as i hurried out of the shower to see if i could help her, i had the thought, "what if it's a trick? isn't the lost dog act the oldest trick in the book??" and then i realized that the person luring others with a lost dog is typically an adult and the kidnapee is the child. was this eight-year-old girl going to kidnap me from my own front porch? no. i saw a giant black lab bounding toward her just as i opened the front door, so i went back inside. i did not get kidnapped. my brain skipped the logical path and found another.
five teenagers were killed by a train today in canton. they drove around a car that had stopped at the lowered railroad crossing arms. the train dragged the car a mile before it could stop. on the train were a number of blind people with leader dogs, heading back to chicago after a convention in detroit and a group of librarians heading to chicago for a conference. i'd imagine that hitting a car full of teenagers would really color your week in detroit or your soon-to-be weekend in chicago. coming or going. i wasn't even on the train but i can't get it out of my head. we live in a world with so many precautions and so many warnings that when something that is typically so orderly (e.g. trains on fixed rails) does so much damage, it kind of throws things off kilter. in 1995, members of a cult released toxic sarin gas into a number of subway cars in tokyo, killing twelve people and causing short- and long-term blindness to thousands of people. haruki murakami wrote a book about it, called underground. i read it last summer and like all his books, it really stuck with me. these are two completely unrelated things, but as soon as i saw the news report, the word "kasumigaseki" flashed in my brain. i don't even remember if that is the name of a place or a person in the book, but it just popped right up. i think these misfires are really awesome, when two unrelated things can cause familiar recall. and this, my friends, is why most psychology nerds are married to other psychology nerds because i suspect i bore people to tears with this sort of business.
aaaaanyway. look! my good pal anthony has a show in berlin! big time kudos.
today i only had to go to work for three hours. we walked the kids to the bowling alley, bowled two games, and came back. they were the longest three hours of my life. there was crying, fighting, pants wetting, and i said, "stay on the sidewalk!" and "get out of the arcade!" so many times my eyes crossed. i feel like a mean mom, constantly nagging them, but when you have eight seven-year-olds that won't listen to a single word you say and also enjoy a game called "let's try to slap moving cars," it kind of just happens. i'm getting really good at pretending to be excited when i watch kids do their 7 millionth handstands in the pool. the trick is to wear sunglasses so your eyes don't have to waste too much energy lying. only your mouth has to say, "wow! that was so good! you're like a dolphin!" my mom pretended to care deeply about every handstand i ever did. and now i know that she was probably faking it 85% of the time. and for good reason. even after long days, i still would rather work with kids than adults.
this album is soooo good. it came out in 2001. what a fool i've been for eight long years, only to find this now!







