Quel Fromage!

Man [or should I say Dude], I’ve been having strange dreams over the past few days. Last night I had one of a recurring series in which I own a house — the one reliable thing in a disarrayed life — but there’s something dreadfully wrong with it. Sometimes there are decaying foundations, or murderers breaking into the basement, or drugged squatters who won’t leave. Other times there’s a river undercutting the house and if you dive into it you’ll see a menagerie of horrific water-monsters. That old chestnut. Last night the setting was my old house in Nevada City where people were doing all kinds of illegal things (growing pot, stealing cable and electricity from the main wires, building their own big power plant)… but they were doing it on my property and blamed it on me when the cops came.

Another dream was undoubtedly rooted in our professors’ direction to remember teachers from our past and their influence on our lives. The vicious Mr. Griesinger, who threw kids up against the blackboard and jammed them into trashcans, has been prominent in my memory. A recent dream involved finding bits of his face that had been sawed into pieces and strewn about the countryside, and my picking them up. That’s what he gets for having (in real life) brought me up in front of the classroom and showing me a picture of his ugly self on a beach wearing a graphically tight bathing suit that revealed his wanger. I was ten. I never understood why he did that, or why, throughout my childhood, I was a perv-magnet.

In yet another dream I was standing under a pear tree in a public park, trying to sell its fruit to people who were plucking it on their own as they passed by.

Then there was the one about a doctor I didn’t know who surreptitiously handed me a package. It contained all the Vicodin I could ever want, plus a few boring things like vitamins. The only hitch was that I had to go into surgery in five minutes. I agreed. It was worth it.

A few days ago I had a long talk with a Russian classmate. We looked up satellite photos of her town in Siberia (Chita) and now I want to go there, too. She said I could. She keeps a notebook of American idioms, and indulged me by reading some. Most were practical, but then… —“Here’s one. But I don’t know how to use it. It goes, “˜What am I: chopped liver?'”

One of my favorite teachers asked a classmate, —“Where did you fail to grow up?”

In the class of another favorite teacher I misbehaved. When the teacher stood up, his foot caught that of his chair, sending the latter to the floor. That provoked me to stand up and knock my chair over. I was just trying to make him feel better.

Here’s a video from that class, when Joseph and Moloko gave us an impromptu musical performance.

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Now let’s get caught up on pictures.

September 24

In a presentation by some fellow students in Second Language Acquisition, we were required to adorn ourselves with Sticky-Notes of Korean words for body parts. Here are Moloko and Curtis.

September 25

In another class, we again had to teach each other. I taught Irish dance. Here’s the lovely Sua, former professional ballet dancer, learning to play the cello.

September 29

Me and my adopted son, Brandon, from Oakland. The resemblance between us is striking. As I recall, he’s the love child I had with my beloved #24, Rickey.

My Kiswahili teacher, Gift, from Tanzania…

October 1

After weeks of preparation, my group gave a 1.5-hour presentation on pragmatics. From left: Sarah, Christine, moi, Regina. From the expression on my face you’d think Christine was telling us how she dismembers and eats her loved ones.

Finally… October 2

After school, Kim and I visited Grafton Village Cheese Shop where I tortured poor Sam, the charming husband of Jessamyn, another classmate I like a lot.

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Yeah, I guess I’m having some fun here, despite myself.