April 2004

Easter?

2004 Apr 11

a standard day for me. Spent the first part of the day by walking over to the Meditteranian market to get some cookies and talked to Khalil, then went next door to walgreens and got a couple of token easter candy items. Saw a couple of ladies wearing their Easter finery...that might have been worth leaving the house for by itself. Next stop, save-a-lot...

Then i went and hung out with the folks for a few hours, then came home.

pretty exciting huh?

Oh well, at least I still get to stuff my face with chocolate, awwww yeaeeaaaaah!

italian serenade

2004 Apr 12

Woke up this mattina to pouring rain...which means no work. That's merda, i really need the money...nothing in my life is gettting any cheaper...

spent most of the afternoon at the literacy council TCB and talking to avis. she's a trip-she's full of surprises. i remember one time i was in there and discovered that she had some boys who she used have to locate but swingin' on over to the Alley. a donna sopresa. ;)

Went to the Food Co-op before coming home. It had gotten very freddo outside...and was getting worse. Came home and made lasagne as rapidamente as humanly possible. Jessica Sumner came home and started watching the Godfather, so we sat around, ate lasagne and watched this cinematografo, and made lots of bad italian mafia jokes. i went to the Co-op meeting but it wasn't as productive as I had hoped it would be.

As i lay in bed reading this libro, "Signore di Caos" (is where we're at these days), I could hear Jessica playing the violino which always pulls at the "serie di vostro cuore". It was a rainy wintery night, but spring is out there somewhere, and she will return.

e questo era il mio serenade italiano.

making some connections

2004 Apr 13

spent a good part of yesterday calling people. it sure paid off too, because everybody i called, heck everybody I even thought of calling showed up today. and people i haven't thought about in ages took the plunge and called me as well.

didn't sleep too much last night. the culprit might have been the 5pm cup of coffee.

nothing too unexpected has happened so far today, but it's only 1 pm. i'm probably gonna spend the rest of the day at my mom's. odd to think that not too long from now that's gonna be a rare gift. i'm glad in a sense that i'm aware of it, although i'm not sure how much you can really make up for lost time.

pretty quiet at my house right now.

oddly enough it snowed in jackson which is about an hour and a half away. odder still is that they actually forecast some snow for us. of course, at 44 degrees, nothing of the sort actually happened. but weirdest of all is that we were thinking about this possibility last week when it was still almost 80 degrees outside. it always gets this way in april though...no matter what direction the weather was moving in before, right about the time you hit easter, you get the cold and rainy blahhhhs.

i should have quite the crop of strawberries this year. things are looking good out there. everything else is growing slowly but hanging in there. it's about time to pull up the turnips, and there should be peas in no time. life is good when you have peas.

should take the time to discuss the happenings of the past week, but now ain't the time, i've got to rush off and do 500 things.

golf course pirates

2004 Apr 15

tax day came and went without me noticing it. probably because i didn't go anywhere near a post office or library yesterday. according to jessica sumner, people at the union post office were quite testy. glad i didn't have that problem...

yesterday was jessica's first day working with me at the botanical gardens. we definitely had more kids than the day before. a lot more. the day before it was berclair and holy rosary and shelby oaks...today it was shelby oaks, whitehaven and downtown elementary (which i'm wondering...where the heck is that).

we were working with this older lady who was really cool. it was a good thing there were three of us because i think we would have been totally overwhelmed. a couple of the parents were worrisome...this one lady consistently annoyed me and kept grabbing flowers out from under me even though i asked her several times not to do it. this other woman was having a nice loud conversation on her cell phone that would have been nothing but beeps...rather heavily censored if it were broadcast on tv.

nice thing to do in front of a bunch of kindergarteners. makes me wonder where some people leave their minds...because they definitely aren't bringing them with them when they leave the house.

then you always have people yelling at the kids unnecessarily, in my opinion. there's only a so many things the kids can do wrong when they're outdoors where there's nothing to break...honestly, the kids on these fieldtrips rarely do anything wrong. and these kids were only in kindergarten, so in other words, they are still at an age where they listen to adults. about the only thing i have to deal with is them getting behind me, or occasionally somebody will spill dirt or water on somebody else...that's it. they make their parents look like multiple offenders. oh well. it's not a bad way to make money, but you definitely need people skills.

it's kinda fun working at this place for a few weeks a year because it gives me an excuse to ride through the golf course.

it's fun as hell zipping past old white guys (working on getting sunburns and midafternoon hangovers) on my bike while they're playing golf, and golf carts on the paths. nobody has said anything yet, but i dare them to...after all i pay city property taxes, and half of these guys live out in the county, so whose golf course is it anyway. ;-)

i had a pretty uneventful day otherwise. did some stuff around the house, then it was time for dinner and our house meeting. this guy derrick wants to move in...he seems pretty personable, and he's come over for a couple of parties and knows the media co-op folks real well. i hope he knows what he's getting himself into, since i don't know what all denny has told him about our house. i wonder if casey and jb could handle living in a house with 3 boys...

casey gave him a ride home and i sat in the back of the truck as we went down elvis presley blvd. prostitution corner was hot last night...i saw a lot of action around there. little known fact for y'all non-memphis readers...the best place to find a prostitute in memphis is just north of graceland. doesn't matter if you drive by at 7 am or 9 pm, anytime of day, yer gonna see something of the sort around that vicinity.

my friend liz used to do photo shoots over there and met a few prostitutes while she was walking down the road. pretty interesting stuff going on out there.

it's weird to think that in less than a month i'll be on my way somewhere else. it seems very strange to think about it. i've been here for so long, and know so many people here. it's weird to think that i'll have to do this all over again...

the capitalist blahs

2004 Apr 18

spent the weekend having a yardsale and hanging out at uncle ray's booth at the flea market. it's funny, i made some money, but not really that much in the scheme of things...and off of the weirdest stuff. nobody buys the things you think they'll buy...but the things you think they won't move like hotcakes.

either way, i still have a lot of stuff i have to get rid of before i move. shit.

the flea market booth didn't do anything to help me get rid of stuff, but it was fun hanging out and talking to people all day long. i can think of worse ways to spend my time.

next week's another week at the botanical gardens. i hope the weather will cooperate so i can get some money this week. it sucks when whether you will get any money depends entirely on the weather. it's a lot like farming, only worse.

sheesh.

mellow mondays

2004 Apr 19

felt pretty rough when i rolled out of bed this morning. stupid cat kept being deliberately noisy all night so i didn't really clock in any time on the sleep timecard.

8 am hit like a brick in the forehead but i did make it over to the botanical gardens more or less on time with jb. today i did the flower planting booth again, but not with jb...there was this other lady who is a retired teacher--reading of all things--so i ended up talking to her a good bit about that, since this is an area of common interest. she was a pretty able partner so the morning went smoothly. today was smooth sailing. we didn't have such large groups as in the past, so i didn't have to resort to the crowd control setting. even though the kids were from collierville, their parents weren't too obnoxious, compared to last year's batch. i used to dread when the rich folks kids would come because in the past the ones i got were rather spoiled. so my 3 hours flew by and i found myself back at home right quick. on the way, i found a pile of books on the curb and started diggin' through them but the lady who lived there started honking at me. didn't care though. i'm a pretty shameless curb surfer and if you wanted your stuff private, you shouldn't put it out in the trash in plain sight. got a couple of good books out of there for my efforts. one emerson, one about musical activities for kids (as in fun party games for drunk musical anarchists).

spent the rest of the afternoon just straight up chillin. went down the street with tim and jb to get some icecream at the food hunter, then took a big ol' shuteye, then decided to get it back together and head on over to the literacy council and get ready for tomorrow's class.

it decided to rain so i won't be doing much this evening except hoping that this stuff is outta here by wednesday. doesn't look like my chances are too good though because the whole rest of the week is likely to be a rainfest...and me making any money depends entirely on it NOT raining.

last night matt and shawn came over. i'm kinda glad shawn stopped by because she told jessica she felt kinda weird about it. yo, don't be like that. it's totally cool to come over here...

matt was telling me this funny story about going to prom and wearing some crazy outfit, and the mis-adventures involved in getting his writings over here for me to look at. he's such a trip.

well now it's time to go eat my mexican pizza and get ready for school tomorrow...

420

2004 Apr 20

farr it up mayn...whatever, i don't really get into that whole thing.

i had a couple of new folks today. a new student, and a woman who is thinking about becoming an instructor.

came home and lazed away the rest of the afternoon...spent a good bit of time pickin' turnips and strippin' 'em out on the porch, then swung on over to savalot. on the way i ran into a guy who had a shoe incident, a bench full of drunks, and a guy who sports expensive watches, rides a bike and paints the porches of old ladies. pretty random assortment of characters. it gets better.

my fried seitan didn't work out quite the way i would have liked, but oh well. sat around with tim and andrew and drank andrew's last beer, then when the action on our porch died, i went over to george's where there was a 420 shindig going on. ran into shawn and renae, kicked around a bit, then came home kicked around some more, then went over to this random guy's house and jumped on his trampoline before realizing i still had the possibility of having to work early the next morning.

quite irresponsible.

a whole lotta rain on this train

2004 Apr 21

woke up to rain this morning which means no work for me. kinda sucks because i sure could use the money.

spent the day kind of lazing around, doing a whole lot of not much. went over to wild oats to get some sushi. they have pretty nice stuff over there, but the whole atmosphere doesn't do much for me. it's kind of like going to sam's club. i'm not used to all the hype...

went there to go see killbillII. that was pretty cool. the ending was a little weird since they lead you to believe something entirely different was gonna go down, but overall i like what they did with it, and enjoyed myself. lookin' forward to that new jet li movie too...i tend to like that sort of thing.

other than that, it's been a pretty uneventful day for yerz truly. not that i can complain...

spray paint handshakes

2004 Apr 22

another super rainy day so I didn't end up going to the botanicaly gardens. instead i stayed home and got some things taken care of. as luck would have it, the sun came out right after noon, so in other words, just in time to not make any money...

after a frustrating conversation with the student loan administration, i spent the rest of the afternoon spray painting stencils on some of my shirts. some turned out great, and others are just so-so...seems to depend on the fabric you use. "uplift" turned out the best. can't wait to see if the tree is gonna work out or not.

i'm leaving for indiana tonight, for the weekend. i was hoping the weather would be better up there, but actually it looks like it's gonna be exactly the same as it is here.

oh well. i guess i better bring some stuff to do.

i think most of my cousins are gonna bail, but hopefully at least i'll get to see anna and darren and morgen. that would be alright too.

it'll be kinda weird sleeping alone for a few days. not sure how i feel about it, but not that long ago i used to do it all the time.

shawn left today to go back to texas. i have a feeling this is the last time i'll see her for awhile. i hope she's doin' okay. and speaking of old housemates, i wonder what denny's up to...

there's this old lady who walks up and down the street all the time. today she talked to me for the first time. i guess she finally got the nerve. it was a pretty short conversation, but i suppose it counts for progress. i'd like to say i have talked to everyone on the street, but it's not true. still though, i probably know more about my immediate neighbors than most people these days. seems like everyone's too busy holing up in their little caves rocking themselves to sleep with tv lullabies and other modern placebos. i dig the fact that at least the old folks like to sit on their porch and stroll around the block, even though technically it's not that safe around here.

i wonder if people in oregon sit on their porches and walk around the way southerners do...or if they are more reserved. i'm gonna miss certain things that come as a matter of course when you live in the south. and one of those things is that people take their porches very seriously here.

the other thing i wonder is how the hell am i gonna move all my stuff.

oh well, right now a lot of these questions are rhetorical in nature. can't know until ya get there...

oh well, it's another day.

a boy and his cardboard box

2004 Apr 29

another day at the botanical gardens. today was 1st graders. not a good age for painting because most of the time they just spill the paint and get it on each other. it's pretty harmless though. parents were a bit trifling, but that's normal too.

this one kid was off in his own world playing with an empty box. he was really into that box in a way that makes you think that to him it was probably more than just a cardboard box. i miss life being that magical.

i'm sure i should be doing something right now, but after being around 500+ kids all morning, I'm really in the mood to do a whole lot of nothing at all.

it's so hard to believe that i'll be moving away in two weeks and leaving behind everything i know. i guess i'm trading in one life for another. i don't have any idea what will happen next month. that's so amazing. one day you wake up and everything is different. every day for years and years, i've done pretty much the same things. now the only thing i know is that nothing will be the same at all.

i just hope that i'm not taking too big of risk trading the known for the unknown.

when i was younger, i wouldn't have even cared.

i feel like i've been playing in a cardboard box for several years, and it's time to step outside and see what i've been missing.

derek sent me something that i thought was pretty thought provoking.

"it all appears so impersonal.

when we associate through text mail.

descriptions and hows it goings'.

how have we all fallen into this trap?

cant really explain a thought or feeling in twenty five words or less, can we?

whats been goin' on?, hows everyone?

doesnt sound too sincere regardless of how much anyone means it.

so i find that we learn to "re-adjust" to this display of a thoughtful, thoughtless action

its seventy five here, with a chance of showers.

as i find myself right where the whole fucking thing started.

so hows the weather up there? hows everyone doin'? waitin' for the fire hydrants and fountains to cool ya off during the swelterin city heat?

its seventy five with a chance of showers here. doesnt look like rain in the future..

but i'll be damned if thats not what they are predicting....."

maypole

2004 Apr 30

didn't sleep very well last night, and woke up to something cloudy, grey and rainy outside my window. i liked brian's ideas on the subject...

i'm glad i had the day off because i've been kinda cranky today. and it's not a good idea to be around 500 kids if you're feeling cranky...not a good idea at all.

went out to lunch with gertrude. hadn't been inside of a cici's in about 10 years, but apparently they've diversified their offerings a bit, which is good. i didn't expect there to be anything much that was vegetarian, but surprisingly there were 4 kinds of pizza that didn't sport dead animals. not bad for a memphis dining situation. so i worked my way through a pretty decent salad, some pasta and spinach and veggie pizza. i watched kids run around like it was romper room, and talked to gertrude for a good while before i realized the time was getting away from me. i sent her home with some flowers, and realized that she is a pretty amazing woman who seems to know everybody everywhere.

i was going to go to my mom's but then uele came over with baby james(son) so i ended up kickin' it with them for quite awhile. then i decided to do some sewing, but kept fucking up. let's face it, i'm not good at machine sewing, but for some reason i keep trying. fortunately i don't care if my clothes end up looking like 6th grade home ec attempts.

we're having a beltaine party at our house, so josh and jb are in the kitchen cooking, and casey made a bunch of rice, and andrea keeps coming in and out. we made a maypole and sooner or later we're gonna go out there and get to it. the neighbors keep looking at it probably wondering what "those crazy hippies" are up to now. ;) smirk

i guess this means we're officially into high theft season, if it's almost may.

there's a lot of cool stuff going on this weekend, but unfortunately a lot of it will be getting rained out as far as i can tell.

i'm feelin' kinda weird now that i'm into the homestretch...12 days to go, and the situation isn't ideal, but what can you do when it sure as hell ain't gonna get better later. i need to be bustin' ass on getting things packed up and so forth. need to start saying good byes. need to get it together. hello stress. goodbye loves. i will miss you guys.