Updates to continue mid-month. In the meantime, I’ll do my best to keep Random Jane sparkly with new content.

“So,” she says, and I begin to suspect trouble ahead, “why are the younger mountains taller than the older ones? I’m younger and I’m not taller than you.”

“Erosion.”

“Erosion?”

“Do you remember what we said about plate tectonics and and where mountains come from?”

Her voice says “yes” but her eyes say “no”, so I grab some paper and show her again. I should have thought of using paper last time.

“So the crumbled parts of the paper are mountains?”

“Yes. That’s it.”

“So why are older mountains smaller?”

“Erosion.” And every explanation of erosion I come up with is boring. “Do you have any sugar cubes in the back?”

“Yes.”

There are advantages to teaching in a restaurant.

And she brings back a sugar cube.

“First — wind erosion. Blow on it.” I’ve cheated and scratched at the top with my finger nail.

Granules of sugar on the tabletop.

“Is the cube bigger or smaller?”

“Smaller.”

“And that’s what happens to mountains when they’re in the wind for millions of years.”

“Wind erosion.”

“Right. Now — water erosion.” So I put a drop of water in the middle of the cube.

“Like the Grand Canyon!” she says.

“Right. And like older mountains. Only slower. You understand now?”

“Yes. So the Rockies are younger than the Appalachians and that’s why they’re taller?”

“Right.”

“And the Rockies are about the same age as the Himalayas?”

“Yes…”

“So why are the Himalayas taller?”

So there’s a sign in the Lit Office which says

“Not everything is a play.” H. Lindsley

It’s a joke grown out of a fairly typical exchange between M and me, but I think I should adopt it as a mantra or a cloak or a baseball cap. And when I’m feeling stupid or sad or melodramatic or predisposed to stringing conjunctions together, I can use it as a punishment / reminder.

Write it five hundred times:

Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.
Not everything is a play. Not everything is a play.

And that’s twenty times. But repetition is, in this culture, indicative of madness, so I’ll stop.

I did something stupid. I bought two journals today — this one, at a reasonable $13, and another one. Leather cover, hand-marbled edging…

[continued, 11:30 p.m.]

…made in Florence (how could I resist the romanticism of that). It cost far too much; I’m ashamed to admit just how much.

(X + Large Box of Good Pastels = Used Microwave)

Stuff got pretty chaotic after the Financial Aid blow — a good ol’ fashioned crisis o’ confidence. Nasty & ugly, but a necessary way of letting some of the air out of the old ego.

And now — the keel is steady, the hatches are battened, the mainsails unfurled and the jib is jibbering. So there.

The only thing which still worries me is the computer stuff — e-mail is going to be easiest of it, I expect. Things would be infinitely easier if I had a computer at home, but there are ways around that.

Trekking. In Sequoia, in fact. A story I meant to tell before. Summer — July — late in the day. An incredible day, a traveling day — a deserts and forests and fields and fences — fences which didn’t really seem to fence anything, which made them worth looking at — and cows. FREE RANGE cows.

We (we — K, J, S and I)’d been in the bowels of a Suburban for a few hours — S and J had been sleeping in the back; K and I were in the front, gaping at the scenery and hollering along to Clifton Chenier.

So — we tumble out of the Suburban (our friend, our nemesis, our coccoon…) and follow the sound of a river. J and S immediately began to behave like gazelles: bounding over rocks, skipping along non-paths And K and I schlepped after, as fleet of foot as hippopotami. At the bank of the river the gazelles and the hippopotami parted company, the gazelles leaping straight for the river, and the hippopotami using the paths contrived in FDR’s public works program. K and I made it to a large, comfortable rock in a stream and metamorphosized into lizards, sunning ourselves while J and S kept leaping from rock to rock. Eventually K — the grown-up by default — said we had to get going, and we all met further down the bank.

“There’s a path further down here!” said S and J, practically in unison (which lead K and I to believe they’d planned what followed).

So they went leaping through undergrowth and overgrowth and betweengrowth, and K and I began to shout more and more irritably “JUST WHEN DOES THIS PATH START?!!”

When we finally reached a point which could be called a path (absence of scratchy stickery, stubborny plants), it was…vertical. Or nearly vertical.

= CHAPTER TWO =
ON THE PATH
- In which K kicks rocks at my head. -

On the way up K claimed to have broken her finger. If it was in fact broken, she did it on the bathroom door before we even left Riverside. Most of us thought it was only sprained.

Anyway, when we made it to the top, I was probably dirtier and sweatier and more scratched up than I’ve ever been all at once — except maybe that time I fell in a lake in Finland and had to slog back through the woods. K was none to pleased with the “path” herself, so we set ourselves at plotting revenge against the gazelles. Light-hearted revenge, of course.

Twenty minutes to Romantic Poetry. I really don’t feel like sitting through that.

Oh, and while I’m whining, three hours of research today revealed nothing but the near certainty that Peligrossa is not a real place.

At the UHP reception a student from the summer session told me that she remembered what I’d said about Ross Perot when he dropped out of the race (what I said was that I thought he was dropping out of the race so that people couldn’t scrutinize him too closely, then he’d ride a media wave [re-entering] in October). I thought maybe I was wrong when I saw how angry people were. I still hope I’m wrong, but the little weasel is back, and he’s trying to turn his withdraw into an advantage. He said something to the effect, “I was wrong. How many politicians admit when they’re wrong?” Well, George Bush, when he raised taxes in spite of his lips. I guess self-righteously admitting, “I made a mistake” is the shiny side of “I told a lie in public, and now I’m telling a different lie.”

I had resolved to move to Canada if Perot was elected. I’m serious about this. He scares me. Of course, Canada probably isn’t distant enough.

The big news of the moment is that I turned in my application for the Seattle Fringe Festival this morning at 8:55 A.M. It’s a first come, first served kind of deal, and since this is my first year (late, but arrived!) I showed up at 4:30 A.M., accompanied by E and C, and R showed up with breakfast.

So I turned in my application. It’s #1. Barring a catastrophic error, I’m in, directing a production of Burnman Now. I want to shout this from the rooftops, but my spot won’t be firm until October 12th, and I don’t want to jinx it.

I’m tired. I’m giving up my preoccupation — it’s no longer worth the effort.

I blew it on Monday. He blew it tonight.

Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I worry about Elizabeth and Darcy. I know they figure it out in the end, but each failure in timing, each misunderstanding, all the internal fear and dishonesty convinces me it won’t happen.

And then it does. And I’m always relieved, and happy for them.

But for me –

I’ve had enough with the bad timing and everything else. I’m ready to let it go. I’m more and more convinced that I was wrong about things, anyway.