post-

i packed the binoculars today—last in a box that was full of shoes and photographs—we worked sluggish with fatigue, flopping on the mattress, listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, dreaming of the future
when will i be out in the field again?
it’s a myth by the way that all cat’s tongues are rough
our shoes are all worn completely out. my newest pair got a hole in the heel today and i had to sit down in the parking lot at the bank on a slab of concrete and loosen the laces. people pushed their kids in strollers past me on the sidewalk.
oh yeah, and my plants both died while i wasn’t looking, which i guess was a long time. not looking has caused me a lot of problems lately—i almost lost a toe on the train when the doors opened and caught my flip-flopped foot in the hinges. Anyway, time to start looking again. Seriously.
you want to know what i’m writing, and i say i don’t know. Good.
we play a little game in this process of moving. it’s called, what will get thrown away? will it be the red kids’ table, vaguely useful but now merely taking up space? or perhaps the bear-brown shaggy blanket weighing 200 pounds that has sat in the hallway all year? or will we successfully discard the wheelie stereo and broken speakers, whose only redeeming feature is its occasionally functional turntable? our only mode of resolving this question seems to be exchanging a mutually hostile glare from time to time.
i meditated on the train, too—part of my ongoing campaign to shove my imagination aside long enough to look hard at what is. and to learn about dying a little, about where breathing ends and begins again. when i managed this, briefly, today, i was rewarded with a glimpse of a friend exitiing the same train, walking with head down on the platform, a person i would not have seen or recognized without clearing my mind first. tra la la.

the Chicago Spirit Squad

SHout outs to A. for inviting us to help out at the Disability Pride Parade. it was good to march as an ally, and good to be a part of it. Hope it gets even better turnout next year.

Conversation today between S. and me:

S(softly): So, do you think any of the members of the Chicago Spirit Squad (an adult team of cheerleaders who performed at the parade) might have been...gay?

Me: No. No, I think they were entirely all straight. (muffled laugh) Straight as an arrow.

Pause.

Me: Straight as a ruler.

S: Hm. Straight as a non-Euclidean reference mollusc?

this, friends, is why i love him.

concentration-illy-olly-ation

Was that a MERLIN i saw today, on the campus of Northwestern University? Strange to think i never once visited that place the whole time I was growing up in this area, and had to wait till my thirties to get there. I think I heard a couple of years ago at the 10 year reunion that Rob L. who went through elementary, junior high and high school with me works over there. Rob, if you're out there reading, holler back. It's been awhile.

thanks to all of you for the positive vibes and thoughts as i sputter down the runway headed for takeoff post-grad school. This week, my emotional turbulence wasn't helped by:

1. The fact that we have to find a new apartment
2. The fact that I have to find a new job.
3. The fact that black goo started spewing up out of our bathtub drain for no apparent reason on Sunday.
4. The fact that the bathtub drain then stopped up, and the black goo spewed whenever one turned on the faucet for the sink.
5. The fact that said black goo was not Texas Tea.
6. The fact that our landlady, who makes the occasional cameo appearance in this blog by virtue of her status as slumlord (which I am now elevating to SlumQueen, the next stage being SlumBitch), told me that she shouldn't have to insist that the plumber come immedieately, because "Can't you guys just brush your teeth in the kitchen sink? What's the problem?"
Geez. Thank God I never did pay her for December rent--and she never noticed. We'll just sit on that little piece of information, now , won't we?

now what?

where did this sniveling, tantrum-throwing tornado of classless misery come from, and what has she done with the real me? no one in Blogworld wants to hear about how little sleep you had last night, but that's all i can seem to manage to express. ugh. i think i finally conked out, post-panic attack and post-argument, around 6, got up again at 8:30.
3 hours of peacemaking and blueberry pancakes later, i'm wondering where all of that vitriol really came from. i think it erodes my already tenuous emotional stability to feel so disconnected from my creative self. A piece is coming due next month, more projects await a dusting-off and effort in order to come into being, i'm finally seeing how suckingly empty the page can be once school is over and you are left with your own negative voices and drained bank account.

in other news, has anyone else been having really bizarre dreams lately? it's as if the gestalt is shifting into darker territory, at least for me, where i have to participate in game shows which end with prizes for the winners and elaborately conceived deaths for the losers. Sort of a Lady or the Tiger scenario, updated with lethal injection technologies.
ANYWAYS
trying to get back to birding. trying to see my way clear to a new apartment, new job (hopefully, hopefully soon) and new projects.

plus one more

i forgot about the OSPREY, four of them, seen from a sea kayak on the Chesapeake Bay.

i'm baaaaaaack

Birds seen on my trip to the beaches of Delaware:
COMMON TERN
LEAST TERN
BROWN PELICAN
GREAT EGRET
LAUGHING GULL
BONAPARTE's GULL
HERRING GULL
RING-BILLED GULL
GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULL
BANK SWALLOW
TREE SWALLOW
BLACK VULTURE
TURKEY VULTURE
RED-TAILED HAWK
PURPLE GALLINULE
GREAT BLUE HERON
SWAMP SPARROW
WILLET
RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD
FISH CROW
MOURNING DOVE
MALLARD
WHITE-CROWNED SPARROW
BROWN THRASHER. My dad was particularly excited to discover the thrasher, hopping quietly along some underbrush along the Bay. I thought the Willets and Purple Gallinule were the most spectacular, the Gallinule being a life list bird for me (this is a bird i've never seen before). Vultures are pretty freakin cool, too, esp. up close. And an Egret is a sight to behold, taking slow flight, white and low among the sea-green marsh grasses in the gathering dusk.