Tales from the Steppes

2005-11-08

7:38 a.m.
Tuesday, November 8

I've just seen a face
I can't forget the time or place
- Slow Runner, doing the Beatles

Today promises to be a much better day. I was a total zomboid yesterday after getting one hour of sleep the night before. Not to the point of hallucinating but definitely tired.

A continuation of yesterday's stuff....

• The funniest moment of the trip came when one of my little angels told me that she thought she saw some of the Smurfs while on the hike. On a moss covered rock. I asked her which ones, Brainy Smurf?, Jokey Smurf? Vanity Smurf? She did not know the names but described Papa Smurf and Smurfette. Must have Botox to control facial twitching. Must not laugh at sensitive pre-adolescents. Must not use irony or sarcasm when speaking. Help! Well, ok. I guess this is really just a reflection of her concept of nature - it derives from a bad children's tv show. Just a very sad commentary. I suppose I could go on for some time about mental constructs of nature but I'll just let it go today. Because I know that, even among landscape architects, I am really in the minority in my fascination with this topic.

• Saturday was partly spent on what I hope is a final recruitment drive for my thesis research. I completely hate going door to door, explaining myself and my research, begging for participation. One dad told me that he found it wierd that I would be going around asking people to participate. I explained why I could not go through the school, as I am only interested in kids that live in very specific areas, but he was still so negative about letting his children even speak to me that he would not even look at my letter of introduction. One mother, whom I knew, told me that they were just too busy. Of course, I knew that this mother does not work and her daughter was out walking the dog and had said hello to me just a minute before. And we really are not talking about much time here, maybe 1/2 hour of scheduled time. But whatever.

• The funniest people I talked with were this couple and their 2nd grade daughter. After I explained to the father what I was doing, he went to get his daughter and told her I wanted to interview her. She ran screaming because she thought an interview involved a shot. Fortunately I was able to get a word in and explain that I actually did not want to interview her right now but just wanted to give her a camera and she came right down. Sophia is very bright and articulate child and quickly grasped the concept of what I am trying to do. Sort of. She picked up the camera and started taking pictures of everything in sight inside her house. All sorts of trinkets. Her parents asked if she could have a second camera because she would probably settle down and take pictures of the neighborhood after she got past this.

• That kind of put me off a bit but I certainly agreed. Still a little strange. Perhaps they thought someone other than me paid for the cameras and the developing. And I guess it was a little easier to ask me for another camera then ask their daughter to calm down and stop randomly taking pictures.