Forward, March
It's March now in Atlanta, which means all the flowers are blooming again. The daffodils opened up in my uncle's backyard this weekend, yellow and beautiful. All the bulbs are out again, pushing up new green splits for later irises and tigerlillies. There are even a few rare dandelions that have gone to seed, flowers that made it through February and are now little puff balls ready to be blown away on wishes. My two-year-old cousin brings in a violet or clover flower or other little blooming thing she picks out of the grass every time she comes inside. Her forehead creases in all seriousness as she looks at the flowers, a frown of concentration on her face. She can talk now with words instead of signs; her vocabulary has exploded in the six months I've been here. "Flower." She'll say. "I picked it."
I love being here at last for spring. In Nashville my sisters still have to wear sweaters, and farther north Aral assures me that the snow and harsh winds still blow daily. Dust complains about his first winter in the north, about how the snow won't melt but packs itself into a lingering icy crust. Meanwhile where I am, this week has a high of at least 60 projected for each day, and the sun peeks through rainy days - the end of what passes for winter here. We're only a few hundred miles above the semi-tropical steam of the southern swamps here. There are really only two seasons - wet and dry, or mild and hot if you prefer - and that suits me just fine. I don't care if I never see another snow bank in my entire life. I think back to when Ryan took me out to walk across a frozen lake, and I'm glad I got to do that. I'm glad I went and saw a river iced over, and that I walked in snowshoes once. But you know what? I'm more glad that I'll probably never have to that again.
Forward, March. Bring on the sunny skies of April, the swimming pools of May, the boiling heat of the Atlanta summer. Bring me all the changes I know are coming, the changes I've been waiting years for. Bring me an adulthood with a house in my name, as much food as I'd like in the cupboard, and provisions to run my life with.
And March replies: Double time, gladly. Time seemed slow while I was unemployed, where a week seemed like two and every day without a job was just another frustration to get through. Now that I'm working, time passes so quickly I can hardly pause to catch my breath, to keep my affairs in order. My room looks a horrid mess, and I need to sort through my bills and write half a dozen letters and plan for April and May, which approach all to quickly. Even August seems all too close, with its huge gatherings spying on me, asking when I'll start making preparations.
It's time to March. In a straight line, no delays, no looking back, quick like a bunny, or better yet, the wolf behind the bunny. March: Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's in the 'boro, Knoxville and even Augusta. Then April, with Brunswick and West Virginia and finding a new place to live. And May, hey, I'll be ready, I'm sure. A move and a giant party in May. Cross your fingers for me, I'm double quick and overloading.
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
I was supposed to go to Nashville this weekend for my youngest sister's 10th birthday, but she's decided to come visit me in Atlanta instead. In light of my cancelled trip to Music City, I give you:
The Next Three Nashville Stories
Seven
I was talking to my middle sister Sara, the one in High School, on the phone last week. I love talking to her on the telephone; in the past two years, I've found she's always got interesting things to say, things like:
"This guy shot his whacker off at a basketball game last week!"
"No!" I said.
"Yes!" squealed Sara in that excited giggle way that only teenage girls can squeal.
We both started laughing, and she told me that while she was at a basketball game with her friends, a gun had gone off in the crowd. Instantly everyone ran down the bleachers and out the emergency exits. In the push to get out of the gym, ("It was crazy", she said), she turned around and relaxed, because it was obvious what had happened. There was one boy, sitting in a pool of blood. He had shot himself in the upper thigh.
Of course the kids panicking and running out assumed that one of the less fortunate kids had gone nuts and started to shoot people in the school; what had really happened was that one of the "gangsta" kids - the social grouping that emulates rap stars - had shot himself. He had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his baggy jeans. The pistol didn't have the safety on. When he stood up to do the wave, the gun went off, injuring him in the "upper thigh" said the press, but Sara and her friends know the truth.
"He shot his whacker off. And everybody knows. The doctors aren't sure if it can be fixed yet. They had to rush him to the hospital. What an idiot. They're gonna redistrict the High School next year."
I laughed, because an idiot kid shooting himself accidentally is kind of funny, but I was also laughing because it's not really so much funny as scary, and you have to laugh at the scary things some times because there's nothing else you can really do about it.
Eight
One of my uncles went to High School in Nashville briefly for a time in the early 80's. The school he went to was one of the really big ones, with nearly 2000 students. They had some classrooms set up so that several dozen students could be taught at a time - not auditorium style, like universities, but just really long rectangular classrooms. Kids at the back couldn't hardly see the teacher. The rooms were really just three classrooms with the dividing walls knocked out and big collapsible aluminum folding walls in their place. One class in high demand - say, Freshman English, would come in, and fill up the giant rectangular room. After that period was over, kids would run to the side and pull the two folding walls back across - they ran on metal runners up at the ceiling - and turn the large space back into three rooms again, so that different classes could be taught. Everyone came in and turned their desks around -
"And you had better hope that when they pulled the walls out you had enough desks in your part." Said my uncle -
And classes - say, calculus, civics, and French - would be taught in the separate spaces. An hour later, the bell would ring, the curtains would be pulled back again, and the space used for another very large class.
The overcrowding problem has gotten better in Nashville since the early 80's, partly because administrators have realized that overcrowding, weather it be in High Schools, prisons, or even just sporting events, leads to violence. My uncle once saw another student use a drafting triangle as a weapon. The kid threw the triangle, and it stuck, plastic point first, into someone else's forehead.
Of course, my uncle loved that drafting course, and credits it for starting him on his career path as a civil engineer.
Nine
I actually learned how to shoot a rifle from one of my High School classes, in the vocational building, on its campus, which seems like a ridiculous idea today.
My parents lived for a while outside the Nashville city limits in one of the less affluent factory towns that surround the city. There I enrolled in the ROTC program my freshman year of High School because, well, I was afraid of gym. I've never been a team sports type of person, and I was a very late bloomer, and a lot of the girls I went to school with were frankly scary. ROTC allowed me to fulfill my physical ed credit by sitting in a classroom 3 days a week. We only had to be in uniform on Wednesdays, and we only had to really sweat on Fridays, when we worked out by running in formation or doing sit ups or whatever.
Our second unit in the class was marksmanship. We were all given .22 rifles and shot while laying down on the floor at paper targets in little yellow metal backstops. And when I think back on all the other kids I knew in ROTC, I have to giggle. We were all the outcast kids who were afraid to go to gym 'cause we'd get beat up, or the kids who were so poor they knew they'd end up in the army after High School anyway, or the psychopaths who wanted to kill, kill, kill (or at least wanted to project that image).
And into the hands of these young freaks, the school not only willingly put firearms, but also taught us how to use those rifles in the most efficient manner possible. We were even taught about scopes and how to find the best place, strategically, to place yourself in a position to shoot but not be seen.
Of course the Gulf War happened that first year I was in ROTC, making it the last year I was in ROTC. I still have mixed feelings about letting military programs into High Schools. ROTC really helped a lot of my friends, and our teacher, Sargent Clater, was really a great guy. I doubt he's still teaching marksmanship on school grounds though. At least, I sort of hope not.
Read the first 3 Nashville Stories
Read Another 3 Stories About Nashville
The Next Three Nashville Stories
Seven
I was talking to my middle sister Sara, the one in High School, on the phone last week. I love talking to her on the telephone; in the past two years, I've found she's always got interesting things to say, things like:
"This guy shot his whacker off at a basketball game last week!"
"No!" I said.
"Yes!" squealed Sara in that excited giggle way that only teenage girls can squeal.
We both started laughing, and she told me that while she was at a basketball game with her friends, a gun had gone off in the crowd. Instantly everyone ran down the bleachers and out the emergency exits. In the push to get out of the gym, ("It was crazy", she said), she turned around and relaxed, because it was obvious what had happened. There was one boy, sitting in a pool of blood. He had shot himself in the upper thigh.
Of course the kids panicking and running out assumed that one of the less fortunate kids had gone nuts and started to shoot people in the school; what had really happened was that one of the "gangsta" kids - the social grouping that emulates rap stars - had shot himself. He had a pistol tucked into the waistband of his baggy jeans. The pistol didn't have the safety on. When he stood up to do the wave, the gun went off, injuring him in the "upper thigh" said the press, but Sara and her friends know the truth.
"He shot his whacker off. And everybody knows. The doctors aren't sure if it can be fixed yet. They had to rush him to the hospital. What an idiot. They're gonna redistrict the High School next year."
I laughed, because an idiot kid shooting himself accidentally is kind of funny, but I was also laughing because it's not really so much funny as scary, and you have to laugh at the scary things some times because there's nothing else you can really do about it.
Eight
One of my uncles went to High School in Nashville briefly for a time in the early 80's. The school he went to was one of the really big ones, with nearly 2000 students. They had some classrooms set up so that several dozen students could be taught at a time - not auditorium style, like universities, but just really long rectangular classrooms. Kids at the back couldn't hardly see the teacher. The rooms were really just three classrooms with the dividing walls knocked out and big collapsible aluminum folding walls in their place. One class in high demand - say, Freshman English, would come in, and fill up the giant rectangular room. After that period was over, kids would run to the side and pull the two folding walls back across - they ran on metal runners up at the ceiling - and turn the large space back into three rooms again, so that different classes could be taught. Everyone came in and turned their desks around -
"And you had better hope that when they pulled the walls out you had enough desks in your part." Said my uncle -
And classes - say, calculus, civics, and French - would be taught in the separate spaces. An hour later, the bell would ring, the curtains would be pulled back again, and the space used for another very large class.
The overcrowding problem has gotten better in Nashville since the early 80's, partly because administrators have realized that overcrowding, weather it be in High Schools, prisons, or even just sporting events, leads to violence. My uncle once saw another student use a drafting triangle as a weapon. The kid threw the triangle, and it stuck, plastic point first, into someone else's forehead.
Of course, my uncle loved that drafting course, and credits it for starting him on his career path as a civil engineer.
Nine
I actually learned how to shoot a rifle from one of my High School classes, in the vocational building, on its campus, which seems like a ridiculous idea today.
My parents lived for a while outside the Nashville city limits in one of the less affluent factory towns that surround the city. There I enrolled in the ROTC program my freshman year of High School because, well, I was afraid of gym. I've never been a team sports type of person, and I was a very late bloomer, and a lot of the girls I went to school with were frankly scary. ROTC allowed me to fulfill my physical ed credit by sitting in a classroom 3 days a week. We only had to be in uniform on Wednesdays, and we only had to really sweat on Fridays, when we worked out by running in formation or doing sit ups or whatever.
Our second unit in the class was marksmanship. We were all given .22 rifles and shot while laying down on the floor at paper targets in little yellow metal backstops. And when I think back on all the other kids I knew in ROTC, I have to giggle. We were all the outcast kids who were afraid to go to gym 'cause we'd get beat up, or the kids who were so poor they knew they'd end up in the army after High School anyway, or the psychopaths who wanted to kill, kill, kill (or at least wanted to project that image).
And into the hands of these young freaks, the school not only willingly put firearms, but also taught us how to use those rifles in the most efficient manner possible. We were even taught about scopes and how to find the best place, strategically, to place yourself in a position to shoot but not be seen.
Of course the Gulf War happened that first year I was in ROTC, making it the last year I was in ROTC. I still have mixed feelings about letting military programs into High Schools. ROTC really helped a lot of my friends, and our teacher, Sargent Clater, was really a great guy. I doubt he's still teaching marksmanship on school grounds though. At least, I sort of hope not.
Read the first 3 Nashville Stories
Read Another 3 Stories About Nashville
Monday, February 24, 2003
Right, I'm an Archivist
Oh, Right, I'm an Archivist
Hey, there are new links on the side: Feets is back, Baub the Boston Guybrarian is up, and my favorite guilty pleasure, Unsent Letters, is listed. Check out B is for Barbarity over at Forthrights if you have time. It's all fun.
Given my profession, you'd think the archives to this page would be prettier. Instead, it's been a bloody mess since I first started, because the blogger format won't let me fiddle with the HTML template on the archive page. I shouldn't complain, because blogspot and blogger pro are darn outstanding on all other matters....but the untidyness of my online archive (which you can see by clicking under my nose up there on my title banner) has been bugging me for awhile now.
Instead of actually bothering to set up a new page entirely tho, I've decided just to update my old blog every time I update here, sort of making a blog of my archived blogs, if you can fathom it. Or maybe you can't. Er, hang on a bit and I'll have it sorted out by tommorrow night. You can read my last entry here for now, and soon all will be well again, I promise.
Hey, there are new links on the side: Feets is back, Baub the Boston Guybrarian is up, and my favorite guilty pleasure, Unsent Letters, is listed. Check out B is for Barbarity over at Forthrights if you have time. It's all fun.
Given my profession, you'd think the archives to this page would be prettier. Instead, it's been a bloody mess since I first started, because the blogger format won't let me fiddle with the HTML template on the archive page. I shouldn't complain, because blogspot and blogger pro are darn outstanding on all other matters....but the untidyness of my online archive (which you can see by clicking under my nose up there on my title banner) has been bugging me for awhile now.
Instead of actually bothering to set up a new page entirely tho, I've decided just to update my old blog every time I update here, sort of making a blog of my archived blogs, if you can fathom it. Or maybe you can't. Er, hang on a bit and I'll have it sorted out by tommorrow night. You can read my last entry here for now, and soon all will be well again, I promise.
Tuesday, February 18, 2003
Broken ring
Broken Ring
I broke my left ring finger three weeks ago. I was rushing down a set of stairs in a parking garage, the stairs were wet, and as I started to fall, I had one of those moments where time felt like it slowed down. I thought this is going to be bad, and I had just enough time to throw out both my arms and catch the banister. By catching myself, I managed only to hit my upper left arm and my right upper thigh. But my left hand hit the metal banister all wrong. The ring finger was in the wrong place, twisted a bit and hit so hard it was all I could do not to scream. I knew it was broken right away, and took off my sapphire class ring immediately, before my hand could swell. I didn't want anyone to have to cut my ring off.
I didn't go to the doctor. I could still move the finger. I figured it couldn't be that bad, and really, it wasn't; the bruises on my hand didn't rise for two days, and when they did, my blackened knuckle didn't alarm me. The worst was that I bruised my hand all the way through; there was a mark on my palm that you could see through on the other side. So for the past two weeks I have typed a little less than usual, but now it's nearly healed. The finger aches in the cold weather though, and rings that formerly fit on it won't go anymore.
And so this is a big change. I have worn my ring from my BA degree on my left ring finger every day for three years. I can't do that anymore, which makes me giggle in that place where I love symbolism. I wore my ring on my left ring finger because I had married my education, you see. Now that I'm making money again I suppose I could have the ring resized, but I don't know. Maybe that's not who I am anymore.
Another big change: I own a car for the first time in nine years. Sunday I bought a 1987 Toyota hatchback for cash. I thought about financing, but I'm still leery of that process. This is the kind of car I wanted in High School - an unbreakable beater that runs on fumes. Of course, when I was in High School 10 years ago, a 1987 Toyota was considerably more recent than it is today, but I don't mind. I feel guilty enough as it is driving every day in one of the most polluted cities in America - I might as well drive something that was designed to be a little cleaner, something that isn't contributing to any further ills. I also love the fact that it's inexpensive to drive as the gas prices rise.
I really do feel like I'm in a time warp the past few months. The last time I had a car, I was in High School. That was also the last time gas prices were this high, the last time we were invading Iraq, the last time I was thinking about getting my first apartment, the last time I was around family this much. Wow. The more things change...
I broke my left ring finger three weeks ago. I was rushing down a set of stairs in a parking garage, the stairs were wet, and as I started to fall, I had one of those moments where time felt like it slowed down. I thought this is going to be bad, and I had just enough time to throw out both my arms and catch the banister. By catching myself, I managed only to hit my upper left arm and my right upper thigh. But my left hand hit the metal banister all wrong. The ring finger was in the wrong place, twisted a bit and hit so hard it was all I could do not to scream. I knew it was broken right away, and took off my sapphire class ring immediately, before my hand could swell. I didn't want anyone to have to cut my ring off.
I didn't go to the doctor. I could still move the finger. I figured it couldn't be that bad, and really, it wasn't; the bruises on my hand didn't rise for two days, and when they did, my blackened knuckle didn't alarm me. The worst was that I bruised my hand all the way through; there was a mark on my palm that you could see through on the other side. So for the past two weeks I have typed a little less than usual, but now it's nearly healed. The finger aches in the cold weather though, and rings that formerly fit on it won't go anymore.
And so this is a big change. I have worn my ring from my BA degree on my left ring finger every day for three years. I can't do that anymore, which makes me giggle in that place where I love symbolism. I wore my ring on my left ring finger because I had married my education, you see. Now that I'm making money again I suppose I could have the ring resized, but I don't know. Maybe that's not who I am anymore.
Another big change: I own a car for the first time in nine years. Sunday I bought a 1987 Toyota hatchback for cash. I thought about financing, but I'm still leery of that process. This is the kind of car I wanted in High School - an unbreakable beater that runs on fumes. Of course, when I was in High School 10 years ago, a 1987 Toyota was considerably more recent than it is today, but I don't mind. I feel guilty enough as it is driving every day in one of the most polluted cities in America - I might as well drive something that was designed to be a little cleaner, something that isn't contributing to any further ills. I also love the fact that it's inexpensive to drive as the gas prices rise.
I really do feel like I'm in a time warp the past few months. The last time I had a car, I was in High School. That was also the last time gas prices were this high, the last time we were invading Iraq, the last time I was thinking about getting my first apartment, the last time I was around family this much. Wow. The more things change...
Friday, February 14, 2003
A Punk Rock House
Dust and I are remodeling the looks here. It'll all be good again soon.
A Punk Rock House
Things continue to pull themselves together for me, but oh so slowly. I've now got my first decent paycheck in 10 months, my tiny tax return, and a dash of shiny new self-confidence.
Last Friday I wasn't needed at the movie theater, so I rambled down to Little 5 Points and treated myself to nice evening of reading comic books in a coffee house, something I haven't done in ages. There was plenty of good people watching to be had down there too - club kids, homeless, and your usual post-graduate stew of the poverty-stricken over-educated twenty-somethings. Also a lot of people whom I suspect over use hyphens.
Anyway. While I was there I read a 'zine form Vancouver, all about this guy who owned a house where loads of people would crash and where bands played in the basement. The 'zine made me all remembery about Aral and our rock-on apartment back in Boston. And I looked up from that 'zine and just sort of drank in all the people in the coffee house around me for a moment. There was a guy and a girl behind me folding and stapling their latest self-publication. There were a group of art students to my left laughing about something sexual. There were people outside walking along in the warm Friday dark of the Atlanta night with dyed hair and odd jackets and nose rings.
And I almost cried, because I realized how long it had been since I had really had my life. I mean, I've been learning a lot the past 7 or 8 months. It's been a great growing experience I've been through, and I really owe my cousins more than I can talk about for putting up with me all this time. But I miss my life, my assembling-'zines-with-friends, hanging-out-in-coffee-houses, throwing-big- parties-with-no-money life. I miss party leftovers. I miss hangovers. I even miss the bad boyfriend drama.
I'm going to have to work really hard to get it all back, but it's do-able. I'm moving to Little Five in May, come hell or high water.
You know, it's quite sunny and funky down there in the way I need places to be. I wrote Aral all about these longings this week, about how we needed to be in places that made us happy in that special party kinda way. It'll happen. I know it will.
I really want to own (though I'll probably just end up renting) a big funky punk rock house, with odd people stuffed in rooms the size of walk in closets. I want to be surrounded by people who stimulate me intellectually and artistically. I'm gonna have bookcases and bookcases of graphic novels, new music whenever I want it, pretty young men who want to sleep with me, loads of the best cooking things, big tea parties where everyone wears drag queen hats. The lawn will be properly lumpy and full of weeds and wild strawberries. I want aluminum lighting fixtures from Mexico with bits of colored glass in them, quilts made by the black ladies at the Atlanta flea markets, hardwood floors with a history.
And I want you to know that when I get all this stuff set up - it won't be too long, I promise - I want you to know that my friends are all quite welcome whenever they'd like to stop by for a week or two. Because wherever I set up my home for good will be full of sunlight and good things to eat and comfortable pillows.
We all deserve to have a place like that to lay about, full of good smells and warmth and comfort.
And I'm gonna make it happen.
It'll be just that way, for as long as I can help it, for the rest of my life.
Promise. Pinky promise. Sealed with a kiss, man. Happy Valentine's Day, I loan this dream to you.
A Punk Rock House
Things continue to pull themselves together for me, but oh so slowly. I've now got my first decent paycheck in 10 months, my tiny tax return, and a dash of shiny new self-confidence.
Last Friday I wasn't needed at the movie theater, so I rambled down to Little 5 Points and treated myself to nice evening of reading comic books in a coffee house, something I haven't done in ages. There was plenty of good people watching to be had down there too - club kids, homeless, and your usual post-graduate stew of the poverty-stricken over-educated twenty-somethings. Also a lot of people whom I suspect over use hyphens.
Anyway. While I was there I read a 'zine form Vancouver, all about this guy who owned a house where loads of people would crash and where bands played in the basement. The 'zine made me all remembery about Aral and our rock-on apartment back in Boston. And I looked up from that 'zine and just sort of drank in all the people in the coffee house around me for a moment. There was a guy and a girl behind me folding and stapling their latest self-publication. There were a group of art students to my left laughing about something sexual. There were people outside walking along in the warm Friday dark of the Atlanta night with dyed hair and odd jackets and nose rings.
And I almost cried, because I realized how long it had been since I had really had my life. I mean, I've been learning a lot the past 7 or 8 months. It's been a great growing experience I've been through, and I really owe my cousins more than I can talk about for putting up with me all this time. But I miss my life, my assembling-'zines-with-friends, hanging-out-in-coffee-houses, throwing-big- parties-with-no-money life. I miss party leftovers. I miss hangovers. I even miss the bad boyfriend drama.
I'm going to have to work really hard to get it all back, but it's do-able. I'm moving to Little Five in May, come hell or high water.
You know, it's quite sunny and funky down there in the way I need places to be. I wrote Aral all about these longings this week, about how we needed to be in places that made us happy in that special party kinda way. It'll happen. I know it will.
I really want to own (though I'll probably just end up renting) a big funky punk rock house, with odd people stuffed in rooms the size of walk in closets. I want to be surrounded by people who stimulate me intellectually and artistically. I'm gonna have bookcases and bookcases of graphic novels, new music whenever I want it, pretty young men who want to sleep with me, loads of the best cooking things, big tea parties where everyone wears drag queen hats. The lawn will be properly lumpy and full of weeds and wild strawberries. I want aluminum lighting fixtures from Mexico with bits of colored glass in them, quilts made by the black ladies at the Atlanta flea markets, hardwood floors with a history.
And I want you to know that when I get all this stuff set up - it won't be too long, I promise - I want you to know that my friends are all quite welcome whenever they'd like to stop by for a week or two. Because wherever I set up my home for good will be full of sunlight and good things to eat and comfortable pillows.
We all deserve to have a place like that to lay about, full of good smells and warmth and comfort.
And I'm gonna make it happen.
It'll be just that way, for as long as I can help it, for the rest of my life.
Promise. Pinky promise. Sealed with a kiss, man. Happy Valentine's Day, I loan this dream to you.
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