06 September 2002 ~ Thunder; bad translations; and, I hate friendship...

They all told me I'd have to give up thunderstorms if I was going to move to the northwest. Once, my grandparents, hearing that I was moving "to Seattle," (because everyplace in Washington IS Seattle, just as everyplace in New York State IS the City...), found a photograph of the Space Needle being hit by lightning. I'm 99% sure the photo was touched-up. And after all, according to ALL my sources, there are never thunderstorms in the great northwest. Only rains: light, drizzly, drooly rains.

Nyah-ha-ha...

They LIED.

I was sitting outside yesterday afternoon, composing a letter, when a large drop of water (approximately a CUPFUL -- this wasn't just any drop) struck my paper. The skies were pure blue. Not a cloud in the sky. Twenty minutes later, it was pouring, these big, huge raindrops. The sky boiled over with these masses of dark clouds. Thunder someplace off in the distance, and then lightning struck -- I saw three or four big bolts shoot down at Olympia before the storm moved off to mess up Lacey, to the east.

The thing is, I ADORE thunderstorms. There are very few things I've been genuinely homesick for, with regards to New York, and the east coast (I mean, aside from friends and family), but thunderstorms pretty much top that list. Thunderstorms, lightning bugs, and Ithaca. And roofing on sexy old buildings. Of course, lightning bugs do not live here, and if they were to pack little suitcases and move here, Jürgen and his Environmental Studies cronies would wipe them all out with fly-swatters, in the name of the Republic of Cascadia, which will not tolerate invasive non-native species -- such as lightning bugs, or Californians. And of course, if Ithaca packed up a suitcase and moved here, it would be nothing more than another district of Seattle which would get lost in the shuffle. And of course, I do live in one of the best buildings in town for roofing...

...And the northwest DOES get thunderstorms!

Fuck yeah.

As I walked to work yesterday just after the end of the storm, I noticed -- in a parking lot -- a big black smoking patch of dirt. I figured somebody had tossed a cigarette there and it was burning at the wood-chips. So I kicked at the smoking stuff. I kicked and kicked and kicked, until it all appeared to be out. But deep UNDER the blackened top of the wood-chip patch, it was still hot. When I LEFT work, four hours later, the patch had begun smoking again, and the top had turned black -- again. Of course, I'm probably just looking for excitement a little too hard, but I would have sworn I'd come across the remains of a lightning strike...

Hell, I was excited.

Anyway, whatever.

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After careful consideration, following a dream I had, I've decided that, by this time next year, I'll have mastered two foreign languages. Enough, at least to ask where the bathroom is without thinking about it. Come to think of it, it ought to be very easy, if I go about it right. In Santa Fe, in four months, with very little effort, I learned enough Spanish so that, three years later, I can still understand the gist of Spanish conversations going on around me.

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And on THAT subject...

I have a complaint. A gripe, if you will. I've noticed this frequently while I'm at work, and it's made me a little angry... A mother and father come in with two kids. The mother and father are either Chinese or Mexican, invariably. The parents speak enough English to ask for a bathroom, maybe, and the kids speak fluently in their parents' language AND in English. The parents don't bother asking me where the bathroom is; they send their kids up to me to ask, in English.

This makes me very angry.

I'm not sure WHY it makes me angry, which is why I'm writing about it.

I don't think I'm so ethnocentric that I'm upset by people who aren't speaking my native language, which is American English. I'm upset, however, by people who don't try, at all, to communicate with me, even if they probably could. Hell, I make an ASS of myself when I walk up to Spanish-speakers and try to help them using a mixture of English and BAD Spanish. But I LISTEN to them, and I ask them a zillion times what it is they're asking for, and then I'm nice to them and I try to get what they want. And I use a lot of body language, because I KNOW my Spanish sucks. I can count to seven, fluently, and then I'm fucked. (In French, I'm up to fifteen!) I don't know ANY Chinese or Japanese. I don't know any Russian or Polish. I can understand a lot of German and Italian, but I don't know how to speak it back. But you know, if there's somebody I'm supposed to talk to, I'm going to TRY to talk to them. If it means we stand there facing each other, making incoherent grunts and stupid gestures, so fucking BE it.

I have this tremendous respect for people I meet who don't speak ANY English, but who try their hardest to make themselves understood. One Japanese guy came in one day with a little translator-machine; looked like a personal organizer. Neither he, nor his friends, spoke a word of English -- and what the hell; they were Japanese, from Japan, and they were visitors to the US: why SHOULD they learn English? They asked a couple of questions of the machine, and then they held it up to my coworkers and me, and looked at us quizzically. We understood. And we helped them. And all was well, and everybody was happy. Smiles are universal.

I take it as a sign of disrespect when somebody isn't willing to TRY to communicate with me. It's even more offensive to me when mommy sends her kid over to me to have the kid ask me questions. Of course, if mommy could communicate with me in English, it would make everything a lot easier for me, but if mommy wanted to make big dumb hand gestures to drive her message home, and speak to me in Spanish or Chinese, that would be fine too.

I think it goes without saying that I'm appalled that I'm 22, and out of high school, and I don't know even ONE other language fluently. But I can promise you this; within a year, I'm going to be able to speak two other languages, and if, before then, I get mysteriously, unexpectedly dropped into a non-English-speaking country, I'm NOT going to find the nearest bilingual kid to translate for me.

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Sometimes I despise social activity. OFTEN, I hate social activity. I'm tired of trying to make friends, keep friends, impress people, have sex, be in love, be out of love... I'm just sick and tired of love and friends. It's all too hard for me, and I'm no good at it. Nobody likes what I feel, and I often feel that my world and my interests are boring to other people, or uncomfortably strange to other people.

If I had a zillion dollars, I would buy a zillion books, and read them in the sunshine up at Evergreen. I wouldn't ever talk to anybody else, just read. And write. And learn. That's all. Call me a recluse if you must, but dammit, this socializing crap just sucks. It sucks. I'm not good at it. There are too many bizarre expectations.

I watched an entire episode of "Friends" the other day.

Frankly, I was horrified.

If that's how friends and lovers are supposed to act toward each other, you can COUNT ME OUT of this friends-and-lovers bit. I want to go back to school NOW, so I can read and write and learn and not have to wear makeup or shave my legs, or argue about petty shit with anybody.

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Got invited by my e-pal, Fletcher, to go see a show with him in Salem, OR. I want to go SO badly, and I'm WORKING. Argh. I don't care what kind of band this is that he's all into going to see; I'm just fiending for a road trip and something new. Fletcher, Salem, AND the band, are all pretty new to me. I have to go now, so I can call my work and try to switch schedules with somebody.

~Helena Thomas*