The Wormlips Scrapbook

My mouth is tired from laughing. At O’Hare yesterday evening I met with Karen M. who had come in from Philadelphia. While we waited for the cab, I told her, You’ve got to go check out that bathroom. I just took movies of the toilet. It is so cool. Karen emerged from the stall a few seconds later, looking perplexed. I guess she’d seen a lot of those tubular toilet seat covers that automatically whir into place. I hadn’t. I was going to post my movies here but now I’m embarrassed. I don’t get out much.

Since then Adi and Karen and I have been tearing up the town. At midnight last night we went to the shoe store across the street and almost got lost coming back. It was very dark. After the conference sessions today we went back to the shoe store. We almost got lost coming back.

On the TV news this morning Adi noticed an unusual-looking commentator. There’s a guy with big eyebrows. That means he’s financial, she observed with absolute conviction.

What I say in the title about the “Chicago Three” is not accurate. We’re actually in Evanston. Man, is this a big honkin’ lake. There’s something strange about it, too. It appears tall on the horizon, more like a building rising into the sky than a body of water vanishing into the distance.

At the end of the day, Sue and Erin had us line up so they could hand out special pins, our reward for participating in today’s seminar called “Opening the Gate to Social Media.” They’re smaller than I expected, Sue told us. Below, Adam models his. I think it says “Air is Everywhere.”

A while ago I bumped into Jay and Melissa and we went over to the opening reception where everyone knew Jay and I knew almost no one. Guess I’ve been away from public radio too long. I did something I’ve never done before at one of these. To someone who came to greet Jay I said, Hi. I’m Jay Allison’s sister. He has been very thoughtful in introducing me around a bit.

Actually, I do know quite a few people here and it’s particularly fun to see those I haven’t run into for nearly twenty years.

At the moment (11:30 pm) my colleagues are on the town and I’m all by my lonesome, which I like. I am very very very very tired. Goodnight.

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I had my first bone-rattling pre-travel anxiety dream last night.

Some nerdy guy in his forties was in a motel room near mine, packing for our rafting trip that was to leave that morning. He was rolling up a big scrolling paper that looked sort of like the Torah. It’s homework Mom wants me to do while I’m gone. Look.

I unfurled the infinite list of word problems, none of which made any sense. Go on. Try one, he urged.

I unrolled the list further. How about this one? I asked, pointing. No, not that. The words in the middle are too big. Pick another.

Every time I made another choice he told me it was wrong, and got increasingly frustrated with me: I told you. You can’t do that kind of problem.

Unbeknownst to me, the rest of our rafting group had gathered half a mile downhill for a sumptuous breakfast. Their bags were fully packed and rafting supplies had been doled out by the crew. By the time I arrived the food was almost gone. I put the few remaining scrawny pancakes on my plate. They turned out to be chocolate chip cookies, but I lost my plate before I could eat any.

The bus rolled in. I hadn’t packed. I ran back up the hill to my motel room to try to organize. The scene was a lot worse than this:

I started jamming random things in my bag: two sleeping bags, two pairs of quick-drying travel underwear, two sleeping pads, a handful of pills from unmarked bottles. I knew I was out of control and that I would never get everything into my duffel in time, and that whatever was in there would be all the wrong stuff. Trekking poles instead of a bathing suit.

Someone walked by my room and watched me at work for a second before asking Are you going on that river rafting trip, because your bus just left.

I woke up just as I was trying in panic to negotiate a solution with the woman at the rafting office, a vocal Sarah Palin supporter.

I began: I know it’s my fault, but…

Yes, it is your fault, she confirmed.

Back to reality, where I think Stella has started to suspect I’m leaving her.

I am going to miss her terribly the next seven weeks. I take her to be dogsat in four days.

P.S. Richard suggested I use bigger thumbnails in this blog so I’ve been inching (actually, pixeling) them ever bigger in the last few posts. What do you think of this size?

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Here’s a picture Teej took last night of me as I showed Richard the ropes on the wormlips blog: how to write a new post, formatting standards, stuff like that. As you know, this was the first time I’ve shared my blog. You don’t think my presence is putting Richard under any pressure, do you?

An hour later, when I stepped into the country night with an armload of things to put in my car, I found all the doors had auto-locked. The keys lay safely on the front seat. Luckily I’d left the windows open so I could reach in, but no matter what I did I couldn’t get the doors to open. I pulled the lever to open the trunk, which not only opened the trunk but set off the car alarm. What’s strange is that I don’t have a car alarm. I climbed in the front window and started pushing random buttons and turning the car on and off, but nothing worked until Richard suggested I pop open the hood. Hark: there was silence as mysterious as the chaos of a moment before. Remember that trick when you try to turn off an alarm that doesn’t exist.

Not long after, heart still speeding, I crawled into bed with a borrowed book: The First Word: The Search for the Origin of Language. Just as I started hitting my reading stride, there was movement in my peripheral vision. You know what it was: a well-endowed, fast spider racing under my covers, bound for my legs. I leapt straight up twenty or thirty feet. Airborne pillows went east while the comforter flew west. In my panicked hands sheets snapped likes sails during a hurricane. But the spider had already sped to safety in some crevice of my mattress. I slept vigilantly.

Later I’ll post a video from yesterday of TJ calling spotted owls.

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