clunky

I’m here with minutes before work starts thinking about diving into all the details that this Monday holds. Details. So many of them. And my mind does not often seem equipped.

You know, it’s hard to move to a new state. Very hard. New banks, new license plates, new cell phone service, new apartment, no furniture, no friends, no clue… about anything. Where is the nearest gas station? Where do I go to find toilet paper? Where did I leave my brain?

I had to get photos done for a new passport. The receptionist, right before she snapped the photo, told me that I need a haircut. A haircut?! Thank you for that nugget of wisdom which I will now carry around with me for the next ten years. Any advice on where to find a barber?

I have been staying with a couple people from work. This is humbling, moving to a new city, having your new landlord push back your move in date, having to ask your barely-not-strangers coworkers if you can sleep on their couches. A couple of them kindly welcomed me into their homes. One in particular let me stay for three nights. On the afternoon after the third we both left work, and seeing her walking to her apartment I called out a salutation, which included calling her BY THE WRONG NAME. I literally shouted a wrong name at her from across the parking lot. “Did you just call me ‘Angela’?” she said. Yes. Yes, I had.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a lot of excitement to be had in all of this New-Place Adventure. I have already been to gallery openings and concerts. I have ideas on ideas on ideas about plays and city bike rides and winter wonderlandness that keep building.

Currently, however, my life feels absolutely clunky. I move forward on one task only to find I’ve forgotten another. I call a new friend a wrong name. I miss every exit, make every wrong turn. I’m just clunking around the city, a Texan in the great white north about to get lost in the first snow drift.

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On the Oscars

You may or may not know that I’m a movie fiend.  I love to watch them, to talk about them, to read about them, to plan parties themed by them.  I also love to watch the Oscars, a love spurred on by my friend Lara who has actual videotapes of past years’ ceremonies which she occasionally rewatches for fun.

This year I was lucky enough to be around streaming video and a speedy connection, thus I was able to see the Oscar Noms roll out.

So, I have a lot of thoughts about them.  Please go check them out in my guest post at Lara and the Reel Boy.  And also, please go see at least some of these movies because there are some great ones up in the Oscar race this year.

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i’m pretty sure that

-There are critters living with me.  I hear tiny toenail scrapes in the walls some nights.  There’s a poster in a plastic bag under the chair-that-is-my-bedstand.  Again last night I heard it crinkle.  I turned on the reading lamp, flipped over, slapped on my glasses and saw nothing.  I heard it again and imagined that Lady and the Tramp rat crawling much to close to my head.  I did the Ah-Hell-No jolt out of bed again to find nothing.  I decided to dim the reading light and watch. Yes, my reading light dims… I have mood lighting.  This, however, is the first time I’ve used it.  Needed the right kind of light for that Catch The Rat mood.  However, what I caught was a fluttering moth.  I pinned it with the fly swatter I keep on the bedstand, and I threw it to Charlotte, the spider that lives between my bed’s headboard and the wall (somehow Charlotte’s and my teamwork attitude, our I-hate-bugs-you-eat-bugs partnership, cancels out her creepiness).  Oh, bedside critters.

-I shouldn’t be laughing so hard at this little youtube virus inspired by this piece of news (WATCH THIS FIRST).  I know that an attempted rape isn’t funny.  IT IS NOT FUNNY.   It’s just that crazy Antoine, the language he uses to express his rage, and then to combine that with the genius of auto-tuning the news, I mean, how can I not guffaw at the over-raged face singing to the attempted rapist that he’s “so dumb…really really dumb, for real,” then waving that silver thing at the camera.  Reminds me of those times I got spit-fire mad at my mother, and right in the middle of my tirade she’d just start laughing, increasing my rage which increased her laughing.  I cannot stop this song from playing in my head. Is there something wrong with me?  (Research shows: Antoine and his family actually love the song and are using it as their ringtones.  Antoine was consulted before he was auto-tuned, and now he’s using his flashfame to help rape survivors and hopefully get his family a house.  You can run and tell that.)

-I should give credit to The Hoot for this kind of blog post format.  Thanks, Annie.

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a milestone, a foodtastic event, and fractious

MILESTONE:  I am no longer afraid of winter.  Before last week, I had visions of my Texas blood freezing in my veins, of my host family discovering my blue, icicle-covered body, of their efforts to pry me and my frozen kitten from my bed.

But as you can see, the snow came, covered everything in white goodness, and I was prompted to say in just about every conversation, “Yerbek chem aprel kaghakum vortegh chat dzyun a galis.”  Because it’s true, I have never lived in a place where it snows a lot.

This of course is heavily colored by the fact that my office is the best heated building in my town and tiny little home is just as warm as can be.  With my desk facing the door, I believe I spent two whole days staring out the window and saying to Arpine, my deskmate, “It’s just so beautiful,” over and over and over again.

I loved the way my house looked like it had just been dropped down in the middle my own plot of snow and that I, being the house’s only resident, was solely given the privilege of disrupting the large swathes of untouched white between the gate and my door.  That particular crunch was all mine.
And the warmth of my little cottage was all the sweeter for the snow outside.  In fact the snow helped me to actualize that romantic vision of myself, sitting there in a winter wonderland, propped up in my bright green armchair with a cup of tea on the table, a warm fire at my feet, a book in one hand, my cat under the other.

The weather has warmed in the last few days, melted almost all the snow, and created less romantic trails of mud for my visiting friends to traipse through.

These visiting friends came in yesterday. The three of them are Peace Corps Volunteers placed in the mid-north, and we try to get together once every month or so.  It’s nice to be in a group of Americans every once in a while, to ‘hang-out’, to feel a twinge of what used to be the norm.
It sounds a little strange to me that our bi-monthly event is Dinner-and-a-Movie, an almost routine event for me and my friends back home.  This hanging out, it’s the social equivalent, I believe, of a hot cup of tea.

One of the the mid-northies, John, commented that whenever Peace Corps volunteers get together, you can be sure that “it’s always foodtastic!“  SO true.  Our first gathering was 5-layer dip, burritos, salsa, and lavash chips.  Christmas Eve was apricot-garlic pasta and cinnamon chocolate cake.  And this time it was humus, spring rolls, lemon-butter hershey’s kiss cookies, carmel popcorn and pancakes with MAPLE SYRUP! And the movie: Feast of Love, which I wouldn’t particularly recommend (and that is coming from someone who is DESPERATE for silver-screen bits).

For those of you interested in my cat, she has reached some kind of grating teenage state.  She makes full use of claws and teeth whenever she can, which was unfortunate for my friends but funny for me since I finally got an observer’s perspective on her terrorizings.  During a perusal of GRE flashcards, she was renamed Fractious by my friends.  Which is perfect.  Except that when they all left she calmed to an angelic state.   So, I’ve got a Jekyll’n'Hyde kitten who is now going to be referred to as Fractious’n'Sanity (or F’n'S for short).  The cat is wild, and I now have four names for her, one of which includes the phonetic “effin”.

When they all left, F’n'S curled into my lap.  My creeper-stache curled into a thin smile.  I considered that her calm state could, in some movie, betray that all her clawing and biting and jumping from under things had been, in fact, our evil scheme.  I laughed and thought, “Purrrfect.”

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Քույրիկս և Ընկերներս

Other Peace Corps Volunteers are invaluable friends. There is no one else in the world who will know what it’s like here as well as your PCV friends will. The good ones provide a safe space to vent, miss home, commiserate, and let your American self hang out. When I’m with my PCV friends, I can talk about Obama, Battlestar Gallactica (never thought I would watch that… but necessity is the mother of you-will-watch-anything-when-desparate), and where to buy vanilla in Yerevan. I can complain about host mom quirks and all the stares. And I can dance like I dance, which can certainly incorporate the Armenian arms-only techniques, but is only complete with wobbly feet and old step squad rolls and swings.

The above picture is my friend Liz. She was the first to welcome me to Armenia with, “Oh, you’re the one living with my old host family.” Because we share this host family connection, she calls me ‘Aghbers’, my brother, and we reminisce about Geghtsik’s wild dancing and Armine’s quick temper. I’m currently hoping she’ll cut my hair when I see her this weekend in Yerevan.

And these are some of my close friends, geographically and otherwise. I went up for the weekend to Baghratashin to visit them. Grace made that plate of cookies (I’m cleary very excited, yeah?), as well as lavash chips and 4 layer dip. We watched Perfume, leavened the night with Dodgeball and slept warmly all surrounding each other on mats on the floor. Peace Corps is one of the only places in the world where not only are you not too old for sleepovers, but the activity is expected, comes with the two year package.

I would not survive here without people like this.

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monster matchmaker

When I started this blog, I had hoped that I would be able to steer clear of typical blogdom. Mostly I mean that I hoped I would subject my posts to a literary standard. It would not be a recepticle into which I would vomit whatever bit of my personality I feel I need to share with the world. But then I read something that makes me want to throw such a standard to the dogs.

So, forget it, I’m giving in because some friends’ recent blog post struck a chord that, well, resonated.

Please go read their original recent post at Lara and the Reel Boy. It reminded me why I really like those two people. And it made me want to share my own list of 6. (I know at LATRB theirs was five, but I want 6. So what?!)

Six what? Well, six monsters I would like to have around. Some would make great pets. Others would be more like great friends. At the end of the post please comment and leave your own list. Or post some to your own blog and let me know. (My literary blogging soul is hating me for this… )

6. Mike Wazowski (Monsters, Inc.)- Look at that stunned face. So comic. I mean, he’s a monster, AND he’s Billy Crystal. You get two in one one-eyed pal! I don’t see how there could be anything wrong with this.

5. Falkor (The Neverending Story, etc.)- It’s funny how I think the desire to have my monsters around feels so self-explanatory. In this case I want to say, “Come on! He’s a luckdragon!” Plus, I’ll get to fly from world to world, taunt bullies, find cures for diseases, and if I’m ever flung into the ocean or left dangling on a cliffside, I’ll be saved… “With luck!”

4. Aughra (The Dark Crystal)- Sometimes I’ve got a hankering to banter with a cantankerous old lady. So number four was really a dual between Aughra and Morla, the giant sneezing turle from The Never Ending Story. But really, there’s all the doom with Morla, and plus, Morla’s more like a place to hang out at than a person to hang out with. In general, Aughra is much more impressive, what with the embodying of the planet Thra, the ability to control vines and other Thra-types, and reading the universe. Plus I would love to just hear her talk about various apocolypses and say things like, “It’s the Great Conjunction!”

3. E.T. (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial) This I believe is the coolest monster/alien around. He’s the title of my favorite movie. We’d build things, make stuff hover, and do some general healing. And there’s something about the guy that tugs at my spiritual heartstrings. Major downside: He dies = I die.

2. Thing (The Addams Family, etc.) – Thing is everything I could want in a monster pal: good sense of humor, doesn’t mind doing your dishes, likes sports like skateboarding and tennis, and won’t hesitate to save the day. Plus he’s different from the other monters in that there’s no getting around how humanish, severed and undead he is. He’ll make all my friends wriggle.

1. The Muppets- If you know me, you know the following: a)It would be cruel to make me choose one Muppet. b) I actually have always wanted to be a Muppeteer so this makes absolute sense. There is not a Muppet that would make bad company (unless you include Skeksis in the Muppet bunch). Bring on Sesame Street, Muppets Take Manhattan, Muppets in Space. I would play guitar with Kermit, teach with Big Bird, think about the enormity of life with Gonzo, and bring Miss Piggy to my friends’ ANTM parties. My roommates would certainly be Rizzo and Pepe, and in the end I’d poke fun at all of it with Statler and Waldorf. This would be a dream.

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Binging

(The fact that I have not written here for some time reflects my inability to form interesting and/or coherent thoughts from my current transitional state. Ie, Most of the time I can’t keep up with what’s going on in and outside of me, and therefore, I can hardly find a way to write about it. Below is the best I can do.)

I came back from India confused, upset, delighted, and ready to binge. I have spent the last few weeks gaining more weight than I lost while in Kolkata and drowning my perceived sorrows in reality television.
With that said, it’s been a fantastic reality tv season for me. My Idol favorites have belted their way to the top three. My favorite reality-star-turned-celebrity-turned-reality-star Melissa Reincroft has overcome her rib injury to make it to the Dancing with the Stars semi-finals. Taj and Steven outwitted their way to Survivor:Tocancins final 5 without having to oust the self-proclaimed ‘Dragonslayer’ who is this year’s triumph in sound-bite editing. One of my favorite reality stars to date, the Fraggle-Rockish and kookily quippy Carla, made it to the finale of Top Chef with some gastropornographic peas. The fiercest ‘owl-baby’ to grace the screen is one of ANTM’s last standing, and the hottest girl to have once been a sphere is sure to be this season’s Biggest Loser.
Yes, I have indulged beyond belief in my guilty pleasure, telling myself that this is it for the next to years so live it large.
My mom suspects that the addiction points towards my own upcoming ‘eviction’. I’m sure it’s just my excuse to escape the fact that right now I’m kind of terrified of what’s coming.

I was for weeks telling people that I was not, in fact, joining Peace Corps. My reasons are at this point mostly uninteresting, centering on my experience of terrible discomfort and loneliness in India. Big suprise: being the only American around in a community of utterly depressing poverty is difficult for a comparatively rich American.
However, after emotionally sobering-up, talking with some brave and deeply caring friends and family, and getting a healthy whack from the financial-responsibilities fairy, I am indeed going to Armenia.

I will be living there for 27 months. In preparing, I have joined a internet community full of returned and current peace corps volunteers (RPCV’s and PCV’s respectively). Their advice is as varied as their experience I suppose. Some have given fantastic electrical and apparel-related advice. Others have warned us not to waste valuable packing space on playing cards, making me wonder why anyone cares whether or not I am packing a deck of Hoyle’s.
Based on their projections, the logical expectations to be formed are as follows:

-It is freaking cold over there. (After our first conversation concerning this fact, my host-dad in India referred to Armenia only as ‘Fridge Country’. Perhaps I should do the same.)
-People throw rocks at dogs.
-The snow makes people want to die. Or drown their icy sorrows in any form of cinematic distraction. (I’m told to bring whatever I can.)
-Long underwear is THE most critical item to be packed.
-I should not expect to be doing whatever it is that Peace Corps officials told me I would be doing. Ie, if I was told I would be a NGO Development Specialist, I will likely be anything but that.
-It’s really cold, y’all.

To prepare I:
-bought the long underwear.
-am planning on adopting a Armenian pup.
-am spending as much time with friends and fam as I can.
-am watching more reality television.
-am actually getting excited about going on another adventure. I’m Huck Finn or something.

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19 days in. 19. Almost three weeks.

I am not having a great day. I have vowed to get one of my to-do’s to done, and I am starting with a blog post. If this actually gets posted, feel free to congratulate me.

This is my second move to do something that will lift the day’s spirits. The first was to eat some Starbursts (which were apparently not the right candy to bring. It’s ‘girl candy’ here. It’s sour, and in India boys don’t like sour. I had never before assigned tastes to specific genders. But I guess if sights can be so assigned, blue-boy pink-girl, then why not tastes?). I grabbed three valentine themed 2-per packs and pulled open the first to find a strawberry and lemon, praising Him for two flavors that weren’t cherry. Then I looked closer to discover that a little ant expedition had discovered my fruit chews. I had a mini-fit of rage. Please commence envisioning me going directly to the sink, unwrapping each chew, smashing all ants found therein, washing the chew and angrily and immediately consuming it.

So, since fruit chew consumption didn’t do it for me, how about a blog post?

I have so enjoyed my Indian family. I call the parents Dada and Didi (older brother and older sister), and they’re boys are like my own little brothers. The culture of hospitality is again overwhelming and encouraging. Didi cooks every meal, is patient with me when I try to help (although now I can be trusted with chai!), is always trying to get me to rest, and argues with me everyday about bringing my clothes down so that she can wash them. Dada is always telling me how glad he is that I’m here, sharing jokes, talking about his vision for the poor in the slum, laughing and crying with me.
The brothers are very interesting. I can’t imagine what it is like to grow up in a household like this one, where God is very much your only real security, where your Dad and Mom are both the bravest people you know and the riskiest, where your family standard is so far removed from your friends’.
They are excellent cartoonists. Since I sent them a VeggieTales movie in 2007 they have been drawing those little counter-top characters everywhere, filling every book with them. Yesterday the older of the two finished a storyboard for a cartoon he was envisioning, and then I wrote the story. We’re quite a team. It was actually very funny. We had story time around the table and read it as a family.

Working here is so very very different. I don’t really feel good about dishing all of what I’m thinking about work environment here on the net. But know that it is different, challenging in ways I had never ever expected. It really is the most difficult working environment I’ve ever been in. On the one hand, it’s great experience for working in Armenia. I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the heck I’m supposed to be doing.

On the upside I’ve been able to visit the slum a few times. I am so absolutely charged after going to hang out with the guys in the slum in the evening. I know there is an large element of my being American that gives me an in because I’m kind of like a little one man circus. Not for all of them, some of the guys really want to get to know me, help me with Hindi, learn something about English and the Western mentality. The other guys stumble up to me drunk or high and laugh immediately and try to get me to repeat curse words in Hindi. There’s one that always holds my hand too long and stares at me in a way that absolutely gives me the shivers. These kind of encounters are kind of hard to avoid completely. But otherwise, really, I love it. I love standing around the Carom Board, enjoying the traditionally camaraderie that goes along with recreational sports.

In conclusion, yesterday I went with an Indian friend to see Seven Pounds. Great movie. It left me feeling three things. I wish seeing a movie at home only cost US$1.50 and that US$1.50 wasn’t so very much here in India. I would like to marry Rosario Dawson. And I want to live in America after all. (If you know me at all, you know that my saying that means I’m in the middle of some emotional whirlwind.)

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Before I go, my Oscar indulgence.

I am about to leave home. I am actually quite scared this time. Not horrified. Just feeling the stress of having to plan everything for myself. It doesn’t help that British Airways is… how to say kindly… screwing me over. Ie, I have received the worst customer service possible, which is not exaggeration. Ok, a little. They could cuss me out over the phone. Or try to harm me physically. But otherwise, it’s been horrible. Which adds to my stress. But I do have a beautiful family that is fully behind me. All that is vague, so note:

-British Airways wants me financially dead.

-My family, a more powerful entity, wants me alive and is more proactive toward that end.

So, while I’m headed to India soon, I am participating in a final indulgence. I am going to write a blog about the Oscar noms.

Last year I watched all Oscar noms in best pic and best performances categories. I went to that rickety Century 21, sat in the screens glow for a few hours, and effectively soaked in my movie experience for the year. Much better than a tan.

This year, I will be out of country for the Oscar month, so I watched a few of them and will say my piece on the Academy’s decisions.

BEN BUTTON!? WHAT THE!? I will say what thousands are saying across the nation. Didn’t I see that already? Except there was a floating feather instead of a hummingbird, leg braces instead of old crusty legs, etc., etc. Ah yes, back in ’94. And that guy’s mama said it best, “Life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get.” Or in Ben Button’s mama’s case, “You never know what’s comin’ for ya.” And who would have thought that this year’s Forrest Gump remake would get the most Oscar noms. A shot out from Hollywood to their favorite Pitt? A move from the Academy to get ordinary people to care this year by making a “blockbuster” the big contender this year? A shame? All of the above. I enjoyed it fine, but 13 noms. That’s an overstep. But I’ve already given this movie to much screen time here, as it were.

Doubt. Congrats to Streep, Hoffman, Davis, and Adams. What a team. There’s a movie completely driven by its characters who are acted very well. No movie I’ve seen since House of Sand and Fog moved me so much. So it didn’t have an old-man-baby. It did have an old man going after a baby. And it had a cross-bearing, screaming Streep. Beautiful.

The Reader. Not that great. Of course, I’m no Hollywood. But as far as story goes, I just didn’t care enough about it. Although, I love Kate, and I will be listening for the phonetic joy that is Kate saying, “Hanna Schmitz”.

The Golden Globes didn’t give any shout outs to Angelina Jolie, really. She got a nom, but no one cared. However, I remember seeing that movie, and I thought, if she gets no Oscar nom for this, I’m through. So, Oscars, you must have listened. You realized that you need me, and you put AJ up. Seriously though, AJ got me to feel the delicate line Christine Collins was trying to walk between a societally satisfying composure and sense of trust and her inner dread, distrust, and inklings of conspiracy. AJ dove deep there. Get it, AJ.

M.I.A. will be at the oscars this year! Well, her name will be. Maya Arulpragasam got her nom, and the years indie baby will represent! I have joined the millions digging her “Paper Planes” and others. And kudos to whoever it was that said that they needed this girl for the film. Be listening for her.

And of course, Heath, may he rest in peace, will walk with this one. We knew it before he died. That joker freaks us out. And for that give the guy the gold!

I’ve decided to have my say before I leave the country. So, my final list, should the awards be given based on my vote alone (and of course, the list is not exhaustive, just the ones I know and/or care about):

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:

Although Penn was phenomenal and biopics always carry a certain award-giving power (see Frank Langella’s nom as well), Rourke’s getting the hype. Hype, of course, is tricky and can swing awards away. Congrats to the usually supporting performer, Jenkins. Pitt was flat. I’ve seen the trailer for the The Wrestler, and THAT moved me. So, here’s to Rourke.



Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:

Hoffman, great. Brolin, meh. Downey, please. And I haven’t seen Rev Road, but you can’t beat Ledger in Dark Knight this year. Can’t be done.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Get it, Anne. Love AJ (See above). For me, although I didn’t think The Reader was that good, Kate does a fantastic emotional job. However, Meryl is utterly moving in Doubt. And with the GG going to Kate, I feel Meryl’s getting this one.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role:
With Kate out of this picture, I’m a little remiss to say who. Ben Button’s mom, sorry, no. And Cruz, you weren’t funny in the preview, you probably weren’t funny in the movie. So of the three left, as before, I lean Doubt. While Tomei as a compassionate stripper, I would almost throw my vote there, but in good conscience, it’s up to Davis and Adams. Because I was startled by Adams in Doubt, I’ll say the other nun is getting the statue.

Best Animated Feature Film:
Come on.

Best Directing:
Although Ron Howard is really getting the hype for Frost/Nixon and Slumdog Millionaire is quite the director’s challenge, I think more timely, bravely well handled and therefore better choice is Milk‘s Gus Van Sant.

Best Makeup:
Because they did look really old.

Best Music (Song):
Come one. The song is good. “O Saya” make you want to watch that movie. And of course I want M.I.A. to have an oscar. Just like Al Gore.

Best Picture:
Well, BB is out. Do I need to keep saying that? Biopics are great. I’ll give up asking what Doubt‘s not doing there. The Reader? See above. But I think this is where everyone will throw their Slumdog love.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
I don’t think you should get the statue for adapting a stage script for screen, so my vote won’t go to F/N, or Doubt. I haven’t read the books/stories that the other three are based on and while the adaptation of a short story to a movie seems like quite a jump, this writer seemed he had a trajectory already laid out for him in ’94. So, although Slumdog is a powerful story, I think the most moving part of The Reader other that Kate’s Schimtz is the writing.

Best Original Screenplay:
Now here again I’m torn by the biopic pull. Frozen River seems intriguing and as a rogue entry, ie. not seen in the GG’s, it could pull the votes. And of course, comedy is getting the love, because comedy is harder than drama. With that point in mind, see Wall-E, where comedy plays out beautifully as well as drama, in a screenplay which doesn’t include talking for the first half of the film. Now that, I think, is acheivement.

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