musing, perhaps foolishly, even cheesily

i am sitting in beaner's on liberty, just next to the michigan theater, with my sister sara listening to bad jazz
but she has head phones on and is belligerently working on where she will do her rounds for the next year, occasionally calling her friend to check whether she is okay with sara's choices
i am trying to keep it together
it being me
i feel much calmer after taking some anti anxiety pill, i sometiems fail to realize how much stress gets in the way of my being me, how much it just overwhelms my senses, until all that i can feel is a great big weight on my chest, like a ghoul or a demon summoned from the depths of space and time

i am dreaming of waking up somewhere with hard wood floors and lotsof space, sun shining through the window and i know that someone is coming, someone will soon be here, but i have just enough time to take a shower and put on my new shirt, time enough to breathe and watch the bird's song as it drifts in through the window, time enough to think about which graduate school i would love the best to go to, which adventure i will take on next

it's an actionadventure world and i'm an adventure kinda guy, it's the action that's troublesome, i cannot seem to pull away, to let go of the desire to be safe, to be alone, to let everything fall away because i am scared of it going wrong

i am so scared that it will all go wrong, and normally that fear paralyzes me, keeps me from saying what i'm thinking, keeps me from doing what i know i need or want to do, keeps me still even when the most peaceful thing i could do is to move

i don't know who i am right now
but i think i like him better

hapyu nyu yeahhh!! (stated in a faux japanese accent)

remember this time, to make the time enough

just remember you called it all bs....

TILLY AND THE WALL MAKE MY LIFE LIVEABLE

"just remember you called it all bullshit
well it isn't if you stop giving into it
you can walk away"

but seriously

i am listening to the newest album and i swear to fucking god it's the only thing that keeps me going with all the bs and money and capitalist motherfuck and everyone being so far away and things just getting worse and worse in terms of the fate of the world and the clarity of my own desires/goals and fuckall

"all the cracks you see can be repaired
and if you start to fall
we will be there"

now alls i gotsta do is find a we to be catchin me
volunteers?
(he says only sarcastically because he knows you care
after all you're reading this bs, eh?)

juswannabesomeoneelse

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i'm choking at the saddle


i think i blew it



thinkihateitithinkilikeitthinkitasteit

feeling fine
i'm feeling patient

tugging at the seatbelt





youwillruyouwillrunyouwillrunyouwillrunyouwillrunyouwill
runyouwillrunyouwillrunyouwill
i know that the forest is frightening, and the trees they look so scary
and the world really is on fire, and it burns

but i'm here beside you, christmastimeishere, and we can hold the ghosts at bay

listen

currently, i'm listening to indigo girls - despite our differences
and when i was finishing the first two apps i had to finish,
i was listening to
the sam roberts band - we were born in a flame
what are YOU listening to? (ie comment!)

another quizy thing

to knit, to breathe

i've knitted 3 scarves in almost 3 weeks
and here's number 4

happy holidays

still recovering from thanksgiving
...
it's astonishing how one really does need a day or two just to recover from 'vacations', especially when they involve family

i just put up my christmas tree
i was remembering when my parents bought the tree for me two years ago
i came home and found this tree with the lights on sitting in my entryway. at first, i was pissed, thinking daphna had moved my stuff and bought a tree i couldn't afford to give electricity to and which was too tacky for my tastes. then she said it had been there when she got here, so i called my parents. i had told them the day before not to buy me a christmas tree unless they could find one for 10 bucks, thinking they could never find one so cheap. but they tell me that of course they'd snuck into my apt while i was at class, although they had actually only meant to drop it off. and of course they had taken it out, put it up on my entry table, and decorated it. and of course they had left the lights on to greet me when i got home.
i miss such sweetnesses.

by the by, if you're reading this, i'm probably making you a scarf.
it's my supervillainous ways...

entangled in a personal statement and grading all night

"i'm going to make tacos from your corpse!"














i have to write a 3 story project, finish grading 40 some papers, and read several articles for said project (and watch 3 movies)

ai!!!!



do you know where you're going to?
Michigan

a whoa oh oh

i said hello to no one's there





















"hello"

belatedly halloween

last eve
the night of the full moon
i threw a party and invited 12 people, only 4 of whom showed, 3 of whom for more than 15 minutes, although i'll indicate as well that the 4th was soaked in mr. pibb by the time he got to my house and thus couldn't stay long...
so it was ok, but i realize how lame my friends are...how much they just put up walls and excuses rather than actually getting involved
and how very much i miss the people with whom i can just say random things or go hang out with by indicating that i'd like to hang out (and if they are unable, they simply say so, rather than feigning some excuse)....how very much i miss the people that i can actually love
(yes, cheese factor rising, but whatthefuck, there's no one here i can say i actually could talk about this shit with)
anyway, i'm lame, i miss my friends/family, i miss waking up and actually wanting to go out into the world, and i also have way too much to do before i can be mopey
also, here's a pic from a halloween party i went to last weekend

a paperwork world

so, yet again, i don't think i can do this grad school shit

is there something wrong with me? i know these people who spend their weekends and weeknights working on school work, reading and writing and applying to things. I spend my weekends goofing off, reading books or watching too much tv, or spending time with friends/family, or doing variuos other relaxing things. I spend my weeknights recovering from not sleeping enough and then don't sleep enough again because i have to do a lot of readings. But i know most of the other people, the workerbees, don't sleep much either, often less than i sleep.
Which is what I don't get. WHy kill yourself over grad school? It's like any other school, learning from experts the knowledge that you yourself could never come up with straight on your own. But then the workerbees tell me i'm ohsohealthy, or my parents do, or my friends do, and that i have a better grasp on reality than the workerbees.

but that seems strange, since professors forget me, or forget my research, or treat me like shit, or treat me kindly but then act like i haven't been talking to them for a bit over a year. my favorite prof just emailed me with a slightly harsh email because i kept fucking up a stupid advising form, that is only bureaucratic bullshit since i'm probly gonna end up changin my classes anyway. ARGH

i hate this whole situation. i want to learn but the people who have to teach me have to be sucked up to so that i can go on learning via their rec letters. but the fact that i'm leaving them means they don't want to write me letters cuz they want me to stay, not even because they like me but because they feel pressured to keep bodies here. i want to be a good student, but the expectations are impossible, especially with all this paper work floating around and the lack of funding. i'm supposed to work two jobs, take two classses, teach two classes, apply to phd programs, and fill out paperwork constantly so that the department knows i'm working on gettign my degree done?????!!!

today, i feel like dropping out of grad school, packing up the few things that i can carry in my hiking backpack and a spare bag, and hiking until i drop dead. at least then i wouldn't have to worry about paperwork (unless i got picked up for loitering or something)

there's a girl on the stairs (a short short story)

she steps into the winter evening and glares
someone somewhere is calling her names, telling people she is not effective, she does not affect
he even went so far as to look her in the eye, say 'i do not love you anymore'
she slapped him and walked away
that is the way of things, air moving between flesh and emotion
creating sound, the words from her mouth,
they form on the air, a cold winter chill, 'fuck it all'
she stands on the ground for a moment,t hen feels something stronger
the air, it lifts, and soon she is smiling, letting the fingers caress her tear-stained cheaks
before she can breath, she is off her feet, still laughing
it is like taking a buble bath, she thinks, but without the soapy mess
although the air on her skin will likely chap her, like water-wrinkles but colder
she feels the ground leave her, feels the sky join her merry reverie
she has stopped laughing finally, when the moon comes out from his clouds
gently, she reaches for him, unclothes the night, and sees the stars
her skirt is high above her knees and she is glad for her mother's old winter coat
a black mass of fur to match her black silken hair, spun from misery as much as love
the world is a mixture of metals and fluids, she thinks, why can't there be more air?
and she rises, and she falls, and she leaves the story behind
the sky not large enough, the night not deep enough, the man nor the moon-man lithe enough
to catch her melody, her voice on the wind
'there's a girl on the stairs
there's a girl who isn't there'

i keep dreaming about being a famous writer
i think that i will go to the towns i love and some towns that i hate and i will see so many people
and they will have loved my books or my writing or my drawings, and there will be old friends, people i would have forgotten but then there they are, living their lives, or old enemies, who i will sneer at and give inappropriate directions to invisible events
where they will get lost and be terribly vexed
i have had this same dream since i was very young
i don't know why i think that i should be famous, that anyone should like my writing; i personally don't think it's all that great, thus the stopping, the not writing so often, the pursuit of academic degrees

i wonder if i've given up on it before it started
if maybe the dream was there before or after i even thought of it, and it's been trailing me, waving its arms wildly and shoutinng 'HELO?!' and i've just been puching it in the face and saying 'no, no, you don't understand, i'm crappy at that;
or maybe i'm being realistic, who knows?

the reason i discuss this is that phoebe (that illustrious writer/artist/prof) was talking about how someone said they loved her in a public place on her blog and i realized that i would have just thought 'oh, no you don't' and walked away after shouting maybe an 'ok' or 'that's great'
probably because i hate people

which brings up another question, what the bloody hell am i doing studying other people when i hate human beings? sure, we've got great poetry and prose and tv and such, but i bet if someone had the mind to translate bird and bug speak, i'd like it better....

here are some photos of my home in bton!

on reflection

i think that i was too harsh in my last blog thing, as the people i was speaking of are...pretty coolish, niceish
i think i'm missing my friends and getting angry cuz there's nothing of equal depth here

partially

mostly, i am just very bored with this whole thing

but, what i mean to say is, you don't just make friends or find a life with one big gesture...that's not the way that problems are solved or connections made
it's a process, a painful, slow, long delicate, harsh, irritating yet enjoyable,a nd illuminating process
i think that i'm not able to find the process right now, and i'm sad that i can't, because unfolding people is so very beautiful and interesting and i miss it

that's all i meant to say

but in other news, squirrels keep walking above my study window on a power line and making me think there's an airplane out there, how weird is that?

"i'm just so bored of wasting my time"

i'm sick of this
i keep trying to connect, to talk to people and understand what they're thinking or how they understand life
because it's worked in the past, and it's been beautiful knowing people, understanding them, seeing the world through their eyes and letting a little bit of what they see leak into my own eyes, letting the bricks and mortar be pierced by flowers and vines and clouds and robots and weird growths that i still don't quite get
i need people
i hate to admit it, but i do
and making phone calls in the middle of the night is good but it doesn't cut it
i need physical interaction, i need to see the world, to feel the night air and hear your voice right there, to be told i'm wrong or silly or being overly dramatic, to see your feet and hear the echo on pavement of more than my own shoes
i want to feel what i felt this summer, to have bonfires and sleep overs and run to random stores to buy games that i haven't heard of and be made fun of for things that i do all the time

"this sorry joke is all that we need"

i'm just so fucking SICK of wasting my time on people who don't really give a fuck about me
i know that people try, that they think they're doing their best, but i know that the people i know aren't trying hard enough
(the people here in indy, not you all)
they wouldn't sacrifice sleep for me, they wouldn't drive the extra mile, they wouldn't believe in me if it came down to that, they wouldn't stop the world to try to help me out
in short, they don't cut it

and the worst part is that i know it, and i would still do that for them...i would help them out no matter what, i would stay up til 4 am if it meant i got to talk to them, i would walk across town (and have) to do something as simple as keep them company while they have fun
or maybe i'm making this up, maybe i just want to feel better than them, so that when i leave, my heart won't get all twisty again
but i know that they won't even stay up late to do stuff with me, that when they get tired, they give in without hesitation, they pull away every time i try to pull them in close and that's simply all there is

am i simplifying? hell, yes...it's language and it's a fucking blog-entry
but i feel so ... not far away, but
i don't trust them, and with good reason, to be there for me
i trust my friends, i trust brooke and thea and all you all because i know your boundaries, i know the fence that you'll stop at on this long road of life, i know how far you're willing/able to go, but i have no idea when i'll turn around and these people will have stopped without telling me, leaving my back open to the unknown, to whatever comes by
or when i'll turn around and find a knife in my spine, well-placed and possibly carefully planned, a friend an enemy, a whole fucking year's worth of care and construction eliminated by a sentence or an action or simply an emotion that was there all along

i guess it all comes down to that; i don't know them, i don't trust them, and, worst of all, i know they won't go as far as i need them to right now
because i'm feeling very alone and i need a friend, but there aren't any here right now (which happens sometiems), so i keep trying to make them into one, but they aren't, they can't be that for me, either because they don't want to be or whatever

and you're probably thinking i'm being overly dramatic, and you're also probably experienced enough to know i often am, but i need some downtime in a friendly way sometimes, now being one o them times, to pull me away and bring me back into my world, our world, this world
and right now there's just no one able, so i'm angsty
so sue me

"no one visiting
is my punishment for
backing out
making sounds means
making friends these days
i wanna see you cry
i wanna hear you talk
it's been so still for a long time"
aberdeen city - in combat
other quotes from the stills - love and death

but hey, at least i get to go see sufjan stevens next weekend, that's something...

nothing better

i don't like
where i've been
and i don't want
to go home again

i'm half asleep at the computer screen after having watched Valerie and her Week of Wonders, which was a wonderful film, but i could not find info on the actor who played eaglet in the film, nor any photos, and i'm sad cuz i wanted to use him as a base for a character in my graphic novel that i never seem to get around to actually doing

my eye lids are so heavy

i'm having a board game party tomorrow, and there's at least 4 people coming (rachel and her man, a friend from teaching and his lady) so it should be fun
we're making mozarella and brushcetta , and other snacks that follow the letter B, the color brown, and the number 6

i'm listening to the postal service for some reason

and i was almost involved in a match-making today; at work, there was a black lab puppy, which everyone knows is my particular weakness, by which i mean any animal/nature thatoccurs within civilizations' barren cooch, and so i was all over that dog once it was clear i had time to play with him
and he licked me up and down and loved me (but not in THAT way)
so someone i know at work whose friend it was,was all 'you got a girlfriend? a boyfriend? want one?' for me to go with the woman whose dog it was
not that she wasn't nice ,but i don't remember much beyond she may have had glasses and that she didn't particularly catch my flow of thought, other than that i wasn't supposed to let the dog bite me in play
and now that's got me wondering, why did i say no? is there a reason or am i just being contrary?
for that matter,w hy don't i ever fall in love?

silly thoughts, but i'm surrounded by romantics, people who never take breaks from relationships longer than a month, friends with perpetual lovers (ie spouses), people who are convinced of the importance of love, and people who live with it on a practical level
but
i think of love and i think of the look on my mother's face when she'd made a picnic for my brithday (or something equally fun and effortful and lovely) and then my dad yells at everyone, ruins my party, and spanks me for hitting him for ruining my party
at which point, i devolve into tears and run off
and the day is ruined and my mom would just have this look on her face like the world was a diamond shattering into a million pieces
or similar situations where i am the sole fuck-up fucking things up...

or i think of my sister who gets so angry at me for caring, for thinking of her, for wanting her to stop smoking
or my other sister who constantly needs affirmation and how i will not be gentle with my lover, even if i had one
or of my brother and his oh-so-perfect-for-him girly with their banana republic purchased souls
or my friends who got married too young and clearly are having problems cuz of it
or of alex who i love but who pisses me off constantly and is presently giving me fleas

sometimes, though, i remember this little brunette psychopath kid who would lie in bed at night and imagine falling in love with a girl with shortish brown, curling hair that sorta floats on the wind sometimes, or who has long black tresses that she rarely concerns herself with combing, and how he would kiss her and how they would travel from place to place and walk down silent paths in forests until the whole world forgot they existed
and then they would stop existing because i would fall alseep or my imagination would just stop there, with the love

so maybe that's it, i don't want anything more than the mere existence of love---so i can feel something like love or at least like for a girl named redmond despite the fact that the last time i talked to her she was in denmark and weirded out by me...and that's fine, because i felt it, i got to sense soemthing like that without having to go past the credits
but then i think, isn't there something worth all that pain? isn't there something worth all those shattering diamonds and icicles that inevitably break?

oh, fiddle faddle, i don't know
i'm tired and a bit exhausted from a long week of being late to EVERY FUCKING THING cuz i lost my watch, or no wait
it broke
and dreams are melting into reality more and more...i keep thinking i'm somewhere else or that i did something that i only did or went in a dream
maybe i already fell in love but i cannot remember, or i have in dreams, actually i know i have, and that counts more than any real love every could
and there are so many cats outside of my apartment that i hope they all have a real owner, and haven't just been abandoned or somehow found their way to my apartment complex whilest lost
like dreams without hope
or people in a capitalistic society
constnatly trying to sneak in the door while you've got all the bars up to defend yourseld


"ba ba ba ba
I've got a cupboard with cans of food
filtered water and pictures of you
and i'm not coming out until this is all over
and i'm looking through the glass
where the light bends at the cracks
and i'm screaming at the top of my lungs
pretending the echos belong to someone
someone i used to know
and we become
silhouettes when our bodies finally go
ba ba ba ba
I wanted to walk through the empty streets
and feel something constant under my feet
but all the news reports recommend that i stay indoors
because the air outside will make
our cells divide at an alarming rate
until our shells simply cannot hold
all our insides in
and that's when we explode
and it won't be a pretty sight
and we'll become silhouettes when our bodies finally go
ba ba ba ba"

the postal service-we will become silhouettes

concerts, concerts, concerts...and teaching

so last thursday, as i stated, mary lyn came to town to visit me with a friend of hers, and while it wasn't much fun, we did get to go see the Reverend Horton Heat, which was awesome and quite a lot of fun---the music was good, the venue was small, and it only cost me 5 bucks...which i haven't even paid yet, and might not have to, cuz ml felt bad about not coming back to actually hang out with me

then yesterday, i went to see I LOVE YOU BUT I"VE CHOSEN DARKNESS at a local record store and accidentally ran into this really cool guy i know who also teaches public speaking
we ended up hanging out the entire time, along with his super-funny girlfriend, and it was a LOT of fun
plus the music was FUCKING AWESOME, and it was a REALLY small venue so i could see most things although there were a lot of people in front of me... thesound system was a bit loud volume-wise, but it was pretty damn good
and then they gave me a ride home, which was great, cuz i was exhausted

and now tonight, i'm going to go nina nastasia at my favorite local venue, that is really small...hopefully, since it's Tuesday, I won't have to worry about lotsa people...

anyway, i'm off to go finish my homework and eat dinner, and then run off to see nina
oh joy!

i really shouldn't, though, cuz i have to do a lot of grading, since i just had the first set of speeches MOnday, and still have to grade a lot...

present music: Nina Nastasia - The Blackened Air
book: INvisible Cities by Italo Calvino

Adventure ltd.

once i wrote a novel; i thought
it was a page I wanted to turn, an accomplishment
to be awarded. I thought life was adventure,
me the evangelical hot-ballooner.

turn the page, it's choose your own adventure
all over again. I keep looking ahead,
ruining the surprise and wishing
another choice into existence, another page,
another conclusion, then just as quickly
blink it out of reality because 2 seconds ago
the man talking to the cute, enviro girl across the cafe from me
said 'I started writing a book,'
his voice a droning sense of accomplishment
and it sent a page turning shiver down my spine.

'It's easy to get caught up in the bullshit,' she said,
the dialogue scrawled out of cute-girl's mouth and I know
I cannot turn the page, I never could.
I am trapped, like all things, in a badly written choose-your-life
adventure, circa 1982, a poorly put-together dream
without certainty or hope, other than imagining
that maybe the bullshit will end, and people
will start living up to their spoken-word poetry.

sposed'tas

i'm sposed ta be checking out oncourse or going through course documents for the first day of class that i'll be teaching
but it's also mary lyn's birthday this week, so i spent most of today making mixes for her, as well as bathing (critical!) and making a ton of chai for my first week of classes...
i'm not nervous about monday...well, yeah i am, but i think i'm as ready as i'll everbe...
the major problem i'm having with teaching is that we get this huge binder full of suggestions and helpful hints
which just makes you want to go crazy because there are all these little details that you'll have to remember in the midst of actually teaching...it's like when i first started tutoring; at first, i was so scared because i thought i had to get every detail down, but i didn't...it was much more of a flow than a list of details...
the hints did help tho
guess i should just think of this like that, huh?

in other news, i was feeling irritated by life, like i keep spending all my time doing stuff to make life liveable and never living it
never setting off down that long road with a bunch of friends and just sticking it out together
(that could be freudian, i'm not sure...)
and then i realized i was nervous about grad school and stuff this year because i'm afraid of being scared...of feeling that paralyzing dread in the pit of my stomach that will eventuyally lead to another fucking-a heart problem
which i'm pretty sure takes several years off of my life every time, tho no one has said so or given me any indication of such a conclusion
i just feel it in my body, in my bones

so i'm restless again, but more because it seems as though i never get to a point, tho i realize that life is not a series of events leading to anything, we are merely always drifting farther and farther from the point of origin
and the dimensions refuse to settle, to stay the same or even, in the long run, to obey the laws of physics

so i'll go to class and then to meetings and read up on the stuff i need to read up upon, and in the process be applying to phd programs, but all the while i'll be wondering, am i killing myself for nothing?
is this "all there is to a fire?"

FOotnote:
"I remember when I was a very little girl, our house caught on fire.
I'll never forget the look on my father's face as he gathered me up
in his arms and raced through the burning building out to the pavement.
I stood there shivering in my pajamas and watched the whole world go up in flames.
And when it was all over I said to myself, "Is that all there is to a fire?"

Then I fell in love, with the most wonderful boy in the world.
We would take long walks by the river or just sit for hours gazing into each other's eyes.
We were so very much in love.
Then one day, he went away. And I thought I'd die -- but I didn't.
And when I didn't I said to myself, "Is that all there is to love?"

I know what you must be saying to yourselves.
If that's the way she feels about it why doesn't she just end it all?
Oh no. Not me. I'm in no hurry for that final disappointment.
For I know just as well as I'm standing here talking to you,
when that final moment comes and I'm breathing my lst breath, I'll be saying to myself, is that all there is?" "

Peggy Lee- is that all there is?

hilarious

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060819/od_nm/india_operation_dc