i am, i am

playing: whiskeytown, "matrimony" and joanna newsom, "peach, plum, pear"

drinking: hot americano with soy milk

thinking: i'm lonely. the season's changing.

speaking of

marraige. the family just asked me to marry them. they proposed, each one. I was sitting on a golf cart on campus because Andrew told me I had to be sitting down for this. I thought, maybe they're buying me a ticket to visit, maybe we're going on a trip. He asked, "Will you marry me?" This was strange and not at all surprising. Our friend Jessica just sent an announcement this week about marrying a best friend, a "gay" man, in her words, for residency. I asked if he was joking. He said something like "not in the superficial sense, the societal sense." i thought, what? remembered societal isn't a word. wondered if they were drinking. wondered if they'd been calling to say "happy family night".

And then every one (three more) proposed to me. And I giggled and said yes. Can you imagine? It was funny to get asked over and over again -- keep having to repeat this ridiculous ritual. I sat up and down on the golf cart, exploiting the drama, but also trying to keep it absurd. I kept saying yes. i got to not even knowing what yes meant. i thought about telling Ronnie -- would she mention it in her class again? -- i thought how i wasn't even seeing them.

now i'm thinking that jawbreaker is next to me. out for now. no seriously, out.

southern surroundings

haven't been on here in a while. and, perhaps fittingly, I'm now writing from a "Panera Bread Company", complete with surfing on the Panera Bread E-Web or something. Whatever, it's free. I'm surrounded by old people, as usual. Well, not old. Senior. People who've progressed into a stage of their lives in which they take things slow, embrace leisure, and wear pastel or khacki-colored high-rise shorts. With woven belts. And sneakers. Or sandals with socks. There's something really complete about the look people achieve here, and I think I may appreciate it.

I started physical therapy on my knees this past week. The doctors keep giving me near doomsday reports about how my knees could blow at any moment. And this is of course difficult to balance with the fact that Rick and I dance like posessed diva natives every Thursday night (which is how I dislocated my knee in the first place, actually). It's a dangerous life I lead.

So I'm reading medieval philosophy, translating Latin manuscripts, and getting electrolysis to my knees twice a week (not at the same time, of course). It's . . . well surreal is a frequent word that comes to mind. Mostly I think it's because I'm a NorthEasterner, and so most of Florida is completely counter-intuitive to me.

The trash cans, for example, are twice as large for each single-family home as they were for my entire apartment building in Brooklyn. This week I was driving (yeah, driving, driving everywhere, it seems), and I rode alongside a Ford F150 (read: BIG) that literally had a ballsack attached to its trailor hitch. And to "top" it off -- the balls were blue. Good to be an american, getting slapped by testicles most everywhere I go.

But I'm really getting into developing my language skills. In the past week, I've built up about a 100 word Latin vocabulary, spoke to a woman at the Library of Congress, and got a raise. I like this stuff, it really relies on me thinking and sleuthing and I love that. An intellectual Sidney Bristow? Well, maybe I'm not there yet, but if I start doing manuscript research in Italy, I could be. I'm kind of thinking about pursuing a Fulbright to Italy in about a year.

As for the queer world, well there are some very aggressive lesbians down here. There are the boisterous (pun intended) southern dykes who I'll shoot a few games of pool with and make dirty, butch jokes. But the one I've had to watch out for is this crazy femme who makes me feel alternately like a man-dude who's supposed to go in for the kill, and a middle school boy who's supposed to take on this young, pseudo-aggressive role mostly foreign to him (he'd rather chill with his friends than undertake this girl's drama). I got a kind of reprieve from her for the weekend, said I was going away, but this isn't going to be pretty. I mean, she's pretty -- kind of porcelain looking and 100% pouty, but that's not my scene. I want some fire, some kick, some anger and humor. I want a thrashing about, a wrestling with gender or words or environment. And I don't want it to be so utterly plain what my "role" is. That shit is foreign to me, and not very interesting. I want movement in a relationship, even just an exchange. I want it to be jaunty, ambitious, then absurd.

i want, i want. instead, i get blue balls and blue belles.

quiet, but steady

I went to a friend's wedding on the bay yesterday. It was the first wedding I've been to since I was about 12 or 13. As weddings go, I'm told, this one was pretty much as good as it gets. Their ceremony was short and combined buddhist, wiccan, and friends' sentiments. The reception was a 10-hour party on the bay, with a hookah lounge and free joints. We sipped home-made iced tea and, besides sweltering, enjoyed the company of meeting up with New College friends from years ago. Nevertheless, I found myself not at all admiring of the "wedding" itself -- I mean, they seemed to be enjoying it, but there was no time when I thought "I hope this happens to me."

The language, however varied from traditional sermons on union, nevertheless was so hetero/monogomous and I tend to have problems with solemn oaths that involve words like "love, soul, one, man, woman." I'm not sure how long people can be together, or I can be around them, until a declaration of lifelong love makes any sense to me. It's just -- well, kind of imaginary. The notion of husband and wife, sharing their lives forever -- of course they don't know what that means, it's why they're getting married, so they can start finding out. And this is not impressive to me. Also, I hate wedding photographers. Hate them. We'd be enjoying hanging out, or the couple were getting ready to cut the cake, and suddenly there was a five-minute pause during which we had to look completely contrived in order to document a moment which had become wholly fabricated. Bring on the polaroids, please! OK, ok . . . enough of my selfish rants. The kids were happy, really in love, and have fun together. That's awesome.

I got a job. Get ready, it's hot: Medieval Manuscript Researcher. Yesterday I got to look at and touch an illuminated manuscript on herbs from 800 a.d. I love it.

That's my news. I'm doing homework and trying to be a good housekeeper. And I was looking at pictures of my friends in New York and smiled so much. I'm visiting in November, I think.