Hie to the Plum Tree

Can I just say: I am so smitten. I am SO smitten. I am so SMITTEN.

I've Never Had Taco Del Mar and Pocky's Just O.K.

Wednesday, a Taco Del Mar soda sits on Professor Nofziger's table as she apologizes for including a writing prompt in an assignment that tended toward witchcraft. She is very sorry.



Wednesday night, I am hungry in my dreams--haven't eaten for days. I ride along a street surrounded by merchandise and food stalls in New York (but it seems more like Calcutta) in an unmanned rickshaw. I am very hungry. Then I see the neon beacon of forthcoming satisfaction, blinking in red and green letters: "TACO DEL MAR." With my mind, I steer the rickshaw left and squint at the menu. What will I order? But my rickshaw buzzes past the counter, stopping at the next stall, "FEDEX KINKOS." The man running the Kinko's is apparently the best copy man in New York, and I'm lucky I found his stall, how many copies do I want and do I want them on colored or white lazerprint sheets? Colored, of course. My fifty copies of purple fliers advertising Taco Del Mar shoot out of a slot in the wall, into the basket of the bike I'm now riding. I ring the bell, say thanks, and ride on.



I am still very, very hungry. Soon, I am riding along the same street. I see the Taco Del Mar, the FedEx Kinko's. This time, I'll be ready. As I pedal faster, I look down and count the change in my bike basket. Good, I have enough for... enough for what? What will I order? I look up so that I may examine the menu, but I do not see the girl waiting to take my order at the Taco Del Mar. I see the best copy man in New York. All right, colored! Out shoot fifty copies of pink fliers advertising Taco Del Mar as I slide over the pavement, now a two-dimensional figure. I will always be hungry.








Thursday, a timid girl brings me Pocky, chocolate-covered biscuit sticks, as a thank you for helping her with her paper in the writing center. I can't accept...I should not eat all of these myself. No, you must accept...I have many boxes in my room. I accept.



Thursday night, I walk through a sparse park in my dreams. I find a newspaper machine alone in the middle of a grass patch. It does not dispense newspapers; it does dispense boxes of Pocky. The Pocky is free. The dispenser begins to shoot boxes of Pocky at me unrelentlessy. I protest. I cannot accept this Pocky... I should not eat it all by myself! It does not listen. Pocky.

Be Silent

At twilight, I sat on the dock in Port Townsend and watched the light turn pink. And God spoke. I'm having trouble translating.

It's never enough to say, "The Lord told me to tell you that you are precious," "The Lord said He has good plans for me," "The Lord told me I'm going to perform miracles in a remote island off the coast of Papua New Guinea." We cannot translate the language of God in this way; when we try, we dilute it, generalize it, make it trite. In our common language, it becomes merely strings of letters and morphemes, signs and signifiers.

Of course, in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God and the Word was God. Then God said. All things came into being through Him. God said.

Next to the force of God's words, our language is a sparkler spelling G-O-D L-O-V-E-S Y-O-U. I cannot speak, "Cat," and cause my cat to appear before me. God speaks life into existence, and we attempt to copy his language as a child may attempt to copy Chinese.

Sometimes, it's best to be still and watch the light turn pink.

Good Word

Tchotchke

tchotch-ke [chahch-kuh]

--noun Slang.

an inexpensive souvenir, trinket, or ornament.





Source: Dictionary.com

O Sister

"Innocence can only be wisdom in a world without evil."

--Sister Aloysius

Tonight, I saw the play Doubt, by John Patrick Shanley, who also wrote screenplays such as Moonstruck and Joe Versus The Volcano. It showed at the Seattle Rep in Seattle Center. Nice theater... not too big, not too small.

The play is dense with issues. Let's start off with the plot: Sister Aloysius, who is the principle of a catholic school, draws another sister into a suspicion that Father Flynn is making advances on the only black boy in the school. The other nun, Sister James, is quite "innocent," not wanting to deal with any conflict. Sister Aloysius embarks on a mission to expose Father Flynn, with or without Sister James' help.

For most of the play, it's hard to decide who to believe in. Sister Aloysius does not want to tell the proper authority, who is male, because she is certain that he will believe Father Flynn--here we have the issue of the male hierarchy and superiority in the Catholic Church. On the other hand, her evidence at times lacks validity, but she fiercely believes in her conviction that Father Flynn is a predator. How can we trust her when she is so determined to expose this man's faults, solely based on her gut feeling

Then there's Father Flynn, who likes to wear his fingernails long, swing his hips when he plays basketball, and hold private meetings with young boys alone in the rectory. If there was ever a candidate for a perv, he definitely appears as one. He's as determined to prove himself innocent as Sister Aloysius is to prove him guilty. That makes us question his innocence. If he is telling the truth about his actions, why doesn't he allow the nun to continue her investigation? It also seems like a witch hunt, and Sister Aloysius is just out to burn Father Flynn.

The contrast of extremes between the two characters makes for a compelling play. After all, Shanley did win a Pulitzer for it. I wanted to clap and shout, "Good job!" during the tensest moments.

Missing: One Fall Season

I found a lone red leaf on my car today.

Fall, please come soon.

Instead of tired yellow rays, I want watery pit pat, pit pat waking me up in the morning. I want to hear the crispness of Fall under my feet when I walk to my car; I want to stir up whirlwinds of it as I drive to school. I want to see red, yellow, orange, brown, and deeper red. I want the wind to blow sharply, whipping my scarf in the air. I want to use my umbrella and wet my pant hems in puddles. I want to wear socks because my feet are cold.

All this sun makes me thirsty for a solemn rain.