Journal of a Sabbatical

August 7, 2000

not even close

Today's Reading: Wanderlust by Rebecca Solnit

Today's Starting Pitcher: Tomo Ohka

Can I make a whole entry out of watching the surreal TV at Perfecto's Caffe? I was only there long enough for them to toast my bagel and the TV to flash something about what the Time-Warner/AOL merger did for the two storks. It really said storks. Two storks. My pre-coffee mind's eye sees Time Warner and AOL high atop an electric pole in some tiny Hungarian village with its own brand of mineral water and its own pancake recipe. The storks tenderly feed their young against the dusty blue sky in 100 degree heat as the stock market opens in New York...

Can I make a whole entry out of two huge dragonflies playing tag over the parking lot at dusk? They're the size of tree swallows. I thought they were tree swallows except they don't fly like swallows. Through binoculars they're clearly dragonflies. Against the pink streaks of sunset the dragonflies are bold black silhouettes. I can't make out any color or pattern to thorax or wings. Besides that I left my field guide at Kevin's house yesterday. I'd taken it out of my backpack to look up the green striped dragonflies in the backyard. Eastern pond hawks.

Can I make a whole entry out of trying to find 20 rolls of 1/2 inch masking tape? Somewhere in the back of my head I knew it wasn't going to be as easy as driving up to Target in Salem (NH), pulling 20 rolls of 1/2" masking tape off the shelf, and wheeling them to the checkout counter. Memories of driving all over Asahikawa in the snow with Curly trying to drive and Hiromitsu trying desperately to understand exactly what kind of masking tape István wanted and Minako trying to translate. I remember using progressively smaller and smaller slivers of masking tape to mount the specimens onto newspaper filled with detailed accounts of baseball games and sumo matches impenetrable in Kanji among the blue tarp covered tatami mats, the too hot gas stoves, the pit toilets, and the rows of plastic boots by the door. Target has 1.5 inch and 3/4 inch masking tape. No 1/2". There are maybe 5 rolls of 3/4" on the shelf. I buy them anyway, just in case. The backup masking tape.

But wait, isn't this what the Internet is for? After all, I research "Rana pipiens" on a search engine and get "Comparison shop for Rana pipiens on mumblefratz.com" and I don't even want to buy a frog. I do want to buy masking tape. Whoa! Searching on masking tape gets me way more hits than can possibly help. Try 1/2" masking tape. Whew, that narrows it down. I find a web site that sells nothing but tape. I get disconnected. I dial in again, get disconnected again. That Media One Roadrunner cable modem is sounding better and better. Finally I stay connected long enough to try the old standby, Staples. They don't carry it in their stores but I figure the online catalog has got to have 1/2" masking tape. They do! Hooray!

But wait, I have to register and create an account with a password and so on before I can order anything. I fill out the the form and the server crashes. The cable modem wouldn't solve this one. I go off to do other things like buy groceries (in a grocery store not online), read more of Wanderlust, watch the news, look for my missing copy of The Outermost House, call Nancy.... I connect again later and it shows the 20 rolls of tape in my shopping cart so I click on the checkout button. Oops. The shopping cart is really empty. I go back to the tape page, find the tape I want, add 20 rolls to my shopping cart and hit checkout again. At last! It asks for payment method and all that good stuff and tells me my order has been submitted.

Can I make a whole entry out of buying masking tape? Well, not really, but it can take a whole damn day to buy a mere 20 rolls of 1/2" masking tape. I sure hope this is enough. I don't want to try getting Staples to ship masking tape to Tibet.