Monday, September 7, 2009

Dol-fun

Let's just pause a minute and play, "WHO IS SOPHIE LIVING WITH NOW?"

Here are a few hints:
1. Both the people I am living with are in the picture to the left.
2. Both of the two people I am living with are really freaking adorable.
3. Both of the people I am living with are human people, and are not waffles, or grits.
4. I do not live with any men.
5. As beautiful as she is, I do not live with Gina.

If you have guessed ARIANA RAMPY in the Oh-My-Fucking-God-Is-That-An-Actual-Dress? dress, and LEAH HOPE FISHBEIN who cooked the fabulous beyond all words feast which lies on that table (peanut butter waffles, deep South grits, homemade bean-and-cherry sausage, rosemary apple scones, and all of it vegan), then you have guessed CORRECTLY, and you win a PRIZE!

And that prize is a brief-but-thorough update on the Life Happenings of Sophie Johnson, embedded with no fewer than Four Fun Facts about Dolphins!

(I still can't spell "dolphins" right the first time I try. That's not one of the facts. But I legitimately always try to spell it "dolfins," and it is hard for me to understand that I am incorrect in believing it ought to be spelled like that.)

So many things have happened in this last week.

Monday was a pretty regular and ordinary day, for the most part. Someone threw up in the hallway at school. I stayed in the building until 7 p.m., and then worked at home until 10 p.m., and then I felt shitty because that was too much work. So I decided that wasn't going to work for Tuesday. Thus, Tuesday was different.

On Tuesday Hannah, Leah, Karaline and I tried to have our weekly dinner, but we failed for the following reasons:
1. Hannah was stressed out and could not make it to dinner.
2. We picked a Chinese restaurant (because we were all FAR too stressed out to think about cooking) that ended up looking sketchy and then we ended up at a Japanese restaurant that was very fancy.
3. There was almost nothing vegan on the menu, except some of the sushi, and Leah hates sushi.
4. And I had to leave really early BECAUSE:

... ARIANA RAMPY arrived! The excitement is still very, very warm in my blood. In fact, I would go so far as to say that nothing in my immediate past has made me feel so warm-blooded as Ariana Rampy's arrival to New Orleans, Louisiana (by the way, DID YOU KNOW that dolphins are warm-blooded?!?!).

No, folks, she is not just visiting New Orleans. She has moved in here. She has a room in my house, with a bed, and a window looking onto our back porch, which I am constantly rediscovering as one of the most desirable hidden worlds I've ever caught myself in. And ever since she got here, the air has been full of Winnie the Pooh stories, bad eighties movies, gluten-free baking, and that arresting laughter that makes my heart stop in a kind of frightening way -- a barrier only ever broken by Ariana.

Moving is stressful. I watch Ari go through the motions of transporting beds and trafficking dressers around the house, while trying to find a job, and trying to figure out how she is going to hang her dresses up, and trying to cook in lower-than-sea-level tropical humidity, and a lot about last year comes back to me. Except that Ari is infinitely saner than I ever was last year, so while I sit around waiting for her to have a panic attack, she breathes in the dishwasher-wet thunderstorm air and says, "I love it here." This makes me love it here all the more. Sometimes humans can communicate enormous truths without even speaking. Ari being here makes me understand, with my whole heart, how lucky I am to call New Orleans home. (By the way, DID YOU KNOW that dolphins, too, communicate without speaking? It's true! Dolphins can make a unique signature whistle that may help individual dolphins recognize each other, collaborate and perform several other kinds of communication.)

On Wednesday it was Parents' Night. I ate a lot of chips and felt sick. And then I sat in my room in total shock as I looked out at a sea of parents' faces -- moms and dads and grandmas and aunts and brothers and neighbors -- and thought, "Wow. This school really works." I enthusiastically raved to moms and dads about their children, who really are the most brilliant and interesting human beings I have met in my whole life. I know that this is not the way that parent night is supposed to go. You're supposed to say all these things that parents can do to work with their children to help them succeed. But I'm no good at that. That's why I have a co-teacher.

I'll get better at it. I just love them so much. I can't even wrap my own mind around it, let alone put it into words.

On Thursday my co-teacher was sick. It was a very, very bad day. My kids all decided they were sick too (I assume mostly because they wanted to copy Ms. Bevans; and I can't blame them because she is very much worth imitating). The rest of them decided that they should be on their worst possible behavior, particularly when I was being observed. I lost Charles. I lost my temper. I lost my voice. And at the end of the day I needed to be reminded of all the At Leasts (At least the school is still standing! At least everyone is safe! At least you get to go home!) because I couldn't think of them on my own.

It was humbling. It was one of those, "Oh my God, I'm not actually good at this yet" moments. The kind where I felt like I was drowning, about 260 meters below the surface of the ocean (which, by the way, is about as deep as dolphins can swim, DID YOU KNOW?).

On Friday we all celebrated. The kids were nicer, and I was nicer. Ms. Bevans was still very sick and sat on the stool looking cross whenever someone was out of line. That actually was a better management strategy than anything I had previously tried, so I was very, very grateful for her presence -- as painful as it must have been for her.

It was a long weekend. The highlights were cleaning the house, and eating that amazing brunch. We went to Southern Decadence and just Took Things In -- men as women as men as women; dancers and twirlers; cigarettes and penises; cigarettes shaped like penises; children in coats and women with babies; vomit, beads, gendered-up Mardi Gras fare in September. The heat got very sticky. Ariana continued to bring light into the house, and Leah cooked food I never imagined could exist. The three of us went to see "Julie and Julia" last night, which I'm embarrassed to say we absolutely loved. We made a lot of really loud orgasm noises over the buttery foods that none of us can eat.

The house is feeling a bit more like a home, and I half-expect my mother to be sitting in the living room reading T. S. Eliot in an armchair before dinner. Also, I can FEEL fall. Man, I am SO ready for fall. I just love that season. Right now, it is my favorite.

I swore I would only take 15 minutes on this entry (the amount of time dolphins can stay underwater, DID YOU KNOW?), but it's dragged on and on, as it always does. My mom called a few minutes ago, and with my sister in Costa Rica for the semester (wish her happy and safe travels whenever you can! She just got there last night), I want to talk to her and see how she is doing.

It always amazes me -- and Ari is on the phone with Kevin now, loving him with all her heart from this great distance -- how far we can be from one another and how close we can still feel. What a cliche that is... but there's something very comforting in it, too. So as I turn in, looking forward to another week, I'm sending as much love as I can across miles and miles, hoping you will feel it. Onward!

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I feel it. Your blogs always make me miss you more than usual.

Sam said...

I walked by Kevin three times today and each time he was sitting outside of a building on his cellphone, and I thought, I am so positive that he is talking to Ari right now. She should know that it was PRETTY COLD in Walla Walla tonight and yet he sat.

Alexis Johnson said...

i talk about you all the time to all my new friends here, so i definitely feel so close to you still. also whenever i look at my desktop picture, which is a picture of you eating my face. i want to call you but i want to make sure it's at a time that you will be able to talk. can you tell me a time that will be? that is before 6AM MST and after 8PM MST.

also, i can't believe you were embarrassed to have liked Julie and Julia. it was the most feel good movie i have ever seen. i am obsessed with it and love it.

Alexis Johnson said...

also i sent you a letter today. count how long it will take to get there.

Alexis Johnson said...

also you have never experienced humidity like the humidity in central america. that's all i have to say.