They got me!: On Germs and Gelly Rolls

Inevitable. Unavoidable. In the stars.

I knew it would happen sooner or later, but part of me believed I would escape untouched. I'm getting enough to eat. I'm drinking lots of water. I'm getting sleep (sord of). But there are only so many things you can do when bombarded by kiddie germs. Three-year-olds from my internship at Head Start have been coughing and sneezing in my face for weeks now. Oh, they are getting the lesson of coughing into their arms, but they all seem to remember that only after they let one loose into the vunerable orrifices in my face. Obsessive hand washing and furious application of hand sanitizer weren't enough. I could have guessed it would happen--that I would soon join the ranks of the little snot-plastered faces around me. So that is what my weekend has been: a battle to breath through my clogged sinuses.
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In less disgusting news, I got to meet Ira Glass and Chris Ware when they came to Berkeley to speak with the Performing Arts Center's speaker series! They presented a video that they had created together: piece on a boy and his love of the disappearing Louis Sullivan buildings of Chicago. With Ira's interviewing and sound manipulation and Chris' meticulousy spare drawings, it was a paeon to love of beautiful things, one's passion in spite of an indifferent world, and the particular haze of memories. I had read that NPR was offering a dvd of the movie in conjuction with pledge drives, so I'm glad I got to see it despite missing the goings-on of the radio. The following interview proctored by the dean of the School of Journalism was a bit less satisfying, with the dean obviously more comfortable discussing current media issues with radio host Ira Glass, then fishing for anything related to comics to draw out cartoonish Chris Ware.

Chris seemed terribly uncomfortable on stage, with clenched fists and bowed head, but he was enourmously engaging in person afterwards signing books. Right after the talk I dashed home to retrieve my copy of Jimmy Corrigan and zoomed back--red-faced and puffing--to find a long line of fans waiting to get their stuff signed. Ah, I needn't have run so hard! I got to tell Ira Glass how much I loved This American Life--I told him that my dream was once to write for the show, to which he responded, "Check out website to figure out how."--and chat with Chris Ware about the biopsychosocial analysis I did of Jimmy Corrigan for a paper in my Human Behavior in the Social Environment class. Of course my trek home then consisted of a pained reflection on the the words I had said and how stupid I must have sounded. I got the biggest kick out of the white Gelly Roll pen Chris used to sign my copy of his book. Sakura pens rock!