Sunday, 31 March 2002

If everyday were like Sunday, I would be highly reclusive, well rested, perpetually clean, lethargic, have no social skills, and have a freakishly organized house. I passed up a day in the world and two attractive get-togethers to hang up my freshly washed clothes, wash dishes, and arrange my newest pictures in photo albums in front of Scully, Doggett, and Reas. A thunderstorm passed over at some time that I didn't note, I ate one meal and a string of haphazard snacks, and I let that Kronos Quartet CD play on repeat at least twice. I'd like another Sunday tomorrow, please, but more than that would probably be a bad idea.

Saturday, 30 March 2002

Ate sushi with three friends-slash-former coworkers from when I was in college and I worked at that independent movie theater. Well, I ate two pieces of sushi because I only like it a little bit and I'm nervous about ordering anything besides the salmon due to severe menu confusion. So instead of a full plate of raw, I ordered the inevitably disgusting sushi-restaurant cooked food, which was indeed bad, and I pushed it around in the decorative box it came in, segregating the onions from the rice like boys and girls at a school dance, partially to make it easier to eat, partially for its own sake. Later we leaned against railings and walls on Elaine's porch discussing movies and making demands of who needs to rent what.

Today, a premature Easter at my parents' house that felt like a lazy Sunday. I still do my laundry there sometimes; today I washed my curtains twice. Twice, because the first time I totally forgot to include the detergent. While they were drying, my mom and I rode our bikes around town, weaving through campus and down quiet roads I haven't seen in maybe ten years, coasting past bored cops prowling through parking lots and sleeping at wheels.

Tonight, I think I'm going to a party where the theme is "dress like a Republican." I have nothing at all to wear to that, but I'm looking forward to coming up with something. I only hope the party is good, because I don't think I want to go anywhere else dressed like that.

Friday, 29 March 2002

Right now I wish I had a dog, just so I could take him for a ride in the car and roll all the windows down, let him stick his face out and watch his jowls fly back with the depression of the accelerator, the fur pressed down, eyes squinted, and that ridiculous smile-like expression dogs have.

In my car just now, within one mile of road, I saw two dogs hanging out of two different cars, their front paws propped on the edge of the respective driver's-side doors and their ears pinned back by the wind. Cats are no good when it comes to riding in cars. They just squeeze their fat bodies underneath the seat or, worse, underneath the pedals, howl at you, and hold grudges.

I would consider borrowing a dog, but last time I did that, it didn't work out so well. Ingo and I decided to go for a walk around Lake Johnson and thought it might be nice to take along a friend's dog, a large rottweiler who came with a black studded collar. She neglected to warn us that he was adopted, and that his previous owners had taught him to be racist.

So there we were, taking turns being walked by this powerfully strong dog, arm extended hanging on to the leash, half-jogging sideways, trying to contain him as he lunged and barked at black passersby. I didn't know whether I was supposed to apologize and explain, pretend I didn't notice, or pretend the dog barked and lunged at everyone equally. I think I opted to reprimand the dog and avoid eye contact. I know that my next walk was dogless.

Thursday, 28 March 2002

Have you ever seen a computer screen on TV? Because of film speed and the fact that the TV's flicker is slower than the computer screen's flicker, the televised computer screen appears in slow motion, making it look like there's a strobe light living inside of it. I saw a computer classroom on the local TV news the other day, rows of boxy monitors flashing like mad, looking like evil hypnotists opposite dumb faces and slackened jaws. It looked like the monitors were brainwashing their disciples with subliminal messages between the flashes of light, perhaps telling them to arm themselves and wear Nikes, or maybe just to click here and download this. It's absurd how much time I spend in front of one of those flickering demons. My eyes hurt even more than they did a minute ago just because I'm thinking about it.

Wednesday, 27 March 2002

Just woke up and soon will be going back to sleep again. I don't know why, but all week I've been collapsing on my bed after work and after dinner, peeling myself up and falling back down again, as if naps were the pauses between my sentences. Someone put glue in my eyes and decided to leave my contacts in, thought that wearing a sweatshirt and jeans underneath a pile of blankets was a good idea, left all the lights on, and moved my clock forward. ugh. Why don't I feel any better? My cat just sits there beside me the whole time, as if this were normal behavior.

Tuesday, 26 March 2002

An unusually high rate of movie-watching over the past several days has put me on the other end of these: Following, a film by Christopher Nolan (the director of Memento) about a man who follows and observes random people; Donnie Darko, a film about a delusional boy who gets orders from a sinister rabbit named Frank; and Annie Hall, a Woody Allen film that friends have insisted that I see so that I will understand their recurring references to it.

I enjoyed all of them, but the one that I would recommend—the one I'll probably end up buying—is Donnie Darko. It's a really incredible movie that's satisfying on a lot of different levels. I knew very little about any of these films before I watched them, and I think I like that method: avoid the reviews and be surprised. So far it's working, at least. I suppose it's inevitable that a bad surprise will find me.

***

This afternoon the man in the floppy hat gave me a green glass vintage soda bottle with three wild lilies poking out of it. Apparently the soda that came in it, Dr. Enuf, is an eastern Tennessee concoction that isn't common outside of its own tri-city region. So says the bottle: "Dr. Enuf…is enough...[It's] the staff of life!" Wow, with that claim, I'm sorry I don't get to try it. I wonder what they put in it to make it the staff of life.

It seems I'm not the only one on floppy hat man's gift-list. Sometimes he brings Steve Styrofoam cups of chili, and last week he brought the new editor a rose and a block of homemade hook cheese. No one can figure out just why he does this. There's a rumor that he's friendly.

Monday, 25 March 2002

Tonight I went on a search for a bell to put on my cat, before any more neighborhood animals die between her paws. The last bell she wore she accidentally removed herself; the key ring-like wire that attached the bell to her collar was found stretched out and stuck in a couch cushion. Apparently she fell asleep, hooked her wire underneath a few threads, and woke up to find her neck fused to the cushion. Eventually she pulled herself free; unfortunately I slept through all the excitement.

On my search for the replacement bell, I stopped by a pet store, which didn't have bells but actually had sweatshirts for dogs that said, "I'm proud to be an American." At the craft store I had better luck, but since it only sold bells in bulk, I now have something like fifty of them, with use for exactly one.

For some reason, whenever I'm in a craft store (which isn't very often), I find it tempting to purchase things like pipe cleaners and googly eyes and stickers, though it is clear to me that I don't have a use for any of those things. I manage to refrain, mainly because when I was younger, I would hold onto things like mesh and yarn and scraps of cloth for years, waiting for a need to create, but no purpose ever came.

On one of the many aisles of junk I walked down, I came across some of those dangly earring bases and was reminded of my first pair of dangly earrings. It was 1984, I was in fourth grade, and they were made of neon yellow metal mesh that hung down and folded around themselves like sugar cones. The first day that I wore them, I was very aware of their presence, my earlobes heavy, the metal mesh dusting my neck when I walked. That awareness increased after I overheard that I "thought [I] was so great" because I was wearing dangly earrings. (The following week Nicole was accused of thinking she was so great because of a white ribbon barrette she wore in her hair. Girls are so sweet.)

Sunday, 24 March 2002

I woke up early this morning feeling miserable, so for the first half of the day, I did very little beyond watch the beautiful weather—through glass and screens—age and eventually fade, without me in it. For the second half of my day, feeling a little better, I sifted through haphazard papers that have stubbornly accumulated and formed intimidating mounds around my room. It was something I'd been dreading, but, once I started making sense of it, I enjoyed feeling my procrastination-anxiety unravel and finding evidence of my life prior to today.

I came across old song lists for mixed tapes I'd made; a note from Ingo from one of my first days in Berlin, detailing the best way for me to get to a certain part of town; pieces from the Berlin Wall that Ingo, Wolfgang, and I chipped off an abandoned slat, as we crouched in the woods by the edge of a road; pages of tiny notebooks on which I'd written restaurant food specials of evenings long ago, back when I spent my energy as a waitress; a list of inside jokes that an old friend and I accrued at the beach ten years ago, half of which I could no longer understand.

I put it all into one big heap on the floor, sat Indian-style in the center of it, and formed several more coherent piles, mentally labeled for their destination. By now, everything has been organized and relocated in deliberate drawers and shelves and closets. My head, however, is still attached to fragments that I unearthed today, and it doesn't seem able to catch up to the present.

Saturday, 23 March 2002

Friday, 22 March 2002

I was wrong about the rain and wrong about the order of the sets, but I was right about that particular band I don't like. I tried to stand there and watch them, but my feet kept moving, slowly but deliberately in a backwards direction, until I was standing at the Ms. Pac-Man machine at the back of the building. That's where I waited out the first part of the show, my right hand clutching the red spherical joystick, my left braced against the video game's hood, in an attempt to keep the machine from wobbling back and forth. I made it as far as the screen where the power pellets lose their magic and promptly died, just in time to see the Moldy Peaches take the stage. The only disappointing thing about their set was the obnoxious guy standing near me who yelled "whoo!" in my right ear during "Steak for Chicken," and that wasn't the band's fault. Like some sort of freak groupie, I got my picture taken with the female lead singer, something hadn't planned on doing at all. She was just standing there by herself and I'd brought a camera, so, there you go.

In an hour or so, I think I'm going to stop by that Green party, the invitation to which I so eloquently accepted last month. I'm going partly out of guilt, though I haven't decided whether I'm going to confess that guilt or go by my middle name all evening.

Thursday, 21 March 2002

Tonight I'm going to go see the Moldy Peaches play. Of course the show is in Chapel Hill (rather than in Raleigh), which means thirty minutes of driving on wet interstate and not getting home until it's officially tomorrow (one? two?). Then again, they're opening for a band I hate, a local band at that, an arrangement I can't quite make sense of. So maybe I'll creep out between sets and have the parking lot to myself before finding my way back to the highway underneath dark and rain.

I wonder what it's like, being in a cohesive unit like a band that travels together and stops in scattered towns, learning more about the backs of seedy venues than the tourist attractions. Getting used to a new dressing room, a new stage, a new crowd every couple of nights, surviving on foreign restaurants and road maps. I imagine that after a while, the nuances become routine, and towns, venues, and faces all blur and overlap. That would be my favorite part, though: seeing new out-of-the-way places I have no other reason to visit, and feeling like I'm on a constant adventure.

A few friends of mine have started a band and are looking for a female guitarist. I wish I could do it, but, even when I was at the height of my guitar playing, I wasn't yet good enough to improvise with others or play in front of a crowd. I never really got over that learning crest, the one that coasts downward once your fingers have become limber like rubber bands and you can look up while you play instead of staring down at the strings and watching your hands strike unnatural poses. I really need to pick it up again, not so that I can be in a band, but because it's such a nice thing to sit in a near-empty room by yourself and listen to the notes that you produce echo all around you.

In eighth grade, I had my first relationship with a guitar (not including the times my older cousin Dennis would strum and sing "I'm Not Lisa" to me at family get-togethers). It began with a crush on my brother's bass-playing college roommate, who taught me U2's New Years Day and explained chord progressions, distortion, pickups, and how to listen for the elusive deep sounds in the music I liked. I thought it was really cool, being able to reproduce parts of songs played on the radio; it was nothing at all like playing Good King Wenceslas on the flute in the school band. That year I got a sleek maroon bass guitar and a modest amplifier, and I began working my way through instructional manuals. Mostly, though, I relied on friends to teach me successions of notes that formed recognizable songs, because that was much more satisfying.

It wasn't long before some of my friends and I decided to start an all-girl group. Sally was the singer, since she could sing, I was the bass player, since I had a bass guitar, EJ was the lead guitar player, since her brother Ben played guitar, and Stephanie was the drummer, well, because that was the instrument that was left. It didn't seem to matter that Stephanie was completely tone deaf and that she had no sense of rhythm. We seemed to be more interested in writing lyrics, designing album covers, and coming up with names for the band anyway, than we were in actually making music. I recall that we really wanted to put the acronym of our names (L-E-S-S) to good use. We never played a note, though, so those cover designs and not-so-clever band names eventually dissipated.

I ended up playing my bass guitar on stage once. In eighth grade, in a group of boys, rather, at the school talent show. We played Wipe-Out and Bad to the Bone (not my choices), and I stared down at my fingers rather than face the generous noise made by my peers in the audience.

Wednesday, 20 March 2002

Today I am full of nervous energy, the kind that makes me want to find experience and want to feel alive rather than the kind that makes me productive. It's unfortunate, since the only thing in front of me demands that I sit here, unmoving, and pay attention to it; there are no other doors from which I can choose.

We are where we are because of a series of decisions that we made or that were made for us. Today I'm trying to trace those decisions backwards, like a family tree of figurative forks in the road. My immediate family is easy; it's the great-grandparents—the decisions that I made years ago—that are getting a little fuzzy.

And of course I can only guess at the parts of the tree that don't exist, the ones that stop short and veer in other directions. I can't tell if I'm romanticizing those invisible branches or if they'd really be like the dream-state movie clip I'm imagining, the fast-forwarded series of events that seem somehow profound, even though the moments I've selected are rather stripped-down and simple.

And while I'm digging around in that non-existent attic, I'm visiting the real one, watching the past I did experience, though, like in a dream, I can't tell whether I'm watching myself or seeing it through my eyes. In any case, I'm only viewing memorable samples; it's unfair of me to hold them up to the present moment in comparison. This present moment of anxiety and discontent (but mostly anxiety) will probably not be a part of future movie clips, you know, the ones I make of this point in my life, after decisions have caused me to move on.

I will probably always wonder about alternate paths, and I will wish that I had a life to give each of them.

Tuesday, 19 March 2002

Before I tell you this, I should say that if you live anywhere near me, you have pity on my meager finances and would not consider stealing anything that belonged to me. Because now I actually own something you might want to steal! But you don't want to; I'm certain.

As of Saturday, sitting underneath the passenger seat (or is it in the trunk?) in my beat-up old Honda is a CD player. A CD changer, even, though I don't really care about that part. For some reason a CD-tape unit small enough to fit in the hole in my dashboard is more expensive than the dual component. And, since I refuse to ever get rid of my tape deck (I'll still be repairing my broken cassettes when I'm 90), getting a mere CD player installed is not an option.

For the past several weeks I've been transferring all of my mixed tapes to CD, something that might sound like it could actually be a little bit fun, but I discovered that the novelty fades after about the first ten minutes. It's stealing all of my evenings and making my shoulders ache and the sound quality isn't even very good, though I must admit it is rather satisfying, once the CD is finished and the cover is made. Well, it's satisfying, until I see the stack of tapes waiting to be recorded. (I still plan to keep those tapes, but the idea is to spare them from heavy play and speedy deterioration.)

So in accordance with this big project, I thought it only made sense that I buy a CD player ("the world's smallest," according to the box) on which to play those "tapes," since I spend at least an hour my car every weekday. I bought it a couple weeks ago but never mentioned it, as my clutch died while I was still in the parking lot of the store where I bought it, the box still sitting in my lap. Since that moment, I've debated what to do (sell my car? return the CD player? both?) and have decided that I am fully in denial and I expect my car to live forever. Next I'm buying an antenna.

Monday, 18 March 2002

One by one, I typed their names into my magic 8 ball and scanned the summaries, looking for evidence of old friends I'd lost track of. In return, it gave me lists of familiar-sounding names, its 3-D triangle never failing to bare an answer to the round plastic window, but it produced no true matches. It took me awhile to be sure, without pictures or recent information…is it possible Chris is the lead singer of a band? Maybe Kara has a married name now, and that's why I can't find her. It would be enough, I think, just to know what happened, as if the story of their lives were the conclusion to a movie I'd missed the last half of. So that's how it ended.

Of course, there are others whose stories aren't nearly enough.

***

This evening I received a message that had been recorded on my voice mail sometime yesterday. Five minutes long, muffled voices of what sounded like an African-American family riding in a car, conversing with one another (rather than to any receiver), full of slang and excitement and laughter. I was laughing on my end, too, perplexed and amused by what I was hearing. It was as if I had been invited to eavesdrop on an unprepared slice of a conversation; I have no idea how that happened, and I assume they don't even know that it did.

Sunday, 17 March 2002

He told me his name was Frank, and that when he was just twelve years old, he killed another little boy. He told me his parents brought him up racist, and when that little black boy said something he didn't like, he lost control. The anger generated by that off-hand remark swelled in his head and spread to his fists and legs and chest and was only released when the little boy underneath him stopped moving. He told me he hadn't intended to kill him, that he hadn't intended to spend the rest of his childhood behind bars, and that he hadn't intended to leave for Vietnam at eighteen to kill some more.

He spoke loudly but almost incoherently, his words garbled and his voice gruff and jagged. He repeated himself and gave indirect answers, responding to questions he found in his head rather than to the ones I'd asked. Hunched over, brown moustache, receding hairline, he looked something like David Crosby, minus the healthy gut.

His buddy, Steve, was much more fluid. He was tall and thin and kept his chin-length gray hair clean and combed and his face newly shaved. His eyes were alert, and he made eye contact with me when he spoke, always serious and sincere. He'd often talk for Frank, answering Frank's questions when Frank seemed unable. He seemed excited to have new ears to fill and kept talking until I would pull myself away, exhausted. It was easier talking to Steve, though I never knew how much of what he said was true. I never believed that his father invented Velcro, or that he was a millionaire. Millionaires don't live on the street.

For a period of two weeks, I drove Frank and Steve to shelters to spend the night, dropped them off at convenient stores, and listened to Frank grunt and Steve ramble. I'd play a certain mixed tape that made them laugh and reminisce; they would sing along whenever Janis Joplin, the Velvet Underground, or Neil Young would play. They never asked me for money (and I never gave them any), but once they bought me breakfast at the IHOP, where we ate together, among a crowd of watchful eyes.

I stopped spending time with them when I started feeling abused. I didn't trust them, and I could never decide whether what I was doing was fair, to me or to that little black boy killed on the playground.

I've seen Steve sporadically over the years, still wandering up and down Hillsborough Street, still shaving and combing his hair. He doesn't recognize me, though. My hair is no longer short, and I purposely avoid his eyes. Frank, however, just disappeared. It wasn't until last week, almost six years later, that I saw him, ambling down an aisle at the grocery store. I paused for a moment and continued shopping.

Saturday, 16 March 2002

I've finished putting the SXSW pictures up. Go there directly, or via the description on the photos page.

Friday, 15 March 2002

It's hard not to want to stay in the cave, away from the news, shoving tapes in instead of listening on NPR, reading non-political weblogs rather than reading salon. This streak of ignorance I'm enjoying is strangely seductive and comfortable, aside from that pesky tinge of guilt that natters on like some trite well-intentioned angel in my opposite ear. Oh, but I'm not on vacation anymore, and it's time I slowly weaned myself back onto the news as if I were reinstating some lax regimen of exercise. And maybe even one day, rather than wanting to throw my shoe at the television screen whenever W.'s face appears, my frustration will morph into some sort of seasoned composure (not to be confused with approval). Though at this point that doesn't seem plausible.

By the way, I'm probably working on the pictures from this past week as you're reading this; expect them soon. I'm also probably drinking a beer and listening to my new Cure record, my window propped open, enjoying something that feels like spring. Enjoying it from the inside, no less.

***

I know that by mentioning them repeatedly, I'm dooming the pictures to be anticlimactic. Unfortunately, there's no way I can finish them tonight. Tomorrow, I promise.

Thursday, 14 March 2002

My first conversation went something like this: "What are you here for?" "Oh, my website was nominated as a finalist." "Yeah, mine, too. For what category?"... "What's your URL?"..."What's yours?"..."Where are you from?"..."Have you been to Austin before?"..."Good luck." [/end]

And another early conversation about like this: "So what's your URL?" "It's lisawhiteman.com." "Whiteman?" "Yeah, 'white-man,' just like it sounds...I have a cousin named 'Rich' who has the same last name that I do...No, I'm not kidding." (Talking to someone else) "Hey, did you hear that? Her cousin's name is Rich White-man." [/end] (I beat you to it, Anil!)

The more time that passed, the better the conversations got. By Tuesday, I was where I probably should've started out. The nice thing about this group in particular, though, is that we can keep up with each other without much effort and without needing much foundation, since reading someone's website doesn't require the same intimacy as a letter or a phone call.

I didn't, however, limit myself to out-of-towners and Internet cafes. No, no. On Saturday Rebecca took us to Mount Bonnell, a glorified hill northeast of Austin that overlooks the Colorado River and a row of ridiculously large houses, a cliff that's lined with signs that threaten punishments for throwing trash and fireworks. From there we drove to Lago Vista, where we got to see two long-horned steer (granted, we stayed in the car and hung out the windows with our cameras like Japanese tourists), a few ranches, campers, and deer, not to mention a woman in a Confederate flag jacket, countless cowboy hats, and shops crammed with Texas paraphernalia. In fact, on Monday I bought some $15 cowboy boots in an Austin thrift store, boots that would later cause a problem for the airport security man who unpacked and tried to repack my overstuffed suitcase.

Mostly, though, my schedule varied little: walk to the conference center > go to a panel > eat a disappointing lunch > go to another panel > wander around Austin > walk home > rest > walk back downtown > go to a party or happy hour or listen to storytelling > eat a turkey sandwich (I think I had at least one per day) > go to another party or happy hour or storytelling event > go home and hang out with the hosts. (repeat)

Wednesday, 13 March 2002

On Friday at the airport, the zipping sound of suitcase wheels against grooved surfaces and the voice of the teacher from Peanuts squawking over the the intercom. A red plastic rocket-shaped object about the length of a cat fell to the floor as I walked out the automatic doors. I looked up, but it hadn't come from the ceiling. I think it fell out of my unraveling sleeping bag, though I hadn't put it there. I picked it up and immediately regretted it, dropped it again, and looked around for security to apprehend me. No one came, and nothing blew up, so we headed to the car.

Rebecca picked us up from the airport. She and Matt offered their house to three of us who were in Austin to attend SXSW; they graciously provided couches, rides, morning coffee, and an introduction to the surrounding area, while allowing us to come and go from their house as if it was a stable. Rebecca told me it was, in fact, at one time a stable, though I had trouble imagining how it must've looked before its transformation. It's one story high and sits behind a sliding gate, a wiry tree, and an old Lincoln; inside there are orange, blue, and green walls and tons of insane little trinkets, wooden floors, and a front porch. The neighborhood is filled sporadic boarded-up buildings decorated with spray-painted No Trespassing signs and inhabited by nervous feral cats that darted away when you approached them. Next door to the house was a trampoline encased in an inflatable green dragon, kids bouncing inside of it like popcorn.

I walked the thirty minutes between Rebecca's and the convention center a few times each day, cursing the inaccurate weather report and the cold wind. Once, when a few of us were on our way back to the house, we crouched in the street to look at at a strange synthetic-looking caterpillar. While we were busy pointing and prodding, a man curiously appeared and began to breathe heavy, staccato bursts of air. He looked as if he might say something but just kept breathing and sputtering, until we told him about the caterpillar he turned and headed the other way.

There was almost daily interaction with people in that neighborhood, most of it very friendly: a little boy about seven years old, yelling at his dog in my defense, "Bingo, stop bein' bad!" when the three-legged creature lunged at me in a chorus of loud yips; an old man dragging a grill behind him as he walked down the street, who, upon seeing my camera, pointed out a couple things he recommended I photograph.

On Saturday, I took a cab to what I suppose was the first conference event, a kickball game at which I recognized a few people from their websites, though I actually knew none of them (the Internet veil can make you feel like you know people even though you haven't ever met them before). I completed one play (on my way to first, getting an "out" by involuntarily stopping the kickball with my head) and met a few people, before wandering back to my temporary home.

Monday, 11 March 2002

It feels like I've been away forever; when I return to Raleigh on Wednesday, it'll seem like it went by too fast. It always happens that way, doesn't it? Well I'm definitely enjoying myself, and I do feel like I've dropped out of the world, which is just what I needed. I haven't had a chance to process what I've done or what I'm doing; I'm leaving that for when I get back, when I'll make an insufficient summary of the highlights accompanied with a few pictures. I will say that there are now fewer strangers living in my computer, that on Saturday I got hit in the head with a kickball, and that my site didn't win, which is just how I wanted it (though actually the kickball in the head wasn't all that great). In fact, there was a moment just after the awards ceremony in which I was perfectly content, a feeling so rare that I almost forgot it existed.

Friday, 08 March 2002

Today I'm leaving for Austin, Texas to attend SXSW and to meet a lot of strangers. I'll probably update less frequently for the next few days.

Thursday, 07 March 2002

Sometimes it happens when I'm behind the wheel, stuck in a channel of stagnant metal, my tapes exhausted and my radio reception flickering. And I can rely on it occurring when I'm in a stiff meeting, tearing at my cuticles and checking the clock. Reading an operation manual; watching certain bands repeat cycles of rhythm as they stare at the floor; being locked in a conversation that I've had a hundred times before; sitting at a red light; waiting.

I still get bored, though it's different than when I was younger. Rather than stemming from long afternoons with little amusement, my boredom is a result of situations I have little control over, moments that I'm unable to escape or avoid.

I can barely remember what it feels like to have a stretch of time and not have a clue what to do with it. If I had a friend over, we would usually find somewhere to channel our energy, though it took some brainstorming. We would draw up lists and make up games, exhausting our imaginations to the point of coming up with ridiculous solutions. (Sarah and I revised hide-and-seek by putting duffel bags on our heads and zipping them up to our necks; Ashley and I would make original sour-tasting desserts using all of the extract in my parents' spice cabinet; with Natasha, I sneaked out of the house and put laundry detergent in the town fountain.) I was less successful when I was alone.

Even in college, I didn't abuse idle time by stuffing it full of errands and social engagements; my time was liquid and uncommitted. I would burn hours in the darkroom with Charlie; Jay and I would drive around aimlessly playing music fascist. Listen to this. You're going to love this. Now it's my turn. Let me put my tape in. Isn't that awesome? Okay, I'm just going to fast forward past this part. The next song is even better. I would lie back on brick walls looking up at the sky, sprawl on the floor in front of my stereo an manufacture mixed tapes, and sit Indian-style in booths of late-night diners drinking coffee and telling stories. I wasn't bored—I was preventing it. But the threat of boredom was there.

I miss being relaxed and lazy and not knowing what time it is.

Wednesday, 06 March 2002

It's gotten to the point that I am putting off making a list of things to do because of the things to do themselves. Let me just get one more thing accomplished, then I'll make that list. In essence what I'm doing is I'm taking all of the fun out of the list, because, if I make the list at the end, I don't get to cross anything off, which happens to be the point of making the list.

Went for a walk just now, out of the house before dinner and between computer sessions to get exercise and fresh air and to break from accomplishing things on that mental list. My cat Leeches spotted me and started in the same direction as I had, so I quietly turned around and began walking the other way, and, naturally, so did she. She'd jog at my feet until I would stop, brush up against my legs, and then we'd walk together in the opposite direction, essentially pacing back and forth—not too close to the street with the traffic, and not too close to the yard with the rabbits. We carried on like that for about ten minutes before I gave up and came inside.

Tuesday, 05 March 2002

For the last several weeks, a coworker and I have been having an ongoing political debate, sporadically e-mailing each other issues and articles and personal commentary. Well, I suppose the debate started longer ago than that, since it was back in August that I anonymously planted a printed copy of this article on his chair while he was at lunch, quietly smiling to myself as I heard him go from cubicle to cubicle asking, Did you put this on my chair? Did you see who did? He never came to my cubicle to question me because, at the time, I didn't know him very well at all, and he probably didn't consider me a likely culprit. I don't know him terribly well now, but if I were to leave a similar article on his chair tomorrow, I'd probably be first on his list of suspects.

Our debate isn't about one thing in particular, but really about everything, since we have yet to find a subject that we can agree on. Mostly I complain about how poorly things are being handled and about the state of the world, and he mostly defends current policy or has vastly different solutions. I tell him that with each day that I follow the news, I get more depressed and feel increasingly helpless, and he says things like, "Please don't be cynical. There has always been suffering, hunger, plague, and war." (That doesn't make me feel better.) We read the same article and get the same information, yet our interpretations couldn't be more opposite.

I think it's healthy, though, having friendly and informed yet antagonistic discussions, as tempting as it is to surround myself with like-mindedness on all fronts. Even if I'm not being converted to the other side, I'm learning about it and how to anticipate it, and, in the process, learning to better articulate my own opinions. We are never going to agree, though. I don't really care if we do.

***

I've transferred his piano music from tape to CD, part of one of the latest giant projects I've created for myself, turning all my mixed tapes into mixed CDs. He always cringes at the mistakes, but for me, they've worked themselves into the music, digging in like termites, modifying the structure so that it becomes something new. If I ever hear other versions of the same pieces, I wait for the bumps to come, and when they don't, it feels like something's missing.

Monday, 04 March 2002

I had a very average—actually a rather bad—day that started with oversleeping for work by an hour because of an unusual nightmare that silenced my alarm clock. The day is ending with my car being towed away for possibly the last time, an issue that will be determined by money and reason and my ridiculous attachment to that poor car. By the way, if you're at all curious, my parents did buy that Beetle.

Also, this was completely unexpected. (Incidentally, it's not one of the things that made my day bad.)

Sunday, 03 March 2002

I had hoped it would be an old black man sitting in a chair with a guitar on his lap, rather than six white men wearing sparkly vests who propped their music up on personalized podiums and who crooned and smiled and blew forcefully through their shiny instruments. Despite what I'd been told over the phone, this was new, happier blues, not the stripped-down back porch music I was seeking, the kind that makes you believe the artist has been down and out and left and kicked around and has had his heart dragged through the mud by every woman on the block.

The lead singer, who looked remarkably like Jay Leno, told bad jokes between songs while the fan that was directed toward him moved the front of his hair as one big unit. One of his jokes mentioned adding one of two dancing couples to the band's payroll; I can only imagine that he meant the professional-looking swing dancers that had been twirling across the floor. The other dancing couple was much less composed. The rat-tailed male, who looked like he was controlled by marionette strings, kept groping this female dance partner and erratically stabbing his enthusiatic fists into the air. I made it through three songs before finding a more reliable venue.

Saturday, 02 March 2002

The British Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibit has been in town for the past month, but I've let each weekend slip by without visiting, until today, the second-to-last day of the exhibit's tenure. The NC Museum of Natural Sciences is hosting the exhibit—prints of tubby elephant seals, surprised monkeys, curtains of red ants, and mossy trees—in a room sectioned off by glass doors and a cash register. Today the bulk of the museum was crowded with armies of kids, running and laughing and tugging on sleeves, restless from the day's steady rain. The exhibit itself was less busy, catering more to a crowd that paces itself and whispers. After looking at the first few prints, I stopped noticing the people around me anyway.

Of course the photos were impressive, but what made them exceptional were the stories behind them. Displayed on the wall just next to the prints were details about the number of hours the photographer waited in stillness, the animals' fascination with the camera or their disregard for it, the events that led up to the picture and the moments that followed, the disturbing statistics of destroyed habitats and endangered species, and, of course, f stops and shutter speeds and lens lengths. It made me want to travel to Africa take pictures of large, dangerous animals or (perhaps more realistically) walk in the woods and find a lizard to photograph, if only I were patient enough to wait for it.

I came home to find two pieces of mail with my name on it—one from the Defenders of Wildlife, and the other from The National Arbor Day Foundation—envelopes stuffed with pictures and long convincing arguments asking me to adopt a wolf and plant some trees. How did they know I would be going to a wildlife photography exhibit, and that I would be exceptionally soft and generous when I came home? Well, before I had the chance to write any checks, the clutch in my car performed a lightning-quick dramatic death, reminding me that my paycheck doesn't cover the expenses of my good intentions and barely covers my car's disintegration. Wow, a whole two weeks that my car has gone without getting its organs rearranged.

Last night's culture took place in a local art gallery and was much less conventional than wildlife photography in the museum. It involved two women, wearing paper jumpsuits, red-and-white striped socks, wigs, and goggles, who hung suspended from the ceiling in front of red-and-white painted bull's-eyes and smeared icing on each other's faces with long poles. Tonight it's blues.

Friday, 01 March 2002

At the end of the driveway, whoever was driving would stop the car and let me and my brother climb out. We'd each claim a side and plant our feet on the grooved rubber-covered runners just below the doors, hook our small fingers on the metal gutters on the edge of the roof, and we'd ride up the driveway, happy to have the wind hitting our faces and to be watching the dangerous pavement race by beneath us. I don't remember much else about that car, except the punctured off-white material that lined the inside of the doors, and the time I accidentally discovered my birthday present in the spacious cavity underneath the hood (while bragging to my friend Stephen about how, in VW Beetles, the trunk was the hood and the hood was the trunk). By the time I was 9, my parents had sold the car and moved on to something '80s and boxy.

Well today my parents announced that over the course of this weekend they're going to be test-driving a 1998 Beetle, a shiny white new creature that drinks diesel fuel and has a permanent flower vase to the right of the steering column, a slender plastic cylinder that my dad admitted to already getting his finger stuck in. I'm anxious to hear the end-of-weekend verdict, but, from the way it sounds over the phone, my dad has already fallen in love.

***

Make your own digital Lite-Brite creation. This is what I came up with.

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