something's changed

Felt like writing a little update about what’s going on here, to put it in perspective, to help me understand why I just now realized that I leave on Friday and haven’t really done much to prepare… and why that doesn’t bug me. I have a feeling this will be a rambling piece.

I’m staying with my parents in a Dallas high-rise apartment; a one bedroom apartment. I sleep on a Princess and the Pea blow up mattress in the dining room area, sweetly privatized by a bamboo screen my mom bought. Or I sleep there sometimes. Other times I sleep on my mat in the living room, loving how the floor straightens my back, while a long time girlfriend sleeps in the bed.

I’ve had two so far, long-time girlfriends, visit for overnights. First LeeAnn, on my second night here. We’ve been friends for 23 years and are closer now than we’ve ever been… except for maybe when we lived next to each other and spent every summer day playing Barbie and tag. While she was here we talked. A lot. And it was beautiful, raw, honest and wise. The other was my friend Rachel, Rachie. We’ve known each other since 3rd grade, but have been close friends since freshman year high school. Again, we are closer now than we’ve ever been. I love that my parents know them and take them into their apartment like daughters. I love that four people can exist in this place and not feel cramped… perhaps it is the 31 floor view of the city that keeps the space open. Maybe it’s just how I’ve changed.

Because I have felt this incredible calm as of late. Maybe since March. I don’t know what it is and I don’t know where it came from. Really started to notice it around Take Back the Night- this event that spiraled large into my life and required (or at least I chose to give it) a lot of energy and time and passion and patience. On the night itself, I was barely nervous, and not at all upset that it was cold and rainy. We met anyway. We marched anyway. And even though the crowd was relatively small, it happened, I enjoyed it and the world felt perfect as it was. Since then, there’s been an easiness about things, even when they are really hard. Even when I’m really angry or sad or not in control like I’d like. It’s as though there’s an extra level of foundation under it all, holding me up and helping me feel secure. My friend Tim said he’s noticed a change from my pictures. I’m guessing this is it, but I don’t know what that means.

And here, at home, I feel it as a presence in the moment. Times when, in the past, I might have been distracted or distant or impatient with the situation, thinking of the next adventure or someone I should call or see or some chore I should be doing, I am here. Totally here. With my nephew, I treasure all the little moments we get to spend together, and he shows he notices in his hugs. With my parents, I listen more carefully and feel a closer partnership. With my friends, I suck up every moment and feel a profound gratefulness for the depth they give my life. I haven’t felt annoyed or anxious or any of that stuff. Did someone slip a valium into my water bottle?

So rambling indeed and I’ll leave out the details of my new Netbook, the rooftop pool, long runs around the city, people I haven’t seen in 11 years. And just settle on a new, wonderful stage in my life prompted by this peace. It’ll change. Everything does. And heading to Thailand with my greatest curly-haired adventure on Friday will prompt something new, I’m sure. In the meantime, I feel like savoring, rolling it around my tongue like a good wine, hoping the aftertaste lingers.

Denver International Airport

Thought since I was here, I’d try to ask Lost and Found directly about a bag I left last month. They never seemed to check very thoroughly when I was on the phone. I set my mind to “open” trying to feel the good vibes I felt in Cancun when I recovered an iPod that had been missing for a week. I just knew walking into that airport office that it was in there. They first handed me a pink 8 gig, nicer than my own.

“No, I’m sorry. That one’s not mine.”

“I think it’s the only one back there. I’ll look again.”

I felt so calm and sure, and after 5 minutes of her looking, there it was, wrapped in duct tape, holding the earphones tight to the body. Perfect timing.

This time, the feeling was different- positive but not sure. Walking up to the airport information desk, there were three women gathered around, chatting and giggling. The one up front turned around and yelled, “Ukulele!”

She sauntered towards me and took it from my hands.

“Do you play?”

I thought she seems very excited not to.

“Yes, from my childhood!” eyes lit up, teeth showing.

She checked the tuning, singing “My Dog Has Fleas” then began strumming it confidently, loudly, fingers moving without looking, her hips swaying side to side as she hummed to herself. I didn’t know the song but I loved watching her play. Her eyes opened and she looked at me directly-

“What about you? Do you play?”

“Not very well- I could never quite get the strumming like you do. I’m bringing it home for my mom.”

“Oh! Is she an old lady like me?”

“Ha! Um, well, she wants to learn how to play too.”

“Great!”

Her friends started to request songs, but she said she could only remember “Isn’t she lovely?” She played for a few more seconds and handed it back to me. I couldn’t help but notice some of the dust had been knocked free from under the strings. Her friend chastised her for stealing it from me, said I was lucky to get it back, and asked,

“What was your original question?”

“I don’t remember! You just totally made my morning.”

The bag wasn’t in Lost and Found- if it had ever been, they would have gotten rid of it two weeks ago. It was okay though. I was able to let go of that material hope and hold instead to that spicy moment, some foreshadowing of all the adventure and new people and experiences, not two weeks away, but starting now.

screen play- rough draft

Because one often writes about what one knows...

Scene opens:

(girl pulls up to gas pump in beat up Cavalier. she's on a road trip for thinking and is in a distracted state. the car had been chugging on the mountain and she figured it needed gas. she had just driven over 200 miles through the Rocky Mountains and doesn't know how big the tank is. goes into the gas station, buys Octane Boost and puts $15 towards the tank. begins to pump. at 4.7 gallons, it stops).

girl: damn pump! it's nowhere near full. I'm not losing $15 on 5 gallons

(starts handle again and it stops a few 10ths later)

girl: son of a monkey

(keeps pumping the handle- 4, 5, 6 times. starts to smell gas, then notice that there's some spilling out of the top. the gas attendant runs out of his shop right as she hears a water fountain-type noise. he's holding out a dollar and some change)

attendant: it's okay! you could get back whatever you don't use!

girl: oh! thank you! I was wondering...

(she looks under the car. gas is spilling out everywhere onto the ground)

girl: um, there seems to be a problem. i thought I was out of gas so I stopped to fill up, but it only took 5 gallons. now gas is spilling everywhere on the ground. um, do you think that's because i overfilled the tank or from a mechanical problem?

(attendant gets on his knees and lets out a low whistle as he watches gasoline shooting out everywhere. girl starts ringing her hands and pulls them to her chin)

girl: I think maybe there's a problem with the fuel pump

attendant: does it run rough?

girl: yes, sometimes and I have to gun it. do you think this spillage could be caused by that?

(attendant looks under the car again. the flow's slowing to a trickle. girl's hands take a sort of prayer position and her face flushes)

girl: I kind of kept pumping it after it stopped too. maybe it's overflowing

attendant: yeah, it's really slowing down. I don't think a fuel pump would do that. you know, when the pump stops, usually that means the tank is full.

girl: I know... I'm not just not, um, very familiar with this car. I'm so sorry. is there anything I can do to help? can you remove the gasoline from the driveway?

attendant: yeah, I'll just wash it off with water

(gives girl a strange look)

girl: I really am sorry. I'm distracted today and I... thank you for giving my change back. I'm sorry.

(she crawls in the passenger side of the car to the drivers seat and puts the key in the ignition. it starts up right away, the needle moving over way past full. she doesn't look in the rearview mirror for the attendant's face, just lowers her head and drives off)

girl: wow, Fugs, we got 40 miles to the gallon in the mountains! way to go buddy! man, I feel like an idiot...

coffee shop music

I've only asked a coffee shop to change their music once. It was the holidays and they were playing Christmas music... for like three hours. I am not the biggest fan and finally caved, begging the barista to change it. I think I offended him. Decided that was no longer an okay thing to do. Part of the pleasure of being behind that counter is listening to whatever you please.

But, wow, these last three hours of my life have been a bit claustrophobic. In this "edgy" coffee shop (this *is* Boulder), they have been playing painful, painful music. At least to my ears. The Doors mostly. On and on and on, The Doors. I never knew they wrote so many songs! Mostly because I don't listen to them. There's something about his voice that blooms dark, kinda nasty ego-centrism. And I rather hate the harpsichord- even Bach. It's like horseradish for the ears. I feel so wrong posting this, but also feel so trapped in this sonic prison, too loud to block with ear phones, although I'm trying with pop music of the loudest variety I can find, lots of treble to cancel out noise. MGMT "Kids" * Not proud of the choice, but such measures should be forgiven in times like these.


* not sure what they are saying and don't want to know. rather pleased with guessing that it's about a child, coming up in the world, and him giving the warning to take only what you need from it. one of the few lines I tune into it "family of trees falling." i like the concept of that warning. sticking to it.

osteology project

I like bones, for the most part. I just like living people better. Trying to combine the two in our final project entitled: Who are these guys? But now since I and my female research partner have entered the picture, it's Who are these people?

Here's part of the intro...

1 INTRODUCTION

We all tell stories of our lives, of our journeys and they bind us. They bind us to our experiences and, as we share them with others, they bind us together across time. In our project, we encountered three stories: two we learned from others, and one we lived through ourselves. And here we will retell pieces of each of them to you: the story of the ancient Nubians at Kulubnarti, the story of those who excavated them, and our story of discoveries through investigation as we sought to understand the title of our quest: Who Are These People?

1.1 Kulubnarti

He scrambled over deep tan boulders, eyes shielded from the sun with his right hand. His long-sleeved woolen gown flapped about his ankles as a brisk wind swept over the dry wadis and quiet alluvial plains, kicking sand into his face. Headed to one of the few plots of farmable land, irrigated most years by flowing river waters that made his home into a temporary island, he thought of the lentils and other legumes his family hoped to plant this year, perhaps even fodder for their cow. They needed enough to eat and enough to pay taxes to the king in Dongola at the end of the season. Last year, there was barely enough food for both…

Kulubnarti is located in the extremely arid region of modern day Sudan called the Batn el-Hajar (“Belly of Rock”). The area has poor soils and is marked by intermittent wadis, or hardened valleys, large granite boulders and a few fertile flood planes. The area of Kulubnarti is located along the banks of the Nile between the second and Dal cataracts, a portion of the river that was, at the time of these populations, relatively un-navigateable due to rapids. Even so, the Batn el-Hajar has been home to many scattered populations living off its scattered but relatively fertile flood planes (Van Gerven et al. 1995; Adams et al. 1999; Turner et al. 2007).

Kulubnarti is one of these.




Okay, okay, okay... back to the real stuff... evidence of rickets in skeletal material for example...

tiny footprints

It's Earth Day. I love it. How brilliant to set up a day to celebrate something we continuously take for granted. It's a great way to wake up!

Today is the perfect string of moments in which to try out those good ideas we seldom leave time for. Myself included. What follows is not an attack; it's a note to self, and to anyone else who cares to read it. Some simple suggestions for how to carry today into our permanent routines:

1) Stop using useless bags. Do we really need a bag to carry out that one greeting card bought at Walgreens? How about those two gallons of milk? They come with handles! How about the stuff you managed to hold in your hands through the grocery store- can you get it out to your car in the same way? And if you're ready to step it up a notch: bring your own. Reusable bags are easy to find nowadays. Or, shoot, just reuse the ones you got from the grocery store last week. Difficult to remember? Make yourself buy one every time you forget- they are usually $0.99. That's just a $1 more on your bill.

Think about how a white plastic bag looks trapped against a barbed wire fence or up in a tree- torn, nasty, around for a long time. Then think about how one Walmart turns out THOUSANDS of those an hour. Yes, we are just saving one bag when we bring our own, but that's how it starts and that's what makes a difference. And people around us see it and we can start a trend! There is one grocery store here in Boulder that won't even give you a bag anymore- plastic OR paper. You either bring your own or use a recycled box they keep near the register. I love that store.

2) Stop drinking bottled water. It's usually not better than tap water, at least in this country. It's not regulated; it's not tested. Many times it's just tap water in plastic bottles; sometimes it's worse. One source for three bottled water companies in the US: a well sunk in an industrial area near a SUPERFUND site. That's nasty.
http://www.allaboutwater.org/bottled-water.html

And the bottles are nasty too. Ever wonder why there's an expiration date on your water? It's water! It's been around since Earth has been around- why would it expire? Chemical leaching from the bottles. Remember that Nalgene scare a couple of years ago, people worried about the plastics leaching BPA into the water? The same thing applies to the cheap plastics our bottled water is sold in. Some even think the phytoestrogens from these bottles are part of the cause for rising obesity rates. And after you're done drinking it, that bottle ends up in a landfill somewhere, or requires lots of energy to recycle. Or, as is increasingly the case, it ends up floating out in the ocean somewhere in a huge island of trash. Yuck.

http://www.physorg.com/news112248742.html
(about an 10 million TON island of trash in the Pacific TWICE the size of Texas; made of, you guessed it, 80% plastic)

If we want to make sure our water is purified, we can do it ourselves- it's cheaper and guaranteed. Filters for the sink are ever more affordable and put out hundreds of gallons. Even Walmart promotes them as a way to cut down on plastic use; you can get one there and skip the bag on the way out the door!

3) Drive less. I know not everyone lives in a place where biking is feasible or even safe. But I do think everyone, again myself included, can think twice about moving the car across the parking lot to go to the next store. Just use it less, in any way you can. And, unless you own a hybrid like Prius, that includes idling. It makes a difference!

4) Use less electricity in your house. Those energy saving bulbs last over 5 years! And now they come in all sorts of brightness levels and colors, including the softer yellow we are more used to. Use your blankets instead of the heat at night. Open the windows instead of running the AC. (I know, in Texas that's not always a comfortable thing to do- but how about when you're not home?) It'll save you money too! And a lot, a LOT of electricity nationwide.

5) Pay attention to your product buying. It's hard. I know it's hard and I don't do it enough. So many angles, things to pay attention to: the amount of packing, type of packing, chemicals and dangerous toxins inside of the products (especially electronics). In many ways, we just aren't given the options to make better choices. But in some ways we are. If we tune in just a little more, do a little more research (yay internet!) and even start writing companies to tell them what we really want (recyclable packing and less of it, safer electronic technology), we could really start a change. Everything we buy goes somewhere after we are done with it and all too often, that is the backyards of the poor: China, Africa, or in the case of nuclear waste, Slavic countries. The more we pay attention, speak up and vote with our wallets, the better this will get.

Okay, I will stop my treatise here. There's a lot more we could do: composting in our kitchens and backyards, buying local, recycling even and especially if it's not available door-to-door in our area. I am sure you can think of a lot too. Let's make today like New Years, but for resolutions having to do with Mother Earth. Every day is the chance to begin again.

Ready... set... go!

doodling in the margins

I'm supposed to be writing an introduction to a team-effort paper on Nubian mummies and all their maladies; actual human beings, bones in the ground for over a thousand years on which I've had my hands, bits of their skin floating up my nose while I work. Instead I'm eating Pho inside on a sunny day- all the wrong things. I feel like it's been so long since I've written.

I have posts saved up- written on slick natural paper in a new journal, word documents titled "blog" typed hurriedly before class starts. But it doesn't quite feel like writing.

Take Back the Night has ended. It was a strange affair. Not the affair itself but how I felt inside of it, like someone had given me a valium. All that work- so much work! And it was immediately transformed from this community event that was supposed to be a loud march through town, have a rally in the middle of Boulder with hundreds of people... to a small event, mostly students, gathered under a covered space from the rain. But we marched in the wet and we yelled into the street and up onto the buildings that sexual violence is wrong and that we were angry. It was, in some ways, more powerful with the rain; one girl called it tears. The unintentional force of the weather. And although I guess I should have felt nervous or let down by the change of events, the total-on-the-fly-you've-'wasted'-so-much-time-for-the-unexpected situation, I was calm. Happy. Engaged. I enjoyed every minute of the preparation, even the unused parts, even the personalities that tested my abilities to be a human relations specialist's daughter. In some ways, even the fall out and processing its ending and its subject matter, especially in personal ways.

It wasn't the result that mattered- the night itself was the punctuation at the end of a very long phrase. I actually enjoyed the process, writing the sentence itself. Like a good afternoon spent on a mountainside, creating nothing that will be hung as art. What a strange thing to enjoy the journey.

It's important for me to see this now, as I stand looking at the end of my grad career, completely unsure of my next step. I am *never* unsure of my next step. I, at least at this moment, do not enjoy academia. I don't want to continue. I want to do something else. Something I enjoy the process of. I'm not writing any sentences about it; just doodling in the margins.

ideas for post graduation:
1) perhaps a position working on the UNESCO project in Bali
2) work on teaching certificate and teach in public schools
a) try for secondary education
b) take opportunity to continue my own education- creative writing classes?
c) get to be in the classroom, open young minds and enjoy travel/vacation
d) use the experience to apply for international schools
3) wait tables until I realize why I want to do other things right now
4) explore more jobs abroad
a) could include Antarctica
b) New Zealand work visa?