Paul: Does he know who you are? Then the feeling's mutual.
Me: What do you mean does he know who I am?
Paul: If he knows you by name, then the feeling's mutual is what I'm getting at.
Paul: Maybe that was a stretch. You know, I don't know, I just live in China.
Me: That doesn't make any sense.
Paul: Yes it does!!
Me: How?
Paul: To know you is to fall madly in love with you.
Me: You are ridiculous.
Paul: C'mon. Think with that brain of yours and understand me.
Me: Well you're writing in complete sentences, and those I understand. But your theory is seriously flawed.
Paul: It might not be true. But as a hypothesis, I think it's solid.
This happened back in March, but I found it in the small pile of school things on my desk during my scuffle to shorten it this morning.
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Showing posts with label General. Show all posts
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
apples to apples
Recently, I have taken to buying yellow apples from the grocery store. Even though I prefer Fiji or Braeburn, these golden friends have been the least expensive denominator as of late. And, because I generally eat a ton of fruit, that's a good thing.
Every time I bite into one, I think of Beth Lehman, my childhood best friend. As a kid, I found it particularly special that Beth's full name was both my middle name and the name of my godmother in Wisconsin. We both had blonde, bobbed hair and blue eyes and were confused for sisters whenever we spent any amount of time together (that time being every possible moment between the ages of two and eleven). Though Madison Elementary and Sts. Peter, Paul and Michael Primary separated us only by a city block and two playground sets, I attribute our high tolerance for one another to the fact that we went to different elementary schools. We spent long weekends in the woods at her cabin with her dog. We played dress-up with her old skating costumes and my sequined-lined leotards and tutus. We watched hockey games and swam in her pool when she moved to a new house after we turned eight. Our fathers were colleagues in the same dental practice and we'd never had cavities. Before I was in preschool, I spent afternoons with her mother, Kris, while my own mother worked part-time as a dental hygienist with our fathers.
Though her favorite color is yellow, my mother only bought red and green apples and grapes; yellow fruit only came from the Lehman kitchen. Beth and I would be called into the house after running through sprinklers in matching hula skirts and bikinis on summer afternoons, leis askew, the fabric flowers in our hair matted and frayed. We spent hours gyrating our hips, practicing the perfect hula, and I'm certain the afternoon humidity bore down like it does during all Minnesota summers: so thick that it's hard to breathe. But kids, tuned only into their work of play, never notice these inconveniences and surely we cared more about the dandelion butter we rubbed on our wrists than the soppy air of afternoons.
So we'd run inside, stepping on old towels with our wet and grassy feet in the entry way of the kitchen, which, as I remember it, was a replica of the kitchen in my parents' first house. Kris would be standing at the counter with a knife, slicing yellow apples as MPR murmured Reagan policies the background. The linoleum was a muted mustard with a pattern from the seventies and the oak country table fit the country kitchen well, its chairs cut in a synonymous design. But we always snacked at a playskool table instead its proper relative. Its plastic legs and crayon-yellow miniature chairs sat in the adjacent living room, just near enough to fake a semblance of belonging amidst the dining room set. We'd engulf our plate of apples and cheddar cheese before racing into the heat once more.
But while I'm still eating yellow fruit, the best friend to whom I'd promised a spot in my wedding, and who had told me the truth about Santa Claus in the pop-up back seat of my mother's wood paneled station wagon, seems to only exist among the semi-fabricated vignettes of my childhood memories. It's been more than ten years since we've spoken, and while our fathers still reside in the same office on Northway Drive and Kris makes it to office functions and smiles and says it's so good to see you, Kelsey, and I still have the Lehman's home phone number memorized, I didn't even think to ask of Beth when I ran into her older sister in Barnes and Noble on Thursday. Perhaps I was merely preoccupied and trying to avoid the former co-workers and managers with whom the place was crawling. But more likely, as ten years implies and as a wedding for which I'll wear white is currently and thankfully unforeseeable, we've just become too old to run through the sprinklers in grass skirts.
Every time I bite into one, I think of Beth Lehman, my childhood best friend. As a kid, I found it particularly special that Beth's full name was both my middle name and the name of my godmother in Wisconsin. We both had blonde, bobbed hair and blue eyes and were confused for sisters whenever we spent any amount of time together (that time being every possible moment between the ages of two and eleven). Though Madison Elementary and Sts. Peter, Paul and Michael Primary separated us only by a city block and two playground sets, I attribute our high tolerance for one another to the fact that we went to different elementary schools. We spent long weekends in the woods at her cabin with her dog. We played dress-up with her old skating costumes and my sequined-lined leotards and tutus. We watched hockey games and swam in her pool when she moved to a new house after we turned eight. Our fathers were colleagues in the same dental practice and we'd never had cavities. Before I was in preschool, I spent afternoons with her mother, Kris, while my own mother worked part-time as a dental hygienist with our fathers.
Though her favorite color is yellow, my mother only bought red and green apples and grapes; yellow fruit only came from the Lehman kitchen. Beth and I would be called into the house after running through sprinklers in matching hula skirts and bikinis on summer afternoons, leis askew, the fabric flowers in our hair matted and frayed. We spent hours gyrating our hips, practicing the perfect hula, and I'm certain the afternoon humidity bore down like it does during all Minnesota summers: so thick that it's hard to breathe. But kids, tuned only into their work of play, never notice these inconveniences and surely we cared more about the dandelion butter we rubbed on our wrists than the soppy air of afternoons.
So we'd run inside, stepping on old towels with our wet and grassy feet in the entry way of the kitchen, which, as I remember it, was a replica of the kitchen in my parents' first house. Kris would be standing at the counter with a knife, slicing yellow apples as MPR murmured Reagan policies the background. The linoleum was a muted mustard with a pattern from the seventies and the oak country table fit the country kitchen well, its chairs cut in a synonymous design. But we always snacked at a playskool table instead its proper relative. Its plastic legs and crayon-yellow miniature chairs sat in the adjacent living room, just near enough to fake a semblance of belonging amidst the dining room set. We'd engulf our plate of apples and cheddar cheese before racing into the heat once more.
But while I'm still eating yellow fruit, the best friend to whom I'd promised a spot in my wedding, and who had told me the truth about Santa Claus in the pop-up back seat of my mother's wood paneled station wagon, seems to only exist among the semi-fabricated vignettes of my childhood memories. It's been more than ten years since we've spoken, and while our fathers still reside in the same office on Northway Drive and Kris makes it to office functions and smiles and says it's so good to see you, Kelsey, and I still have the Lehman's home phone number memorized, I didn't even think to ask of Beth when I ran into her older sister in Barnes and Noble on Thursday. Perhaps I was merely preoccupied and trying to avoid the former co-workers and managers with whom the place was crawling. But more likely, as ten years implies and as a wedding for which I'll wear white is currently and thankfully unforeseeable, we've just become too old to run through the sprinklers in grass skirts.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
disastrous manipulation
I know this blog has already been featured as a blog of note on blogger, but because I couldn't tear my eyes away from it, I simply couldn't help myself. This is for my friends in photography, and this is why I don't manipulate my photos other than simple tricks of noise and color balance.
Enjoy.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Generation gap.
Though my grandmother is one of my best friends, we can't talk about politics.
A few weeks ago our usual pleasantries were exchanged with a furious altercation when she maintained that, "Mr. Bush is a very nice man. We just have to wait for time to tell his legacy," and proceeded to scold me about my own political disposition. It obviously goes without saying that the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States would thereafter induce a crazed socialist regime in our nation. How could I consider voting for him with any other result?
Don't get me wrong, she's an incredibly educated seventy-something. And though we both enjoy painting porcelain and a good margarita on the rocks, we favor different news stations, and of course my generation never had to walk to school barefoot. Through a field in Marshall, Minnesota. Uphill. In the snow.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
23 Indications you have an old(er) soul.
1. When you got in the elevator at 4:31 yesterday afternoon, the drunk girls who had fallen over inside apologize for having such low tolerance and call you 'mam in the process.
2. You are incapable of participating in a conversation with the guys in the elevator at 10:12 about what time you started drinking because you haven't started drinking yet.
3. Fishbowls gross you out. You got over grape kool-aid at fifteen. You think of your mother and how much she hates artifical grape flavoring.
4. You loathe places like the Library and Blarney's where they mix the drinks strong and you can't hear a thing above all the damn noise.
5. All the damn noise being shoddy live covers of "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Bennie and the Jets" with too much static and atonal vocals.
6. You yawn at 10:37.
7. The girls in the bathroom are discussing whose tabs on which to place their next drinks.
8. The guy who walks from the bar as you leave the loo leaps at you like a leech. He initiates conversation by complementing your cute hair cut.
9. He wants to introduce you to his friends, who are silent clones of their ring leader.
10. He, a 22 year-old International business major who, wearing an all too tight t-shirt and faux army hat, introduces himself as Anton doesn't impress you when he said he wanted to travel with his degree.
11. In fact, you don't believe him at all, though you're certain he uses his latin complexion to claim he is bilingually impressive in an attempt to impress women like yourself.
12. Except he hasn't been privy to the fact you speak Spanish fluently which therefore places you outside the category of women like yourself.
13. You yawn again at 11:46.
14. Your civility causes you to refrain from punching his face when he puts a hand on the back of your neck to yell over the racket into your ear.
15. You don't offer you are a writer and especially not a dance major because you know his eyes will bug out at the prospect and he'll immediately picture things with you you'd rather he not be picturing with you.
16. These things being the kinds of things that would make you ralph your Blue Moon if you pictured with him.
17. He realizes the possibility you might like books and quickly vacates, saying maybe I'll see you here Thursday night or something.
18. You thank the gods for setting you free and providing shitty music to fill in the gaps of your un-conversation with said Anton.
19. But you still CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING ABOVE THE DAMN MUSIC! as you attempt to recount the sleaze-bucket story to Sharkey.
20. NO, YOU SAID YOU WISH YOU COULD HEAR YOURSELF TALKING ABOVE THE MUSIC!
21. You yawn at 12:32.
22. You drop Bill and Sharkey off at their respective apartments and drive home knowing you would score an A+ on a sobriety test given by any of the five squad cars in your neighborhood.
23. You get up at 8:00 the next morning to write this.
2. You are incapable of participating in a conversation with the guys in the elevator at 10:12 about what time you started drinking because you haven't started drinking yet.
3. Fishbowls gross you out. You got over grape kool-aid at fifteen. You think of your mother and how much she hates artifical grape flavoring.
4. You loathe places like the Library and Blarney's where they mix the drinks strong and you can't hear a thing above all the damn noise.
5. All the damn noise being shoddy live covers of "Sweet Home Alabama" and "Bennie and the Jets" with too much static and atonal vocals.
6. You yawn at 10:37.
7. The girls in the bathroom are discussing whose tabs on which to place their next drinks.
8. The guy who walks from the bar as you leave the loo leaps at you like a leech. He initiates conversation by complementing your cute hair cut.
9. He wants to introduce you to his friends, who are silent clones of their ring leader.
10. He, a 22 year-old International business major who, wearing an all too tight t-shirt and faux army hat, introduces himself as Anton doesn't impress you when he said he wanted to travel with his degree.
11. In fact, you don't believe him at all, though you're certain he uses his latin complexion to claim he is bilingually impressive in an attempt to impress women like yourself.
12. Except he hasn't been privy to the fact you speak Spanish fluently which therefore places you outside the category of women like yourself.
13. You yawn again at 11:46.
14. Your civility causes you to refrain from punching his face when he puts a hand on the back of your neck to yell over the racket into your ear.
15. You don't offer you are a writer and especially not a dance major because you know his eyes will bug out at the prospect and he'll immediately picture things with you you'd rather he not be picturing with you.
16. These things being the kinds of things that would make you ralph your Blue Moon if you pictured with him.
17. He realizes the possibility you might like books and quickly vacates, saying maybe I'll see you here Thursday night or something.
18. You thank the gods for setting you free and providing shitty music to fill in the gaps of your un-conversation with said Anton.
19. But you still CAN'T HEAR ANYTHING ABOVE THE DAMN MUSIC! as you attempt to recount the sleaze-bucket story to Sharkey.
20. NO, YOU SAID YOU WISH YOU COULD HEAR YOURSELF TALKING ABOVE THE MUSIC!
21. You yawn at 12:32.
22. You drop Bill and Sharkey off at their respective apartments and drive home knowing you would score an A+ on a sobriety test given by any of the five squad cars in your neighborhood.
23. You get up at 8:00 the next morning to write this.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Dame Hillary Clinton: The Black Knight
Today, I received an early morning e-mail from my older brother. "Thought you might be interested in an incredibly accurate, fresh spin on the election..." he wrote.
He then hyperlinked me to this remarkable blog at the Huffington Post. And yes, I just used hyperlink as a verb.
He then hyperlinked me to this remarkable blog at the Huffington Post. And yes, I just used hyperlink as a verb.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Cheezus Crust
I love NPR. As I don't own a TV, I turn it on in the morning and listen to some of the best reporting in the nation. Additionally, I'm privy to things like this when I make lunch on a Saturday afternoon.
Perhaps I'll have to create my own Gorgonzola Mind Controlla.Though I'm not sure I can induce a Hyper Cheese Brain Freeze like Linda Williamson, and it looks like I'll have to wait until next year to compete, I do have a squash in the fruit basket in my kitchen.
Perhaps I'll have to create my own Gorgonzola Mind Controlla.Though I'm not sure I can induce a Hyper Cheese Brain Freeze like Linda Williamson, and it looks like I'll have to wait until next year to compete, I do have a squash in the fruit basket in my kitchen.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
It's raining again in Minneapolis today.
But this time with vigor.
And guess who forgot her umbrella altogether.
And guess who forgot her umbrella altogether.
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