“I remember me” (the innocence mission)
Wednesday 8 August 2007 | someone left a cookie
Although the truth is, I barely do. If I don’t blog at least a paragraph, I may start spontaneously bleeding from the eyeballs. Who knew not writing would render me so unwell? Probably everyone but me.
Right now I’m sitting desnuda at my desk, sweating lightly; we keep it about 85º in the house and still dread the electric bill. I’ve called in sick to teacher camp today and as a result have wrested for myself about eight hours, most of it to be spent with the Dying Book before it is forcibly rent from me at five o’clock EST. In the interim, the Brujo arrived last Monday, had an interview and job offer before 24 hours had passed, made a thoughtful decision on same, and accordingly spent yesterday meeting students and cleaning out the portable classroom in which he will teach algebra, in less than a week, to my flabbergastment and awe. We’ve unpacked and rearranged strenuously, in pretty much every spare moment preoccupied with household, technological and/or bureaucratic struggles: the piles of trash in the back yard, computers and their parts which worked in Santa Fe and mysteriously will no longer boot here, patchy service from monsoon-soaked phones and DSL, being more or less unable to set up and use online State School “conveniences” (i.e., registering for classes or posting class assignments), wrestling with sinks that won’t drain and contact paper that won’t stick to its filthy ancient cabinetry. (”Next time, we live in a condo,” we keep vowing without seriousness.) Both of us have mowed the front and back lawn at least twice, he’s already recorded one radio show and I’ve had a single mercifully curtailed but full-scale old-school pre-DBT meltdown, leaving me with a swollen face and enough shame to fill another blog several times over. Teacher camp has undulated in terms of usefulness and lethal tediousity, but I’ve managed to write in my paper journal, take some intriguing surreptitious cellphone pictures of the classroom, and get about halfway through Henry James—as well as actually being nearly done with my syllabi and course outlines, and having picked up a couple of cool comp instruction tricks I’ve not tried before. The weather is downright tropical, humid and actually lovely, with sooty red sunsets and, yesterday on campus, teams of men in climbing gear strapped to the wavering tops of palm trees, sawing off dead brown leafy fans and letting them fall whoosh! to the grass below. I have over 50 unanswered email messages and plural nightmares every night (from one of which—about having to move again—I woke sobbing out loud, completely disoriented) and Pyewacket won’t let me sleep more than a few hours before she has some kind of weird kitty anxiety attack and needs petting and reassurance. Mom suggests a feline tranquilizer. For me, or for the cat?
As if on cue she enters my study mewling and trilling loudly. I shush her; the Brujo is still sleeping and needs at least another hour of it, after last night’s argument, our first since leaving SF. (”Jesus Christ!” “Stop shouting at me!” “I hate this!” “Me too, but don’t yell at me!”) But actually just now I hear a mighty crashing and cursing from the kitchen, where, it turns out, he has opened a cupboard door and been confronted with the suicide of two teacups, who leapt to their deaths on the tile floor below. He stands dismayed in shorts and flipflops, coffee filter in hand, sighing in frustration. “Don’t worry about it,” I say fearfully. “They’re from Tassajara and Chez Zen anyway, one was already cracked.” And tiptoe back here to finish this post.
I need two Tylenol and a large cup of cold green tea. And I need a freaking weekend off. And I need to blog like a sonofabitch.
Maybe tomorrow, finally, I’ll get to tell you all about the haboob.
I remember me
in the back of my head
in the middle of the night
someone left a cookie
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And tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. I’m glad you are all alive and safe and almost to the smooth easy next pass on the great adventure you’ve undertaken.