no, not insomnia. wrong door.

I could not sleep last night. I sat for a good part of the night looking out the loft window and watching the night fade away. The sky in the morning always appears to take on color and light quite suddenly. One minute there is only darkness, the next – pink clouds are everywhere.

This nocturnal sky-watching caused me to be slow at most everything today. My poor adorable Torts section had to listen to two personal stories before I could rev up the engine and get enthusiastic about the topic at hand. (They are sworn to secrecy on one of the stories. Don’t tell! Don’t tell!)

Luckily, someone brought chocolate cookies to class. (We have a blogger with a camera in her cell and she has been capturing our class food moments.) Honestly, have I commented before about the utter saintliness of this group?

I’m getting off topic. I wanted to simply post this one nagging thought that I had today: do we know of anyone who has ever resolved any complicated issue between the hours of 3 and 6 a.m.? Invented anything? Composed great music? Painted something credible? Written anything wise? Said something wonderful?

I was driving this afternoon along Regent Street. I needed to turn left onto Park Street. It was 3:30p.m. There is a sign there that says “no left turns between 3 and 6p.m.” Inevitably there will be a car waiting to turn during those hours anyway. As if they didn’t get it. No left turns, you jackass! There’s a reason for that sign! Move on, you fool!

I think there should be a sign in our brains that says “no great thoughts between 3 and 6a.m.” And, unlike the Regent Street sign, this one should not be ignored.

here today, gone tomorrow [or: a Sunday excursion to the Elvehjem, oops, Chazen Museum in Madison]

Story no. 1:

So you work hard your whole life (come on, stretch with me here). You succeed, you are a brilliant scientist (imagine that). Your spouse supports the arts.

Your community loves you. Buildings will be named after you. You die if not happy, then at least with the knowledge that you will be remembered.

Your spouse dies years later, if not happy, then at least with the vivid memory of you and your name, right there, on the museum she adored. Nice.

Years pass. Along comes a donor with deep pockets and fond memories of Madison school days. A mega pledge is made to the museum. And lo and behold, your name is off the white stone walls.

This is the story of UW’s art gallery -- once named after Conrad Elvehjem, now renamed (effective immediately, the press release screamed this year) the Chazen Museum, after Simona and Jerome Chazen – two people with twenty million to give. So much for local scientist makes good.

Thank you Simona and Jerome. I’m sorry Conrad and Constance.


Story no. 2:

You’re a kid. You discover your dad’s favorite toy (clean up your minds: it’s simply a camera). You shoot a picture of your family.

You get hooked. If blogs had been invented you’d probably set up your own flickr account. However, we are at the turn of the century and I mean the one that went from 1899 to 1900, so flickr was just in the gestational stages of existence. If that.

You take many pictures of family members and moving objects in your town. I mean, many many pictures.

Later in life you take on a real professional existence (can we call a painter a real professional? Sure we can. This is Ocean, we can do anything).

When you are old but not yet cranky, your childhood photos get discovered. You die. Some of your photos make it to MoMA in NY, and a whole bunch make it for a fleeting season to Madison.

Thank you, Jacques Henri Lartigue.

Question for reader: who fared better, Conrad/Constance, Simona/Jerome, or Jacques Henri?

Post Scriptum: If you are in Madison, check out the exquisite exhibit of Lartigue’s childhood photos (all from the Belle Epoque era) at the Elvehjem Chazen Museum. Lartigue calls himself a life-long amateur photographer. Amateur? Yeah, buddy, sure. Precocious brat!

deprived?

If you sat five random friends together and asked them to list five essentials of life, I am certain that the lists would not overlap. Except that I am also certain that all would include one thing: sleep.

Question: how do you know if you’re not getting enough sleep?

People have heard me say “sleep is overrated,” but I don’t mean it. And in the last 24 hours I have had the following signals that maybe I’m not getting enough of slow-wave and REM activity:

I had to take a break from participating in the Law School retreat today because in the middle of the morning session I started to think that words spoken by a colleague sitting across from me were sounding awfully much like a lullaby, so that I began to feel an overwhelming urge to snuggle into the shoulder of another colleague not far from me, just because, well, because his shoulder looked like it was in a perfect position for a head rest;

I subsequently went to the local café, ordered a double espresso and gulped it down with such speed that I surprised myself. Unfortunately, I then dozed off, right there, still clutching the empty cup, thereby missing the first part of an afternoon session of the retreat.

Oh, and yesterday, while hiking up and around Gibraltar Rock at dusk, I found myself seriously engaged in a discussion of what would be the consequences of taking a little repose right there on the forest floor*.

I worry that I will fall asleep while delivering a lecture, or while riding Mr. B. The motion is just right for it.

What remedy? Get more sleep you say. My answer: not so easy. I give up on the day late. Very late. Sounds wake me at night. And, inevitably, I look at the clock, see no digit larger than 4 and I get up, thinking: surely it’s time.

Time for what? For putting away dishes carelessly left out hours earlier on the coffee table?

I don’t really suffer from insomnia. I just don’t finish the night in the same way that others do. Or maybe I’m not the only one thinking in those dark wee hours that much needs to be done -- fields need to be plowed and machines need to be built before the sun crosses the horizon and a new day sets in. Maybe.


* Gibraltar Rock, near dusk, tempting:

A shameless plug for my home --that’s right, home-- state

I’ve been asked that over and over and over (etc) again: why do I continue to live in Wisconsin? As if I am the type that should be scheming and planning exit strategies to leave this state that has the climate of the tundra and requires two flights to get to any major non-Midwestern city.

I answer in terms of work. I answer in terms of friends. I even sometimes answer in terms of the Farmers Market. [Do I really stay here because of the Farmers Market? Of course not, but people nod their heads as if this makes perfect sense.]

What I don’t mention is the natural beauty of the place.

This omission has not gone by unnoticed. A friend, himself a transplant from New York, has taken it upon himself to shake me loose of my fixation with the big city. And I have had to admit with great shame and embarrassment that I really do not know Wisconsin, even in and around Dane County (of Madison), all that well. I have never climbed up Observatory Hill in Paoli, or Gibraltar Rock outside Lodi. And my ignorance extends over the Ice Age Trail – I’ve never walked it, and the Merrimac ferry – I’ve never used it to cross the Wisconsin River.

As of today, I’ve done all the above. Okay, people, let me tell you this: move to Wisconsin. It is one hell of a beautiful state.

It’s Fall. Of course I can’t get away from nature’s forceful use of bright, audacious color. But don’t assume that this Wisconsin flattery is merely one of those passing fancies: here on this perfect Autumn day, gone tomorrow.




Gibraltar Rock



Gibraltar Rock woods


Not far from this sandstone formation, we pick up the Ice Age trail. It doesn’t make much sense to me really. It’s not as if some types walked here during the Ice Age. Who even went for walks during the Ice Age? No matter: it is divine. And we struck it at sunset.







Within a spit’s throw (perhaps people don’t think well of Wisconsin because they think we use phrases such as “spit’s throw;” we don’t. really), there is the Merrimac Ferry. I asked my friend “where do we buy tickets??? The ferry is docking!!” He looked at me as if I were the Ninny-supreme, as opposed to the Ninny who got this unfortunate nickname in grad school 30 years back. “It’s free.” Of course. Because coming from a childhood in New York I would be entirely skeptical that any form of movement from point A to point Z could be free.



across the Wisconsin River


I was to be taken to the next round of scenic places but I am beginning to put my foot down to navigating country roads after dark. It’s pretty scary in these parts where there are no bright street lights and hot dog vendors at every intersection. It’s just you and nature out there. Though I happen to think that the natural world is much like me: interesting maybe, quirky at times and very likely to do things very imperfectly. Hey, take a look at the geese flying in this (imperfect) V formation.

Speed

Damn warm outside. And yet I’m wrapped in a scarf (I know, so French), with jacket buttoned high. I get cold not only in winter but in anticipation of winter.

Mr. B is frowning. He lets me know that I have neglected him. (C’mon, Mr. B, I just saw you yesterday!) I don’t think he is right. He is just jealous because lately, when there’s a crunch, instead of hopping on his little saddle, I gratefully accept another ride to campus – on a motorcycle. Mr. B thinks ill of motorcycles. I tell him: me too, me too, but this is a VINTAGE something or other. And, sorry, Mr. B.: it is faster and gets me places.

So why do I feel so cold? Maybe because, for the first time in some ten years I actually have a cold? Damn this outdoor stuff!

I get a call this afternoon. Someone has been reading my blog post. “It’s warmer today. Come see the sun set. Paoli is cool: you can see forever from the hills south of there.” Paoli is also far. Like a good half hour south from Madison. I have work to do. The sun sets at 4:46. Oh fine. Call me pushover Ninny. I’ll work at night while the world sleeps.

When you ride on a motorcycle at dusk, you notice the hills and valleys. It is horribly cold when you hit a valley. The wind whips your ankles and your wrists. Thank God your face is protected if you yourself are not the driver. Then comes a hill – a blast of warm air, but only for a while.

Do I have my camera? Indeed! Would you like to see a photo of the countryside south of Madison at dusk on a cold November day? Here, taken from a speeding motorcycle, trying to get to the top of a hill in time for the sunset [update: the setting sun was a failed attempt].





At the top of Observatory Hill in Paoli the air is absolutely still. Quiet. Warm. Sort of. Manure mixed with chimney smoke fill your nostrils down in the valleys, but here, the air smells of autumn woods and fields of dirt, maybe because we are surrounded by autumn woods and fields of dirt.




On the ride back I bury myself somewhere in the back seat of this vintage something or other. Photos not taken, roads not followed… what is pleasure if not accepting that which didn’t happen and relishing instead that, which replaces loss?

Bare trees

Late this afternoon, a couple of adorable Torts students sat in my office with me and we watched the leaves fall outside. I regard this as a pretty near ideal use of my office: for students to come late in the day and chew the fat – life, death, summer, winter – when else do you have a chance to pretend you have something wise to say about any of these?

It is of course entirely possible that they were humoring me. Still, it was a pleasant moment in a not unpleasant day.

But looking out my office window was also a slap of reality. Those falling leaves signal bare trees which in turn signal the imminent arrival of Wisconsin winter which in turn means cold winds leading to watery eyes that freeze over. And that’s not the only thing that freezes with winter. When we get to, well, right about now, I lose interest in doing anything outdoorsy, especially in the after-work hours.

Good-bye exploring the neighborhood. Good-bye exploring Paoli’s hill, the one with the view, at dusk, even if does offer photo-blogging opportunities (sorry!). Hello exploring the local video store. God, I sound boring.

Rynias, in the Polish Tatra Mountains, December 1971: I’m leaving Poland in a month. I don’t know yet that it is a forever thing. But this night I am with my friends, in a farmhouse, in the Alpine-like valley of Rynias. There’s no doubt about it, the room that we all share at pan Stas and pani Anna’s house is warm. So warm. Quilts pulled tight. Only the need to pee in the outhouse forces you to get out from under the quilts. Warm. Cuddling, snuggling, warm. I’m about to leave you guys, but for now, this winter has not a single icicle touching my spine. Mmmmm, so warm.

And so I head out today to take in my neighborhood’s unique charm. Is it the last time that I do this? The sun is fading, going down, going down. I give myself a five-block radius and I pace the blocks, peering, staring:




To the south, the lakes, the tracks. A solitary person, counting steps.

To the north, the commercial side. But of a type. My favorite in the world corner grocery store (the Co-op) which, in true to form Madison co-op style, has a large seasonal mural on the wall. Here’s a snippet of it:




And closer in, not five blocks but four, the Electric Earth café, open til midnight. What’s it like? Well, at the checkout counter, you can help yourself to one of these:




My blocks. A circle of warmth. Today there are still leaves on the trees and pumpkins on doorsteps. Not for long. This is Wisconsin. Bare trees, cold winds. Just around the bend.

night fever

Cos we're living in a world of fools
Breaking us down
when they all should let us be.

I sit down at the keyboard. Click, Welcome Nina. Click again, click, click again, I am there. Only you wouldn’t recognize me. I am wearing different clothes now. Nothing that constrains, nothing that binds. I need to be able to move, to glide and maneuver.

You're the light in my deepest, darkest hour
My savior when I fall

I’m hanging out with a small handful of bloggers. Out there in cyberspace. The regulars are all there. And we play. First, I catch up. Because they have been at it for a while. I’m usually late.

I'm in. I'm throwing around words and phrases that are very un-Ocean-like. We dance. We show off. We do verbal somersaults.

Comments fly with the speed of the Net. Exposed, raw, sometimes brilliant, sometimes completely lacking in wit.

I really meant to learn
Cos we're living in a world of fools
Breaking us down
when they all should let us be.

I am fearless. I listen, I pick up the rhythm. I am engaged.

And then I am spent.

I return here to my familiar neighborhood, to my friends in the sidebar.

You know the door to my very soul
And you may not think I care for you
When you know down inside
That I really do

I snuggle in their safe, familiar territory. Teddy bears, all of them. I know them inside out: their way of writing, their strengths, their frailties.

Ocean is calm, Ocean waits, without judgment, without scorn. I’m ready to pick up where I left off here in its murky waters.

And the moment that you wander far from me
I wanna feel you in my arms again.

I'm back.

Halloween revisited, one last time (one hopes)

I had a few extra class minutes yesterday and so I asked my adorable Torts class for personal advice. I know, I know, it is supposed to work the other way: they should be consulting with me about their important decisions. But I respect their opinion and wisdom and so I found myself turning to them with the following query:

If there are some forty apartments in my building and only one has children and these children live there for only half the week, what is the likelihood that I will need candy for Halloween and if I do need it, what kind should I get (notable fact to remember: any leftovers will come with me to class the next day)?

The students were more than happy to help. I heard Snickers. I heard Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I heard Skittles. I noted to myself that a trip to Walgreen’s was in order.

But then I read Oscar’s post on Halloween candy and pangs of guilt and remorse swept over me. I was feeding America with mass-produced poisonous chemical-filled trash, to be purchased at a chain that did not need my business. And suddenly I remembered that a kind friend gave me the gift of a membership to Mifflin Street Co-op this week-end.

Obviously I could not, COULD NOT buy poisonous chemical-filled trash for my beloved adorable Torts students (to say nothing of the kids in the apartment building).

I’m breaking it to you gently, guys: forget gooey chewy candy bars and colorful nuggets of sugar bliss. We’re going with fair trade. We’re going with what is right. We’re going with… oh, let me keep the hope alive. …I'll tell you after the noon hour (the time of the class).

Staid Street Halloween update: Ocean author gains fame and notoriety for her comment on horse poop

I do appreciate references to my coverage of the Saturday Halloween bash on the Daily Page.

And I fully support the high praise and deferential treatment of the Althouse blog in general. After all, she writes about Very Important Topics, whereas I find myself commenting on such things as bed mites and fried bananas. So that words (found in said article from the Daily Page) such as "high profile blogger Ann Althouse" no longer faze me.

However, I must admit it's a punch in the gut to have a reporter pick out this comment from Ocean's Staid Street post:

UW law prof Nina Camic also noted the revelry, posting several photos from State Street. She wrote:
Most certainly, it was a crazy night. Leaving before 1 allowed us to escape the slight altercation between several hundred and the mounted police. I had to feel sorry for the mounted police. Everyone kept cozying up to their horses then cursing them as they dropped manure and people stepped in it.

Fine, so I noted the horse manure. It stood out for me, that's all. I remember the evening as a blur of costumes, bare flesh, mounted police and the steam rising from the pavement where warm horse droppings let their presence be felt. Or smelled. Or something.

Sigh... At least I can take comfort in the fact that my students are too busy with their work to be doing something as frivolous as reading prof blogs, or at least this prof's blog.

living the clean life

So what are you up to?
Sundays are house-cleaning days.

You clean your loft? I should have guessed. The day you opened the door and I saw that you had white carpet that actually was still white, I knew you and I inhabited different planets.
It’s not white and besides, I haven't lived here that long.

I’m serious now: what do you clean?
For example, I do the laundry – linens and things.

You are always doing the laundry. I swear, whenever we talk on the phone, I hear your towels doing their orbit through the spin cycle.
I do like having a washer and dryer close at hand. And I like clean linens.

Delusional. Let me read you an excerpt from Bryson’s “short history…”

You might not slumber quite so contentedly if you were aware that your mattress is home to perhaps two million microscopic mites, which come out in the wee hours to sup on your sebaceous oils and feast on all those lovely, crunchy flakes of skin that you shed as you doze and toss. Your pillow alone may be home to forty thousand of them. (To them your head is just one large oily bon-bon.) And don’t think a clean pillowcase will make a difference. To something on the scale of bed mites, the weave of the tightest human fabric looks ship’s rigging. Indeed , if your pillow is six years old, it is estimated that one-tenth of its weight will be made up of “sloughed skin, living mites, dead mites and mite dung,” to quote the man who did the measuring, Dr. John Maunder of the British Medical Entomology Center.

We are actually getting worse at some matters of hygiene. Dr. Maunder believes that the move toward low-temperature washing machine detergents has encouraged bugs to proliferate. As he put it: “If you wash lousy clothing at low temperatures, all you are getting is cleaner lice.”

Enough already! Besides, I use warm water. And I take very hot showers.

Have you worried that you’re one of those obsessive types that can’t ever go anywhere without a box of handi-wipes, preferably natually scented with lemons?
Go ahead and check. They're not in my handbag. Besides, you hadn’t seen my previous house or you wouldn’t be saying that. I am trying to keep this place together so that I never really have to clean it.

So you’re cleaning it to avoid having to really clean it?
Exactly. Mites, huh? Thanks, pal.

No one ever called it Staid Street

I went prepared. I took along the burliest friend I have, someone who would tower over the rest (and therefore find me if I got lost chasing down a Kodak moment), someone who claims he once put a fist through a windshield (and therefore would not hesitate, I hoped, in putting a fist through the jaws of some filthy and lewd type with bad street manners), someone who again and again and again was told his Philip Jackson costume was great (but who was not wearing a Philip Jackson costume; he just sort of looked like Philip Jackson – thanks, Saul, for explaining to me minutes ago who Philip Jackson is).

Okay, let me roll back a bit.

I wanted to go to the State Street Halloween bash. We’re not talking about small, college-town party. We are talking about a big-time event where 100,000 show up and pack the street looking, to a large extent, very naked. In spite of the cold.

First, though, before setting out, one has to pad the stomach. You know, to protect it against possible attack.

Bunky's on Atwood

So we set out in a small group, all patiently indulging my desire to learn more about my new camera and night street photography. Yeah, that’s why I did it.

This morning, I reviewed the photos. I called a fellow blogger and got advice:

Do you suppose I can post an excellent photo of [costume where someone is engaged in an obscene and immoral act]?
NO! – she tells me.

How about a great photo of [costume where someone is engaged in another obscene and immoral act]?
NO! NO!
Hell, I wasn’t serious.

Okay, here are some tamer shots then. I’ll say more once you’ve taken a look at a presentable handful.


Capitol: front view



Capitol: rear view



















dancin' the clothes away



Well yes, you are correct. I realized that this morning. There seem to be no photos of women. Yes there were women. Yes they dressed crazily as well. I don’t understand it myself. The only decent and publishable photos are of half-naked guys. I don’t get it don’t get it don’t get it.

Most certainly, it was a crazy night. Leaving before 1 allowed us to escape the slight altercation between several hundred and the mounted police. I had to feel sorry for the mounted police. Everyone kept cozying up to their horses then cursing them as they dropped manure and people stepped in it.

This morning, at the Mifflin Street Co-op, I saw the occasional straggler, dragging in, still in costume. (One has to wonder why he would be looking at beer at 9 am, but hey, the young seem to have stamina for that sort of thing.)






Me, I preferred to spend some quiet contemplative moments talking about the days gone by while looking out at our totally cool skyline. And the geese, flying every which way.

Going in for the lay

I have been burdened with guilt. On my shoulder, dragging me down. I knew what I was doing was not right and the longer it continued, the worse I felt.

When I was in Vienna a couple of weeks ago, I came across a monument that expressed exactly how I felt: guilt-ridden, loaded down, hunted:





But today the burden has been lifted. My flaking out on Tori, owner and chef of Madison’s exquisite l’Etoile restaurant, was finally confronted as I ran into him at the Farmers Market. I fell to my knees, kissed his hardened-from-the-ovens knuckles and apologized to high heaven for not helping out this summer (this is what I hope I did; in the alternative, I may have been seen groveling, kissing, prattling and in general making an even bigger fool of myself).

My amends: I promised that I would add to their creamy, milky way of interstellar configurations by moonlighting at l’Etoile again next summer.

Interstellar what???? C’mon, what person reading Ocean does not know that l’Etoile is really the infamous square in Paris, so named because it actually is not a square at all, but a circle, fanning out in a million directions, sort of, well, like a star…

And, as of this week another star was added to l’Etoile’s A-list, as l'Etoile's Café became Soleil Café, which, as every reader of Ocean already knows, speaks to the issue of people needing and asking for more sex in their lives.

You think I’m making it up? Look at the t-shirts the crew at l’Etoile’s Café is wearing – they have engraved on them the new name:



Anyway, I am so glad Tori and I are friends again. The man is a genius and I hate getting on the wrong side of genius. I re-entered their warm spaces this morning and watched them laying it on: tray after tray of croissants, to say nothing of the brioches, the newly added tarts, the éclairs. Fantastic. I’m seeing sunny days ahead there. Yeah.

Last moments

…on the Union terrace, to close off the season, our small group gathers.

A gull. What thoughts does a gull have? Students, why do they row boats? Why do they leave mattresses on the lakefront?





The chairs, packed with every and any kind of person in the summer, empty now. Except for her and her loved one.



I am late. The sun is not a presence anymore. We go inside. Freaky wild! Portends of things to come. Tomorrow night. On State Street. The Mad City’s wild night: Halloween.

One man’s hot stuff is a woman’s freezer section at the local grocery store. The back of it, where they keep the Ben&Jerry’s ice cream.

Thursday evening. It’s late. Can’t do much of anything anymore. Long day. Feeling spent.

I’m talking to a guy who claims female adornments don’t influence attractiveness.

I don’t much care if women dye their hair, wear earrings, etc etc. It’s not what I look for.

I don’t buy it. This is the kind of la la thinking that goes on in this town of overgrown hippies and Farm & Fleet frequent shopper card-holders. Only when the heat is on, their eyes follow the racy numbers rather than the androgynously dressed gray-haired unadorned types.

Okay, you’re on. I tell him. Let’s see how you react to the hotornot.com photos (where people post their photos and subject themselves to what would seem to me like an excruciatingly humiliating experience of being judged on their degree of hotness). I want to see if we are in agreement as to who is really hot. Or not. I bet we agree, I bet we both pick the classy types, tastefully dressed, with beguiling features and great hair.

We turn to the computer screen.

First photo flashes. It’s a woman. She is so palpably unattractive that I have to think some mean types sent it in for a laugh. This rating thing is ugly. Nonetheless, hot she is not and so I vote with a “1” (scale 1 – 10). My friend gives her a 5.

A five? What are you thinking?? Her hair looks like oil, of the dark, car engine type, has been poured over it, with no strand left behind. And a sweatshirt? Who sends a picture of herself to be rated for hotness, wearing a sweatshirt?
It’s insulting to give less than 5. It just hurts their feelings (average scores are posted with the photos).

Okay mr-do-gooder-overgrown hippie, I thought we were playing this game honestly.
Fine. Let’s move on. Here’s a guy. I can’t rank a guy for hotness. So I’ll just give him a 7 because he has a friendly smile.
A friendly smile. He looks like someone I’d want to sell me shoes. Three. At best a three.

A picture of miss hot stuff in abundance, spilling over, you know, in your face, suddenly appears. She’s leaning forward to entice the audience with her cleavage. She has painted hair (“dyed” is too generous a phrase) and eyes outlined with a one-inch thick black liner.

Nine, my friend says, but I know he is holding back. His mouth says nine, his racing heart says 10.

You are so full of crap! She is a slut and she is coming on to you in the most obvious and disgusting way!
Yeah, I know, but she looks hot. Like she wants to be spending time with me.

What kind of time? Are we talking about quality time?
I’m saying she is hot.

He is right. She has an overall score of 9.8. America agrees with this two-faced hippie boy who talks gray hair and no make-up and trips up the minute a glossy number is flashed before his lust-filled eyes.

We go through 50 more photos and we could not be more apart on every single one of them.

Except for the photo of this hot, really really hot looking guy who looks vaguely European with his dark hair, his trim body (is it my imagination or is he just wearing shorts, I mean the ones that are supposed to go under something else?)

Ten I say. Undeniably ten.
Ten my friend agrees.
I thought you couldn’t get into finding men hot?
I’m looking at him through your eyes.

The game deteriorates. The realization that these are real people looking for real dates overwhelms me. I look at my huge long list of ones, twos and my friend’ s more generous fives and sixes.

Nice people, all nice people (except the dude who bears a striking resemblance to a serial killer. Because of course, I know exactly what a serial killer looks like). Just not hot. Or maybe I’m just not primed for hotness. Maybe the command should have been: rank these in terms of their averageness. Because really, in essence, we are all rather average.

My friend looks at me and says: when you play this game, you cannot ask the person you’re doing it with what number they would assign to you. So don’t ask me, okay?

That told me gobs, right there.

i'll bet my behind that this child is everyone's pet

When do I ever devote an entire post to praising a fellow blogger? When?! When??!!

It's rare.

But this post is for Brando [hi Brando -- is your finger on F5 yet? No? oooooh, soon! so good! so good!*].

...because his post about his addiction to comments is the best. Ever. [hi again, pal!]

Brando (of One Child Left Behind fame, see sidebar) is one of my three favorite on this planet storybloggers. I aspire to be a storyblogger, but I see myself at level Z, whereas he is up there in the first letters of the alphabet.

But don't go there. Stay with me. My posts are shorter.

Today, though, be fickle and jump ship. It's that good.


* this is not an inside joke. read his post and you'll get it. get it. yeah!

fruits of passion

So just this afternoon I was accused of writing without passion. Or, more accurately, of writing here, on Ocean, without passion since apparently elsewhere I do a swell job of it. (This was no stranger who chose to initiate the discussion about my blog.)

I was going to try to lay on the passion, just to prove you wrong. But I have concerns about my students who may titter in class tomorrow.

Let me rifle through the porous storage tank (yeah, my in-need-of-major-overhaul brain) and pick something that I can infuse with some degree of agitation (does that qualify as passion? Pretend it does).

Here’s something:

Recently I have wondered if, perhaps as a result of global warming and the confused patterns of bird migration (because if not that, then why?), we have lost our ability to manage the slight irregularities that occasionally crop up in human relations.

I could give you three brazenly beautiful examples of this right now, ones from my own stock of Important Moments To Remember Forever, but I wont. I mean, that would seem more manic than Ocean-anic.

And I am one of you! I also fail and falter and fumble. Daily it seems. I’m no exception – I am equally vulnerable, fully under the spell of those confused birds, migrating north instead of south, east instead of west. They have exerted their toll.

I do have to say one thing. We are in control here. We have the ability to reverse bad impulses and weird inclinations. I’ve seen it happen, even today, on this cold day with many birds flying every which way.

Anyway, I am agitated even if not very impassioned about all this. That’s the best that I can do right now. Maybe after a warm bowl of Bozzo soup tonight, I’ll come back and post. It’s easier to write about their great cooking passionately than about the real events that fill my days with strong feeling.

Wednesday email conversation with a friend

Are we still on for this evening?
I hope so! Is that okay?

Oh yes, around 8.
Will you have eaten? Do you want me to bring some-take out? Do you mind that I have a heapin' bowlful of the newest in dramatic events to put out on the table along with the wine and possibly food? Shit, I really think I live in one big bubble of drama. Not always bad drama, mind you, but drama it is.

[no response to this last one yet, but I expect it will be something like: Nina, we are so used to it…]

Monday email conversation with a friend

Nina, your blog is really very close to being a food and travel blog. If you took ads, you'd have a lot of good prospects, especially tied to a group of other travel and food bloggers.

A dizzying thought: to be paid to take trips and observe, write about and photograph people engaged in their various activities.

Unfortunately, Sarah's comment, Ann's email (above) and Brando's comment notwithstanding, a line with prospects hasn’t formed. But I will say this: if November offers up no concrete travel, I may have to use frequent flyer miles and camp out in Greenland or something. It should be cheap this time of the year when there is no light to speak of.

Of course, only if they have wireless Internet.

Sunday email conversation with a friend

I’m off grocery shopping now…need anything?
No, thanks, I’m fine with my jug of milk and tin of granola back home.

I’m picking up the usual [a list of “the usuals” follows], and of course chocolate.
What kind do you eat? Dark? Milk? With nuts?

Depends on my mood. I pick up a 3.5 oz bar, either milk, or with nuts. It lasts me a week to ten days.

There the conversation stopped. I mean, how can you email-talk to someone who takes a whole week to polish off a bar of chocolate? What kind of repressed, restrained, unimpassioned individual do we have here?

Amends were made when some was delivered to the loft, you know to butter me up some so I wouldn’t write this post. But I tell it like it is. Some of my friends are awfully tight about their eating habits.

If it’s Tuesday it must be a new Ocean rule day

I had an exchange with someone in one of my post comments sections and it left me puzzled. Why, when I asked so sweetly, gently, kindly, would someone refuse to give an identifying name so that I could tell who they were – even if only I could recognize the nickname, initials, or what have you?

This exchange was the final straw. It made a tough woman out of me. So good-bye sweet gentle kind request and hello tough Polish peasant stock momma taking charge and putting in some changes.

From now on, an anonymous comment without some reference to a name, pseudonym, nickname, blog name, any name – gets stricken by me. I don’t care how innocent, how praising and supportive, how generous the comment is – no name? no initials? nothing? Out it goes.

I take risks by publishing without the protection of anonymity. Sometimes I think I am about as dumb as a mule (are mules the dumbest animals ever? Googling this produced mixed results) to be doing this. But I think it gives me permission to ask that commenters at least take a half step and speak from behind some set of identifying symbols.

And no, contrary to what you may be thinking, I do not sit and count comments and I most certainly do not mold posts so that they would entice you to speak up here. To my knowledge I have twisted only one person’s arm to write comments. True, she now wears a sling and avoids me at work, but this is between her and me. For the rest? Well, I see Ocean as this neat little package of things percolating. Take part in it however you wish. Only if you write here, do sign in some way, or out you go.