Handsome James was one of three born in Pepper's second litter with The Pirate King of Pleasant Street. Pepper, a dainty seal point Siamese, twice escaped to mate with the one-eyed, ratty-eared brute before my mother finally got her fixed, abandoning dreams of raising purebreads. We know The Pirate King was the father, because every single one of Pepper's many kittens came out looking exactly like him; there wasn't a single thing to suggest their Siamese maternity, except when they opened their mouths to let out the trademark Siamese caterwaul.

I named him Handsome James, because that's exactly what he was; sleek, black, strong, with yellow-green eyes and an affable face. He spent most of his waking hours patrolling the neighborhood, eventually inheriting his father's title by the ancient rite of combat. He likely fathered plenty bastards before he, too, was fixed, almost as an afterthought. He would sometimes disappear for days, only to show up in the backyard with a mouse, smelling of skunk, or with a gash in his ear: trophies from his many escapades.



Sometimes he would march in, eat a can of catfood, promptly vomit it back up again, and march back outside, satisfied. Other times, he'd chase around Annabelle, my mother's chihuahua, or decide that the best place to nap was on top of your sleeping face in bed. Whenever he left the house on one of his many adventures, he would answer my mother in a call-and-response that continued until he disappeared around the corner.

"Here you go, Handesome James." 
"Mrrow!"
"Don't go in the road!"
"Mrrow!"
"Have fun!"
"Mrrow!"
"It's supposed to be cold out tonight!"
"Mrrow!"
"Goodnight!"
"Mrrow!"
"See you later!"
"Mrrow!"
"Okay!"
".....Mrrow!"

He'd been gone for nearly three weeks when my mother found his body underneath our front porch today, already far along the process of rejoining the soil that fed the grass he loved to hide in, stalking voles.

I had worried about how he'd take it when my mother left the house, taking the animals to start a new life. I know he wouldn't have been happy being an indoor cat. He'll always be a part of Pleasant Street, now, his belly always full of fieldmice and his feet on the sun-warmed earth.

Somehow I missed the fact that my flight to Vermont leaves the day after the semester ends - at 9am. I think I'm going to do myself a favor and stay in a hotel at Midway the night before, rather than take the 2am bus again (something I swore to high heaven I'd never do). Travel is migraine-inducing enough without a massive disruption of my sleep cycle! This will definitely bee an interesting two weeks: GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO GO  - NOW GET ON A PLANE!

I've already decided on a project while I'm home: Yard Sale! When I was a kid, Grammie (you know, what other people call Grandma, or Nana, or Big Momma, or whatever) used to have a yearly yard sale, which has been exploded into the epic proportions of youth and become a "tradition" in my mind. Meaning, I may have only been involved once or twice, but in my memory this has expanded into dozens of yard sales crammed into my first seven years or so.

My grandparents owned a duplex that my great grandmother (aka "Great Grammie") shared next door. Great Grammie's contributions to the yard sale were stacks of historical romance novels that it was my job to label. An aggressive little capitalist, I spent lots of time trying to convince my grandmother that five cents was much too little to be asking for these almost-new books. Eventually, I'd give up and concentrate on enjoying the novelty of marking up little price tags. Meanwhile, my grandfather brought up old tools and eight track tapes from his shed, and Grammie carried out costume jewelry, mis-matched china, and polyester pants suits.

(Aside: as a kid I didn't realize that the out-dated paisley and lime green were fashions frozen at the time that my grandmother stopped buying clothes. I thought that these were "old people" outfits, and that one day I'd give up my wardrobe and inherit chunky crystal clip-ons and flared maroon slacks. Additional aside: Grammie said "slacks," "dungarees," and "pocket-book," further trappings of her grandmother status.)

My favorite part was the metal money box, with little concave containers for pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. No one ever used fifty cent pieces or silver dollars - that was the sort of thing that yard-sale-goers, mostly grandparents themselves, saved for their grandchildren. I would sit behind the card table, swinging my bare legs importantly and guarding the money, adding up the purchases on the clunky calculator with the paper tape. Sadie, my dog, would lie in the shade of the table and pant until a yard-saler pulled up, at which point she would enthusiastically take on her role as greeter and guide.

Since Jeremy and I moved in together, I've referred to The Yard Sale, which will be held when we move to wherever I get my first post-doc position. Our basement storage unit is gradually filling with the merchandise for this event, which I actually look forward to more than finishing my PhD. I actually fantasize about little paper tags on strings, oil-cloth-covered card tables, and a metal cash box of my very own.

I was on the phone with my mother the other day, and I realized that my week in Vermont would be the perfect opportunity to have a yard sale. I don't have to wait until I finish grad school after all! The semester can't end soon enough.

A recent NY Times article highlights a rap video about Vermont created by Montpelier teens - the YouTube video is here. Indeed, our dome is pretty blingin'...and the video is wicked cool, yo. They mention Angelino's Pizza, even (it is overpriced).






PS You get extra Green Mountain Points if you know where my icon is from!

A visit to my grandparents in Portsmouth (or a celebration of any kind) would usually warrent a trip to Yoken's Thar She Blows restaurant- complete with an enourmous spouting whale-shaped sign outside. In my child-mind's eye, the place is immense; the wood interior modestly festooned with nets, lobster traps, bouys, and grey-ocean seascapes. We would wait (there was always a wait) to see what room we'd get - Moby Dick, Whaler, Atlantic, and others- and then crowd into an oversized booth or an island of smaller tables pushed together to accommodate our clan. The sign outside proclaimed "Good Things to Eat," but, not surprisingly, I can't remember what I'd order as a child, or if they had good suffed clams or crab legs.

For me, Yoken's was always about the Gift Shop: endless racks of knic-knacs and souvenirs and toys, trinkets, novelties, and bric-a-brac. I would eat as quickly as possible so I could draw out my experience, walking slowly to savor each shelf. I don't think I ever bought anything, or had anything purchased for me; we we'ren't tourists, and didn't need another wood carving of a white-bearded lobsterman in a yellow raincoat, or a miniature lobster trap, or sperm whale bookends.

Eventually, my family would filter in from the table, and we'd find each other at the Treasure Chest. This was a small wooden chest set inside a pirate-sized version for greater effect, with a large bin full of keys to the side. Each dinner check would come with a key, with which you could try your luck at the chest. I never knew what was inside; surely something magical, and over time my maturing imagination would change its fixation on the box's contents (gold? chocolate? a crystal ball? diamonds?). Every time I stepped up to the chest (I was an only child until I was ten, so I was always the Designated Key Turner), I would close my eyes, concentrate, and will the universe that just this once we could be lucky, I could be lucky, and all of my youthful frustrations and tragedies and anxities went into that key, as though somehow if that tiny chest popped open it would reveal not t-shirts, not choclate, not even rubies, but a Change in the Way Things Always Seemed to Happen.

It never opened. (I was a conditional believer as a child- I used to try to trick or tempt God into revealing himself- when I was six, I placed a picture from the JC Penny catalog of a "World's Best Mom" necklace under my pillow for the week before my mother's birthday, and I prayed over it every night. Like Santa, or the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy, I firmly believed that Jesus would bring me the necklace so I could give it to my mom. I was furious with God for not keeping up with his end of the bargain, as would happen so many times afterwards. The only prayer I've ever had answered was when I found out they were going to put a highway through the woods behind my grandmother's house, and in the fifth grade I dutifully wrote "Protect Grammie's Woods" in the prayer book at the Catholic church I attended for months and months, until I found out that the plans for the highway had been cancelled).

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting in my statistics class when I suddenly thought about Yoken's for the first time in about fifteen years. I had a sudden and wonderful idea: I would take Jeremy and Ehtan there! We would go with my parents, my little brother and sister (who never had the Thar She Blows! experience), we would get our keys, and open the chest! We would turn back time, reverse fate, Change The Way Things Happen!

And so, I did what I usually do: I googled "Yoken's." It closed in 2004, after over fifty years in business. The Boston Globe article reveals that it was essentially because the owners got an excellent offer for the land (in a prime tourist part of seacoast New England), and the building went under the wrecking ball last year. The article talked about The Chest, too; after all, it was one of the main draws to the place, and figures in the fondest memories of thousands of New England families. And what was the fabled, coveted prize, the one that I was sure would somehow Mean Something Important, would Change Lives, would be a sign of Change for the Better?

A ten dollar gift certificate to (you guessed it) Yoken's. I'm glad we never got it after all.

I wrote an update on Monday, but the Livejournal gods apparantly didn't think my ideas for a Bra Fairy were very good (akin to the Tooth Fairy, where you leave bras that are so old that they make creaking noises like ancient rocking chairs under your pillow and the Bra Fairy brings you a brand new bra), and my entry got eaten. I tried my usual tricks, but nothing worked, so I was never able to tell you my idea for a Bra Fairy, and a half-hour's worth of writing has been truncated to a parenthetical reference.

But Happy Halloween, right? We took Ethan trick-or-treating last night, after I helped him with his Gordon Freeman costume. This consisted of a lab coat, which I smeared with fake blood while Ethan stood in the bathtub. Ethan provided the appropriate geeky glasses, and I slicked his hair back and gave him a goatee and 5-o'clock shadow. Jeremy designed a Black Mesa security badge (complete with photo identification and security clearance) to complete the look. As we took him from house to house, middle-aged women would ask, "and who are you?" Ethan would reply in his most deadpan voice, "I'm Gordon Freeman. I'm a theoretical physicist."

We took the bus to a more posh neighborhood, and at one point Ethan trick-or-treated a house where a college-age guy held out a large platter and said, "We have full-sized candy bars. Can. You. Comprehend?" The cold weather kept many kids inside, so there was a lot of "here, take another handful"s and a few "you're gonna get about half of this, because we haven't had many kids tonight." Jeremy and I stood on the sidewalk and linked arms, exclaiming at how much we loved this or that house, or didn't like the other. We kept running into a kid dressed in a blue sweatsuit, who ran from door to door like a sprite. We speculated as to what exactly he was dressed up as until we finally heard him explain his costume to an older woman: "I'm a bluescreen!"

All in all, it was a decent night, in spite of the fact that a gaggle of questionably-costumed local kids banged on our window for about ten minutes screaming for us to let them into our apartment building so they could trick-or-treat. I was convinced we wouldn't get anyone, so we didn't have any candy, and I was pretty sure our neighbors didn't have any, either. Finally, Jeremy said "no" (they we're showing any signs of leaving), and I was convinced that we'd come home to find our apartment firebombed. We didn't, but that doesn't mean they're not coming back when our guard is down! We took a bus that seemed like a good choice at the time, but ended up having to walk two and a half miles down South Park St. (key word being "South"), but made it home unmolested.

Besides, how often do you get to say "I can't believe we just trick-or-treated Aldo Leopold's house! I'm totally blogging this!"

EDIT: Apparantly, Ethan made quite the impression last night. I remember that house, too!

Good things, to make up for all my whining this weekend:

1. I am home.

2. I cam home to a clean house, which Jeremy did especially for me.

3. In our clean house, we made Red Curry & Coconut Tilapia together on a whim.

4. With this in our bellies, we decided to make organic all-natural brownies (from a box) with mint chocolate chip ice cream.

5. While we ate this delectable confection, we watched V for Vendetta.

Re: Point #5  - My God, this might be the most important film of our time. We need this so much right now, and I just hope people are listening.

PS It's also really, really, really good. Really. No, really.

I woke up before Jeremy and Ethan this morning, suddenly present at just before seven in the morning. The air flowing into the bedroom window is suddenly cool and dry, a false suggestion of autumn. The cats have emerged from their vernal sluggishness, and are a cavorting little herd in the early mornings.

Car Talk is finishing up on the radio, which I can finally listen to after a strategic re-placement of my sleek, compact little Koss stereo. It's been moved from beside Jeremy's "office," a space along the wall between the dining room and the front door that houses his desk, where it would previously only pick up a radio signal when I was touching it on its front panel or holding the end of its antenna wire aloft like an offering to God. Its three little boxes, stereo and two speakers in a conservative display of postmodern design, are now flanked by an adolescent jade plant and something with heart-shaped leaves we picked up from a Lutheran thrift store, complete with a hand-thrown pot. The antenna sits in the window, and the reception is crisp until one of the cats, usually Eva the marmalade matron or Eris the half-Blue Point upstart, stretches out in the windowsill and smothers the signal.

This is how weekends should be; a private emergence from between air-cooled sheets, scampering felines making the morning stretch-and-shuffle to the bathroom a moving obstacle course. The blinds lift, and already the sun's morning angle is peaking around the house in a different way than it did last May. The cicadas are already vibrating the air, their hum-buzz thrumming a less sleepy sound than last week's humid drone.

The boys are still abed, father and son, a family of two accomodating a female insertian. In a moment I will wake Jeremy to fulfill his half of the weekend ritual; he does the dishes, cutely grumpy in pajama pants, leaving wet handprints on my hips with his kisses. In moments, chocolate chip and ginger muffins will send their olifactory envoys out of the oven and into the apartment, and a quiche will soon follow. We'll fill our bellies, dirty new dishes, and finally take turns making the late morning appointments with the shower, each in turn like penitents to a confessional. We'll scrub our earthly sins clean under water that will stay hot for all three of us if we're lucky, or sometimes through the force of prayer. We'll emerge clean, our new and recreational selves, into the two days a week that we can honestly call our own.

My Memorial Day weekend started at about 7:15 Saturday morning, when I was awoken by the serenade of the lawnmower right outside our bedroom window. The window our bed is directly underneath, in fact, giving the mower a premium view of my bed-headed self.  As I'd been up until about  3am playing as the Persians on Civilization III the night before, I was less than thrilled. I've been sleeping poorly for a week now, in fact, with my jaw-clenching, fist-balling, vivid-dreaming nights adding up to one grumpy Gus yesterday. I think I used a sailor's mouthful of swears, all before breakfast.

We live in a beautiful apartment in an interesting neighborhood. It's multiethnic, with cars alternately blasting bassy hip-hop, mariachi, or pop country. Hoards of children rule the streats from the backs of their low-rider bicycles. An aged Guatemalan man pushes a hand-made, bell-jangling cart down the streets selling imported ice-milk treats with Spanish language wrappers (Ethan chased him down today and bought one for a dollar). Our brick box is the nicest on Sunny Meade Lane, with a long, pillared front porch in the Southern plantation style. Its ivy-hugged facade is nestled behind a militant row of expansionist Hosta aureomarginata; a pair of ducks and a family of rabbits live under the ornamental conifers and cavort (independently) on the freshly-mown lawn.

Our apartmnet neighbors are an odd bunch of ducks; we have the anti-social old-school hippie across the hall who has yet to acknowledge any of the "hellos" or "how are you's" that we've lobbed her way. She waters the plants directly outside our porchside windows several times a day, and I feel like she's snooping around like some character in a BBC show. We call her "Mean Hippie Lady" when we're feeling nice.

Upstairs, we have the guy I'd affectionately dubbed "AA Man." He has friends over every so often for social gatherings "without alcohol," and he's got this goofy-faced affability that comes from a need to assure yourself of your own salvation. He told us proudly that he "helps out" around the house; taking out the garbage on trash day, sweeping and mopping the vestibules, managing the recycling...and mowing the lawn.

AA Man is now my sworn enemy.

It's been two weeks since Jeremy and I moved in together, and we're starting to settle into a comfortable routine. His transition to first shift, diurnal activity, and rediscovering breakfast as a weekday meal has been surprisingly successful; his perpetual dark circles have gone the way of the short-faced bear.* We sleep in the same bed (with new jersey-knit sheets and new pillows- sleeping in thisi bed is like being the melted butter sinking into a soft, warm muffin), which is beyond lovely. To think that a mere three months ago we were trading spaces on an underinflated air mattress on the floor.

We still have boxes in the corners, bric-a-brac in clusters on end tables and mantles, paintings stacked against the walls. He's been the official unpacker for the most part, while I've struggled with the last clinging tendrils of this semester (still three papers and a lab report to go, and about twenty more papers to grade). I usually make dinner, and thinking up something to make is one of the most pleasurable small tasks of the day. I've rediscovered my gastronomic inspiration. The other night I made broccoli and feta penne, and the night before it was sweet chilli and garlic "chicken" stirfy. Last night Jeremy made tomato soup and grilled cheese to ward off the Bar Harbor weather we've been having for the last few days: wet, windy, overcast, and chill.

I'm losing momentum for all the work I have to complete. I never really recovered from the wisdom teeth removal, the apartment searching, and other distractions earlier in the semester. I need to figure out a way to keep life from invading my academic sphere, to maintain a steady productivity so that I'm not asphyxiating at the end of the semester. The stress immobilizes me, keeps me away from the work I need to do, and perpetuates the problem. My hope has been that once Jeremy and I moved in together and established regular patterns, everything would fall in place and work would come easily again, free from the entanglements of distraction.


*Many much more exciting animals than the dodo have gone extinct since the time of modern humans alone. The short-faced bear, for example, was larger and leaner than a polar bear and was built to run down prey; they went extinct in North American some 12,000 years ago along with most of the megafauna. But I digress - they are oviously much cooler than a flightless bird.

My wallet has been gone for several days. I'm generally one for misplacing things, losing things, forgetting things (as anyone who's dated me could vouch for), but this wallet definitely broke a longevity record: I've had it in my posession for five years! It's not even really "me" anymore: hemp, blue, checkbook-sized, with pockets for cards and things and lots of capacity to hold receipts and business cards, and it's usually stuffed like a turkey.

It also happens to hold my Vermont driver's license, my Social Security Card, my passport, my UW after hours authorization cards, my library card, my debit cards for my bank here and in Vermont, and a hefty collection of stamps from various coffee shops, Ben & Jerry's, restaraunts, and other localities. I haven't seen it in a week.

This morning, in a fit of despair at the sheer volume of everything staring me in the face in the coming weeks, I repeated "I will find my wallet today" three times. My mantra.

I switched cell phones to a local number last month, and have kept the old phone turned off until the contract expires at the beginning of May. On a whim, I decided to check my messages:

1) Phone call from Paris ("I was named after a prince, not a dumb blonde"), a guy who hit on me on the bus a week ago and wanted me to be his first "Madison friend," as he's newly-arrived from Chicago.

2) Phone call from Jeremy from Monday, when I was at Dan Savage with necedemalis and he'd forgotten, so was frantically trying to make sure I wasn't dead.

3) Phone call from the manager of Noodles, who called on Tuesday saying they had my wallet.

4) Phone call from another manager of Noodles, who called yesterday saying they had my wallet.

Guess where I'm going?

**********

Jeremy and I move in together next Friday. This is both a source of intense satisfaction and anticipation, and also of anxiety. The anxiety mostly stems from the fact that there are two weeks of school left and I have 3 papers, a huge lab report, tons of pollen data, and a number of lab exercises to complete before then.

So when am I packing again?

**********

And for the record, money is my cryptonite. Any philosophers and legal experts should be titillated by this conundrum: A girl makes an EBay purchase for $21.01. She pays with PayPal, and the seller has a typo in the payment e-mail address. PayPal takes the money out of her account and it sits in magical limbo until they both discover the error. She promptly pays the correct e-mail. PayPal takes $21.01 out of her account again: in the meantime, the credited original $21.01 doesn't go through until several days later. In this interval, a series of other purchases that were made come through, for $5 (lunch), $1 (USPS for online address change), $3 (Livejournal) and $8 (convenience store sundries), for a total of $17. These would have been covered under the original balance believed to be in the account (admitedly the girl has cut it close, but she should still be in the green). However, because PayPal charged twice before deposting the credit, all four of these charges overdrew the accont in succession. The girl's bank charges $25 for each overdraft fee, so by the time the credit DID go through, she'd been charged $100 in fees for $17 in purcahses.

The girl called PayPal, who regretfully informed her it wasn't their problem. The EBay seller isn't returning her e-mails. The bank credited one of the fees to her account, but she's still in the hole.

The moral of this story? Keep your money in paint cans buried behind the wood shed. Stuff your mattress with it. Exchange it for quarters and fill chipped teapots. Do not engage in electronic transactions. One would think that in this day and age of instant information exchange that money could exchange virtual hands as instantaneously as, say, the global location of Angelina Jolie's fetus.

Apparantly not.

I haven't had time off (with the exception of my wisdom teeth operation, which is hardly a vacation) in a very long time. I started grad school a week after I finished my undergrad, worked straight through winter break and spring break, and was starting to feel a bit flat. Winter is fizzling out, and though the ducks are pairing up there's no sign of green as yet. Though it's not quite the same thing as a week on the beach, I took last weekend off to lounge around at Jeremy's house, cook good food, tramp around Aztalan (a local state park featuring a series of Mississippean Indian mounds and earth pyramids - photos to come!) and indulge in mindless media entertainment. There was a part of me that felt a bit guilty about this, given that I still have a lot of work to do, but there comes a time when one needs to refuel before the car sputters out alongside a dark and lonely two-lane highway, with the Blair Witch woods alongside, and whisps of cloud over the fullish moon, a cell phone with a dead battery, and a rustle in the leaves behind you.

The verdict? Success, I'd say, though my ability to become bored without constant stimulation is rather alarming. One gets so used to having too much to do that the sudden lack of activity is draining. I had good intentions, wanting to work on my matrix algebra, wanting to work on a paper, wanting to read some more articles for my thesis proposal literature review. Obviously, none of this got done. This makes more work for me this week, but I'm feeling like I have a manageable amount of chaos.

Jeremy and I move in together in a month, the first time in over two years that I've shared my habitations with a significant other. Jeremy and my tastes overlap in many areas, but not in others. My many moves (and the last major break-up) have reduced my posessions considerably, and I'm not bringing nearly as many things to our combined material inventory as he is. I'm a bit nervous about combining our things, arguing over beloved objects, deciding on decor. My thought is that the best thing to do, since we're starting out together, is to try and build up a new collection of things we both like. Instead of my funky track lighting or his Egyptian rug, we can compromise on something new that represents both of us. Of course there will be aspects of each of us as individuals, but on the more significant pieces (or cases where we strongly disagree) I'm hoping we can opt for a third option in something new. We're both opinionated, strong-willed, and particular in our tastes when it comes to aesthetics. I'm eager to get settled into a new place and make it my own, but in reality that means making it "ours". The goal is to be honest, open, and respectful of each other's tastes and opinions, so that we don't see differences as a personal attack, or a belittlement of values.

I've been moderately productive today. I'm starting to get the hang of this weekend thing. Once I worked up the courage to tackle the pile of dishes in the sink, my productivity came much more naturally. I'm not entirely sure how making curry and pancakes can use up nearly every dish you own, but somehow I've managed it. I have to dry my dishes on the floor, because the dishrack is too big for my little counter. Eris is fascinated with the dishrack.

Don't let "curry and pancakes" fool you. The food situation is getting a little depressing in the house. I finally decided to play with this bag of "15 bean soup mix" I've had as a last resort in the cabinets. It reminds me of the good old days at the First South Street house when x_pyewacket_x and I would go through the cupboards and try and find recipes that matched our motley ingredients. Five-fried corn fritters were the result of one such night's creative efforts. Ingredients: corn. Maybe a few other things. Instructions: Deep fry in hot oil. Scoop out crumbled remains of fried corn from hot oil, add another ingredient (eggs, maybe. Or more bread crumbs). Fry again. Repeat until a barely edible, crunchy, oily, but at least solid mass is produced.

Hey, sometimes it actually worked.

My month of poverty is almost over. I get paid again on the first, and then a sizeable income tax return should follow. I'm sure I'll spend the entire thing in a frenzy of instability-induced materialism, but at least I'll have things that make me happy afterwards. Important things, like tiramisu, `new Victoria's Secret, a bed, and the first seasons of Fraggle Rock and the Muppets on DVD. Tell me that's not a hot date waiting to happen.

Woe to the man who ever tries to give me diamonds.

It's been almost a month now and I haven't heard from any of the Borders crew. Word must have gotten around enough so that no one felt the need to ask me if everything's ok. I don't know why I'm surprised. Sometimes it's a bit unsettling to know how easily one can disappear.

A man came to the door just now. He swayed and smelled like liquor, though he was dressed in a clean oversized sweatshirt and baseball cap. His hands moved to his ears, to his mouth, and he gave a sound like a child saying "ah" for the doctor. This ritual complete, he handed me a note on a folded envelope.

hellow how are you smile my name is david i am deaf i need help to get $8.00 so i can

I didn't turn it over to read the rest. I don't have any money in the house. I don't think he believed me when I told him I couldn't help him.

I should have given him that pamphlet on how "It's Simple To Be Saved."

It's often easy to forget that Madison is in Wisconsin; aside from the unusual abundance of popcorn stores and the glacial flatness of the place it has a feel of Seattle, or Burlington, though escaping either an East or West coast feel. I had my first true Wisconsin moment when I had the first session of my tree identification class, a half-semester one-credit affair offered by the Forest Ecology and Management department. There were about fifteen of us in the room, spread out amongst the 60's style plyboard seats with pull-down desks attached to the chair in front of you. We went around the room introducing ourselves and explaining our reasoning behind taking the class. Most answers were along the lines of:

"Well, my family owns a lot of acreage and I want to know what all the trees are."

"I like trees/being outside."

"My dad's a carpenter and I want to be able to shoot the shit with him about wood."

When it came to me, I said "I'm a paleoecologist working with late glacial lake sediments, and we pull up a lot of wood macrofossils in our cores so I'd like to be able to identify what trees they are." You could feel a distinct collective squirming.

During the break, the instructor brought out large pans of treats that his wife had made for the class; one was a (see?) popcorn bar bascally made of popcorn and m&m's, and the other was made of Cheerios and peanut butter and had chocolate frosting on top. I'm nearly certain that one of the main ingredients of each was marshmallow Fluff. For some reason, munching on my sticky no-bake treats, I felt, finally, as though I had truly left New England behind for good and was as rooted as a corn stalk in the Midwest. It wasn't the instructor's soft-spoken Wisconsin accent, it was those simple, home-made bars, like something out of a post-war tupperware party. I missed my boiled dinners and "wicked goods" and covered bridges with a deep ache in that moment, but I also felt a certain warmness. Sugar is a universal language no matter how unusual its form.

Next week I'll bring maple nut fudge and buckeyes.

Eris ate my jade plant.

She has shown no interest in the succulent since her arrival here about a month ago (she's getting so big, it's hard to remember what a tiny thing she was), but apparantly she knew my fondness for it, because over the weekend she decided that to punish me for my absense she would destroy my lovely, lovely jade. I've found leaves with tiny razor-teeth marks all over the house in various states of withering, and nearly every leaf left has neat little rows of puncture marks as well.

I spent the weekend at Jeremy's, enjoying a few days of complete uselessness before the semester starts tomorrow. At eight o'clock in the morning, in fact, which seems a bit suicidal on the part of both the students taking the course and the instructor teaching it, considering enrollment is likely to be on the lowish side. He happens to be my advisor, however, so I have no such luxury. Last I knew there were six signed up, and I know for a fact that half of those are his advisees.

My weekend was just what I needed; comfort food and lots of couch-lounging. I made vegetarian chili dogs last night, Jeremy made waffles this morning, and we watched Titanic on Friday night. He'd never seen it, so we rented it from the library. Since everyone else in the Universe has seen Titanic, there's really no need to go into further detail. What surprised me was that Ethan (ten) and Benjamin (Jeremy's room-mate Brian's six-year-old son) stayed up through the whole film and were completely engaged throughout. I was expecting them to fall asleep, or get bored with the romantic plot line, but they held on through the bitter end.

It's becoming odd to make the transition between these two worlds; a batchelor pad with two young boys and a big screen television one day, and hardwood floors, an air mattress, and my cats the next. I was a little sad to leave, to be honest, though I'm secretly looking forward to starting the semester and getting back into a routine. I'd like to keep the Jeremy-and-Ethan part, though.

My next door neighbor, who controls my heat and spends most of her time elsewhere, is home again. The telephone rang continuously for thirty minutes until she came home and answered it. The calls are always the same. She always cries. Then, after a long silence, she moves again along the wall, sliding, and then a new call begins. She cries again. Silence. Sliding.

It makes me acutely aware of being alone, the cats still to the world for a while.

And I can't stop watching this.

When the police blocked off the road next to my house, I didn't think too much of it. When the news crew showed up and set up in front of my front door, I was curious but not terribly so...until I stepped outside to get my mail and saw the trucks, yellow tape, and barriers a couple hundred yards down the street. At this point I decided it was time to check the news to see if I should be concerned.

A small bomb went off in the parking garage across the street from my house a couple of weeks ago, and now we've had two bomb scares in the same day; at 2pm they pulled a pipe bomb out of a sewer a couple of blocks away, and now they've got a mailbox blocked off about three hundred yards from my house. A mailman, my mailman, in fact, saw someone tape a package to the outside of the mailbox this afternoon when he was on his rounds. Apparantly the guy fits the discription of someone seen at the site of the parking garage explosion a couple of weeks ago. They evacuated everyone between my house and the bomb, including the neighbor I just wrote a poem about. Apparantly since her door faces the stree that's blocked off she has to get out, but I don't. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not, exactly.

Three unmarked, identical dark grey Suburbans with tinted windows just got let in through the barricade. I wonder who that could be?

EDIT: 4:29...The "Dane County Emergency Command Center," a giant RV with satellites on top, just pulled in through the barricade.

EDIT: 4:34...Totally unrelated. The "Dane County Lake/Dive Rescue Team just drove past my house towards the lake, consisting of a rescue vehicle towing a snowcat and another with a zodiac. There are sirens coming from all sides. I had no idea we had a Lake Rescue Team. Or an Emergency Command Center.

EDIT: 4:43...They're evacuating the senior assisted living center across the street.

EDIT: 5:22...There was an explosion, so I'm guessing they either blew up the mailbox (I wonder if its got mail in it?) or, well, it did it on its own.

The sun made the briefest of appearances today, and in the hope of catching a little for my apartment I opened all the blinds. No sooner than I had extended this invitation, the clouds closed up and soaked up my joy in their dull greyness. They're not proper clouds, really. It's more of a thick pervasive gloominess that hangs over everything, and has for days and days. When I wake I don't know if it's early morning or afternoon; my room is dark and listless.

No matter, I have a weekend! I don't get these often, as a rule. In fact, the last time I had weekends off with any regularity was 1998, when I was still in high school. Even then I was often working, now that I recall. I seem to have forgotten what to do with them; I've spent the last two days occupying myself with laundry, dishes, baking focaccia, and pondering the secret lives of the post-war, pre-second-wave feminism housewives. Being the working woman I am, it amuses me to find so much comfort and satisfaction in domesticity. If I had to think of it as a career option, however, I think I'd stir rat poison in the mashed potatoes and take up ironing in the bathtub in order to be the model of efficiency. "Oops! I dropped it. Now who will do Darling Jim's shirts?"

I have nothing to iron, and if I'm so damned bored I should really be in the lab, or the library. Instead, I will find more laundry to do, enter my spring schedule into iCal, work on my research design, and putz around Amazon.com. I'm exhibiting all the signs of classic, chronic procrastination, and yet I'm not procrastinating. Classes don't start until the 17th, after all. I seem to be unable to let go of this anxious feeling of work avoidance, even though I've given myself several stern talkings-to about how I have absolutely nothing to do. I finally broke down and gave myself a goal of going through my academic papers on PDF and selecting the ones that will be relevent when I write my thesis. I even caught myself wishing I had textbooks to buy this semester (all my classes are using primary journal articles), as if I had the money for them even if I did need them! I absolutely beleive that the brain becomes accustomed to certain patterns, certain emotions, and so in the effort to operate in a known world in fact creates conditions that facilitate those emotions. I wish it would stop.

I leave for Vermont tomorrow, with Jeremy. We're both a bit stressed, sadly, which I hope won't have a negative impact on the trip. For my part, as long as I manage to remain productive even though I'm "on vacation" for the next couple of days I should be fine, and by the time the weekend arrives I'll be able to settle down. Silly grad school, sleep is for kids!

I'm doing laundry, packing, preparing. Mentally priming myself for the trip, making sure I'll be in the right headspace. This will be the first time Jeremy and I have embarked on a significant adventure together, and we'll be in one anothers' company nonstop for the next week. I'm really excited, but I also want to make sure that I'm available for him and not completely caught up in the stresses of it, and with everything else going on. He'll be meeting my family, and seeing a side of me that most people don't get to see. He'll be meeting some of my closest friends, and seeming me in that context. I've never dated anyone that my family and friends have completely approved of, in retrospect, so I'm trying to remind myself that the anxiety I feel about sharing him with everyone is really all in my head. I love him: everyone else will, too.

If you stop and think about it, holidays in our culture are a bit on the wonky side. We spend weeks (months, even!) preparing for them, and then the instant they're finished all trace of them is obliterated and it's as though they've never been. In many historical cultures, the celebration extends on the other end of the holiday, and begins with the event itself. Now that Halloween is over, the gaudy paper cut-outs and crumpled black streamers seemed to disappear overnight. Yesterday they started putting up the giant snowflake light fixtures on the streetlamps along State Street, and we've carted out the holiday decorations, cd's, and dvd's at Borders. I genuinely ache thinking of a future time when, no longer working retail (will such a time ever truely be?), I will get into the season like everyone else, like children and the elderly. I've held out, though, desperately clinging to the scent of evergreens and the way the first snow crunches under your feet, refusing to completley give up on the hope that I'll have that feeling again someday. I'll be spending Christmas alone this year (with my cat, not alone, not alone!!), and I think I'll get a little tree and decorate. Maybe I'll have a Christmas party. Maybe I'll leave cookies out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. I'll get Christmas dvd's from Netflix and drink cocoa with a candy cane dipped in it on Christmas eve, Figaro on my lap. I'll get him a stocking and a pile of presents and maybe I'll let him have a sip of rummy eggnog if he's very good and doesn't knock over Santa's milk glass.

Jeremy surprised me with two plants from the farmer's market yesterday- a contented jade plant and a smug-looking Boston fern. My living room alread feels more dynamic, warmer, living. Their green against the wood and their mischeivious verve have reminded me of how this space will become a home. That's starting to feel the tinest bit possible. I picked a small apartment (with lots of character) because I wanted a space that I could fill. Almost two months later and I'm no more settled than I was when I ate Chinese food on the floor with the tornado sirens going across the street. Except for these two plants, sleepy and amicable against the window. I'm trying to decide if I should ask for help, if I should ask my parents for a start-up loan of some kind, to get me settled in. To buy a bed at least, or a futon couch, or little table and chairs. I wonder how people furnish entire homes. They probably don't pick apartments with exorbitantly high rent. I fell a little silly having such a nice place with no furniture, like it defeats the purpose.

It's list-making time. Groceries, the power bill ($10.21, a nice feature of a small apartment with steam heat), student loan consolidation (ah, the eternal deferral), a dish rack, tights, an umbrella, fit gym visits into my schedule. Laundry. Bake bread. Return the audiobooks to the library. It's Sunday, and I neither have to be at work or school for the first time in ages and ages; why then do I feel so tired? I slept in (funny how eight is sleeping in, now). Schedule an appointment with the doctor, the dentist, the gynecologist (now that I have health insurance my body doesn't need to be a liability). Read, research, write. When did I suddenly only own two pairs of pants? I should make tea, but I need to catch up on the dishes first. To do the dishes I need Franz Ferdinand or the Pixies, and Jeremy is asleep. I need to get dressed, but I need clean clothes, and I can't do laundry without getting dressed. My dreams have been like this, the last few nights. Manic, mixed media, untranslated. I remember participating but when I try and recall the context, the purpose, the meaning escapes me. I feel like a mathematician who, after rising from a coma with amnesia, stares at the equations in their own hand, remembers writing them perhaps, but doesn't recall what numbers are.

I'm sure it's hormonal. I keep forgetting that I haven't gotten dressed, will glance outside the window and think of how the yellow leaves scuttle after cars in the four-way and will find myself still staring minutes later. I really do need music, to pied-piper me into the safety of mindless manual tasks. I am filled simultaneously with the near-frantic need to attend, to meddle, to domesticate and the weight of being held beneath a giant cotton ball. There is a termite trapped between the window glass and the screen, and it's the window that doesn't open: I can't let it out.

I wish someone would throw me down to the grass and let me anchor to that big, blue October sky.

I thought of hot cider and something clicked. I have a purpose now, a goal- a cliff to hurtle towards and lemming myself from. I am going to make caldo verde, bread, and mulled cider. I will keep my head only in the things it can fix, today. I will listen to Billie Holiday and cook in a skirt.