Funny News

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A drunken Chinese tourist bit a panda at the Beijing Zoo after the animal attacked him when he jumped into the enclosure and tried to hug it, state media said Wednesday.

Geography Lesson?

A tall angular-bodied (peroxide) blond woman struts into the coffee shop where I was studying this morning. The heels of her stiletto boots struck the marble tiles with the loud clack clack of fourth of July poppers.

The coffee-shop trivia of the day was: “What is the capital of Ukraine?” For a correct answer, you get 10 cents off your order. Easy enough, no?

No.

“ooh!!!!” she squealed, triumphantly punching her French-manicured fists in the air.
“I know that! It’s Russia!”

Below her Caribou visor the barista drew her eyebrows together. “Ummm, no…actually, it’s Kiev.”

Miss Stiletto is visibly annoyed. “Are you SURE?”

Visor: “Yes”

She didn’t get ten cents off her order.

Views of the past

Five years ago at this time I was walking through the deserted streets of Villerville, France. I remember being enchanted by the fall there, and by the feeling—the certainty—of living moments that I would never in my life repeat. I would never be in those gray, shuttered streets
in the autumn,
on the arm of that person,
not ever.

It was a sweet and melancholy feeling, and an addictive one. In fact, everything about my time with that particular person, and the places we went, were tinged with that very same seductive melancholy. I remember the damp and the chill of his room under the eaves, with its disintegrating stone tiles underfoot, its yellowing, dust-laden stuffed swans overhead, and his face of a medieval king who had been beheaded several hundred years before.

I suppose there was something archeaological about my entire 18-19 year old stay in France. Maybe after my parents’ divorce that’s exactly what I was looking for—a romanticized study of lost glory, of crumble and decay.

Maybe too, that’s why the Paris experience I had this winter of 2006 was so much different from before—I was trying to retrace my footsteps from before. But at that time I needed to ponder loss and the past whereas now I’m fixated on growth and the future. I should have been seeking out a newer Paris.

That will be for the next time.

A is for Apple, B is for Brooklyn, C is for Cidermill

Well, for those interested parties, I never did find a summer job. I spent the summer studying for the LSAT which I will take at the end of this month. Though I doubt I will ever use my score for any practical purpose (since I won't be applying to law school in the near future after all). But one never knows, and since I've spent nearly the entire summer preparing for the exam, I might as well take it.

After the exam, I'm leaving Michigan for Brooklyn. I *do* have a job there. Oh! And I also got a translating job, which I can do from anywhere.

Yesterday I read through my old journal entries from several years ago--they were both refreshing and eye opening. If I don't check in on my old writing every now and again, I tend to believe that although time is moving forward, I am not developing intellectually or emotionally. I tend to think that I am staying exactly the same (stagnating if you will); that for the rest of my life, however long that may be, I will look at the world with precisely the same mentality and set of thoughts with which I look at it now. I can now confirm to myself that this is very unlikely, judging by how much my thoughts have continually evolved over the years.

It also ocurred to me that I am not a happy person when I don't write every day. I don't mean necesarrily writing in here (this blog is a fairly recent thing in my life), but just writing my thoughts somewhere. I can't quite put my finger on why exactly this must be, but I have at least come to understand that it is a fact. I'm thinking that perhaps it is something very basic: maybe, being a visual thinker, I don't feel my thoughts are fully formed without seeing them hatched out in black and white before my eyes? That's all I've come up with so far. Whatever the reason may be, when I'm not writing every day, I begin to lose a sense of time--days go by without my feeling that I've lived them. And I get the very unpleasant sensation that I haven't been thinking in a long while.

There isn't much to comment on from Michigan, I suppose. It seems that autumn has rolled in. There is a chill in the air, and the leaves of the trees and the petals of flowers have all lost their luster. The past two weeks have been marked by windless days of quiet rain and gray skies that signal the coming winter. But it also means that it is Michigan apple season, and that is one of the very best things about the fall. There are honey crisp apples now to be eaten by the cider mill, a cup of hot cider in hand, and maybe a tiny, steaming, cinnamon-tinged home-made donut in the other hand. For me there is no other autumn outside of apples and cider mills. I hope I'll get a chance to go before I leave!