1. My laptop crashes, and then uncrashes. When I turn it on, it goes to START-UP REPAIR and goes through its little ablutions for tweny minutes, says the thing is broken, then crashes. I try it again, and the second time it's like there's no problem.
2. No speaking French today. I went to meet Arthur at the Java Beach Cafe at four o'clock and he didn't show up. No phone call, no email, no nothing.
3. Before that I went to the Richmond Library, now open after being closed for three years of re-modeling. It's beautiful! I checked out eleven books... (!!)
4. The heater man is coming at 8:30 in the morning to install new heaters in all of our apartments and so I have to get up at that time. Ugh!
5. Where is my stimulus package? I am waiting for my stimulus package!
6. I am number 2,300 out of 28,000 people in San Francisco who have applied for senior housing.
7. Just finished Lisa Scottoline's book Daddy's Girl. She's so funny.
8. I talked to Eva today.
9. I am buying a new camera when my stimulus package comes...
10. A little boy about 2 years old smiled at me in the grocery store. He told his mother he liked my pink hair.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Aujourd'hui
Tout d'abord, je veux dire que j'ai été très fatiguée aujourd'hui. Je me suis levé à 9h30 et a écrit pendant une heure avant j'ai parlé à Claudia à Genève. Je me sentais bien après avoir parlé avec elle, et puis j'ai mangé mon dejeuner. Dans l'apres midi, j'ai parlé au telephone longtemps. De temps en temps j'aime le faire parce que j'ai beaucoup de personnes à appeler.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Le Rock and Roll
Dans le groupe musical qui s'appelle Neimo, il y a quatre jeunes hommes qui se sont rencontrés au lycée. Ils sont français, mais ils chantent en anglais parce qu'ils pensent que le rock and roll doit être chanté en anglais.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Les Mains Qui Tremblent
Hier soir, sur Yabla.com, j'ai découvert le chanteur s'appelle Jéronimo qui est belge. Il chante une chanson intitulée "Les Mains Qui Tremblent" et je l'aime beaucoup.
Les Mains Qui Tremblent
My Hands Are Trembling
J'ai les mains qui tremblent
My hands are trembling
Intérieur en désordre, impossible à ranger
The interior is in disorder, impossible to neaten
L'espoir qui nous liait a fini par casser
The hope that bound us wound up breaking
En silence j'ai brûlé tes affaires excepté
In silence I burned your things except
Ca et là des cassettes tu as oubliées
Here and there some cassettes you forgot
J'ai les mains qui tremblent
Ce n'est pas la drogue; ce sont les couleurs de tes jolies robes que je n'oublie pas
It's not drugs; it is the colors of your pretty dresses that I cannot forget
Ce n'est pas l'alcool; ce sont les paillettes de tes yeux de braise qui ne s'effacent pas
It's not alcohol; it's the spark in your smoldering eyes that does not get extinguished
Extérieur Italie; décor abandonné
Exterior Italy; abandoned decor
Syracuse se refuse et le port est fermé
Syracuse denies and the port is closed
Au milieu de la nuit, on se lève, on s'accuse
In the middle of the night we get up and accuse each other
D'avoir cherché trop loin et de s'être égarés
Of having gone too far and having gotten lost...
*****************************
I love the idea that what he misses about her are the colors of her lovley dresses. They have intoxicated him. Often it's a specific image that comes to mind when I miss someone. I miss their eyes. I miss their bouncy curls or their crooked grin or their black leather bomber jacket. I miss the smell of the lotion they use on their skin or I miss ....
Les Mains Qui Tremblent
My Hands Are Trembling
J'ai les mains qui tremblent
My hands are trembling
Intérieur en désordre, impossible à ranger
The interior is in disorder, impossible to neaten
L'espoir qui nous liait a fini par casser
The hope that bound us wound up breaking
En silence j'ai brûlé tes affaires excepté
In silence I burned your things except
Ca et là des cassettes tu as oubliées
Here and there some cassettes you forgot
J'ai les mains qui tremblent
Ce n'est pas la drogue; ce sont les couleurs de tes jolies robes que je n'oublie pas
It's not drugs; it is the colors of your pretty dresses that I cannot forget
Ce n'est pas l'alcool; ce sont les paillettes de tes yeux de braise qui ne s'effacent pas
It's not alcohol; it's the spark in your smoldering eyes that does not get extinguished
Extérieur Italie; décor abandonné
Exterior Italy; abandoned decor
Syracuse se refuse et le port est fermé
Syracuse denies and the port is closed
Au milieu de la nuit, on se lève, on s'accuse
In the middle of the night we get up and accuse each other
D'avoir cherché trop loin et de s'être égarés
Of having gone too far and having gotten lost...
*****************************
I love the idea that what he misses about her are the colors of her lovley dresses. They have intoxicated him. Often it's a specific image that comes to mind when I miss someone. I miss their eyes. I miss their bouncy curls or their crooked grin or their black leather bomber jacket. I miss the smell of the lotion they use on their skin or I miss ....
I also love the line about having gone too far and having gotten lost. Losing yourself in someone. Falling down a well. Irretrievable.
Thursday, May 7, 2009
The Park
I went for a walk in the park today with Rebecca. It had rained during the night and all the eucalyptus smells were wafting about. The sky was white and at the lake all the turles were atop the big stone turtle in the water, their necks craned upward in that impossible position.
We found a bench to sit on that wasn't completely covered in bird poop and talked for awhile, then walked around the lake. It's so effortless being with her and I don't think there's too many Rebeccas in the world. She never gossips about people and is so accepting. I hardly ever see her mad.
We talked about death, and I guess this is a subject you start talking about when you get older. Like who will die first. People are dying around me lately and in the news there's always somebody dying, some celebrity who I loved as a child and who I never pictured as dying. And it makes me feel old.
Today when I later picked up Stefan at school he was so happy to see me and my new pink highlights in my hair -- Rebecca says it makes me look like an artist. He said, Ahna, it makes you look so pretty and young! I guess pink hair would make you seem young.
Young and old. Old and young.
There was a big hawk in one of the tall trees. I had never seen a hawk in the park before. A young guy came walking up to us saying that the hawk was being very aggressive with a smaller looking hawk and we tried to figure out what it had been doing. Was it a mother hawk and a baby hawk? How fascinating that he saw something like that.
On our way home we saw some clothes someone had left on the street next to the garbage can and I looked through them and found a pair of Calvin Klein jeans in my size. I picked them up and brought them home with me.
We found a bench to sit on that wasn't completely covered in bird poop and talked for awhile, then walked around the lake. It's so effortless being with her and I don't think there's too many Rebeccas in the world. She never gossips about people and is so accepting. I hardly ever see her mad.
We talked about death, and I guess this is a subject you start talking about when you get older. Like who will die first. People are dying around me lately and in the news there's always somebody dying, some celebrity who I loved as a child and who I never pictured as dying. And it makes me feel old.
Today when I later picked up Stefan at school he was so happy to see me and my new pink highlights in my hair -- Rebecca says it makes me look like an artist. He said, Ahna, it makes you look so pretty and young! I guess pink hair would make you seem young.
Young and old. Old and young.
There was a big hawk in one of the tall trees. I had never seen a hawk in the park before. A young guy came walking up to us saying that the hawk was being very aggressive with a smaller looking hawk and we tried to figure out what it had been doing. Was it a mother hawk and a baby hawk? How fascinating that he saw something like that.
On our way home we saw some clothes someone had left on the street next to the garbage can and I looked through them and found a pair of Calvin Klein jeans in my size. I picked them up and brought them home with me.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
The Soloist
Tonight I saw The Soloist with Jamie Foxx and Robert Downey Jr. It's a friendship movie about Downey, playing real-life journalist Jerry Lopez (was that his name?), who befriends Nathaniel Ayers, a black man/homeless person/musical prodigy. Aside from enjoying the difficult friendship between them, I enjoyed the look into Lopez' life in terms of how pretty much everything he encountered he turned over in his mind -- could this be a story, could that be a story?? He reminded me a lot of myself.
Today I sat on the 5 o'clock packed bus coming home from downtown and this kind of environment is rife with possibility in terms of material for writing. So many fascinating faces, bodies, personalities, from the bus driver who yells out "Ok people, you can either move to the back of the bus or we can just sit here -- I don't mind sitting here so it's up to you" -- he acted like he was a school teacher talking to his students, or a parent talking to their kid -- to the eighty year-old man sitting next to me -- he was so frail and tiny and I felt protective of him -- to the man standing in front of me with tattoos of birds all up and down his arms and around his neck -- and on and on...
I stare at everyone. It's hard for me not to do. I especially love looking at lips and eyes. There are so many beautiful kinds of lips on Asian people, big full pouty pillow lips, and I love looking at the mouths of down and out older folks -- how their mouths cave in and look like they can't support the rest of their face anymore -- and I love looking at bodies too. The bodies of young girls with attitude in their too-tight jeans. Or guys with all kinds of piercings and those special earrings where they stretch out their earlobes. Or big fat people with all their voluptuous folds, especially the beautiful black women who get on in the Western Addition with their shelf-bosoms and their wild hats.
I wonder what people would think of me?
Humph, look at her clothes -- she dresses like a teenager -- and what's with her big movie star sunglasses? Or, she's an interesting looking older woman... They probably aren't thinking anything. They just want to get home and eat dinner.
I was coming home from the museum. Today was the first time I ever went to a museum and couldn't find anything to like. But MOMA can be way out there. I guess the most interesting thing was the circles of ceramic black poodles looking in at the Christ child. It was pretty absurd looking, but maybe that was the point.
Today I sat on the 5 o'clock packed bus coming home from downtown and this kind of environment is rife with possibility in terms of material for writing. So many fascinating faces, bodies, personalities, from the bus driver who yells out "Ok people, you can either move to the back of the bus or we can just sit here -- I don't mind sitting here so it's up to you" -- he acted like he was a school teacher talking to his students, or a parent talking to their kid -- to the eighty year-old man sitting next to me -- he was so frail and tiny and I felt protective of him -- to the man standing in front of me with tattoos of birds all up and down his arms and around his neck -- and on and on...
I stare at everyone. It's hard for me not to do. I especially love looking at lips and eyes. There are so many beautiful kinds of lips on Asian people, big full pouty pillow lips, and I love looking at the mouths of down and out older folks -- how their mouths cave in and look like they can't support the rest of their face anymore -- and I love looking at bodies too. The bodies of young girls with attitude in their too-tight jeans. Or guys with all kinds of piercings and those special earrings where they stretch out their earlobes. Or big fat people with all their voluptuous folds, especially the beautiful black women who get on in the Western Addition with their shelf-bosoms and their wild hats.
I wonder what people would think of me?
Humph, look at her clothes -- she dresses like a teenager -- and what's with her big movie star sunglasses? Or, she's an interesting looking older woman... They probably aren't thinking anything. They just want to get home and eat dinner.
I was coming home from the museum. Today was the first time I ever went to a museum and couldn't find anything to like. But MOMA can be way out there. I guess the most interesting thing was the circles of ceramic black poodles looking in at the Christ child. It was pretty absurd looking, but maybe that was the point.
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