Zoids and her hubby, uh, Boy Zoids, are having a steampunk party in my sweet basment for Boy Zoids' b-day. I am their Organizer. I imagine myself as a blonde Jennifer Lopez from that one movie. I call and drum up ideas etc.

I have already experimented with some uber british olde recipes. I have rearranged furniture. I have draped everything in pretty cloth. I have started rigging a weird tutu/corset thing made of a wife beater and coat hangers. I have spent too much money on little brass studs to decorate everything.

Then I realized how hard some of these things are to make-- phew! Sewing!

I talk to my little friends on the facebook via some sort of new fangled ICQ and one, Card Shark, sends me a sweet idea for a steampunk bodice:

I take some issue with it, but am amused by the site it comes from "regretsy.com" and it occurs to me that if I can buy something this crazy on etsy, I must be able to find exactly what I want!

Here they are.

The only thing I have to regret is my life wasted as an artist and not an engineer so I cannot afford to buy such beautiful artistic things.

What is the difference between reactions to positive and negative feedback? What is more motivational? No witty story is going to grow here as I contemplate this. It's one of those less than fun situations where my brain focuses too much on the moment. Digestion becomes the thing to do later. I have faith my brain keeps the words and emotions in a bundle and unpacks them on its own time, like in my dreams or whatever, and that the confrontation with criticism will eventually prove to be productive.

If it does, I will consciously never be able to attribute the outcome to that person, that time, those words they used to mould me anew.

My current menial labor is in a restaurant. I started as a busser—that idiot who brings you bread, water and silverware, the unknowledgeable a-hole hovering with a fifty percent chance of screwing something up for you without you knowing it. Yep. That was me. I was taught a thousand tiny details about things you, a guest, are not supposed to notice. The fact that you don't notice them is what means I'm doing my job. So I won't enlighten you on what they are, only how I feel, emphatically, about it.

It is very noble work. Someone must do it so others can enjoy their lives. The sort of training undergone to make guests feel smooth and carefree is ongoing. Even after you are technically proficient other anal retentive people working higher in seniority and merit are going to continuously notice things you didn't do and should have. It is a steady stream. A steady stream of negative feedback.

Most people attempt to put positive spins on this negative feedback, to say it with a smile, or whatever. Most people fail at this.

It tends to come out as a very clever combination of “You're Wrong” and “You're Good.” Win for behavior, fail in execution.

In between these motions are little glimpses of social behind-the-scenes footage between staff members. In these moments you are not being criticized at all, but are on equal footing with everyone around you. It raises you way up. It has a Machiavellian way of eliciting dog-like devotion.

Bussing, in particular, is great for training people like you would train a dog, because of its monotony and eternally changeless repetition of movements. Constancy.

Personally, this is an ideal environment for accepting criticism. The stress of the initial criticism melts into the next and the repetition builds up awareness. Unfortunately, this too has its limits.

After so long, I get bored with the repetition and stop caring whether or not I'm being criticized at all. Improvement stops. It becomes no better than the all love or all hate environment. Which is only the fault of the task at hand. If it were a task complex as, say, directing films, I would flourish.

Variation with constancy? Is that what we've learned in today's rumination on mundanity? Ironic to anyone else?

Middle aged ladies on a walk date. One is late because a kid had a sore throat. One is late because she has a sore throat, and we all know that you're about to come down with typhoid if your throat is parched from mouth breathing all night.

They also called in maintenance to complain about the smell in the gym. Apparently, it was like “vomit,” but I'd be running for 15 minutes at this point after a 10 minute warm up, and well, I guess my nasal passages are just out of touch.

In the past I would have disdained these women. In the past I'd have ignored them, let their story about a puking 9-yr-old and carpooling roll right by me. I'd come up out of the situation like a mermaid surfacing to clear, interesting conversation.

I am trying to be a better person, and see the relevance of their lack of pancakes yesterday morning. I decided good people do that. Give other people chances. Give the benefit of the doubt that perhaps they are an undercover spy and are suffocating. Perhaps I can relieve their bordom with sprightly and inspiring spontaneity. Maybe they really are interested in war, and ancient mosaics, or how magnets work.

It could be worth it to find out, right?

Everyday is another Pollyanna/Lil Orphan Annie opportunity to become a better person, in some way. Either you help a blind person across a street, listen to someone complain, learn some new vocab, edit a resume, apply to a new job, drill holes somewhere, try hoola hooping for the first time, discipline your dog in a loving, gentle way, experiment with a new recipe, read a book... whatever. Well, I do half a dozen distinct self improvement things everyday, and I don't want to today.

Sitting at my new desk in the new basement looking at a gorgeous piece of Klimt art, and then my sketches for the painting to be replicated on the back of my door, and my guitar, all the collage cards I need to send out, the book I just finished, the millions of Monster.com responses I have two hours to respond to, the power drill on my floor, the endless more books to read, and I come up with three tears and three words like any good three year old might:

I don't wanna.

How much positive movement forward can we force out of ourselves before we need a black out day? It must be one of those things that requires inertia and desire. It probably depends on the person. Scratch that, it definitely depends on the person.

But, what are the reasons for breaking down? Smoothie had a breakdown apparently. Not too big, not that she couldn't easily recover from within an hour or two, but it was unexpected. What are the pressures that go into a person, and what are the devices in them that digest these pressures and relieve them to non-toxic levels?

Like always I am full of questions and short on answers. But, it shows forward movement that I've defined the questions, right? Now I can form a hypothesis and get on with the betterment.

Yes!

Feeling down, therefore Short Round showed me this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5jw3T3Jy70

It is so incredibly worth watching, I cried with joy that there are other freaks in the world, and that some of them look that good.

Especially ones that every man I have ever dated has a mad crush on. This video makes me not only laugh until my eye makeup runs and I literally hug my sides, but gives me hope that I might be somewhere in the ball park of Kristen Bell.

Or at least in the nosebleeds.

(And if anyone wants to tell me how to download videos like this and/or embed them directly, I'm eager to learn.)

Today's Assignment: To hang a closet rack.

Tools: power drill, level, pencil, pre-made (non Ikea) rack/shelf unit.

It should be noted here that Ikea is superior in almost all ways. This instruction manual comes in three languages. Ikea's comes in none. The graphic designers and engineers they have at Ikea have no need for words---they are THAT good at showing which to tool to use when on which piece of wood or metal or wall or plastic or cloth... They are brilliant. They also design ALL of their pieces of furniture, each shelf, screw, leg, support board, are unique and distinct looking from all others. They are also all precisely measured so no hack sawing is required.

I am circumnavigating the need for a hacksaw today by adapting the design of the non-Ikea shelving unit. That's right, I'm a genius, it's ok to worship.

What is not so precise about this particular, generic, Best Buy of DIY stores, are the numbers of things they include. I have three too many fat screws, two too many thin screws and one too few stud covering plastic cap guy.

Luckily, I am an adult and will refrain from knocking my noggin on the edges of any white metal.

I feel like I'm commiting treason against my holy land, Ikea, land of marzipan and gravy, land of color and delight in efficiency, land of show, land of self explanation, exploration, mix and match heaven. Where a person can easily make a nest worth feathering.

Drunk the koolaid?

Um, that's lingon berry juice--B****.

My father doesn't like travel or vacations much meaning my mom, Colleen Ostergaard, who adores travel and adventure, sometimes takes vacations solo with excess children. She approaches these vacays with a balanced diet of planning and spontaneity; hotels are usually booked, cities are always met on schedule, days are free to who we meet and what we encounter. Getting lost, missing ferries, meeting pool sharks, she incorporates these things with poise and a competency that enriches every trip without losing all-important safety or plane ticket deadlines. The greatest example I have of this, is the first time I was aware of it. I was seven and Mom and her friend Kimiko wanted to take me and my best friend Mika to a super sweet, mountain top spa resort thing outside of Taipei. We lived in

Taipei at the time, so this was to be a weekend trip. No worries.

We start. Lovely weather, road trip games, Mika and I have little idea as to where we are going, but don't care, because we're together, and we're seven. The moms do their chat thing in the front, we pay them no mind.

Half up the mountain we get flagged over by some dirty looking chinese people. Thank golly Mom speaks chinese, so she can understand what they're talking about. I don't get a translation, so we must be ok. We go on, there's this amazing cliff to our left, and clouds start filling in the valley so I can't look at the trees and bushes anymore. The same cliff rises to our right and the patterns of the rock blur as we are trucking along at a good 30 miles an hour. There's a tunnel up ahead.

I like tunnels, we hold our breath going under them. A good car game. Instead, though, there are chinese police men in blue uniforms waving their arms and shouting. I can't hear or understand what they say, but Mom gets out to talk to them. She can. She's cool.

She comes back and talks seriously with Kimiko. Mika and I start being quiet, I ask if I can hold my breath through the tunnel. “Of course, honey,” says Mom. Mika and I hold our breath, but because of the serious talking between the moms we don't try to tickle each other while we turn blue. We enter the tunnel. When we come out the other side we pass under a honest-to-goodness waterfall like I have ALWAYS wanted to see. It was awesome. On the other side of the water fall are more peasant looking ladies, they are also waving their hands. Mom rolls down her window. I see giant, giant rocks in the road before us. Giant. Some of the ladies are trying to push them into the valley, they disappear into the clouds. I want to throw one. Mom rolls up her window and I have no recollection of how the hell we turn around in a one-lane tunnel or one-lane cliff face switchback. The next thing I remember (does stress block memories? Mom tells me I was very quiet for this part) is Mom and Kimiko throwing more boulders into the clouds like the ladies did. We'd returned past the police men and going down hill now. She told me to stay in the car. I wanted to help, I wanted to throw a rock, but I stayed because Mom is always right about what to do and how to do it.

My mother stayed calm and pragmatic. One villager might spread rumors, one police man might exagerrate, but 5 villagers and 3 police man and several hundred big rocks are enough evidence to destroy a good holiday. She weighed options and made life-saving decisions. She used all her mental and physical skills in a synthesis of competency to get Mika, Kimiko and I home safely. This was when she stopped being just my mom, and started being, objectively, a hero.

Buck is over-motivated in protecting me from live vacuum cleaners. He finds joggers, golfers, and walkers to be threats to his national security also, but they are safely outside his glass portculis, and away over his grassy moats.

They are also pretty silent and have many obvious weak points to scratch and disembowel.

This guy though, is under the sway of a trusted pack mate, loud, completely metal and plastic.

He will, I'm sure this is not unique to this dog, chase it and bark at it from a distance of 4 inches but never get closer. Very barbarian in technique, but without any follow through. Have we, his human pack reined him in?

Whether this intimidation tactic is instinctive or learned, his new behavior is definitely learned. Thanks to 4 months of very consistent contact and lots of discipline sessions, Buck now hears the vacuum and starts to bark, looks over his shoulder at me, growls, and I say No, and he trots over and goes into pre sleep mode on my lap. It's amazing. I'm very proud.

But a little worried. Have I stripped my little warrior buddy---competent slayer of aliens---of his protect-and-scare-off nature?

I have three friends using the blogging competition: Tumblr. It is a little intimidating for me and my pretty little space here. They are both serious and prolific--things I will never be.

Differences: layout. subject. content. commenting. exclusiveness.

I love google. I am a minion and devotee to the gods of free stuff and laid back environments in which to enjoy them. Google offered me this free place to design and yak to my little heart's content, and I took it.

Tumblr has some very cutting edge looking pages with big, black fonts. The users speak in bullet points and just show things they like, and drop grains of thought out after them, or refer to what other people have said about whatever it is. It's very much like a live serial of Vanity Fair or The New Yorker. It, actually, is like a cyber New York. As seen by this suburban hick, anyway.

I, therefore, am fascinated. I want to be more like it. I want to be serious and prolific! I want people to say things to me and to respond to them. I want pretty pictures on my blog.

So, Kiddo will heretofore think less, react more, and find prettier pictures.

For example, when running an image search for "Tumblr" you are as likely to get that logo up there as you are to get this awesomeness for sexy Spanish hipsters:

The Oscars. The Academy Awards.

I don't know the etymology of "Oscars," I like to think it is the name of the guy who modeled for that statue. I do know where Academy Awards comes from. It's simply descriptive. Literally, The Academy chooses who gets the Award.

Who the s*** is the Academy? Get this propaganda:

They are the more than 6,000 artists and professionals who bring the magic of the movies to life. They are the men and women who transport audiences to galaxies far away and to worlds long ago and who create the previously unimagined for the big screen. They are the entertainment industry's preeminent filmmakers. They are Academy members.

Could you be any more into yourselves? I hate that I admire these people. They are so smarmy that this year Hugo and The Artist, amazing amalgams of Hollywood masturbation, are the big names for the series of awards. 11 for Hugo, Martin Scorcese's attempt to be warm, paternal, and heroic for his educational prowess. 10 for The Artist, a super fun looking silent film revival attempt that no one but over-educated film nerds like me are going to attempt watching or ever possibly enjoy.

It's enough to make me start doubting the objective integrity of the academy.

ha.

Like it possibly existed before.

Kiddo = naive.

"The only people who should compare themselves to Ronald Reagan are Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, everyone else should just be quiet."

The first time I have laughed out loud today.

Thank you Joe Scarborough, for giving me a worth while reason to be awake this early.

Shopping at Target is different. It's the lighting or the quality of floor, or the cart, everything is a little more plush. The plastic is denser, the linoleum thicker on the concrete, Carpeted sections are more clearly defined. The holiday décor is themed, and consistent—providing a feeling of walking through a story, rather than store.

I was forced, forced I say, to shop at Target. My list was all in-edibles. I had to drop off library books. There were shopping bags to be recycled, and the last time I used my Trader Joes bags at Safeway, the check-out chick gave me more passive aggressive criticism than I had previously thought the breed of people capable of.

With these seemingly unconnected reasons, you, darling reader, can see clearly why I had to experiment with my grocery shopping settings.

And it bloomed with so much contentment. Open, cleverly, with winter clothes on sale. The sale racks organized by size—a whole rack of extra smalls at $4. Yep. One thermal and two tanks in the cart. It's smart on their part and smart on mine. Right?

Duped?

no.

Surely not, the layout of the store did not weasel me into obeying the demands of the economy...

The layout of the food section, once I got there, was incredible. No confusing sections or deviations from logical order of foods, no weird inedible soaps or towels shoved in among tortillas or coffee. It's awesome. All snack food is even right at the back, sequestered safely away from where I needed to go.

People are friendlier at Target. First conversation was around the sale tank tops. Second by greeting cards. Third at check out. All women, all smiling, all dressed well but not flashy—Have I come to the home of tasteful middle class house wives? Why do these ladies value, like me, company brand tissues with pretty patterned boxes? All the colors are subdued, and calm, as though they had been knitted for Etsy. The detergent aisle included three brands of eco-friendly and minimalist designed companies of soap. Soap.

Still duped? No, it's really a wonderland.

Regular life being what it is, and so many of us experiencing it, little can actually be interesting. Expression therefore, becomes the thing that keeps us from inertia.

When I become bored, I become boring to others as well.

But when engaged, the Tree of Life, or football, or sitting very still become fascinating, and descriptions of them flower in entertainment.

But the boredom is so easy. Is it like recharging? Like sleeping? Does coffee cheat us of quality boredom? Do we cheat ourselves of better entertainment by cramming too much of it into our days?

Is my boredom bringing me to similar conclusions usually reserved for stoners, drunks and philosophers?

T-Bone said: Yea, I got that for you because you need to chill out.

He referred to my suite of Bob Marley tab book and cd.

It's a new, weird thing that I don't really think adheres to my personality, because I'm anal retentive about everything. Thus proving T-Bone's the point.

So I find myself, very shortly thereafter, and in a no way related series of events, in the quintessential jam band basement of suburbia.

Everything about the experience screamed a teenage life I ducked out on while rock climbing, watching Audrey Hepburn movies, and making gnocchi.

I arrived in my little car with a tinful of homemade cookies. Puffy coat, fluffy gloves, hair all tangled in a giant scarf-- and not knowing anyone in the house except Pippin who, last night, had gotten a tad defensive of jamming 'cus girls always fuck up the creative flow.

Teen Sister answers the door after Dad yelled stuff. Between two and five dogs bark. I wonder frenetically how I will say things. Hi! I'm here for Pippin, Hi, my name is Kiddo, is your son here? Hi! How are you—point me in the jam band direction? How do you do, I'm here for the band.

The labs jump all over me I'm so thrown off I don't even introduce myself. I'm escorted to the basement door: “Pippin! Your Friend is here!” Teen Sis smiles and walks off. Dogs continue jumping and sniffing my crotch. I side swipe into the cellar and clump down the stairs, trying to pull my scarf off and purse back up my arm and getting over the four dog gang bang I just pulled my girl parts out of.

The basement has a couple plastic christmas trees, country kitchen style wardrobes abandoned in the last century, a semi circle of seven distinct amps, a rack of guitars, a bass, and a drum kit I am stunned is actually on a cheap persian rug—who knew, all stereotypes are genuinely rooted in basement reality.

My adorable friends screw together a genuine steel drum. It's silver and pretty and sways, and makes noises like fairies alighting on stars. They discover problems with two amps, a cord and a bass. One compromises to play the bass like a dulcimer, and the other finds the trippiest sounds a little keytar can spew. We eat my little choc chip cookies and I wish, for the umteenth time I were talented.

It is the afternoon, and no one thinks of drinking alcohol. Pippin asks “I have flavored water, and water flavored water—what do you want?” No one even thinks to smoke things, like I had half expected.

They, and therefore me too, chill out like only 15-year-olds should be able to.

Dear Honorable Senator/Representative, and his/her staff,

Please do not support the Protect IP Act / Stop Online Piracy Act. The internet is not an entity that can or should be controlled to that strenuous a degree.

In the way that arming policemen with guns heightens the motivation for criminal firepower, attempts to muzzle online piracy will only inspire such pirates to escalate their methods.

In the mean time, students of all ages, start up businesses, researchers of foreign websites, and even curious searchers of knowledge, will lose out.

Thank you for your time and consideration,

Kiddo

Copy, Paste, Adjust, Send.

An epic tale of the changelessness of humanity, no matter the actions taken.

When a couple of cute 17 year olds, Smoothie and AdoptoGaard, wanted to know about fashion in the late 80s and early 90s, I, being the loving elder that I am, first thought Clueless. It wasn't free on Netflix, but the internet seems to know me pretty damn well, and it spaketh: “You Will Like Heathers.”

It's true, I do. Zap forward an hour and a half--- AdoptoGaard is shouting “I told you! He wasn't dead! Find an adult!” she gets so excited she leaps, double footed off the super plush, super suburban couch and gestures with both hands wildly at slightly worse-for-wear Winona Ryder.

Heathers isn't about achieving happy ends through following society's suggestions, NetFlix aside. It's about forcing society to conform to ideals of the tortured, less popular kids in high school. Or at least it starts as a fantasy for those of us who fit that role. And it is appropriately cartoonish in its portrayal of this fantasy.

In its gore: a blue mouth full of draino, perfectly symmetrical gun shot wounds.It's colourful in its language: “Very very,” “It's will be so very,” “I love my dead gay son!” And who could forget “F*** me gently with a chainsaw”? The quotes are timelessly naïve in their brutality and dipshittery. In its wardrobe: Red scrunchiis, and the world's greatest cheerleader outfits (Kurt Cobain clearly jerked off to this film at some point). It's a time capsule of attitude.

It was exactly what Smoothie and AdoptoGaard needed, but not what they expected. No teen/tween movie made in the last 10 years has featured something so edgy as serial killing, suicide as a social problem, or even Christian Slater's lesser work with pirate radio in Pump Up the Volume.

If I'm wrong, I'm willing to watch. Challenges like defusing bombs are deemed too stressful or outlandish for teen/tweens, but if we've learned anything from the course of the nineties and the centurian zeroes, it is that people destroying their classmates is something you may want to prepare yourself for.

Books like How to Survive a Zombie Invasion or How to Survive a Robot Uprising may be amusing in their premise, and their deadly serious tone, but they won't actually help you stop Columbine from happening to your local collection of queen bees, nerds, jocks and outcasts.

Winona Ryder will. How ought one respond to finding out you just inadvertantly killed your greatest frenemy? Fake it to be a suicide. How do you stop your super hot boyfriend from blowing up your school? Shoot off his middle finger and smoke a cig.

AdoptoGaard was floored.

I feel my duty as a Knowledgable Elder has been fulfilled.

X-Men First Class is reason to believe this.

There are various reasons for agreeing or disagreeing with this, and most of them are not even contingent on semantics.

Poetry mags are online and free. Poets tend to work for free regardless of age / era. Smart men want to get laid. Smart women want to prove their smart. etc.

My argument is a little more flexible.

If poetry is a distillation of language to a stylized and pure structure to best express something, then you have the written or spoken form. The spoken very quickly translates to music. However, it's hard to argue that Beethoven's 1812 Overture does not express something pure and specific in a massively stylized way.

No language, however. Therefore universal. A boon, perhaps.

Most of the rest of the world still considers written and spoken poetry to be important. Moldovans can't get enough of it. Poetry is recited in every class, and at every function. Teens recite it to each other on park benches. It gets a little gooey and annoying even for Kiddo.

They understand that poetry is not a thing for elitist intellectuals, as Pound and Eliot forced us all to believe. They see how poetry is larger than just our everyday chatter. How it better expresses ourselves. They understand that the human brain is more capable than mumbling arguments.

Which is how we like our media. No one reads more than the first paragraphs of newspaper articles. No one watches movies that don't sync up with their own theses. The more little in jokes and loops and references, the better the movie.

X-Men First Class not only has excellent characters and color scheme that match and fit the universe, Marvel's epic poem, but it rhymes.

The idea from the other four movies, is reiterated with a slightly different timbre. Magneto echos Kevin Bacon's character. Magneto then chants this idea once a movie, in different words. Professor X, of course, says exactly the opposite in coda to each iteration. It makes for a very nice AB AB AB AB structure.

The scenes, like stanzas, each encapsulate and express one wheel or cog to fit into the whole. These, in themselves must be perfectly balanced to not offset the others.

Think about Wolverine Origin. It throws off the whole epic because it is too much focus on one cog. However, in the recruitment montage of First Class, Hugh Jackman gives his cameo as the leather jacketed bastard and says the only thing that could possibly fit with the rest of his part : "Go f*** yourself."

The audience loves it, because they get it. It rhymes.

The epitome of this, however, is the poetic way in which Magneto finally exacts his revenge. The coin that symbolized his personal failure burrowing through the skull of his creator. It's beautiful.

There are many many more things that are amazing about this movie (not to mention the excess of sexy cast in it), but I just wanted to express, here, how poetic it is.

What is 'sass,' exactly?

According to reliable sources, I possess a good deal of it.

When first told this, I was a little confused. This accusation is new. Quick paced conversations, laced with loving insults and quips about sex and drugs and politics are traditionally beyond me. In most, I can barely keep up just listening. Traditionally.

Traditionally, I am “earnest,” “sweet,” and “charming,” but only because I observe, out loud, the good traits of those people around me.

So, slightly stunned by this comment, I think a second and with a puppyish tilt of my head, say “I think what you perceive as sass is simply me blurting out the truth at you.” which, apparently, was a sassy thing to say. The high-energy gentleman receiving this comment laughed, slapped me on the back and strutted off to continue working. He finds me “charming.”

Now I don't know what “charm” is either.

In the past couple days I have spent too much money. Thankfully, not a whole paycheck's worth, or on a credit card. It has also been in pursuit of early Christmas shopping, so I can feel morally at ease with it.

Two things were for myself: art magazines and a new wallet.

The art magazines because I've been devoid of imaginative imagery so long I'm over dosing on tactile pages of plush paper covered in lavish paintings of surreal human forms in some out-of-the-box cura scuro poses.

The wallet, though, the wallet is because I have never bought one for myself. My wallets have varied from empty cigarette boxes and rubber bands to designer leather change purses with little hearts stitched into them. But I have never bought one.

To me, this is a 15 year long irony to which an end must be put.

So, at the age of 26 I have bought a wallet. It is a flat pocket book, after Betty Draper aesthetics. It is hard on the spinal inside, but with plush sides, and covered in waterproof plastic. It snaps shut at the top with difinitive accuracy. It's pink satin lined, and holds cards and some money. It's flexibility is marginal, so I can't cram if full of superfluisity.

I love it.

I call it my Big Girl Purse.

Until Short Round points out the big cartoons on the sides of it. On one side a single cross-eyed piggy. On the other, Gir—the demented robot of Invader Zim fame—is smiling at a TV surrounded by more piggies.

I love it.

Physical things aren't supposed to bring you true happiness, but this wallet literally gives me the same gratification that a good flirt session usually provides.

This must be why people obtain credit cards in the first place.

And why I still won't.

I just drove in my big, buckskin colored SUV to a free parking space in a historical downtown to make my fortune by writing on my shiny laptop and researching on my shiny iphone in a wood and chalk coffee shop peopled by hippies, hipsters, and factory hands.

I came from my second job as an art sales assistant.

My mother is a democrat, my father is republican.

The evidence adds up quickly to “who knows.”

In that second job, I chatted with Rob, who I had never met before. I've been working there for three weeks. He was concerned as well.

“I've been working here 35 years, and this year, I think I got four checks.”

The economy is rough for art. Indeed, why would you buy art when you could spend that $4,000 on a new transmission and two month's supply of food for your children? He asked how I got this job at the art store, and I told him about Peace Corps, and waitressing, and wanting something worthwhile to spend my time on. I expanded on the audience for Peace Corps memoirs and essays (small but diverse: think Chicken Soup or the Volunteers themselves) I bad mouthed Occupy Wall Street. I threw around the word “entitlement.” I may have said “bulshittery.”

I mentioned my shy involvement with the democratic party.

He said, “You sound more like a conservative than a liberal.”

“Maybe, but at least liberals take the stance that social choices should be made by the individual. Not that there should be policy concerning them at all in the first place. Maybe I'm a libertarian.”

He nodded his head above his all natural bone and hemp necklace.

I was waxing idealistic to a completely unknown audience... He looked like a hippy. Was in an art store. Art + Store.

“Maybe you're transitioning into conservativism,” he offered, “You sound like an old Democrat.”

I have no idea what that means. I know these parties parading before us today are perversions of all sorts of ideas and historical ideals, and duels.

“There is no moderate party,” I accused. Lamely.

When we walked out to my car, him carrying a big chinese peasant print my mom had just dropped $144 framing, I opened the door for him, and he put it in---right on top of my copy of Atlas Shrugged and collection of Trader Joes eco-friendly bags.

This is my physical evidence.

Conclusions pending.

The Family lives on a swank little swathe of country club land. This means they belong to a very swank little resort. The resort has become the site of Kiddo's first individually-compelled effort at toning her muscles.

That's right. When Short Round and Smoothie get up for school mornings, I get up too, dress in various combinations of super tight clothes and super baggy clothes in an effort to look like I know what I'm doing at the gym.

What I do varies. Super Sister tells me, and has shown on every occasion she visits, that this is how it should be. Mixin it up not only keeps you from exquisite bordom, but also allows muscles to heal in the time when you rip up the others. Also, says Super Sister, you don't want to wake up three days in a row after an ass kicking, bar raising work out and need to stay in bed.

Luckily this stint of working out is less about rebelling against my own determination, and more about hanging out in the spa section of the resort. The gym is near the * * * * restaurant and Starbucks. Down the end of the hall though, are a pool, hot tub, sauna, showers with rock bottoms, ambient music, no other people – it's what I'd design my own bathroom to be like if I had a place to live and money to spruce it up.

As it is though, I just try to avoid the other people traipsing through my dream, and get my body to look better naked. Kevin Spacey said it first, jogging and weight lifting is just to be hotter, don't let anyone fool you.

The couple who show up at Magical Gym Land most often try to keep me from this magical zen mindset. They don't do it on purpose, but do it, they do. I don't know if they are there just to look better naked themselves, or if they just wanna spy on me and the other machine pushing fools.

Our interactions, between 7am grimaces at my smiles, boil down to two incidents.

We arrive at the same time. The day my key card loses it's magnetism. I've actually already had it demagnetized by the time we collide at the gym door. It doesn't take on the first try though. Bugger. I smile. “Why don't you let me try, honey.” the lady says without even a silghtest bit of friendliness in the phrase that begs for a mothering sort of tone. The man glares at me.

Whatever. We all get in, and we have a treadmill each. I take the most exposed one, near the door. I see this as a gift to them. If any judgemental dicks walk through the hall, it's going to be my undefined cankles that receive derision. I'm walking back from the pool, and just about to pass the gym on my way out when who should finish? The Man and The Lady. They aren't too red or sweaty, but they have Resort Towels around their necks. I think they look like the aging characters of Tender is the Night.

The Lady sees me and tightens her mouth. “I wonder where,” The Man starts, “that girl --” He doesn't finish. Lady rips his arm down and points violently back at the gym door “Oh! Honey! I think I left something!” and she runs off. The Man continues not seeing me, but walks after her “what? What did you leave, honey?”

I smile, knowing I've made it into their life sitcom. I see them again outside, they are getting into the Lexus sedan which they have parked in the 15 Minute Parking spot right under the awning of the resort. You know, that place where valets would be standing if it were a party night.

Yep. It's a fun time. Super Sister is proud of me though. That may be a first. I'm glad to have a trainer like her, and soon I'll be able to chat with her like an intelligent human being – I found The Complete Book of Running for Women in a closet somewhere in the house while scouring for orphan socks.

Who knew.

My sister, Short Round, and I went out this afternoon. It is a Sunday. In this the most civilized of all possible realities (USA) one tends to assume things of the convenient miasma known as suburbia.

As you may guess from the red levels of chagrin in my tone, we were let down. Indeed. Stores in this the most protestant of all possible countries are closed completely, or close early on Sundays.

The religious aspect leads to an obvious fact. Short Round and I went to browse and spend money on vinyl. The Record Store is in a nearby town Catlinsville. Catlinsville is music and church based town with wide roads and no train stop. The roads are large enough that it could be four lanes. Extra lanes are converted to metered parking. Store fronts are stone or brick with engravings to say what they were at first blush. Its origins were clearly from rich people.

Rich people at that time were quite well to do. Well to do people go to church. Catlinsville is full of churches. Thus, everything closed on Sundays.

In contrast, Algernon City was the first American town to sport a train station. Termination in fact. Steam came first here. We are self-made workers with an ethic for chiselling out the cliffs to make room for our row houses. The only church in town is where Babe Ruth got married. Everything is open on Sundays.

No records, but I did find a super-cool mini top hat with back-flung veil in Algernon's very own Fairy Store.

As discussed, music can alter moods, and self-aware people can therefore self-medicate. Today's suggestion: Make a life soundtrack.

If you were the star of a movie depicting your life, what music would back it?

I'd have Howard Shore xylophone solos of poignancy, Michael Nyman piano concoctions for romance, Dead Weather and Crystal Castle cacophonies for kill scenes, and my personal favorite cover of all time:

All Along the Watchtower

by the immortal

Jimi Hendrix

for the ramping up of a quest. In my head I have a bow and arrow, knives in my boots and there's a shot of me climbing a cliff and pull/leap over the lip to face the penultimate foe.

I don't know what my final clash song would be, because I don't know what that clash will consist of. Also, who knows what sort music will exist by that time?

Music will make a dull life feel super-cool. My life is often Edith Piaf Pink. Winters in Moldova were propped up with Fine Frenzy yellows and tempered with Joni Mitchel blues. But today I'm going with Jimi Jimi Violet – violence in favor of productivity and a better immediate place in which I can slide back to a Thom York melange.

As all residents of the deciduous world know, it's fall. All the trees have given up ever seeing Persephone again and cast themselves to a righteous death in the humus. If they are given their due, we will all have richer, darker, spicier soil in the new year. Bring on the snow to pack them down.

Or.... not....

Suburbia is many things. Nature friendly is not one of them. Not being a fan of nature, I quite like the manicured world of green lawns and quaint little rain garden caches of shrubberies and flowers that possibly match your shutters.

The nature we allow though, is still relentless. The trees we planted in the 50s and 60s are now towers of kindling, waiting to smother our emerald expanses. They are so looming in fact, they mock all attempts to tidy their droppings. Rake an 8' x 20' expanse Monday, another Tuesday and a third Wednesday, Monday's oblong is already tawny again.

Thank Thor for leaf blowers and the minimum wage shmucks who know how to operate them. You can hire one or two to corral the several tons of leaves in the gutter out front. Then take them away. Good golly do they ever.

This swath of town is blessed in an 18 wheeler with a vaccuum the size of my own human girth off the back of it. Suck, suck, suck... all nature's passive aggressive war: gone.

Or...

Nope, one week later, right back where the oak gods want us—carrying away their offal.

Hopefully, soon they'll be out of ammo, and we can anticipate the sweet blankets of snow for our next holiday. I don't thing snow blowers, though, pack up and leave with such panache.

Phenomenally huge cultural stuffs (read: makes it even in Moldova) have to bunches of people I don't respect. Snob? You bet.

This is not to suggest, however, I do not think the things themselves valid. They are emotionally heavy-hitting, without fail, and I am all for that.

So, Titanic, blues, grunge, Black Beauty, Girl with the Dragon Tattoo---bring it on. My heart strings like getting tugged. Where I start having true problems with it is if it goes over the edge (Catcher in the Rye) or if it is honestly just tripe (Twilight).

Meaning I approach it with skepticism. The Hunger Games I have been mincing around. My lovely lady friend Aubergine finally shoved a copy into my hands last night to keep me warm while she put her two year old to bed.

This book is a reason to have faith in the masses. Though people slog through thousands of pages of feminine angst about whether or not to be a vampire, they will flip over and come up breathing genuine dystopic sci-fi that smacks of Cormac McCarthy and Orson Scott Card.

You just never can tell with hoi poloi.

I would like it to be known that I am a classy broad. I like nothing better than prancing around in high heels, drinking a Manhattan, maybe have a full coverage halter apron on over some frilly dress, and eat microwave bacon on a rainy morning.

A morning such as this, the 15th of November, you ask? Why, indeed. Coming off the Atlas Shrugged high, and working nights, I gotta do my drinking far enough before work—the morning. As it turns out though, that new-fangled “white whiskey” (neither new nor fangled really, but a reincarnation of poor man whiskey: moonshine) no way compares with true rye for taste.

Why did I use the weird clear whiskey in my Manhattan? Because the rye I bought was gone. Vermouth and cherries still stand, so it seemed like a good chance for experimentation. It went awry, DO NOT assume that because it's called whiskey it tastes the same. Moonshine is moonshine. A is A. No matter how you market it, those years in casks bestow more than color upon the liquor.

Point being I don't just drink stuff to drink stuff. I drink stuff because it tastes good, and it lends an aire of horse race to my laundry strewn morning.

Why exactly am I dressed up for the laundry? The drink is for glamor (in it's strictest sense) but the outfit is for practice. I say I like nothing better, but anyone who has known me longer than 3 years will dispute the fact. I wore my sister's torn battle dress uniforms for years in college, and heroin addict sweaters in highschool. Heels never reached over an inch, even for prom. The biggest dress purchase was a $20 polkadot affair for a political dinner which resulted in my boob popping out in front of various senators and their wives. Strapless, never again.

So, Moldova strikes again. Two years of stilettos and praise of my child-bearing hips has given me a boost of rashness in the clothes department. Also, remembering the gorgeous orange stewardess mini-dress, and how I gave it to my hippy roomate before leaving... the remembering is a tragedy. I can't believe I did not save that. I was so occupied being buddhist and killing the things I loved that I didn't realize I might want to wear that thing again. Irony? You bet.

The design of the orange mini-dress is similar to this new thing. Instead of puffed sleeves, it's halter. Instead of orange it's cream and navy. The skirt is longer, but has a slit. It has a belt. The fabric is thick and porous. It is the tightest thing I have ever worn. It makes me glad I have been working out for a month or so. If my ass looks this big when I can run for 25 minutes straight, what would have looked like in September? Seriously, it makes JLo look like Twiggy.

But that's fine. I've seen Moldovankas working with less (or more depending on how you look at it). When asked, they reply that it doesn't matter what your body looks like, because you should always dress as beautifully as possible. Damn straight. Tuesday morning, here I am.

The tight dress shines up not just the largeness of my rump, but also the lack of rhythm with which it naturally moves while the feet are sabotaged by three inch heels. Ever wonder why Jack Lemmon described Marilyn Monroe's walk as “jello on stilts”? Golly, I had never figured why sexy walk were sexy until tarted practicing walking around my house looking like Betty Draper. I'm sure I come off more like the freshman stripper, but I also couldn't play guitar two years ago.

So, that's how I dress at home. As my sister, Short-Round, discovered. She just popped in between her school and work shifts to grab a jacket, and almost didn't notice, and when she did burst out laughing. This will be another embarrassing thing to bring up at Thanksgiving dinner along with the chocolate burning, orange picking, and organic milk drinking... boy howdy.

One's personality is fully formed by 13 or 14. We aren't even aware of ourselves as existent in the world, and we are already compiled. So what is it late teenagers are so busy trying to build with all their experiementation and phasal swapping? Goth to Preppy to Skank in 10 months flat, and whole wardrobes to prove it. I've seen it happen.

This didn't happen so much in Moldova. Teens all wore basic uniforms of tight clothes with excess zippers and uncomfortable footwear not suited to their muddy treks to and from school where they inevitably preen for each other then skip the rest of the day to sit at home mulling about what shiny combination to try on tomorrow.

They aren't aware of their personality, but are trying to find it? For the first time they are aware they have one, and need to learn to express it?

It's not that Moldovan teen personalities are any less diverse than American teen personalities, but they are a good deal less adamant about differentiating their expression from each other.

What is a personality made of? Habits, predicable reactions to situations. Choice in situation. Likes and dislikes. Preferences. Doubtless there are tomes dedicated to the study and reflection upon these things. What am I worried about? The idea that my sister may not realize that some things don't fit her personality, as we her family understand it. That we may say something like “Swearing doesn't suit your personality” and she'll think that we are either damning a part of her that wants to swear, or we are damning her desire to grow as a person.

Which leads me to how much can we, do we, grow after we first become aware of ourselves? How long does it even take for us to become fully aware of things about our personalities? How long can some people hide from their personalities?

So, a person must experience many things to know how they naturally react, and how they may wish to react instead. What they actually like, and actually dislike. You may only “dislike” snails because you saw one crushed on a rainy morning sidewalk, and therefore never try them at a french restaurant. Or, you try them and discover, correctly, one way or another.

This leads into a problem: Opportunity. Opportunity is a massive limiting factor in people's personalities. No matter what you MAY like, you might not have access to find out. This starts showing up in unfortunately stunted groups of people, for all sorts of reasons. Poverty is pretty obvious. Cliques are less so. Limiting factors there are just as present, but they are not out of actual neccessity, but out of social pressures. These stuntings, do they make people feel edgy and trapped, or safe? If you dislike cages, the first, and if you have a natural disposition for indecision, then your personality need not form further. Well done, you've reached a place to stick.

Syntactic expletive, a word that performs a syntactic role but contributes nothing to meaningExpletive attributive, a word that contributes nothing to meaning but suggests the strength of feeling of the speaker Usually these come in the four letter variety, and offend little old ladies and christian hipsters. Usually, but not always. Substitutions, Battlestar Galactica's ever witty “Frack” for example. Or the clever little teens and their “frick” or “freak.” Just because these words are not “fuck” does not mean they are any less degrading to use. I went through a phase, as a teenager of course, where I wanted desperately to use the word fuck as much as possible. I wanted to insert it into every sentence until people no longer heard it. I thought it a noble cause. I thought, if I can make people not care about this word anymore, then it won't offend anyone and the world will be better. I was the picture of goody-two-shoes. Blonde, bubbly, hard working, drugless, mostly drinkless, flat shoes, virgin, listened to Gershwin and wanted to be a foreign service agent. I thought, shit, if I can swear as much as possible I will be a leading example of why swear words don't have to be so distasteful. I thought, that is, that only naughty people used naughty expletives, and therefore the expletives were naughty. I did not think they were naughty because they cluttered up language and made listening to you more difficult. I realized that when I moved to Moldova and had no idea what words like “dovedesti” meant, or many others I didn't bother memorizing because they meant nothing. They make language dirty. They make expression unclear. Expletives in English are so profuse that when you hear a person not using them, you think they are curt, or even rude. Expletives can be words like, haha, the ever-present “like,” the over used “really,” “pretty,” “totally” and a dozen other adjectives that don't need to be used. Adverbs tend not to happen as much in speech as they do in writing, but they are just as annoying. I've expanded my definition of expletive to include any word or phrase that makes my message unclear. My new goal is to eliminate them. It has taken me six years conscious effort to recognize them, but now that I do, I love Hemingway more than I thought possible. Appropriate times and places for expletives: When a simple description will simply not do. For example: “I am scalded!” just doesn't get the point across like “Buggering Christ that is hot fucking water!” or even “Fuck, fuck, shit, fuck!” In these situations, usually the cause and effect are obvious: Water + Hand = Pain. Almost anyone can gather the leap in logic there: that water must be hot and that person must now be in pain. This leap is the same that poets try to imitate in their writing to get a point across more fluently. Therefore, swearing is actually the act of living poetry. Which grown up Kiddo quite appreciates. Cutting them out reserves the impact they will have. Boy Who Cried Wolf sort of deal. If you shout “Goddammit” every time you stub your toe, no one will care when you say such things about slicing your thumb off. In order for them to have maximum effect, however, one must cut the expletives out of normal speech. When they are dropped into normal speech, then the listener will know this sentence is important to you. This expression is more important than the last, or the one following. A normal speech expletive is designed to do this. If you use one it changes the context of the expression. I just heard one of my favorite songs play in a Starbucks. There is one naughty word in it, but it is not an expletive. Here is a new train of thought. The singer uses “bullshit” to describe her art. She has a “bullshit canvas,” but because we are in a non-naughty setting it is changed to “pointless canvas.” One of these phrases conveys anger, and one apathy. Since the phrase occurs right at the apex of the song, otherwise very smooth and pretty throughout, it is a shocking little tidbit. It is effective. It shakes the listener into realizing the singer's desperation to love or be loved. If the word is changed to something innocuous, the whole song is simply pretty and smooth, and nothing is realized. The “bullshit” is key. The expression is key. If you go around trying to desensitize people as I did, you lose a major tool in your expressive arsenal. It's not that they are bad, it is that they are powerful. If you use them, use them with precision, because otherwise you sound like someone who does not understand power, and therefore are powerless. Powerless people get treated as such, and tend to have ugly trampled lives, so don't, MORAL ALERT, trample your speech into ugliness.

Studies of suicidal whoevers reveal an upped listening to depressing music with simple beats. Similar studies of successful geniuses (genii? Is this word of Latin or Greek extraction?) show Mozart and bach were piped directly though the sonogram machine. Meaning I will neither be genius nor suicidal. I listen to both. They don't even effect my mood. No, there is a new study: The Kiddo Study of Existential Music Enhancement Whereby when I am nervous I have to listen to something like Marilyn Manson to blow the nervous energy right out. When I am joyous it must be something I can sing with. When I am bored, something complex – a little fugue or bluegrass. When I am angry it could flip between various Goldfrapp albums (ie a smattering of genres to distract, expunge, and calm). When I am concentrating silence is distracting, as is music I know pretty well and enjoy a good deal. It's a tricky balance. I have to like it, but can't know it too well or or too little. Like Best of the Beach Boys. I know it so well it flows through me without distracting. Or any stoopid little indie band I haven't heard yet, I'll like it probably, but know nothing about it – it will flow through like water and leave me free to think. The best though, and the hardest to hit on the head, is the inspirational. When I

am being wholly creative the music must be as fertilizer to my little thought bubble seed. Often this results in my repeating a song.Like last week, I listened to Closer by Nine Inch Nails 10 times in a row driving from Frederick to Ellicott City and the thoughts I had were sublime. Yep. Considerations.... Choices. Informed choices for personal gain and enhancement. I recommend it.

I am confused by things deemed girl activities and boy activites. Girl hobbies and boy hobbies. Why people buy into the segregation, or why they don't. Where the divide is between sociological and genetic say on the subject. Why some people are cool with being guys with girl habits, girls with guy habits, and why some girls need to actually BE guys to continue the habit. Where and how sexual attractiveness stems from these things. Are boys or girls more creative? Are boys or girls more active? Where is the divide between mental and physical activity? At the end of the brain tangle I conclude that “Who gives a fuck?” and I carry on collaging, playing guitar, baking and reading comics. Then I see people everywhere buying into the segregation. I see it dissapate as chick soccer takes over the suburban world. I receive (not yet, but they are promised!) hand knit leg warmers from one of the cutest chicks I have the pleasure of calling friend.

Then I see another woman I adore confine herself to cupcakes and pictures of them and using the word “cute” as often as possible. I see fashion aprons springing up all over the place, and gourmet pastry shops taking over the coffee cup. And then I realize, these are not things women are doing because it is that or be beaten and shunned as unaccomplished. It is individual after individual choosing, in their spare time to create on their own steam something to give pleasure into their immediate surroundings. They are paid in approval, money and simple feudal trades (the leg warmers, for instance, I will pay for in Via coffee packs). Etsy.com is the epitome of this. It feels like the prudent side of third wave feminism, and is scary as heck to me, but it is also irresistible. Am I a product of my time, or do girls really just need tiny lacy things to make them squeal?

Moldovan winters are like those experienced by Napoleon and Hitler in their respective bids for world power. This generally means hibernation for citizens. Usually active from dawn until dusk, Moldovans laze around the house and dig preserves out of cellars right before they eat them. No muss, no fuss. It's great. Maria loves it. What this means for social time is negation. Socializing is cut to bare, bearable minimums away from televisions. A combination of high-speed internet and zero laws on downloading blends to keep savvy teens and the volunteers who love them up to date with just about any movie or TV show—if you don't mind it maybe being fuzzy or off center or in Russian.

Let it be known the following things can be in Russian and awesome and completely understandable:

Animaniacs

Ghost Rider

Leaving Las Vegas

Gone in 60 Seconds Anything starring Nicholas Cage Tomb Raider

The Terminator

Jaws

American Idol

Dancing with the Stars

So, the things I saw, may be pertinent to culture, but are no way entertaining or life-enhancing. Except The Terminator. That's always good. Point being, coming home bombarded me with all the shows that the fam had seen and I had heard of distantly: Fringe, Chuck, Sex and the City, Dollhouse, Community... At first I was unemployed, and then I got a night job. I pay rent in doing chores (as described) and have little else to do during the day. Picking up the gym habit takes an hour and a half (with washing included) and segues perfectly into laundry. Laundry and ironing take about an hour and a half. These things are static. So is the photo organizing project I picked up. All my little hobbies and chores become centralized in front of the netflix hook-up flat screen, and whammo: TV Time Commence. I can't get enough of Fringe. I can't get enough of Dollhouse. Sex and the City becomes stringent after 4 episodes, but I have never learned so much about women's problems. There are more documentaries than I ever thought possible for free, the academy has voted on some truly splendid movies, Sean Connery and Michael Crichton have made some truly boring movies (Great Train Robbery), and it turns out the Charlotte Gainsbourg version of Jane Eyre is better than the Mia Wachkowski. It's kind of annoying that my family makes as much dirty clothes as they do, but it has afforded me a slice of enforced TV Time, without the misery of cold or the dicey implications of downloading. Now, if only there were an activity I could do while reading, I'd finish Atlas Freaking Shrugged in a hot second!

Why we watch and read Jane Austen things – comfort? Is the romance like a placebo for post-orgasm chemicals or milk chocolate? The promise of worlds where even the bitchiest people are civil, and all people have purpose. It is not simply that Romance wins in the end, but also that all the characters know where they are in the world, and how to achieve their goals.

True, marriage is often the key to everyone's purpose. In deed, it seems the only purpose anyone ever has, unless it's to spite some one. But those are normally gentle spoofs on the culture. And, the new adaptation Lost in Austen explains it best as a desire for not the marriages, but the style of polite, vibrant life.

Point is, they lose their purpose every once in awhile, regardless of whether it's marriage or not. They turn down marriage proposals, they lose estates to prettier prospects. If Carrie Bradshaw loses a marriage, she drinks a bunch, hangs out in Cancun, and hires an assistant. If Elizabeth Bennett loses a marriage she sits and listens to her screaming relatives for months and months. She loses hope. Her purpose is taken, and it, unfortunately, is not one that can be existentially rectified.

It is not the situations, necessarily, but the emotion characters go through. When Carrie has to pull herself up and go DO something in her darkest hour, Elizabeth honestly cannot. The comfort of powerlessness, of being a victim, is the comfort of fatalism. If that emotional stage is not on the recovery checklist, it should be.

Which is to say, read Pride and Prejudice the fairy tale, then watch Sex and the City. If you're anything like me, your summer will look suddenly much brighter, and that move back to America, joblessness, friendlessness, zero health care, driving, lack of recognition/prestige, family, and the inability to tune one's guitar properly due to pressure changes.

Don't worry, though. My sister says pianos take a year or more to adjust to climate change and hold their tune—guitars surely will after six months.

Buck's gas passing notwithstanding.

Moldova tended to kick their dogs a lot, and frequently let them die out of neglect, but they were always a necessary player in the home farm balance. Even Renata, who really didn't want a dog, was obligated to keep one alive in her yard.

Americans, we all know, are quite different. Not only do dogs make up a natural part of suburban life, but parts of those lives start revolving around The Dog.

Walks, food, vet visits, family vacations, babysitters, chasing when they run away, worrying they've been in a car accident – dogs quickly turn into an adolescent child. At least they don't have the opposable thumbs to open our liquor cabinets.

Which is not to assume our dogs in suburbia are dumb. Even if we haven't seen Lassie, we know our dogs should save us from falling into wells. We buy / rescue the best of the best of the best, because who wants less than that if they can help it?

Buck, my family Jack Russel Terrier, is one such example. Crazy smart, highly alert to danger. Eager to please at all moments. Would raid the doggy liquor cabinet of Pupperoni if only he could manipulate the handle on the door.

He's not trained for life saving, or cadaver sniffing, or even for pulling rabbits and foxes out of holes, but for cuddling and tearing apart stuffed animals.

Buck is so smart in fact that he has a vocabulary in English:

Bone Ball Rope Squirrel Rabbit Alien

These are the things that we throw for him and he enacts kills for us.

He also know domestic chore words:

Kennel Up Down Upstairs Downstairs In Out Stay

And practical things:

Sit Leash

But, really, what is at all cool about Buck is that he speaks in full sentences. We don't just bark these words at him. That would be normal human-dog interaction: dictated by our wants and his vocabulary. No, Buck is the ultimate suburban house pet.

Where is your bone? This food is not for you. Drop that dead alien. Buck, you stay here.

It's pretty superior. I'm pretty sure my dad, trainer and alpha male, treats Buck like he did my sister and I when we were 4. Although, he just took pictures of us, while he made Buck a facebook page and updates it for him.

Where does suburbia go from there?

Medical terms like “OCD,” “ADD,” and “manic-depressive,” may be overused, I certainly overuse them.

I like things organized. I like neat and aesthetically pleasing environments in which I put minimal effort existing. Like coffee cupboards. Who the hell would keep coffee cups, coffee beans, and coffee accoutrement (filters, french press, grinder) in different cupboards? No one who likes to drink coffee in the morning, that's for sure.

To optimize the grouping, employ easy grabability! Don't all the cups in front of the big can of coffee! That's not easy!

Put fancy little cups on the next shelf up – you don't use em!

Ok, most people don't think this hard about this, because it's simple and straightforward, right? Yea. Either that or they are lazy. This is a shameful form of Laze. I love being lazy. If you let me, I'd sit and drink tea / coffee all day and read books, maybe watch a movie for change of pace. If you wish to be truly lazy, a little forward thinking goes a long way. Like, keeping the things you use all the time in reach, and the tiny little VanGogh design demi tasses on the higher shelf, but not as high as the beer steins—we're a wine drinking family and all the wine glasses are right next to the wine rack. Duh.

So – I think about these things. All the time. All the time I am surrounded by things that could lead me to be optimally lazy. When I have a spare half hour (working nights, I have many during the day) I wring out the trash (what are these dusty toothpicks doing?) and separate the least used things (fine jade china tea cup with matching china strainer and lid) from the most used things (big chipped mug from New Orleans).

Pretty normal.

It's when I get too into that I start throwing around medical terms.

I found those toothpicks and needed to know from whence they came.

The party cupboard.

Full of shot glasses, boston shakers, napkins of all sorts of design, swizel sticks, more shot glasses, and a menagerie of beer cozies, to-go coffee mugs, christmas things, those copper circle you put on wine glasses to mark them as YOURS, little plastic animals, and glow-in-the-dark ice cubes... Oh god. It was a mess, like the last party's aftermath was shoved in there in the same array someone's mind was in. I hope Whoever got some green tea and Back to the Future.

Now... Well, it would take 1500 words to describe the fun time I had sluicing through all that and more, and the ripple effects finding 10 to-go lids had on the coffee cupboard, and the odd martini glass in plastic had on the wine glass collection, and the hour it took to wipe everything down, and how I really could not finish until all three places were clear of debris and pretty.

OCD?

What does that mean, anyway?

ahem.

There is a problem with society.

There are few jobs.

What should we do?

Distinguish ourselves, and take no prisoners?

Ok. How?

I think it is interesting that protests are cropping up against the private sector, and not the government. It's a new twist. What I'm unsure of, however, is what people want to gain from their protests. They see a problem, and instead of making a solution, they gum up the streets with awareness of problems.

If there is one thing that killed my optimism in Moldova, it is the constant attrition of solution based thinking. Pointing out solutions, having them knocked down; leading people through questioning to their own solutions, then having them not picked up bangs ding after ding into my American steel deflector shield of progress.

Coming home and hearing people my own age (none of my friends thank Thor—they keep calm and carry on. I applaud my people-judgement skills) whine, actually whine, about all the woes beset them – it drives me a bit distracted. They even whine on national television.

If the effort put into making oneself an “individual” were put into making oneself employed, new solutions might be found.

Just saying. I didn't want to go back into the service industry, but it keeps my learning curve up, and keeps some cash in my pocket. How much do bongos go for these days? Kids on Wallstreet know.

Other than immersion in up-to-date media (which wasn't even that lacking in high-speed Moldova) I have proven myself to be a highly qualified personal assistant to my family.

I wake up with the twins, help make lunches and give fashion advice, condemn mini skirts and spagetti straps. They leave and I make a bunch of coffee, watch Joe and Mika interrupt each other, wait for dad to wake up. We chat, he leaves. I gather the laundry and start it. Make everyone's beds. Pick up shoes and straighten photo frames. I make some food and think – wouldn't it be nice to have a spot of pink wine?

Then I slap my own face for realizing I am a spinster AND a housewife at the same time.

I read Atlas Shrugged, newspaper and apply to jobs. I set up dates for myself to ambush the offices I just applied to. I pick out clothes that make me look sharper than I am (always Greta and Elise's clothes in some combination).

Before coming back to the house to feed and walk the dog, I stop for an espresso and read some poetry – this stems the tide of brainlessness and I imagine I am in London or on a balcony in Florence. I channel Elizabeth Barrett Browning who was fortunate enough to be rich, happily married and full of TB, thus proscribed a life of leisure in, yes, Florence.

Victorians had all the luck.

When I get home I literally put on a striped apron with salmon halterneck and waist line, and make dinner. The family usually gets home in stages and dinner is rarely hot for all four of them. Twins dissappear to find grants and scholarships to extremely good universities, and my parents and I watch rigorous amounts of sci-fi and drink the hoped for wine. Dad and I talk some more and we all go to sleep around midnight.

As cycles go, it's not bad. I'd make a first rate gospodina.

No further thoughts...

Being out of Fringe, the Xfiles substitute that stimulates your brain just enough to catch out the scientific fallacies, I have reverted in time and brilliance to Sex and the City. This new show makes me want to smoke cigarettes, wear weird clothes, and hurt people.

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged. Dad bought a copy for every family member. It's a weird combination of showing what Ayn Rand preaches and what she preaches against. It makes me want to build railroads, own fancy clothes, and hurt people.

Thankfully, my old cd collection did not get lost or destroyed while I was in Europe so I don't have to listen to contemporary pop and the djs who choose it's order. If I did, I have learned it makes me want to dance in smoky bars with strangers, wear boots, and hurt people.

The news channels bark at me, except the hateful, yet calm people of Morning Joe on MSNBC. The serenely and with great deliberation promote Starbucks coffee and bash every politician and politico under the sun. They even make fun of phony feminists who whine. The show endorses my addiction to coffee, makes me want to wear my one Jackie O dress, and hurt people.

You may see a pattern forming.

Thus far media in America has not been kind to my psyche.

I will get right on writing up the last two months spit spot in order to force something in the world media-related makes misanthropically happy and informative sense out of all the crap.

The last week has seen our flock of ducks migrate from their customary sleeping place. Usually they sleep in a white huddle out in the open yard. The open part is the basin of the yard, where the water collects—ducks being water creatures seem the natural rulers of this muddy oasis. Their flock is small, especially in comparison to the mammoth 70 strong cacophony of geese, but they hold what seems to be the genuine inheritance of the ultimate waterfowl. Even in this cushy seat of supremacy, ducks are skittish things. Billy, when he was here, found they are terrified of light at night. You shine a flash light, or strong mobile phone’s ray out in their midst and they spring as one to half wing and flee. Thus it is easier to herd ducks at night than in day, when they show something near independent thought and cause the flock to zig zag all over the time-wasting place. They are not overly defensive though, as those honking horrors. Ducks know when they’re bested and waddle off. They make a few indignant cries, but all in all are humble creatures I’m sure Christians would be proud of if the time were taken to compare them to tastier yard birds—like the ever popular chicken. Proud f***ers, those chickens; they probably fill the fields of hell with their strutting ways. So some real power shifts must have happened recently in the back yard. Imagine my surprise when I open the door after dinner to make my night run to the loo and nearly squish half a dozen plump little guys. With a shooing method learned from Bunica, they scatter in all directions—some even as far as their prior home 20 metres away. It is a seriously bad place for a flock to sleep—in the lane between house and outhouse. Especially in watermelon season when everyone eats about a quarter a melon a piece for desert—those things are mostly water, hence the name. The best way, if I may be allowed to digress, to win a watermelon eating contest is to take giant bites and squish the meat right up to the back of your teeth, lips apart to let all that pink juice out. The juice will fill your belly with sugary goodness in half the time a bowl of rice will. Messy, but effective. The opposite of sleeping in the middle of traffic. The ducks flee quacking, wake the geese who crank up their UFO descending sound, and then the cock gets at it—he, it seems, has not been displaced. He sits on his same door-side perch as ever. If it’s particularly bad, the dog will join in, and the 6 inch Alpha next door will respond and suddenly my nightly trip to relieve myself results in a minor panic and the seeds of hatred for lowly things stirs. Most sad of this is the normally guiltless ducks—I cannot hate them, they are pitiful at worst and barely ever troublesome. Who has kicked them out? The turkeys are roosting up with the chickens, as usual, the geese over behind the cows. There are more of everyone than there was last year (except pigs, they were a serious economic bust) but no one is in the old Duck Place. I can only conclude one of these robust young things, 5 months old and bursting with puberty has seized the ducky reigns. Is it really a conscious decision on his part to move the sleeping place? Did the popularity of the old wood pile (Chicken Cock King and the trendy brace of lounging turkey teens) lure them across the border land of septic tank? I tick off the leaders I’ve encountered hereabouts and conclude that despite ducks being commonly thought non-sentient, they may have a tendency seeping up through the rich black soil to make seriously irresponsible decisions.

When I first start writing my grant I did not take many things into account.

Number 1: as railed against frequently, Claudia's personal sheistiness. Number 2: my partners may not have gotten exact prices on the things they were in charge of pricing. Number 3: that prices fluctuate THAT MUCH Number 4: the furniture literally had to be built, it did not come in Ikea-like packets as advertised. Number 5: not pre talking to the cabinet maker at length about the project and who his REAL liasons were (ie. Don't listen to Claudia) Number 6: that assembly on site was not included in the bargained price Number 7: that constructors would not tell me about vacations to Ukraine Number 8: that so much paperwork went into writing a receipt Number 9: that no amount of fact checking and repeating of one's self would make no difference Number 10: It takes 2 months to write a receipt.

Seriously, half of these things are extremely time heavy, and time is one of several things I am dangerously short of in the first week of August.

I took the latest possible (official) COS date for various reasons, but the most ready and quantifiable one was this freaking grant. I thought, surely, we would get it all done in June, and then all of July we'd settle into the new room, and in August I'd just pack my shit and leave.

No such logical luck at all. Despite running over it and handing out schedules.

Sympathy from other volunteers consists of “that's why I didn't do a grant,” and “wow, I'm glad I didn't do a grant,” and “yea, my grant was rough too.”

Sympathy from Carolina, my grant manager at PC says “give them pressure.”

It's hard to give the #1 receipt writer pressure when he has adieosed to Kiev. He said he'd be back tonight though... Pressure tomorrow? Well, let's just hope he comes home.

The dictionaries were so nice and done in less than 20 minutes. According to my religious prophet, Yoda, size matters not, thus it should be just as easy to write a receipt for a classroom full of furniture as it is for a stack of dictionaries.

While I talk a big talk about relevant and applicable things (politics, economics, non-art related master degrees) we all know at my heart I am dotty for movies, and things I try to do that don't include them will run at 50% effort.

And now I'll be stateside for the Oscar rush of goodness. At $9 a movie, I anticipate to spend a maximum of $117 between Sept 1 and Jan 1 on movies.

In release date order:

The WhistleblowerDream HouseThe Skin I Live InAnonymousIn TimeSleeping BeautyMy Week with MarilynCarnageThe ArtistCoriolanusSherlock HolmesThe Girl with the Dragon TattooIn the Land of Blood and Honey

Ok. I can cut that in half. Must Sees are Whistleblower, Carnage, Sherlock Holmes and Girl.

The last movie I saw in America was Star Trek.The only one I've seen in a theatre since is, remarkably fucking lucky, Inception. I just happened to have stitches in my back and there was a free showing of an English language movie in Chisinau, and that movie just happened, 8 months after it's release, to be the only one I'd regret not having seen on a screen big as the visual package offered.

phew

General remarks:

3 of the list are directed by women (the last being Miss Jolie's debut direction) which is a surprisingly large number.

The bookends are both set in Bosnia, and Coriolanus was filmed there. I'm glad I'm getting all my visiting in before it explodes in popularity.

Because of ticket price, I will not buying twizzlers or coke.

Moldovan concession stands sell beer for movies. I drank a tasty Baltika 6 while watching Inception. I also paid $20 for a two litre tub of caramel corn. I refuse to pay for these things in America.

I know I am COSing in two weeks, and that a third of the PCVs are also leaving in a month and a half this summer, and that this happens every summer, and that throughout the year half a dozen people will drop out for reasons of their own, but to lose Lindsay Toler is not just a shock, but also a damn shame and possibly the death sentence for Hai Davai.

From the last:

Hai Davai is the effort we make in PC Moldova to sate creative urges and voice things we all have interest in. That is: Responsible reporting off set by Onion-esque humor and augmented by sex/gossip columns and plenty of Moldovan photography. For the last year, Toler has been the managing editor since she is one of the two pro journalists. The other pro was the founding and head editor. With Josh the founder COSing this summer, Toler was set to take over... Now who will run the boat away from the shoals of mediocrity and ice bergs of death?

Toler is, as can be surmised by this appointment, is a highly motivated individual who truly has her shit together. Also, she is blonde and has a great sense of humor—seeing like in like I think it's safe to say we were destined to be pals.

She was also destined to grit out the two years—so much so that she was one of the other people with me selected to give the Mental Health session to the trainees: ie. Had the mental and emotional capacity to withstand the pressures of PCV life—on a quantifiable and professionally judged level. It is unprecedented that she should someone to fold and leave the commitment early.

We thought the same about Bethany, and later, Casey. Bethany, to date, has not given sufficient reason for ETing that I know of. Casey coined the term “Pulling a Bethany” and only told 4 of us he was leaving. This was a little more than Bethany did (telling no one but staff--we found out she and her husband jetted in a email newsletter sent out by our Country Director Jeffery. So, we have to assume she didn't want us to know she was going, was a bit ashamed, or didn't like us... or something). Casey's reasons have panned out for the best. He got a responsible, high paying job with a contracting company competing for grants from USAID. This job even brought him out to Chisinau prospecting for two weeks. His objective to help recently family achieved.

Toler did not pull a Bethany even that much. She left the decision secret until 4 days prior then told everyone. Many tasty dates were arranged. She gave good reasoning: pancreas failure. A need to change sites half way through service because of new dietary needs; even with more well stocked village shops, she has to eat on a strict schedule with stricter needs than Kelsie's...it's a bit ludicrous.

Those tasty dates were, thus, encumbered.... no dairy etc. Pills were taken, pain was suffered, and Toler made it rain in the form of Nacho/Salsa manna from heaven.

Those were the nights. Days were spent unencumbering two year's worth of clothes, shoes, food, packing materials and accessories into the communal PCV pool of discarded goods. With the exception of a “cumpunga” incident of alien forces snatching Toler's goods without right, this was a joyfully rabid binge of third world fashion shows. Cowboy boots, Roma boots, elf boots, gold Toms, ballet slippers... the shoes were almost nothing compared to the glory of sun dresses, scarves, long underwear and snarky t-shirts. Rumor that Toler (delightful fashionista of the most surprising sort) had off-loaded her wardrobe spread like Ebola and enmaddened the minds of girls throughout Chisinau just as disastrously.

Little remained of Toler after that. A few choruses of “Landslide,” a few critiques of documentaries, three Beyonce video dance-alongs, and she was off on a plane back to the mystical land of socialite Dallas, Texas.

I woke up the next morning with nothing to do but hitch hike to Telenesti to play Dungeons and Dragons. I walked around the office listless. I updated some dragon stuff on Facebook, played with the air conditioner, gave a pee sample to medical—had a disturbing number of white blood cells, was proscribed Ciprol, stuck my head in rooms and, of course, checked the Loot Me pile of PCV discards. There, on a little shelf, still half full of water, was Toler's purple Nalgene. The bottle went with her everywhere, helping solidify the stereotype of Americans never leaving without water. It has a cute yellow owl sticker over the Nalgene logo.

I did not cry, though that would have been the moment for it. Instead I took the bottle. At the DnD rally I showed it. Lindsay Wing's response: “It seems to be my life goal to become Lindsay Toler, so you should leave that with me when you go.” I went to pour the water out and refresh the contents. Andy's response: “Nooooo! That is the last we HAVE of her!”

It's a 32 ounce bottle, and matches my Gir lanyard. I don't want to let it go.

The kitten, who has been sleeping with me every night I am home, curled up on my left hand last night. I sleep in the recovery position, so this meant kitten slept directly in front of my face last night. I woke up, and she was still exactly there. I have to look this up, but I think kitten fur is less allergenic than cat fur. It’s finer and softer. Then, when puberty hits, they get the thick dander mess that will shed and grow in its annual stages. When Kitten sleeps with me, I wake up with no more or less congestion in my facial orifices than usual. When Tweak sleeps with me, it’s a different story. The first thing I do is swallow Claritin with some leftover coffee or tea. This stash of Claritin was given me by Iuliana, the PC doctor, last time I went to her. I’d started running (if you’ve been following) and promptly started having major breathing issues. I ran in the mornings, when it was still cool and there were no babas and children out to stop my stride. It was April, and May and the flowers were gorgeous and the pollen count was so high (had there been anyone to count it) you could see it floating through the air. The only thing I am allergic to is an obscure medication I took for pneumonia when I was 12. Never noticeably to grass, or flowers, or trees, or fruits, or nuts, or milk. Dust maybe, sneezes follow. Boyfriends have often been allergic to things. Animals, all my boyfriends… in fact… huh. They were all American, and Americans, I recently heard, have more allergies than any other country. Is this for real reasons? Or are American mothers getting paranoid for personal problem reasons? America has a ton more doctors per kid than most of the world, so instance of finding allergen is higher. Americans eat a wider variety of foods than most of the world, so instance of encountering allergens is higher. Awareness is up, their being detrimental is down. They are easy to treat and work great as a thing to complain about at backyard whatever gatherings. Cleaniness is up, and kids rolling in mud is down. . . hm, connection? Despite my rolling in mud as a kid though, I’m allergic to things in Moldova that I would never be allergic to in America. Cats, pollen, people. Here opens the wives tales about eating bee pollen to acclimate yourself to your new surroundings. It’s intuitive and makes sense like using plaque to clean your cuts does not, which is particularly awesome because the first I only ever heard from hippies in the states, and the second from all women in my village here. Neither has scientific weight, but both make excellent conversation nuggets at backyard whatevers. And that’s what really matters, isn’t it? Good thing my kitten is interesting.

As a professional teacher, and a prospective student (and I promise this will be the last speculative entry for a week or two) I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about the function, benefit, and execution of education.

"What is the benefit for everyone?" For instance, is a rough question when in front of 30 children, half of whom would rather (and whose families would rather) be at home feeding something, weeding something, harvesting something, driving something. These students will most likely only come to 50% of classes anyway, and society dictates sympathy for them by giving them passing grades in everything regardless of attendance, work completed and behavior. I understand that there are similar, if not so blatant, concessions made in American schools. Idea being: Just get them out.

These are the kids I tend to spend my spare time on. Yes, the aces are joys to teach. Yes, it's amazing how that girl can memorize 40 lines of poetry. Yes, their behavior makes my life easier. (Though not, really, thanks to Moldovan Tattle Tale Traditions. The good kids turn into at least as big of noise makers as the bad kids thanks to the Stalin-esque finger pointing that happens every five minutes)

The kids that set off your Do Good senses and make you warm and gooey like granmama's cookies though, are the ones who cannot even read in their own language let alone the third foreign one you're teaching them. So, while my partner drills some new grammar or vocab I sit in the backs and sides of classes and teach basic reading skills. I often feel so good about doing so that the 20 minutes I spend haranguing the trouble maker a**holes seem almost worth it.

The added benefit of this, as exhibited by two or three boys in every class I teach, is that they are quieter thereafter. Not just while giving the one-on-one time, but for all the classes after. Especially when they eventually come to my after school art specials, and they learn how to sit still long enough to fold, yes, fold ON THEIR OWN a Japanese paper crane. To many, the anal retentive practice of origami is a distractive 30 seconds of bliss in a cubicled world. For people who have never heard "fine motor skills" let alone possess them... That's pretty spectacular.

You get the idea.

They behave better after giving them a little attention. Who knew. Unfortunately, this only works on kids in the 6th grade and lower. 6th grade and up... No amount of lovin is going to help.

There are also exceptions. The kids who are hard at heart naturally, and not just from their environment. These kids will not only not respond to love and caring, but will actually punish you for it, by becoming mocking of your education efforts and devotion to other students, or to them even, or they'll just point out you haven't plucked your eyebrows in awhile.

So, these are the kids where you have to wonder--is education beneficial? If you can force it down them like a chalice of molten gold, sure. Behavior goes up. In the long term, the education, the grammar and phonetics won't ever come in handy, but they will (in this the most perfect of all possible worlds) retain the semblance of respect and self control instilled in their agrarian little hearts.

Those kids who actually learn and apply the knowledge found in school will benefit in other ways, obviously. Better jobs etc.

But looking with a wider scope, why does education need to persist for even agrarian societies?

I have never heard it better voiced, and put into action than with one organization. At the risk of sounding like an advertisement, please check out One Laptop per Child:

http://one.laptop.org

because they are doing what organizations like the IMF and USAID and the World Bank are often unable to do: reach the people they want to foist money on.

Like PC, who I am sworn to advertise, they work at a base level of societies who WANT help. They don't work from high above societies who may not only NOT want help, but also not NEED the help.

Their other focus, again like PC, is not to give the kids stuff and let the kids turn them into sand shovels or something, but educate the children, the children's teachers and the children's families on what is going on. Then, the product given (in this case it's easy to guess: laptops) actually creates its own sustainability. The laptop educates the user on a range of topics. It give the child a chance to understand where he or she lives and his or her relation to the world. In a globalized world children will not survive without this kind of education.

Education is not just necessary for it's own sake--however much it will improve your enjoyment of the world. It is not just necessary for improved behavior. It not even just necessary to improve your chances at getting a job. It is necessary to be educated just to have an awareness of the world today.

Seven thousand years ago, you needed the education of an awareness of where tigers were. Two thousand years ago, you needed the education of an awareness where the Romans were. One thousand years ago, the Spanish Inquisition. One hundred, just where not to grow potatoes. Today you need an education and awareness of not only where terrorists and major governments and major corporations are moving and spending their money, but simply where and how you may be eaten by these things.

A couple hours a day, I look at what I can do in the future: Where, How, How much money.

Even though my writing has the potential to land an agent, and jet me to a brownstone in Brooklyn, it is unlikely. Yes, yes, less likely the more effort I put into things like Masters Degrees and graduate certificates and other jobs, of course, but I have read the writing of people who make it, and I am not that good.

So!

I mentioned a while ago about my Masters Degree aspirations. Since then I have started research on the things. Uni/MD, George Mason, VCU, Uni/VA... Bigger schools and better schools than Shepherd. Much as I loved living the communal life of hippy West Virginia, the idea of a respectably yuppie job is laughable from a University completed funded by the late Senator Byrd's pork.

What I noticed first was the great range of things I'm interested in. This is not new. Then I noticed there are things called "graduate certificates." I think a collection of those would be quite nice!

So! Sell out to the business and admin world for two years, pay that off, and then gradually accrue excellence!

Best options to date: Double MBA/MPP from UM with a PC scholarship. MPP from GMU with mandatory over seas internships.

Poetry will suffer. It is possible, however, that the lackluster poetry that gluts all the magazines that make money is so drab and stilted because all the people who get into things like the New Yorker and Harpers sold out already.

So! There's that goal coming closer too!

That mayoral race? I listened, with my cabbie this morning, to the news as we drove from Glodeni at 9 am (It took 40 mins to get there, 10 to do my work, 10 to find an expensive ride home, and 20 to get home. My village just doesn’t have a bank or book store.). Chisinau did not, after all, go communist. Neither did Balatina.

Balatina chose the guy who put limestone gravel in our pot holes. A 20 something who is high up at the lime stone quarry just outside of town. He is married to a girl who looks almost exactly like Natalie Portman, if Natalie Portman had grown up here, poor, and not in Israel and America, rich. Their first daughter was a hard birth at 2 months over due, but is healthy and lovely now, born last September. He is Renata’s neighbor.

Maria’s comment: “He is young, but he is not communist.”

Laurentiu’s comment: *shrug*

Renata’s comment: “He said he will help with projects at the school, so I don’t have to work with Claudia anymore.”

Claudia continues making our life and project hell. Latest Development (after I spoke strongly against corruption etc.) “I don’t want Erika to have a bad impression of me. I will not do more with this project, but I did already buy all the furniture.” She said this as way of placation or apology or something to Renata on the phone and has refused to talk to me since the confrontation. She instead is throwing all her effort into gaining Natalia’s trust and sway her to Claudia’s side. To do this she renovated Natalia’s classroom’s furniture and called Renata to pass on the message that Natalia now has to go buy a new lock for her door…

Does this seem convoluted to anyone else?

But our mayor now is not only not a communist, but has live most of his life in Moldova, not the Soviet Union, not Romania, and has lived half his life with the prospect of the EU hanging in his cultural cloud.

What will happen?

We have two refrigerators. The first is in the kitchen, brought in with the other wedding presents (cupboards, gas stove, sink). It’s an inch shorter than me , two thirds of it fridge the bottom being apull out freezer full of various bird parts. Maria has no labeling system, but I trust her general knowledge of what good frozen meat looks like and what bad frozen meat looks like. The only time we had even possibly bad meat it was goose boiled in borsh. Laurentiu claimed it was too pink. Goose being naturally pretty dark, it usually does have a dark magenta hue to it. This color just meant it was not boiled to mushy strings of less-than-meat. It was tastier than any other goose meat I’ve ever had. I told L that it was pink because it had good blood, and it would be good for his blood too. He laughed and ate it. Though this freezer clearly works well enough to preserve all our meat, its upper normal area is damaged every time you put something warm in it. Theory: Warmth takes longer to cool. More effort by the fridge. Fridge dies a little every time you do this. So don’t. After twenty odd years of putting warm things in a fridge, it runs out of its Freon. Like any normal person, you must fix the problem. The problem however must be fixed by taking the whole fridge to a town forty minutes away. No worries, someone will have a car or truck or van, somewhere in the town, right? “No,” says Maria, “our neighbors have one, but they cannot use it.” The neighbors in question are the sort of red necks who have hobbled together their own chop shop and do nothing with their time but tinker with their two cars, one motorbike, and van. That is, when they are not openly doinging chin ups on the apparatus they welded one day last year and have sitting outside their property fence next to the baba bench. So, we used the porch all winter for a fridge. It’s large enough for everything, and it sure was colder than the fringe, and often the freezer. Cool. In Anticipation of Easter, and my family coming, not to mention the warming of the outside pantry, however, a new fridge appeared in the porch pantry. How? Where from? Laurentiu and Laurentiu Mic of course, from the attic over the bread oven in the bird yard. NB. They also have various little EZ Bake type ovens, an industrial strength hand wash board that’s too hard core for inside house use, the year’s supply of corn meal, various roosting birds, tables, chairs, ladders… Stuff. It’s little and has enough Freon for the next six to ten years. Only problem is the insulating rubber strip normally used to seal the door to body. All the warm air infiltrates etc. and we have to defrost it once a week. I keep my new ice cube trays in the freezer and they grow their own cube offspring every day. Maria makes sure I don’t drink those ones though. Wise lady. She tried one of my ice cubes last week when I wasn’t around. She just popped one in her mouth. She said it made all her teeth hurt and she couldn’t figure out why I liked them so much. “They aren’t candy Maria! You put them in drinks!” “Like whiskey?” “Sure, but there is no good whiskey here. Vodka is better. The best American vodka is only like cheap bad vodka here.” “Oh. And you like it with juice.” “Yes.” Our conversations really are pretty stilted sometimes. “I like, best though, a little vodka with sparkling water and a piece of lemon.” “Like a cocktail” “Yea! Like a cocktail. I’ll make us cocktails one day when it is very hot. The taste is mild, you will like it.” “hahahahaha” Maria hates alcohol. Less than half a shot of moonshine makes her head hurt. It usually takes four shots of moonshine to make my head hurt. No amount of explaning that’s why we cut it with lots of sparkling water, and then flavor with a lemon, would convince her though. Oh well. I have ice cubes. The best part about the fridges, after ice cubes, is that only one of them is cat proof. Thanks to the shrinking door insulation, there is not enough suction to keep Mama the devious old cat at bay. So we only keep capped up dairy products in there and stock a stool in front of the door.

After the organized luge of Monica’s project, coming home and hitting the futile wall of lethargy that characterizes the staff of my school is a slap in the face of progress. It has been suggested I just take control completely and hire everyone and do everything myself. Appealing as that is, I can’t. It just is not conscionable. The only wall, really, is Claudia herself. Remember when I said autocracy was like a perfect mathematical solution? It does, as all history books like to say, become double edged very quickly. When Claudia wants her things her way, it happens in less than a blink. When you are doing something slightly not to her liking, she will ignore you and not come in to meet you on the agreed day and you will wait from 9 am to 3pm for her with your budget on your lap with little Romanian notes to help explain why we can’t just disregard these things we agreed on in November. Which is to say, I may indeed just end up doing it on my own. Not completely alone, admittedly. Renata is the contact wizard. It’s her friends who are cutting us deals on furniture, windows and dictionaries. And Matt, maybe Mackenzie, and definitely Adriana will come to help move our existant furniture and books to the new room. Hopefully, Adriana will help me refinish the furniture again, and paint some picture frames. It’ll be good. So that’s the rest of the week. Not much. Looking for a person to commission for a quilt. I’ve never made one, but our little couch could do with some life…

The foray into the Dirty South was for more than simple conjecture confirmation. I was invited by another volunteer. In my more egotistical moments (which were greatly padded and stoked in the past week) I like to say I was commissioned. Monika sent an email to Jon (alt voluntar) and I saying we were the only artistic people she knew. She just won a grant for a radio station—Radio Giurgiu, find it on facebook. Her school had given her an double room suite to set this up. She was then training her elite students in journalism and internet radio set up. The rooms, however, were old toilets (yes, under Soviet rule, schools had indoor plumbing and toilets… now, not so much) and were unfinished and just plain ugly. Pipes everywhere. Gross green tile covering the half of wall that wasn’t scabbed and brown. Would we please design a mural after the theme “Media in our Lives.” We did, we met, we conferred, we compromised, we developed. All this back in March. We had to wait for school to finish so we’d all have enough time to spend on the project. Time predicted: 1 solid week. She needed to fill a wrap-around border and one and a half walls full of image. The border evolved from music notes to music notes and sound waves, then I wanted to draw a gramophone somewhere. Stick some radios from the ages in there maybe. Combine these to make a wholly visual timeline of broadcasting! I started with a bird on one end and progressed to an iPod. Obviously the big section had to be full of human joy and activity. This activity had better do with reporting and broadcasting. I thought first of a diligent line of reporters in fedoras with pads and Leicas raising hands and typing on typewriters. A whirring press, the sort you see in Citizen Kane or Bringing up Baby when news hits the street, going by In the background of a newsboy shouting “Extra!” in Romanian (the less catchy “suplimentar!”). On the second wall would be a girl with headphones talking into a big mic with appropriately pre-WW2 kitsch sound waves bubbling off her. No sooner had this unfolded in my mind’s eye than I realized that was America’s perception of The Golden Age of Radio. Why not stick Zorro galloping towards the viewer and FDR in front of a fireplace? Besides, it was just too busy. And all my future apprentices would be apprenticed to . . . me. And, in a small pool, yes, I’m pretty damned good at drawing and painting, but my pinups will never get sold to magazines, my cartoons will never show up in the funnies, my comics will have to have a very good inker to make them palatable. Actually, I’m just good enough to be the inker. In fact, that would be an ideal profession of passion for me. Not to mention that my biggest past paintings were 4 feet square and took 3 weeks solid glazing and painting out and re-establishing . What do Moldovans like? Bright solid colors. Shapely women. Proverbs. Frumosity. Brightly clothed young men and women. Generally, they are preferred to be standing or sitting with good posture and a touch more serious Mona Lisa smiles, probably with food or drink in one hand. . . for supernerd teens though. . . I settled on three figures in various states of flight/jump. I sketched them and got familiar with the contours. I played with their arrangement. They would all be connected by mic and headphone wires to smiling globes. Monika added that the central feature must incorporate their logo. Big map of Moldova with one of those Golden Age radio tower symbols over her town. Thus, out with the globes and all wires come out of Giurgiulesti itself. Yea. Cool. When I got there, Mon had a projector all ready to go! Easy Peesy! Set up. Trace. Paint. The kids called me Artist Master, and took us on long walks with picnics and free ice cream. Monika and Matt (who had successfully invited himself along) called me Master Artist. The kids themselves were great. A smear of ages from 6th to 11th grades, all girls of course. Two spoke substantially better English than any of my students and were some years younger. These girls, Valeria and Lidia, spoke about everything in very firm opinions at a million miles an hour. Truly delightful conversation, even if tiring on a 3 day intensive exposure. The girls even proved to be diligent, punctual and accurate. Lidia excelled at fine penning, Valeria cheered everything up and brought tempers down, Viorica was a photography gem (many an abstract photo I would not have chosen turned out surprisingly revealing. See the one of Valeria’s flower bedecked nails painting a boy’s pantleg on Facebook), and Violeta had a great grasp of color blending and matching different tones together for a ballerina who reads and writes as she leaps. They ran back and forth to magazines for soda and meat and bread and cucumbers. They chose music and sang softly and out of tune to all Katy Perry and Lady Gaga I had on my iPod, but balked at The Black Keys – too simple and hard. They refreshed our brush cleaning water, and kept trash accumulation to nil. It’s good I planned on bright colors because those were the only shades Monika had. Her mom sent huge bottles of acrylic from the states, and vacuum wrapped them. The wrapping was handy as one of the black bottles exploded. Jon came for the second day—happened to be his 25th birthday—bringing a Fulbright scholar, Becca, with him. Much dancing and more crazed singing accompanied. He added flourish and psychedelic joy to the border. The soundwave/bubbles I had leading from a sports commentator mic to a 1999 Mac desktop now shine in the best sort of rainbow I’d never have managed. Overall, it took only 3 days. Two and a half, really. Day 1: Drawing for half the day. Monika, Matt and the girls watch, provide me with tech support, tasty music, foods and conversation. Day 2: Paint from 9 to 5. Monika and I direct. Matt, Jon, Girls, Mon and I paint. We go through a dozen picnic plates for palates. Each palate has a range of colors and get swapped back and forth. Becca and various girls ferry between us as we paint. We can’t get the paint and clean our brushes ourselves because we are standing, by turns, on a chair, a desk and a professional sort of scaffold. I doubt I’ll ever feel so much like Michelangelo again. In that spirit I silently ruled out watering down the paints. Everything was thick like fresco and most blending happened antipasto. It turned out really well. Also in the master spirit I was called in for complex shading of clothes and faces, any details Lidia got scared of and mixing skin tone. That sounds like a lot, but Monika was nothing like a brainless commissioner. She not only knew what she wanted, but could easily have done most of it all herself. Especially with the projector. She came up with the perfect gold hues for not only the silhouette of Moldova but for the Golden Age radio set. When questions were asked she answered at least as competently as I did. Further, I learned she is a trained fencer. I’ve been calling her the Stone Cold Latinator for months because she can speak Latin (yes, like Natasha Romanov in Ironman) and is a textbook on theology. She also runs everyday and has gotten these girls running with her! She is easily twice as integrated into her community as I am, and definitely has twice the amount of patience for her 7 year old host sister. In our off hours, the 3 of us Americans watched Game of Thrones and geeked out over medieval stuff of all sorts. The only downside of everything was the 9 hour busride to her site. On my way home we stayed in an apartment with Mackenzie, drank box wine and watched the newest episode (the one that aired while we painted) of Game of Thrones. I gushed about character development etc. but that’s for another post on another blog. It was a great experience with a great outcome, with, hopefully, a great addition to my CV.

Dirty South Just like their cultural counterparts in the states, good ol boys in the Peace Corps like to exemplify their manliness. I don’t know much about what they do at site, since I don’t hang out with them much, but when they are all in Chis together, riled up about bein near each other, they play football, plot to buy an x-box for the PC lounge, drink a bunch and pop their collars. When the play football they most often split the teams into North and South teams, that is anyone living north of Chisinau is on the North team; anyone south-South. The boys on the South team always declare they are the Dirty South. The North team derides them as such. Oddly, though, Moldovans of the south (my gazdas, students and teachers etc) all claim the south of Moldova is dirty also. “It’s dirty, and the houses are smaller and they are all one color. Not like here, where there is water and forests and beautiful homes and fences,” describes Maria. Apparently she went down south once for a relative’s wedding and what she encountered was a mass of mud hovels, less refined even, than our mud and stucco structures. “It’s just dirty,” says a neighbor baba, shaking her head, “the roads are dusty. More dusty than here.” As our roads just got a bit flatter and whiter thanks to the mayor campaign, I don’t want to disagree, but a gust of wind to my eyes keeps me skeptical. “It’s really flat and boring looking,” said a kid whose exploration outside of Glodeni I doubt. So guess what I expected on my first foray south of this civil border. All this blinding newness started on a 2 lei ruitiera ride to the South Gara—Chis is big enough to have three major bus stations. The North, The Central, and surprise surprise, The South. The North Gara is where I catch my buses home, It’s large and hectic. There’s a small army of bearded women selling nickel worths of chocolate, baby wipes, fans, icons, bags of weird puffed sugar cereal. Dozens of dogs roam around getting kicked by men, fed by women, half of them with nipples big as raspberries and flapping a good three inches below the rib cage. Probably 50 men shout destinations at you as you walk from one end (entrance) to the other (my stop). It’s also rumored that the smokestack domineering the north face of the north gara belongs to Chisinau’s biggest WW2 people-incinerator. It’s a wholly unappealing place. Also, it’s a 12 minute walk from PC—just long enough to be super annoying and needing to be taken into schedule account and just too short to make a taxi or rutiera ride worthwhile (money 1+ waiting time). The Central Gara is worse. The same, minus smoke stack, but multiplied in every other way by 3. The South Gara is situated on a hill. I have ridden by it dozens of times going to and from Ialoveni, where training was the last 2 summers. The hill gives it an advantage. It’s breezy, and has a nice view. It’s also half the size of the North Gara in terms of buses, but twice the size in terms of little shops and bars. Also, the ticket sales booths are not outside in the elements and people, but in a bright warehouse of a building, complete with digital screens stating time and temperature and other useful facts. The bus drivers all insist on buying tickets from these—a sure sign of civilization in comparison to the teeth picking apathy of most Northern busmen. That is, they’d rather charge you an extra 3 lei and pocket the difference by forcing you NOT to buy an official ticket. See my rant on the Dick Driver of Balti’s gara. After buying tickets and sitting in, shock, the seats assigned to us, the bus leaves, shock, on time and, shock, does not stop at random spots on the way out of the gara to pick up the snobs who refuse to wait at the actual, assigned place. We’re off. An hour in smoke starts curling out of the dashboard. Driver pulls over. All men jump out to smoke as well. Driver opens dash, fiddles around. He turns the engine. Still smoking. Open dash. Use tools. Replace a wire. Close dash. Start engine. All good. All the men jump back on and we’re off. Only other breakdown I’ve yet experienced resulted in nothing happening for two hours and then the whole of our bus getting on with another. We were going straight north. So, in that first hour I must point out we went up and down three steep hills with switchbacks. My 4 hour ride northwest has one such. After that, yes, the landscape does pan out, but that may also just be because our route runs parallel to the Prut river the whole way, and therefore we are always in flood plain. The Prut flows pretty straight south until the land reaches close to sea level a couple dozen miles inland from the Black Sea, when it starts looping around like kitten string. Eventually these meanderings widen to marshes and join the southern mouth of the Danube as it empties out in an industrialized delta at Galati, Romania. In fact, the place I’m going is Giurgiulesti—home to the border crossing to Galati and the Ukrainian counterpart. My colleague there says there’s a hill (hm… hills. There’s a bunch of them. All made of sandstone you know. Make for some psychedelic collapse inducing ravines. Soft enough for birds to hollow out eyries, you know. Full of life and noise and color they are) where you can see both Ukraine and Romania at the same time. Cool. This phenomenon, not unlike that place out west in the states where you can put your hand on four states, means there’s constant international traffic coming through the little town of Giurgiulesti. The roads, therefore, are pretty well maintained. In all other respects, the little town does nothing to take advantage of its place and acts only as a conductor of traffic and housing encampment for the customs workers. Yet the people take care of their town in the same visible ways Balatina does. The houses are primary color stucco. Arcades of grapevines shade all driveways. In fact, there is a concerted effort I’ve noticed in the south of people planting flowers in front of their fences, so the road, already in better condition, is full of prettier things to look at. The only change in architecture is actually only in one of the dozen villages between Cantemir and Giurgiulesti. In this one, I can’t remember what it’s called, the houses are structured like long houses. Three or 4 rooms strung together in a line with a veranda along one side. All the verandas were sporting drying clothes. Same colors on the outside. Same mud bricks on the inside. On the tree thing, there are trees in the south. They do not, however, as predicted, congregate in beautiful woods so cherished by Moldovans and lauded in Moldovan textbooks. All in all, a pretty normal mix of half accurate accusations. The South is dirty, but so is the North. Why can’t we all just get along?