March 2005 Archives
This is quite the mirror.
Set upon the wall next to the coat closets - just inside the front door at Gramma's house.
I feel like that frog sometimes -- usually/especially while looking in the mirror.
This may or may not be a homemade project...Grandma?
Emp had been awake for a couple of hours. At least, it seemed like hours had passed. Most likely, it was just the passing of a few moments akin to putting off the first morning piss.
He knew he'd been lying there for some time. The sun had passed the corner of the bed and moved slowly over the television so that he could now see himself reflected in the screen, gray and devoid of life. It was in staring at this image that he began to wonder wheteher or not the image was not the self and everything had been turned around and all that hogwash philosophical bullshit began to invade his mind until eventually he just turned back to the image in and of itself, thinking that could put him at ease.
Instead, staring into that tube of reductionism caused Emp to begin to imagine that the course of events over the past few days had not taken a drastic turn, a worrisome turn, or rather any turn at all. In fact - the events over the past few days had played out just as they had been scripted and he was the only malfunctioning cog in the machinery.
He lay there in bed, struck. He marvelled that he was able to come to the realization that he had been "struck."
"It's funny," he thought. "Usually you only read about people being 'struck' in moments of greatness or moments of tragedy." He really didn't want to move, but he knew that time was egging on because the sun had made its way into the window and spread across the room, the brightness now splaying across the screen so that our great reduced hero was no longer reflected upon it.
"Here I am," he thought, swinging his legs over the side of the bed to hover over the cold, wooden boards. "700 miles away from my own bed, trying to make good with a girl who hasn't wanted to have anything to do with me since day two."
It's starting to look like spring around here. Rounded corners ala The CSS Rounded Box Generator. It validates - but the php culling in the radio feed isn't really playing nice with it. May have to cut out the recently played while leaving a link to the jukebox...
Oh. And that Internet Explorer scroll bug is back.
The individual entries aren't looking so hot either...and you can't even see the archives page...
Yay. Good thing I don't get paid to do this.
may have to throw up one of those classic under construction pages
If I was a rich girl (na, na....)
See, I'd have all the money in the world, if I was a wealthy girl
Editing Rescues...
the place. It would've helped had I gotten up just an hour earlier (8:30) - but I still could've made it. Would've, could've, should've.
But now given the close quarters -- I think I would've felt really out of place. Even though I shouldn't.
What an odd word, "Should".
should should should should should should should
Why does that look so peculiar?
There are other things I should do coming up this weekend. Prescribed things.
Echo. Echo. Echo.
Tonight I laid a stack of pillows across the floor and popped in the About A Boy DVD that Netflix delivered to the door this very day.
Editing rescues. It may break some cardinal rules of the blogosphere -- but it rescues.
Soundtrack. Cinematography.
I should note that at one point in the movie, when set to pause for a bathroom break, I explained "mise en scène" to the rest of the room and talked about how Monsieur and I would blurt out "mise en scène" during critical points of a movie. (You had to be there)
I don't give good long winded movie reviews and I surely don't like giving away storylines and whatnot -- so you'll have to take me at my word. Those two aspects of the movie alone make it well worth it -- but you'll probably dig out your own appreciations.
from a few days ago - etched in luscious deep black rivets upon the oft neglected journal pages -
3-14-05
Awaking after a nap in some confusion as to my whereabouts and the time of day. The thoughts in my head are clear...but they concern very little with the immediate surroundings. The clarity is unusual. It was as if something had swelled in the brain - being a matter of retention - until it could no longer be restrained and it burst forth in swells of colours and structures and details long forgotten. For a while at least - these free flowing thoughts and ideas were a wonder to behold - but eventually the "confusion" was eliminated ~ and these wondrous beauties began to be soiled by sentiment. The present latched onto the past and brought into the spotlight details of minor relevance that made me cringe ~ But for a moment - at least - I had been free...
"I have no voice of confidence. I have no voice of confidence."
-- Sung to the tune of "nanny nanny poo poo."
Time keeps marching on.
Been slightly busy.
Managed to mail off two care packages today.
Work piling up around here. Wading through it.
I wish I could come up with something snarky to say about ANWR, Wolfowitz, and the sudden interest in Steroids in Baseball -- but my energies are pretty much spent.
I'll leave that to the pundits. And Auburn.
[snark]
I nearly lost it listening to Bright Eyes' "We are Nowhere and It's Now" off "I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning".
I went there (borders) in search of a few books -- none of which were in the store. Many of which required 7 days wait. I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was rolling into 4pm when I headed into the cd "stacks."
The listening stations had some good cd's lined up. I listened to a few tracks from an Iron and Wine offering, some Arcade Fire, Interpol, and a few others -- but "We are Nowhere and It's Now" plucked the heartstrings. It was an emotional swell that while surging with sadness was wonderful to have - Dionysian - reminding me that I am actually here.
I've begun reading Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. Last night, early introductions to the characters -- the words began to twine the net. Some observations.
The water washed round the piles at the end of the pier, dark poison-bottle green, mottled with seaweed, and the salt wind smarted on his lips.
Life was sunlight on brass bedposts, ruby port, the leap of the heart when the outsider you have backed passes the post and the colours go bobbing up. Life was poor Fred's mouth pressed down on hers in the taxi, vibrating with the engine along the parade. What was the sense of dying if it made you babble of flowers?and
Man is made by the places in which he lives[...]
The mind has cracks.
Thanks to Sarah with Movabletype Support for guiding me through troubleshooting to figure out why my entries were hanging after I had attempted to publish them.
The culprit -- lousy RSS 2.0. Copied the default layouts and now everything is hunky dory again.
Sarah spells behavior like behaviour -- Royal English. I like to spell like that too -- when I am feeling elegant. For me it began with many a mix tape - and rewriting Any Colour You Like on the track lists over and over...
Thanks again Sarah.
Conjured while spending time with Espaldita - trying to run away from reality:
Receding Snowbanks
Give Me Back My G.I. Joes
I Know You Took Them
This raccoon got into a fight with another raccoon and then got scared and skittered up a tree when a possum moseyed up. The possum was nasty! NASTY!!! It's back had been gouged and torn at and bitten by so many creatures -- it's no wonder the raccoon freaked out. And it's tail? It's tail was like a boneless finger that had been pulled and stretched quite close to the point of tearing...ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww.
I am reshelving Jeffrey Eugenides' Middlesex. Wonderful book. Amazing. Only wish I could have snarfed enough time to have a clean read instead of alotted moments that stretch into the early morning hours. I feel guilty when page turning takes longer than two weeks. A favorite moment, one of many:
Nature brought no relief. Outside had ended. There was nowhere to go that wouldn't be me.
Before all this crazy dog visiting and fundraising stuff I was busy with a lot of personal statement preparation and graduate school application stuff. Over the past two weeks the mounting pressures of those stuffs have squeezed all the stress they can out of me. Poking and prodding at certain synapses in my brain, these unexpected trials have effected a weariness.
I can recall, though the shades and nuances of light have receded and memories of the conversations on that day have faded, a brief period not too long ago where this mind was poked and prodded with less resistance. Succumbing to the impressions from and ruminations on the "Georgia O'Keeffe and the Sublime Landscape" exhibit at the University of Michigan Museum of Art in the company of fine family back in September.
What follows are some of those Massaged Sparks and their conductors where found - derived from the original scratches of first impressions.
Overtaking the hill there wasn't anything revealed to us that we couldn't have already imagined. When we had come across Tsin-Tsin, the earth around him stained with his own blood, Dori had broken down. She'd buried her head into Charlie's mane and heaved with sobbing violent enough to crack a rib.
Hanging at the folks' house is giving the mind plenty of time to wander and revolve around certain quandaries. Up for latest analysis is the question of whether to uproot from Tucker, Georgia now, or slowly ameliorate my condition over the course of the next year. I was resolute about taking some continuing education courses, finding a job, any job, and sticking around for a year, but cousin Jeff managed to slip in a fissure of doubt when he asked what I was going to accomplish in the next year there that I couldn't accomplish on this side of the Mason-Dixon line.
Good point, no?
I think the smart decision is to rip the band-aid off and head for the hills, establishing residency for the Wayne State LIS program. The only thing I seem to be hanging onto is the Tuesday Night Church of Music - and lately I've managed to bungle that relationship.
The right choice is obvious -- and incredibly difficult to make.
A classic example of White girl overbite...
Turns out you have to set up a buncha stuff in order to have your posts posted automatically -- so I'll have to just shoot these out manually...
This past weekend was a fun one - and as I have the day off today - I have made it a productive one - regaining lost hours by sleeping into the afternoon and lounging around in my pjs...
I headed up to Comer, Georgia - about an hour and a half from Atlanta - and participated in a farm party that stupified the senses. A moonwalk reaffirmed the progression of time - as it only took a few bounces to wind me. A bonfire raged into the night sky - and a keg of Killians kept Kevin kooky. Rachel and Steven are getting ready to move to Colorado, Mana was in town from NYC, and Star and Steven were each celebrating their birthdays. Saw lots of old friends and met plenty of new folks...A good time was had by all - and I managed to keep most of my friendships intact.
Standing in the center of a room. Any old room. It doesn't matter and this indifference isn't just out there in the world but has infiltrated the pores and become a part of me. As the days go by, the significance of Roquentin's tree is more familiar. I can stand in this room and I can close my eyes and I can feel it revolving around me - like I am the peg in the center of a record player. The LP is winding round and round and suddenly the pitch is disturbed because this record has been warped over the years and the revolutions are high at some points and dip well below levels at others.
Circulations and imagery continue to meld and I am stuck in a tall, slender glass of water -- a string attached to my head. Someone is absent-mindedly yanking on that string - perhaps in an attempt to keep time with the ebullient tune. Maybe they are listening intently to someone, or believe they are listening intently - but can't seem to shake the rest of the world from their thalamus and thus are continuously distracted without being aware of any one particular instance of their failure. They are so caught up in acknowledging to themselves that they are listening that they have managed to slip into the conversation a glass wall. They are plunging me under the waterline over and over -- and I am powerless to detach myself from that string. I am steeping.
I am standing in the room again. Or am I? I can't make out the details. The colors blend and turn with the spinning - and I recognize them as the distortions of welled tears. A touch of yellow from a book's spine becomes a shroud of van goghishness -- swirling and swirling before me. The water is muddied -- now brown, now blood red -- colors atop each other in a fit of oil and water, wine and vinegar . It never slacks. The fits never slack. All is taut within, all unbound without.
It can begin slowly. It doesn't always, but there are gathering moments. Flecks and pigments, steeping, seeping, swirling slowly. Milk and honey can alter the process, but the effects are only meted. In the end, the only end -- everything in which I am steeped must once again be released.
Eventually, there will be the last release. The cleanest, fullest release of them all. For now, I am standing here in this room, or this glass, or wherever as an inefficient colander. For everything that moves out, something else moves in -- and most of what I feel I am retaining is just weighing me down. The dregs. The dregs. The god damn dregs.
I used to wonder if this would be read. Now there is more worry than wonder.
Everything that seeps out of me pollutes this place a little more -- and eventually I think someone is going to notice the dirt.
