what luxury nothing is. i’ve been listening to the new beth orton cd, which is more enjoyable even than expected. i’ve watched orson welles’ the lady from shanghai. impossible to take seriously (surely that’s not what he intended anyway,) it’s sumptuously photographed and as stuffed with melodramatic quotes as close-ups: “say hello to the sunrise for me” “of course killing you is killing myself. but i’m getting pretty tired of both of us” and a top-notch walking into the sunset line: “maybe i’ll live long enough that i forget her. maybe i’ll die trying.”

maybe i’ll live enough that i’ll stop wishing i were rita hayworth, or having an affair with orson welles, or vice versa. maybe i’ll die trying.

three and a half hours up to swarthmore, a new record, thanks to the preponderance of new york and new jersey license plates lumbering back north. unaccountably edgy, i snapped at traffic, little brother, father, and idiot tenants. my mother tolerated me well. we lugged my stuff up the four flights to my room and were pleased at least to discover that it’s of decent size, with a verdant view from the window-seat. the trip back home took less than two hours, granting me enough time to cut the meat of my hand making a sandwich and salivate before HBO (best exchange: “i’m here to return this vibrator.” “we don’t sell vibrators. that’s a neck massager.” “okay, fine, i’m here to return this massager.” “why?” “because it failed to get me off.”)

“pop,” short for prince of peace, is a moderately, harmlessly crazy guy who lives with his affluent brother (“we’re as different as blue and grey”) in my neighborhood. when he first arrived, he sent us an empty envelope covered with biblical quotes and references. initially we called him jesus, less as he became a familiar figure. he once weighed close to 300 lbs; after doctors instructed him to lose weight he’s walked his way down to 180. at first he just orbited my neighborhood, always in the same clothes: grey sweatpants, sneakers, white t-shirt, glasses with one lens missing, fingernails like a fashion model and only half his god-given teeth. when he got good enough, he expanded his trek to politics and prose, our neighborhood indie bookshop.

my brother and i were browsing there, weighing war and peace (“read the first paragraph and tell me if it’s good.” “i can’t tell you if the book is good from the first paragraph!” “fine, so tell me if the first paragraph is good.” … “okay, i read the first two pages. it’s good.”) v. the life and opinions of tristram shandy, gagging at fast food nation and the fountainhead, when pop popped his head over. hey neighbors, he said. can i get a ride?

as we drove him back home, he regaled us with stories. he has the memory of an austistic and an uncanny sense of humor. “i had a friend in college. nickname ‘knot.’ you know what kennedy always said? ‘ask knot'” … “i get everything by a different name. i get sports illustrated to ted williams. i get entertainment weekly to paul newman. i get to the holy ghostbuster, i get to prince of peace, to Our father in heaven, hollywood is thy name” “i haven’t paid a bill since 1993. i send it all to the white house; i say, Bill clinton (i’m using bill as a verb).” … “what was robert redford’s name in shane? [we haven’t seen it] you haven’t lived.”

when he slides out of the car, he always extends his hand, like jesus in renaissance paintings, his fingers forming a V, and says, “peace.”

as you can see the redesign lies before you. my darling elizabeth drew the picture for/of me (defending the likeness while we argued over how big she had to make my butt so that people would recognize me) last night while we lay like happy sluggards around the house. eventually after she approved of the new look and we’d eaten a sufficiency of blueberries, which everyone keeps telling us are INCREDIBLE for our health, like better than prayer or margarine, we watched three kings, the most anti-war “war” movie i’ve ever seen. the director’s name bears an unfortunate resemblance to david o. selznick, as does his lack of subtlety. but it’s an interesting movie: i can fully understand why critics appreciated it and audiences abhored.

going up to swatland in a moment or two to fill my room. hopefully will make it back in time for Sex and the City, because like many humans i am a creature of habit. this is why it’s a good thing i never started smoking.

ever since it occurred to me at AU how “patriotic” this blog looks (which was the last thing on my mind when i chose these colors) i’ve felt dissatisfied. i should redesign it but inspiration is off doodling somewhere, or wasting its time patting albert brooks’ sweaty forehead. bah.

i’m home! i’m still in my nightgown! yes i own a nightgown! it’s huge and white and has a picture of a blissful redheaded reclining girl surrounded by stuff with the caption, Princess of Quite a Lot. indeed sometimes that feels all-too-apt.

today i’m supposed to pack cuz tomorrow off i swing to swatland to drop off the nonessential majority of what will compose my room. i have mixed feelings about this returning to dorm thing. perhaps this indicates that i am regressing, or that i will have a flashback-like mixed fall semester. come of think of it, my fall semesters have simply not measured up to my springs. i need something concrete to look forward to. that’s what i need.

the best part of the last week that i inadvertantly left out in my swift recounting was hamlet on the beach with ben and his father. ben had lugged his imposing yale shakespeare. ben’s dad was trying to sleep. i was curled up with aimee mann. he disturbed us both, his request for a salon sufficiently absurd that we could not say no. so, alternating parts (though i played the angsty prince of denmark throughout) and with growing bravado, we plowed through the first two acts. i even got to voice two of my favorite bits, “what a piece of work is man” and “what’s hecuba to him, or he to hecuba, that he should weep for her?” ben’s dad mused over how brilliantly uncle willy slyly slips substance into flippant characters’ rants, avoiding heavy-handedness and moralizing. ah yes. and keeps us from taking any of the characters too seriously.

i also wrote a poem about my friend tamar and wonder whether i should run it by her (when she returns from israel, and hopefully in one piece) before posting it.

hallo world. wow, i can’t remember the last time i took a hiatus that long and thought about it so little. only once, yesterday on nantucket where ben’s father took the brood of us for a daytrip, did the internet leap up and confront me. i didn’t even mention it to ben, though i know he noticed too. bravely putting temptation behind us, instead we took a langorous loopy walk, book-shopped where i bought a confederacy of dunces cuz i hadn’t realized it was a novel and my chagrin forced me to the register, and music-shopped where ben spent nearly-exactly twice what i did but we each left with a respectable load. mine consisted of catie curtis truth from lies, good ol’ kiss me kate, and lucinda williams car wheels on a gravel road, all used. i debated over til we outnumber ’em and k.d. lang’s ingenue — and ben, in the throes of a reckless abandon brought on only by record stores, encouraged me not to hold back — but i figgered three sufficed.

when we weren’t glutting ourselves commercially the past few days, we hung out with ben’s dad, his little sister and a blonde toothpick with an eating disorder who spoke in a priceless combination of a russian and brooklyn accent in the rented house in cape cod. as i’m obligated, i should admit that yes i was wrong about cape cod. it isn’t yuppie. it’s old. it’s even-tempered, comfortable, in places charming, and generally geriatric.

as ben and i had spent the previous few days in new york running around the change of pace was much appreciated. his birthday especially, from which i needed to recover half of the following day: just thinking about recounting all our stops makes me tired. as becca and lana would say, LSS, we visited harlem (twice), the upper west side (twice), soho, and both sides of the village; we lunched in midtown; and eventually we camped in an apartment of ben’s “financially independent” highskool friend on the upper east side, 21 floors up and with a delicious panoramic view of the city. in between we saw kurosawa’s the hidden fortress, from which mr. lucas apparently ripped off star wars, went to condomania (twice), had ben’s first official drink, met up w/ and parted from a swattie-grad i fell instantly in charm with and will most likely never see again, were barred from harlem song and the new museum (both closed), and ate impressively-good ethiopean food.

virtually the first thing we did when i arrived in new york was exchange presents. i gave him the box i designed for his 21st birthday (theme: CALM) and he gave me a vinnie’s giant period chart and tampon case. adorable. we toasted the fact that we’ve managed to stick together for a year and a half, and despite a few squabbles over the week and a lot of travelling and family, kissing goodbye in the providence airport this afternoon, it seemed it’s been a good choice.

once again in westchester. once again with ben. once again so many things. i left my dearest dog in the care of ms. lana, cuz my mom and brothers escaped to the beach for the weekend. i arrived here yesterday and was met by ms. becca. she took me to a nifty dessert place where we proceded to share my lunch, and then i met ben and his mother for dinner at angelica’s [no-animal-products, trendy-decor, our-mission-statement’s-nearly-as-long-as-the-menu, earth-friendly, leftist, modern, drag-queen-as-host(ess?) but at least the food tastes good] kitchen.

today we returned to the city, wandered around in the sweltering while i wondered why i alone in this city of millions looked over-cooked, and watched a movie at the angelika as the one we wanted to see — and just arrived in time for — and the film forum was sold out. no problem: mostly martha, our consolation prize, was a sweet german comedy about northern europe’s guilty fantasy of wanting to be italy.

we dashed home at my behest to catch sex in the city, which was subpar (grrr). i just finished my screenplay. 96 pages, but i’m sure i’ll give and take a few. the important thing is draft 1 is done. tomorrow, ben’s birthday, is all planned, and it involves various performances and art things as well as alcohol — a crucial element in any turning 21. we crash in the city at a friend’s place and rise early to zoom off to the cape. net access might be sketchy so brace yourselves for a possible three-day babblebook brownout. as though everyone else hasn’t already taken one.

my last day of work, the powers that be finally come up with lots of stuff to do. instead/regardless, i’ve spent most of the day chatting w/ folks — someone left a container of ghiradelli chocolates by the reception desk so that’s become a gathering-point. my boss taped up my lengthy copenhagen pants. another of the lawyers showed me her jesus action figure and the bumper stickers obtained from the christian coalition conference: “good [elephant]; bad [donkey]; ugly [NOW insignia]” and “so you’re a feminist. how cute.” a third said goodbye: “it’s nice having strong feminists around.”

i’ll miss this office. even if it is premature to say i’ll never work in this kind of setting again, it’s possible that i’ll never work in one as pleasant.

yesterday, on my last day with karen, karen gave me a necklace. it’s a small metal purse on a metal chain, and it’s charming. i’m trying to think of what it could hold. quarters comfortably, sure, and bills too. pills, if i could take them. maybe a homunculus. a butterfly, creepily. another necklace if i wanted to change (but i usually dislike necklaces). a poem, if i folded it. a tea-bag.

driving isn’t as much fun as it used to be. once i was famous for enjoying driving — under certain conditions: but if i were alone and had no particular time pressure, driving, with the windows down and singing along to ani, ranked up on my favorite passtime list with quoting empire records and buying black t-shirts. no longer. my parents have traded in the car i so loved. now i can’t drive without either mulling over the socio-economic-ecological implications of the behemoth, or clutching the wheel of the dinosaur, hoping that if i hold tight enough it’ll stay in one piece.

i mention it only because i’ve done a lot of driving today. to rockville and back, to rockville and back, so naturally nostalgia accompanied both journeys. the second one being to meet tamar at an old hangout, it’s not too surprising. in suave pomo fashion, we even did nostalgic things, like peer into every window of the silver diner in an effort to find a recognizable face (once upon a time you couldn’t avoid it.) we strolled up and down the pike. we went to the starbucks where the cool kids used to hang out. this time i immediately noticed one of the few girls i dislike and even though tamar is friends with her i exercised my veto and steered us in the opposite direction.

she leaves shortly for israel. like everyone else, she’s coming and going, busily planning and worrying and hashing things out and reading horoscopes. all these disappearances and reappearances, with the frequency of traffic lights but none of the logic — is it any wonder i resort to scrabble?

my mother, my little brother and i went to the montgomery county fair this evening. twenty minutes outside of washington, yet you’d think you were in north carolina. people twanged, their stomachs bulged, men wore hats and everyone said “y’all.” like all good fairs, this one had two halves: a livestock half, with rows of cattle, goats, rabbit, and roosters, and a carnie-half, with way too many lights. in the first half, my mother fell in love with a cow — it was all we could do to keep her from dragging one home with us. in the second, my brother won me a huge glassy-eyed stuffed animal.

my legs nearly gave out as i’d spent the previous hour and a half cooking with ari. who knew that eggplant took so long to prepare? so long, in fact, that i didn’t get to taste the parmesean fruits of my labor. thankfully i’m not goal oriented, and we much enjoyed the process.

my last day with karen tomorrow. my last with AU friday. before you know it, what’shisname will be 21 and it’ll be time to head back to skool.

i dreamt a met a guy named tristam shandy (sp?) “oh,” i said, “like the character from the novel!” he grinned and i realized that everyone must say that, so i apologized. once i knew a girl named anna heim. though german, she’d studied in america and had grown to expect the inevitable response to her name: “oh! like in california!”
but having never read tristam shandy i have no idea what, if anything, sir shandy is like. or what put it in my head to begin with.

running errands for karen in georgetown to-codered-day knocked me out with a headache. she dismissed me early and i’ve spent the subsequent hours huddled in the dark of my room. before i left, i noticed on a proposal she was sending out that last in a list of “contributions” she had written “ester ____, office work, $800.” it had never occurred to calculate the dollar value of my pro bono services. such a nice number, 800. to think that i’d donated that much to a worthy cause! wow. without even realizing it, either.

last nite jamie lana tamar and i gathered at a park midway between our houses. we rehashed dreams, debated vibrators (tamar: “i don’t want to have an intimate relationship with something made of plastic” lana: “you can’t say things just to be quoted!” me, continually, “click BOOM!”) which need a better name, decided “drive” should be rechristened “true love waits,” after an authentic abstinence-only education program — because, really, isn’t the song already a cliche? at least among the 12 people who’ve heard it? — and bathed in Off, which lana had thoughtfully brought. she offered it around saying, “west nile?” it’s august. we’re all just getting through it as best we can.