Brought to you by: the letter "e".

(found on the sidewalk yesterday in San Juan Capistrano, right near a pink baby sock. weird.)

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Do you guys remember those coloring books where you just painted over everything with a wet paintbrush? There was that little hint of color on the page, here and there, and you could sort of manipulate where you wanted to strongest concentration of the color to go with your brush. End results were pretty dang similar to this (not sure that this is an actual page from one or not?):



...so yeah. Good times.

And then there were the good old "stained-glass" coloring books, that you could tape onto your window afterwards:





...ahh, good times. Those cellophane-like pages were so fun to marker in, even if the end result was never quite as spectacular as one would have liked.

FYI if you're my best friend you would get me this sweet Ms. Pac-Man water-color book from the '80s. yessss.

it's not vicious, or malicious.

Friends, i have spent the entire day on the internet. This is not a lament, or a boast: it is a simple truth.

And i found some stuff.

This lady's comics are great.

Here are some photos that are not mine:








The National Geographic Photo Contest is at it again. Have a gander!

i just discovered The Fray. It has good stories in't. Sat here reading for an hour or more.

(All of the orchids in my house are almost done blooming. Feeling poisoned from smoking too many cigarettes. i think we'll eat pumpkin pudding for dinner.)

i drank too much last night and would like for that to not happen again. There was a variety show among friends: "Africa" was covered, and Nico, as well as "Groove Is In The Heart" (complete with slide whistle). There were rum balls and Guinness cupcakes. i found a "k" in a snapped-off twig. The clouds were like cotton balls stretched out across the sky. i was finally able to say aloud to someone that i was having a difficult time getting truly involved in the 'Occupy' movement because i feel that there are bigger problems in the world... his response was that, well, doesn't the problem of the rich getting richer sort of have a hand in most (if not all) of those other problems i was mentioning (rape, slavery, lack of clean water, etc.)? It was a tough call; i had a hard time clarifying my position and verbalizing what i meant. Also, as i believe i already mentioned, i was pretty inebriated.
Oh, to have excellent speech and debate skills!

a tisket, a tasket

Been having some craziness lately. A rabid customer (she left us nasty comments on both Facebook and Yelp), a puppy with bloody paws (he came running up to me at the shop the other day; turns out i knew who his owner was and i guess he ran to us because he knew he was safe there... breaks my heart, in a way), and a psychopathic prospective employee (she was only seventeen, and more crazy [with each passing minute] than anyone i've ever come across in my life, which believe me is saying something).

But in between there is clarity: riding my new bike (he is red and white and his name is 'Fancy'), drinking homemade cider at a friend's house for a welcome to Autumn (it was dry and apply and delicious), growing out my nails long enough to finally paint sparkly red (it's been way too long), figuring out the ol' Halloween costume (not telling yet; let's just say it's not as awesome as the Flower-Headed Girl above), and enjoying the surreal bioluminescent dinoflagellates in the night-time water (we've had a strong red tide 'round these parts lately!)... i tried to get some photos of this last mentionable but the glow was not strong enough for the camera's eye.

Last night we watched The Thing, and it was great! Cheesy special effects, but a compelling tale overall. (i remember my dad had this on Beta as a double-feature with The Fog, which is such an obviously great choice.) Now i suppose we will have to drag ourselves off to the theater to see the prequel, starring Some Pretty Girl which was probably a Really Stupid Decision. But it remains to be seen.

And found a perfect 'M' in the shadows of a tree.

Until next time, here is a song about a whale, by a band about an ostrich.

Waiting for fall to hit.

Seriously, why so many September birthdays? It's almost as bad as June.

In other news: i have a bruised left pinky because of a stupid f*cking barbell. Children are dying left and right in Somalia, and there is little we can do to stop it. Tonight i will attempt to eat salad instead of leftover pizza or boxed mac-n-cheese. There has been a gaping hole in our bathroom ceiling for almost half a year due to a neverending of phone-tag/rescheduling game with the handyman. i am quitting smoking, for the umpteenth time. Nat has a bleached-blonde mohawk. My family is all kinds of discombobulated right now and i am reeling because of it. My bike (that i'd had for 8 years!) was stolen from my workplace one month ago. i seriously mourned; it's time to get a new (used) one. There are caterpillars everywhere, and you can smell fires at night sometimes now that it's colder.

Hopefully feeling inspired to enter a photography contest (small-scale, be assured), and my mom may have helped me get my rear in gear concerning a possible kids' book idea; just need some concept art to bring the words themselves into focus, because all i have right now is an image in my head. (Or maybe it doesn't even need words? a grown-up picture book, that's what it'll be.) Saw a perfect number 5 on the ground this morning– it was a green supermarket twist-tie that had been mangled and then stepped on, perfectly formed and flattened into the number of senses we all (if we're lucky) share. Half-a-block later there was an H, born out of fallen leaf-slivers and a twig.

It is hot right now at work, and slow. Tough to watch the flowers practically wilting right before your very eyes. Can't stop eating stone fruit (it will be gone all too soon), and putting off everything on my to-do lists. Feeling dreamy, lacking clarity. Will work for food, or company. Kind of want to hang out right here:

all things go

Hi!!!!!!

i have a wicked stomachache. ('achach' = amazing)

We are finally getting some rain down here.

i went to the zoo. Saw this guy. And this guy. And some swaying elephants. Listened to a keeper tell us all about how 'normal' that behavior was. And still, my heart cringed along with my face. Also, we walked up on one of these things. Truly frightening.

What else? i found a big, silver metal "V" on the sidewalk the day after Valentine's Day, along with some x and o heart glitter. Seemed fitting.

Here is a nice, yet horrible video that you should watch. Toodles for now. Will post more when i actually have something to say.

Out Of A Forest from Tobias Gundorff Boesen on Vimeo.

paper scraps

Saw a small capital 'F' on the floor of the bus last night, on the way back from watching Fantastic Mr. Fox (almost as fantastic as i wanted it to be). It was formed from a many-trodden scrap of one of those little strips of paper that live between the rings of a binder and the perforation of the sheet of paper itself; that little forgotten strip that usually stays forever in binders across the world unless the binder belongs to someone OCD enough to rip the fucker out. i guess i got lucky.

In other news, i used to chew on paper while riding the bus. Not sure how or why this got started, but i do remember it happening during a brief period while i was in high school. Quite possible a stand-in for a cigarette, since i was never brave or stupid enough to smoke where i wasn't supposed to. But you do get a lot of stares, regardless, with little wet bits of pulp clinging to your sweater. This is a fact.

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And in Reasons I Love My Boyfriend news:

On the walk home from the bus stop, we had a tiny adventure.

Can we please hotwire this thing and ride it to Candyland? i asked, as we came upon a butterscotch-colored Camaro sitting proudly in the cold parking lot.

Man, i just want to go buy a butterscotch pudding-pack and put one right on the car...! Nat replied, ending what was possibly the best sentence ever uttered by man.

We ruminated on this (genius) idea for about twenty seconds, then realized that it simply had to be done. Across the parking lot and off to Von's we went, where, true to my form, i had to also purchase two frozen Indian dinners along with our fated Snack Pack; i can never leave a grocery store without something extra. Really. It drives him quite insane.

On the way back, i kept an eye on the guys who were doing some late-night power-washing in the courtyard to our left, when out of nowhere comes a homeless guy, asking for change for something to eat. Since this particular form of pudding is not exactly "food", we gave him a dollar instead. He looked at us for a moment and then said how wonderful it was to be young. (The guy thought we were 23, but still: he was on to something there.)

We bade him good night, then sidled over to The Car. Nat had popped one of the little containers out and was ready for action. Where do i put it?! he hissed. Quickly we decided that right on the hood, near the driver-side door, was the best place for the person to see it. i began to turn around in case the alarm went off and we had to book it.

Seconds later, and with no alarm ringing in my ears, Nat's step met mine. We got away with it! i only wish i'd gotten a photo of it, for evidence, but you will just have to trust me on this.

i sincerely hope that the driver of that Bitchin' Camaro has a sense of humor. And that they had butterscotch pudding for dessert that night, as Nat and i surely will tonight. C'mere, Yellows 5 and 6.

non-sequiturs, for sures.

The national spelling bee is tonight!

Normally i don't close on Thursdays, but a co-worker is enjoying a much-deserved vacation in Costa Rica, so it's off to work i go, in just a few minutes here. If i manage to close at 8:00 on the dot (basically impossible), and pedal home furiously without hitting any red lights (also impossible), then i will only miss about 20 minutes or so. Hmph. Right now i'm kind of wishing that Costa Rica didn't exist.


Found a 'y' in a small branch on the sidewalk; it looks just like a snail's adorable eye stalks. Also, there was an "x" in two cast away palm frond leaves at work the other day. Perfect as can be. i was tempted to stand on them, but sometimes when "x" marks the spot, it is not in a good way.


Found out i am an "eternalist", which means that i believe the past, present, and future are all true and real... unfortunately, i realized afterward that i don't really believe in the measurement of time at all, so this label is basically null.


Once, in middle school, i noticed a weird smell emanating from the kitchen. It was coming from the big, low, sliding drawer where we kept all of our potatoes. i went to check it out, because i hadn't watched enough horror movies yet.

i slid open the drawer carefully. It was very heavy.

i opened the hinged top.

And then my world was only fruit flies.

A great, disgusting swarm of them streamed out, heading right for my eyeballs, nostrils, and other soft places. i gagged at the smell and ran screaming into the backyard with my arms waving maniacally. Turns out some of our potatoes had gone rotten, and were just sitting there in that dark drawer, deliquescing. A lone fruit fly must have discovered this treasure, and thus the Great Fruit Fly Army was born. Just thinking about them down there, replicating, really skeeves me out. It also makes me think that we probably just should have eaten more goddamn potatoes that week. Ever since that day, i have had a huge problem with fruit flies... i would rather have my kitchen overrun with ants, or even tarantulas. ::shudder::


So i am reading The Kite Runner (fabulous book, so far!) these days. When the light from our star lamp hits the title words on the book's cover, it creates an amazing, otherworldly red. It is as if the letters are suddenly made of neon, or volcanically lit from within. As if the book itself was filled with bright, red-hot magma. i swear i must have sat there for five minutes, ruminating on this. Where is my mind? To be fair, it was past one in the morning, and tired is as tired does.

Bye for now.

it was not a dandelion.

There was an impromptu rainshower last night. It lasted all of three minutes before hastening off to another clime... it was as if you could hear a director shouting "cut, cut!" behind the scenes. Or like a singing telegram at the wrong person's house... oops! That's San Diego rain for you.

Anyway, we watched it speckle the pool's surface from our back door, just in time to see our downstairs neighbors across the way painting their walls a vivid Chinese Red. The last strip of the previous shade, a bright Coral Pink, was glossed over forever... fun to watch, indeed. And why were our neighbors painting their living room at one in the morning? Just 'cuz. Gosh!


Do you know what i do miss, though? The kind of weather that foxes get married in... When i first saw Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, years and years ago, i was so taken with that story. If i'm lucky, the day that i (if i) get married will be sunny and showering. Please watch this film if you haven't already.

Saw an "S" on the floor of a cafe last night, formed from a frayed and discarded piece of string– a broken shoelace, perhaps? The bike ride home graced me with a "c" (errant black tar spill), and an "m"– not sure about this one, it was probably a straw wrapper or something.
The prevalence of 'S's and figure eights that i find is starting to making me suspicious... i guess they are in that family of shapes that is just generally more likely to occur in nature (like 'V's, and 'T's, for whatever reason). i am also starting to wonder if i should quit reporting on these until i can get photos, which would make it all ever so much more interesting. But for truth's sake, i think i shall continue the chronicle. They are obviously not spelling anything out at this point, although at the beginning i have to admit that i thought maybe they were.
Is it going to be an anagram, then? Or do i fill in the blanks as i see fit? Do i have to wait until the end of my life to figure it all out? And what will it say?


In other news: there was a house, a tiny, skulking house which no person was ever seen walking in or out of, on Raymond Street, around the corner from us when we lived on Alcatraz Ave. This house's singular characteristic was a great gossamer mass of fluffy seed-puffs all over its frontice (yes, i just made up that word, go with it) and all over the monstrous prickly weedy plant in the yard beyond the sidewalk. They would adhere in teeming numbers to this sprawling mass of vegetation from which they (presumably) were spewed, which itself appeared to grow from directly beneath the house. It was weird because they never seemed to actually float away; to get anywhere to take root... it could very well be that this creeping plant was some sort of enchanted organism, designed solely to intimidate and reproduce, and that a Sleeping Beauty of sorts lay within the house itself, waiting to be awoken.
In any case, this choking mass of fluff would appear once a year, clinging quietly to the stucco, the brambles, the crabgrass. We used to walk by and delight in it... i would scoop up great big handfuls of the stuff and fling it into the air above our heads, where they would scatter, startled, and drift lazily down.... it always seemed like they were airborne for an exceptionally long time.
My greatest dream back then was to collect enough of these puffos and place them inside a giant makeshift snowglobe, which proved to be the project's main hindrance– could i find something big enough? Glass would almost certainly be too fragile at that size, but would plastic be pretty enough? And what would the scene be, inside this little world? A girl, playing in a huge meadow? A farmer, endlessly raking up pile after pile of them? A stretch of lonesome highway, depicting a Tumbleweed Attack? Or a simple snowscape, diaphanous and gentle? Could someone my size shake it? Should i go beach-ball sized and keep it tangible, or rent an entire storefront and use some sort of air funnel to keep them constantly in motion?

I never figured it out. Bummed about that to this day.

And i know that that house is still there, sitting quietly between its neighbors, not asking for anything or giving anything in return, except for this wonderful yearly crop. If anyone is ever on this particular block, it is a small, unassuming house somewhere on the west side of the street, and of course i can't remember which time of year it does it's thang- probably summer, but what do i know. Have fun. Hope you find it.


Leaving you with my favorite track from one of my favorite movies... Takes me right back to the glory days of youth. Until next time.

My sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke

Hm. There was a lovely little "f" in my bowl of honey-mustard pretzels tonight, and earlier at work after i'd clipped a handful of sunflowers, i noticed that two of the stems had rolled into the perfect shape of a capital T! It was awesome, especially since Ted from inside the grocery store was outside visiting me on his break at the time. "T" for Teddy.

Busy here tonight checking student papers for plagiarism. This time it's Voltaire's Candide, which of course makes my mind rush all over the random associations therein, like Cabaret Voltaire (a band which a cute boy i once knew adored) and yeast infections (candida, ick). Very exciting. ::yawn::

Sometimes i think i have a touch of that Super-memory business. Feels like i can never forget people, places, colors, temperatures, smells, moments. i am constantly re-living memories in my head, which makes living in the moment very taxing. Seems like i can never catch up to myself, or something. More on this later.

For now, here's the best scene from Teen Witch! Enjoy.

p.s.) Resuscitated most of my dead links over there on the right, in case anyone was having any problems... i love how flattering it is to think that anyone is actually here, ever. Remarkable!

failed: carrot cake cupcakes.

What a bummer, because i could tell these would have been mighty tasty. Plus, it's harder than you might think to grate 1 1/2 cups of carrots on the small side of the grater... well, you win some, you lose some. Maybe i'll wake up tomorrow and make them again? And this time i won't put in too much oil... grr! It's the maple-cream cheese icing that's really driving me, anyway; maybe i should just make that and call it a day (and grab a spoon).

So San Diego had a rainy day on Sunday. And everyone fairly panicked about it; tonight and tomorrow more rain is expected, and boy are the emergency crews preparing... for the rain. Seriously, rain! Sprinkles, even. Yeah, this is definitely gonna be the "fierce winter storm" they love harping about. ::cough:: not. These people should maybe cover the ice storms in the Northeast, maybe then they'd calm down a little.

Found an H and an x tonight. The first was a fall(en) twig, the second was a perfectly symmetrical shadow. Swear i'm gonna get a digital camera soon, then all of this will be a tad more interesting.

Must be inwardly freaking out about The Holiday Trip To See the Family- i've got horrible blemishes on my face, as if i were attacked by bees, or mosquitoes. WTF? This is like the time that Nat and i took our trip to Europe (in 2004). When we took off from Pittsburgh, i was a-okay, dermatologically speaking. 7 hours later, when we landed in London? Yeah, not so nice. i had the ol' pizza face, and all it took was a trans-Atlantic flight! Good times. (and probably bad genes- no offense, mom and dad.) It's a good thing i'm already extraordinarily un-photogenic, because these are sure to be doozies.

Anywho, enough with the vanity. Have you all heard about the hole in Earth's magnetic field? Pretty interesting. Always nice to be humbled by the awesome forces of the universe...

And, we finally watched The Happening last night. Been looking forward to it since it was first released. Ay, chihuahua- what a disappointment. I'm not ashamed to say that i've enjoyed each M. Night Shyamalayan film i've seen (although strangely, not Unbreakable, so much), and that my favorite so far was The Village. Go ahead, judge me. But The Happening was just too much, or rather, too little. The acting was atrocious (who knew that Zooey Deschanel was The World's Worst Actress?), the directing was obviously off, and the script was actually laughable.
Sample scene (vague minor spoilers, but really, who cares?):
Marky Mark: "Ask [your daughter] if anything has happened in Princeton."
Woman talking to daughter on cell phone: "Has Princeton been affected?"
Unseen daughter on other end: [unintelligible answer]
Woman: "She says everyone outside is dead! (sob)"
Daughter: [something else we aren't allowed to hear]
Woman: "honey, just stay in that room..."
Daughter: [blah blah blah]
Woman: "...don't open that door for no one..."
Daughter: [blah blah]
Woman: "..just stay near the window..."
Marky Mark: (what seems like five minutes later) "Wait, are you telling me that everyone is dead?!"

...And that was quite possibly the biggest delayed-reaction line delivery that i've ever seen. Awful, awful stuff. I'm not sure if this can really be conveyed through type. The cockeyed nursery guy was the best character, and the crazy old lady absolutely should have been the twist ending that we all wanted to badly. Instead, we get a weak affirmation of the silly hypothesis that's been floating around the whole movie, like a dandelion puff trying to catch soil and take seed. Boooooo.

Um, time to go! i think our last Netflix rental will be the Puppet Film of Jiri Trinka, just because i don't think i'm going to be able to find that anywhere else. Know what i'm sayin'?

The winds of change.

This has been one heck of a blustery day. Gusty, gusty... wind chimes i didn't even know existed are ringing out excitedly on balconies everywhere. The wind blowing through the screens on our windows makes a high-pitched howling sound, eerie to be sure. The curtains billow, the trees rustle and shake and molt their old leaves out into the air, gone forever. It's definitely starting to feel like winter, as much as it can down here in Southern California, anyway.

And we do what we can to bring it on home: i've gotta say, there's nothing like the smell of evergreens to bring you to a much happier place. When you live in an apartment in San Diego, surrounded by not much besides palm trees, succulents, and birds of paradise, a little indoor "outdoor" smell is one of the best things there is.

We did the same thing last year: went and bought (at Von's, ::cringe::) a few boughs of the fine-smelling stuff; fir, pine, cedar, spruce. Nat was remembering christmases growing up at his house in Gardena, when his mother would have candles lit and fresh greens strewn about the house. i thought it sounded like a fine and dandy idea, and it was. Our apartment smelled like a piquant wood somewhere far, far away. it was heavenly, and by that i mean, um, earthly.

The irony this year is that in about one week we will actually be traveling to a great source of never-ending woodliness: Montana.

Yep, i'm finally taking Nat up to the North. A little town named Whitefish, which is where i was born. Sadly, the hospital has been torn down by now, as well as the adorable trailer park that was right next door to it. We used to love looking for it as we approached town on Highway 93. ::sniff!:: Ah, memories of times gone by.

Anyway! So, yeeeaaahhh. (in Eddie Izzard voice.) Where was i? Oh yes- the forest. Yes, it will be all around us. My sister is cutting down a tree for us to decorate, and it should be, well, interesting to have the whole family in one place. Especially considering the mire of baggage and bad blood and dysfunction that threatens to suck us down into it if we're not careful. Let's just say that more than one of us (not me) has a rather short fuse. Poor Nat; if he makes it out alive he'll have quite a story to tell, of Christmas '08. Snowed in and snowed under.

But at least there are trees up there, damnit, and i mean great big, sweet-smelling baddies. i can't really wait, i guess. Does that mean i'm excited? To see my over-worked and over-stressed big sister? My ailing father, whose (doubtful) progress of recovering from his (bad) stroke two years ago will surely be measured when i walk through the door? The fur that will fly when my brother and sister start to go at it, opening up old wounds?

Yes, it will be just like old times... but one has to be positive, right? So i will look forward to the good things i remember: making coffee in the morning in the kitchen upstairs, watching the tiny ice particles fall from the snowy tree branches, like a shower of glitter in the morning sunlight. Seeing deer nibble away at the sparse bushes in the backyard. Grabbing the binoculars and watching the intrepid skiers schuss their way down Big Mountain, only 3 miles away. Taking a walk up our little road and seeing wild flocks of pheasant, grouse. The way the milk just tastes better up there.

Yeah, here's hopin' for the best.

In other news: saw a "T" today, in the tiny, tattered remnant of a plastic shopping bag in the hallway downstairs. Also, i think i finally succeeded in getting a cold to go away simply through the force of sheer will, which is very exciting. ::knock on wood:: And, well, listen to Chopin. i dare you.

V is for... vegetables?

Last night, on our way to Von's (yes, we should have shopped somewhere else, but it was eleven p.m.), i spotted a perfect "V" in the form of a plastic zip-tie, folded back over itself at the halfway point and likely run over. Not sure the letters are spelling anything at this point. Will have to give this more thought.
When we got inside, we each grabbed a basket and then realized that perhaps it was time... for a cart.

Now i don't know about y'all. But i have a thing with shopping carts.

When i was little, my dad used to make me push the cart (sure, no problem) at the grocery store. Then he would walk slowly in front of me down the produce aisle, occasionally stopping on a dime, at which point i would bang the bottom of the cart into the backs of his ankles. He would always yell out and admonish me, probably for walking too closely behind him. This nerve-wracking process has forever ruined cart-pushing for me, but thankfully not shopping for food, which is the only kind of shopping i enjoy other than buying music.
It's just always been a no-brainer for me. Grab a basket, fill it to the brim. That's usually all that will fit in my tote bag anyway, so no big loss. But for 8 or 9 years, i have been shopping for just two people. Last night i realized that this will probably all change when (and if) we have kids. My mom used to take my brother, sister and i to Safeway and we'd freakin' fill up the cart, often resulting in a staggering bill, not to mention produce rotting away in the crisper while boxes of instant mashed potatoes and Pop Tarts were scarfed down in one day (sorry, Mom!). I can't believe parents manage to deal with this. I guess you just do. I still feel awful for not being a better child. I try and make it up to her these days, and i also never ever waste food; the last time was a week ago (a half loaf of moldy bread), and i felt lots of guilt about it afterwards.

My dad was one of those kids in the UK during WWII, where they were lucky to eat food every day, had to walk 18 miles to school, uphill both ways, etc. etc. We were not allowed to leave the table as kids unless we had cleaned our plates. This often resulted in long drawn-out standoffs. My sister used to put cooked carrots (her personal nemesis) in her mouth, go to the bathroom, and flush them down the toilet. This worked until one day my dad found a few of the tell-tale orange coins still floating in the bowl. And apparently, when i was little, i used to take my cooked spinach (which was my personal nemesis) and carefully stash it behind the television. One day my mom was cleaning the house and reached around to dust behind the TV. The story is, she emitted a bloodcurdling cry as her fingers made contact with the large mound of cold, slimy goop.

(have i mentioned how awful i feel about being such a bad kid? Yeah. There're reasons.)

Anyway, Nat pushed the cart last night, bless his heart. We were buying food for 20 people for this weekend, the PhilSci retreat in Idyllwild (god that's such a lovely name), where Nat has been given the task of making lunch for everyone on Sunday. We decided it should be tacos, and everything (avocados, tomatoes, beans, cheese, tortillas, cilantro, sour cream, hot sauce, veggies, fake ground chuck, etc.) ended up being $93.58. That's slightly less than $5 a person! Pretty good, if you ask me. It would have been less had we planned ahead, and shopped at the smaller places. Ah, well. At least i got a little bit of that damned cart phobia off my shoulders... baby steps!

pictures...

...as soon as i get a digital camera (it's been nagging at me for some time now), i will be able to spiff up these posts with some fine images. Until then, you'll have to take my word for it that this weekend i observed an immaculate "8" (no, it was not infinity instead), in the guise of a rubber band lying innocently in the street. A day later, i was astonished to find a "9", in the form of a twisted up/curled up piece of paper, lying a few blocks away.
Amazing the things you'll see on a bike ride, when you're paying attention to the road, and not necessarily in the way that you should be...

So you're brilliant, gorgeous and...

Well, it finally happened- a punctuation mark. This whole thing with me and The Letters actually had me ruminating on the frequency of the characters i am (and will be) seeing. Sort of like Scrabble, with its plentiful E's and N's; sure, you're gonna see more than a few O's and S's occur in everyday natural objects, and maybe T's, but when are you ever gonna see a freakin' Q or a capital R? ::shrug::
i told myself not to worry about it so damn much and just take it as it comes. For f**k's sake, does anyone else think such trivial ideas to pieces as much as i do (please say yes)? i mean, many of the letters i see actually are letters that are simply removed from whatever box or page or marquee they belong to in the world- as opposed to the amazing AMPERSAND i saw today in a fallen buckwheat soba noodle.

Yeah, you heard me. An ampersand... how very! i'd extracted a test noodle from the roiling water and watched as it fell off of my fork and onto the cutting board below, only to form a perfect printer's mark:

the "&".

...awesome ;) Certainly never saw that one coming.

Anyway, the noodle was overdone, but i was so glad that i'd waited to check them until that one particular moment. This happening was also much more palatable than the unmistakable "S" i saw in the bathroom sink today; an errant hair, a bit of whimsy.

A capital "N"....

...can stand for so many things.
For one thing, it's the latest Letter. While reading an article about noisy neighbors with my boyfriend, my vision blurred for a tiny moment (come on- i was still drinking my morning coffee!), and an "N" was revealed to me within the blank spaces between the words, with the line breaks helping out along the way. I can't find the original article now, so i'll have to try and recreate what i saw within the lines of this post. Not sure how easy that's going to be, but i'll give it a whirl.*

Another thing "N" can stand for is Neighbor. As in, the extremely loud ones who live above us in this building. Now, i have a confession to make, one which i'm sure will incur the wrath (or at least an eye-roll or exasperated sigh) of almost anyone reading this: we currently do not pay rent. And by 'currently', i mean for almost the last year and a half. ::ducks to avoid icy glares:: And yes, i understand more than a lot of people how amazing this is, and how lucky i am, and believe me i am grateful. I've paid rent on apartments since i was 18, for about ten years, so when my aunt (who owns this condo) said we could stay here free until i got a job, i was pretty quick to accept. We'll talk more about why i'm not working yet later.

So does this good fortune mean i have to tolerate the constant stomping across the floor, slamming of doors and windows, dragging of furniture, toilet seat lids banging down, and amorous romps- complete with bed headboard banging repeatedly into the wall- at 2:30 in the morning? i honestly don't think so. However, this is me we're talkin' about, so of course it makes me feel guilty, and of course i feel like i should just have to deal with it. But honestly, i'm trying to get beyond this self-loathing doormat martyr business. It is a soul-sucking way to live.
Moving on. A few months ago, nat and i got into such a huge fight over the noise coming from upstairs- he likes to pound on the ceiling; i feel mortified by that, and feel that it's actually causing more problems- that i left our apartment in a huff, slammed the door (so the people upstairs would think i was coming up to break their knees), and went up there to talk to them.
Turns out the lady who lives up there is super nice, of course. Right off the bat i say, "hi, i'm your neighbor from downstairs. the one who just banged on the ceiling?" and proceed to explain my case. She seemed baffled, and could not believe that they were making any noise (i could see a guy sitting on the couch in the living room, his back to us; apparently he couldn't stomach being involved in this discussion), and told me that she moved to this part of the building because of noise problems herself. i explained that nat is a student, and studies at home a lot because cafes can be noisy; she attempted to assuage my fears by saying that she was a student too, and also had to study at home a lot.
So after a few minutes, most of which i barely remember because my blood was pumping so hard (this is not something Normal Heather ever does), i think we ended up parting on an amicable note, astonishingly, and she said that they would try to be more conscious of noise. And for a few months, it was actually pretty blissful! Not much more than an occasional footstep or drawer being slammed was heard from our apartment.
The past month or two, however, has been a completely different story. She'd click around in her high heels on saturday nights, parading before the mirror (every unit is the same; i know that's what she's doing, because we have the same damned mirrored closet by our front door) and making a general ruckus, before returning home in the wee hours of the morning with what we suspected was a different guy almost every week. They would stumble around for awhile, slamming things and dropping bowling balls hither and thither. Then La Pasion would commence, and the bed would begin thumping loudly against the wall, either waking us up or keeping us from getting to sleep- sometimes for hours. And hey! more power to her. But fuck. It would be nice to get some sleep, you know?
On and on this has gone, until a few days ago they had friends staying with them or something, which turned out to be the proverbial Straw. It was an almighty cacophony up there; an insufferable din. A barrage of the usual stomping, slamming, dragging, dropping, and many other new, irritating, undefinable sounds. i am really not being overly dramatic about this. It was painfully difficult to be in the apartment while this was going on; it was impossible to concentrate on anything else without our upstairs neighbors being on our brains. It's like i told nat: just for ONE DAY, i would love to live down here without feeling like my neighbors live right in the room with us. i am sure some people reading this know exactly what i mean.
So i broke down. i wrote them A Note. The Note mentioned all of the aforementioned issues, worded as tactfully as possible, and with all the scraping and bowing i could muster, because i absolutely did not want to exacerbate the situation. And because of the noisy sex issue, i couldn't go up there and talk to her about it face to face. No way. i mentioned how gracious she was about all of this in the past, but that it has escalated to a constant daily stress, and that i just wanted them to know, in case they could keep it in check a little better. Sometimes people don't even know that they're being loud, true? Like once, nat and i got a letter from our downstairs neighbor, saying that we were so loud that it was actually ruining her life. I remember being utterly shocked by this information, and swearing from that moment on to always walk lightly, not raise my voice too loudly, etc. etc.
She ended up moving out very soon after that; i think her mind was probably already made up when she wrote the note, whether she knows it or not. But that lesson has stayed with me to this day! We live above someone, too, and believe me when i say that i am aware of this fact every minute of every day. And no, it's not really a hassle. You just evolve your habits, you know? i close the cupboards carefully instead of letting them fall shut themselves, close doors quietly and open/shut the windows slowly so they don't make that awful screeching sound that you can probably hear all the way out on Mars.
(wow, i just realized how boring this post is- can you people ever forgive me? i suppose i just needed to vent my frustration for a moment... presumably my last post just wasn't enough. also, sorry for using parentheses so much. it's a really bad habit, much like my overzealous use of the Semicolon.)
Needless to say, i understand that there are people living above me, and below me, and next door to me, and that i will hear them from time to time. But this has moved into different territory. My concern right now is that The Note only made things worse. For the past few days, i feel like there has been more and more and more stomping and slamming... Either the guilt is slowly eroding away my sanity, or i never had any sanity to begin with.

*My "N" project proved much more difficult to intentionally format than i thought; here is a mock-up, with a really asinine storyline:

......Once uponaday there
......was a woman thatlived
......ina fair castle withher
..prince and his21 catswho
.....had blue eyes andgrey
....fur which was reallyjust
.....so lovely, an articlewaswritten
....on themto a newspaper
whichwasreadbythewholekingdom.

..so there ya go! If you squint your eyes, or look at that from a low angle, you should be able to see an "N". i've been noticing these patterns within books for a long time now, and always wanted to do something artistic with them, but i've not thought of a great way to do that just yet. Will keep y'all posted.
::hands out huckleberry daiquiris to all who made it this far::

next time: rememberances of people past.

(hidden) messages.

Word of the day: Festoon!

So, a few year ago i was walking down the sidewalk in Berkeley, on my way to the bike shop to have my bike tuned up, and suddenly i noticed a scaffolding coming up. the building on my right way being redone; there was plywood everywhere and a few intrepid people had stapled some playbills to the temporary wall. it had stormed early that morning, so the sidewalk was a soggy mess of leaves, fast-food wrappers, and a few of the unluckier playbills. upon further inspection, though, my eyes happened upon a bright red "A", right there in a bare patch among the detritus.
For some reason this stopped me dead in my tracks. i looked all around for the source of this "A", but couldn't see anything telling. it looked like a letter-transfer "A", perhaps one that had floated down from someone's graphic design office window. who knows. i left it there and was on my merry way-perhaps a little more thoughtful now, like when i left the theatre after seeing Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers and Tides, and everything was imbued with meaning and possibility.
I always tend to see things hiding within other things, and even though this "A" was literal and not simply an accidental meeting of, say, two tree branches, i couldn't forget it for a long time.

Following the "A" (what a lovely letter to begin with, wouldn't you say?), i began to notice other letters as they presented themselves to me. next were a "D" and an "O", red onion slices in my spinach salad one afternoon while having lunch in a restaurant. then i began to remember some, forget the others, so the list became this: A D O t h E a d. for many months, i swore to myself i would begin writing them down, but i never did. so after the "d", there were a few others, but they have been lost; forgotten.
More recently, there was a perfect "T" from a broken tree branch on the ground, with an extremely long tail, that i used to plumb the depths of a moss-covered pool of water in a statue garden. after that, there was a "y" and a few days ago another "A".

So what are all these letters trying to say? i'm certain that i don't know, and uncertain if i ever will know. but for now, i will keep my eyes open and keep track.

i almost wish (::cringe::) that i had a small digital camera, or a camera phone, so i could have it on me at all times, in order to better record these characters. for now i'll have to rely on the ol' memory, which, as it happens, is usually unusually excellent. (a little too excellent, in fact- living in the past has become a normal routine for me.)

next time- art classes from kindergarten; they were the best.
happy March, everyone.