All posts by ester

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i’m sitting in annie’s office w/ ilana. we’ve been here for hours now. her supervisors are away so we’re just chilling, chai-ing, “don’t think twice, it’s all right”-ing, spying at other windows out of ours … it’s awesome. it’s been a good day. i had my feminism workshop where two women came in and coached us on the fine art of lobbying while assuring us cheerfully that no matter what we do, very little if anything will change and even it does it will be over the course of years. their point was that you should keep plugging away anyway but i found it irritatingly frustrating. still, they gave us cookies, so all was good.

ahh, 1200 curfews …

i walked over to dupont after to check up on liz and was surprised to learn that, as per the discussion we held in bethesda while stuck in the rain, she had quit her mind- and soul-sucking job. that’s what i call spur of the moment. also commendable, tho: she made a decision, she took the initiative, she got out of a situation that was making her unhappy. more power to her, that’s what i say.

shabbes dinner tonite w/ the family that thinks they never see me. then the weekend starts and people everywhere are making plans plans plans. w/ any luck at all, i’ll see tamar, nomi, and jamie … christ, it’s been ages, or that’s how it feels.

hey! birthday soon baby. yeahhhhhh.

marc signed my guestbook which means he found me. marco, if you’re reading this: howdy, dude.

i’m pumping. i should calm down. or maybe not. 🙂 as joseph brodsky says, “the grave will render us all alike/ so while we live, at least, let us be various!”

which in my case means hyper.

happy friday everyone. sign my book, let me know you love me. i’ll return the sentiment, i promise.

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just returned from my first Sculpting the Story class. it was actually the second meeting for everyone else; i missed the first in favor of non-literary delights in SF. needless to say i don’t regret it. i didn’t have any trouble fitting in, either, or at least it seemed that way. the teacher is wonderful. the anti-lisa cohen, as it happens, which is not to say the indomitable l. cohen is unworthy or that her lessons were unappreciated. this woman’s style is just very different and i think i instinctively respond to it more/better.

tomorrow i have the 3rd — my 2nd — meeting of the New Faces, More Voices workshop (motto: “turning the world feminist one co-ed at a time”). hopefully the adrenaline rush from this writing thing will carry over into that. since it starts at 9 a.m. and goes til 1, i can’t think of much else that would keep me going. but the first meeting was wonderful and i have continued high expectations for this as well.

johnny drove me home tonite and spoke of a godfather marathon/festival this weekend. that would be wonderful. i’m craving distraction in all its forms: cinematic, classroom, food. it’s all keeping me busy, tho not spotlessly happy — i suppose that’s as much as i could hope for what w/ SF all the way across the goddamn country (who designed the bloody thing anyhow?). and on that note, b/c ben gave his blessing thru laughter and liz got all misty-eyed when she read it, here’s one of the three poems i’ve been working on the past few days:

The sun sets,

like a woman gently laying her bruised body

down, over me on the runway

while I think of your next girlfriend:

the lights of the runway forecast the

smart, tidy shine of her hair;

its length, the length of her thighs.

Maybe she will be a fireman�s pole like you:

I�m always shimmying up and sliding down you; maybe she

will simply lie there

nobly.

Maybe she will not tell you to smile more

or anything so frivolous; she�ll encourage

the growth of a goatee, turn your chin into a

bonzai tree that she can cultivate. She will be spiritual

and serious and tall, so you won�t have to stoop

to kiss her, and composed, so she�ll never laugh

during love when you cover her mouth to stifle

her impassioned �ah�s. She will not �ah.� Perhaps

she will say �Yes.� Perhaps �Precisely!� Perhaps

she will orgasm in japanese. Regardless,

she will be suave.

She will you call Benjamin.

She will not have a stomach like a rabbit curled up

beneath her skin or breasts like pots of water for which

your hands are lids; she will not have a stomach,

and her breasts will be perky-tight like

dashboard dolls. And it goes without saying

she will never wear the same outfit twice.

I cannot compete with her. Superiority is her nature:

it would be foolish to try. You may grow old with her

but Ben, oh Ben, if you want to be young,

come find me in this plane, lost in the night as in

the shadow of a lover leaving, flinging me hours states

months away from you.

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cds to buy once i actually get some money of my own: boys for pele, revolver, if you’re feeling sinister, white chocolate space egg — or does anyone know the best liz phair? i have exile in guyville but ross took one look at it and said that it was an interesting choice but i could do better.

speaking of which, ross is back from alaska. he’s made plans already to get to SF (he’s dating alyssa) and he’s staying longer than i did even so that he can attend area one and go backpacking. it’s so funny to remember that life continues in a place once you leave it. ben called me this afternoon while becca ilana and ari were here, feeling shitty, and i immediately felt guilty for having been in a giddy mood. when i returned to the kitchen after speaking to him, ilana told me i always look sheepish when he and i get off the phone.

ilana went to liz’s, ari went to a barbeque, and becca came w/ my family and me to mel’s. there we drank copious amounts of diet coke and then watched traffic. didn’t get all the way thru cause i had to drive becca to a metro station. the plan was to proceed to liz’s but traffic dissuaded me, and tiredness, and the desire to call ben, and to go to sleep. i also have (another) poem brewing in my head. for some reason, altho i thought i was going to and i certainly claimed i would, i’m reluctant to sketch on this site. it’s too public a forum for drafts, i think — ? anyway, it’s about potatoes 🙂 if you’re interested enuf, email me and i’ll send you a copy. or at least a thank you note for yr attention. i also wrote one yesterday but i kind of want ben’s okay before i post it on my site.

it’s hard but i’m trying to take in only what’s right around me, not to think about the two months ahead of me or even the week i just had. sheba smells (she’s next to me, breathing heavily onto the bathroom tile). becca outlined her life’s plan for me this evening, then demanded mine. i could only stammer vague ideas, like apprenticing myself to avy kaufman. unfortunately that would be locating myself in hollywood which, tho i might very well want to end up in movies, would be good for my self-esteem only in the sense that i would doubtless soon be the thinnest i’d ever been.

and may i add, it’s wonderful to be back on my computer using IE 5.0 again. goddamn netscape in the berkeley library irritated me.

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christ, i’m tired. i never found an adequate notebook in SF so i’m stuck staring forlornly at the last blank dirty page of my present one — one page left, can you believe it? this thing lasted me less than a year. i started it 9/29. (amusing enuf, on 9/29/00, i wrote, “another high point of the day: i ran into the illustrious matt rubin by the cereals. he complimented my presentation at the poetry slam, said i was clearly a performer and an extrovert. i laughed and told him i wasn’t, but it had been nice to pretend for 5 minutes or so.

and it was nice.” yeah, as i remember it, it was: i won a prize, a little plastic horse and a sheet of alphabet stickers. but see now, i wouldn’t say “nice” — ben wouldn’t have it — and i would have laughed at matt rubin and said of course i was an extrovert. have i always been one or is it a recent development? hmm ….

anyway, that was a tangent. the point is i’m home, two plane rides (with, again, no veggie food) later, weary and feeling rather dull. whole days of travel in which i only hear what others say and have no meaningful interaction have a deadening effect on me. but yesterday was fun: after a fruitless attempt to meet up w/ alyssa for lunch, ben and i went into the city, determined to conquer it on foot. i have to say, we did a decent job: started at the bart station at powell, hiked up to chinatown, wound thru chinatown and north beach (the view from which reminded me so much of jerusalem that i had to continually stop and make weak, whimpery noises) all the way to fisherman’s wharf, where tourists thronged for no discernable reason. then we walked along the coast and down chestnut street almost to the bay bridge to the exploratorium. i wish i could have enjoyed it more but a nasty headache that had been sending warning signals all afternoon finally bore down hard and ben had to guide me outside so i could lie down and wait for the pain to get bored of banging around my brain and move on. luckily beautiful weather and ben’s pooh stories accelerated the healing process and before long i was steady enuf to retrace our steps and even see a.i., a film which is as muddled as you’d expect kubrick via spielberg to be. i mean, lord: kubrick’s bleak worldview and obsession w/ sex and robots and spielberg’s crowd-pleasing sentimental platonic-love stories are like oil and water. in this case, the oil is much more interesting than the water and i came away frustrated, wishing that more time had been spent exploring the darker side of the elaborate fantasy-future. the disney-esque part we’ve all seen thousands of times, altho admittedly it is visually stunning.

tomorrow is the fourth. i don’t have concrete plans yet — but i’ve scarcely been home an hour. what can i say? that was one of the fastest weeks in recent memory. my parents both met at the airport and fussed and hugged so extensively that it seemed like i’d been gone ten times as long as i had. well. it’s over. happy independence day everyone.

and #32, goodnite.

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i’m going to cry. i had the equivalent of like a 5 page entry and right before i was about to post it, i pressed some button and the screen went blank. fucking bastards, that’s all i have to say. i don’t have the energy to recap the whole damn thing and anyway we’re about to go to lunch.

essentially: having a wonderful time (good)

going home tomorrow (very very bad)

saw come and see (excellent disturbing and induces a lack of faith in humanity)

am going to chinatown (yummy);

had blackberry pie; watched short circuit 2, hamlet;

went walking yesterday outside my comfort zone;

read becca’s site (yay becca!);

dropped the other becca off at the airport for hong kong;

and bought a new bag (white. rather unnerving but i’m getting used to it.)

all in all, life is silly-wonderful and i have to go continue to live it rather than writing about it (FOR THE SECOND TIME).

*sigh*

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also: becca and i were arguing, or discoursing rather, about whether or not a bunny is a rodent. jeeves of course has the answer. need i even mention that i was right?

they say that the breeding season lasts from february to october, altho some mate indiscriminately all year long. i wonder ….

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so it’s about 24 hrs since i last wrote and i’m in roughly the same place i was then: back in the berkeley library. only today becca and i are on the other side of the computer room w/ the bunny out of sight.

yesterday, after leaving here and wandering around some, ben and i made our way back to the house arguing about which of us would have to sacrifice art to be the breadwinner. we had pretty much compromised and assumed we would both work part-time and be expressionists part time and agreed that neither of us was interested in being poor when a woman jumped — literally, jumped — in our path.

i thought at first she wanted money b/c i couldn’t make out what she was saying. once she slowed down, she explained more coherently: she didn’t want money, she wanted advice. she was 53 years old and lonely. life, she felt, was pointless. her children were grown and raised and were off elsewhere raising growing children of their own. she had had a job once but no longer and there was apparently, tho i didn’t ask, no husband in the picture. so: 53 years old, alone, on an unsatisfactory diet of fatty food eaten without company, she didn’t see the point in going on. help me, she said.

it was a strange situation. i asked her if she didn’t have other people she could to. surely, a priest, a community leader, a doctor … ? someone had to be more qualified than a couple of teenagers. no, she said, they all told her the same thing: relax, watch tv, eat yr fried chicken, and be grateful. “but i’m tired of oprah winfrey,” she said. the rough whine of her voice made me sympathize heartily. eventually, we advised her to change small things: mainly, get to a library and try a different supermarket. ben knew of an organic one not too far away. she seemed doubtful but at least slightly mollified. and she thanked us.

the evening after that got more normal. we took a nap (*cough*cough*) and then made dinner w/ alyssa and laurel, consumed said dinner, chatted over peppermint patties, and went to sleep. i’ve had very disturbing dreams recently, prominently featuring pain, fear, and often bathrooms. i can’t really figure it out, except that it may be the belated effect of all the violence-against-women literature i’ve been reading, mixed w/ my parents repeated exhortations to “be careful” and my usual general paranoias.

that, and this strange susan sontag book i went thru on the ride over here called death kit. if anyone has read it and can offer any solace or insight, i would much appreciate it.

this morning i read thru a collection of sherman alexie short stories and really liked all but one. i wasn’t imagining this either — he actually did mention diet pepsi in each.

at any rate: i continue to be happy, the weather is lovely, and i am constantly reminded of how lucky i am.

i’m missing my first writer’s center class today. ah well. enjoy, yanni, and take notes for me.

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happy day, happy day — i’m in berkeley california — on the west coast for only the second time in my life and in this state for the first. right now i’m in the library — ben got becca and me passes — and ahhhhh internet …. the house tho lovely is unwired: no computer and no vcr. not much food, either. the kids are living more or less hand to mouth so i feel guilty already for trespassing. i’ll buy them something; i’m not sure what yet. and i’ll contribute to groceries and such.

the flight here was something else. i felt like i was in limbo — setting my watch back and not talking to anyone for hours tends to do that to me. i boarded the first plane with about 40 chubby blond kids in identical tee-shirts and crosses. as it turned out, they’re from assorted VA choirs and they’re going to mexico city to sing of the glory of god. they did a preview show for about an hour at one point; luckily, i had my cd player and aimee mann and all was good. the airline also didn’t have a veggie meal for me on either flight so a friendly flight attendent dug up an old kid’s meal and i had peanut butter and jelly on white bread for what may have been the first time in my life. on the second flight, they gave me baby carrots so i partook of those for, oh, the 54,357th time. quality rabbit food. 🙂 it was all right: when i got there (ben becca and becca’s bunny, sean met at the baggage claim) and we got to the house in emeryville, sean and becca went out again to obtain good veggie cambodian food for us all. and it finally occurred to me to call my father. luckily he hadn’t been worried.

so, so far, so good. slept late after ben left this morning and then becca and i met up, having experimented w/ various sources of public transportation around here, in berkely proper. cute town, very busy, very ethnic. becca looked at all the stores enviously, comparing this to the sad excuse for a ville we have back at swat.

in general i haven’t noticed too many things to differentiate this area notably from home. there are palm trees, tho it’s hard to believe that this drizzly climate supports them, and the houses, at least in oakland, are small pastel cubes: they look like children’s blocks. they’re made of some material that could or could not be stucco — i’m just not wise enuf to know.

i assume i’ll find more differences as i go on. but generally, i’m having a wonderful time, taking everything

moment by moment, and i’m very very glad i’m here.

ilana, baby, if you’re reading this, thanks for supplying the rain-check plan of seeing the ani movie w/ me.

definitely go anyway and tell me how it is.

love to everyone.

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happy birthday, rick (technically it was yesterday the 24th but it just occurred to me and i wanted to give him a shoutout.) ran into nomi b.a. on the metro — it’s her bday tomorrow, just like it’s ari’s, so happy birthday to both of them. (“all the people i used to know are an illusion to me now …”)

i just got home and i’m still pumping adrenaline, so much so that i yelled at my brother in the car. i went to see a documentary called Paragraph 175 which is going to be playing on hbo on july 9: it was a preview showing sponsored by amnesty int’l b/c they’re trying to raise awareness of treatment of LGBTs around the world. (man, all of those should be links and i just don’t have the time to find them right now … forgive me ….) my office got an invite so martha passed it along to us. really, aside from the not getting paid and having to seek mentally-deadening employment to earn money, this is the sweetest internship. i spent all of today reading gloria steinem critiquing — intelligently and informationally, of course — both freud and advertising. i only began that second section; the first absorbed much of my attention. and we get to go to all these great programs for free. this showing was at visions cinema and they gave us free drinks (two diet cokes and a chai for me. damn typical.)

anyway, the film itself was extremely well-done and as harrowing as i’m sure the creators intended it to be. certainly it got its point across. “i am ashamed for mankind,” said one survivor, right before he broke into tears.

yeah.

watch the movie, people. hbo. july 9 (i think.) i’m sure a big deal will be made of it.

check out the guestbook for yanni exhibiting signs of castration anxiety. 🙂

man, i still have to pack — i’m leaving tomorrow morning and of course i’m still stressing: maybe the reservations didn’t go thru, maybe there won’t be a ticket for me when i get to the desk … this line of thinking is so common w/ me that part of me is calmly assessing my silver-lining options. if it turns out that at the last minute i have to stay home, i have my first writer’s center class; my second NFMV program thing; and there’s another cool flick showing at visions just this week that has ani difranco in it. and joc is coming down this weekend. see? it won’t be terrible.

wish me luck.