Merry Christmas! (Or, I saw this movie you should see)

I forgot to say before, please see Charlie Wilson's War.  I don't want to say much about it until people have seen it, but I want you to see it so I can talk to you about it.

If that's not reason enough... Philip Seymour Hoffman is fantastic and deserves your admiration and love, and is acting in this movie.

But seriously.  See it.  Then talk to me.

Merry Christmas some more!

Merry Christmas! (Or, random thoughts about my dad)

Here I am, with my beautiful new laptop, having beautiful internet in my very own room at home, and sadly my phone has to be plugged in around the corner and so at the moment is more awkward to reach than my computer... but no one is online to talk to me!  

Well, that's not true... the automated moviefone thing is online, as is a person I only knew on the internet except for meeting once randomly in person, but with whom I have not spoken in any context for some time.  And some people have away messages up.

But that's ok, because I have a delightful public-private inner-thoughts-to-outer-world forum to keep me company until my phone gets more charg-y.  Or until I just get sleepy, and forget all the things I wanted to say, which seems to be happening right now.

It's been an interesting time so far.  I spent some time with my dad Saturday and Sunday, and that was good.  It's amazing how I can feel so connected to him in some ways, like when we talk about the big stuff of life and the spirit, which sounds, as such things often do, ridiculous to write down, except that I really mean it... and I feel like we're really sharing something important, and special, and we are... and then I try to tell him what I think about a movie, or what I'm doing next year, and it seems like we're communicating but suddenly he says something that has all the ingredients of what I've been saying, but isn't actually my point at all... and then I look at the picture we took together using Photo Booth, and our smiles do the same thing to our faces, our noses are the same, the stretch of our mouths... or I see him almost-sleeping on the couch and he moves his thumbs against each other restlessly like I know I do, or his feet, absurdly high arch tucked and rubbed against the top of the other foot, and that is just like me.  And somehow all these things, connections, disconnections, awkwardness, alikeness-- come from the same person, in not even 48 hours.  And he tells me he wants to know more about what I like and I am quiet, not knowing what to say.  (We are talking about music, should I give a list?)  And sometimes I think he creates an idea of me quite fully out of pieces of true things, and sometimes I think he knows me in ways I cannot know myself.  

This is ironic, since part of our discussion, a real heart of it, was how you cannot see yourself, how if you look for the self you cannot find it, that self-hood itself (ha) and everything around it is created... but if there is no self, created by whom?  This is one of those statements that should maybe come with warnings, like the Cloud of Unknowing: Don't read me or think about me unless you're way gung-ho about the whole spiritual path deal.  Or maybe I'm just posturing.  (Who is?  Ha.)

He can irritate me intensely, and I am terribly afraid of displeasing him in some small way.  He bought me beautiful shirts-- in size extra-large.  I take a stupid pleasure in being more educated than he is, in thinking silently that I understand more while he speaks.  Especially about eastern religions.

I can see now how crippled he has been, because he is not so big and full of power as he used to be.  When he hugs me, he is still the strongest person in the world, the whole world still goes away.  I think he is trying to protect me from his family, or protect himself through me.  I think he has systematically removed me from their reach... he may be fully conscious of this, or totally unconscious, or I may be incredibly wrong.

I love him.  I can't decide if that statement encompasses all of this I have said before, or not.

So, there's actually a lot more I have to say, about things other than my dad, like... my mom!  ;)  Well, and how Christmas Eve went and how it was singing at Mass and how my extended family is responding to my telling them about Charlotte with a wonderful outpouring of love and support so far... and how I got some cool presents at Jeff's family's party, and... well, but this will all have to wait.

In the meantime, the merriest of Christmases to you all!  I love you!  (Or I don't know you, but you can have some love too, if you want!)

Notes to (or on) the World

It's snowing. It's been a real winter so far. Several real snowstorms and lots of trudging through ice and snowbanks and having big snow crystals in my hair and finding my feet sliding out from under me. I think I'm happy about it. Or, it's a pain, and it's cold, and it's difficult to get around, but somehow I feel some kind of strange joy when I am out in it nonetheless. I did this morning, anyway.

And last night, I was cutting home through the woods and I suddenly noticed how beautiful it was, and how quiet. I looked over and I saw this small tree, thin and curvy and bent, standing by itself. I felt like this was Christmas, or Advent, this was something I'd been waiting for. So I stood there looking for awhile, debating whether I wanted to get my feet wet to go over to it, and then I got off the path and trudged through the snow, and when I made it to the tree I fit perfectly against the curve of it, with my arm around the side and my cheek against the cold, wet bark.

I hope this will do as a resumption of posting. If I have any faithful readers left. ;)

A more petty note is that people should not write in library books. Ever. Especially not if it's a complicated novel like Midnight's Children which I am trying to read and pay attention to, but somebody has underlined half of every page and written crap like "style" and "shows failure of omniscient narrator" all over the margins. Just read! Don't write! Or, if you must, get your own book or write notes on a notebook or something.

Hello

This is just a note to let you all know that there are no disasters on my end. :) I will write something longer soon, really.

Not a Happy Camper

I did not have a good day.

I'm feeling quite unsettled.

Understandably, I then had a dream about people being beaten to death in a movie.

Understandably, but not pleasantly.

Perhaps I should write something coherent about this that has paragraphs of more than one sentence.

Perhaps.

Sorry, this entry is kind of scary.

I am not sick, heartbroken, crazy, or failing out of school.

Happily, since school has not begun.

I will post something more informative soon.

Find the Treasure

Kind of like a treasure hunt!!
What is on the wall closest to you?:	A Peanuts character, a no smoking sign, and a notice about overdue fines.
When you turn to the right, what is the first thing you see?:	A black chair with five wheels and the security guard, who is now switching places with another security guard.
Name each thing you hear right now:	The new security guard talking to another man in a non-English language, my typing, a girl's flip-flops as she walks across the library, pleather furniture squishing
Name each thing you smell right now:	My nose is runny. The library has a smell, but I don't know how to describe it.
What is the title of the book nearest to you right now?:	History and Description of the Steam-Ship Great Britain Built at Bristol for the Great Western Steam-Ship Company; To Which are Added, Remarks on the Comparative Merits of
go to page 86.. go to line 12.. share the first 8 words:	(Title continued) Iron and Wood as Materials for Ship-Building. Ironically, there is no page 86. On page 8: "A A A A represents the outline of the boilers"
go to your nearest window, then list 3 things you saw when you looked out:	A big, bright orange handbag. A woman with a green shirt either arguing with or bidding enthusastic farewell to a young man, a tow-headed child in a baseball cap.
How many steps take you to your bathroom?:	The 75th step puts me over the threshold.
Describe your main light source at this moment:	Flourescent lights in long rectangular bars, with checkered plastic grating.
list each thing on your work space right now:	Book due and cancelled stamps, a scanner with stand, a demagnitizer, computer parenphenalia, Cabot bookmarks, book plates with empty space for due dates, oversized rubber
How many spoons in your kitchen drawer right now?:	bands (continuing from the last question because I have no idea about this one), yellow tape with "reserve" written on it, and generally more thing than I can fit in this spac
Describe everything on your body right now in the from of clothes or jewels:	Black flip-flops with jeweled straps, pink underwear, a skirt with a waterside town on it, a white bra, a yellow T-shirt, my Bryn Mawr ring, my snake ring
How many plants are in your house:	None?
Are they fake or real?:	Fake?
Where did you buy your computer?:	I don't recall, and I don't think it works anymore.
If you have a purse, describe it.:	A yellow Strand bag with green pockets sewn in and Spanish writing on it.
If you just carry a wallet, describe it:	Don't, at present.
grab a piece of paper in either one, and tell us what it is:	The Spare Change News
what was the last reciept you had in your hands for?:	Probably a bank receipt for the withdrawal I made.
What is the last thing you wrote on?:	Um... an old card from the card catalogue.
If you carry a purse, name 3 things in it right now:	A broken pen, a flyer from a place where I did not get my haircut, a small lock
what is sitting on the floor closest to you?:	A blue plastic garbage can that I am bending with my feet.
Name something you can see right now that you should throw away:	Probably the stupid labels I made for the CD Roms while Anne, one of the librarians, also made labels. Since now they are useless.
name something you can see right now that you couldnt bear to throw away:	See previous answer, since I spent so much time on them, though I'm sure I'll overcome this eventually.
when you say goodbye to a pal, what do you say?:	I like to make goodbyes wordless and inscrutable. Keep them guessing.
Take this survey | Find more surveys Bzoink - The Original Survey Site

Dear Alan Rickman

Dear Alan Rickman and/or Professor Snape,

Yes. Ok. Whatever you want. I love your face, I love your voice, I am in complete thrall to the dark redemption thing you've got going on. Take me somewhere shadowy and penetrate my mind.

Yours sincerely,
Becky

P.S. It's a little weird that you are older than my father, but let's not worry about that too much.

Touching Base?

I feel the need to post, but I don't quite know what I want to talk about. Maybe it's just that I've read interesting stuff in other people's blogs and I want to have conversations with them, or I just feel like it's time to say something.

Today was lovely. We went to Singing Beach and went swimming (just a little because it was very cold), and climbed barefoot onto big rocks and played in tide pools and made sand castles and had an absolutely stupendous dinner at a little restaurant by the train station. It felt like a real vacation, even though it was just a day.

I love Armistead Maupin!

This is just a celebratory post to delight in the fact that Armistead Maupin has written a new book, called Michael Tolliver Lives. Rachel caught sight of it on display in the window belonging to Porter Square Books during a midnight excursion, and we both got so excited and started jumping up and down. It's narrated by Michael Tolliver, as you might imagine, and he is now 55! And that's all I will say, in case anyone wants to read it. I read it! It's lovely! :-D YAY ARMISTEAD!

New Job #1

Here are some interesting things about my new job #1, which is working at the Cabot Science Library at Harvard. (These interesting things are brought to you at this point because I am avoiding doing more work on my new job #2, which is online writing tutoring.)

1. The other day I was shelf-reading, which is when you look at all the call numbers of the books on a shelf to make sure they are in order, and I found a book that was not. So, I was bringing it to its spot, and I saw that it was called Order Out of Chaos. This was so pleasing that I wrote it down.

2. I found a book for Charlotte called Newton's Darkness, which was actually two plays about Isaac Newton! But it was not good, so I brought it back.

3. My boss, before leaving to get a battery for her watch, which is two silver wildcats facing each other, came over and said, "Here. You can read about Polish Jews," and handed me a newsletter called "Gazeta" about Polish Jews.

4. My boss is a Polish Jew.

5. Directly after I wrote #4, a man came up and checked out a book called The Nazi War on Cancer.

6. Downstairs, there is a locked room, and inside there are lots and lots of old to very old books, mostly about engineering. When I first came, I thought that ENG stood for English, but not in a science library, it seems.

7. Also downstairs, there are the kind of bookshelves that all squish together until you press a button, at which time they move very slowly and mechanically to open where you want to go, and I am always a bit concerned that they will suddenly move swiftly and autonomously to squish me while I am walking between them to put back a bound volume of periodicals.

8. My boss has announced that she is going to lose 5 pounds "as if her life depended on it," using some newly approved diet pills. I said I doubt her life could depend on 5 pounds, and she said no, but her clothes could. I conceeded the point.

9. My boss has also said that she might go to NYC for some kind of crazy Japanese hair-straightening treatment that costs $500.

10. Another person who works here is a slight, graceful, quiet Hispanic man who kind of sways when he walks, but subtly. And whenever he uses the computer he brings up all kinds of tango websites and leaves them up when he goes.

11. My boss is named Lidia.

12. Lidia and another boss, named Allen, are having a conflict about how many hours I should work, which is confusing for me.

13. The man who just checked out a book was named Claudiu, which strikes me as highly unusual.

14. Somehow when I was closing up yesterday, I ended up trying to help this young Korean woman understand her registration instructions for whatever program she was doing here, but since she did not grasp all the English and I had no idea what her program might be about or require, we did not get very far.

15. I think Lidia thinks that I'm sleeping with Rachel, because she keeps commenting on my necklace, and when I told her it was my roommate she asked all these questions like how long have we lived together and did I get along with her family and kept saying how GREAT it was, and in other contexts kept talking about gay people, even though it was not really appropriate to the conversation.

16. Even though all these interesting things happen here, I am ready to go home now. But it is only 2:28. I guess I will do my other job.

Addendum

The guy who tried to help me last night just came by and asked if I had gotten my paper back and how it was going. He's kind.

Hell Hath No Fury...

... like me, right now. I was here in Lamont at 12:30 last night, happily using the last 15 minutes of library openness to put the finishing touches on the 8th page of my paper... why, then, was I here again before 9 AM, when the paper is not in any way due today? Let me tell you.

So, at 12:30, the computer abruptly stopped everything it was doing and told me it had gone into a "Deep Freeze" mode and that the keyboard and mouse were inaccessible. I got up to inquire as to why this had occurred, and discovered that all the student computers had, in fact, done this. I then was told that they do this EVERY SATURDAY at 12:30, but usually they are closed so it doesn't matter, and I guess they just didn't both to tell anyone that this was going to happen. If I had known even 5 minutes ahead of time, I could have saved my document and sent it to myself with NO TRAUMATIC EFFECTS whatsoever... but I didn't. A fairly nice young man came over and tinkered futilely with the computer, during which process an appallingly loud FIRE ALARM started going off literally in my ear for a minute and a half. This is apparently the way that Lamont informs its patrons that it is time to leave, and also permanently damages their hearing. My ear is still slightly achy/itchy this morning.

So I left, with no knowledge of how much paper I had lost, and no copy of the paper on anything but this machine. It was, of course, dark and rainy, though thankfully I had an umbrella. I started stomping home, and as I got to the science center, I caught sight of a very drunk young man in something like a slightly oversized suit jacket. And other clothes too, but not a whole suit. He was walking along, swerving all over the path like I've never seen, totally alone. So at first when I saw him I was nervous, not certain of what he was doing or what was going on, but as he got past me I realized, as he stumbled over to the rope that bounds off the grass and then confusedly to a bush, that he was probably totally disoriented and trying to go home. But in this state who knew if he even knew where his home was. I really didn't know what to do. I didn't want to approach him in case he was agitated or scary, and even if I had I wouldn't have known where to take him if he told me he lived in X dorm, but I also didn't want him to keep wandering around and get hypothermia, or stumble into the road, or just fall asleep with alcohol poisoning or something.

So I followed him. It was a bit awkward, since he kept stopping and drifting off in different directions, or just standing there for a long time, but I tailed him all the way back to the other end of the yard. At one point there was a hopeful moment when he seemed to be veering towards the door of what I hoped was a dorm, but it was short-lived, and the next thing I know he was, in fact, stumbling into the road across from the Au Bon Pain, heading on out into Harvard Square. Now I really didn't know what to do. It didn't make sense to follow him all the hell over Cambridge, but it was stupid to leave him now after all that, and when he was potentially in a more dangerous situation.

I was hestitating on my side of the road, when a shadow figure sort of loomed up toward me out of the darkness... and it turned out to be a nice, sweet-looking young man in a big bulky coat who wanted to know when the buses stopped running. For no reason I understand except that I wanted to give him hope or something, I said that I thought they were still running (I actually didn't have the slightest idea) but that I knew the subway had stopped, or stopped around now, or something. When I looked up again I saw that I had lost the drunk boy, and so I decided to go over to the ABP, which apparently is open very late, and ask them if they had seen him, and also if they would call the police. I should interject that my phone had run out of batteries in the early afternoon. As I made it over there, I saw there was a policeman standing in the doorway! I went over to him and explained the situation. He said he had seen the drunk guy and wasn't sure what was going on with him, but, after ascertaining that I didn't know him or where he was supposed to be, he told me that he would check up on him and help him get home, and disappeared purposefully around the corner.

So I continued walking home. At this point my feet and the bottoms of my pants were extraordinarily wet, and I was extraoridinarilly agitated. Being outside in the middle of the night by myself was NOT AT ALL acceptable, and now I had an even longer walk ahead of me than I normally would. At one point I gave up and hailed a cab, only to find that the cab driver didn't know where Beacon St. was. Now, under normal circumstances I could have told him how to get there, most likely, but at this point I was so at the end of my rope that I wasn't sure I could think that clearly, and I also wasn't sure that I wanted to get in a cab with a driver who didn't know where Beacon St. was. It's an enormous street! It's the main street in Somerville, which is so much enveloped by Cambridge that there is NO REASON, at the proximity we were, for this man who navigates streets for a living not to have a clue where Beacon St. was. So I walked on. My shoelaces on one shoe were permanenetly untied at this point, and they and my umbrella made all sorts of unpleasant flapping and slapping noises that I tried not to attribute to frightening attacker people sneaking up behind me.

I finally made it home, called Charlotte and Rachel for some support, and got to bed probably a little before 3. I set my alarm for 7. I got out of bed around 8 and made it in the door here by 9. I came right over to the computer I was working on, and found that it had automatically saved a draft of my paper... that had nothing but gibberish on the very top line, a disgruntled arrangement of the words "Harvard College Libraries." It also had the most recent copy I had saved... about 2 pages short of what I had left with. Two fairly hard-won pages in a paper that is not going at all the way I want it to at this point.

So I went up to the circulation desk and asked the guy working there if there was someone I could speak with who dealt with the computers.

"Uhhhh..." he said with a little chuckle. "Well, there's no one who deals with the computers exactly, but there might be someone who could help..." "

Well," I began, "I was here last night at about 12:30..." And that's as far as I got.

"Oh. That sounds like... I don't think I can help you." He went and got some kind of administrator, telling him there was a "lady" here who needed help. (Am I a lady to college undergrads now? Not that I would necessarily want to be a girl, but it was weird. I've also noticed that in this post I've taken to using 'young man' for men younger than me, meaning they are younger than me but I'm not sure how much. Bizarre quarter-century-ness.) Anyway, the administrator came over--he looked uncannily like Ben from lost--and listened to my tale of woe, expressed doubt that anything would help, but came over to look at the computer. At least he told me that he had told the powers that be to stop the deep freeze during exams, but somehow it had not worked. Which is slightly better than if no one did anything at all and just decided it didn't matter. So Ben looked through my files, and poked through some other files, and came to the conclusion there was nothing to be done, unless I waited til Monday and talked to some computer expert folks at Widener. I said this would not be helpful, and explained fairly calmly that I lived off-campus, that due to this problem I had not gotten to sleep until 3 AM, and that I had to wake up again at 7 in order to get back here, so it really was a major inconvenience. He was not unsympathetic, but seemed more concerned with expressing his own innocence than actually listening to what I had to say, which I find a lamentable human trait. If I am ever in a customer service position again, please remind me that it is more important to hear people than to excuse yourself.

So that's it. Now I'm here, I'm starving, I'm exhausted, and I have to re-write 2 pages of an already plodding, idiotic paper.

Fuck you, Lamont library. If I knew how to dismantle this alarm behind my head, I completely would, and take it as a goddamn trophy to hang up on my wall. If I could dismantle this computer without causing further harm to my paper, I would be sorely tempted. I don't have anything more to say, but I have not exhausted my rage and disappointment. I want my two pages, my breakfast, and my equanimity. Fuck you.

Unrelated Observation

I just received an email about a job that is a "4/5" position. It is apparently "80%" of a full time position. What the heck? That seems to be just getting ridiculous. Are you going to take a "1/5" position to go with it? I know there are advantages to not having people work full time exactly... I guess when I was answering phones at the Merriam I had about "70%" of a full time position. But it just sounds silly.

Wow... I don't want to finish this paper, do I?

The World Smells Good Today!

Every time I go outside I have a wonderful olfactory experience! I have also received ice cream, free books (2 "legitimate literature," 2 thrilling-looking adventures, 1 complete smut), and an HDS Exam survival kit. I know that the HDS Alumni/ae think that I am a smartie, not a dum-dum, and they have given me play-doh and bubbles.

I have a lot of writing to do, a frightening amount actually... but I am happy.

The Red Planet

I meant and meant to post something substantial about my trip, and never did... so here's a reflection I read at our reflection lunch. I hope you enjoy the strengths of the genre, and forgive the weaknesses.


Cindy moves around me in the shell of her living room. Neither of us knows what to say. I have followed her inside to get a soda and because the sun has started to mummify my brain and because I have an urge to be with her. I hope that words will descend like little doves into the part of my sweat-slicked hair. They don’t. I scale down my apostolic ambitions and drink my Fresca.

“This soda is great,” I say. “It’s really hot out there.”

“I can’t even be out there five minutes before I’m ready to fall down,” she tells me. She is moving all around me, making a semi-circle of chairs against the backdrop of stripped walls and broken appliances. I feel it in the way her muscles clench and unclench while her eyes search around us—this desire to do something when it feels as though helplessness is nestled permanently against your pulse-point like a spoiled perfume.

We are all battling helplessness. Cindy is battling all the time, arranging chairs in an empty room, finding a scrap of life to maintain. Outside someone strategizes and attacks a fence; another undoes vines; a third engages in quixotic single combat with a large segment of tree snagged in the upper branches of another. The little dog Tiffy, as big as my hand and ridiculous in a red and white cheerleading costume, is a one-creature anti-helplessness army. Later, I battle beside Cindy in her dim, dusty garage. I am familiar with the piled-up remnants of an exploded life, but grimly I do battle. This is a box of electronic things; this is a box of soft things; this of paper. My categories are haphazard and desperate.

There are lots of laminated sheets with popular lyrics and guitar chords, and Cindy insists that they all be saved. The ink has run pink and purple on some, a mini-sunset.

“Do you sing?” I ask.

“I used to,” she said. “Sing and play guitar. I don’t anymore, since the hurricane.”

I don’t know what to say to that. I keep putting the sheets of paper into boxes. I don’t know which side I am fighting for by doing so. What is it about a hurricane that would make a person stop singing?
I find a bizarre little book that Cindy’s son made many years ago. Her son is seventeen now, moved out shortly after Katrina to live with his father. This book is trying to teach the Solar System and grammar at the same time. On one page, the subject of the sentence is underlined, and the subject of the sentence is also Mars. “Mars is the red planet because it is red,” Cindy’s son wrote.

I show Cindy. I want to plant a flag, do a dance. Solar System Grammar Book 1: Helplessness 0.
But let’s be honest. It’s important that if I’m going to talk you about something as pregnant with the possibility of self-righteousness as a service trip, that I be as honest as I can stand. I am not going to win against helplessness, and neither are you. A hurricane can push a house askew like I push a pile of papers. The structure of society can leave people in crumpled heaps like old Barbie dolls, limbs all twisted up, because lives we have labeled worthless prior to crisis will not suddenly, magically be saved when the water rises.

And that very labeling, I’m startled to find, is a weapon wielded by dangerously frightened people… against helplessness. Bear with me. When we go on service trips and clean years, we are fighting helplessness. When we build glittering mansions and mark them off with gates, with a different garden from every window, we are scratching at helplessness. When we stand on Bourbon St. with white crosses and scrolling neon messages about the sins of Babylon, we are crusading against helplessness. When we slip inside the topless bar next door, with a sign that promises to let us wash the girl of our choice, it is helplessness we seek to wrestle to submission.

For myself, I know I must resist the temptation to be virtuous. Pull on a vine of motivation, you will surely find another, and another, tangled in yourself and in others. Fight the helplessness of one storm, and another will come and melt your sand castle. I may not have known this at the time, but I didn’t go to Ocean Springs because it was the right thing to do. I went because it was something to do. Cindy, and Tiffy the dog, and her absent son, and Mars the red planet are not antidotes to helplessness. But they are something. I am having trouble describing what it is that they are, what we are and have been with them—perhaps that trouble is part of my point.

In the garage with Cindy, the Solar System Grammar book goes in the box with tax forms and letters and song lyrics. I find a picture of her son and we stand looking at it together. When we run out of things to say we keep speaking, straining to hear each other. This is within the battle, but this is not the battle. This is two women in a dirty old garage looking at a picture—helpless, still working. It’s reality—a true grace, a force as mysterious as a storm and rarely rose-colored except in beautifully running ink. Mars is called the red planet because it is red. I stand with Cindy. (Amen).

Dreamtime in Examtime

First, I dreamed that I was a teenage girl in a big family with lots of aunts. I'm not sure which of these aunts if any was actually my mother. I think my parents might have been dead. But I kept being surprised at how many aunts we had, of all different ages, some with very unusual names. They were all sisters, I think, as opposed to marrying in or something. Anyway, I had this cousin, a boy my age, but he was in Charlotte's body. We might have even been performing, but it seemed much more real than that. So, this boy reminded me of Jesus, and also the narrator from The Life of Pi, he was just... wise, and kind of otherworldly and sparkling and he seemed to know everything. We went to some kind of public event and somebody there was speaking a Native American language, and he just jumped in and started speaking it too.

We were very close and always hung around together, and I was kind of crazy in love with him. And at some point for some reason things were getting more pressing... one of our aunts had died and there was a funeral, and I don't know if I thought he was going to be taken away or maybe actually harmed or what, but I decided I had to tell him how I felt. It was my suspicion that he wasn't actually blood related to us, but I cared more about that because of other people, not because I was personally terribly worried about the idea of incest. This suspicion arose out of the fact that he had been found in a field as an infant, and all of the aunts assumed he was one of theirs. (I'm sure this came from the Ramayana, in which Sita is found in a field.) But I took him aside and I told him how much I loved him, in this startlingly (to me, anyway) poetic way, and he just sort of smiled his beautiful smile, which I think I took as some kind of assent because I startled making plans for our escape together... I remember I kept going farther that I intended to, and was saying things like "when we're 40 or 50," which I was nervous about because I thought it was weird, but it felt completely instinctive because I was so passionate about him, and also so... natural, it felt so natural to be with him.

So, I don't really know what happened with that, because at some point it switched and I was more me, and Uncut Pages was putting on a show in a fitness club in Philly, except the room we were in was extremely nice and had beautiful wooden floors. And it was kind of a benefit/revue of various shows we'd done, although I think most of the stuff we were doing was not from any shows we have actually done. It had a lot of dancing in a line, sort of chorus numbers but with plot. The audience was really into it, and suddenly someone was like, "Where's Dilexi?" And we were startled and a little awkward for some reason even though Lilah and I were both there. I think this may have been because we didn't have the cape. I remember thinking that I had considered bringing the cape but then hadn't because it was too big to pack. But Lilah was wearing a shirt with fancy sleeves, and she stepped up and started playing Dilexi. And we were sort of dancing around her, and then she fell backwards behind some kind of tree or bush that was in the room (as part of the bit, I think), and she started crying like a baby... I don't mean a lot, as that phrase usually does, but I mean in the manner of a baby, with her mouth open enormously wide and stuff. And I was so impressed by what she was doing, both the acting ability and the symbolic choice I decided she was making about Dilexi's rebirth or something.

So I went over and was going to hold her head, like I would for a baby. I don't know why that was the thing to do, but she started freaking out because as Dilexi she didn't want to be touched. Anyway, the audience was really responsive, so after we asked them how many had seen Dilexi and/or were previous fans of our work. And a bunch raised their hands... It was like, 30-40% of this random group of people in the health club. I was impressed and sort of baffled, and thinking maybe we should have worked harder to perform in Philly again, because we apparently had such a fan base there.

And that's about when I woke up!

Daemonions

So, I tried to post this before, but it didn't work. Now I've ended up with two daemons. Maybe one of them will post!

I tried, and ended up with Html mishmash in my entry. :( Why did it work for everybody else? Here, I'll put in the links, maybe that will work.

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/?68800

http://www.goldencompassmovie.com/?17696

I hope so. Also, I think the names of my daemons are hilarious. I'll esteem you ever so slightly more highly if you have a guess as to why.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!

I am now 25 years old. I feel... happier than I did yesterday when I was 24! Perhaps there is something to this aging thing. :)

And Katie's right, I think this comic is fantastic.

Cultivation

I'm experiencing that feeling. That feeling of dread and doom and fear, where each new event of the day seems unbearably full of chances to fail.

It goes right down the middle of me, and then runs around to all the tips of my body like static. Pins and needles.

I'm looking for something to redirect my attention and my feelings, but not in the frantic or lethargic way of most procrastination. I've been into lists lately, so here then is a list of the beautiful things in my day thus far:

*Sunlight and brilliant blue sky
*I think my professor for Hinduism and the Epics is more genuinely and passionately in love with what she studies and teaches than anybody I have ever met, ever.
*She also has a beautiful wrap-thing... like a shawl, but with sleeves, very thin and see through and flowy, in a sort of deep pink.
*While I was sitting outside to eat my lunch, my TF came by just as I had gotten some bleu cheese dressing on my mouth and was realizing I had no napkins, and he was like, "Do you need napkins?" because he had grabbed extras.
*Meeting a really exciting person who LOVES William Finn and is coming to my birthday party.
*A hot shower.
*A moment in writing my response when it really clicked in and took off, all at once.
*Having the thought "fuck everyone; I don't have time," and then thinking about the implications of that statement and laughing to myself.
*Saying no.
*These ridiculous little things serving as zipper pulls on my purse, which are eggs and circus people and have two alternate faces all at the same time! Really!
*The knowledge that people (you, at this time) will come by and read my list.

Creating the Survey I Want to Take

Book Word Association Game:

Just what it sounds like. Put down the first book or work of literature that comes to mind with whatever word is given. Feel free, though not obligated, to explain. I have written my answers in cream, so you can reply without influence if you so desire, and then highlight to see what I said.

Green: O Beautiful by Jesse Green

Red: The First Man in Rome by Colleen McCullough

Spring: "The Wasteland" by T.S. Eliot (poem)

Death: On a Pale Horse by Piers Anthony

Wings: Skellig by David Almond

Maze: If on a Winter's Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino

Crowbar: ...All I can think of is Clue. Which is not a book. How about "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe (poem)
Hyacinth: When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed by Walt Whitman (poem)

Astronomical: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle

Blessed: Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson

Birth: Still Life by A.S. Byatt

Fate: The Mahabharata, especially the Book of the Assembly Hall and the Battle Books

Mumble: The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis

Chimera: Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner (play)

Terror: The Haunting at Hill House by Shirley Jackson

Bear: The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving

Bunny: The Bunny Book by Richard Scarry

Lion: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Song: Cattail Moon by Jean Thesman

Robin: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Blue: Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Pink: The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson

Sky: Enchantress from the Stars by Sylvia Louise Engdahl

Underneath: A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voight

Volcanic: Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden

Remnant: Winter of Fire by Sheryl Jordan

Fury: When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase

Undulate: Many Waters by Madeleine L'Engle

Dodo: The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Nose: Anne of Avonlea by L.M. Montgomery

Assent: Servant of the Bones by Anne Rice

Jumping: "Paul's Case" by Willa Cather (story)

Skate: Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott

Gold: The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by Marjorie Flack and Dubose Hayward

Monster: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Elephant: The Night Listener by Armistead Maupin

Magic: Half Magic by Edward Eager

Statue: Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pierce

Dervish: House of Stairs by William Sleator

Singularity: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Food: Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery

Adoration: Sonnet 74: "Batter my heart, three personed God" by John Donne

Pleasant: The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sidney

Pogo stick: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Popcorn: Cinema Nirvana by Dean Sluyter

Umbrella: Down Came the Rain by Brooke Shields

Wow, what a strange and random list! Including at least one book I know I've never read, and a number of others I haven't finished... Anyway, I hope you have fun with this! Sorry about "crowbar."

Calling in the Night

Since I last dropped in, my Rumiesque guest house self has entertained many garden variety fears and anxieties, nasty cramps, and recursive thought loops, but also a very beautiful moment of understanding.

The latter is due to a sort of coming together of insights offered by Krsna, Charlotte, Roz's mix cd, and Christ crucified.

Holy Week, here I am. In the midst of the teeth-grinding what comes next day to day terror.

I should sleep. Goodnight.

Twenty-Four Things I Have Experienced in the Past Twenty-Four Hours

I have...

1. talked theology until 3 AM
2. seen a visual representation of Krsna as ultimate transcendent divinity
3. skinned my knee
4. walked in stocking feet on the wet, cold ground chanting "walk walk walk" to keep myself going
5. had a moment of complete understanding and connection with what my professor was saying
6. heard a description of what it was like to be in Iraq with a rocket zooming overhead from a classmate sitting next to me, directed only to me
7. received an adorable stuffed chick dressed in bunny ears that chirps when you press its middle
8. been invited to two parties
9. eaten soup
10. been walked in on in the bathroom
11. thrown my books on the floor both to get them out of my hands and to hear them bang
12. not attended a rehearsal I was (somewhat surprisingly) looking forward to
13. counted out almost my last non-penny, non-foreign change for a bag of m&ms and a bottle of ginger ale
14. worn a new skirt for the first time
15. given a present
16. fallen asleep while reading the Gospel of John
17. made my bed
18. mentally compared the discourse of a divine being to the way I try to introduce bizarre statements to my friends, and then attempted to explain this out loud
19. forgotten (again) to take my sleeping bag up from the dryer
20. touched a very fuzzy sweater
21. seen Rachel for the first time in over a week
22. photocopied almost 100 pages
23. Learned that Thessalonians come from Thessalonica.
24. Been almost too tired to finish my list.

Spam Poetics and Prophecy?

Today, they got me with an email from "Katrina," subject line, "tell me again." Since I'd just been to a meeting about the Gulf Coast trip I'm going on in two weeks to do some relief work connected to Katrina, I opened it.

It was erectile drugs again.

And this, at the bottom:

"But light theory do you thing know this mysterious count mistook is a bachel "And you attempt really scale play sail believe the result would be still "You pig are wrong, proved my wearily sung lord. The love I have for you inight "Certainly; it division being at helpful thrived the same time perfectly un
"I will blot plant exist confess sigh to you, Albert," replied Franz, "t "I raspy outstanding do not deny it," returned the comfort clever count; "but why a "But, your discover army troubled cloth excellency," replied Bertuccio hesitati
moaning fought "My build dear fellow," exclaimed Albert, danger "what can ther
rail "You relax have ample proof ruin to the contrary, wire if you lookbattle "Yes, I concerned understand flower angle that; and how would you habituaIN A tongue merrily admit VERY spit few minutes the count reached No 7 in ttable "Oh, very found easily. match Suppose condemned you knew beforehand the
sat "Whether purring soft I physical am in my senses or not," answered Franz "Yes; behavior but as he vinic fly said you would remain make an excellent s "Oh, grain your vessel back excellency," strike returned Bertuccio in deep
"Listen to mix overflow me, Franz," held said Albert; jolly "I am glad tha "No, no!" exclaimed tail brush Debray; iron "that girl roll is not his"Brucine watch marry after is extracted committee from the false angostura [1]lock tooth It crush is needless to stay add that there were gold and sil"Precisely, size madame," replied muddle Monte worn daughter Cristo; "but I
"Possibly." "Or, as you are smoke a justly Corsican, belief that frightened you had been unab punch "Yes, swim lie my good master," smoggy cried Bertuccio, casting hi
"Did you lock ever meet him depend built flew previously to coming hither knee Cocls opened finger sign the gate, promise and Baptistin, springing f
number fax concentrate "Well, then," said the perfectly baroness, "if slave she be,"Oh, I am aware of that," bread deep solid insect said Madame de Villefortpreach pray mind At the sound of their near steps a young woman of twentclever swing "Well," silver replied Monte Cristo example "suppose, then, that
"I have." star "I strap understand that, but repulsive I do not stamp understand what i "But, mine monsieur, it is very license grass abecedarian natural," returned Bert
arch bore "Of change sneeze the Arabian Nights?"rapidly bit "Do you know regret made any other counter-poisons?"complete "Ah, lick monsieur," run returned program Julie, "it is treason in"I do not."
"And where?""What! my house?" blindly "Oh, your excellency, it glass was friendly mark not yours, then."
swim business "Will you promise me not sail to repeat a leave single word o
born "If you like; agree upheld but tell me, my swear dear Lucien, what itrhythm "I have often read, and punishment leg read sowed again, the history of"I am fragile sorry to at reaction important see," observed Monte Cristo to Morrenthusiastic "No, madame, contrary watch to most veracious history, bow it is true; "I promise." room shrill "Whose, then? The Marquis de produce morning Saint-Mran, I think, "Oh, it naughty was bumpy not on him, theory monsieur; it limit was on anothe
"Upon your honor?""True, geriatric sir. The two leaped favorite studies floor tasty of my youth w


It's kind of beautiful! I love the dialogue. "Whether purring soft I physical am in my senses or not." I think maybe I should start interpreting bizarre Spam emails, or proposing them as some kind of special code.

Some Books + How to Seduce Me With Spam

Today I got an email from "Prodigal G. Wrongheadedness." And I'm looking at it thinking, "Right, that's gonna get me to open the email." But of course... it did. I wasn't expecting much, but sometimes I just can't resist the charmingly ridiculous names. It was an advertisement for some sort of erectile drug. Which... not to say that there's no place for that kind of drug, but I do not think that the place it currently occupies is ideal, to put it mildly. Or, at any rate, it highlights the gross inequities of the pharmaceutical system. So, perhaps Prodigal G. Wrongheadedness is not the wrong name...

Jesus H. Christ, but I can't see anything without analyzing it anymore, can I?

I intended to come on in here and let you all know what fine things I've been reading lately:

*Paradiso by Dante Alighieri
**Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
**In the Theater of Consciousness: The Workspace of the Mind by Bernard J. Baars
The Country Parson by George Herbert
*The Temple by George Herbert
*The Book of Revelations
The First Letter to the Thessalonians
The Second Letter to the Thessalonians
*The Second Letter of Peter
**The Gospel of Mark (as implied in the previous post about it)

I think there might be a couple more, but I'll fill those in as I remember them.

Not Quite Paradise

Before going to bed last night (which was weird enough anyway, since I had a sudden mild illness that has now disappeared, happily), I read a few pages of Toni Morrison's Paradise, which I have to read and write a response paper on for class next week. I find that reading novels before bed is way more successful than reading books about say, brain chemistry, or legal definitions of race.

I have read Paradise before, but, probably because we were going through all of Morrison's novels at breakneck speed, I remember almost nothing about it. The first few pages, in which women at a convent (but not nuns, I don't think) were being pursued and shot by men, reminded me a little. And then I fell asleep.

After a brief dream in which I went back to my old high school for a class with all my old classmates, I segued into a dream that was explicitly about the book. That is, in my dream, I was re-reading the book as I had been in real life, but my re-reading took the form of explicitly experiencing the things in the book, with a sort of fuzzy consciousness reminding me that I knew what would happen and that it will be all right.

In my dream, I was simultaneously a little girl and a grown woman caring for the little girl, and most of the time we were black. I remember looking at my skin with some fascination. But I think other times we might have briefly been white, almost like my brain forgot to make the switch. Anyway, there was this man coming after us, also mostly black, and he had seen a flyer that offered a reward if you killed women and children that were unaccompanied by men. He was someone we knew, but the woman knew he was going to try to kill them, and the little girl didn't. So the woman had to quiet the little girl and get her to hide. In my memory of the book, I had an image of the man sort of beating the top of a tree with a baseball bat while the woman and the girl hid below. This translated into us hiding in a sort of wooden structure below the floor of the the house we were in, and hearing the man crashing around with his bat. I think he was drunk, too. It was terrifying.

Then my perspective switched and I was outside, looking at the house and the man, although part of my consciousness was still with the girl and the woman. And I saw in an upper window that there was a doll house, and that the woman had convinced the girl to reach up through the floor of the doll house and manipulate the dolls inside, so the man would think we were playing there and come attack it. And I was shocked by this plan, even though I knew it had to work. The man saw the dolls moving and started to head for that part of the house. I knew he was going to smash up the doll house, but I didn't know how we were going to escape after that. I had images of us crawling out the bottom of the house somehow while he was occupied on top, but it was just such a terrifying idea, that we would have to lie there while he broke everything around us, that I guess I couldn't stay in it anymore, because I woke up.

Bizarre and scary, and I will be somewhat curious to see what it has to do with Paradise in reality. Hopefully not too much, but the novel already seems chilling and bleak.

Editor's Note

I got excited about posting links to other people's blogs on my blog, since it seems to be all the rage these days, and also will mean I can navigate conveniently from my own blog, instead of going all the way to Rachel's. ;) BUT... maybe your blog is on my list and you don't want all my random visitors wandering over to your private meanderings. Or, maybe you really are looking to dramatically increase the traffic to your blog, but somehow I have neglected to include you.

If you want to either be taken off the list or added to it, please leave me a comment, and I will comply with your desires. Unless they are unreasonable or unrelated to this matter, in which case I make no promises.

I'm Not Sure if This Dream was Sexy or Sad...

So, I dreamed that I was a male servant in this well-to-do household in some unspecified older-seeming time... I want to say maybe Victorian or just-post-Victorian, which time might also have a name, but I don't know it. I also think it's interesting that it seems like English queens are more likely to have time periods named after them than English kings. And be sort of fetishized and venerated in general. Not that kings don't/aren't, but... well, this has nothing to do with my dream.

Even though this household just seemed like an ordinary very wealthy household, as opposed to a palace or something, I called the youngest son of the family, and perhaps the older one as well, prince. I'm not sure about the older one. I also feel like this was a real title and not something I concocted out of affection, but I'm a little unclear.

You see, I was in love with the younger prince (who was of an age where this was appropriate, or at least not creepy), and I hated the older prince (huh, I guess he was a prince) because he tended to humiliate his brother and perhaps even manipulated him sexually, I'm not positive. Though I think in the dream I was sure this was going on. So I tried to do what I could to make life easier for the younger prince, and generally pined and watched him mature and kind of shake off the control of his older brother at last.

Then one day he came to my room (I think it was my room, though the bed seemed rather big and nice for a servant's bed), and he was sitting on my bed and talking to me, and I was just sort of smoldering with desire for him, and then he suddenly did initiate some kind of sexual contact. I'm not sure if he kissed me or what. It was the sort of thing where it moved so quickly from my desires to my reality in a way I didn't think was possible, so it was hard to pinpoint the initial details exactly. And he lay me down on the bed and lay over me... and this was funny, because I actually remember the part of my brain that still knew I was not a male servant about to have sex with another man trying to figure out if the exact position we were in was appropriate for sex between men. And then deciding that in any case it would be very pleasurable (as my male servant self awareness was indicating) and that we could move around later if necessary.

Anyway, that was probably more detail than you wanted, especially those of you dropping in from other countries, but we commenced this sexual relationship, and after that I was lying there next to him and he was sort of holding me from behind, and I said, "I love you, but you don't (or can't, I'm not sure which I said) love me." I remember saying this very calmly, because I guess I wanted to get it out of the way and not make a scene, and I wanted to say it myself so I didn't have to hear him saying it. And of course part of me was hoping that he would contradict me instead of agreeing, but he sort of kept me very close in his arms and put his cheek against my shoulder and nodded, so that I could feel it but not see it. And then I think we had sex again.

This relationship continued for some time, and although I thought I was happy about it, I think I was actually getting more and more upset about the not being loved thing, but I didn't want to give up sleeping with him, so I didn't know what to do. And I still had so much desire for him. But at some point when we were in bed together I just started crying, and he was upset/sympathetic in this way that reminded me that I had always been the one to take care of him emotionally, and in a sense I ended up doing that again, even though he was trying to be comforting to me. And of course the idea that he was comforting me because he couldn't love me was not pleasant, either. So at that point I think I started to get fairly depressed, because I couldn't seem to end the relationship or stop having feelings for him, but there was always the reminder of his superior status and the fact that I didn't mean to him what he meant to me, and probably never would. And I managed to go about my duties in the household normally, but fairly often when we were together I would quietly fall apart.

Wow, this dream is sounding more maudlin as I write it out... but anyway, finally, he came to tell me he was in love with someone else, who I think was also a man, like maybe some guy he was training with in the army (not sure when the army came into it) or something, and maybe also that he was going to have to get married soon. But he was very excited and happy, even though he was trying to break this to me gently, and his youthful exuberance was impossible to conceal, as well as the fact that he moved so quickly from one thing to the next. It was like he had come to thank me for being a part of his life, and his sexual development, or whatever, and move on. And this was just so horrible that I really lost it, even though I hadn't been rationally expecting anything else. But I started yelling at him, and crying, and I was really bothered at the same time by the fact that I was getting so out of control, but I was also somewhat pleased to actually confront him instead of just trying to suffer as quietly as possible under his well-intended horribleness. I think he was very surprised, and maybe started to yell back, but it was around then that I woke up.

Hmm. Now that dream just sounds bizarre, but it was very compelling at the time. I hope you enjoyed reading about it.

There is No Earthly Reason Why I'm Not Asleep Right Now

10 out of 10! I knew there was a point to all that reading...

http://www.slangcity.com/quiz/vintage_sex_slang_quiz.htm

In less pleasant news, I have again managed to split my phone in half, this time by falling on my face, outside, in very cold weather.

The curse lives on. Call my apartment phone if you want me. And now that you've seen my score on the vintage sex slang quiz, I'm expecting a lot of calls.

Stupid Morning

I'm having an out-of-proportion "Oh no, I can't handle my life" moment. I set my alarm wrong and woke nearly a quarter into my first class, which is only once a week and for which I had stayed up quite late reading... and so I got dressed really quickly, and then hesitated about whether it was rude to go so late, and then remembered I only have a dollar in cash, which is not enough to buy lunch, and I only have an hour between classes, so I can't really come home or go anywhere to get cash. So I guess I'm staying to do my reading for the next class and eat.

I feel so incompetent, and it's frustrating because I know that in reality, none of this is actually a big deal.

In other, much more important news, my grandma is doing pretty well, and is probably going home soon, if she hasn't already. Thanks for your messages, etc.

Get Well, Grandma

I found out today that my Grandma had a mini-stroke. She's doing much better now, apparently, but it really scared her and everybody else. Not much to say about it right now, but I just wanted to solicit some thoughts and prayers for her and my family, if you would be so kind.

Random people from other continents, that goes double for you.

I'm gonna give her a call tomorrow... I hope everything is still on an up-swing. I love you, Grandma.

Tart and Startling and Strange

Who am I talking about? Jesus, in the Gospel of Mark. I read it today for Intro to New Testament, and it was so bizarre and interesting... very quick, action-packed, this happened then this happened in style, and Jesus was sort of... brisk and unpredictable and hard to read, but a very compelling presence, at least to me. I am so curious about what the experience of reading this would be if you had no background in the story, and also concretely realizing how much I know the Gospel stories in the chunks they are told in in church, and how little I know the actual Gospels straight through.

I'm also a little confused about all the methods of New Testament criticism. Some of them seem kind of problematic, but maybe I just don't completely comprehend them yet.

Bracing, that's another good word for Jesus-of-Mark. Has anybody else read it? What are your thoughts?

One More Obsessive Post About the Map

So, I noticed that suddenly I was getting only one visitor, ever, listed on my map, and that visitor was clearly me. Then I realized that was because my map was now on another page, and, while I may have dedicated readers, that dedication does not extend to reading everything I have ever written in the blog every day. So, I decided to put the map, or, to be perfectly accurate, a new map, down at the bottom of my blog. See? There it is. Now you can breathe easily... or panic as your cover is blown... because your visits will be duly recorded.

What the Hell?

So, I finally finished putting labels on all my posts, and when I went to view my blog after, my map had exploded! Suddenly I have had visitors from more than 20 places, including Argentina, Canada, Spain, New Mexico, Puerto Rico, and three separate places in China.

Why? Why in the last hour or so? Who are you? Again, I assume it's just some random marketing thing, but... weird.

Oh Sick, Sick

Silly, silly cold. Please go away. I'll sacrifice my classes to you if you give me the weekend. And can we start the weekend on Thursday? What do you say?

A Little Bundle of Books

It's kind of sad, because lately I read so many parts of books, but it seems wrong to count those. So, the complete books I have read recently:


*The Heart of Whiteness by Robert Jensen
*The First R: How Children Learn Race and Racism by Debra Van Ausdale and Joe R. Feagin
The Book of Jude (books of the Bible count, right? I think they should.)
The Second Letter of Peter (I wish I could recommend this one, since I love Peter so much, but at least he didn't really write it. Not that it was awful, it just wasn't that compelling.)

My Valentine, In Fact, Is In All Ways Better Than The Aforementioned.

I was taught, never brag or shout,
still it's hot, just like how you read about,
and also caring, and never too uncouth,
that's the simple truth.

Can you tell, I have been revised?
It's so swell, dammit, even I'm surprised.
We laugh, we fumble, we take it day by day...
What more can I say?

--William Finn


Happy Valentine's Day, darling.

George W. Bush is Not My Valentine

He talks to us as though we are five, and about people in other countries as though they are infants. Unfortunately, he also handles incredibly dangerous situations as though he is a slightly older playground vigilante fighting to be king of the hill.

In what universe are people going to listen when we say "we can have nuclear weapons, but not you, because we know best and we say so"?

Good Lord, this money restriction thing is going to be a problem.

He does look tired, and gets so irate so easily. He's like someone being called onto the carpet and grasping at defensive straws. His arguments do not make sense, but he presents them as though to disagree is a basic failure in intelligence and understanding. Wow, he's totally going off. Do presidents usually get so snippy?

I wish I understood more about this Iran thing. Does anyone have any insight into the situation there beyond what I am hearing in this conference?

And Never the Twain Shall Meet

But they have!

Just an excited post to reiterate to or inform everyone that they have picked a new president for Harvard... and she's a woman... and a Mawrtyr! Class of '68. I'm soooooooooo thrilled and proud! Also, her name is Faust.

Check this out for more info: www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2007/02.15/99-president.html

I can't wait to have the opportunity to annass her. How is that spelled?

Anyway... hooray!!

That Which Hope Has?

I heard a rumor that my blog has an insufficient number of posts relating to feathers. Not wanting to disappoint or engage in false advertising, I thought I would try to begin to rectify this situation.

By rights, though, this post ought to be about my very recent decision to quit Latin, or my excursion this afternoon to see Doubt, or perhaps explain why I'm posting about feathers at all... hmm.

Latin is the thing without feathers
that mostly leaves the brain
and sings the song with the incomprehensible grammar,
and then comes 'round again.

Doubt isn't really feathered
but if it were to be
it would be gray and barely formed
and softly curled in me.

A duster is a thing with feathers
which can be used to clean
but when it's bright and pink and soft
it begs a better scene.


Also, I have always liked collecting feathers, and have sometimes considered getting a feather tattoo.

The end of this post about feathers.

An Offer

It's been awhile since I had an interesting game on here...

So, here's the deal. Tell me a secret. Or an intriguing scrap of detail. Or a vivid memory that may or may not relate to anything else. Tell me something you feel like telling me, or something you never tell anyone, or something that you wave around at parties to impress people you don't know. It should be true, but it doesn't have to be real. It doesn't really matter what... you can post it here, or email it to me, or whatever.

What I'm going to do, somehow, is weave them all together, and make a little patchwork quilt of whatever you give me. It might be a story, or a poem, or an essay, or something in between. Your part may be almost exactly as you told me, or rather disguised. If you want me to change any specific identifying details, let me know, and I will do my best to preserve your anonymity.

When I'm done, I'll post the results for your pleasure and engagement. I think it will be fun and perhaps illuminating.

An Invitation

This map thing is fascinating. Yesterday I had people looking at this from all over the world! And today I can figure out who most of you are, but I wonder who in Madrid is reading my thoughts. I mean, I'm sure that some of these are hits from random folks who try to leave ads as comments and that sort of thing... but I'm curious. If you're here, and I don't know you, or if I do know you and you've found me, or if you know me and happen to be reading this in Spain or China... please say hello. I'm a total internet stalker, I won't think it's weird. ;)

It's only fair, seeing that you potentially know so much about me... I look forward to your introductions, if you feel so inclined.

A Proposition

Play with my labels! I did!

Map!

Create your own visitor map!


I don't really understand how this works, but it looks fun.

Just Mucking Around

72.4%

www.puritytest.org


I should do Latin now, and get some lunch, and go get my perpetually disastrous phone checked out.

*sigh*

New Year, New Books

So, last year I tried to post thoughtfully about each book I read, and that quickly became onerous. This year, I think I will try just listing the books I read. If you want to know more about them, let me know. ;)

So far:

*The End (A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book the Thirteenth) by Lemony Snickett
**Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
*As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised a Girl by John Colapinto
**Everything is Illuminated by Johnathan Safran Foer
*The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snickett and Beatrice Baudelaire (yes, going backwards here)
*The Good Person of Szechwan by Bertold Brecht
*Uncommon Women and Others by Wendy Wasserstein
**The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
*The Faith Club: A Muslim, A Christian, and a Jew--Three Women Search for Understanding by Ranya Idliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner

* = recommended
** = highly recommended

I was going to put three stars for my favorite in the batch, but that could get strange, especially if I'm just listing one or two books. Let me just say that clearly this was an excellent selection. :) Let me know if you read any of them... and stay tuned for a way more academic list, as school has officially re-begun.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears

When I was writing my Holy/Dangerous Women paper, and I woke up the day it was due about 6 hours later than I meant to, I started feeling this horrible panic. I decided to take a shower to move through it, and in the shower this phrase came to me, one that my dad has said a million times but I never quite understood:


"When the student is ready, the teacher appears."


I realized this paper, this panic, this fear of failure, were all here to be my teachers. I don't mean this in a rainbows and puppies kind of way... though I'm sure rainbows and puppies can be teachers too, but not the kind I needed right then. I'd always thought of the phrase as more literal. Like some wise and knowing person was going to show up and gently enlighten me as soon as I attained some kind of readiness. And certainly the fact that this had not occurred was a sign that I was, as I secretly feared, inept and/or underdeveloped.


But now... this paper that I was fumbling through, that I was so scared to write because I was sure it would prove finally what a terrible student I am... was here to teach me? I was very clear on this for awhile, even thinking that what I was experiencing was far more valuable than getting an A and praise. Because what I was suddenly learning was why I procrastinate, the way in which fear drives me to a very specific system of behavior. It's not that I can't do the work in three weeks that I manage to cram into one frightening day. It's not that I'm somehow stupid or crazy or belligerent. It's specific fear management: I'm afraid of doing it wrong, so I put it off until I have to either do it or fail in a way that seems unthinkable. At which point I do it, but not with the time and care I know I could potentially put in. This way I can avoid both failure (finding out I couldn't do something even though I really tried my best) and success (finding out I really could). Plus, I get a nice adrenaline rush and the feeling of being a tough cookie.

It's not stupid. It's not random. It may not be based in reality, but it is, in its own way, a clever method of handling a very emotionally raw fear: that I'm not actually any good. At (whatever I may be doing) or (fundamentally at all).

So I had this realization and I kind of forgot, and then today I had to go meet with my professor about this paper, without having any idea of my grade or how I had done.

I was scared. I tried to talk myself out of it and steel myself for the worst, but I was scared. I had to wait while she talked to another student... of course, the student in the class who always seemed to have her shit together and knew what she wanted to write about in the paper from day 1... so I waited, hearing words float downstairs into the conference room where I'd decided to plant myself, and then went in to hear what was up.

She basically opened by saying I'd done a very good job with textual analysis and the application of theory, but essentially I hadn't written a research paper. Ok. What? Not ok. She was telling me I hadn't done the assignment correctly. Oh my God... I hadn't heard something like this since high school. I was sitting there in my seat with the paper written all over in my lap, and I couldn't look at it too closely, and I didn't dare check for my grade, all the way at the very back.

She went on in this back and forth mode, both saying that what I had done was fundamentally wrong, and that if it wasn't, if I worked on it, I could have this very good publishable thing.

I tried to say things that were intelligent and open without either defending myself too much or sounding like I had known what I had to do and just cavalierly decided not to do it... I have no idea how it sounded for real. I asked what specifically I should have done/should do in the future. I said that I had switched gears very close to the end, and knew on some level that I was shafting the research. I said that I was used to writing papers that required less background (I didn't say this, but I was thinking that I kind of jumped off from the model of my thesis, where I was all but ordered to use less background).

She seemed to genuinely wish she could have helped me earlier. She said that my paper was the first one she read, and she was really worried that maybe no one had understood the assignment (God!) But I was afraid of her, and I was afraid to be clear about where I was with my work because I knew it was not far enough.

She said that I could have asked for an incomplete, but that she understood if I just wanted it done. She asked if I had submitted a bibliography when she asked for it, and that's when the bottom really fell out for me. What bibliography? I remembered very clearly the email where she canceled class so we could have more time to research. I remembered meeting with her to talk about my nascent project ideas. I remembered NOTHING about a bibliography, which apparently everyone else had turned in! It became clear as we talked that people had either turned them in or just discussed them verbally, which is probably what I figured our meeting was... I don't know. But I felt ridiculous.

I think I started to crumble at this point, and I think she knew, because she wrapped up quickly and dismissed me. I don't know how I looked... I didn't burst into tears in her office or anything, but I definitely beat a hasty retreat. It felt so horrible that I had to endure all that and then say "thank you, ok, thank you, bye."

And did I ever mention that I HATE when people can see what I feel and I don't intend it? I always have this snarling animal reaction inside... if you've upset me, at least have the decency to let me lie about it. Which she did... but I think that she knew.

I made it outside and finally looked for my grade: Just a B. And a B+ for the class. I mean, at this point, I thought it was definitely going to be worse... what kind of grades do you get if you don't do the assignment? But the grade didn't really matter. I already felt that crunch inside that told me I had failed. And to be perfectly honest I pretend that I think Bs are totally fine because I get them and I know they ought to be and sometimes they are... especially if I get a C, too. But to be perfectly honest I don't want Bs. I want As.

Because I want to be perfect, and not perfectly honest. I don't want to be honest.

So there I was, walking home and trying not to cry, and I felt all the tightening start inside of me... all the reactions to the reaction, all the "this is so stupid, why are you being such an idiot, it's only a B, what is your problem, so you messed up, why are you doing this to yourself?" and "why didn't you just do something earlier, if you weren't so dumb and afraid you could have fixed this, or if you just took more time" and "you know it's really ok so don't get upset, let's think about this rationally," and my dad saying I really need all As and this voice in my head yelling at him about whether he is at Harvard getting his master's so how the fuck does he know what I need to get... noisy, noisy place, my head.

And I thought, I'm just going to stay with how I feel. It doesn't matter why I feel that way, it doesn't matter where this is coming from, I just want to stay with how I feel. Not fight. Not wallow. Be with.

I don't know how to describe being with how I feel. It's different. I had to keep reminding myself to do it, gently, like if a kid is riding a trike and keeps swerving off the path. It doesn't stop hurting. I got inside and sat here crying. But it's like sitting with someone, like sitting next to your friend while you are doing something hard together.

When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

I don't know what this all means, but I think it means something different, something a little bit new. And if that's true, it's worth it. The As don't feed my soul anyway. They just lessen the anxiety for a few minutes.

I'm going to read my comments now. Stick around, I'll be right back.

That was ok. I think she's right about most of the things that would strengthen my arguments... I think she's wrong about several critiques of my style. It's nice to be able to tell the difference between what I agree with and what I don't without categorically responding to the whole thing as a personal attack.

It's funny, when I woke up this morning, and started thinking about all the horrible things I had to do today (do you do that in bed, too?), I for some reason found myself saying a prayer, of gratitude, in advance, for the day and what would come of it. I never do that.

I don't know how to end this... I don't know why I wrote it... I wanted to share what I was thinking. I wanted to allow it to settle a bit in me.

A Little Spot of Fun Before I Turn in My Paper...

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 3 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don’t you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.

" '...They had him on horses so he could look like the Marlboro Man.' Cole states that female consumers nonetheless soon began to worry that he 'looked gay' because 'they did not see what they considered masculine by conventional standards.' Cole's comments imply that the male model's apparently lack of 'conventional masculinity' was a direct result of his nakedness."

Oooh, and I'm not going to do a big citation! I'll just tell you that it's from a book called Strip Show by Katherine Liepe-Levinson.

Guess what my paper was about?

:)

Scary Dream

So, I had this bizarre and frightening dream just before I woke up, and since there's no one here/awake at the moment to share it with, I figured I would let it float out into cyberspace.

First of all, I was in a large group hanging out with Maddie, and she asked if I/we had time to all go to this show together, and I was like, yeah, I think we can make that work. And then she said, "Great, 'cause we all should audition for them as much as possible, and then they'll get to know us," and I got a little freaked out because I wasn't sure I could audition for something that wasn't near my school and actually do it.

Anyway, possibly to wait for our audition, a few of us were sent to separate rooms... in my case I think it was actually a separate apartment, and I was sitting there at a large table with this man who looked like a guy I know from school, but was actually a dream-person, in that I had this concrete sense of how he normally behaved, and we also shared memories and knowledge that has no bearing on the real world. So, for some reason as a joke (I think he was taking on another persona or something?) this man was being very flirtatious and teasing and grabby, doing some kind of affected accent and snuggling up to me and kissing my neck and ear, etc. And I knew that he was not serious and that this was part of the way he operated, but it was still weird. And then he said he wanted something from the kitchen (part of the game was that we were in some kind of huge mansion), and he walked around the table and found Charlotte and was like, here is the kitchen help! I could tell that Charlotte was confused and displeased with this man's behavior, and I wanted to explain why he was acting this way, which apparently I knew... but I decided the thing to do was to stick up for her, so I said she wasn't the kitchen help and put my arm around her. And then the man was puzzled because this was not how I was supposed to play the game...

But this quickly became a non-issue as I caught sight or sense of Hugh. Hugh is an enormous dark gray enchanted wolf-dog that sucks out your soul in a way that is visually similar to the Dementor attacks as shown in the Harry Potter movies. There was a terrible witch, old enemy to both the man and myself, who enchanted/created Hugh, and the fact that he was around meant that the witch was back in power and making evil plans. And Hugh was incredibly hard to fight because the only way to defeat him was to cut off his ears and his tail (and possibly his nose, though I'm not sure that was necessary) You could do anything else in the world to him and he would instantly recover. Even if you did cut off his ears and tail the witch could revive him magically, but this at least took some time and you could escape.

In this case, though, for some odd reason, Hugh was very tiny. This didn't make him much less dangerous, because you could still easily get your soul sucked out, but it did make him easier to catch. And at some point I did catch him. I have no explanation for my behavior after this, except that Hugh filled me with the most incredible cold terror, and I do think in my defense that interacting with his face in any way, maybe especially when he was small because you would have to get closer to him, gave him the opportunity to suck out your soul. In any case, I did not attempt to cut off his ears and tail, but tried to squish him with my hands and then dropped him out the window.

He landed by a park bench, sort of flattened for a moment, and then came back to life as his old gigantic self. I think I was actually pale with fear at this point. I told the man that Hugh had really and truly come back-- I think the man had cut off Hugh's tail and ears before and I was hopeful he would do so again. He made some promise of help, but I had the feeling he was just leaving. Charlotte either went with him or just disappeared, starting a little pattern of people appearing and disappearing in the dream. However, this was not unusual or upsetting in the sense it would be if people actually appeared and disappeared, though I sometimes wondered where they had gone.

I went and found Rachel in another room... maybe the kitchen again... and told her all about Hugh. I told her the whole history of me and my associates and Hugh and the witch, (which I wish I could remember now), and told her how Hugh was after us. I was trying very hard to impress upon her the extreme gravity of the situation, and she said she understood, but she was cooking an enormous skillet full of a large assortment of foods, including matzo balls and some kind of broth, and carrots, too, I think. And she kept having to do stuff so the food didn't get ruined, and she was also very upset, but in a sort of dry and bitter way, and from these sort of unrelated behaviors I was concerned that she wasn't taking this matter seriously enough and might not help me.

And then suddenly my mom was there, and she seemed to want to listen about Hugh, but she couldn't seem to understand. She kept asking questions like, "so we can't do this or that to him?" and it was frustrating, because I'd said over and over that the only way was to cut off his ears and tail. And I was trying to explain that Hugh was specifically after me, so it wouldn't do ay good to go somewhere else or whatever. I think at this point there was a larger group of people around, including little children, and I was extremely upset because I didn't know how to deal with or defend them. We saw Hugh out the window and knew he was getting closer...

And I woke up.