I, Blue, Grass Sorceress and Frog-Hat-Wearing Extraordinaire

Dear Simone–

I am so sorry to have missed you this weekend. I know we both tried, and it sucks that nothing worked out. I WILL find you for winter break, when I am sure we will both be in town. That is a promise, babe. In the meantime, let me tell you about things. :)

So I got home on Tuesday night, having hitched a ride with Duncan. My philosophy-major sister came along for the ride home, and we played philosophical games for a large portion of our travel time. The three questions we discussed ran as follows.

A leaf landed on a skylight in my house and my dog thought it was a squirrel. The wind didn't blow it away for the longest time, and in the interim my dog barked herself hoarse as she jumped on and off the sofa and spun in little circles beneath it. Letting her out for a minute didn't derail her either. She was exhausted that evening.

Seven pies. And that is all that I need to say. Persimmon, pecan, pumpkin chiffon, repeat. The makings for another persimmon pie are out in the extra fridge in my family's garage, but none of us can stomach assembling something that we would then (oh God) have to eat. Thanksgiving is an excess of desserts.

Childhood jewelry has been broken out, and in addition to my usual somber wardrobe, it made me look like a witch on Thanksgiving day. In a good way. Kangaroo earrings, my charm bracelet from when I was seven, wedding bracelets from Egypt and Oman, wicked cool rings from my mom... things that I almost never wear.

Things I did on Thanksgiving. Explained Chapel Hill's Humans vs. Zombies game to Daniel (cousin). Discussed anime and a little manga fluently with David (cousin). Took oodles of photos on my family's Nikon (which was harder than expected now that I've gotten used to using a Canon). Went to two back yards that the owners had voluntarily designed and opened to the public, one in a European court style and the other with a Japanese aesthetic. Received a blanket and became a sorceress of the grass. My magical cloak not only allowed me to hide in the grass, but it also allowed me to turn people into grass. Hell yeah. Here are some pictures of all that I've said. I took the first two, and I'm in the last two.

I have been eating leftover cranberry sauce for almost every meal since Thursday. If not for my Oma's stuffed mushrooms and the holiday potatoes that the Dutch side of my family makes at every Thanksgiving and Christmas celebration, cranberry sauce wouldn't even face contest as my favorite thing about Thanksgiving cuisine. The leftovers ran out this afternoon with lunch/dinner.

There is a coyote around. My mom and sister saw it while walking Pippin on Thursday evening. My dad saw it on Friday morning when my Oma and Opa came over for coffee. I heard it Thursday night (or Friday morning). There was howling for a while and a gunshot followed by a little more howling. It is good that the coyote survived the shot–it is definitely illegal to shoot them around here, a law which I agree with.

My family went hiking on Friday but I stayed home to meet up with friends/dance around the house to loud music. I invented some cookies through a little freehand baking when I found a bowl of thick whipped cream in our fridge, a leftover accompaniment to the pies I mentioned earlier. They are fluffy chocolate things with a sprinkling of sugar on top, oranges that I candied in the bottoms and a bittersweet cocoa-spice drizzle over the whole yummy mess. For the first time ever, I wrote down a recipe for what I did! And I took photos:

Later that night, it was time to meet up with friends. Lauren, wearing her adventure goggles. Jack at his hipster-y finest. Duncan, who emerged from his house just as we prepared to abandon baked goods on his doorstep. We drove up to Kannapolis to walk around just as a movie was getting out of the Gem and to wonder at the inhuman proportions of the Dale Earnhardt statue across from studio. Then, hearing that I'd never been the driver in a drive through, we made a run up to Salisbury to find the Cook Out there. We drove back to Charlotte to spend an hour or two at Amélie's. Tickle fight/gossip times were shared over Russian teas, caramel lattés and pomegranate sodas. Some people coming out of a theater group's party gave us this HUGE bowl of little sweet potato cakes drizzled in chocolate and requested that we pass them out among the patrons of Amélie's. We got to two tables before this big group of poker players at a third table claimed all the remaining cakes for themselves. Right.

We drove home to Frank Sinatra and the Beatles, very classy and very cool. Jack and Lauren got out together at Jack's house, with Jack's word that he would walk Lauren home. Duncan and I drove back to his house to spend the night. After showering, we watched this series from an anthology of Japanese animators that is called Genius Party. The videos each lasted twenty minutes or less, and were all very mind bending. Fortunately for you, the clip that has haunted me the most (in a good way) is available to watch online. It is called "Happy Machine," and you should totally watch it. :)

Next morning, after sleeping in, we walked out to the Greenway for a few minutes. Duncan let me borrow his flickin' adorable frog hat from New York, and he told me to hang onto it for another day when I left for home. How does a hat get sillier or more fantastic?

What followed was tree choosing and decorating. This is the first year that my family has been all present to do it since I was in middle school. It was always either traveling or Nutcracker or college. But this year we were all there. The tree I spotted was the one that my family picked, so go me? What followed was A Christmas Story, Medieval Baebes, eggnog, and a flurry of ornaments.

Now what remains? Grand parents to visit, hopefully delicious waffles to eat (my dad makes the BEST waffles), and Chapel Hill to return to, traffic and all taken in stride. I'll try to write again soon, dear. I will call you again soon. I wish I'd seen you this weekend. But hey, winter break. :) Looking forward to it, babe.

Your frog-adorned friend,
Blue

Making Up For Lost Time (But Proust Isn't Invited)

Dear Simone,

So here's the deal. No roofing lately. No art projects lately. No wandering late at night lately.

Pretty boring, right? But there's more to life than the void left by those things:

Writing poetry over chocolate milk and ginger cookies at the local co-op. Reading about so many things online, from street artists to Martiniquaise intellectuals to apple cider processes to spooky original fairy tales. Finding time to read for fun: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett, Flight, Vols. 2 & 7, Cahier d'un retour au pays natal by Aimé Césaire, Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer (my current read). Taking time to stop and sketch from real life, with messy attempts at learning to shade well. Stretching and dancing and getting enough sleep. Slowly mastering a new character in Smash Bros. and drinking fancy teas on a regular basis. Things have been peaceful.

I've basically been living in Duncan's room for the past month. I don't always sleep here now, as I did during October and the better part of September, but I spend most of my free daylight hours in and out of his room. Things have been so different, and not at all in a bad way.

Adventures: Cherry Pie with friends and a lot of naïveté on my part (it's an adult store and I missed all the sex ed. classes that I could have taken in previous years, so my friend have been crash coursing me for over a month now). Seeking out film for the 1970s Olympus from my mom's college years studying art (fitted with loads of accessories! so pumped). Slowly collecting musical instruments in Duncan's room (his old trumpet, his grandfather's guitar, several harmonicas, my old lap harp, a slim black recorder). Spending three days in the mountains with friends for fall break (hot spiced cider, watching a gorgeous meteor shower from the roof of the isolated mountain-top house, tag and climbing on the jungle gym in town, music and massages by firelight, walking in the pitch of night, candlelit baths, oven s'mores and so much delicious cooking). Experiencing the State Fair for the first time. Going in full garb to the Renaissance Festival (I had a totally awesome green and black costume, topped off with some borrowed elf ears). Surviving until day two in campus wide Humans versus Zombies. Being the Original Zombie (OZ) in the version played on Duncan's hall (I got to play because I'm always around). Running through flood conditions because WET. Seeing Stars in concert for the second time ever and getting mind-blowingly yummy street food afterwards. :D

And, because it was awesome and deserves its own paragraph: MOOG Fest and the Saturday that followed in lovely lovely Asheville. Austra, Holy Fuck, Tangerine Dream, The Antlers, Moby, and TV on the Radio. Malaprop's (twice!), the crêpe place, Laughing Seed and just the town itself. Julia's eclectic and wonderful apartment. Halloween sprinkle pancakes with rainbow marshmallow hot chocolate for breakfast while watching Buffy and wondering if Mowgli the cat would ever stop sulking under the bed and come say hi.

So life has been more attention to music and pushing harder at the arts in exchange for all the fast-paced physical-experiential drive of last semester. This semester has been very sensual in its own way though. And it is definitely nice to relax a bit.

I will be taking up my bike project again, now that I have black tape. I think I told you about that, right? I am building a cardboard bike, in case I didn't. With working pedals and everything. I just have to attach wheels, but I'm a lazy butt and wheels are going to be several hours of work. I ran out of tape. My mom gifted me new tape. So life will go on in that field. Maybe this weekend? I'm excited.

Anyway. I will probably try to write to this blog more often, but in shorter punches. Sorry for the long bout of silence. Eat some madeleines: cookies make everything better, right? Totally.

Miss you babe.

Love and all that jazz,
Blue

So I Should Be an Acrobat?

Dear Simone–

The answer to the question in this post's title is no. No, absolutely not. It's okay. Sit down and be quiet now. There's a good dear. This weekend was one spent in a frenzy of various physical activities. But first, I have one major piece of news.

I quit my job. That's right. Zumba instructing is no more. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting–my boss was extremely understanding and even gave me a name and a number to help in my efforts to find a replacement as soon as possible. The girl taking over for me is thrilled. The first two sentences of her email in reply to my request were written in EXCITED CAPS!!! so I feel really good about the switch. I might still throw in a couple hours as a sub for some of the instructors if anyone needs a cardio class covered and if I'm not too busy, but that will come as it comes. Relief is all that I feel now.

Friday got easier after that. My sister and I got together for our now-normal pie date. This time the game was pear-and-spice custard pie. We tried a new way of dealing with our lack of pie-pan: instead of making a square pie like we did last time, we used a muffin pan to make tartlettes. It was a good move–they baked beautifully and came out in these nice, portable single portions. I have recently discovered cloves as a favorite spice–I want to put cloves in everything. It's gorgeous on the tongue in a pie. Apparently while we were watching a movie post-dinner-and-pie I dozed off started to babble in my sleep ("I think the pirate-planet lady deserves a planet. Because she learned their language. I'm NOT asleep."). Sleepy-Hanna can be extremely unreasonable, especially when logical people like my sister suggest that Sleepy-Hanna is not, perhaps, at her most lucid.

At 11:30, three of my friends (Ben, Duncan and Luke) came to Kate's house to take me and Kate to the Eno River Rope Swing by moonlight. For once we had the swing all to ourselves. Chilly night air, clear moonlight over the trees, and much yelping through the air cut off by splashes into the deep river below. On the way back we tried to find a drive-through that would be open at 1:29 in the morning. Where Wendy's failed, McDonald's came through.

The next morning started off with tea and pastries, followed by Ben and Duncan's 10:20 arrival to whisk me (only me this time) off to the Haw River Rope Swing. Relative to ourselves, all three of us get more daring each time we go there. I spent a long time lying through this water-dipping tire swing that hangs right beside the real rope swings, letting the almost-unnoticeable current spin me and swirl my hair, letting the sun close my eyes, letting the water block sound from my ears, letting the electric blue dragonflies that were out and about settle on my knees, elbows, wrists and nose.

We went to this soda shop in Pittsboro (Ben's hometown). I had a birthday-cake ice cream float in Sprite. It was like being three again. This one little boy watched avidly as Duncan and I made idiots of ourselves slurping up the overflowing fizz from the saucer that the drink was served on with straws.

After a little frisbee-throwing at Ben's old high school, we drove up to Raleigh to spend two hours at the gymnastics space used by the N.C. State Parkour team for their training. So many padded surfaces, and a lot more turning upside down in the air than I realized I was capable of. The swinging and the flipping kind of have me ready to give up education and shoot to become a stunt double or an acrobat or something. It was fabulous. Unfortunately the sleep that had been missed the night before caught up with Duncan and me, so we left about a half hour before the gym closed. We will return though, I hope.

Sunday morning I was sore as FRICK. And yet. So I hauled myself out of bed to meet up with the Orienteering Team for a sprint at Bond Park in Cary. It was my first time orienteering, but I didn't do so poorly. Running through the wilderness with only a compass and a map is probably one of the greatest ideas that anyone has ever had–it gives you purpose enough to slither through briars and dart off-trail for the promise of a slightly faster route. My legs are scraped to hell, but I had a blast.

And then dance class. Simone, it is like nothing I've ever. That simple. Everyone's bodies were so different that what I'm used to seeing in dance classes, so much more real. And everyone was so talented. There was a difference–so much more physicality, so much more weight and power in conjunction with this natural fluidity that just doesn't exist in ballet. The class was super chill. Sadly I'm only going to be able to make it to the weekly class–I have actual academic commitments at both of the supplementary class times. :P But god if I'm not excited. The emotion of returning, this strange, deep kind of (happiness?) actually caused me to sink to my knees at one point on my meandering route home. I missed dance more than I realized.

Wandering dorm to dorm on the way back, snagging a hug from South Campus, walking in through George's open door, showing off my room to Aneesh and Han from 3rd Joyner. Here and there.

Today is University Day. I'm still not sure what that commemorates. The founding of our school...? I should make it my mission to find out. Or maybe that could wait until next year.

Something awesome. Courtesy of Monsieur.

That's about it for the time being. I hope you're well, babe, but more than most I wish that you would notice that I'm posting these again. I miss being in touch with you.

Yours to the end,
Blue

The Mercies of Time Spent Away

Dear Simone–

God, I hope these reach you. I miss you dearly.

I write to you from the midst of a Labor Day that really could not have come soon enough. Don't get me wrong (something that I can never actually remember you doing). School is cooler than wearing pants in public places. But it's nice to get to breathe after a week of class-shuffling, relationship drama (mine and that of the people who surround me–it's a problem) and other various and sundry excitements.

I dressed as a workout-warrior princess for my first Zumba class of the semester–I even had this psychedelic headband around my forehead like a crazy circlet (kind of like this). The studio stereo buzzed like it always does, the microphone broke (hell yeah–I love having an excuse to just yell things at my participants and not wear the cumbersome microphone junk), and everyone there seemed to have a lot of fun. It kind of made me remember why I loved my job last semester. I'm still not sure if I want to (and if I even can) keep it up this semester. Every day that is one of my first thoughts waking up: "Oh God, I have to teach that class on Thursday." Not good.

I found a (definitely identifiable) blue feather on my regular running route at the beginning of this week. I put it in my shoe (because that's how normal people carry things they like) and proceeded to have one of the best runs I've ever had. So... I might be developing certain superstitions about this feather. And I could also be pretending that it's the Roc's Feather from Zelda: Oracle of the Ages. But let's pretend that I'm not that dorky, okay? Excellent. I knew you'd understand. :)

Ready for this? I auditioned for a dance group on campus. And I'm in. It's a modern group with technique classes every Sunday night. One of my good friends from Governor's School kind of recruited me to go to the audition. I was nervous and excited before doing it (after all, its been almost exactly a year since I last took a class/danced), but now I'm pretty much down to the straight excitement side of things. I am fully prepared to surrender to the fact that dance will always be a defining force in my life if such an admission will let me take it up again. If I could hug dance, I feel like I would right now for having missed it so much.

On Thursday, my French conversation class went to the awesome local museum (free entry for students–hell yeah) and took a guided tour in French. At the end of class we broke into groups and picked paintings to interpret (en français, bien sur). My group is going to present on this Cubist painting called Composition by Albert Gleizes. I've enjoyed time spent in foreign museums before, but this class (the best meeting we've had all semester in that class, à mon humble avis) made me realize that I just have this weird thing for discussing art in foreign languages. Does that make sense? Art is great, and foreign languages are great (obviously I would think that). But combining the two gives you a chance to talk in a range of technical and abstract terms that one doesn't often have occasion to use in foreign languages, and I feel like the limitations and liberations of one's foreign vocabulary force you to push harder on the art. It's as satisfying for my brain as a really rigorous workout is for my body.

As great as school has been, I feel glad to step away for a minute. The first little stretch has been a lot of grappling–all those things that are in the air as you get to school had to come down, and it took a little wrestling for me to finish the job. So this weekend my sis and I went up to the mountains with my parents, visiting my Oma and Opa at Lake Cherokee in the Tennessee Smokies. I used to beg my parents to go here all the time ("hey mom, when are we going back to paradise?" because that's what I called it when I was 8-12 years old). It is still a haven.

The night we arrived, I was so beat that I had to go to bed almost immediately (it was only about nine at night). But today was full. Teaching the two new puppies (Nick and Nora) that my Oma and Opa have about how to walk on a leash, baking some experimental pies (one was almost a disaster but I managed to turn it totally around just before the final baking happened), racing a thunderstorm in a swim to/from the closest island, going for a run (I kind of danced half of it, and I kept getting distracted by pretty sights), climbing high into the boughs of a tree to look over the roof of the house at the lake, dancing on the dock in the shadow of an evening cloud-mass, attempting acrobatics on the old childhood swing that hangs from a large old tree, and finishing the night surrounded by family and the smells of after-dinner coffee. Tomorrow means skinny dipping at six in the morning and a hopefully-as-strenuous-as-promised hike to a waterfall not too far from here. Which reminds me: I ought to go to sleep soon.

Miss you, babe.

Your adoring friend,
Blue

So Months Have Passed

Dear Simone–

Wow. I guess that I never exactly promised to be consistent, but wow. Months have gone by since my last post. And a couple more months. I hope that this blog's updates are still being communicated to you, because I actually have no way of contacting you at present due to a phone fiasco over the summer. By the way, you should call me or something just so I can have your phone number again. While we're at it, I wouldn't object to getting your email as well. ;) Cheers, babe.

Summer has been a blur of travel: after spending some weeks up wandering everywhere between Seattle, WA and Portland, OR, I returned home for a few days before the bulk of my nomadic summer began. I think that the longest I stayed in any place was about a week, but it was Asheville one day, the National Seashore the next, and so on. Some of the best days were spent with my dear friend Ben, exploring the Haw River in the central part of NC. I visited rope swings. I mastered the art of baking pie. I learned to play DDR pretty well. I remodeled a room. I swam naked under the stars. I went out into the rough ocean in a 15-foot motorboat and I drifted for hours in the mild current just beyond where the waves break onto shore. I even kissed a boy or two. It was warm, it was moving, it was well-spent. The lack of planning was stressful in the context of other people, but on a personal level it was incredibly fulfilling, incredibly calm. I'll tell you more of my specific adventures some time, okay?

And now I'm back at Chapel Hill. It feels so good to be home. I have a corner room to myself (two windows! that actually have really gorgeous views) and it is full of space and light. At night the street lights come in through the windows and everything is sliced into a grid of orange panels, the constant order upset only by the occasional passing swipe of a car's headlights across the walls.

My classes are amazing, and the majority of them are not taught in English. It's French lit, French conversation, Farsi, history of Iran, and poetry writing. I am particularly enamoured of that last one–having a creative outlet is something that I didn't even realize that I'd missed until I suddenly had one again.

Men are stress. In one day I had two people offer to date me, one a boy with whom I've barely exchanged two words and the other a very dear friend of mine to whom I almost could have said yes (and, given a slight shift in certain circumstances, I would have said yes to). I remain free.

There have been a lot of little pleasures in being back at school: going to the Haw River rope swing with a few friends after classes one afternoon, walking to the store in Carrboro to get the first groceries of the semester, running several laps around my favorite one-mile loop after a summer's absence, climbing to the most beautiful nighttime haunt that exists on campus, spending the night in rooms that are not mine at will, waking up in the morning to drink tea as the sunlight pours in on the faces of my sill-sitting houseplants, knowing that I am where I wanted to be a little more than a year ago.

I ought to get to some studying, but I will write again sometime in the near future. I think I used to overdo it with the links, but here is one for today.

Your friend,
Blue

And The Return

Dear Simone–

Speaking of not writing, guess what I've been doing. :D I'm so sorry for the delay. So. First things are first: the trip, in brief.

Friday: We pack up the fifteen-seat-apiece vans, and I sign up to be a driver, against my mother's wishes but in accordance with Duncan's urgings (this turned out to be a good decision). After coffee and biscotti in the wonderful sunshine outside of the geology building, I rejoined my classmates as we climbed into the vans and promptly realized how bad we as a group were at caravaning. One hour later we are en route to our destination, Corbin, KY. After a nine-hour drive we arrive to collapse in a motel. Duncan, Kelsey and I shared a room (and would continue to throughout the trip).

Saturday: First dig sites along a high way in the Daniel Boone National Forest. Some really pretty pieces of coal, and (eventually) our first fossils. It took a while for anyone to find something, but once someone did, we all learned to spot what we were looking for. Digging=drive, stop, professor checks, get out with gear/drive on depending on the quality of the site. We drive up to Maysville and go out for pizza and a little Duke/Carolina basketball action.

Sunday: Good morning and SNOW. Too cold to think in the morning, as we splurch through mud and ice to find brachiopods, bivalves, cephalopods and more in Maysville. Hot drinks and gloves solve the problem. We stop digging at noon and drive through horse-breeding country to reach Indiana that night. I survive after driving through the Cincinatti rush hour, following my professor and the other van (my professor wasn't a bad driver, but he was a pretty poor caravan leader). We do not camp in Scottsburg, IN because it is FREEZING and damp. Rock walls are scaled in the pursuit of fossils, and my favorite climbing companion is Duncan as we beast our way up crumbling and almost-vertical faces to then walk around and watch our classmates coming up behind us. As dusk fades to night, we go to a gorgeous part of Indiana, lights floating over a river as we cross a bridge, one of the prettiest views I think I've seen in my life, and one of the most ghostly. Dinner with the professor at a steakhouse leads to wonderful conversation. I (and many of my fellow students) ache for vegetables.

Monday: We kick of the morning with a visit to a limestone quarry, which had beautiful layers of colored rocks, geese and even a few waterfalls. Here there are corals, rugosa and tabulata. Our professor (≈67 years of age) takes a sledgehammer to a whopping coral and hacks the boulders around it to bits. A museum is visited, but the collection has changed, and there is little there that is of interest to us paleontological types. We begin driving to reach Kentucky again and stop just north of Corbin, swinging by one more dig spot on the way which requires some slogging through a boggish area to reach a plateau. Tonight we camp, and I join the fire builders to bring heat and light. Due to lack of space in the tents, Duncan Kelsey and I take up sleeping spots in the van, which reeks of a certain person's beef jerky and leaves us cold and stiff but content the next morning.


Tuesday: After waking up with Cracker Barrel, we return to the vans. The long drive back to Chapel Hill is broken only by another visit to a steakhouse at the other van's request, but most of my van elects instead to walk around in the parking lot and/or join Duncan and I as we throw a frisbee around. I split my pants doing some particularly flexibility-requiring ballet moves between catches. Then we drive through gorgeous West Virginia and Virginia mountains, where the Appalachians look as much like the Alps as they ever will (still not there, but significantly closer). We go to my professor's house as a giant group for dinner, where his wife (a former bakery-owner) makes the most delicious things and we meet his shy dog in his geo-thermally heated house. After dropping others off at their respective lodgings for the night, Duncan and I drive until we find a 24-hour Harris Teeter, where fruit is giddily bought. Then we have an adventure that is very typical of us before returning to my sister's house, where we shower and stay the night.

Wednesday: Setting out again, this time with one car less and the professor joining us in the van (having cut the truck from the caravan). We spend the day getting to Alabama, where we pass the night in the nicest of the motels yet. The drive is rainy, but pleasant.

Thursday: Duncan and I wake early for a leisurely breakfast and then walk and then jog laps around the motel. Some of our classmates take turns in joining us on our morning trot. At nine, our professor and his crazy friend appear and tell us that they went to the site we were initially meant to dig and it was flooded. We get into the car and begin driving to Florida, with no further plans than that. I drive today, through Marianna (where we make an impromptu stop at a quarry and find a remarkably good site, packed with echinoderms such as sea biscuits and sand dollars) and on to Ten Mile Creek, where we pass a dreamlike afternoon under a bridge, the sunlight hitting the emerald Florida leaves as we crouch in the sand and sift for tiny shells through the packages of clay that are thrown up to us by our pick-axe-wielding professor. An old rival who lives nearby may or may not have called the police cars that we saw nearby as we drove away, but fortunately we dodged that trouble. We began the drive home, making it as far north as southern Georgia.

Friday: We arrive home at long last, after nearly a day of driving. Unloading fossils in the dark of early night, we all go our separate ways. Duncan and I pick up his car from Kate's before going to his dorm where he gets in a day early (early even for an R.A., but based on the same privileges). After he is left alone, he lets me in as well. One Daft Punk shower party (with me using men's shampoo and soap), DDR game and Smash Brothers campaign mode later, we go to sleep.

Saturday: Still just the two of us, but now with Duncan's keys being fully functional so that we can enter and leave the building at will. Laundry is done, Smash Brothers is played, DDR is beasted, cookies are baked, and Weaver Street fills the dinner call as we read our respective books. A lazy day. After a Cook Out run, we stay up to our bodies' stop-points playing Smash Brothers and then realize that we are too tired for the other adventures we had hoped to take.

Sunday: A late morning with snoozing and DDR finishes as residents begin arriving. I return to my now-accessible dorm with groceries and other things to arrange my affairs for the coming week and the remainder of the semester. Spring Break ends, calmly and beautifully. Work takes up its regular beat. I return the last of Duncan's clothes that I had been wearing throughout the weekend. I love wearing men's clothes/shoes/boxers/etc. so much, though I do prefer gal's t-shirts.

Music that marked the trip: (Number 9 is still so totally on my mind, 1 and 4 as well)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Music that I craved upon our return:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

I swear that I listen to stuff that isn't electronic as well. :) I hope that I don't drive you crazy with all of my music posting. I'm just so into the stuff, I can't help myself. Hopefully there is something in there that appeals to you too.

THIS WEEK has been a really odd mix of paces. Monday started early when Duncan, George and I made our way to a little place called Caffé Driade at 6:45 am (Duncan and George both had to move their cars out of Cobb Deck before normal parking rules began to apply at 7:30). One peach ginger french press pot later, we headed to Kate's to park Duncan's car and then went out for breakfast as a group at the North campus dining hall. After classes it was a little DDR, a pancake event (white chocolate pancakes–expect good things, sans syrup :P), and an eleven o'clock dinner/breakfast/silliness at the South campus dining hall.

Tuesday saw my only class canceled (apparently some panicky emails had been sent about the midterm we were supposed to do over break, and the professor had mercy). A day of little activity apart from a run up to this gorgeous parking-deck on Franklin Street with Ben. I went out for dinner with my sister and dad (who was swinging through on his way to Raleigh, where he would be arguing with some legislators on behalf of the City of Charlotte, mostly about trees and green offsets–my dad is the City Engineer in case I haven't mentioned, so he's always doing this and that for the tax-paying public). Brownies and other goodies from my aunt, who just visited Hong Kong (where she and my uncle, currently Paris-dwellers, will probably be moving in the next year or so). It rained, and I danced through it late at night, past the tennis courts and all the way home to my dorm.

Wednesday began with a failure–I woke up at seven thirty to take a run, but I ran for about fifteen minutes before I got bored and gave myself a forty-five minute ballet class instead, earning stares from passers-by since I was in this pretty plaza between some of the science-y buildings. After completing a paper and getting through a hectic/packed day, I went to see this wonderful man speak in the company of my dear dear friend Ben. The political bits didn't include anything very new compared to what I've learned in some of my Islamic studies classes, but hearing what he had to say about the essential oneness, moral recognition and connection to the universe shared by all members of humanity, race/class/ethnicity/culture/religion aside, was BEAUTIFUL. After a round or two of DDR at Joyner, I went home to Cobb and got to try savory mochi with soy sauce at my guerilla art group's meeting–we always have the strangest and most delicious treats. I stayed out late with George, walking on Franklin, sitting in a gazebo in the graveyard and discussing all sorts of odd and ends, and running by Krispy Kreme for two dozen St. Patrick's Day-themed doughnuts which we deposited untouched in Duncan's room for distribution to the early risers on his hall the following morning.

Thursday was WONDERFUL. My only class started ten minutes late and finished over half an hour early (something which usually annoys me but Thursday was too gorgeous to allow for complaint) and we spent the bulk of that time talking about Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf's words. My dear friend Sonya and I basked on the quad for our free half hour, talking about her impending trip to Turkey, Pakistan, Paris, and other countries as well as about our affection for a T.A. that we both shared last semester. Then I met my friend George for lunch (the leftovers of which we surprised Duncan with on his way to class) and a walk in the Arboretum and Battle Park, Locopops in hand since the stand has reopened in the Pit (a happy symptom of the warmer weather). DDR and frisbee dominated the afternoon (not unusual of late) and then I headed off to teach a strengthening class that burned so beautifully in my muscles (my participants were giving me limp cardio, so I gave them something a little less moving and, in my opinion, a little more arduous). I saw South Campus boy, that perfect guy who I have mentioned before, Christian. I continue to resist feeling for him, mostly by failing to pick up my phone when he calls. I maintain my ground of asexuality. Alone and content. :)

Topless Friday happened, and I chose a cute sports bra and ran with the boys, sprinting/screaming/shouting/stomping/singing/silently walking through the four floors of each of the four dorms that make up Connor Community ("CoCo"). I gave Ben an old swirly skirt of mine (blue and flowery) because he loves wearing skirts. It looks better on him than I think it ever did on me. Smash Brothers, a chillingly lovely song, and sleeping over on Duncan's futon, in the wee hours of the morning.

It is resoundingly tour season here at Chapel Hill. So many groups of people. Endless streams.

The promises of things to come: as Friday finishes, the paint fight in the Pit as a celebration of the Hindu festival Holi and a night spent at a friend's room in Charlotte (probably after DDR and other late-night escapades). A weekend of cooking, job-pursuing and general recalibration at home. And next week: Humans versus Zombies. I have yet to get a Nerf gun, but I have socks and bandannas to spare (two of my favorite accessories). I'm so excited. :D

LINKS OF THE DAY:

FRENCH STUFF (Break Out the Translators, Cause We're Crossing Borders):
A music video I loved when I first saw it. Paul Verlaine's romantic-era French poetry is worth a translation, and makes me think a little of the lighter side of Edgar Allen Poe. The starkly rendered society-challenging pieces of Edouard Manet appeal to me, but my favorite of his paintings will probably always be this one. Carla Bruni, Prime Minister Nicolas Sarkozy's wife is also a very talented woman. Le raï is a Arabic-influenced musical genre pioneered by Faudel, a second-generation immigrant from North Africa (who is attractive in the same way that Justin Timberlake is attractive). Further music. It was the French poet Guillaume Apollinaire who pioneered the poetic form of calligrammes (shape poetry). This is probably my favorite of Apollinaire's works. An artist I could marry for his sheer coolness. An exhibit that was at Versailles. Terrifyingly talented little girls with the Paris Opera Ballet (this is from an original ballet called La Petite Danseuse de Degas, which I was lucky enough to see live this past summer).

A game that Duncan and I spent way too much time playing. And its predecessor.

Vincent van Gogh is an inspiration to me. I love him to pieces. Here are his letters, translated or original text. I like how often he writes in French.

I plan to make a TON of pesto this weekend, which I will freeze in plastic bags and use in my pasta at school. I might also make cookies (or at least dough, also for freezing).

I find this idea interesting, but worrying.

I can't remember how I came across this, but it appeals to me. Here is a kind of awesome spoken-word recording by the same artist that Duncan gave me several mix CDs in the past. Slam poetry can be so amazing.

Appreciated. A cool museum, a stupid billboard company.

Ethical issue of the day.

An example of public works at their finest.

A fascinating dietary fad, gaining strength in LA at present.

One of my food blogs has had me obsessed with chickpea miso paste as a recipe base for many months now. I want to get some of that stuff so badly.

Odd fruits I've tried in the past week: mountaineer apples, an apple-pear hybrid, tangelos, opal apples, and Cripps Pinks. I will give you my lecture on apples and the prevention of monocultures some other time. :)

I think that that is all for today. I will post again sometime soon. I think another picture post is long overdue: I feel bad just leaving you with these solid blocks of text. Hope you're relatively well, babe! Let me know before the surgery, okay? That's looming if I remember correctly. <3

Packing and flower-crown weaving, here I come.

All affection–
moi

Going on a Dig (And Other Oddments)

Dear Simone–

Things That I Wrote Recently (ALL STILL IN PROGRESS):

---

Welcome to the froth and destruction of springtime, when buds burst all sun-greedy and palpishly pink from the ends of the all-withstanding branches of the young trees. This is the time when things that squirm are called from their earthy havens, when hordes of eager canker worms crawl over the bodies of their dead compatriots to reach the live-giving boughs of the victim oak.
(Words to use as work continues on this piece: unfurling, green, renewal, devoured, twigish)

---

she wrote in blue because
she insisted
blue was the color of dreaming things
things submerged, things surfacing
from the drown-out chaos of the mind

---

Sit Spitting seeds into the grass
Like spitting dry dirt into clay
Weathered, brown and chewed with time
Now fresh and firm, yet bound
To burst, cracking along invisible lines

---

Hello, babe. So this week has been a roller coaster. After a loaded day for exams (Monday was brutal) I basically was out of commission for the rest of the week until today, when it all kicked back into high gear. I played several hours of DDR on Monday night because I couldn't bear the thought of thinking. Mercifully for me (but not so good for him) my Islam and Modernity professor had a sinus infection that caused him to cancel class on Tuesday (it must have been serious if he canceled class–his dedication to giving us the education we should be demanding is one of the reasons I respect Professor Safi so much aside from his brilliance and wonderfully snarky sense of humor). So instead I caught the 11:00 NU bus with Duncan to go and get our friend Kelsey's car. To sum up Kelsey: she keeps a real, functioning sword in her trunk, and I mean a battle-ready sword, not some delicate little fencing foil. From there the three of us went up to Carrboro and (two outdoors shops, one hardware store, one Co-Op, one grocery store and one restaurant lunch later, with a swing through an ornithology store for kicks and giggles) returned to campus with the rest of the gear we had to pick up for our upcoming paleontology trip. The pick axes were probably the greatest source of the strange stares we received. I spent most of the rest of my day ferrying some things to Kate's house for safe-keeping over spring break. Fortunately for ease of transit, I'd found Sienna a few days earlier out by the Student Union (Sienna is my darling Trek bike who I have had since I was ten and who I had recently loaned to a friend). I did so little this week–much sleep was had and focus scarcely showed its face in most of my classes. I didn't really do much adventuring this week, though in a haze of studying madness and with my own solid belief in the goodness of regular purges/destruction of useless/too-well-loved-and-not-sufficiently-deserving things, I deleted my fBook account. You know how to reach me if you need to, and I'm now checking my emails as often as I checked fBook, only without the extra (inevitable) distractions that fBook surrounds you with every time you sign on. Thanks to Apple's Mail program, I can check my school, fun, and alter-ego emails all in one go. It's pretty great. :)

Today was a little different–exams behind me and only one class on the horizon, today was spent walking around campus (so beautiful) and preparing for the paleontology dig that I'm leaving for tomorrow (a little in-dorm improvisational dancing may have fallen in there somewhere too). We are going to leave at 2 in the afternoon and after going up to Kentucky for a little digging, we are carrying on up to Indiana. Tuesday will be dominated by a drive from mid-Indiana to south Florida! Yay? :) We will finish off with a site that we will have to paddle the Alabama River to reach. And then we will return to Chapel Hill, where we will do one final dig on Saturday (I think). I'm super excited, and I'm also proud of how lightly I have been able to pack. One book bag with my clothes and books/smaller equipment cannily slotted in, one sleeping bag, one pillow, one pick axe, and one week of camping fun? Yes, please. Also here's a fun image: I'm borrowing Duncan's hiking boots (since the professor only told us two days ago that we actually would need to have them to get into two of the quarries–this after a semester of writing hiking boots off as non-required). His feet are several sizes larger than my own pointe-shoe-victims, so I'll be wearing thick socks with them and will either look like a total nerd or a bad ass video game character. It'll be great. :D

I took a whole bunch of my artwork and covered a big blank space on my wall with it. I am quite pleased with the effect.

Speaking of artwork, one of my friends (Jack) is starting a campaign similar to my Blue Sharpie campaign around UNC Charlotte's campus. He has left an introductory post in the UNCC library, one that nodded its head to a post of mine. My original read: " 'Coffee' will always mean snogging with you in Freedom Park, after hours, just for the hell of it," but Jack's rendition was a little different. He has yet to create an email to go with his version of the project, and he's still hammering out the details of his identity, but he is totally going through with it. It's flattering, and it gives me hope that such acts really do make a difference in the world. My faith in the high value of reaching out to strangers with all the absurdity and surreality one can muster has always been strong (c.f. my adoration for the movie Amélie), but recently I've been struggling with a lot of things, including (so very sadly) that belief. Jack fills me with the kind of hope that stops sad, weary, and desperate people from doing heartbreaking things. I have wonderful friends.

Speaking of friends, my dear friend George might have a gal pal shortly. I am excited for him. He's been saying that nothing brings him emotion recently, but there is a spark for this girl and it seems to be returned. Fingers crossed.

One more thing I wrote, which I wrote when inspiration struck me this morning in response to recent events. I'm quite please with how it turned out, though there is a possible edge of bitterness that I would love to get completely out (since that is not the tone which I meant to put into this piece):

---

When you see the bird that I drew
Do you think of her?
The one who tiptoes about
Flitting lightly as I
Used to do
Back in the days when I was a dancer.

Does it make you think
of her? The arching neck, curving gracefully
as the long necks of birds do
bringing her lips closer to your own
shoulder, her nose touching
your neck. She studies them
while you laugh
In delight over her shoulder,
Your nose and breath on her
warm human neck,
At things that you know little
And would think little about
Were it not for her love
Fueling an increased
And increasing fascination.

How many oddities
And things have you learned
From the girls you once loved?
The ice skater
The puppeteer
The dancer
And all those flickering interests
In between?
And how many of those learned things,
With your nose and your tickling
spearmint breath,
Did you once whisper into my ear?

---

Today's coffee count? 6 cups within two or three hours of the afternoon. Biology homework flew by in a blur of unnaturally fast reading aloud.

So now, since it is going to be a while before I get to post again (not for another week at least!):

LINKS OF THE DAY (WEEK. WHATEVER.) :)

Songs that have been stuck in my head and on my play lists recently. And a few more recent favorites.

Another song I love, as well as a clip from a youth company based in the Midwest U.S. that I am totally obsessed with (you should check out more of their stuff–here's are my two other favorite pieces, both of which are also set to songs that I have come to adore).

An artist that I like a lot. He does large scale works (sometimes up to 9x9 feet) and tries to capture a sort of terrifying but beautiful quality in today's large-scale urban wastes. My favorites among his work are mostly in his ship breaking project (such stark landscapes, oddly colorful). You can watch a documentary about him too if you want–that's how I found him, through a film class I took in high school with my favorite teacher ever.

Like birds? Here are some geese. And many ducks to spare.

Russian street artists? The story surrounding this is actually pretty cool as a whole.

Did you know that I am addicted to sudoku? Or was. Until college hit. Stupid work ethic. ;)

A video that is almost impossible to not watch. The site that sells the beer boot (Vat 19) has some other entertaining ads if you feel like poking around and this sense of humor appeals to you. They have a variety of different styles of commercial, and their products are total oddities.

This pleases me. I like a museum that can roll with life's little absurdities.

How many of your childhood artworks do you have lying around? What do they do for you that makes them worth keeping (as opposed to, say, taking a quick trip to the bin de recyclage)?

A serious topic, but one that won't be unfamiliar to you. I liked this interview that we listened to for my basic biology class, so here it is. It takes about half an hour if you want to sit through the recording, but you can probably read the transcript faster if you are so inclined. I am definitely pro-stem cell research, for the record.

A poem that a friend recently gave me, saying that it reminded him of me (a thought that disconcerts me). As it happens, one of my all-time favorite poems was also written by John Ashbery. I actually recorded a song that I am passably proud of on the GarageBand program on my laptop which makes use of the text of "The Ecclesiast" as a background to other sounds. Very postmodern music (ha, whatever that means).

Back to Russian people: they're insane. Roofing is something that I can understand, but this takes it to a whole extra level. Still, given the opportunity to do this, I would probably be able to get myself to say yes (and I would certainly be itching to try it, if primal fear weren't in the way).

I follow several web comics, so I will start sending a few your way. Tell me what you think, because I follow a variety of them with different doses of reality, highly variable plot lines, and each their own sense of humor. This one is called Skin Horse and updates (mercifully without fail) every day. If you go to the archive you can start from the beginning. As with all web comics, the art improves as it goes.

I have a snippet of French to do and then some sleep to catch. It is 3 AM and tomorrow's gonna be one helluva busy day. Biology, a speaker on slang in the English language and preparation/departure for the dig await. Tomorrow night: Kentucky!

I will write when I get back home! (To the Hill, that is.) Love you, babe!

Enthusiastically yours,
moi