wrenched awake at 4 a.m. by the 2nd in a series of nights-of-nightmares, i write a poem:

body image in two parts

I. what the letter from the interviewer should have said

"... So I'm in africa now, a finger
of the peace corps (ha ha) and got
a copy of our paper. It's sad to be an alum,
but terrific to see that an interviewee I picked not just
got into school but flourished there!

"I remember when you walked in in
your Arden B suit crisp as plastic packaging,
a zipper clamping the 2 halves of your chest
together like a pacemaker scar, the skirt short
and to the point. Your mother bought that suit
for you in celebration when you traded in a permit
for a license, and with it a body.

"I don't believe you
the lady behind the window said, whose job it was
to record the numbers. Nobody loses 15 pounds
in a year. You tried to smile as though you'd gone
for a walk everyday with half a pound or so hidden
in the denin by your ankle, and shaken it out in the woods,
like people tunnelling from prison dispose of dirt.

"At 16, or maybe earlier, your mother
wouldn't let you leave your room in shorts
argument: but J and N wear shorts this short!
retort: when you work out, and have legs as nice
as J and N, you can too.

"Flash-further-back: a child stands before a mirror
as colorful and round as she, delighted. Look mom!
she says, lifting her shirt to her armpits. I have a tummy!
Mom says, that�s cause you don�t exercise.

"You spared the skeptic at the window these stories,
and others: of rationing your cereal, flake
by flake; of sugarless gum by the mouthful; of your
oldertaller brother�s shirts that became
your mobile home; of black, the shade of self-pity,
your pirate flag. You didn't mention to the woman
the actual number was 20, not 15.
Embarrassed, on the permit form, you'd lied.

"But I gotta say, the suit
suited. It did its work. I was impressed. Those legs!
Not long by any means, the shoes helped; a nice shape
though, trimmed from finally learning not to run
just one mile but two. The contacts, the gel � we like
these here at Swarthmore College, even if we say we don�t
(don�t worry about makeup though, that�s
where we draw the line)

"reading your review, I�m glad
you fit in so well. Obscure Chinese films
don�t make their way down here too often, but
it this one does, I'll be sure to go and think
of you! and hold onto that suit, I gotta tell ya
I can't tell where you�d be without it."


II. Heather's suggestion

a cruise ship! Spend the day in oslo; To and From,
with all your friends, at night,
only $130 including dinner!

I arrived early, curious; satisfied myself there was
nothing to do (the other passengers:
sullen families with small children and a convention
of the disabled) but drink, and stocked up
with my friends at the Duty Free

everyone mobbed the banquet room
at dinner time, figuring at least a buffet could amuse
for a while. as soon
as we sat down, we felt the waves


will they stop? we finally asked a steward once
we�d equalled the pallor of our beans. Oh, around dawn,
he said with the determined-cheerful air of one
who is paid not to apologize. There are pills
if you need them

steaming plates of shellfish, abandoned

waves of cheap alcohol crashed
inside, treble to the rocking bass of the ship

I landed on the bottom floor, told the movement
was less moving there, body pressed against it
like a forehead to a cold wet cloth


On the way Back from oslo, we were grimly
prepared. to begin with, we skipped dinner, 3 of my
girl friends and I, slipping instead through a back entrace
into the sauna. we stripped in the locker room, I
determined to be as unself-conscious as my lovely
friend heather, whose idea this was, though
I'd only been publically naked once before
in my post-puberty life, and that was at night

ready? we asked each other, and
went in, peeling off our towels and affixing ourselves,
stamps on envelopes, to the white benches.
on cue, the boat began to sway / we
began to sweat. we rocked
together, breathing deeply. no one spoke.
I noticed the others' tidy breasts but didn�t dwell.

We lingered
longer than was wise, perhaps, nursed
by nakedness, inured by nakedness, somehow,
against nausea. we showered quickly
and decided to dash to our rooms to avoid
the sickening sight of the everywhere sick. As we
left the sauna, immediately, we passed a boy who paused
a thoughtful moment, then sprayed the carpet

hurry, hurry �
we made it to our rooms
and locked the doors. my usually feeble,
unshowcased stomach and I, that night,
made each other proud.

CONSUMERISM 101: A Lecture in Dialogue Form

Part One: Using the Internet
me: so, [little brother whose name is omitted to avoid the threat of prosecution], there's this program that i kind of want a copy of --
him: what's it called?
me: well, i don't remember, but i can --
him: no problem.

[pause]

me: no, see, i think this one's difficult cuz it requires you to use the cd --
him and my older brother, also present: [fall down laughing.]
[laughter continues for five minutes.]
him: oh no! not a CD!!
my older brother: man! that means i can't use any of the 5,000 games i play that REQUIRE YOU TO USE THE CD!!
[laughter for another five minutes. finally both boys wipe their eyes.]
him: yeah, i think i can do that for you.

[later ...]
him: i got the most recent version. is that all right?

sheesh. nowadays pirates may be more useful, but they're far less sexy.

Part Two: Used Books
i went to 2nd Story to rid myself of novels that clutter my bookshelf and remind me of the loathing they first inspired in me.
the clerk took three in exchange for a $5 store credit.

me: why not the others? just out of curiousity.
him: we're not buying much fiction right now. except mysteries: in the summer, people read mysteries. and this [holding up waiting] we have too many copies of already.
me: that's cuz it sucked.
he: [looking at me with new respect] right. and this, [holding up i know this much is true] we can't buy cuz it has this oprah's book club sticker on it. sometimes we can buy books that were on the list, but none that actually have the sticker. no one wants them.
me: how ironic.
him: tell me about it.

swarthmore's graduation could not have been more different than cornell's except for the fact that all weekend it remained rainy and cold. last night i dreamt that the rain turned to snow and someone informed me gravely we were just skipping summer this year. in the dream, i cried.

in real life, i've been doing far less of that than i expected. at points i've hit Sad, like when i realized, after humming through the song in my head several times, that the song in my head was eerily appropriate and far too depressing:

... fun, isn't it? but nothing stays
in a year or so
it's gonna change, you know
but it's heaven nowadays

but i made it through dinner with ben and the russian hoardes without too much trouble, not breaking down even when member after member of his family rose to toast him. i made it through baccalaureate. easy enough since it seemed to have been declared a charisma-free zone. i made it through the last day, and the last night, and through seeing him in the cap and gown; through commencement, through picture-taking, through waiting for him while he went to check out green bottle.
the night of green bottle, he'd been packing and i'd dozed off. around 1, he whispered that he was just going to see what was going on the party. that whisper hit me like an injection of mountain dew. suddenly i couldn't go back to sleep. until 3, i paced, fretted, and watched the clock. he finally returned, chagrined to see that i'd been reduced to the state of a 50s hausfrau.

it was a wonderful few days. most seniors i didn't get to say goodbye to, not in so many words. many i'll quite likely never see again. but i wish everyone the best: patience when luck runs out, and luck when patience runs out.

right now i'm just glad to be home and not to have to move for a while. i want a soft room with muted, if any, stimuli. i want soothing ocean sounds. i want not to have to think about the future, which i hate. the thinking and the future itself. i want not to have to move stuff or shlep bags. i want sleep. luckily i think over the next ten days this can all be arranged -- at least til my little brother's high skool graduation, after which i have to leave for comotion and my summer starts for real.

the nice folks at the people's poet have accepted two of my poems for publication: "our visit" will appear in the autumn journal, and "runway model" in another journal whose name escapes me. both in the UK. no payment for either except for a copy of the publication, but that makes for 3 acceptances recently. encouraging.

my brother and i finally made it home yesterday. that meant i could go to lunch today with the curlygirls (at the sandwich counter, the man nodded to nomi behind me and said, "does your twin sister want something?") we ended up in bethesda afterwards and i picked up a george sand novel at 2nd story. in translation, of course. i'm excited to make her mine. as i found delillo's white noise disappointing, i'm turning squarely to 19th century women for solace. a copy of sense and sensibility i found in the bed n breakfast made me supremely happy.

so much for smug white misogynist males, 1950 - 1990. give me a proto-feminist any day.

around me, my brother and his roommate are dismantling their apartment. the walls look like once someone covered them with glue, took them to a heap of trash and rolled them through until every inch was covered. it's impressive. up closer some of the random pieces of paper, ticket stubs, pictures, postcards, doodles, bibs and parking tickets are funny. my decorative impulses and my brother's are similar, both inspired by packrat nostalgia and easy access to scotch tape.

the rest of my family has caravanned on. logically i know that different units have moved in different directions, but it seems to me, after watching everyone move in a body of 16 for 4 days, that the body will just continue on as one to the next celebration. two exist on the horizon, a cousin's barmitzvah in new jersey and soon after that my little brother's graduation from high skool. i'm going to the second, tho not before i stop over at swat for that graduation. considering how many times eager tears sprung to my eyes on sunday, just from watching the processional of cornell's 15000 in black gowns enter the stadium and receive the benediction of the college prez, i'm a little nervous about this next.

a cousin required my space in the family car so i'm staying with adam for another day, going home with him and all his crap tomorrow. that means another night on the couch. it's okay, it's a comfy couch. before i took up residence there, i stayed with the adults in a bed'n'breakfast 40 minutes away. lil bro judah stayed at adam's apartment with us last nite too, which meant we did everything from beer pong to, uh, beer pong, as a sibling unit. everyone now, come on: "awwwwwwwwwww."

the annoying part of the weekend was everyone turning to me and saying, "you next!" people! a year is a helluva long time. i refuse to look that far ahead and everyone else should follow my good example.
the best part of the weekend was the excesses of free food. since i'm immorally and inconsistently eating fish again, i could partake of glorious, glorious sushi. free range fun loving alaska salmon and otherwise.

the recent spate of graduations is making me grimly certain of the fact that i have no interest in graduating myself, and still less in actually being an adult. i'm not sure what to do with this self-awareness except duck into grad skool and hide. assuming one takes me. the closer i get to actually scared, the lower my standards for the grad skool mfa program itself will drop.

i'm not graduating myself this year. but (penn-alum)becca just did. my older brother will this weekend. ben will next weekend. my little brother will the weekend after that. like lemmings, except, contrary to the education i received from duck tales, apparently lemmings don't actually rush en masse over cliffs. no matter; it makes for good metaphor.

me: ... so what am i going to do with the rest of my life?
him: work at hooters?

another ghost rises out of the internet, having gotten connected to this "perversely detailed" account of my life. my mother lets me know that my father glanced this way and was once again shocked at how candid i am. i thought the first shock would have been sufficient. that would explain, tho, when i told him my bartending story from last month he said he already knew.

i guess i get carried away sometimes. i lose sight of what should be censored. can someone wave their hands over their heads, make some universal gesture for TMI, when i go overboard, please? it's almost been 2 years already; i wish i knew.

so many movies. it's like an addiction. ones of note:
purple rose of cairo: i forget how much i love this until i run into again. stars mia farrow as a housewife during the depression who escapes drudgery, monotony and her boorish unappreciative husband in the movie theater, and jeff daniels (where has he gone? what is he doing? the man can act) as tom, the star of a typical hollywood flick who steps off the screen because he's so captivated by the sweet, sad woman who he has seen sitting through four shows.
tom has no idea how to handle real life; the characters in the film he walked out of don't know how to handle his absence or a life without a script; farrow's character doesn't know how to handle being admired and adored for the first time. jeff daniels in another role, the actor who created tom and who is held responsible for his character's defection, tries to talk sense into his creation and ostensibly falls in love with farrow as well.
it's a woody allen movie sans woody allen -- the best kind. also tongue in cheek, smart, and meta. ranks among my favorite Movies About Movies with adaptation and barton fink.

spiderman: finally caught this on hbo. my little brother wailed and whined, pointing out deviations from the comic, until i bound and gagged him and was free to enjoy the thing on its own terms. perhaps because of its base in the comic, the movie felt wedged squarely between the years 1958 and 1959. just like my big fat greek whatever. it irks me to have to accept movies of archiac sensibilities as taking place in the present day. at least the special effects are up to date. willem defoe seems to be having the time of his life, as do kirsten dunst's breasts. sometimes wet, sometimes clung to, always perky. you know it's a warning sign when an actress is upstaged by her own body parts (and she was so good in interview with the vampire ...).
little tobey escapes that particular problem, though his body is so drastically different as to be distracting. but he's good. he's really carving out a niche for himself as the adorable outsider, a little like ed norton. just so long as he goes the ed norton good movie route and doesn't get caught up in reese witherspoon vortex that begins with fame and ends with mindless blockbusters, crowd-pleasers, and a celebrity marriage.
still, spiderman celebrity status as the #1 earner seems a mystery. i'm not sure what makes it quite so special.

matrix: reloaded: my theory is that the architect talks so fast so that the average movie-goer will not be able to understand what he's saying and so will not be able to detect that beneath that thickly worded veneer, he really isn't making any sense. to a degree the whole film conforms to that idea: the plot is convoluted and contradictory with several frustrating guns-on-the-wall. i suppose some of those could be dealt with in the next installment; then again, they might not be. it doesn't matter. five minutes in, i was grinning. my jaw dropped during the fight scenes, although each one goes on for longer than it needs to and i got tired of seeing every car flip over in slow motion. two hours in, i was still eager to see what would happen next.
that's the point, isn't it? it's entertaining. everyone looks good. long-winded expository speeches aside, it moves at a pretty good clip and it's exciting. the people who are disappointed with it most have gone in expecting more but it was all i needed it to be.
it does seem like the star wars of our generation. that's all right by me. they feel roughly comparable, quality-wise and in terms of representing an era.

walking down the sunlit bethesda street this afternoon with my dearfriend jamie back from spain, a woman's voice lassoes me: "do you download music from the internet?" jamie and i turn around. the woman's name is also jamila. don't look at the camera, she tells us, and then she invites us to opine on the subject of post-Napster and AudioGalaxy piracy. no one has ever found a bloom at a loss for words, even on a subject s/he hasn't given excessive thought to. i voice support for downloading as a great way to gain exposure to various artists. i bought a lot more cds after i realized through downloading that i liked someone.
i don't manage to be funny, but i don't say "like" either.
great, thanks, says jamila. you guys can watch yourselves on fox news at 10 on wednesday.

and so can you. watch us, i mean. i just wish we'd gotten paid. i spent a decent chunk of money today, only at the last minute forgoing adding a movie ticket to the receipts from shopping and lunch. i may need better self-control; at least i no longer need killer sunglasses.

ahh, home. so vastly different from college.

FOOD. my little brother, who's been holding down the fort for a week and a half by himself while my parents treated themselves to a vacation in central america, lives entirely off of meat and coke. the fridge is full of plastic containers: half hold one rancid piece of lamb each, the other half are empty and smell. last night, lacking the energy to go shopping, i make do with popcorn, carrots, and leftover tam tams from the family visit to australia last summer.

COMPUTER. in order to make this computer open up internet explorer, i had to close kazaa. What!, exclaims my little brother who wanders in to check his downloads. Kazaa was only using 95% of the memory! he bends over the glass table, resting his head on his fists and sighing.

TELEVISION. it exists! i arrive yesterday after two hours wedged between my bean bag chair and the backseat window, move immediately to the couch and scroll channels until midnight. i pause only to scrounge dinner (see FOOD).

FRIENDS. far away. we talk over the phone, each trying to convince the other to make the 20-minute trek.

BED. huge, comfortable, and empty. the walls around me a photo-collage i made of freshman year. it's eerie to look at everyone -- people i don't talk to, people i wish i talked to more, people who i'm still friends with but who look so much older now -- looking at me. in the same way, am i what they expected?

WEATHER. mediocre. what the hell is up with all this rain? did god not get the memo that it's may?

the honors exam actually went as straightforwardly as i could imagine. i wouldn't go so far as to call it easy. it certainly, at least, was the test i studied for. there's something heartening in that. and now it's over.

i leave saturday. all around me people are leaving already. why? love, amusement, free food, green trees: man, we've got it made.

so. intensely. tired. i didn't sleep last night. not Only a little, or Yeah i had to wake up early, or even I was up late studying (i was, but not that late). it was What's the object of all this darkness around me? they haven't gone and buried me alive ...

i had two thoughts as i lay there for hours, not moving for fear that if i remained for a moment longer in the same position my body would finally drift off: 1) why did i do all that research about mfa grad skool programs as a break from studying for my honors exam? and 2) why did i eat all that sugar?

i'd been waiting for a while to hear from the english department about whether or not they were going to give me (or stef, who also applied) $2500 to write poetry this summer. alas, they did not elect to give me (or stef) $2500 to write poetry this summer. i suppose i should have known: english departments have never liked me that much. individual teachers, sure. english majors, absolutely. but departments give me the cold shoulder.

to cushion the expected blow, before i heard i sent poetry off to six different places. fly, little poems! fly! i average about .3 submissions to out-of-college publications a year and that's sorely below the necessary number. at .3 a year, it would take me forever to accumulate the 42 requisite rejections that liz says precede that long awaited moment of wonder.
i did, however, only a matter of hours after sending the email, hear from the first place i sent stuff to. fixion magazine accepted "our visit," the t.s. eliot poem. well! that'll be the first time i've had something in print in an out-of-college medium since merlyn's pen took "i used to be a gymnast." hopefully this bodes well for my future of not being a pathetic failure.

instead of taking internet quizzes, for a change, i went out today. to the fair and glorious city where i met fair and glorious becca, and we brunched in honor of thank-god-we're-not-mothers day. i carried an umbrella around as a charm against rain and sure enough the sun stayed out.

good art today too, for a change: i finished the delightful pride and prejudice and fran lebowitz's social studies, one of the most highly readable books i've come across in a while. speaking of which, becca and i wandered through a pretentious bookstore, the kind that sells used volumes at usual prices.
what's this, said becca, picking up a sliver of a book, more of a pamphlet really, called something like "the guide to kissing," published 1938 and targeted to men (or at least those who kiss girls). we giggled over its advice for a bit then looked for a price. the chubby man behind the counter volunteered his opinion on the subject: "for you, $3.75." when i didn't seem to find this a bargain, he seemed crushed.
instead i lingered over a far more useful document, the diaries of anais nin; but i was put off, on that score as well, by price. if anyone is thinking of a present for me, think in that direction.

but to pick up on the good art thread, becca and i then treated ourselves to the good thief, a sultry, well-made, heavily-accented, yet-another-heist movie. but throughout i kept admiring it for its skillful use of cinematic elements: car chases, witty dialogue, expensive clothes, the french riveria, explosions; a clever cop, a smarter, sympathetic criminal (who has hit rock bottom), and a very thin barely-legal girl; sex, drugs, and rock and roll. altogether enjoyable.

YOU ARE PEDRO ALMODOVAR!IIII

You are adorable Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. Trust me,
it was either this or Benigni, and you lucked out.

http://www.ostrichink.com/may2003/almo.html

i only got here after redirecting my steps 4 times. first i made it as a corpse on six feet under, flipped burgers in a studio kitchen, directed porn, and was one of those pretentious assholes who just sneer at modern cinema fare. it's hard getting to the top. take it yourself.

i have [in]formally received the go-ahead from every member of senior company to turn their process into a movie. senior company consists of 6 honors theater majors, 2 directors, 4 actors, who, among themselves, have to pick a play, cast it, and then put on a production by the end of the semester. one of the directors i know relatively little of; one of the actors i have lived with. everyone else falls somewhere along that spectrum of familiarity.

and structure! pre-made structure: the best kind. i'll sit and take notes at rehearsals, occasionally interviewing the individuals involved. if no story develops, i'll abandon the idea. if one does -- or hopefully several do -- i'll have it all captured and ready to turn into my next project.
for my own amusement, i've been trying to cast Senior Co.: The Movie in my head. good, 20-something actors are eerily hard to come by.

one of the more inventive quizzes i've seen lately: The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to the First Level of Hell - Limbo!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Moderate
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Low
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

limbo, btw, is described thus: "charon ushers you across the river Acheron, and you find yourself upon the brink of grief's abysmal valley. You are in Limbo, a place of sorrow without torment. You encounter a seven-walled castle, and within those walls you find rolling fresh meadows illuminated by the light of reason, whereabout many shades dwell. These are the virtuous pagans, the great philosophers and authors, unbaptised children, and others unfit to enter the kingdom of heaven. You share company with Caesar, Homer, Virgil, Socrates, and Aristotle. There is no punishment here, and the atmosphere is peaceful, yet sad."

i mean, that seems all right. as a jewess i could hardly hope for better. but who does enter the kingdom of heaven, out of curiousity?

my poetry thing went rather smashingly, if i do say so myself. i got lots of laughs. that goes along with my poetry reading philosophy, which is, if your poem isn't funny, it better be pretty damn good. otherwise (i've noticed) people lose interest fast.

i racked up several wonderful compliments from several wonderful folks, including one cute freshman i don't know. "i liked you the best," she said, "not that you probably care." i was like, "are you kidding?" who doesn't live for the praise of strangers?

small craft warnings, the official lit mag, emerged today in hot pink. i tried my best to match it. people treat you differently when you wear pink. i can only wonder how my life would be if i dyed my hair blonde.

now there's nothing to do but buckle down and start reading for my history final on the 14th. in honor of my semester of poetry, here's a link to an ultra-cheerful newsweek article. my consolations are that clearly he didn't like poetry that much to begin with, and i'd never want to be friends with him.

having little to do is a serious predicament, particularly right now. even when amusements present themselves, a good time isn't guaranteed. for instance, last night i went to to the a capella jamboree, a swarthmore tradition in which twelve-too-many a capella groups sing sets that are five minutes too long. that's not the point though. the event can still be enjoyable and occasionally it was.
in the last set, the sight of one individual forced a realization down like a piano on my head: the seniors are leaving. the seniors are leaving. that individual, and another that he reminded me of, a girl i'd always wanted to be friends with, would be leaving; i'd never see either again.

i managed to regain my composure when the group did something funny. but that backfired: i congratulated one of the members of that group in a way that my companions alerted me was stupid. i hate knowing i've said something stupid. if i could have, i would have chased that guy down, tackled him and forced him to give me it back. sadly i couldn't and now i'll know that he gets to carry my stupid remark around with him forever.
this wouldn't have mattered so much if i hadn't been sad. o was i sad. as soon as i escaped my companions i started bawling. i mean on the stairwell. in a way there's no better place -- stairways have cathedral quality acoustics. at least no one happened upon me and my resounding misery in the stairwell.

better today. still aimless. i finished postcards from the edge whose happy ending -- and plot, and structure, and focus -- differs entirely from the film version. i love carrie fisher's voice. it reminds me of dorothy parker, jean rhys, and rebecca eisenberg, of everyone in fact who writes well about neurotic witty upper-class women. i think i used to read so much about neurotic witty upper-class women that i wanted to be one. now i've read so much of the same that i decidedly do not. that's growth.

several exciting things befell this weekend, including, most notably, a visit from dearfriend ilana. she trekked down from harvard and thus was subjected to innumberable questions of "do you know ________ ?" she seemed to enjoy herself, maybe a little wistfully at times, and of course i loved having her here. like bingley in pride & prejudice -- which production i just watched again from start to finish -- she was eager to approve of everyone and everything she saw. sarah kelly in particular.

worthstock, the music festival that's come to be known as ben's baby, went off smashingly. a good crowd lingered all day and by golly it didn't rain a drop.

the next day co|motion met with our girls for the last time before the summer camp in june. they scavenger hunted (assignments included, "sing to two students and get their signatures" "what is the barn?" and "bring back a W"), then we all played elbow tag. just 15 minutes of the latter left me out of breath. if only i cared about being in shape.

my vcr has turned tempermental at the very moment that i have much free time and little to do with it. at least there's something going on every evening: ross's funny dance-thing this evening (king lear via liza clark, ballet style); tomorrow evening the collective creation pieces; wednesday MY POETRY CLASS READING at 4:00 PM IN THE SCHEUER ROOM and the small craft warnings / scarlet letters distro party at 7.

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.