On Architecture

Why, in America, do we so mistrust the arch? We even put them down--McDonald's being the "golden arches"--yuck. Is there anything more beautiful in architecture than an arch? A marriage of straight lines and curves, able to be repeated row upon row: look at the colisseum. A fantastic rhythm of rises and falls, gentle as the sea.

And the dome--the arch in 360 degree splendor. We just don't use it. We love steel and glass and poking right angles, and we forget the embrace of a curve.

And in the poking we forget-- we forget the holiness of a dome: its similarity to the dome of the heavens above, the marvel of something so big and open floating above us, rising on its own strength. And we lose that holiness, and our lives become the streamlined and functional architecture all around us. I am a three-bedroom ranch. I am a cube at the bottom of an apartment building. I am a cardboard box cluttering the corner by the park. I have lost my beauty. I have lost my meaning. I have lost my soul.

Celebrity Powder Room

Just over a month ago, a filming crew came to our school to film some scenes of a pilot for a TV show. All kinds of rumors were flying around the school about who was in it and what it would be about. It drove home to me how racist American TV is because they brought in droves of cute happy white high school kids to play the high school kids--not a single member of our largely black population made the cut, even though we've got cute happy kids too. But this posting is not going to bemoan racism in major network television. I'm writing about the magic transformation of the women's faculty restroom.

The women's faculty restroom has two stalls of disproportionate size. I think one is supposed to be wheelchair ready, but you'd have to be an acrobat to actually wheel a chair into it. It has its own sink inside. The other stall is built with wall all around and has a real door, but the sink is on the outside. At some point in the past, the art teacher put a couple of abandoned student canvases inside to decorate, and I think someone put a fake flower in a vase full of marbles inside too.

When the film crew came, dramatic changes happened in the large wheelchair-ready stall. Most notably, a bathmat appeared on the floor. A big, loopy, sky blue one. And up on the shelf a nice selection of beauty products appeared: mostly various lotions and a tube of petroleum jelly. Our lowly faculty restroom had become Powder Room to the Stars!

The film crew left, but the restroom improvements stayed. Over the next month, they became commonplace: something to chortle about silently in the back of my mind as I took care of business. All this until I walked in yesterday to find more "improvements": Ladies Home Journal next to the lotions and paper towels, a new tube of hair goo to keep us from unsightly female baldness, and a bathmat in front of the other sink. Finally, after a month of inequality, users of the walled-in stall are free of the burden of shame of actually standing on the ground.

Equality for all.

Zoning Changes

Apparently I now live at a dance club.

I don't know when the zoning change went though to change this from an apartment building to a dance club, but the change has definitely taken place. I can't listen to music because it is drowned out by music from one or more neighbors' apartments. It's like I'm under assault 24/7. Last night I called the police about one neighbor. Today it's coming from someone else's apartment. Does this not disturb anyone else? I can't even think straight. Boom Boom Bo-Boom Boom. Boom Boom Bo-Boom Boom. And it's not just the bass-- it's the vocals as though I were playing this in my apartment. I'm going to go crazy. I even bought ear plugs, but they are no cure, becuase then I'm stuck listening to the bottled-up white noise pulsings of my head.

I am in Hell.

Thanks, CNN!

Peeps war: Before

...and after. (Don't mind the dirty microwave, I'm sure yours gets that way sometimes too.)

The first morning of Amilynne's trip, we were in the hotel and as I showered she was watching CNN. And I heard hysterical laughter--it was the day before Easter, and apparently CNN was showing a story about how to destroy marshmallow Peeps. They dunked them in acid and all but their eyes disintegrated, and a couple of other things, but the kicker was a Peeps war. Stick toothpicks in the chests of two Peeps, set them facing each other in the microwave, turn it on, and let the games begin. As the Peeps expand, the first Peep to poke the other with the toothpick wins. It was a must-duplicate experience. As soon as we got back to my place, we went for Peeps, and as luck would have it, I had actual plastic sword picks that we used. We rigged the Peeps up on a graham cracker and chocolate sled, and held the war. As you can see, the pink Peep won. Too bad not even the title kept it from becoming a delicious s'more.

Some things that happened

What to say. It's been a notably long time since I last posted. Foreign language week came and went, spring break came and went, and the week after spring break came and went. 10 weeks to summer vacation.

I just phoned the apartment complex to complain about the idiots who moved in on one side of me. Their living room borders my bathroom, and they play their music so loud that the bass makes the fixtures in my bathroom vibrate. I went over a few weeks ago to ask them to keep it down. The evening I did that, the music was so loud that they couldn't hear me knock on the door, and the doorbell was apparently broken. So I don't feel like wasting my time pounding on their door. Over spring break I was sleeping in the living room so Amilynne could have the bed, and one morning at 3:00am their music woke me up and I had to pound on the wall. So anyway, today they're back at it, the apartment offices are currently open, and I called to complain. The girl said she'd send them a noise violation. I hate the feeling that I have declared war, but I'm really not the one who started it here. Besides. I'm in the part of my apartment furthest from their stereo, and I can still hear the bass and the rapper voice. I shouldn't have to live like this.

Did I mention that Amilynne came to visit? Wow we had a fabulous time. I miss her terribly. I'll post some pictures of the week. She got in to Washington on Friday and we went to the Mall and walked around a bit, but we crashed early at the hotel that night (but not until after we had shopped at Trader Joe's and eaten at On The Border--I do miss good Tex Mex restaraunts, as there are NONE here.) The next morning while I was in the shower Amilynne started to laugh hysterically--apparently CNN had a story on ways to destroy Peeps. (You know, the marshmallow chickens available in pastel colors at Easter time.) They showed methods of waging Peeps war. That immediately went on our list of Things To Do.

That day we did one of the coolest things of the whole week--the new National Museum of the American Indian. First we went to pick David up--he had caught a ride down with friends--then off to the museum. We could have easily spent the whole day in there. At noon we had finished the first exhibit, and we realized we would need to pick up the pace if we wanted to do anything besides the NMAI that day. We picked up the pace (with difficulty) and eventually made it out. Anyway, it was one of the many fun things we did, and I hope to post pictures soon to tell the stories with.