October moon

It was Juliet who entreated her Romeo not to swear "by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb."

I couldn't help but disagree with Juliet tonight. I was driving around that big sweeping curve of Lookout Mountain, I glanced over to the side, where the lights of greater Chattanooga spilled out into the valley. The lights were flickering--fizzing--fading in and out in a fever burn.

The moon, the constant moon, was still and steady and quiet above it all. Solid as a new egg, a wind-worn rock, a coin on the floor of a fountain.

Blogspot dictionary, round 3

lymulst--(n.) the thin lip of the top curve of one's ear

"Kevin knew he could not look Wendolyn in the eyes when he asked her to the 6th grade dance, so instead he concentrated very hard on the lymulst of her right ear as he proffered the fateful question."

mondlesi--(v.) what happens when spaghetti noodles get gummy and stick to eat other in a very unappetizing fashion.

"Giacoma knew she had blown every chance of impressing her mother-in-law when the old lady peered over Giacoma's shoulder into the spaghetti pot, shook her head, and muttered, 'Bah. Mondlesi.'"

ousectuab--(n.) a rare and delicate crustacean found in the marshes of Mississippi.

"As if ousectuabs aren't already hard enough to catch, they are nearly impossible to cook. Only 8th-generation-locals are equipped with the proper knives to remove the critters' shells, and the proper salt to season them with once they are boiled and red."

resestet--(adj.) the resonant quality of the outer rim of a high-hat.

"The concert fell to shambles after the drummer put a large dent in his high-hat, destroying the delicate resestet necessary for his 45 minute solo."

The 5 Songs I Hate With the Most Severe and Burning Hatred I Can Conjure

Not that it's ever going to happen, but one of my great fears is that one day I will be asked to be that person decides Top 5 Best Songs of All Time for Rolling Stone. It would be miserable. I would mull endlessly, and as soon as the results were published I would realize that I missed the Big Duh Song that is most obviously the best.

However, I have no problem listing the Top 5 Most Hated Songs of My Life , which are:

5.
"Celebration"
by Kool & The Gang

The first thing that bugs me about this song is its usage of "WAAHOO!!!!" Otherwise, the main reason why this song bothers me is the inevitable conga line of half-drunk grownups it incites.

4.
The collective repertoire of
Nickleback

I can get away with counting all their songs as one because, as everyone knows, all of their songs are the same song. If I ever find the girl who first broke up with Chad Kroeger and sent him spiraling into the never-ending cycle of rage and predictability and rage and predictability and rage and...well, I'm going to take her by the shoulders and say, "Couldn't you have just stayed together for the rest of our sakes?"

3.
"Tik Tok,"
by Ke$ha

I admit, there is some marvel to the way Ke$ha uses her voice during this song. During that "oh-oo-oh-oo-oh-awh" part she sounds remarkably like a sea lion. And during the rest of the song she manages to sound uncannily like a 13-year-old white boy impersonating a white girl pretending to be black. The first time I heard "Tik Tok" I thought it was a parody ("the po-po shut us down-down!!"); and then , to my horror, I realized...it wasn't.

While I'm at it, I might as well say that I pretty much can't handle anything that comes out of her mouth. There very well may be one day in the future that she takes up every number on the list, or I'm just going to have to lump her whole list together like Nickelback (see above).

Also, my brother and I have this theory that one day Ke$ha will just spontaneously combust. "E'REBODY CRUNK!!!! E'REBODY GETTIN' DRUNK!!!!! E'REBODY FLIPPIN' OFF OF THE ROOF!!!!!"....and then BOOM!

Sometimes I just wish I could stroke her back and say, "Shhhh. Shhhhhhhh. Calm down."

2.
"Carry-Out"
by Timbaland and Justin Timberlake

From that little jingle lead-in, you know this is going to be bad. Then Timbaland says, "I have you open all night like you IHOP," and it's over. What I can't figure out is why girls can tolerate this song, much less love it. A guy is trying to tell you your body is like carry-out! That's like...China King! Or Taco Bell! Or Dominoes! Do you really want your body compared to these?? If I'm going to be compared to food, I at least want something a little more dignified. I mean, even TGI Friday's would be a little more bearable.

I do have this extreme hope that JT just signed onto it so he could make fun of himself later on SNL...but I'm beginning to worry.

1.
"Centerfield"
otherwise known as
"Put Me in Coach (I'm Ready to Play...today...)"
by John Fogerty

If anything will make me snap, it is this song. As soon as it comes on the car radio, I usually just want to drive into something. The tune and Fogerty's tone are enough to drive me crazy. But I think my main problem with it is that John Fogerty KNEW it was going to be played in every ballpark, Little League to MLB, for eternity. It's not like "Eye of the Tiger" which evolved into the go-to sports song. It was just so contrived and calculated from the very beginning. He knew he was going to make millions. He knew he didn't have a prayer after CCR was over.

I just hate that the song tries to make me feel some tailored emotion. I'm at the ballpark and it comes on, and it's like someone is trying to force me to pretend that my life is a Great American Baseball Movie.

Apparently "Centerfield" is George W. Bush's favorite song. It's probably a really good thing I was never voting age when he was running for office, or I think my vote would have been a bit too swayed by this revelation.

Out

I returned to Oxford for four days after tramping through Greece and was happy when the bus rolled into Gloucester Green. I was back in a town I felt on good terms with. We were on a first name basis at this point--I knew my way around. I knew where to buy the cheapest eggs, the best beer, and the post office with the shortest lines.

But everything was different once I began to walk around. I left Gloucester Green and…where should I go? I was no longer permitted at the Crick House, the place I’d learned to call home over the past 5 months. I had surrendered the key to my college, and my Bodleian card was expired. Everyone I had lived and studied with was gone. I had some British friends around, but they were all crazy busy with Trinity term, now in full swing—and exams.

I booked a room at a hostel and then went back out to improvise my next four days. I went and spent hours at museums I had only brushed through during term. I lazed in benches in the parks. I spent a good bit of time reading Tintin at Blackwells. I wandered.

I went back to say goodbye to the Crick House, but it was a bit like being caught walking on your ex-boyfriend’s street. You’re familiar and you know your way around—but really, you have no business being there.

I suppose that was really the trouble—I had no valid reason for being back at Oxford. I was no longer a student. I was not a resident. I was not a tourist. How did I fit into this city?

Things felt better when I got to spend time with the few friends who were still in town. I ran into one of my tutors, Jonathan, in the grocery store line and we ended up getting coffee. I told him my sense of bewilderment with being back in the city where I no longer belonged. He nodded and smiled.

“Of course, that’s Oxford. When you’re in, you’re in. But when you’re out, you’re definitely out. It’s kind of a sick place like that.”

(I guess this has going on for about a thousand years or so, then)

I snuck into some lectures in the EFL. One was Seamus Perry on Wordworth’s “The Ruined Cottage.” Wordsworth, Perry taught, was fascinated by the power given to place once it has been endowed, or imprinted by a human act. The idea that even if all the people who were once living and acting in a particular place are gone, there is still a kinetic echo of sorts in the place—traces of people. The power of memory, no matter how fresh or aged.

I realized during the class that this was part of my problem. Corners all over the city were still buzzing with the memory of experiences shared with people who were suddenly gone. Walks shared, books read, groceries lugged, laughs released, beers drank, snowballs thrown, tears dropped, coats pulled close, arguments dueled, signs and wonders beheld.

This group of people, who most of my friends back home will never know, were once a part of my 24-hour-everyday and suddenly they were gone from the place I was supposed to be able to attach them to. It was all magnificently confusing. Was it Oxford the place I loved? Oxford the studies? Or Oxford the people? What was Oxford when I--for a very brief time-- belonged to it, and what was it now?

I kind of wish I had just left with my first goodbye to Oxford—the goodbye I said to everyone at the Crick House when I left for Paris, with everyone hanging out the door, and with bittersweet sense of love and of loss and all that.

But my final goodbye didn't resemble anything of the sort. Nothing ceremonious about it at all. By the fourth night, I could not stand it anymore. I was sitting next to a guy from Amsterdam who was trying endlessly to explain the pros and cons of legal weed when suddenly I just looked at him and said, "Sorry, I have to go catch a bus."

I went to the luggage room, hauled everything out, and violently shoved it down two flights. I let the door slam behind me. I ended up leaving the city at 10 o’clock the night before my morning flight, which wasn’t until 9. Sleeping in the airport sounded better than sleeping in the hostel at that point.

On my way to the station I passed two guys I had met at the hostel who had just moved to Oxford to study for three years. They were still trying to find their way around the place.

I stopped with all my luggage and told them in a flurry of words to make sure to get lamb pies at David John’s, and the best view of the city was from the tower of St. Mary the Virgin and, and the best milkshakes in the whole entire world were from Moo-Moos, and that Old Speckled Hen was really the best ale, and Old Hooky was overrated, and the best stationary was at Scriptum, and the Rose and Crown had the best terrace, and make sure to spend summer evenings outside at the Perch.

I loaded all my things hastily onto the the bus. And as it pulled out off High Street and into the darkness I felt the mixed relief and sadness of someone skirting out the backdoor of a party where she had long overstayed her welcome.

Darling, darling clementine

I have had an all-consuming passion for clementines for the last 4 months. It's been for many obvious reasons--they are beautiful, and cheering, and succulent---but I think I've finally figured out the main force that draws me to them. I think it's because they are so distinctly un-British. Clementines are such a relief from this British, British world.

To help you get my drift, here are the top 5 foods the British are good at:

1. ale
2. cheese
3. meat pies
4. cream
5. bread

Yeah. Good, but---all brown-esque or white. Not much color. Not much fresh. Not much spice.

I just wrote a scintillating paper on British national identity during the first half of the eighteenth century (please, don't everyone line up at once! You can each have your turn with it!). As I researched, I did a lot of reading about what what "Britishness" is.

Many historians think "Britishness" was developed during the wars with the French and the imperial age, because Britain learned how to define itself in contrast. Basically, it figured itself out not just by what was, but by what it WASN'T.

Clementines have been a good tool to help me understand the British. I still don't quite get what Britishness IS, but the little fruits help me know what it is definitely NOT.

Top 5 clementines are, which British-ness isn't

1. juicy
2. tangy
3. sunny
4. pocket-sized
5. squeezable



I'm not quite sure how I would have made it through the winter without them.

Now that spring is coming, the clementines are actually beginning to wane in their vividness. Lately they are more yellow than brown, and kind of half-hearted looking in the grocery crate.

But I don't depend on them quite so much anymore because the sun is actually making its way over here from time to time, and spring-infected Brits are surprising me with some passable examples of joie de vivre.

Still. I owe clementines a lot, for playing that healing role in my diet and that reviving power in my soul during my sojourn on this wind-beaten, all-too-brown-ish British isle.

Sharing

My favorite shop in Oxford is Scriptum, a lovely nook in the Turl selling fine stationary and old, yellow-paged books.

Walking into Scriptum the first time was like that scene in "Swiss Family Robinson" when the Swiss Family Robinson creaks open the door to the abandoned captain's quarters on their old ship. The glass. The globe. The drapes. The desk. The books. The treasure of it.

At Scriptum the treasures are thick paper, and dark ink, well-bound notebooks, and postcards...you leave the place wanting to live your life with more dignity. You especially want to write your words with more dignity.

Opera is usually playing on the shop's radio. About a month ago I was in there and I heard the most gorgeous aria sweeping through the shop. I don't know much about opera, but this song was betwitching. I felt like I had dreamed it somewhere, sometime long ago.

Sometimes I think that particular kinds of art (opera, for example) are too huge and grand and mysterious for me to even begin understanding. They belong to an insider's circle, and require an insider's appreciation. If you weren't suckled on it at birth, you've missed out.

But where would we be if we let the ultra-mysterious, and ultra-intimidating nature of some art or culture or economic principle keep us from asking questions--the basic (sometimes painfully basic) questions... "What is this? How does it work? Is this a man or woman singing? Or what?"

You must always start from where you're at. This has become a motto of mine. Obvious, right? Amazing how I often want to bypass that first little step. That first basic question.

Most fortunately, I asked the shopkeeper what the aria was. He nodded as I marvelled, and promptly informed me that it was "O mio babbino caro," of Puccini's short opera Gianni Schicchi.

He wrote the name of the aria in deep black ink on the back of his business card, and pushed it into my hand. It was all done with this benevolent demeanor, that: "I don't know you, but as a fellow human being I think you definitely need this in your life" demeanor.

I have been listening to it at least three times a day since.

What would the world be without this kind of sharing? The shopkeeper did not scoff at my ignorance. He hastily gave me the card with the inky-black opera on the back: an invitation. This business card was my ticket to opera, and it has opened my world.

I've since learned that as arias go, it's one of the most well-known. But I will continue to do my best to spread it, as it if it landed on the radio last week. "O mio babbino caro" is one of those things I feel like is my duty to share forever with the rest of humanity.

If you haven't heard it before, I can think of no better introduction that this: the great diva Maria Callas, circa 60s-something.

Breathtaking.

My best teachers

Roan Mountain, N.C.

Chipping Camden, Cotswolds

My parents are very big on their children knowing their roots, but they have also worked hard to turn us into explorers. They have always encouraged us to poke around the next corner, to turn over the next rock, to nose out that hole in the wall where you'll have the freshest oysters or juiciest burger of your life. They've always been willing to stop in some po-dunk town to make sure we have a look around and see what it's all about.

Somewhere in Florida

The older I get, the more I appreciate their intentionality to show us how wide and weirdly wondrous the world is. They shook us awake at midnight to watch meteor showers or to set out on late night expeditions on Hunting Island to look for sea turtles laying eggs. One night, we watched a big mama loggerhead spill dozens of perfect white eggs into a hole in the sand, bury them, and shift her way back to the ocean.

(I must add that a very, very serious park ranger named Patty held a roseate flashlight on the loggerhead whole time, and she has since become immortalized in Harrison memory as that epic turtle lady).

Trips have always been important our family. Not necessarily elaborate trips; more of trips down unbeaten paths. When I was twelve, we took a month and went camping across the west. A few weeks ago I mentioned how important this trip was to my dad and he responded dryly,

"I exposed you to the Corn Palace. Now that is really something."



Yes, but the Mitchell Corn Palace (in Mitchell, SD) is exactly it.
The Corn Palace (self-explanatory, but for those bewildered: Palace. Made of corn) is one of the strangest spectacles I've ever seen (yes, we made a special trip). I feel blaspehmous for comparing it to Half Dome in Yosemite (which my parents also made sure we experienced), but they are similar in this: they evoked awe.

Because of my parents' persistence to find these places and taste them, I will always seek them, too. To hunt for the hidden and stunning beauties of nature; the genu-ine and bona-fide parts of a town or city; and the kitschy, the off-beat, the strange--the plastic animals on top of rooftops. I will always look for the campsite near the stream, the rock shops on the side of the road, the old one-room school houses, the secret beaches, the catfish fry hosted by the local Pennsylvania firemen. I will always love veering onto the country road.

(I think my brother's full, full flickr embodies all of this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesmurrayharrison)

I remember at one point, on that same month-long camping trip, my dad pulled the car over in this giant field of sunflowers and said, "No one in the whole world knows where we are right now. Isn't that something?"

I remember that feeling of awe, and the feeling of how special it was to be with my family.

All this to say, my parents visit to England a few weeks ago and made me realize how grateful I am for all of this.

London

It also renewed my admiration for what a great team they are. As usual, my dad managed to find some random tower on top of some random mountaintop because it looked interesting. As usual, my mom mom managed to clinch the best sunset there for us.

Broadway Tower, Cotswolds

As usual, they made me take a new look at my world over here; they always think of the questions I'd never ask. They always find those spots I didn't even see on the map. Most importantly, they teach me to sit back and enjoy it. Not trying to hoard memories and experiences--but taking a place as it is, with a steady eye and plenty of wonder.

And at the end of it all, they've made me love best the moment I crest that hill, or make that turn, and I see those mountains--which I miss sorely, sorely now--and I know I'm coming home.