Monday, May 21, 2007

drop the pilot

Weekend update, y'all!

Friday I've had some really weird sleep patterns recently: falling asleep way too early, bizarro dreams. In fact, early last week I finally put something together: I had been having the same dream over and over: that Gia suddenly showed up at the gym one morning while I was working out. The gym is about 1/2 a block from my apartment, and it's entirely possible that she did stroll by during her "adventure." This all added up to me crashing hard-core on Friday.

Saturday I hung out with TBF and her beautiful, beautiful 2 month old daughter (who I could call TBF, version 2.0, but I'll call her Cassie.) She's just at the age when she can smile, and she has started cooing. When she really gets going - with the cooing, the smiling, and - of course - the arm flapping, it's really something to see.

I've gone nerdcore and now carry a little notebook with me. I write down books that I want to read. It's very helpful on my frequent library visits. I've read so many blog posts that mention books, not to mention Daily Show clips, etc. and now I'm capturing all of that information. Mmmm... Type A happy!

Sunday During my craigslist blitz, I found someone who tutors in French and Spanish. How awesome is that? I've been wanting to get my French back into shape, and this sounded just about perfect. (I tried a class at L'Alliance Francaise, but that didn't give me the grammar overhaul that I wanted.) So, Sunday morning I found myself sitting at a sunny table, conversating in French. (All the while surreptiously petting the bichon frise that had so dramatically thrown himself at my feet.) And I liked it. It felt like ... weeding a neglected garden, it was hard going at first but as the minutes ticked by, I felt like I was picking up speed. At this point, I'm still very much thinking in English and translating into French, and there are various and sundry tenses that I'm pretending don't exist. BUT, things should look a lot better by the end of the summer.

In all my post-tutoring excitement, I headed to Borders to pick up a honkin' French-English dictionary. I've been very, very good about my "don't buy books" thing. But, um, while I was in line, I spotted the new Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life. It, um, might have followed me home? Actually, I'm not going to make excuses - I love her books and have read each one that I own multiple times. Totally an investment.

Walking down the street, I saw this beautiful young teenager walking towards me. As she passed me, I realized I knew her. I called her name and we ended up having the most awkward conversation ever:

maisnon: Hey! It's good to see you! It's [maisnon].
Um, do you know who I am? Our parents know each other? We were at
your house in ... October when my parents visisted? My dad went to
Stanford with your dad?

... and the whole time she was sort of looking over my shoulder and just way awkward with me. I realized what it was: she was treating me like a friend of her parents, someone their age. I felt about 9,000 years old.

So, I went home to curl up with a cup of tea and my programs (in this case, The Proposition) and rub the rheumatism out of my bones.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I've started to carry around a notebook that I refer to as the "Google notebook." I went on a camping trip with a friend, and we realized that we had sooo many things we wanted/needed to look up! Arguments to win, pop culture knowledge to acquire, etc. Voila, the Google notebook was born!