well thank god that's over with. an intense, relatively emotionally-stressful week, by which of course i mean three days. thursday and friday, being as i have no class, i usually get up late, dawdle, gawk at the internet, and maybe dabble in homework or necessary tasks. unfortunately i actually have to write a seminar paper this week (on social vices -- this could be fun) so after my exciting lunch date on thursday and except for the 2 como info sessions on friday, i'll be reading reading reading. reaDING!

while walking through the increasingly redundant snow this afternoon, which the WA in me wants to cross out fiercely in pen, i sank mentally into the comfortable realization that these are the Best Years of my Life. it's marvelous. i have been happy since graduating high skool. even a little before. i've said this before, i know. it's terrible; this statement is as unnecessary as the weather. it reminds me of when i said iloveyou for the first time cuz i no longer felt like i could notsay it. (to be historically precise, it was "ithink iloveyou" and it was squeezed out of me in no small part because of the inescapable resemblance his gray sweatshirt gave him to the man of my dreams.) (also, i adore parantheses. as long as i'm stating the obvious. and anyone who reads this drivel, especially [penn]becca who is a Girlfriend for the first time in a long time and it seems to be making her happy. or especially if they hug me after, in real life. i appreciate that.)

i need post-its. this shouldn't be so difficult. i feel like everyone in the known universe has post-its except me, and uses them for strategic, appropriate purposes, like sticking them to desktop monitors with helpful reminders about appointments and assignments. i have old fortune cookie fortunes taped to my monitor but it's just not the same: "A cautious person leaves no stones unturned (Lucky Numbers: 3, 12, 15, 17, 35, 37)" is a little vague.

right now i could be working on grant essays, but i had seminar all day today. some people have seminars during the afternoon. this class, the seminar papers don't come in til early morning, so you have to spend the pre-lunch hours going over them. then seminar itself starts at 1:15 and it commonly runs til 5:30. if that's not all day, i don't know what is. we watch the sun set, for god's sake.
this week one of the seminar papers got my blood boiling. i'm trying to be apolitical this semester, i'm trying i'm trying like i tried last semester, i'm trying to be calm, reading with my little pen in hand, and OH MY GOD this guy is making unsubstantiated generalizations about the mainstream jewish community and its intellectual leaders, and christ what is that PARAGRAPH OF ANTI-ZIONISM doing in an american social history paper? i don't read anti-zionism before i've eaten. it's a policy of mine. i also don't take classes in which i have to argue it with people; that's another policy. it's a sensitive, complicated, personal issue to a lot of people and a 5 minute discussion inevitably won't do it justice. i thought a class like this would be safe. i draw hammers in the margin and write SOAPBOX in big red letters, which helps me blow off a little steam, but i still tremble a little when the prof says we're going to start going over his paper.

the social is political is personal, it turns out. as we start, i preface, "i was personally upset and offended by your paper," which might even be under-playing it, but he snaps to attention and nods soberly. i restrain myself to pointing out logical inconsistencies and historical inaccuracies in what i hope is a logical, rational matter (please don't write me off as an emotional woman). other folks join the fray -- the ones who are arguing with me, i notice, are two of the other three jews in the class. the prof has the last word and it's one i agree with. whee!
everyone likes my colorful, junk-food seminar break. i relax. after class, the prof tells me she thinks i handled it well. i shake hands with the paper's author who smiles and says, We should talk sometime.

i am not a rightist. just because i will defend to the death israel's right to exist does not mean that i don't think its current government cannot or should not be criticized, like tikkun. i believe in a two-state solution. i believe in affirmative action and the necessity of white guilt. (i don't believe in Beatles.) drop bush not bombs. equal access to marriage for any committed couple, if they desire it. (the dream is over.) (valentines day is over.) there should be more space on campus for people to articulate opinions that are left of center but right of the barn. be polyamorous if you want but protect yourself and be honest about it. against abortions? don't have one. (he was the walrus. i could be the walrus, i'd still have to bum rides off of people.)

i think what it amounts to is i have too many men in my life. not possible, you say? well. clearly you didn't have a chance to listen, starry-eyed, to aaron-fucking-mcgruder saturday night: unwilling prophet and [emphatically not a] social leader of my generation, graduate of umd (just like frank cho! man, they really churn them out over there), compelling, acidic speaker, and all-around articulate, bitter, talented, funny guy.

clearly the screenwriter responsible for steven spielberg's last summer blockbuster didn't just write you back, setting up a lunch date for this thursday.

clearly you don't have a terrific boyfriend who continues to make you girlishly giddy, long after your relationship is due to have become blase.

i could keep listing, i guess -- my father, my grandfather, my brothers, my various muses and friends, shakespeare, vonnegut, tom robbins, douglas adams, j. franzen, m. chabon, b. dylan, p.t. anderson, j. carrey, w. goldman, b. bragg, b. & sebastian, m. python, t. tykwer, m. brothers, m. miller (science/religion teacher from high skool. you don't know him), e.e. cummings ... o, and chaucer. this is no particular order. have i forgotten someone?

i could not be happier. i'm halfway through a bear-cookie valentine that i bought at target because it looked lonely and frightening and also pink, and was very drastically on sale, along with everything else there (i got a kickass seminar break for $15). jonah&sarah, one of the hotttest couples of campus, invited ben and me to spur-of-the-moment ethiopean food on the phringes of philly. all 4 of our orders appeared on one huge tray, prompting the question of how many people need to order before they receive more than one tray. it hardly matters, good ethiopean food is always so good, and so filling. mmmmm.

that, and the target run (we spent an hour there -- how?) came at the end of a terrific day, in which i got the final OKAY on my screenplay idea. OKAY, i can finally 100% throw myself into doing it, as long as i get the grant. elizabeth, who i may live with in nyc this summer, said that not only could her dad, who rents apts, possibly let us have one, but we might be able to have HIS. a summer in new york with cable tv and space to twirl in? could that be more perfect?
then i went to break up with my advisor, who can't be my advisor anymore. but i asked if he'd remain my father figure on campus, and he said of course. heart heart.
then i wrote a poem, and i like it a lot, but it's long. i don't know if i should post it here or not.
i'm almost done with the bear. the icing's so hard it's kind of made me nauseous. within 3 hours of feasting, one should never attempt to eat other food. oh well. i haven't mentioned yet but aaron mcgruder is coming to campus tomorrow -- hands down the coolest speaker i'll have ever seen.

oh dude! we were just talking about absinthe.
and we're always talking about the axis of evil.

oh my god, how did i miss reading television without pity joevan recaps while the show was going on? they are hilarious. hi-lar-i-ous. admit it, you and 40 million other red-blooded americans, loved that show. loved it! you watched BOTH HOURS of the finale on monday. you would follow joevan into battle. you would nominate zora for president, or at least psychic priestess of america (didn't miss cleo leave that post vacant?) you cheered, maybe you even almost cried, during that last 'waltz' around the ballroom, and when zora asked if she could kiss him. it actually looked genuine!(ish) -- genuine enough.

go read the snark. it's virtually as much fun as repeating the entire gleefully-prefeminist experience from episode I. (my campus paper published an article from some idiot in connecticut trying to make an anti-joe millionaire argument. go back to russia, okay? maybe on the boat you'll find your long-lost sense of humor.)

after history seminar yesterday an intense powwow with my teacher-mentor. when i'm done with this class i'll have taken 4 credits with her -- that's virtually a minor. you have to have fire in your belly, she says. you get too distracted. (starved for declarations. tell me more.) want this more than anything, she said, or it won't happen, and you'll just be another one of those people that Wants a lot but doesn't get anywhere. make this the first step. after all, why NOT you? (okay but.) (i'm short?) you're short? since when? i blinked at her again. she told me stories of her old best friend from college. who's your best friend?, she asked me. (i haven't considered that question since israel, right after highskool ...) you have lots of good friends, don't you? matt rubin brought you diet coke in class. her best friend was tall. i could call her up right now, she says. (will she, once i leave her office?) instead, she turns to the computer, impatient with me or just eager to get on with the rest of her evening. i'm tired, she says. as i walk out, i answer, Go to sleep.

it's inspiring to have people tell you things about you. or have you not noticed? a woman i'd only worked for for a few days last summer told me i had bad depth perception. transfixing! how did she know? indeed she was right -- or, i'd never thought about it, but why not? parking was always tricky, and abstract math. tempting to get a psychiatrist just so she can tell me things about me. i'd rather divide people into categories than join the fray. if i'm not the resident expert i don't want to address an issue. i think, I don't belong here, when what i mean is, I wish i'd done this reading. it's more fun when it happens spontaneously, when you don't have to pay for it.
anyway, i'm so inspired i come home and entirely redo my resume, basing it nearly word-for-word on my brother's, which he spent ages on over winter break. that's what brothers are for.

terrible twos

for you, I will drink my ginger ale quietly
and eat my 19s with my fingers

instead of throwing them at other kids, even though
targets abound, and so tempting, oblivious

and chewing, with TV eyes. I like making them cry
and trying to describe it: their faces expand

and turn the color of juice while juice
drips from their eyes.

for me, you will stop staring at the wall,
your frown of intense concentration (you

have the most dramatic eyebrows ever seen
on a toddler) will scamper off, leaving you

surprised and forced to find a new expression. you will cope
by sucking my thumb & we will stare

as deep as 2 year olds can get into each others�
sticky happy faces, immortally softandround with youth

while around us children break things. we are serious
and calm: we read already: our palms tell our stories

in Mr Sketch. I reach up and smooth your hair: your curls
are burnt-toast, mine are maple-syrup. we�re suited

to each other, all the adults say so:
I�ve never seen 2 year olds so sweet

on each other! & we smile, our hands hidden
and working under my blue duck dress,

beneath your Osh Kosh. soon, we�ll sneak to the kitchen
steal cookies and watch Pulp Fiction

but for now we�re content in the playroom, playing, dodging
other kids� cereal, celebrating being 2 years old, and coming.

ester&ben = 2 years old today. this is the happiest 2 year old i've ever been. let's hear it for love -- and clocks.

there's no reason to be up on a sunday morning before the dining hall opens for brunch except to look out the window and think "snow! we don't need more of that!" and find funny things to read on the internet. so here's one from the onion, in case you missed it; and another from rabi's lj: cooking with monkey. try the brie and baguette one.

people are sick everywhere. walking around the library with your eyes closed, you'd think you were in a hospital of some beleagured war-torn south american nation, where hoarse delirious voices call out for water and legs have to be amputated and there is no morphine. actually, with very little connection to my metaphor, i'm picturing the atlanta scene in Gone With the Wind where scarlet gets more and more grossed out by having to play a nurse. but who wouldn't?

that's enough of that. i missed the protest but i hear it went well. i missed everything last week, in fact. but i'm beginning to get my energy back and that's exciting.

um, interesting (and you have to admire a clever title). two people got married last year in maryland. this year, as it turned out that one of the individuals involved is a woman -- or rather, that both individuals are women, but especially the one that was taken for a man -- the state has revoked their license. who knew the state could do that? and why don't they do it more often?
the twist is that the individual taken for a man actually was a man once before she transitioned.
it's certainly one of the most trans-positive articles i've read. it refers to georgie with female pronouns throughout, though possibly just because she's had a surgicial operation which makes her new gender "legitimate." still, it's respectful, and it seems to take the side of the couple.

i just got back from worth, the health center, where i spent 27 in one room. yesterday my fever hit a high of 103.6 and my lovely friend felicia got me over there. first time i'd ever spent time in anything like a hospital, but it wasn't bad at all. people visited nearly constantly; when i was alone, i slept, ate, or read. thousands of doses of nyQuil and voila: temperature back to normal. ester can go back home where she belongs.
this morning ben and i exchanged our non-chocolate v-day presents, marking my 1st romantic recognition of this hallmark holiday (last year i cried in a bar in western denmark. love, yes; romance, not so much). so happy v-day to everyone -- hope it's sweet.

fever's down for the first time since i had to come home, midday yesterday, and collapse into bed. various friends fussed over me the way friends should when you can barely move, and for ten hours i could barely move. ben convinced me in the evening to take my temperature ("i don't need to, i don't think i have a -- oh.") and it 100.8. i can't remember the last time i had a fever. today tho i felt better -- i can move around, and eat, and withstand light -- my temperature reached 101.9. that's a fucking radio station, man, not a body temperature. maybe it's just down now cuz i took a shower but i do feel more energized.

so much nyquil. so many vitamin c drops. so much negotiating and renegotiating plans with teachers, doctors, mother, friends, love. if i feel horrific tomorrow at noon my wonderful mother may whisk up to fetch me home to recoop there; if i'm better i'll wait it out here. everything as it comes.

awesome. no Adaptation for best picture but no About Schmidt either. and check out the original screenplay nods (yes, i know you have to scroll down the page. writers don't get any respect.)

i seem to be sick now in several new and different ways, which at least is a nice change. stupid winter.

slowly, i think, Why am i thinking slowly? then i remember, i'm taking sedatives.

here's my stab at a love poem for this week's session:

go marching two by two, hurrah

in tenth grade I marched, manacled
in construction paper, to the Chinese embassy,
stood in the swelling snow and shouted Free Tibet!
until my feet turned numb because I liked a boy
and that was his Cause. we played witchcraft
together & for his birthday, I bought him handcuffs
tied in purple ribbon. he never caught on.

this saturday I�ll go marching, manacled
in pessimism, to the United Nations,
stand whether in swelling snow or simply
as part of the amoebic Left & shout
Leave Iraq Alone! because our cowboy president
is pied pipering our boys in blue to slaughter, but
principally because the boy I love has asked me to.

Evil keeps a running tally, continues to present
unique spins on itself � equally inexhaustible,
if not as creative, the Left continues to fight.
poor redundant love will keep us marching
despite our despair. while Evil produces subjects
and the Left counters with rhyme, love
will give us reason to chant. who cares if feet freeze,
if the Chinese embassy stares blankly back,
if the UN is UN-helpful -- TV has tutored me
to expect as much. you continue to delight me.
for the sake of this falling, I will march, I will scream
Make Love Not War! & mean it.

i've been subsisting on bread and soup, supplemented by crackers and liberal doses of promethazine. why am i still ill? i thought this damn thing was supposed to clear up over the summer. oh well. excitingly, the oscar nominations come out tomorrow. so far this february hasn't been bad at all.

sick (again! what is this?) illness unfortunately hit last night in the city at the hotel where elizandstef and benandi had gone to celebrate our various anniversaries. we managed to get in a good solid meal at a mediterranean restaurant and a few hours of cable tv watching/bashing beforehand. still, i don't understand this flashback to the summer and i wish most seriously it would stop.

speaking of seriously, ben and i had an intense conversation over dinner about whether or not to attend the peace march in new york this saturday. it doesn't jive with this year's devout apoliticism; it gets in the way of my timely completion of my very first seminar paper; it has the potential to be disorganized, alienating, or just plain cold. alternatively it could be uplifting, important, or memorable. frankly i don't know if i have the optomism for mass marches, but if worse comes to worse i can observe.

in less than 24 hrs i need to have written a love poem. [good] love poems are very hard to write.

how strange everything has turned out today. i have all the time and energy i need to recooperate, only no recooperation seems to be necessary. ben asks me where i see myself in five years and i'm knocked so off-balance i can only answer, "angry. in LA." a moment of clairvoyance or just wishful thinking? brig, when i relate this story, adds, "you'll be 25." i hadn't even considered that element.

i look over my screenplay and am so dismayed at how much revision is required that i immediately close the window and play 10 games of freecell of which i lose several. brig reminds me, it's freecell, ester -- not life. i've always had problems keeping the two straight.

i try calling my mother every half hour but her government agency only registers a busy signal. i stare at the phone, perplexed. how can the government not have call waiting?

i walk into the bathroom and wash my hands. when i look over to my towel hook, i notice that the dishrag that i stole from parrish hall and have never washed -- and have been using as a towel -- has fallen to the tile. i start laughing and find it difficult to stop. i reach down, pick it up, gently replace it on its hook, and return to my room.

sick. slept most of the day, skipped (well, called off) rehearsal, even left my poetry class early. a couple enthusiastic responses to my love song (see below) coupled with a remark that it was "eliot-like" and "eliot-esque" and a complaint that there wasn't enough rhyme. some members of the class had no idea that eliot was in any way connected to Cats -- they looked appropriately chagrined.

tomorrow is for recooperating. until evening, i have nothing else to do. i'm trying to figure out whether it's worth it to go to the anti-war protest on the 15th in ny. pointless jumping-up-and-down and arm-waving, or a part of an escalating international response which is sure to catch the government's attention at some point? war feels inevitable, as does the suspicion that we will all look back on this as a crucial turning point -- the u.s. giving up their moral authority, the rest of the world losing patience, the threat (potentiality?) of terrorism against the u.s. focusing and solidifying in retaliation. but that doesn't mean that even if all of us go and scream at the top of our voices, it will stop anything.

too bleak a note to end on. it's february! a year ago i was despondent in denmark, although that would change; now i'm happy here. stef'n'eliz and ben'n'i have booked one night's retreat in celebration of anniversaries: their 1 yr last week, mine and ben's 2 year on the 17th. a pool, a hottub, cable, a door that locks, time uninterrupted by responsibilities -- what more could you ask for, really?

scary scary seminar soon. over breakfast this morning ben sat in my chair and calmed me down, walking me through what ifs (if i'm not a _____, what am i? if i could do _____ all again, would i make the same choices?) just say one thing [at seminar -- last week my tally was 0 comments after 3 hours.] actually, he amended, say 4 things. 4 is a lot more than 0, i said. but he insisted. 4. i can count that high.

aside from today's mid-morning crisis, i've been feeling unusually mature and responsible. with my week sectioned for me -- half for AIH, half for seminar -- i get to organize my time into efficient blocks. i've been getting things done. that wouldn't be quite worth turning cartwheels, this being only the third week of the semester, except for me, it's significant. the addition to my arm helps, tho it's turning fuzzy around the edges as its adhesiveness retains remnants of whatever i wear or sleep on. so far i'm accomplishing things, and managing without too much drama.
speaking of which, altho i didn't think i could i ended up able to watch 3/4 of joe millionaire last night even -- and he tossed melissa m.! REJOICE. now it's down to zora v. sarah, tall slender lovely brunette zora v. tall slender lovely blonde (evil) sarah. cinderella v. the step-sister. virtue v. vice. body image problems v. willing to be felt up on national tv. joe, i don't know about you, but i know which one my money's on.

because i'm excited about it, and while wonderful godlike danny helps fix my page, here's the poem i wrote for poetry this week:

t.s. eliot: a love song

T.S. Eliot (what did his friends call him?)
wrote his wryest, chiseled his most compelling
character, span best, scanned best, while at Harvard,
age 19. (I was 19 recently enough to remember:
it�s a self-serious age.) Without tax forms to file
or a wife to commit [to], under the umbrella
of intellectualism, happily schismed from the more
complex racial and cultural prisms that make up life beyond
that gilded cage, T.S. Eliot (how did his fellow snobs know him?)
penned Prufrock, a love song, and
my favorite poem.

what was he like, aged 19? had he yet embraced
the Catholic faith to such a frowny-faced degree
that he�d chase his chaste and pious wife out of the country,
across the sea, to an asylum (she�d decay in pine for him, in
the coffin set cruelly above the ground) �
and seek comfort in the arms of Ezra Pound?
T.S. Eliot (what did the other anti-semites call him?)
glares up at me, Elizabethan, unamused,
from the Norton book whose pages, much perused,
offer up the sage and solemn Prufrock
I can�t resist:
like a patient etherized upon a table, I am kissed
by a doctor whose other ministrations I abhor. sometimes, T.S. Eliot,
(what were you called by the other lonely,
crazy rich?) I want more (and I don�t know which
is worse: seeming to endorse you by confessing I adore
some of your adolescent brilliance � or,
leaving all the fanfare and the accolades for critics who,
like mermaids, sing them, each to each, relishing
the high notes I can�t reach) I wonder
if you�d like me either. most likely not.
(I�m the age you were, but far less surly;
I giggle more, I�m vaguely girly;
and though I�ll admit that you were wiser,
I�m not a Nazi sympathizer.)
still, I�m sure we could agree
we�ve hit the nadir with Fox TV;
indeed, we could sneer at this whole ersatz culture
in a succession of tea-timed chats; and if we felt hot,
we could venture out � me in sunglasses, you in spats �
buy ourselves tickets and laugh through Cats.

well clearly all of a sudden this site has fucked itself up. any clue as to why? anyone? i didn't change the code ... double bonus points for an answer. it doesn't necessarily even have to be a good one. you may have to email it to me at ESTER [at] SCCS [dot] SWARTHMORE [dot] EDU cuz [sigh] comments seem to be among the things affected by this fuck up. [sigh.]

liz has started to put her sheep comix up on a page.

i'm near giddy, having successfully steered my First principals only Rehearsal. lovingly brigid brought me diet coke and lovingly i'm drinking it, listening to billy bragg. in a bit i'm going to dinner w/ her parents, and then we're all going to see About a Boy on campus. nice, low-key things that will hopefully prevent me from emotional roller coasting down into low. another rehearsal tomorrow, then big como gathering sunday -- my god, i have to figure out WHEN during the week i will do WORK.

damn and drat it. i woke up early to go meet a fella from my poetry class with whom i share a goal: to write a screenplay as an honors thesis project. this goal has been approved by everyone to whom i sold it except, most recently, the head of the film department who has returned from time off looking fresh and slim and young -- which is to say, she bears no signs of having either (a) just had a baby [which she did] or (b) to care for said infant. rumors abound that the infant's father is none other than the lauded director/screenwriter todd "far from a safe velvet heaven" haynes, with whom she is friends, but that's neither here nor there.
here nor there: as she doesn't know me and has never seen my work, she's doubtful that i can produce a screenplay that's honors worthy. she's worried that there's no one on campus qualified to judge or advise. &c. it is up to me to convince her. this, my friends, is a frightening prospect. on the other hand i don't have to face it alone. this fella emailed me -- he has a similar idea, he met with similar skepticism and wariness on the professor's part. so we met this morning to hash out a plan of action. mostly instead we talked about movies (magical realism!; two towers eh; he also considers adaptation the best film of the year and brilliant beyond that) but it still felt good, like we were creating a united front. always helps to have a compatriot.
-- oh but the bad part: i had to leave the conversation unfinished b/c i had an appointment. except it turned out there'd been a miscommunication (grr). instead i am rescheduled for 9:30 in the (damn and drat it) morning. at least i got up early, tho i am now swiftly happily squandering the day ...

yesterday evening my entire cast assembled for the very first +2 hrs read through. i nearly started hyperventilating. my cast is so cool. SO COOL. i don't just think that cuz i chose them. they're witty and relaxed, they seem to have good chemistry ALREADY, even the freshfolks. they laughed at my jokes, not to mention at the play (if they hadn't i would have called it off right then. what's the point of working w/ actors on a farce if they don't get the humor? but they do, they do, the little darlings). i think i managed to keep a strong, consistent Director thing going too. wouldn't it be awesome if they liked and respected me, and i liked and respected them, and the play ended up being entertaining? i mean ... *dreamy sigh* wow.

coming home post- the meeting of my very first seminar, during which my best actively listening facial muscles -- since i sure as hell wasn't about to open my mouth -- (what could i contribute to a theoryhead conversation, even one about reading i did? the seven other people around that table, mostly senior history honors majors, *knew* the difference between post-modernism and positivism and can intelligently argue about the merits of both. i miss the days of "vocab boxes" in the bottom corners of worksheets. in hebrew classes it was even better: the term was "otzar milim", lit., the treasure of words. who could call structuralism a treasure and keep a straight face?) -- i tried not to become too depressed at the prospect of spending a semester in this fashion and i blasted indigo girls. there simply was not an alternative.

but this evening, after conversations w/ two out-of-swat friends cheered me and i did some laundry and sundry, the only appropriate music to blast was tori amos. don't you love that song about wanting to kill the waitress? i think it's classic. as i'm unfortunate enough to be a junior residing on a hall teeming with freshmen, i feel that rendering services such as these impromptu lessons in musical apprecation are the best i can do. and sundry. i love that as an end to sentences.

so, after 10 hours of auditions split over 2 days, during which time i tried to project Competent but Upbeat, Authoritative but not Dictatorial (rebecca summarized this behavior as "punchy"), and sarah my helpmeet ran back and forth from room to phone and led vocal exercises and deliberated with me, we have a Cast. 12 actors. 6 m/ 6 f. a helluva lot of freshfolk, which is fun if you think about it. these are the people who will be steering the theater department in several years, someday possibly the world; i get them Now.

the experience took its toll. as much as i love auditioning, deciding between two people (or 5) who in their own ways could be excellent as a part is exhausting. every possible visible element came into play ultimately: actions during the opening exercises, attitude, time committments, friendliness, a look, a vibe. i want to hug several folks who didn't make it and explain to them how good they are and how hard the choosing can be. but no matter how sincerely that's meant, it can feel condescending and hard to believe. i figger i'll just stay back and talk to people if they approach me.
scripts arrived today! read-through #1 tomorrow! oh it's all so exciting. i'm even managing to get work done despite/around this craziness. well, a little.

i. have been published. in the washington post. this goes a long way towards redeeming the paper. or maybe it doesn't, but for good or for evil i will be more fond of it now.

my little brother has never, to my knowledge, called anything racist. when he switched last year to a dc public skool, most of my family braced to see how he'd manage: surely the transition from a jewish skool -- even accounting for a stopover in a only-mostly-white private skool -- would be tough. but he adapted immediately. wilson suits him far better than either of the other two. he's got a group of friends so diverse my most pc friends would envy him, and effortlessly, because as far as i know, he doesn't think about race. without disregarding differences, he seems to render them unimportant. as ideally they would be across a chess board, or while watching anime.

that's why when he IMed me this evening and referred to a post columnist as a "racist bastard" he knocked me off-balance. but he certainly wasn't overstating. even (especially?) for a mainstream publication, this is egregious. how could they publish an opinion piece, "They Should Behave Better" this rambling, racist, and badly thought out?

first paragraph: Sometimes, watching students coming and going from Coolidge High School, I wonder if Americans would have supported the goals of the civil rights movement if they'd known these children would be among its inheritors.
last paragraph: I can think of no more compelling reason to insist that the kids from Coolidge -- and black kids everywhere -- adhere to certain standards of behavior.

in between: myriad reasons this author should be thrown through a plate glass window. and further evidence that my family knows better than the media.

everything i'm not. although this almost puts it in perspective. switch back and forth fast between the two pictures for best comic effect.

20 people have signed up now. quite exciting. even more so perhaps i went to my first definite class of the week: my poetry workshop. better than i expected. that is, of course, the unremitting joy of being a fatalist: your experiences, even if they are only mixed, can't fail to please you.

poor ben meanwhile is down for the count. his website, boldrobot, has mysteriously fallen ill in that way of mysterious internet things. hopefully in the next couple of weeks the fellow in charge will return from france and restore to ben his compiled two-years worth of memories. in the meantime those of you desperate for a benfix can visit his lj.

to distract him and you, i profer fame tracker, a brilliant site mentioned in this latest installment of Bitch. my favorite section so far is the galaxies of fame. read the golden globe one -- the bit about lara flynn boyle brought tears to my eyes. in the best possible way.

not to be a rabble rouser, but i just came across this article from academia.org and thought it was hilarious. this ufo sighting may or may not be funnier, especially when you take into account that a "bra fence" exists at all {via malpractice}

this has been the strangest week. one class i may not be able to get into but i'm hoping; one class too full i bowed out of; one class canceled. that leaves me sitting on my hands at 2 in the afternoon. not entirely of course. with a play in the works, there's always something to do. 6 people have already signed up to audition (this weekend, the 25th and 26th, 1 - 4 in kohlberg 116) and we haven't even put up posters! actually i should probably go do that. or -- does anyone want to watch a movie?
no, shit, i know what i have to do. i have to pick an introductory poem to bring to my workshop to read out loud tomorrow. that's a real challenge.

goals as a general rule don't work for me. you don't want to set them cuz if you don't meet them, well, what then? but as long as i'm playing at being organized and managerial this semester, i may as well try a couple small goals. just to see what happens. my fairy godmothers dropped off a cup of my favorite cereal on my desk this morning; the world feels full of possibility.

so: goals:
-- when i am alone in my room, i will not play ten successive games of freecell. rather i will at least strongly consider visiting others.
-- i will not panic about my seminar. i came to college to take seminars. remember: if i didn't like american social history i wouldn't be majoring in it.
-- if infuriated by newspaper piece, i will write a Letter to the Editor, because writing (and sending!) one to the washington post yesterday made me feel quite good.
-- i will try not to be cowed by new people or large groups of people or people who are thinner/prettier/smarter/more talented/cooler than i am, because there's no money in it. besides, *i* have a weblog.
-- i will eat less sugar.
-- as i declared at the comotion meeting last nite, swigging from the cheap bottle of french wine and crunching harry and david's caramel-chocolate popcorn, there're lots of reasons why this semester could be hard or upsetting but fuck it; i intend to have a good time regardless.

back. drinking the diet coke and eating the kugel my mother provided for me, wisely since the meal plan doesn't kick in til this evening. yesterday ben ross and i managed with the dinner party o' soup and bread taking place at a nearby offcampus house. there we met up with many people i don't know and several i like quite well indeed, including ms("i'm going to be apolitical this semester" "really? oh wait, you're making fun of me")kelly and the-recently-sri-becca. ben and i had the distinction of leaving a couple hours later because ben admitted he "had to work." the words landed among these still vacationing folk like a large dead fish. in bewilderment, people stared, and ben and i shuffled out.

true enough, ben may be the only person in a 4 mile radius to whom those dreaded words apply. the rest of us have a day or two of denial left. but even without Work to do per se, i have enough Stuff to keep me busy. auditions for An Ideal Husband will begin saturday. i needs must create signup sheets and posters (go wilde!!). luckily sarah rose is around to keep me sane. oh but it's strange: an unfamiliar soul is lodged in sorelle's old room. stef and eliz are nowhere to be found, tho they left cheerful piles and an ancient typewriter on brig's-and-my floor as remembrances.
and i'm still chewing the cud of my outrage at this style section article. in short it laments the "hook up culture" of contemporary young women. it outlines the problems as follows:
1) girls hook-up increasingly in high skool and college rather than dating or getting in formal relationships. hook-ups are characterized by sexual activity that ranges from kissing to oral sex, tho they usually stop there. rates of intercourse among high skoolers have actually decreased since this phenomenon, which occurs between mutually interested acquaintances, friends, or ex-lovers, began.
2) this means girls are more assertive, depend less on guys, have more interaction with guys, date less and thus aren't prepared for marriage.
3) however girls who seem to desire this are just fronting, abetted by the dangerous combo of IM and emancipation:

... even as they seek the same sexual rush that guys historically have enjoyed, young women confess to dreaming about the romance of the old-fashioned pursuit: being wooed by leisurely strolls, candlelight dinners, small gifts and other gestures of courtship that were more common when their mothers were their age.
Could this explain the large amounts of alcohol some girls say they consume to make hooking up more palatable? So much has changed, so fast, as gender rules have collapsed.
Less than a half-century ago, girls hung out mostly with other girls, guys with other guys. A girl who was interested in a guy never came right out and told him. She'd tell a girlfriend, who would tell a male friend who would tell the guy in question. Then she'd wait for the phone call.
If the call came, the two then might phone each other every night, talking for hours before going out on their first date. The steps after that were understood: a guy would offer a girl his ring and the couple went steady. Maybe she got pinned or lavaliered, then engaged and so forth.
Today the distance between genders has virtually dissolved. Young women have taken PE with guys since elementary school and gone to movies with them since middle school. They compile coed Buddy Lists on their computer screens and think nothing of instant-messaging guys or calling them on the phone.

4) this is rock bottom for women. we are throwing away our only leverage to rope in young men: Oh, but there is something left to lose, what dramatist Ben Jonson 400 years ago called the "coupling of two souls." Young women talk about this, too. If romance is reserved for the truly serious, what guy will choose serious when he can get the other stuff without committing more than a few hours of his time? and morally, we're going down the toilet: But when will they learn that just because you can do something doesn't necessarily mean that you should? Who will teach them that there is power in holding back?

isn't this precisely what the bush administration wants? more and more women are abstinent! that's the distinguishing characteristic of this "culture." free love in the past has included women having sex without love, sex with friends, sex without guilt. nowadays according to this it's just oral sex substituted for intercourse. why should that make a difference, unless it speaks to a greater canniness on the part of females to keep themselves safe (from pregnancy, at least). so what if we date less in college? we intend to marry later, as a few individuals in the article note. we can date in our twenties or thirties and prepare for marriage -- if that's really what it takes -- then.
the subtext of this article may well be, strangely, that if women engaged in intercourse their men would stick around and relationships would form. that flies in the face of not only centuries of experience but a poster i saw at barnard when i spent a summer there: it advised, straightforwardly, and resonately, "sex won't make him love you and a baby won't make him stay."

whew am i scared of this semester! sure i'm always scared of what hasn't happened yet, but this semester is especially chock full of Things That Could Go Wrong, New and Public Ways I Could Fail, and Potential Miseries. this is why i can only think as far ahead as tomorrow. tomorrow my brother will drive ross, who should be arriving momentarily, and me back to swarthmore. soon after tomorrow -- preparations for auditions for an ideal husband, auditions, the meeting with marge where my class from last semester goes over our projects, meeting with marge about my grant proposal, finishing my grant proposal, submitting my grant proposal, rehearsals, having to pull off seeming to be a competent director, taking my first seminar ever, being graded on my first seminar ever, exposing my play to the lofty criticism of swarthmore students, watching people important to me graduate -- that's when the tough stuff starts.

overdramatizing? me?

to compensate in advance for the over-intellectualism i will be resubmerging myself in starting tomorrow, last night i watched both straight episodes of joe millionaire. so what if the show's built on, and glorifies, lies? so what if the 21 -- 22 if you could the french chateau's bewilderingly australian butler -- don't have as many IQ points among them as a big mac has calories? it raises interesting sociological questions, like, can you believe he dumped that chick, you know, the classy one with the earrings? take that, heidi, you over-confident snob! and go allison. she's definitely my pick.

though it's only 11:30 i feel totally wiped out. appropriate for the end of an urban evening. my friend marc from skool is in town staying w/ his brother in dupont circle. we met at 5:30, dined at a thai restaurant to the accompaniment of two cosmopolitans (that's the 2nd time in a row i haven't been carded. do i look older or in this wintry economic climate does nobody care?) i enjoyed a introductory meeting with marc's brother. in the midst of siblingish bickering, he looked up at me and said, "you have terrific hair. i'll bet you get that all the time. have you seen yentl? you know what they're trying to do w/ amy irving's hair and it doesn't quite work? they're trying to make hers yours."

after that bit of careless flattery, he headed out w/ his friends to mothertongue, the monthly open-mike poetry reading. marc and i tripped over to the studio theater where a friend of his had promised him two comp tickets to runaway home. an all-black ensemble performing for an predominantly white, older audience -- for some reason i find that unsettling. the staging and pacing of the play, and even to an extent the script and the acting, seemed like it would lend itself better to tv than the stage. we enjoyed, tho we weren't compelled to stay after intermission. instead we moved on to kramerbooks & afterwords for coffee/dessert. they, as you might know, are the geniuses behind the Trent Lotte: separate but equal parts coffee and milk, to be integrated as you see fit.

i am a sucker for this stuff. the buildup of excitement excessively beforehand is my version of the christmas shop'n'sing season. who'll get snubbed? who's getting noticed? if you read a few pages in you'll notice that they answer a question i posed a couple days ago: yes, apparently once before two actors each got two nods. in 1994, holly hunter and emma thompson shared the honor. that was another excellent year for films (pulp fiction, shawshank redemption, red, forrest gump -- well some people liked it --, ditto the piano, and clerks.)
but since 1997 was the first year i paid attention, it retains a special place in my heart.

an op-ed explaining why class-based campaigns don't work in america. we're all "pre-rich" here, cooling our heels as we wait for our lucky/worked-and-fought-for break. a funny way of thinking about it that actually rings true. i've never experienced much class resentment; i figured that's cause i've never spent extended periods of time with underprivileged people. but if even the bulk of lower-income men can't be persuaded to vote against the interests of the rich, there's little hope for a serious grassroots revolutionary spirit. unless i guess it comes from the nonwhite sectors, people who still feel that the system is biased against them.

yesterday when searching for one thing i uncovered a twelve year old capital steps album, "sheik rattle and roll." yelping with glee at the good timing of it, i brought a tape player into the kitchen and my father, my brother and i sat there listening to the whole album. some parallels are eerie -- the looming iraq war, of course, being the paramount example, but also the deficiencies of the democrats, their inability to come up with a coherent, consistent, meaningful message, and the crookedness of the rich.
other songs were evocative just for the part they played in my growing-up. they certainly got my family through the first gulf war. they may have been my primary source of information, especially since, at the age of 9, i was bound to better absorb and understand anything sung than said. you can't go wrong with rhymes.
overall it was quite a trip (down memory lane). remember those days of S&Ls?? i don't!, but i sure do remember the songs.

over fine southern dining at georgia brown's last nite, in honor of my parents turning 26, my brother told two jokes:

1) in england during the war it was common practice for enlisted soldiers to spend weekends, get meals and some hospitality, with british families. one woman requested, "please, no jews or blacks." that friday, she opened her door to five african-american men. "there must be some mistake," said she. "no ma'am," said one of the men. "general cohen, he doesn't make mistakes."
2) one new leader of his country found on his desk two letters from his predecessor, numbered 1 and 2 and to be opened in the case of the first emergency (1) and the second (2). well, the first emergency happened. the new leader opened the first envelope and the letter said, "blame me." he did; his people bought it. life went on. a year later another emergency hit. he opened the second envelope and the letter said, "now sit down and write two letters."

my grandfather told a story:
stationed in england during the second WW, he developed the habit of walking with his head down (stupid british weather) and his hands in his pockets. a superior officer was heading his way and he weighed exposing his hand to the cold against exposing himself to the officer's wrath. he decided to take his chances and not salute, hoping the officer would ignore him. five steps past each other, the officer barked, "sargeant!" my grandfather froze and turned around. "don't you remember me?" said the officer. "it's morris -- we went to hebrew skool together ..."

and i saw the hours. gorgeous film. meryl streep is all you could ask for in an actress (i ask you: in that first scene, when she goes into the bathroom and there's a beautiful white orchid next to the sink -- is that a coincidence?) nicole kidman manages to disappear into the role. those shapeless dresses help, as does phillip glass's constant evocative mood-setting score, but she gives an honest performance, one i believed. julianne moore had arguably the most difficult task. that section of the book occurs almost entirely in her head. that she manages to convey as much as she does without speaking, voice-over, or narration is remarkable.
(conceivably both streep and moore could be nominated for two films. i wonder if that would be a first.)
read the novel, if you haven't. the film does it justice, and, as it's one of my favorites, that's saying something.

so: tho i still haven't seen talk to her, here's my top ten for 2002:
1) adaptation. only if you're willing to work with it. complicated, layered, completely original. real in a way that films almost never are and unreal in the way great films should be.
2) the hours. "someone has to die so the rest of us can value life more." have a life-affirming cookie afterwards.
3) chicago. the most enjoyable film of the year -- cocky, ironic, exciting, it seems to like itself quite as much as you do.
4) y tu mama tambien. the beautifully photographed, smart-ass, wake-up-call coming-of-age you never had.
5) the pianist. haunting, unrelenting, like, you have to imagine, the memories of warsaw in the 40s must be.
6) far from heaven. the first film i've seen to capture the spirit of the 50s earnestly, without disdain or melodrama.
7) monsoon wedding. more colorful, more subtle, and more joyous than the big fat greek one.
8) punch drunk love. who knew an adam sandler flick could leave you grinning at the credits? bizarre, imperfect, but captivating.
9) catch me if you can. winning, diverting, easy on the eyes. the best spielberg film i've seen in ages.
10 ) secretary. a deviant, risky romantic comedy that gets points for originality and excellent performances.
runners up: about schmidt, which i'm still on the fence about, and bowling for columbine.

my oldest friend turns 21 today. hip hip hoorah! even tho she's too far away to hear. in my own small way i celebrated by drinking bourbon with my father and playing a cut-throat game of scrabble, my first in a while. i was taking it too seriously; i needed a break. really, this was no holds barred and the way we bluffed as much poker as scrabble. he played "nonquam" on a double, i countered with "zoom" on a triple. he put down "toxic" -- an hour later i made it into "toxicity" for another triple. i won by about 50. the sole accomplishment of an otherwise lazy day. that "toxicity" made me mighty pleased. i debased myself to every deity i could think of for that "ity". anyway, the point is, happy birthday, liz.

hey, my people. just in time for shabbes.

my brother looks more manicured every time he leaves the house. he's going job hunting, on the hill of course, dc's nerve center. it's frightening to hear this kid, who til now has spent his vacations waking at noon to play video games til midnite, musing to himself whether he'll have enough money next year to keep his cell phone. society inflicts these various arbitrary-ish deadlines on adolescents: be economically independent of your parents by 21 or else. but it's certainly gotten my brother moving.
glimpse-into-the-future-wise, last night i ran into a mournful-eyed boy who just started penn law. not good?, i asked. he shook his head. his girlfriend jumped in: it gets better after first semester. right? her boyfriend didn't look convinced. just tired.

that after i sat through the palme d'or winning the pianist starring an even more mournful-eyed adrien brody as a jew in warsaw during those 6 midcentury years where it was frankly unwise to attempt such a thing. get out!, you wanted to scream at poor adrien brody, poor beautiful talented adrien brody; take your eyes and run while you can! of course he doesn't. the fool has character and optomism: in true catch-22 fashion that probably accounts for his naifish beauty.
the 2.5 hour film contains some of the most wrenching, unsentimentalized portrayals of cruelty i've seen on narrative film. the contortions it put both me and my various organs in were impressive even by my standards. then, of course, i can only cry for so long before i get angry. at extreme temperatures sorrow turns to rage and my head filled with the kind of bitter, redundant expletives that would have made adrien brody blush. if someone had handed me a trigger i would have pulled it, and halfway across the world, poland would have gone poof.

the pianist lightens up a bit during its last 20 minutes -- thankfully, cuz otherwise i would have left that theater prowling for just such a trigger. i got home and slept til noon, my night midsectioned by a horrific 5 a.m. dream in which three men with boards were attacking me and i could only beg, "please." better this morning -- er, afternoon -- i still am in no condition to see the hours, as planned. i need some recovery time.
on a more cheerful front, i spent a terrific $20 on: two paperbacks (barth's chimera, and the fermata), one mint sondheim recording of the frogs and evening primrose, and a screenplay of casablanca illustrated with still photographs. since yesterday marked 26 years of my parents staying together, my dad and i shopped cashmere sweaters for my mom at saks and found a lovely one. good shopping experiences are very satisfying, she said banally. but all happiness is banal, right? as well as all un-. there's nothing to be done except to wade through whatever's in front of you and put as unique a spin on it as you can.

i spent a lovely twenty hours in the company of two darkly-curly-haired girls i don't get to see often enough. when various people called the one whose house it was she chatted briefly then said, "listen, tho, i have two high skool friends over ..." funny: i don't feel like a high skool anything. i guess it's a convenient label. we rolled our eyes at high skool for the most part and discussed college, marriage, grad skool, when we'll be adults; baked no-pudge fudge and ate popcorn with sesame oil (hey, that's good stuff); and watched titanic -- yes, titanic -- in two parts. and wept. at least i did. i always do.
we slept three to a bed, well, dreamlessly, and woke to continue the conversation until near sunset today. we're very different, except for hair and height (and body image problems and faith and class ...) rather, i should say, we are as different as three female honor students the same age from the same background raised in two-parent liberal households within 20 miles of each other can be while sharing a sense of humor. not that different at all, i guess. i should remember that more often. just like perhaps i'm not that different than i was three years ago when i couldn't imagine being more than 20 miles apart from them. nostalgia: my drug of choice.

home for the first time in 03 and hours from some of my favorite playmates. well i have three books to comfort me: two my indulgent father bought me yesterday (another chabon, another franzen) and one i'd forgotten my aunt gave me for hannukah.
sidenote: in high skool it was so simple. everyone celebrated hannukah. that was it. no stockings, no ho-ho-ho, no carolling (unless you were mocking them) certainly no presents under christmas trees. when ben's father added, on the evening designated as their gift exchange, that something lay wrapped under the tree for me, i was so flummoxed i viscerally learned the meaning of the word. that the gift turned out to be classical music -- "no words," grinned ross, looking over my shoulder -- unsettled me further. no one ever taught me how to sit still and listen to classical music. after 20 minutes of staring into the candelabra ben's dad had set up in the fireplace, my ADD started kicking in. when the music ended i wanted to say something profound and simply could not think of a thing. i blame the tree.

ross ben and i had spent that evening with ross's 2nd set of maternal grandparents, up in the country where they own their own vineyard. george, our disaffected intellectual host, went to harvard and studied government with jfk, for whom the skool was later named. michelle, our redgrave-like hostess, studied at juliard and danced on broadway before shifting her focus to culinary skool. they prepared us a lovely dinner and served their own, surprisingly good wine.
the day before we'd paid a visit to ben's russian grandmother in the bronx. she compensated for her difficulties with english with her ease with food, urging on us cake fruit chocolate buttered-bread coffee wine brandy.

now after all that family i'm with my own again. i guess i have to get started on that stuff i have to do. or maybe i'll go read wonder boys ... or explore mckee's website. the guy from adaptation -- yet another meta level. wow. that's the kind of thing i need, a story seminar. structure is my weak point in fiction too. i can't stand those conventional endings where everyone grows and learns and is happy forever after. i really liked about schmidt's ending even if i had issues with the film. it worked for that character; it felt plausible. but making that compromise between what's plausible and what's palatable is really damn hard.

on new years, you write resolutions. on your birthday, you make wishes. since my birthday and new years lie almost precisely 6 months apart it feels appropriate that the corresponding demands each make are diametrically opposite. except i have trouble with both. on my birthday, i wished for more. now, that round-new-years time, i'm tempted to resolve same. more. only call it Renovation instead of Resolution, a la brilliant liz, and worry cause i don't mean it to sound like i'm greedy. i'd be fine if things stayed the same. renovation-wise, i just want the evolutions in me to keep on grinding: more of the progress: more courage, more self-sufficience, more adventure, more forgivingness, more openness. basically i've been happy since i turned 18 and hit an emotional growth spurt, and i want more.

i'm in new york still, 6 hours south-east of where ben, rebecca, ross and i spent new years. ben, our intrepid invalid coachman, got us safely there and safely back despite wrenching weather conditions. once there we sprawled. i finished three books in the first couple days: rushdie's east/west, leant to me by the other becca with whom i spent a lovely preface-type afternoon, the ice storm, and the fermata. the latter engaged me most by virtue of being entirely different than anything else i've read -- ross and rebecca, both of whom have read it before, smiled knowingly at my devotion to it. one review i came across labeled it "morally confused," from which it derives part of its charm. nearly plotless, insightful, funny, and [borderline?] offensive, i found it squirmingly fun to read.

anyway, we parted from the mountain idyll, having finished off two homemade pizzas, two stirfrys, one bottle of champagne, two bottles of wine, one bottle of kahlua, one pitcher of margaritas, one tray of homemade nachos, one yule log, one pumpkin pie, one apple-pear pie, one package of tortillas, several diet cokes and much more besides, including one afternoon-long monopoly game won by yours truly. for the first time ever, i think.
ross ben and i saw about schmidt in the city, which was more controversial than i expected it to be. pointlessly misanthropic, manipulative and depressing or scathing perceptive reactionary satire? for hours afterwards, ben and i mulled over films that we both find wonderful and rewarding, and we settled on harold and maude, barton fink, and mallrats.
two more weeks of break. is this heaven or what?

last night we weren't going. ben was sick, hoarse, crackling, in no condition to get out of bed let alone drive. this morning he went to discuss the matter with ross and rebecca on the phone. he came back with a black scarf around his head and a white one around his neck, kissed my cheek, rousing me from a dream of a bomb in a bible in a playground, and said, "let's go." will it work? who knows. off we head into the frozen north.
happy new year everyone. see you in 03.

i just found one of the primary ghosts of my adolescence through the internet. twenty minutes of google searching and boom, there she is: address, home phone number, even bizarrely her age. a standard site option flashed, "do you want to buy [her] flowers??" well, no, but apart from that i don't know much. should i write? should i call? when you haven't seen or spoken to, heard from or heard about someone in five years, what's the protocol?

thankfully i cycled past crisis as soon as i wrote about it. i guess that got it out of my system. that and several more movies: breathtaking chicago -- who knew richard gere could sing?, or that a severely-waifed-out renee zellweger could make catharine z.j. seem bulky?, or that a musical could be so successfully transplanted to the screen? i enjoyed it as much as adaptation. so far they're my two favorites. two towers, however exciting and visually stunning, suffers from a less-than-mediocre script and characters who seemed more than ever like Types. catch me if you can, which i saw today with two members of my family on the rare suggestion of my father, is enjoyable and well-done. unique among spielberg's films for its sex, it compensates for making the encounters entirely devoid of chemistry. still, it's in no way a film worth remembering.

as for the not-in-theaters, last nite liz and i watched kissing jessica stein -- good for romantic comedy, good for a mainstream queer flick, overall seemed lacking somehow. their 3rd act breakup came so suddenly, and the direction was irritatingly irregular throughout -- and attempted to watch the first episode of twin peaks. a half hour in or so we turned it off, befuddled, tired of waiting for the trite to magically, surreally, lyncially become, well, magical, surreal, and Lynch. why was it so popular? what gives?
i'm slowly putting together my Top Ten. having not seen about schmidt or the hours i'm reluctant to. for the other 8 so far i'm thinking, in random order:
y tu mama tambien, chicago, adaptation, monsoon wedding, punch-drunk love, catch me if you can, secretary, far from heaven. maybe instead of secretary, bowling for columbine -- but secretary was so damned unique. i'm sure talk to her will displace something too once i get around to that.

i think i'm in the midst of a slow creeping crisis. not the melodramatic kind, mid-life or quarter-life or existential or identity. it's just -- suddenly i want to lock myself in a room and write and write and write, and at the same time i want to keep seeing movies and keep reading books cause i have nothing to say. my father made fun of me for tracking down two libraries over the five days we were in florida, but had i been really insistent i'm sure we could have found more. the truth is i don't entirely know where babblebook is going, anymore than i know where i'm going (existentially) or my sociallife is (identitalllly). (from which we can infer that perhaps this crisis is of the aforementioned varieties, as objectionable -- in terms of verboten cliches -- as that is.) in between fielding calls, i wonder why no one calls me. i pull old notebooks from the recesses of the closet and pore over them, turning pages coated, hatted and mittened with nostalgia, looking for an answer as to why my journaling has grown infrequent and perhaps forced.
i spent a lovely xmas day with becca and, for a few hours as we revelled in a free showing of funny girl at visions, 40% of the jewish population of the metropolitan area. now i'm off to get my existential ass out of my existential house and to existential bethesda to shop with my perennial partner (in crises and in health) liz and perhaps ari too. no sign of lana, without whom no time at home could be complete. perhaps all i need is another good book, or a kick in the ass, or to lose at tennis.

... and i'm back. not quite so brown as i hoped. my skin has to do that sunset thing: blaze red then fade to a more civilized twilight. there wasn't enough time to devote to that process when there were so many relatives to be visited, smalltalked with, laughed with, appeased, and met. my father and i spent the majority of the five days together, reading or playing the word game, driving or watching movies. i dragged him to Two Towers, he dragged me to the everglades. boy am i glad i waited til i got home to see Adaptation -- had i seen that bit with the gators, i'd never had had the courage to do an airboat tour. recently having seen Jaws was bad enough.

i think about death too much. it's terrible. my imagination has never let up on me. any new piece of stimulus i feed my brain it translates into a creative new potential torture device. in my room as a child i learned to sleep on my back rather than curl up facing the closet (from which monsters/demons/eyeless doll-children could emerge) or the window (through which robbers/rapists/eyeless doll-children could climb). facing one invited its attackers or demonstrated that you naively expected to sleep safe. more than death even, i've always feared being proven naive, dying from a cause i didn't imagine beforehand.
i'm better now. no i'm not. i sleep 5 times better when there's someone else in the room, tho when people ask me don't i mind having a roommate, it's easier to smile and illustrate how awesome brigid is ("you know she brought three bottles of bootleg liquor with her from home? and we play procrastinatory computer games together ...") i have learned how to sleep on my side. that's something.

and THAT's a tangent. the point is i'm home. liz and i ventured out into the cold today to see Adaptation and it was wonderful. a glorious meta-meta-meta movie that poked fun at conventions while showing that, if you're brilliant, no rules need apply. for erev-xmas, a holiday my family has never celebrated, my mother is making a goose. between cooking and preparing and packing for the trip to florida she and my grandparents are taking tomorrow, she hasn't slept for the past two nights. tonight my grandparents are coming over to not-celebrate with us (we have champagne!) and it will be beautiful: her feasts always are. she will fuss that i'm going hungry, even though every other plate on the table is piled high with vegetarian stuffs. i'll want to record every moment because, between good films and good novels -- franzen's Corrections fell open in my lap every spare second in miami; now i'm three-quarters of the way through the equally compelling kavalier and clay -- i'm filled with frenzied inspiration. how it'll manifest itself ultimately i don't know yet. perhaps in grant writing, cuz really that's what i have to get done.

merry xmas out there, to those of you who like that sort of thing. and to those of you that don't, dance, laugh, and thank god that tomorrow, once again, that one innocent, purely happy little day, will bring the xmas song season to an end.

i have an hour. this is more or less the only free hour i've had in two weeks, since this bloody finals craziness began. but it's over. i handed in my curriculum project ("a rose is a rose is a rose by any other name would smell as sweet: a multi-cultural survey poetry class") at 12:10, only 10 minutes late. i may have written the thing in record time, seven hours between last nite and this morning. still, a showing of harold and maude? who was i kidding?
i packed like a fiend after lunch -- it's easy when everything's dirty -- and even did the Good Girlfriend thing ("i seem to have forgotten my clothes. can you pick them up for me?") the least i can do i guess for someone who takes such profound-looking pictures of me.

so, somehow, miraculously, i have an hour. i've said most of my goodbyes. with not enough time to watch anything, i play freecell disinterestedly and browse webpages and mourn the end of this semester.
winston: "this is not the end. it is not even the beginning of the end. but perhaps it is the end of the beginning."
me: "no, you doof. it's just the end."

few fascinating things have happened to me of late. i've written (i COUNTED) easily over 50 pages this finals period -- that left precious little time for the fascinating. i've still managed to enjoy myself. the advanced poetry reading last night made me nostalgic. not anticipatory, even tho i'm going to be in the workshop next semester. who understands these things. my group of people won't be as pleasant, it doesn't seem, but hopefully it'll still be interesting.
mostly i've been nostalgic in general. this was a great semester, possibly my favorite. at the very least it ties with freshman spring. which is better, falling in love or being securely nestled in it (1 yr, 10 months, as of today)?

enough schmaltz. (isn't yiddish a great language. technically schmaltz = chicken fat. the perfect image.) (why do i never get tired of parentheses?) i guess i have stuff to look forward to too; i'm just not as skilled or practiced in that. i'm taking tennis again next semester, and five credits, and i'm directing -- officially! -- the mainstage production of next semester: oscar wilde's an ideal husband. more immediately accessible, i'm showing harold and maude this evening in my room. come, you're welcome: watch one of the greatest romantic films of all time and help me finish off the kahlua.
when i get home my dad's taking me to florida for a few days. i'll attend the family gatherings, nod and smile, and whenever i get a free moment i will conk out under the nearest palm tree. when you next see me, i'll be brown as a pretzel and twice as salty.

man, this trent lott thing just gets better and better. i'm crossing my fingers that the government continues to be absorbed by iraq's 12,000 page version of war and peace in arabic and doesn't pop its head up and provide some distraction (anything! quick, drop a bomb! no, who cares where -- look! there! belgium! fine.) before this mess gets as messy as it's going to be. trent lott, racistfuckhead, ousted for being a segregationist? it's priceless. besides, if he actually RESIGNS, the DEMOCRATIC governor of mississippi gets to appoint his replacement. imagine! a 50-50 senate! now that's justice.

if you rearrange the letters TRENT LOTT you get ESTER HAS TOO MANY FINALS TO THINK STRAIGHT. i've had one small lovely break: friday evening city dinner+movie with pennbecca. i didn't enjoy personal velocity as much as my parents enjoyed frida -- funny cuz the first has received far more glowing reviews than the second. after septa tried to make my life as complicated as possible, i hitched a ride home from 30th street with the chairman of the history department, his wife (an english professor at temple), and their daughter returning from U-Vt. oh, and another: the immortal eddie izzard's dressed to kill yesterday evening. if you rearrange EDDIE IZZARD it spells CAKE OR DEATH? usually that's a pretty easy choice. during finals though, gosh, who can say?

who has time to write these crazy days? 9 page paper due monday, huge history project due wednesday, 15 page film paper due thursday (i'd forgotten about that last one. heh heh. at least i convinced the prof to move the deadline to thursday from its initial deadline, noway-day at impossible o'clock.) so far i've been handling it relatively well. stef, eliz and i bought a lot of junk food early in the week, knowing we'd need to bunker down and stay up past 7, when the dining hall closes. vending machines, while okay for some, can't provide anything that compares to duncan hines icing with or without graham crackers. or mmmmmmmm milanos.
even with i'm done with this batch of crap, i have 3 finals, a curriculum project and all my observations to hand in. this may be the worst finals period yet -- it's certainly up there. bizarre since i enjoyed such a managable semester. anyway, the point is i'm sane, even if i am sore, and it will all be over soon.

i've never eaten so much grapefruit in my life. the whole room smells of it (tho better citrus than dirty laundry, eh?) everyone marveled, peeling one after another, at how incredible they were. only a single grapefruit of the batch remains, snug and smugly yellow in my fridge. perhaps it will serve as reward when i finish the other major thing i have due early this week. i just handed in a history paper, whose construction mostly absorbed my weekend.
i did manage to get in some culture. senior company put on paula vogel's minneola twins and the dance concert presented an impossible number of gay men with impossible bodies doing impossible things. perhaps because the latter engaged me on more, er, physical levels, i enjoyed it more. both were nice though. i've seen a lot of movies this semester and less theater or dance than usual.
of course i watched movies too. when harry met sally, my hands-down, no-argument, sentimental-and-otherwise favorite (harry burns = still my ideal guy); friday night with a cheerful kahlua soaked group. raiders of the lost ark the following evening. felicia and i knew both by heart and often turned to each other to mouth the lines that you simply can't let go by.

having covered theater, dance, and cinema, all that remained was voice. last nite as stefanie, elizabeth and i each busied ourselves at our respective word processing stations around the room, stef murmured a line that sounded like, "i dreamed a dream in time gone by ... " like hunting dogs, eliz and i perked up and howled along. we made it all the way through that song, and then, of course, "on my own," cuz we're such a room full of eponines (did ANYONE like cosette? she's such a little pure-soul heroine, the kind of girl who says "papa" and wears white dresses. why on earth did that marius prefer her? how much of a bastard was that kneejerk revolutionary to hold eponine, who was DYING FOR LOVE OF HIM, and damned cool besides, and then forget her entirely the next second?).

HEY!! aw, what a good day. beautiful sun glinting off six inches of beautiful snow, plus all the artwork made with it or juxtaposed to it (the bright green cactus for example that popped up next to my history building, with an appended sign that reads, "MOMENT"). my beloved nervous this morning before an important interview with Mr. Watson, but looking beautifully suited up regardless. my fondness rekindled for the three beautiful women professors i have this semester, each a swatticon in her own way. a huge box of grapefruit so big each looks like athletic equipment, and burstingly pink on the inside. ohh they're so good. straight from florida, in the middle of december! thanks, mom. an equally sweet, if less citrussy, response from katie (of magicwand4katie fame).
and, a tenth review at triggerstreet, this one by a gay man. hands down the most positive so far. i'm glowing. joepat says, "Cute Story. I liked the way the story flowed and how it kept my attention. I am not an experienced screenwriter but I did feel that the characters were fully realized and the voices rang true in my head. I twould be easy to imagine this story as a film. It would also make an excellent stageplay as well."
fruits! my food AND my people.

hey! two more straight american men reviewed my screenplay and didn't hate it. that makes the ratio 5 scathing to 3 moderate, with 1 lukewarmly positive. in celebration of that, and the snow, and the general good luck experience by most folks around here today, i bought two movies at half. neither of them, harold and maude or heathers, were too cheap, but i figured i owed myself a festival o' lights present. and, as i said, it was a snow day ("it's like raining snow," commented my beloved). no class -- teacher couldn't make it. this looks promising. cathartic discussions. an aborted attempt to watch molly ringwald be pretty in pink. the truth is, redheads shouldn't wear pink. any film that begins with that abominable a style choice is as big a mistake as that is.
being charitable, sarah kelly and i gave it a chance. but the only thing i gained from what we saw was an increased, further solidified appreciate for not having to come of age in the 80s.

i love away messages/AIM info bits. they're so telling. (screennames abbrieviated to protect the perverse)

sl15: "snow, snow, you make me glow"
hm83: "hilary from freshprince: who are all these ladies, and why do you feel like you have to have sex with them?
leon phelps: well, hmmm, let me see...have you ever had sex?
lp: "hannuka party and much drunkenness"
t2: "WWBD?"
b101: ":-) :-) :-) :-) :-)" (he's in love)
and my little brother: "I am not available because I am playing a computer game that takes up the whole screen."

okay, for love of lana (and elke -- hi elke): the canadian response to what apparently has been generally dismissed as an immature, uninteresting screenplay, worthy only of serving as a sex education video for midwestern gay high skoolers. in comparison, high praise indeed: "Some witty writing but an incomplete third act: Hi Ester, This is my first crack at a review so please bear withme. I found your writing to be very easy to read and the script moved along at a pretty good clip and kept me interested in what was happening to these characters. I really thought some of the pop culture references were hilarious - the mourning for Martha quip in particular! I found that your characters, while interesting, lacked a little originality - which is fine I suppose but I found myself thinking that these people could have been taken out of central casting (thora birch in ghost world or american beauty etc..). I struggle with that in my wriing too - how to keep situations and people fresh and not cliched. It is clear that you have a tie with these people and I think you could easily make a few edits to tighten them up and give them some unique attributes. The biggest suggestion I could give would be to fill out the third act - I found the story ended just as it was heading toward some real conflict and tension. I'd like to know what happened to htese people. Enjoyed it and hope you can flush it out at the end and make it work! Cheers."
as previously noted, the only [other?] positive review came from the only female to read the script. sn = mango. hint hint, nudge nudge.

more importantly, david horowitz spoke here last nite. by nearly all acounts, he was sensationalistic, abrasive, and pompous; worse, he didn't substantiate any claim he made about the "hate-america left." it's true, leftists tend to be more critical of the u.s. its good points, i guess, are considered too obvious to state. follow me here: the country is like your offspring. a lot of factors shaped your country before you arrived, like genes contribute to the identity of your child. but instead of dwelling on the immutable genetic makeup of your kid, you as a parent concentrate on your child's potential. you attempt to mold it, share your morals with it, affect its character. you don't focus just on the things you love about your kid -- obviously you love your kid if you've held onto it and let it hold onto you for this many years. you challenge your kid, expect the best from it; and when it lives up to your standards, you give it a hug. right?

to compensate for that little ranty thing, enjoy the following link: this is the story of one woman's fight for justice from the noble savage {from lara, amazingly, and not ross who also picked it up somewhere}. if katie writes, acts clever, and and self-deprecates while self-promoting like a swattie, it's because she is one. so's jonathan franzen! what a small world.
oh, and my review of far from heaven.

perhaps my belly is growing. ( +4 femme points for noticing, -13 for not caring) frankly i think it's the only way to survive the winter. when i went home, another of my aunts asked me if i'd lost weight. i lashed out at her. perhaps i shouldn't have. i know it seems like an innocuous -- or flattering -- question, but since to my knowledge i have not, it just makes me think that everyone's mental image of me is as chubby. you know?

today, for the last time, i woke at 7:15 to toddle off to my ed observation at a not-so-local (hence the inordinate amount of travel time) middle skool. these observations had the potential to be fascinating windows into education in america. but they weren't. teaching's not for me. it seems like these exhausted women expend as much energy on disciplining as they do on imparting information; that's not fun to watch let alone enviable. ultimately, spending two hours in a classroom felt like having to spend two extra hours in a classroom, only one in which nothing i didn't know was taught.
in going to my last observation, though, i missed rabi's radio show. she'd invited me to come read poetry. that's one of two very recent ego-salves. as the other, a male finally reviewed my screenplay at triggerstreet and didn't pan it. he had insightful comments and constructive criticism, and he even pointed out parts he really liked. naturally, he's canadian.

on the bus yesterday stef and i argued over which of us is femmer. i don't remember why we decided being femme was better than the alternative -- somehow it just came up, so we had to fight about it. we didn't reach a conclusion. it did however remind me of an exchange i had with my aunt. have you, she asked me, become interested in the domestic arts? i nearly choked on my broccoli. when i recovered, i handled the question most suavely and democratically ( +2 femme points). no aunt marge, i said. i cooked for myself a little in denmark, but generally i just want to live in a dorm for the rest of my life ( -15 femme points). i think the unfortunate idea is that since i'm the only girl cousin of the 6 of us, the responsibility will eventually fall to me to host these extraordinary dinners and occasions for which the blooms are famous.
in response, i can only say: this morning brigid asked me for the second time, in the same plaintive tone, whether i had a little sewing kit. the answer, folks, is no. i mean, you can search through the pile of my dirty laundry (incl. 2 pairs of sheets) on my unvaccumed floor, or you can just take my word for it.

the soda machine failed me but sorelle came through, offerring the remnants of her last nite's smirnoff ice. flashbacks to copenhagen: sitting on the square, next to the fountain, watching everyone else drink beer, trying to enjoy the sunlight and pretending it was as warm as it felt like it could be.
(me: ooh, already i feel buzzed.
veronica: you've had three sips!)

but i'm back at swat. maybe i'm high on the latkes and chocolate gelt sorelle brought from home, or the shorter-than-expected bus ride with stefanie. when has a greyhound bus ever arrived an HOUR ahead of schedule? we took advantage of the gift by dining out lusciously in chinatown. we had a great bonding talk throughout, as we'd been having since about noon. a perfect cap to a largely enjoyable weekend. the previous night stef had accompanied me to a typical fuelo gathering -- all my friends sitting around in nomi's living room, talking. luckily she got along well with everyone. the love, indeed, from all sides, was palpable.
other friend situations were enjoyable too. watching notorious c.h.o. with liz and her little sister. shopping (and finding a great cheap pair of purple pants) with a newly giddy lana. long conversations about sex/gender, sex + gender, SEX GENDER, and life in general.

family time was a little more up and down, of course. 20 people, mostly relatives, streamed in and out. my incredible mother just kept on chugging, producing, with my uncle, first a thanksgiving feast; then, the next night, a shabbes and 1st night of hannukah feast. tonite latkes, but i'm missing those. housing dozens of cozens, washing dishes, keeping everyone happy, distributing presents. she amazes me. all that family, however, did mean a lot of sorrowful talk about kenya, one uninvited comment about "[my] friends, the palestinians and al qaeda," much small talk, and some mockery of my friends at skool and skool itself. it was worth it for the hugs and the scrabble, and certainly worth it to take showers in my shower and sleep in my bed.
only 20 days of skool left in which to do everything i need to do. holy god.

also, yay!, why didn't anyone tell me? aldaily is back.

after dire warnings from everyone and their mother about snow, today burst on the scene as fresh and pristine as a newly cleaned toilet bowl. my brother drove down from cornell yesterday and slept over with the intent of leaving early-ish this morning. while he was forcing his way southward, ben and i wandered into the city to see far from heaven, the new todd "velvet goldmine" haynes flick. initially i was suspicious: i've seen parts of the original douglas sirk melodrama and in no way could i conceive of anyone wanting to remake it. but you have to give him credit. haynes maintained a smooth, authentic 50s tone without descending into parody, and he simultaneously updated just enough of the details to make the story believable to viewers now.

on the way home, ben and i discussed the inter-racial relationship around which the story revolves. that julianne moore's character's love interest is not just a gardener but a black man is one of haynes' twists. their interaction bears racial -- as well as class -- baggage. setting up the black man as a counter to moore's gay husband has the potential to enforce the stereotype of "savage" virility, but the interaction they have remains so chaste that that fear dissipates. they never even kiss. that makes the drama more wrenching somehow: not only is it impossible for two adults, one white and one of color, to have a romantic attachment, it's even impossible for them to be friends. at least in the 50s.
and that's the second question. placing this story in the 50s is safe. attitudes then are easily catelogued, and you can portray the drama and hypocricy of them without having to exaggerate. what about nowadays? in some parts of the US, the social stigma remains nearly as intense as it was half a century ago; in others, it remains, just in subtler form. a film that attempted to address that issue would really be something to see.

still, i enjoyed far from heaven -- more than velvet goldmine, i think. marc, who my brother kindly let hitch a ride to dc today, informed me that sir haynes is actually good friends with one of my professors, the one i'm taking a film seminar with next semster in fact. it is possible he is the one who will be called in to evaluate my honors project and honors standing at the end of next year. that would be the most frightening two hours of my life.

happy turkey or vegan equivalent, folks. wish my dog luck, she's back in the hospital. be well.

my moods are predictable. i lose a scrabble game and get a nasty review at trigger street: i droop. i win a scrabble game and get accepted into the poetry workshop: i perk up. now i've lost another scrabble game, but i'm still in the poetry workshop (although it may or may not be good. plus the last guy to hate my screenplay listed con air and tombstone among his favorite movies.) words, words, words.

i cleaned like a maniac today in preparation for tonite's comotion meeting. exposed the top of my desk to the air for the first time since day 1; exposed my carpet; filed things away; just generally tidied up, in conjunction w/ brigid, and while ben read shakespeare in the window seat. the results are quite satisfactory -- my mother would be proud. if only i liked the cleanliness enough to maintain it.

my friends convened at harvard for the vs. yale football game, and more specifically to visit ilana in her new nest and see the new bunny she's dragged in to keep her company during the cold winter months (ahh mixed metaphors). after some deliberation i decided to hang out here, attend the formal saturday nite and just relax. it worked out well. a group of us set out for goodwill in preparation for the dance. i didn't find a pretty but did happen upon a perfect hardback copy of the corrections for a dollar. then at the end of our 3 hour spree, someone found me a blue feels-like-silk kimono robe. someone else suggested i wear it to the formal and i was tempted; in the end decided against it.

then, at the formal, couples galore! stefanie, with an improvised outfit that looked straight out of chicago, and her elizabeth, in a suit. both looked fantastic. sarah c., the latest loveless girl to turn her fate around, a vision in aqua, especially with her new bunny as an accessory. ross in a hilarious ivory suit, complete with cowboy hat and bolo tie. for once i got to be in a couple on the dance floor too, as ben wasn't djing, but we spent more time in the casino set up in the back room. i figured out a decent strategy for roulette but was too timid to make substantial amounts of money. of course when i gathered courage my luck ran out.
speaking of luck, i need some to get through this final stretch. so much due, so much not done. tomorrow they post the list of who made it into the poetry workshop. i wasn't worried about this until someone reminded me. i think i need to work myself into the "it doesn't matter" mindset, which is of course easier said than done.