it'd be nice, i tell her. she asks what's the point, i'd wanna go to see someone, i'd never go to my hometown for siteseeing. but it'd be nice i say, to sit around, eat some faloodeh, eat some kharbeze that is sure to hurt your throat for at least 4 hours, to go to bazar vakeel, to come back, go to ab'bas ogha's for some god-knows-what spice and some ancient remody for split ends or cramps, go to bazar vakeel again, come back, faloudeh.

 
curly, ...straight

the playoffs are mighty addicting. especially for a girl who's itching to get addicted to something at a time when all she needs to do is focus and study. the least destructive thing to get addicted to is basketball if you think about it. everything else has dire health consequences, which is pretty counterproductive if you have to take tests every day and turn in papers left and right.

rangineh's getting her hair straightened for good tomorrow. japanese style straightening. and though this may seem like small girlish potatoes to the reader, it keeps bugging me. as a fellow curly, it's like seeing one of ours join the other side. i tell her it offends me that she's straightening fellow curls (because all curls belong to all of us--i'm a curl commie), and she says all curls are not created equal. double helices are not the same as fuzz. i clearly resent that and we fight a silent war.

but hair grows. and you can't straighten your geeeeeeenes.

and then i say goodbye to my email address. i remember how sina was more excited than i was. his lil sis was coming up. and when i go into the first few emails i got, it sounds like so long ago, mainly because it was a long time ago, but also partially because it was a different world back then.

i should theoretically disappear until saturday. but should is a strong word. and ought is even stronger. so we'll see.

 

 


the firetrail

no matter where you go in the hills, it is called the firetrail. be you next to clark kerr, or up inside tilden. it is the trail that wraps around all the days and nights you've spent on it in mind or in spirit and tucks you in tightly around the feet, so that you have pleasant dreams of redwoods and fireants.

my room is in a perfect state right now. not too clean,...pretty messy. not so much a limbo-compromise between different voices in my head, but rather one fine exhibition of just one voice for once. there's the standard three cups on my desk, odd papers and to do's on the ground. clothes all over the place. pringles' box. headphones. that package i still haven't returned to amazon. it's nice. in all honesty, i appreciate this. this is the real me. but then who's the girl who gets fed up and cleans all of this? even vaccums the rug? who's she and where does she sleep?

i was going to berkeley bowl today and it was raining while the sun was out. i thought of you. if only there was some way to capture the drops that catch the light just so as they fall. it wouldn't be fair though. half the glory is in the falling. i wonder if it ever snows while the sun is out. probably not. though it would be a sight.

 
are you awake?

my mom wakes me up by opening my door slightly, sticking her head in, and going, "samin..."...."ya, mom"...."are you awake"..."yes...now i am."..."ok, well....it's really late, it's half past nine" (it's really 8:30). then she proceedes to come inside and while i'm half sleeping, half awake,...she begins to look around my room and asks about any object on my floor, "what's that?"...."what..?...i don't know...a notebook."...after a minute of silence,.."what's that?"...and all i want to say is, "i don't know what's on my ground,....ask me when i'm wide awake and i'll give you a detailed description," but all i manage is laughter between my sleepy explanations and questions about why she's wondering now of all times.

jenny wakes me up in a peculiar way as well. she takes a stuffed animal, one in particular if she can get her hands on it, and proceeds to use it's gangly legs to kick my face softly but surely. or if this one stuffed animal in particular is missing, she goes for the sqeaky doll and just smothers my face with it, and i wake up from SHOCK.

i recall holly waking me up by sticking her face very near my face and going, "saaaaaaamin...." followed by munching noises.

sina had a few different strategies, one of which was to sit quietly beside me and tap my nose making me feel like i had a butterfly in my face.

rangineh stands outside my door without opening it, and says, "samin?" kinda quietly, but you can definitely hear it, and i go, "ya..."...."are you sleeping?"...."not anymore!"

 
you're on notice

 
fair weathered friends

what to say. i'm out of zero degree weather and into thirty degree weather. they tell me i walk around naked. they clearly don't understand what it's like to not feel your apendages, your digits, if you will.

i love stamps, and i love writing letters. i also love tin boxes (and also tina, which is tin with an a on the end). so the three (without the parentheses) combined would make for the perfect gift: a tin box filled with letter writing stamps. all i need now is some wax and more stamps. i was thinking of making my own, but i don't know how to carve things that will look pretty. anyway, most of my time here should be spent in michaels or that one store across the street from the olive garden.

holly and i finally went chalking, after four years of meaning to. we didn't get to liberate any rocks, but that only means we have more things to do, more places to go.

i should soak up the holidays this year, because next year, i won't be able to come home. maybe they can visit me, but it's not the same. home turf is very important for this time of year. it's one of the main things you come for, after the people.

last night i had a dream that rebecca stopped by our house, and i was shocked to see her. she came in, and we had cocoa together. she looked like this girl i saw at alta bates on wednesday. she said she had gotten married and moved to chicago. i wonder where she is in real life.

it's officially winter now, and for the first time, i wish i had a christmas tree in my backyard that i could decorate with lights.

 
leaving

the campus looks different every time i walk through it, mainly because i am different every time. i used to wonder how i will ever leave it, much like how i will ever leave berkeley or its people. but i see now that that is a mood point. the leaving is easy. in many ways, i've already left, i think. i've said my goodbyes already, though i haven't hugged any trees goodbye. my favourite tree in front of lsa wasn't exuberent this year. it did not flourish the way it did last year. after all, year to year, the tree can't perform for us the viewers. and so i like it this way more in a way. it is being itself, variable. and so when i was coming home tonight, the campus reminded me of my elementary school in 3rd grade. i'd get there at 7 am one year because my parents had to work early, and i'd come home at dusk. and so i'd walk around watching my oblong shadow in front of me, and i recall thinking that this school was my home. i wake up to this campus, i sleep with it. i have walked through it, laughing and crying. i have walked through it at daybreak, at dusk, at midnight and afternoon. it is home to me the way the swirls on my sheets are home to me. and so the leaving will not be as dreaded, because i am half the walk itself. i am half the bridge and staircase leading up to giannini. though they will not miss me, it will not be the same without a passerby sitting there starring up at the trees that protect her. without me, it is only a stone staircase, only a bridge over a creek.

 
nature never did betray the heart that loved her.
--william wordsworth

 
the phantom of liberty, revisited

what i'll do to avoid writing a paper...
the most tedious tasks and the lamest chores become fascinating when i have to write a paper. so many books to read, so many pictures to take... and 'the sun' is sitting nicely on the ground just asking to depress me. and who can say no to that.

since this is the semester of surrealism, i've taken an interest in watching my dad's favourite films by luis bunuel. he's been talking about them for i'm not sure how long, and i'm past due on trying to see what he sees in them. only...i don't know if stores have them on dvd. perhaps strange little places around here do....but i don't think blockbuster would have it yet.

they ask us to write journals to share with the class. and i have a secret: i never write about the topic we're supposed to write about.

 

hwy 1














i'll never tire of these roads, however familiar they'll become.

 
DEAR WRITERS,

in deciding whether to buy her a book or a movie, always side with the book. she could then hold it in her hands and feeeeel the pages. mmmm, books.

my professor's books this semester will make me hate politics and any mention of them. it's only the middle of september, and i already can't stand reading his books. i have now turned to Edward Gorey's "The Unstrug Harp." i used to not like his recent illustrations, what with his people having strange-shaped heads and small ears (kinda like moe), but now i have really taken to them. i should try finding more postcards.

i just sold my mattress to the nicest people from the grad student coop on hillegass. i should have befriended them. thinking back, maybe i didn't sell it so cheaply, which makes me feel bad. i should have consulted rangineh, who applaudes me. but then again, she's from mash'had, so her veins and arteries are lined with genetic business know-how. when i tell this to my mom, she says, "wow, what is it with you and roomates who are business oriented."

i feel like intermezzo. and i am grateful it is near. i will eat for you ALL, trust me.

sleep well,
samin

 
"I believe good poets borrow,
great poets steal,
and if only we'd stop trying to be happy
we could have a pretty good time"

from Poem: "Creed" by Meg Kearney from An Unkindness of Ravens

 

scratchwork is precious

now, what does that say about me? is what i find myself asking every two days. may is not the time to ask questions publicly. they must be written within the depths of diaries, of journals, napkins from pat browns, and on the margins and backsides of review sheets. if you can help it at all, they must not even be written down. they do nothing but aggravate, blow out of mortal proportion the window that you happen to be looking through as you walk down to dwinelle.

and congratulations. i can say a lot of things. but for the better of the next ten years, i shouldn't. and if i was really cool, i wouldn't even be posting. but i'm not that cool, and my feet are too cold to concentrate on the textbook i was reading.

i apparently have not kicked that habit of feet. i should have made a collage years ago when it started. then, who will let me take pictures of their feet? it'd be like erica's collage of bellies that never came to be.

sy's notebook was funnily pained today, i guess as it is always. but he starts to sound like his old notebooks very often, and i'm tiring of them a little. who has time for the sun when all there is to life is reconstructions and mechanisms?

 
every time i start writing here, i end up erasing the few lines i had down. maybe this time i will not.

do you ever have those nights where you just look forward to the sunrise, so you can get up already. and then when it finally comes, you can't get up, not because you're sleepy, but because there's a bug gnawing in your brain, and you just can't figure out what it is. it's cold, but i woke up sweating. it was quiet, but the sound of downstairs walking seemed like mr chen mowing the lawn. it's windy today, and no sign of sun. class is soon, and yet no sign of lunch or want for lunch. i don't know where my appetite is, where my sleep is, where my hw is, or where my advisor code is.

berkeley bowl will fix all this.

 

i didn't know this but...

"There are also several other traditions on this night, including the rituals of Koozeh Shekastan, the breaking of earthen jars which symbolically hold ones bad fortune; the ritual of Fal-Goosh, or inferring one's future from the conversations of those passing by; and the ritual of Gereh-gosha-ee, making a knot in the corner of a handkerchief or garment and asking the first passerby to unravel it in order to remove ones misfortune."

in the same light, in preparation, i have begun to soak wheat berries for grass growing. but i think i should do some mung beans too, as they are curly and more exciting than the wheat blades of grass.

"house shaking" also known as spring cleaning will be the doozy this year, as it is almost every year. but it is much needed.

for the haft seen, i have sumac, garlic, senged, apples, grass, vinegar, and i need one more. apparently, i'm also supposed to include a book of poetry, rose water, and a bowl of water with an orange in it (representing the earth floating in space).

man, i wish i was zoroastrian. i guess i am to some extent. but it'd be even cooler if i practiced all their rituals on a daily/seasonal/annual basis.

now, from where will i get fish?

 
plug for water and heroes

apparently, in spring of 1984, when i was busy being born and fascinated by my hands--things i haven't stopped doing since--the African Country of Sudan was busy having the worst drought/famine episode in as long as the farmers can remember. it was so devastating, that they're still seeing the influence of it today, what with their high incidence of cholera, malaria, Hep A, Hep E, meningitis, only to name a few.

i'm trying to sell doctors without borders tomorrow in class. not many people our age know about them. usually unicef or the world food programme comes to mind.

rain is a good thing, people. really.

 

wheels on the bus

mr holland is a historical linguist, who dabbles in typology as well. he knows everything about the ancient world. or at least, what seems like everything to me. he asks us, "i've been telling you this for weeks now, but...do you believe it in your bones?" i shake my head only because i can't tell the difference between the sounds. he tells us that words like 'wheel' have reduplication because wheels turn incessantly. he connects everything back to the root, back to speech and reason.

mrs. fleming, on the other hand -- who reminds me very much of my mom -- connects everything back to insulin. she asks us if we excercised today, because we're only fighting a losing battle against time with our bone loss. you still have a couple years, she says, but we know she's edging on truthiness.

ms kobuschewski is polish. she's from the midwest and a naval officer. she calls a kitchen a 'galley' and stealing 'dry labbing.'

there is artery plack and lipid oxidation, but there are also laws that somehow link sanskrit 'cakra' to the english 'wheel.'

they are generations from the days of yore, come to tell us about how it is, how it should be; come to share with us a piece of their mind. and without fail, to each his own more than a tinge of irony and 'khoorde shishe.'

 

caminos

i wonder when it is that i'm supposed to start growing grass. and no, that is not what kids are calling it these days. that was six years ago. i also wonder if other people's hair have as much fun as mine does. today, i was bouncing down my hill top, and it was so free and crazy. suffice it to say it's always had a mind of its own, but days like this make me appreciate the depths of the horror that seems to sit so happily upon my head.

it's crisp outside these days. i told the zemocha cafe man that it feels like october outside. he agreed, and showed me the kind of chocolate he uses in his drinks. i don't remember the name. he says the french like their chocolate a little darker. i think we basically had two different conversations, each a monologue to his own. i'd say i like dark chocolate, and he'd ask if i was a chai person. he's sweet, and has honest eyes. you should go sometime when you're free. 1959 shattuck ave.

quotes of the day from here and there:

"you know, i don't know where we've been but here we are again."

"although the invariant heart of the morpheme never changes, the wars of faithfulness vs markedness will never end." --s. inkelas

 
clay pot

i'm so glad jenny's going to buy a house in the berkeley hills someday. suffice it to say that she'll have to be a millionaire, but that isn't a problem for her. this way we'll always have someone to visit in the hills.

goal for this week is to get up at 7 even when i have no class. it shouldn't be too difficult, especially since every wednesday, you'll find me at the cheeseboard buying "wolverines." have you had them? they're amazing.

still haven't found pottery pants. it's very sad that the lack of pants is what's keeping me out of that hole under sproul. very sad indeed.


betty's camera, which is a sony, finally broke and gave up on the good life it had. sony support does nothing for you. if anything breaks, it's best to save your breath and not even call.


i miss having a t.v. on days like this. it's good having it in the house and going to see the commercials every so often. sina always watched it, and one year, i got really into football. another year, he got me really into baseball. my god, can you imagine? baseball!

cherry blossoms are out, and spring is almost here. march 20th, 10:26 a.m. pacific time.

 
If you ever have trouble getting out of bed...

remember that there's a whole world which was up hours ago: the cook that wakes up at 4 to be at work by 5, only to find a tiny post it on the door saying that his helper is out sick today, making the whole day go to hell even before the sun rises.

the man telling you this today, in his nice coat and tie, goes down for a break only when the doctors are coming in at eight. "they look right through me, because they only see my badge missing the blue strip on it." he's got a daughter at ucla, a son in grad school, a mortgage, a wife, and....a dog at home. "it's not beneath my dignity to mop floors and wash dishes," he says to us. we generally look at him with glazed over eyes that say none of us aspire to become dishwashers and foodservice professionals. but that's not what he was saying. it's like he was my dad telling me that no work is beneath me and that you should never look down on the trashman, even though i'm sure my dad has never washed dishes as a profession. he says to us, "i don't mind you making mistakes. i just want some variety."

so tomorrow morning, when it's 7:30 and you think it's too early and your bed is too damn warm, think of where you're going. you're going to class, to sit, to enjoy a leizurly time listening to a preprepared lecture whose sole purpose is to somehow reach you and stick with you.

 
you can always trust a mother

one of the things about going home is the intensity of the gap that is created between chocolates. at home everything goes downhill. not only do i not exercise there, the chocolate there is intensely richer, european, or both, which means it has a much higher content of cocoa butter. we here usually consume pretty low cocoa butter content in our chocolates. the droste from trader joes' is one of my favourites still. even after mitra's maison du chocolat which she loves to give at christmas. putting this together with the muddy esspresso consumed as often as possible, one gets to be slightly more than slothlike after a while.

all the same, i've done very little gym-ing or walking at night since i've been back. i keep telling myself i'll go, but today for example ended up with me buying red clay instead. a balanced diet of clay and spinning is what's called for these days.

i also find that flossing gets rid of toothaches. i miss dr meeks, and am sad to say i never sent him flowers. i miss robin too, and her motherly-ness. she's one of the few people who truly makes me want to be a mother. her hands were always very reasuring and although forceful, i always trusted the sharpest tools in them.

 

me: do you ever listen to talk of the nation on the radio?
jen: is that the name of a band or do you actually listen to the radio?

moto for miami: come back to miami, we didn't mean to shoot at you!

word of the week: auspicious

 
and then there were two

have you ever heard of SnagIt? it's the greatest. in case you havent, it's this program that lets you take a "snapshot" of your screen at any point in time and lets you save it and stick it into any sort of word or excel document. it's a life saver, when you're sitting there trying to see how you can copy and paste a spectrogram into your paper. it's beautiful.

the pg&e man came yesterday to see why we hadn't had power since ten a.m. and we discovered that we had blown a fuse. since both me and betty had finals yesterday, we just sat, and didn't do anything about it until afterwards. electricity is a beautiful thing. i was mainly worried about the fridge and freezer, which are also of vital importance in life.

one more to go on tuesday, yessir, the final final block of the term. until then, i have to make my sickness go away and study. this is a sure sign that my body thinks it's done, and can go home. tuesday feels like a long way off when really, it's only a couple days away. days during finals are like dog days; a day is like seven days.

and,....alas, i still haven't been to intermezzo, my week-and-a-half old itch. but i think today's the day.

meanwhile, i'm going to steam out whatever is living in my throat right now.

 
day in and day out

there's this trek mix at trader joe's that's called "nuts about chocolate and coconut." i swear by it now. it had bits of dark chocolate, cashews, almonds, and shavings of coconut. i recommend.

has it ever happened to you that you miss someone so much that you start taking on their habbits? yes, like that movie, psycho. i mean, the guy missed his mom so much, he had to become her. suffice it to say that he was the one who killed her, but still. i guess it doesn't work the same way i'm thinking about it. but for example, i missed home a lot last year, and started drinking tea after i went home for a weekend. after that, i'm down with the tea.

mahler is so depressing. no wonder betty looked horrified when i mentioned it as a choice at jenny's 22nd shindig. i mean, he's whimsical to preoccupy himself in the meanwhile, but in the end, he just wants to kill himself.

i went into ceramics yesterday to try to glaze lys' delicate bowl of delicacy, but i did a bad job, which i think may result in it going straight to the reject shelf (the saddest shelf only after the reject pile in sproul hall).

back i go to the eng and schwa.
cheers.

 
when days mesh into pine

i just went to blogger.com, and the rolling update blog that says which blogs have been recently published said The Los Alamitos High School.... who knew we had a blog!? we being them, since god knows i do not identify those highrisers, and navyblue trims with any time period in my own life.

anyhow, what i meant to say is that these are the beginnings of another end of term. anna lin graduated yesterday, and i didn't attend. i didn't even know about it until the day of. these are the days of "you know what i really feel like right now? top dog!", when clearly we've gone all term without a single dog or bird, or birddog. even when it's sunny, it's depressing because the end is so near. and no, i'm never excited for the end of a term, no matter how crappy the classes, no matter how horrible my schedule. i'm surprised so many people (probably most people) embrace it so quickly and without reservation. i'm impressed. i wish i could do the same.

i finished earnest, and it was funny times.

jenny turned 22, and i must admit, i surprised her. i flatter myself, but it was no small feat, on account of two blinding characteristics of hers. one being that she's paranoid as is, so it's increasingly difficult to hide something from her, and two being that she takes it upon herself to plan everything under the sun, so the plan in mind must not only stand up for itself, it also has to fend off any other possible plan of hers, which is a bully of a plan by itself.

in short, i was stressed out. but it was over soon, and back we went to the old ball game.

i should make a cake to go with all this 80% cocoa icing we have left over. who makes icing that bitter? no one, that's who.

i feel like going down to la meditareaeaeaeaeanea and having hot dates with walnuts. with icecream. but instead, i'm going to shower, and drink tea. good day, sirs.

 
i'm wearing a bracelet again

i'm home for six days this thanksgiving; perhaps the longest i've ever been home not counting the big vacation times. i didn't really realize it's nearly a week until betty shockingly told me over the phone. and they say it's almost over. for me, it's really only halfway done.

i got home on tuesday night, feeling guilty. "i was cruel, and i'm never cruel," she says in that one movie. i still found myself breaking into laughter though, remembering faint lines running through my head. maybe part in disbelief, part in awe, part in simple joy, part in regret that i left very little room for cream. i left some, but i guess it's all the room i had. usually, i like to flavor the cream with a little coffee.

then on thursday, my mom and i drove out to my aunt's house passing all those unforgiving interchanges. we listened to khayam and hafez on tape, intertwined with music from my childhood. i hadn't heard it in 12 years. and all with rolling hills, and the inevitable road so akin to poetry. it was all very fitting. my mom would comment on really good lines, that i clearly had a hard time understanding, and she'd try to comfort me by saying that she couldn't even understand all of it; that persian historians sit around and analyze this stuff, and they still disagree on meaning. i just sat there for an hour and a half in awe of what i was missing; not knowing quite what i was missing out on, yet i was assured that something intangible was getting absorbed. my mom said she can't believe i've spent most of my life here, and that i'm so detached from those poets. in response i told her that she shouldn't give up on me; that even if it takes a million tries, and years to make me understand these lines, it's still worth it; that even though i may not understand the words, the feelings are still translated, and that the poets are far from dead to me when they try to reach me.

after saying that, i sat there starring at the 110 interchange for about a half hour. and again, the laughter. and so now, i understand. the very faint lines running through my head came out of my own mouth, and the spirits laughed at me. what can i say, i deserved it.

on friday i did something to anger oscar wilde. i cheated. i read the entirety of kurt vonnegut's a man without a country. i had bought it for my mom the day before, and after reading the first three pages, i found myself passed the point of no return. jenny knows plenty about that point in books. i've just never gotten to it on the first day. i don't think i should buy it for nikolai though; he's plenty pessimistic about humanity already . to that my mom said, "yes, we should return it." but the obnoxious, bitter man of 82 has some beautiful golden lines in there. he mentions a ton of people: everyone from saul bellows to lincoln. i wasn't cultured enough to catch all the references, but i recommend it.

my mom's car is "falling apart" as my dad says. we got a flat tire yesterday, which was fixed today. and for the past 5 months, the handle on the door of the driver has been broken, so if s/he wants to get out, they either have to exit from the passenger's side, or pull down the window, and open the door from the outside. this is all very amusing, even after 5 months.

i wish sina were here to help absorb all the craziness and the overwhelming humor that is our parents. for now, i'll have to absorb for us both.

until next week, goodnight.

 
the border between Greece and Albania

have you ever heard of the mountain goats?

"Everything that has ever befallen the universe, I have discovered, is written there, if onlyyou know how to read it." --Jeffrey Skinner

my hair smells like a campfire, and it isn't sure to come out until christmas. unless ofcourse, i get involved in another campfire before then, which is highly unlikeley.

"i took a walk into the mountains and it changed me forever. i walked out thinking i can shake it off, and after twenty years, here i am. people say friends don't destroy one another; what do they know about friends?"

we were playing pictionary and i got handed a piece of paper that said "living the lifeless life" and i starred at it for ten minutes.

"Our conversations are like minefields/No one's found a safe way through one yet"

"Take what you can carry/But let me tell you brother/Still waters go stagnant"

"The warning signs have all been bright and garish/Far too great in number to ignore"

nightmares come true.

 
ramblings of a child

i haven't felt healthy and aware in nearly five days. what gives, god? you think you're soooo funny. and you are. but still, what gives? i'm good for nothing but blogging right now. i'm not even good for watching t.v. since it makes my eyes scream. blogging and eating this cookie here. that's about as much as i can do. i'm starting to forget what it was like to not be aching, and i long for the day i wake up and there are no clouds in my head.

as a way of making me feel better, holly pointed out how great i should be feeling that i have the chance to make chillins sick at the elementary school. "caugh on 'em real good."

note: don't ever buy tea from safeway. it's just as expensive as elephant pharmacy, but a much smaller, poorer selection. does that sound slightly better?

i still haven't gone down to walgreens for chocolate sticky goodness; i wonder if it's still wow one dollar.

it's that time again. salt water gargling time, that is. when is it not though? i have high aspirations of doing it when i'm well too. just for good measure, but i kid myself.

 
i only see the chocolate part

short girl: "let's not try to justify something like this, ok?"
tall girl: "who's trying to justify? i'm just telling you my pattern of thinking, my line of logic in
doing it."
short girl: "ya, well, it was nasty."
tall girl: "i just think different rules apply when you drop something like chocolate...or a
burrito."

 
of lilies and camphor

the lsat is over for the october first mountain climbers, and so is my trilogy of luck-to-jenny postings. while she's been away, i've made optimum use of her desk, bed, and rollie chair. i admit i did not touch her shelf because the "damage" would have not only been unforgivable but also irreparable. the first night she was gone, i was taken with an overpowering desire to trash our room, because her side was so clear, so clean, so suggestive of a museum. every time i'd walk in, i'd get disturbed; it reminded me of those rooms people preserve on the behalf of a lost loved one. anyway, that didn't last longer than a night, so all is well now.

i've also become somewhat more attached to jenny's beta fish named feather blue. needless to say that betty forgot to feed it for three days and was glad to hear that i had been feeding it regularly. apparently, the way to feed f(b)lue is to throw him one pellet at a time when he's extremely hungry (towards the end of the day, since he's been dancing in the sun all day). he gets overwhelmed and very confused with more than one pellet. also, it's the first time i've seen him keep his little tree in the rocks at the bottom of his bowl; he's figured out how to hide in it without uprooting it.

i know it's only a fish, but it reminds me a little of lily (my aunt's dog). i didn't care too much about her before my mom and i had to take care of her for a few days. then we got to know her, and she spoke to us.

today, i bought the smallest mortar and pestle i could possibly find. it's porcelain and smaller than my mom's even. i got it from this herb store on telegraph, where i also bought some citronella oil. what, you don't have citronella oil on your desk? i forgot to ask if they have anything with camphor in it. friday morning around 6, i walk into betty and holly's room awoken by mosquitoes, and i see holly's looking up things that drive them away. i sit down and soon she says camphor. CAMPHOR! i started laughing in shock, becuase that molecule haunts me even after ochem in the whee hours of the morning (not so whee i guess). i'm glad betty was there and understood. we may not remember what it did (and o the things camphor can do), but we'll never forget the structure. see, even the mosquitoes want me to go and talk to pedersen.

i hope they leave me be tonight. my forehead can't take another biting.

 
luck to jenny (take three)

today was a beautiful day. i had no trouble getting up and going to the library. except i came home and crashed into a great nap after lunch. i also stole the micro book from the library. i hope no one else in the class is without a book, because we have a midterm tomorrow. in fact, i stole it precisely because we have a midterm tomorrow. it's justified in my mind, and well worth the 5 dollar fine.

rangineh calls me "kakoo" because one time i called her "khohar". i think i should start calling sina "dodosh". i like "dodosh" the best.

lys got a respiratory infection, so we haven't seen him for a while. a while being a week. lucky are those who have three hours of lab with him.

jenny leaves us tomorrow for her pilgrimage; her joseph campbell's rite of spring and duel with her inner monster. today she forgot that her dad left the country, and got real surprised when she "found out." silly jenny, trix are for kids.

and who better to see her off?

P.O.E.

 
luck to jenny (take two)

photographers have this strange kinship with the photos they take. even if it's only snapshots they took when their brother in law took them sailing. he'll be asked months later, "were you there when we went sailing?" and he'll say, ofcourse i was, i took all the pictures. "aw, it's a shame you're not in any of them." and he'll get real surpised and say he's in the pictures more than anyone. that's his window, his eyes on paper.

if anyone knows a person who speaks a creole language or a farfetched uncommon language, please notify me. i'm in desperate search of someone to latch onto for my phonetics project. the homework that's due today only deals with speech analysis in wavesurfer, and i can't figure out how to coordinate windows for the life of me. but it's fascinating.

indian rock is surprisingly not that far. khushboo says 20 minutes, but i think it takes us a bit longer. i have to start going more often. i think it's a big contributor to those nights that i just pass out and don't hear anything all night. natural nyquil.

going in to cermics is becoming increasingly difficult. i work in the afternoons, and it's very hard to go after 5, mainly because i just wanna go home by then, and partially because i can never find a free wheel after 5. i should start working in the mornings. so many ideas that mean nothing unless made into clay.

and lastly, jenny's dying. she's been dying for a week now, and i've resisted being pulled down with her for just as long. today is the last day of her sickness. or so she "decided" last night. she will get a 175, or so i have decided just now.

 
luck to jenny (take one)

jenny says i've become mean since my return from summer vacation and i believe her. then again, she's the first to agree that being nice is meaningless, almost fake. "why do i have to be nice?" i remember her saying when tina thought she didn't like her. aw, i miss tina. today i saw a girl that looked like her, and i was overwhelmed with a desire to run up to her and ask her if her hair was heavy.

jenny's reading right now. the book has a very long title. she read me a line that illustrated how fully well her life is scripted in these books. i paused and asked her how she finds these books. she said, hmmm?

i think they come to her like fireflies. or she to them. anyway, i've never seen it work so beautifully. for a moment i thought she was her dad sitting there with her legs stretched reading. mainly becuase her profile is much like his, and because she's sick and when she caughs she sounds like a man, but partially because i remember her dad sitting to water flowers by the pool.

 
a saint in every dream

august has come and gone and left us. once again. and it's been a while since i posted, which is normal i guess. it's hard to write here coherently; i'm always tempted to not flow, not make sense, not make it into an actual journal. then again, you might say, i already don't make sense and don't flow, to which i have nothing to say.

classes are interesting enough, but something seems to be missing in them. the financial aid office will help me find that certain something in the form of a work study job, a lab job if you will. i want to quit my current one. ceramics will help too, just as soon as i start going in regularly.

i miss pedersen and i wish i'd just have the nerve to go and say hello to him. i'll make myself do it one of these days. you know, the threshold of pride and of realizing that he's just a wee human like myself.

happy birthday charlie. you're not a teenager anymore.

my desk is dusty and cluttered. jenny must glare at it everyday. even though she says she doesn't care, and probably doesn't. i still come around to the idea. it's probably me glaring at it myself.

i wonder what beethoven did when he was angry. he couldn't have just gotten up from cold sweats and started to write, he had to have had down time where the anger wouldn't be able to give way to symphonies. anger has its limits too, you know.

 
crepevine

saturday has left us very quickly. starting out with buckwheat noodles, and ending with shea it isn't so foot cream. for softness, not for foot disease. apparently, rockridge is down college, past the regular college things. they just like to call themselves something different. maybe the further down you go, the more expensive the cups of coffee get, but it was still cute.

i have to disinfect my pens tomorrow. i have to read many articles about my mind and i have to clean all the windows in this apartment at some point. summer's almost over, and sad to say, it didn't feel like a long time at all. when i come back, the crowds will have already arrived. they will have put up the pasta special again, and running across campus won't be taking fifteen minutes anymore; more like twenty minutes of dodging umbrellas, bikes, and cell phones.

i tell jenny her dispair can be from worse things. you could have no legs. you could have a fear of the outdoors, and your dad could be a criminal.

i read wise words this morning not having realized them as i read them last night:
why man survives--the machine does not know why it's got a bug up its ass.

 
source domain

well, here i am again, on jenny's laptop. this only means that i have a paper due in less than 24 hours, and i'm looking at ungodly hours right in the nostrils. at first, i thought her background was a lassie looking dog looking down, and i laughed a little, not knowing why this was somehow funny. after about ten minutes, i realized it's because of the shadow of another dog behind the lassie jumping to fetch a frisbee. i took it myself. the mind is a silly landscape of time. i'm writing about metaphors and it's a good thing jenny was here, because maybe you and i call it jenny logic, but misha, the reader from hell, would just call it logic. misha is a mean black cat.

 
goodbye NWI

like millions of people around the world, my parents said goodbye to news world international today. an objective canadian channel devoted to in-depth pieces about world issues, politics. it was, in essence, the voice and eye of a world left otherwise blind and deaf. i hope sy safronsky is crying somewhere in north carolina, because this is a sad day for them all. us all. a politician buys a whole network for the ungodly brainwashing of a "younger generation." they not only outright admit it, they are also proud of seeming "progressive." it's the 21st century and my parents have no news reaching them from any informed, reliable source on t.v. what hell did they escape from, and what hell did they run to?

 
nms jm slmty and dali

dali looks at you, and he doesn't look so bad today. he may be on much more drugs than i am, but he looks at me and i know him today. life is funny in his own way today, and not much is making too much sense. my notes on the wall right below his face, don't say much more than his eyes. i always thought he was fleeting, but now i'm overtaken with an overwhelming assurance that in some ways, he'll never let go.

 
naturalized

last night as i was going to sleep, a few very clear things came to mind. first, that jenny's dad should have just said "la ba" and i would have understood.

second, that i really really miss my bracelet. it can't be replaced.

third, the weekend two years ago that jenny went home for her oath. it was the weekend of the shooting stars, which also can't be replaced. i'm filled with an overwhelming sense of what two years means. i can't believe it's been that long. that short. that fast. my braces, my application, friendships, and goodbyes. they've all been two years.

i can finally leave this place.

 
are you drawing me?

she's ranting meaningful phrases in her delerium, bringing her closer to the essence of that other world with which i'm ever so familiar. chocolate, bed, water, book, wastebasket. what more do you need?

 
since you've been gone

kelli sprints across document deli every day to open the door for the delivery boy, whose hair is a different colour every day. kelli is a tall man. very meticulous. he likes things in order, and he doesn't like surprises.

i had a dream about conor last night. for those of you who don't recall, he was our very drugged up angry neighbor who had high blood pressure despite all the weed. anyhow, in the dream, he was yelling about how max was a republican in disguise. needless to say that he was also smoking. to my own surprise i actually miss him and max and alex too. is this what it comes to? cracked out druggies outweigh any sort of bushies?

o god yes.

marty's out having a baby. her name is sarah viola.
i like viola for a girl. viola if it's a girl, krishna if it's a boy. then again, i'm not having kids. so forget that.

when people go on their haituses (haiti?), i forget that i'm still here. i see them gone. as good as gone in their haze of personal growths where it's by all means necessary to shut out sounds, but i watch them go through. a part of me gets shocked every time maybe to the same extent if not more than before, but a bigger part of me understands that this has got nothing to do with me. i'm completely helpless, but i make the mistake of trying. this is between the monster and the beast. and i'm no part of this fight.

but i'm still here. nuisance or not. just hanging out to see whether this one is longer than the last or not.

 
speechless

pedersen's last lecture was heartfelt. he did silly things. he threw handfulls of candy at the crowd while saying, "i will not be held responsible for this!" the "craziest" we've seen him get all term long. he talked about his philosophy. talked about his craze for ingredient labels. told us to get outside and enjoy the gorgeous weather.

then,..ten minutes before the end, he said he prepared a little presentation he'd like to show us because after all, "we have been together for a year now." pictures he'd taken himself of everything from snails to mountainous views (and heathens) played to a song i don't know the name of. along with ofcourse all the molecules of the day associated with each picture. he said he hopes that we always keep our minds and our arms wide open.

very touching.

we gave him a standing ovation which lasted well over 9.30. kids from the next class came in and watched on, and pedersen, well, he got real shy and waved his hands around like a fool, like any of them do if they're not completely heartless. and he got tears in his eyes, and to tell you the truth so did i. not surprising, considering how i worship that class. but it wasn't just me. after we stopped cheering and clapping, we stopped, all 550 of us, in silence, and just stood. and he stood there too. i've never heard such loud silence in pimentel before. and no one would leave for a very long moment.

then we all looked at eachother in puzzlement of what to do next. we piled out like a herd of sheep, let loose by the shepard. always the moment of wonder of what we will do without the shepard, and the inevitable following moment that brings us down to earth; of trust in our shepard that he knows what he's doing; that he's done the best and that we'll be alright; of freedom and a sense of will. him, standing like stonewall, and we the sheep, looking back every once in a while. like we do.

 
as the man across the way trims his bonzai tree

you know, i was just thinking, if i weren't so against it, i'd love to go into the world of advertising. it's so promising, because you could go in any direction you wanted. and i feel like it's such a strong type of artwork, because it has to be concise, it was to get to you very quickly.

last night i had a dream that my mom was very angry at me. because i didn't send her anything for mothers day and what she really wanted, (my actually being with her) i couldn't give her. somehow in the dream that carried to her being unhappy with my performance in my classes. :) very telling of how i feel. and maybe how she feels. but what i thought was the most interesting was how we reconciled our "differences." this was in the next shot, when we were out in a prairie or desert of some kind, and we saw the moon in a very peach lazy red moon carpet of sky. and then we noticed that there were two moons (like in star wars), and then the more we looked around and focused, we saw more reflections of these moons. and so it was really cool and she wasn't mad anymore.

i picked a rose that has that very strongly subtle smell. it reminds me of her.

ok, ochem time.

 
no longer

these cookies are really good. and nothing will ever replace snail mail for this reason. even if it was a regular letter on regular paper, it's that assurance that only a little while ago, someone very far away was holding it in their hands. and they sent it away thinking of you. and that thought is suddenly tangible. and how rare is that.

pedersen tells us to relax. i can't say goodbye to him. i'm not ready yet. so i won't. i'm going to go to his office after this class to say hello. maybe i won't be able to befriend him, and maybe he won't talk about cool food chem and herbs, but i will have stopped by. to give him his bowl. to say his class meant a lot to me.

studying for finals will be good. elders come to me before drifting off to sleep, and they say just five minutes longer, sam. the unforgiving minute is filled with promises, sam. stay awake the extra five minutes. push faster up the hill to get there five minutes earlier. just push. with heart. no less.

it'll be beautiful.

 
thought

which one shall i make my law?
will it be pigment or will it be light?

 
for holly

i made a bowl at twelve thirty yesterday. clay was hard as hell. had dry little bits all over it. looked terrible. when i was centering, it had lumps on the bottom.

but i went with it. tried to talk to it. convince it that i really saw something in it. i saw it being made but i was shocked. it was straight. i didn't have to take anything off it. it was natural. it wasn't trying.

then i colored it green. for peace. and because holly is green.

i might ruin it by carving in it. it might be too busy. it might blow up in the kiln. a million things may happen. but i'm just happy knowing that at some point in time, maybe long ago, it was great.

and that's all that matters.

 
dream

this morning, right before my alarm went off, i was having this crazy dream. which i am beginning to forget already, so i have to put it down here. and i type faster than i write, so this is it.

i was somehow put into a coop again, which i didn't like at all. it was a regular sized room, but my roomate was this guy who always wore a green shirt with a coat that changed colors. the coat didn't change. the colors on it did. anyhow, he was my roomate and i was scared of him. he never said anything and he was huge. never smiled. anyway, one day i walked in and he started to hide some papers that he was holding in his hand. and he was going to come after me, but i went to someone in some office in the house (as if coops have offices?) and i said that my roomate was scary and never said anything.

next shot, we're all falling out the window but real slowly, so that we're figuring out the "mystery" behind this guy. one of my friends (faceless) was arguing with green guy about how he "did it." (now, i realize that there really was no crime. but it really felt like he'd done something horrible to endanger the lives of many people.) so as we're falling, the two are showing us their mathematical induction of how the green guy was able to alter a series of events. on each paper was a two column proof, except that the green guy's proof was sometimes one column and at the end became two columns again. there really wasn't a glitch in his induction, it was just that he got to it a different way. and that's how he tricked the world and did away with his roomate.

i was his roomate.
i think i died.

my alarm rang and betty took the bathroom. lou lost her watch. and i'm late for class.

 
on a tuesday at that

the poem on today's writers' almanac is by emerson. monday's was good. it was about americans.

on sunday, i went with nikolai and kevin to buy a cello from this lady. she was a nasty old woman in a really nice house. very curt. very nice house. nikolai's taking up the cello again after eight years of being without. it was apparently the two cello concertos at SF symphony that did it for him. jenny "negotiated" over the phone, but the lady went so low ($250--along with a guitar at hand), that really, there was no need at the time of the buy. which was good luck since none of us were prepared to haggle.

i am supposed to make a bowl for pedersen that has his favorite reaction on it. but i haven't decided what it should be yet. time's running out. so i should get to it.

there's this kid in my chemistry class. his name is sina. he's got hair just like me. it's strange. i don't think i can ever get to know someone else named sina.

you know, my journal cover is too busy. it's not...postmodern enough for my blood. it's too 1900 and not enough dada.
speaking of which, my dad told me to go see bunel movies in the media resource center. i think i should go check check check it out. phantom of liberty. some day soon.

oh,
and the day i became a woman. that's a must too.

goodday.

 
birthing

it's a beautiful thing when the deamons leave. this must be why mothers love life. it's really a moment of ecstasy. this must be why it makes it all worth it. this must be why they say they regret nothing. how can they. after all they've been through. after all they've been given.

maybe you have no idea what i'm talking about. and maybe i don't fully know either. but only because i sincerely think none of us can at this point. maybe tomorrow.

today's the day winston started writing in his journal. i'll be keeping that in mind tonight when i sign my exam.

 
scattered and sinful

saturday night was new years eve and after coming back from my aunt's house, my mom and i stayed up until 4.30 drinking wine and eating pistachios. o and we watched sina nap, although in his defense he did wake up just in time. i can't believe i was tipsy for welcoming in the new year. don't laugh. it's terrible. what's even worse is that the whole day after i was all woozy and still out of my skin. wine is so full of baggage. you can't drink it and forget about it. it makes you remember, damn it.

another thing that leaves a lil nasty taste in the new year mouth is that...well, all the fish died by the second day of the new year. we try not to take that as an omen. but really, we're such bad people.

my cousins make me want to reevaluate my faith in people and take them with a much larger grain of salt. it's my own fault for having false expectations. silly.

sina gave me my first dvd ever. napoleon dynamite. it was way too short of an overlap of my time and his time here. i should visit him in ass hot boston this summer.

i'm not looking forward to the 405 in the rain. but so it must be.

i've been lagging on the biochem. i think to make myself study, i'm going to go to a library tomorrow.

among other news, i find myself taking more and more "dietary supplements" everyday. other than the old lysine, and multivitamins, and vitamin C tablet, i am once again starting the consumption of the crap drink that some of you have come to know so well. next week when i start on my olive leaf extract, i'll be well on my way to being an organic, herbal fiend.

on another note, i now have a small collection of dvorak, tchaikovsky, beethoven, and other good things to distract me from studying.

and lastly, i miss the ocean. i've been here for three days and i still haven't gone. what sins. what sins i start with.

 
found

it's wednesday, and it feels like a thursday that has been delayed to a saturday since yesterday it felt like a friday.

this week, i've been trying to find items that belong on the new year's "spread." i went to solano in search of pastries and flowers and let's admit it, a little khosh 'o besh. i didn't find flowers or that much khosh o' besh, but i found pastries, which i was happy with. but this business of not finding the sweet smelling hyacinths drove me into somewhat an obsession about finding them soon. yesterday i dropped by a flower boutique on bancroft right in front of sather lane. it was the mean man with the hat. i never liked him much, but i thought i should give him a try, for the sake of the hyacinths. he had two out. they were both completely bloomed already and somewhat dying and lowly looking. i said how much, and he paused, nodding disinterestedly, and said...uhh,,six dollars. and i thought, o ya, you're persian alright.

so then i remembered that there was a flower shop inside of sather lane as well. i said i'll be right back and went to see if that one had any. i got there and saw that the flower pots had been arranged in a semicircle around the edge of the store entrance such that it was difficult (but not impossible, mind you) to go inside. no one was there. how curious. i thought i saw something that looked like a short flower pot inside, so i went inside past the buckets of flowers that were trying to block the door. so i'm standing there in this empty store looking out and around the place for flowers, when by and by the man in the hat appears. i stand there "blocked" by the flowers, as he looks at me saying, "you are here." i step outside past the flowers and say, "yes, you are in many places at once." he doesn't say anyting as he moves the flowers closer together reasuring himself that this time, no one will go in.

so that was that, and in the afternoon, i went with soodeh to the unit 3 man on durant. he has a huge selection and his flowers are always fresh. she said he was half persian. his name is masoud, but he calls himself moe. we asked him if he had any hyacinths, and he said not at the moment but that he can try to get them for us today. he asked us how many we want, if want singles or bunches, what colors.

when we went to pick up our flowers today, he wrapped them both very nicely, and said that they were of no charge. that they were presents for the new year. after thanking him perfusely (as they are usually ass expensive everywhere), soodeh asked if he celebrates the new year at all. and this i won't forget. he said he might see his nephews...maybe. but that he has been here for 35 years and is by now.....lost.

 
twelve

so it's been twelve years since my famiy has been here. i sat up in bed this morning and didn't know whether i should be glad or not. should i even go through the usual trials and tabulations that come with reflections of such a day? sure, i can recount it hour by hour, as it happend in such a confused blurred eight year old fashion. but let's not. the number is well over half my life now, and i don't want to come to the conclusion that i'm more of this than i am of that. mainly because it's untrue, and partially because i'm tired of looking at it that way.

on sunday, nikolai was saying how a family friend who travels the world brings back persia from iran, but she brings back hollywood from paris. and how good it is to have a country like that. at which point i started my rant about how it's not for one to own anymore; it's more like having one sock on this continent and one in the other; the plight of the immigrant's mind, i said.

then he said something i hadn't realized before. he said "it's not about knowing where you're going, it's about knowing that you came from something." and i guess it's because the former you can never know for sure, and the latter you can never change.

now, suffice it to say the immigrant's life style sneaks its way into my mind as a regular topic even on days other than this, but today of all days, it takes over. and i'm unfortunately endowed with a memory of the smallest things that happened long ago. today, the first thing that popped into my head was my dai mahmoud (dai = uncle). because he was like a dad for two years. and then my dad, who prides himself in the fact that he got us out. and that i for one have no right to impinge on that and ask whether it was the right thing to do or not. i wasn't there. i was eight. i read the Sun. i need to remember always that i am able to read the Sun.

 
the day i taught you how to weave hemp

it's sunday, and i should be solving problem sets. but i was just thinking about those times in life when you just have to take people's words for what they are. maybe for more than what you thought they were. and it isn't as if there was no other way. it isn't as if you had no other choice than to believe them. on the contrary, there's no reason as to why you should believe them and yet you still stand there looking into their "honest" face willing to somehow go with what they're giving you. and i mean, these aren't people who have ever lied to you. i'm sure i'm making no sense to you. but let's say usually, or more often than these rare times mentioned above, you believe them and all, because i mean, they've never lied to you and they're not the lying kind, so why shouldn't you, but as you stand there looking at them, your heart is not fully with it. you're thinking that this is fleeting, that it's nothing you should be naked for. if anything, it's something you should have armor for. and you speak to your heart after they've gone away and you ask it, "what of it, what's wrong with you, why don't you believe the honest man? isn't he the only one worth believing?" and your heart says to you, "yes, that may be true, but perhaps i'm figuring other things into this. go with me here, mind. i'm thinking too." and so they fight it out, and sometimes, some rare times, it comes to them agreeing on the matter. you stand there glad that "justice" has been done; that the true man among the crowd was recognized and believed; and that you have finally given up your silly doubting and seen the "light." agreeing that you'll take their sorries to heart no matter how much it hurts; that you'll go willingly with their sorrowfilled goodbyes and meaningful looks when they say: thank you.

 
try to hold on to

my desk is clear at last. it's something to get used to, as in i unconsciously try to clutter it with things that don't belong on it.

this weekend has been a series of quiet moments and rare concentrations. for once, the times that i did study were not wasted. i was focused and it wasn't forced. suffice it to say that i was not as quick as i would have liked to be, but at least i was doing something near it.

and now, today, the peace is broken. the people on the street trying to hold on to sunday afternoon were not only a day late, but sure signs that tomorrow the campanile will start chiming again. our roommates have come back.

our roommates have come back with their stories and noisy high school friends. it's not loud by any means. but the sound of silence is gone. our place is void of that sound snow makes when it wakes you up in the morning. and during the snow, i kept thinking of ways to hold on to the peace after the rain washes everything away. i wish i could invoke that concentration anytime i wanted. or if that's too much to ask for, then at least more often.

and of course the ending question with me is always the same. why do we try to do that? why do we want to hold something in our hand so badly? are we so silly as to think we can pick and choose precisely what we like about the world and wish for it to be there always? i used to be the queen of transience. i used to love the ephemerality in music, in artwork sometimes, even in people. the fact that in passing, in a split second of your thought, something was able to capture you and effect you irreversibly. why do i all of a sudden feel robbed after it is all done with and the sun comes out? it isn't as if i have forgotten. it isn't as if it was never there.

maybe it's like eating a very small amount of coffee heath bar crunch on a really hot day. you appreciate it so much, mainly because it's sooo good, and also because there's such a very little amount of it. if you have unlimited coffee heath bar cruch always at your side, never to leave you in peace, you'd tire of it eventually. and if not tired, you definitely wouldn't appreciate it as much.

 
why i'm lowsy

1. i'm getting sick and tired of having a weak immune system and it's all my own fault
2. i'm still sick
3. i won't get better as fast as i'd like
4. it was so windy today, i wanted to die
5. i can't drink any coffee
6. i can't take any walks
7. i have a tabkhal! for the first time ever in my life
8. my phone won't delete messeges that have been marked "deleted"
9. the review session i tried to go to was packed and completely useless
10. i just fell because i'm dizzy
11. my monitor takes up my whole face
12. i can't get a hold of my mom
13. i'm tired
14. the flowers inside the house are dying
15. the smell of sweetness outside is not comforting
16. midterms
17. amino acids
18. sugars
19. my back hurts
20. you have no back
21. my pine dried up like a raisin in the sun
22. i'm not being nice to my roomate

 
bed ridden

i've been told that i should blog in my hours of delerium; that it's amusing, bemusing, and entertaining to say the least. and while it may seem like i was more gone last night than i am now, rest assured, it's still there.

although, all the realizations and epiphanies i had last night and all day today seem to dissipate just now that i try to put them down. i thought for a while that i should take sketchbooks and journals to bed so that i can jot down any that comes to mind, but then i realized that this is the eternal challenge anyway. to put it down in the neck of time. to forego the tea, the pills, and the cup of warm milk. to forego even the bathroom and the dreaded gargling of nasty saltwater.

it rained today and i ran from it. every drop surprised me for some reason, and when i came in at last, i realized how slowly and calmly it had been raining. inbetween wakeful sips of tea and conjested sleep, i thought how "cleansing" it would be to go outside and run around in the "clean" rain.

 
wicked wednesdays

happy new year. last night being new year's eve, jenny and i went out in search of fish, because you have GOT to eat fish on new year's. just like ours'. i called my mom and told her about all the things you've GOT to do, and after each one, she promptly got excited and said, "just like ours!!" to which jenny replies, "see, everyone's chinese." :) i shake my head, my fist, and my ass. yes, in that order.

only an hour and a half left until jenny can be ANGRY again. she's been waiting patiently all day. in celebration, we'll drink coffee, or chrysanthemum tea. what, you don't drink chrysanthemum tea everyday?

today, i went to the library and studied for a long time. i was in a very productive mood. things made sense. curves had correlation at last. i had the voet and voet book, the stryer, and the lehninger book all in front of me. three generations worth of biochemistry. sina's was the most ochem-oriented one. if you get that one, i think the other ones just fall into place. i've been wrong to purchase textbooks all these years. all being two. this way is much better. you are FORCED to go to the library and study. there's no slack on book time, and you don't waste so much money. it's great. although, there is something to be said about keeping the textbooks you used in college, to which i say that when i "grow up" and "become rich," i will purchase all these textbooks in nostalgia, in reminiscence of these days.

calender finally sang in class. after all the anticipation and the hype, it wasn't so exciting. i mean it was ok, but it was no cigar. i thought he'd sing some popular song, but he sang a song about protein synthesis pathways, which wasn't very melodic. we laugh at him so much more when his voice cracks because he's laughing too hard. what a silly man.

i know i promised to write about pedi, but this entry is getting too long as is. thus, i will postpone him again until next time. i hope you can hold out.

 
phases me

i'm waiting for the shower to open up.
lys is here, talking about his "general discourse on anger." he was talking about distressing issues concerning his friend. what i like best about lys is that none of this phases him. none of anything will ever get him bogged down too much to help. he won't ever be too broken to be of use. kudos to that.

shower open now. and i'm sure my typing is bothering these two. will write more later on pedi and other matters.

 
dear brothers

you walked out that night not knowing
you'd come back someone else's kid;
you'd come back sullen and mistook.

no matter how much one can say look ahead, look out
no minds
wrapping around the future bends.
How could you?
You, who was to know better at last;
who was to prove the mass idea wrong.

from cradle to crane
i'm grateful to have known you
in your hour of all knowing laughter;
in your pure lighthearted sighs

glad to have known you before the regrets;
before the wakeup calls
had to drag you down to earth.

and although you're the wiser for it;
although experience knows no equal brother,
i miss the cocky kid in you
that would snicker
at my own doubting eyes.

 
hemiacetals

i'm in ucsf library right now. i am to go downstairs and pick up lots of articles as no one has been coming here from publ health library for two and a half weeks now. i kinda wandered over here, and i thought i'd drop a line.

finals were childbirthing, and i now have postpregnancy depression. it's a common syndrome, really. the baby may be perfectly healthy, the dad completely supportive and sensitive, but still, the syndrome doesn't go away.

this time around, i gave it all the heart i knew how to give. i hope it shows up at such.

freddie, my chem gsi was "hammered" when he came in to haas pavillion for the eight oclock exam this morning. what a guy, i won't miss him. you see, i have grown.

sleep deprivation is a silly thing. it's not worth losing health, wealth, and mind over, and yet, i'm walking today like a drug addict having to have gone on for a whole day without her precious meth.

mm, meth.

 
from today's http://writersalmanac.org

The Poet's Occasional Alternative

I was going to write a poem
I made a pie instead it took
about the same amount of time
of course the pie was a final
draft a poem would have had some
distance to go days and weeks and
much crumpled paper

the pie already had a talking
tumbling audience among small
trucks and a fire engine onthe kitchen floor
everybody will like this pieit will have apples and cranberries
dried apricots in it many friends
will say why in the world did you
make only one

this does not happen with poems

because of unreportable
sadnesses I decided to
settle this morning for a re-
sponsive eatership I do not
want to wait a week a
year ageneration for the right
consumer to come along.

 
man with the green bag

there's an eighty year old man in the public health library who carries with him his whole life in two suitcases. he falls asleep a lot, and my footsteps usually stir him awake. he got up for a drink of water momentarily when i was up there yesterday, and i gave into the curiosity that has been gnawing at me for a long time and i went over to his little desk to see what all the papers were about. now, suffice it to say, i shouldn't read people's thingies when they leave their desks, but it isn't as if reading a friend's diary, it's a stranger,..and he doesn't know me, and i'll never know him, and really if you think about it long and hard, it's not intruding into his life, it's more like taking a sneak peak. erase sneak.

so anyway, i went over to his mass stack of papers and started looking at them. they were oligonucleotide patterns in DNA. and he had pages and pages and pages of sequenced three letter codons. then there was a copy of anna karenina on the bottom of a huge stack. i guess for when he takes breaks. he is almost done.

he came back pretty quickly. and i carried on. it felt like the secret garden of books. i wonder what he's doing, all those days he spends in the most out of the way place in the library. i wonder if he cared to tell anyone.