Old Friends

I just came across a blog that was all about how this gal is re-reading all the Babysitters Club books in chronological order. In chronological order of the publication date because it's impossible to read them in order according to the dates in the books. They start in seventh grade but then enter a time warp in which they never leave eighth grade. I think they do actually graduate from middle school when the series ends but I've never made it that far.

This blog that I found makes me think of a fews things, like:

1. I am always doing stuff like this, re-reading books from my childhood. Why didn't I ever write about it? July 2005 I read a Judy Blume book a day for the entire month. Sounds ripe for blogging about, but I didn't. I guess I'm just good at blogging about all the things I wish I would have blogged about.

2. Ann M. Martin, bless her, came out with a Babysitters Club prequel. I don't care about what those girls were doing before they joined the Babysitters Club. In fact, I know what they were doing; they were babysitting. They were babysitting all the time! They turned it into a business. I want to know about what happened after the Babysitters Club broke up because Kristy, Claudia, Stacy and Mary Anne all started high school and got concerned with other things. I can imagine Kristy and Mary Anne really fighting to keep the club together but Claudia and Stacy wanting to go to cool high school parties and drink and smoke cigarettes. Jessi and Mallory might as well be dead to them. They are in seventh grade and all the other members are in high school. Claudia and Stacy definitely smoke cigarettes. I bet they still smoke cigarettes (I think they would be about 36). That is if Stacy isn't dead--she does have diabetes. Oh, and Dawn! Dawn will definitely because a burn-out with dreadlocks. She's a total hippie!

3. So thinking of "Where Are They Now, Babysitters Club" just makes me think of "Ramona Quimby, Age 28" and how I really need to know what she is up to these days as well.

The Road is My Home

A few days ago I was following a UPS truck and they pulled over in front of Vernon Elementary school hitting the branches of a cherry tree in full bloom, causing the petals of the blossoms to fly through the air and to the ground, like confetti. It was the most beautiful thing I saw that day.

Today I've noticed the lilacs are blooming and was able to stop and smell some of them. Lilacs are my favorite flowers. We had trees of white, light purple, and dark purple in our backyard at Lafayette. We also had an apple tree, a pear tree, walnut trees, and grapes. There was a wood stove in the living room and a bowl of walnuts in their shells, shell cracker right by the bowl, was always placed next to it. In the backyard there was also a hole in the ground that was covered by a lid that would come open if you stepped on the handle. The lid was heavy and rusted. That hole scared me. It was where my dad put the dog poop he'd clean up before mowing the lawn. When I was seven our brittany spaniel had puppies and half of the litter died from Parvo. It was really sad, and after that I imagined that the hole had dead puppies in it and that we were always throwing poop on them.

When I was younger it seemed like grown-ups were always getting these odd obsessions or interests. I guess I did it when I was younger as well--when I was ten and eleven I really liked suns and then I really liked cows. Even though I stopped caring people were still buying me birthday cards with cows on them or t-shirts with a holstein print. My mom got into buying these tiny British cottages that she kept in a mirrored, lit, corner case in our dining room. My dad went through phases of being really interested in old coins. He had about 30 vintage fishing lures framed. My uncle would always come visit toting a catalogue with the latest gun or knife that he wanted to buy. He'd show me the picture, as if it meant anything to me, and tell me all the specs. He still does this really. Their interests always seemed odd to me, but I supposed my obsession with holsteins was pretty ridiculous. I feel like now I'm getting my first adult obsession--vintage travel trailers. I really want one. I spent over and hour researching them today. I don't even have a driveway to keep it in. I'm not sure what the draw is. I definitely have romantic notions of cross country road trips pulling something like that 1965 Terry trailer I have pictured, of living simply and owning little. I know my Terry trailer would sit untouched most of the time, and I would probably be too lazy to do whatever small amount of upkeep it required. Maybe when I grow up a little bit more--when I have a driveway. When I have more things to call my own I can buy something that lets me pretend that all I need is its 13 feet of living space. My life in a tin canned.

The Old Stuff

I started a blog in fall of 2004. It was required for a fiction class that I was taking. We were required to write in it everyday. So there is a lot of stuff there--some good, some bad. I continued to write in it sporadically over the next couple years then I just stopped pretending to care.

Here is a the address:

http://hoardingitforhome.blogspot.com/

It's the name of a Mates of State song.

I got a letter from Billy today. I've been hating everyone and everything lately and it was a real treat to get. He discussed the new Nicole Holofcener movie and how we should see it. He also asked if I liked country music. There was a period in my life when I liked Garth Brooks. I think I was fourteen. I like old country. It reminds me of my Grandma Oldham. She died, suddenly, when I was 20. When I came home for the funeral I remember playing the "O Brother, Where Art Thou" soundtrack and crying. She played the fiddle and the mandolin. Whenever I hear either of those instruments I think of her.

Warning: the old blog, like this blog is riddled with typos. I hate proofreading.

I actually had a live journal account during this period in my life--when I was "off the map" as Billy put it. Dating a horrible guy and dealing with the death of my grandma. I don't remember the address, only that it had the word "pfiffig" in it, which means clever in German. I was also taking German at LA Vallley College at this time in my life.

LA

In LA I realize that I am capable of liking people and things. In LA the sun was shining and it was warm but breezy. I did a headstand in the front lawn of the observatory, making sure my legs were straight and my toes pointed. A hummer limo pulled up and a wedding party got out. Bride, groom, bridesmaids all there taking photos in the front lawn. In all the pictures we took of ourselves I have a double chin. My face doesn't look like my face, but instead like the face of someone who looks sort of like me, someone my friends would see and say, "That girl kind of looks like Kaite."

The day before our flight to LA I ritualize everything, everything I do is loaded with significance. This might be the last time I _____________. Hug Maebie, eat this food, kiss, hug, shit, shower, the last time I see my friends or talk to my family. When I am done teaching class I want to hug each one of the kids really hard but I don't. I wake up at four in the morning and my head buzzes with anxiety. I wish there was an off button, that I had an off button. On the plane I sit next to a man that is headed to LA on business. He's a psychologist. He's the one that makes defendants in court cases into humans. He interviews them and gives the reports to the judge so that they can be seen as a whole person, and not as whatever horrible crime they committed. We agreed on a lot of things: Meth is bad, Fire on the Mountain is good. He has a daughter that is older than me and he spoke at length about how much he disliked her boyfriend and told me to dump mine if he didn't get his act together in the next four years.

The day we are leaving LA I wake up feeling sick, like I'v inhaled too much smoke from the fire we made the night before. Breathing feels toxic and my head feels light and full of holes. I am doing the dishes, being a good house guest, when Sadie walks into the kitchen wearing bright pink pajama pants, a Devo t-shirt, hair-piled on top of her head and says, "Stop doing those," and then, "Um, the fire is still going."

"Like still smoking, " I ask.

"No, like flames. I'm in trouble."

I saw her spray the fire with water from the hose. I jumped up and moved away because it sent a plume of smoke into the air with force and determination.

Once the fire was out we ate chilaquiles then we drove all around the city saying goodbye to people. It didn't feel ceremonious though. I wasn't dwelling on the possibility of each thing being the last thing. Maybe because I was too tired from lack of sleep and rich food and smoke inhalation to really care, maybe I wanted it to be the last thing. I wanted to finally find the off switch.

Writing Everyday

I have an acquaintance who, whenever anyone says they are a writer, he says, "Oh, yeah, do you write everyday?" Like he's challenging you--which he is. He thinks that if you don't write everyday you're not a writer. I think it's a great idea to write everyday, but the questions is what? I write emails everyday. I write responses to instant messages. I write texts. I pretty sure my friend wouldn't classify me as a writer. The last time I talked to him I told him about going to grad school and writing and he said, "Oh yeah, do you write everyday?" even though he's asked me that three times before in the last few years. I told him that I don't write everyday but that I think about writing everyday. I don't just think about the act of it but I think about things to write about. I'm always thinking about things to write about, constantly, but it's the act of writing that is the hard part. Anne Lammott said that writing is just holding the lantern for your characters that are digging the hole. My characters are in the dark most of the time.

I think that I find my friend's question so annoying because he's not a writer. He makes no claim to be one, nor has he ever attempted to write anything since college, that I know of. I think he just doesn't get it. I mean, even if I wrote every single day, would I then be a writer? Even if I never published anything, ever? I think he asks the question because he knows people will say no. No, they don't write everyday, and then he's caught them, he's made them admit that they really aren't what they presume to be.

He's a real asshole.

Take offs and Landings

On my third day of SPRING BREAK Paterson and I drove down the Historic Columbia River Highway. We drove back into town on Marine Dr. and stopped outside the fence of the airport and watched planes take off and land. Seeing a plane on the horizon we would try and guess which airline it was. We were never right. I would guess Southwest and it was be obvious from before the planes were even near the runway it wasn't Southwest. They have grey planes. We weren't the only ones watching. A few trucks pulled up and men ate their lunches from Burger King while watching lift off and touch down.

I'm afraid of flying. I have been for about nine years. It's not a 9/11 thing. Although I have spun some crazy scenarios in my head about terrorists taking over planes. On one flight from Burbank to Portland there was a man who had boxes and boxes of Krispy Kreme donuts. I was sure that he had poisoned them and was going to offer them to us or force us to eat them, we'd all die, or pass out and he would take over the plane. I know, it's a ridiculous plan that doesn't make sense. But I'm not scared of the terrorist stuff as much as I'm scared of the plane have some sort of mechanical error. I don't even like writing about it. But even with this fear I've alway had an attraction to airports. Not the inside, food court, Brookstone, souvenir part of them, but the runway part, the take off and landing part. I plan to take my lunch to this spot in the near future.

SPRING BREAK: DAY ONE

Since I work as a dance teacher my breaks are the same as the school breaks. This week happens to be SPRING BREAK. So, even thought I'm not in school I get the same excitement and recklessness that traditionally goes along with SPRING BREAK. I really shouldn't be excited about it. I am forced to take a week off and I don't get paid, yet the studio still charges the clients for that week. Dance teachers get a raw deal sometimes.

Every SPRING BREAK I come up with some goals that I want to accomplish during my time off. I usually aim too high. In my mind I was going to lock myself in my room and write a screenplay during this spring break, but I don't see that happening. So I decided to go not worry about goals and just sort of float along, day to day, and see what happens, realizing fully that this is what I kind of do all the time anyway.

So far today I have worked out and gone to see if I could get my glasses fixed. My glasses are 1960's style black frames. They broke last night when I accidentally used them to help myself get out of bed. I only paid $16.99 for the frames (actually Dane bought them for me for Christmas when I pointed them out in a shop at the mall), so it's not too surprising they broke easily. I paid nearly $200 to get the lenses put in though and I really don't want to have to buy new glasses. The new lady at the glasses shop suggested I go to the store at the mall and buy as many pairs of these frames as possible so I can just pop the lenses out of the broken pair and into a new pair whenever they break. Great Idea! So I went to Lloyd Center, not the mall where Dane bought me the frames but the closest mall to me and they have the same store, Lids. Aren't all malls basically the same? I think Lloyd Center has a little more character because of it's location.

For my birthday one year my dear friend Billy agreed to get his ear pierced. I got to pick the earring--I chose this little gold cross. We went to the Piercing Pagoda at the Lloyd Center. Billy was surprised that it hurt so much. I had a great photo of his face right as that gun was pushing the metal through his lobe. He let the hole close and I think he might hold it against me that I made him mutilate his body. While on this birthday trip I was riding the escalator, licking a cone of frozen yogurt when the young man behind me observed, "Damn! You are fucking that ice cream cone up!" I informed him that it wasn't ice cream, it was frozen yogurt. So, I always look forward to going to Lloyd Center because you just never know what it going to happen, though usually, nothing does.

The mall was more crowded than usually because it was the first day of SPRING BREAK. The ice was being cleaned and kids were eagerly awaiting to go in circles, around and around, on the rink. I went to the store where Dane purchased my glasses and they didn't have the frames. The sales attendant informed me that they might get some in a week, and that their store was the only Lids store to be getting them. I was pretty sure he was lying. There was a Dianetics booth set up that was advertising free stress tests. As I walked by on my way to Lids I noticed an old man sitting with a young man and nodding. I guess he was getting a stress test. A lady asked me if I wanted one and I thought about it and how it would be something fun to do on SPRING BREAK, but I didn't want to have to wiggle my way out of becoming a Scientologist. The stress test looked like they made you hold on to metal jump rope handles while a needles bounced up and down on a machine. Beyond the Dianetics booth there was a Pirate Store, a store that specifically sold things for looking like a pirate, and all the sales people were dressed like pirates. The mall is such a bizarre place, it's like visiting another world, a future world. I feel like if people from the past came back and walked around Lloyd Center they would be so baffled, speechless. On the way back by the Dianetics booth the old man was sitting, eating a sandwich and watching the kids skate. Another man was grabbing the metal handles and I heard him say, "This really works, huh?" On the way out of the mall I noticed there as a vending machine for Nestle's Quick. I thought, how strange, a chocolate milk vending machine. The future is a crazy place. Luckily, I get to go back there tonight because Paul and I are going to see a movie there. Lloyd Center twice in one day? Spring Break really does rule.