The world has come between us
Feb. 7th, 2002 11:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyranoFinally taking some time to sit at the term for a mighty holiday LJ post. And I don't feel like I have a whole lot to say. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.
The airports have been exciting and very very secure. I haven't taken off my belt this many times since I was at Boy Scout Camp. Um. Or something like that. They let me keep my safety pins, which surprised me. Although I would have been patronizing if they'd taken them. Currently in the nest of the nation's potato supply. Surprisingly, they're not overly concerned about international terrorists attacking our root and tuber supply. But there were seven horses who got loose yesterday. It's been very low key and that's good enough for me right now.
This is a collection of things that I've been writing in my notebook the past few days, fragmented half-baked thoughts and fleeting visuals that my surroundings inspired. In no particular order.
I've discovered a fabulous new euphemism. Selectee. I reached the front of the boarding line at SJC when the agent smiled sweetly at me and said "You're a selectee!" in a very cheery voice. I smiled back and said "Let me guess. Everything they did to me at the security checkpoint, they're going to do it again?" She kept smiling and pointed at a table near the gate without confirming or denying my suspicions. But I didn't need much confirmation. Taking off the belt again....
I spent about fifteen minutes trying to think up a RPG I could run just for the excuse to use the line "Get the shotgun, Mary--the pandas are in the shrubbery again." For those curious, it was a post-apoc set in San Diego where the zoo animals had escaped and gone feral, occasionally developing weird mutations a la Gamma World.
The Heritage Foundation, who will be the first to assure you they are not a tentacled appendage of the Republican Party but merely a conservative thinktank in DC, reports that "The collapse of marriage is the predominant reason why welfare exists."
Hey. So if I grab somebody off the street and marry them, I should expect my income to go up and to get medical insurance. Woo Hoo!
In the Pasco airport, somewhere in the desolate wastes of Washington onion country, there was a radio station playing Candy Everybody Wants, a scathing indictment of television programmers and viewers who allow them to put yet another Survivor series on the air. I asked what station it was and the cute girl working the newsstand, who reminded me of girls in high school I'd fantasized about, said "A boring one. It tries to put me to sleep but I've learned to just tune it out."
I read a lot of newspapers while spending a lot of time waiting in airports.
USA Today calls Collateral Damage, Arnie's new film about terrorists and how we kick their asses without breaking a sweat, "...more accurate than anybody could have predicted."
Um. Unless they'd read Tom Clancy. Or heard about the World Trade Center bombing a couple of years back.
In the Idaho Falls airport baggage claim area, suspended over the single baggage roundel, was a huge banner which read Welcome to Melaleuca Country!
The longer I looked at this thing, the less sense it actually made. I was strongly tempted to stop by the customer service counter and ask if the United States had an embassy here in Melaleuca Country.
Outside. It's cold. I mean actually cold. It's been long enough that I'd forgotten what real cold was like. Cold that makes your teeth ache if you breathe through your mouth. So you breathe through your nose, which frosts your nose hairs. The dry, sharp smell of it, the gentle descent of fog that has rolled in and gotten itself frozen. Kind of exhilirating.
The Temple at Idaho Falls looks like a great icy spear jutting up out of the snow and ice, the Castle of the Snow Queen. She will try to pierce my heart with an icicle because she's heard my friends are badmouthing missionaries.
Mom says go around the house and put a sticky note on anything I want when she dies. Not only does this feel utterly fucking morbid (Crypt robbers getting a guided tour?) but I have to overcome the idea that I've lived without it this long, so I can probably survive without it whenever the fatal event occurs.
However, I get the impression that if I don't make a few sticky notes (Note to self: What about a Theurgy ritual similar to the Westie path power to say 'This is Mine and you can't take it.'?) then everything will vanish within days, like it did when Gramma Cooley died and the vultures descended on her house and 'liberated' it.
There is a lot of gorgeous Korean black laquer furniture with amazing mother of pearl artwork on it. I'd like a piece, but it sure wouldn't go with anything in my current decor. I also think that the furniture set should stay together, but I doubt that'll happen either. Whoever ended up with it all probably wouldn't have much of a place to put it, and others would feel resentful.
In addition to her stuff, Mom is encouraging me to find stuff (books mostly) that I feel are already 'mine' and to take them with me. I have no kids, and this is for the most part children's books. Do I leave them for my brother and sister, who actually have children who might be able to make use of them (rumor has it that many of my nieces and nephews actually seem to have some interest in the hobby)? Do I claim them as birthright and as pieces of my heritage? And how do I seperate pieces of my heritage from clutter that I will end up hauling in boxes from home to home (perhaps without even removing it from a box in between) just because I feel obligated to it? And how wrong is it to feel like my past is an albatross that's been tied around my neck and I have a duty to haul it around with me? Will I change my mind once I'm 60 and can't remember anything that happened before I was 12?
Thinking about the whole driver's license thing, and what needs to be accomplished, despite half-hearted promises not to stress myself this week. Then considering how cool it would be to be able to drive my car. And then realizing that the two dollar raise the position would afford me is highly highly unlikely to be enough to pay for petrol, upkeep and insurance on the thing.
The airports have been exciting and very very secure. I haven't taken off my belt this many times since I was at Boy Scout Camp. Um. Or something like that. They let me keep my safety pins, which surprised me. Although I would have been patronizing if they'd taken them. Currently in the nest of the nation's potato supply. Surprisingly, they're not overly concerned about international terrorists attacking our root and tuber supply. But there were seven horses who got loose yesterday. It's been very low key and that's good enough for me right now.
This is a collection of things that I've been writing in my notebook the past few days, fragmented half-baked thoughts and fleeting visuals that my surroundings inspired. In no particular order.
I've discovered a fabulous new euphemism. Selectee. I reached the front of the boarding line at SJC when the agent smiled sweetly at me and said "You're a selectee!" in a very cheery voice. I smiled back and said "Let me guess. Everything they did to me at the security checkpoint, they're going to do it again?" She kept smiling and pointed at a table near the gate without confirming or denying my suspicions. But I didn't need much confirmation. Taking off the belt again....
I spent about fifteen minutes trying to think up a RPG I could run just for the excuse to use the line "Get the shotgun, Mary--the pandas are in the shrubbery again." For those curious, it was a post-apoc set in San Diego where the zoo animals had escaped and gone feral, occasionally developing weird mutations a la Gamma World.
The Heritage Foundation, who will be the first to assure you they are not a tentacled appendage of the Republican Party but merely a conservative thinktank in DC, reports that "The collapse of marriage is the predominant reason why welfare exists."
Hey. So if I grab somebody off the street and marry them, I should expect my income to go up and to get medical insurance. Woo Hoo!
In the Pasco airport, somewhere in the desolate wastes of Washington onion country, there was a radio station playing Candy Everybody Wants, a scathing indictment of television programmers and viewers who allow them to put yet another Survivor series on the air. I asked what station it was and the cute girl working the newsstand, who reminded me of girls in high school I'd fantasized about, said "A boring one. It tries to put me to sleep but I've learned to just tune it out."
I read a lot of newspapers while spending a lot of time waiting in airports.
USA Today calls Collateral Damage, Arnie's new film about terrorists and how we kick their asses without breaking a sweat, "...more accurate than anybody could have predicted."
Um. Unless they'd read Tom Clancy. Or heard about the World Trade Center bombing a couple of years back.
In the Idaho Falls airport baggage claim area, suspended over the single baggage roundel, was a huge banner which read Welcome to Melaleuca Country!
The longer I looked at this thing, the less sense it actually made. I was strongly tempted to stop by the customer service counter and ask if the United States had an embassy here in Melaleuca Country.
Outside. It's cold. I mean actually cold. It's been long enough that I'd forgotten what real cold was like. Cold that makes your teeth ache if you breathe through your mouth. So you breathe through your nose, which frosts your nose hairs. The dry, sharp smell of it, the gentle descent of fog that has rolled in and gotten itself frozen. Kind of exhilirating.
The Temple at Idaho Falls looks like a great icy spear jutting up out of the snow and ice, the Castle of the Snow Queen. She will try to pierce my heart with an icicle because she's heard my friends are badmouthing missionaries.
Mom says go around the house and put a sticky note on anything I want when she dies. Not only does this feel utterly fucking morbid (Crypt robbers getting a guided tour?) but I have to overcome the idea that I've lived without it this long, so I can probably survive without it whenever the fatal event occurs.
However, I get the impression that if I don't make a few sticky notes (Note to self: What about a Theurgy ritual similar to the Westie path power to say 'This is Mine and you can't take it.'?) then everything will vanish within days, like it did when Gramma Cooley died and the vultures descended on her house and 'liberated' it.
There is a lot of gorgeous Korean black laquer furniture with amazing mother of pearl artwork on it. I'd like a piece, but it sure wouldn't go with anything in my current decor. I also think that the furniture set should stay together, but I doubt that'll happen either. Whoever ended up with it all probably wouldn't have much of a place to put it, and others would feel resentful.
In addition to her stuff, Mom is encouraging me to find stuff (books mostly) that I feel are already 'mine' and to take them with me. I have no kids, and this is for the most part children's books. Do I leave them for my brother and sister, who actually have children who might be able to make use of them (rumor has it that many of my nieces and nephews actually seem to have some interest in the hobby)? Do I claim them as birthright and as pieces of my heritage? And how do I seperate pieces of my heritage from clutter that I will end up hauling in boxes from home to home (perhaps without even removing it from a box in between) just because I feel obligated to it? And how wrong is it to feel like my past is an albatross that's been tied around my neck and I have a duty to haul it around with me? Will I change my mind once I'm 60 and can't remember anything that happened before I was 12?
Thinking about the whole driver's license thing, and what needs to be accomplished, despite half-hearted promises not to stress myself this week. Then considering how cool it would be to be able to drive my car. And then realizing that the two dollar raise the position would afford me is highly highly unlikely to be enough to pay for petrol, upkeep and insurance on the thing.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2002-02-08 09:57 am (UTC)herein lies the crux
Date: 2002-02-08 10:58 am (UTC)Speaking now as a ruthless vulture. Black laquer with mother of pearl? It's a shame you can't see me drooling all over my desk. Even if you don't want things, label things you know are old and smaller than a breadbox. They are probably worth $$$, and I know people who do consignment sales.
Re: herein lies the crux
Date: 2002-02-08 01:55 pm (UTC)Why do I need a driver's license?
Date: 2002-02-08 01:50 pm (UTC)However, I've been told in no uncertain terms that a CID is not sufficient. So I'd better learn how to parallel park, and hope that somebody else working my shift comes up from SoBa and wants to carpool.
Re: Why do I need a driver's license?
Date: 2002-02-08 02:03 pm (UTC)