unpacking and then packing again

well, im back! the trip was great, but its always so hard to say goodbye.

i have a few more days before going back to work and im glad to be home, in a way. now though, i have to focus on decisions, and i have a feeling work will be harder in these last few months. i also have to finish packing up my worldly goods over the next two months. april 30th is my last day in #311.

that will be another tough goodbye.

im off..

see you after TN!

fierce love

here - a pregnant woman attacks and kills a woman who was attempting to kill her for her unborn child.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/02/12/woman.attacked.ap/index.html

bury the dead, not the truth

'Leontius, the son of Aglaion, was coming up from the Peiraeus, close to the outer side of the north wall, when he saw some dead bodies lying near the executioner, and he felt a desire to look at them, and at the same time felt disgust at the thought, and tried to turn aside. For some time he fought with himself and put his hand over his eyes, but in the end the desire got the better of him, and opening his eyes wide with his fingers he ran forward to the bodies, saying, "There you are, curse you, have your fill of the lovely spectacle." '
- PLATO, The Republic, taken from a forward of We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families - Stories from Rwanda, by Philip Gourevitch

i will admit that 'Hotel Rwanda' made me think about what happened in that small african country in a way i had never done before. i was still in high school when nearly one million tutsis were murdered over the course of about 100 days and my limited consciousness of the events at that time make me feel ashamed today. i wanted to know why it happened and although i know its part of mans inhumanity to man, i needed to know how a neighbor could be convinced to pick up a machete and kill someone they considered friend. could it happen here?

the book, We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families - Stories from Rwanda, by Philip Gourevitch, is so heartbreaking in its descriptions of the genocide, that i often have to take a break from reading it, for fear i will not be able to sleep. but what's a little lost sleep compared to those who were hacked to death only because they carried a tutsi id card, and were a little taller, with lighter skin and straighter hair? a popular method of torturing the tutsis before they were killed was to cut off their hands and feet, a way of "cutting them down to size", since they were taller than most hutus. hutu power reminded those killing to take special care when dealing with pregnant women by ripping the fetus from the body; the intent was that no tutsi would survive, even children would not be allowed to grow up. doctors killed patients, patients killed doctors, teachers and students killed each other. the roads were littered with bodies and lake victoria had 50,000 corpses clogging its waterways.

even after the genocide, the killing continued. most of the agents of the genocide fled into neighboring countries like zaire, and there congregated in camps holding thousands of other hutus that were either forced into the killing in rwanda or were willing participants. these camps were sent financial aid and supplies from around the world, despite the fact that raids were instigated from those camps back into rwanda to kill any survivors of the genocide and that killings were taking place even among the refugees, though they were nearly everyone of them hutu.

so, i sigh and turn the page, waiting for the paragraph or sentence that tells of a healing for those people in rwanda. it has not come, even yet.

look at those sparkles...

funny thing, now that i know i will be out of a job i really want to spend money on myself. one act of irresponsibility in the form of diamond earrings.

i cant stand.. to see you distraught...

i have a new option for work. ill tell you more if it pans out.

tonight i am packing up, arranging for some details to be covered while im away (patrick and robin have to be fed!) and in general, going from room to room, restless.

thoughts i am thinking:
hope debbie will be at the cabin.
what to do with this hair? another grey one??
this song makes me think of 2002
i will cry as it gets closer to the end

man, everyone was tense at work today! jim yelled at me for having my phone on cover - which i know im guilty of, but i mean, come on. then octavia burned her arm with hot tea; poor thing, it was second degree burns. sandra and i devised a bag full of ice to help sooth it, but she left pretty soon after. the hotline was ringing non-stop and the service level tanked.
***
what was i saying about crying just now?

!!!

the cabin trip is just next week!

say hello to sleeping in and getting up early! dancing with the animals of the mountains! eating pancakes and ice cream for breakfast! rocking on the porch to the tune of the backwoods fiddle! running for your lives from the mountain lion! eating pancakes with strawberries for lunch! watching the sun set through the trees! eating pancakes with whipped cream for dinner! carrying a shotgun on your back with a makeshift holster you made from an old leather belt and a hankerchief!

and mostly, talking and laughing with my amazing family.

an exchange at the kitchen store

peripheral vision told me i still had a pursuer, and then, i was accosted near the spoons.

man: 'can i tell you, you are very beautiful?'
me, looking away, saying something demure...
man: 'you are! you are so beautiful you should have bodyguards'
me, thinking yeah to protect me from people like you...
man, makes kissing two fingers gesture, like im a dish of especially fine spaghetti

perhaps he needed a green card?

im still chuckling about this

so yesterday i was making my weekly drop at goodwill. well, i say weekly, but its really only the second week i have hauled some of my, uhm, stuff in to be sold at meager prices. i pulled into the drop-off, already an expert at what to do, and waited for the attendant to notice me. he walked down with a smile, giving me the once over, and i went through my spiel about needing the crate back since, well, i would need it again for the next week. the crate was full; plates and bowls, stacked willy-nilly and an old spice rack that i kept for two years! debating whether or not i would use it. there were a few romance novels - not mine! - a pair of cheesy, mirrored shades and a ceramic flower knick-knack that came from a friends wedding. he took the crate to unload it, while i got out the bag of clothing. i said goodbye to a few t-shirts, making myself stop rifling methodically through the bag, as though i may have put my most important piece of clothing in by mistake.

i looked up to see the attendant coming back down the ramp, with an even goofier grin on his face. he looked slightly different all of a sudden and he turned towards me a little more expectantly than before, though i doubt it was because i was holding out an enticing over-stuffed bag of clothes. i thought to myself, what is he smiling at?? honestly, i thought for a second that my sweater was more revealing than i realized. i thanked him, returned his smile, although with slightly less enthusiasm, and got in my car.

as i drove through the gate about 3 seconds later, it hit me. he was wearing the sunglasses i had just donated. and damn if they didnt look good on him.

what to do...

i am relieved. the neighbors seem to be alive, afterall. i know i saw them moving in the weekend of the last hurricane, but since then i have not once glimpsed them. over the months, flyers rolled up and stuck in between the frame and doorknob, stacked up and then blew away. a plate of cookies wrapped in saran wrap sat ignored for the better part of last week. (i was not tempted because i had made a batch of my own chocolate chip cookies that same week.) today, though, the cookies and the latest flyers were gone.

so, i am relieved.

today i read some of the yearbook, my arms and legs in a perpetual state of gooseflesh. i made some pancakes and packed my lunch for tomorrow. i stared out my glass doors, i vaccumed. i did laundry, i packed a few things. i stood, wondering what to do next. i curled my hair for the fun of it, i put on a lot of mascara. i put away the puzzle - sorry deb, i have failed you - i thought about work tomorrow and whether i could get away with wearing jeans. i drank some water and also some milk. i listened to my cds, fiona, dc, etc. i tried to nap and then remembered how i have trouble sleeping at night and instead laid there and listened.

now, i brush out the curls and bjork is playing.
i havent decided on the jeans thing or not.