not alone

so here's the meanings i'm about to write into a story about a guy who wants to be a hero
1. something i learned from harry--don't get so caught up in dreams that you forget to live in this world
2. But dreams are important, soemthying i learned from kazuo ishiguro--dreams and ideals are there for us to reach for, for us to try to do/live/be, and once we reach them (now italo calvino speaks), they become ordinary and we move on, to another ideal, to anotehr step on the path
3. and honesty is paramount--be only honest when in the company of thieves and they will fool themselves (forget where i got that, maybe joss whedon?)
4. yet i am afraid of love, somethihng i realized in a church of all places--don't worry, i was reading italo calvino at the time--i'm afraid of love, to love, to be loved, because i i lose control, because it will fall apart, because everything ends
5. BUT not everything falls apart--and more importantly, love is what makes life worth living for, in part or large part---friends and family and the laughter/energy of that is worth fighting, and worth living, for
6. so we are not alone, we do not fight this fight alone, on a battlefied, we are together and many---we can only live life or weather the fierce winds of chaos and finite danger with our hands held between us---naturally, we reach for eacch other, and in finding something valuable above all else, we also find the strength to be

IN OTHER NEWS
met with phoebe



and she inspired me to keep hoping, to keep thinking that i could do things that some people or persons tell me that i can't or shouldn't or won't be able to do
because i am me, and i have that capability

to be strong and follow my mind/heart/goals

xmas postumously

got many cool things this xmas
ml went nuts and got me the new spoon, killers, and buck 65
i bought myself les savy favs and sondre lerche, then sara got me dexter on dvd, a harry potter book, and some other stuff
i also got yarn, a suitcoat (that i bought several weeks ago and held onto cuz i knew there would be little to not xmas)
then my dad surprised me with bones on dvd and a new flash drive (cuz i just lost mine)---woopee
but the best part is we all went to xmas mass, ate food several times together, and made fun of one another, making the heavy stuff inm life lighter and the lighter stuff a bit more fun than normal
overall, a good break, but now i fear i've put aside too many imporetant details,,like appli ations to schools, to jobs, and what i'm going to do next year
thinking of woofing or moving to montreal reandomly, neither of which seems very possible at this points
wish i vcfould travel to the ccetner of a star jus t to watch it burn
cuz then life would seem less painful, less important, and a bit more real
not in a morbid way though, or watever

ps
life is good for now, haning with sara and doing nothing most days, not even caring about things that hurt, because they don't hurt as badly with her around
perspective, perspective, who's got the perspective
? my money's on my fam...

busy like porridge

i'm so sleepy that my eyes keep closing and my vision is blurry today
but that's just cuz i got 5 hours of sleep last night, 5 and a half the night before, and 4 on Sunday
welcome to HELL
or, in American, life.....or rather, having to do too many things that i was not notified i needed to do all at once while at the same time trying to finish two papers and a teching module and trying to work extra hours to make up for incoming spendage on christmas
argh!

plus, i've decided that i'm going to apply to the comm dept here---with the hope that i'll get in to both boost my academic weight in gold and to rekindle my spirits---seeing as how i find the cultural focus of the dept so interesting, specially compared to my current position weighed down with theories that don't really help
all i've ever wanted to do is describe the world accurately, to make you read a sentence and say 'oh' in a way that changes everything
but i keep getting bogged down in trying to prove myself, to profs, to school, to family, to myself---i need to remember that the reason i'm here is to both understand the world better and to learn how to tell stories that are socially responsible
rather than merely strategically money-making

in other news, everyone i know who reads this should send me their addresses via email NOW---yes NOW---so i can send their xmas presents this upcoming weekend, cuz i will most likely be doing everyone's presents except for tbird's---yes t, i'm afraid i haven't picked up anything for you yet

not much else to say, except that i'm world weary----i miss my friends in other places, and i even miss my few friends here (they've all flaked out in favor of paperwriting)–--but i get the sense it's that time of year, or i know the cause (in the case of one person traveling through europe)

i just thought of an interesting title for something: "traveling through europe with hot people"----like a dirty version of a mitch albom novel or something

sleep you, and sleep well---the world will collapse thursday night at 12 am
and then i get to rest, causing a domino effect
whereby not only will you fall into a bed that randomly appears before you
with clean sheets and a warm kitten waiting to curl next to you
but also the whole world will
the sun will wake up in a warm bed with black sheets
night will fall like a revelation
or a small bird in your heart that says 'who'

"put a little birdhouse in your soul" - theymightbegiants

so it's christmas...

and we're going to have to change traditions this year
because my parents have negative cashflow, in that they owe me 700 some dollars that I loaned them when they was in need (and i had just got my bookmoney) and in that they owe money to just about everyone
thankfully, my da is working, but only sub work, so there's little likelihood he'll even be able to pay for xmas dinner without borrowing from someone
probly me
the point is that we'll have to change our tradition from a consumer one, where we spend most of our time (as we have in the last few years) following various family member's desires to shopping for hours and hours
instead, i suspect that we'll spend more time at home, walking in the woods, talking over alcohol or tea, and trying to distract ourselves from the quaint tragedies of michigan's recession
which i'm actually looking forward to
i never really like xmas as a gift thing--the presents get boring for me after five minutes because i knew what i wanted or what i would get or i just get done with it--i'm there to be with people not things---anyway, i'm excited to see what happens when the money flow stops (a flow relative to most things so not really that much--we're talking mostly needed things like sweaters or shoes to replace worn out ones) and we're forced to face the reality of being very small specks in the vast tidal changes of the universe
i'm also TERRIFIED
so at the least, it should be interesting
if not overly dramatic and involving various revelations or moments of sobbing over the uncontrollableness of all things
hey it's the execution of all things
otherwise known as capitalism
after all, it IS the American Way

a would-be performance for people here, but i'm not confident they'd hear my voice

1. "Small Stakes Give You the Blues
But You Don't Feel Taken, Don't Think You've Been Used
Cause It's Alright Friday Night To Sunday
It Feels Alright, Keeps Your Mind On The Page

Oh Yeah Small Stakes Ensure You The Minimum Blues
But You Don't Feel Taken And You Don't Feel Abused
Small Stakes Tell You That There's Nothing Can Do
Can't Think Big, Can't Think Past One Or Two "
spoon - small stakes

2. I've been in a rut. I probably will remain there for a while yet, because i think i have something more to learn. In the last three years, I have been struggling with something; for the years before that, I learned that we all are always changing. I am not the person I was yesterday nor the jerk i was in gradeschool, or the loverboy i was in kindergarten (i kissed a girl named kristina four, but it was no big deal, we just wanted to see why our parents thought it was so cool---we thought it was pretty lame). I am something new everyday. Everyday is a chance to fuck it up all over again.
Or to make it new; a bed with clean sheets. But i forgot about the mattress. We change, but we stay the same. In the last few years, I've been remembering things and trying to piece that past and present together. Like a puzzle though, the picture remains unclear, and since it's a puzzle that doesn't end, i doubt i'll ever understand it fully. But i've begun to realize that we are the people we were 20 years ago, no matter how much we fight it. In our culture, change is the emphasis, but continuity is there too, and the reality is a blurred, mishmash of both, like when you play with your mashed potatoes.
The point? Small stakes will kill you by making life seem small; every day is a new beginning. And every day is a continuance of the whole life that came before it. If life's a bed, i have to lie in every part of it. What keeps me from confusing the edge with the curtains? Friends.

3.
Our heroine remembers the blade she used to kill her friend.
"This is Friendship"
She remembers what it was like to see her there, ready to fight.
"Step One: You finally meet someone you dig, somebody you can groove with, somebody who doesn't seem like all the other phony losers out there."
Our heroine remembers that she was the one who died that night.
"Step Two: They share a little of themselves with you, you share everything with them."
The fight...
"Step Three: It all goes to crap.."
a punch...
"They hurt you."
a kick...
"You hurt 'em back."
a headbutt.
"Or maybe it's the other way around. Whatever"
Her friend stabs her in the gut with our heroine's own knife.
"Someday you might find a way to forgive each other. But it won't ever be like it used to, 'cause that pain never really goes away."
She remembers saying 'you did it'.
"And in the end, no matter how many wicked good times you had together, you woulda been better off flying solo all along."
excerpted from Brian Vaughn's Issue 3 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future For You

4.
I read an astrological chart of my life. I read that I would become a leader of something, do something big when I was much older, and that now is the time for me to learn the lessons to make me into that bigger person, into someone worth being. Someone worth loving.
In the mean time, my current life challenge, up until I turn 29 is to learn to 'speak my heart.' And i realize that i rarely do, especially recently.
Now, there was a time I spoke my mind, but never an era where i spoke my heart. I don't know that I value it overtly much, seeing as how it seems to only bring trouble with it. But i'm going to try, simply because i want to, and because the few times that i have, i think it was a good thing to do. the most ethical, which is what i strive for.
we do not value friends. we walk through everyday as though work, school, traffic, television, research, readings, or a million other things were any more important than any other. Than each other. Than the planet and all its inhabitants. Which it isn't, outside of our being here, outside of us, but that's moot. we walk through everyday and pretend that we don't want to gush our hearts out on the floor and have someone clean up the mess, smile and say, 'that's beautiful, do it again'. so that we can gracefully admit it was all intended, which it wasn't, and that aren't we special? or not
maybe we just want to stop each other on the street and say 'hello, please, i'm all alone here and i don't know how to say i am' or maybe we don't care. maybe other things keep us occupied. maybe it's the small stakes of papers, rules, jobs, clothing, music, money. not that they're not valuable. but we act as though they replace family, friends, conversaiton, the objectivity only achievable through each other's eyes and hands to hold (not in a sexual way, generally).
we walk through everyday and maybe we dont' think about it, but we're all alone. and that's all right. but it's not sometimes. so stop acting as though you are so cool that you don't feel. stop looking at me like i'm strange for feeling this:
i am alone in this town most of the time and i don't want to be.
i know that you feel the same.
i see it in your eyes.
stop bullshitting me and look me in the eye with your mouth open wide and your heart spilling out, so that i can do the same.
so that, over time, over mutual good times, we can become good friends, strong friends, lifelong friends maybe, and when things get bad, broken, blue, good, great, greatest, we have soemone to turn to, someone to say 'hey, here's the truth, yo'
and when it falls apart, it falls apart
but in the meantime, we make life worth meaning, worth being made meaningful

what are we without friends?
i'll tell you, since i asked: we are hollowed out, living by small enough stakes that we don't notice we're turning our own lives into moot points

5.
"You won't find it by your self
You're gonna need some help
And you won't fail with me around
Come on let's go

I will tell you if you change
And who's been saying things
It's hard to tell who is real in here
Come on let's go

You know who to turn to
Now everything's changed
Come on lets go
Stop looking for answers
In everyone's face
Come on let's go

What's the point in wasting time
On people that you'll never know
Come on let's go

When you're looking for a friend
But it's empty at the end
When everybody's disappeared
You won't be alone

If you want I'll compensate
If you overestimate
So there's nothing left to fear
You won't be alone
You know who to turn to
Now everything's changed
Come on let's go
Stop looking for answers
In everyone's face
Come on let's go

What's the point in wasting time
On people that you'll never know
Come on let's go"

lyrics from "comeon let's go" by Broadcast

project 1?

among other things...

1. that post about being compromised, and being haunted by the DETECTIVE----just so we're clear, that was fiction(!)
in case you were thinking i was going nuts---not that i'm not, but not in such a paranoid delusional falling away from reality way

2. i just had another anxiety attack----leading me to conclude
a. i'm not doing anything ATALL extra tonight and i'm taking wednesday night off most likely
and
b. i am going to call sanshinryu to see if i can find a karate class around here, and if i can't, i'm just signing up for the next taichi class i find

CUZ
i will NOT die in....hmmm, just to avoid irony and the irritatingly real way i tend to jinx myself...i'll just say i won't die now
or yet
whatever, the poitn is
KARATE

plus
FIBERS!! i have another indy study with a fibers prof here, but he's a HE and he does japanese religion and textiles in particular, which is pretty cool since that's what my interests fibrously are and have been
tho i do have to write up a plan

c'est ceci

"woe is me
i am so homesick
but it ain't that bad
cuz i'm homesick for the home i never had" - soul asylum

i feel like my friends are changing so much that i don't recognize them
like they're becoming entirely different people
from the ones that i knew
which is most likely true,
and not true too, as humans do remain the same
throughout the changes of our lives

but i also feel like i am small
because i don't feel as though i have changed very much
from who i was 3 years ago
but i know it's very difficult for the person looking out
to see how the landscape has changed, whereas the peeping-tom-outsider
who looks in can see every detail much clearer

mostly, this is the result of someone treating me like a child
at the same time that someone else was being condescending on a different front
(simultaneous student and friend emo assaults blow)
add the inevitable distance that distance engenders
and my only friend here being INSANELY busy right now, and that equals
OVERSENSITIVITY to all things

but what's good is:
person one made a fool of themselves and put us on equal footing,
fina-fricking-lly
and
person two is not someone that me, at my hightest realization of myself,
would regularly hang out with and want more than
mere fun----which is just what they want

so
i say
c'est la vie
and i'm going to run through leaves
then fall down, read, maybe take a nap, and read some more
of Southland Tales

WHAT ARE YOU DOING FOR THANKSGIVING!!??
i'm going to a2--family and food! i have to get the tofu-turkey here though,
cuz unturkey stopped producing---TRAGEDY! NO!! anything but THAT!! but we deal, we vegetarians....anyway, the point is FUN, real, genuine like, with cool movies and maybe some thrifting, but at least some crepes from cafe zola and some real coffee that's not from soma, and my sisters, who i'm feeling strangely affectionate towards at the moment, despite their being my sisters

tell me what exciting things you have to look forward to....

news

i just found out i don't have a teaching job for the spring, and i don't know how i feel about that
on the one hand, i hate teaching sometimes, like right now when my students are flaking out, and on the other, i like it. on the one hand, i need the money and experience, and on the other, i am excited to just have classes and ONE job again.
on the other, am i loser now? do i need to stop spending any money on stuff that doesn't count as necessary in an absolute way? am i unemployed?
that last question is silly, but i am wigging right now, even though i hoped i wouldn't have a position anyway

stranger than fiction

i have been COMPROMISED

i have lost the ability to separate my own consciousness from that of others. when i watch television, i have a difficult time understnading whether i am the one watching or being watched, whether i am the man on the couch whose hands hurt though he continues to knit, or the man fighting demons while detecting a mystery.
The Detective.
HE haunts my dreams, you know. for i have become him, i have always been him, and i hope that one day i will meet him somewhere besides the bathroom or the bedroom. when i stare in the mirror. because he mocks me there, with his twilight eyes, somewhere beetween reason and emotion, capable of connecting past with present. we are living a social drama, the disruption existed before we were born.
our leaders have spoken. they have stood. they have been compromised. we have taken our last stand. we have been compromised. but The Detective, HE has not been so compromised.
while we have to live in this world, he lives in another, a different place, in the space between our ideals and the people we have become. between the person wondering what this means and the one who will rise out of sleep tomorrow to give into the tragic routine of this american life. HE haunts me there. speaks in my ear when i am about to give up, prods me to continue.
i am watson to his Sherlock. HE is the ideal that i attempt to live up to. why? why would i want to be like such a Man? poised between being real and living in our imagination. i can't tell myself from Him, but the REASON that i must follow Him is because He can bring us together. HE can collapse the facts into reality, fold time and space so that present and past connect, become woven into the experience of having been there and having never existed there at all. HE can make us feel even after all the darkness in our world has seeped into our bones.
who is HE? i have been questing after this knowledge.

the SEARCH FOR REASON is rough going. in a world with so many voices, where the only certainty is that nothing is certain, knowing anything at all is a dangerous business. and yet it cannot be. we know we are here because we are. we know the world needs to be saved because it falls farther and farther into the spiral that is our own teenage-like angst ridden struggle to destroy ourselves. for the sins of our fathers. for the sins of reason.
is HE our father? was his hand the one that dealt the blow, that attempted cruelty for kindness? or was it the right hand of God, the Invisible Hand that directs us all. Adam Smith, DETECTIVE extraordinaire.
No. NOT THAT> ANything but that. If reason was god we would melt in our graves and transform reality into currency and currency into our souls and our souls in the the malarchy that is corporate consciousness. corporations cannot make meaning; they can only take it away from us.
And I hold my head in my hands and weep. Because nothing is certain; nothing can be real without certainty. I cannot feel the hand on my shoulder, the voice in my head, I cannot bring the sense that I am alone to gether with the fact that I am SURROUNDED by so many voices, so many people, so many selves. I MUST make reason from this, make order, find the connection between where we've come from and where we must go, from destruction to rebirth, from death to the person that I am. I must MAKE MEANING. We must become the Meaning-makers, not the Destruction-bringers.

He is in the mirror again, mocking me. No, I have become him? In searching for meaning, I see myself truly. I have become the DETECTIVE, I have become HIM. I address the issue, I organize action, I find the woman with the short skirt and the long jacket and help her to become not-the-damsel-not-the-femme-fatale. I answer every question with due recourse and rational emotionality. I temper the voices with the uncertainty and recognize the best possible people we could be. I make meaning and see the past and present in the movement of our feet walking in the streets.
My heart quickens. My hands disappear. I have gone too far, I have become the symbol, the savior, the DETECTIVE of what must be done to find order in chaos. Like Ra, Maat, Yahweh, and all the prophets by whatever name, I feel myself disappear into the dark, deep night.
In seeing the inside, I have lost my place within. As I fall away, I glance into a mirror, see myself shaking his fist, and whisper through the fade-out-frame
'go no farther'..

Two Comments

1. a quote from the Indiana Daily Student, Weekend edition
in a review of Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Express
"Anderson uses the same devices over and over (artistically, narratively, visually) and it begs the question; If you're telling the story in the same way you told the one before it, aren't you just telling the same story with different people in different situations in different places, saying different things? If you're being something just to be, then there is no point in being at all."
which begs a few questions
a. Gee, I thought changing people, plot, setting, and words meant you were TELLING A DIFFERENT STORY ENTIRELY. I'm such a dunce...
b. According to this logic, aren't we all guilty of being obsolete? In other words, the author should go kill him/herself if they choose to follow this arguemtn through, which, thankfully, they don't have to.
It's just another example of stupid, insipid people who think they sound smart when they're just using big words to say something dumb, because in reality
they have nothing to say at all.

But it's pretty funny, eh?

2.
A quote from TWILIGHT WATCH by S. Lukyanenko
"WHere was the truth and where was the lie?...How many layers of falsehood had to be peeled away in order to expose the truth? Anton took a coin out of his pocket. He tossed it in the air and caught it, then laughed and put it back in his pocket, without even lookign to see if it had come up heads or tails.
THAT wasn't the right way. If one of two choices was a trap, then he had to look for a THIRD." (275)
If one of two lifestyles is empty, vapid, and makes me wanna die, then I just have to figure out a wholly different one that i haven't even yet considered. That's how to find, if not truth, then at least a little bit more of the realities from which to choose to make my truth.

the draft rough

(an excerpt from a weathered receipt in my wallet)
i'm done with make-believe
i'm pushing buttons
the neutron bombs, halogen lights
the neutral wrongs of living
my life. call me up on
the radiation detector, it's too late
i'm referring to your childhood
trauma

i've contracted what seems to be a sinus infection---coughing, ear pain, headache right around my right eye

i'm also grown accustomed to life again, which results in feeling bland, ok with not do anything, and avoiding trying to make things better---now i know why i was so unhappy this summer; outside of routine, i feel awful, sleep-deprived, and the pain of my body killing itself, of me
sad i know, but only because i'm happy, and i need to maintain the balance---without depression, without sadness, would there really be change? without feeling bad about things, would we ever try to change?

also, going camping
and i sent in two short stories to zoetrope-all story
hazaa

bears...

Dealing with recovering from illness, having too much to do, and trying to reconfigure my pseronal identity is weird. Yet more involving than other things, or times of my life. So whatefver,things are going ok, though i have to defend my thesis the day before halloween....argh!
Here's a poem that occurred to me in the bathroom at a cafe. Over the last few days, people have referenced Grizzly Man, The Bear Necessities, and many other bear-things several times. This morning, I unconsciously put on a bear t-shirt, which, when i saw it in teh mirror, reminded me of the many people who have related me to a bear or a teddy bear. So here's a poem on that.

Grizzly

brown hair, green eyes, hands that
rend the air, tear the flesh; the teeth show indications
of grinding vegetables and
legumes. fuzz-faced, bewildered
by technology yet
able to manipulate the concentric circles
of liife. The grizzly in spring feasts on madly
spawning salmon; i find friendship in the strangest places,
when parties gather chaos into
coordinations of parts, the friend from last year, the
aquaintance that laughed. green landscape,
populated by awkward beasts, antlers, ears, and black eyes,
brown defined in me. when it attacks, some say
roll into a ball while others would
run as fast as their feet will carry. I
would not respect either, though
my claws have been known to turn to shattered glass
and decomposed root structures with an offer
of kindness. when looked in the face, full
like the moon in my eyes at night, the threatened
creature bends, arbors in the wind, his anger
cracked by the sweetest wind. a breeze
in autumn calms the heat-driven hand of fury

flew the storage coop

i hate opening boxes with secrets inside

but only when they are my own; i opened the box i keep my photography materials in, the negatives, tripod stuff, plastic envelopes for large prints, spare camera parts, cameras i don't use often, and photographs
so i figured, after my gathering (the one i referred to in the blog i just deleted), i would just look through the photos to see if there was anythign good in them---and there was, a few cool nature shots, a pic of ML from OH in a really cool art deco pool, a few of my graduation party after undergrad, and then a pic of one of my friends
normally, i might have been able to shrug off the nostalgia, or even just the sad little bit of regret that bloomed when i saw said photo, because it was just a particular moment, the kind of moment where you look up and see someone just EXISTING at the same time that you are, someone who makes you feel comfortable, like there's nothing you could do that would be unexpected or strange or at least humorous

looking at that photo, i realized it was gone, that sense of a home without boundaries, a home that never dies, a space where you can scream and breathe and live, just because someone somewhere understood
i feel like, in a series of missteps, i have lost that space, that sense of trust---it was something i never thought i would have, something i never thought I could feel, that i was beyond it, that i would never be so emotional or blinded by life's goodness that i could ever trust anyone---i found it so quickly, so unexpectedly, with so many people, and now i know it's gone
i've known for a while---i think our whole lives are just a half-hearted search for not being afraid, not feeling uncomfortable with ourselves and the people we love, and we so rarely ever feel that sense of just being able to exist, of feeling like there's something worth living, fighting, loving, or just getting up in the morning for---the sense that you can sit in the same room as someone and be heard when you speak

and i guess i lost mine; maybe it never was, maybe i was blinded by the sense that maybe someone, someday could deserve trust, or maybe i'm just wishing i hadn't trusted the people i trusted
because no matter how hard we trust, no matter how much we love, whether friend or foe or fuck-buddy, it ends----only a fool would think it didn't, and i think i was fooled because i thought only a fool could value something transitory
but i did
and i will, and i do right now---after an evening with friends, i feel good, i feel stronger than yesterday, because i laughed and let go, because i didn't have to be in charge of things
i could let things slide and they wouldn't get out of hand; i could stop being in control
which is a feeling i haven't felt since a few christmases ago when i fell asleep in someone else's basement

there's no conclusion, just a reminder that no matter how hard we fight, the dark does come, most times sooner than we think, but that doesn't mean the day is any less worth while---for the ancient Egyptians, the night was the time when the gods of the day fought through the netherworld to rise again, to be reborn---after all, what's life worth if it's handed to you on a platter---what's a friend worth if you never get to watch them fly away?

Left the Centrifuge at Home

i wake up in the archaeological remains
of me. Sun spinning through the sky; watch it ark
in space, spy through my looking glass heart;
see the world my way. Pick up
the glass plates on the microscope and cut yourself on
the shards of what i did, what i failed
to do. Take the grains of flesh
and mind, dissolve in salt water, spin at a distance
to locate the time and the place, the lightyears
of distance to stars burning through my lenses,
my hope. The sun's zenith above becomes
the veins in my chest, the arteries of blood,
memory, and thoughts thought long before. Ancient
languages run like fibers through my being. I
touch the grass but it's barely there; break it down,
tear it apart to find the evidence that we were here
before, that what we do matters. Cut up the world
to find myself standing, stars-collapsed in my lungs,
breathing the sweat-drenched death of hope
until I start again, shudder, and walk forward.

HOLY SHIT

MATER LACRIMARUM
IS
GONNA KICK
YOUR ASS
or not

a realization

i realized that the reason i cannot chill out or be happy with my life in general is that:
i feel like i'm responsible for my family and friends.
if i don't constantly take care of people, myself, and everything in my life, then it will all fall apart---if i let my guard down, shit gets fucked up, from diseases to friends to medical problems to the world
i can't relax because i have yet to do enough to make sure everything is gonna be okay
unrealistic yes, still a problem though

Pricked my finger on the spindle

I'm spinning in my head
a child's solar system that breaks
and then evolves, sun of recycled
styrofoam, a thousand voices
once called home, the cool
incandescence of the space held in the hand,
a palm covered in string and pin-dots
the scars of speaking and
being spoken to, of being formed
from the nebulous clouds of creation

Unlike the science fair exhibit, I
am unloveable, impossible to
deconstruct and then fill up again,
no cardboard box of marker stelae made
with sticky fingers. I revolve, yet
no wool forms over these words.
If I am the spinning wheel, then where
is the spinner? If I am a solar system,
what then is my heart?

book meme game

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t search around and look for the “coolest” book you can find. Do what’s actually next to you.

"Remove appendix(taking care to avoid spillage)" - This Book Will Change Your Life

and another

"'That seems a peculiar reason. What's wrong with reading to the end?" - The Three Cornered World by Natsume Soseki

i move "like a tree moving in and out of windows"

i spent this weekend hanging out with ml, trying to make up for being sad, grumpy, angry, and otherwise notsosocial this summer, only to realize i'm still not past this, whatever it is (i haven't ruled out a quarter life crisis, tho i've yet to buy a vespa)
last night was a night spent fighting computers to make a mix, and today i spent with her and fighting computers to get my pc running
so here's to fighting for our lives (clanks glass with yours, drinks, pauses and looks drearily out the darkened window)
and this poem, which is about nothing of the sort

Making Mixes at Night

charmed, i am
by the sound of hope
bouncing out of someone else's
piano-dancing fingers, drenched
in the mechanized gear-crunching noise,
pouring into my cochlea labyrinths
until i cannot sleep
for want of someone to hold
dear

darling, dear, words i don't speak,
but i think in five dimensions of color
colliding with a textured intergalactic woven
mat, rising in the not-so-outer space
of dark, good night; remembering friends instead
of love stimulates more than sound. i think
i miss you now like i should have missed you then

in my air tonight

Things are not well, as yet
and i don't think they will be for a while, but here's a poem
ENJOY


The fiber art of conversation
(a threat)

give me your hand
sweaty, clammy, stiffened by rigor or overwork,
before you show me your face

tear away the flimsy chemical stain of your words
so that i can smell you
cut through the air with scissors, with sentence fragments

shower me with ellipses and threads of paranthetical you
so that i can find your skin, the particles resting
between one body and the next

i want to hold you in my aura, touching without touch
hug you in a bear hug conversation, feel you
with poorly phrased grammar

give me your dirt encrusted, piss and shit stained love
or nothing at all
because i am done rhyming

with latticeworks of lace, pure as snow
allow me some yardage
or i'll cut through you, a single, spinning, bleached-white thread

tiresome

i'm a liar, a big, fat liar
i'm such a good liar that i'm not even sure what i've lied about
"when i lie, i lie to me first" - tegan and sara
or is that a lie too? are all these lies webbed together in such a way that i know the truth but refuse to recognize it only so that the lies can stand stronger than otherwise?
i don't know, i don't know
everyone is geting tired of me being confused and needy, myself first above all, but i don't know what to do to get out of this vortex...i keep reading, but like the narrator of Notes from the Underground notes, it only makes me more crazed for action
but the only way that i can take action is to either hide even deeper in the lies, such that i can be someone else entirely while living the next few months only so that i might find soe kind of freedom, or
i can become the lie, let myself fall into a pattern that i don't even think i can live with, not dooming myself, but becoming instead someone that i don't respect
but the quesiton becomes whether i can respect myself if i lie for the next bit?

i don't even really know waht i'm talking about, and i know that people are getting tired of that too, and i know that their lies are starting to fall apart and i'm pushing people away, and i frankly don't know what to do about that
maybe i'm imagining it
i know that i'm in trouble, i just don't know how much, how deeply, or who to really trust-----maybe i'm being paranoid
probably
whatever, i don't even know why i wrote this
except that i needed to express to soeone, somewhere, my utter confusion and desperation....how does one live in this world while remaining true to their ideals and whatever Light they choose to live up to? without becomiong separate from it? how can i ever speak to certain people again without lying the entire time?

i have to believe that things will get better, i have to hope too that my friends will still be there, no matter how tiresome all this anxiety becomes

"don't forget i let you in, and now i'll let you out again...

...you have yet to win my heart" - holly golightly

i moved into a new house, with bugs, and wood floors, and a busy street outside, and more space, and a much closer walk to campus/downtown/coffee
i'm not sure how i feel about it, but i'm just about moved in, and my roommate moves in on saturday, then i leave for about 2 weeks to confront the last chapter of my thesis in ann arbor, as well as to plan my syllabus, supposedly, though i suspect i'll wait until the last minute to do that
i have learned and relearned and realized a lot this summer, although i think most of all i'm plagued by dreams of what's happened, what hasn't happened, and what might be happening---the future isn't quite as frightening as the present right now, mostly because i feel the pull of so many things on me right now, pulling me in so many directions, just when i'd finally decided on some sense of direction
yet i remind myself that amazing people think i'm cool or amazing or whatever, so i have to remember that i'm feeling the pull, that i can choose what to acknowledge, what to do
and the path is never so defined as we make it out to be
so i can let a certain future in, and i can let it out again
....
MOSTLY, i'm looking forward to going back to michigan, chilling with brooke, and maybe eating too much at seva with my parents on a saturday

new words for the summer

made a new friend shortly

found a house to live in

traveling by train is nifty

ml is crazy, mostly in a good way

going to tbird's wedding saturday is gonna be hectic

everything is falling to bits and pieces because i'm too shellshocked to handle everything that needs to be done

i hate to admit i took this quiz....

Your Score: Ranger

You scored 10 Holy, 63 Tactful, 90 Natural, and 35 Arcane!

Hmm, you've got the skills, nobody can deny that. You're a hard nut to crack in a fight, you can hound an enemy like no other, you have a connection to the wilderness that borders on supernatural, and the animals back home love you. Don't be fooled by LOTR though, you are not a natural leader. In fact, you're probably a bit of a recluse, and you are reasonably rash. You gave up understanding why humans treat each other so needlessly bad a long time ago, and have just decided to do what you can for the defenseless of us by savaging the people that harm what you love. If everyone were like you this world would be a great place... but since it's not, better get back to hunting evildoers... with uncanny intensity.

Link: The Which D & D Class am I Test written by effataigus on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

present state of mind

Watch this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7Do5QBtuJU

"changes are no good"

Changing.
Isn't that humanity's strongest power?
It's certainly what differentiates us from other animals, other species. We can adapt so quickly, so easily, that we have become the dominant species on this planet. While other creatures have taken hundreds of years or millenia to adapt, we can do it in a relative snap of the fingers, changing habits, skull size, go from four feet to two, develop opposable thumbs, in the time it takes most living beings to think about maybe becoming different.
Change.
People say that's what is so tragic about murder. The killer takes away a person's ability to change, to do something differently, to become someone different, soemone new tomorrow. But do we ever really change? Once, someone said to me that we humans tend to emphasize what's different, what's disappeared, reappeared, or been created rather than what's stayed the same. What do you see first when you go home, the old rickety barn or the newly developed stores and subdivisions? What do you see when you look in your parents' eyes, the same old flecks or soemthing strange and new?
Changes.
I've never been too good at them. A teacher once told me on NELP that I need to let go, that the reason I felt pain was because I couldn't just let things change, I had to grind my teeth and try to stop things from changing all the time. Was it just bullshit? To be realistic, that statement probably applied then, but it probably doesn't now, because I've changed. Or have I? I think I've spent my whole life crying over spilt milk, from Morris the cat spread over 20 feet of cement on a sunny day to my friends being far away.
Changes are no good.
I want to let go, but I never felt anything so strong as the friendships I felt before. I've tried to make new ones, but it's all so shallow, like wallowing in a kiddy pool after swimming in the ocean. Being an adult has only taught me one thing: don't let the good things pass by you. Because they're so rare, so delicate, that you can neither force them nor drop them like old luggage. If you do, once you realize what you've lost, the gift is already broken and you'll get locked out of the house you've built around yourself. So don't tell me to let go again, at the drop of a hat; change may be humanity's greatest power, maybe even one of mine, but so is recognizing what's worth saving.

.-.

"you make choices every day
you choose what to wear, what to eat, what to do
where to go, you remake yourself everyday
if you don't like the choices you're making
then make different ones"

-roughly quoted from sara

everyone has warned me not to get too personal on here
so all i'll say is that lately i've felt exiled, like being in Indiana is my punishment for something, for not being good enough, for being better than others, for something
at the same time, i feel my friends moving farther into the ether, farther away from me
i feel my dreams disappearing or becoming unrealistic
i'm giving up on them
i can't seem to do anything at all---i feel utterly incompetent
i couldn't buy glasses on my own (i got ripped off), i couldn't not-spend-money when i needed to (i went to whole foods), i couldn't search for apartments competently, i couldn't find a job for the fall, i couldn't even throw my phone at the couch (it hit the wall instead)
but sara made the mental wounds feel smaller, less malevolent, more day-to-day
i've just got to be strong and have more faith in myself

which is terribly difficult when one has just purchased a new pair of somewhat flashy glasses (tho that's merely a glib remark to lighten this gloomy post)

bff

What do Spiderman 3, Shaun of the Dead, and the basic premise of Superman have in common with a number of other shows/tv/storylines? No, not spandex; i'm not sure that was even in the second.
Friends. Best friends, to be specific. Male best friends, to be even more specific. Harry Osborn, Shaun's rommate, and Jimmy Olson. Best friends each doomed to their own version of hell.
In Spiderman 3, we watch as Harry finally confronts his deep-seated fear that he allowed his father to die, and realizes again that his actual fear is not being his father's son, only to realize that he was in fact good enough, good enough for his friends. Meanwhile, Mary Jane and Pete are doing their regular doomsday dance, bouncing off of one another's hormones and uncommunicated thougts like pinballs. In the final fight, Pete turns to his best friend for help, and we finally see what lies behind all the fighting, the arguments, and the hatred: 3 good friends who need each other to live.
Only to watch moments later as Harry dies, leaving Mary Jane and Pete to repopulate the earth. Oh, wait, no, that was just implied.
In Shaun of the Dead, the best friend only holds the main character down, but, when he realizes this, he gives the Couple the chance to survive by dying, becoming a christ-like novelty in the process. IN the end, though, he lives on as a zombie-toy-playmate for the main character. The BF has to die for the couple to survive, and even if he is able to 'keep in touch', he's religated to an objectified status, a toy, a novelty for escapism from marriage.
Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen suffers a far worse fate, being second-rate forever. He is the second choice, the almost-macho guy who cannot be best, and isn't a villain, who must forever support the main couple. Even alive, the BF is merely a flying buttress of support, unable to move, unable to become his own person.
This is because the BF, in the male form, is a source of suspciion. Why doesn't he find his own girlfriend? Is he gay? Does he want one or both of the Couple members? Will he endanger our ability to breed?! GASP! DROOL! WHAT ARE WE TO DO?

What's wrong with him and how does the girlfriend rid herself of this paranoia? Not by being sane, that's for sure. Instead, alienate the main male from the friend, or, even better, create an expectation that the friend will sacrifice himself for the couple, as we see written into so many films that it makes me barf.

What happens when that BF position changes, you might ask. Is there hope for we male-gendered friends?
In X-men 3, Wolverine, the best friend/competition, lives. He even manages to make it past the lame-ass ending where Brett Ratner and Fox kill off any chance for X-men as a franchise to remain interesting. In the process, though, he must kill the woman he might have loved, and the woman that his friend Cyke did love. Scott in the meantime was molecule-ized by his lover; only when the main couple is dead can the best friend live. In X-men the comic, there is at least some hope, in that Wolverine lives often quite separate from Scott and Jean, but that oft-oggled redhead still dies over and over. It seems that the cost of the male best friend living at all is the perpetual death of the functioning, fertile couple. (Although, thankfully, Emma Frost steps in with her strong feminity that remains outside gender norms to manipulate Scott out of this ridiculously old and stale myth of BFF threats).
In Slither and 28 days, the best friend dies, to be replaced by a fill-in, a child, a young girl to be accurate. Thus, the family becomes the model, and the BF is not even necessary. In the place of all those nights of video games and fun, have some dirty diapers jackass (although in both of these films the 'daughter' character is old enough to experience some icky daddy love, godihopenot).

Why does this even matter, you might ask?
Because people live their lives according to movies and stories. What we can imagine is the limit of our ambition. SO FUCKING MANY of my friends have blown me off once they find a COUPLE to be in---if I were to stick around, they must imagine, what would stop me from threatening their relationship with my gooey-sticky hormones? (which by the by, this particular person is not stupid enough to constantly give in to like some predestined fate; the wrong or right action is an individual choice----SIDENOTE: one of my sister's students answered a question by stating that sex is ipmossible to predict and just happens at any point that it wants to happen---imagine walking down the street every day and just finding yourself organsmic and naked...yikes!)

So stop letting corporate money-making machines tell you what to imagine. There are so many places to look for friends who live and help a couple or just live their own lives. See your LIFE first and foremost. YOur friends are real and there and not forever, so care about them and love them. DOn't just use them to keep you safe. See Buffy, Angel, Firefly (ok, just Joss Whedon, huh)----the point being that you choose what to imagine by choosing which stories to hear. Choose wisely, or you will not only lose your friends, as illustrated in so many films/stories/life in general, but you will also lose your lover and eventually yourself. For what is a person without friends?

A corporation. A ghost. A person who sees only the world through one set of eyes. And if you value that, you might as well poke out your eyes and be blind already.

daemons...

summer plans

ml and d came to visit out of nowhere
although they did call me Thursday to say they were coming
i'm realizing how much teaching, working, and writing papers all at once, with very very little social interaction is driving me to the brinks of insanity
and how much i enjoy talking to people, and living with people in the short term at least
i'm looking forward to this summer; the plan so far is:
1. work for may/june
2. attend nelp-like course for 2 weeks
3. spend 2 more weeks in indiana with my friend s
4. go to michigan for tbird's wedding, maybe stay there until august, when i need to meet up with b and figure out how to meet up with r at some point

in short, busy, wonderful, etc
although i'm hoping i get to go to boston with the rentals this july instead of sitting around michigan or bton
and i'm gonna finally get around to writing/drawing the graphic novel....as well as hopefully a weaving project i've thinking about doing for weeks now

what are you up to?

sprung

"spring is super in super markets
and the strawberries prance and glow
nevermind that they're all
kinda tart and tasteless as strawberries go
meanwhile, the wild things are not for sale
anymore than they are for show
so i'll be outside
in love with the kind of beauty
it takes more than eyes to know

just show me a moment that's mine
that's beauty shinging and unsurpassed
and i'll forget every moment that went by
and left me so half-hearted
cuz i felt it so half-assed"
ani difranco - half-assed

you had time

today i said that the way to address human rights while recognizing that what we, as researchers, see as a problem may not be in fact a problem
is
to provide the tools for change, to give people the insights and the knowledge to make things better, but not to take the action ourselves unless specifically asked and given that it's the only way to do it
because people are people, t hey control their own destinies, and the emotion has to be there for change to be made

but i don't know that i really felt it

i wish i could dive head first into an anlysis of human rights theory and problems with cultural things like female circumcision and other stuff.....but i just don't have it in me

i don't feel it because our generation in general has so little hope
Where former generations could look to the American Dream, or to the ability to move up in social standing, or the ability to go somewhere else and start over again, or the potential for leavin the country and coming up, or the potential for apprenticeship, the power of knowledge, etc
we are left with only one option: join the work force or perish
Academe is no longer safe, if it ever was. More and more schools are changing the structure of departments so that only non-tenure-track positions are available---their reasoning is that more efficiency and better products can be produced by minimizing pay/etc. for the workforce. And people are so fatalistic that few rebel, while everyone bitches. Sure it's a problem, but why should i have to deal with it?

Given 1: One must find a job or else face poverty, homelessness,e tc. Or attempt to find a life outside of the mainstream, which becomes more and more of a problem since so few exist there, and the lines across have been mostly cut off or blocked by corporations that benefit from cheap, desperate, drugged labor.

In the meantime, one could at least hope that by advocating chagne in daily life, with one's friends, aquaintances, and students that change could be accomplished. Even if the world isn't made better in my generation, at least the next could do something better.
So all my teachers in grade school and undergrad passed the torch that is hope for the future to me and my classmates, which leads us to the problem that is Given 2.

Given 2: People are idiots. We have all been trained to care as long as something is not immediate or directly affecting us. Even if it is immeidately affecting us, television and everything else tells us not to care, that our life is more important, that it's not our responsibility.
We are not responsible, so let's just enjoy the ride.
Thus, my students claim that arguing for an issue doens't matter cuz no one can do anything. My father tells me he can't change his diet becuase he will die anyway. I tell myself that I am inherently broken so I don't have to feel bad about not being an activist.
Someone else will pick up the slack.
BUT THEY WON"T.

Given 3: EVERYONE is lazy, even the active, impatiently energized people in the world. No one does anything beyond what is necessary, as even what is necessary (assignments, etc) can only be the lowest rung to be reached, else daddy's little sorostitute wouldn't be able to get anywhere in life but the brothel.
So jobs become less about skill and mroe about connections. Real skills are downplayed in favor of bullshit. Politicians generally know little to nothing about the world, only about their need to get higher up so they can continue their job.
We didn't help people in Rwanda during the genocide because we didn't have to. It wasn't our responsibility.

Given 4: The world is in pain. We have shat on it, poured nuclear waste into the atmosphere and soil, pissed emissions into the air, dumped our stinky cheese-like trash into dumps, leaking every bit and piece of acid and paper into the rest of the world. Animals that are not us are dying. People in not the U.S. and people who are not-us are dying, suffering, watching children suffer from genetic problems, healthy issues.
Watch as your child pukes blood, watch the tumors grow on the toes of the earth, the poor, the threatened, the endangered.
It's okay, modern medicine and politics will just cut the toe off. We can make a new one, one made out of plastic that will kill you even more, until your whole leg is plastic, until we are gone, leaving plastic and metal everywhere where once there were stories and songs and birds singing and lizards eating flies and blood pouring into the heart of something.

Result: No one does anything and we die.
WRONG
As a panel on the future of the planet stated recently "people can't be that stupid".
Or can they?
Will you do anything differntly, or will you hold up your hands and say " hey, i gotta go finish more important things"
and forget your recycling in the trash
and leave the battery on teh ground
and buy books and cds with your money
and spend time chatting on aim rather than sending emails to elected officials
and leave me with acid in my mouth

so do we have the smarts to do the right thing? will we use the tools to change things or let our planet die beneath our feet, let ourselves die, let people be murdered, covering it all up with bullshit and excuses?
i'm tired
i'm bored
i'm spiritually exhausted
and i have no hope
so give me some...

long way home

do we ever go home?
i remember once i did, and a few times before that, when i was younger. my dad used to carry me into our house, lay me down in bed, and tuck me in, this from the same guy who regularly cussed out the refridgerator. i remember going home from university and feeling safe and sound and sane. then i got crazy every time i went home. then i got sane again. now i feel neither.
when i was in high school, i used to run around the yard and chase myself through every room in the house until i ended up falling asleep on the couch. i remember being strange and silly and flighty but interestingly, constantly changing. it was like watching a kaleidoscope. home was where that all melted away, eventually, through pain and struggle and love and too much food. at the end of the night, sleepless or no, the sun rose and the birds sang. i could find thomas the cat waiting in the wings, ready for me to finally give up and say uncle. say that here i am, home again, ready to fall into the arms of those i love.
then my dad got lymphoma. i couldn't trust the one thing i had for so long, that my dad, yelling and being stupid and funny all at once, would catch me if i asked. he would tell me that things would work out, take me to a movie if i was sad and lonely. he would drive me around for hours until the screaming voices in my head (not real, metaphorical) finally shut up.
then, in a minute on the phone, he was gone. not really, but the he that could hold me up. suddenly, i had be a flying buttress, not the tapestry. home was a new set of worries, concerns, not a place to fall away from things and the shiny performance of life. a new drama, a new play.
one i could barely follow.
then my mom got cancer too, and my siblings call me all the time to tell me how we have to be there for them, but when i see them...when i see them, for a little while, we're just the same people we ever were, fucked up and gloriously complicated, kind and hurtful, well-intentioned or not. for a minute, then it's gone. i'm the oh-so-sensitive, sexually and religiously ambiguous creature treading carefully around the respect for the dead, for the will-be-dead-soon, for the strangely imperfect ghosts of other people i'm not supposed to love too much.
but they're alive, and i don't know how to deal with that. that's the funny thing, thinking of going home for easter. i can handle being alone, being hurt, and being lost; it's easy enough to give up. but, like the new spring, it's so fucking hard to just begin again, to accept that maybe things will turn out all right.
people fuck you over. people are shitty. people are dumb and make mistakes. so how do i deal with people who, despite my insistence, say welcome home, things'll turn out okay, you'll see, get some rest and it'll all clear up. even if they turn around and screw you over by accident.
so simple, so ridiculously more complex than giving up.
so i'm going home for easter, and i don't really want to. i don't want to face my parents who seem more and more ghost-like, like voices in the back of my mind.
the other day my father answered the phone, and the tone in his voice sounded like it did when my mom is in the hospital but he doesn't want me to know. it wasn't that though, he just didn't know where she was (groceries). but i was so ready to let go. so ready it scares me.
the world is a shitty place. we've transformed everything so that even the environment is killing itself---the ecosystems and plants that can't live with human structures will fall, then the human structures that can't live with those plants will die, and then we'll have to start all over
but the we will change----the frost outside is killing the buds of spring, and in my mind, i've watched the people i lvoe die a million times---so it comes down to this: why am i so willing to let go? is it something in our society? is it my own pessimism (the same voice that tells me my friends will betray and abandon, despite my better instincts)?
or is it something more sinister, something in the system i'm trying to succeed in? seomthing that tells me i'm an adult now, i'm changing, i have to become something stolid and solid and cruel, something sad and lonely, with a wife and 2.5 kids some day, who never does the million things he dreamt he might do, someone who looks at his parents, says goodbye when they wrinkle, and moves on to the next fad---someone who can say goodbye in the time it takes to drive to work, to give a paper
and start the work day all over again

in love with illusion

so saw me in half
what's really better? spending 4 hours laboring over a master's thesis that seems like it will never amount to anything once it's done, or watching 4 hours of buffy season 6 that makes me feel emotion again?
I think that's what's bothering me lately, on top of not sleeping enough. i feel like i am enveloped by a lack of emotions. there is nervousness and sadness and boredom and other less interesting forms of feeling. but there is little to no hatred, love, longing, extreme pleasure (the kind that comes from talking for hours with someone for the first time).
it's spring though, and thankfully the thunderstorm that hit today is going to make it feel as such, taking the weather down from 80 to 40 in one fell swoop. so at least the weather will make sense.
even then, i want storms. i want upset. it's as though i know the world is falling to pieces, i know that my life is up in the air right now, and i want the whole world to match.
scratch that, that's the problem.
now i'm off to go feel those emotions more immediately by first sleeping, and then going to a cafe somewhere to be gloomy and brood. then, i'll go find s and go for a hike and be happy.
not becuase life is bad or messy, though it is, but because i need to be gloomy and happy more often, which is exactly what i've been lacking.
like is said in this poem recently
'i'm in love with being lost, with
being hollow like you'
you being some people i know here. i've been so lost in trying to be empty and ghostly, so that i can survive, that i've forgotten that i'm this emotional creature.
yay me.
yay sleep even more.

april's fool

All this time I've been afraid that I'm a fool. But didn't I know that's always true? We're all fools, not just in love, in everything. I'm the jester of pen to paper, the laughter-inspiring idiot. And that's normal. Why should I be so serious? Trees aren't. Cells don't furrow their metaphorical brows while splitting or heating up their mitochondria.
I am tissue. I am flesh. I am imperfect and destined to fulfill my failures, to live, to breathe, to die. There is no human perfection, no graduate student idyll. We are all monsters mascarading as friends, lovers, people, primates. We are collages of thoughts and memories.
So be foolish and let me be a fool. I'll make my mistakes. They are MINE after all. (By this, I do not imply that life or choices are morally relative, only that we each need to make mistakes to learn and live.)
Celebrate spring. Maybe smirk some. Perhaps even don a bright green or golden shirt to break up the uber-chic all-black-charade. Let the earth speak to you, hear it say, "Fool, be new." And stop worrying so much about how cool or foolish you seem.

a joyful spring

today, i was sitting in my living room, listening to the second disc of the marie antoinette soundtrack, which involves harpsichord goodness and piano and such (taber, check it out!)
i asked myself the same question i've been asking myself for a while

"what am i doing here?"

this time, i felt the start of an answer
i'm here for my family and friends, and so i asked, "well how exactly does that work? how can you be here for them when they're so far away?"
because i need to find a way to make my life something they understand and value, to do something valuable for the world that the people i care about live in, to make this moment and the next just a little bit, if not a lot, better
so i remembered a bad book i read in ann arbor at a book shop that said, cancers are the most likely to really do something that changes the world
i remembered how my sister, who is so terrifyingly smart, told me that i was smarter than her, maybe (the maybe added of course because she doesn't want me to get egotistical)
i thought of a melody being played in a house i was sitting (housesitting that is) in ann arbor, and it felt so long ago, yet still tasted like fresh fruit in the sun
thought of the reason that i cam ehere and how i've been neglecting it, a tiny, broken-winged dove that cried only softly, i am here to learn to tell stories better and how others tell stories and why they matter
because i believe they are important, and how and who and where they get told is important, and that we don't see them strongly enough

so that's a start

(advice needed!: should i spend the summer in ann arbor, working a part time/full time job and writing/drawing/hanging out,
should i spend the summer in indiana taking a permaculture program, hanging with my friend s, and working only for 2 months at my part time writing-related job, or
should i go to michigan to vacate, come back for permaculture class, and then go back to michigan, and then come back to indiana for the job for 2 months?

vote via comments, please)

ever say never

is there no hope? i am trying to find a job for this summer in a2 and realizing that i'm probably not going to be able to
i'm also realizing that i'm probably never going to be able to get a job that i want...i know i'm being pessimistic but there is no reason that i can think of not to be so
we're at war
the economy in michigan and most other places is getting worse and worse
i have not been accepted to any school except IU and the people there are getting irritated by me
there are carcinogens everywhere and the earth is slwoly becoming unliveable
what is there to look foraward to? well, there's the tiny moments where egverything falls aways and i feel all right or even awesome sometimes
but, underneath the skin of that bowl of delicious soup is rotten meat, rotten cheese, rotten rotten rotten everything
i think i'm being ripped in two, reality pulling in one direciton and my constant hope, my ridiculous idealism, pulling me another

case in point: i read the classifieds and saw a florist position; i'm always wanted to be a florist but never thought i could--i put the ad in my word doc with other jobs i found to apply to and then almost deleted it
but i didn't, so i guess that means that hope wins out for now
i don't know if that's for good or ill...

back i go
back i go
back i go to writing my thesis (only got one chapter done and there's only today and tomorrow of spring break left) and trying to apply to jobs in a2.......even if it is hopeless and ican't think for lack of sleep

"don't deconstruct, and then fill me in" - rilokiley

i am an impostor, the real jono was killed some time ago
i speak in tongues and no one knows what i'm saying, or why i'm standing inside a tongue
no university wants my shit
and probably i shouldn't be saying things online
who am i to talk to? where am i to go?
i cannot say these things because it makes them more real, and i cannot write them because someone someday might read it and misinterpret or presume it somehow means i don't deserve a job
but none of it means anything, does it? jobs, children, marriage, language, career tracks or tracts or facts, statistics, numbers, pensions, savings, taxes, mother's-maiden-name-chaos
it's all just a metaphor for bodies crashing into one another ---- BOOOOM
i am either going insane or realizing something
is my school life? is it a university? why can't it be both? why is it that when i asked a man several months ago how i can be both artist and scientist and writer in my work, he replied that perhaps i need to be schooled by life-not-in-a-university-setting?
and why oh why can't i just go up to him and ask
'why did you say that?
and why did you forget my name? do you even remember what i said!?'

i suspect i'm simply going crazy, from not sleeping and 3 rejection letters (wisconsin, umich, and duke), trying to write my thesis, 20 or so journals due next week, people visiting a lot, teaching two classes, working 7 hours a week on top of that, and taking 2 classes
who am i? does not compute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute
doesnotcomputedoesnotcompute

"I'm sticking with you
cuz i ' m maaaaaaaade ouuuuuuuuuuut oooooffffffff glllllue
whaaaaaa aaatever you might doooooo
, iiiiiiiiii'm gonnnnnnnnnnnna do toooo

i saaaaaw you haaaaaaaangggginnnnnn from a tree, so
i made belive it was meeeee. "
velvet underground, extra letters added

i don't know who i am, who i plan to be, or what my hopes/dreams in life are

i remember once wanting to draw, once wanting to weave, once wanting to write, once wanting to teach
right now i just want to cuddle up in bed and wake up to a field of green grass and someone walking towards me, someone i know, someone telling me that we have to get going, that the future is waiting and it's time to start all over again
and move into a wooden house where making mroe friends would be easy

donnie darko moment

he stood up.
he looked around him, not recognizing anything, and put on his backback abruptly, trying to feel with purpose. he walked away from where he had been, from the stairs, from the cement starkly lit by the afternoon sun of spring being sprung. the trees in the distance came closer and he realized he was walking to get lunch. passing a tree, he saw a dead squirrel lying at the trunk, another squirrel in the ditance eating a nut, and people walking by.
no one cared. his heart hurt and his mind ached. the world did not make sense so he would try to forget about it, try to remember the story. Kelly Link. The garden of eden, i am your adam madam, madam my adam. Songs on a tape deck and women made of apples.
he passed a pink beetle. when it honked, he forgot it was an insect, seeing the car in it. hearing the guitar of a rambuxious but pretentious musician, he turned to see a bland-looking guy playing guitar with amps-pumped-too-loud and a beard. everyone in indiana wears beards.
he forgot himself again, until he found himself standing in a hallway, familiarly lit, and he could see his own destiny, like a bubble drawn through a large net on a still day, like the large, clear worm things in donnie darko, pulled out before him. he saw it go around the corner, down through the short valley between the union and the downtown and the burrito place. he saw it go to the burrito place and knew that was the only place he wanted to go, that was the only destiny he had.
passing an art store, he wandered in, disobeing destiny, forgeting the clear worm. within moments, he'd purchased something, not sure what until he got to the restaurant with its strong smell of beans and chili. looking at his hand, he saw the red bag, looked in, found the overpriced sketchbook and the case of pencils. he decided he would go back tomorrow and return the pencils. he ate his quesadilla and slowly realized that he had nowhere else to go.
his destiny had filled its desire for the day, pulling him here, pulling him somewhere that felt like home. right then, he remembered that he needed to leave.

in a photograph

Bake a Cake

Mother of whispers, mother
of sorrow, she sits at a tall table and ponders
the morrow, wait until dinner time,
holding my hand, wait til the broccoli
lies dead in the stand. Then, you may come
to the mother of sorrow, she'll tell you
hope is oven-bound, when she means
we are dying.

"half of the time we're gone
and we don't know where, we don't know where.."

today my morning class was cancelled
so i slept 10 hours and woke up and ate a sandwich while reading school closings on my tele
indiana university was closed until noon
i checked my email to discover my other class was cancelled, leaving me with nothin to do
so now i am writing a reaction paper and eating pineapples, freshly cut, while listening to music and enjoying the warm sunshine on my face
feeling warm, seeing the ice on the trees
thinking about playing in snow
powdery and white and wet
and, dare i say, i am smiling


"half of the time we're gone
but we don't know where, we don't know where
...
i am here"
(simon and garfunkel-the only living boy in ny)

City at the End of the Earth

I don't care that you're in California
while I am landlocked in
Bloomington, I want to see
with arms outstretched, our names
calligraphed on a marquis
blue-golden glowing down on a darkened eve
snow falling, I want to hold tight to you
my rope over the edge, the last
stars I count before sleep, the name I pronounce
carefully, when the world is heavy on my back

When I fall, I hear the Earth whistle
"be sweet tonight" please
don't be subtle. Call me up or
barter me with dandelions, rocks,
light bulbs that would be stars, names, because
when the mist clears, when the moon
rises, when the snow is calculatingly piled
my feet tired from many climbs,
falls, and re-climbs, I want to see
our names, a matrix of memories and failures,
half-spoken actions, written near the sky
in some foreign city I have yet to love

When you hold my hands, I can
hear the end of things
and I am not scared of comets or satellites,
or the words that light up a snow-fallen night

S-N-O-T

I am feeling A-W-F-U-L
I am sick, with a runny/stuffy nose, a fever, chills, muscle aches, and coughing, as well as overall oooginess---this morning i even woke up with that weird crustiness over my eye, after having feverish dreams all night
The worst part is I got it from a friend I helped out when she was sick, who said she would help me when I was getting sick, but she has since turned off her cell phone and disappeared. B-I-T-C-H
I am also VERY close to quitting one of my jobs, as I have yet to start my thesis and get my French langauage qualification
And life is already overwhelming

In short, I am feeling very lonely and crappy and sick
and I have to grade 36 papers
and I have to send a funding application NOW
and I have to go throw up my soul

Scratch that last one...

attack of the heart

today, while teaching, i had another anxiety/heart episode
and i kept teaching for an hour after it started, thinking I could just pull through it
which was utter bullshit, but i wasn't exactly in my right mind

what with my heart racing, pulsing light a machine gun, turning me numb and whatnot

and after class, i think i might have just died or something, but my new friend S worked nearby, so i dropped by just to say hello, and ended up telling her what whas happening, so she let me stay at her work, and she hugged me because she felt bad for me, and sitting in a dimly lit room while she worked on her work, my heart stopped beating so fast and so terrifyingly

then i went home and made cookies, mousse, tea, and celebrated a craft night with some friends

"i get by with a little help from my friends"
-the beatles via The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Leguin

minor notes

" I had a dream and you were in it
the blue of your eyes was infinite..."
the magnetic fields - i don't believe you

i exercised for the first time in a public gym, although i took karate classes at a grade school cafeteria...and it was distinctly weird (the gym part)
not just because it was a workout thinger, with weird ass weights, slidey things, etc, basically aerobics in disguise...but also because the woman running it came to me afterwards and assumed that my friend j, with whom i'd come, had made me come, and, even though i told her no, i had come for exercise plain and simple, she pursued said same presumption
thus permanently alienating me, although i'll probably go back next week just cuz it's quality time with j and i know she's ALWAYS busy

i'm obsessed with the magnetic fields, nina nastasia, and the shins right now
it's very interesting
by the by, the new lee hazelwood sucks, but then you probly already know that...his old stuff is good i swear

i'm missing marie right now, and know that i should email her, but i'm severly behind in emails in general, so i should email others before i email a once-close friend who now lives far away
but i miss her, the nights we'd spend baking, the movies, the un-asked-for advice that made me feel far from her and yet closer still---it's strange how you miss people
it's like a scent you accidentally smell from a store you know you shouldn't enter, that memory, because it will consume youa nd you'll forget all the errands and other stores you need to attend to, it'll take away your breath because it's so wonderful
but the store closed so long ago and the hours aren't posted and it's always full of coolerthanyou people who you can't quite read
but the person is worth it, and you know it, and you know you'd drop everything if they asked you to come inside, close the door, just please come and visit

which is partly why i need to call h, why i need to visit h, because she pulled me out of a huge rut and showed me how incredibly possible things are, even when you think you've seen it all
or perhaps i should replace you's with I's
who knows?

today in class i vented, and it felt good, and the prof loved my question
it was lovely

("...and when you come down, I will be at the door, the light will be on, and we will open the door, open the windows, let the wind blow through while we cover truth with blankets, television with fires")

enviro-frenzy

today in class we discussed the need to reframe human rights in terms of collective and individual responsibilities
as well as in terms of more contemporary issues such as environment, politics, statehood, economics, etc.
and the students settled on human rights issues as individual-based, where individuals pursue only economic concerns in terms of their responsibilities to other humans
i almost got to make the point that while we were all sitting there contemplating, one girl even saying that no sweat was going to hurt women by taking certain actions, activists were accomplishing things, or at least attempting to do so
ngo's, activist networks, etc have done more than a bunch of academics-in-waiting sitting in a room and being pained aobut the idea that they might be bad people for not doing more for other people have ever done
even if there are problems, even if there are disadvantages, our world is calling us to act, person by person, plant by plant
to not act is to choose murder
to not do anything is to erase your own existence, that of your children/family/friends, that of your entire race, from this life
we will die if we do nothing, and i hate that people just fail to see that inaction is an action in and of itself...

if you turn to me

you will find me running home every night to escape the sleepiness that pursues me
and tonight i''ll sleep and dream
tomorrow, i'll find some way to make this life a life that's been lived
and maybe a new friend will look me in the eye as well
(i'm listenig to The SHins: Oh Inverted world! specifically New SLang)

i take those harsh words back
i take back my last few entries
perhaps it is too late, perhaps the words have already been utterred...
what do you think?

i dreamt

that there were 45 to 200 some comments on each of my blogs, and i had to go through each and everyone of them to find the ones that mattered, the ones that were actually comments from people, not just ads or spam or whatever the f*** those things are
and then i woke up, my body curled up inside a tangled mess of sheet, blankets, and quilt, as well as a cat, somewhere by my left leg, warm and purring

flashback

"there's no mist here" he says, turning to look you in the eye
you are walking down a utility road in the middle of state park in Southern Ohio. looking ahead of you, there are two figures in the distance, seemingly flirting. Their body language speaks of a common desire to be spirited away by their mutual desire, but you are only irritated.
"yeah, i guess it's clearing up," you say, trying to build the conversation. Earlier, you insulted his girlfriend, not knowing he was napping just inside, hearing you through the window on the porch. It had been early afternoon, your first day here, your first day adjusting to being somewhere else after having just left your vacation at home, in your parents' house. Looking up, you wish the night were not quite so thick, although the moon shatters the night with a glow. The world feels hungry to you, like life is waiting around the next curve in the road to spirit you away as well.
"then again, maybe not," he says, your tall friend, the man with a beard to cover his otherwise ugly face. You have never seen his face without facial hair, never met him before a few years ago. He is your sister's friend but he feels like your own older brother, like the kind, guiding knowledge you never knew. In the distance, the mist has consumed your companions, and you are mildly pleased. Remembering to be kind, to take all things as motion, as wind in the trees, you let that pleasure go.
"So where are you living now?" you ask, ready just to be in this moment, watching the moon lay down the trees and all the darkness to sleep, quilting you as well into a constellation of moments.

this urban life

has been removed temporarily

getting into the groove

"so let go
let go
jump right in
what are you waiting for?
it's all right
cuz there's beauty
in the breakdown"






this is my life and i intend to live it

on my mind: garden state (the soundtrack)
and my future potential lives

home again

but who the hell would call this home?
i came back to bton and started balling in my apt with my sister because i got here and hated my apartment...it's like some fat, overly smushy, fluffball of a person lives here and i'm just visiting
i dunno...but i think maybe i'm changing too fast for my surroundings (my apt. mostly, bloomington too, or maybe there's something else bothering me)
i'm also getting sick again

mostly, i'm missing that burning sense of irritation you get that is at the same time joy at having other people around, eating your food, messing with your stuff, forcing you to do stuff you wouldn't normally do, making noise, suggesting things
i'm terribly lonely
but there's alex, at least, who continues to irritate and love in the same breath

tomorrow i teach...blargh!
i better get my geese in order

a list of things i remembered/realized

-i am defined by the actions that i take, although there are certain aspects that remain relatively constant over time
-family is people you can say what you're thinking to, at least in part
-if this is the path i am choosing, then this is MY world, and the people i refuse to recognize as my friends are just that
-we are in part the sum of our parents' ambitions
-being alive is a scary business, what with all the guesswork involved
-living is about finding a life that balances the multiple lives that one wants to live, the multiple concerns at hand, most effectively and healthfully, and then finding out if you're strong enough to live that life
-this is living; i can't keep waiting for my life to begin
and
-i am not the baby brother anymore

so that's a short list of things i've come to realize over the last 2 and a half weeks

i also finally managed to experience that warm sense of place that i've been looking for that leaves me happy and peaceful and serene without the boiling knowledge in my stomach that everything comes to an end
although it did take place over 4 days of being extremely ill with a cold at my parents' house....mostly thanks to my sister sara and my rents

may snow fall soon