i did not realize, let alone celebrate, it, but yesterday was my last day of classes this semester. i loved this semester. being me, of course, i was very apprehensive at the end of last semester. being me, of course, i'm now very apprehensive about the fall.

people shrug me off when i voice these apprehensions. half of the semester will be swollen with screenplay writing. i've only written one and the general consensus (i'd link to the triggerstreet reviews but that would be ghastly and depressing) was that it was sub-par. true, it was a first effort. but who's to say that this attempt will go better?
people say pshaw and i'm offended, the way a 6 year old is offended when not taken seriously. no, really, people, i'm scared to death. the least you can do is squeeze my hand.

i wrote a lot when i was 6. i had a ramona quimby diary and when i confided something too personal, i'd tear out the page, scribble over the words, shred it and bury it in the trash can in my brothers' bathroom. i wrote stories about life being cruel and unfair, which for me it was not. i wrote about girls named kate and mary and personally knew none. influenced and transfixed by the roald dahl books, in particular boy, my stories nearly always involved violent punishment of children. no one ever hit me, except the time my older brother knocked into my mouth and a baby tooth fell out, as though he'd put a quarter into a vending machine. in reaction he said he deserved half the tooth-fairy money.

when i was 10, the parabola of a tennis ball inspired me to rush home and write my first poem. it begins, "i had a dream the other night/ i flew with silver wings/ surprisingly i wasn't scared/ to leave all normal things" and ends, "it was a time to start another day/ but when this one will end:/ maybe i'll fly again tonight/ and this time, with a friend." actually i'd never dreamt about flying. i still never have.

the flying poem was anthologized by the bastards at the national library of poetry. those vultures feed on the vanity of people like me, pretending to sponsor a contest, updating you every few weeks, "CONGRATULATIONS!! you're in the TOP 2%!! send us more cash." eventually they declare you a winner and sell you, for $50, a hardback book with your poem on page 424 after as many horrifically bad poems called "rain" "the day my cat died" and "when you left." the first in the book -- it's burned into my memory -- begins, "salty tears run down my cheek/ as if my eyes had sprung a leak."

i know we all have to learn lessons in life, but really though that one was way harsh. the funniest part about it, which after about a week i could appreciate, was that they also sold you a tape with your poem read aloud by a sonorously-voiced man. this guy, who probably had an mfa from princeton, had, with utmost solemnity, to recite my 10-year-old stab at lyricism: "... as i flew higher and higher, i/ could see the land no more/ so i spread my wings to try to glide/ what a thrill it was to soar! ..."

the moral of this story is, i'm not ready for this semester to end yet. i have 14 fears about next semester (11 logical, 3 il- ), none of which can be scoffed away. please, just squeeze my hand.

last seminar, including dinner prepped for us by our lovely unique prof, over. the night before, instead of doing catch-up reading for seminar, i wandered down to sarah's room. she and her quad convened. somehow, and for the life of me i can't say how this happened, elisabeth and i started bonding over poetry. (poetry! isn't it great!)

from her room we retrieved a browning book and read the pied piper of hamelin aloud; her dorothy parker portable, a different published copy than mine; an ogden nash; a billy collins; a fran lebowitz (i don't know the woman but elisabeth pressed her book on me, assuring me i'd fall in love); o there were thousands more. we recited and flipped furiously through pages to find the poems we were thinking of.

britta contributed, asking thought-provoking questions like "who'd you rather be locked in a room with all day, william blake or ezra pound?" and "what's your least favorite poem?" that one took a minute. eventually i settled on "tyger, tyger" because really -- no, really -- i intensely dislike that and always have. i used to sit opposite a copy of it posted on my seventh grade english classroom wall and mutter curses in its direction.

last night, more pedantically, i watched secretary again. i found it even more beautiful the second time.

this is my favorite kind of day. just a couple of degrees too warm, enough so that breezes are welcome and so that you want to throw yourself dramatically to the ground and not get up. i've only gotten a chance to do a little bit of the latter: i had the first of my last classes to get through first. that went well and now it's over, like, ososoon, so many things will be.

i'm trying to put together the set of ten poems i'm submitting for the english department's approval. that means both revising new things like mad and going through old things, considering them. personal poems that reflect on an experience or situation that's no longer applicable i dismiss out of hand. but what about old-favorites like 5'1"? should i keep everything recent so that the tone/style is consistent? is stuff that's been published automatically preferable to stuff that hasn't?

i don't envy people who have serious work to do at this time of year. that's a strong argument against the honors program, in case you're looking for one, or for being rich and indolent. i bonded with my friend adam this morning over our shared opinion that we could have done well having been born in the late 1800s. if you're rich, of course, you can do well virtually any place or time, unless you're hit by unavoidable grandscale miseries like plagues or reality television. but to be well-to-do and of-age in the 'tens and 'twenties, to be able to flit between berlin, paris, and new york, to trailblaze by drinking highballs, wearing short skirts, and writing verse that occasionally rhymed and occasionally did not ... ah, that's the life.
then, to die, dressed to the nines, cocktail in hand, in a car crash in the spring of 1929.

"The base is with Santorum, the White House is with Santorum, and this is gender, not race," said a GOP aide. "The reason Lott lost is because those three factors were moving the other way, against him"

from white house defends santorum. not that you'd expect any better from bush, but still. besides, "gender, not race"? homosexuality = gender? since when?
sad:

Francis said that was good politics, adding: "Swing voters want a very moderate approach to the whole issue of gay assimilation into mainstream America."

i'm underutilized. everyone else is overstressed. not an ultimate combination. i'll all right though. with movies, with pleasure reading, with catch-up history reading (see, it's not all fun and games), i'll get through it.

having changed clothes, at last, i'm officially done riding the wave that was yesterday. what contributed to that serendipity i can't hardly say. some combination of pheremones, some configuration of aligned stars ... but let me skip How and get down to What.

perfectly pleasant day on campus: productive meetings, hawking co|motion to pre-frosh at the activities fair ("feminism is for kids!"), watching the delightfully witty-wise if rote postcards from the edge. then (penn)becca called with instructions. come into the city! and look cute about it.

[cue faint twinkly music]

met (penn)becca at the theater where she's been interning and had a lovely indian buffet dinner with her and her boyfriend. at the cash register the restauranteur asked me, "who's paying for you?" "i am," said i. "no, i am," said he, and that was the end of it.
sailed out of Samosa.

back at the theater, (penn)becca and i cleaned and set up and prepared to bartend for the post-production party in the theater lobby. i insisted on handling the wine and beer while becca took care of soda. somehow opening beers and handing them to people thrilled me. it must have shown because the tip jar filled and filled. certain socially-awkward middle aged men kept meandering back over to us, possibly because at least we'd smile at and talk to them -- even, in one case, in broken, high-skool, but assumedly adorable french. in return, they contributed generously to our evening total. $20 EACH for 45 minutes of easy work, during which we drank as much wine as we wanted. my god! if i'd known men would pay me to be sweet and cute i'd have embarked on a career as a geisha years ago. or at least something other than an intellectualish, writerly feminist.

i wonder if this means i can flirt, after all.

the septa train intended to take me home rolled in 20 minutes late. this would have been inconvenient except that it enabled stef and eliz, who had gone to see the incredible Cho, to not only make that train but also to accompany me home. and back home, still feeling desirable, i got to be with the only one i desire. really, how nice.

septa, both ways, into and from the city: $7.50
vegetarian buffet dinner at samosa: $9
plus all the wine i could drink at becca's theater open house

net change in my financial status after this evening: +$11.50

HOW is this possible, you ask? how can a person MAKE MONEY having gone into the city and eaten and drunk sumptuously?
for tonight, i'll leave you to mull. well, with one hint. i looked CUTE.

second revision: actually, this one many of you have not seen before:

polipersonal

I miss Israel
(there,
I said it)

A beach at the end
of every bus ride, the attendant
anxiety sweeter than salt-

water: getting there alive,
the relief would make me buoyant
and prone to burns.

In Jerusalem, I scribbled every word
the puffing, pacing mayor
said, and,

on a different page, the
angry-tired Palestinian, Youssef:
Your independence,

my catastrophe. I was so innocent,
I was surprised. this was 2000,
things were good then,

hopeful. when I was up North, an Arab
family gestured me onto their porch
for nuts

with everything to say to each other
and no shared tongue, we smiled
awkwardly and ate.

back on kibbutz, no one read newspapers.
I used them to clean mirrors
in hadar ochel bathrooms (my first taste

of a blue collar). people who walked by
nodded �hi,� respectful;
I could be their daughter

everyone took turns doing
this kind of work. still, the political void
rang in my ears until relieved

by a visit to cousins in Tel Aviv
The government dissolved again (they
sighed) Well,

every Tuesday and Thursday.
they fed me, walked me, even dug up
Shabbes candles so I�d feel

at home. See,
I did feel at home, especially on Fridays,
when busses stopped. Religious families

bundled to Shul and Seculars
hit the beach. I�m not observant
but it was spiritual:

dining out on Passover,
hearing Hebrew, sleeping in the desert,
just walking

through the sky-blue city
of S�fad. could you live here?
my friends asked each other.

not until Peace, we said, but felt
on the precipice of it, assumed it could happen
any day. two years later

escaping college, I spent
the spring in Denmark, the country
I knew from Number the Stars

No one carried guns, not even
cops in Copenhagen: even some of
the prisons had no walls

I trekked to classes over cobblestones,
passing pastel buildings,
hot-dog vendors, falafel stands, and

Palestinian protests in halting Danish
to halting Danes: flags and the word
Hitler I recognized: but by then, I�d seen it all

before, shuffled through a gauntlet
of police the only time I tried the city�s
only synagogue, handed my passport

to the guard at the gate and answered
his questions as flashbulbs popped:
over two years, I�d learned

the limit to how Left I could go
if I couldn�t let go of what I�d left behind me,
always planning to go back.

revision. please tell me what you think (better? do you miss something?)

the love song of t. stearns eliot

T.S. Eliot (what did his friends call him?)
loose within the gilded cage
of Harvard, age 19, produced
his best. Without tax forms to file or a split-
level home, Eliot (how did his fellow
snobs know him?) penned Prufrock, a love song, and
my favorite poem.

Decades later, he embraced
the Catholic faith to such a frowny-faced degree
that he chased his chaste and nervous wife
out of the country, across the sea, to an asylum
(she�d decay in pine for him, her coffin
set above the ground)
and buried himself in Ezra Pound.

I prefer Prufrock -- old, bemused,
peering at the life he missed. Only, characters
don�t exist, except that the artist
and the art are fused
Genius leans in and
I can�t resist:
a patient on a table, I am kissed
by someone I abhor -- the tryst so good that, Doctor,
I want more

and which is worse:
seeming to endorse you by confessing I adore
some of your adolescent brilliance � or
leaving 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.
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; we could share
a table, raise a glass to a culture gone ersatz; pun
through a series of tea-timed chats; and if we felt
particularly free of the claims of identity
you and I could hit the town:
� me in sunglasses, you in spats �
buy ourselves tickets and laugh through Cats
at least til conscience wakes us, and we drown

the latest set of words of wisdom from my brother as he readies himself to plunge into the real world has nothing to do with politics and is very much worth reading. okay, there's a tiny smidgen of politics at the end, but for the sake of the funniness that comes before, i imagine you can overlook that.

comments are suggesting i put on shakespeare. what madness is this? anybody want to see / never again be subjected to uncle willy? anybody have a favorite? twelfth night might be mine. then again, no one could do a better job in it than helena bonham carter.

i'm more or less done for the week. a lovely feeling. perhaps i will watch one of my many movies, my collection having bunnied recently. a few serious items remain on the to-do list, to-be sure: finish revising poems for my class's live! reading in may (i'm thinking terrible twos, the love song of t. stearns eliot, and at 70, a nice chronological progression), finish revising and hand in 10 pages of poems for the possibility of summer money ( => which?), various mailings, applying to the phoenix, blah blah blah. nothing that compares to anything anyone else has to do.
maybe i'll go into the city and see becca. that's what i want to do. maybe we can break pesach together. becca, what do you say?

my wonderfully wacky history prof decided that my american social history seminar should be midsectioned by a seder. she printed out copies of a feminist haggadah for everyone and appointed me leader. a couple people in the class had never heard the story or tasted matzoh (can you believe it? in this day and age?)

we went through the whole thing. sort of reminiscent of seder I last year wherein i improvised a seder at a hotel, explaining as i went to bemused onlookers and eager-to-be-supportive friends. this one, however, had a distinct political agenda. i found that charming, if occasionally over the top. i'd never had a seder like that before.

mere hours later, i was in a full car driving to bryn mawr to rent a movie from the Good video store around here. as sarah kelly and i browsed the adult section, for kicks, a man with bloodshot eyes approached us and asked if we'd help him pick something out.
s. kelly and i escaped, rejoining the others. we ended up with adventures in babysitting. (such fond memories of that movie -- my summer camp used to show it to us. in fact, it was the first pg-13 movie i ever saw.)

tla was also having a 2 for 1 sale on used movies. figuring whatthehell, i bought 2 movies i haven't seen but have heard are excellent: mifune, the 3rd danish dogme film, starring the woman from high fidelity, and nine queens, a spanish heist flick. for good measure i got the kingdom too, lars van trier's ultra-exciting x-files-meets-ER danish tv series. all for $18 total! not that i need your support, or anything. that is not what this webjournaling business is about.

happy easter! as we all know, jesus was way cool ...

back at swarthmore, life is calm. everyone lounges about in the sunlight. doing work, of course, but still lounging. it's fun being a bunny in springtime watching the other bunnies, especially when i have relatively little work to do myself. i may have an ear infection; otherwise, my cold is receding, leaving me hale and hearty. i find everything cute, and i'm eating much too much passover chocolate. possibly those things are related and the candy's releasing a steady stream of seritonin. what a nice thought.

the other night i got to spend time with kross. we visited with various seniors whose inevitable taking leave of us in a month or so i refuse to think about. we parted only to reconvene at 25th hour. it made me think. like most of the spike lee movies i've seen, it needs a good editor: easily 20 minutes could be trimmed off. that was, however, one of the only things that reminded me it was a spike lee joint. the mirror rant and the setting in nyc -- right. but where were the overt racial politics? what statement was he making about the white -- or, in some subtle way i couldn't really understand, the black -- community?
ed norton and philip seymour hoffman delivered. just a day's work for them. poor ed: in how many movies does he have to play a violent, self-destructive outlaw? poor cousin phil: in how many more movies does he have to play a sexually frustrated loser? but this is what we love them for. nobody does it better.

also saw possibly the best swarthmore theater-department-theater production yet, roger babb's take on brecht's man = man. at points, it felt professional. at points, i thought, what am i doing pretending to direct? i don't have this kind of vision. sure, he's been doing it for ages, it's his job. but it reinforced my decision not to do a show next semester. i'll leave that to people who share his passion and who are testing out their own abilities and visions.
i'll concentrate on films. and snood!

here's a meme: google the people you've kissed in your lifetime and see what comes up.

#1 -- appears only in the "last will and testament" of my highskool's class of 1999, the class one year older than we were. xxx is first on the list of things given to a girl who actually, at one point, dated my older brother. if the school hadn't discontinued the tradition immediately thereafter, xxx probably would have been on the list of things given to me too.

#2 -- appears in a review of a play he was in at yale: "For all his talk about death, Harold Ryan (xxxx xxxxx) tries his best to kill the show. Yolen�s direction no doubt encouraged xxxxx to take Ryan over-the-top, and rightly so, but unfortunately xxxxx decided to shout most of his lines. xxxxx does well when he quiets down but does so too infrequently to create a character worth watching. Without any compassion for xxxxx's shifty-eyed killing machine, the heart of Vonnegut�s play is lost."
my god, if he'd been a shifty-eyed killing machine when we dated, i woulda let him kiss me with tongue.
ps: now he's gay.

#3 -- last i heard, xxx had gotten fat and religious. fittingly, he appears on the internet only in the form of a boring, bloated d'var torah he got published.

#4 -- no mention. an internet void. considering the xxxxx-shaped void in my life, it seems appropriate.

#5 -- appears as a kosher cook and on a frank cho webpage, having submitted an excellent entry in a contest. someone on a message board responds, "wow!! xxxxxxxx is awesome!" of course, i recognize the someone -- she's a mutual friend -- but that makes the compliment no less true.

#6 -- don't remember his last name, can't google him. i mean, i only knew the guy several hours.

#7 -- the most infamous. in this swattie's journal entry, he plays an equally infamous historical character: "I had on more than scarves, I was clad as Salom�, dancing to Alan Hovhaness' The Rubaiyat, while xxxxx xxxx (Herod) watched. After the entire fucking Big Room of Sharples was watching for a minute or so ("take it off!"), he raised his voice, and said, "I am well pleased. You may have anything you like, up to half my kingdom." I had to ask for the head of John the Baptist."

when i tried another innocuous-looking link, a series of porn pages popped up and took over my computer. i am now officially freaking out because there are two windows that i cannot manage to close. argrgrhghhghhhhhhh. now i'll have to clear the history.

#8 -- a very common name, it seems. actually two of ross's pages pop up. the boy's only distinctive mention.

#9 -- he won a debate award. good for him.

#10 -- ah ben, the b. loved. for now, at least, the buck stops here.

so it's passover. i should say something profound.
um.
well, i went shopping today. i bought possibly the most bizarre item of clothing i've ever owned. it makes me exceedingly happy (ask me to show it to you. hell, ask to borrow it) at the same old place, of course, where the owner says Wow you've got a haircut! with the same resentment that always hangs around her words, like air quotes. actually my haircut has garnered more praise than i could possibly have expected. how wise i was to get it done the day of my last performance: i could coast on it for the next few weeks and compliments could gently phase out of my life rather than simply not be there one morning when i woke.

at the seder, one of my parents' dazed family friends approached me and said words to that effect. actually, her exact words were, "oh darling. oh you look so nice. you know, when i first saw hilary clinton, i didn't think much of her, i didn't think she was going places. but look at her now! she's really pulled it all together and she just looks fabulous." then she beamed beatifically at me.
this is the same woman who, at a similar event when i was 13, approached me when i was standing with a good friend. "hold on to your innocence, girls," she told us firmly. "it's all you have. and when it's gone, it's gone."

my mother puts on two seders every year. every year they're planned and orchestrated perfectly. she cooks for 23 or 24, everyone eats off china, we read the same haggadah (published 1975. the only woman anywhere to be found in it is the barren woman who at one point god makes the happy mother of children -- hallelujah!). my grandfather leads. we read the four questions in three languages. as each of my brothers and i passed through fourth grade the same wonderful teacher taught us to recite them in yiddish. it got a standing ovation when my older brother first did it, lo these many years ago. when i did it, it brought tears to my grandmother's eyes. when my little brother did it, everyone found it charming -- and he's been doing it every year, ever since.

seders over with, today we've been eating leftover passover candy and we went as a family to see christopher guest's newest A Mighty Wind. i can't remember the last thing i went to with a group that big -- and it made everyone laugh. also it made up my mind about applying to the phoenix (stupid newspaper) next semester for my old position. i want an excuse to see a movie a week, it's as simple as that.

there is a whole entry to be written about identity and being actively rather than de facto something or other, but i think for now i'll wander downstairs, eat more matza, and watch more directtv.

my brother informs me that he's coming down tonight. packed and ready by 11: all right. whisked to washington where i'll wake up tomorrow in the stress of a completely different environment. family! and no bread for eight days. last year i was in moscow.

happy pesach, easter, or anything you celebrate. if you celebrate. if you don't, my god, how do you mark the passage of time?

the long-awaited and much-hyped meeting of the parents went off without a hitch. (pun intended. ha ha.) we began the morning by meeting his mom and harry, her sheesh-what-do-you-call-a-live-in-long-term-boyfriend and dashing through the woods in an attempt to catch the crum regatta. in this charming swarthmore tradition, students make their own boats and have to sail them around the bend of a river. so i'm told anyway; naturally we were too late and missed the action and the awards ceremony.

trekked back to campus. my parents rolled in, reminding me that for three sets of parents we had three s.u.v.s: a lexus, a mercedes, and an acura. after a brief howdyado in the parking lot, we took two suvs a two minute drive to breakfast, at which i was struck by terrible cramps. all the women at the table ordered a spinach omelette; i barely touched mine. it required enough effort to keep up conversation with ben's mom and my father. everyone else seemed to be doing fine, even lingering post-coffee until i, maddened by my desire to get somewhere where i could lie on my back without eliciting stares from bluehaired women, urged us out.

i got my hour of recooperation time. meanwhile his dad and lisa, his what-do-you-call-a-wife-from-whom-he-may-or-may-not-still-be-separated, and his sister showed up, signaling a changing of the guard. i joined the crowd in the ampitheater, the prettiest least used spot on campus, for a gammalan concert. i can't believe i'd never been to one before, it was so much fun to watch. then we dined at dahlek, our ethiopean mainstay, where people lingered over spiced tea.

good times. no one fought, no one died. in the car at one point my parents told me that they would help me to live in new york this summer. they're nicer to me than i deserve. after they left, ben and i were so depleted that we crawled into bed at 9:30. over the course of today, i've had to administer two stern doses of 'quil to keep a bourgeoning sick at bay; luckily it's worked. i managed to get my last seminar paper written, printed, and sent.

and i got my lottery number. not that it matters: my fourth year, and yet another in which i don't have to go to the lottery. i'll leave skool without having ever had the pleasure. but i'm still obscurely proud of my number. out of 1,470 or so, i'm 25.

[at the end of a conversation with mother]

m: so we'll see you tomorrow then!
e: yes, see you tomorrow.
m: oh, ester?
e: yes?
m: there's no ... reason for this, right? for us and ben's parents to meet? there's nothing that's going to ... happen?

it took me a second to understand what she meant, then i laughed and said no. what i should i said is, Damn, mom! you're ruining the surprise!

his parents are divorced, too. what could be worse than having to clasp hands, look around a table of frozen family members and say, "we have some news" ... twice?

if you see me, say congratulations.

i didn't get the grant -- i just heard today, which means i either need to rethink my summer or plow ahead regardless -- but i miss hearing that word.

on the brighter side of things, ben is a hero, as is reported in today's daily gazette. there will be much music in may because of him. and brigid and i got the two rooms we blocked for on the 2nd floor in parrish. the inimitable rajaa is going to be our RA. my fourth year and i've never had to go through the lottery.

for the first time in 2 years and 2 months, my parents and ben's parents are going to rumble. i mean meet. on sunday. we are very nervous about this. i mean excited.

another seminar paper due tuesday, this one about the decline of steel under vile mr. reagan. as i break from depressing deindustrialization reading, i get to read bonfire of the vanities, with which i'd like to start a bonfire on my own. how come nobody told me this book was (a) so badly written, (b) full of stock characters, offensive stereotypes, cliches and ethnic slurs, and (c) predictably paced and uninteresting? tom wolfe comes off as a smug snobby postmodern bastard. maybe it is a successful satirical send-up of the 80s and i'm too oversensitive to appreciate it. but i'd watch american psycho twice over anyday than read a page more of this ellipses-italics-and-exclamation-point driven drivel.

there: i've said my piece. now i just need to track down some money for this summer.

narrative:

SCENE ONE
ESTER and S.KELLY walk into the dining hall. ester carries a white plastic bag full of half-full bags of doritos, two library books on the decline of steel manufacturing in america, and her bag, roomymarroon with a long strap. within it are ester's wallet and her notebook. actual value: c.$250, incl. money in visa account. sentimental value: through the fucking roof.
s.kelly carries a nearly-empty gallon jug of green tea (actual value: nil. sentimental value: nil.) they sit at the end of a long table, putting all their stuff on the seats beside them, except for ester's roomymarroon bag, which she places by the foot of her chair.
FRIENDS arrive, and with each new addition, the STUFF moves farther and farther down the length of the table, away from s.kelly and ester. an hour passes

SCENE TWO
ester tells the story of how problematic man visited her poetry class today
first, some girl wrote a poem making fun of maya angelou for being fat. i was the only one who didn't find it clever. alienating enough. within the poem, however, the girl describes a nail clipping as being round "like a nubian hip." that was when problematic man burst upon the scene. but before he come open his mouth, another girl said to the poet, "i love that you used the word nubian. it's so ... exotic!"
problematic man staggered back, then regrouped, setting his lasers to Stun. before he could shoot, another boy offered, "i guess some people would have a problem with it or call it 'cultural appropriation' ... but i don't believe that exists." the rest of the class murmured agreement, continued to praise the poem, and then moved on. problematic man slunked away, rendered impotent once again by the innocence of freshmen.

FLASH FORWARD:
ester and s.kelly powerwalk back to the dining hall, ester clearly upset, s.kelly singing songs to distract her. one song melds into another and soon s.kelly is singing angrily about the living wage and democracy campaign.

FLASH BACK, MONTAGE; V.O., s.kelly singing:
1) ester and s.kelly gather up their belongings and leave the dining hall.

2) BEN walks into the dining hall and sits in the chair vacated by ester. glancing down, he notices the roomymarroon bag, recognizes it, picks it up, and hands it off to FELICIA, who lives in the building next to ester.

3) ester, near tears, describes the bag. dining hall workers lean on their mops, shake their heads and shrug.

SCENE THREE
ester and s.kelly powerwalk to the library. before they reach the door, someone calls their names. MARC, who knows everything, tells ester where her bag is.

fini.
it was however too much stress for one evening. s.kelly and ester decided to take time off, visit krispy kreme, rent soapdish and recline til 1 a.m. at stef and eliz's. a wise choice.

i've realized i no longer enjoy people with strong personalities the way i used to. recently i sat near and overheard the nonstop conversation of a person i once at least found amusing. this time i had vivid fantasies of the use to which a 2x4 could be put.

this discovery comes on the heels of another, a related epiphany that burst upon me last year: a person who doesn't dress interestingly can still be interesting. think about it! don't pretend i'm the only one who has been in the past limited by these prejudices. this is america. we love rugged individuals, loud-mouths, winners, and trendy dressers. it's who we are. it's why we watch sex and the city and gangster movies, why we love marlon brando and jack nicholson. it's why the quakers aren't cool (in case you were wondering) and why god help religious fundamentalists of all kinds, cuz god knows we won't.

hopefully this doesn't indicate a new anti-social tendency on my part. if i get too much more anti-social i'll end up kaczinskying myself into a corner. i've already mentally disengaged myself from the people who invited daniel "yet another simplistic one-sided speaker" pipes here last night and from the people who covered the advertising signs with self-indulgent, snotty posters of their own. i'm not officially the scion of any department. the only dorms i've visisted this semester outside of danawell have been parrish and worth. i'm not playing ASSassins. i didn't even participate in a sager orgy. i mean, come on -- someone out there should be staging an intervention. what does it take to get you people alarmed?

at the same time this may go down as my favorite semester. (whenever i get happy i figger it's the happiest i've ever been. it's bullshit but at least it keeps me cheerful. -- in other words, it's my religion.) well, maybe i speak too soon. seminar today we'll be reviewing my second seminar paper and i don't have excessively high hopes for it. i liked the reading for it a lot, as it turned out: mccarthy vs. murrow, evil vs. good, battling it out through television. that's my kind of social history.

rabi puts it, so succintly:

anyway I have clearly been in college for too long, because dancing around with nearly-naked people while girls in lingerie have sex with boys in drag seemed almost normal. (well, maybe not normal so much as non-extraordinary.)

for the first time last night i was one of the girls in lingerie, and none of it was mine. people counted my layers for me: three on top, three on bottom, nothing on my stomach which is still impressive, even when i think about it. i am not the kind of person who goes around inviting people to stare at her belly-button.

not that there's anything wrong with my belly-button.

for about 45 minutes, it was fun. i enjoyed dancing with some people and seeing how other people were dressed: rebecca made a terrific cabaret girl, sarah kelly was packing heat, jonah deserved some award for his white muumuu and huge pink hair.

but by the time both buildings were filled like matchboxes, and several people had shoved me and stepped on my toes and ground naked against my back and i'd seen enough nudity for several kubrick movies and i wasn't drunk, nor planning to be, i was ready to go home.

forsook sleep last night for a league of their own -- admittedly a strange decision. it did remind me that i'm right about something i say a lot: tom hanks is way past his golden age. the man is a comedian; he should play unlikeable funny-looking smartasses, like other comedians do. he's good at it and it's good for him.
it's been a strange few days, and with sager, the cross-dressing gender-bending transgressive carnivale, coming up on saturday, it doesn't seem as though things will cool down for a while. leading up to sager, different groups on campus sponsor presentations and talks on sexuality. these end up being mind-bogglingly specific, to the point where one wonders who actually goes. last night's was B4T, a transgendered caribbean-american, imani henry's, performance art piece. and it was really good. afterwards, eliz and i talked gender for hours.

there is of course no limit to how long you can talk gender. it's a fascinating subject and i think, outside of academia, one that's largely unexplored. if we take for granted that gender is a construction, doesn't switching from one to the other reinforce the binary? why not expand, or blur, the definitions of "male" or "female"? or why not work towards the creation of a third category, like genderqueer? we thought one possible answer for that last is that gender is tied up with notions of attractiveness. to pull back from both Male and Female and to declare yourself genderqueer is to potentially limit the number of people who could want to sleep with you.

sex does not = gender. but eventually everything comes back to sex.

i haven't taken a class on the subject, largely because such classes are theory heavy. are theory, even, and theory makes me gag. there aren't [m]any trans people at swat so the organized discussions here are abstract and frustratingly unproductive. it's important to make the campus a trans-friendly space, but only god can make things ex nihilo. maybe not even god.

now to read more about television for my seminar paper. unfortunately, so far, that has been only a quarter as interesting as i expected.

unsatisfactory laundry experience + being called a jap in my poetry class (although the perpetrator apologized afterwards) + going to a film festival of sorts on campus and finding the audience to be indie-trendy-artsy-barnhards and the films to be pretty self-indulgent and unremarkable = craving for a chocolate bar, which i'm now eating sulkily. it's too much for me, actually; it's making me kind of sick, but i can't throw it away.

arrggh!! what if i apply, as previously posited, to film skool, and what if, by some chance, i get in, and the other people who go are like that. i'd never be thin enough, or mismatched in precisely the right way. i'd never have the right glasses or bag or shoes or taste in music. if i wouldn't be a groupie i'd be an awkward outsider, like i was this evening, and sure, i'm exaggerating, but i was filled with an annoyance so intense i snapped at ross and left ben without saying goodbye.

if i don't go to film skool, what will i do? once again, google provides the answers:

Ester will provide invaluable input on a number of issues impacting New York City - from health to homelessness to education

Ester will help us understand a young child's need to bite

Ester will often seemingly heedlessly throw herself into the thick of the fray, enthusiastically giving as good as she gets.

"Ester will have a healthy baby." (not for another ten years, i hope)

Ester will graduate with a certificate from the Partners in Ministry program

ester will be sold as a mix with conventional diesel

Ester will only generate anger towards people of other faiths

man, this is looking dire.

can democracy and the middle east mix? all the pieces seem to agree that america cannot force the western kind on the eastern world. that's about as suprising as experts agreeing that water is wetter than sand. still, the arguments are fleshed out and well-reasoned. besides which, each of them is a refreshing combination of ideological opinions: anti-war and critical of the status quo, for example.

don't take this as a sign that you should try to engage me in person on the topic of the war, though. i will continue to find things to distract me. oh look! a bird! ... i will however drink to it, as should you.

choose your favorite from the following, produced by the allmighty google:

Ester is a passionate collector of diamonds, men, red Cartier boxes, and Faberge eggs.

Ester is emotionally unstable and even attacks her parents and hits them.

Ester is a cheerful personality full of life, of positive nature, with good spirits and nice smile.

ester is a colourless mobile liquid with a pleasant fruity odour

ester is often referred to as banana oil.

Ester is neither an anarchist nor a polygamist. she is in good mental and physical health.

Ester is one of those fresh new bandsthat proves that spirit of rock and roll is very much alive

Ester is going to be the Forest Gump of the Bible.

Ester is just getting hotter and hotter (and, no, it's not menopause)

i volunteered to write two seminar papers back-to-back because, frankly, what else do i have to do? i'm not bitter though. the weather's getting warmer which is totally what i was counting on to lure me out of a post-adventure funk. perhaps i should be outside frolicking in it instead of inside listening to Company and watching my flowers die.

scw needs a bio for me. last semester it was "if you rearrange the letters in [my name], you get TREES BLOOM, which makes a lot more sense." at the moment i have no ideas and little inspiration. suggestions are most welcome.

it's virtually snowing outside. that's not right. but glory and sunshine are fleeting, i guess. the play, c'est fini. the glory too. so much in one week! one poetry contest, three performances ... a little clot of ecstacy.

to delay the comedown, i went over to felicia's, still in pajamas and recovery from the cast party last night. we watched almost famous and i cried at beautiful kate hudson. she looks about 12. beautiful blond women in movies have this bizarre effect on me: for a while i couldn't watch shakespeare in love because it hurt too much. it's deeper than jealousy. i even wrote a poem about it once. anyway.

cast party was fun. nothing extraordinary or untoward happened. nobody is incapable of doing a foolish thing; nobody is incapable of doing a wrong thing; but nobody did anything visibly foolish or wrong last night. people drank a lot, and told stories, and in some cases rolled on the floor or belted out showtunes. all to be expected. people did reach the lovey stage. harmless, earnest declarations were as prevalent and necessary for the occasion as paper cups.
there are no words for how much i'll miss this cast and this show. it could not have turned out better than it did. at the same time it feels like something i achieved, something at first i wasn't sure i could do, and something i can only take a smidgen of the credit for. regardless, i am so glad to have been a part of it.

one of my actors demanded that i direct noises off next semester. i only know it vaguely. applause is addictive: i'm torn about trying again. pragmatically, i don't know if i'll have time. but we'll see.

i shouldn't post now; i should wait til i'm up again. the combination of getting 9 hours of sleep total over two nights; 2 plays at which i often, watching, forget to breathe; & the arrival and departure of 5 family members has affected me. maybe the weather too. maybe i could deal if the sun came back. i don't feel like thinking or making decisions: not good: i have an appointment to get my hair chopped in an hour. when i'm depressed i overpunctuate. comma comma,, semicolon: period.

the plays have been good. the plays have been fantastic, even. last night i was as happy with it as i ever desired to be. i spent the half-hour after the show ended, dazed and glowing, collecting compliments. in addition to forgetting how funny the show is, i hadn't realized it could also be moving. but the audience got really into it. that's really the best, when the audience doesn't laugh, it makes those other group noises -- gasps! oh nos! -- as tho it isn't obvious that everything will be straightened out by the end.

... okay, totally couldn't leave the entry on that note. i didn't mean to initially, i just had to dash out and meet my family for breakfast. as i feel better now, i may as well add that. lots of good food today. at breakfast, once i finished half a belgian waffle, some scrambled eggs, and part of my little brother's bagel with lox, people finally stopped ragging me about not eating. then for lunch stef,eliz,brig and i hit up bertucci's in bryn mawr. bertucci pizza = gucci pizza.
brig and i both got short haircuts. mine's flouncy. oh it feels so light. i've been told it's flirtatious and sophisticated. that cracks me up.

it happened last night

debut = over.
my arms = full of flowers. what a dream.
still two shows to go.

the message my brother left me this afternoon said, "i heard you got voted the coolest poet ever by a gaggle of hippies." not exactly true, sadly. i did win first prize though at the yearly swarthmore poetry contest. i'd never entered before but winning certainly made me think i should have tried. first place! $500! i've never won anything before. swat brought a poet in from the outside to judge the contest: beth ann fennely. she spoke with a cute southern accent and gave a reading for about half an hour after announcing the winners. her poetry is energetic and engaging, and even more so outloud. my class was supposed to buy her book. now i suppose i certainly should.

it was tremendously encouraging, and it meant i didn't have to be depressed going into our final dress rehearsal. the leading article in the paper about the show gets several key details wrong. nothing too awful though and nothing that would discourage people from coming (thurs - sat, 8 8 8, free!).

buoyed by my energy maybe, or just because, the dress actually went smoothly. various individuals who were sitting in laughed. you forget how crucial laughter is to a comedy when you prepare it -- in rehearsals, you don't have that luxury.

tonight, everyone looked good under the lights, no one fell off the stage ... who could ask for anything more? i gave notes and everything but really, it doesn't have to be any better than it was tonight. if we manage stasis, i'll be thrilled.

my fingers still smell from the smoked salmon stef fed me (when vegans fall, they fall hard). she ran into me this morning as i tried to juggle hot chai and lengthy seminar papers. we did the only sensible thing, splayed on the grass in the beautiful stunshine until we decided to move on to her apt for lunch. fish, crackers, tomato soup, red wine. we are classy mofos.

rehearsal went well last night. increasingly however we're approaching the point past which there's nothing i can do about the show. it makes me very nervous. i have been existing in a state of vague nausea. it only registers a 5 on the ester scale of gastratory dysfunction, like out of 100. so not terrible, not as bad as the patch, but occasionally distracting. as in, damn, i can't finish this aluminum cup of cheesecake. i need more sleep than i'm getting. luckily i think i have enough perspective to get me through.

can't tell how ironic this article is supposed to be:

Imad Mohammed, who saw in the storm divine intervention, seemed marveled by its force. "The only time I saw a storm like this was in the American movie 'Twister' and in the words of the holy Koran," he said.

wouldn't a sandstorm affect both sides? is god's point that the violence should simply stop? i'd approve of that. i do wish god would be a little less vague though. smacking a region with a natural-enough event, even at a signficant time, frankly isn't specific enough to send an effective message. neither is putting hebrew words into the mouth of a fish in brooklyn. if the sandstorm carved out STOP FIGHTING, YOU MANIACS in rockface in both english and arabic, or a carp stood up during a white house dinner, bitchslapped george w., grabbed rumsfeld by the jowls and screamed DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND GOD WANTS YOU TO STOP, that'd be worth writing articles about. people are so starved for miracles these days.

first thoughts on the oscars ...

much more political than i expected. in a good way. no saccharine patriotism. generally i admired the way people addressed the issue from the podium (with the exception of nicole kidman. poor nicole, honey, just stick it to tom and sit down. altho the thing about russel crowe telling her not to cry was funny). michael moore went a little overboard. i may be wrong but it seemed like that woman was up there for winning too? you know, that woman who just stood there smiling while he yelled fuck you at the president instead of letting her speak?

jack nicholson looked like strom thurmond. what was up with that? his jaw hung open until three-quarters of the way through, when he remembered to close it, or daniel day-lewis reached over and shut it for him. i'm so glad adrien brody won instead.
really though the awards for the pianist should have stopped there. adapted screenplay, over adaptation? come on. half the film was just bombs dropping. it's a visual experience. it's moving, it's gripping. but adaptation is where it's at, word-wise.

nicole kidman didn't thank virginia woolf or michael cunningham. at least we got to see that hot guy from y tu mama tambien, and at least steve martin was funny. except his "gee, these women are hot!" thing -- that got old pretty quick. meryl should have won but i'm glad chicago did. gangs was shut out. it's a sign. come on, swarthmore, give me the grant, and i'll make a movie that'll blow scorcese out of the water.

someone is drumming outside my window, repetitively. pointless! no building, no progressing. it could be trance-inducing if it weren't irritating. is that the point of drumming? of course i shouldn't ask such questions; i have several friends who are very earnest on the subject. i guess when you have a lot of drums that make a lot of sounds it's different. this fellow seems to be approaching it like dribbling a basketball. -- oh wait, no, he just changed his pace and it sounded cool for a bit. clearly there is something to be said for the instrument after all.

i'm antsy. it's lovely out again and again i'm in. writing a theater paper. i get so focused on one thing that having to deal with other things that pop up feels like a supreme nuisance. why can't i have a cadre of servants who handle trivialities for me? i think last time i requested a robot to follow me around. perhaps monkey butlers could handle both sets of responsiblities. yes, monkey butlers. that's the ticket.
i wish i were a genius. if i were a genius, i'd warrant monkey butlers, wouldn't i? or at least lots and lots of time to watch reruns of the simpsons. i wouldn't have to explain how they were inspiratory, either, because i'd be a genius, and you wouldn't understand.

this show is warping my brain. i think in lilting, british rich-speak. i say "quite." i dream of cast members. i enter trance-like states where i mumble whole scenes of dialogue (the drumming, please, make it stop, he's gone back to dribbling now). it will all be over soon and then i'll miss it. some quotes in the meanwhile (you know, to entice you):
"there is only one real tragedy in a woman's life: that her past is always her lover and her future invariably her husband"

"women represent the irrational?"
"well-dressed women do"

"other people are quite dreadful. the only possible society is oneself. to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance"

"i should make you a very bad husband"
"i don't mind bad husbands. i've had two"

"geniuses talk so much, don't they? and they're always thinking of themselves when i want them to be thinking of me."

laundry is terrific procrastination. once it's done, though, the professional's trick is to go through old computer files and reorganize them and in the process, come across something so engrossing or funny it requires your full attention and at least twenty minutes of your time (twenty more if you decide to blog about it). really i should be reading history or working on my theater paper due monday. instead i'll exclaim over what i found:

a quote list compiled over two years. some from famous people, some from my friends. unlike other people's dreams, the things other people's friends say can be found interesting. i swear. and to prove it, here's a sampling:
rick: �when I grow up, I�ll just get people to lie on. that�ll be my bed. I�ll be wealthy; I�ll pay them�

ester: �yeah, I like this. rick is healthier than geoff.�
geoff (behind me): �thank you, ester.�

liz: �I wish you could eat landscapes without them tasting like dirt�

ari: �don�t do anything I wouldn�t do drunk�

kate, a nomad: "my mother always had trouble connecting with people"
me: "what does she do?"
kate: "she builds fences"

marc: "i'm comfortable with my sexuality. i don't know what it is, but i'm comfortable with it"

ross: �I saw her naked. the trouble was, she was only the 2nd or 3rd most beautiful thing I�d seen all day�

david: �I�m not any kind of artist. unless you count math as art�

my mother: �jesus! it�s no wonder my kids can�t form relationships�

me, to jeff, the only black kid in his skool: �was that hard for you?�
jeff: �only when things were missing"

rebecca: �I want to live in a box. with a lot of money in the box. and a j. crew.�

ben: �if eve had hair, it�d be like yours�

one pothead: �your hair matches your eyes�
the other: �what, my hair is bloodshot?�

matt rubin: "black people like me. it's white people think i'm a racist"

tamar: �it�s not multiple personalities. I�m just developing a strong relationship w/ myself�

ben: �I wish I had some money�
me: �so you could fly over here?�
ben: �so I could rent a movie�

johnny: �if anything scares me, it�s the colony of Roanoke. that and the music on the weather channel�

this cracked me up. actually it seems like a viable decision-making process. if the academy really does give the statue to that awful nicholson man again, it will be for the reasons stated there. some of the humor's crude so beware, mom.
speaking of my mother, she sent me an email today to the effect that someone stole her credit card number and to it charged several phone-sex calls, at $28 a pop.

speaking of phone sex ... no.
speaking of oscars, they're sunday! isn't it exciting? i've spent 17 hours over the past 5 days in rehearsal; more to come this weekend. i will throw myself in front of the oscars on sunday night and bask for the entirety in the mindless, spineless, petty, pretty entertainment. o i can't wait.
speaking of the oscars, it always perplexes me when i like things that aren't generally liked. it's not even a CoolDifferent thing. i feel far more left out or dorky than the bastion of enlightenment, confident in my own judgement and willing to stand by my beliefs until others rush to join me. why don't people like the hours? was the score really that bad? i didn't notice it. it certainly didn't do a hack-away-at-you job worthy of john williams. i understand why people don't agree with me about adaptation. but ... the hours! meryl streep! women! water! virginia woolf! surely those elements compensate for big eyed little children and hackneyed AIDS-ridden gay poets.

this year comes down to the battle of the sexes. chicago and the hours are estrogen-soaked weepy/exuberant 1st 2nd and 3rd wave feminist tracts about women as victims and agents. gangs and pianist are testosterone-y (rhymes with "rice-a-roni") violent/meditative wartime masculinist tracts with token female characters/sex objects. LOTR:TTT would join the latter category if it weren't preoccupied with swiping at orcs and if half the men didn't look so girly. yes that's you, leggy-lass. however, they are all good films, and i almost don't care who'll win. chicago will.

i handed in my grant proposal and ate stolen pizza for dinner. my mind is certainly not all in one place. but i think the show's going to be good. i haven't done homework in ages, or seen roomie brigid. i really need an awful lot of luck.

swatties may have been arrested this morning for civil disobedience in philly. people are going back for more. the past few days i've felt largely too preoccupied with play stuff and grantwerk to have opinions about the war. now i wonder whether i have any opinions at all, after all. i can tell you that this scares me. who are we to think this won't matter? if america is honestly trying to protect itself and think of its own future self-interest (an understandable if morally questionable ideal) then this should matter. because the individuals who answered the survey questions that way have the potential to be as dangerous as saddam hussein. especially en masse.

i also found the letters section chilling. half of the letters mentioned israel, despite the fact that it doesn't feature in this war as a notable US ally (a select few, as papers report tirelessly, composed of britain, spain, & portugal, with australia sending troops). one posits:

America�s Allegiance:
With the same compassion that inspired the use of atom bombs on the populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Americans have now threatened their latest enemy, Iraq, with a 21,000-pound bomb, known as Massive Ordnance Air Blast, or MOAB for short. In Biblical times, the Israelites, having wandered 38 years after leaving Sinai gathered in great numbers to hear the word of God through the teachings of Moses, prior to their returning to the promised land and driving others out of the land of Canaan.
And the place they gathered was called Moab. Some coincidence, or is America�s allegiances showing?

another makes reference to

the driving force in the Bush administration behind the Iraqi campaign. This elitist group, comprising mainly devout Jews and Evangelical Christians ...

another says

we are forced to realize that this war has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction and everything to do with the re-election of President Bush and appeasing the Jewish lobby in Washington to that end.

devout jews? who? he doesn't have a single jew in his administration, aside from mouthpiece ari fleischer. jewish lobby? who among the warmongers is jewish? who even in his electorate was jewish? 80% of jews go democratic. if you study jewish history, you see that people -- on the left and the right -- have blamed jews for occurances as random as the plague for centuries. those accusations are the kind neither proved nor contested until they become commonly accepted.

why would a jewish lobby want war? iraq didn't retaliate against the continental u.s. during persian gulf war I. it retaliated against israel because that's what it could reach. this becomes a fact of life for people in the region suffering the collateral damage of pgw II.
that hasn't happened yet. bombs, meanwhile, are falling in baghdad already. lana linked to a baghdadi blog.
i have to stop -- it's been hours and i have work to do. if i don't post about politics in the next week, it's not because i'm callous or because i don't care. i guess to sum up the attitude i'll have through next saturday, i'll quote skot:

Well, we're at war.

(Pause while washed by wave of despair.)

Yeah, fuck that. Let's make fun of things.

swing down, swing up, but at least presently we're on a swing up. don't talk to me about politics. this isn't about politics. this is about hats. a lovely one that has been on many heads has landed on mine, where i must say it looks best. perhaps i will even get to keep it.

the set is near complete and it's gorgeous. there is something extraordinary about seeing ideas you discussed six months ago materialize in ultra-lifesize form. rehearsal this evening lived up to its surroundings and despite today's shakiness and queasiness i'm buoyant now. running into cheerful sarah kelly in the library helped. we have a date tomorrow, to keep us cheerful, to watch an episode of My So-Called Life.

everybody's talking about the goddamned war. if you're not, well, as my father's friend trotsky once said, "you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you." where i am the anger is palpable. -- & speaking of anger, i happened across this mesmerizing list of the 50 worst people of 2002. some of its bombast is funny, some of it just takes your breath away. but some of his points are particularly well-made.

not that i'm the kind of person who'll hate someone else just cause i'm told to. and i won't agree to go to war or stand for peace just cause i'm told to either. unless of course, it's funny, like the tractor standoff:

Watson said he is acting alone. Asked why he decided to protest this week, Watson said: "I just played it by ear. The Lord told me to do it. He said, 'Time is running out, Jack.'"

i mean, i don't want to like this guy. he's a tobacco farmer and clearly a nut-job. but he is against the war and hey, maybe this is the kind of effective political action the peace movement needs.

i'm not sure why the anger hasn't hit me. because i accidentally slept thru cowboy bush' s 13 minute call to action? because i'm too stressed with more immediate personal issues? (ha -- that makes it sound so serious. i don't really have issues. i have perfectly reasonable things to deal with, things i brought on myself.) because i'm suspicious of melodrama? because people are worrying about the future and i think, what's the point? the future hasn't even happened yet!
my bad mood lifted last night thanks to a moonlit rendez-vous with ross in the ampitheater. before that, tho, i was sincerely anxious: if i was breaking down and it was only MONDAY, what kind of quivering pastel mess would i be by friday? thank god i've stepped back from the brink. now perhaps the world will too.

to wit:

I will be a stout
and blissful seventy,
with a stomach like a cushion
for my breasts

sturdy legs to walk me
round and round the zoo,
with one hand on some man
for support

which man, with luck, will
make me laugh across tables
accompany me to cinemas
or mountains

and with me watch retreating snow
reveal mirrors, and birds dislodge
shards of songs
from their throats

maybe, by the time I�m old,
science will have found a way
for women to give birth
to grandkids

so I can have some
They�ll bake cookies to feed me
and frame the poems I
write for them

some of which may be famous
if I am, in certain circles
I�ll remember when people
envied me

told me I changed their conception
of beauty, or slept with me
to spurt urgent, sour words
on my sheets

I�ll tell stories, when I�m 70,
of my affair with the president,
who had me write on him with
fountain pens

and had to explain
to the president of Cameroon
why �fleetingly fascinating�
circled his wrist

and I�ll grow faint and wistful
telling stories: at 70, stories
are what�s left, and more than
half fiction.

stressed and frazzled. which is to say, i'm caught up with everyone else at last. at dawn, ben and i fought over the words to the tiny toons theme song. he finds out about the watson (the fellowship where they pay you to stay out of the u.s. for a full year. they should give w. an honorary one ...). such things are always nerve-wracking. no excuse, however, to get up at dawn.

it's st pat's day. who has time to drink beer and reinforce stereotypes? although the closest i come to irish is present assocations with a couple cute catholics, and past strong attachment to scarlett o'hara. presently i'm listening to billy bragg, worker's playtime. accidental but appropriate.

i'm stressed, so oversensitive. frazzled, so frizzy. i have to write a poem in quatrains. shit. -- er, shamrocks.

sometimes waking up to the internet can be oddly discouraging. it's a representative chunk of the huger, general abyss, and staring into your computer screen makes you realize what a molecule-like part you play.

enough about abysses! it's a beautiful spring morning. at least i think it is. roomie brigid has cracked the window to let the soft blue air float in. i'm back at swarthmore, got back at noon yesterday having being deposited by a loving father on his way to new jersey. we talked iraq nearly the whole time, as we did the night before at the dinner table when we weren't talking about whether or not polanski should be able to return to the u.s. without [fear of] punishment.

his argument: it's been 20 years; he probably was on drugs back then; he's harmless now; what good will it do, either him or society, to lock him up?
mine: [expletive deleted]

no, really, i was much more eloquent. as always i could see where my father was coming from; but come on. our justice system isn't based on principles of "what good will it do?" roman polanski, in case you're too lazy to read gailey's account above, stands accused of posing as a photographer to get access to a 13 year old girl, taking pictures of her with her shirt off, driving her to jack nicholson's house on mulholland drive, giving her drugs and alcohol and then raping her. instead of facing any of these charges, polanski fled to france. that country of truth and virtue refused to extradite him. now he's made a marvelous movie that's up for an academy award. in the plainest of plain cliched english, that doesn't put him above the law. we shouldn't pardon him b/c, unlike millions of other arrested americans, he had the means to flee this country and live happily in the hypocricy of another.

back on campus, i talked less and did more. my stage manager and costume designer have been working since tuesday and they greeted my late entry into the windowless basement room of Getting The Play Ready rather coolly. we open on the 27th: come! i can say that safely since i haven't had to think [panic] about AIH since before break, and i had break to relax and buy soothing things. despite workworkwork yesterday i'm still in soothed mode. it'll be fine! come see the show: it's free!

brigid walks in from taking a shower and says, "my auntie em was married to this guy rick and then they got divorced. she said, 'you know, i thought he was into jazz. but no, he was into cocaine.'" o, the tribulationish future we women face.

ideal day in bethesda, yuppie overeducated capital of the midatlantic:

begin at mustard seed. you remember this 2nd-and paradise from back when it was dinky and window-less, supported by a cult following willing to seek it out in that ugly shopping mall next to Honeybaked Ham and Iran Books. it stands proudly on its own on wisconsin avenue, with mannequins for eyes, now, and it bustles. say hi to the owner, a strange midly-bitter woman who knows you by name and who has made casual reference to a past pockmarked with an eating disorder and a present that features a cat. she once expressed jealousy at your closeness to your friends. they also shop there compulsively.
they're not there today, however. you try things on and decide to take a shiny skirt that could be considered pink and a terrific vintage ketchup-colored dress. at the register, the girl ringing you up grins and hollers to the owner, "see?" turning back to you:

she: [the owner] didn't want to take this. but i think it's great. it's, like, scandinavian.
you: hey, maybe that's why i like it. i thought it looked like a tripped out alice in wonderland.
she: no it doesn't. no. ... it looks scandinavian.

owner smiles thinly at you as you leave, folding up your coat because the sun makes it unneccessary and tucking it in the bag next to the acid alice piece. walk to bethesda row, choke slightly at paying the $9, and buy a ticket for habla con ella. buy a diet coke at the new giant and hide it in your bag before the show starts. mmmm, the show. cry. ignore the old people whispering plot details loudly to each other. feel slightly creeped out by the ending and want to talk about it with someone.

last, hop over to secondstory books and zero immediately in on a vhs copy of wonder boys. pick up a cheap white noise while you're at it, reading the back impatiently, perfunctorily, before walking it to the register. return to the sunlight and stand, head high, waiting for your chariot to appear.

the last few days have been more relaxing than exciting, and then there was my little driving error coming home from visiting my friend nomi in college park. 20 minute trip ballooned, swelled, boiled over, volcanoed into a 2 hour long wheel-gripping rain-and-rush-hour highway navigational excursion involving new carrolton metro station, a gas station swarming with cops, my father, route 50, no cell phone, and one near-death experience that luckily resulted in no injury to the car, myself, or anyone involved outside of my imagination.

in an unrelated but pulse-quickening incident, a spider appeared on my ceiling later that night, after i'd taken out my contacts, so i had to squint to get more than a vague impression of many-legged-brownness scurrying around above me. finally i called lil bro in to kill it. i haven't been keeping track of femme points recently but these two episodes combined must add about +30 to my total.

apart from that, though, it's just been mild weather, lots of work on my grant proposal, crossword puzzles, chatting w/ friends, and several movies, including my lil bro's pirated version of jay and silent bob strike back at last. whatever you can say about j.a.s.b.s.b.* you have to acknowledge it's funny as shit. i watched it by myself and i still laughed. something about mary did not pass that test.

* k. smith should write, not direct. k. smith needs a good editor. the movie itself needed to be shorter by about a quarter. ass jokes are overdone. miramax jokes, however, never lose their flavor.

at dinner tonight, my mother made salmon and i took a piece. and ate it. no forked lightning, no applause, no symphonic sentiment swelling in the background -- phillip glass, i assume, being otherwise engaged. the 9 months since i'd last eaten fish withered to nothing inthegrandschemeofthings. i didn't gag. i'm still a vegetarian, just one who eats fish. or who has recently eaten salmon. which -- and this upset my mother disproportionally -- was a little dry.

serendipity! the book i picked up in northshire, near randomly -- on sale, looked appealing -- deborah eisenberg's short stories so far contains one of my all-time favorite stories that i read once years ago in a class; then lost; then couldn't remember either (a) the name of or (b) the name of its author. "days"! it's thrilling and somehow very satisfying. and, i should note, it is precisely as good as i remembered.

back from the relatively unfrozen north. jonah , who may chronicle the journey on his grandfather's webtv, drove sarah, with whom, before this series of coincidences interlaced our paths, i had never seriously spoken and who, moreover, does not believe in blogs, ben and me up to my grandparents' house in the green mountains. we celebrated skool finally letting out by stopping in nyc for dinner, dessert, and actually-funny improv in chelsea before dropping in on a much startled crowd in ben's dad's house. half the assembly stared at us fuzzily in matching bathrobes, then threw up their hands and let us have our way. marauding college kids, high on adrenaline and comedy! they knew they didn't stand a chance.

we calmed down once we made it to the serenity of manchester, vt. the calm, i think, had a calming effect. we slept and made popcorn, rented 5 movies for $5 and watched three (not bad) (reefer madness -- camp: hilariously unbelievable; sleeper -- funny for fifteen minutes and then same-old woody allen claptrap; and women on the verge of a nervous breakdown, vintage almodovar). we ate a lot of sugar. all day saturday we skiied: in the morning we [read: ben] taught sarah to ski on the bunny slope and then ben and i hit the squares. we're so hardcore. sarah acrued an impressive collection of bruises to go with her knee socks and we totally earned the shitty overpriced hot ski lodge lunch food, not to mention the yummy mexican dinner and ben&jerry's.

sarah distributed fake tattoos that made us all look like we'd been mauled. they pleased us much. eventually, sadly, we had to pack up clean up and go, after a stop at my favorite bookstore in the world. jonah drove us safely back to ny and this morning ben squired me into the city to meet my mother and grandmother for lunch. they'd popped up for a Good Cause Auction and i got to take the train back to dc with them. phew. travelling done, at least for the moment, i'm going to sleep deeply -- when i'm done with this conversation w/ sarah kelly about the INCREDIBLE PARTY WE'RE GOING TO THROW:

WHAT'S YOUR LUV WORTH-STOCK: coming to you this spring!! probably april. a couples only olympics: prove your luv in games like "heart hickey giving" and "co-dependent [aka, 3-legged] racing", the exhibitionism treasure hunt and name that luv-tune! you know you want to, so if you're not in luv, give that good friend a second glace or get going on that elusive crush. more details to follow soon.

periodically yesterday i felt so overcome by exhaustion that i managed to stay awake less by sheer force of will than by punching myself periodically in the kidney.

philly. one date made out of two (i still don't know what happened to the first): dinner with the lovely miz becca, which began with 4 free cookies, hot from the oven, handed to us by a disgruntled employee of a closing store. the best cookies in the city, supposedly, but i think any cookies handed to me under those circumstances would taste like chocolate chip heaven.

today i need to pack and make lists and remember everything. it's relatively beautiful out so i don't know why i'm sad; hopefully it'll go away. meanwhile i found this hilarious:

"This is going to make millions of women very happy," Mr. Detroyer said. "As happy as paper plates may make them, this is going to make them happier."

o postmodernism. the only exposure i had to the sponge until this article was that episode of seinfeld. (also, paper plates?)

happy spring break everyone. or to whomever it applies.

i've been offered an intership at the abrams artists agency in new york this summer. casting! casting! that's what i want to do. well, if writing doesn't pan out, or while i wait for writing to pan out, or you know. !! isn't it exciting? unpaid, of course, and the chances of me meeting anyone important are of course slim. but oh good -- it's something. my first relatively concrete something for the summer.

(i have to get one of the two grants for which i'm applying or the Scholars thing; and/or eliz needs to get the jp money & chase internship for me to live in new york at all. so many elements, it's hard to keep them straight, and in the attempt i'm eating far too much sugar. i need a personal assistant. or an organizational skillz class. or a little robot to follow me everywhere reminding me of due dates and lunch dates and keeping my papers nicely filed in his electronic briefcase, as opposed to just piled precariously on my floor/bed.)

a package arrived from my parents today, containing a whole winter's supply of ski clothes. since we're only expecting to spend a day or two on the slopes, i got that warm "oh, mommy" feeling in my heart. also the key to the house in vermont, a very important article that i WILL not forget. i am very excited. veryveryvery. now that i'm done with my pre-break work, i'm focused on rehearsals, people, and this trip. i am also enamored of the post-its danny got me; i don't know how i ever managed without them.

my brother and his intelligent musings on war:

Bush's efforts to make his rhetoric jive with Reagan's created a continuity in American foreign policy between the Cold War and the post-Cold War that should not exist. The "Evil Empire" and "Axis of Evil" have combined to form the "Revolving Door of Evil," whereby America installs a government and then treats it like a jar of mayonnaise: "Keep contained after opening. Best if deposed in 20 years."

appropriate for a day like today. what strikes me as particularly great about the whole standing for peace thing is that it is:
(a) a swattie response to an international day of activism that is well-reasoned and intellectual and self-satisfied and so, so swattie (other skools organized walkouts, but as one fella in my poetry class revealed to me, we value education too highly)
(b) a swattie response to an international day of activism that is inspired by the pope -- you know, the catholic one? in rome?
(c) a swattie response to an international day of activism that is inspired by the pope in rome and set on today of all days cuz today is Ash Wednesday.
(d) activism that is inherently inactive. but in a good way. i mean, at least they're not blocking traffic (except for that one guy in my poetry class who left early to go into philly for that purpose)

i found the contrast between observant catholics walking around today with ash-crosses on their foreheads and people wearing the Stand for Peace t-shirts really interesting. i didn't notice anyone of color in either category. but as i only had one class today and it was small, i didn't get too much exposure to the range that was out there. in poetry class, the boys wearing the shirts decided that if we all as a class "consensed" that we were against the war and stood together for a minute, they could sit the rest of the time. so we did: stood, then sat again. that was my contribution to this worthy cause.

(note: i do not [entirely] mean to be ironic and caustic. that's almost as bad as being cynical, which is what people used to call me. i swear i'm not. i really am anti-war and pro-people doing whatever they feel they need to or what will make them feel useful/engaged. this is just my natural edge and if it offends you, you should realize i don't mean it and i probably love you and by me, anything you do is right.)

i'm beginning to wonder whether being vegetarian is like havine dated someone for 4 months -- you're getting antsy and you realize you either have to move on to the next stage of committment (i love you / veganism) or break up (bacon).

or maybe being vegetarian is like listening to ani difranco -- something respectable people only do in high skool.

i'm metaphor hungry. i'm also just-plain-noexcuses hungry. (but for what?) i do fine, vegetarian. the only thing i miss, occasionally, is fish, particularly on holidays. that's why fish was the last thing to go. go it did. i don't feel better about myself as a human being. in sushi restaurants in particular, i feel like an idiot. so why not eat fish?

why not eat fish? better with guidelines? it's headache inducing. the admonishments; the alternatives? (mom, don't look).

speaking of mom, i know it would make her happy if i went back to eating fish. there's a reason i can feel unconflicted about.

chocolate + diet coke propelled me through the writing of my seminar paper, but now that i'm done, it's past midnight and no atom of my body has any intention of going to sleep. so i offer this, dave barry's take on LOTR. the funniest i've seen him be in a while.

timmy: golly, problematic man! you look down. what's the matter?
problematic man: well, timmy, i've just gotten back from a Problematic situation.
timmy: really? what happened?
problematic man: cleverly disguised as a swarthmore student, i was reading some lacan in the kohlberg coffee bar when i got a distress call from a nearby classroom. i swooped over to see what was happening. a young well-dressed asian woman with an acoustic guitar had moved to the front to present her comic dialogue, as, over the past couple weeks, so many of her classmates had done. alarm bells rang immediately as she began, "inspired by the Vagina Monologues as performed recently by several very talented actresses, i thought i'd write my own monologue," and then proceeded to play the intro the dave matthew's "crash."
timmy: why didn't you stop her, problematic man?
problematic man: well, as the assignment was to write a comic piece, i thought perhaps the ensuing monologue would be an ironic sendup of the monologues. i let her proceed. she put down her guitar and, in a stereotypical representation of a poor-white southern accent, intoned, "i loves my guitar. my guitar is alls i got going in this world. my mama, she don't like me to play my guitar ..."
timmy: holy classism and more-than-likely racism, problematic man!
pm: precisely, little timmy. but she didn't stop there. she continued to tell the story of how her mama found her one day playing her guitar and threatened her, screaming curses ("you little crackwhore bitch girl") and expletives before wrenching the guitar from her poor daughter's grasp and smashing it against the wall. when her father came home later, she explained, he verbally and sexually abused the girl's mother, and as he had once played in a band that explained the mother's aversion to the daughter's guitar.
t: how did the class react to this cliched, melodramatic, manipulative potboiler?
pm: that's the funny thing, little timmy. people seemed to react as though it was a legitimate piece of drama. when i couldn't stand it anymore, i assumed my typical role of a sensitive swarthmore student and i raised the issue that the dialect made me uncomfortable. but just then, my arch nemesis, dr. ditz, spoke up.
t: not dr. ditz!
pm: i'm afraid so. "but like the dialect made it like so much more interesting," she said, "because like i don't get to hear that kind of talking so often, you know? it's like really exciting, cause it's different." i turned my ExoticizingTheOther laser gun at her but before i could pull the trigger, the professor stepped in and made the point for me.
t: so you didn't exactly save the day, didja, Problematic Man?
pm: no, timmy. i wish Consciousness Raising Girl had been there with me. but i did the best i could.
t: don't worry, Problematic Man. there's still every other class you've ever taken or ever will take here in which a travesty like that could never take place.
pm: you're right, it's true ... all the same, do you think i should destroy the Vagina Monologues before they tempt others to follow this young woman's lead and create other offensive stories that essentialize females-as-victims?
t: gee, you know, i haven't actually seen them so i'm not sure. [turning to the camera] what do you think?

tonight i'm afraid is when my monthly reality check gets delivered. fitting as is first of month. welcome [back], my lovely, to the addictive world of blogging.

a chai in the company of sarah c. and my spirits are back up. i have a kickass [idea for a] first paragraph for my history seminar paper that illustrates the thesis i will present through the example of ariel, the little mermaid; and a kickass title ("intercoarse: changing social and sexual habits in recent americans." harkens back to WISSHH.) in between stretches of dutiful, fruitful labor, we discussed how co|motion has positively influenced our lives, both at this college and in general. it's like a consciousness raising group circa 1972 ("good old 1972 ...")

exhausted. as we went around the table at the dinner comotion meeting tonight, it seemed clear that everyone feels the same way. it's relevant, of course, that it's the last week before break. also that we have too many things we have to do. (swatties.) but without regard for that or other logic, i want to shave my head, take several showers, and sleep for three weeks, possibly not in that order.

screw this weekend (a swattie ritual in which roommates set each other up on blind dates, and each person & their date have to meet through some implausible set of all-in-good-fun publically humiliating events) went fine. ben&i as a couple were screwed to jonah&sarah as a couple, which suited my purposes: we 4 shared an ambivalent attitude toward the dance and forsook it for beer and birthday cake, teenage mutant ninja turtles and simpsons, and pizza. over break, which can't get here fast enough, we're camping out in my grandparents' house in vermont. o that will be wonderful. o undisturbed tv watching, and frolicking, and bliss. o skiing, the only sport i've ever vaguely enjoyed, tho it scared me to go too fast or on the advanced slopes.

there is much to get through before then. i'm steeled for it. good luck with your endeavors and your dramas, your sicknesses and stressors. and happy happy birthday to dearlana, even if it feels less than buoyant now.

between rehashings and fallout from tuesday's seminar drama and other unforeseen events, i didn't get the clean break from discussing judaism/israel that i expected. which is not to say it was all bad. maybe it makes more sense that it lasted a week, that it was a theme for a week even. now it's done.
last night eliz and stef invited a group over (including danny who made post-its appear in fairy godmother style) to their apartment for majority-goyish shabbes. cheerfully adorably domestic, they proferred hummus and drinks ("coke or water?"), let us lounge and watch lock, stock. the only difficult point came at the celebration. expectantly, everyone looked my way. at the end of a different week, blessing unkosher candles might not have made me so uncomfortable: but i couldn't do it. before it could become too awkward, we moved on, one hostess blessing the kosher, lovely challah that the two of them had made by hand. although it was huge, it circled the group again and again until nothing remained.

i could have probably been chiller about the candles thing also if i hadn't grown up taking shabbes seriously. friday nights are a ritual unto themselves in my family. either we join my grandparents at their apartment or they join us. i set everything up in the dining room, leaving the blinds open. hebrew from start to finish, sung, standing. my mother hovers over tarnished candlesticks. someone prays and we drink manischewitz from old silver cups. my grandfather blesses his homemade challah and distributes it. salt, and it's over. one by one we kiss each other, murmuring good shabbes.

it's -- it's, what can i say, tradition. facing squat encased candles from pier one, i had no confidence that i'd remember the words.

on a lighter but also religious note, this is wonderful:

The altered ruling will take effect in the nine western states of the 9th Circuit on March 10 unless opponents win a court order blocking it. It would ban teacher-led recitation of the pledge by 9.6 million schoolchildren in Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

"maybe that's why we're going out. we have 2 things now. we dig respect and -- what was the other thing? the thing we thought of yesterday? dammit. ...
are you making fun of me?"
-- my b. loved

after my two hour power-lunch with a successful screenwriter, i'm uncertain what i can or should do with my life. but i was uncertain before. on one hand, he said, If i can do it you can do it. luck and grit. the ability to sit still. &c. on the other, he said he doesn't understand this business, no one does. he could be out tomorrow (aaron mcgruder said that too. i suppose it's a truism about most kinds of success). we had a pleasant chat; i really enjoyed it. tho he stated and restated his committment to the mainstream, the man's hair, tweed, and glasses all point to intellectual with-a-capital-i. he looks like what he is, the son of an english professor and a librarian and a life-long resident of swarthmore, pennsylvania. he may have eaten lunch with nicole kidman but what shows is he's a writer.

to finish with a flourish, he said, not to rain on your parade or anything --

and this came on top of: nothing new comes out of hollywood; every screenplay is digested by a 12-stomached cow before it makes it to the screen and the vast vast majority succumb to the bile; people like charlie kaufman, todd solondz, david lynch and neil labute (a) are flukes and (b) don't exist

-- but a screenplay on victoria woodhull, the subject of my screenplay qua honors thesis project, is in the works, a pet project of the man who did robocop. the kicker is, his'll undoubtedly be far better than mine.