(no subject)
Friday: Emily and I go to Amherst College to visit mastodon bones for free-free. We pull drawers out of wall and peer at archaeopteryx fossils, trilobytes and coproliths. I am very impressed by the Irish Elk skeleton and mutter furiously in front of it with my neck craned back. We consider getting a dinosaur to guard the mod. After swooping through the minerals exhibit, admiring a chalkboard wall and numerous expensive-looking sitting nooks, we rove across the campus. Emily remarks that she expected everyone to look like a rich asshole from an Abercrombie ad, but really, they all just look rich.
We go into an art gallery cum museum and the monitor on duty takes my messenger bag apologetically. The exhibits inside are good. There are two that are interesting. One is mixed media and takes a story-and-a-half wall and the space in front of it. On the wall, three panels are slashed with red paint. The artist did a good job of evoking blood. There are little disembodied eyeballs everywhere. Three faces have several eyes each, and patterns creep into the picture in unexpected places -- subtle giraffe spots on a nine foot long tongue. In front of the painting, three men and a disembodied head hang from the ceiling, articulated in metal and wood. The patterns are especially good on their limbs. The last man in line has his hand in a loose fist before his crotch, and he and the disembodied head are having a staring match. The colors are bright-bright-bright.
The next exhibit that's interesting is a seventeen minute film running on endless loop. Two films, actually, dual-projected. The viewer sits between them and is forced to look back and forth, uncertain of what they're meant to be watching at any given time. On our left, New York is gleaming, austere and cold. On our right, Turkey is warm and dark, carved out of dusty fields. The same woman is featured in each. The shots are framed precisely the same in each. It's very quiet in the room and Emily and I look back and forth between each film, speculating in murmurs on what it means. It's strange, but we both like it.
I swing my feet on the bus ride back to Hampshire. While Emily goes to visit Sean and head back into Amherst to cash her paycheck with him, I visit E3. At dinner, Dan quibbles over Napoleon's height and I call him a pedant. I go with Katy, Taryn, Izze and a package of freezepops to visit Nate in ASH and watch Planet Earth. Nate goes to get his flash drive and I roll around the bottom floor of ASH on a comfortable wheely chair before taking the elevator to the second level. I scoot back down and we watch Deep Seas. Most of it is very pretty. Isabel, not quite straight, becomes distraught when some kind of sea bird dives up to thirty meters to catch its fish: "Birds can't swim, or they COULD love a fish! … Birds can't swim!" No one realizes she's referencing Ever After. ("A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?") Later, she announces admiringly, "That is the cleanest sand," and we all laugh.
I watch another episode of Planet Earth with Izze in her room after the next monitor arrives to take over Nate's shift. We troop down to SAGA with Emily to watch Katy's a capella concert. The Crazy Pitches are far superior to the Gin and Tonics. A clarinet player, Indian-drummer and guitarist play before the pitches. I gnash my teeth angrily during a 15 minute drum solo, and people block our view. The Pitches are high-energy and excited, joking with each other and the audience. They open with Regina Spektor and end with The Pixies. Nate, sitting with us in the audience, occasionally howls at Katy. Emily observes we're like a dysfunctional family.
Later, I go up to Emily's room. We mean to do henna, but we don't have the right components to alchemize our henna powder. Instead, I read dramatic excerpts of the Darkside Zodiac. The book bills me as a blunt demolitionist with a gargantuan libido. Sean shows up, and I read the entries for Leo, Cancer, Pisces and Gemini. The Sex entry for Pisces is particularly hard for me to read because I laugh so hard. We're all hungry. Eventually Sean goes to bed. Emily offers me peanut butter and bread, and I eat a slice before going back to my room. I go to sleep an hour later. I discover in the morning that she doesn't sleep at all.
Saturday: I wake up late and loll in my room for two hours before taking a shower. I eventually start cleaning up my room. Even Nate agrees that it is a mess. PMS fashions me useless with anxiety, nothing gets done when I am feeling ready to crawl up a wall. I wash everything I own -- my sheets, my comforter, my dirty clothes, my towels, my bathrobe. My Tide is greenbranded and claims to be better for the environment than regular hazard-blue Tide. I carry my laundry up four flights of stairs and it smells like lemony baking soda and sunshine. It's good to see the floor again in my room. Sean and Taryn want to go out to dinner. Emily is roped in, too, and the original plan is Applebee's. It's hard for me to eat there, and on the way into civilization for a Really Early Dinner, we negotiate Pasta e Basta instead.
A woman slips on the last four steps of the stairwell inside Pasta e Basta as we enter the building. She hits her tailbone hard, and I fetch her camera when it falls. She seems startled more than anything. We go upstairs. Our waitress laughs and says it's good we're here early, we can hear good music instead of their night music. They play Beatles covers and maybe something from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. She brings us two baskets of bread, and our food is delicious. After dinner, Sean wants dessert. We go to Ben and Jerry's. I eat too much Cinnamon Buns. Emily plans her wedding cake. Taryn and I bring back ice cream for Izze and Katy. Instead of going to see Charles Busch speak at Amherst, Emily and I retreat to our rooms. She watches Scrubs, I clean up the rest of my room. I watch more Planet Earth after midnight. Izze and I agree that we could never be field researchers after we watch a male polar bear die. He spent seven days at sea, the ice shelves that he would ordinarily live on are all melting. He eventually found land, this ugly little island with a walrus colony. He lost half his body weight in the water, and he spends a day desperately trying to catch and eat something. He gets gored very badly, and wobbles around before dying near the walruses.
I go to bed and for the first time, I forget to lock my door.
I need to look at Turkish WH-movement, Speyeria and the Book of Job today. I should go into Hadley, too. The stupid car place never called me back, so I guess I'm getting Jet tuned up after spring break.
We go into an art gallery cum museum and the monitor on duty takes my messenger bag apologetically. The exhibits inside are good. There are two that are interesting. One is mixed media and takes a story-and-a-half wall and the space in front of it. On the wall, three panels are slashed with red paint. The artist did a good job of evoking blood. There are little disembodied eyeballs everywhere. Three faces have several eyes each, and patterns creep into the picture in unexpected places -- subtle giraffe spots on a nine foot long tongue. In front of the painting, three men and a disembodied head hang from the ceiling, articulated in metal and wood. The patterns are especially good on their limbs. The last man in line has his hand in a loose fist before his crotch, and he and the disembodied head are having a staring match. The colors are bright-bright-bright.
The next exhibit that's interesting is a seventeen minute film running on endless loop. Two films, actually, dual-projected. The viewer sits between them and is forced to look back and forth, uncertain of what they're meant to be watching at any given time. On our left, New York is gleaming, austere and cold. On our right, Turkey is warm and dark, carved out of dusty fields. The same woman is featured in each. The shots are framed precisely the same in each. It's very quiet in the room and Emily and I look back and forth between each film, speculating in murmurs on what it means. It's strange, but we both like it.
I swing my feet on the bus ride back to Hampshire. While Emily goes to visit Sean and head back into Amherst to cash her paycheck with him, I visit E3. At dinner, Dan quibbles over Napoleon's height and I call him a pedant. I go with Katy, Taryn, Izze and a package of freezepops to visit Nate in ASH and watch Planet Earth. Nate goes to get his flash drive and I roll around the bottom floor of ASH on a comfortable wheely chair before taking the elevator to the second level. I scoot back down and we watch Deep Seas. Most of it is very pretty. Isabel, not quite straight, becomes distraught when some kind of sea bird dives up to thirty meters to catch its fish: "Birds can't swim, or they COULD love a fish! … Birds can't swim!" No one realizes she's referencing Ever After. ("A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?") Later, she announces admiringly, "That is the cleanest sand," and we all laugh.
I watch another episode of Planet Earth with Izze in her room after the next monitor arrives to take over Nate's shift. We troop down to SAGA with Emily to watch Katy's a capella concert. The Crazy Pitches are far superior to the Gin and Tonics. A clarinet player, Indian-drummer and guitarist play before the pitches. I gnash my teeth angrily during a 15 minute drum solo, and people block our view. The Pitches are high-energy and excited, joking with each other and the audience. They open with Regina Spektor and end with The Pixies. Nate, sitting with us in the audience, occasionally howls at Katy. Emily observes we're like a dysfunctional family.
Later, I go up to Emily's room. We mean to do henna, but we don't have the right components to alchemize our henna powder. Instead, I read dramatic excerpts of the Darkside Zodiac. The book bills me as a blunt demolitionist with a gargantuan libido. Sean shows up, and I read the entries for Leo, Cancer, Pisces and Gemini. The Sex entry for Pisces is particularly hard for me to read because I laugh so hard. We're all hungry. Eventually Sean goes to bed. Emily offers me peanut butter and bread, and I eat a slice before going back to my room. I go to sleep an hour later. I discover in the morning that she doesn't sleep at all.
Saturday: I wake up late and loll in my room for two hours before taking a shower. I eventually start cleaning up my room. Even Nate agrees that it is a mess. PMS fashions me useless with anxiety, nothing gets done when I am feeling ready to crawl up a wall. I wash everything I own -- my sheets, my comforter, my dirty clothes, my towels, my bathrobe. My Tide is greenbranded and claims to be better for the environment than regular hazard-blue Tide. I carry my laundry up four flights of stairs and it smells like lemony baking soda and sunshine. It's good to see the floor again in my room. Sean and Taryn want to go out to dinner. Emily is roped in, too, and the original plan is Applebee's. It's hard for me to eat there, and on the way into civilization for a Really Early Dinner, we negotiate Pasta e Basta instead.
A woman slips on the last four steps of the stairwell inside Pasta e Basta as we enter the building. She hits her tailbone hard, and I fetch her camera when it falls. She seems startled more than anything. We go upstairs. Our waitress laughs and says it's good we're here early, we can hear good music instead of their night music. They play Beatles covers and maybe something from the Moulin Rouge soundtrack. She brings us two baskets of bread, and our food is delicious. After dinner, Sean wants dessert. We go to Ben and Jerry's. I eat too much Cinnamon Buns. Emily plans her wedding cake. Taryn and I bring back ice cream for Izze and Katy. Instead of going to see Charles Busch speak at Amherst, Emily and I retreat to our rooms. She watches Scrubs, I clean up the rest of my room. I watch more Planet Earth after midnight. Izze and I agree that we could never be field researchers after we watch a male polar bear die. He spent seven days at sea, the ice shelves that he would ordinarily live on are all melting. He eventually found land, this ugly little island with a walrus colony. He lost half his body weight in the water, and he spends a day desperately trying to catch and eat something. He gets gored very badly, and wobbles around before dying near the walruses.
I go to bed and for the first time, I forget to lock my door.
I need to look at Turkish WH-movement, Speyeria and the Book of Job today. I should go into Hadley, too. The stupid car place never called me back, so I guess I'm getting Jet tuned up after spring break.