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.
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
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)
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)
Friday, March 16, 2007
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
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
Friday, March 02, 2007
"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 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