everyone is smart.

I feel sometimes that my business professor, a young woman seeking her doctorate while teaching night classes at a community college, would be better at teaching kindergarten. She is enthusiastic in everything, wants us all to be involved in class lectures and encourages us to disagree with her whenever we want. She frequently puts us into small groups to discuss things like our favorite style of resume. She brings Whitman Samplers to class and passes them around. Her glass is not only half-full, she probably would be willing to pour some from her glass into all of our glasses, particularly if we needed something to wash down our chocolates. She is constantly fascinated by anything anyone has to say. If another human being finds something worth saying, she'll find it worth listening to.

One evening, a classmate was discribing how a friend of hers acquired some great job. "But," the girl added, "my friend, she is really smart-"

"Everyone is smart!" the teacher interrupted.

A look of confusion likely came over my face the moment I heard those words. No, I'm sorry, ma'am, that is false. I'm hopeful enough to believe that everyone has value, everyone can make a difference, and everyone has their own talents. But not everyone is smart, at least not by any definition of the word I've heard. Of course, I could hardly raise my hand and contradict her on this matter without seeming like an absolute bitch. I could probably even prove to her that her theory was bogus by simply pointing at some person in the class at that very moment. I don't have any specific person picked out, but there was bound to be at least one. I've taken too many college classes to think that idiots don't make it into higher education.

If I had contradicted her, she probably, given her manner, would have assumed that I did so because I felt that I, Sandra, am not smart. That would have turned out even worse for me.

"Um, excuse me? Everyone is not smart."

"Of course they are, don't be ridiculous! Are you smart?"

"Of course. But everyone is not."

So yeah, that would have effectively made me out as a jerk, though it probably would have provided me with a natural alliance with all the other jerks in the class, not all of which would be necessarily smart, but at least they think they are. But no, I sat there silently, and the other jerks did, too. I shook my head and just let the comment roll on by without argument, thinking to myself that no, everyone is not smart, and frankly, lady, I've got my doubts about you.

peoples is peoples.

"So. Of the men at work, who do you think is cheating on his wife?"

I'm at lunch with Jean, the receptionist. She's been having a rough week and declared earlier that she was in full man-hating mode. I'm not much of a man-hater. I've been pissed off at at some man or another many, many times, but I've never really been able to transfer that anger into hating the gender as a whole. Me, I'm still very much in favor of men. Like ice cream and flannel sheets and the sun, men were a good idea. There are good men out there and awful women. Like a Greek man once told Kermit the Frog, "Peoples is peoples."

But Jean's husband is in the doghouse for something, I don't ask what, because I don't want to pry and also because I know I'm not always very good at sympathy. I don't know Jean all that well, and truth be told, I'm afraid that I'll agree with her husband. And so even if I can't be a good man-hater for Jean, I am a girl, and a good girly talk would probably do her good. A strong margarita wouldn't hurt, either. But now she's asked me about the fidelity of the men we work with, and I'm just not sure what to say. I know these men have wives, and I know they have children, but I don't really think of them as sexual beings. It makes them easier to work with.

"Uhh...I don't really know. I'm probably naive, but I tend to assume that everyone is just being a good person unless I hear differently."

"Oh, of course, I do, too. But I answer the phones all day, and I know who is getting calls from other women."

"Well, some of the guys, I dunno, they give me the impression that they had a hard enough time getting someone to marry them in the first place." It's not that the men I work with are repulsive, but, well, they're dorks. They're smart and like computers a lot and are shy. Those things don't add up to having a lot of chicks knocking at their doors.

"Yeah, that's true of some of them. But not all. Some of them have women calling them all the time and not their wives."

"Maybe their mothers?" I'm hopeful. I was happy thinking that the men were all faithful, even the one or two whose morals I would question otherwise. Sure, they all complain about their wives from time to time, but mostly in a trivial way. You know, the have to call the little woman and ask if it's okay to go out for a beer after work kind of way.

"Yeah, right."

"These women call them at work? Why don't the guys tell them to use the backdoor number?" We have a backdoor number that will patch you through to an automated system. If you know the person's extension, you can call him/her directly rather than speak to Jean.

"Because men are stupid."

"I guess." Or maybe men just don't realize that the receptionist would ever take note of these things because they themselves wouldn't. Or maybe they don't feel like they have anything to hide from Jean. Despite my better nature, I start to half-envy Jean's position of power and her ability to get these tiny glimpses into our coworkers' personal lives.

"Do you think Jake runs around on his wife?"

I don't know how to answer these questions. There was really no one who I thought cheated on his spouse before this conversation, and I'm more than a little distraught to have my mental image of everyone's home lives turned upside down. I really don't think Jake cheats on his wife. But what do I know? Maybe he gets lots of phone calls.

"I don't really think so."

"Yeah, I don't either." Relief washes over me. I like Jake a lot, and I think he's overall a good person. Jean continues, "You know who gets a lot of calls? Ben."

"What?" I am shocked. I don't know Ben's wife or much about his home life, but I do know that he's very sweet and helpful, always cheerful even when I know he's tired and frustrated.

"Yup. Same woman, who is not his wife, calls him three, four times a day."

"But he's so nice!" Nice doesn't mean good, I know that. I still feel disillusioned.

"His wife is a little psycho. Bizarre. She suspects him, too."

"How do you know?"

"She calls and asks me if other women have been calling him. She asks where he is if he's not answering his phone."

"What do you say?"

"I tell him he gets business calls, which is true. And if I know he's out somewhere work-related, I tell her. If I don't know where he is, I just say that I don't know."

"Yeah." That makes sense. I'd do the same if I were her. I suddenly don't envy her position anymore.

"So my top three cheaters would be...well, there's Don, of course, but that's a given."

"Yeah, probably." No one much likes Don. He's not a nice person and I don't work with him all that much, so I have no trouble questioning his fidelity. "I imagine his wife is doing the same." For some reason, I feel the need to point out that women aren't always so innocent, too.

"Yeah, well, probably. But there's Ben, Matt, and Tom. That's my top three."

"Matt?" Crap, I like Matt a lot, too.

"If he's not cheating now, he has in the past. Oh, and Richard."

"Richard? I'm not sure about that."

"His wife is a, well, she wears the pants."

"Some men like that." I'm starting to doubt Jean now. Phone calls are one thing (and even that can be a little sketchy as evidence), but suspecting a man of infidelity just because she doesn't care for his wife? Given the right husband, I might someday be accused of wearing the pants. And I know she's hardly rooting for the males right now.

"Well, I guess. But definitely Tom."

"He doesn't seem to like his wife all that much," I sigh, because I think she is probably right. Everyone complains about his spouse, but Tom means his complaints just a little too much. Tom's always been a good guy to me, but even I can't really defend him here.

"He doesn't."

"I don't like to think of those guys this way."

"Men are stupid. I've been trying to watch them and notice their behavior so that I can recognize it if I ever see it in my husband."

"Yeah," I say without enthusiasm. Man-hating seems to be a draining activity.

The rest of the lunch conversation continues without incident, more gossip, but my mood is affected for the rest of the day. I feel conflicted by my impressions of these men, who are all very pleasant and have fun personalities, but may just be lousy cheaters in the end. In fact, I begin to worry why it is they're all so nice to me, though none of them have ever done or said anything inappropriate in that regard. I want reassurance, I want to talk this all over with someone else who knows these people, but it's not like I can tell any of them that Jean is monitoring their phone calls.

I can't be a man-hater, because I know that there are good men out there - I've met them. There are scummy women out there, too, but not even Jean has given up on being friends with females altogether, though no one probably sees how badly women can behave more than other women. No one gender has cornered the market on adultery. And maybe there are some dirty philanderers that walk the halls with me, but it's none of my concern. I can't let a woman who is mad at one man ruin my perspective on all the others. They're just people. Peoples is peoples.

well, are you?

This billboard is on the side of some highway that runs between Raleigh and the beach. I know, because I was on my way from Raleigh to the beach when I saw it.

Are you numb yet?

I assume that this graffiti was done to make a statement, asking all who might be on their way from Raleigh to the beach if they've become so overloaded with stimuli that they no longer feel anything anymore. At least, that was how I interpreted it. Maybe that's just the one I picked because I feel that way sometimes.

Numbness is disconcerting. It's like we know something is there or should be there, but we can't sense it. We only sense its absence. Like going to the dentist and leaving confused, because you certainly had a lower lip when you went in, but it doesn't seem to be there anymore. Now imagine that with your whole body, no, your mind.

I dunno, it seems like there could have been a lot of other, better statements to throw up on a billboard. Maybe even something practical - "Have you brushed your teeth today?" I would not be a very good graffiti artist, because I can never think of something important enough to say in a succinct manner. That's why I blog, instead. All this stuff would not fit on a billboard in such a way that it would be legible from the road. I do like the instant recognition I got from this one, though: If you've felt it, you got it. And if you've not felt it, you likely will someday, and then you'll get it and wish you hadn't.

I am not numb yet. I am sometimes, and I even wish that I were more often, like when something upsets me or hurts me so frequently that I wish I could just build up scar tissue on my feelings. But then I've gotten to the point of being numb like that, and it just seems like nothing's worth it anymore.

Or maybe, someone was just on their way from Raleigh to the beach, and it's a long time to be sitting on your bottom; pretty soon you get the needles and pins in that bottom. Maybe they were just asking about that.

the importance of body language.

Valerie has a pretty face ruined by a sour expression. She sits cross-armed and scowling across from me in my psychology class while the instructor teaches us the importance of body language. On the first day, she introduced herself by saying, "My name is Valerie, I'm from Macon, Georgia, and I hate North Carolina."

Hi, Valerie.

Granted, I find that being somewhere that I do not want to be puts me in a bad mood, too. But I think that if my situation required me to be somewhere that I didn't want to be all the time, I'd make some adjustments. Either I'd find my way back to Georgia or I'd just learn to deal.

I don't know why Valerie has to be in North Carolina, why she came here in the first place, nor why she can't leave. I don't know why she hates it here so much, if it actually has anything to do with the Old North State itself or it's just because it's not Georgia. Mostly I don't understand why she can't just grin and bear it, learn to like it here just for the sake of her sanity. Surely it's easier to like the Tarheel State than it is to be miserable all the time.

I am insulted on behalf of my entire state. This is my home, and I like it here. I want to sit down with Valerie and convince her that North Carolina is better than silly old Georgia anyway. Then I look at her perpetual scowl, and I think that I'd rather her go on back to Georgia, too.

expansion.

The books! The books, the books, they're piled everywhere, sometimes lined up neatly in alphabetical order by author, but they're only pretending because another pile of disorganized books sits on top of the line. Someone put in my head the idea of spontaneous reading, the idea of picking up a book and deciding to read it because the cover looks interesting or because an author you like reviewed it and liked it. Spontaneous reading, the thing that keeps me in the book section of my local Goodwill(s) for half an hour at a time, adding to my stack that will be my next month's reading for only three dollars.

And I read fast.

I tear through the books, even the ones that are kinda slow that make me feel like I'm missing something (because they must be good, so-and-so on the back cover says so). I come home and sit for two hours on my tail after having sat on same said tail for a previous eight hours at work. Even as my hours drip by slowly and I mourn the lost chances to be productive, even as my waist expands from so much sitting on the tail, I can never count reading time as time lost. Perhaps if I were reading crap, then I could, because there's an awful lot out there that I won't have the time to read, what with death and all, and I bet some of it is good. But no, most of it is good, this spontaneous reading thing hasn't steered me too wrong. It is productive, though it only contributes to the expansion of the waist, it is the expansion of the mind, and this way, I can hope to catch a husband who won't be opposed to loving a fat wife with a book in her hand. Or in this way, I can hope to never have to worry about having a husband at all, making more time for reading before I run out of time for everything.

Used books come with bookmarks and dog-ears all ready and made for you. An old scrap of paper, a receipt from a college bookstore, a turned-down page fifteen pages in that makes you wonder why whoever it was didn't get very far. Perhaps death got in the way, or maybe something more likely, like children or work or waist expansion. I read them spontaneously, not having to like them very much at the end or even in the middle, because it was only a quarter, only fifty cents, only a dollar for hours of entertainment, phrases of which I can carry around in my head for years to come, to ponder until I finally figure it out and how it really all applies to me.

I feel like I'm getting it, you know, the deeper meanings, those vague symbols, the underlying themes that your high school english teacher told you about which seemed crystal clear once explained in class, but you knew you could never have extracted that from the literature yourself. Me, always lost in the little secret that I could never find the symbols on my own unless they were bright and glaring and it all seemed to vague and who really knew what the author could have meant anyway? Now, just a little bit at a time, maybe? I'm getting it?

I read like a scientist, but I'm trying hard not to. Someone accused me of that once, and I was confused because I didn't think it was a bad thing at all. I want to just blaze through, picking up the important points that I'll need to know and missing on the implications that are too subtle for my skimming eye. Why these authors can't just say it, I don't know, but I want to understand their game, because I think that there may be something important to me hidden in there if I can just find it. Reading, I'm irritated to find, seems to take practice, and here I thought it was something that I had down. But finding those little pieces that the author snuck in for the reader who cares to find it, being able to figure out for myself what is good literature and what is not without having to be told, that is my aim. If I can't do that, I'll just have to join a gym.

narration.

I'm groggy and grumpy, but I promised myself a cup of hot chocolate if I just went to the grocery store and bought the things I needed, plus one bag of tiny marshmallows. And I'm here, looking like I didn't wash my hair and then slept on my ponytail, which I did. I pull up and get out of my car, and a girl approximately my age looks me up and down for longer than is polite, which makes me immediately self-conscious about my appearance, but then I notice that she's looking no better. I don't understand why she's looking at me like I'm sleeping with her man, and I'm half-tempted to call out, "It's not me, it's some other girl with awful hair!" Then I think it might be more fun to shout out that it is me, I am the other woman, but by that time, she's entered the Food Lion as the immigrant workers buff and sweep the floors, another trip to the grocery store a half hour before closing to buy only lottery tickets.

Whatever man she has, I'm certain that I do not want him.

I try to hurry down the items on my list, picking them out in numerical order of their aisles. One cucumber, a head of lettuce, tuna (name-brand on sale), cereal, tiny marshmallows, dishwasher detergent, juice, milk, cheese (fancy shredded). I pass a guy in the milk section who has clearly been sent to do a task about which he knows nothing. The selection of bovine juice baffles him as I slip in and quickly grab the store-brand purple milk with the latest expiration date. I feel no sympathy for him and wonder if he envies my familiarity with the dairy section, my command of the supermarket, my swift and smooth choice of the purple gallon which is a clear indication of months, nay, years of experience. Probably not, I realize, because that's just sort of a stupid thing to envy. I look at my cart - no basket tonight because of the milk and juice - and wonder if my situation is obvious, whether my groceries scream out "SINGLE GIRL" as clearly as a cart full of potato chips and condiments screams out "SINGLE GUY." I decide that my secret is safe just from the lack of low-fat frozen dinners.

I pay the cashier who I see here a lot and who once asked me if I went to high school with him. I'm always amazed that people might be fooled into thinking that I belong here when I'm really from somewhere far, far away, or maybe just a ninety minute drive to someplace that seems like light years. I drive my little blue cart out to my little blue car and unload my four plastic bags, one of them containing my purple milk. I can never decide how I feel about putting the milk in a bag, because sometimes they ask if that's how you want it, but I've never been able to tell much of an advantage either way. I drive the empty buggy, which is southern for "shopping cart," all the way back to the store rather than stow it in the designated area in the lot, because the extra steps make me feel like I'm making some sort of effort to exercise and take care of myself. I get into the car and drive towards home, all the time thinking about hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows and wondering why on earth I've got this inner narrator that takes a late-night trip to the grocery store and turns it into five hundred words on a web site in the middle of nowhere in cyberland.

surprise moving truck.

I give in to the heat and decide that it's nearly noon and time to get up. Josh left for work hours ago while I slept in, waking up every hour or so to notice once again how nice air conditioning in this house would be. I hear movement outside and upstairs, but I don't think much of it. I get dressed with the intention of finding something to eat for breakfast or lunch or whatever this meal should be. I walk out and open the front door to see a huge moving truck taking up the entire driveway. Guess I won't be going anywhere: PBJ, here I come.

Evan, Josh's roommate, walks by as I complete my sandwich assembly. "Hey, uh, are you moving?" I ask him.

"Yeah, apparently. My dad just kinda showed up with the truck this morning. I was surprised, too."

"Is everything okay?"

"Oh yeah, don't worry. My dad's cool, so you don't have to worry about running into him or anything."

I pause, because I'm confused. I have no idea how his answer fit with my question. "No, I mean, is everything okay with you? Are you not going back to school?"

"I guess not."

I decide not to push him for any more info. I know he's gotten in trouble for underage drinking recently, and I suppose his parents decided it was time to intervene. "Man, that sucks."
"Yeah, well."

"Do you need any help?"

"Nah, we got all the heavy stuff already."

"I'm really strong for a girl."

"I'm sure you are, but I think we got it."

Evan heads back upstairs to continue his spontaneous packing. I do meet Evan's dad and decide that he probably is cool. He looks like what I imagine a couple of my more eccentric college professors look like on their days off.

I sit down with my PBJ and wonder about how Evan answered my question. I didn't care about the beer bottles or the cigarette butts - I don't even live here. And even if I were caught doing something supposedly illicit, what was his dad going to do - call my parents? Evan is twenty and still under parental jurisdiction. They pay his bills and write him off on their taxes. I miss the days when I didn't have to worry about electric bills and rent, but I confess that I prefer the way it is now, when I stay out as late as I please, sleep til noon on Saturdays, and never have to worry that a moving truck is coming to take me home.

no adam.

I had to give a speech once to an association of public school teachers to thank them for a scholarship. Another guy was giving a speech, too, for the same reason. We were supposed to go tell all those nice teachers what we had learned in our first year of college, one that had been partially paid for by all those smiling women. The other guy talked a lot about tutoring underprivileged children. My speech was basically a compilation of light-hearted tips that most anyone who has been through college can relate to. Okay, fine, I didn't tutor any underprivileged children, but my speech was more interesting.

One of my tips was this: Guys will walk dogs around campus to pick up girls. I fall for it every time.

So while I told all those ladies that I learned this in college, I continue to fall for it five years later. I try really hard not to, because I don't want to encourage those guys who think all they need for a free chick is a puppy. But, man, puppies are cute. There must be something deep within women that makes us weak to cuddly creatures. In fact, I think it goes all the way back to creation. There's that whole legend about Lilith, Adam's first wife, who got herself liberated and left him standing in the Garden. So when God made Eve, He wanted to avoid that whole mess, so He gave Adam one of those really squishy, wrinkly puppies to hold when Eve woke up, and the rest is history.

Or something like that.

Last night, a guy was walking a dog outside my apartment. It was not a squishy, wrinkly puppy, it was an enormous, beautiful mammoth of a dog, a Great Dane. I'm coming to realize that when things are named as "Great," it's not an exaggeration. This dog's shoulders came up to my hip. His head came up to my chest, which made it much easier for him to smell my breasts. I knew they were big dogs, but I'd never seen one in person. I realized then that Scooby Doo is drawn to scale, rather than just being a cartoonish exaggeration. I think the Great Dane might have been God's prototype for the horse.

I'd seen the dog before around the apartment complex, and I always really wanted to go up and pet it and admire the massive creature up close. But I always fought the urge, because I did not want to be picked up. But the dog was right outside, it was even in my path to the mailbox. I had to pet the dog. I was a little intimidated, but the animal was indeed a sweetheart, wagging his tail and sniffing me as his new friend.

My new friend's name is Marvin.

But I kept the visit short, because I still did not want to encourage the dog's owner, who was about my age and looked like the type of person who would use a pet to attract female attention. Yes, you have a very interesting and gorgeous and sweet-natured dog, but that does not necessarily indicate anything about you, so I'll be moving on now. So I went on to my mailbox, leaving them behind.

On the way back from the mailbox, I ran into them again. In fact, it appears they had followed me about halfway to the mail center. The owner explained, "He must like you - he followed you all the way up here!"

Right.

I pet Marvin some more - he really did have soft fur - and then moved on again. It was an effort to do so. I was fighting thousands of years of genetics, I was fighting my own pair of X chromosomes, but I did it. Like I said, it was hard, because I'm no Lilith. Then again, that dude was no Adam.

eve's nail polish.

Nothing really sage to say about this picture. This shot was taken across the river from Detroit in Windsor, Ontario (that's Canada, folks). You can see the lovely towers of the GM building in the background. In the foreground is a giant hand, holding an apple (duh). Along the riverside in Windsor is a big statue park where there were lots of giant statues, the meaning of many I did not understand, not that I tried very hard. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying art! According to the little plaque at the foot (wrist?) of the statue, this one has something to do with Eve and the apple, though I don't recall the Bible mentioning anything about Eve's shiny nail polish. Of course, the Good Book does leave out some details from time to time, so maybe this is just such a case.

for the love of code.

I'm taking a business class this semester as part of my requirements for that Viticulture and Enology degree that I'm going after for whatever reason. The class, by and large, sucks. It's an intro class where I'm assigned to read a couple chapters out of a big textbook every week and copy down bold-faced words like "supply," "risk," and "empowerment."

The teacher must know that the class sucks, because she strives at every opportunity to engage us all in discussion. I participate in these sort of haphazardly. I often disagree with something someone has said, but I just keep it to myself because I'm not that interested in correcting their thinking. Sometimes I'll chip in with some smart-aleck comment, because I find that I am much better at that than making convincing arguments. I've always been one to go with my strengths.

We were discussing different economic systems this evening, and as always in these sorts of discussions, someone brought up both Wal-Mart and Microsoft. While everyone in there seemed to be capitalists (as I found from earlier in the evening), they seemed to be pretty pissed off at the companies who were good at it. It's popular to demonize these companies for cornering markets and being ubiquitous and basically making a series of very smart business moves. I don't doubt that there are shifty people in both those companies, but I feel that shifty people just sort of go with the business world.

The professor was obviously very anti-Microsoft, as she showed when she got fired up about their lawsuits and questionable business practices. I was kind of drifting in and out of the discussion at this point. I don't know much about Microsoft's history or their business practices and I've never been much interested. Then, she said, "And plus, they don't share their program code with anyone!"

Whoa, nelly, hang on there a second, it was time for Sandra to get involved in the class.

"Uh, why should they have to share their source code?"

"Good question! Should they?"

No, c'mon, woman! You obviously think they should and I asked you a question, so stop trying to get everyone engaged and interested and answer me. At that point, a couple of rebels in the back started chipping in about Linux and Open Office, effectively ending the conversation since no one had any idea what that stuff is. I sat there, irritated and was pretty much useless for the rest of the class.

Some programmer, some poor geeky dude wrote all that buggy Microsoft code that everyone complains about. Someone devoted hours upon hours to it. Days, weeks, months, coding problems haunted that guy in his free time while the bugs chased him in his sleep. And at the end of that, you want him to just open it up to everyone to use? It's just capitalism versus communism again, and ten minutes ago they were all hard-core capitalist infidels.

There is a lot of open source programming out there, where everyone just contributes to the project and everyone has access to all the code. It's a great idea, and one that won't work in a lot of areas: programming has the advantage of producing a lot of geeks who do it just for the love of code. But the love of code doesn't pay the bills, and if you want to run a business, you can't just be giving away your products and then expect people to buy it as well.

So that was what I meditated over while the class finished up, as my professor griped about how Microsoft was getting away with murder, all the while showing us lecture slides that she had made in Powerpoint - Microsoft Powerpoint. Ridiculous.

two and a half things.

Things, because I'm hard up for what to write and yet I still feel your glaring eyes and their silent reproach for more words to feed them. Or something like that.

Thing 1: Unsocialized.
I saw a bumper sticker today, one in the fashion of those old stupid caution signs that said "Baby on Board!" However, this one said "Caution: Unsocialized Homeschoolers on board." I was amused, both because I know some adults who were homeschooled and are now social retards, and because I have siblings who homeschool their children. My nieces and nephews seem fairly well-adjusted so far - they don't seem to be any more socially inept than...well, me.

Thing 2: Technically Geeky.
I realized that I am a geek today. No, really, I already knew, but it's always nice (or traumatizing) to have these things confirmed. Josh asked me where he could find a good deal on a CD burner. No, no the fact that he came to me is not the reason that I am a geek. I told him what kind of prices he could expect if he looked around a bit, but then - geeky part alert! - I told him that I had an extra one anyway, and he could just have it. Luckily, he'll see the incident as proof that I'm a good girlfriend, not that I'm a big loser.

Thing 3: I only thought of two things.
Sorry about that.

there are fish in this lake.

Another of my photography obsessions, the first being reflective surfaces, is writing. You've already noticed how much I like goofy signs, but I'm talking more about handwritten messages on things which were not made for that purpose. As a result, I have lots of pictures of initials carved in trees, mantras traced in dusty windows, and obscene poetry written on flagpoles. There is something fascinating to me about a message that someone casually writes on a public surface as some sort of contribution to the collective knowledge of the world, or at least the part of the world that might go around reading flagpoles.

This one is my favorite of all such pictures.



I took this on a blustery January afternoon at Salem Lake, where there is a long pier. Apparently, people fish there. And in 2005, at least one was caught and carefully documented.

I like this picture so much because this message is one of hope. Fishing is an act of patience that may or may not ever pay off. But this message proudly proclaims "Hang in there!" to anyone who may be frustrated from the lack of underwater nibblers. I keep a copy of this picture in my office. I've tried to explain to several people what it means to me: blank stares all around.

But whatever, I don't care if no one understands why I get such hope from this picture, because I get it, as if the message were written just for me even though I never fish. Hang in there. Don't give up. There are fish in this lake.

really big, round thing.

Life seems so uncertain these days. Remember back when you were a kid and there were all these infallible truths? You know, like Tuesday is pizza for lunch day, your dad could beat up anybody else's dad, the sky is blue, the grass is green, there are nine planets in our solar system.

Then I stopped eating school lunches, and I met people with really big dads. Then people started questioning obvious things like colors, telling me that what looked blue or green to me could be orange or fuschia to someone else. And now, scientists tell me there are eight planets. We've kicked Pluto out of the club, and I'm all confused.

The scientist in me is glad. Pluto was always included in the list with an asterisk and a footnote that said that it was such a titchy little thing that a lot of people debated whether it should be labelled as a planet at all. So finally someone got up the guts to just call Pluto's bluff, "Hey, man, you're not even a real planet, and we'll prove it by redefining the word so that you don't meet the requirements - so there!" Of course, Pluto doesn't care, nor does Clyde Tombaugh, the guy who discovered the little guy back in 1930 and whose ashes are now making their way to the former planet on a spacecraft.

It also brings up the old Shakespearean point about roses and whether they would smell so good if they were named something else. Yes, of course they would. I don't know how Pluto smells, but none of this changes anything about the space body itself, just how we see it. Many infallible truths turn out to fall because of the words we use to describe them. There are no longer nine planets in our solar system because we changed planet from "big, round thing" to "really big, round thing." It's a finicky thing, language.

Honestly? The worst part about this whole fiasco is that it makes me feel very, very old. You know those people who say they remember when there were forty-eight states? You remember how old they always seemed, as if they had been there back at the beginning of time, taking notes to include in our history textbooks? Now, that's me. And it's even worse, because while it's generally accepted that political boundaries are changeable, you'd think you could rely on planets to be constant. I remember when I learned that My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas, and now I find out that she, while still very excellent, is serving nachos or noodles or gnocchi nuts. Someday, I just know that some punk kid is going to ask me how many planets there are, and I offhandedly will reply, "Nine, silly." And then those dumb kids will all laugh at Granny Sandra, who is only still alive to finish writing first-hand accounts of ancient historical events.

Kids these days.

been better.

I went to a yard sale one Saturday with my mom back in my home town. It was in the suburbs, in one of those older communities where the houses don't all look the same. The carport was covered with various bits and pieces, an overpriced telescope, some clothes, a box of odds and ends, but nothing interesting. The woman manning (womanning?) the sale told us that there was a lot more inside the house, so I stepped inside the door adjoing the carport into a bare living room. Most of the major furniture was gone; only a couple of cabinets remained, and these were covered with knick-knacks priced to sell. There were a lot of figurines, mostly porcelain or ceramic unicorns and the like. There were also a lot of Chinese-themed objects, including a couple of small shadow boxes with landscapes carved out of cork. There were two beautiful velvet paintings, one of a Chinese landscape and another with a bullfighting theme, but they were more than what I wanted to pay for them. The bareness of the room indicated that the people were probably moving and trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible.

While I was looking around, some other shoppers made small talk with the residents. Besides the woman was a man. Someone politely asked him how he was doing, just making friendly small talk, and he mumbled, "Been better." Trying to be friendly and cheerful, I turned to ask him if he'd been worse, but his defeated posture stopped me. He had a long, raised scar running across the top of his scalp, and his hair was all gone except for some coarse blond strands. Maybe this guy had been worse, but I knew I hadn't. Sometimes even I am able to shut up in time.

Strangers continued to come inside and look around while I made my way around the living room, examining knick-knacks. Cheerful, Southern strangers after a bargain, they made more conversation with the couple. "Wow, you folks moving?" one asked as he looked around the bare room.

"No, we're just trying to cover medical expenses," the woman said frankly. I liked her. She wasn't asking for anything, nor was she making a big deal about what most certainly was a very big deal. She was just working on getting by. I was immediately depressed by the idea of having a yard sale to pay medical bills. These people were coming to the end of their ropes.

I, not knowing anything to say and so saying nothing, bought a wall decoration that may or may not have been real jade but was a steal regardless at $4. I didn't try to negotiate the price down or argue at all, because I probably would have paid more. I paid with a fiver and felt bad for accepting my change.

Now it hangs in my room, it's beautiful, and I love it and don't even care all that much if it's real jade, because it's real enough to fool me. It used to belong to a sick man who had lots of lovely things from other countries and maybe he loved it, too, but now he's got more important things on his mind. Maybe he'll die soon and maybe he already has, but at least someone, even some smart-aleck girl who has never had anything very bad happen to her, loves his picture and knows that it has a story, even if she doesn't know all of it.

the flowers in your neighborhood.

Nothing all that special or sage this week in terms of Thousand Words Thursday. Just a pretty flower. I guess the more interesting thing about this picture is where I took it. I was bored one evening and so I picked up my camera and my walking shoes and my mp3 player and set out to photograph Lewisville. I find that when I walk through my neighborhood, I am repeatedly saying to myself, "Wait...how long has that house been there?" It's amazing what you miss driving down the same road every day. I walked over to the elementary school and found this little nature area. I suppose you could consider any outdoors place a "nature area," but this one was obviously set up to be some sort of placid garden where small children should go to read advanced-for-their-age books and ponder the wonder of life. Thus, the area was looking overgrown and unkempt, which made me like it even more. It's like in The Secret Garden, but before it was discovered: just this secluded area that obviously used to be cared for and probably was beautiful, but now was just someone's secret. I only wish that I'd had to find a key to get to it and befriended a cripple and a dude that could talk to animals on the way.

In any case, I liked my newly found secret garden, where man tries to celebrate nature and then nature sort of just takes over. I took lots of pictures of various plants and insects and broken birdfeeders until the smell of some flower became too sickeningly sweet for me. I wondered if any of the hundreds of students and staff of the elementary school even knew about it.

pb & j.

My brother Knocker taught me to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while I was in single digits, and I'm here to announce the following: he did not teach me the proper way.

I'm sorry, Knocker, but it had to be said.

I was taught to put peanut butter on both slices of bread. Then you pick one side, put some jelly on it (preferably my mother's strawberry freezer jam), put the sides together and you've got a sandwich. The first clue that my way was unconventional was when my roommate shrieked, shrieked, when she saw me putting peanut butter on the second slice of bread. She and I are both a bit on the anal-retentive side, and so it's not surprising that we have very firm opinions on things like proper peanut butter and jelly sandwich assembly.

Proper PBJ construction continued to be a sore point between us, particularly when we would have to pack snacks for long shifts working in the computer lab. I would sometimes have to bring her sandwiches. While Knocker's way allows more peanut butter, well, it's just not practical for packing vertically. You see, all the jelly slides across the slippery, peanutty interior of the sandwich out to the bottom and pools in a sweetened, gelatinous puddle in the sandwich baggie. I held up one of these puddle sandwiches after it had ridden in my bookbag, and I confess, I began to doubt my own method.

Now, if you're not making sandwiches for travel, then the double peanut butter method is fine, no problem. The trouble is, I've never noticed much improvement in the taste of the sandwich with the extra peanut butter, plus the fact that the spreading of additional peanut product was an additional step in the sandwich-making process. But I did not want to lose face in front of my roommate after we'd had this elaborate argument about the simplest sandwich since, well, sliced bread. So when I made sandwiches for us, I would make hers her way and mine Knocker's way. I knew most of the jelly was getting lost in the baggie, so I was really having a peanut butter sandwich with jelly on the side, but I ate it without complaint. Eating a weird sandwich was a lot better than eating crow.

But now I live alone and so I can make my sandwiches in private. No one judges me as I put jelly only on the second slice of bread. At the same time, I feel a pang of guilt, of family betrayal, because this is the first time that I've ever noticed my family to be wrong about food. I think if ever I find strawberry jam better than my mother's, I may just lose the will to live.

kid tested, mother approved.

Josh called one night after a show at the Berkeley Cafe. From the noise in the background, it was clear that he was still there. It was a joint show, and he was telling me about the other band.

"You remember them? We played at The Dive Bar with them?"

"Yeah, they have that lead singer who only has one shirt." So that probably wasn't fair, because I'd only ever seen the guy twice, but both times he was wearing the same orange shirt, a faux-vintage one advertising Kix. Maybe it was his lucky performance shirt or maybe he thought the faded orange really brought out the color of his eyes.

We'd discussed the guy before, side-by-side, hand-in-hand critics. The guy was admittedly more interesting than a lot of guys in rock bands. His band, well, whatever, I wasn't impressed, but left to his own devices, the guy was kind of entertaining. The best part of their show was their sound check. A lot of people have a syndrome that the minute their voice is amplified over a microphone, they become colossal idiots, but he managed to become more interesting. In fact, he was kind of boring in regular conversation. The guy was a showman. We decided that if he could ever figure out what was cool and latch onto it, the dude could probably be famous one day, and then he could buy all the orange shirts he wanted. He could wear a different orange shirt that looked the same every day.

"Yeah, that one. Hey, did he ever hit on you?"

Pause. That's an odd kind of jealous streak, to mention a guy and then ask if he'd ever hit on me. "What? No, why?"

"He was telling this story tonight about how they were playing with some other band somewhere and he was hitting on this girl. And then it got to the point where it got to the point, and then she tells him that she's other bands' bass player's girlfriend. I was just wondering if it was you."

"Nope, wasn't me."

"I figured it wasn't. You're taller than he is, and he wouldn't like that." Being taller was just one of the things that he would not like about me. This guy didn't strike me as the kind of guy who would hit on a girl who wore glasses.

"Yeah, plus, you know I would've managed to stutter out that I was your girlfriend before it got to the point where it got to the point." This is true. Whenever I suspect that I am being hit upon, I manage to bring up the boyfriend situation as quickly and lacking as much grace as possible.

"I just couldn't decide if he was trying to be ironic by telling the story when I was there."

"Nah, he's not the type to appreciate irony that heavy. He likes the little irony of the story itself, but to handle the massive irony of telling the story in front of whatever bass player would probably be more than he could take."

"Yeah, you're right."

"So it wasn't me."

"I figured it probably wasn't. You would have thought it hilarious and told me about it anyway."

"Also true."

"Oh, and he is wearing that shirt again."

lonely lady in the sky.

Right at this very moment, there are two brake controllers on my desk. It's not what I call decoration, it's what I call work. However, they're really the most colorful thing in here (besides me, of course).

Our office is moving to a new building next month, to Winston-Salem's lone skyscraper. Exciting, isn't it? I'm going to have to ride the elevator for 10 minutes every day just to get to work from my car. The guy who is in charge of office assignments came by yesterday and asked a difficult question: would I rather share a window office or have a windowless office all to myself? I thought about the question for maybe half a minute, since our office will be on the 22nd floor, so the view should be smashing. However, I'm selfish and set in my ways and prone to obscure music, so maybe I should opt for the solo office. Although, a couple of weeks with me and my office mate might just decide to throw himself out towards that smashing view, and then I will have the best of both worlds.

That being decided, I've determined that I've been sitting in a bare office for far too long. I haven't done too much decorating, just stuck up a couple of cartoons on a message board and left it at that. I do have some bubble-wrap which I've considered hanging up on the wall for stressful moments. It's pink, too.

I had a different office up until about 7 months ago. It had two decorations: two stencilled marker drawings of a puppy and a cat, made by the son of one of my coworkers. I think my coworker went home and told his boys about the lonely lady at his office who has no children to draw her pictures. Coming from an artistic standpoint, they weren't very good, but it was a nice gesture.

I consider this an open call for decorations. I have no children, but I bet some of you do. So you should give them some craft materials and tell them about the lonely lady who works in a bare office in the sky and has no children of her own. I don't expect any of you to actually do this, but if you leave me your email address, I'll tell you where to send the pretty things (the decorations, not your children. Please, send NO children. I repeat, NO CHILDREN). Then I'll send you a hand-written note of thanks, as well as a free brake controller! Or maybe just some pink bubble wrap.

froggies.

On the beach at Lake Erie, there were little froggies. Normally, I would call them little hop toads, because that is so much more fun to say and because that's mostly what we see in North Carolina. Little hop toads are brown and don't necessarily live near the water and make an awful mess when you run over them in your car. Little froggies, well, I don't really know that much about them.

I saw two of these little guys. Either that, or I saw one and he hopped really fast to get ahead of me as I was walking down the beach. I stopped to take a picture of both. The first one ignored me completely. The second one got spooked by my ever-advancing camera and hopped suddenly, causing me to hop and give a little shriek myself out of surprise. Then he hopped to safety...under my shoe, which I had set down to the side so that I could concentrate on taking the frog's picture.

I figured this was fate. Regardless of how often you get the chance to take a picture of a pretty green and yellow frog on the beach, you pretty much never get to take the frog's picture while he's hiding under a Birkenstock.



Afterwards, I got into my sandals while he was still under them and crushed him lifeless. Then I took a picture of that while I laughed - HA HA HA!

Not really.

on men and shoes.

According to the company handbook, dress here is business casual. Of course, as I work here more and more, I find that what actually goes on differs from what is outlined in the company handbook. So we're a t-shirt and jeans place. That's fine with me, I'm a t-shirt and jeans girl. We are required to wear business casual when we have clients touring the company. I suppose I just let out a big company secret there.

Even though I am a t-shirt and jeans girl, I do like to mix it up from time to time. I like to wear outfits that proclaim, "Hey! I'm a girl!" You know, just in case it's not clear from the long hair and birthing hips. And the men at my office just aren't sure what to do with that. Skirts freak them out. I can be wearing the most casual dress in the world, like something you'd wear to the beach over a bathing suit, and they'd ask me what the occasion was or if I had a job interview later.

And they compliment my shoes. I never know what to make of that. Josh says that men are taught to compliment a girl's shoes, because it will make her like them. Is that in the man handbook? It's not such a bad idea, really. You don't want to start praising her body, because that crosses a line. That sends the message that you are interested in seeing more of said body, and what we want is subtlety here. You might could get by with saying she has nice eyes, but that's sort of sappy. And you can only get by with the hair thing when she's had something different done. Otherwise, you're not saying "I like your hair," you're saying "I like your hair everyday." That sort of goes back to the body issue. Anytime you remark upon something of a permanent nature about her, there's a sort of implication that you'd like her in a permanent nature. So we're down to temporary things. Complimenting an outfit is too easy - it's the most noticeable thing on her. But shoes are an accessory, and the fact that a man notices an accessory shows a little more attention to detail, a little more effort. Women like detail, otherwise we wouldn't bother putting so much on. Shoes are easier than jewelry, because a girl may not always be wearing jewelry, except for something like a watch, which doesn't change daily. I definitely would not advise going for the makeup, because most women are not going to be interested in a man who knows enough about makeup to compliment it properly. So, yeah, okay, the shoes are a good call.

But the writer of the man handbook should have clarified on the shoe point. It should be further broken down into a pair of shoe points, one for when you are actually trying to hook up with this girl and another for when you just want to be nice. For one thing, you can always compliment my sneakers. Praise of androgynous shoes is okay. I have a particularly saucy pair of red sneakers, and I'd be amazed if people didn't remark on them. But once is enough. Say, "Hey, that is a particularly saucy pair of red sneakers!" and leave it at that. Don't say something every single time I wear them, and definitely don't praise them more than once in a day. They're not that saucy.

But you have to be very careful when you start complimenting my heels, my lady shoes. Am I the only chick that finds this disturbing? I can't decide if they're secretly thinking about wearing the shoes or wearing me, but either way, I don't like it. Regardless, to me it says, "I recognize that you are female, and there is something about you and your femaleness that I enjoy." And if a man said that outright, you'd be creeped out, right? I have a pair of power heels with very pointy toes. A man at my office complimented them three times in one day. He's a very nice man, and he just may think he's being friendly. Maybe he's thinking that his wife should get a pair, or perhaps he would like to return to the days when women wore heels every day.

I'm being unfair and suspicious. The majority of these men are long-married, and I suspect that they have been trained by their wives to always notice dresses and skirts. Their wives taught them that dresses mean a special effort, and by gum, you had better notice. I'm not sure that their wives meant them to apply it to the twenty-something working at the office, though. And it is possible that some of them do wish women dressed up more, like back before we got all liberated and crap. I've never felt particularly harrassed, but I just get the feeling sometimes that there is some sort of communication breakdown, where a male is trying to be friendly and it comes across as too much to a female long-taught to be wary of the opposite sex. Of course, these same men warn me that all men are after just one thing.

Maybe they're after my shoes.