Bread to Be Eaten

go somewhere else

2009-12-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

So, I've been using wordpress. The hoot and the cakes were right. It's very nice. I've posted there quite a bit now. So take a minute and plug this in your aggregator:

http://breadtobeeaten.wordpress.com

And follow me........

Making a move????

2009-11-18T22:50:00.000-08:00

So I'm currently checking out wordpress. I know, this will likely cause any of you aggregators the strife of having to plug in yet another web address. But the place was lauded by a friend of mine at What the Stitch?. So I'm trying it out. I'll let you know when/if I make the move.

The biggest thing holding me back is that the website is slow from over here. Blogger is much faster. But wordpress just LOOKS so much nicer. There are more features. I'm torn. Any advice?

(You can see what I'm testing out at breadtobeeaten.wordpress.com)

Քույրիկս և Ընկերներս

2009-11-18T00:46:00.000-08:00

Other Peace Corps Volunteers are invaluable friends. There is no one else in the world who will know what it's like here as well as your PCV friends will. The good ones provide a safe space to vent, miss home, commiserate, and let your American self hang out. When I'm with my PCV friends, I can talk about Obama, Battlestar Gallactica (never thought I would watch that... but necessity is the mother of you-will-watch-anything-when-desparate), and where to buy vanilla in Yerevan. I can complain about host mom quirks and all the stares. And I can dance like I dance, which can certainly incorporate the Armenian arms-only techniques, but is only complete with wobbly feet and old step squad rolls and swings.

The above picture is my friend Liz. She was the first to welcome me to Armenia with, "Oh, you're the one living with my old host family." Because we share this host family connection, she calls me 'Aghbers', my brother, and we reminisce about Geghtsik's wild dancing and Armine's quick temper. I'm currently hoping she'll cut my hair when I see her this weekend in Yerevan.

And these are some of my close friends, geographically and otherwise. I went up for the weekend to Baghratashin to visit them. Grace made that plate of cookies (I'm cleary very excited, yeah?), as well as lavash chips and 4 layer dip. We watched Perfume, leavened the night with Dodgeball and slept warmly all surrounding each other on mats on the floor. Peace Corps is one of the only places in the world where not only are you not too old for sleepovers, but the activity is expected, comes with the two year package.

I would not survive here without people like this.

The Armenian Artists

2009-11-17T01:22:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I grabbed my European Volunteer Service friends, and we popped over to Gyumri, Armenia's second largest city, for an art tour provided by the Berlin Hotel. The weather was quite the foil to last week's sunny, crisp sort, but the day was still so charming, made up of long, quiet, gray rides through rain and flat lands and punctuated by endearing men and women armed for everyday with paintbrushes and homemade wine.

The above picture is the table of the first artist, Hakob Hovahnnisyan.

He lives in a small village, Gusanagyugh, where he moved only a few years ago. The landscape surrounding his home was surely uninspiring with dull grey rocks, smudgy grass and endless horizon, but Hakob said he moved there for the "light". The best light in all Armenia he said. I was instantly considering the typical Why's of moving (re: the schools, the active lifestyle, the beach, the job market). Not many people pick up and follow 'light'.

This is his room where he paints, sleeps, cooks, warms by the gas stove. It's actually a good picture of what most Peace Corps Volunteer homes are like, except that Hakob covered the walls with off-white draft paper where he hangs his work and scribbles things like, "Պետք է ապրել այնպես, որ կարողանալ նկարել, ոչ թե հակառակը:" It's necessary to live that way, which can be pictured, not the contrary.

I always wondered what it would be like to be that fabled kind of artist. What it would look like if I jumped off the face of the earth and landed somewhere totally unknown, like the moonscape country of Gyusanagyugh. To be totally devoted to my art. And now I know. It's a lot of broken furniture, of light-following, of sparse rooms, of quiet.

And outside his home stands this tiny structure, a remnant of soviet pressures which so supressed Christian life. A few brave souls who could not find a church nearby constructed their own for lonely services. The inside of this place was crusted with candle drips and thick with wet air. A picture of Mary. A cushion worn out by the recurrant fall of knees.

Ah, but a mood can certainly pick up at the sight of such houses, surrounded by piles and piles of cabbage, don't you think? I know it's hard to see, but look around the houses. Piles and piles. It's like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, but ... just cabbage.

The cabbage piles were followed by a visit to this structure, old walls of a seventh century fortress that jut into the sky at the crest of a hill. When you're an American tourist, such vists always spark phrases like, "Well, we just don't have anything that old in the States," and "I don't think our Starbucks will last this long." And then we start thinking about the irony of American self-importance. And then we say things like, "Remember that time we were standing in a 1400 year old building." Smile, then a bunch of ugly pictures (come on... you know they're ugly), then back on the bus.

Now the next artists were my kind of people. Yesayi and Irina Meyroyan. These aethetes set up a snack spread as though it were a piece of art. They're yard was speckled by rickety sculptures that doubled as summer tables and clothes pin holders, little works set up merely for their own pleasure, because very few other people would ever see them.

Each corner of the place was a chance to explore the beauty of a new perspective. Oooh... doesn't that sound all vague and oddly pleasing. Indeed, they were perfect Armenian art-hippies.

There was just a lot of art, a lot of light, and a pleasant warm place to snack and do those arty type things like contemplate beauty and revel in warmth and purity. Stuff like that.

Seriously though, best part was that their little girl's art (see far left of pic above... there's the girl) was just as proudly posted as her parents' most phenomenal works.

And finally, there was Vahan Topchyan. His art was my favorite. Whimsical, dreamy. Made me want to write a children's book and ask him to illustrate it. Ooooh... maybe I will...

He was a strange bird though. Less of an upper lip than my own dad, a mustache that curled down into his mouth. He laughed almost constantly, and when asked by my friend Barbara if there were vacant apartments in the building, and how much they would cost, he replied, "If they are girls, they don't have to pay rent. They just have to be gooood girls." And... creeper laugh. But his art was phenomenal. I would absolutely buy one of his Noah's Ark pieces if I had any dollars at all.

So, now, since I'm all inspired, I'm going to get my Lithuanian site mate, who studied at an art institute, to give me some painting lessons.

They are so not impressed.

2009-11-16T06:34:00.000-08:00

Tigo and I visited a village for these boys' very first day of school back in September. They're decked out like businessmen, but my suspicion is that I've found the real Harry Potter. Don't think you fooled me with that band-aid, little man.

The Theatre

2009-11-11T23:47:00.000-08:00

If you're kind enough to read my blog, you will notice in the coming months that I'm trying something new. Nothing drastic. I'll only be trying to update more frequently, but with less longer posts. So, you can grab your morning coffee and take a sip of Armenia as well. My pictures will come up in smaller bits, hopefully in the fashion of my friend over at Circle Me Confused (and go there to check out some really killer photos of PCV life in Armenia). With my little point-and-shoot Powershot (which I love), I'll offer my bits here. Like the following:

I went to a play put on my a children's club in a tiny village up north. I didn't understand a word of it as the village speaks mostly Russian. However, the costumes were great, and although the pic doesn't show it, the guy on the far left running the sound system dressed in fatigues, painted his face and carried a knife for the occasion (and was the sole representative for the village's men). What a supportive akhber.

And here gathered the audience on tiny schoolroom chairs. After the performance which included recitations, drama, and a few musical numbers, the crowd was engaged with in a game of trivia. A right answer won you a paper flower prepared by the theatre troop. The women pictured here loved the event, paid at the door actually.

Scary Things

2009-11-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

It’s cold here. My toes are freezing, but strangely it’s a feeling that I’m getting used to. It’s funny how much I don’t know about winter. For instance, I thought I had packed winter clothes. But no, I packed Texas winter clothes, clothes that are sufficient for getting me from one air conditioned home to the next. I am so thankful for all of those years of central heating for sure. But I was so unprepared for nights of being able to see my breath as I’m getting ready to get in the shower.
The other thing that Central Texas does not prepare you for is the drastic change in the Armenian diet come winter. Gone are apricots, cherries (gosh how I would love some cherries!!!), watermelons, green plums. In the States, our industrialized food systems don’t prepare you for seasonal vegetables (a term my mind previously relegated to special “green” efforts, an abstract idea that could ‘better the world’ like buying florescent light bulbs). The term “seasonal vegetables” actually means something to me now. The change of food goes along with the act of wearing sweaters 24 hours a day, or furiously knitting a new hat because I CANNOT BE WITHOUT ONE and I left mine on the bus. I am certainly now involved in a new sensation, this act so strange to me, this bearing down, gritting your teeth, bracing yourself for winter.

I made a verbal agreement on a house today. I’m trying to not get too excited about it, but my wayward imagination is taken with the place. It is a tiny cottage, spackled a plain grey on the outside with new, white trimmed windows. The building sits in the corner of a family’s garden and can be reached by a path that winds through a small forest of drying sunflower stalks and rows of newly planted potatoes. The whole thing looks new, and certainly the inside has been recently tiled and furnished sparsely with cabinets, beds, a table, an electric water heater. The landlord assured me that soon a gas line will be set up, that the water that only runs a few hours a day will be running 24 hours a day by January, and that a wardrobe will be brought in. Now I only need the thing to be approved by my PM, and I can move in. Cause for pause? Only one, that I’ll be moving in the dead of winter, and my first few days will be the coldest days of my life. So be it. I need a place of my own. And I think I’ve found it.

Things at work are going well. I had a fantastic Halloween party on Friday. I made cartoon versions of all my coworkers, had them draw numbers for the costumes that would be put on their cartoon selves. After they were dressed as an octopus, a dragon, a magician and others, the paper selves were handed out to their animate counterparts and hung around their necks by yarn. In the Armenian party tradition, each of my coworkers was also given a pre-written toast to correspond with their character, and so throughout the night my friends presented such speeches as “The Alien’s Toast” and “The Butterfly’s Toast”.
My desk mate, a wonderful sprig of a woman, who brought her husband’s nephew and neice to the party, had the bright idea to cut up some old posters and help all the kids decorate them into costumes. Kings and queens, butterflies and rabbits were all running underneath the strings of orange balloons and tissue ghosts that hung across the ceiling.
We had ordered a cake, a green one. My director actually did the ordering, but despite her saying that it needed to look like grass, it came with lots of beautiful swirls in many greens and creams and was finished with a large spackling of glitter. Much too pretty. However, it became a great deal uglier once we pressed the gummy worms into the icing and laid the gummy snake from corner to corner. Amongst the paper headstones and gnarled tree that were stabbed in a convincing arrangement, the whole thing gave my Armenian friends willies. Perfect. The cake also allowed me this cultural exchange: The security guard asked if this was the holiday on which American’s eat goose. I was able to reply, “No, this is the one where we eat cemeteries.”
We played three games. The dance competition and round of musical chairs were both very exciting. But the most well recieved was the Halloween Lottery. From money we had collected for the pary we had bought mostly food, but we also bought 18 prizes. We attached numbers to the prizes and put corresponding ones in the lottery. We also folded up written dares. So, if you wanted a prize you had to be willing to perform a dare should you draw one. Ah, risk. We then wrapped the pieces of paper in bits of plastic bag and stirred them into a pot of cold, soggy oatmeal. The pot was covered in a box with a hole in the top. So to play you had to be willing to stick your hand into a dark hole and dig around in a mucusy mess. The faces were priceless and the laughs went on for a long while.
The whole party was wrapped up in a video from a website my mom sent me which featured members of my NGO dancing to “Monster Mash” as a mad scientist, a vampire, a werewolf, and Frankenstein and his wife. I think they watched the video at least 8 times before we all went home.

A successful Halloween. Of course, now I’m getting asked the date of my next party. Perhaps I set a dangerous precedent. No... a terrifying, even scary precedent.

Monster Matchmaker

2009-09-09T23:59:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I had hoped that I would be able to steer clear of typical blogdom. Mostly I mean that I hoped I would subject my posts to a literary standard. It would not be a recepticle into which I would vomit whatever bit of my personality I feel I need to share with the world. But then I read something that makes me want to throw such a standard to the dogs.

So, forget it, I'm giving in because some friends' recent blog post struck a chord that, well, resonated.

Please go read their original recent post at Lara and the Reel Boy. It reminded me why I really like those two people. And it made me want to share my own list of 6. (I know at LATRB theirs was five, but I want 6. So what?!)

Six what? Well, six monsters I would like to have around. Some would make great pets. Others would be more like great friends. At the end of the post please comment and leave your own list. Or post some to your own blog and let me know. (My literary blogging soul is hating me for this... )

6. Mike Wazowski (Monsters, Inc.)- Look at that stunned face. So comic. I mean, he's a monster, AND he's Billy Crystal. You get two in one one-eyed pal! I don't see how there could be anything wrong with this.

5. Falkor (The Neverending Story, etc.)- It's funny how I think the desire to have my monsters around feels so self-explanatory. In this case I want to say, "Come on! He's a luckdragon!" Plus, I'll get to fly from world to world, taunt bullies, find cures for diseases, and if I'm ever flung into the ocean or left dangling on a cliffside, I'll be saved... "With luck!"

4. Aughra (The Dark Crystal)- Sometimes I've got a hankering to banter with a cantankerous old lady. So number four was really a dual between Aughra and Morla, the giant sneezing turle from The Never Ending Story. But really, there's all the doom with Morla, and plus, Morla's more like a place to hang out at than a person to hang out with. In general, Aughra is much more impressive, what with the embodying of the planet Thra, the ability to control vines and other Thra-types, and reading the universe. Plus I would love to just hear her talk about various apocolypses and say things like, "It's the Great Conjunction!"

3. E.T. (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) This I believe is the coolest monster/alien around. He's the title of my favorite movie. We'd build things, make stuff hover, and do some general healing. And there's something about the guy that tugs at my spiritual heartstrings. Major downside: He dies = I die.

2. Thing (The Addams Family, etc.) - Thing is everything I could want in a monster pal: good sense of humor, doesn't mind doing your dishes, likes sports like skateboarding and tennis, and won't hesitate to save the day. Plus he's different from the other monters in that there's no getting around how humanish, severed and undead he is. He'll make all my friends wriggle.

1. The Muppets- If you know me, you know the following: a)It would be cruel to make me choose one Muppet. b) I actually have always wanted to be a Muppeteer so this makes absolute sense. There is not a Muppet that would make bad company (unless you include Skeksis in the Muppet bunch). Bring on Sesame Street, Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppets in Space. I would play guitar with Kermit, teach with Big Bird, think about the enormity of life with Gonzo, and bring Miss Piggy to my friends' ANTM parties. My roommates would certainly be Rizzo and Pepe, and in the end I'd poke fun at all of it with Statler and Waldorf. This would be a dream.

The Training Village

2009-09-04T22:50:00.001-07:00

So, I'm not good at putting up pictures yet, but since facebook doesn't seem to be working for me, to my blog they go. Enjoy... and if you don't like pictures... well... don't enjoy. (Also, there's about thirty pictures here... so you may want to take a couple trips here to take it all in.)

These are all from the months spent in my training village. For the pics of nowadays, you'll have to wait. The process of putting these up is a LONG one.

I never quite figured out how this wonderful woman was related to my family. But her gap-toothed grin was priceless as was her frequent beckonings to join her for coffee, "Surj uzum es surj." And she loved to dance, with little wrist flips and toe kicks.

This is my typical Armenian meal. Note the tomato and cucumber, still present at every meal. Also, there is cheese available on every table, and it is salty like whoa. And no Armenian table would be complete without bread in either the slightly stale, hard-to-tear chunks, or the harder-to-tear powdery flat lavash. Hatz u paneer (bread and cheese) is THE Armenian staple.

This is NOT a typical Armenian meal. The story is a good one, and a long one, and if you're going to make it through these pictures, I'll just give you the short version: Walked in the bathroom and was naked and climbing into the shower when I realized I was in the presence or our pokr kovi (small cow's) head, skin and ankles. Poor Pokr Kov, as liked to call her. The family sold the meaty parts, but clearly they held onto the good stuff. These later became meals. However, they stayed in the bathroom for days. Plus side: they gave me something to look at besides the fly tornado that circled in the middle of the room.

This is my host brother bringing in the hay. I helped although the pictures me and my attempts were not worth the evidence they would provide if posted. But I did wield the pitchfork mightily.

Armenian Gothic. I couldn't help myself.

I think my host sister weld the pitchfork more mightily.

Upon request, here is a picture of an Armenian church. Actually it's THE Aremenian Church, Etchmiadzin, the seat of the Armenian Apostolic Church. It's suprisingly small. Beautiful, but tiny. Most interesting facts: 1. Jesus alighted here, they say. 2. The church is built over a pagan temple that was used to worship the sun.

Horovats, the Armenian man's barbecue. Here's a good place to point out that here most people don't have any of the same 'culture' around meat handling that Americans do. They handle the stuff, pinch salt out of the communal bowl, shake hands, scratch their face, touch everything without a drop of soap.

A picture of my favorite painting in my little village church. The church was built in 2000, and the paintings in the new building are gorgeous, with modern faces and poses. Actually reminds of the work of my friend, Kate Moore.

Sometimes the electricity goes out.

This one is for Aunt Sue. And check out the bowl! That's gotta be one of the fanciest bowls to ever hold the famed Puppy Chow!

A favorite picture of mine of my host sister. She made me miss my real sisters all the time, but she was great fun to hang out with. We had lots of inside jokes that, wonderfully, had little to do with cultural or language barriers. Also, notice the tractor behind her. My host dad did a lot of work around the village bailing hay with that monster.

My host brother tending the horovats fire. Notice the cell phone in his left hand, the reason that minutes later he was stomping out a grass fire under the pit.

Host dad, skewering the chicken who just happened to be an unfortunate victim of the unfortunate dog who killed it, who was then unfortunately relocated to another house. At least the pup wasn't turned out to the hills...

A rambunctious member of my groups summer camp, a project that three other volunteers and the village children did together. We gathered every week for games, dance lessons, or community projects. On this day we did a trash pick-up with an unintended end. Ask about that mini-failure if you're interested.

My PCV friend Zoe planting flowers at our village church. Only days before we attended a funeral there where the head of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Catolicos, was present. He looked grumpy.

"Who will help me gather the wheat?" I kept thinking of that red hen's fairytale on the day we brought the wheat into the cellar for the winter.

This is one of two pictures I think my aunt could make into a nice painting. It's from a church called Geghart, a popular Armenian destination. What is really unique about this church is that most of the building is actually dug rightout of the mountain. There are chapels all over the slope, dug into the rock, where believers kneel, pray, and light candles. This picture is the main hall.

This photo is from one of the dug out chapels. The sculptors/carvers/diggers started at that little whole at the top, carved the intricate designes you see there, and later dug down to make a floor, columns, altars and crosses.

My favorite candle lighting picture. Another which I think would make a nice painting.

A wall from one of the dug out chapels. The designs are etched right out of the stone.

An entrance to one of the dug out chapels. Notice the hach kar, or stone cross on the left. These are everywhere all around Armenia, even in the abandoned churches you will find these abandoned works of art.

My training village PCV's. Love 'em or leave 'em. I love 'em, but that conclusion came with lots of wanting-to-leave-'em episodes.

A last supper, ending in watermelon, with my smiling, warm and generous host family. I miss them.

And a last Watching-The-Cows-Come-Home from the khanut.

Afternoon and Evening

2009-09-02T05:12:00.000-07:00

As I promised, the afternoon and evening:

I usually try to leave work between 3 and 5pm. This week has been cold, so I usually go straight home. But the first two weeks, this place almost tricked me into thinking I could hold out for summer with its bright sunny days and sandal-worthy weather.
So in those first two weeks I have spent most of my afternoons at the park. On the edge of town, just before you walk up into the hills there it is, a kind, green place to stroll. Mind you, the regularity of municipal landscaping is well, very irregular meaning that even in this cute family friendly park there is not a single slab of concrete with out a crack somewhere or a corner sunk in the mud. The greenery grows at will. I do however think someone must come through and sweep the sidewalks for a few dram.
My town was once a popular tourist destination in soviet times (that phrase "in soviet times" is used quite a lot here). The park has wonderful tiny fair rides which mostly seem to work minus the carousel of swings in the corner whose chains are all red-brown and drawn up. There is a smaller, hanging-bench carousel that stands shorter than I am and a Ferris wheel whose tiny two-child buckets must have been replaced in the last few years based on their neon orange and dark blue color scheme. There is also a really strange ride that I've ridden twice for 100 dram. It's a cage for two people in which you through your weight from side to side as the cage swing. The goal is to get the thing to spin a full 360 degrees. It's a strange sensation to be standing, to have the floor move from under you. And you can't stop engaging the swing or the floor will leave you behind, and you'll smash your partner on the other side of the cage. All of the rides were painted in bright pastels which are now fighting the red-brown of rust.
I haven't been to the park in a week and a half. I went yesterday and couldn't find the friend I'd made, Sarkis, who runs an ice cream stand. The ice cream is delicious, reminds me of the kind you make in buckets in the backyard during summer cookouts, but this is creamier and consistent. Every day Sarkis brings fresh-from-the-cow milk to the machine. He always tries to give it to me for free, but even when he succeeds in not taking my coins, I drop them in a box on top of the machine. We eat ice cream (he has about 4 or 5 cones a day and is as thin as a toothpick) and talk. Our conversations are limited of course, based on my limited Armenian. But he's a kind guy, the brother of the Armenian wife of the Peace Corps volunteer who just left here in July.
After the ice cream, other teenagers (the term is applied to 15-25 year olds) gather, usually around the ping pong table where they take turns losing to me. They like to play, and I'm fairly certain that there's a charge for ping-pong time, but Sarkis doesn't charge me and for ping-pong I take the deal. There is only one person who can beat me, a little 15 year old girl with long black hair down to her thighs. She can beat everyone. She's got a future in the sport, might become the next Black Widow of ping pong if there isn't one already.
After a few rounds I usually give a peace sign (I actually had to teach them to throw deuces... I thought that was universal) and take my walk home. On the walk I almost always say hi again to my butcher friend. Recently I've noticed how every day he hangs a strip of meat in his window. That's Armenian advertising for you: raw meat.
I also watch the dogs. I've been thinking about getting a puppy. Besides the monetary, familial and possible future complications regarding dog ownership, I also may have trouble finding an eligible puppy since there are no breeders or pounds from which to adopt. I'm left to the streets. So, I've been starting to recognize my favorite dogs walking the sidewalks and gutters, noting which ones are male and female, and which ones I hope will mate and make me a puppy. There's a great wiry haired schnauzer-faced dog with tiny little legs and beautiful coloring. There's a tall blue-brown spotted hound dog, and a short white fox style pooch. Dogs are going on and off my list all the time. Usually it has to do with which ones are digging through the mornings' trash bags on the curb.
I usually arrive home at dinner.
I won't go into food but will instead stick with setting and describe where I spend most of my evenings, in my room.
I am loving my room these days, and it's not just because it's where I escape Armenia for a few hours. It's comfortable, feng shui (that can be an adjective, right?), warm, a general feel-good place.
The wall paper is gold with darker gold borders and columns of white that make the room feel tall. Swirling painted sconces and a detailed center-ceiling piece make the room feel Eastern European. More specifically, and maybe morbidly, they most remind me of wealthy German homes and restaurants in WWII movies. But after Allied occupation of course (I'm a patriot...).
My bed is a combination of rough springy day bed mattress and two, thick, wool-packed mats that have taken a curve in the middle. It's actually comfortable, sort of cradle like, and under my thick wool duvet makes a good sleeping nest.
I have a long coffee table that serves as my desk where I sit in a fairly comfortable arm chair and watch movies, write, or put the day's pictures on my computer. My room has once again turned into a safe haven, feeling just as comfortable as any I've had (the sun room on Guthrie, the wood-floored master in the Young's house in Abilene, my Oxford bunk room on the second floor overlooking Canterbury). I sit and read Dandelion Wine or knit and listen to Andrew Bird. I've watched four seasons of Grey's Anatomy already (a sure escape) and generally find my small, safe nook to be just what I need at the end of a day of frustrating misconjugations and general disorientation.
At night I brush my teeth with my luxurious electric toothbrush, give my host family a bari gisher, and tuck into my wool cocoon. Ooh... that sounds so nice to me right now.

Morning and the office...

2009-08-25T01:31:00.000-07:00

In the morning I usually turn the alarm off at 8:00am and then fight with the morning for fifteen minutes before I actually get up. One of the reasons I don't like to get up is that it's cold like Texas December in Armenian August. The other is that I just don't like mornings.
I pull on clothes, slip on slippers and leave my room. Host Mom brings out breakfast which is always tea, bread and honey, and sometimes includes some fried potatos, steamed buckwheat or eggs & green beans. I would say that most mornings are tea, bread & honey mornings taken in the living room where we eat every meal.
The floor of the living room is painted a barn red that is worn, not flaking, but smoothed away. Certainly the paint is slowly giving up its fight in under the chairs and in the most trafficked places where the dark wood is the most prominent. The floor is cold, necessitating the slippers. If I don't wear them, there is an instant and rapid, "You're going to catch cold. This is not acceptable. Where are your slippers!?" from my host mom. It's kind of nice really.
The floor is the same through the house, and its hollow which is why the family can hear me walk from the breakfast table, to my room for my toothbrush, and to the bathroom. While the whirring of my electric spinbrush scrubs my teeth, I walk into the kitchen to turn on the house's water pump which stores water from the few hours a day it's actually running through the pipes. The bathroom and the water closet (the tiny place where the tiolet stays) are tiled a dandelion yellow which is actually a very soothing color to be surrounded by during your most vulnerable moments of the day.
After brushing my teeth, I return to my bedroom, gather the book I'm reading (currently Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury), my journal, my notebook and my work folder into my bag. Upon leaving I shut my doors which close like french doors over the half the space. Locking the door to my room actually requires me to pull the knob at a full body lean, using the my weight to counteract years of the half-door's warping.
I leave with a 'hajogh'. Our family here in Armenia lives only on the second story of a two story house. I think they are slowly cleaning out the bottom half which currently holds old funiture, books, and a christmas tree. The stairs are outside, and when I walk down them in the morning, I reach down to my knees where Koki and Kutik, our dogs, are usually whimpering for a little love.
Out the front gate, I present myself for the 15 minute walk to my office. The air is always cool, reminds me of waking up outside on camping trips, putting up with the discomfort of cold air knowing that warm will follow soon enough.
I sometimes pass a friendly butcher whose eyes are always red, whose always smiles at me, who is sometimes drunk, who shouts his salutation if he is across the street. I pass the school where my host dad works, a stationary store, a barber, and stray dogs who are chewing through the morning's trash, put out by main street tenants. I turn left just before a 20 foot Soviet-style statue of a communist leader, walk through the town square and reach my office.
My coworkers gather every morning for coffee, thick and rich, poured into tiny cups, Turkish-style (although I would never use that description here). The day is discussed; the group feeling is individually assessed by all. I sit and try to listen for words I know.
A note on the 'catching of words I know': It's like that game in arcades, the one with a jackpot that goes up with each play, with the light that spins like mad around and around, with the button you mash when you think the light is on 'JACKPOT'. The tension, the spinning, the always being off just a little, the feeling that maybe this next one I'll get. It creates some incredible anxiety, but every once in a while I'm on the money.
After coffee people split up. Lately my mornings consist of me waiting for one of the project facilitators who said he would take me to one of the villages he works in. In my waiting time I generally try to talk with our office cook who helps me pick up Armenian words in exchange for English ones. Then the facilitator beckons, and I hop in his World Vision issued Lada (an old russian four-wheel drive jeep) and head out to a village. I go to the school, meet directors, go to the village clinic if there is one, go to town hall and meet the mayor. Again it is a situation where my struggling Armenian allows only the most basic of conversations with these leaders, but I'm certainly learning the phrases I hear the facilitators say often: "This is our Peace Corps Volunteer. He works in our office. He doesn't understand Armenian." I usually pipe in with a "I'm happy to meet you; I'm still learning Armenian. Kamots-kamots." I really enjoy this time, and though my Armenian is terrible, I'm getting to know the facilitators fairly well, what their proud of, what they like most about the communities they work in.
Back at the office, I check email, read program guidelines, and brainstorm projects. In general my office is my favorite spot in my new place. The people are friendly. We laugh together around coffee and lunch. I can rest on the breakroom couch with a book. I can look forward to a warmer winter because of the office's heating system. It's a warm, clean, kind place.
And that brings me up to afternoon. This is enough for now. If you've read this far, stay tuned for afternoon in the park, evening at home. Guaranteed to be riveting; I promise.

PST... almost done

2009-08-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

So... if you read this... I hope you do... I've been without good internet all summer... so there will be little to no writing about PST. However so very soon I'll be going to my permanent site with GOOD internet, and blog posts will actually be made. Thanks for caring. I 'preciate cha! Serious.

It's a tactile day.

2009-05-27T10:52:00.000-07:00

My dad stayed home from work today. He's sick, but I'm getting the feeling that he wanted to be here on the day before I leave for Peace Corps tomorrow.
I am touching everything. I run my hands along the orange-peel plaster walls in the hallway every time I walk to my dad's office. I stroked the top of the wing-backed chair in the living room, writing furiously into my memory its deep red, its checked texture. I glided across the wood floor and let my feet take in the cool shine and the random grooves This morning after I put my contacts in I took a moment to palm the wallpaper, the stripes of which have aged to a dull green and seem to have absorbed dust.
I thought just then how I wish I could absorb it all, that every speck of this places would somehow literally become part of me, somehow coalesce with my own flesh. I imagined it; I imagined walking through the house and all of it seeping through my skin. It just doesn't seem enough to see it. I feel almost that I'm already looking through my home through a window.
I suppose I just keep touching everything to prove to myself that I'm still here, right now. Because I won't be in a matter of hours. While I'm excited about the new, it is difficult to leave what and who you love.

Binging

2009-05-11T16:08:00.000-07:00

(The fact that I have not written here for some time reflects my inability to form interesting and/or coherent thoughts from my current transitional state. Ie, Most of the time I can’t keep up with what’s going on in and outside of me, and therefore, I can hardly find a way to write about it. Below is the best I can do.)

I came back from India confused, upset, delighted, and ready to binge. I have spent the last few weeks gaining more weight than I lost while in Kolkata and drowning my perceived sorrows in reality television.
With that said, it’s been a fantastic reality tv season for me. My Idol favorites have belted their way to the top three. My favorite reality-star-turned-celebrity-turned-reality-star Melissa Reincroft has overcome her rib injury to make it to the Dancing with the Stars semi-finals. Taj and Steven outwitted their way to Survivor:Tocancins final 5 without having to oust the self-proclaimed ‘Dragonslayer’ who is this year’s triumph in sound-bite editing. One of my favorite reality stars to date, the Fraggle-Rockish and kookily quippy Carla, made it to the finale of Top Chef with some gastropornographic peas. The fiercest ‘owl-baby’ to grace the screen is one of ANTM’s last standing, and the hottest girl to have once been a sphere is sure to be this season’s Biggest Loser.
Yes, I have indulged beyond belief in my guilty pleasure, telling myself that this is it for the next to years so live it large.
My mom suspects that the addiction points towards my own upcoming ‘eviction’. I’m sure it’s just my excuse to escape the fact that right now I’m kind of terrified of what’s coming.

I was for weeks telling people that I was not, in fact, joining Peace Corps. My reasons are at this point mostly uninteresting, centering on my experience of terrible discomfort and loneliness in India. Big suprise: being the only American around in a community of utterly depressing poverty is difficult for a comparatively rich American.
However, after emotionally sobering-up, talking with some brave and deeply caring friends and family, and getting a healthy whack from the financial-responsibilities fairy, I am indeed going to Armenia.

I will be living there for 27 months. In preparing, I have joined a internet community full of returned and current peace corps volunteers (RPCV’s and PCV’s respectively). Their advice is as varied as their experience I suppose. Some have given fantastic electrical and apparel-related advice. Others have warned us not to waste valuable packing space on playing cards, making me wonder why anyone cares whether or not I am packing a deck of Hoyle’s.
Based on their projections, the logical expectations to be formed are as follows:

-It is freaking cold over there. (After our first conversation concerning this fact, my host-dad in India referred to Armenia only as ‘Fridge Country’. Perhaps I should do the same.)
-People throw rocks at dogs.
-The snow makes people want to die. Or drown their icy sorrows in any form of cinematic distraction. (I’m told to bring whatever I can.)
-Long underwear is THE most critical item to be packed.
-I should not expect to be doing whatever it is that Peace Corps officials told me I would be doing. Ie, if I was told I would be a NGO Development Specialist, I will likely be anything but that.
-It’s really cold, y’all.

To prepare I:
-bought the long underwear.
-am planning on adopting a Armenian pup.
-am spending as much time with friends and fam as I can.
-am watching more reality television.
-am actually getting excited about going on another adventure. I’m Huck Finn or something.

I should never be a speech pathologist.

2009-03-20T22:13:00.000-07:00

I am very inconsistently going to what I would call my secondary placement here. I go in the evenings to a slum and hang out with the guys there who are all about my age. My relationship to these guys started when I came in 2007. One day, early that summer, I asked a friend to teach me carom, and suddenly a swarm of young guys wanted to play as well. The swarm later dwindled to just a few guys who consistently taught me the various striker flicking techniques, the practical rules of Carom, and how to count to 29 in Hindi.
I have now returned to the slum years later which is an apparent novelty, and so the guys now allow to me gather with them in the evenings for Carom, chai, and the occasional language lesson. They are always trying to get me to speak Hindi which usually ends up with me sloppily repeating a phrase which I know will leave me as soon as I say it.
I have been asked to teach some English lessons. This to me feels futile as I will be leaving relatively soon, but to please them I gather around with them in the tiny slum school building under a dim lightbulb and teach whatever comes to my head.
The first thing was to review the sounds of consonants. It went fairly well. I avoided vowels because really, I don’t even know how to touch “‘I’ before ‘E’ except after ‘C’” and the like. Overall I felt like this might be too silly a task; however, the consonant review led us to a phonetic discovery: the boys can’t say ‘p’ or ‘z’. This unfortunately came to late in the lesson: while trying to come up with a word to practice ‘z’, I asked them to repeat “zipper” which for all their determination came out “jiffah”. Unfortunate.
I then quizzed my placement partner. He also stumbled out a “jiffah”.
So there we were, in that little room, sitting Indian style (ooh... isn’t that full of lexical swirl), with me chanting, “Zipper. Zipper. Zipper!” And hearing, “Jiffah. Jiffah. Jiffah!”
“Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!”
“Jjjjjjjjjjjjssssssssh!”
“Zz!”
“Jj!”
“Pah. Pah. Pah.”
“Fah. Fah. Fah.”
You get the idea. When practicing the “z” I would aurally scan the room like I was searching out a cicada, and when I heard it I would shout, “ACHA!” and point like I’d struck gold. The ‘p’ was at least easier because I could point to my lips, get them to touch theirs before trying to make the ‘p’. It still baffled me though: when I would show them the requisite lip-to-lip contact required for the ‘p’, they would mimic the contact and even put their fingers to their mouths to check. But when they vocalized it, they still flicked their bottom lip across their top front teeth.
I could never be a speech pathologist. I would kill someone.
After leaving that night, I was standing on Doi Platforme waiting for my train and came up with the perfect tongue twister: Purple puppies follow people forward.
So, next lesson, back in the slum, I began to teach this ridiculous sentence. The guys followed me despite having the sentence translated and realizing it will never have practical daily use. A sample of the resulting dialogue would be something like this:

Me: “Purple puppies followed people forward.”
Someone mutters.
Me: “Ok. First word: Purple. Pur. Pul.”
Class: “Furfur.”
Me: “No no. Pur. Pul.”
A few: “Fur. FUR.”
Me: “Ok. One at a time. Pur. Pul.”
Student: “Fur. Fur.”
Me: (grabbing my lips and forcing them together) “ Pur. Pul.”
Student: “ Pur. Pur.”
Me: (satisfied with his ‘p’ and wanting to solidify the ability) “Ok... Now Puh. Peez.”
Student: “Puppies.”

Somehow they have no trouble with ‘puppies’ when the word stands alone. I went on through the phrase with each student hearing mostly, “Furfur fuh-ffies forrow furfur fahwah.” My mind spun, and as I went around the room practically shouting “Pur-Pul! Pur-Pul! PUR-PUL!”, my cinematic mind found its way to a comforting quote: “Your aura is PURPLE!”.
Thinking of Almost Famous sitting in that little school, I made a wish. I wished that I and the guys weren’t in that little school. I wished that we were at my house sitting around on the sofas and on the floor. I wished to walk in the room with cold cans of soda and pass them out to my friends. I wished to take a count of who wanted popcorn, to note that Rajis and Soni only wanted a little and could share a bowl. I wished to see my little sister run in the room with my Indian family’s two little brothers, searching for something in the kitchen and upon finding it taking off back to their game. I wished to be watching that movie, eating popcorn and drinking soda, laughing at a stoned rocker on top of a house announcing, “I am a Golden God.”

That is the one consistent thing about all of these trips I take: I make a lot of these kinds of wishes. Then I consider how I need to keep seeking God because I want heaven to be like this so badly.

Yesterday I went back to the slum, and one of my guys actually said “Purple puppies follow people forward” with fine phonetic accuracy. Ah... I have left my mark, changed a life.

19 days in. 19. Almost three weeks.

2009-02-19T06:20:00.001-08:00

I am not having a great day. I have vowed to get one of my to-do’s to done, and I am starting with a blog post. If this actually gets posted, feel free to congratulate me.

This is my second move to do something that will lift the day’s spirits. The first was to eat some Starbursts (which were apparently not the right candy to bring. It’s ‘girl candy’ here. It’s sour, and in India boys don’t like sour. I had never before assigned tastes to specific genders. But I guess if sights can be so assigned, blue-boy pink-girl, then why not tastes?). I grabbed three valentine themed 2-per packs and pulled open the first to find a strawberry and lemon, praising Him for two flavors that weren’t cherry. Then I looked closer to discover that a little ant expedition had discovered my fruit chews. I had a mini-fit of rage. Please commence envisioning me going directly to the sink, unwrapping each chew, smashing all ants found therein, washing the chew and angrily and immediately consuming it.

So, since fruit chew consumption didn’t do it for me, how about a blog post?

I have so enjoyed my Indian family. I call the parents Dada and Didi (older brother and older sister), and they’re boys are like my own little brothers. The culture of hospitality is again overwhelming and encouraging. Didi cooks every meal, is patient with me when I try to help (although now I can be trusted with chai!), is always trying to get me to rest, and argues with me everyday about bringing my clothes down so that she can wash them. Dada is always telling me how glad he is that I’m here, sharing jokes, talking about his vision for the poor in the slum, laughing and crying with me.
The brothers are very interesting. I can’t imagine what it is like to grow up in a household like this one, where God is very much your only real security, where your Dad and Mom are both the bravest people you know and the riskiest, where your family standard is so far removed from your friends’.
They are excellent cartoonists. Since I sent them a VeggieTales movie in 2007 they have been drawing those little counter-top characters everywhere, filling every book with them. Yesterday the older of the two finished a storyboard for a cartoon he was envisioning, and then I wrote the story. We’re quite a team. It was actually very funny. We had story time around the table and read it as a family.

Working here is so very very different. I don’t really feel good about dishing all of what I’m thinking about work environment here on the net. But know that it is different, challenging in ways I had never ever expected. It really is the most difficult working environment I’ve ever been in. On the one hand, it’s great experience for working in Armenia. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to be doing.

On the upside I’ve been able to visit the slum a few times. I am so absolutely charged after going to hang out with the guys in the slum in the evening. I know there is an large element of my being American that gives me an in because I’m kind of like a little one man circus. Not for all of them, some of the guys really want to get to know me, help me with Hindi, learn something about English and the Western mentality. The other guys stumble up to me drunk or high and laugh immediately and try to get me to repeat curse words in Hindi. There’s one that always holds my hand too long and stares at me in a way that absolutely gives me the shivers. These kind of encounters are kind of hard to avoid completely. But otherwise, really, I love it. I love standing around the Carom Board, enjoying the traditionally camaraderie that goes along with recreational sports.

In conclusion, yesterday I went with an Indian friend to see Seven Pounds. Great movie. It left me feeling three things. I wish seeing a movie at home only cost US$1.50 and that US$1.50 wasn’t so very much here in India. I would like to marry Rosario Dawson. And I want to live in America after all. (If you know me at all, you know that my saying that means I’m in the middle of some emotional whirlwind.)

I Rode Through Space Town On a Motorcycle. (2-10-2009)

2009-02-19T06:17:00.000-08:00

There are some strange things to note when you are visiting other countries. The peculiars are even more thrilling when the country speaks English. Here in India I daily encounter interesting combinations of English words which for my Texan lexicon are quite a thrill.
I loved being asked by Yahoo!India, “Is Obama redefining the cool quotient?” I was thoroughly bemused when encountered by a billboard for “Theism Braingym”. It beckoned, “Experience the nurture of Theism!,” in neon green font next to a giant baby head. And today, I had a doubly cultural and linguistic excitement: I road through the rich neighborhood of ‘Space Town’.
I believe the place to be aptly named. The apartment complex sits next to a similarly named residential edifice, ‘Space City’. I suppose that the complex together make up Space Place or something. Now, in Space Town you are not likely to receive your dinner from your robot cook or hover to your friends place on the 179th floor for a game of telepathic air hockey, you will be able to play tennis on spacious tennis courts, dive in an indoor pool, watch your kinds bounce through an indoor playscape, and sit back and soak in the cool A/C. These amenities are so far removed from anything enjoyed in the residences around them, so literally untouchable, that they might as well be in space. A five minute walk will take you to homes known more intimately by a far greater Indian population.
After leaving Space Town, I rode through a different place, a galaxy away. Kilshed is a new slum. Though my friend, the motorcycle-driving NGO director I live with, did not know much about the place, he gave me a brief run down as drove the dirt lanes. The slum grew up only 5 years ago and already stretches for miles. It runs the perimeter of North Kolkata’s garbage dump and the lake where the oldest part of the dump used to be. The residents are Bangla; poor enough to choose the lake for a cooking water source, a sewage receptacle, and a dish and clothes washeteria. The shacks are not unlike those of most North Kolkata slums. The materials are scraps of metal and plastic, some mud, and some women grass.
Here the big bad wolf would have no problem huffing and puffing and blowing the place to pieces. But you are more likely to see the slum’s preservation based on the interest of various groups. The slum is a vote bank for interested political parties looking to get their bills passed. It is a cheap labor force, in this case it seems, for stone breakers and brick makers (every street has four or five piles of stone and brick and one or two people beating them to pieces with crude hammers). The young girls are hard to find at night because they have likely taken to their ‘disreputable’ and cyclical night work. And beggar rings have likely already employed unschooled boys and girls for pitiful supplication to the city-center middle class.
There are no social services here. There is no sewage system, no school, no law enforcement and water and electricity only if you are the first to tap them.
There are certainly no tennis courts.

And that is only the disparity I’ve seen here in the city by motorbike. As the picture of this city’s destitution continues to be engraved on the walls of my heart, they mesh with paintings of grand places. I gazed at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, rode bikes through Salzburg, cuddled a Koala in Sydney and literally gorged myself on deluxe ballpark food in the owner’s box at a San Diego Padres game. I grew up with more books than I could ever read, teachers who filled me to the brim with encouragement and useful knowledge, private percussion lessons, marching band competitions, Survivor parties, a church that meets in a multi-million dollar building, and a washing machine. I have a family that loves me, a mom and a dad at home. I learned to type because there was a computer in the back room on which I could instant message my friends, who also had computers in their homes. I went to a university with cable, computers, and washing machines in every dorm as well as security systems, mentors, and locks. I studied with wonderful professors, was privileged to study any subject I wanted, and had Bible studies. I went to coffee shops for crying out loud. I graduated and worked a job that I loved and made in the tens of thousands of dollars every month. I went to Panama for two months and sat on a beach reading. I came here to the slum because I wanted to.

I could go on and on and on. But this is what I’m experiencing everyday. I don’t hate myself for having such a wonderful life. I’m so happy and absolutely grateful for my experiences, for my computer, for my good dear friends and family, for the security and joy in which I have been blessed to live. I do feel some guilt for choices I perpetuate at home, but what I’m feeling is, for me, much harder to articulate.

How can you put into words the feeling of having to worlds inside you? How do you show that somehow your mother whom you love so so dearly, who lives a truly blessed life, who gives from her finances, who teaches in a school with thousands of books, thousands of sheets of many different kinds of paper, who has an education on educating, who looks great in her different outfits, who always gives a gift and makes your friends feel special, how do you show that somehow inside you your mother sits next to a beautiful young Indian girl, who’s one room house is made of trash, who doesn’t have a toilet but walks through other people’s sewage to leave her own, who is beaten in the morning because she wants to go to school instead of work, who wears the same tattered shirt everyday, who carries the platter of chai which your hosts have ordered for your visit to their ten by ten slum school? Inside me sit these two and so many others. How do I make sense of it? How do I find answers for these gut-wrenching questions?

Before I go, my Oscar indulgence.

2009-01-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

I am about to leave home. I am actually quite scared this time. Not horrified. Just feeling the stress of having to plan everything for myself. It doesn't help that British Airways is... how to say kindly... screwing me over. Ie, I have received the worst customer service possible, which is not exaggeration. Ok, a little. They could cuss me out over the phone. Or try to harm me physically. But otherwise, it's been horrible. Which adds to my stress. But I do have a beautiful family that is fully behind me. All that is vague, so note:

-British Airways wants me financially dead.

-My family, a more powerful entity, wants me alive and is more proactive toward that end.

So, while I'm headed to India soon, I am participating in a final indulgence. I am going to write a blog about the Oscar noms.

Last year I watched all Oscar noms in best pic and best performances categories. I went to that rickety Century 21, sat in the screens glow for a few hours, and effectively soaked in my movie experience for the year. Much better than a tan.

This year, I will be out of country for the Oscar month, so I watched a few of them and will say my piece on the Academy's decisions.

BEN BUTTON!? WHAT THE!? I will say what thousands are saying across the nation. Didn't I see that already? Except there was a floating feather instead of a hummingbird, leg braces instead of old crusty legs, etc., etc. Ah yes, back in '94. And that guy's mama said it best, "Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get." Or in Ben Button's mama's case, "You never know what's comin' for ya." And who would have thought that this year's Forrest Gump remake would get the most Oscar noms. A shot out from Hollywood to their favorite Pitt? A move from the Academy to get ordinary people to care this year by making a "blockbuster" the big contender this year? A shame? All of the above. I enjoyed it fine, but 13 noms. That's an overstep. But I've already given this movie to much screen time here, as it were.

Doubt. Congrats to Streep, Hoffman, Davis, and Adams. What a team. There's a movie completely driven by its characters who are acted very well. No movie I've seen since House of Sand and Fog moved me so much. So it didn't have an old-man-baby. It did have an old man going after a baby. And it had a cross-bearing, screaming Streep. Beautiful.

The Reader. Not that great. Of course, I'm no Hollywood. But as far as story goes, I just didn't care enough about it. Although, I love Kate, and I will be listening for the phonetic joy that is Kate saying, "Hanna Schmitz".

The Golden Globes didn't give any shout outs to Angelina Jolie, really. She got a nom, but no one cared. However, I remember seeing that movie, and I thought, if she gets no Oscar nom for this, I'm through. So, Oscars, you must have listened. You realized that you need me, and you put AJ up. Seriously though, AJ got me to feel the delicate line Christine Collins was trying to walk between a societally satisfying composure and sense of trust and her inner dread, distrust, and inklings of conspiracy. AJ dove deep there. Get it, AJ.

M.I.A. will be at the oscars this year! Well, her name will be. Maya Arulpragasam got her nom, and the years indie baby will represent! I have joined the millions digging her "Paper Planes" and others. And kudos to whoever it was that said that they needed this girl for the film. Be listening for her.

And of course, Heath, may he rest in peace, will walk with this one. We knew it before he died. That joker freaks us out. And for that give the guy the gold!

I've decided to have my say before I leave the country. So, my final list, should the awards be given based on my vote alone (and of course, the list is not exhaustive, just the ones I know and/or care about):

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

Although Penn was phenomenal and biopics always carry a certain award-giving power (see Frank Langella's nom as well), Rourke's getting the hype. Hype, of course, is tricky and can swing awards away. Congrats to the usually supporting performer, Jenkins. Pitt was flat. I've seen the trailer for the The Wrestler, and THAT moved me. So, here's to Rourke.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:

Hoffman, great. Brolin, meh. Downey, please. And I haven't seen Rev Road, but you can't beat Ledger in Dark Knight this year. Can't be done.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Get it, Anne. Love AJ (See above). For me, although I didn't think The Reader was that good, Kate does a fantastic emotional job. However, Meryl is utterly moving in Doubt. And with the GG going to Kate, I feel Meryl's getting this one.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:
With Kate out of this picture, I'm a little remiss to say who. Ben Button's mom, sorry, no. And Cruz, you weren't funny in the preview, you probably weren't funny in the movie. So of the three left, as before, I lean Doubt. While Tomei as a compassionate stripper, I would almost throw my vote there, but in good conscience, it's up to Davis and Adams. Because I was startled by Adams in Doubt, I'll say the other nun is getting the statue.

Best Animated Feature Film:
Come on.

Best Directing:
Although Ron Howard is really getting the hype for Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire is quite the director's challenge, I think more timely, bravely well handled and therefore better choice is Milk's Gus Van Sant.

Best Makeup:
Because they did look really old.

Best Music (Song):
Come one. The song is good. "O Saya" make you want to watch that movie. And of course I want M.I.A. to have an oscar. Just like Al Gore.

Best Picture:
Well, BB is out. Do I need to keep saying that? Biopics are great. I'll give up asking what Doubt's not doing there. The Reader? See above. But I think this is where everyone will throw their Slumdog love.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
I don't think you should get the statue for adapting a stage script for screen, so my vote won't go to F/N, or Doubt. I haven't read the books/stories that the other three are based on and while the adaptation of a short story to a movie seems like quite a jump, this writer seemed he had a trajectory already laid out for him in '94. So, although Slumdog is a powerful story, I think the most moving part of The Reader other that Kate's Schimtz is the writing.

Best Original Screenplay:
Now here again I'm torn by the biopic pull. Frozen River seems intriguing and as a rogue entry, ie. not seen in the GG's, it could pull the votes. And of course, comedy is getting the love, because comedy is harder than drama. With that point in mind, see Wall-E, where comedy plays out beautifully as well as drama, in a screenplay which doesn't include talking for the first half of the film. Now that, I think, is acheivement.

2009-01-14T08:24:00.000-08:00

I itch all over. That annoying dry skin winter thing that is powerfully nerve-grating when you bend anything. You go to tie your shoes, and a slightly painful itch runs like a brush fire all over your back.

I quit the bookstore job. So much for mounds of story coming from it. It was just not the way I wanted to spend my last couple of weeks at home, arriving at 6 cranky and tired, wanting only to sit and veg instead of spending that time with my family. So, out with the bookstore, in with the being at home, doing some work for my mom's jewelry business, and getting my veg done during the day.

So now I sit at home trying to figure out how not to waste the time I have. It is ridiculous to me that I am, in fact, wasting a good portion of it. I knew I'd hit a low when I actually watched an episode of "Rock of Love Bus". "Rock of Love Bus", people. Now I believe that watching some TV has merit. There is real art presented, real pop culture moments that should not be missed. But "Rock of Love Bus"? Bret Michaels had 12 women dress in lingerie and walk up the isle to say wedding vows to him. Then the women fight on the bus. And next week they're going ice skating where one falls and pops her implant. Lord, I watched the blither for an hour. After waking up at noon.

Every night my little sister asks me to practice drums with her. Sometimes I do, sometimes I'm busy with something else, but last night she didn't ask me. I was "busy" watching a RECORDED episode of "The Biggest Loser". I missed it, time with that beautiful little sister of mine, in favor of an activity I could have done while she was in school.

I'm going to India soon. I'm coming back for a short time here after that before serving in the Peace Corps in Armenia. Then I'll come back, and she'll be in high school. I believe that going abroad, working for the poor, that is what I am supposed to be doing. But why the heck am I wasting the time I have. These are fleeting moments, little spots of time that are like gold dust blown away in the wind.

I found myself today shrink wrapping and considering my position in a love triangle.

2008-12-09T14:58:00.000-08:00

What's to be said about living on an island for two months. A lot. But there is so little time for writing. Or maybe I'm terrible at making the time. That's it. I'm terrible at making time. I like to use it though. For movie watching lately. And working as well. And this last weekend a friend, a sister, and I made Christmas cards. So, when can I write?

Now, I suppose, sitting here at the fire, stockings actually hung, feet propped up next to my little sister's, her reading a book, and me, slightly altering the cliche winter night with my blog writing.

I lived on an island. I think about it most in the bathroom, measuring lessening degrees of difference around my tan lined waist. It is cold here, and windy, and just a couple of weeks ago I was laying on a beach in the sun, slightly sweating, and reading and reading.

I found myself today shrink wrapping and considering my position in a love triangle.

I am living at home and working in a community college bookstore. Oddly, after working a 'career' job, and then laying on the beach for a couple of months, I couldn't be happier than at my current workplace. I am a temporary stock room clerk. On a team of other temps that make my people-watching instincts wiggle with association.

The whole place is full of characters. The newly hired manager who is still finding her authority. The panda-like gentle giant who is accepting her fate as an assistant manager in a small college bookstore. The tiny blonde nymph who is typically young looking and whose tiny frame was only highlighted by her complaints that she was turning into a "fat lard" with slowly pinching pants. The tall easy going black guy from D.C., who is admittedly too cool to be working here and plays small jokes to entertain himself. The black girl in the back with the new weave who has no motivation, who sits for hours scraping at terribly used "used" stickers, spraying them with lighter fluid from slick yellow bottles.

They are all certainly notable but my favorites are by far my team, the temps. I honestly wake up everyday glad to be spending another day among them. They are as follows:

-The mom, Californian, black, dreads and two kids. She ogles the college boys, referring to one regular passer-by as "Eagle" in regard to his apparel. When she is flustered by one of them you know it; she is self-incriminating and overeager. Her harmless, "I knew I recognized you from somewhere," turns sour when she follows it directly with, "I'm not a stalker, though. I am SO not a stalker." Nearing our lunch break last week I revealed my craving, "I really want some pad thai." In reciprocation she offered her revelation, "All I want is a man to love me for who I am." Poorly timed, but sincere. She is more helpful than anyone else in the store, constantly looking for her own usefulness. She sometimes helps (stocking books) and sometimes missteps (stocking expired sodas).

-The post-pimples, pre-Navy SR, tall, white, long-faced, typically wearing a zippered hoodie. He has not yet refined his customer services skills ("I gotcha ova here", "Fill in the stuff there"), but most often he smiles which is worth more than proper manners. Especially in temporary work. After one week however, his zeal is wearing thin, and he has pendulum-swung into aimless wandering. Last Thursday, after much of his open-mouthed, sleepy-eyed waddling through the isles, I found him in some kind of combination fetal-position/kneel, sleeping in between racks of books, hand wrapped over his head. I suppose he thought if he was caught, his hand could protect him from the initial disciplining blow. I walked on.

-And finally, my favorite, with early '80's rock hair, he looks something like Ichabod Crane with a beer belly. He is farther along in years than the rest of us, so in the first few days he kept his distance, standing at the edge, watching customers, then walking around the isles looking for some way to pass the time. If I was a customer, I would not want him to help me find my textbooks. He is a foreboding presence. However, on day three I was assigned to work "the back" with the guy, and he is not surprisingly much cooler than initially perceived. He is a drummer for three local bands and filled me in on his musical history, from the time he got kicked out of marching band at 15 for not showing up for the Christmas parade (he was the only drummer, but didn't want to wear the "3 foot hat" on his already tall person) to his current inner-band political initiatives to get the bass player to leave without having to ask him. He talked to me about upcoming gigs, the night he recently spent with his ex-wife, and the job which he held as a sub-contracted bank courier before the 'financial downturn'. Lately he walks down book racks and stops to read textbooks. We have an understanding. If I see a manager leave the office I walk by him and say, "The big lady's out." He then slips off his reading glasses, tucks the book back on the shelf, and does some look-of-productivity walking.

They are my team, and I am happy to be among them (myself likely to be perceived as well-meaning or as judgmental as any of my coworkers). At times I am the only one working at a consistent pace, and I think that, should the manager get the wiser, she would see that I am doing work for at least five people, while the SR is napping, the drummer is reading, the nymph is chatting and the lighter fluid girl is staring at a pile of books waiting for motivation's whim. And knowing myself as I do, I would usually complain about the inequality of workload. But I don't mind doing their tasks because without them, I would be reading or chatting or staring. I can't pass eight hours that way, and I want them to have a job. Plus there is so little work in the first place that we all spend at least half our days wandering the small store, and I take whatever chance I can get to break up the monotony.

For instance today, the gentle giant gave me a "special project": shrink-wrapping class packets. I jumped on it.

I had never before shrink-wrapped and after a two-minute training, the nymph and I got to work. The plastic sheets sucking their sides in closer was fun to watch. It reminded me of two things: microwaving snack-size potato chip bags for 10 seconds to see them spark and shrivel (in high school I poked keyrings through the concentrated trash) and watching a slug wriggle under salt. The process is fairly simple, cutting the sheets with a hot clamp and zapping them with a heat gun; it is also time consuming and fairly satisfying.

While I zapped and the nymph cut, Too-Cool came to the back to tell me that one of the regular workers, a young girl, 19-going-on-15, brunette, moderately cute, thinks I'm hot. A complement I took and sat in for a moment. Of course, in my current station in life, there's no hope for an inter-bookstore romance, but the flattery is nice.

Then, waving the heat gun, I remember that the SR thinks she's hot. Ah, drama. He likes her. She likes me. I find them both pimply but smiling. A triangle in amongst the most interesting characters I've been around in a while.

While working my career job a few months ago, I spent some moments sitting at my desk, processing clients and wishing I could just work at Domino's with regular unassuming people. Here I am now, working as a temporary store room clerk on a team of misfits. A dream come true.

Purgatory is a whirring bus ride with a stop at the mystery cafeteria

2008-10-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

I am, for the first time in a month, on interent that is not costing minute by minute. Sitting in this hostel in San Jose, I thought to use this time to write about life lived on Taboga Island. But there is a more pressing story to be told.

Two days ago we decided to go to Costa Rica. Last night at 10:45pm we boarded a bus for the Panama-Costa Rica border. Full of riders, the capsule carried through the night, stopping only once at 2:00am. It was a twilight zone of a rest stop. As soon as our charter pulled to a stop all other passengers were ready and on their still sleeping feet, soon shuffling off the bus to what amounted to a Purgatorial Luby´s in the middle of Panamanian Nowhere. Served one at a time by late night lunch ladies, the passengers still in their bus seat sleepiness piled up ribs and rice and meat and meat and meat. Piles of meat. At two in the morning. Like drones.
I, like a typical CenTex youth group kid driving home from a middle school retreat, bought a pack of Pringles and a soda. Somehow that makes more sense at two in the morning that a pile of ribs.
On the bus again, snacking, I watch the meat eaters file back on and take their seats as the bus took off for the border. And it Took Off. Took off. All the sudden this sleepy bus turned into a theme park style terror ride. Going 90 mph down a hardly two lane highway in the middle of a rainforest corridor. The window fog shown blue from the bus lights reflecting on tree branches and creepers racing all around us. And on every curve the bus tilted as if it was not on wheels at all but actually flying above the ground and leaning into the turns. Carla, sitting across the isle got so frightened on one turn she reached up for the seat in front of her but instead grabbed the seat´s rider´s head. The confused man just brushed her off. It was a perfect ride into this Halloween day.
Then, at the border in 6 in the morning we still hadn´t decided where in Costa Rica we were going. While waiting on our exit stamp from Panama, we borrowed a travel book from the Aussie couple in front of us and decided on San Jose. The border crossing took all of two hours during which a small Panamanian lady launched a verbal assault on us because she said we were in a wrong line. She actually got on the phone and complained about the ¨mess¨we were making.
We finally arrived in Costa Rica after another 6 hours on the bus. We decided this afternoon that our final destination is Monteverde. What will we do there? Rainforest type things maybe. We´re not sure. It will likely just happen to us.

Breifly...

2008-10-30T17:36:00.000-07:00

Finally, a post.

Things are so much different than I expected on Taboga Island...

1. No internet, phone or address
2. No easy way to get to and from the city (ie... I'm more or less marooned.)
3. I am almost talking-to-wilson crazy at least once a week
4. I found refried beans!
5. Carla and Erin coming here made all the difference in terms of social sanity.
6. I'm going to Costa Rica in a few hours!

And more... internet it expensive these days, so I will not be able to post much. I wrote what I think is quite a nice post a couple weeks ago only to be told I couldn't use my flash drive on what is the only public access computer on Taboga Island. So... this could be it for a while. But eventually I will post a nice, creative bit on island experience. Best I can do now is a list.

Favorite moments-
1. Snorkelling. Being surround by fish... watching a sting ray glide beneath me.
2. Island dance party.
3. Beach beach beach. And more beach.
4. The arrival of Carla and Erin.

Each could be a blog entry... but for now, I'm going to Pizza Hut. We're in the city, waiting for our overnight bus to Costa Rica. It's bound to be quite the adventure as we haven't actually picked a Costa Rican destination yet. Just the idea is enough to set us on our way.

Toes out over the edge

2008-09-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I beg for the hopelessly cheesy soundtrack of violins followed a couple of scenes later by plucky folk, but I do. When sitting on the slick and suddenly expansive wood floor of my empty room, I want to hear the violins in a slow moving tone, pulling out the tears with a gentle guiding tug. Then, a couple of days later when I am driving down the road in my new-life-chapter location, the finger picking will match the sway, the hopefull movement, the wind in my hair as I lean out the window of a moving car, white teeth to the sun, all the world in my eyes.

It all could come with a disc. These moments would be colored with song. Some of them were:
-Last Saturday night a few of my close friends and I grabbed my change jar and floated to the dime arcade. There are no great games here. But they all cost a dime. On a few dollars you can roll the skeeball, shoot hoops, have an air hockey tournament and get a snack at the play-til-you-win candy crane. After gathering our tickets I got a pair of oversized orange sunglasses and an splatting egg ball. But the real prize was a suggestion on the way home from my backseated friend who yelled out over the music that since we were downtown we should pull over and dance. We did, ending the night sweaty with a few onlookers and all of us crowded around Kelly who was impressively deep voiced miming the end of Michael Jackson's "Thriller".
-Being in my empty room. Yes, I thought violins sitting there on the wood floor.
-Today, hanging out with my little sister, who was skipping school to hang out with me. I encouraged this of course, because I'd hoped we would make sock puppets. I wanted to spend the day making some puppets and rehearsing a show the two of us could put on for our family. Am I an awesome big brother? I didn't do it because I wanted to be great. I did it because I've always wanted to be a muppeteer. And maybe because I thought she'd think it was cool. We made the puppets. "Thriller" again made the show. And Michael Jackson-Sock was smo. King. The sock was getting it. The family laughed.
-Hugging my oldest sister in the driver way. Sometimes we feel the world spinning, and we are thrown by the pull of it. I think my sister's life has thrown her, and our hug felt like the world could settle down, if just in that moment. Like when I lay down on the floor sometimes and stare at the ceiling. I feel it in my core; everything feels like its slurring around me until all the sudden it all slow-brakes to a halt and settles. Our hug did that.

I am leaving for Panama in a couple of days. Actually the day ater tomorrow I will be there. I don't really know what's coming. I feel on edge, really. On the edge of my life about to jump. Like the first time I bungee jumped in New Zealand, having never seen it done, having no idea how it really worked, no idea if the cord would hold, and if it did, to what anchor.

The guy said to me on that Taupo cliff, "Alright now, just walk your toes out over the edge and have a go."

Electrified

2008-09-11T15:13:00.000-07:00

I love Loretta. This is a wonderful old woman in a visor with her walker-walking husband who, following Loretta, blessed me like a bedoin guru that traded in his loincloth for blue-jeans with an elastic waistband, a thin polo and a straw hat. They brought their shrimpy rat-dog who they "can't go anywhere without" to the park to join us, Abilenians of one sort or another, gathered to celebrate World Refugee Day a few months late.

This was last Sunday night. Working for the International Rescue Committee has been unbelievable. Really. From the time I applied to now, the whole thing has been a beautiful gift.

Some favorite moments? Glad you asked.

-Seeing some refugees who had taken the wrong bus, passing them in my car in a hurry with no time to give them a ride as they walked past my car toward the office. They were a mixed group, a particularly tall family of Africans walking far ahead of a scrambling-to-keep-up short family of Bhutanese. You could almost read the emotions on each face, the feeling of improperness of the tall, aged and experienced mother, the impatience of her son, the respect of the other family's short father, the kindess of the one farthest back, the short sister who knows no English but is proud to go with the flow, proud that she has not lost them all who seem to go ahead of her with their long legs and their knowledge and worldly perspective.

-A new mother telling me that all had changed after her son was born, that "he is [her] heart", that she is able to see herself really for the first time.

-Seeing a favorite of mine, a young woman, standing in a soft pink, '80's style dress, with shoulder pads like tiny angel wings protesting their being hidden. Her standing there at the bus stop with the clear plastic book cover she used as a purse, waiting alone in a contented posture, almost looking pleased that she is who she is where she is.

-Burundians, Congolese, Liberians, Sierra-Leonese, Bhutanese, Cubans, Texans and more, all mixing in amongst live performances of song and dance, ethnic foods, fashions, and inflatable moon-bouncers. I believe everyone enjoyed everyone last Sunday. I saw every face I have loved, every smile I have chased around town to scold and save from job termination, every hand I have shaken upon first meeting, every smile that has grown from mutual admiration and recognition of respect. It all mixed around me for a few hours.

I don't think you can experience this with the non-human things you may love. You will not see your beloved dog mix with your most-admired paintings and your love for Canadian wilderness and sunsets into something that combines them all in one being to love. Such things cannot meld into a single beloved, a dog with sunset-toned acrylic fur and Canadian foliage for legs. Such a thing cannot sit before you, jump in you lap smearing paint and warm-light licks.

But to see so many people that you love see each other, present themselves to one another, and then to be accepted is a phenomenon. They the, from 5-9 on a Sunday evening, become one entity, a community to embrace, to enter and let swirl around you on all sides Every sense was electrified. The thing loved me with handshakes and hugs, with dhal and casava leaves, with swahili lyrics and talk of familia, with visions of saris and sarongs and dignity, with the wind of each pull and push of it. I swam in it and drank from it. I left the night full and hungry still.

That's how I feel leaving the IRC. Full and hungry still.

In conclusion, I'd like to begin with a quote...

2008-08-30T08:55:00.000-07:00

I will formally begin leaving here, with this post.

First, my current position. I am sitting here in my underwear on a Saturday morning just about to head into September. My computer is surrounded by loose compact discs, sketch paper, letters, magazines and somewhere in here are three check books I began using, each as a replacement for the other as I could not find the previously started books among the pile. My room is in a similar state; the white $10-at-a-garage-sale leather couch is covered in a clothes blob that turns over like a lake (but with a fresher smell) about once a week as I use all the underwear within it. Creaky shorts hang stiff under a beach towel on the bathroom racks having dried some time ago. Around ten or so toilet paper rolls wait in front of the porcelain chair where I am often sitting, using the time to think about how I can creatively use said cardboard rolls, or rather, how I can excuse their being there.

This place is in such a state because I am leaving. I have lived in Abilene, Texas long enough. I have gotten lost in every corner of town. I have shopped every thrift store for years over, made myself a regular at at least four restaurants, attended perhaps every cultural event in this place. I have tried to no avail to make a habit of running the two-mile Lunsford Trail around ACU's campus and its dirt-rut predecessor. I have attended three different churches 'regularly'. I have made friends with unmeasurable quality. I have come back to Abilene more times than I can count because here I have lived the leap into my twenties.

I came back for the last time a couple weeks ago, and now I've got boxes stacked outside my door waiting to come in and carry everything out of here.

In a few weeks I'll be going to Panama for some months, then hopefully India for some, and finally, with much providence and diligence, Peace Corps for two years next summer.

Should you be interested, you will hopefully be able to live some of this with me, read some of it with me at least.

We'll start with packing.