SHAME ON ME

I have not yet filed my taxes! But I'm getting money back, so stop looking at me like I'm the reason why your grandparents are eating dog food.

STOP BUNNY HUGGER PROPOGANDA NOW!

One of my students wrote a rather lengthy paper calling the ban of DDT a conspiracy by rogue activists. His cited source? Fox TV. Fox Fucking TV! I wrote, "How do your sources explain the decline of the Peregrine Falcon and the Bald Eagle in the 1970s? Were these birds members of this conspiracy?"

THE WATER CYCLE

Today in class I made a cloud in a bottle for shits and kicks. I could tell that my students were agog at my caffeinated enthusiasm. I had to own it so I said, "In case you are wondering, the answer is, yes. This is how I spend my Friday and Saturday nights."

RICKSHAW BY LAO SHE

"It seemed obvious to him that the fate of the poor was like a date pit: pointed at both ends."

BACK IN THE RACE

I still ache. If you asked my muscles they'd tell you I was in a car accident or I ran a marathon. My lymph nodes are hard as golf balls.

FLU-EY

It feels like someone injected my skin, nerves, muscles, joints with distilled liquid ache.

LISCENSE TO GLOAT

Last night at the bar, for the first time ever, I beat RS in a card game. Rock n' rooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooll doggie!

TICK TOCK

Whenever I see RS with a baby I can hear my eggs drop from my ovaries like red, ripened apples. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk-thunk.

OH, IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS

I walked into my third hour environmental science class to find "Merry Earth Day!" written up on the dry erase board. Now, see? That shit just fills my heart. Why can't my other classes be like that?

LOOK HERE MISTER

I share my classroom space with a technical instructor at this college whose department is involved in some kind of student work quality assessment project. It’s a great idea and it seems to work very well in their program, but they are trying to impose this project on all of the departments that see their students, for the sake of consistency I suppose.

Anyway, I agreed to take part in their project last quarter. So yesterday between classes he asked if I thought it improved the quality of student work. I told him very honestly that it may have helped set a high standard at the outset, but as the quarter wore on it morphed into meaningless paperwork for both me and the students. I also tried to explain to him that I’m an adjunct instructor without health benefits or job security, that I already invest more hours at work than I’m compensated for, and that I frankly was not thrilled about having to deal with the added paperwork.

He seems like a nice guy, but he reacted to my candor the way most people react when they are told something they do not care to hear. He retorted with judgment, “Where’s your missionary spirit?” I laughed because his question was absurd to me. I told him that I worked fifty to sixty hours a week my first quarter and that took plenty of spirit, thank you. His response: “Is that all?” Incredulously, I informed him that I was paid for only thirty of those hours. And then I walked out of the classroom. Meph!

I guess I’m pretty sensitive when it comes to people questioning my work ethic.

A LETTER TO THE BOYS IN THE BACKROOM

I found out yesterday that the boys in IT can, if they wish, Shanghai any one of these laptop computers, at any time of day through their own computers and poke about to their heart’s content. It makes me think that perhaps I am not as careful about hiding this website as I should be. But truly. They’re busy people. I hardly think they have the interest or the time to slink around my circuit boards. But, just in case:

(Ahem)

Dear IT guys,

Hi. If you are reading this, I would like to take the opportunity to request that you not sabotage or blackmail me. I could get by without this teaching gig, but I’d really rather not. Besides I’m not going to be working here much longer; one more year tops. You seem like good people, the whole lot of you. So if you could please keep my innocuous bitching under your hats until I leave, it would be much appreciated!

Sincerely,

Winter Wren

WARBLING SINCE 2004

Today marks the one year anniversary of this website. Happy conception day, my little words.

MUPPET SHOW

Last night around 10:30 or 11:00 p.m. RS and I drew faces on the dorsal side of our feet (in such a way that our toes represented hair) and had ourselves a little puppet show. The face on my foot looked like a cross between a scientist and an Asian Harry Potter, so I logically gave it a voice that sounded like Beaker from the Muppets. RS curled his toes back to make it look like his 'face' was wearing his hair in cornrows. Oh how we laughed! Sometimes I can't believe I'm old enough to drive a car.

PENANCE

The night before I flew back to the U.S. from China, I had sex with my (now) ex husband after we had been completely abstinent for over eight months. It was the most miserable love ever made. It was physically and emotionally painful. The whole time my body was like, “And just what the fuck is this you’re forcing us into?” I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised when I arrived in Chicago with a fierce and fiery urinary tract infection. It was raw. I mean, I had never had it so bad. There were several occasions when I excreted more blood than piss. And the discomfort slash pain slash jetlag kept me up at night. The fever and insomnia went on for five days. And when I finally saw a doctor, she was so alarmed at my white blood cell count that she insisted I take a shot of antibiotics in conjunction with the pills.

Anyway, I’m just remembering all of this because I seem to have cultivated another UTI. But not to worry, I’m rocking the cranberry juice. I pretty much have to because I don’t have any health insurance.

RAINY DAY

Here's what I did this morning: Pointed violently through the bedroom window and yelled, "Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!" RS quickly rushed to the rain's defense, "No no Wren, we need the rain. Don't say that." But you know, I wasn't saying go away forever. I just wanted it to come again some other day.

This afternoon I went to the Circadian Cafe to correct the weekend papers, when I was suddenly and unsuspectingly roped into the gravitational field of a cosmic Rice Krispie Bar. It was a HUGE BRICK OF BREAKFAST CEREAL. I could have knocked someone unconscious with it. I had to buy it. And study it.

MAY YOU SLIP ON A PIECE OF FREE RANGE CHICKEN SKIN ANAD FALL INTO A PILE OF ORGANIC BANANAS!

Late this afternoon I rode my bike to the co-op to get some foodstuffs. I bought a bag of mixed greens, a champagne mango, one can of refried black beans, a bag of bulk almonds, a bag of bulk yogurt covered raisins, one pork sweet Italian Sausage, a little chunk of feta, farmer and blue cheese, a bag of bulk pecans, and two bars of soap. When I reached the checkout lanes, they were all busy. But there also weren’t lines, so it’s not like they were swamped.

Anyway, I counted my items and decided to go to the “10 items or less” line. I unloaded my petit basket and watched the tightly fastened smile of the checkout clerk, spring from her face. I read her body language and grimaced in goofy apology, “It’s twelve items. I hope that’s okay.” But her expression was, in my opinion, completely unforgiving as she pointed out the obvious, “This is the ten items and less, lane.” Me, stuttering and surprised, “Oh, I didn’t know you guys were so exact in your methods. Would you like me to take my groceries to another lane?” She replied with an exaggerated sigh, as though I symbolized every asshole who ever snubbed the sign, “Not at this point.” I blushed in anger and literally bit my tongue, because I knew whatever came out of my mouth would be swarming with rancor. She finished up with the guy ahead of me, stretched her smile back onto her face like she was re-lacing a slingshot, and then addressed me like I had just appeared in line, “And how are you doing today?” She was so smug it made me want to shoot those fat blue rubber bands at her. The ones they use to bind the broccoli stalks together. Multiple. Times. to the Upper. Arm.

BILL BRYSON

“Incidentally, disturbance from cosmic background radiation is something we all have experienced. Tune your television to any channel it doesn’t receive, and about 1 % of the dancing static you see is accounted for by this ancient remnant of the Big Bang.* The next time you complain that there is nothing on, remember that you can always watch the birth of the universe.”

* As I transcribed this paragraph, I typed the phrase “Big Bang,” first as “Big Bag” and then, “Bing Bang.” Why do I find that so terribly funny?

DREAM SEVEN

I was feeling randier than a sack of Collared Lemmings yesterday. I hope said randiness had nothing to do with the dream I had Monday night, or was it Tuesday morning? In any case, I dreamt I was having covert sex with…Michael J. Fox. Gahhh! I know! We were in a hospital doing it next to a gurney behind one of those icky plastic curtains that attach to the ceiling in the middle of the room. I could hear patients moving about in blue and white hospital smocks just beyond the curtain. And then he suddenly morphed into Matthew Broderick, which is only slightly, really ever so slightly better.

OBSESSIONS

It’s okay if you eat a can of bean soup for dinner. You won’t spin out of control if you add a few slices of white cheddar cheese. You won’t die a horrible death if you don’t swim exactly one mile today. Your loved ones won’t be hunted down and tortured if you have a slice of baklava for dessert. Trust yourself to make good decisions, trust yourself to make good decisions, trust yourself to make good decisions. Trust yourself.

UKULELE GALA

I have been sick for about a week. I thought about calling in sick on Friday, but what is the point of taking a sick day when you’re actually sick? Exactly. There is absolutely no sense in it. And yet I didn’t go to work today. I was simply too exhausted from coughing up lung leeches over the weekend. I don’t know when those slimy bastards moved in, but I seem to be quite infested with them. Oh, I feel rather overcome with parasites right now.

RS was especially attentive this morning as he stocked my bedside with water, Ibuprofen, and facial tissue. Then, he proceeded to tuck and pack me into bed with various pillows and blankets to keep me from escape. I felt like an egg. A mad wheezing, drooling egg. Even so, I was kissed and fondled and loved and kissed again before he said goodbye. I'm now in bed eating mushed dates while reading my old Calvin and Hobbes books as I’m often wont to do while in this condition.

PREFERENCES

I prefer chunky to smooth
I prefer commando to thong
I prefer knee highs to trouser
I prefer links to patties
I prefer empathy to apathy
I prefer PBS to FOX
I prefer soccer to football
I prefer clean to dirty
I prefer messy to neat
I prefer the dictionary to the bible
I prefer Bass to Rolling Rock
I prefer ovenbirds to cowbirds
I prefer humility to conceit
I prefer snail mail to email
I prefer clumsy to poised

RANDOM MEMORY #1

The majority of my childhood memories take place at dusk. I'm recalling one in particular. It was a warm evening in August. I was about seven. I was in my parent’s bedroom leaning casually against the long side of their bed, talking to its contents, my mother. She was dressed in pajamas. I asked her about the argument that had transpired between her and my father over dinner.*

She explained to me that he was going to a lantern lighting ceremony to remember the atomic bomb victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and that she didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I remember imagining as she spoke, a beautiful ceremony hosted by a shoal of red paper lanterns. But I remember even more vividly my mother’s face, tight and unresolved. When I asked her why she didn’t want to go she told me very simply, “Because the Japanese army did terrible things to the Chinese people of Nanjing just a few years earlier. They tortured the innocent and buried them alive. It's up to you if you want to go with your father and brother. But I’m not going.”

* I distinctly remember several occasions as a child where adult conversation flew beyond the Doppler radar of my ken and translations were very necessary. “For transcriptions of today’s adult conversation, please see mother after dinner.”

TAKE TIME TO STOP AND SWING THE VINES

This is a picture I took during a half day tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels (75 km northwest of Saigon) because sometimes, when you're flooded with images of killing and torture it's nice to take a little respite from the suffering we humans inflict upon one another and notice that the all the plants are still doing their plant things and all the animals are still doing their animal things; all of this is happening completely independent of our silly dramas.

WRITER'S BLOCK

I have been sitting here for hours like a composer with two and a half bars of really shitty music.