The longer it takes me to match this SN, the less I want to do with modern technology. You can only send so many emails, talk to so many people on MSN, have so many mishaps with international calls (without an office phone)--before you want to do something drastic, like run away into the woods for a few days. I won't mention which supplies that you take would be legal, and which, if any, would not.


I am in the middle of an astounding Alice Munroe short story that has something to do with a goat. It makes me think that perhaps a goat would be a lovely pet--especially while hiking.


Lately, I have been stressin like you wouldn't believe--all I can think about is getting out of here. Which, you know, is bad. Because the moment should be contained in the moment and enjoyed--not loathed and daydreaming of somewhere (anywhere) better than wherever the moment may be (this tiny corner of SE Michigan).


My room is still a mess. I speak to a few of our SNs more than I do anyone in my family, or even those I live with. I have a paper to finish up. I have a story due in a bit--with an idea that I've had for years, and a few that popped up just this last week. I have money in my bank account and live around the corner from an STA office. I have a million more languages to learn--and I still haven't finished any of my extra books.


The plan: check email before sleep, listen to some Stones and Morrison, check email, finish Munroe story, sleep a few hours, check email, more phone calls, go help the grandmother pack like the pristinely perfect granddaughter that i am, more phone calls, check email, hang out with roomies, (drink), read more, write some, check email. sleep.

I am a pretend suburban mom this week. I have a small cash allowence for the week, already went grocery shopping, am driving a gas-guzzling, environment-hating SUV and am bored out of my mind in the land of perfectly manicured lawns.

Last night, I went on a walk with the dog again and wondered about the people living behind those brick walls. I've never seen that Desperate Housewives show so I didn't have anything to feed my imagination, but The L Word was right up there. I was seeing all of these Jennys checking out the possibilities of the world around them, but there aren't any lipstick lesbians in the neighborhood as far as I know.

Being here is just... ug. There is nothing about this tiny city that is appealing to me. Absolutely nothing. I sat there at the honors ceremony for my little sister the other day and watched all these kids walking across the stage. They're the future greeks in the collegiate system. These tiny replicas of the people walking across Michigan's campus in the Fall and Winter, with their Northface and Abercrombie and Fitch. Funny little town. Nothing to offer.

It also surprised me how white the school is--it was just like coming back to Michigan from San Fran. The honor ceremony had four non-white kids, and I think I'm adding one too many with that. Since I went to school, there are a ton more minorities, but still. It's just another reminder of the divisions, the racial divide. You go not even ten minutes and you're at predominantly black schools and they dont' have people tripping over themselves to give them honors and scholarships. There are hardly people that care enough to keep them in the schools.

Sometimes it just surprises me. I forget that the world, and people, aren't shaped, or created, in ways that make them think about others first. There's this school system that is one of the best in the state and they will randomly show up at permanent addresses of minority students just to make sure that they're actually living there. I know two students who were kicked out because they were using the address of a relative as their permanent address.

The markers of division are as follows: I-94, 8 mile/Vernier Rd, Moran. Live on the correct side, and you're golden. The right side of 94 still beats the wrong side of Vernier.



I must say. I think my newest favorite non-profit are the 826 programs found in San Fran, NYC and LA (soon to be Seattle as well).

on the road again

I just had my first workshop experience--it's the kind of thing a masochist would get off on, big time.

Overall, it was... a lot better than I thought it'd be. I didn't pull one over on them with lack of plot, but at least talking about it--and hearing it be talked about--gave me some fantastically fabulous ideas. It really reminded me where the story came from: the weight of words. It's kind of funny how you can go to any bookstore and pick up different books and feel how heavy the books are. Physically feel it--and then think about the meaning.

The Communist Manifesto is one of the lightest, smallest books in the entire store. It's right up there with the Declaration of Independence, or a collection of ee cummings' poetry.

The weight of words, versus the weight of paper. And the binding--you know how prett ythose books with uneven pages always look? Well, they're awful. They get messed up and they stop being so pretty after a while. Kind of like people--at first, fucked up and messy is interesting, then it just becomes old and broke.


I took a walk with the dog last night. I have to be at home this week to stay with the little sister while the mom is away at a conference--maybe in Colorado, maybe in another country? It was so late out and everything was just dark, dark dark. Suburbia had never been intimidating or even frightening until last night. I don't know what it was--well, perhaps it was the fact that some streets had zero light posts that seemed to work. Everything was dark--and walking up to someone became a surprise.



For whatever reason, I just want to go do a head stand [no, no. better yet, a summersault] in the middle of the grass in the diag.

Rain sure sucks, but it's okay when you see how heartbreaking that green grass can be.

It's funny--my little sister graduates from high school in less than a month. I suppose I'll go to the ceremony and I'll see all of these teachers of hers who used to be mine. Even funnier is that my favorite teachers are the ones she started trouble with this year.

I hear that my final project for creative writing is still taking up a substantial portion of Mr William's desk. Maybe I'll stop in next week when I stay at home with the little sister and will check it out.



The mother leaves for a conference somewhere in the continental United States next week--maybe Colorado? This means I have to commute between Ann Arbor and Detroit all week. Not too bad. I'll have her phatty ride and then I can spend the days with my pooch. Tomorrow, I think I'll make an appointment for him to be bathed on either Monday or Tuesday, then we can ride in style without him stinking up the car.

Last week, I stopped through home after spending time with Sarah. It was odd because nothing looked the same and it felt so, so different. I hear they built a huge thing onto the high school, which makes me glad. It will make the whole place that much more foreign.




Last night, we went out for drinks with one of the quarterbacks here. We sat at Charley's and shared two pitchers, while I had margaritas once Kim stole my glass. There's something awful about anything other than stouts. I refuse. My liver refuses.

It's funny to think about how nice it must be to be an athlete. You can work so hard to be where you want--and people will recognize you for what you're doing at such a young age.

He'll probably stay around for another two seasons and then get drafted for somewhere. It's nice to hear people talk about something they love--to watch the way that their eyes respond to the questions you ask, or how the shape of their eyes change when they're speaking. If you watch people really carefully, you'll see how they squint a bit when they're really excited--or how their eyes will go super huge, until you're nearly afraid that they might pop out of their skull at an alarming rate.

But I was sitting there thinking that. About how fabulous it would be to have that dream so close and real. To leave college and be right in the midst of what you've always dreamt of--so tangible and definite, as long as you can stay away from injury.



I've decided that I'm going to do the MFA thing. I'll take some time off school--right now, the plan is to head to Rio sometime in mid-September. I've been speaking to a few different people and looking at all the TNs.

The GRE at the end of the summer. Until then, I'll finish up these classes, which are killing me [not because they're awful, but because I'm actually getting things out of them--retroactively]. Finish matching everyone. Study my ass off--I want a near perfect in verbal.

The dream is Iowa--as crazy as that is, right? Grad school in the middle of corn fields. Kurt Vonnegut is on the faculty--and he has a new book coming out at some point and it is nearly KILLING me that it has not come out yet. No one knows anything!



This is why I haven't been writing lately--too many disjointed thoughts that really don't say anythign that I meant to say.

If no one has yet said that the trip is made by the music brought along, then someone should because they would be absolutely right.

I had everything that I could ever want to listen to on the way home from Sarah's house. Leaving, I listened to Paul Westerberg so I could drown myself in sad songs and tears.

It's funny because the only two times that I've been to Comerica have been with her. Now she's leaving and it will be anywhere from 4 months to a year when I will see her next. Crazy, right?

Since Monday, I've spent more time with her and at her house than I have in Ann Arbor. To me, it just seems ridiculous to not spend as much time as possible with someone who is leaving so soon. We didn't really talk about the sad stuff as much as I would have thought we would--and I think that made it all that much better. Just the normal things we would have talked about any other day.

I think we may have also pinpointed the two men that should fall madly in love with us on the Tigers. Besides, there isn't a finer team in baseball. Winning isn't everything, so just stop there.


Book I'm reading right now (for fun): Intimacy & Midnight All Day by Hanif Kureishi
Book I'm reading right now (for class): Best American Short Stories 2004edited by Lorrie Moore; something i can't recall about writing; A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley