Like an Excited Kindergartener Breathing Rapidly

Today was the official first day of my second year at the University of Chicago, even though I only had one class, Russian through Lit Readings, at 11:30 AM. I hit the snooze button a record 11 times, and didn't get up till 9 AM--by far the latest I've ever woken up on the first day of school. Last night, I stayed up till 2 AM, packing my backpack (which still makes me goofily giddy), cleaning my room, and frantically rereading my old Russian textbook to replenish the empty slavonic pond (forgive me; I'm tired.). Despite my efforts, I still resembled a gaping guppy when my Russian professor began to babble to me about romany and pysatel'y and asked me to name another Russian author besides Bulgakov (I'm assuming, because the girl across from me saved me by replying, "Tolstoya"). Also, the wench next to me actually SNICKERED as I struggled to read aloud a couple of sentences from the text the professor passed out. Oh HELL no. Bitch better step UP.

Anyway. When I had about two hours left to go at Harvard, Ms. Harris told me that I could do sit back and do homework till the end of the day. Silly old Ms. Harris, I thought. Russian won't take me two whole hours. No teacher is heinous enough to assign that much on the first day. But I pulled it out and began working. And working. And working. And by the end of the day, I realized I still had a good hour and a half to go. I think I now understand why Russians have more obscenities than just about any other language. It's cuz of all the BITCHES.

I also--don't laugh--went to my first tae kwon do class today. It was actually fun, and I didn't pass out, or even grunt unseemily. I was all keen on getting a uniform until all the veterans raised their arms and, well, let's just say that sweating a lot while wearing white results in some, er, unsightly stains. So I think I'll wait for awhilte. But the classes are free, and they're fun, and I can beat up scary people on the street who harass me.

Tomorrow:
9-10:20: Poetry and Being, which I'll probably drop
10:30-11:50: Medicine and Culture
1:30-2:50: Plato's Phaedrus and Symposium
3-4:20 The Nature of Psychopathology
7 pm Chicago Maroon meeting
8 pm Intro to Swing class

Busy, busy, busy.

I realized today that the my only admirers are 50-year-old men and scuzzy black guys who loiter and/or yell out of car windows. Scrubs, if you will.

The elementary school where I work is approximately 98% African-American. That is, out of 48 K-12 students, one is Indian. However, my whitegirlness has never been an issue, and no one has ever brought it up. I assumed that none of kids or faculty even saw it anymore, just like I stopped seeing it after the first month or so. If any of them ever mentioned it, I further assumed I could either laugh or smartass my way out of it. Of course I couldn't.

There are three new teachers this year: two females, and one male. I'd met the former two, but not the latter, whom we'll call Mr. X. I'm keeping an eye on the kids in the afterschool program, when Mr. X stops by the hallway outside of my classroom. Kalei, a second-grader, catches a glimpse of him and yelps, "Hey!! Mr. X is here!!" She dashes out of the classroom, and I hear her say, "Mr. X! Do you want to meet Miss Danielle?" He must have acquiesced because he then steps inside the classroom and introduces himself. OK. Mr. X is xxxx-ing hot. Immediately I check for a wedding band, and there it is, gleaming obstinately on his left hand. Damn.

Mr. X has just gotten distracted by the six-year-olds climbing all over him, when seven-year-old Daja prances up to me and whispers in my ear, "You like him!!" I look at her in terror, and try to think of something, anything, to change the subject, and so I say, "I like you! I like you!" and start tickling her. She giggles but squirms out of my grasp and yells to Mr. X, "Hey!! She likes you!!"

I roll my eyes at him with tomato-colored cheeks. He gives me a strange, squinty-eyed look, and flees. Shit. Shit!

I then turn to Daja and explain slowly, patiently: "Sweetie, I think he's married, and I hardly know him. I don't like him."

"Why not?" she answers. "You both white!"

I hate it when you stuff a huge spoonful of brown rice into your mouth, and then suddenly realize you have to sneeze.

Okay. Last night, I dreamt that I slept for twenty hours and woke up and it was last June. I was in the backseat of my sister's car because I was still visiting her in San Diego. I had become unstuck in time like Billy Pilgrim. When I actually woke up on my inflatable mattress in Chicago, it was like, you know, whoa. This is getting out of hand.

More people than not in the last few days have called me, "Miss Danielle," including my K-2 kids, and, randomly enough, the gay guy who crashed on our couch last night. I cooked french fries for him and Jose and he said, "Thank you, Miss Danielle!" and it was like, you know, whoa.

Right now, I'm reading The Pump House Gang by Tom Wolfe, who is my latest obsession. My life's aim is now to be Tom Wolfe--except minus the arrogant, sexist asshole bit. But traveling, meeting interesting people, and writing about them in zany, engaging ways sounds like my dream job. Unfortunately, I have to contend with the fact that I'm perfectly content--in fact, possibly happiest--to just sit at home all day and read and crochet and cook and surf the 'net and avoid people. How can I adore life so much, yet be so afraid to live it?

God, this weblog is turning into the dumping ground for my neuroses.

I hate people who put you on hold when they've called you.

Okay, enough with the melodrama. Today was my first day back at my old job as a teacher's aide at a small private elementary school. It's the only job I've ever genuinely enjoyed. Kids love adults, especially adults who are kind to them, and I try to be (sadly, I've found they even love those who aren't kind, which makes it easy for bitchy teachers to crush their souls. There are few things in this word that infuriate me more than bitchy teachers.). Kids are blunt, rambunctious, and sometimes cruel, but they also know how to really make you feel welcome. I'd pictured my return sporadically over the summer, but it paled in comparison to having last year's first-graders run to me and crush me in hugs and say, "I missed you all summer! I thought you were never coming back!"

Today's imponderable: is beef junk food?

I've been in a good mood for nearly a week. I hadn't been in a good mood at all for a very long time. I'm relieved, thrilled even, but cautious.

Strangely, my dreams over the past night or two have been the sort of dreams I have at my lowest points. In them, I am distraught, on edge, throwing tantrums and flying into rages. In one dream last night, I spit on a collage my sister made, and scribbled all over it. She and my mother had written a quiz in which we were supposed to rate on a scale of one to ten how attractive we were, and I timidly rated myself a six. She said, "No, no, you're at least a 7.3. I bet you can fix yourself up to that before school starts" Enraged, I demanded what she had rated herself: "A 10, wasn't it? You rated yourself a ten!!" She looked sheepish, and I began screaming at her, sneering at her vanity. I went completely crazy, feeling trapped, furious, until I knew I had broken my relationship with both her and my mother.

I dreamt of things and people I only dream of when I'm low; in the days before my period, for example, or the stressful times before finals weeks or before travel. I dreamt of ice cream, of past loves and time disappearing like sunlight at dusk. I lost days and weeks in the dreams, and I panicked, feeling lost and unprepared. I dreamt of eighth grade, when things began to fall apart for me; I'd found my old locker in junior high with my things still in it (even though it wasn't until high school that we had lockers). I found graded papers, my old green backpack (even though my eighth-grade backpack was maroon), and a small five-star notebook that I had completely forgotten about, in which I had written everything down from the end of the year. I also found a crumpled five-dollar bill and two one-dollar bills, which a glassy-eyed teacher standing in the doorway suddenly snatched from my hand. "Give it back!" I demanded, and she did and scurried off.

I watched a play being performed from the sidelines at which no one in the audience laughed; and I sat in an armchair with my winter coat on and cried for loves lost. I was so thirsty in the dream, my mouth so dry, that I drank a cup of water and it simply disappeared into my parched tongue--I didn't taste it at all.

Over the past two or three weeks, I've had sudden bursts of creativity that I've actually acted on. My room is semi-decorated; last year, I lived in three different rooms with blank white walls. I began to put together a webpage, and I've been lighting candles and wearing makeup, and yesterday I finished something I started--two things, actually. Two collages of pictures, one of friends, and one of family. I'd never done anything like that before. Silly as it sounds, I'd dreamed--daydreamed--of doing things like that, but the dreams simply filled me with anxiety, because I knew my head wasn't together enough to complete them. But now I suppose it is, and I suppose the child is acting out in my subconscious, mourning the years lost.

It's humbling; my life is evolving, but my will can only do so much to change it. My crutches are external: no sweets, and little blue pills, and, perhaps, God.

Wow, I really overdid it on the hyphens and the semicolons in that last entry. Oh Strunk and White, send your rays of wisdom my way.

My room is coming together. Yesterday, I went to a garage sale with my roommates and paid twenty bucks for a shelf, whose shade is serendipitously close to my new desk. After sleeping on a giant stuffed dog for two nights, I decided, ENOUGH!, and paid thirty-five bucks for a pump for my inflatable mattress. It's reasonably comfortable and I sort of like the idea of sleeping on air. I've put up various decorations in my room, and I'm making a collage of pictures of like every stage of my life. I also bought a pansy for a dollar, but it looks sad. I don't know how to revive cheap, sickly plants. Help.

My apartment-mates are cool. There's Jose, the gay, Puerto Rican Catholic-to-Jewish convert; and Leah and Burcu, whom I kinda still think of as a package deal because they're such a twosome. They're one of those roommate success stories that you hear about every now and then; thrown together last year by a combination of chance and those oh-so-helpful blue "How-late-do-you-stay-up?" cards we filled out before our first year, they're now best friends who do everything together. They're also wild and crazy--not like "let's party-hardy, dudes," but like, on Tuesday they're going to hitchhike to a backpacking trail for three days. And they're both gorgeous and two of the nicest people I've ever met. In short, I hate them. But I like them.

Last night, we watched Showgirls, the ooh-la-la version. I'd already seen the edited-no-sex-no-nudity version on VH1 over the summer, which meant that it was approximately twenty minutes long. The NC-17 one was pretty much as you'd expect. My main problem with the movie is that I have trouble finding Elizabeth Berkley at all sexy. I guess it's the Jessie Spano factor, because--ok, this is really weird, BUT--in my mind I always associate her with a five-year-old with grape juice stains all over his mouth. Yes, *his* mouth. I know, I don't understand it either. Also, I do think Gina Gershon is incredibly sexy, except when she's naked. I don't know; I just found the whole thing very sleazy, even sleazier than porn; to paraphrase one guy in the movie, in porn, you advertise tits and ass, and you give them tits and ass; but in Showgirls, you advertise something else, and you give them tits and ass. I'm glad I saw it, though, if only for the lesbian kiss at the end. Now that deserves an OoOoH-la-la*!

I have also been eating lots of turkey burgers because they're cheap and I never seem to run out of them. Unfortunately, because I keep them in the fridge (I *hate* cooking frozen food), they fall apart when I put them in the frying pan, and I end up stirring them up until they're just ground meat, chunky brown pet food. As a result, whenever I sit down for lunch, various cat or dog-food commercial jingles run through my head: "Meow, meow, meow, meow," etc, or "Kibbles and bits and bits and bits, kibbles and bits and bits." Damn it, now it's happening again.

The Triumphant Return

I've composed a thousand half-entries in my mind over the past week and a half and have been agonizingly unable to share them with the vast, barren tundra that is my fan base. But here I am, sitting in at the desk that I put together myself (RAAAAA!!!), in my room, in my...apartment(!). Some might focus on the creaky floorboards, the perpetual mugginess that turns my face into an oil mine, the complete lack of water pressure in the shower, the peeling walls, and the broken toilet seat that slides around when you try to sit down on it. However, as I stepped inside on Monday, put my food away in my refrigerator, hung my clothes up in my enormous closet, and stepped under the wan trickle of the shower for the first time since I had boarded the train two days ago, I whispered to myself, "Ahhh....luxury!!"

However, I must complain about one thing. Woodlawn Avenue is infested with apartment buildings cluttered together, one next to another. As a result, my bedroom window looks directly into the bedroom window of an apartment in the building next door. I did not realize this until, half-undressed, I glanced up and noticed that my neighbor's sheets were a nice shade of pine green. I scurried into the bathroom, only to find that, apparently, the bathroom window reveals the sky blue sheets of the bedroom next to the first. AAAAHHHH!!!!!! Clutching my towel to my bosom, I quickly hopped behind the shower curtain, vowing to ALWAYS DRAW THE SHADES BEFORE GETTING NAKED.

Anyway. My roommates are great. I informed them a couple of days ago that they are a "better family than my family" because every night, they insist on eating dinner together around a table that is softly lit by two candles. The last time I ate around a table with other people that wasn't in a dining hall was at Christmas. They also insist on cooking elaborate meals which they modify to accomodate my funky eating habits. I keep expecting them to like someday barge into my room and demand a couple of my fingers.

As I said, I got in touch with my manly side yesterday and put together the desk that my feet are currently resting on. That, combined with my sexy man voice as a result of a cold, made me feel all "grrrl"y.

Funny Story from the Train
Before the train departed, I was chatting loudly with Loreal on my cell phone, the lone speaker among my subdued fellow passengers. While I was immersed in conversation, one of the attendants walked down the aisle and announced, "We're just checking the electricity, folks, and then we'll be heading out." Just then, in response to something Loreal said, I go, "That's awesome!!!" The attendant turns around and goes, "What was that?....Oh," and everyone laughed, because he thought I was talking to him.

Well, folks, it's been real, and I'm gonna make like Nikki's car and be Audi. HA HA HA
Later,
Danielle

The Seeds of Genius

Some excerpts from my second-grade journal:

9/27/90
What i would do if i were president.
1. Tell people not to polluot
2. make more candy then good food
3. 1 billion swimming pools
4. 1 million Chuck e. cheeses
5. people can have candy when ever they want
6. put your feet on the table
{drawing of a happy-looking girl with her feet on a table that's covered with plates, presumably of candy}

1/2/91
Resolutions for 1991
1. Help Mommy
2. Don't sneak
3. Don't eat as much candy
4. Don't dawdle
5. Try not to get in fights with Kirsten

1/15/91
What is pollution?
To me it's dirty "f" word stuff. I don't know about you but I hate it. Especially air and water pollution. Why do people litter?
What's your opinion about pollution?
I hate it. I DON'T like to litter at all. My only question is why do people litter?

2/5/91
Terrible, Horrible, No good, very bad, day.
My very worst day was when it was in 1990, and I was 6. My class (Ms. Powers class) was supposed to go to Science World. We couldn't because it was snowing. We were supposed to watch the movie "Bambi" to make up for it. We couldn't because the VCR broke. When I got home I called Wendy and she said she hated me. I had to wear my stupid pajamas and Kirsten killed my sow-bug.


I also dotted all my "i"s with hearts and looped the tails of every letter that had one, even "p".

I hadn't been back to my old haunts all summer. I'm leaving for Chicago in less than a week, and I'm still sort of in denial about it; only a few days ago did I realize that I haven't visited most of the places I daydreamed about while willing away the days till school ended last June. So this afternoon I decided I would go to the Port Hueneme beach that I used to frequent during my junior year of high school--when I used to hop in my van with the peach air-freshener smell, dart out of the student parking lot, and drive down Vineyard Avenue with my hand out the window and the radio on full blast, giddy with mischief and relief. And, right before I left--since I always wanted to be one of those people who bring their dogs to the beach--I spontaneously decided to take Austin with me.

I didn't think he'd get in the car, but eventually, he reluctantly climbed in and spent the entire drive with his head on my lap. It's a fairly long drive, and I spent a lot of it nudging him excitedly and saying, "Are you looking? Are you looking?" As far as I know, he'd never been to the beach before; I was hoping upon arriving he'd do his Austin dance of joy, or at least seem somewhat captivated. But Austin's the type of dog whom you often forget is a dog, and I don't think he was nearly impressed with the ocean as I always am. In fact, he was afraid of the tide, and I had to dig my heels into the sand with the leash wrapped five times around my wrist so he wouldn't run away. Once it swelled around our ankles he was okay, but he definitely was not one of those picturesque dogs who run along the shore chasing seagulls and barking and grinning.

Unfortunately, the pier was closed off due to the high tide. I think the pier is my favorite part of Oxnard, and I've only been all the way to the end maybe three or four times. I always feel out of place among the fishermen who stand there gazing out into the water, waiting for their lines to tighten; I don't have any practical purpose for being there other than I like the feeling of being so far out in the ocean, when you squint so you can't see the peripheral oil rigs and pretend it's just water all around you. I remember that feeling, when I used to daydream about God and people I wished were there and Angeline tumbling into the water, and the utter joy that resulted from realizing that these places exist, and I can go to them.

So, we left, and I drove to the Channel Islands Harbor, which I think is my original "old haunt." We sat on a bench and looked over the harbor at the boats for awhile, and at the calm blue water whose crashing-splashing source is so unbelievable. Fisherman's Wharf depresses me, because the little stores always disappear so quickly; the used-book store and the trinket shops are both gone, and I've never seen anyone eating at the restaurants.

I think Austin liked the ride home--he sat up and actually looked out the window.

Maybe I can't love these things until I'm leaving them.

The Gecko

EWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't know it would EAT its dead skin!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Weird Things I Am Captivated By:

• Maps
  
• Yearbooks
  
• Photos, whether they're of people I know or not
  
• Clouds
  
• The ocean
  
• Snopes.com
  

I just finished Slaughterhouse-Five. I spent all morning reading it. From the book:

        Billy asked for something to read
        on the trip to Tralfamadore. His
        captors...had only one actual
        book in English, which would be
        placed in a Tralfamadorian
        museum. It was Valley of the
        Dolls, by Jacqueline Susann.

Which is, incidentally, the only other new book I've read this summer. Meaning the only book I've read that I hadn't read before. Re-read books include Summer Sisters, by Judy Blume; There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom, by Louis Sachar; and Babysitters Club #49: Claudia and the Genius of Elm Street. Ah, summer.

Speaking of books, I'm currently perusing the list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged ones from 1990-2000. #1 is none other than the Scary Stories series by Alvin Schwartz. I can understand the reasoning behind this one. When I was a kid, I read and reread and reread again the whole Scary Stories series, plus any other books of ghost stories that I could get my hands on. As a result, I think I'm still suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. But I don't think books should be banned just because of the effect they may have on children. If the Scary Stories series hadn't been so readily available at the Oxnard Public Library when I was a child, I wouldn't be the person I am today. The nervous, skittish, obsessively-superstitious person who still sleeps with a nightlight. :-)