home again, home again, jiggity jig

Don't need robots to say that to me, the cats are enough. Especially after a difficult airplane ride sitting between two very corpulent women-- in that situation, one scrunches one's shoulders together and tries to read. The cats run up and throw themselves upside-down at one's feet to be petted when one walks in the door. I love these cats! They're very affectionate and adorable, for cats. One of them is simply operatic in terms of mewing and singing! I'm tempted to give her a script of opera to try on for size. Otherwise, they have chosen a chair-- the one I dislike most, to sleep on and they chase one another around and scratch nothing besides their scratch stands. They're also pretty acrobatic, walking where I would not think possible. They're really unusually great cats. I think the female one, Olive, is a lesbian; she really goes at my breasts and tries to paw at them anytime she leaps up to sit on my lap-- most often, while I'm trying to type. She also tries to walk in on me all the time at inoppurtune moments. Should she have a coming-out party? Really, I think she needs to meet more female cats. In that vein, I have just now read about this Palm Springs literary gathering of women. I am inspired. Perhaps the cat needs a field trip later on down the road, when I have more money. I just wish to foster her identity in some meaningful way.

Becoming more relaxed around my new roomie too, which is great. Before I thought I should tell him: now you're living with three cats rather than two, but it's okay.

Today I made the discovery that I don't want to revisit my former building. Which unleashed some things, to be sure, and I was pretty much floored by all of the squelae of that today, just when I thought I was through with the cycles associated with things. I guess I've tried to handle the whole thing like breaking up, which has been appropriate, I think, if I think of actually taking my body into the building as breakup sex. I've decided to read "breakup girl" some to verse myself on it a bit.

But soon there's an event which sounds too cute to pass up, and that might be both appropriate and manageable and something to look forward to. And, a relatively public space.

Great to hang with my family again, visited my mom's new little a-frame, and it was adorable, it has such character. Felt so safe there. Met her boyfriend too. Visited also with my aunt, who does inspiring volunteer work helping abused and negelected children to safe places. Also discovered where all of my art and prized posters from abroad went when I visited my little sister's house.

Another temp-to-perm position I thought about accepting for a couple of days before deciding to fell through because I'm overqualified, so I've decided to submit a new and more minimalist resume to places for the time being if I want steady work while I decide on the next big challenge. The mental health people liked me, the clients wanted to give me hugs the day I left, and I've now learned that perhaps they want me back in some way; they have clinics all over the place. And another temp job coming down the chute in the meantime.

I hope tomorrow won't be as depressing as today was. And that there's a bit of sun, at least. Hooray for the queer filmfest.

jalapenos embarking on an insane experiment

Oy!

I've been attending the enormous black-tie Jewish wedding of my cousin, and it's been a gorgeous and inspiring affair, replete with smashing the crystal chalice, Hebrew, and throwing my cousin and her groom as well as my aunts and uncles into the air as they sat on chairs. It was one to shave one's legs and find a Little Black Dress for. And a good reason to wear my tango shoes. All of my relatives came to town for it, and great to see them and to actually be in the country during the event. That's my second cousin who's gotten hitched in the last two years, both of them are younger than I, and I am beginning to feel a bit spinterish at 29. I guess that my cousin and her husband would be the jalapenos of this weekend. I enjoyed drinking margaritas with my grandma-- that's her favorite drink and I had to sneak them to her. It was also an event in that both parents, who divorced 4 years ago, were both in the room at the same time, and my dad brought his new (second) girlfriend to the event, who I met there for the second time. I guess it went well, all things considered, though I had to make sure to hug and greet my mom first before going over to see my dad and his girlfriend, with whom he'll be moving in in a couple of weeks. My mom and the girlfriend looked one another over pretty throughly. Mom thinks her breasts are sagging. Great mom, thanks. I think my dad went after the CEO part more than the breasts, though, given the alimony payments he's been making to you. Things one thinks but doesn't say. The "so what are you doing these days?" question came up a lot, enough to inspire one to say, "Well, of course, I'll be going into plastics." Honestly, I feel like I just graduated college again.

This has been comparatively the most placid visit back to my family members, though, and that's been really thrilling.

Next up to the mountains and more socializing. I've also been overhauling my mom's computer and setting her up with some cool programs, and hanging out with C.

Walcott

A bit jealous, some of my pals are going to see Walcott (who, by the way, also won the Nobel) talk this evening. I miss them, and I miss the visiting writers series and I miss the place where he'll talk. Anyway..... enough going on and things coming up.

Here's a quote by Walcott:
" I try to forget what happiness was, and when that don't work, I study the stars."
Flight, sect. 11, The Schooner (1980)

And here is Sea Grapes:

That sail which leans on light,
tired of islands,
a schooner beating up the Caribbean

for home, could be Odysseus,
home-bound on the Aegean;
that father and husband's

longing, under gnarled sour grapes, is like
the adulterer hearing Nausicaa's name in
every gull's outcry.

This brings nobody peace. The ancient war
between obsession and responsibility will
never finish and has been the same

for the sea-wanderer or the one on shore now
wriggling on his sandals to walk home, since
Troy sighed its last flame,

and the blind giant's boulder heaved the trough from
whose groundswell the great hexameters come to the
conclusions of exhausted surf.

The classics can console. But not enough.

"Sea Grapes" from COLLECTED POEMS 1948-1984by Derek Walcott.Copyright © 1986 by Derek Walcott.Used by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.All rights reserved.

Pamuk

temping and interviewing.... onwards....

Am sad that I will unfortunately be out of town when Orhan Pamuk comes to speak here, have really enjoyed reading him. My Name is Red was fabulous, and Snow also wonderful, I've loved being able to savor it, reading it slowly and really absorbing it. More friends around these days, also helps, simply healthier in general.

Two videos: the first in German, about Pamuk, the second features his translator.

Lust, Caution / Se Jie

Yesterday evening I went to see Ang Lee's Lust, Caution / Se Jie.

It began with a Marlene Dietrich song playing in the background, and had a great deal of tango music throughout. The first song seemed to automatically link or somehow analogize between wartime Germany and wartime China. As a part of a revolutionary cell and involved with a political mass-murderer, the woman-- Ms. Mak, plays an interesting role, part Maria Braun, part Riefenstahl as a career in acting becomes much more. At first I wondered about the Redl overlaps, as it's an espionage story, also about Novembermond and a few others...

I found it quite impressive how Lee was able to incorporate some moments of humor which were unexpected, but which happened at just the right places-- when the terror cell kills the guy's guard during the first assassination attempt, and the guy just won't die, sort of like the assassination attempt in 1913 Serbo-Croatia. The other funny part was the ring, an enormous diamond surrounded by smaller diamonds, which looked like a wedding cake and a bit gaudy in the ring shop-- but only at the end of the film, did it look life-like and flower-like and had actually seemed to accrue some value-- the price for it was life; it would either be his life or hers.

I also found it interesting how courtly love stories were woven into it, the way the whorehouse is transformed into a courtly scene as she sings to him, and the tantric pillow book scenes. To me, the element of caution and reluctance at first actually seemed essential to some of these scenes being what they were, I couldn't imagine them without that. I found the analogy to wartime Germany at first a bit suspect at first and wondered if it was an attempt to manipulate emotions in mass-consciousness, but it was subtle enough that it added to the film, and then it goes in the opposite direction from the Maria Braun story as she begins as an opportunistic seductress and then begins to get things she really wants, no big explosions, though the end reminded me of the Goya painting of the revolutionaries getting shot. What I think might have been shown a bit better was the conflict between her growing affection for the guy and her alliegance to the revolutionary cell and its missions, we never really see her as a gung-ho rebel, but more of a reluctant one and a reluctant puppet of the group along the way; she clearly wasn't really getting anything she really wanted from the group, and I don't see what the incentive was, because she doesn't seem to have any strong political opinions and had to lose a number of times at mah johng to achieve the group's goals. Also, the political issues might have been shown in greater depth.

My first experience with Ang Lee was seeing Brokeback Mountain, and I think I still like that one better than Lust, Caution, but still want to see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or whatever it's called.

I liked this review: http://european-films.net/content/view/838/118/

Here's the trailer:

sun-seeking

Here I have today's jalapenos. The theme of the day was yellow/orange. I wonder if Stifter would have liked jalapenos; I think he might think them a bit too gaudy, subtle guy that he is, but seems open to all the colors which occur in nature...... And also, a flower.

floating bridges

What an interesting temp experience today, which continues the rest of this week and into next week. I was doing admin. things and things with data at a mental health clinic near Microland-- a beautiful drive across a floating bridge, but traffic is ghastly and it can take over an hour to go about 5 miles at rush hours. Temping itself is very much a floating bridge, it's doing much to broaden my experience with different workplaces and systems, and have more of an idea of where I'm happiest and most productive as I find the next things.

The mental health clinic is very much a "Flowers for Algernon" experience- well, not so much in terms of autism as people who simply are unable to function and a few live at a nearby place belonging to the clinic; it reminded me more of a retirement home, combined with a few manic cases who were REALLY on the upswing. All my existential or whatever problems seem completely dwarved. I'm the sole administrator while I'm there, so I'm the first contact for everyone. The people are all really very sweet, both the workers and the clientele, but still eye-opening for me. I think I'm underpaid for mastering so many different systems in a day, but it still pays better than being a TA. May have an interview in the area coming up, fingers crossed, and had a really cool interview last week. Then I can look into some volunteer work when a job's secured. Still some rebellion: wouldn't it be lovely to just stay home and write and read and not need to deal with a corporation. But then have been in touch with a Microcolleague/former colleague, who travels a lot to Europe, which is exciting.

Wednesdays and Fridays seem to be some of the most difficult days in terms of being away from grad school; Mondays bring more a sense of relief.

Tango did not go well. One tanguera out of 7 showed up, and doesn't know how to lead. I have to keep working on that idea and am looking into other dances... in the meantime, here come Iphigenia and Orhan Pamuk.

I call my mother Lady Chatterley now.... she's with a guy who lives in the mountains, worked on her new place up there (her own first property & room of her own) and has bad grammar. He sounds very sweet and I'm glad she's happier at last, but I can't resist calling this her Lady Chatterley stage. On that note, I didn't get why the whole movie is in French when it's a British novel. My dad, on the other hand, has seemed to at last have emerged from his Hemingway stage, maybe. I didn't know what was to come when he waxed so enthusiastic about For Whom the Bell Tolls when I was younger. An affair with a revolutionary named Maria, what else. At one point, he also climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, but didn't shoot anything. Then he took the new girlfriend off to Paris, and I haven't bothered to ask him about the Pernod yet. I love Hemingway too and still try to (unsuccessfully) strive for his concise clarity, but not THAT much.

No more for now because I have a cold (which thankfully does not seem to be cat allergies). I'm so enjoying the new cats. Off to attempt some spaghetti.