Paranoia.

Friends of mine are very paranoid about my upcoming administrative pay expose about people at my school who are skimming quite large sums through payraises.

One is a (white) academic who was raised blue collar in a rust belt town; he said in all honesty he'd be worried about people slitting his tires, if he was me.

Another is a (black) acquaintance who grew up in the university neighborhood and is a bar bouncer in a hipster neighborhood; he said to let him know if "anyone tries anything".

It's amazing, the fear that is out there.  People see people with money and power and their mind just runs away with them.

My one friend who teaches modern Czech literature doesn't think my dissertation committee would even think of doing anything to impede graduation, since that'd bounce back on them; she said it's a line, to let anything else but academics get in the way.

Motherly antics.

The other day I had the phone off at the beach like I always do since reception is spotty and if I don't keep it off, the battery drains quickly.

My mom called 2 times.

She was (drinking?) at a church festival with my uncle near his house and wanted to know if I wanted a "funny t-shirt" like the one that said:

I'M POLISH.

STOP STARING 

AT MY 

KIELBASA.

- which I found odd not only since she doesn't have a crass sense of humor, usually, but also because she's my mother and that's a weird t-shirt for a mother to recommend.

Bar experiences: Mexican bar near city limits.

A few weeks ago I went to this Mexican bar out by western city limits.

I had seen the place a few months before, but it was closed the day I was there, so I always had it in my head to come back.

The place had a Latina-American bartender, a few Latin patrons (including a very drunk [Mexican] guy who was telling me how much he likes marathons, and he's doing one this year, and he's fifty), and this white due with a goatee and a shaved head and lots of tatts, who was dressed in a black white beater and seemed hepped up (on coke?) and was walking in and out of the bar a lot and was very abrupt and unrealizing in his interactions with me and the bartender, who I was talking with.

At one point, he interrupted us to give me his card, asking me if I knew anyone who needed plumbing.

Somehow, too, he told me a bit of his bio, which was that he grew up in LA and "Mexicans are my people", and he moved out to the city from there b/c he got a 3rd strike with a DUI and was facing serious jailtime, after already having spent 14 years in prison.

Last time he was stopped by 3 cops, it was here in the city, and they pegged him as a skinhead.

"We're Aryan Nation too," the 2 (white) cops told him.

"Really?", I was like.

"No," he said, "They were fucking with me, they had me pegged as a skinhead.  Then they said they were sorry but the black guy had to write the ticket."

Too driven?

This summer I’ve been trying to relax more, even in small ways.

For example, if I go to school to work, I don’t pack my bag the night before, and if I don’t get something done over the week, I don’t work a bit on Sunday afternoon to finish it off.

I’ve also been trying to catch myself being hepped up and anxious about things, and the other day when I was sitting by stove in the morning waiting for the espresso to get ready, I noticed myself thinking ahead to the coming day and all the things I needed to do and I noticed myself starting to get tense, and I realized that I always did that and needed to stop, since that sort of thinking doesn’t really get me any more organized and really serves no purpose at all but to make me hepped up and tense to no good end.

Observation of my Russian friend.

A few months ago, when me and my one (Russian) friend were having drinks, he admitted that he really, really dislikes Germans, which I found surprising, since he’s studied so much German and has even lived there for a while, I think.

He said that for Germans, God’s this bubbling, inconceivable, overwhelming divine force, and in their minds it’s their people’s ordained mission to put limits on and restrain and channel God for the world.

“That’s scary,” he was like, “To be so certain!”.

For him, that’s the ethos of the German people, at least since the 19^th c.

Two dreams (2 of 2): Hanging out with neo-pagans.

I was on a beach blanket-sized rug on top of concrete, and I was with 3 people: a young white girl to my left, another person at the carpet kitty-corner who I don’t remember much about, and a guy immediately to the left of the person kitty-corner, and he was making charms and candles and potions, chanting or touching something to his lips to kiss it now and then as we all sat there chit-chatting.

The guy also had to each side of him and slightly behind him these tall glass pillars, like easily 6-8 feet each and the size of a coffee can around, and they were filled with some dark purple but nonetheless clear liquid.

Of the 3, the young white girl to my left and the guy making charms were both neo-pagans, and I had a vague sense that the other person was too, but that person, who I think was a woman, didn’t talk much, so I really wasn’t sure.

The young white girl seemed wistful, almost like she was disillusioned with neopaganism, and she wondered out loud if she would always be a neopagan forever, and she tried hard to say it casually like it was just a random thought that popped into her head, rather than something that she had been thinking about for a while.

“Well,” I was like, “I bet you’ll always mark the seasons with the moon.  Will you always mark the year into eight parts?  I think you'll always do that, you can’t help it.”

“You’re right,” she was said, thoughtfully but no longer wistfully, “I *will* always do that.”

“Every person is affected by their religious upbringing,” I was like, “You can’t help it.”

Then, I smiled and said brightly, “Marking off the seasons by the moon is getting off pretty easy, as far as religious upbringings go."

At that she laughed and was like, “I guess you’re right!”.

Two dreams (1 of 2): Extras.

I had already eaten my roommate’s last grape leaf from a plastic container in the fridge, and I open the fridge and open the empty container, and there’s another grape leaf hanging on the side where I hadn’t noticed it before hanging just out of sight on the inside edge of the container on my side, almost like a cocoon.

Later, I go to get a match out of the matchbook on top of the toilet to light the candle on the sink, and the matchbook is almost empty.

Then, I notice something on the floor, and it’s another matchbook, but entirely empty.