> tapioca world tour

“Wow! I’m really impressed by these developments. Your teeth are looking great — the crossbite is more or less fixed, and your bottom teeth will all be completely straight by next month. I’m happy for you, not just as your doctor but as your friend…”

Doc thinks he’s my friend but really he’s just some dude who makes sadistic and unprofessional comments about how he enjoys torturing me. But he’s done a good job and he means well. I like him despite his superfluous gender-based commentary, mostly due to this morning’s recent announcement that “You might have these off in less than a year.” What?! No way.

They got new long-sleeve t-shirts for orthodontal staff. They’re baby blue, and on the front they say something about a SMILE, and on the back it’s something about STYLE (no, not my cliche subject line. Some other kitsch phrase.)

My assistant friend D. looked ridiculous wearing it, and my opinion is the new dress code has in fact morphed the formerly commendable professional, high-end office environment into something akin to summer camp, possibly because all the assistants and secretaries are under 30. The doctor is the only one who wears scrubs now, elevating him to The One With Authority. I should mention something about this to him on my next visit. He likes to talk style with me, which is ironic since I sported my ripped, inherited leather jacket, old, uncool jeans and socks-with-sandals accoutre today. It’s amazing what kind of weird corporate respect you get when you succeed in pretending to be young, hip, or both.

For those of you who actually care about the orthodontal specifics: today they put those white-metal clamp things onto some bottom teeth in an effort to turn them into a straight position. They repeated this process for a top tooth that’s being pulled forward. The impacted canine (sigh) is still impacted, but edging ever more rapidly down to the gum line, plus [insert creepy music here] you can now fully see half of the tooth in the gum, i.e., it’s emerging up from the gum’s surface like a quiet white submarine. It can’t really grow down yet, as the FST (Formerly Sideways Tooth) is blocking it, but next month we’ll pull that one into position (the position it should have taken when I was seven years old) and, by Thanksgiving or Christmas, God willing, all will be well.

Much love to all my anonymous adult homies from archwired.com with orthodontal problems. We suffer together, people…though I’m gonna be eating steak again before all y’all.

This lady sells really good pottery. I recommend buying something from her, mostly for purposes of osmosis, so I can vicariously enjoy a new set of blue plates and bowls through your purchase.

I am so tired. Working at night is the pits. All I want to do when I’m not working is sleep. Preferably in my new flat, which I’m moving into in a mere two weeks, but the floor of my office is also perfectly sufficient, as I demonstrated this evening. I’m so tired, in fact, there’s no reason to write. Fall has swooped in like some kind of forgotten bird, and it’ll be gone just as fast. I’m trying to pay attention to its movement while it lasts. Which means being silent.

*Adem song

“Some say fear is the opposite of love,” the man said. “More and more, I’m coming to believe that’s true.”

We were in Dirkson, one of the Senate buildings, waiting in the hallway outside Senator McCain’s office. He walked by a minute later, but this conversation was taking place between an older white couple from Indiana who’d come on this human rights trip to lobby Congress members to support anti-torture legislation, and an imam, or Muslim leader, from our interfaith peace & justice coalition.

“Yes. Fear is an emptiness,” commented the imam. “It’s nothingness, and it’s self-controlled.”

“Absolutely. You have to choose fear,” the first man said, “just like you choose anger. We don’t just get angry; we choose to be angry. And we choose to be afraid.”

The context was post-9/11 anti-Muslim sentiments nationally, based on irrational fears of an unknown cultural and religious group. They were discussing how that fear arose, where fear comes from, and how it develops. It is, inherently, from a lack not just of understanding, but of love.

This was the conversation I overheard while waiting outside of McCain’s office at the Senate building today. The imam said other things, more poignant than I can remember or articulate in this feeble online reproduction, but he was an extremely intelligent man whom I could have listened to for hours, but we only had minutes, and I could only catch every other word.

On the plane ride home, despite the incredible turbulence which made me nauseas and caused lots of other people to puke in their seats, I sat and admired the night sky. I enjoy flying at night more than in the day, because once you get above the clouds, the stars are so clear. We flew east of the big dipper, and I watched as cities appeared and disappeared in the hazy orange fog below us while Adem’s “Ringing in my ear” played, well, in my ear.

This trip is over now, and I’m so grateful to be home I could cry.

Yeah, that’s right, I did. After twelve hours of helping facilitate everything AV at our mock trial (which you should watch online) here in Washington, someone handed me a phone. “It’s Amy Goodman from Democracy Now. She has some video questions for you…”

Long story short: after this trial, I set up my camera and filmed an hour of testimonies from Latin American survivors of torture while Amy interviewed him. It was incredibly moving, not to mention difficult for the people speaking. They were warm, strong, courageous men and women determined to tell their stories, despite what it might cost them, and despite what it’s already cost them. They were awesome, and it was certainly awesome to be able to film them. For Amy Goodman. For Democracy now. I’d love to shoot for them again, too. Which is entirely possible. We card-swapped. Very exciting. An exciting day! I just wanted to share that with you.

I also wrote about this on my human rights work blog, but Tapioca deserves to hear it too. After six hours of filming torture survivors giving their testimonies to my org’s human rights constituents, I marched to the White House with all the throngs of other people. The protest was huge — CNN reported at least 600,000 people but I think it was more like a million. Got to see Gold Star Families for Peace, and veteran groups, and many many other groups represented. The march was endlessly long; it’s too bad W has gone hiding. Would have been a lovely view from his office. At least the snipers on the roof got to enjoy the parade — via binoculars.

Really though, it’s been pretty cool. Lots of work, but I bought comfortable shoes to handle all the walking (and am now reluctantly endorsing Earth shoes for their ridiculous level of comfort and quality) and fortunately it only drizzled during the march so we didn’t really get wet. Plus I was only present for part of it.

People are mad. They’ve had it, and the inspiring part is there’s a unity being developed here…there are so many issues now — oil, the war, Katrina, poverty, everything blatant. Everything’s in your face, everything’s obvious. W can’t hide anymore. “The emporer is buck naked” read one sign I saw, and it’s absolutely right. The thing I liked about this protest were all the groups of people — old people, very young people, familes, students, veterans (my age as well as retired), men, women, people of color, white people, Americans, non-Americans, Muslims, Christians, you name it. There were a lot of signs about love — my favorite was one I didn’t get on camera very well. I tried to shoot it with my phone camera but it was blurry. It was of a middle-aged man carrying a small piece of cardboard on which he had written: LOVE YOUR ENEMIES.

That was my favorite part of this extravagazna. I’m actually proud to be a democratic American today — able to speak out, able to unite with strangers over issues we care about. I hope the feeling lasts.

I loved my time in Baltimore. Got to see a favorite old pal, who’s like my surrogate twin — but a hotter twin, sharing only height and weight and hair color and eye color and bra size. Also got to hang out with her hilarious boyfriend, who’s not my twin at all, though I kinda wish he was. He constantly says “That’s the stuff titties are made of” to describe just about anything he likes. Or, instead of “cool” or “awesome”, he’ll say “tits!” Priceless.

I did, however, get all freaked out by the fact that, like so many others, these pals are so grown up now — for instance, they’re both getting their PhDs; they have a nice, big flat, new furniture, quality kitchen stuff, two cats, and a working car; they even have an ipod dock, and marriage and kids aren’t too far away. It was pretty cool in a weird, alien, domestic cool kind of way. I’m very happy for them.

So I spent most of my time walking along Bond’s Wharf and eating French pastries. We also ate tappas Friday night, followed by the best Slavic food I could ever dream of on Saturday. I mean seriously, if you’re ever stuck in Baltimore and dying for Eastern European cuisine, gimme a call. I can hook it up — fo’ shizzle. The rest of the time was spent playing darts with T. and walking miles past many bread factories. I had a couple moments of zen, including one five-minute span of time in which a butterfly flew directly in front of me for the length of an entire city block, until it finally disappeared into an abandoned industrial lot, overgrown with weeds. It was over 80 degrees in the city and I walked, taking in this butterfly, this lingering heat, these cobblestones, that harbor. Life goes on and on and on, and many things change…and other things don’t. That was my Baltimore zen realization.

Zak Smith, currently my favorite urban artist, is having an exhibition at the Fredericks Freiser Gallery, which you should all go see, in Manhattan, preferably with me, preferably October 22nd.

My cubicle is filled with papers and laptops and random AV equipment, memory cards for digital cameras, books, pens, handmade mugs, photo albums, blank cds, random half-broken office furniture, and a large cardboard box containing really old files that I’d rather not deal with.

I’m the backup IT person at work, which I find humorous, seeing as I have no IT expertise, just an interest in the field. Today we had a meltdown, initiated by me installing Windows Service Pack 2 into someone’s networked computer, and so I’ve stayed late here to fix the problem. I’m the second to last person here. The sky outside is black now, as if it were February, which is approaching much faster than we think. I’m leaving for DC in 36 hours and I’ve got a tremendous amount of work to get done before that happens. I’d also really like to eat dinner.

Two of my coworkers from my department are pregnant, due two weeks apart from one another. We banter about nausea and homeopathic balony, and I act as if I’m the authority on all things prenatal based on the mere fact that my friend HH lived me with during the course of her pregnancy. “You gotta buy avocado oil in your last trimester,” I told 23-yr-old E., who’s married and two months pregnant. “For what?” she asked. “Massage techniques to prepare for birth!” I said. “There’s a technical word for it, but I forget.” They had no idea what I was talking about, so I tried to elaborate using hand gestures and monosyllabic descriptions, which only succeeded in turning my coworker’s face beet red and sending her into uncontrollable giggles. Whatever, man. It works.

*** [LATER]

Question: Why is it that sometimes when I bike up the hill on Ibbetson Street, I make it up very quickly and with very little sweat and conserved energy, and other times when I bike up the hill on Ibbetson Street, I end up soaked and barely able to breathe by the time I get to my house? Why is that? Where do these reserves of energy — or droughts of it — come from? Is it the heat? Coming up the hill tonight, my energy completely preserved, I reached the top and looked up at the sky. It was a clean, slate grey-blue, empty of everything but stars. Really, you could actually see the stars tonight, even here in the city. The air had that crisp awareness to it that it gets in fall. It made me think of farms and pumpkins and childhood and the future.

Tonight E. did some hippie energy pressure-point type thing on my head. Usually I like big dudes with big muscles to pound out the knots on my neck and shoulders, but instead, this incredibly light pressure and simple touch was crazy effective. The whole time I felt a tingling in the base of my spine, which was probably the root of the problem. The moral of this story is metaphorical, people, and the metaphor is this: you have to be quiet to be able to hear things. Sometimes, what you think is deeply buried is really right there on the surface. You just have to be still to become aware of it.

Thus ends our moment of zen.

I love the beauty of urban gardens. Something about the dichotomy of flowers next to pavement. Maybe I just love the idea of simplicity.

Needless to say, Deb Talan played the best show of my 2005. (Of course, the only musicians I religiously make pilgrimages through snow, sleet and other elements to see are Deb Talan/The Weepies and K’s Choice, and K’s Choice people live in Belgium.) Anyway,

you really should go and download a bunch of Talan’s new songs off archive.org right now, because they’re great great great. Tonight she and Steve Tannen played a bunch of the new ones, and it was so nice to hear them live, instead of on my iPood, I mean iPod.

Funny, too:
I had no one to go to the show with, so I went alone. Stood in the corner watching all the young gay girls with their young gay girl pixie haircuts (not that I don’t sport the pixie haircut every few years, I’m just saying, it brought back some Smith nostalgia — but in an annoying way). So I was leaning against the wall for 3.5 hours in my big boots and directly under the air conditioning vent. And Talan was so cool — she smiles when she sings; big, thoroughly happy smiles that make everyone else smile too. She strikes me as the nicest, most genuine musician ever. Which is what I also love about K’s Choice. Anyway, so she’s singing, and all her songs are so great, and I suddenly got this wave of overwhelming emotion — like air hitting a nerve — I can’t explain whether it was sadness or happiness or rather the appreciation for honest lyrics that explain The Human Condition in all its various forms of glory and decrepitude…but it struck me. Deeply. Which culmindated in the cheesiest lyric-related moment of the night: during the encore, Talan played “Comfort”, in which a line says: “Follow your dreams in through every out door, it seems that’s what we’re here for…” which I always thought was just a cutesy line. Until tonight, when I thought about it. My God, I thought, what if that really is what we’re here for? What if I’m just wasting my time on the internet, at an office job, worrying about dumb things, whatever whatever. Oddly enough, it made me want to make films, not just talk about making films. With my crew, instead of just talking about how great my crew is, how lucky I am to actually have one. So that was my moment of zen. Actually, I had about 50 moments of zen during the show, but that was the last one. It also made me want to make music again — rediscover the piano, the guitar, the harmonica — and to write again, and maybe even do spoken word again. (Ah, the former days of poetic glory.) Most of all, it just made me appreciate other peoples’ art — their music, their words, and what it can do for each of us — and how awesome a gift that is. And how, someday when I’m a wealthy successful multimedia producer philanthropist, I’m going to fund musicians like these, and writers, and artists. Because without their creativity inspiring our own, we’d all shrivel up into nothingness.

It’s true. Think about it.

I dreamed of you in the body of another.
“I’m leaving,” you told me. Somewhere far away. And that was it.
You were restless and I couldn’t keep you standing still. I thought of
Germany, how I might as well go there now, since the only thing between us
was air, and air attaches to nothing, and nothing is always the culmination
of everything folding into itself.

I hate to admit it, but I like getting up early. Not that I ever do it regularly, but when I’m forced to, I don’t mind. It amazes me how many hours are in a day, and how many of those I usually pass through in unconsciousness.

Tonight is exciting. My favorite folkies will be playing at Johnny D’s. I wait all year for them to come to Boston, and tonight is the night. It’s already dark and thundering outside, but I don’t mind. I’ve worn my large boots and I’m ready for anything, particularly good music. It’s autumn now.

Maybe I don’t want to have kids after all. Maybe it’s too hard. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to permanently deal with a sometimes sweet 6-year-old with an inherently volatile temper. Maybe I would crack, like an antique egg, my guts running down the stairway, through splintered wood, out the door. Maybe I’m just not cut out for it.

I played Mom the past 24 hours, slept over the kids’ house while both their parents were away. It was great, except for E.’s attitude. I tried to show them a good time, though: I let them watch The Neverending Story, then took them to Harvard Square when they should have been in bed. We got chocolate ice cream and watched a jazz trio jam in the pit. I’m such a fun babysitter, man. I just can’t stand yelling at children. I don’t enjoy it, but, like anything, if I’m forced to do it, I’ll do it well. I think the moral of the story is: only have one child. Then there will be no rivalry or attention issues. Funny, these weird lessons you learn about life when you’re pushing 30.

I’d also like to learn about the stock market, investments, business things. I’d like to use money to make money, and then buy this house in Vermont, and another flat in Philly, and maybe a place in Belgium, and maybe somewhere in Costa Rica, and, and….

wow, I really do talk about the same things all the time. I wonder why anyone ever reads this.

Thanks to smarty anthrochica and her great book recommendations, I am now the proud owner of:

- “The wind-up bird chronicles” & “Hard-boiled wonderland and the end of the world” by Haruki Murakami
- “Cronopios and famas” by Julio Cortazar
- “Shutterbabe” by Deborah Copaken Kogan

Endeavoring to read more…in between endless childcare shifts and the usual 9 to 5. I’d love a private caterer to bring me miso soup and baked alaska right about now, but instead I’ll curse my lack of groceries and sleep off the hunger. Unquestionably irresponsible of me, eh? It’s September already. Can you believe that? I’m moving soon…

Bush lifts wage rules for Katrina
President signs executive order allowing contractors to pay below prevailing wage in affected areas. September 9, 2005: 11:43 AM EDT

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush issued an executive order Thursday allowing federal contractors rebuilding in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to pay below the prevailing wage.

In a notice to Congress, Bush said the hurricane had caused “a national emergency” that permits him to take such action under the 1931 Davis-Bacon Act in ravaged areas of Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.

* * * Because nothing will help people rebuild their lives, says my coworker, like being underpaid for their labor.

I can’t think very clearly.
Everyone else’s thoughts battle

to replace my own.
In the back garden, the last of the season’s crickets

sing me awake. I’ve been looking all year
for the best urban box in which to concentrate. It needs to be

just the right shape and silent, sometimes, so I can sleep
and read routinely, like other adults.

This is the best time of year, though. Wind gets lighter
and the sky is so clear. I got my last sunburn of the year

today, biking through the insistent smog of striped buses like
bumble bees peeing exhaust. I coughed

silently and vowed not to let this happen forever,
whether that means running and running until

there’s nothing left of me or merely
running once, but strategically, in a straight line like all good

homemade arrows fly. It doesn’t even matter
if they break in two when they hit center. They just stop moving

and they split; and they stay;
and they’re done with it.

These are my favorite kids anywhere. If I die, they’ll get everything, although I think Joshie would only be interested in my laptop, and Maisha in my baggy hoodies.

So this was a very calm weekend, mostly spent in a pretty farmhouse near Black Mountain, with nice adults and their sweet & funny children.

But what I will most remember are the pictures I didn’t take:
- E. wandering through the woods with his camera, documenting the fog
- Me and 2-year-old Leo, walking into the field to the plastic baby swing, and swinging, and pointing to the dogs chasing dragonflies
- Riding at 50mph with John on his motorbike around Putney, my heels hitting the pavement while speeding around corners, tears welling up from the force of the air through my sunglasses, tears pushed by air down to my lips. I could taste them. They were Vermont motorcycle tears.
- Maisha, walking on her hands perfectly while her brother yelled “That’s disgusting! The ground is dirty!” and I laughed in amazement that these incredibly extroverted, talented kids are permanently part of my existence.
- Opening my eyes at 8a to find 4-yr-old Jordan staring at me from the doorway. “Look,” he said, unsticking what looked like a vile from the windowpane, “a flower.” It was a small purple thing with delicate dark lines in its center. “It’s for you.”
- Playing “Slow Pony Home” on repeat while E. was peeing in the woods behind the insterstate. (”And all this time, I felt just fine; I held so many people in my suitcase heart; I had to let the whole thing go, it was taken by the wind and snow…”)
- Walking tonight behind Star Market to the Thai restaurant to pick up my take-out noodles, thinking, “What am I still doing here? How long will I stay here?”

I left for England exactly a year ago. It was Labor Day, that’s when I started this blog and what I started it for. I endeavored to break up with my boyfriend, go abroad, get my masters, and live in Europe for a few years at least. Well, I’ve accomplished the break-up bit. But really, I’m happy to be here. Happy happy happy. For another year. Or two. Or three, tops.

Now the madness is down to a monthly basis. I went in after four weeks of happy steak-eating and came out unable to chew macaroni. Oh well.

For the benefit of my archwired readers, here are the dumb dental details:

They changed out the bigger wire on top (thank you God), replacing it with another skinny, light one; they attached ALL the teeth (this is a first! there was never enough room to do that before) — the result is a rollercoaster track of wire. Meanwhile we wait, wait, wait until the damn impacted canine takes its sweet sweet time to show itself. “I better be able to see it by the next time you come,” Doc said. You and me both, buddy.

Hot hot ortho assistant Gael has been replaced by a taller, hairier Brazilian ortho assistant. Fortunately I got worked on by the doctor alone, “since you’re a special case,” he told me. That means I have too many problems to entrust my case with a mere assistant. Plus I might deck the assistant if he hurts me, and the doc doesn’t mind as much when I deck him.

*****Postscript — So 10-or-so hours after the adjustment, Oh My God I wanted to DIE. I cried half the car ride up to Vermont. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. It was really awful. I’ve said it a million times already, and I’ll say it again: if I don’t look so hot when all of this is over, somebody’s gonna pay. About 6 grand.

Articulately stated by my pal Jeau, re: Katrina-as-a-political-phenomenon vs. Sept 11, as quoted from his Photon Theory and Other Intelligences:

The similarities are pretty similar; at least in terms of W’s response: In both cases he was on vacation the entire summer leading up to it; in both cases he ignored pretty specific warnings of a threat; in both cases he cut funding to orgaizations whose work was badly needed to make the situation better; in both cases the bureaucratic snakepit hissed and writhed but got very little done; in both cases he was a day late and a dollar short, looking uncomfortable, confused, distant and even unconcerned when he did finally appear on tv; in both cases a city was devastated, a country looked for support, and he failed to deliver it.

The question now is, who do we invade? Poseidon? Atlantis? Who will answer for this tragedy?

Bush showed up today. Today to assess damage. Four days after the worst was already worse than the worst could have been. He hid behind excuses (”No one could have predicted those levees would break.”) You mean, like, Led Zeppelin?

a lady gardens in the strip of green that separates
her body from the silent street

i dream of potential photographs and other things
while she blares news radio from her second story window
down to the dirt where she stands while i ride past

everybody’s talking of death and water but in louisiana,
unshowered and trapped, my friend is fed filet mignon
and warm champagne by a nice man, despite looters with machine guns
and a general panic flooding the streets

the sky tonight is a spotless gold, a warm pink;
it’s so clean we could bathe in it, we do; and i ride
home like this, home through this, all the way to the house
i’ll leave again without thinking, without looking back.