massachusetts, the first state to make education compulsory

last night i went to a film called "waiting for superman"
it is about the american education system, in its current awfulness
gosh it is so sad to see what is happening out there, and hard to understand
it seems to have changed so much even since i was in school
so many children are being shut out and left behind
thinking life is not for them...that they wont make it.
what fear and burden to carry around at such a young age.
the main blame are the outdated teachers' unions that make it impossible to fire the bad ones.
out of history these unions arose to protect women, but now all they do is perpetuate the shit-show and protect lazy assholes
allowing no competition or innovation. i would normally say competition is bad thing but in this case it could be beautiful.
and the situation is so ridiculous, unbelievable
that we all stand by, our leaders especially, and act like our systems are stronger than we are
that we cant change what has been written down for years.
it is no wonder why america is going on in the way it is
no fresh ideas, no innovation.
im getting a real good insight right now because the friend i am staying with is training to become a teacher
and it real passionate.
there are so many
teachers getting fat and dim, texting during class, reading magazines, getting bored, getting marriend, lacking wonder
and it all gets worse as the neighborhood income drops.
every now and again a master teacher comes along and shows them how it is done
but it doesnt matter because the bad ones cant be fired
and the good ones cant be rewarded
SUCH A FUCKING JOKE
stirs me right up
adults are selfish and unwilling to change, they wont even do it for their children
they have to be right.
....i see the potential in becoming a teacher and the joy in protecting the life-force of a child
encouraging it is truly a way to change the world
im a thinking about teaching in some capacity
you have to be so many things a friend, a performer, a singer, personable, loving, one step ahead of the youngins, but also open to their wisdom, and so much more....! gosh i fear for the ones who think if they dont graduate they will be nothing,
breaks my heart

i know school sucks, but so long as it is here
and kids have to go then this crap has to stop.

i want to slam america against a wall
and yell in its face
what the fuck are you doing
if we are nothing
america is nothing

can't sleep with the man who dims my shine

so last saturday justin and i left port angeles to begin a 6-day adventure into and around olympic national park
and while i was there, and after i've come back, i've wondered how to write about it here
because as certainly as i am a cephalopod,
this was an adventure.

here is a map and some lists. they suffice to tell the story.

purple star is where i live, red is bus, yellow is hitchhiked, blue is hiked

things i saw (copied from my notebook-- i made these lists every night except the first and last):
sun 30 aug at the beach in lapush
-mushrooms: alcohol inky caps, mycena amicta, wine-colored agaricus
-bald eagle atop a rocky outcropping with a seagull diving at it
-a living, washed up shark, about 3 feet in length
-wily chipmunks
-surfers
-grizzled gulls
-my breath
-pelican party
-the town of forks, taken over by twilight-readers/watchers
-trees and rocks that look like caspar david friedrich paintings, only west coast so no oaks-- spruces instead

mon 31 aug in the hoh river valley (948 ft elev)
-lots of mushrooms! including chicken of the woods and baby oysters, pleated pluteus, tawny almond waxy cap, yellow pholiotus
-a skeletal mountainside, graves of trees, white from a fire 30 years ago
-my broken camera
-the hoh river, bluey grey with rock and trees, classic pacific northwest image
-big big tree with a whole ecosystem at its base so tall and thick
-moss on phone booth roof at visitor center

tues 1 sept at hoh lake, (4500 ft elev)
-mushrooms! orange, purple, red, brown, white, scaly vase chanterelle
-the clouds from above (and in them, and below them)
-BIG BIG BIG cedars, spruce, fir
-a composting toilet with spectacular mountain views
-right now, these ridiculous trees covered in moss.dripping from everywhere, a light, sickly green, like something dr seuss or meghan would draw
-the meadows which smelled like delicious baking
-a doe and her 2 fawns
-a black bear bumbling on the hillside opposite our camp
-these mountains mountains snow and glaciers (mount olympus and all its peaks)
-tadpole parade
-submerged logs in hoh lake, slumber slumber
-trout babes and jumping fish

2 sept at appleton pass (5000 feet elev)
-that black bear, but close up
-an owl at bogachiel peak
-ravens at heart lake
-a goat outside our tent, nibbling and sniffing and terrifying
-blueberries blueberries blueberries staining my fingers and lips
-two small scummy nasty ponds

and there's no more written in my journal for the trip anymore, though the next day we went to the hot springs on our way out of the park so i got all this sludgey slime on me and smelled like eggs and nakedly asked strangers for directions. and saw a beautiful forest along boulder creek... the descent from appleton pass, though it was rainy, may have been my favourite part of the trip (???)

my mental soundtrack (songs that got stuck in my head on those long silent days of walking):
'leaving today!' christina aguilera
'i like it rough' lady gaga
'i am a wizard' harry and the potters
'genius next door' regina spektor
'man, i feel like a woman' (who sings this??)
'be our guest' beauty and the beast
'felix felicis' harry and the potters
'can you feel the love tonight' lion king (the parts where timon and pumbaa are talking)
'welcome' christina
'paparazzi' gaga
'elbow room' schoolhouse rock

and i can't remember anymore! i tried hard to remember my mind's playlist.

in other news i am trying to remember hindi and it is really sad. and to do reading for my civ class which starts in 3 weeks BLECH

also blech that this farm is boring and i can't imagine being here until the 19th... i have arranged a rideshare out of seattle on the 20th. there's really nothing to do here; i think all i do is weed and harvest. by the time i leave i will have accomplished nothing! weeds grow back and so do veggies. maybe i'll run away somewhere earlier or something. suggestions?
gee this blog has gotten active and i like it. hello good work i like your brains
.zee

Saber T. wrote this last night.

all:
can we all channel the same thoughts at the same time IN THE SAME WAY? are we thinking the same actual thoughts or just the same words.
tamara is sleeping
eliot's was a physical contribution. let me translate in words: I LOVE YOU and i am so just at peace with everything and have an opinion in the form of vics vapo rub on your lip

oh no! i'm gonna post later! leaving to get the book, back ltr. love ethan toast doobs mcgee

jake is gonna think of somethin really really good. he's here that's enough

sara goes by SABER

tamawa's symbol like prince is blowing rivulets of air, it's beautiful, also the texture of brad's hair is beautiful!

todd's brain is made of cookie dough ice cream
todd turned a whopping good age on the second of this month!

guinea piggggs

A rememberance from spring

I wrote this down in April apparently, after Civ class one day:

I had a beautiful dream today in class. We were talking about why Kublai Khan would bother to entertain Marco Polo and his suggestion that the emperor convert to Christianity. The text gave us the impression that there were only public and political obstacles standing in the way of Khan submitting himself to the Nazarite, that underneath he knew that Jesus and his tripartite religion was the True Way. All this is obviously total crap. I dreamed that the Great Khan was a magnificent melange of all the regions his grandfathers overran. He was a gorgeous collage of Turkey and India and China and Mongolia and Jordan. He was this polygendered, polysexual celestial benevolent leader, who knew that his position grew out of chance and not God. He forgot no one. And Marco Polo was a pretty boy he kept around and trotted out at parties because he said such hilariously outrageous things. And the Khan would make Marco sit at his feet (when of course he didn't send him out on grand but ultimately meaningless expeditions) and he would stroke the little Venetians hair and smile down on him. Marco would talk about Christianity and the Khan would nod and indulge him, saying, "Of course, it sounds lovely, send me your priests to tell me more." And the priests would come and tell the fantastic stories of the Bible and everyone in the court would be delighted. And Kublai Khan would be pleased at watching his wives and husbands smile and giggle. And they would all talk late into the night about the panopticon and performativity and identity and promise each other walks in the gardens in their old age.

Mmmm, civ class. I suppose when I look back, that was about undermining a certain narrative of power, but also kind of realize it justifies and exoticizes another kind of power.

Lately my dreams have been taking place in a hybrid of all the underground train stations I have passed through in my life. They all have deep, vast lakes in them as well, which I inevitably end up falling into or swimming in or floating on top of. I wonder what that's about. I've also been walking a lot of places in Hyde Park without shoes on. It's a totally dangerous-cool-exciting feeling. I guess it says "I live here, I own this place, and no one can tell me what to do."

if you give a brain some ice cream, and then take it away

yes i will second rolly in describing saturday night's rave as a lake. i swam as a dance-filled genderconfused body through all the high school girls and the shirtless bros. everything was seeping with sex and straight at that but i forgot being uncomfortable and danced and danced. and then oh! the wonders of hyde park that i had not seen before. we do live in a [sometimes] beautiful place.

in other wise,
when so many of my days seem the same, i'm trying to gather little pieces that are maybe something other than chemically influenced moments.

inspired by the garden at 55 & woodlawn, which is full of tomatoes and cucumbers, jalapenos and marigolds (sometimes people on the street stop and wonder at the garden and once i gave some people some tomatoes and they were so confused and surprised, as if the lack of a cash register in proximity to vegetables was a syllogism or a logical gap)...tmo and i cut down a path through the weeds in a lot next to our house and i dug up the earth and it's going to be a garden. so far, only mint, but we're sprouting tiny seeds on the top of the fridge and there will be leafy greens and life. we're also starting a compost pile, hopefully. my interest in gardening is confusing to my mother.

also, i got a job at istra-under-the-train-tracks making coffee and putting gelato in little little plastic bowls. i haven't started yet, not till the 24th or so. at my "interview" he asked me to describe the flavors of the coffee and i said "bark" and he said "vegetal" so i got the job.

and at the character party on friday night, rolly and i went as a sibling-pair of runaways, trevor (8) and daisy (6) with stuffed animal friends (trevor and alfonso) and swedish fish. i remembered that parties are boring for kids even though everything is potentially interesting. we were on a hunt for monsters who eat children, but no one seemed to know where they were, or offered us roundabout ways to fix the problem--a unicorn, joining Jews for Allah, voting for a particular serbian candidate. in the end a woman from the future won the staged election; revolution was a close second.

and maybe that's it, for now.

update:
oh, also, tmo and i decided to get married so i can work in the EU and also to validate our sacred religious commitment to each other and so we can become a social unit of reproductive machinery. the first part is true.

In a bronze chamber, faced with the silent handkerchief of a strangler, hope has been faithful to me;

yeah to speak from my tentacles, i'm a little sad that it seems all of the squidbloggers but nautilus & i have fled from the south side enclave. (rollypolly left today for the western coast and mr. malic was compelled by irresistable opportunity to a fairyland of fun in michigan.) but so many adventures! i knew this would be a blog of adventurers and i've been inspired to find my own adventures this summer as well as to recognize how amazing the people who enter and leave my life are. you are among these rare squidkindred.

last night i dreamt i was rolling spliffs and driving west in a red car full of people i didn't know. ah ah!

unrelatedly, i would like to direct your attention to the ancient book of sex and science where the makers of monsters, inc. have turned their attention to weighty matters.

today i was singled out from the masses for a job interview at istria cafe, which has yet to occur but when it does will hopefully result in a deluge of coffee beans, tips, new buddies, life sustained by minimal wages, and sprinklings of consumerist delight.