mutant doesn’t seem all that cruel.

I tried to find the cat's name. I didn't though.

I remember the first time I ever felt betrayed. I was three and a half and my sister had just turned five. My parents were throwing a Halloween party for all their friends and coworkers on base. It was a costume party. I was a strawberry. About an hour into the festivities a monster walked trough our front door. It’s funny because I distinctly remember being terrified, yet completely reassured knowing my father would never stand for such an awful thing in his household.

The monster, as I would find out years later while leafing idly thorough an old album, was a good friend of my parents. He was dressed to the nines in a full on CATS costume inspired by the Broadway show. Admittedly, if I had met the man now I’d be floored by the brilliance and, really, perfection of the costume. But what the hell kind of person would do that to a three year old? Jesus, there were kids at that party.

That, however, has little to do with my sense of betrayal. My father greeting him jovially and shaking his hand has everything to do with an early experience of utter confusion and terror, but not betrayal. That comes later, in the kitchen, with the one person who should always, always believe you when you are being your most earnest.

My sister and I were both cowering behind the kitchen table, equally relieved to find another who could see the thing in the living room for what it really was. My mother came in with her empty hors d'oeuvre tray and gently prodded us to get out there and show off how cute we looked all dressed up. My sister was a pumpkin. We were steadfast in our refusal.

She began to leave and we began to whimper, begging her not to go out there because there was a monster sitting on the fireplace. There was a monster. I knew had never been so right.

I wanted her to stay so badly. I remember her kneeling down, or maybe she didn’t, regardless I know I wasn’t listening to her reassuring words. I do remember, though, her turning around and walking out that door, carrying a new tray of very small hotdogs and toothpicks. Taking snacks out to the monster sitting on our fireplace and leaving my sister and me in the kitchen alone.

I tried to find the cat's name. I didn't though.

I remember the first time I ever felt betrayed. I was three and a half and my sister had just turned five. My parents were throwing a Halloween party for all their friends and coworkers on base. It was a costume party. I was a strawberry. About an hour into the festivities a monster walked trough our front door. It’s funny because I distinctly remember being terrified, yet completely reassured knowing my father would never stand for such an awful thing in his household.

The monster, as I would find out years later while leafing idly thorough an old album, was a good friend of my parents. He was dressed to the nines in a full on CATS costume inspired by the Broadway show. Admittedly, if I had met the man now I’d be floored by the brilliance and, really, perfection of the costume. But what the hell kind of person would do that to a three year old? Jesus, there were kids at that party.

That, however, has little to do with my sense of betrayal. My father greeting him jovially and shaking his hand has everything to do with an early experience of utter confusion and terror, but not betrayal. That comes later, in the kitchen, with the one person who should always, always believe you when you are being your most earnest.

My sister and I were both cowering behind the kitchen table, equally relieved to find another who could see the thing in the living room for what it really was. My mother came in with her empty hors d'oeuvre tray and gently prodded us to get out there and show off how cute we looked all dressed up. My sister was a pumpkin. We were steadfast in our refusal.

She began to leave and we began to whimper, begging her not to go out there because there was a monster sitting on the fireplace. There was a monster. I knew had never been so right.

I wanted her to stay so badly. I remember her kneeling down, or maybe she didn’t, regardless I know I wasn’t listening to her reassuring words. I do remember, though, her turning around and walking out that door, carrying a new tray of very small hotdogs and toothpicks. Taking snacks out to the monster sitting on our fireplace and leaving my sister and me in the kitchen alone.

Imagine:

You're three and a half and this walks into your house.



I think you'd be under the kitchen table with your sister begging your mom to ignore the hors d'oeuvre tray and cower in the kitchen with you too.