Lots of firsts today.
Biggest one, of course, is, I brought home my New Car! It's sitting glistening and sporty in the garage right now. I'm signed on for five years of payments, which feels all a bit permanent, but, God bless Badger Globe for taking a chance on me and loaning me the money.
Other one - coldest experienced temperatures so far. This morning, pre-dawn, the news said it was 9 degrees in Appleton, so I rushed out on the balcony to see what it was like. The temperature during the day was rumored to amount to 15 degrees, with the wind chill - about 29 degrees really, I think it was - and on my trip to Badger Globe to get the check for the car the air actually hurt my face. And to think we have 20-30 degrees left to go. My Antarctic sister assures me you can still feel the difference, even down to 50 below.
The other first I just noticed is that the pond outside is starting to freeze over! The geese all took off about two days ago. They must have known. I guess today it was below freezing all day, and "freezing" means the freezing point of water, right? So, of course the pond is freezing. But it's startling, nonetheless!
p.s. Official high temperature on the nightly news was 21 in Appleton. 18 at the moment.
___
While at the car dealer waiting for the finance guy to get the receipt for my check, I was thinking about moving. Usually after somebody moves they have the strong feeling, "I never want to move ever again." A moving hangover. While sitting there in the midst of one of the most complicated aspects of moving, I noticed that I don't have this feeling. What I felt instead was, moving is what I do. Maybe I have this feeling because I have been moving more or less permanently for nearly six months. Now it is what I do - I can completely imagine spending the rest of my life signing contracts and opening accounts and getting new PIN numbers, signing my name to things, not quite having all the correct documentation in place, getting lost on the way to work and having that surreal experience of trying to work out what direction you're even going by where the sun is - one minute on well-marked and familiar roads in an orderly grid, the next minute out in the country among unfamiliar barns.
___
I'm going to drive for an hour on snowy roads Thurs. night to go meet a friendly stranger, the daughter of someone I met at my cousin's house. But at this stage you accept all invitations. I was thinking about what I'll say when she asks any questions about me, and I don't know how I'll answer. I'm not anybody yet.
I have a past and I can tell stories about her but I kind of released her when I got here.
I feel like a creature high up on spindly legs. A shore bird. Not grounded, spindly tendrils reaching down from my spindly and insubstantial body, but not grounded.
Shore birds have spindly legs so they can walk through the mud. And nonetheless gain nutrition.
___
You can tell the pond has frozen over because it stops moving.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Monday, November 19, 2007
sky/ceiling
When I came out of work today to go to the training course, the sky was grey and foggy and looked like it was only about 10 feet up. It looked like you could raise your arm up and touch it. I remember thinking thoughts in those same words when I was at Kenyon. I also remember thinking thoughts with the words, "It's like living on the inside of a white dome." I remember thinking thoughts with those words, but I didn't remember the experience, because when I experienced it again this afternoon it seemed new.
Green Bay
What a huge day.
In the morning I went to get a Wisconsin Driver's License, following my co-worker's advice to go first thing. It still took a while. The day was gloomy and wet, but not cold. Have I already been here long enough that 45 is not cold? I arrived 10 min. before opening and there was a line already. All nice, smiley people, of course. In their second or third warmest coats. It was foggy and wet in the air, and just to make it a bit more difficult, right right beside us, a crew was laying new tar on the driveway. Some guys would shovel lumps of bitumen into place, and then a big plate would come down with red-hot burners and then smoke like the 7th circle of hell would steam up into the foggy air and enfog all the people in the line. Everyone was patient and good natured about it. You have to get yourself in that frame of mind when you're going to the DMV.
There were two close calls such that it almost didn't happen. First, a rental lease is not sufficient proof of residency (!). They requested things like a utility bill 30- days old or a pay stub 30 days old, hard when you don't pay utilities and when you've only lived here for 23 days. But a photo ID from an employer was enough, and even though my ID doesn't say my employer's name on it, the name itself opens a lot of doors (words spoken to me later today by another Aussie, more on that later), so I got out of that near miss. Other one was the names weren't coming up on the computer they use to take the photos, but they could still do the photos anyway, the only impact seemed to be they couldn't call us up by name, so we self-organised into an orderly line instead.
However, I didn't get the license today, they have to mail it from Massachusetts somehow, after two weeks when they conduct some kind of further background check.
And, I had to surrender not only my very old Colorado license which was proof I've been licensed in the US before and so did not have to do the written or road test, so thank God I'd kept it all these years, but I also had to surrender my Aussie license! She'd made a huge fuss about how beautiful it was, with the picture of the Waratah, and oo'd and ah'd about how she's always wanted to go there, and why did I come back?
Giving up my Aussie driver's license made me very sad. And then I went straight from there to FedEx to mail my ballot for the election, and I had read on the Consulate web site when I was looking for their address that if you intend to live overseas for six years or more, you have to deregister and you're not allowed to vote any more. So I'm losing that as well, unexpectedly. Both of them unexpectedly. So I was feeling very sad this morning, and would even have got a bit weepy if anyone had said a cross word to me at all, but thankfully no one did.
One nice Aussie thing - my erstwhile ex sent me a care package last week, and included an extra jar of Vegemite and an extra packet of Tim Tams for the Aussie expat who works at work. I had left them on her desk with a big red bow and a note, and she rang me the minute she got them, and we compared driver's license stories. I had been a tad bit worried that it would be sycophantic to give her the presents since I'd earlier emailed a coffee invitation with no reply, but she was really pleased and the coffee invite was accepted. So that was a lovely Aussie thing.
At the end of the day, I decided to just press on and do the car shopping foray. It was raining, properly, not very hard, but enough to make the roads slippery. Dark dark. I'd finished my computer training at 4:30 so left right after that, and had to get some gas. I could feel that my neck was tense. My Aussie's instincts were, it was so cold and wet and dark, to just go home and get under the doona and bunker down, cuddly and safe. Instincts from way back to San Diego. The opposite of the instinct I remember talking about with one of my PhD supervisors who came from the UK, the instinct on every sunny day to drop everything and go outside to lie in the sun. You have to overcome that instinct when you live in San Diego. I have been living in San Diego-like places for not 15, 19 years. So I have the opposite instinct to overcome now - just because it's a little cold and wet and dark doesn't mean you drop everything and stay inside. So I headed up the road to Green Bay.
I had to say mantras to myself all the way up there. There was so much traffic, and low visibility, just a line of red tail lights into the distance ahead of me, in the fog. The mantras included "I am fine. I can do this. I can be the Dad. I used to do worse than this on the F3, in an old Jag! Three lanes, faster, maniac drivers, worse car, worse weather. I can do this. What if this was my commute? I would just do this. I'm a strong, capable person. I'm used to doing things for myself." I thought, "I wish S. could see me now. He always used to have to drive, whatever the circumstances. He'd be impressed. He'd be amazed." I thought, "I can do this. I live in Wisconsin now. We Wisconsinites drive in bad weather, no problem. We just carry on."
I heard on the radio that temperatures in the Northern part of the state would be in the low 20's, and thought, "Holy shit! If this rain turns to freezing rain, holy shit." I imagined staying overnight in Green Bay and driving back early to work, when at least it would be light. Yes, I was hysterical. Yes, I was overreacting. But my mantras got me there safe, and the rain lifted, and the trip back was fine, was a delight actually. On the way home my thought was, "I love driving on a highway at night."
The car shopping was as confusing as ever, but the sales guys were all over me even though I was a woman there by myself and had been warned by everyone that they wouldn't probably give me the time of day. I might be closer to a decision tonight. I dunno for sure, I'll have to keep working on things. But information has been gathered, anyway.
I got home, found a card from G. with a brochure from the AGNSW Sidney Nolan show which pulled at my heart, and also found a new Badger Globe credit card. Which means I can take parents out to nice dinner, which is really great. So the mail made me happy.
And parents come tomorrow!
But what a day.
In the morning I went to get a Wisconsin Driver's License, following my co-worker's advice to go first thing. It still took a while. The day was gloomy and wet, but not cold. Have I already been here long enough that 45 is not cold? I arrived 10 min. before opening and there was a line already. All nice, smiley people, of course. In their second or third warmest coats. It was foggy and wet in the air, and just to make it a bit more difficult, right right beside us, a crew was laying new tar on the driveway. Some guys would shovel lumps of bitumen into place, and then a big plate would come down with red-hot burners and then smoke like the 7th circle of hell would steam up into the foggy air and enfog all the people in the line. Everyone was patient and good natured about it. You have to get yourself in that frame of mind when you're going to the DMV.
There were two close calls such that it almost didn't happen. First, a rental lease is not sufficient proof of residency (!). They requested things like a utility bill 30- days old or a pay stub 30 days old, hard when you don't pay utilities and when you've only lived here for 23 days. But a photo ID from an employer was enough, and even though my ID doesn't say my employer's name on it, the name itself opens a lot of doors (words spoken to me later today by another Aussie, more on that later), so I got out of that near miss. Other one was the names weren't coming up on the computer they use to take the photos, but they could still do the photos anyway, the only impact seemed to be they couldn't call us up by name, so we self-organised into an orderly line instead.
However, I didn't get the license today, they have to mail it from Massachusetts somehow, after two weeks when they conduct some kind of further background check.
And, I had to surrender not only my very old Colorado license which was proof I've been licensed in the US before and so did not have to do the written or road test, so thank God I'd kept it all these years, but I also had to surrender my Aussie license! She'd made a huge fuss about how beautiful it was, with the picture of the Waratah, and oo'd and ah'd about how she's always wanted to go there, and why did I come back?
Giving up my Aussie driver's license made me very sad. And then I went straight from there to FedEx to mail my ballot for the election, and I had read on the Consulate web site when I was looking for their address that if you intend to live overseas for six years or more, you have to deregister and you're not allowed to vote any more. So I'm losing that as well, unexpectedly. Both of them unexpectedly. So I was feeling very sad this morning, and would even have got a bit weepy if anyone had said a cross word to me at all, but thankfully no one did.
One nice Aussie thing - my erstwhile ex sent me a care package last week, and included an extra jar of Vegemite and an extra packet of Tim Tams for the Aussie expat who works at work. I had left them on her desk with a big red bow and a note, and she rang me the minute she got them, and we compared driver's license stories. I had been a tad bit worried that it would be sycophantic to give her the presents since I'd earlier emailed a coffee invitation with no reply, but she was really pleased and the coffee invite was accepted. So that was a lovely Aussie thing.
At the end of the day, I decided to just press on and do the car shopping foray. It was raining, properly, not very hard, but enough to make the roads slippery. Dark dark. I'd finished my computer training at 4:30 so left right after that, and had to get some gas. I could feel that my neck was tense. My Aussie's instincts were, it was so cold and wet and dark, to just go home and get under the doona and bunker down, cuddly and safe. Instincts from way back to San Diego. The opposite of the instinct I remember talking about with one of my PhD supervisors who came from the UK, the instinct on every sunny day to drop everything and go outside to lie in the sun. You have to overcome that instinct when you live in San Diego. I have been living in San Diego-like places for not 15, 19 years. So I have the opposite instinct to overcome now - just because it's a little cold and wet and dark doesn't mean you drop everything and stay inside. So I headed up the road to Green Bay.
I had to say mantras to myself all the way up there. There was so much traffic, and low visibility, just a line of red tail lights into the distance ahead of me, in the fog. The mantras included "I am fine. I can do this. I can be the Dad. I used to do worse than this on the F3, in an old Jag! Three lanes, faster, maniac drivers, worse car, worse weather. I can do this. What if this was my commute? I would just do this. I'm a strong, capable person. I'm used to doing things for myself." I thought, "I wish S. could see me now. He always used to have to drive, whatever the circumstances. He'd be impressed. He'd be amazed." I thought, "I can do this. I live in Wisconsin now. We Wisconsinites drive in bad weather, no problem. We just carry on."
I heard on the radio that temperatures in the Northern part of the state would be in the low 20's, and thought, "Holy shit! If this rain turns to freezing rain, holy shit." I imagined staying overnight in Green Bay and driving back early to work, when at least it would be light. Yes, I was hysterical. Yes, I was overreacting. But my mantras got me there safe, and the rain lifted, and the trip back was fine, was a delight actually. On the way home my thought was, "I love driving on a highway at night."
The car shopping was as confusing as ever, but the sales guys were all over me even though I was a woman there by myself and had been warned by everyone that they wouldn't probably give me the time of day. I might be closer to a decision tonight. I dunno for sure, I'll have to keep working on things. But information has been gathered, anyway.
I got home, found a card from G. with a brochure from the AGNSW Sidney Nolan show which pulled at my heart, and also found a new Badger Globe credit card. Which means I can take parents out to nice dinner, which is really great. So the mail made me happy.
And parents come tomorrow!
But what a day.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Nomadic tendencies
A thought - maybe my love for my current place is related to my inherent love for hotels. Sure, the style of the furniture isn't really "me", but actually that's great! I get to stay here without responsibility for any of it. I just perch here and exist for a while, like a hotel guest.
Sunday
Today I went for a little stroll around the lake (after 3 weeks, 40 degrees is starting to feel warm!). When you walk by the geese, they casually turn their backs, en masse, and start heading the opposite way across the lake. Like people trying to avoid you at a party.
___
Yesterday I spent the afternoon doing fun things you can't do on Sunday (perhaps a bad idea in retrospect, because my plan today was to drive to Green Bay and shop for a car, but who knew the fucking car yards aren't open on Sundays?). I hit the History Museum first, then the Copper Rock (couldn't resist the Chai and Scone snack, although I did get a bit over-sugared from it), then the Harmony where a rock band was setting up and had set off the smoke alarm with their smoke machine. Then I went over to the mall to look for wintery things. I had to buy - no, wanted to buy - a present for my cousin, some little crystal turkey-shaped candle holders and candles in autumn colours, for the table at Thanksgiving. I went past Christopher Banks and was transfixed by a green sweater with snowmen on it. The thought process went - "Holly at work wears sweaters with figures on them. That one's so cute, but I would never wear something like that. Mom would. Wait, Mom would! I should get that for Mom." So I did. It wasn't very expensive, and it's kind of a weird fabric so I hope it's comfortable, but I'm happy to buy her a present just because.
So with the presents I had to get wrapping paper, and I went over to the Hallmark shop. They have Christmas stuff up, and had penguins everywhere, stuffed penguins and penguin toys, just impossibly cute. I was so filled with holiday cheer that I thought I'd burst.
___
That was yesterday. Today was the first little emotional rough patch. It's understandable, I was rather worked up about the car shopping, and then when it turned out they aren't even open on Sunday, naturally I felt disappointed and stupid and frustrated. I did get my house amazingly clean, but I didn't get one single bit closer to car ownership (I have a plan, though, which I will enact tomorrow). I ended up going to a movie - American Gangster. My verdict - not bad, but if you want to see Russell Crowe in a police procedural, LA Confidential was miles better. He was great, convincingly playing about 25 years old, and when you think of what else he's done he just effortlessly inhabited the character. Denzel was good, and the scenes with them together were great. Denzel came on fire and you could tell he enjoyed working with Rusty, but that was a total of like 30 seconds of the movie. Throughout, the scenes were too short, the framing was too close up to everyone and the cuts too fast, and the main deficiency was character development. So, see LA Confidential instead.
When I came out of the movie it was dark, dark, dark. I had no particular plan, just some things to get at Target, and the grocery store. So that's what I did, and came home after that. But I was fighting some pain while I did it. It was Sunday evening, I'm in Wisconsin of all places, and I don't know anyone. I have all the setting up yet to do. I was feeling a bit of emotional pain.
(It did get fixed when I talked to Mom and Dad, who are in the state! And then A. called me with his big news. So right now, I feel pretty warm and loved, and also I'm happy with myself for writing this stuff while watching useless lifestyle television shows, rather than just watching tv.)
But during my attack I was feeling a bit of pain, which is the first time since arriving. I think the disappointment and frustration about the car shopping exposed a bit of rawness of nerve. I probably do have very low reserves to deal with any negative emotions that might come along.
And there was something else. Today the cold didn't feel as cold. The Target wasn't as baffling, and the grocery store is my grocery store. I can feel, start to feel, what it will be like when I get used to this place. I resisted that feeling. I don't want to let go of the weirdness, the limbo quality, the space alien experience of being new here, and brain damaged from the move and from jet lag. Maybe I'm liking the denuded purity of not having any stuff and not having any commitments besides keeping myself alive and to work and back.
I do love this landscape. The light was just gorgeous today, all day. On my walk around the lake I stopped at various points and just looked. Regardless the superstores, regardless the people, if the trees and the barns and the horizon embrace you, then you're safe. Then you're home.
___
Yesterday I spent the afternoon doing fun things you can't do on Sunday (perhaps a bad idea in retrospect, because my plan today was to drive to Green Bay and shop for a car, but who knew the fucking car yards aren't open on Sundays?). I hit the History Museum first, then the Copper Rock (couldn't resist the Chai and Scone snack, although I did get a bit over-sugared from it), then the Harmony where a rock band was setting up and had set off the smoke alarm with their smoke machine. Then I went over to the mall to look for wintery things. I had to buy - no, wanted to buy - a present for my cousin, some little crystal turkey-shaped candle holders and candles in autumn colours, for the table at Thanksgiving. I went past Christopher Banks and was transfixed by a green sweater with snowmen on it. The thought process went - "Holly at work wears sweaters with figures on them. That one's so cute, but I would never wear something like that. Mom would. Wait, Mom would! I should get that for Mom." So I did. It wasn't very expensive, and it's kind of a weird fabric so I hope it's comfortable, but I'm happy to buy her a present just because.
So with the presents I had to get wrapping paper, and I went over to the Hallmark shop. They have Christmas stuff up, and had penguins everywhere, stuffed penguins and penguin toys, just impossibly cute. I was so filled with holiday cheer that I thought I'd burst.
___
That was yesterday. Today was the first little emotional rough patch. It's understandable, I was rather worked up about the car shopping, and then when it turned out they aren't even open on Sunday, naturally I felt disappointed and stupid and frustrated. I did get my house amazingly clean, but I didn't get one single bit closer to car ownership (I have a plan, though, which I will enact tomorrow). I ended up going to a movie - American Gangster. My verdict - not bad, but if you want to see Russell Crowe in a police procedural, LA Confidential was miles better. He was great, convincingly playing about 25 years old, and when you think of what else he's done he just effortlessly inhabited the character. Denzel was good, and the scenes with them together were great. Denzel came on fire and you could tell he enjoyed working with Rusty, but that was a total of like 30 seconds of the movie. Throughout, the scenes were too short, the framing was too close up to everyone and the cuts too fast, and the main deficiency was character development. So, see LA Confidential instead.
When I came out of the movie it was dark, dark, dark. I had no particular plan, just some things to get at Target, and the grocery store. So that's what I did, and came home after that. But I was fighting some pain while I did it. It was Sunday evening, I'm in Wisconsin of all places, and I don't know anyone. I have all the setting up yet to do. I was feeling a bit of emotional pain.
(It did get fixed when I talked to Mom and Dad, who are in the state! And then A. called me with his big news. So right now, I feel pretty warm and loved, and also I'm happy with myself for writing this stuff while watching useless lifestyle television shows, rather than just watching tv.)
But during my attack I was feeling a bit of pain, which is the first time since arriving. I think the disappointment and frustration about the car shopping exposed a bit of rawness of nerve. I probably do have very low reserves to deal with any negative emotions that might come along.
And there was something else. Today the cold didn't feel as cold. The Target wasn't as baffling, and the grocery store is my grocery store. I can feel, start to feel, what it will be like when I get used to this place. I resisted that feeling. I don't want to let go of the weirdness, the limbo quality, the space alien experience of being new here, and brain damaged from the move and from jet lag. Maybe I'm liking the denuded purity of not having any stuff and not having any commitments besides keeping myself alive and to work and back.
I do love this landscape. The light was just gorgeous today, all day. On my walk around the lake I stopped at various points and just looked. Regardless the superstores, regardless the people, if the trees and the barns and the horizon embrace you, then you're safe. Then you're home.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Never say never
I've caught myself reprogramming my brain in the following way - all sorts of things that have been flagged "never" are now possible again. Case in point - my birthday will again be in the summer, right at the start of summer. When I was a kid I could always hand out invitations to my party in the last week of school for the year. Now my birthday will be right at the beginning of summer again.
I was thinking about this because I was thinking of my birthday coming up, and of getting my parents to come visit, and I was also thinking about throwing parties, and also a side thought about my boss inviting us all to his son's first birthday but not to his second or third and thought how it's better to have a tradition, and I was thinking of my two Ellen's Birthday Holiday parties (because my birthday often falls right around the Queen's Birthday Holiday), and how I won't keep that tradition alive, but here I can start a new one. I'm bound to know lots of people to invite by June!
I was thinking about this because I was thinking of my birthday coming up, and of getting my parents to come visit, and I was also thinking about throwing parties, and also a side thought about my boss inviting us all to his son's first birthday but not to his second or third and thought how it's better to have a tradition, and I was thinking of my two Ellen's Birthday Holiday parties (because my birthday often falls right around the Queen's Birthday Holiday), and how I won't keep that tradition alive, but here I can start a new one. I'm bound to know lots of people to invite by June!
First Frost
This morning I saw my first frost on the ground. I was walking into the building at KC North for a training course, and there was a patch of grass out front that hadn't got any sun yet, and it was dusted with white. Almost like snow, more like cake frosting. As white as snow but not as thick. And just gorgeous.
Monday, November 12, 2007
Ads
Two ads I've actually seen in the last day:
1. A TV commercial for Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. The ad shows how you can use it to create a green bean casserole with canned onion rings on top. This dish, which is the first one everyone mentions when they mention Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, is so outdated, so reviled, so something one's mother made that you now resent her for making you eat and making you have been one of those cliched, suburban, 50's Americans, on the ad they say of this dish, "Helps you make all the Holiday Favorites" and they place the casserole dish by a window to cool and the ad shows a pine tree branch breaking in the window to steal some. Seriously. Green bean casserole with canned onion rings on top, made using Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.
2. The second one's even better. It is nearly deer hunting season, but still. For Krieger Jewellers. It came in a packet of coupons addressed to "Resident", mostly pizza and carpet cleaning places. But this one. The first heading (in gold on a sky-blue background) says, "Buy This For Her," and there's a photo of a diamond ring. Then beneath it there's another headline in the same type that says, "Get This For You, FREE!" What do you get? A Benelli Super Black Eagle II, 12 gauge, 3 1/2 foot. In Wisconsin grassland camouflage pattern. Yes, that's right, a hunting rifle. Buy your wife a diamond ring, get a hunting rifle for yourself, free.
Really, seriously.
1. A TV commercial for Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup. The ad shows how you can use it to create a green bean casserole with canned onion rings on top. This dish, which is the first one everyone mentions when they mention Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup, is so outdated, so reviled, so something one's mother made that you now resent her for making you eat and making you have been one of those cliched, suburban, 50's Americans, on the ad they say of this dish, "Helps you make all the Holiday Favorites" and they place the casserole dish by a window to cool and the ad shows a pine tree branch breaking in the window to steal some. Seriously. Green bean casserole with canned onion rings on top, made using Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup.
2. The second one's even better. It is nearly deer hunting season, but still. For Krieger Jewellers. It came in a packet of coupons addressed to "Resident", mostly pizza and carpet cleaning places. But this one. The first heading (in gold on a sky-blue background) says, "Buy This For Her," and there's a photo of a diamond ring. Then beneath it there's another headline in the same type that says, "Get This For You, FREE!" What do you get? A Benelli Super Black Eagle II, 12 gauge, 3 1/2 foot. In Wisconsin grassland camouflage pattern. Yes, that's right, a hunting rifle. Buy your wife a diamond ring, get a hunting rifle for yourself, free.
Really, seriously.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Media
Songs on the "Alternative" station tonight - "One" by U2, "Loser" by Beck, "Head Like A Hole" by Trent Reznor. I guess they were alternative once. I think the Razor, 106.7, only has about five records, and hasn't got any new ones since 1992ish.
___
I love having a car all, all to my own because it becomes like a big handbag. Lots of things I'm carrying permanently in my trunk now - bags for the groceries, gym stuff. Actually the coffee table in my living room is like a handbag as well, and my desk at work is headed that way too.
___
Guy on CNN about the Hollywood writer's strike - "Late night comedy shows are an important part of the civic discussion of us as a republic."
___
I love having a car all, all to my own because it becomes like a big handbag. Lots of things I'm carrying permanently in my trunk now - bags for the groceries, gym stuff. Actually the coffee table in my living room is like a handbag as well, and my desk at work is headed that way too.
___
Guy on CNN about the Hollywood writer's strike - "Late night comedy shows are an important part of the civic discussion of us as a republic."
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Wisconsin Language School
Someone once commented on my use of the world "yet," a poly-linguistic wierdo friend of mine who married a woman from Argentina because Spanish was the only language he didn't, at the time, speak fluently, and within two years he was teaching philosophy, at University level, in Spanish, in Puerto Rico. Complete freak. But he picked up on my use of "yet" as particularly midwestern, and I've noticed it here a lot.
The standard uses of "yet" in English all occur in negative phrases - "haven't done it yet," "hasn't stopped yet," that kind of thing. The midwestern variation is to adopt the word for positive phrases as well, to mean either "now" or "still". I'll fill in examples as I hear them - one was on the breakfast news on CBS this morning, should have written it down. But, like, "I've got to read all these emails yet." Or "The weather's quite warm yet."
Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, the phrase I used that attracted comment from my polylinguist friend was "any more". But the principle is exactly the same - usually used in English in negative phrases, e.g. "Don't come around much any more," but midwesterners use it in positive ones too - "I come around here all the time any more."
Maybe that's a Nebraska thing, and "yet" is a Wisconsin thing. I'l have to listen and see.
___
"It's hanging there yet." - cousin
__
"We have some money yet in the budget." - co-worker
The standard uses of "yet" in English all occur in negative phrases - "haven't done it yet," "hasn't stopped yet," that kind of thing. The midwestern variation is to adopt the word for positive phrases as well, to mean either "now" or "still". I'll fill in examples as I hear them - one was on the breakfast news on CBS this morning, should have written it down. But, like, "I've got to read all these emails yet." Or "The weather's quite warm yet."
Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, the phrase I used that attracted comment from my polylinguist friend was "any more". But the principle is exactly the same - usually used in English in negative phrases, e.g. "Don't come around much any more," but midwesterners use it in positive ones too - "I come around here all the time any more."
Maybe that's a Nebraska thing, and "yet" is a Wisconsin thing. I'l have to listen and see.
___
"It's hanging there yet." - cousin
__
"We have some money yet in the budget." - co-worker
Lost and then found
Today was shaping up to be an "Oh my God, what the fuck have I done?" kind of day. Overcast (the beginning of 6 months of it according to my Mom). Colder. I spent the morning doing chores and watching a cheesy docu-drama re-enactment of a Congressional visit to Jonestown in Guyana, until I felt I was wasting my life entirely and just got up and got out of the house. Then a visit to the Gas Station of the Damned. A huge line. Just before me, a man with dirty hair and a loose belt, rocking, rocking. Arhythmically. How do men end up like this? Tall-boy of Budweiser, seemed to be how. Behind me were three little boys, unsupervised. One kept saying, over and over and over, "He said, it was like a school that, that'd been hit by a plane full of blind bunnies. He said it was like a school that'd been hit by blind bunnies. He said, he said that, it was like, blind bunnies and deaf kids. Lik a plane full of blind bunnies and deaf kids." I have no idea what this meant. I guess he wasn't getting the response he was after from his other two friends.
Then I drove up Eisenhower Road on the wrong side of the 441 because my research had suggested there was a movie theatre up that way. I didn't find it, just a $1 shop and a giant discount liquor store called Festival, and all sorts of inbred hick-looking people walking in the parking lot, but all of them in couples. And then I tried to drive around to get back on the road and was directed way off the other direction through a neighborhood full of houses with weird inflatable pumpkin decorations up in the yard, still, and then a stop where you couldn't turn left because of all the traffic, the big 4x4 trucks barelling down, just exactly wrongly spaced.
Grump grump grump. Maybe everyone else was feeling bad because it's overcast, as well.
But then I drove into town (found that I was in fact on the right road), and saw how very gorgeous College Avenue is with its promenade of yellow trees, and I saw some elegant old houses which satisfied my need to feel snobby, and then I drove around a bit and saw a whole bunch of nice houses for sale and could sort of imagine it, the neighborhood had a really nice feel.
And then I found all sorts of things essential to life, all in about two square blocks:
The public library.
The Harmony Cafe, which is not open on Sunday but is open late on other nights, has live music, discussions, poetry readings, and a social conscience. Would be a much more appropriate internet place than Extreme PC with its grime and gamers. And could be a very good venue for Philorum.
Right across the main street (although you have to walk around) is the Art Center. Not open on Sundays, but close by. In the future I will make Saturday my day for entertainment and Sunday for shopping and chores.
Right across the side street from this was a maternity and babywear shop with rock and roll designs. So there must be enough cool moms in town to support a market for it.
And back on the main street across the road from that is the best coffee shop in town, per advice from the only Aussie I've met so far. It has an ambience half-way in between a Starbucks and a groovy college hang out. For a little bit almost everyone in the place was a woman - lots of yuppie women coming out for a coffee in pairs.
It's a perfectly suitable place to sit and write your travel diary in a Moleskine notebook, which is what I'm doing right now. Or to read a book, which is what I'm about to do.
So, library, art museum and two groovy cafes, all within about a two-block radius.
Maybe I haven't made a horrible mistake after all.
___
Found the "alternative" radio station - The Zone 106-point-something-or-other from Green Bay. Not very alternative. The first two tracks I heard were rather old numbers from Lenny Kravitz and Soundgarden, and they announced c oming up something by Jimmy Hates World or Eats World or whatever it is. And the DJ sounded just exactly like every rawk dj I've ever heard on US radio in my life = "The Zone, 106-point-something-or-other. All alternative, all the time." A non-stop block of alternative. I'm sure they have alterna-two for Tuesdays. Actually I can listen tomorrow morning and find out.
Then I drove up Eisenhower Road on the wrong side of the 441 because my research had suggested there was a movie theatre up that way. I didn't find it, just a $1 shop and a giant discount liquor store called Festival, and all sorts of inbred hick-looking people walking in the parking lot, but all of them in couples. And then I tried to drive around to get back on the road and was directed way off the other direction through a neighborhood full of houses with weird inflatable pumpkin decorations up in the yard, still, and then a stop where you couldn't turn left because of all the traffic, the big 4x4 trucks barelling down, just exactly wrongly spaced.
Grump grump grump. Maybe everyone else was feeling bad because it's overcast, as well.
But then I drove into town (found that I was in fact on the right road), and saw how very gorgeous College Avenue is with its promenade of yellow trees, and I saw some elegant old houses which satisfied my need to feel snobby, and then I drove around a bit and saw a whole bunch of nice houses for sale and could sort of imagine it, the neighborhood had a really nice feel.
And then I found all sorts of things essential to life, all in about two square blocks:
The public library.
The Harmony Cafe, which is not open on Sunday but is open late on other nights, has live music, discussions, poetry readings, and a social conscience. Would be a much more appropriate internet place than Extreme PC with its grime and gamers. And could be a very good venue for Philorum.
Right across the main street (although you have to walk around) is the Art Center. Not open on Sundays, but close by. In the future I will make Saturday my day for entertainment and Sunday for shopping and chores.
Right across the side street from this was a maternity and babywear shop with rock and roll designs. So there must be enough cool moms in town to support a market for it.
And back on the main street across the road from that is the best coffee shop in town, per advice from the only Aussie I've met so far. It has an ambience half-way in between a Starbucks and a groovy college hang out. For a little bit almost everyone in the place was a woman - lots of yuppie women coming out for a coffee in pairs.
It's a perfectly suitable place to sit and write your travel diary in a Moleskine notebook, which is what I'm doing right now. Or to read a book, which is what I'm about to do.
So, library, art museum and two groovy cafes, all within about a two-block radius.
Maybe I haven't made a horrible mistake after all.
___
Found the "alternative" radio station - The Zone 106-point-something-or-other from Green Bay. Not very alternative. The first two tracks I heard were rather old numbers from Lenny Kravitz and Soundgarden, and they announced c oming up something by Jimmy Hates World or Eats World or whatever it is. And the DJ sounded just exactly like every rawk dj I've ever heard on US radio in my life = "The Zone, 106-point-something-or-other. All alternative, all the time." A non-stop block of alternative. I'm sure they have alterna-two for Tuesdays. Actually I can listen tomorrow morning and find out.
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Blue and Red
S. is the one I miss the most. I suppose at this distance, 10 years out of 15, of course he will make up most of my memory of Australia. He was embedded into the experience.
He sent me a present, two books from Amazon, which I found on the front step last night. I opened the box and enjoyed them with delight last night, but this morning it made me sad.
It could also be because everyone here is married, and I was supposed to be married and it's not my fault that I'm not. It's still a disruption to my intended future, an injury. I feel sometimes like the walking wounded, and I wonder how I'm going to get out there and relate to people. But this is the midwest, this is Wisconsin, and everyone is both nice and smart.
I was just thinking, wondering if I'll remember this very spare and bleak first week in Appleton when I haven't had any email and I've only driven on two streets and I don't know where anything is or how to do anything and I don't know anybody yet. But then I tried to remember my funny apartment in Station Road, Indooroopilly, with cardboard boxes for furniture and most of life spent sitting on the floor, and I remember it quite vividly. It didn't predict what my experience of the country would be. The two experiences that come to mind to represent (emblematize?) the bleak start and the fully embedded experience of my life in Australia was sitting on the weird polyester carpet in my flat in Station Road, Indooroopilly, and being at a Knights game. The blue and red, the circus colours, the noise of the crowd, the sun, the green grass, my heart swelled to bursting with feeling. You can't get that passionate about a football team without doing a bit of historical research about the place you're in. But more than that, without being fully embedded in the place, without, fully, living in it, a whole, rich, full life.
___
The song, "Give Me Some Money," by Spinal Tap, features as the background music in an ad for American Express.
He sent me a present, two books from Amazon, which I found on the front step last night. I opened the box and enjoyed them with delight last night, but this morning it made me sad.
It could also be because everyone here is married, and I was supposed to be married and it's not my fault that I'm not. It's still a disruption to my intended future, an injury. I feel sometimes like the walking wounded, and I wonder how I'm going to get out there and relate to people. But this is the midwest, this is Wisconsin, and everyone is both nice and smart.
I was just thinking, wondering if I'll remember this very spare and bleak first week in Appleton when I haven't had any email and I've only driven on two streets and I don't know where anything is or how to do anything and I don't know anybody yet. But then I tried to remember my funny apartment in Station Road, Indooroopilly, with cardboard boxes for furniture and most of life spent sitting on the floor, and I remember it quite vividly. It didn't predict what my experience of the country would be. The two experiences that come to mind to represent (emblematize?) the bleak start and the fully embedded experience of my life in Australia was sitting on the weird polyester carpet in my flat in Station Road, Indooroopilly, and being at a Knights game. The blue and red, the circus colours, the noise of the crowd, the sun, the green grass, my heart swelled to bursting with feeling. You can't get that passionate about a football team without doing a bit of historical research about the place you're in. But more than that, without being fully embedded in the place, without, fully, living in it, a whole, rich, full life.
___
The song, "Give Me Some Money," by Spinal Tap, features as the background music in an ad for American Express.
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