Reentering Society

finally, after months of being under the weather, am feeling like myself again.

mono's a killer -- not in a life-threatening way, but in the headlines reading "beloved young teacher tragically erased from existence" way. indeed, i wondered many times as i lay on my couch watching old "office" episodes how long it would take someone to find me if i did suddenly kick the proverbial bucket. *knock on wood*



fortunately, we'll have to conduct that experiment another time because i'm back up on my feet now. not exactly running my regular rat race of a lifestyle, but i'm at least out of the house every day. at my doctor's suggestion, i'm "easing" myself back into work by cutting my hours down to half-time for a bit. it's not ideal, but there are certainly some benefits, including the following:

1) instead of chasing after a substitute teacher, trying to plan lessons for her, and trying to grade papers based on what i think she's been doing, i've just turned total control of my morning classes over to somebody else. this drops my stress level in a way that no other chemical-free solution can.

2) i get to throw all my energy (which isn't much, but getting better every day) into my afternoon kids, who are loving the extra attention. my first class of the day has only fifteen students, thirteen of them girls. this is approximately half as many kids as a normal class, which raises the quality of discussions and activities through the roof and allows us to move at whatever pace suits us that day. brilliant!

3) i get a lot of sleep. a lot. typically about ten hours a night. i think the last time my schedule allowed this, i was sleeping ten hours a night in those one-piece jammies with the feet. this is exactly what my body needs; i feel better every day.



but that's just work.

the other parts of my life (ya know, the important and interesting bits) are starting to normalize too. i actually went out with a bunch of friends last night, to many merry cheers of "G! YOU'RE HERE!" every time someone else arrived. turns out i've been knocked out of the game so long, my friends now have a regular spot in this new pub that i hadn't even been to yet! they know all the bartenders and everything! yeesh! of course, i'm not allowed to have anything to drink because of the meds i'm on, but at least i was there!
got to exchange monotales with big'n'tall and hear about his latest brush with death (i'll spare you details, but it involves a chainsaw and a major artery). most of the other people there were casual acquaintances whom i started spending more time with once liz abandoned me to marry some guy and bizarro moved to iowa to pursue her acting career (really).



i'm sure i'll be talking about them more in future, so i might as well introduce you.

first, there's fay. fay's awesome. she teaches elementary school, so we have a lot of teacher-bonding moments. fay's also one of those low-key, confident people who's supremely easy to be around. she doesn't bowl anybody over or dominate the limelight, but she has a way of being in the center of things without ever pushing or interrupting. i wish i could be more like her. she also has one of those on-again-off-again relationships that i don't even ask about anymore because i gave up keeping track.

her on-again-off-again guy is tom, who is generally quiet but always has one of those wry half-smiles on his face. clever, generous, all-around solid guy. the only weird thing about tom is that he hunts every day of bow season. every day. religiously. i don't know anyone else who does that and i think it borders on a compulsion.

every group of friends has that one guy who sits there quietly watching all evening and then with a totally straight face says the driest, funniest thing you've ever heard in your life. by some gift of fate, our guy is actually a pair of twins. they play off each other brilliantly -- never have i met two people who have their act down so flawlessly. they run a little advertising company and are currently working on a campaign for a gay rodeo. what else can i say?

then there's watz. watz is this crazy, ginger-headed guy who works at a bank, which seems totally out of character to me. i can only assume that the intense energy and noise radiating out of him in the evening are just a reaction to being pent up in a necktie all day. last night, while sipping on a gummy bear martini, watz solemnly declared that he has given up on women. he meant this to be surprising, but it was met with some relief from the ladies present, as we've all given up on him.

there's also another girl -- we'll call her bekah. i never have any idea what she's thinking. ever. this is very unusual for me and somewhat disconcerting. for now, i'll leave it at that and i just won't play poker with her.

The PCH, Loads of Adventure, and Overdraft Fees

it's all sandra's fault, really.

well... some of it is k.c.'s fault.

it occurred to me months ago that i needed to go to california and run around with sandra. she was by far my best girl bud in japan, and i'd been missing her and her shenanigans like crazy. all school year, i'd been promising myself that i would make good use of my summer holiday, and a trip to california sounded like the perfect way.

enter k.c. we met several months ago and have been getting on wonderfully ever since. when i started making noises about going out west, he started waxing nostalgic about the two years he'd spent living in san diego. the weather is so perfect, the people are so great, there's so much to do, etc. he would just really love to show me around san diego.

the only little problem is that san diego is a mere ten hour drive from where i was planning to go in california.

after a great deal of discussing, debating, and counting the pennies in our piggy-banks, we decided we would indeed fly to sandra's... then make an epic journey down the pacific coast. and that is what we did. we saw everything from tahoe to the governator to pandas at the zoo, not to mention the drive down the pch (pacific coast highway) -- the most glorious ten hours i've ever spent in a car. courtesy of a good contact, we even spent a night at bacara, which was clearly way out of our income bracket.

here are some photos to make you jealous...

sandra and k.c. hiking at lake tahoe. tahoe was absolutely gorgeous -- bright blue and clean, tucked way up in the mountains -- and freezing cold. we had a blast hiking around emerald bay and climbing all over rocks like these.

we stayed at sandra's for three days of eating japanese food, randomly bursting into song, and hearing sandra's childhood tales of jew camp. then we took off at four o'clock in the morning to beat the rush hour chaos between sac and s.f. it's a good thing k.c. is a morning person because i'm really not fit to drive until at least nine.

random stop along the pch -- driving down highway 1 (also known as the pacific coast highway) redefined the term "scenic drive" for me. the only thing we had determined when we left home was when we would fly back. this left everything in between a blissful blur of spontaneity, which we took full advantage of, particularly during this drive. we stopped often and very randomly whenever the notion struck us.

getting our toes wet at carmel -- we stopped at carmel because we saw a sign on the highway for the "historic mission" and thought it might yield some good photos. we never found the mission, but we did find a beach and decided that was good enough. this is the first picture of me in the pacific ocean. (my toes are the pretty ones; k.c.'s are the big man toes.)

rose gardens at hearst castle, san simeon... thank you, i thought it was a great shot too.

funny story about hearst castle: the castle's on the side of a mountain in the middle of a huge piece of land that used to be the hearst ranch. when you get to the visitors' center, they put you on a bus to ride up the mountain and on the way, you listen to a recording about the history of the place. part of this is a little blurb about hearst's menagerie, which included thirty types of exotic grazing animals that roamed free on the ranch. a few ancestors of these animals are still living wild on the property around the castle. (this is the part where i got excited.) some of them are zebras. can you imagine how frickin' cool it would be to see a zebra just hanging out in california? so i decided to spend the rest of the day keeping an eye out for the zebras...

well, if you've followed my adventures in the past, you'll know that i'm not very lucky with spotting creatures of the woodland realm. in a scenerio sadly reminiscent of my moose-tracking expedition in the adirondacks, i didn't see any zebras.

but i could feel their presence.

admiring the ocean view at bacara -- as mentioned earlier, we went to the fabulous bacara resort & spa near goletta, ca. the resort was everything they promised and so much more. the room was wonderfully luxurious, the views were breath-taking, and the staff were downright cool. the food, though shockingly over-priced, was pretty scrumptious. the spa itself, however, was a bit of a let down. not to sound like a spa slut, but i've had better.

the national cemetery at point loma -- when we arrived in san diego, k.c. was thrilled to be back on his home turf and our entire stay was high-lighted by his always comical and unpredictable "this one time..." stories. as we drove up to point loma, he told the story of the one time that he took his scooter up the same very long and steep hill at about five o'clock in the morning. the story mostly went "so i was pushing and pushing" on the uphill parts and "here i was coasting" on the downhill parts with a few interjections of things like "here's where the navy guys passed me in their jeep and told me to go home..."

we also went to the san diego zoo, which was very cool. and here i did see zebras, but it wasn't the same.

and my very own photograph of one of the most photographed spots in america. i don't really like l.a., but we stayed here in hollywood for several days and had a pretty good time, in spite of the pollution, the traffic, and the general over-population.

so now i'm home. i have no money and some overdraft fees to pay, so it's a good thing that school starts up again next week.

until next time...

- g

Shifting, Still

So MJ moved to LA.

I knew this was going to happen eventually. He hates *small town*... Actually, to be fair, I'm sure he hates all small towns. There just isn't enough action here. But he told me like it was supposed to be a surprise, like he was dropping a real bomb. I think he even started with your classic "We have to talk" or "I have to tell you something" or some other line like that.

"I'm moving to LA."

"O yeah? When?"

"In two weeks."

"That'll be awesome. Good change for you. Cool."

I think I hurt his feelings. He said something about how all his "other girlfriends" were mad at him because he was leaving them behind.

I'm sorry, MJ -- I didn't mean that I wouldn't miss you. I certainly prefer you to any other guy I've dated, and in this tiny town where good friends are few and far between, you are one of my absolute favorites. But you are truly miserable here. You need to go somewhere more exciting. Half of our friendship is spent on the telephone anyway, and you can still call me for free, so no worries.

Mazda Concept at the 2007 NAIAS, where MJ taught me everything I know about cars (still next to nothing, but it was a valiant effort).

In other news, Bizarro is moving to Iowa. This is a blow. A deep one. And I did tell her not to go because I would miss her too much. There were tears. This may mean I am a better girlfriend to Bizarro than I was to MJ. Oops. :(

Anyway, for our last big blow-out weekend, Bizarro and I went to my alma mater and saw a play starring my former biology lab partner, who remains the only musical theater major I've ever known who has actually been acting consistently in the four years since graduation. Of course, the best part of the evening for me was regaling our whole party over dinner with tales of our scientific endeavors, especially the time that we went on opposite diets -- me, vegetarian; him, all meat -- then came to the lab after two weeks and compared our piss. I won't bore you with the details, but inquiring minds can email me if you really want to know.

I cross-bred fruit flies with this guy and now he's soakin' up the limelight. I'm so proud.

But Bizarro is leaving Sunday and I'm kind of glad that I'll already be gone on vacation and won't be here for a big dramatic good-bye. I'll be in Sacramento at S's, thinking happy thoughts about reunion and not about more transience, more uncertainty, more people shifting in and out of my kaleidoscope life.

And I'll be there with KC, the Batmanesque hero who rescued me when I was stranded at Bill's auto shop. So that can't be all bad.

The Great American Pastime

I don't care how popular it gets in Japan -- there is still nothing more American than a game of baseball.

I remember the strike. If you're American, you remember it too. 1994 -- dispute between the players and the owners over a salary cap; players went on strike; no major league baseball. That year everybody watched football and basketball and hockey instead, and ever since, Major League Baseball's been just a little bit... mrah :-/ And it doesn't help that now that they're back in the game, they're passing the 'roids around and every good player's suspect.

So here's what I say:

Screw Major League Baseball.

That's right. I said it.

Real baseball doesn't happen in huge stadiums under florescent lights with $8 (cold) hot dogs. Real baseball doesn't happen where you're so far up in the nosebleed section that you have to watch the game on a TV anyway, even though you came to the game. Real baseball doesn't happen where the ref can make a call and you can't scream about how blind he is because you couldn't see it either. Real baseball doesn't happen where the advertisements on the wall are four thousand times the size of the damn ball.

But have no fear, gentle reader. This is not the death of America's Favorite Pastime. ©

Real baseball still happens all the time.

In fact, as you read this blog, in a sunny local park somewhere in America, real baseball is in full swing. You won't find many 90 mph curve balls. The players won't be sluggers like Hank Aaron or Barry Bonds (with the exception of a few guys like the one shown above, whose current batting average this season is somewhere around .850 -- meow!). There are sometimes cheap uniforms, sometimes not, sometimes good old-fashioned shirts & skins. When it gets dark, they won't turn on the lights; the best they can do is grab a yellow night ball and finish out the inning. Expect multi-tasking -- in addition to the throwing, batting, catching, and running involved, they'll also be drinking beer (cheap American beer) and eating a wide variety of grill-able meats. And you can't buy a cold hot dog for $8, but you can probably bum a hot one for free.

None of these factors should be used to judge their passion for the game.

Instead, consider this: the entire 1994 postseason (including the World Series) was scrapped because of a dispute over money. Owners wanted to keep more of it; players wanted to get more of it. So they argued. They all got pissed off. They all took their balls and their bats and went home. This, as you well know, is the quintessential metaphor for a retreat in the face of opposition, reserved only for the most bull-headed and infantile of men who pound their fists in rage at the very thought of negotiation, cooperation, or (God forbid!) compromise.

On the other hand, somewhere in a little corner of the Midwest, there is the Beerball League©. These guys show up faithfully every week (including on holidays, on rainy days, and yes, even on Mother's Day). They are deterred neither by the cold nor the heat, scorching sun nor the falling darkness. At the end of any given inning, at least one of them will walk off the field bleeding from that perfect slide/tag/collision/pile-up. They keep painfully intricate stats on every aspect of play. A bad call by the ump will result in the dropping of jaws, the throwing of gloves, and profuse streams of profanity, but never ever in going home. They come for nine innings and they play nine innings come hell or high water. And as the name suggests, the major difference between the Beerball League© and a standard league is that in Beerball©, every fielder is required to have a beer with him at all times.

And like amateurs all over the country, the Beerballers keep playing week after week, year after year, for one reason and one reason alone:

They frickin' love this game.