Today, for the first time in my life, I saw a bonafide picket line, protesting labor practices. It may sound odd that I've never seen one until now, but this is Phoenix, the land of well-fed, complacent consumers--except for those who aren't--but we try to keep those people as invisible as possible, you know. Until now, the closest thing I've seen to a labor dispute protest, has been a group of three people who sit around with big banners, protesting the labor practices of this or that company. The banner and their umbrellas to protect them from the sun almost entirely conceal them from view. I believe it's the same three people, because the banner is always the same, only the company name changes. They seem to be self-appointed professional protesters, except that their protest is weak and heartless. It has become common enough, that I don't think anyone notices them or cares.

Not so with this picket line. Some thirty people, each with signs, marching up and down the sidewalk in front of the entrance to a construction site for a large glass box office building that's been under construction for the last eight or nine months, on Camelback near 24th St. At nine in the morning, it was sunny and already 95 degrees. I have no idea what they are protesting, but I am excited to see some people in this city with spirit enough to protest, even in the heat. I wholeheartedly applaud them, and would like very much to know what it's all about.



This morning, I had no internet at home. I had worries that this was connected to my recent foray into torrent territory, having downloaded the last ten episodes of Battlestar Galactica last week. The last time I tried to download anything pertaining to that show, my service was disconnected by Cox. Cox gave me warning though, by posting a web page informing me that they had cut me off. I have Qwest now, and the service is a little different, but I figured they may have done the same thing, but without the warning.

So, I called up technical support and talked to a guy. He had me check the connections to the modem, and all seemed fine, so he called up the central whatever-it-is to find out if there were any outages in my area. I then sat on hold for a half-hour waiting for him to get back to me. When I was nearly about to give up, he comes back on the line and apologizes for the long wait, but he had been put on hold. He told me that the problem was local to my unit, that my neighbors had service, though I didn't. This was the point at which I figured I'd be informed that it was because I had been naughty on the internet and they had administered the requisite hand slap, but he didn't mention anything like that. Instead, he had me look for another outlet in my apartment to move the modem to. I didn't think I had one, but after a couple of minutes of searching, I located one in the bedroom, behind the bed. So, I went back to the modem and yanked the cables out, weaving them through the ins and outs of the bookcase where the modem resides, and that's when I discovered . . . the chew marks. Da da dahhhhh! And I knew immediately what had happened. Two nights ago, I recalled seeing Toogie hanging out under the bookcase with a feisty look on her face, deeply engaged in something down there, but I assumed she was playing with one of her toys and didn't think anything of it. Long story short, I replaced the cable, and, presto! I had internet access again! Forty-five minutes on the phone and late for work, only to find out it had been my silly terror of a kittyface who had caused the foul-up.

My apartment is 87 degrees. At 7:30 in the morning. Of course, my thermostat doesn't say that--it persistently tells me that it's 80 degrees, never deviating from that temperature reading, no matter how warm it feels in here. My theory is that the management has done something to the thermostats so that they never register temperatures above 80. That way, the people living here can be psychologically assuaged in regards to the temperature even though their bodies tell them something different. Also, no one can really complain that hard about it, since 80 degrees isn't "really that high" when it's over 100 outside, and some people find 80 perfectly reasonable for energy-conservation purposes.

The reason why I know it's actually 87 in here and the readings on the thermostat are spurious and contrived, is I have an old school alcohol thermometer that used to be in my photography lab equipment, lying out on top of a cabinet.

I'm not sure what can be done about the temperature, in any case. My apartment complex doesn't have air conditioning, but instead uses a cooling system where, basically, chilled water is run through a pipe over which a fan blows. I think it may be a little more complicated than that, but not much. It was never very successful at heating my apartment in the winter either. I think I may end up complaining to the management, but I think first, I need to get my hands on a digital thermometer to prove that my apartment is actually approaching 90 degrees.

I keep my fans running most of the time, but this is getting pretty ridiculous. I don't even want to cook food in here.

Not having had enough of cleaning refrigerators, after doing the one at the Zen center yesterday morning, I took care of my own today. It feels good to have a clean fridge.

Also I colored my hair again.

I'm heartbroken and I don't like the way I'm living. I don't really know what to do about this, except to throw as much money at my student loan as possible so I can finally be free of all the debt that's been hanging over my head since I left the university. I hope I can manage to do this before I'm fifty.

That may or may not be sarcasm.

There's a lot I'm thinking about, that's too important to me to write about, so I'm just going to keep thinking.

Good night.

Two weeks ago, the teen stars of Twilight were so obsessed with each other they could hardly bear being out of each other's sight. Now, they're "through." I know this because I went to the grocery store.


I started from scratch with the SketchUp model. From now on, my working policy when operating in this program will be to save progressive versions of the file, thereby eliminating the chance that I will lose the entire thing again. The application is that twitchy. If I ever meet one of the programmers I'm going to be sorely tempted to deck them.

Oh, for the days when I could build models out of chipboard, wood, and glue. I enjoyed that way more.

I spent the last three days working on a model of a building in Google SketchUp. What a piece-of-shit program. After three days of wrestling with the model, which I never could get to close up right, or navigate around it properly, the program freaked out entirely. I zoomed back a little to get a better look at something, and ended up going through some kind of mysterious portal that shoved me into, what I suppose was, the ground. No matter what I did, I couldn't get out of it, and can no longer see the model I created. So, the file is there, and all that work, but no way to look at it any longer. Just a blank brown screen.

So I'm starting all over again. Thoroughly. Exasperated.

I'm on Wikipedia again. Today's entry page includes a reference to Gropecunt Lane,

a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function, or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words "grope" and "cunt".

Duh.

In other Wiki news, Tucker Carlson is no longer listed as a talking penis.



EDIT: I'm going for the NC-17 rating on my LJ.

I feel seriously out of whack today. I'm not really interested in writing about the same old, same old, as it pertains to my current emotional situation, but it's there, and I'm trying to cope the best I can. Blergh.

My friend T is not going to Seoul after all, about which I'm relieved. However, instead, she is going to go live on a farm where they make goat cheese, somewhere in New Mexico. I'm wondering if I'll ever see her again.

WTF caterpillars? Why do you keep ending up in the women's restroom? There is no food for you there. Are you suicidal? Do you not wish to develop into beautiful butterflies? Or is it just too damn hot outside for your fleshy little bodies? I know you can't answer my question, but I still wish to know. In the meantime, I'll just keep rescuing you the best way I know how, which is to pick you up and deposit you in the bush outside, scolding you gently as I go, you silly things.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at finding content like this in Wikipedia. Also, I shouldn't be surprised that the characteristic marker habitually placed on articles with a decided bias is pointedly absent. However, whether or not I agree with the characterization or its presentation, I find it a little worrisome. My first reaction of amusement is overcome by the realization that this is where much of our culture turns to for "factual" knowledge.

This is Clark, who goes to the Zen center, and who also used to go to meditation at the same place I used to go. This photo was taken when I first knew him, over two years ago, in March.






This is Michael, the Bisbee tour guide, whom I met back in April, when I was down there.






And this is a shopping cart that mysteriously appeared in my hallway.






It's been so long since I've taken or processed any images, that I almost forgot how I used to do things. I'm badly out of practice. I don't know what I think of any of these.

Uh huh.

The project was finished yesterday, though I'm by no means certain (in fact, quite the opposite), that the drawings are error-free and complete. I'm not looking forward to the kinds of things that will likely go wrong as a result of this deficiency.

We sent it into the printers to have copies made overnight, which my boss will be logging in at the city this morning.


Now, on to the Catholic project, which, technically, can't even be built under the restrictions being imposed by the city. We have a meeting about this with the planner and the owner, this afternoon. My boss is going to argue that if we were to build a fence at the setback line, twenty-four feet in height, that no one within a thousand feet would even be able to see the top of building we are putting in, and hence, it's really not obstructing anything--especially since the site is bordered by nothing on two sides, a high school, and a wash. We'll see where that gets us. He claims it's the same reasoning that allowed them to build the sanctuary building.

I'll be looking into compromise methods of slightly lowering the height of the building. This will likely be my task for the day.

Speaking of which, I'm late again. I should finish my oatmeal, and then skedaddle.

Since when did fortune cookies become compliment cookies, or trite-wisdom cookies?

You know, I take these things seriously.



I think I've been reading too much Achewood.


Uh. Perry Bible Fellowship. So, um, yeah. If you're into syrupy macabre. Dark humor that isn't humor, but is merely darkness, disguised as punchlines. I can't decide if I really dislike it, or really enjoy it.


Today is not quite as nastycranky as yesterday, but close. We're trying to get the project done that should have been completed and submitted to the city of Phoenix on Friday. My boss is saying that we'll print it today and submit it. I hope so. I've been at work late too many times in the past couple of weeks, which I think is contributing significantly towards my levels of nastycranky.

Okay. I'm going to see if ACC is posted yet, and then back to work.




When I am hampered by attitude, I read webcomics.

Nasty cranky day. Ugh.

Today was one of those peculiar days where I worked fairly consistently, but managed to get very little concrete work accomplished--at least anything you could see. I made some decisions about light fixtures, and worked with my electrical engineer. I think her patience with me is wearing pretty thin, since I've fallen pretty firmly into the role of "fussy-picky-architect," and conversely, she's doing "practically-minded engineer"--two roles which are almost always likely to butt heads. I have some very strong aesthetic ideas about the application of light fixtures, matching of color temperatures, and varying levels of light in the spaces for effect. She, on the other hand, is going for even illumination, and affordable fixtures. I'm making some compromises, and she's making some. But, I think I've pressed her a bit hard in some places, because I can tell she's getting a little irritated. It's a new thing for me, being so pushy, but I'm afraid that it's necessary, in order to get the right effect. I'd rather that, than to regret how it turned out after the fact.

There were about fifteen-hundred bazillion other things I was supposed to do today, including printing the drawings and turning them into the city. It didn't happen, and we're past deadline. Again. Sigh.



Yesterday, I put together a nice day for my Dad, which just consisted of hanging out with him, cooking a small feast (steaks on the grill, boiled corn-on-the-cob, salad, mashed potatoes, and garlic toast made from a wheat baguette, accompanied with a beer, and followed up with mint-chocolate-chip-brownie ice cream). He grilled the steaks while I put most of the rest of everything else together.

After trying not to stuff ourselves too much, I thought it would be good to watch some old westerns, since I know he likes those, so I found the Westerns channel on the satellite. We watched this rather odd Billy the Kid film starring Paul Newman, called The Left-Handed Gun. At first, I thought the acting was pretty bizarre, bordering on, if not actually bad. But then I realized that the script had been written in a pretty stilted fashion, which made it impossible for anyone to play convincingly. Around halfway through, it occurred to me that the film--the acting, the characters, the dialogue, the plot progression, all reminded me of a Shakespearean play--except in Western form. This was only a casual observation, however, and consequently didn't result in any deeper thought about it on my part.

The next western was The Electric Cowboy, starring Robert Redford, in which neither my father nor I were interested, so we spent the rest of the evening watching the Discovery Channel. Two episodes of MythBusters, and one documentary about the Somali pirates who took over the Maersk Alabama. Which elicited a WTF kind of reaction from me--didn't that only happen, like, a month ago? And they're already making "heroic" documentaries. I found myself wondering mostly what it was like from the perspective of the Somalis, whom the documentary presented as these nameless, crazed, thugs. And oh, these brave Americans. I realize it was a terrible thing for them to go through, but there are always two sides to these kinds of stories, and documentaries of this nature are always so one-sided in favor of, well, us.


I've been pretty sore since my day of meditation, so I've been taking glutamine. Seriously. How does one strain muscles just sitting?

If the explanation points are not enough for you, you'll just have to take my word for it that the title of this entry is heavily laden with irony.

You wouldn't think that sitting around would so be thoroughly exhausting. Believe me. It is.

Right around the seventh sit period before lunch (there were eight twenty-five-minute sit periods before lunch, and, I think five or six after), was when my body decided that it didn't sign up for this, and refused to cooperate. To say that my knees, hips, and back all ached doesn't do justice to the level of pain. The temperature of the zendo was set to nuclear winter. I had been up since four in the morning--with the one cup of coffee I made for myself, before setting off for the Zen Center at five, being the entire allotment of caffeine I had consumed for the day--and would have nodded off altogether if it weren't for the pain and the cold. And so I was hovering in a peculiarly uneasy dilemma of my mind not being able to decide which form of discomfort to settle and focus upon.

In between the sit periods were times when we were chanting (but still sitting in position--adding to the time spent in "sit mode"), a few standing meditation periods, and a couple of kinhin (walking meditation). There was also yard work, on which I evidently drew one of the short straws, because I was set to work weeding grass out of a patch of lantana, which task required me to remain bent over, and on my knees, for forty-five minutes--thus putting strain on the two parts of my body most vulnerable to strain and fatigue. Yay!

So, when we came out of that seventh sit period and transitioned into the third or fourth standing meditation period of the day, my body refused to stand. In fact, when we came out of the sit, and I dragged my legs out from underneath my seiza bench (Yes, I'm a wimp--I was sitting "easy" and still couldn't manage!), I just sat on the end of the meditation platform, legs trembling, tears streaming uncontrollably down my face. Sheer physical exigency caused me to bow out without consulting anyone before the eighth sit period started. The shoji stepped out after me and asked me if I was okay and if I needed to rest. Thank Buddha! I most certainly did! So, I laid down on a couch in the house, away from the zendo for about a half-hour, which definitely helped, but didn't cure all my problems. Our breakfast and lunch were served in the zendo--seated, of course. And then, there were the afternoon sits, which seemed to get longer and longer as the day progressed. Again, on the second to the last sit, my body began rocking uncontrollably, my legs and lower back ached even more than before--I hadn't imagined that was possible--and, unbelievably, despite the pain, I was actually falling asleep. I had given up all hope of even being able to concentrate properly at that point--my mind was going like a dervish on crack, and I had enough on my hands just trying to keep my body in an upright posture. So, I had to give up on the last sit period. Still, out of thirteen or fourteen sit periods in twelve hours, I managed to sit for eleven or twelve of them, which I guess isn't too bad, considering it was my first ever attempt at a zazenkai.

By which statement I'm implying that I may actually try doing this again--contrary to my tone about everything I've stated here, and maybe even all reason. I have to say that my favorite part of the day--the easiest part, in fact, since it comes to me so naturally--was the silence. I'm of the opinion that large groups of people should be forced to sit around in silence together periodically. I think that people talk way too much, in general, to no purpose at all, and I'm much more comfortable being around others quietly than otherwise. Besides, it's a really good way of weeding out people I don't want to be around because any group of people I can hang out with in almost total silence for twelve hours without it feeling creepy or painfully uncomfortable, has got to be a great group of people.

Speaking of which, can I say just how much I like this particular group of Buddhists? I don't know how I was lucky enough to stumble blindly onto these people, but they are just wonderful. Already, I have bonded with some of the resident monks and nuns, and a couple of the regulars. (Doing a hardcore sit of this nature, I think, tends to be a bonding experience by default). We sat around talking afterwards, drinking beer, and munching on popcorn and delicious macaroons the size of your fist (no lie), and I felt totally comfortable, like I had known these people forever.

It came up in the conversation, about how Rinzai--which is the form practiced by this particular Zen center, is sort of known as the "Marines of Zen," which is pretty funny for me to consider. I wasn't looking to pick the most "difficult" or "hardcore" form in which to practice. I just went to several different places, and this is the one that I felt fit me immediately. I wonder what that says about me? Eh. Probably nothing.



I had planned on trying to go dancing this evening, but hadn't counted on how physically exhausted I was going to be by the end of this day. Sorry, badrach. I really wanted to see you. Maybe next week?

This week's ACC, which I forgot to read on Wednesday (gasp!), was poignant enough to make me weep--which probably won't make much sense, unless you've been reading along at home.

Sigh.



The city of Scottsdale, in their infinite wisdom--pardon my snark--has declared that no buildings in the ESL overlay (otherwise known as "Environmentally Sensitive Lands," or alternately, "Snotty Rich People Who Don't Want Their Precious Views of the Mountains Obstructed By No Stinking Churches), shall be taller than 24 feet to their highest point. This means roofs, towers (if anything shorter than 30 feet on a building could be classified as a "tower"), parapet walls, whatever.

Twenty-four feet isn't much to work with. Especially if you want to seat 300 in a dining hall with a pitched roof, and have an attached two-story wing of classrooms. It's simply not enough.

The sanctuary building for my client--a Catholic church, which was constructed previous to this lovely little switcheroo in the zoning ordinance, is forty feet to its highest point. My thought is, what is the harm in adding another building at thirty feet (plus or minus a few feet in bits and spots), since the site is already built over-height?

The city planner was hoping that he could grandfather in the new construction, under the previously approved master plan. (That's how absurd all this is--even the city planner finds the change ridiculous, and is looking for loopholes to squeeze our project through). But no dice. We're going to have to file for a hardship variance, and go before the council--which is comprised of the very people who decided to make this silly change in the first place.

Grr.



This Saturday, I'm going to do a one-day retreat, or zazenkai, at the Zen Center. I have to go to an orientation for that this evening, since most of the day will be spent in silence, and there are rules and protocol for how to communicate without words in certain contexts. Which will be useful to know. One of the challenges for me will be the time I have to be there--the day starts at five-thirty. A.M. On a Saturday. Usually, I sleep in at least another three hours on Saturday mornings, so this ought to be interesting. If I can just get myself to sleep by, say, nine, on Friday night.

Yeah. That ain't gonna happen. Hopefully there will be coffee at breakfast, or I may be sleeping my way through some of the zazen. Actually, I may have to opt for making my own at home before going.

I've totally fallen off the coffee bandwagon. I wasn't supposed to be having caffeine anymore, but that went right out the door as of about six months ago. I really should back off my usage some, since its effectiveness is diminishing. Hm.

There was a time when I felt like writing came easily to me. I could construct whole sentences in my head, and write them out with little need to hash and rehash what I had previously written. I'd find a typo here and there, but no major spelling errors, no misplaced apostrophes, no glaring oversights where I completely missed a word or two or botched my tenses. I invariably used the proper version of "it's" or "its" where required, and never mistook "your" for "you're." But now, I struggle every time I start to write something. My thoughts get ahead of my words often enough that I make all of these errors. Regularly enough that I cringe in the shame and embarrassment of it, because it means that I've started to become that which I've always scorned--one of the Internet Illiterati.

It could be too that I've become far pickier about my writing in general, and inversely, have less time to write. I'm always crashing out everything I write so quickly anymore, that I'm losing my ability to articulate altogether. The points I want to make swirl around in my head and get mixed up with each other. I write in circles, jotting down a bit here and there, but find it harder and harder to construct articulate sentence that actually bear all of my intended meaning. I think that perhaps, a little of my problem is an old one--my inability to sort out what is most important from what can be dropped from the picture without the loss detracting from the overall message I intend to convey. This is the thing that badly hampered my master's thesis back in my university days. Everything was so important to me, and all so intertwined and tangled up in my head that I failed to narrow down the scope of my subject enough to get as in-depth as I should have.

Much as it might seem that words should be my gift, I find instead that words are the thing that hang me up. I can't express what I see--not in words, or in any other medium, really. I'm just smart enough, it would seem, to see a whole slew of connections between things, but just barely, and not enough to be able to actually articulate what I see. I perceive it all but dimly--and, it would seem--dumbly. Sometimes I have wished that I had another ten to twenty points of IQ to work with--that maybe then, all the things that get all jumbled up when I try to make sense of them would settle into some kind of pure open clarity, patterned like the chains and twists on a crocheted doily.

At least I know how to crochet.

I started writing this, because of a reply I wrote to someone last night, which I botched so badly as to have to re-write and resend it three times. This embarrassed me a good deal, since the reply was to someone whom I deeply respect, whose prose (and now it would seem, poetry) fairly awes and dazzles the socks right off me. To my credit, I suppose I can blame part of my inarticulateness on the fact that it was quite late, and I was riding out the alcoholic wave of not one, but two amaretto sours. Evidently, though, I've only just come to the realization that my embarrassment is still potent enough to spur me to write this peculiar entry, as if in apology, it would seem, for my errors.

Ha.

1. An awful lot of reading.

On Saturday, I read all of Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, which was both amusing, and curiously thought-provoking.

On Sunday, I finished Jude the Obscure, which I had started a couple of months ago when I was sick in bed; however, up until a few days ago, I couldn't get myself to read past the point where the child they called "Father Time" entered the picture, because I could tell that this was classic Hardy turning-point, after which everything would go completely to shit. I was right, of course.

I've also been reading various bits and chunks out of several other books on psychological subject matter, including a few things that could only be classified as "self-help" books. Some of them have proven more helpful than others.

I found a website that contains the entire texts of a considerable number of works of classic fiction, and have started Heart of Darkness, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I started Spook Country, by William Gibson, a month or two ago, and after about seventy or so difficult pages, that had me nearly ready to give up, have finally found the hook that I think will keep me reading. It's from the same universe as Pattern Recognition, which I enjoyed a good deal, and now that I'm on the verge of meeting up with one of the characters from that previous novel, I'm starting to warm to the story.

I found Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, thanks to elaine4queen's reference, and have become engrossed in this as well.

On top of all of that, I'm slow-reading this book by Pema Chodron. I went to the Borders two weekends ago to find the Trungpa book I had wanted, since the library was taking its sweet time processing it. The book was on the shelf, and I nearly picked it up, but instead found myself drawn toward the Chodron book, and once I started reading, couldn't put it down. I'm taking it quite slowly, since its usefulness is really in slow digestion of the subject matter. So, I read a page or two, and then contemplate. I have to say that it is the best text on the simple day-to-day application of Buddhism I have come across thus far. I think I will likely read and re-read this one at least a few times.

At this rate, I'm well towards surpassing the number of books I read last year (Twenty-three--which wasn't too shabby, considering what my schedule was like. Once I finish all of the above reading, I will have already read nineteen different books this year).



2. Cooking when I'm in cooking class, but not cooking much outside of it.

The last few weeks have involved mostly seafood dishes, which are mostly prohibitively expensive for me to prepare, and complicated. We cooked lobster tonight, which I don't think I'll ever do on my own. First of all, getting my hands on a live one is an expensive trick. Secondly, it's hardly worth ordering a live lobster for just myself. Thirdly, I really don't think I can bear actually throwing the creature--while it's yet moving--into near boiling water.

On the other hand, we also made crab cakes tonight, and those were both simple, and divine. I'm still savoring the taste. The chef tells me that I should be able to find the canned crab meat we used at Costco. I was pretty skeptical about the canned crab, but it tasted excellent. It's only this particular brand, though.



3. Doodling.

I started a sketch of a girl today, based on this old drawing--except that now she has a head. And a name. I'm calling her Emma Smoot. She has an orange tabby who is yet unnamed, but I think it's a boy cat. I respect its privacy, though. I sort of wish I could name it Clyde, because I really like that name, and think it suits the cat, but then it would seem as though the Emma character was autobiographical, and that's not my intent.

I still don't have a scanner, so Emma won't be making any appearances here any time soon. Which is just as well. I tend to have a bad habit of starting projects and getting bored of them after a few short months, or sometimes weeks. It would be bad of me to spend a couple hundred on a scanner, only to then allow it to gather dust along with all the other junk on my desk.

That is a progress photo of the construction on a part of the fountain I designed for the garden project. The bowl part is 42 inches in diameter, with a rounded lip that will allow the water to sheet off the edge. It will sit on a supply/stand pipe, also made of copper. I've never seen anything quite like this before, so I'm crossing my fingers that it will work the way I see it in my head.

(The photo was sent to me by the fountain contractor. I'll probably get around to taking some pictures of this thing when it's installed.)

What the fuck is up with Crocs? They are absolutely the ugliest shoes I have ever seen, and no one who wears them can contrive to make them appear attractive. Not even these people, who I imagine were hired to make them appear pretty, but who instead succeed in highlighting the ridiculousness of this implausible detour in millennial fashion. I fail to comprehend why such a large percentage of the American public has consented to wear big, clunky, plastic clown shoes in garish colors. They're not even cool in their ugliness. LOOK AT THEM. They're just ugly. Shit ugly. In ten years I can guarantee that everyone who has worn these things is going to look back at pictures of them and ask themselves, "What the fuck was I thinking?"

See this picture?



This is what you look like. I know that perhaps you have been blinded by the sheep instinct that compels so many to project coolness on that which is absolutely not cool. But stop a moment, and take a long, appraising look at that. Yeah. Not cool.

Please everyone, stop wearing them for the sake of my eyeballs and the dignity of your future selves.


. . . . . . . .


Well, that was a bit of useless and self-centered vitriol. Especially since none of the offenders in question even know this journal exists, much less read it. I guess I just had to get that off my chest.

I ate a little too much seafood in cooking class last night, and found myself a little queasy just before going to bed. Last night was fried calamari, oysters on the half shell, and bouillabaisse (i.e. fish stew).

Actually, hardly any of us got to do any of the real cooking. The bouillabaisse involves a lot of finely, finely diced vegetables, and so most of us spent a lot of time cutting up carrots and onions and such. All in all, it's a recipe that I don't think I'll ever cook on my own--both because of how time-consuming it would be, and because of the expense. Fish doesn't come cheap, and our version of the bouillabaisse included monkfish, red snapper, and black cod, all of which I've not even seen at any grocery store in the butchery department, and all of which would be quite pricey. Still, it was fun to do in class.

Oysters are difficult to open. This doesn't half state the fact. Several of us tried to open them, just as the chef taught us--putting the oyster knife in the hinge end and twisting. However for me, and for a few others, this merely resulted in chipping off pieces of the shell, and a few close calls with the knife. In each case, the chef ended up taking it out of our hands and doing it himself. I'd never had oysters before last night. I ate two of them, but still can't decide whether this is something I would enjoy. They taste peculiar, but not unpleasant. Perhaps it would grow on me, but I'm not very likely to get too many opportunities to eat them in Arizona.

The bouillabaisse, on the other hand, was unequivocally wonderful. I wish I hadn't stuffed myself on oysters and calamari before trying it, because all that fish came back to haunt me later.



I've had a number of dreams lately that I cannot recall when I awaken. I managed to snatch the tail end of this morning's dream, but only have scraps of it.

I was renting an apartment in an old house that stood over a peculiar graveyard, with high, half broken walls, surrounding a large, slightly-raised platform covered in astro-turf. The graveyard would only allow for the interring of urns of ashes. Each one would go into a hole in the platform, and be sealed with an astro-turf covered lid. There were places on top of the platform to leave mementos and flowers, and the whole thing was covered with bright plastic blooms and stuffed animals. The effect was more like an eccentric miniature golf course than a graveyard, more amusing than creepy. However, the rent was rather cheap on account of the graveyard. At the point I strolled through, there was a kind of mass-burial going on. The people working had all the urns and mementos sorted into boxes, and would pull them out and set them next to their designated location as quickly as if they were working an assembly line in a factory. It seemed as if they were racing each other.

I went out walking with some friends, none of whom I know beyond my dreams. The entire town was so oddly constructed and eccentric, that one could easily get lost. We passed through the same second-hand clothing shop twice without realizing it until we left. Everything was all twisted and double-backed on itself, and all the buildings had entrances in odd places, on different floors, depending on the street level, which varied greatly. I'm reminded a little of Bisbee, which must have been my mind's inspiration for this queer place.