I have nothing due tomorrow, and I've been feeling very burnt out lately, so I didn't do homework today. Instead, I started reading The Origin of Humankind.
Yes, it's sort of a strange choice for pleasure reading, but my soc class this year has gotten me very interested in early people. I mean early, early people. People who'd just barely got out of the trees, and sat around and ate and shat and shagged. And walked.
Walking was the distinctive feature of the first humans, and even though the hunting and gathering and increase in brain size and invention of tools all came later, Mr. Richard Leakey has chosen the act of walking as the major distinctive milestone capable of earning our ancestors the (coveted) title "human". It was just that crazy, requiring drastic anatomical changes--of an unmitigated variety. But these apey people were still very apey. For a long, long time.
Anyway, not that this information is particularly revolutionary. My interest is more engulfed in the people that stopped being so apey and started being more human. Making crap, setting things on fire. I'd like to go back and see an early, Mesopotamian sort of society. Not to see what they're doing, but to watch them interact. I want to watch early interacting people. I want to see people start becoming confused about love, without generations of previous love stories to tell them what's happening. I want to watch them begin to develop poetry... when instinct and society began to give way to intense emotional terrain.
I sometimes have daydreams, as all people must, about interacting with ancient people. My most frequent scenario involves taking an ancient person, or maybe an ancestor from a time not so far back, like Roman times, and playing music. Beautiful music. Strange music. Modern music.
Of course, my intended outcome would surely not happen.. rather than this person's eyes widening in awe, and proclamations of love spilling forth, I think it is more likely that their eyebrows would furrow, and this person would ask what all the noise is about. Modern music is a bit more complex, and noisy. It might sound more like a chaotic scene in the market than a beautiful arrangement of instrumentation.
Not that I'm killing off that daydream. I find it far too pleasant. Sort of like the one where I take my great-great-great-grandfather, William Henry Wheeler, the civil war soldier who died in battle five days before the war ended, somewhere in Virginia...and drive him around in a car, much to his terror.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
oh, for the love of cheese.
For the past week or so, I have been craving fresh mozzarella.
It started mildly, but over the past few days I've been indulging in all-out fantasies: I see myself going to the Co-Op, walking through the chilled aisles, and stopping in front of the cheese. I pick up the ball of fresh mozzarella from its countryesque picnic basket, among the other cheeses. On the way back to my apartment, I stop at the Bonjour bakery and select a loaf of French bread. Now I see myself at the kitchen table, which I, of course, imagine into place (as we don't have one yet)... slicing the bread, dousing each slice with olive oil, adding a basil leaf, and topping with a slice of tomato, and an equally thick slice of fresh mozzarella. It is beautiful, undeniable food.
My fixation may have started with the capriccio I had at Artopolis something like a month ago, when some friends and I decided to just eat, and not think about money. This was after spending all day in Belmont, and having eaten dinner already at the Chicago Diner (very good vegetarian restaurant, with surprisingly good seitan gyros). Now, two or three hours later, we were eating again. I began with a bowl of lentil soup--one of the most comforting things in the world. This was served with an continuous supply of (freshly-baked) bread. Then came the capriccio. Finally I ordered an absolutely beautiful chocolate mousse, held in cake-like shape by a chocolate coating. I could only get half-way through it, having reached my breaking point, and I brought the rest back for Upekha. But I'm here this summer, and I will finish that chocolate mousse.
Whatever happens with men in my life, the love of food lives on.
It started mildly, but over the past few days I've been indulging in all-out fantasies: I see myself going to the Co-Op, walking through the chilled aisles, and stopping in front of the cheese. I pick up the ball of fresh mozzarella from its countryesque picnic basket, among the other cheeses. On the way back to my apartment, I stop at the Bonjour bakery and select a loaf of French bread. Now I see myself at the kitchen table, which I, of course, imagine into place (as we don't have one yet)... slicing the bread, dousing each slice with olive oil, adding a basil leaf, and topping with a slice of tomato, and an equally thick slice of fresh mozzarella. It is beautiful, undeniable food.
My fixation may have started with the capriccio I had at Artopolis something like a month ago, when some friends and I decided to just eat, and not think about money. This was after spending all day in Belmont, and having eaten dinner already at the Chicago Diner (very good vegetarian restaurant, with surprisingly good seitan gyros). Now, two or three hours later, we were eating again. I began with a bowl of lentil soup--one of the most comforting things in the world. This was served with an continuous supply of (freshly-baked) bread. Then came the capriccio. Finally I ordered an absolutely beautiful chocolate mousse, held in cake-like shape by a chocolate coating. I could only get half-way through it, having reached my breaking point, and I brought the rest back for Upekha. But I'm here this summer, and I will finish that chocolate mousse.
Whatever happens with men in my life, the love of food lives on.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
On Being That Dreaded V-Word
No, not virgin.
"Emmy has become a vegetarian," my mother explains from across the dinner table, as she points to the broccoli quiche. She says this like I have become a butterfly.
"Oh," my grandmother says and nods. She acknowledges this like I have become a butterfly.
Somewhere around 3 months in, it became comfortable to refer to myself as a vegetarian. Less time than that just seemed pretentious, especially since it started from a New Years Eve resolutionesque whim with my sister. We decided on a year, and left some things unspecified.
(DIGRESSION:
Seafood, for instance. I used it as a tentative crutch, making the transfer to tofu and seitan easier. Of course, now that the rest of the meat is gone, the few times I do end up eating seafood leave me feeling weird. Now, having read about the environmental problems with gathering seafood, I can start phasing it out completely. Did you know it's been predicted that we'll run out of certain types of seafood within our lifetime, due to such extensive farming? So I read.)
Having such a label on you is interesting. Because, of course, the connotation goes far beyond a simple dietary abstinence. As one journeys into this world of new eating rules, one also unwittingly picks up an assemblage of assumptions that tack on to one's meat-free plate.
Hippie! Tree-Hugger! Extremist Terrorist-Coddling Pot-Smoking Most-Likely-Gay God-Hating Liberal!*
Of course, people don't really say these things--not usually, anyway. But it doesn't mean you don't see it in their eyes when they pull it out of you, as many people will. Ordering the fettuccine alfredo and trying as inconspicuously as possible to ask for no chicken, you smile tepidly and look out the window, but then it happens, as you knew it would:
"Are you a vegetarian?"
"Oh," you say. "Uh, yeah."
"Oh," they say. Because you're the kid the city changed. You've metamorphosed. Into a butterfly. Or maybe a moth.
I don't blame these reactions, really. I used to do the same thing, have the same flash of thoughts. But on the other side of the equation, it looks different. I'm not going home at night to burn American flags. I'm just not eating turkey anymore.
Of course, there's also the pugnacious fringe population of non-vegetarians, the militants who look both enthusiastic and wild when they see your plate is free of chicken. "So," they begin, "I see you're a vegetarian. Why?" This question is electrically charged, and it makes me groan inwardly. Not because I find the debate useless, but because someone has just tagged me as the enemy, and the goal is now to win the ensuing argument. This person doesn't honestly want to understand my position - this person wants to skewer me with counterarguments.
There is usually such a feeling of active hostility mixed with enjoyment in that question - "Why?" - that I can't help but feel offensive by not making them more comfortable. I am so careful that I'm likely to pad my explanation with "Well-You-Know"s and "I-Mean.."s.
What if I'm a vegetarian because I'm looking out for my heart? Or I don't eat enough vegetables to begin with? It seems so illogical to be feisty with someone who's abstaining from something. Imagine saying, "So, you're a virgin. Why's that?" or "That last piece of chocolate cake - I see you're not eating it. Are you trying to call me fat? Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to drink hot chocolate and not eat chocolate cake?"
Of course, my persuasion does lean a bit toward a source of ethics. I like the idea of ending as few lives as possible in order to sustain my own. If I can eat tofu instead of beef, all the better. I can also point you toward the health benefits and the environmental costs. I can do all of these things. But more than likely I'll just be eating my broccoli quiche in silence. So how did you, my friend, get to be so offended?
...
Oh, hell. Maybe I just ought to go all out. Next dinner I go to, I'm bringing charts and graphs.
*I'm sure Bill O'Reilly has said this at some point.
"Emmy has become a vegetarian," my mother explains from across the dinner table, as she points to the broccoli quiche. She says this like I have become a butterfly.
"Oh," my grandmother says and nods. She acknowledges this like I have become a butterfly.
Somewhere around 3 months in, it became comfortable to refer to myself as a vegetarian. Less time than that just seemed pretentious, especially since it started from a New Years Eve resolutionesque whim with my sister. We decided on a year, and left some things unspecified.
(DIGRESSION:
Seafood, for instance. I used it as a tentative crutch, making the transfer to tofu and seitan easier. Of course, now that the rest of the meat is gone, the few times I do end up eating seafood leave me feeling weird. Now, having read about the environmental problems with gathering seafood, I can start phasing it out completely. Did you know it's been predicted that we'll run out of certain types of seafood within our lifetime, due to such extensive farming? So I read.)
Having such a label on you is interesting. Because, of course, the connotation goes far beyond a simple dietary abstinence. As one journeys into this world of new eating rules, one also unwittingly picks up an assemblage of assumptions that tack on to one's meat-free plate.
Hippie! Tree-Hugger! Extremist Terrorist-Coddling Pot-Smoking Most-Likely-Gay God-Hating Liberal!*
Of course, people don't really say these things--not usually, anyway. But it doesn't mean you don't see it in their eyes when they pull it out of you, as many people will. Ordering the fettuccine alfredo and trying as inconspicuously as possible to ask for no chicken, you smile tepidly and look out the window, but then it happens, as you knew it would:
"Are you a vegetarian?"
"Oh," you say. "Uh, yeah."
"Oh," they say. Because you're the kid the city changed. You've metamorphosed. Into a butterfly. Or maybe a moth.
I don't blame these reactions, really. I used to do the same thing, have the same flash of thoughts. But on the other side of the equation, it looks different. I'm not going home at night to burn American flags. I'm just not eating turkey anymore.
Of course, there's also the pugnacious fringe population of non-vegetarians, the militants who look both enthusiastic and wild when they see your plate is free of chicken. "So," they begin, "I see you're a vegetarian. Why?" This question is electrically charged, and it makes me groan inwardly. Not because I find the debate useless, but because someone has just tagged me as the enemy, and the goal is now to win the ensuing argument. This person doesn't honestly want to understand my position - this person wants to skewer me with counterarguments.
There is usually such a feeling of active hostility mixed with enjoyment in that question - "Why?" - that I can't help but feel offensive by not making them more comfortable. I am so careful that I'm likely to pad my explanation with "Well-You-Know"s and "I-Mean.."s.
What if I'm a vegetarian because I'm looking out for my heart? Or I don't eat enough vegetables to begin with? It seems so illogical to be feisty with someone who's abstaining from something. Imagine saying, "So, you're a virgin. Why's that?" or "That last piece of chocolate cake - I see you're not eating it. Are you trying to call me fat? Don't you think it's a bit hypocritical to drink hot chocolate and not eat chocolate cake?"
Of course, my persuasion does lean a bit toward a source of ethics. I like the idea of ending as few lives as possible in order to sustain my own. If I can eat tofu instead of beef, all the better. I can also point you toward the health benefits and the environmental costs. I can do all of these things. But more than likely I'll just be eating my broccoli quiche in silence. So how did you, my friend, get to be so offended?
...
Oh, hell. Maybe I just ought to go all out. Next dinner I go to, I'm bringing charts and graphs.
*I'm sure Bill O'Reilly has said this at some point.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
the country mouse and the city mouse
When we're young, we all hear some variant of that familiar tale of the country person and the city person. For me, it was the country mouse and the city mouse. Longing for excitement, the country mouse decides to spend a day in the big city. The city mouse, likewise, heads into the country for a peaceful day of relaxation outside of the daily bustle.
I don't really remember what happens. I think a hawk tries to eat the city mouse. A carriage probably almost runs over the country mouse. At the end, both return to their respective dwellings and heave little mouse-sighs of relief.
In short, the lesson the reader learns is this: Stay where you are.
After a period of about 9 short months, I think I may now be a bona fide City Mouse.
I almost lost my mind on the train yesterday.
I thought getting a Good Seat just meant window seat. I like to look out the window, that's it. I don't need to be anywhere in particular - the front of the train or the back, the left side or right. Just give me a window, and I will have a good seat. Or so I thought... before I met the guy behind me.
Strictly speaking, we didn't actually meet. I don't know his name. So let's call him Big Fat iPod Guy.
The trip started out fine--I didn't even notice Big Fat iPod Guy. I did notice Happy Redhead Guy, who immediately shoved a Diet Coke in front of my face. "Want a pop?" he asked. "Oh," I said, "No thanks."
"Are you sure?" He held it ever closer.
But Happy Redhead Guy was fine with me, because after he downed two bags of Peanut M&Ms and his "pop" (Is my rural-Midwestern sensibility really so destroyed that the word "pop" makes me squirm?), he and his trusty copy of "Awakening the Buddha Within" hit the snack car.
And at least he offered some of his nutritive stash, which falls into the category of Socially Acceptable. Big Fat iPod Guy, well... he didn't offer anything, nor did he disappear quite so conveniently. His presence became known to me just a few pages into the book I was reading. It became known because he sang. If that's what you want to call it. I prefer "caterwauled".
This sort of thing is amusing. For 5 minutes. After an hour, it's Really Annoying. Two hours in, you're really starting to feel unhinged. After three hours, you're ready to gauge out your eyes. You're envisioning all kinds of ways to hurt BFiPG. You see yourself with a lead pipe, Clue-style, and you hear the satisfying noise it elicits as it makes contact with his head. But that's not enough. You want to make him sorry. Really sorry.
As the four-hour mark came and went, I found myself curled in the fetal position, taking over where HRG would have been sitting, clenching my teeth.
A more seasoned City Mouse might have leaned over and politely--no, impolitely--asked BFiPG to discontinue his musical interpretations of Nas and P. Diddy. I, however, am fiercely non-confrontational. BFiPG will drive me crazy, but he will do so in my own mind. I will die resisting the need to make him stop. So I almost do. I curl fetally, sweating and clutching the opposite sides of my shirt, needing to hurt him and not letting myself.
Every so often, BFiPG would raise my hopes cruelly by stopping. He would let seconds, sometimes even minutes slip by untainted. Then he would start again. "I have to tell yooo-oo-oou, when you wear that, it turns me oonnn, it turns me oonnnnn."
It was the worst R&B ever. Or maybe it was just typical R&B.
When the train finally made it to Battle Creek, an hour and a half late, after several stops on the tracks for every conceivable reason, I felt like I'd never undergone such torture.
As a City Mouse, you forget that sometimes you have to be stuck in situations you cannot flee from. The city makes fleeing an endlessly available opportunity. The El runs quickly, and stops somewhere new every few minutes. People are coming, going, leaving, getting on. The longest bus ride is half an hour long.
Home sweet home.
I don't really remember what happens. I think a hawk tries to eat the city mouse. A carriage probably almost runs over the country mouse. At the end, both return to their respective dwellings and heave little mouse-sighs of relief.
In short, the lesson the reader learns is this: Stay where you are.
After a period of about 9 short months, I think I may now be a bona fide City Mouse.
I almost lost my mind on the train yesterday.
I thought getting a Good Seat just meant window seat. I like to look out the window, that's it. I don't need to be anywhere in particular - the front of the train or the back, the left side or right. Just give me a window, and I will have a good seat. Or so I thought... before I met the guy behind me.
Strictly speaking, we didn't actually meet. I don't know his name. So let's call him Big Fat iPod Guy.
The trip started out fine--I didn't even notice Big Fat iPod Guy. I did notice Happy Redhead Guy, who immediately shoved a Diet Coke in front of my face. "Want a pop?" he asked. "Oh," I said, "No thanks."
"Are you sure?" He held it ever closer.
But Happy Redhead Guy was fine with me, because after he downed two bags of Peanut M&Ms and his "pop" (Is my rural-Midwestern sensibility really so destroyed that the word "pop" makes me squirm?), he and his trusty copy of "Awakening the Buddha Within" hit the snack car.
And at least he offered some of his nutritive stash, which falls into the category of Socially Acceptable. Big Fat iPod Guy, well... he didn't offer anything, nor did he disappear quite so conveniently. His presence became known to me just a few pages into the book I was reading. It became known because he sang. If that's what you want to call it. I prefer "caterwauled".
This sort of thing is amusing. For 5 minutes. After an hour, it's Really Annoying. Two hours in, you're really starting to feel unhinged. After three hours, you're ready to gauge out your eyes. You're envisioning all kinds of ways to hurt BFiPG. You see yourself with a lead pipe, Clue-style, and you hear the satisfying noise it elicits as it makes contact with his head. But that's not enough. You want to make him sorry. Really sorry.
As the four-hour mark came and went, I found myself curled in the fetal position, taking over where HRG would have been sitting, clenching my teeth.
A more seasoned City Mouse might have leaned over and politely--no, impolitely--asked BFiPG to discontinue his musical interpretations of Nas and P. Diddy. I, however, am fiercely non-confrontational. BFiPG will drive me crazy, but he will do so in my own mind. I will die resisting the need to make him stop. So I almost do. I curl fetally, sweating and clutching the opposite sides of my shirt, needing to hurt him and not letting myself.
Every so often, BFiPG would raise my hopes cruelly by stopping. He would let seconds, sometimes even minutes slip by untainted. Then he would start again. "I have to tell yooo-oo-oou, when you wear that, it turns me oonnn, it turns me oonnnnn."
It was the worst R&B ever. Or maybe it was just typical R&B.
When the train finally made it to Battle Creek, an hour and a half late, after several stops on the tracks for every conceivable reason, I felt like I'd never undergone such torture.
As a City Mouse, you forget that sometimes you have to be stuck in situations you cannot flee from. The city makes fleeing an endlessly available opportunity. The El runs quickly, and stops somewhere new every few minutes. People are coming, going, leaving, getting on. The longest bus ride is half an hour long.
Home sweet home.
Friday, May 11, 2007
uh
So, I just had a dream that I worked at the White House. And I was with my friend walking through the corridor, when we saw an unlikely character: Osama bin Laden. Just.. sitting there. Hanging out.
We felt like we needed to approach the situation with considerable caution. I attacked him (it made sense?).. I basically beat the crap out of him. With my fists. And he didn't fight back.
I was confused, so I stopped and watched as he gathered himself to stand back up. He looked tired.
Prepared for an ideological battle, I finally said, "So, why'd you do it?" Meaning not turn himself in, because apparently no one had discovered he was there yet (which might be my dream self speaking toward the competency of our current administration). I meant September 11.
But he answered it the first way.
"I realized," he explained, "that killing thousands of innocent people was wrong. I now believe in a god of peace."
If only.
We felt like we needed to approach the situation with considerable caution. I attacked him (it made sense?).. I basically beat the crap out of him. With my fists. And he didn't fight back.
I was confused, so I stopped and watched as he gathered himself to stand back up. He looked tired.
Prepared for an ideological battle, I finally said, "So, why'd you do it?" Meaning not turn himself in, because apparently no one had discovered he was there yet (which might be my dream self speaking toward the competency of our current administration). I meant September 11.
But he answered it the first way.
"I realized," he explained, "that killing thousands of innocent people was wrong. I now believe in a god of peace."
If only.
fears
Of the things that I fear, self-delusion, or, more pertinently, the realization of years of self-delusion, tops my list.
I figure maybe writing that down might be relief enough. And maybe a cup of tea.
I figure maybe writing that down might be relief enough. And maybe a cup of tea.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
social appropriateness
Every day is not a good day for me to speak Mandarin.
Today, in class, my teacher chose me to translate what he was saying. I didn't notice at first, because I was deep in thought, considering the nightmare I had last night. (When I get too hopeful in my life, I like to check myself with nightmares... about 50-year-old men replacing people who are not 50-year-old men, and about sinister elevators that independently decide to drop me from dizzying heights.)
When I realized he was waiting on me, and growing slightly impatient, I asked him to repeat the phrase. Something along the lines of "San si bei.." something. In Chinese, the word for "glass" (as in, drinking glass) sounds similar to the word for "hundred". Cup is "bei" (pronounced "bay") with first tone, hundred is "bai" (pronounced "bye") with third tone.
Struggling to translate, I got confused and said something along the lines of "340? No.. 3..4..hundred?" I was obviously not confident in my answer. I had the furrowed eyebrows, the questioning tone.
The rest of the class sat and waited, as you do when someone doesn't understand, waiting for the professor to say it more slowly, explain it, or turn to someone else.
"No," someone said. I turned to look at him. His tone was a mixture of things. Disgusted, as though I should know better. Irritable, as though I was wasting valuable time. Mildly shocked, as though the phrase was so easy that mistranslation would have been impossible for anyone else.
"Okay?" I said. He correctly translated the phrase. "Three or four cups."
Later, walking back from class, I tried to figure out if I felt regret over not studying for class yesterday. Whether maybe it was better not to look like an idiot.
Every day is not a good day for me to speak Mandarin. Yesterday I burst into Tyler's room, midday, and said, "I don't want to go to China." He looked up. "Okay," he said, "Sit down. Talk." So I talked. And I don't, I don't want to go to Beijing. Beijing is gray, and steel, and industrial, and gray. It is more than that, but not where I want to be. He looked at me. "You don't have to go to China," he said. "You don't have to take Chinese. You only have to do what you want to do."
I don't regret not studying Chinese then.
Last night, I rolled up my pant legs and took my bike and rode east to the Point, then north to the wharf, alongside the downtown, as I had done the day before. I watched as the city, first distant, small, and cloaked in fog got closer and then stood tall beside me, watched as the sun went down and the buildings lit up in billions of lights. No stars, but still a kind of urban night sky.
I watched joggers and bikers buzzing past me, with things like "Motorola" scrawled across their backsides. Young couples sitting at the rocks alongside the lake, the woman standing between the man's legs, her hands on his shoulders, saying something, pointing somewhere. Amateur photographers, some girls practicing a dance, a group of well-groomed businessmen strolling near the giant yacht stationed in the marina. I breathed in the smell of dead fish, eclipsing any city smell. I watched unruffled geese and ducks walk alongside the people.
And I rode back in the darkness, thinking of how the lake makes me feel calm like nothing else can. And getting back into my room, changing my clothes, and stretching, I felt the strength in my legs.
I don't regret not studying Chinese then.
Now I write.. and I don't regret not studying Chinese now.
Today, in class, my teacher chose me to translate what he was saying. I didn't notice at first, because I was deep in thought, considering the nightmare I had last night. (When I get too hopeful in my life, I like to check myself with nightmares... about 50-year-old men replacing people who are not 50-year-old men, and about sinister elevators that independently decide to drop me from dizzying heights.)
When I realized he was waiting on me, and growing slightly impatient, I asked him to repeat the phrase. Something along the lines of "San si bei.." something. In Chinese, the word for "glass" (as in, drinking glass) sounds similar to the word for "hundred". Cup is "bei" (pronounced "bay") with first tone, hundred is "bai" (pronounced "bye") with third tone.
Struggling to translate, I got confused and said something along the lines of "340? No.. 3..4..hundred?" I was obviously not confident in my answer. I had the furrowed eyebrows, the questioning tone.
The rest of the class sat and waited, as you do when someone doesn't understand, waiting for the professor to say it more slowly, explain it, or turn to someone else.
"No," someone said. I turned to look at him. His tone was a mixture of things. Disgusted, as though I should know better. Irritable, as though I was wasting valuable time. Mildly shocked, as though the phrase was so easy that mistranslation would have been impossible for anyone else.
"Okay?" I said. He correctly translated the phrase. "Three or four cups."
Later, walking back from class, I tried to figure out if I felt regret over not studying for class yesterday. Whether maybe it was better not to look like an idiot.
Every day is not a good day for me to speak Mandarin. Yesterday I burst into Tyler's room, midday, and said, "I don't want to go to China." He looked up. "Okay," he said, "Sit down. Talk." So I talked. And I don't, I don't want to go to Beijing. Beijing is gray, and steel, and industrial, and gray. It is more than that, but not where I want to be. He looked at me. "You don't have to go to China," he said. "You don't have to take Chinese. You only have to do what you want to do."
I don't regret not studying Chinese then.
Last night, I rolled up my pant legs and took my bike and rode east to the Point, then north to the wharf, alongside the downtown, as I had done the day before. I watched as the city, first distant, small, and cloaked in fog got closer and then stood tall beside me, watched as the sun went down and the buildings lit up in billions of lights. No stars, but still a kind of urban night sky.
I watched joggers and bikers buzzing past me, with things like "Motorola" scrawled across their backsides. Young couples sitting at the rocks alongside the lake, the woman standing between the man's legs, her hands on his shoulders, saying something, pointing somewhere. Amateur photographers, some girls practicing a dance, a group of well-groomed businessmen strolling near the giant yacht stationed in the marina. I breathed in the smell of dead fish, eclipsing any city smell. I watched unruffled geese and ducks walk alongside the people.
And I rode back in the darkness, thinking of how the lake makes me feel calm like nothing else can. And getting back into my room, changing my clothes, and stretching, I felt the strength in my legs.
I don't regret not studying Chinese then.
Now I write.. and I don't regret not studying Chinese now.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
Sunday, May 06, 2007
sharing different heartbeats
much ado about the heartbeat.
epicenter that it is,
carrying Me to myself through
roads beaten down often but still
illuminated some nights
with wine. and friends
so close that, on nights spent together,
we end up crawling upon
each other and collapsing. emotionally,
then physically, like a
pile of cats.
and other nights, by myself
on a bus with noise all around but i
see myself outside walking, free from
the stains of my circumstance, and
i see another figure
taller, close behind
and that's Me too.
the light extends to mornings
walking on the midway, lilacs and
fertilizer making the atmosphere
smell like air. real air. blue air.
those mornings my legs are
different; they are curious.
the middle of me, at times
clogged with the art around me
and the art elsewhere, seeks
dormancy rather than an honest
exploration of what's true:
the road is dirt, and unused.
my potential is potentially slight.
i make it to my fingertips and not
beyond. i can touch only what
touches me back, but i buy a
plane ticket and
hope that with the
power of hours spent sorting books and
shelving them, i will be able to
stand on the edge of an ocean and
have another figure,
taller, close behind,
and that will be Me too.
i am not sure of all things, or
even many, except that i'm an animal
of considerable caution in love with
complications that reflect me as
simple.
and that i hate to be painted by
another who assigns me two dimensions
and traps me in an image. i may be
closer to a void.
and that it's 2:50 and i
will now end, not a poem,
clearly.
just a
thing.
epicenter that it is,
carrying Me to myself through
roads beaten down often but still
illuminated some nights
with wine. and friends
so close that, on nights spent together,
we end up crawling upon
each other and collapsing. emotionally,
then physically, like a
pile of cats.
and other nights, by myself
on a bus with noise all around but i
see myself outside walking, free from
the stains of my circumstance, and
i see another figure
taller, close behind
and that's Me too.
the light extends to mornings
walking on the midway, lilacs and
fertilizer making the atmosphere
smell like air. real air. blue air.
those mornings my legs are
different; they are curious.
the middle of me, at times
clogged with the art around me
and the art elsewhere, seeks
dormancy rather than an honest
exploration of what's true:
the road is dirt, and unused.
my potential is potentially slight.
i make it to my fingertips and not
beyond. i can touch only what
touches me back, but i buy a
plane ticket and
hope that with the
power of hours spent sorting books and
shelving them, i will be able to
stand on the edge of an ocean and
have another figure,
taller, close behind,
and that will be Me too.
i am not sure of all things, or
even many, except that i'm an animal
of considerable caution in love with
complications that reflect me as
simple.
and that i hate to be painted by
another who assigns me two dimensions
and traps me in an image. i may be
closer to a void.
and that it's 2:50 and i
will now end, not a poem,
clearly.
just a
thing.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
In lieu of Freud
I already read 83 pages today, and I have decided this exceeds my current limit. Plus, I haven't done one of these things in forever.
53. Do you have a ringtone of your favorite band's song?: I had a Guster song for a long time, but now I just use the ring. Or more accurately, most of the time it's on vibrate.
54. What was your favorite concert?: The Decemberists was particularly fantastic and inclusive. Flogging Molly was the best as far as being hyperenergetic.
56. What food do you find disgusting?: Venison, but maybe that doesn't count since I "can't" eat it anyway. Sauerkraut.
57. What does your comforter look like?: It's sort of dimpled all over, and with small yellow flowers. My down comforter, anyway. My standard one is an ugly purple.
58. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?: Upekha.
59. The first thing you notice about the opposite/preferred sex?: Eye color, I think. And hair.
60. Do you have any piercings?: No. I've had my ears pierced a bajillion times, but they always end up filling in.
61. Do you have any tattoos?: No.
62. If so, how many hours have been invested in them?: ---
63. Do you still keep in contact with your tattoo artists?: ---
64. Do you like chinese food?: Yes. I like the sticky white rice a lot. And veggie lo mein.
65. Favorite pair of shoes?: Navy blue Keds. They're so simple.
66. Who did you hug today?: Tyler, Upekha, mum, maybe some others. I've never been so affectionate in my life. And hugs medicate.
67. How long have you been at your current job?: 2 weeks? Maybe 3?
68. What's the last article of clothing you borrowed from someone?: I wore Upekha's pretty blue scarf and it's still over there, by my desk.
69. What color underwear are you wearing?: Red and white horizontal stripes. Extremely comfortable.
70. Where is your phone?: On my desk.
71. When did you last buy a new pair of jeans?: A little over a year ago, I think.
72. When were you last at school?: Chinese this morning, 10:30-11:20.
73. When did you last burn a candle?: Sometime last week, a bunch of tea candles. Those suckers burn out so quickly.
74. How old is your car?: CTA 4 lyfe.
75. What do you remember about graduating?: It was incredibly hot, I kept zoning out, I wasn't actually all that excited about the ceremony itself, and Kay and I exchanged comments throughout.
76. How much time do you spend on the phone?: Many times a day, but always for very short periods of time. Altogether maybe half an hour a day or less.
77. Can you make change for a dollar right now?: No, but I can do my laundry with my handy dandy school ID.
78. What jewelry do you never take off?: I've been pretty unadorned for quite a while.
79. What are you listening to right now?: "Happy Phantom" by Tori Amos.
80. What kind of shampoo do you use?: Something Audrey gave me because I ran out. Silk-ing, or something. It works well.
81. Do you have any pets?: I had two cats. Now I have one cat. She lives at home and works on her fat production. She's doing well.
82. What do you eat for breakfast?: Kashi, with "crunchy fiber twigs, soy protein grahams, and honey puffs." Actually very tasty.
83. Where did you get the shirt you're wearing?: Shirt A at Sufjan Stevens concert, shirt B at Aeropostale last year (but no label emblazoned across the front or ducks or monkeys--just a relatively simple hoodie).
84. Are you shy?: Nope.
85. Do you get headaches?: Yes, I get tension headaches occasionally. Usually all together and then none for a while. Lots of headaching this week, though. It's been a weird week. I always say that, but it's always true.
86. Have you had an eating disorder?: No, unless you count a very strong inability to avoid sugar. Carrot cake makes me weak and powerless.
87. How often do you eat sushi?: I sometimes sample Ty's and/or Upekha's. Was craving California Rolls today, but unfortunately didn't see them until after I settled for the burrito.
88. Do you follow your horoscope?: Follow, no. I read it sometimes. It rarely strikes a chord, although the general Sagettarian (?) description fits me well enough. My Chinese zodiac is totally off-base, though. No way I'm a rabbit.
89. What are you doing for summer break?: Working for an environmental campaign here in Chicago as a field manager/canvasser.
90. What is your hometown like?: Dry, tired, boring, sterile, afraid.
91. Did you ever go to work with your parents?: I went with my dad sometimes... when I was little and I had to go there I'd sit in this room and watch all of these anti-drug videos for teenagers. Unexpectedly entertaining, they were.
92. Seven states you have been to?: Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, New York, Georgia, Florida, Colorado
93. What is your cell phone like?: Recently hateful. Whether or not you'll hear me depends on its mood. Which leads to the following conversation frequently: "Hello?...Hey, I was justing wonderin-Hellooo?"
95. Do you consider yourself to be creative?: In some respects.
96. Have you ever had detention?: No, actually.
97. What's your favorite radio station?: I like to listen to NPR at night sometimes when I do Chinese homework. It has a strange, pacifying effect on me. Like I remember one night over winter break at home, I started panicking, and then I listened to NPR (late night, so BBC) and made Chinese flash cards and it calmed me down.
98. Who were you named after?: My sister's classmate, I think. My sister named me. She was 8. But the "ie" was upon my grandmother's assistance, a sort of nod to our French heritage. My dad picked my middle name, Claire, because he thought it sounded "regal". My mom was no longer considered a credible resource after she produced the terrifying "Oriana".
99. Have you ever played poker?: No. But I can play War!
1. How tall are you barefoot?: I think 5'5 and 3/4, last time I measured.
3. Do you own a gun?: Definitely not. Even just holding one sort of creeps me out.
4. Rehab?: Is this a standard number four sort of question?
5. Do you get nervous before "meeting the parents"?: I've never met the parents.
6. What do you think of your friends?: They give me hope for humanity.
7. What's your favorite Christmas song?: "What Child is This?"
8. What do you prefer to drink in the morning?: Hot tea.
9. Do you do push-ups?: Not regularly.
11. Are you vegetarian?: Yes.
13. What is your secret weapon to lure in the opposite sex?: That would be my aloof demeanor. Gets 'em every time.
14. Do you own a knife?: Butter and ridged. I'm a woman of variety.
15. Do you have A.D.D.?: Only in my head. (Get it?!)
16. Date Of Birth?: December 14
17. Top 3 thoughts at this exact moment: I should be reading Freud. I should be reading Freud. I should be reading Freud.
18. Name the last 3 things you have bought?: Vegetarian burrito, Honest tea, dollar shake.
19. Name five drinks you regularly drink: Tea, lemonade, water, mineral water, milk.
20. What time did you wake up today?: 7AM
21. Current hair?: Ponytail
22. Current worry?: Not getting Freud read.
23. Current hate?: Apathy.
24. Favorite place to be?: I like Lake Michigan in the summer on the top of the dunes, sort of in the shade, maybe sitting on an old dead log, burying my feet in the sand. Yeah, that's a good place.
25. Least favorite place to be?: My instinct is Hastings, but that feels a bit cruel. So, Gary, Indiana.
26. Where would you like to go?: For study abroad, I've been looking at India. There's also Beijing, but I feel like I might get less out of it. China in general, though. Asia in general. Also Vienna. And Argentina and Peru. Ireland. England. Barbados. But let's start with India.
27. Do you own slippers?: Flip-flops > slippers.
28. What do you think you'll be in 10 yrs?: I have a grandiose idea involving other cities and countries, but I also remember thinking in the 10th grade that I could get into Columbia University. So we'll see.
29. Do you burn or tan?: I feel like this is the most boring question in the world, so I refuse to answer.
30. Last thing you ate?: Half a vegetarian burrito.
31. Would you be a pirate?: No.
32. Last time you had an alcoholic drink?: Last Friday, I think.
33. What songs do you sing in the shower?: I never really feel a compulsion to sing in the shower. I think that gene must be similar to the thumb-sucking gene. I also didn't suck my thumb, incidentally.
34. What did you fear was going to get you at night as a child?: Zombies, actually. Which is absolutely to be blamed on a too-early introduction to that Michael Jackson video, also known as the SCARIEST THING EVER. Also, Chuckie.
36. Last thing that made you laugh?: Talking about Freud, and a professor who particularly loves Freud.
37. Best bed sheets you had as a child?: I don't know... I think they were all flowery.
38. Worst injury you've ever had?: I've never broken anything, or really done anything drastic. Um. In the last 5 years, I had to get stitches on a knuckle after I cut it deeply on a wine glass I broke while washing the dishes. Wild.
40. How many TVs do you have in your house?: Our apartment will be TV-less. I think my parent's house has 2.
41. Who is your loudest friend?: Tyler, maybe. Or Connie.
42. Who is your most silent friend?: Peter.
43. Does someone have a crush on you?: Probably not.
44. Do you wish on stars?: It doesn't ever really occur to me. Also, Chicago doesn't really have stars.
45. What is your favorite book?: We the Living, Atonement, Wuthering Heights, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. The Giver.
46. What is your favorite candy?: I have a bit of a weakness for Sour Patch Kids.
47. What song do/did you want played at your wedding?: The sad thing is I've actually thought about this. But I figure if I ever get married, maybe my husband would like some say in that too.
48. What song do you want played at your funeral?: I don't know.
49. What were you doing 12AM last night?: Bonding with my roomies.
50. Do you love someone?: Yes.
51. How often do you shower?: Daily, in the morning.
53. Do you have a ringtone of your favorite band's song?: I had a Guster song for a long time, but now I just use the ring. Or more accurately, most of the time it's on vibrate.
54. What was your favorite concert?: The Decemberists was particularly fantastic and inclusive. Flogging Molly was the best as far as being hyperenergetic.
56. What food do you find disgusting?: Venison, but maybe that doesn't count since I "can't" eat it anyway. Sauerkraut.
57. What does your comforter look like?: It's sort of dimpled all over, and with small yellow flowers. My down comforter, anyway. My standard one is an ugly purple.
58. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?: Upekha.
59. The first thing you notice about the opposite/preferred sex?: Eye color, I think. And hair.
60. Do you have any piercings?: No. I've had my ears pierced a bajillion times, but they always end up filling in.
61. Do you have any tattoos?: No.
62. If so, how many hours have been invested in them?: ---
63. Do you still keep in contact with your tattoo artists?: ---
64. Do you like chinese food?: Yes. I like the sticky white rice a lot. And veggie lo mein.
65. Favorite pair of shoes?: Navy blue Keds. They're so simple.
66. Who did you hug today?: Tyler, Upekha, mum, maybe some others. I've never been so affectionate in my life. And hugs medicate.
67. How long have you been at your current job?: 2 weeks? Maybe 3?
68. What's the last article of clothing you borrowed from someone?: I wore Upekha's pretty blue scarf and it's still over there, by my desk.
69. What color underwear are you wearing?: Red and white horizontal stripes. Extremely comfortable.
70. Where is your phone?: On my desk.
71. When did you last buy a new pair of jeans?: A little over a year ago, I think.
72. When were you last at school?: Chinese this morning, 10:30-11:20.
73. When did you last burn a candle?: Sometime last week, a bunch of tea candles. Those suckers burn out so quickly.
74. How old is your car?: CTA 4 lyfe.
75. What do you remember about graduating?: It was incredibly hot, I kept zoning out, I wasn't actually all that excited about the ceremony itself, and Kay and I exchanged comments throughout.
76. How much time do you spend on the phone?: Many times a day, but always for very short periods of time. Altogether maybe half an hour a day or less.
77. Can you make change for a dollar right now?: No, but I can do my laundry with my handy dandy school ID.
78. What jewelry do you never take off?: I've been pretty unadorned for quite a while.
79. What are you listening to right now?: "Happy Phantom" by Tori Amos.
80. What kind of shampoo do you use?: Something Audrey gave me because I ran out. Silk-ing, or something. It works well.
81. Do you have any pets?: I had two cats. Now I have one cat. She lives at home and works on her fat production. She's doing well.
82. What do you eat for breakfast?: Kashi, with "crunchy fiber twigs, soy protein grahams, and honey puffs." Actually very tasty.
83. Where did you get the shirt you're wearing?: Shirt A at Sufjan Stevens concert, shirt B at Aeropostale last year (but no label emblazoned across the front or ducks or monkeys--just a relatively simple hoodie).
84. Are you shy?: Nope.
85. Do you get headaches?: Yes, I get tension headaches occasionally. Usually all together and then none for a while. Lots of headaching this week, though. It's been a weird week. I always say that, but it's always true.
86. Have you had an eating disorder?: No, unless you count a very strong inability to avoid sugar. Carrot cake makes me weak and powerless.
87. How often do you eat sushi?: I sometimes sample Ty's and/or Upekha's. Was craving California Rolls today, but unfortunately didn't see them until after I settled for the burrito.
88. Do you follow your horoscope?: Follow, no. I read it sometimes. It rarely strikes a chord, although the general Sagettarian (?) description fits me well enough. My Chinese zodiac is totally off-base, though. No way I'm a rabbit.
89. What are you doing for summer break?: Working for an environmental campaign here in Chicago as a field manager/canvasser.
90. What is your hometown like?: Dry, tired, boring, sterile, afraid.
91. Did you ever go to work with your parents?: I went with my dad sometimes... when I was little and I had to go there I'd sit in this room and watch all of these anti-drug videos for teenagers. Unexpectedly entertaining, they were.
92. Seven states you have been to?: Wyoming, New Mexico, Arizona, New York, Georgia, Florida, Colorado
93. What is your cell phone like?: Recently hateful. Whether or not you'll hear me depends on its mood. Which leads to the following conversation frequently: "Hello?...Hey, I was justing wonderin-Hellooo?"
95. Do you consider yourself to be creative?: In some respects.
96. Have you ever had detention?: No, actually.
97. What's your favorite radio station?: I like to listen to NPR at night sometimes when I do Chinese homework. It has a strange, pacifying effect on me. Like I remember one night over winter break at home, I started panicking, and then I listened to NPR (late night, so BBC) and made Chinese flash cards and it calmed me down.
98. Who were you named after?: My sister's classmate, I think. My sister named me. She was 8. But the "ie" was upon my grandmother's assistance, a sort of nod to our French heritage. My dad picked my middle name, Claire, because he thought it sounded "regal". My mom was no longer considered a credible resource after she produced the terrifying "Oriana".
99. Have you ever played poker?: No. But I can play War!
Saturday, April 14, 2007
chaiyya chaiyya.
I haven't said much of anything pertaining to my life for a while, so here's a brief update: I went to Colorado. I decided (tentatively?) on a major (excuse me, concentration). I came back from Colorado. I cut my hair. I got a job. I'm staying in Chicago over the summer. I started writing for the newspaper, sort of. I thought I would read more--I read less. I need to apply for financial aid. I got an apartment. And I'm going to dinner in Greektown tonight.
Really, I guess that's kind of a lot.
Since I came to college, I realize I look back on high school differently from almost everybody else. With most people, it's with a placid nostalgia. The things that invoke my placid nostalgia usually involve other cities, other states (even other countries)... that dumpy town in central Michigan that one hot summer, when we camped on a lake and found an amazing rope swing on a bank. I was maybe 14. I thought the college guy one site over was cute. Or trying on those brown corduroy pants in Amsterdam, the night it was raining like crazy and we bought a new, colorful umbrella. I was 12.
Point is, my small hometown itself, the feeling it most strongly brings to mind is... stale. To me, it feels stale, dead, and stagnant. I felt it when I was living there, but now even more. I love Chicago... there's an appreciation for solitude you can find in the city. You can go to a movie alone, or eat dinner alone. People usually don't feel the need to ask questions, and you can do what you want. You can come here and start again. You can be a vegetarian. You can wear what you want. You can talk, and there's always someone who knows what you're saying.
And now that I'm here, I think I may have found what I needed. Maybe this is what it took for me to be comfortable in my own skin--escape, college, and the city. UChicago itself is an important aspect, I think... there are times I'll be downtown and overhear a group of frat boys from another school, reminding me exactly why I came here, reassuring me when I come back to a school with a nerdy persuasion and the group of friends I have. Not video games and sci-fi, but tea snobbery and language love. I needed to find people like me to realize what I'm like.
...it'll take a long time for me to understand where I'm from, and even longer to appreciate it.
Really, I guess that's kind of a lot.
Since I came to college, I realize I look back on high school differently from almost everybody else. With most people, it's with a placid nostalgia. The things that invoke my placid nostalgia usually involve other cities, other states (even other countries)... that dumpy town in central Michigan that one hot summer, when we camped on a lake and found an amazing rope swing on a bank. I was maybe 14. I thought the college guy one site over was cute. Or trying on those brown corduroy pants in Amsterdam, the night it was raining like crazy and we bought a new, colorful umbrella. I was 12.
Point is, my small hometown itself, the feeling it most strongly brings to mind is... stale. To me, it feels stale, dead, and stagnant. I felt it when I was living there, but now even more. I love Chicago... there's an appreciation for solitude you can find in the city. You can go to a movie alone, or eat dinner alone. People usually don't feel the need to ask questions, and you can do what you want. You can come here and start again. You can be a vegetarian. You can wear what you want. You can talk, and there's always someone who knows what you're saying.
And now that I'm here, I think I may have found what I needed. Maybe this is what it took for me to be comfortable in my own skin--escape, college, and the city. UChicago itself is an important aspect, I think... there are times I'll be downtown and overhear a group of frat boys from another school, reminding me exactly why I came here, reassuring me when I come back to a school with a nerdy persuasion and the group of friends I have. Not video games and sci-fi, but tea snobbery and language love. I needed to find people like me to realize what I'm like.
...it'll take a long time for me to understand where I'm from, and even longer to appreciate it.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
state of the union
I'm feeling particularly sobered up right now.
I'm terrified of the power of the current president, and his stupidity. But what scares me most, far beyond this administration's incompetency, is the indifference of the American people. War, climate change, torture? I admit I haven't led any protests, but it's chilling to see headlines like "Speculations of Military Use of Torture" and "U.S., China Got Climate Change Warnings Toned Down" and not see a truly revolutionary change in American society. To go to the grocery store and do homework and go to movies and museums as though we don't know terrible things are going on, as though even disinterested high school students can't dissect Bush's tired, platitudinal rhetoric.
I feel like I'm on a ship that I know is being steered in the wrong direction, but I'm down below deck downing Manhattans and trying to forget with bad 80s music. And everyone else is with me. Except for those 30-something percent, who are with the captain, cheering him on, applauding too quickly in front of their face to look out the window and survey the damage.
The saddest part is that we're suffering the least. We'll probably be leaving a massive mess when we get out of Iraq--but the land here is still in tact. And India and Central America will most strongly get to feel the effects of our giant SUVs.
It's so disparaging.
Silver lining: Sometime (too far) in the future, there will be another election. Obama is running. He's sane. He's not accepting money from lobbyists. Please vote for him.
I'm terrified of the power of the current president, and his stupidity. But what scares me most, far beyond this administration's incompetency, is the indifference of the American people. War, climate change, torture? I admit I haven't led any protests, but it's chilling to see headlines like "Speculations of Military Use of Torture" and "U.S., China Got Climate Change Warnings Toned Down" and not see a truly revolutionary change in American society. To go to the grocery store and do homework and go to movies and museums as though we don't know terrible things are going on, as though even disinterested high school students can't dissect Bush's tired, platitudinal rhetoric.
I feel like I'm on a ship that I know is being steered in the wrong direction, but I'm down below deck downing Manhattans and trying to forget with bad 80s music. And everyone else is with me. Except for those 30-something percent, who are with the captain, cheering him on, applauding too quickly in front of their face to look out the window and survey the damage.
The saddest part is that we're suffering the least. We'll probably be leaving a massive mess when we get out of Iraq--but the land here is still in tact. And India and Central America will most strongly get to feel the effects of our giant SUVs.
It's so disparaging.
Silver lining: Sometime (too far) in the future, there will be another election. Obama is running. He's sane. He's not accepting money from lobbyists. Please vote for him.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
february
Was there ever a more pointless month than February? I don't think I've ever liked a February.
Though I shouldn't be harsh. This one was not awful. Unbearably freezing, confusing. Personally productive, in a way. Introspective? Not sure. Tonight feels bad. I can't explain that--just does.
You know those nights when you've managed to put yourself through such an array of feelings somehow that you end up, 2AM, phone in your hand, feeling shaky, about to dial a very familiar number? And then stare at the phone, thinking about all of the potential things the person you want to be on the other end could be doing. Like flirting with someone in a dark coffee house, or buying bread, or looking at the ocean. But somehow you know that the one thing that person isn't doing is staring into the phone, thinking of you. So you don't call. You make a fist, and slip it up under your shirt, cover your heart, feel it beating, and fall asleep.
About those nights: sometimes, it's best just to call. Because that's life, pulling you forward, setting up your actions, and every time you don't follow through it stalls something eventual. And sometimes people will surprise you, will be gentler than you'd expect.
So yes. One part of my life is definitely stable. Stable-r. Sometimes you just need to be released from your own melodrama. Apparently I'm still melodramatic tonally, though.
It's just right now. February is each new year's version of November. It got warm and then cold again. Bipolar weather and moods. But not manic-depressive, rather excited-bored. I keep having banal-nightmare dreams, the kind you don't remember anything about except the pervasive discomforting boredom, the feeling of gray. I'm irritable, emotional, blah. But, like I said, it's right now. Hormone central. In ten minutes I'll feel better.
And it's almost March. I always love March.
Though I shouldn't be harsh. This one was not awful. Unbearably freezing, confusing. Personally productive, in a way. Introspective? Not sure. Tonight feels bad. I can't explain that--just does.
You know those nights when you've managed to put yourself through such an array of feelings somehow that you end up, 2AM, phone in your hand, feeling shaky, about to dial a very familiar number? And then stare at the phone, thinking about all of the potential things the person you want to be on the other end could be doing. Like flirting with someone in a dark coffee house, or buying bread, or looking at the ocean. But somehow you know that the one thing that person isn't doing is staring into the phone, thinking of you. So you don't call. You make a fist, and slip it up under your shirt, cover your heart, feel it beating, and fall asleep.
About those nights: sometimes, it's best just to call. Because that's life, pulling you forward, setting up your actions, and every time you don't follow through it stalls something eventual. And sometimes people will surprise you, will be gentler than you'd expect.
So yes. One part of my life is definitely stable. Stable-r. Sometimes you just need to be released from your own melodrama. Apparently I'm still melodramatic tonally, though.
It's just right now. February is each new year's version of November. It got warm and then cold again. Bipolar weather and moods. But not manic-depressive, rather excited-bored. I keep having banal-nightmare dreams, the kind you don't remember anything about except the pervasive discomforting boredom, the feeling of gray. I'm irritable, emotional, blah. But, like I said, it's right now. Hormone central. In ten minutes I'll feel better.
And it's almost March. I always love March.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
velvet pony
aaaaaaaaghhh.
I guess I wanted academic flagellation. I guess I wanted that.
Everyone's getting sick, and crazy. I want the weekend all the time. I have no focus. I have a future somewhere, bearing down on me and telling me to finish creating a resume. Surely there's a job I can find somewhere. What's happening this summer? I want free time, but I'm only this interested when I'm under pressure to do other things. When I go outside the inside of my nose freezes and thaws every second.
But somewhere inside I prefer it this way. Chaos makes functioning more fulfilling.
winter. chicago.
there's a (quick, incoherent) update.
I guess I wanted academic flagellation. I guess I wanted that.
Everyone's getting sick, and crazy. I want the weekend all the time. I have no focus. I have a future somewhere, bearing down on me and telling me to finish creating a resume. Surely there's a job I can find somewhere. What's happening this summer? I want free time, but I'm only this interested when I'm under pressure to do other things. When I go outside the inside of my nose freezes and thaws every second.
But somewhere inside I prefer it this way. Chaos makes functioning more fulfilling.
winter. chicago.
there's a (quick, incoherent) update.
Friday, January 19, 2007
BREAKING NEWS
I love Emiliana Torrini. Watch her be amazing in this semi-creepy yet still entrancing music video. Also, listen to the song "Serenade" and complete your life.
Good news: It's the weekend.
Bad news: I just bombed a math midterm.
Good news: It's the weekend.
Bad news: I just bombed a math midterm.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
No Love For Love!
"
The Poetry Center of Chicago presents
The Poetry Center of Chicago presents
No Love for Love
The Anti-Valentine's Day Show
February 12, 2007
Monday at 8pm
Tickets: $50 for VIP seating/$20 all others
All proceeds benefit The Poetry Center of Chicago.
This American Life creator Ira Glass headlines a bill featuring some of the hippest, most cutting-edge prose, poetry and spoken word writers in Chicago in “No Love for Love: The Poetry Center of Chicago’s Anti-Valentine’s Day Show”
The event will feature Glass, along with writers Joel Chmara, Joe Meno, Jonathan Messenger, Christopher Piatt, Diana Slickman, Megan Stielstra and Scott Woldman discussing love or their lack of it. The event will be hosted by slam poet extraordinaire Mary Fons. Twisted torch songs will be provided by pianist Justin Hayford.
“We’re tired of all the hearts and flowers,” says Poetry Center Executive Director Lisa Buscani. “We’re sick of greeting card love. We want to hear from the other end of the love spectrum.”
The Poetry Center will also sponsor a silent auction featuring items that “celebrate singleness.” Items include dinner and the movies for one, internet dating consulting, customized love poems that bidders can send to themselves.“It promises to be an evening of bitterness, bile and fun,” Buscani says."
I really want to go to this. I really, really want to go to this. I think I will go to this.
big noise from winnetka
Insidious Facebook! You ensnare me.
I am bored, and bored, and bored. Sure, you say, I could read that extra article for hum. But that requires a working printer and ink... and don't think I'm about to exert effort. And I'm hardly about to read it sideways on my screen as a pdf. I could also study Chinese, but after reading Durkheim all day, I'd really rather not.
I could go to bed, I guess.. but at midnight? That's like throwing in the towel. So here's some random blather:
1) Sometimes... I wonder about porn stars. Do they feel empty inside? How do they deal with such blatant, public exploitation of their bodies? Do their sex lives lack the excitement of other people's? I'd like to read a study into their psyche. Maybe, to a porn star, the most amazingly fantastic sex is loving, sweet, gentle, even traditional. Maybe.
2) Sometimes I think about how cool it would be to walk on the ceiling, minus the blood rushing to my head. I would especially like how walking into each room would require you to crawl over that short doorway wall. And sliding down the staircase walls.
3) I have no conception of not making myself at home. I sit down on public floors, sit sideways in public chairs, breathe on public windows and write things in the fog. (Upekha is my kin on this one, we discovered yesterday.)
4) Like chocolate-covered cherries? Come and take them from me. I have a box-full, and I don't want them.
5) I bet I'll never finish One Hundred Years of Solitude.
6) I was a girl scout for two weeks, once. I hated it.
irony poisoning (12:01:31 AM) : and you should write more blog entries
feet of a queen (12:00:09 AM) : in my boredom?
irony poisoning (12:01:52 AM) : yes.
I am bored, and bored, and bored. Sure, you say, I could read that extra article for hum. But that requires a working printer and ink... and don't think I'm about to exert effort. And I'm hardly about to read it sideways on my screen as a pdf. I could also study Chinese, but after reading Durkheim all day, I'd really rather not.
I could go to bed, I guess.. but at midnight? That's like throwing in the towel. So here's some random blather:
1) Sometimes... I wonder about porn stars. Do they feel empty inside? How do they deal with such blatant, public exploitation of their bodies? Do their sex lives lack the excitement of other people's? I'd like to read a study into their psyche. Maybe, to a porn star, the most amazingly fantastic sex is loving, sweet, gentle, even traditional. Maybe.
2) Sometimes I think about how cool it would be to walk on the ceiling, minus the blood rushing to my head. I would especially like how walking into each room would require you to crawl over that short doorway wall. And sliding down the staircase walls.
3) I have no conception of not making myself at home. I sit down on public floors, sit sideways in public chairs, breathe on public windows and write things in the fog. (Upekha is my kin on this one, we discovered yesterday.)
4) Like chocolate-covered cherries? Come and take them from me. I have a box-full, and I don't want them.
5) I bet I'll never finish One Hundred Years of Solitude.
6) I was a girl scout for two weeks, once. I hated it.
Monday, January 15, 2007
icebound stream
Deeply meditative walk from the #6 bus stop back to my dorm. Staying on a street too long, a typically frightening area deserted, watching 1:27AM appear on the bus scroll next to 60th Street and feeling both awake and at peace. The bus was almost empty. The January rain was nice, too; not too insistent. Somehow unassuming, gentle but steady. The lights staining everything orange. The concrete active as raindrops spark the ground. My impenetrable boots, out of place scarf, hat, and mittens. Music in my head. Looking through windows and seeing bookshelves and posters. Someone in the house across the courtyard is watching TV in the Salisbury lounge. It's quiet here, and dark in my room, and I am content.
(But not completely content. The seasonal inappropriateness is painful - I feel like we're all embarking on some new period in our history. Like we've finally gained the power to ruin the world, and for the first time are actually feeling the effects. And instead of seeing it as alarming, a beginning of an end, people are embracing it because warm weather is comfortable. It seems so... disturbingly American. Fast food and drive-through church and the joy of that silly "global warming". Maybe when New York City is underwater, it'll warrant some action.
Admittedly strange, depressing segue. I watched Jesus Camp last night and so feel very unnerved. I'm a little afraid that people's faith in God will destroy everyone. Not so absurd a fear if you watch the movie. Please, Evangelical-in-tongue-speakers: Return to sanity. Preserve the rest of humanity. Now back to non-doom-filled topics.)
I spent the earlier part of the night with Upekha and Kay in the latter's apartment on MI Avenue. We made (debatable) cookies, from a bag (adding an egg and butter - domestic divas that we are) and proceeded to have a very girly night. Which is necessary every so often. No nail polish or hair-braiding, but plenty girls-only otherwise.
I really enjoy weekends lately. Actually, I've been rapidly losing interest in the weeks (bad). But I can't sleep past 10ish in the morning.
(Grammatical note: I am plagued with confusion about what to do regarding parenthetical statements and periods. I believe the period belongs within the PS, but if there's only one word, just an aside, I don't right doing it. Sad grammar issue.)
My fixation right now is the music of Laura Veirs. It's not exactly a new one, but I've fallen into it as a solo musical obsession a few times this school year. "Cast A Hook in Me" (which is available for listening on her myspace) is one of my favorites. As well as Spelunking, and Galaxies (oddly mesmerizing video here).
Mmn. 2:58AM.
(But not completely content. The seasonal inappropriateness is painful - I feel like we're all embarking on some new period in our history. Like we've finally gained the power to ruin the world, and for the first time are actually feeling the effects. And instead of seeing it as alarming, a beginning of an end, people are embracing it because warm weather is comfortable. It seems so... disturbingly American. Fast food and drive-through church and the joy of that silly "global warming". Maybe when New York City is underwater, it'll warrant some action.
Admittedly strange, depressing segue. I watched Jesus Camp last night and so feel very unnerved. I'm a little afraid that people's faith in God will destroy everyone. Not so absurd a fear if you watch the movie. Please, Evangelical-in-tongue-speakers: Return to sanity. Preserve the rest of humanity. Now back to non-doom-filled topics.)
I spent the earlier part of the night with Upekha and Kay in the latter's apartment on MI Avenue. We made (debatable) cookies, from a bag (adding an egg and butter - domestic divas that we are) and proceeded to have a very girly night. Which is necessary every so often. No nail polish or hair-braiding, but plenty girls-only otherwise.
I really enjoy weekends lately. Actually, I've been rapidly losing interest in the weeks (bad). But I can't sleep past 10ish in the morning.
(Grammatical note: I am plagued with confusion about what to do regarding parenthetical statements and periods. I believe the period belongs within the PS, but if there's only one word, just an aside, I don't right doing it. Sad grammar issue.)
My fixation right now is the music of Laura Veirs. It's not exactly a new one, but I've fallen into it as a solo musical obsession a few times this school year. "Cast A Hook in Me" (which is available for listening on her myspace) is one of my favorites. As well as Spelunking, and Galaxies (oddly mesmerizing video here).
Mmn. 2:58AM.
Monday, January 08, 2007
does your heart
..ever do this thing where it physically aches and you feel just about insane, and you start worrying it'll be one of those nights that don't let you sleep? It's happened to me a few times.. I remember specifically one time in 9th grade, and mostly recently, just about a month ago, the night before my Chinese exam.
I'm not sure whether it's emotion deprivation that leads me to overdose on emotion, or just surrender. But it's easy to feel boxed-in and without choice once I start to let it in. I mean, I'm still in touch with rationality, but what is it that makes me feel like being so irrational? It's like.. if I don't do something crazy, I will go crazy.
I don't think anybody knows how infrequently I do crazy things. In fact, I can't think of one truly crazy thing I've ever done. Nothing even remotely wild, in my recent memory.
Nobody can be this out of touch without paying some price for it.
I'm not sure whether it's emotion deprivation that leads me to overdose on emotion, or just surrender. But it's easy to feel boxed-in and without choice once I start to let it in. I mean, I'm still in touch with rationality, but what is it that makes me feel like being so irrational? It's like.. if I don't do something crazy, I will go crazy.
I don't think anybody knows how infrequently I do crazy things. In fact, I can't think of one truly crazy thing I've ever done. Nothing even remotely wild, in my recent memory.
Nobody can be this out of touch without paying some price for it.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
gone away from me
Allow me this quick moment of self-indulgence.
I am sitting on my bed, huddling with my laptop, eating peanut butter (which tastes like glue), obsessively checking my email, falling into the vacuum-like vortex that is anyone's myspace page, friendless in a small Midwestern town.
I leave tomorrow, back to Chicago, my city, my school, where there is life, hummus, and the TV is off. I am going vegetarian for a while, with my sister. True, I've tried it several times before. But why not try again?
Anyway, the point is:
I. am. achingly. lonely. This world is big, and there are a lot of people in it. At 19, I shouldn't be feeling like I'm doomed to catladyhood, to be the sort of person that jumps when touched. But frankly, at this rate, I'm not going to find love, or love isn't going to come and find me, until I'm 89 years old, with brittle teeth and grey, stringy hair. And who's going to want to kiss me good morning then? MY CAT, that's who.
...I need a good winter snowstorm. All of this "warm winter" crap is plunging me into despair. (Always blame S.A.D., I say.)
I am sitting on my bed, huddling with my laptop, eating peanut butter (which tastes like glue), obsessively checking my email, falling into the vacuum-like vortex that is anyone's myspace page, friendless in a small Midwestern town.
I leave tomorrow, back to Chicago, my city, my school, where there is life, hummus, and the TV is off. I am going vegetarian for a while, with my sister. True, I've tried it several times before. But why not try again?
Anyway, the point is:
I. am. achingly. lonely. This world is big, and there are a lot of people in it. At 19, I shouldn't be feeling like I'm doomed to catladyhood, to be the sort of person that jumps when touched. But frankly, at this rate, I'm not going to find love, or love isn't going to come and find me, until I'm 89 years old, with brittle teeth and grey, stringy hair. And who's going to want to kiss me good morning then? MY CAT, that's who.
...I need a good winter snowstorm. All of this "warm winter" crap is plunging me into despair. (Always blame S.A.D., I say.)
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
on the necessity of brain refreshing.
Creative nonfiction is difficult to write, this is something I have come to find. Writing for classes, i.e. hum and soc, always seems so necessarily sterile, like boring the reader is a kind of academic, student-to-teacher obligation. I always bore myself, which is why I so often take such opportunities to develop new interests in things like Slavic languages and bottling water. I have even resorted to looking at lists of ingrediants and wikipediaing bizarre subfoodish listings (see: silicon dioxide, which didn't even sound remotely safe but snuck quite alarmingly into my Land o' Lakes hot cocoa. Oh and, it gives you cancer if inhaled.)
Anyway, my poor uncreative sterile brain has recently uncovered the joys of creative nonfiction via the adorably semi-pretentious yet terribly self-conscious essays of one David Foster Wallace. I haven't read the ambitious, fictional "Infinite Jest", for which is arguably better known... though I'd like to eventually. What I DID read was both "Getting Away From Already Being Pretty Much Away From It All", about visiting the Illinois State Fair, and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", chronicling his ultra-pampered voyage upon a commercial cruise ship.
He is hilariously hyperobservant and well-researched. My one critique--I sometimes got the feeling that he narrowly exaggerated appearances and events for the sake of the humor--is more of a skepticism... I can hardly get the guy to prove it. Still, his observations and style make me fall in love a little, and there's a gentleness toward his subjects that really is important.
"...every so often editors at these magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90% of the United States lies between the Coasts and figure they'll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish."
...
Anyway, now for chocolate fondue (no joke).
Anyway, my poor uncreative sterile brain has recently uncovered the joys of creative nonfiction via the adorably semi-pretentious yet terribly self-conscious essays of one David Foster Wallace. I haven't read the ambitious, fictional "Infinite Jest", for which is arguably better known... though I'd like to eventually. What I DID read was both "Getting Away From Already Being Pretty Much Away From It All", about visiting the Illinois State Fair, and "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", chronicling his ultra-pampered voyage upon a commercial cruise ship.
He is hilariously hyperobservant and well-researched. My one critique--I sometimes got the feeling that he narrowly exaggerated appearances and events for the sake of the humor--is more of a skepticism... I can hardly get the guy to prove it. Still, his observations and style make me fall in love a little, and there's a gentleness toward his subjects that really is important.
"...every so often editors at these magazines slap their foreheads and remember that about 90% of the United States lies between the Coasts and figure they'll engage somebody to do pith-helmeted anthropological reporting on something rural and heartlandish."
...
Anyway, now for chocolate fondue (no joke).
Sunday, December 03, 2006
though our skin may not touch skin
"Heart-carved tree trunk, yankee bayonet
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas
That's where my true love lies
Look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bough high
But you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils
All a'chew upon your bones so dry
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Then
When I was a girl how the hills of Oconee
Made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin
But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
Though I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with child
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
Skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you
But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind"
I'm having some trouble getting over how fantastic this song is. The sound of it fits so perfectly with the lyrics, the lyrics are so pretty, it's Civil War-era love, it features Laura Veirs... The Decemberists have a thing for people having a thing for dead people, and dead people having a thing for living people, and I have a thing for the Decemberists.
Tonight I was reminded that no matter how many northern winters you go through, you just never get used to that skin-reddening bitter wind, and the primitive, mad desire for warmth. Downtown Chicago is as good as Antarctica, with that wind off the lake.. I am a big-city eskimo.
Now, after hours spent laboring over a still-insufficient hum paper (but one which I did edit according to my TA's suggestions), I will sleep. But first, an actual depiction of how messy my room is in the height of exam distraction:
A sweetheart left behind
Far from the hills of the sea-swelled Carolinas
That's where my true love lies
Look for me when the sun-bright swallow
Sings upon the birch bough high
But you are in the ground with the wolves and the weevils
All a'chew upon your bones so dry
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Then
When I was a girl how the hills of Oconee
Made a seam to hem me in
There at the fair when our eyes caught, careless
Got my heart right pierced by a pin
But oh, did you see all the dead of Manassas
All the bellies and the bones and the bile
Though I lingered here with the blankets barren
And my own belly big with child
But when the sun breaks
To no more bullets in Battle Creek
Then will you make a grave
For I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
I will be home then
Stems and bones and stone walls too
Could keep me from you
Skein of skin is all too few
To keep me from you
But oh my love, though our bodies may be parted
Though our skin may not touch skin
Look for me with the sun-bright sparrow
I will come on the breath of the wind"
I'm having some trouble getting over how fantastic this song is. The sound of it fits so perfectly with the lyrics, the lyrics are so pretty, it's Civil War-era love, it features Laura Veirs... The Decemberists have a thing for people having a thing for dead people, and dead people having a thing for living people, and I have a thing for the Decemberists.
Tonight I was reminded that no matter how many northern winters you go through, you just never get used to that skin-reddening bitter wind, and the primitive, mad desire for warmth. Downtown Chicago is as good as Antarctica, with that wind off the lake.. I am a big-city eskimo.
Now, after hours spent laboring over a still-insufficient hum paper (but one which I did edit according to my TA's suggestions), I will sleep. But first, an actual depiction of how messy my room is in the height of exam distraction:
Saturday, December 02, 2006
What child is this anyway?
All you need to get you going is a good existential crisis, apparently. And calming green tea from the depths of China. And Yann Tiersen.
My essay is now half-written, draft sent to my TA to be destroyed, bless her heart. I will probably be too lazy to make the changes she suggests, though, sadly... but requirements are requirements. I included in my email of the draft a bizarre, rambling notice on how I referred to the third person reader as "he", because that seemed grammatically correct and less awkward than the cumbersome "he or she". I said I was a feminist and found this distasteful but necessary. Or something. It was really just completely random.
I just re-read my teacher's notes at the end of my last essay (on the Metamorphoses of Ovid, kind of).. he wrote that I have "a good eye for details, but there's some meandering from idea to idea". Which I think is fantastic, because really, that's how I think. I meander. I aimlessly wander, like a lost old woman with a cane. Only just slightly more quickly.
I am recently obsessed with this video and the showcased song. I have forced at least 4 people to watch (and adore) it.
The line "My love for you is not like friendship" is so simple, but effective. Sometimes you only love someone like a lover, or it seems more intense, or you can't focus on the friend part, even though that seems to undermine the relationship. The first time I watched that video I wasn't paying close attention and ended up thinking the boy was a boy she liked, which got me thinking about what would happen if you fell in love with someone when you were small, you died, and you watched them grow up, and fall for and marry someone else. And all the while you're the same little girl, stuck in time and in love, unable to meet anyone new. Love is such a fascinating emotion.
Obsession #2: Kate Bush's high-pitched rendition of Wuthering Heights--something of which I somehow never tire. I first heard the song performed at a Decemberists show, by Petra Haden, and I loved it immediately. I was then pressed to read the book, which I liked very much, and grew to love... one of those books that somehow take time to sink in. Now I want badly to re-read it.
Obsession #3: "Rue des Cascades" by Yann Tiersen. It's like being somewhere that doesn't exist. And when it breaks into strings + accordian I want to melt.
Now, in celebration of classes being done, and finals week being only a week long, and my room being an incredible mess, and rejecting high heels, and drinking white wine, and discovering the Classics Cafe today, and snow, and fuzzy socks, and accurately memorizing a Chinese dialog, and feather bedding, and the god of green tea...
I go to bed.
My essay is now half-written, draft sent to my TA to be destroyed, bless her heart. I will probably be too lazy to make the changes she suggests, though, sadly... but requirements are requirements. I included in my email of the draft a bizarre, rambling notice on how I referred to the third person reader as "he", because that seemed grammatically correct and less awkward than the cumbersome "he or she". I said I was a feminist and found this distasteful but necessary. Or something. It was really just completely random.
I just re-read my teacher's notes at the end of my last essay (on the Metamorphoses of Ovid, kind of).. he wrote that I have "a good eye for details, but there's some meandering from idea to idea". Which I think is fantastic, because really, that's how I think. I meander. I aimlessly wander, like a lost old woman with a cane. Only just slightly more quickly.
I am recently obsessed with this video and the showcased song. I have forced at least 4 people to watch (and adore) it.
The line "My love for you is not like friendship" is so simple, but effective. Sometimes you only love someone like a lover, or it seems more intense, or you can't focus on the friend part, even though that seems to undermine the relationship. The first time I watched that video I wasn't paying close attention and ended up thinking the boy was a boy she liked, which got me thinking about what would happen if you fell in love with someone when you were small, you died, and you watched them grow up, and fall for and marry someone else. And all the while you're the same little girl, stuck in time and in love, unable to meet anyone new. Love is such a fascinating emotion.
Obsession #2: Kate Bush's high-pitched rendition of Wuthering Heights--something of which I somehow never tire. I first heard the song performed at a Decemberists show, by Petra Haden, and I loved it immediately. I was then pressed to read the book, which I liked very much, and grew to love... one of those books that somehow take time to sink in. Now I want badly to re-read it.
Obsession #3: "Rue des Cascades" by Yann Tiersen. It's like being somewhere that doesn't exist. And when it breaks into strings + accordian I want to melt.
Now, in celebration of classes being done, and finals week being only a week long, and my room being an incredible mess, and rejecting high heels, and drinking white wine, and discovering the Classics Cafe today, and snow, and fuzzy socks, and accurately memorizing a Chinese dialog, and feather bedding, and the god of green tea...
I go to bed.
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