Up the Down Road

Far

I'm terribly allergic to something. I don't know what it is. But my eyes are burning and my throat feels funny. I hope it's not my sweater. I hope it's not Prelude to Swine Flu. Heard on the radio that a case of feline swine flu has been discovered. Picture a coughing pig next to a coughing cat next to a coughing human.

This is not a productive day, partly thanks to my (partial) insomnia. I'm also in a combative mood. Yes, it's Saturday, but here in workaholic land we have high hopes for Saturday, especially because it is insulated on both ends from The Week. And now it's semi-lost and I'm red-eyed.

Outside

Why do they sell something like "cubed tofu"? How much of a hardship does cubing tofu entail to make this product desirable and necessary? You can tell a lot about the ethos from the tofu shelf: there are "firm" and "extra firm" (each time it takes me five minutes to spot a soft among the firms) and now here comes "cubed."

Also heard on the radio: the death of Lévi-Strauss. One of the last giants.   

So this day was spent mostly in leisure. Went out and bought some clothes, LOTs of chocolate of all kinds, some vegetables (which I am not going to put in the fridge--yeah, there is a war going on between me the fridge over vegetables) and apples (the current policy favors Granny Smith). Tried a little Taiwanese restaurant. Not good. My food karma is a bit shaky these days. The other night we went to a perfectly good restaurant and I had the most tasteless mussels ever. This time after one taste of the soup I knew the verdict. Then I took some pictures of Q, who laughed and cried "Nazi babies!," insisting that instead of "the Gerber baby also has chin folds," I said "the Goebbels baby also has chin folds." Not fair! The pictures all came out blurry. Then I did a careful study of the colors associated with the Pope, cardinals, and bishops, respectively. I don't know why. But the side effect is the discovery that Bacon's Pope Innocent X is robed in purple, whereas in Velazquez's original he is dressed in red and white (the more properly papal colors). I wonder why. But that's the subject of another day's study. Now I should curb my curiosity and do some "real" work. 

One regret: there was a woman outside the market playing violin. She was really good. My ears are pretty dead to music so when it is something even I find beautiful... Q is very musical and thought she was a genius, disturbed but special. I thought I'd give her some money on my way out, but when we came out she's gone.   

Wallear

Played with my camera at wee hours and got these. The night was odd like that.

Bambooblue

In the middle of what turned out to be a harrowing day, I came back to the office to discover workers working on the telephone. At some point while waiting outside I heard dialing tone coming from the office. It weakly reminded me of the first cry of a new baby. "It's working," I said to a guy standing nearby. "Oh he's good," He nodded in the direction of the office. Then he made a remark about pierogi that I failed to understand the first time. "He's Polish, so we tease him all the time," he said by way of explanation. When I went back to the office, I had to restrain myself from asking the man if he was always teased about pierogi. Such was my brain-dead tiredness.

Ran into a man with a little red bow tie twice. A very deliberately dressed man.       

My life may be impossible but I love my neighborhood. The woman working at FedEx/Kinko's, for example, must have an IQ of 168. She's not only fast (so fast) but also nice and has a great sense of humor. Makes you want to go back there to send faxes and seek...solace. It's extremely gratifying to see someone doing her job that well.

Maybe I was experience a hormonal rebound.

I treated myself to a nice sit-down late lunch. I was the only one eating alone in that place, but enjoyed every bit of it, including eavesdropping on a conversation about rhymed vs. non-rhymed poetry. Then I took a long walk home.

red thread

remembered

colors

gold

2 comments

glamorous tree

2 comments

bone white

2 comments

Halloween. Got so tired that I fell asleep. Q called around six to tell me that the candies were on the porch. I got up. Just then the street was really coming to life. With all the little children. I slipped outside, feeling sheepish. First, I didn't have a lot of candies (and I didn't know where on the porch Q put them). Second, I didn't look too good, having worked night and day on Futile Fake Work. But it was alright, apparently. I looked at the bag. The candies were taken, but not all gone. Q said they'd abide by the rules. What rules?  

FFW is done. I hope this is the definitive version, the final cut. I am happy with it. But I have a tendency to overhaul. 

After I recover from this, and finish grading, etc., I'll have to move on to Real Work. Fast.

My printer is giving me troubles. The paper does not always feed correctly. Maybe because the humidity has made the paper soft or something. I'm half considering getting a new one. But then I just bought new cartridges.

Went out and bought a bunch of cute but useless stationery-type things: unusually shaped LARGE paper clips (on sale), little neat notebook, thin notebook with a beautiful handmade cover, an assortment of Le Pen pens. Apparently I also have a thing for "Engineer's Computation Pad." Imagine  someone buying these things in a sleepwalking state, having no idea what to do with them. Sheets and sheets to be filled. She'd put them away as causally as she had bought them. There are people you wish you could grow up with. But it's to late now. And one day she may or may not wake up from her state.

The weather was fine. I didn't trust the forecast and brought the umbrella everyday. It's a pain. And I never used it.

I'm good at editing things down. Too bad telegraph died. Nothing like money that compels form.     

• Irked by the new bureaucratic procedure. This means I have to redo something I thought I had gotten off my plate. Yes, this man behind bureaucracy (yes there is always a man, or a woman, behind each piece of bureaucratic invention) is passive aggressive.
  
• Swine flu parties???? I think the government should decide what it wants to do about it: to let it spread (so that some people become immune this way) or to contain it.
  
• Sticking to a better sleeping schedule and drinking more water helped with energy level.
• Love the gifts from Venice!
• Weird dreams, but at least I'm no longer trying to answer midterm questions. These dreams are more human.
  
• Ambivalent about Halloween.  
• This weekend is going to be super busy. And I don't have tomorrow off.
  

• So the not-working-on-important-stuff strategy worked, and resulted in my making some headway on the important stuff.
• It is getting cold and wet.
• Even though I didn't go out all day.
• And I'm still working on the aforementioned stuff.
  
• The fridge automatically turned into a freezer again. I hate it when it does that.
  
• The above is an understatement.
• Like, when the water in the pitcher turns into a block of ice.
• Shaped like a half-moon.
• Or is it kidney?
  
• That incidentally makes me think of ice fishing with a tail.
• Not mine.
  
• Just when I am trying to get back into the habit of cooking.
• Despite my tiredness.
• Morning, afternoon, evening, and night.
• Sleeping and awake.
  
• After I've finally figured out how to maximize the benefit while minimize the smoke and splash of our one-burner "Cyclops" electric stove.
• While it's entirely possible that there is a second working burner, it heats up so slowly that you really can't tell.
• Unless you wait there for a good half an hour.
• Or more.
• Like a bear sitting on ice.
• Except that ice is cold, and burner burns.
  
• Now ice.     
• There is such a thing as cold burn.
  
• Vox does not allow me to add any book or movie. That's alright, since I don't have a burning desire to do so. But this message strikes me as odd. 
  

What...?

I picture someone laughing: "You could try again, but it still might not work." So each time I fail to add something, I come a little closer to understanding the unpredictability of the world. How cynical.