The overwrought child who made this sandcastle cross at the Carlsbad State Beach on Easter kept trying to get his father's attention. "Dad, Dad," he said, "check out the details on the cross. I put nails in it and everything!"

M & L California Beach Day

Grading, design, make a poem, walk on the beach, nap on the beach, grading, shower, beer outside in the sun, tacos outside in the setting sun, more beer, a walk home through an unfamilar neighborhood, many spring birds.

We live here, yes, but it's not like any of that happens very often.

Today it was 41 Degrees

And there was hail.

And yet many people are still in T shirts.

Tomorrow Mark and I are going to drink cava, but that has nothing to do with the weather.

Our neighbor came over with a bucket of trout he caught today

and gave me three of the medium-sized ones. I often cook fish on Sunday, so I'll make one tomorrow and freeze the rest.


I took this picture in mid-November while riding the 302 bus from Oceanside to San Marcos. It is a very long, boring bus ride. I like the Primo Food Market, though.

It's always strange to be home without Lester. A friend from yoga kindly accompanied me to drop Lester off to be boarded this morning--I don't like driving on highways, and it was good to have company. This will be the third (or the fourth?) time Lester has boarded at the vet, so he's quite comfortable there, and the staff know him. When I walked in the door of the vet, the woman at the front desk said, "Oh! Lester's here!" Another woman asked, "Is Lester the one with the little bucket?"

Lester does have a little bucket--he sometimes gets overly attached to it and will defend it aggressively (or attack it), so I remove it from his cage sometimes. However, I thought he should have it while boarding. He likes to sit inside of it and relax.

After brunch, I had to get the front bike tire repaired again. There is some law about people wanting to smash bottles of cheap beer near water. In Maine, people smashed bottles by lakes and quarries. In Carlsbad, this means that people drink beer and smash bottles on the road by the lagoon. There are cops and lifeguard people at the beach, but none by the lagoon, so people drink and smash bottles (or sometimes throw them out the window) by the lagoon. I try to avoid all the broken glass on my bike, but it's more or less impossible.

One of my students was telling me about super tough tires, so I will look into this in the new year. That and a basic bike mechanics course.

I did go see The Golden Compass this evening. It wasn't bad, although obviously not as good as the book.

I got an email from an employer (an institution, not a person) encouraging me (and all other employees) to participate in two contests. The first contest involves interpreting the goals of the institution in an artistic way. I don't even understand what the second contest is for.

I'm nearly finished packing. I'm trying to limit myself to my carry on sized suitcase and a backpack, but this is a bit difficult because I'm carrying gifts for seven people. I was going to mail them, but it would have cost too much.

Forpus Pacificus Surveys his Domain

Lester has discovered that the top of my desk chair is an excellent place to perch. From there, he can survey the entire room.

My students are all writing movie reviews of I am Legend.

The regular crowd outside of Planned Parenthood is growing. One sign read "Sex Partners Lie."

It's Raining

It also rained this morning, but it was secret rain. I am awake and can clearly see it is raining, so the evening rain is not like the secret morning rain.

Today I struggled to define the word "ilk." It was a tired ESL teacher moment. I attempted to rattle off a list of "synonyms" that included eel and elk. Good job, Lorraine!

I drove to work today because of the rain and for other reasons. It was strange to drive to work. I enjoy listening to music in the car, and it was nice not to get wet, but everything else about it was weird.

My friend and I were talking about the things we like about being here (we've had plenty of conversations already about the things that we don't like). Here is my list:

• I like the winter weather.
• I like the birds.
• I like the ocean and the natural living and nonliving things in the ocean.
• I like the lagoons.
• I like the weather in July-September.
• I like the yoga studio.
• I like the fact that a mountain lion has been seen recently in the parking lot at Cal State San Marcos (I also worry about the fate of the mountain lion, but this is supposed to be a positive list).
• I like Carlsbad. It is a nice little town.
• Even though I feel like I socialize less than I did in DC, this is not statistically true.
• Lester has a good vet.
• I enjoy having people over more than I used to (true, this is in part because people cannot drop by casually the way they did in DC, but still.)
• We are close to Mexico.
• My work life is pretty good.
• I have become a better cook.

There are other things, too.

Most of SoCal geography isn't really conducive to the kind of safe, suburban living it's supposedly known for

If you click on the map below, it will become larger and you'll be able to see the detail. A few of you, my dear readers, and family, have sent emails and text messages requesting more specific information--thank you so much for thinking of us! Truly, Mark, Lester and I are fine. Our little coastal section of Carlsbad is not threatened by fires at all. I am very glad that we don't live inland, even a little.

Cal State San Marcos, as well as FLS Miracosta, where I teach ESL, are both closed, as are most of the county schools. So we're not teaching. I'm still doing my freelance projects and online teaching, and I'm glad. I need something to do when I'm not exercising so that I don't just watch the TV obsessively or get into blog fights. The Yoga Center was closed for a while, but they've reopened with a limited schedule, so I'm going to go practice this morning.

I'm a pseudo not so pseudo carlsbad local girl and don't bother

Dit by my window and look outside, wonder why the sun don't shine on me
What's wrong with you, you stupid child, don't you think that I'm the one you're waiting to see?
Don't talk too much 'cause she falls for the suckers, makes her feel everything is secure
Don't ever leave a footprint on the floor

Chorus: Don't bother with the local girls, don't bother with the local girls
They don't bother me

She's probably half-wit, she must be straight,
or bound to have a mother who knows nothing but hate
Don't want to love her, I'd rather knock her down
Standing at the busstop where she waits each morning
So isolated that she thinks that the army is the place where a man ought to be
Don't bother with them, they don't bother me

Chorus

They got the walk, they got the talk, right down without a flaw
At 6:00 I got to stop my dreaming at the counter of the store

Chorus

Without a doubt I got to intercept, must be time someone ran and shouted intheir head
You look all right in the cheap print dress,
but everytime you swish it 'round you make me disappear
I'm aware of exactly what I'm doing, making everything a mystery
Don't bother with it, it don't bother me

writing projects / toga parties

I've decided to post my "free writing" at See it Everywhere. So that I have something to post and can pretend that I have readers. And it's easier to post prose than the stuff with space and line breaks that I'm also writing now. So I will post prose there. I am trying to write prose that isn't about far away places, but instead is about nice people like people in my family saying and doing rather awful things to each other. It will take me a while to work up to that, though. I'm sure I will mention Lester a lot.

Anyway.

Yesterday while I was on the beach a large group of men and women in togas came by, screaming and yelling things like "show us your tits"

(though not to me, my beach outfit is carefully designed so that no one will bother me: one piece suit, large hat, dark sunglasses, weird book. And anyway I'm pretty hot, but I'm not a 17 year old girl in a bikini,

(thank G-d)

)

They were drunk. They might have been hashers.

Where I live is

and also


and

Beach Town Aura

I am part of the Carlsbad beach town aura as I ride my bicycle to and from yoga class, wearing sandals, yoga bag slung over my back. And it's not just that Carlsbad has a beach town aura, it is a beach town. In California.

I frequently find it alarming to live in a California beach town, but it is August, and the weather here is perfect--so I'm not alarmed, just shocked and pleasantly disembodied. How can I possibly have a body if I'm part of an aura? May and June are like February back East, but now it is nice. I will never vacation in August as long as I live here.

Before I take a shower

I'm back from Yoga. Mark, Dan et Mike are off at Lou's Records or perhaps having fish tacos or food at Tip Top right now. It's been good to have friends around--low key hanging out and hyped-up rowdiness!

Jessica tagged me for the 8 random things meme, I'll post that later.

Next week I'll print the covers for my Dusie chapbook, assemble them, and mail them. I'd also like to scan all the doodles and reading reports that are, well, unscanned. I've no scanner here at home, so that's going to take some planning. Those drawings began as a way of recording/interacting with readings and performances in a way that was completely foreign to me. I can't draw. Rather, I can't make realist visual representations of actual things. Now I'm coming to think of them as a loose kind of criticism, or even short memoirs of the experience of being at the readings.

Recent dead animals on the beach: at least 5 seals (I've lost count), many Humboldt squid, and one pelican.

Today feels muggy. I guess we don't know what "muggy"means anymore.

I haven't seen any, but Humboldt squid have been washing ashore all month, from San Diego to Encinitas. It's not clear why they're washing ashore, although according to the Tribune, it might have something to do with El Niño weather patterns. Squid usually come north from Mexico in advance of major tropical weather. That might explain why there are so many of them here, but it doesn't explain why they're washing up on the beaches by the hundreds.

According to National Geographic, Humboldt squid beach themselves in California every few years: "In 2002 thousands of squid filled the beach at La Jolla Cove north of San Diego, California. Last month at least 1,500 of the squid ended up on beaches between San Diego and Los Angeles." Also, the squid don't seem to be washing up dead on the shores. Instead, they swim into shallow water and get trapped on the beach.

Humboldt squid are supposedly quite aggressive. They can be "elusive and cannibalistic." According to Scott Cassell, who made a documentary about them called "Search for the Red Demon," these squid will attack. "They have a sharp beak, eight muscular arms and two retractable feeding tentacles that allow them to attack their prey with more than 40,000 needle-sharp teeth at once." Ooo!

There was a spill off the coast of Encinitas yesterday. According to the Tribune it was "somewhere between 500 to 1,000 gallons of some type of petroleum product. It smells like gasoline or diesel fuel." Scott Henry, the Chief of Encinitas fire division, said the mess is the worst spill he's seen in 27 years.

I'm not sure why the firemen are the ones dealing with a diesel spill in the ocean. The Tribune doesn't say much about wildlife, except to say that thus far "there has been no discernible impact" although the Tribune did note that a kelp bed off Beacon's Beach acted as a kind of natural barrier--that can't be good for the kelp. Mostly the article talks about how the spill cancelled the Switchfoot Bro-Am surf competition, and that the fumes of the spill are toxic and could cause health problems. Yay!

I can't find any mention of the dead seals in the news. I don't remember there being any dead seals on the beach last May, but that doesn't mean that there weren't any.

There was a sewage spill in the lagoon

The San Diego Tribune referred to it as a "sewage release."