uh oh....

the alternate title i was thinking of for this post is, "... now the fun begins..."

my twelve yr old niece (friend's child) just emailed me the following forward. hmmm........

>HOW TO TELL IF A GUY LIKES YOU:
>
>1. The guy will be extremely nice to you.
>2. He will tell you that you did something good, even when
>you did it horribly.
>3. He might make fun of you.
>4. He will want to be your best friend.
>5. He might complement you on something normal like, your
>hair, even if you wear it that way everyday.
>6. He will stick up for you.
>7. He will start hanging out with your friends.
>8. He will flirt with you.
>9. He will call you for no good reason.
>10. He will make eye contact with a serious look on his face.
>
>
>HOW TO TELL IF A GIRL LIKES YOU:
>
>1. They always talk about the different kind of guys they
>COULD have.
>2. They stare at you with a smile on their face and won't
>look away until you do first.
>3. They ALWAYS seem to be talking about how nice or cute
>you are.
>4. They laugh at all your jokes, no matter how stupid they are.
>5. They will ask you who you like, continuously.
>6. They talk to your friends about you a lot.
>7. They always are flirting with every other guy, except you.
>8. They always try to make you jealous.
>9. They beg you to do everything for them.
>10. They always ask you what to do in a bad situation.

something i learned about today at the NY Folklore Societies Writng Folklore Conference

Bernadette Mayer's self published book _Utopia_, which she gave away for free, when she discovered that bookstores could not sell it.

http://home.jps.net/~nada/mayer11.htm

got to hear and meet kirin narayan!

in 1994 or 1995 perhaps, an acquaintance (actually a very handsome man of the what-I-thought-of-then as the advanced age of 29, and upon whom I had a huge not-to-be-requited crush) mentioned to me that i would enjoy reading Kirin Narayan's book _Love Stars and All that_

new to the bay area as i was then, and having this aforementioned unrequited crush on this handsome fellow, I picked up the book as soon as i found a copy. and fell in love with this sweet, irreverent, romantic and yet realistic novel by a woman who was a former berkeley academic.

tonight i finally got to hear, and subsequently meet and speak to Kirin herself, at the New York Folklore Society's annual field trip (like a mini conference) up in Tarrytown, NY.

first of all, she read about 10 pages from a memoir she's working on. it was great. about her family, especially her relationship with her brother Rahul, when she was growing up the youngest of four children in a biracial family on Juhu Beach in Bombay. I was riveted... there were times when i was just so excited about the kinds of things she was writing about, that she was reading, and also by the fact that i actually was lucky enough to have the opportunity to listen, that actually became a bit lightheaded, and with a big goofy grin plastered on my face.

and then, afterwards, i got to speak to her... can i even believe, she actually even thanked me for a comment i had made upon a question she asked the audience...

needless to say, i'm a bit giddy right now, so not making much sense.

more later!

september breezes

... i stepped out of the house, on my way back to the car, to pick up a bag of cookies and salad dressing pressed upon me (so sweetly that i could hardly refuse, though i hardly know what to do with so much food now that i am no longer at the bustop coop) by the kind ladies of the New York folklore society (yes, i know... random... but anyway--that's another post...)

as i was saying i stepped back out of the house to go to the car, parked on the sidelawn in front of the two-story, two-family house on First Street, of which my parents rent the top floor. As i stepped out, i noticed something i hadn't noticed before. the breeze.

deceptively like a bay area breeze... so like a bay area breeze, that just for a moment, i forgot what the coolness of the breeze means, here in New Jersey. i was lulled into thinking this is right, this is normal, this is just how weather is.

But. Here the coolness doesn't mean business as usual, weather as usual, with the nights cool and the days less cool, as it does in the bay area. here it means: september is here, really here, maybe a few weeks late, (despite what the calendar says) but here, bringing with it cool days, bringing with it fall, bringing with it, maybe sooner, maybe later, but definitely bringing colors to the leaves, a briskness to the air, a crisp something, that, while now it mimics (or seems to, to my bay-area honed senses) the bay area breeze, it's much less an everyday than it is a harbinger... harbinger of the change... the thing that, more than anything else, I've been drawn to the east coast for... that autumn season. the fall has always been my favorite season, growing up here in jersey. then it seemed inevitable to me that trees should become glorious for a few weeks, maybe a month each fall... but for the past eleven years, i forewent (or was it forsook) the fall, in favor of the hot days of September and October in the Bay (well-earned, of course, after the cold, fog-ridden days of July in San Francisco)

But now. the breezes blow here in NJ... and stressed though I have been by this move, by the idea, even if it's not to be permanent, of giving up my beloved bay, its culture, mountains, and yes, even its fog (foolish that i am, i get teary-eyed thinking about the fog fingers, rushing, galloping down twin peaks) even so.... here is the silver lining... giving up fog for fall...

2 a.m. in Jersey

just been looking at my last few entries. it's been a long time, and so much has happened. can't even hope to catch up, not really. so won't try.

just suffice it to say, it's friday night/sat morning now, depending on how you look at it, and i've been in NJ since Wed morning. i've moved here. well. not here, here. not to jersey. but to the east coast general ny nj area. am in a limbo right now. don't know where i'll end up when. life is open a bit too, maybe, just maybe. but it's good too... so many possibilities. so much responsibility to pick the right ones, to make the right choices, each choice leading so irrevocably to the next.

hope to be moving to ny soon. maybe even by the end of this weekend, depending on my friends' schedules.... I'm moving in with some friends in Queens. long story, but they're letting me stay there till i figure things out. very generous of them and i'm tongue tied just thinking of it. ashamed to be taking the generosity being offered to me. and yet grateful.

i will try to write more soon.