Bringing Lester Home

Last Monday, the day after we got back from Vancouver, I took the train down to San Diego to pick up Lester from the vet where he boards. The vet is less than a mile away from San Diego old town as the crow flies, and (as it turns out), a very direct bike route as well.

Waiting at the Carlsbad Village Coaster Station:


Until the train came:


I wasn't the only one reading and writing on the train ride:


At San Diego Old Town Station, where I got off, you can catch the trolley to San Ysidro, and from there walk through the turnstiles and over the border to Tijuana.


It was a short ride from the station to Lester's vet. I picked him up, packed up all his toys, and put him in the travel cage, which fits quite nicely in my bike bag. This was the first time he'd ridden in with me on the bike, but he seemed to like it. He sang most of the time. He did make a nervous contact call once or twice when a large car passed us, but I answered him, and he went back to singing.


We had about 45 minutes to kill before our train came, so we looked around San Diego Old Town. Lester sang to the cheesy Mexican music. Together we attacked a lot of attention. Several people asked me if I'd just bought him (yikes, NO). A schizophrenicaly dressed Australian woman waiting to get on a tour bus with very precise circles of pink rouge on her cheeks asked me if he was "a peach face" and I said no. Parrotlets are kind of like lovebirds, but they are smaller and from south America, not Africa.


Lester admired the adobe construction.


Finally, we got on the train. While waiting for the train a guy named Paul told me about his mother's lovebird, and how the bird is vicious and likes to bite him. An elderly woman with a little poodle told me about how her mother used to befriend coyotes, and how her sister's cockatoo loves her and not her sister, and that this has created a rift between her and her sister, but that she was moving down to Rosarito soon, and would take her sister's cockatoo with her.

Lester sang for most of the train ride. The two guys next to me were on their way to the race track. They asked me if I'd been to the track here and I said no. But I told them about how I used to go to the races in Mexico City with my Dad and a guy from San Diego I called "Uncle Geno." Our bookie's name was Rambo, and I remember that he had bad posture. I am nostalgic about the races in Mexico City, but I don't support horse racing now.


Lester's been very mellow and happy since we all returned home, though I doubt he'll appreciate my absence next week when I go to Maine for my cousin's wedding.

Happy Sunshine Blond Girl of Death

The conversation over at Nicholas Manning's blog is interesting. Lately all I've been doing in my notebook is recording things. I was going to type up an example of how I am just recording things, except now that I've looked, I'm not sure what I'm recording: "I don't want to tell you how I made it. Throw up. Am you solvent? You know, SOLVENT. Like that." Recently there are a lot of recorded vocabulary explanations that the ESL teacher in the next room gives his students. I listen to him when I'm giving my students exams. It feels like a cheap shot to use the explanations, though. I'd be a very different sort of person if I were a man in my mid-30s.

My students want me to come surfing with them and take them to bars. I said no. Obviously. They are men in their 20s so no one will speak to them when they go out. I'm really a jerk when it comes to giving advice about how to meet people.

I'm reminded of a Janet Song from, I don't know, maybe five years ago (back when I was still taking, ahem, hip hop dance classes on a regular basis), called "Someone to call my lover." Here's the chorus:

Maybe we'll meet at a bar
He'll drive a funky car
Maybe we'll meet at a club
And fall so deeply in love
He'll tell me I'm the one
And we'll have so much fun
I'll be the girl of his dreams
Maybe

These lyrics irk me in so many ways. I guess people do meet at clubs and bars and fall in love. I wonder where people in North County meet each other. At school, work, at bars, on the beach, in malls. "Maybe." Yeah, good luck with that. See, I told you, I'm a jerk about it.

I pained my nails then messed them up. Really, what is the point? I ride a bike every day. I type all day. I use my teeth and nails to open things--my parents might have told me not to use my teeth, but only half-heartedly.

I am debating about whether or not to send manuscripts to Fence and Futurepoem Books. Deadlines are tomorrow. I don't really think that either one of them will publish my work. Of course they won't if I don't send it. I don't want to not send work just to justify my own alienation.

I will send work to Futurepoem, which has no contest or reading fee. I actually don't have a real problem with reading and contest fees, but I don't have extra money now and didn't plan well, and Fence is even less likely to publish me more than Futurepoem.

I should write more love poems, or love poems that don't become gruesome, although I'm not sure I could. After my first reading in New York someone said to me, "you're a little sicko, aren't you?"

It is OK. Wait here.

Of course, in the movies, it is never ok, and waiting here is always a bad idea. More about that later.

I'm having a nice Thanksgiving weekend, here. It's my third in SoCal.

I'm tired and and hypersensitive to texture.

But I am done with grading for the time being. And the bike is fixed.

Perhaps during my next underemployed month I'll take a basic bike mechanics course, that would be fun, and then I can do repairs myself the next time.

One of my ESL students complained that his host father gets overwrought about every single sports event on TV. The host father watches a lot of sports games, alone, and screams and cries at the TV. I actually completely relate to this behavior. Being able to scream and cry about something is great. I can't scream at my online teaching supervisor, so a baseball game is a good thing to yell about. It was the end of the class, and I didn't have time to explain the word "alienation."

Even if you don't get overwrought about sports, I bet you get overwrought about something else. I yelled explicatives this morning while trying to fit the bike in the car (we have no bike rack), and I was glad to yell explicatives. It was great.

This is a picture of of someone in Parsva Bhuja Dandasana, or dragonfly pose. I kind of did this asana on Wednesday.


When I'm doing yoga and my teacher says something about peace coming from within, I always think something like, "yes, but if someone attacks me, it is essential for me to get angry about it and punch them if necessary." This is one of the many places where I differ from the new age pseudo Tantric yoga philosophy I love so much: balance doesn't come from within. Balance is a complicated dynamic. If I am standing on my hands, I need to focus on both my body and the environment.

Everything is a complicated dynamic. Duh.