chicago

I'm going to Chicago today with my sister (again), but this time we're not visiting our relatives. We're going to go Look At the University of Chicago. We're not just going to look at it, we are going to Look At It.

Dunno how the hell I'd get in even if I decide to apply, but it sounds pretty nice.

EEEEEE

EEEE PUBLISHED EEEE

(also mentioned by name on BoingBoing!)

In which Benny offers some sage advice.

I came back victorious from my graph-paper hunt (how naive I was to assume that Rite-Aid would have any!), said hello to Benny, and wondered aloud whether the figs on the fig tree in the little front yard were ripe.

(Technically, I don't know if I'm allowed to have any, but the old landlord used to pick them every September and give a plateful to all the tenants, and his grandson (who's the landlord now) doesn't seem to have any idea that there is a fully functional fig tree in his front yard.)

He pointed out a few that looked ripe to him (I couldn't see the difference, though they were definitely softer than the others), and I went into the yard to pull them off the tree.

"No squeeze-a them!" Benny admonished me. "No squeeze-a them!"

"What?" I said, perplexed. I was picking them as gently as I could.

He rolled his eyes and pointed to my other hand, which contained several figs squished beyond any hope of salvage.

"...Oops."

So I will pass on this bit of sage advice from Benny, which I'm sure can be applied to almost anything else in the world besides figs:

DON'T SQUEEZE THEM.

poem about lasagna

This isn't particularly good but I'm in a bad mood and I just wrote it and I need to bitch without sounding like I'm bitching. :) :'(

making red & white lasagna in the red & white kitchen
makes me forget the uneasiness of recent days
Dasha & Stefan’s apartment is too small for the smell of lasagna
big enough, though, to erase the world
& all the tedious days
musical blips from the room: Stefan is playing videogames
not in the bedroom or the living room but just in the room
they’ve only got one
but there is enough room for Dasha’s sewing machine & Stefan’s flatscreen
& for me

i’m not really making lasagna with Dasha
i’m just remembering that day while trying to make lasagna with my mother
our kitchen is small too but too big for the silence
& the exasperated shrug when i spill the sauce
the table is crowded with jars & bowls & spoons
& somewhere in there, college forms

amazing, really, all the different tones of silence
and the quality of the lasagna produced in each

a possible solution

Sick of Safari and Firefox randomly committing suicide (and taking all of my minimized internet windows with them), I went on a hunt for a new browser, and found Opera.

Seems to be working pretty well so far.

Also, I'm going to start taking drawing lessons, starting this Sunday. At last I will be able to draw properly!

a New York moment

I'm going to Portland, Oregon tomorrow, to visit Reed College. I just went out to the Russian store on the corner to get some hard candies for the plane (so my ears won't pop).

On the way back, I said hello to my neighbor. He lives in one of the apartments in the house adjoining ours. He's old and Italian and has the sort of accent mafia dons have in the movies. He has the kind of hardcore suntan that comes from spending every single day outside, on the stoop reading a newspaper, or leaning on a fence talking to the neighbors. I can recognize most people who live on my block; he knows not only their names but their entire life stories.

As I was taking out my keys to unlock the door, I realized something. For eight years I've known this man; for eight years I've smiled and waved to him every time I left the house; for eight years I've said hello upon coming home and occasionally told him whatever little tragic or amusing thing had happened in school, and sometimes he would tell me some interesting bit of neighborhood gossip; and in all this time, I never asked him his name.

Turns out it's Benny. When I came upstairs and told my mother about all this, she shrugged and said, "It's all very New York."

lolatin, as promised

first day of school

The awesomeness that is my schedule-- let me show you it:

Period Subject Teacher
1 Anthropology Ms. Fong-- seems quite good.
2 Shakespeare Mr. Mott-- utterly zany.
3 Poetry Ms. Moore-- is made of win.
4 Economics Mr. Wisotsky-- appears cool, but supposedly evil.
5 Calculus Mr. Kavanagh-- total stoner, but quite intelligent.
6 Gym Ms. Luczak-- eh. gym. same old, same old.
7 AP Latin Dr. Brockman-- Latin, just like always. except with Erik and Amy.

Eighth I have lunch, and ninth and tenth-- free! I can effectively leave school at 1:15!

This term is going to be quite laid-back, it seems. Poetry and Latin don't even count as work, at least for me. I just hope calculus works out all right.