waiting ...

it's amazing what happens when you wake up and you don't immediately get to get on your computer with your coffee and your cigarettes. whole days go by where you don't check the 50,000 websites you used to check compulsively EVERY SINGLE DAY. you don't email friends back very well (not that you did to begin with [sigh]), and you REALLY SLACK ON THE BLOGGING FRONT. i kind of miss my old routine. but i sort of like my new, liberating one, too: i read the newspaper outside, i read more books, and i just PONDER more.

as it turned out, i got a waitressing job at the first place i went to that was hiring, and it was a SUPER HIGH-END FANCY-SCHMANCY NEW restaurant in downtown minneapolis, which is exactly what i was looking for. i got the job two days after my last post, and started training last night. this means i follow another server around like a lost puppy for about four shifts, then i "expo" (in my day we just called it "food running") for a night, take a freaking TEST, and then voila! I'M A WAITRESS. (again).





ok, i've got to run to get ready to leave. i have to be there at 10:15 to trail after my dude again for a lunch shift today. i will have to come up with some awesome waitressing stories for you before my next post. in the meantime, i'm learning more about steak, etc., than you ever would've thought possible.

[btw: the cat came back (just like the song), and the beagle is still troublesome but we've patched the holes in the fence ... mostly. now if we could just stop her from barking, good god. that howl-bark haunts my dreams.]

coming to you from the land of (+/-16,000) lakes!

here i am in minnesota, at my folks' house, still breathing. the pets made the 20-hour-straight car trip and although one cat has gone AWOL, everyone seems to be adjusting pretty well. they say the leaves will be on the trees soon ...

(OK, except for that damn missing cat. and the beagle. first the stupid cat went up a tree for 24 hours, then after i talked her down [not unlike a hostage negotiation in many respects] she just ran off again and i haven't seen her since. she's not a very good cat, honestly. well, and there's the issue of my annoying beagle, lulu, who, although bigger than one of my parents' dogs, has somehow managed to find a hole in their fence she can fit through ... so this is INCREDIBLY TIRESOME and now she is on extendable leash #2 [#1 already broke ...] attached to a clothes line in the yard when she goes outside, until we can figure out where she's escaping from ... SIGH).

today i enjoyed what i'm henceforth referring to as "the zen of pool skimming." my parents are a little crazy and disorganized and their unique method of dealing with their beautiful in-ground pool every year is to ... do nothing and let fall and winter take their toll. so, spring rolls around and the pool is a deep brown swamp filled with leaves and god-knows-what-else. charming. and yet every time summer rolls around it's crystal clear and beautiful and none-too-chlorinated (ugh). so, lots and lots of skimming with a little net attached to an incredibly long pole. it was sunny and warm (gasp! actually won't stay that way sayeth the weather forecast ...) late morning today and i made slow (VERY SLOW -- it's an ART FORM) laps around the pool. i loved it. i breathed my mantra i'm WORKING VERY HARD ON THIS SUMMER (RIGHT NOW):

There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way. - Tao Te Ching

today i take my new, super dumbed-down "resume" (used to be a CV [sniff]; now it has BULLETS) to five restaurants in downtown minneapolis. two of them on the phone said yesterday they were hiring. i find myself looking forward to waitressing ... oddly happy about it all. i'll let you know ...

south carolina everyone: i miss you. i feel so far away. anyone is welcome to come visit, anytime. they PROMISE the leaves will be here soon ...

patiently waiting ...

i've been waiting and waiting and waiting until my glorious cousin alison posted on her own blog about her BRAND-NEW BABY BORN LAST WEEK, 4/30: TALLACK RICHARD OASE (6.3 oz, 20 1/4"), and then i finally talked to her today and she said i didn't need to wait!!! well, i clearly don't know the blogging protocol here (ack!), but i was freaked about putting pictures up before she did. (anyhoo, she did finally get to check her email and post last night, so any reservations i had ARE GONE).

between alison and her lovely twin bridget (see my houston post about visiting them last fall), i have had so many INCREDIBLE PICTURES to choose from to post here. (tallack is seriously one of the cutest babies i've ever seen -- those LIPS! he totally has his mother's scarlet johanssen lips.) my favorite pics were these ones of his mother right after he's born where she's crying with happiness (and in the pic here her husband jergen has tears in his eyes, too!) ... made me cry with happiness. [sniff!] oh! babies! new lives! new everythings! (see my old post about this crazy-baby-love i have) ... i'm already so excited to see tal this summer and kiss him all over and snuggle him and eat his toes and rock him and burp him ...

CONGRATULATIONS, SWEET COUSIN! i'm full of awe and impressed beyond belief! you DID IT.

on loving

i ran across mildred loving's death yesterday, but didn't read the statement by mrs. loving until today, and it literally brought tears to my eyes. mildred and her husband, richard, changed history when they challenged (and successfully overturned!) the supreme court's ban on interracial marriage in 1967.

PLEASE read mildred's statement "loving for all" if you have time. it is heartwarming and uplifting, and she wrote it last year on the 40th anniversary of the supreme court's ruling in her favor.

mrs. sophia

there's SO MUCH i want to tell you about the crackpot/wonderful mrs. sophia, but i'm in kind of a time crunch (see previous post), so i will sum up:

she asked to see my palms, then told me to make two wishes. i did. then she said i had to tell her one of them. i did (it was "i want to have kids"). she barely glanced at my palms and then went into what clearly sounded like a schtick speech about how i she could see i had a long life line and i was a kind- (and "tender"??) hearted person who was very generous, very loving, but that i also wasn't afraid to speak my mind and tell people "like it is." hmmm ... OK.

then she did what appeared to be a series of pronouncements that were very vague, like "you're confused about love," which is sort of true (as in: i don't have any), and said she could tell someone loved me very much but had a bad way of showing it. another of her pronouncements was, "i can sense you're upset with something in your home. there's something wrong with your home right now." i explained that yes, that was true ... because i didn't have a home (etc.). this seemed to confirm her suspicions, and she said not to worry it wouldn't be this way for long.

bomb 1: then she said i would have four children. i honestly have no idea where this came from. how does she know i want a houseful of kids? (i mean, i said i wanted kids as one of my wishes, but where did she come up with four? i've always said i wanted 4-5 kids. which is kind of unusual -- how did she KNOW??? and more importantly: this will happen?? HALLELUJAH!). she said i would have two girls and two boys.

[BTW: mrs. sophia essentially stopped looking at my palms after the first minute or so. i got the distinct impression the "palm reading" was just a front for her ... psychic-ness. she has three adult children and told me later while we were just talking that she can't "read" for them. that it's a bad idea and she can't seem to do it anyway, because she's too close to them. so although at the beginning of my "reading" i thought she was a hack, by the end she seemed pretty psychic.]

bomb 2: she said i would meet someone sooner than i was expecting, she thinks very soon -- within the next month, even. (holy shit). i said i was going to minnesota and didn't want to meet anyone there because i don't want to live there. she shrugged, smiling, and said, "you might not live there." she was pretty insistent on this point, actually, and said i should call her (it's not a 1-900 #, in case you're wondering) if it wasn't true. she said i would be surprised.

funny thing: mrs. sophia said everything was going to be just fine for me, that everything i'm worried about now would work out. she saw a good life for me, and that i would be happy. she really stressed this; that what i'm going through right now is just temporary and not to worry.

i can't explain why this comforts me. why this comforts me more coming from a semi-legit psychic than from my family and friends. (i think it's like my students say, "don't get your best friend to watch you practice your speech because they always tell you it's great even if it isn't").

[in case you're curious, my friend who went with me and got her reading before me had some similar pronouncements about her character, but mrs. sophia accurately guessed my friend did sales (true!), and that her calling was to do counseling/teaching (which my friend has wanted to do for years). my friend also got told she would only have two kids, which unbeknownest (or was it???) to mrs. sophia, is exactly how many she wants. she also could tell my friend had come out of a long relationship and had just entered a new one.]

so, all in all, it was a good experience. VERY COMFORTING. i don't know yet if she's a hack. i'll let you know if i meet someone in the next month or so, lol. and if he wants to jump into baby-making, which, considering that i'm 30, means if i'm going to have my four kids, i better start soon.

t-minus five ...

five days left in south carolina.

five days left to pack up my house and put 99% of it in a storage unit (which i finally got, btw, from a crazy man who rides a motorcycle with his dog elsa on the front. he also rents elsa out as a "therapy dog" he mentioned to me. twice. i told him thanks, but i get enough therapy from my own dogs).

last night i finally started packing. and to my surprise, it went incredibly slower than i expected, which was scary. i have 10 SMALL BOXES OF BOOKS. i don't even have that many books, really, as i moved here with like, a dozen total. jesus. mainly i moved things around from one pile to another place, mumbling to myself about whether i should throw it away, take it to the thrift store, or keep it. (battery charger for AA batteries? keep. old headphones i never use that are half-broken? toss. 20 tall candles??? basket of office supplies that has been generally ignored for the last two years?? saran wrap????)

hopefully this is not how it will go for the rest of the packing ...

but i'm in such a weird situation. i'm not moving to another house. i'm living with my parents for the summer and taking just the bare necessities (clothes, bathroom stuff -- dogs!), and then everything else goes to storage for god only knows ... because ...

MY (STEP) MOM JUST GOT A TEACHING JOB IN INDIA FOR THE NEXT TWO YEARS!!

and she's going to make loads of money and it sounds like a wonderful job and she paid a search agency to find her a teaching abroad job and she had over 75 to choose from and i'm soooooo excited for her and maybe i should do the same thing except that's not really what i was looking to do right now with my life but i do love living in foreign countries and fuck i can't seem to find a job that pays anything good in this part of the world (on the ocean) and so i am in a total state of NOT KNOWING AND THAT IS KILLING ME.

[ahem.] fortunately today, as a brief respite from the packing, errands, etc. a girlfriend and i are going to a palm reader, so maybe this will clear some things up. (BECAUSE DID I ALSO EVER MENTION THAT I LEARNED A FEW WEEKS AGO THAT MY 'LIFE LINE' AND MY 'LOVE LINES' DO NOT INTERSECT ON EITHER OF MY TWO PALMS???? no wonder my love life is a disaster and i will never get married and have children and settle down anywhere. it's not in my destiny. but maybe i'm doing it wrong and so hopefully "mrs. sophia" can clear THIS up today, too).

i'll let you know.

i'm already missing where i am right now.

i just liked this

silly and a little trite, but still charming. i love stencil graffiti. saw it at swissmiss, from STNCLRVLTN (gallery broken?).

lower approval than nixon ... after watergate

first graf of this cnn story:

"A new poll suggests that President Bush is the most unpopular president in modern American history."

it goes on to say that a whopping 71% of americans disapprove of how dubya is doing as president. this is the highest disapproval rating in monthly polls since truman was president (apparently gallup did exist and was polling before truman, but not monthly).

reminded me of the stephen colbert speech at the 2006 white house correspondents' dinner where he ripped bush a new one. [from back when bush's disapproval rating was at a stellar 68%]:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32 percent approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality'. And reality has a well-known liberal bias. ... Sir, pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half-empty, because 32% means it's two-thirds empty. There's still some liquid in that glass, is my point. But I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.

the democratic race in 7 minutes

meh. in case you couldn't tell, i stopped posting about all of my man obama's wins/losses in this primary season. CAMPAIGN FATIGUE a little much? when will it end, lord??? christ. and now his national lead is slipping???? wtf, my man? i need something new and vibrant and refreshing here from you. let's not see hillary take this one just because she wins at mud-slinging and with stamina (we know the woman HAS THIS if she has remained married to bill for so long).

anyhoodle, in case you wanted a very funny, charming recap of what the democratic primary race has been like, slate did a cute, watchable (and speedy!) video of it all. [was i the last person to know that aragorn was a kucinich supporter?? lol. i love the mike gravel "footage," too ... cracked me up.]