Last night we went to an artist lecture at the Kansas City Art Institute. They have these every Thursday during the school year, and last night’s was the last for the 2006-07 year. Jeff Aeling, a former student of the Art Institute, was the speaker. Despite how antsy I was towards the end of the lecture, I enjoyed it. He said some interesting things and I wrote down a few random sentences to use as ideas later. He did some comparisons of nature images to pieces of the body, which I thought were interesting. One of them was a galaxy to a hurricane to the cochlea.
In other news, I had more dreams last night. In one of them, I was hanging out with a bunch of people. One of them said, “Let’s do something different tonight! Let’s have Art Beer!”
Of course, I had no idea what “art beer” was, I thought maybe she was referring to some trendy microbrewed stuff that we already drink all the time. But when we asked what it was she answered, “You get a big glass of beer,” she gestured how big with her hands and arms, and it was big. She continued, “And you put six frozen muffins in it.”
I had a dream last night that I had to eat beef tongue. I was presented with a big plate of beef, nothing else, just beef. It was light brown and totally unappetizing. I took a bite, because I had to, and I was afraid to feel the tongue texture and afraid to taste it–so I chewed it with my mouth open, trying to keep the meat off my tongue.
I just kept thinking about how gross it was, and eventually I spit it out onto the plate, and then kept spitting and spitting. I woke up totally grossed out.
It made me think of the time, in Ramona Quimby, Age 8 by Beverly Cleary when Ramona had to eat tongue for dinner. Ramona Quimby was my favorite when I was younger, and I think I read all the books, of my own will, in 1st and 2nd grade. And I must say, the library books had no colorful illustrations then like they do now. They had some simple line drawings, though. I like it better that way.
Anyway, I’m not sure why I’m dreaming about eating tongue, or why I’m on this vivid dream streak (but I love it).
Rebecca Hoogs wrote a poem that involves eating tongue at age eight, in her chapbook titled Grenade.
Tongue
When asked what
the strongest muscle
in the body was, I once
guessed heart,
knowing its strain and pump,
how it holds,
and lets go.
Little did I know
it was the tongue,
that organ of opposites,
sweet and salt; that fist
of language punching
through plaster;
that probe for pulling in
and down; that point
of pushing in
and around.
My first taste
of tongue on tongue
was dished up dinnertime,
age eight. The cut filled
my plate like a word
on the tip of talk.
Obedient, I forked
my first, felt
its buds rub up
against my own,
felt the thick kiss,
and swallowed hard.
Today I opened up a packet of oriental flavored ramen noodles, for a gourmet lunch, to find no flavor packet inside. I was insulted. What a ten cent rip off.
I ate them anyway, with a bouillon cube (to get two day’s worth of sodium into my body), ginger, onions, curry, and crushed red pepper. It wasn’t bad, but it certainly wasn’t as delicious as the powder in the silver pouch.
In other news:
I am still dreaming vividly. This morning I dreamt that this girl that I sort of know was a photographer and had a lot of pictures of me without clothes on. She said she was showing them to everyone because it was part of her work, not something to embarrass me by. I was a bit frightened, but shrugged it off for some reason. Then later I followed her to take more pictures in an underground cave. She rode down deeper into the cave on a sled, and I decided to not go. I started running home, and realized I was wearing my jogging clothes with my winter coat. I felt really dumb jogging in shorts and a tank top, covered with my winter coat, but I kept going anyway. I was worried about the naked pictures of me the whole time.
I just finished taking a nap, and woke up from a really strange moment in my dream.
I was visiting my parents, and I guess I agreed to work while I was there at my old high school job. Well, I received a phone call from them–and realized that I forgot I was supposed to work that night. So, I started hurrying around, looking for my work uniform–and the whole time wondering, “Do I really want to go back there? I hated that job.”
I try to call them to say I will be there shortly, and no answer. So I kind of shuffle around, half-getting-ready. Then I call again.
Before I dial I can hear that there is no dial tone, so I put the phone to my ear, and all I can hear are birds tweeting. Weird, I think. Then I think that someone must be on another phone in the house, and the birds must be playing on tv or something in the background. Then, the tweeting stops, but I can hear movement on the other end.
I say, “hello” about ten times with no response. I take the phone away from my ear, to look at it (I guess to see if it was on) and I could hear what sounded like, “hello” coming from the receiver–very muffled. It sounded like me, and I wondered if somehow, the hellos I was saying half a minute earlier were echoing back.
I put the phone back to my ear, and nothing. So again, I say hello repeatedly with no response. Then I take it away from my ear again, and I hear the hellos on the other end. Very faint and static-filled reception.
I say hello again, and this time, get a hello back. So I say it again, and get another one. Then I ask, “Where are you?” and in response I get, “Netherlands.”
“What is your name?” and in response, it sounds like, “Tina.” And I’m thinking– “Wow, this is weird. Two Tinas connected on the phone without any dialing? What the hell is going on?”
So I ask, “How do you spell it?” And for some reason, I had a Scottish accent.
In reply I get, “H-A-T-S-T.”
And then my nap alarm went off. I woke up with a really eery feeling.
The Pub continues to surprise me. Last night was karaoke night, because apparently the Pub has karaoke night, and it was all mostly muscle-clad frat boys singing in their man voices. Needless today, it was truly wonderful. Bobby and I signed up to perform “99 Red Balloons” but there weren’t any spots left. He was going to sing in a falsetto, and I was going to dance.
Today I received another random package in the mail from Ms. Crystal B. It included, but was not limited to, a fantastic movie called Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
It gained some popularity because Mystery Science Theatre critiqued it.
I really don’t think anything else on that subject needs to be said.
Oh, and also, I received a letter from one of the graduate schools that rejected me over a month ago. The letter was to say that they had received my application. I think they are doing things in reverse.
My job often annoys me. Although I deal with much less anger than when I worked in the greasy food industry (I think there’s a direct link between grease, obesity, and anger), I still find the time to get annoyed.
What I will never understand is how people will make a huge fuss over a little mistake with their sandwich order. They will act like I deliberately insulted them, like I took food away from a starving child.
A lady called to complain yesterday, and instead of allowing us to tell her what happened and how we were going to fix the order, she just kept talking. I’d say two words like, “Okay, ma’am,” and she’d start up again. So I’d repeat, and she’d start up again. Eventually, I just had to tell her that I needed her to be quiet so I could tell her how we were going to fix the problem–which is what I was trying to tell her all along. It worked for a longer pause than before, and I was actually able to spit out a full sentence!
We’ve actually had people call and yell and complain–only to realize that they’ve called the wrong place or never actually placed an order.
I have not been a very nice manager to the people at work lately. And I don’t really care.
It’s called Job Burn Out or Sandwich Rage or Apathy or Stress. Whichever.
So, everytime you donate blood with the Community Blood Center here, they check your cholesterol and send you the results. I got mine today, and my cholesterol is ridiculously high! Okay, so it was 7 points below the HIGH/AT RISK levels. I’m 23 years old and battling high cholesterol?
It feels like I’ve been on vacation, but not a relaxing vacation, a vacation where everything is so busy that you don’t get a chance to sit around until the last day.
On Friday we got a bit of a late start to the fun festivities because I had to work all day. Around 5pm we packed up the car (Bryan’s car–after getting in mine and finding out it’s not starting, again) and went to Zona Rosa in Kansas City for some fine Indian cuisine at a place called Swagat’s, I think. It was delicious and my first time at an Indian restaurant. I couldn’t stop eating. Chicken Kadai. Spicy.
Then we went to the Artists Coalition gallery to see the undergraduate show. Well, it took about 30-40 minutes longer to get there than it should have, because we got lost like we do every First Friday we go to. Bryan’s sculpture was right in the window. It was nice to see it in an environment other than the art building–it looked really nice. There was some neat stuff there. Miss Julie showed us one that’s pretty cool, it was a sculpture based off the idea of that game–where there’s these marbles in cup being held up by all these sticks and you take the stick out one at a time until the marbles break though? What’s that game called?
Anyway, it was a large metal version of that, and the big marbles inside had things like, “WAR” or “W.M.D.” or whathaveyou written on them. And it was art you can touch, which is nice, because I’m always tempted to touch.
We only got to one other gallery, Leedy-Voulkos because everything was closing at that point. That gallery always seems to have the best selection, says everyone I’ve ever gone with. This time they had a huge collection of prints by Karen Kunc, and she spoke with us briefly about a piece called “Agri Culture”–she was very pleasant.
When we got home, we watched Pee Wee’s Playhouse on DVD.
On Saturday I once again had to work all morning, and then it was off to Bryan’s exhibition reception. It was very nice, and had a great turn out of family, friends, and professors. His parents made him take a picture next to every single piece. Every time his mom put the camera up to her eyes he’d say, “Mom, your camera’s off again.” Over and over. It was great, but very tiring. We went out to a dinner after the reception with his family, and we got to hold his brand new nine-day-old niece, Sierra.
For Easter we ate stir-fry and restaurant leftovers and had a John Waters movie half-marathon (Pink Flamingos, Desparate Living). I’m not sure if that makes us sinners or not.
