haiku for city year kids on the downtown F train

Sincere boys and girls
Khaki pants and red jackets
You're on Medicaid

boo

is a stupid horrible ill-mannered dog that I love more than all almost every human being I know but he ran onto Montrose Avenue twice tonight and almost got himself killed. And almost got me killed too, when I ran after him shouting at the top of my lungs to stop. What a stupid horrible stupid stupid dog.

bile rises in throat

It's hard not to be angry about things that are not far enough in the past not to be angry about. Now I don't have the time to change my clothes, or maybe I'm just disinterested in fashion or hygiene. I haven't written about my trip to China because the defining moment of it involves me parting my mother's labia while my cousin, who is a medical student, inserts a catheter to drain out 1500cc of blocked urine to save my mom from kidney failure. Other defining moments include a fun and frantic tour of emergency wards in Nanjing and Songjiang, and seeing the rancid tip of my uncle's nose, which is rotting because he doesn't make enough money to keep the heat on all night and keeps the windows open to dry his clothes in the air and sleeps with a hot water bag but still can't keep his face warm. Friends text asking if I'm mad at them because I haven't called in so long. Friends' fathers die. I'm tired all the time but there aren't enough hours in the day to sleep. I'm snapping at people and getting absurdly sensitive to old friends' no-nonsense communicative styles. And fuck you, Kathryn, you don't know me at all; but I know all about Tom. Peace on Earth.

misanthropy + jubilation

Sometimes other people's joy makes me want to cry with happiness. For example, a law professor who I don't even know but whose office happens to be next to the cubicle where I sit to study just received a visitor who brought her a gift. I didn't hear what the gift was, but the professor literally just squealed with delight and said, "Ooooooo! Purple! Oooooo!" Because I once heard a story about how students in her Professional Responsibility class were mean to her and harsh in their evaluation of her (to her face), I am predisposed to thinking of this woman as a Schmerzensmann upon whose frizzy head no laurel of hope and happiness would ever be placed. So imagine my feelings when I heard the high-pitched notes of delight coming from her office - I was elated! Even occasional beams of light pierce the murky depths of the legal academy, even coniferous trees get warm spring afternoons, even the Red Sox win the World Series - all of it! I was happy she was happy and then I wanted to blog about it.

It's strange, because sometimes people squeal with delight and I couldn't feel farther from happiness. It's just as likely that I would think nasty thoughts about a squealer, especially one who squeals after receiving a gift, as a shallow, materialistic, opportunistic, gas-guzzling, conspicuous-consuming, middle-class-conservative-values-having, racist (why? why _not_?), swing-voting, fascist terrorist-sympathizer who does not recycle glass bottles or gift wrapping.

I guess it really all depends on the weather.

Oh yes, and I went to China, and I finished a semester, and I am going to trial in six weeks for my clinic case and having a mediation for my personal lawsuit in one day; all of that is happening too. But more on that in May 2007, when I have free time. For now: