smu students discuss the bake sale

and more student commentary

A gift I received this afternoon:

sdt currently contains roughly 20,000 words

jonathan lethem is on fresh air this morning.

did you know he was raised as a quaker?

i want to show you something.




-------------

all right, get ready. i feel a clumsy metaphor coming on.

i mean, i discovered this new life in my closet (where i'd hidden the "dead" plant so beringer wouldn't keep tumping it over and getting soil all over the bathroom) this morning while i was hurriedly pulling on my clothing for the day over a still-damp and possibly-late body. (i made it in with time to spare)

after a half-dressed version of the happy dance i put him in the bathroom with new plant, flipped on the light and closed them in there, safe from paws and kitty teeth.

and then, tonight during my post-yoga candle foamy bath i kept looking up at it, all young and surprising me with its existence, a gift from my closet to me. i mentally half-blogged this as i retreated to this computer corner of my night-lit loft. did the customary round of friend-blog-reading, and then checked one on a whim, because he never updates.

i don't think i've actually talked to my brother since i started this blog in june. i keep up with him through his sporadic posts (he averages one every couple of months); here's an excerpt from his latest:

----------

I can't think of someone who's not disappointed in me right now... I feel like I've lost every one of my tools. I've lost all my abilities.

Except writing.


Except drumming.


Except loving.


(you're not supposed to be thinking of that one right now, you little love addict)


It is incredibly easy for me to forget where and when I am as I slip into deep thought. And I can't even hone alpha thought.

I shouldn't be writing or thinking about the pain, certainly not talking about it, I've grown quite a bit and I'm not so obsessive about things but goddamn it.


It's okay. They make commercials about people like me. To some, this means, yay, responsibility eschewed! To me, it means I can take the ego hit and finally see someone. Maybe take medication. I fucking hate pharmaceuticals.


As a show of compassion, and to protect myself, and to cease the damage to other people that have been tugged into this, I've shied away for a while.

-------------
his cycles of self-destruction spin ever outward, the diameter stretching so that the point of renewal, of regeneration becomes harder to reach with each fall.


but damn it, he does manage to round that ever-lengthening curve, to hit point A again, to shock the shit out of me, recreating himself, grasping desperately for a space where he can even tolerate himself, to gather the pieces of good into a bundle he can hold tight to his scar-torn chest.

and every time before i was there cheering him on, insisting that he acknowledge his own beauty and worth, crying together, trying to reason with him, listening to his hysterical ranting, the sobbing wails of grief -- in love and acceptance.

and after this last bout, i gave up on him. i just did.

i don't want that to be. i have to figure out how to be his friend without getting sucked into the chaos, the unstable difficulty. i have to figure out how to love him and not have it be like last time, when his pain somehow managed to multiply, nestling its poison pit inside my brain.

will meds help him change course? i used that whole "point A" thing intentionally. i want him to change trajectory, or make a god damn ellipses, something different! to break out of the patterns his horrific past has thrown him into.

i don't know. but i do know now that, well it's goddamn cheesy, but if my little plant "died" and came back like this, over and over and over and over and over... i'd still care for it.

clumsy, obvious metaphor, yes. but it was striking on this monday eve.

believe it or not, but this guy had an effect on our company web site's content today.

i also mailed a letter to stephen hawking, and negotiated the perils of attempting to communicate with folks at the pentagon.

forgiving bush

digit: Sorry I haven't written. Been super busy with crap and such

bintang: i totally understand. i seem to be consumed with the attempt to slow the chaos of life into something recognizable and thus somehow approachable. fuck time management, this is something somehow more intricate, holy and wholly imperative. or something.

This Salon A&E headline grabbed me:
English singer-songwriter Thea Gilmore, at just 23, is the genuine heiress to the Bob Dylan-Leonard Cohen-Tom Waits legacy of dark, brilliant indie folk-rock

Lord, they sure threw in the right three names. Jesus.

I don't really listen to women folk singers -- they tend to be hoky (think "a mighty wind", think john denver's "grandma's feather bed" vs. cohen's "suzanne"), cheesy, etc. Thea Gilmore sounds promising -- I'll have to check her out.


-------

i'm not going to become the heiress of any musical tradition if i don't get off my ass and write more songs and play more often. i seem to be plagued with false starts. and i expect more from myself now than i did then, back when i was so... steeped in my own existence, and the songs erupted out of me in violent fits of creativity and beauty.

i guess i say to my muse, am i just not miserable enough for you?

while grappling with the tender reality that i'm going to have to learn discipline if i want to write anything, stories or songs or screenplays....

wal-mart challenges netflix

HFS!

one day david's kid is going to read this account of the day he found out he was going to be a father.

wow. wow.


Not everybody gets the chance to fall in love and be with that person. Not everybody gets the opportunity to have children. (Dang, I'm crying right now. Keep writing...) I'm so looking forward to seeing this person who will become the most precious person in the world to me. That's the weird thing about children: You don't know them. You never met them. And yet, they are a part of you. And you love them. I get to be a dad and that is so cool. That is so cool.

i'm people watching people who are people watching:

i murder scorpions

it used to be that you woke up early on rare occasions to watch the sunrise
(quiet moments on the beach come to mind - slipping from the sandwind tent into the still warmth of the explorer, watching the big red ball rise to burn off all the low clouds)
now i wake with the coming of the sun each morning.

god, it's crazy.
every morning is this amazing experience. the light in my apartment is different every morning.

i usually crack an eye at first light, and then, depending on the clouds and the current pollution (code red! code red!), take in the pinkorange wow

and then the sun rounds this building's corner,



and i kid you not, berkley worships luna's other:









and it makes me smile.

movies of myself

(click here for a link to listen.)

hey hey! one of our authors is booked for oprah november 13.

all segways recalled

for bethy:

i was finishing up a good ninety minutes of yoga when the music and fireworks started in fair park
(it's fair time!)

i can see tents and twinkling lights from my window.

the fireworks were those thick fat sparkly ones, the type that lazily arc into the sky and fall before the lights twinkle out
the song was "walk like an egyptian" (a bangles classic) -- sure, their musical taste could be more nuanced but never mind, it was the great ending to a much-needed shan-time yoga business.

after the intense stretching i was just lying there on my floor on a blue mat, berkley stretched out along my right shoulder and arm. i allowed my brain to rest, just sort of dancing along the edges of thought to berkley's purr.

i thought about love and it made me happy
and then the lights popped in the sky, a sprinkle of color
and berk jumped up w/ her signature murmur-meow-thing
i opened my eyes and watched,
listened to the sounds of my neighborhood that are home (firefighter museum air conditioning unit, big beer trucks rumbling over to the bars, the traffic on 30, occasionally laughter from the bus stop across the way)


i was still and it was good.

i'm not sure about this whole meditation thing.
i think i got close tonight.

perhaps smu could have just moved the bake sale to the campus "free speech area"
-- last november when bush was campaigning all over the country (on our dollar, mind you) he finished up at moody coliseum

i was corralled, herded, smushed into a parking lot on the other side of campus with a few hundred other folks protesting the coming war with iraq. bush never even saw us.

(mom has it. this afternoon it feels like i do -- shortness of breath, heart racing even though i'm just sitting here calmly trying to work... i can see why people with MVP are prone to panic attacks)

okay, real quick
i just read my post

a couple of odd things:

EDIT:it appears that three hispanic people bought cookies at the bake sale that was intended to demonstrate the perils of affirmitave action -- or two white women. or a white guy and a hispanic guy. or six black people. lord.

an interesting thing to note is also that they only differentiated gender for whites, not for minorities. strange. telling.

i just read that i "shopped around" for an xian campus group. interesting word choice.

wide awake
(mosquito woke me)

SMU shuts down race-based bake sale

The sign said white males had to pay $1 for a cookie. White women: 75 cents. Hispanics: 50 cents. Blacks: a quarter.

The group sold three cookies during its protest, raising $1.50.


My alma matter has a highly charged history of race-relations, if the stories are true. a quick ten-minute google search yielded nothing. i wonder what sorts of research would be necessary to validate this.... hmm...

the story goes that during the sixties smus "southern gentlemen" frat held a "slave auction" on the steps of the student center -- it was a hazing event in which the pledge class painted their faces black and the student body bidded for their services.

the school's african-american community responded by organizing an action in the administration building. they all crowded into the hall outside the president's office (a very schmancy place, if i recall well the space to which i often delivered inter-office mail (work-study students know what i'm talking about)) (seriously... i swear to god there are women's shoes enclosed in a glass case -- they belonged to an early president of the univ.'s wife), staged a sit-in. the president of the school is one of the greats; i think a dorm is named after him. shit, wish i remembered the details.

so, the president is freaked the shit out. the cops arrive. something something. and the administration changed its policy.

boy, the story really loses its umph, huh. i usually tell stories like these as though i have concrete evidence, throwing in a detail or two. i'm going to hop on aim later and quiz my old research buddies in development.

i have no way of validating this, but i've long believed (hearing the story all around town) that my hometown mansfield had the last school district to desegregate. the author of black like me was from mansfield.

wow. it's funny how you so easily believe localized stories. some of this stuff has got to be our oral history, distributed unevenly by anecdote, stories told in the shit community theater downtown over a glass of wine, in the mexican restaurant, over at millies (the bar on the outskirts of our dry town where i understand that many in my graduating class hang out... weird. that makes it seem so town-like, so small and local. like something you'd see in a movie.)

hmm.


incidentally: i looked at the campus paper online to see if there was a story yet on this (it's not a great publication, so don't be disappointed) and found this:

Campus Crusade for Christ and Wesley Foundation compete for members in midweek worship

wow. that's fucking news! man, remember the bubble? when this really was news? (hey, remember that whole "who's jason" event w/ the bright peach t-shirts?)

as a first-year student i shopped around, attending different xian organization gatherings. many felt like greek socials, some were pathetic and small (but the catholics had free dinner on sundays when the cafeteria was closed!), some felt like a glorified caedman's call campire sing-a-long. nothing felt like home. and then i took that blasted new testament class :)

i later encountered the religious community at school in quite another way. (it's nearly six am and i'm not sure i can get that one in this post)....

some quotes from the article that i found to be striking: (one of the top two xian organizations (based on attendance) moved its meeting night to coincide w/ the other's)

Unbeknownst to many, this was a calculated move.

CRU director Robbie Rice said this was to encourage members to "really plug in and go deep, from an accountability standpoint" and to really get to know and get involved in one ministry.

later quoted in the article:

"We don't compete," Rice said.


and i would love to pull each individual aside to see what their interpretation of "his truth" is:

The non-denominational CRU, with about 175 members, sees itself acting on a global scale to "proclaim His truth."




---

ok. time for me to try to sleep again before work and career day fun.
i think i'm tired. and i think the lemongrass candle is working.

more to come.

listen:

poverty turns trendy

(scroll down to the bottom)

i think those poor people are cool, because they're chasing their dream

isabella, too sick for school, is here playing gameboy. while i'm coding a text for library of congress cataloging data, i hear this exchange:

"i thought frogs could swim"
"frogs can swim," her dad says, reassuringly.

there's a slight pause, peppered with the beeps and meandering melodies of frogger music....
"well this one sure can't"

an email from a prospective author trying to get her proposal to us:

Well, I know by now you think I'm crazy, but I did send the 100 pages. Unfortunately, the Post Office, in its infinite wisdom, returned it to me today "for security reasons." Not sure how they thought a stack of paper would explode or somehow attack someone, but in these days, one never knows. I will resend within the next few days. Thanks for your patience.

tonight, 7pm on fresh air: tim delaughter of the polyphonic spree

i think you can listen to it online, but i'm still going to pop a tape in at home before heading over to the rudd's

some more images from a new year's party nearly two years ago: much boggle was played, much liquor consumed, much fun had with holy underwear. it looks unlikely that bran will be able to visit this year.

buehring-mcgee-coy:


(when i opened my bank account after graduating they gave me this stamp with my name and address -- that's what's all over the captain's body)

i need to visit the vegan hotness soon:

more later on: haints, UFOs and napoleon ice cream

dewey decimal holder sues 'library' hotel

In the lawsuit filed last week, lawyers for the Online Computer Library Center said the organization acquired the rights to the system in 1988 when it bought Forest Press, which published Dewey Decimal updates. The center charges libraries that use the system at least $500 per year.

schools tackle pda problem

of course i clicked the link thinking "public display of affection"





........can't sleep.

chamomile tea time

what a delight to type in www.theyblinked.com/blog and find a week's worth of thought

just a huge stream of letters and topics and business

and some musings on blogging

and it makes me think
how blogging is choking my other writing,
and yet since i began sdt last june i'm writing more than ever
i really don't know if i'll pick up a journal again

and that's kind of sad. because a personal journal doesn't have an audience. and so some shit gets left out this way.

but i'm hooked. i mean, god, you get a spot of inspiration or i don't know, some demon climbs inside you and takes over and you're ready to record that moment of thought and it's so instant, you type type type and click publish and bam! brandon's in connecticut and i can't get him on the phone but he can instantly join in the moment of shan in this corner thinking thinking typing, occasionally staring at the brick wall, at the hallelujah lyrics or at her own silly sad eyes in the window's reflection

that is something cool.

what's not cool is editing myself before i even sit down to type, knowing who is reading.

and then there's that whole nuisance that when you google my name, links to self deconstructing text appear.

you know, it would be a huge relief. the lying makes me weary. it's against my nature (assuming there is some "essence" of shnn). the detailed lies spill from my mouth, soiling the air around me, undermining the sacred connections between me and them, and in those moments
i hate myself.

i know that you know it's much to do with fear
i care so much what these people think.
and surely their... (can't think of an appropriate word... nagging, proselytizing...?...) ... would wear on me worse than this anti-climactic worry pain business

i lie to one of my closest friends on a near-daily basis. i hate lying to mom.
that's the worst. it's like someone has reached into my stomach, grasping whatever organs or intestines or tubes s/he can and twisting, squeezing, digging in and pouring in a little acid that makes its way up up up not even bothering with my heart or breath lungs, past the folds of my vocal chords up into my brain, throwing the chemistry off, triggering horrid synapse firings....

and the others... they don't have the vocabulary to comprehend what i am. the reality, the details of me would seem so fucking unbelievable sin-drenched, depraved

it's selfish, fearful, crazy, i know.

that i don't want to become the drama. condemnations, etc.

but there's more. i've acknowledged my inadequate reasons for closeting my a-supernaturalism, or... (ellipses are being abused in this post, i know)... to be more precise, my lack of belief in their sky-god christianity

honestly, though.
i don't want to cause them pain. worry.
and it would.

the way the worry, over time, tracks across the face
the grief that carelessly bloats the eyelids
tender skin beneath the ojos darkening, puckering angrily

i'm not trying to be noble, or live out some stupid narrative like that. but i'd rather shoulder this.

i like looking into them and seeing a me they love reflected back
even if it's an edited shan.

...
...
....

mp3: Fiona Apple's cover of across the universe

after a week or so of feeling... off
joy has returned. wonder. etc.
i feel like myself

was it yoga? the lake? sacred time spent with loved ones?

celebrate banned books week

:)

The ROUS' exist!!

A ten-foot long three quarter ton rodent lived 8 million years ago in Venezuela....

i was wrong.
about never hearing wide mouth girl again

check out seven minutes in heaven -- this song often cycles through the playlist in my head

i miss playing with tim
and bran and sona and jen

remind yourself

friday: polyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granadapolyphonic spree at the granada

sounds of wilco and water rushing into my bathtub fill this place at what is now such a late hour

i smell of smoke (that particular winedale aroma), two margaritas and an ice water, conversation w/ beth about god, disappointment (i was so fucking ready to play guys. really. i even made a little set list.) and the general malaise that seems to cloud things these past few days.

my kitten just hopped into my lap.

muddy waters is closed (TABC issues, i understand)

much worse than my disappointment at not playing a small shnnset,
some folks lost their jobs
the musicians who play there regularly lost their home

i'll not be able to drag you there to hear that amazing woman who played mondays

i decided to research a word in a song i'm covering tonight


tarantella

it's an italian dance in 6/8 time, consisting of crazy whirling triplets
dating back to the 15th to 17th century

it was thought to cure tarantism: a disorder characterized by an uncontrollable urge to dance... popularly attributed to the bite of a tarantula

wow!


thanks to dictionary.com

last night had the feel of ye old "thursday night depression"

trying to shake the dull sense of blah, dwell on some aspect of living other than the blunt pain that seems to infuse everyone lately

hopefully the extremely productive morning and lunchtime quick and dirty yoga will help

friday: polyphonic spree at the granada

sigh

this morning:

just had the strangest experience
finally finished this sf manuscript i'm editing (really editing, not just proofing, or line-editing even)

got to the final page of this unbelievable thick tome and
huh?
i think i get it, but it's confusing
(and if it's what i think it is, i don't like the ending)

-----

you know the feeling. you invest time and pieces of yourself in a satisfying read, riding the narrative till its close
and it ends w/ some sense of truncated pfffft.

but it's a fucking book; you can't change it. it's like the ending of gone with the wind (fantasy of upper class life in the slave-day south that it is) or the princess bride (book version -- which i later came to love, but as a child i hated the final paragraphs) -- no matter what, you've just got to take the work as presented. you can't sit through two and a half hours of gone with the wind and pause it right before bonnie bites it (remember how happy rhett and scarlett were that morning?) like that's the ending. because you know he really leaves her and all the tomorrows and Tara's don't make it okay.

(of course, now that i think of it i really like the way mitchell ended her book. scarlett finally learns to appreciate what's she's got in front of her -- too late.)

(okay, damn it. apparently i've not presented a good pffft. ending book. well, no backspace. carrying on.)

the point is, that's it. you take the work and you like it, or you interpret it, etc etc
but no amount of interpretation can actually change the signifiers on that page. "frankly my dear, i don't give a damn" is there for you to read as you wish, but no amount of tears or squinting or frowning can change that.

(it's interesting that i chose that line, given the film lore behind it. when they shot the scene they had rhett say it several different ways to avoid cursing -- but finally they just had to use the "damn")



and what's so crazy is that to some degree i have a say in the way this particular book will change (the extent of my sway will make itself known once i start a dialogue w/ the author during first round of edits/comments)

it's just a completely different encounter w/ a text, specifically a narrative
------------------

i'm coming to understand that editing non-fiction is much more fun (easier?)

listening to an old terri gross intv w/ johnny cash on npr

what stories the sound of his voice hints at

---------------

what a wonderful gray day.
and no, i won't stop talking about the weather.

johnny cash
john ritter....

lethem's newest headlines salon this morning. lethem is one of my favorite authors. the shit this guy does with language is so stunning....

i need to pick up copies of
gun, with occasional music
amnesia moon
girl in landscape

to circulate among my friends (maybe finally dan will read something i loan him!)
and i need to pick up a copy of the fortress of solitude
the salon article didn't blow me away, but lord, i didn't even know he had a new one coming up.

9/9/99

time has this dual quality

like how the above-mentioned date occurred four years (and two days) ago. that seems so crazy -- four whole years? and yet so much has happened, growth and change and all the tired old things we humans undergo

my soccer number was 9. i guess it took a liking to the number back when it seemed required to have a favorite everything: number, color, album, animal, sports team, play, etc etc

-------

i had a dream last night that i reconciled
(not bank statements like i've been doing the past two days at work, but w/ actual people)
i ran into we-am; we tentativly discussed something and i hopped into the cab of her red chevy truck and we were listening to zeppelin's fucking where's that confounded bridge and there was some subtle verbal and unspoken understanding shared

----------
so on the eve of september ninth, 1999
there was a nine nine ninety-nine song
and a wine and cheese party at the ftp

i had a paper due for my intro to theory class the next morning on hamlet

---------

the problem with any anecdotes from this time period is that the context is so fricking huge and complicated and necessary

i've written a novella that covers just the beginnings.

--------

basically, we went to this party where everyone there was talking about me
i was the hot gossip
most hated me
the ones i had recently lost avoided my eyes, they snubbed me at the cheese spread, at the wine table

and we-am and i knew it was going to suck, every time we went to one of these fucking parties.
i remember sitting in her truck, zeppelin blaring while we sucked at our flask, singing out a line or two
"i ain't disclosing no names but / she sure is a good friend and"
"cause she is my girl / and she can never do wrong / if i drink too much tonight / somebody please bring me down!"
while we swallowed dryly, looked one another in the eye and brazenly stumbled into our dysfunctional social circle

grasping desperatly for the fun (and connection) that had been found there mere weeks -- or was it days? before... all replaced by this broken horrible feeling of loss and devastation and no matter how much alcohol we poured down our throats
it didn't dull things any more
it just sort of spread it out

------------

the thing is, i was remembering this night somewhat fondly
how is that?
perhaps if we fast forward the evening to early AM hours

------------

left around one, head abuzz with that particular thing wine does to you
you know the feeling i mean


sat, tired at jen's computer in the study of our dorm suite
my eyes scanned the huge text blearily -- i hadn't even picked out a passage
i wasn't sure how to go about "reading against the text"

when i came across that passage where claudius is sending hamlet away
and hamlet is being such a little shit -- why doesn't claudius just kill him? doesn't he have the power to do so?
well, i got to thinking and these thought processes became a small outline and i hammered away at the gray-and-tan keyboard
and i wrote my first deconstructive paper.

and i had fun

------------

okay, okay, i know that in the bigger context of time this has a certain significance, some "shnn-first-discovers-deconstruction" thing, but that's not so much what i'm interested in exploring....

it's more that night, that chain of moments being pivotal
a wedge into the timeline of shan

me, so focused on what i'd lost, so incapable of seeing anything save the pain that clouded everything
walking around campus with dull eyes, pain chewing my insides as i ran across all these people with whom i'd shared sacred-ness

ignorant of what i'd started that night. what if i'd done the traditional shan-thing -- crashed out and turned the paper in late? what if i'd just come home and cried all night, waking bran w/ a desperate call (and of course he'd sigh, switch the light on next to his bed and listen with grumpy-to-compassionate love)

i didn't know it, but i'd discovered the fun of pursuing the life of the mind.

-----------
hah -- that paper became a signifier of other sorts after then -- taped to the wall w/ the A slashed across the front in bright red marker

the "paper i wrote drunk and got an A on" (see how silly the stories i tell can be? the paper was a decorative staple until i moved out of the residence halls)

-----------

and now it means something different.

i mean, it's one of those things you can actually point to that tell you how you came to be here. i mean, right here typing this while beringer rubs his head on my laptop screen (stop that!)....

----------

i was once told that my stories are too depressing.

that seems silly. it's like saying that my life is too depressing, the past just too much.

i'm sitting right here in a wooden chair that once sat in mom's kitchen on a pillow i made (with too little stuffing) and the wind blowing in has brought a stray piece of saran wrap to life, startling the cats to my great amusement as it glides across the floorboards like a ghost and i'm glad to be here.

i think we're tied to ego. i've chosen this life, chose my friends, chose to go ahead and write the paper that desolate hot night.... i'm not trading these experiences for anything, or abandoning them to some cobwebby recess of my mind. they become richer with each re-telling

i mean i'm really happy to be here. to be the shnn-i've-created.

------------

and besides,
things like this scoot me closer to forgiving.


perhaps i'll take out my malas and do some "we-am well-wishing" meditative-pray-thing.

sigh. yes, i should be in bed. but i've got at least another hour of this manuscript reading, and my baked potato doesn't seem very baked. giving it another twenty minutes while i nibble on hummus and pretzels.

it feels like blasphemy to go to sleep on a night like tonight anyway. i drove home on a stretch of 75 around ten-thirty and couldn't resist throwing in a puntar. shooting down the deep highway, the cool air a shock to the humid interior of the insight, intermittant silence and bob schneider's the world exploded into love all around me, the soaked road thrilling at the feel of my tires. the squeak of windshield wipers not quite timed right for the barely-there drizzle

and now, a/c switched off as the night seeps into my place

-------------------

i forgot i had taken some taos pictures my final morning there -- i woke up early and went for a walk on the nature trail (the trail of "we are not bears" fame)



before doing yoga here in this spot next to a very lively creek


and some images from atlanta (fearsome storm troopers and mst3k fun)



(his sign says "you don't have enough fanboy")




oh, to have photoshop w/ the cropping and image fun. well, this is what we get for now.

it's coming

happy rain day!

PS

fall is upon us! i've got the windows flung open as far as they'll go, the ivy hanging in like mad

and suddenly, after a visit to prospect avenue, feeling better. my dinner plans were cancelled, but an amber and blue sunset washed my brain of the bad chemicals.

with discount cleaning products in hand (props to the dollar store) i shall go about attacking the dirt and clutter in my apartment.

i feel like blogging more, but i'd best get done what i can before the energy goes. maybe just one packet of emergenC......

if you happen by fresco on monday eve you might recognize the small jovial crowd in one corner

a circle of brilliant creative minds once bent to the man's work, scheduling content and generating blurbage

now freed
from the bitter tone that continually crept into everything
from the harsh day-to-day existence at aohell, unappreciated
temporary, un-benefited, despised by the cackling warner cows who refused to share their kitchen
now, reunited (sans Rayce who escaped to the pacific northwest)

survivors unite!

after awful morning dreams of being hunted by huge mountain lions while drew carey looked on and laughed...

i'm in the lost land of bookkeeping.

today depression clings to me: when i drive my car, in the bank drive-thru, over my tacos and utne reader lunch, squinting at quicken on the screen and back to the numbers staring bleakly up at me -- stiff black forms from the white pages all ashuffle.

it's 2:44. i don't know how to shake this.

sooo tired. fighting off fever in the post-problem child-viewing darkness of my mess of an apartment. am considering creative positioning of pillows during my slumber this evening; maybe i can prop myself up to make a change in the congestion.

i miss yoga. it's been one and a half weeks.

lord, i forgot the frumpy getup my mom had me in at ten. no wonder i fought w/ her over my attire in high school.

anyone who wants to watch tonight's presidential debate, tivo caught it.


i love kucinich.

merciful goodness my grandparents are fond of saying




----------------

Explosion near Jerusalem cafe causes casualties hours after seven killed in bombing near Tel Aviv. Details soon.

and so it goes

check out salon -- there's a great piece on bjork. i dug out my dvd of bjork videos. going to sit in bed w/ my tissue, my book and owen wilson interview

a bag of clean laundry sits at my door, like a little time-traveling blessing. i wish i had an ironing board -- i feel suddenly like ironing.

off to sip more warm mint green decaf tea

thank you mel, for the goodies. i'm sure my whole body is minty-fresh and sweet, though i can't smell a thing (even that footbath stuff!) today.

i'm dying for a new sewing project. as soon as i get better i'm joanne fabrics-bound. any ideas, folks? maybe i'll branch out from blankets and pillows and odd-shapen placemats into the world of clothing. the scary world of precision, measuring, etc.

i do have a martha stewart pattern for making a fleece cap (and i've got tons of leftovers from the blankets)... it's confusing, but maybe i'll give it a shot. i've left the sewing machine out for now (putting away the thread b/c beringer was waaaay too interested in it) to remind me, to move me into action. i've still got 70 dollars worth of beige-and-red placemats to complete. maybe tomorrow i'll feel good enough to sit down and tackle the asymmetrical bastards.

and now i'm wasting time when i've got a little comfort, a little soup waiting for me.

good night, all.

home sick
breathing through congestion and such

it's so odd, this kind of head cold sickness that produces just the right conditions in nose and sinuses
i feel like i've been crying all day

and yet despite the headache fever sneezy yuck business (thanks for the ibuprofin dan!)
despite the fact that i'm not out at white rock or wandering fair park on this fair afternoon
despite the pain i see around me

i'm happy today.
in my big red bed, cuddling w/ sleepy kitties and reading dave eggers and calling granny for sympathy
dumping loads of basil into my store-bought tomato soup in some attempt to mimic la madeliene's tomato basil goodness
still listening to rufus through headphones, a little loopy on the dayquil gelcaps left over from last time....

i woke up at one point this morning to find berkley curled in the space between my shoulder and cheek,
beringer stretched against my right side on his back, paws outstretched over his head, looking up at me adoringly

i even got to speak w/ bran briefly last night before enjoying veggie burgers outside w/ great company, mars winking down on us
a travelling stranger spewing his songs out onto the september sidewalk
there's a honey bee on the window tormenting my cats

and though this clausterphobic sick weekend is not what i envisioned
i accept it completely, depression and spots of brilliance
and so it goes. sigh, for no trevor and no children. sigh, for the sad odd dreams that plague my healing sleep.
joy, at the preview of a new album,
of this time w/ the lonely lovely felines,
in footbaths and bath baths w/ new minty frangrances i wish i could smell today........

------------emptive

pre
------emptive


)

(i know i sound like rumsfeld, or

just in case we forget:

it's not okay.
and it's okay that it's not okay.

blowing me away. this album through headphones.

note to self: do this more often!

bran and i are listening to rufus.
two+ years ago we reveled in his new release before bran's departure

remember let-downs? (rufus and tori amos free tickets free tickets not happening b/c the guy who promised them quit the bronco bowl the day of the concert.... i can't remember being so disappointed since dad and i missed the ballet b/c of the ice that he spent the evening battling w/ the hair dryer in the pump house)

of course i was to see that show w/ canada but bran would've been there, lack of privileging presence and all....

'life is beautiful'
rufus says.

if he can say that after what i've read....

trust him.

trust me. i'm so sick
so sad
wanting to cast off this empathy
and not
i'm glad i have it
i get all dive-y into the story, the details of individuals (it's like listening to people through headphones)
and i hurt

but this is the.... it's what it is to be.

contingently....

so let it swell. the fear and pain and confusion and love (amazing love!) and anger trust over dinner, over time six years and more, over space to florida through ambivalence and "oh lord, what have i done to myself in this vicious world" (-rufus)

Rufus and Loudon don't have a traditional father-son relationship.
the inter-textuality of things just kills me. any time anyone mentions leonard cohen...
how often they do. one of the protagonists in hey, nostradamus listed cohen's suzanne as his favorite song.
in my curtis and camilla business they mentioned cohen (and they obsessed over don delillo's white noise!!)
and that eve at vickery with tim at the guitar singing chelsea hotel.
i knew every word from the mix tapes jacob had made for me
"who is that!" "who is that?"

and the connection made through shared music. play it again, play others, with singing and low folk moments.
occasionaly i rediscover an artist from those tapes (jacob listed the names of the songs, not the musicians/bands) in a fit of joy. believe it or not, i had a similar experience w/ cat stevens. i had no idea who he was, but i was in love w/ scores of his songs.

there are still a couple.
the tapes are long-since gone.

one about a tear on a window (?) -- i can hear the beautiful mass of music but can't recall the lyrics....


and of course hallellujah. wow, to rediscover that one again and again and again and again....

"I really don't want/ To be John Lennon or Leonard Cohen/ I just want to be my dad/ With a slight sprinkling of my mother," Mr. Wainwright sings on the song "Want."

"i don't want to make it rain
i just want to make it simple
i don't want to see the light
i just want to see the flashlight
i don't want to know the answers
to any of your questions...
work at the family store
take orders from the counter
i don't want to know the answers
to any of your questions
but i'll settle
for you...
yeah i'll settle for you..."

in the middle of a short story i was working on this weekend i reminded myself to blog on hey, nostradamus.

thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you david for insisting that i read it.

it got inside me and did some damage,
resonating like mad.

the reunion w/ beringer and berk was joyful.

do you ever realize that there's this song you'll never hear again? will you forget it?

no more of james' "witches and children"
or tim's "wide open mouth girl song"
or jacob's shnnsongs

i have so much respect now for people who do retail

i had creme brulee for the first time the other night.

i've already told you this, only you don't know it because i lost the post.

after a day of geekdom and saturday bright gloom we escaped the hotel to go out to dinner. what followed was conversation, merlot, black-eyed pea hummus and onion tart, manicotti and shop talk and greens, coffee and dessert. it was the best meal of my life.