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| Thursday, January 25th, 2007 | | 1:19 am |
Can't Find That Feeling Anymore
That time has come again, as it does every year. I can no longer remember what it feels like to go outside without a jacket. Well, I can remember, but that's not what I mean. Today I went outside with no jacket and felt existentially threatened by the slow pace of molecular movement around me, by which I mean: IT WAS COLD. For someone like me, going out in the cold inevitably results in vivid mental scenarios in which I am stuck on the tundra and slowly freeze to death. Why I should think of these things while standing in a suburban neighborhood, I don't know, but it happens nearly every time. I do mean, however, that I can no longer REALLY remember what it feels like to go outside and be comfortable without about twenty pounds of thermal protection dulling my movements. Sure, I can in some sense recall what that was like on a purely cognitive level, but I can't feel it. The feeling of freedom that must entail, just leaving the house without imagining freezing to death, is but a distant memory. Now that the holidays are past, it's GRAY WINTER FREEZY SLUSH TIME. (I think that Target should hang banners over the winter clearance merchandise saying as much. The honesty would provoke buying fits by shoppers tired of obfuscation.) So I'm thinking, what does it feel like to go outside and feel not prickly, icy impending doom but the light, feathery touch of warmth and sunshine? I figure I've got about 120 days until I know again. | | Friday, January 12th, 2007 | | 8:18 pm |
| | Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 | | 1:07 pm |
Wintry Tragedies
Wintry Tragedies On Saturday I ventured out to River Falls to visit Destructo. We hung around at his place, played a video game that featured digital monkeys enclosed in transparent balls who apparently want to land on plasticky islands in the ocean but end up drowning much of the time. For some reason the folks at Dole decided it would be a good idea to get their logo on that idea. So now I equate Dole fruit with helpless drowning monkeys. Good idea, Madison Avenue!
We went to a cheap bar in town, a place called "Emma's". As per usual, I realized that I have no business in a bar. It has long seemed unnatural to me to go to the loudest, smokiest place possible to try to talk to people. Add to that the exorbitant prices of bad alcohol and most bars are just plain nasty places. We played darts, a game that Destructo really introduced me to. (Yes, apparently I've been living under a rock.) At one point we played in three teams of two, and we had the misfortune of having a rather chatty young woman on one of the teams. She seemed to feel the need to have an entire "let's catch up" conversation with someone else in the place immediately prior to each of her turns. She'd just hold the darts for several minutes and chat with someone, while my lungs blackened and my ear drums ached.
On the way home I was met with a rather creepy scene. In Woodbury there was a large sign on an overpass that said there was an accident ahead and that the interstate was closed. As I expected, I crested the hill to see emergency vehicles. But it wasn't a normal accident. There were three large trucks with enormous arrows indicating that everyone needed to exit. Quite the turnout for 2am on a Sunday. As I approached the scene in the light snowfall, I noticed a car to my left that advanced on the area with apparent caution. I had thought it was just a confused motorist, but as I got closer I realized it was a big, black hearse. I've never seen a hearse arrive at an accident scene before, but the the presence of such a vehicle belies the seriousness of what happened there near that big concrete bridge in the light snowfall. I of course had to find a new way to get home, which wasn't too hard, but the sight of all those lights amid those thousands of tiny flakes, knowing what I knew, was eerie. It wasn't until I read the paper on Monday that I found out that a young man had been walking along the freeway and had been struck by a vehicle. I don't know why he was there or why the vehicle hit him, but the result of the encounter certainly made for a tragic night for several people. | | Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 | | 12:18 pm |
Unnatural Selection
Unnatural Selection I had the "AM - PM" problem on my alarm today. I woke up, saw it was light out, and decided to check the time, just for the betterment of my being. It was 8:55 am! I had class in fifty minutes! I needed to: get dressed, brush my teeth, brush my hair, take my Claritin-D, drink a small glass of juice (yes it was necessary), put my book and a certain piece of paper in my bag, gather my wallet and other pocket items, then get in the car, drive to the bus stop, and catch the bus. Fifty minutes is not necessarily enough time for that. As I arrived at the bus stop, the bus, one of the extra-long ones, was waiting there, a good two or three hundred yards away. From past experience I was in no mood to jam my car into a spot, bail out, grip my backpack tightly as I hurtle myself across the various changes in pavement, grass, and curb only to arrive in front of the bus, breathless and disheveled, as it drives away. So I gave up. I decided to miss class (I don't like being more than 10 minutes late), turn around, and go to Target. At Target, I was confronted by the strange experience of buying shampoo. The kind I usually get seems to have suffered a re-packaging of some kind. I didn't recognize what I needed. So... for ten minutes or so (it felt like a long time) I stood staring at row after row of shampoo. Each bottle promised me something I didn't need, like greater "curl definition" or more "volume" or "50% more attention from women". I didn't want any of these things. A bottle that said, "Cleans your hair" would have been sufficient. I ended up settling on what I think is the repackaged version of what I've already got. I recalled a story I once heard from a pastor who was describing a Cold War-era Soviet pilot who had defected to the United States. After being debriefed, he was set up with a home and some money, with the intent of allowing him to live out his life in the free world. Within a matter of weeks or months he asked to be sent back to the USSR, despite whatever punishment he would receive there. Apparently the man had found the abundance of choices he needed to make each day to be simply overwhelming. Used to state-controlled media and scarce supplies of state-manufactured consumer goods, the prospect of standing in the toothpaste aisle at the local supermarket and figuring out what he should buy was just daunting to a man who'd been trained to fly state-of-the-art jets. He couldn't adjust to the constant advertisements and the sheer weight of consumerist freedom and pressure. He went home, and maybe to prison. I've never confirmed the story, but I think it illustrates something remarkable. In our market-driven capitalistic society, businesses are always competing for our attention and thus our dollars. Everywhere we go we are called to buy things, call telephone numbers, think about how our lives would be better if only we had a certain something. And the intensity of this economic hurricane seems only to increase. If that Soviet pilot had trouble in the 1960s with his choices, imagine how he'd feel in my position, looking at an entire aisle of shampoos and conditioners he could buy. Mind you, I certainly don't want to move to a centrally-planned model in which I stand in line for hours only to find that the store has run out of gray soap from a state-run factory and I'll need to come back in a few days. That was the reality of Communism for much of the twentieth century and still is today in a few places. Nonetheless, as the competition for out attention and money intensifies, how do we respond? Do we spend more time examining the possibilities? Do we revel in them? Do we learn to "tune out" many of the frequencies? Where is the limit? I don't know. AT any rate, I took my shampoo and a few other items up to the pharmacy counter, along with a plastic card indicating that I want to buy an antihistamine containing a pseudoephedrine decongestant. I bought one last week, and approaching the counter today, I was fully expecting that I'd be challenged: "Why are you buying pseudoephedrine again, sir? It's only been seven days since your last purchase. Are you running a methamphetamine manufacturing cartel?" I expected to have to show that my teeth are intact and that I don't have any chemical burns in a vain effort to shake off the suspicion that I was a criminal, taking home expensive Claritin and crushing it up between old rusty spoons in my garage where I turn it into the nectar of the meth-heads. Fortunately I only had to sign my name on a screen that warned me of severe penalties if I was lying about something. Of course I had to pay for the product too. Maybe I'll go back tomorrow, just to press my luck. And maybe I'll by a different shampoo this time. | | Tuesday, September 5th, 2006 | | 10:01 pm |
Make The Hugh Grant Joke
I went back to school today. It should be the first day of my last semester as an undergraduate. I've got a light load, enough time to study and work. Perhaps it will be a nice few months.
Nonetheless, it's a shirt-and-tie week. On Friday I've got a wedding to attend. The Psychologist's twin sister is getting married and I'm the former's guest. I even get to go to the rehearsal dinner. (It pays to go with someone in the wedding party.)
Sadly I've also got two funerals, each for someone whose funeral I wasn't expecting anytime soon. On Wednesday Dad called me at work to tell me his wife's brother had died suddenly. He was on the ice at a hockey clinic and had a heart attack. I asked and Dad said my little brothers don't really seem to get what it means that Uncle Joel died. I wasn't close to the man, but he was always pleasant when we saw each other.
And then today I found out that an old high school friend's dad had passed away, also quite suddenly. I hadn't seen the guy in a while, perhaps a couple of years, but I always enjoyed his humor and his sideways smile. It saddens me to think that he's left the world so early. DM and I will go to the funeral in the morning.
We went out with my grandparents' old friends again tonight. At one point the wife (previously mentioned here), asked me where I was married, before she realized that I never have been and corrected herself. Today happened to be their 8th wedding anniversary. They'd each been married previously, but I guess when you re-marry the counting starts over again.
The husband was telling me about how he had washed out of the training program for flying gliders during the Second World War. He failed a landing at Wichita Falls, Texas and said he embarrassed his commander, who kicked him out. Had he not failed that, perhaps he would have ended up towing gliders filled with paratroopers over Normandy in June 1944. Instead he went to Florida to work on repairing transport aircraft, including some that had flown the infamous "Hump" between India and China. He said that after the plane had made 20 to 30 such trips, they brought it stateside, stripped it of its instruments and engines, checked the remaining parts, and replaced the former with new pieces.
I asked him if he'd ever flown in an open cockpit plane. He said that he had, in a biplane out of Hibbing during the winter! I asked about the goggles and helmet and he said he'd worn them as well as a full flight suit. That's an image from another era for sure.
He also told an amusing story about his first wife and their trip to Sweden. They were aboard a train with only one open berth, so he gave it to her and spent the night in a coach seat. While they were both asleep, the front part of the train was separated and loaded onto the ferry to Denmark. When his wife woke up the next morning she walked down the hall, intending to find her husband at his seat, opened the door, and found only track in front of her. She was left behind in the part of the train still in Sweden with no money and no skill in the local language. It apparently was quite a shock to her, but fortunately they moved her part of the train across to Denmark later on. I can just imagine her, a thin, elegnat woman, walking up to that door, swinging it open, and dropping her jaw as she sees only track and sea in front of her.
| | Thursday, August 3rd, 2006 | | 8:45 pm |
Burning the Candle
I had dinner with my gradparents and a couple of their friends this evening. They've known this particular couple for as long as they've been married (almost 59 years) and then some. The husband (who is 92) and wife (who is 89) have known each other since 1935, when she came to the Twin Cities to start her nurse's training at what was then Mounds-Midway Hospital. They each married someone else and saw those marriages through until the passing of their respective spouses. Eventually they decided to marry each other. I suppose it seemed quite the natural thing to do - two octogenarians who had been friends for decades and who had also been good friends with each others' spouses. Why should they be alone in their later years?
Unfortunately the wife is losing her grip on this world. Over the past few years I've seen her lose much of her memory. She cannot quite remember what year she was born, when she retired, or even when she last saw a particular person. Tonight she asked me five times what I had ordered. We fund out that she had been in the hospital and then in a nursing home for more than a week recently, and that she was only allowed to return home on the condition that she and her husband would accept outside help with ragrds to housekeeping and that she would see physical and occupational therapists.
I remember going to the husband's 90th birthday party a few years ago. He had prepared a speech detailing the flow of his life. Birth, marriage, children, the loss of his first wife, marriage again. Interestingly enough, these milestones or markers were intermingled with details on every car he'd ever owned. The man demarcated his life according to familial events, jobs, and automobiles. Each new car seemed to signify the start of a new era for him, or perhaps the indication of it. The single man's car gave way to the car for a growing family, which gave way to the car of an empty-nest couple, and so forth. That's one way to count the years.
I don't know what the near future holds for them. I would hope ad pray that whatever happens they need not be separated for too long, either by residence in a care facility or passing into the next world. And while there is something sad and frightening in seeing people who once bore the world's burdens on their shoulders - caring for elders and children and everything in between - decline into being barely able to care for themselves, there is also a sense of privilege at being in the presence of those who have seen so much and lived full, generous lives. Perhaps I'll one day be in such a psoition, or perhaps my story will end much sooner. Either way, I hope that we can care for these people well and that upon leaving this world there is restoration in the next. | | Friday, June 2nd, 2006 | | 4:27 pm |
So It's June
So I'm at the university on the second day of June. Sitting in a library while the sun shines and people across the state stare at their clocks waiting for quit time. I guess that's me, a bit different. I finally checke dmy grades today, and as I had hoped, my senior paper received a good mark. I'm glad of that. It was fifteen weeks of work, eventually producing thirty-seven pages of history. A staple wouldn't go through so I had to get it bound before handing it in. On Tuesday I began what I had thought might be called "The Week of Productivity" were I into using semi-socialistic inspirational language. The Idiot Crocodile and myself spent a few hours scrubbing a year's worth of dirt of the pool cover at the Country Estate. Spray, scrub, add soap, scrub, spray, scrub, spray, get off cover, advance cover, repeat. The next day my sides hurt. We also hauled some old furniture out to a rented dumpster and I even chopped down a tree with an axe. I started the long-waiting project of sorting through the boxes stored downstairs. Many of them contain the detritus of the last 10 - 15 years of my life. School papers, mail, notes from girlfriends, and plenty of mouse droppings. I even found 25 dollars in cash in two separate cards that had been given to me who knows how many years ago. Nice haul, I must say. For years the accumulation of toys - action figures, vehicles, games - has been kept in old cardboard boxes someone got from a Cub grocery. I've decided it's time to sort through, purge, re-organize, and re-store. Get rid of the broken, the unremarkable, the irredeemably filthy. Put everything in shiny new plastic containers that may one day provide my children or my brother's with a treasure trove to explore at grandma and grandpa M's house. Lots of G.I. Joe action figures and their vehicles and forts, as well as even older Star Wars and GoBots. Some of the lesser-known and forgotten series, such as Food Fighters and Bucky O'Hare (which the Idiot Crocodile played with) are there as well. They share space with mouse droppings, too. Perhaps today my Week of Productivity has come to a halt. I've not done much except make a few phone calls, meet an appointment, and return some books. Now I think I'll retrieve my literature and be off. There's a city bus seat just waiting for me. (Or not). | | Saturday, April 29th, 2006 | | 3:03 pm |
At Easter, we traveled out to my aunt and uncle's place in the booming hamlet of Hampton, Minnesota. They both worked at Unisys for years, and now he's retired and takes care of the horses and cattle. After our meal, I was sitting across from the Idiot Crocodile who suddenly asked me, "Are you still on Lent?" I laughed and tried to explain that Lent is dictated more by the church calendar than by my whims. It's not something one just turns on or off. So, no, I wasn't "still on Lent". Shortly after, the Idiot Crocodile launched into one of his fanciful future planning sessions, where he gives details about how his future life will take shape. He's already established that his first three children will be named Krant, Kane, and Bethina. Though he doesn't seem interested in getting married, he;s decided to have another son, bearing the marvelously slick name Samsonite Silver. That day he decided that he will build "an empire" (of what he did not specify) and that after his death Krant and Kane will engage in a civil war for control of his extensive domains, which will result in Kane's demise. He also announced plans to set up a business, perhaps the first step towards empire. He plans to start a barber shop, employing exactly one barber who will work at least ten hours a day. The Idiot Crocodile himself will be the "general manager" of this two-man operation and will open another franchise. At this second location there will be a vending machine, and thus he will add "food and beverage specialist" to his growing array of titles. He plans to operate the two shops under name of "Tangible Cart, Inc.". Current Mood: mixed | | Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 | | 6:01 pm |
Walter Scooler, aged 97, died last week. I was walking on campus and called work to find out my schedule for the weekend, and afterwards ended up talking with Donna, our longest-serving employee. She gave me the news. It seems a huge-framed, older German man had shown up at the house this afternoon, bearing the news that the father of one of my residents had died. He was apparently the son of a good friend of the elder Mr. Scooler and had come to the US to make his final arrangements. He cried. For years I had wanted to know more about the past of the diminutive, muscular fellow with an inexplicable charisma who managed to win so many friends despite his severe Down's Syndrome. When I first met him, I only knew that his background was Jewish, that he'd been baptized Lutheran, that his parents had fled Nazi Germany and given him up at birth due to his severe disabilities. Later on I did more research. I found a few death certificates, specifically those of his mother and grandmother, both in their advanced years when they slipped their earthly moorings. From Yad Vashem I found testimonies, in dual-language Hebrew and English, of several relatives who had not survived the camps. I found that his dad, the elder Mr. Scooler, was still listed in the phone book, living on Van Buren Street in Saint Paul. From the old interview copies at the group home I could see that he was a lawyer, and relatively old by the time his son, my resident, was born. He would have had to have been well into his 90s by now. But I also knew that he'd decided to break off contact. I'd been told that he had made it clear that he was not to be contacted by our staff. He wanted to forget, perhaps. Perhaps surviving atrocities, seeing your wife have several miscarraiges, and then finding that your only son may never walk or speak is simply too much to handle. (Though it seems he did for a while, as the records show he and his wife visited their son at the Cambridge State Hospital for many years.) Several times I drove by his house, once parking across the street, staring at the non-descript house with an old Toyota in front. It was raining, and I took out my umbrella and walked down the sidewalk, turning about a few times, trying to figure out what, if anything, I could do. If I approached, would it frighten him? I certainly couldn't be completely honest about my intentions and source of information. Could I really lie to the man just to hear his stories? I ended up stopping in front of the house, rain falling in my umbrella, kids on the porch of the neighboring house making too much noise. Then I crossed the street and went back to my car. I wanted to know so much. I wanted to see the man who had fathered the man I'd taken care of for more than 6 years. I wanted to hear his accent, to know what he'd lived through in Germany. Sometimes at night I'd think, " Quit being such a coward. He's a man with no family who at worst will slam the door in your face. His stories are only available for a little while longer. A man in his nineties doesn't have the luxury of years." But I didn't do it. And now he's gone. Maybe I wouldn't have ever been able to do more than see him, maybe he wouldn't have been interested in talking to a stranger. But a wealth of history has gone with him, and now I won't know. Don't wait too long. | | Friday, April 7th, 2006 | | 2:06 am |
Olfactory Vacuum
This weekend at work I was standing the sink, washing my hands as I do about 842 times each shift, when my co-worker suddenly said to me, "You have no odor." I inquired further as to her meaning, and she explained that I simply don't smell like anything. Nothing. Not good, not bad, just nothing. She finally, upon pressing her nose near to my shoulder, admitted that I smelled faintly of clean laundry. I had never been told that before.
Later on she referred to me as a "neutral-smelling dude".
This Thursday I turned in my first draft of the paper that will cap off my undergraduate career. It's about the looting and destruction of German personal and cultural property in East Prussia by the Soviet and Polish governments after the Second World War. My preliminary working title is To Ruin: The Destitution of the East Prussians, 1944-1948. That may very well change later on.
(By the way, I just translated into English a German Wikipedia article about East Prussia. Anyone who's interested -no one - can find it here.)
Tonight the Idiot Crocodile and I went out to the Paternal Residence, making the hour-plus drive in the rain. It seems his car roof has a leak of some sort, as the upholstery around the light fixture near the rear-view mirror kept darkening and forming large droplets that would then fall down to the gearshift. Thus we took turns pressing a large bath towel up against it to keep from getting splashed.
When I we got there, I got an unusual request from the Youngest Brother. "Use me as a shield." That's right, he was requesting that I pick him up and make him a human shield as the Second-Youngest Brother tried to punch me. I've never heard of anyone request to be used as a fleshy protective device before.
But then again, this same kid used the phrase "That's why they say I'm not a team player" a few minutes later. (He was clearly repeating something he'd heard elsewhere, as he was when he said, "DAMN IT!" while we were playing fussball later on.)
Otherwise, terrific rain today. Not enough lightning and thunder, but we've got a whole summer for that yet.
In other news, I think I found both the Brazilian AND Destructo again! | | Thursday, March 23rd, 2006 | | 1:52 pm |
Late March Miscellany
I just came into the computer lab at Coffman Memorial Union, swiped my card to use a computer, "Googled" the phrase "Shoot Your TV - Read Comics", found a website, and bought a t-shirt bearing that phrase that will be delivered to my home. It took me about three minutes to find and buy something from someone who may well be on the other side of the country. It's a brave new world, folks. (By the way, I looked for that phrase because my g-pa once cut out a ohoto from the newspaper of a guy with a short mohawk wearing that shirt and I figured I wanted one. Now I just need to order a haircut.) This morning I was in the kitchen eating something before leaving for school and I heard a loud sound that reverberated through the house. Aircraft ocassionally pass overhead, so I figured that's what it was. However, as the sound got louder and started sloshing my bone marrow about, I began to wonder what kind of aircraft could make that sound and how close it must be. (At times like that I always end up thinking that something is about to crash into a house across the street.) It got terrifically loud and actually rattled things in the house that can be rattled. Finally I looked outside and saw a very large (two horizontal rotors, I believe), low-flying helicopter streaking towards Saint Paul. Then came another. And another. And another, and so on. It was a formation of 5 huge choppers crossing low overhead. They must have been military, and I have no idea what they were doing over Little Canada on a Thursday morning, but it was quite a sight. When I got to the office where I had my appointment at the university, I told the receptionist who I was and that I had arrived. Despite the fact that I've dealt with her twice before, she still asked me, "Have you been here before?" So... does she just have a poor memory or does seeing multitudes of people each day cause faces and names to blur together? Later when I got something to eat and some coffee at the Union, I saw that a recruiter from my company, ACR Homes, was standing around waiting for students to ask about job opportunities. I think I may have ambushed her unexpectedly. She of course told me that anyone who gets hired based on my referral will allow me a $100 bonus. Takers, anyone? Afterwards I went into the bookstore, trying to find gifts for my youngest brothers. I ended up selecting David MaCaulay's Castle for Max - the sort of book I liked when I was a kid. Granted, the reading level is too high for him, and I doubt he's yet terribly interested in the finer elements of and curtain walls, but I think he'll like the pictures enough until he can read it on his own. I also bought a book called The Troll With No Heart In His Body, a collection of old Norse tales about trolls, which I'd thought about giving to one of them, but I don't think Tommy is ready for a book about multi-headed Nordic creatures yet. (That's a first day of kindergarten present.) So I'll keep it for myself and maybe read it to them someday. I also found a book called Amazing You: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts. Not exactly a brother-to-brother gift, at least as far as I'm concerned. Also - I think I'm going to sign up for a cell phone today! I've decided I'll throw away my neo-luddite creds and join the century. Current Mood:  jubilant | | Wednesday, March 1st, 2006 | | 3:51 pm |
Nimbus
It's a gray day at the U of M, and I like it. It's the sort of expansive gray sky that seems to remind me of a long, quiet precipitation, without pomp or pretense to thunderstorm aspirations. The sort of day that fits better in early spring or late autumn, but a welcome change from the usual snow and bluster. (I say usual, not related to this year, however.) The kind of day in which I wish I could be justified in waxing my mustache, wearing a long black coat and a bowler, and sauntering around with a briefcase and a black umbrella, waiting to be picked up by an old-fashioned black sedan. Ever feel that way? Of course you don't. Ash Wednesday. I'm planning to shun chocolate and alcohol for the next forty days. Not an enormous sacrific to be sure, but perhaps an adequate one (I hope). I've always liked the ritual crossing of dark ash on foreheads on this holiday. I think it was a Catholic (and perhaps Orthodox) practice that Protestants hace decided to pick up. | | Tuesday, February 28th, 2006 | | 9:45 pm |
I feel blasted WRETCHED. I'm not exactly sure why that should be so tonight, but I think it's one of those times when discontentment works its way into my head, like the enemy let into the gate at night by a traitor who should be keeping watch. Ever feel that way? At any rate, I paid more than 80 dollars today for sundry, minor work on my vehicle. I decided against going to my geology lecture, and laid in bed instead. Then I wasted a few hours on the computer, even though I had work to do. Now I still have work to do but very little motivation to do it. So will I do it? Let's see... Current Mood:  depressed | | Friday, February 10th, 2006 | | 5:19 pm |
A few days ago I was leaving Coffman Memorial Union to cross over to the West Bank. It was after five o'clock and darkness had started to set in. As I approached the Weisman, I saw that the Minneapolis skyline was nearly silhouetted against a brilliant pink sky, the aura of the sun which had already set behind the buildings, which faded from a saturated intensity to the near absence of identifiable color as one looked higher into the sky. Set against this phenomenal scene was a seemingly endless stream of black birds, coming loudly from some unseen location to the north. As they rose into the sky and crossed over the Northrup commons, in pairs and clusters offset by the occassional loner rejecting or rejected by the crowd, they presented an irregular, mobile force against the receding pink and orange. I'd seen this great evening migration once before, more birds than I could even try to count. It was truly remarkable and a thrilling testament to the coexistence of divine creation and the works of humanity, brought together for a brief while against the dimming sky of a snowless February evening.
Prior to that, I had left class one night to cross over the Washington Avenue bridge in a snowstorm. I chose to take the left side, which is unusual for me, since it is largely occupied by bicycle lanes. Pushing through the dense flakes made yellow by the bridge lights, with large crystalline patterns imprinting themselves against my black jacket, I realized that the precipiation was so intense that the skyline of the city, usually a preeminent sight from that location, had vanished in the storm. Only the university buildings along the river and the more distant Gold Medal Flour sign on the old mill were visible. With so few other pedestrians and much of the usual sound subsumed by the wind and snow, it felt as if I'd somehow entered an isolated, snowy enclave, a place where there had once been a city, which had since vanished in the weather. I was largely alone, and despite the tumult in my head, being there felt good and I was tempted to linger. Uttering a short prayer of thanks for such a beautiful scene, I continued along the way. The skyline didn't reappear, though; it had retired for the night. Current Mood: content | | Tuesday, January 31st, 2006 | | 5:07 pm |
Good Neighbor Policy
I don't usually care an waful lot about celebrities, but occassionally I read a headline and it piques my interest. I was glad I followed through today.
According to our friends at Yahoo! Entertainment, former American Pie actress Natasha Lyonne has been issued an arrest warrant because she failed to show up for trial. Among her charges: "criminal mischief, harassment and trespassing". But there's another one, too: "her alleged threat to sexually molest her former neighbor's dog during a 2004 altercation". (My italics.)
So... what leads a person to threaten to molest someone else's dog? I don't have any clear ideas. I tried to put myself in the position where I'm having an "altercation" with a neighbor, and she threatens to molest my dog, and all I can do is suppress laughter. It just doesn't make me too terribly afraid or angry. Now, I suppose if they actually did it, then I'd get upset, but really... Current Mood: amused | | Tuesday, January 24th, 2006 | | 5:15 pm |
Shake It
I dreamt that I was hlding a party. I was running late so I was still in the shower when guests arrived. A former supervisor from work came and brought her new boyfriend. We were introduced and I extended my hand to shake his, but I was still dripping from being in the shower, so he just looked at me. I decided to engage in another form of greeting, which seemed to make sense in my dream world, so I reached up and shook his chin. I don't know how that works, but apparently it was highly offensive, as my former supervisor yelled at me and left immediately. She also threw some kind of baked good at me, and I responded in kind.
I've got the second geolgy lecture tonight at the U. It's easily the legest class I've ever been in. with seevral hundred students. At least I can pretend I'm much. much cooler than them, as its mostly freshmen and sophomores. (One advantage to taking basic classes later on.)
This afternoon I write another article for Wikipedia. It was already there, but I took info from the biography of Charles de Gaulle that I just read and expanded upon it. For anyone interested, it's about Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry, who tried and failed to kill Le General in 1962. (I added the graphic, too.)
| | Sunday, December 25th, 2005 | | 1:58 am |
Happy Christmas
Christ is born!
'Tis late, so I will not write at length, but suffice it to say that it's been a pleasant day spent with family, I got all my presents wrapped, and it has begun to snow.
Now I should go to bed, as we've to set off fairly early to get to the Paternal Residence so the boys can open their gifts.
Blessings to you, friends. | | Monday, October 31st, 2005 | | 4:41 pm |
Ein Alte Deutches Buch
While the warmth with which I'd so long viewed most things German has been shaken of late by the realization that even fine Germanic heritage can bring with it nastiness and sickness (I suppose my knowledge of German history should already have done that), I spotted an old book today and decided to buy it.
It is called "Seeing Germany", and was written by E.M. Newman. In the front of the book is a fine map of interwar Weimar Germany, outlined in an unattractive but somehow fitting green. The now long-lost territories of Silesia and East Prussia, as well as Danzig are featured as inseparable components of the country. When this book was published in 1929, German-speaking people still lived in those places, and lived their lives as do people everywhere. They raised families, worked, worried about money and friendships, and suffered loss. Surely none realized that in just ten years they would enter an era of unimaginable destruction, death, and fear. Those who managed to survive, whether it be by good fortune, sheer determination, or something greater and more mysterious, would endure the agony of starvation and expulsion at the hands of peoples for whom anything German was now hateful. A map published in 1946 could show a shorn Germany on just one page, not the two that geographic appendages require in the volume I've bought.
On the page following the map, I found a bookplate. It shows a shaded line drawing of a birch tree and bears the name Arthur W Siemers. Opposite it is an inscription written in careful, female cursive. It reads:
" Dear Arthur - I hope these pages will refresh your memories of the beautiful days in September 1929 that we had the privilege of enjoying together in this country. - Bertha"
I cannot help but wonder what happened to Arthur and Bertha. I imagine that they were a married couple, though they could of course have been relatives or even just friends. I wonder how the years treated them, if they remained together. Were they a solid pair of caring human beings, or was there later a trust breached and a love shattered? How did the coming devastation of the land they'd enjoyed visiting so much and the fact that their country (I presume they were from someplace in the English-speaking world) became involved in a bloody struggle with their holiday location. Where did they ends their days, or are they perhaps still out there somewhere, experiencing the troubles and benefits of senescence?
I hope that Arthur and Bertha's story was a good one. That the years were kind and their relationship fulfilling and their stories filled mostly with laughter and love. And if they've left this world, I hope that what they've gone onto exceeds the struggles and fears that characterize this place so widely.
My faith in and link to the beauty of things German may be damaged, as have many of my sometimes naive ideals before, but it will recover and perhaps even grow with the passing of time and the knowledge of what comes after suffering. It is but one facet of what I am, and whether I should choose it or not, I am inextricably linked to the place by blood, memory, and intellectual pursuit. No person or thing can change that. Perhaps even I could not. It was a German who said that things that don't kill us make us stronger.
As for Arthur and Bertha, I imagine them, together in the dim light of an early 1930s Christmas evening, exchanging the heartfelt gifts and, more importantly, the affection that attended them, and believe that it is a scene I will someday achieve, albeit in a more contemporary form. Not only do I aspire to it, but I have a physical link with these people, whose story I will believe was a good one. Perhaps then I will add a bookplate of my own next to Arthur's birch tree.
Current Mood:  contemplative | | Thursday, September 22nd, 2005 | | 4:25 pm |
Imperfect Storm
Laid in bed last night until well after 4am, listening to the BBC, then to Coast to Coast AM, and just thinking a lot. Felt rather lonely, actually. George Norrie was talking with someone who was describing what he referred to as a "one-footed snorkle monster". I'd like to see one of those, although if as he described, UFOs tend to shoot lasers at them, then I'd prefer to keep a safe distance. Last night was the worst storm I've seen (or seen the results of) in a very long time. I was sitting in my German history class and the sirens in Minneapolis sounded. The instructor just kept on talking, and I imagined a tornado ripping the building apart and disrupting our conversation about the 1525 Peasants' Rebellion. The weather worsened and at times it sounded like a large monster was just outside and clawing at the windows, toying with us. I actually left class for a few minutes because I just can't bear to let a storm pass without seeing it for myself. Under a walkway on the West Bank I had the protection of the fiberglass partitions but when I setpped beyond them I was pelted with rain and whatever else was carried by the winds. When I left school I saw that most of the area along 35-W was apparently without power and the rain was heavy enough to slow all of us down. In Blaine I saw two large evergreens on the street, lying side by side as if they'd been neatly felled by someone with an axe. Otherwise there were limbs and branches down all about and some city workers had already come out to work on some of the damage. I followed a fire truck down the street at one point. Closer to home there was more damage. Even this afternoon as I drove to school I had to contend with a very large tree that was blocking both lanes along Little Canada Road. I had to pass along the muddy shoulder. The g-parents had apparently just gotten into their car at Perkins' after meeting friends for supper when the rain started. They said they waited in the vehicle for a half-hour because it was too stormy to go back inside but too bad to drive. It seems the car was even rocking back and forth. They got home to no power and spent the rest of the evening with candles and a battery-powered radio. By the time I got home the power had just come back on. What a complicated world hath been bestowed upon us from above. Current Mood: unsure | | Monday, September 19th, 2005 | | 6:18 pm |
It's a beautiful autumnal day in Flaketown. I rescued some maple seedlings from Redwood earlier in the summer. They had managed to plant themselves in a couple of old plastic pots that were going to be thrown away, so I set them on the front porch by the wheelchair ramp and then drove up late one night and spirited them away. I was wondering if the awake night staff would hear my footsteps on the wood or if an insomniac neighbor would call the police because I appeared to be a thief. I can imagine the headline in the local paper: "New Brighton Police Catch Sapling Thief In the Act". Or perhaps: "Sapling Thief Barks Up Wrong Tree". At any rate, I'm, hoping to plant them before winter sets in. Hopefully they'll make it through the cold months. |
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