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Me
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| From the Pretentious Annals of my Subconscious |
[Apr. 24th, 2008|12:20 am] |
Last night, I dreamt that I was searching fervently for copies of Nabokov books. I queued for hours at the front of what looked like a record shop until I got to ask the clerk, in French, not if he knew where I could find any Nabokov, but if he knew where I could find a copy of the Neutral Milk Hotel's first album (perhaps because it looked like a record store?). Somehow, he knew what I was really after anyway, and he sent me on a covert mission to the secret basement of the shop where there was a whole dusty English book warehouse. The books were arranged alphabetically by colour; don't ask what this means; I don't know. I had to evade capture on my way there, through a dusty labyrinth of stairs and dead-end doorways marked by emergency exit signs. I got there, and it looked like a fallout shelter-cum-mouldy library: the leftover set from a 1950s cold war movie. But, I was much distressed because when I found the 'N' section of this secret book fair, there wasn't any Nabokov at all. There was a copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in the 'N' section, but it was by marked as having been written by someone called Carter, which I found even more distressing than the lack of Nabokov. I mean, where I am in life if I can't even identify which titles were or were not actually written by Nietzsche? Obviously, I had to Wikipedia it upon waking to placate myself.
Analysis, in short: I really need to get out more.
Extended Analysis (including actual things that happen outside the realm of my dreams): to follow. |
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| "I will show you fear in a handful of dust." |
[Jan. 20th, 2007|12:20 am] |
Last night, over bottles of wine at a favourite bar, I recounted to some British friends tales of my "glory days" as a pretentious, idealistic wannabe-rebel of an early teenager. While I tend to discuss that period quite a lot in this space (though I don't really need to -- all you'd have to do is hit the 2001 button in my archives and you'd be drowning in my self-righteousness), it's really not something I like to brandish about with any regularity in conversation. This is mainly because I like to keep a pretense of sanity for the sake of my social life, and things like this don't say "mentally stable" to me so much as they say "too much time alone to obsess over musical theatre." While that is only one example of the numerous reasons I am glad that I am now not quite so extreme (read: vile) as the person I was then, tonight, I discovered one way in which that incarnation was superior to the current: poetry.
I don't know how or when it happened, but some time during the past five years, I grew frightened of poetry. I know for a fact that I used to enjoy poetry; I used to write it; my haughty little 14-year-old sod of a self used to read a Shakespearean sonnet every night before she went to sleep under her Ikea-produced mosquito net. Yet (most noticeably in this past school year during which I've been forced by curriculum to read an uncomfortable amount of poetry) I've come to the realization that now, the very thought of approaching a poem is inordinately daunting. I have a mental block where it comes to verse, and amongst other things, that makes me a very bad student of literature indeed. I've been easing back into it, but the word "poem" still makes me a bit queasy. Tonight, however, that changes. Tonight, my brash, self-satisfied, fearless inner-geek returns to me, and in the early hours of the morning, as we wade through The Waste Land, with every ounce of unabashed pretension we can muster, we proclaim 2007 our year of poetry. It very well may be cringeworthy, but it will definitely be more rhythmic than last year. |
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| Going Places (in a car): my road trip to Yorkshire 3 – 6 April 2006 (PART 1) |
[Apr. 16th, 2006|02:29 am] |
[Okay, so here, over a week later, is the first part of my road trip to Yorkshire. I've decided to split it up because (1)It's getting quite long, and (2)I'm growing rapidly bored/tired.]
Several weeks ago, two of my flat mates and I were lazing about, drinking tea and generally trying to find anything to do that wasn't course-related. Efforts to visit Sweden had recently been impeded by empty bank accounts and forbidding mothers, so we decided to choose a more local, less controversial Spring Break destination – somewhere, preferably within driving distance. At first we thought Scotland because, well, that’s where we live, and I’ve never been anywhere except Edinburgh, it’s suburbs and the bus between here and the clubs in Glasgow. We could, however, think of nowhere substantial or exciting enough for a road trip, so we pulled out a map and I began closing my eyes and pointing at places in the index while Steph started searching the Internet. We would just go to the first place that was relatively close and that seemed marginally interesting. We came up with Destination: Yorkshire Dales after Steph found this website for a place she had visited in her childhood. Our theory was that, as we act like we’re five in Edinburgh (what with our picnics, tents, and shoving each other in boxes), it would be fantastic to road trip to a place that catered to our childish interests where we could have some quality fun which, for once, didn’t always involve the consumption of entire bottles of sambuca. Plus Steph and Terri had both spent large portions of their early childhoods in this part of England, so they were quite keen on the idea of returning. Thus, our road trip was born. It was nice not to be going somewhere for the sake of checking it off on a list of places I’ve been; two months ago, I had no idea these places existed (I mean, yes, I knew “Yorkshire was in the north of England) and exploring them just because we found delight in it. It was the ( Art for Art’s Sake of road trips (complete with photos!) ) |
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| Time with my essays |
[Dec. 9th, 2005|03:45 am] |
I almost enjoy nights like this. Long, slow, intimate nights, entered with apprehension and the anxiety that I'll never finish, that when I do finish, I'll have produced shit. But, here I am right in the middle of the silent darkness, finally settled into my keys, and I know that within hours I'll be finished, before I blink, it'll be printed and handed it, for good or ill, that all worries, concerns, perhaps that I should have started days ago, will finally be abetted. It feels nice to be sitting here, literally IN THE MIDDLE of my essay, drinking tea. I know it's awful, I know I should have started yesterday, at least, but this is the only way I can get things done. It almost feels like treadmilling -- checking the word count like I would the time, convincing myself I'm nearly there. And perhaps I am, for all the good it will do. Here I am practically writhing in analogies and descriptive prose, when I should be going on about Derrida or feminists or something important that will up my word count. So, I continue. Approximately 1000 words to go! Did I say this was nice? I meant it was TORTURE. |
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| In which I DISCOVER this city's number one tourist attraction |
[Dec. 4th, 2005|12:10 am] |
Yesterday was my last day of classes. I keep remarking to everyone (and to myself) how fast time has gone. Where the fuck did the fall go? I mean, isn't it September still? All of a sudden, BAM! I'm in Belgium and now it's Halloween and Thanksgiving and two weeks from today, I'll be home. And that may or may not change everything. I didn't realize time could melt like this. I'm starting to look forward to going home though. I mean, I'm not looking forward to leaving, but I'm excited about the things I've missed and about je ne sais quoi. I feel like everything is ineffable as of late.
Today, I was going to hunt down an art museum because that's what I do when I'm bored and want to feel intelligent, but I got sidetracked, and I ended up accidentally finding the castle. I always see the castle, from the lower parts of the city, looming in the distance, looking all historic and impressive, as it does, but I never could fathom how in hell one was meant to get up there. Well, apparently, it's about five minutes from my flat at the top of the Royal Mile in the direction I never walk. So, earlier this afternoon, when I found myself face to face with the ubiquitous stone structure everyone keeps going on about, I figured I might as well go inside, take some photos, thereby saving myself from hours of chastisement when, at Christmas, my extended family finally realized I'd been living in Edinburgh for three months but had yet to visit le chateau. Plus, it is rather impressive looking, and really, how could I accidentally stumble upon a castle without venturing inside?
And now, some photos:
( Please excuse my weird facial expressions and 'artistic' camera angles ) |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 24th, 2004|02:36 pm] |
In one of my classes, there’s this greasy drugged-up junior (I know, that description could apply to a lot of people). For some reason, twice in the past week and a half, he has been prompted to make the proclamation “I’m an atheist” in reference to his religious affiliations. No, I’m sorry, it sounded more like, “Om un Ay-ti-ist.” At which point someone else in the class always asks him exactly what that means and he answers with “I don’t believe in anything” or some terribly accented, grammatically astray variation thereof. It always makes me a little bit sick to hear him say that and it makes me wonder if those words sound so ugly when uttered from my own lips. I don’t believe in nothing, I just don’t believe in god. I suppose my real issue lies in that he and I share some core belief and I don’t want any connection to him – I don’t want my ideals to be tainted by a connection to his drug-induced depression. Yet, how different can I be if at the end of it “Om un Ay-ti-ist” too? I know it’s not as simple as that, but…it makes me want to scream or take a shower or read some philosophy or cry or something. Is that terribly conceited of me? I want to reserve my non-beliefs for only those I deem worthy? Fuck it. I need to get out. |
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| (no subject) |
[Aug. 21st, 2004|11:34 pm] |
I wish that I had something to write about because I don't feel much like doing translations, but I have nothing else left to do. So...time for Salomé, I suppose. It's not bad, or even particularly frustrating, as it is all dialog (no crazy literary tenses...apparently, there are five. what does one do with five literary tenses? I don't quite know, but I suppose one could be very specific as to when an even occurred, or did not occur.) and I can more or less read it without the aid of a dictionary, but I don't know...I need to find some other alternative. |
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| MIDDLESEX by Jeffery Eugenides and a throughly unproductive weekend |
[May. 23rd, 2004|05:46 pm] |
Today, I finished Middlesex, which is the most exciting development in my increasingly reclusive life since I crashed the vespa-like entity (oh so many days ago). I would not typically bother to update about such trivial matter as finishing a novel (well, actually, I might...I have...whatever) but, I am currently in the process of putting of starting my graduation presentation. So, here is what I think of Middlesex:
I liked it very much, though it was not enlightening or awe-inspiring as have been some of the things I read. As I came closer to its conclusion, it reminded me more and more of Grapes of Wrath -- but, not in a bad way. This is like the offspring of The Grapes of Wrath. It is the converging point of all the themes of my life that have been haunting me for the past half-year or so. It is very American -- yes, one of its themes does have to do with the AMERICAN DREAM, but I adore it. It is beautifully written, and it holds interest. I have grown to be quite enamored of its brilliance, of its glory. I like it like I like Nicholas Nickleby -- except maybe even a bit more than that. Its more than plot, its more than cultural references, but its not quite on the orgasmic understanding level of some other things -- yet it is more literary than those things. Or something. It puts things into perspective -- and for one (amoungst many) thing(s), it makes me hate America a little less (though it does not make me wish to remain here).
In conclusion, Middlesex is a very good book, I found it to be terribly intriguing and exceedingly well-written, and it has kept me from doing school work, so now I must go pretend to do said school work.
FIN.
7:43 PM EST EDIT: Strike all that I said above about it being amazing, but not thoroughly amazing -- about it not being as good or as enlightening as other things. I'm just slow. Here I am, several hours later, and I have finally had my epiphany. It connects so much more than I thought it did -- goes, in fact, all the way back to Oscar Wilde. So, I take it all back, and I end with this:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides is not only a very good book, it is an utterly amazing piece of literature and I only hope that someday I may create something with half of its merits. |
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| I am officially going to French Canada. |
[Mar. 28th, 2004|01:17 am] |
I think the universe and I just had a holy moment. And it had layers. There was me in the holy moment, then of course, I was thinking of the fact that I was in the holy moment which added to the effect of the holy moment, and then I was thinking about myself thinking about the holy moment while I was transcribing the feeling of the holy moment into words for you, my reader. It was holy, and theoretically holy is good. Or, this is good, and I describe it as holy because holy has a positive connotation and because I saw this type of moment described as holy in a film -- an excellent film, but a film nonetheless.
[I have just looked up the official meaning of the word holy on dictionary.com (for my own purposes) and I thought that you (and by "you", I mean "I") might be interested to see that holy means all of these things:
1. Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a divine power; sacred.
2. Regarded with or worthy of worship or veneration; revered: a holy book.
3. Living according to a strict or highly moral religious or spiritual system; saintly: a holy person.
4. Specified or set apart for a religious purpose: a holy place.
5. Solemnly undertaken; sacrosanct: a holy pledge.
7. Regarded as deserving special respect or reverence: The pursuit of peace is our holiest quest.
8. Informal. Used as an intensive: raised holy hell over the mischief their children did.
I suppose that when I said my moment was holy I meant that it was a combination of definitions 1, 7 and 8. For, I think that I meant that it was sacred, and possibly divine (and when I say divine, I'm using the dictionary.com definition 3a:
Supremely good or beautiful; magnificent) and it was also a moment that deserved a good deal of respect and reverence, because it was beautiful, and beauty is the only thing that matters. It was also part number eight though, because I think 8 is a little bit sarcastic, and all of my moments (even in which I am most sincere) are a little bit sarcastic, and it was intense, which I suppose is what made it "holy."]
My holy moment was glorious -- or "divine" with its layers and its satirical nature and the sheer absurdity of its existence. I cried. It was awesome.
Maybe I'm just delirious. |
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| Beedle dee, Deedle dee dee! |
[Aug. 28th, 2003|06:43 pm] |
First day of school, last day of school...all the same in the end. I was back today, haunting the halls that I used to haunt not two months ago and the second I walked through the door it seemed as if I'd never left. It seemed to me that I had been going there all along, subconsciously, physically. I was there in the past, I will be there in the future and though I am not there right now I will always be there. Not in heart or mind but in the eternal present that has inevitably become the past. I do not understand time. It mocks me and I do nothing.
I feel like I am floating, drifting, wandering along with my eyes shut and falling all at once but never going anywhere. I do not have control of my brain or my heart or even my feet and it drives me to the brink of my sanity. My life is an eternal dream but not a lucid one; I can scarce garner enough energy to move, to be motivated, to care. How can I have such great ambitions and so little will?
I hate being the one that sits in the corner and blankly stares out into the empty air. I hate being bound by reticence, being eerily silent, just sitting there, staring. My mind is filled with the words of a thousand years past of a hundred other people greater than I and yet when it comes time to make conversation I always draw a blank...I never have anything to say. In my head, I have elaborate conversations in old English as I would in an Oscar Wilde play...is that sick? Merely pathetic? I care not.
Am I making any sense? Probably not but I care little for coherence today.
My classes aren't bad, or at least they do not seem it yet. Shall I run through the day? I've noting else I'm doing at the moment so I may as well...
This morning I got in the car and what did I learn? I cannot make coffee. It tasted as if I was drinking boiling creamer water. Gross. I went without the coffee.
Homeroom -- my teacher was quite businesslike but not entirely heartless. She is older. I think I sort of like her. She has a PhD brand pen and she likes to use it to check things off of her to-do list in broad, sweeping strokes. It made me smile.
Megha walked in behind me. It is nice that she is in my homeroom again. Finally, someone to speak with in the morning. I must find some other time to read my McSweeney's. It was weird...I was the first one on the list, alphabetically...
Physics -- I don't mind this. I mean, yes it is first thing in the morning but my teacher has a decidedly un-Smith disposition and I LOVE that. It made me hopeful. We did a mini-lab and I was half-asleep. I will miss four days of this class when I go to Germany.
Math -- Elizabeth and Stephanie are in my math class. I"m not sure what to make of the teacher. WE shall see, I suppose. All throughout the class, there was this eerie, awful music playing softly over the loudspeaker. Audible but quiet enough to make one think it might be imagined...there was laughter.
Creative Writing -- this could be an interesting class...I hope to learn something. I don't really speak with anyone in there...I don't really speak with anyone at all. Maybe David Eggers was correct...I should take a correspondence course. Well, he is Dave Eggers; he is always right.
We had free time at the end of the class. I observed this heavy girl wearing a lot of lavendar reading some sort of fantasy fiction novel. If she's perfectly happy, there's nothing wrong with it but...I really do not wish to be her...I felt like her a bit...except with cooler reading material. Haha. I am so very pretentious and bitter and awful. Someone shoudl kill me and stop the madness...
I had second lunch in the middle of this class...very, very strange. I hate lunch. I always hate lunch. I have nothing to say and I don't like to eat. Again with my lack of words.
Gym -- I walked in at the opposite end of the gym after eveyone else was already there. It felt sort of like a runway walking down there in my heels...I don't ever wish to wear flats again. Well, that's not entirely true but...
There were many people with whom in am acquainted in my gym class. It shouldn't be too painful...as far as gym goes. I couldn't climb onto the bleachers in this skirt so I stood around for a while. Towards the end of class, Elizabeth and I asked about making up classes for when we go to Germany. We were told they could be made up in advance. I am so very excited.
After school we went to talk to Miss Murphy briefly and then I walked home. Not an awful day...just a regular one. I feel as if I'm back after a brief hiatus...a weekend not an entire season-long holiday. I didn't feel any pressure from my nerves...I didn't feel anything. It was just another day...and there is an every shrinking number of days left that will be spent in such a manner. I am more than half done high school...two years from now I could be in England, living. I hope my reticence does not follow me across the ocean. If it does, I'll have to murder it, which will be the best for the both of us. |
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| I sound so faux-intellectual, I make myself sick. |
[Jul. 20th, 2003|11:47 pm] |
I have this odd desire for some classic literature but I don't think I have any. I'm about to go scour the depths of my house for something good; Oscar Wilde is just not enough for me today. If I can't find anything, book shopping tomorrow. |
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| Good reading for those who can keep their eyes open long enough to see and be decieved |
[Mar. 29th, 2003|12:26 am] |
I have just finished a truly delicious, awe-inspiring book - the first one this good since Velocity, maybe better (though I will never admit that because I am enamored of Eggers). It is the sort of book that I would like to write, the type that is above all awards that might be attributed to it. The layers make me happy and the intricacies are delightful as well as the prose. I have no fucking idea what I'm talking about, but what I have to say to you is this: White Teeth is a book by a fabulous woman called Zadie Smith. It is glorious and you should read it at once, before you burst into flames. |
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| 9 minutes today. 9 short minutes. |
[Jan. 26th, 2003|11:16 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | family, pretension | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Absolutely Audrey. | ] |
| [ | music |
| | yelling from the hallway/singing from my TV/humming computer | ] |
Yesterday was Saturday. I went out without my glasses, though it was with my blood-relatives...a good number of my blood-relatives. It was middle-school musical time at Germantown Academy, and as my Cousin has a voice, she got a lead, which brought about the events of that comprised Saturday night. I spent most of my day doing things that were neither productive or enjoyable. At some minute close to 6:18 PM EST, we departed. Mother/Wife, Father/Husband, Brother/Son, Sister/Daughter all packed into a Steel Gray Ford SUV driving off into the horizon with the music of an old Wallflowers CD as a backdrop to the chatter, banter, bickering, and gossip. After 30ish minutes we arrive and enter a well-designed rather deco lobby - stark white and dark gray, gallery-esque - filled with parents, friends, and relatives most of whom are products of Suburbia. There is an abundance of curly hair. Mothers past their primes bedecked with items such as fur coats, chunky boots, loafers, flowey skirts and pants printed with abstract geometric designs that are not in the least bit aesthetic. Men have receding hairlines, suits, khakis, and loafers. Everyone makes small talk about their children and their spouses, their houses, and the basketball team. People hug as eagerly as if glad to see one and other. They are all wearing big teethy smiles and laughing too hard at jokes that aren't funny. My aunt approaches, her fist filled with envelopes. She is in a frenzy trying to cater to everyone - the fifty people she invited to see her daughter in the musical, her students, her colleagues. She hands my mother an envelope with four tickets inside. I stand by a window and am too quick to judge.
We stand, I try to be as polite as possible to distant relatives and friends of said relatives while staying true to my reticence. I tell Kevie that his shirt is too blue. After some time passes, we go to our seats commenting on how my one aunt, uncle, and grandmother are late as usual. Blah, blah. The show starts. They're using the same set as last year. The opening number is performed, the plot unravels, my cousin sings (quite well) and it is time for intermission. We go to greet the late arrivals, at which point I switch seats in order to get away from the small squirmy children that inhabited the row in front of me and the seats next to me. During intermission my Aunt drags me off to look at the Teachers' art display. Last year there were some pieces that could be considered obscene. This year there was merely (to use words that are not my own) a "wax ass with pine cones sticking out of it" it was a bit random, but attractive nonetheless. Though, through information I acquired later, they had apparently taken down a piece that depicted full nudity.
The second act begins, and more of the same. Now I am with my father's younger siblings and my grandmother, and we are in a basically isolated section of the theater. I abandon my apprehension, and mock the middle-schoolers along with my blood-relatives. All things considered, they really did put on a good show, and it was probably not half as bad as some of the shows I've been a part of. It was quite entertaining. At one point during the second act, my aunt leans over and hands my uncle a dollar. They had made a bet on which of the actors was shorter. When the play ends, I am abducted (well, maybe not quite...I am willfully abducted) by my second-act seat-mates, and we drive off to the house of the cousin who starred in the play.
The car-ride was more or less a session in which we openly mocked the actors for being "abnormal." For example, the mayor in the musical was played by a girl, but she wasn't your normal girl-dressed-as-a-boy-because-not-enough-boys-sing-but-still-looks-like-a-girl-dressed-as-a-boy that is typically found in school musical productions, but she actually looked like a man...a scary man that was huge and frankenstien-esque, busting out of his/her suit jacket. She was mocked mercilessly, but the highlight of car conversation (and later conversation) was the height of my cousin's co-star "The Music Man." In all reality, he was really small. They had a kissing scene in which he stood on a step so as he didn't look as unnaturally short as he was.
We got to the house early, and lounged around. There were plans for repelling other people, etc. Eventually, more people came and the house became quite crowded. Then, the people left and all that remained was a house full of Negros and + one twenty-something woman. The rest of the evening was spent mocking a short little eigth-grader who played the music man in a middle school production of, The Music Man. It was really quite hilarious. I won't really go there now...I don't really need to. Quite amusing though.
Goodnight. |
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| A grammatically unsound tale for those who dwell in caves |
[Dec. 21st, 2002|12:03 am] |
Sixteen days ahead of me. Sixteen days before it starts all over again. Sixteen days before the long-awaited future turns into the well-lamented past and I need start waking up at hours too early for my brain to function. One day soon I will fly this place. I will acquire things that look good and I will figure out what makes my hair look nice -- and do it. I will be educated. Filled with information...so much information that my bones will bend under the weight of the ideas that run through my head. And then, another day, I will cease to exist. I spend all of my time thinking of forgotten yesterdays and promised tomorrows hoping that anything might bring meaning to this. but what good can anything do me. What I learn and what I know, what I give and what I find...all of it can only amount to death because that is what I will find. I am told if "evil" comes, I am to fight it - and I like to think I would...to give life for other life so that other lives can be and cease to be. It all ends. Did you ever realize that? Can anyone realize that? Everything ends. A comfort and a constant worry. I count minutes and days in case one day I need to feel as if I have a collection. One day...always one day. I do not know hate, and so I also do not know beauty. I do not thrive. I know nothing. I love nothing. Not even New York. I have no style. Even most of my ideals are gone and replaced with things I hide behind. What is this...my mortality? It is so strange to think about merely because I am so pompous as to believe that with me ends the world. I cannot fathom a place in which I do not exist because I only exist in my own mind. In that way, a world will die with me. A world dies with every person. Must I remain a dreamer? Wake-walking through my dreams and dreaming through my days until both become wasted and they blur together? Or is this the ultimate goal? What ultimate goal? What cliche? The air has been very strange.
Today and yesterday as well as the day before I went Christmas shopping with my mother. I had nothing else to do and I had fun. It pains me to think that as much as I want to leave, three years from now I won't be doing this. I will be in another place entirely living another life. I will be the one to break this...these traditions. This life of childhood and family...the only one I have known so far...the only perspective from which I have seen the world. It will be gone and I will be the one to have stopped it. It will end. It all does. Yet, again here I sit thinking of future times and things undone...about things that never have existed and never will (unless I create them). My days pass as such, and this is not a way of life. Days from now, I will look back on these days. What will I think of? What will have happened. I have sixteen defined days of possibility ahead of me, but what will I make of them? Nothing, as always? Or will it be time for change? I'd like to say change...desperately. I would love to think that all of my wild thoughts of the untrue and my imaginings of the way the world works would come to life, but then again I want nothing more than to sit at home and dream for now. Argg.
I love how, above all other things, Christmas makes people crazy. It makes them feel like the need to be "good people" and they need to buy gifts and go out of their way to be nice. I have been traveling to many stores with my mother, and under normal circumstances she would never go to so many places in search of anything. But, it is Christmas, so shopping is no object. It is continuous, and I love that. Tomorrow, I am doing my own Christmas shopping...maybe Sunday baking. I hate it and I adore it. I can't help but. The goat is my favorite thing though, by far. I feel optimistic, but am afraid to be so. Nothing will go on because I will not let it. I will not become what I have grown to realize I am because I will not let myself. To think I like to pretend to be about self-expression. More of a badly matched entity with a multitude of thoughts whose story-lines never coincide. Fa la ala la. entry-time is over. Happy shopping. |
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| We all prefer legend to fact |
[Nov. 28th, 2002|12:18 am] |
I'm gleefully frightened...more so than I've been in weeks. I fear sleep almost as much as I look forward to it. No, I have not seen The Ring. I merely happened upon a PBS special on Freud. I know...not much to be afraid of, and not much to stay up over, but...you weren't there inside my mind at that moment. I kind of happened upon it - having had turned on my TV early before it was too late (the banging would have awoken my sleeping blood relatives). I was turning down the volume, but I hit the channel button by chance (or maybe not...mwa haha). There was this half-interesting graphic - I was only interested because everyone in it was wearing bowlers walking along streets of what I can only assume was London - though I have no experience to speak from. So, I turned up the volume, and found that my eye caught a special about Freud. I know little about him other than the fact that he's infamous for dream-studies - or something. Truthfully, I'd never heard of him until Archetypes in Westcott's class last year, and I'm still not entirely sure what he had to do with that...and then again in art...but, I was intrigued enough by this PBS special to keep it on. It was all very strange...quite surreal. The panning in on the pictures of Freud's face really had me hiding from my TV while watching in anticipation - this just shows how strange a night it is for me...wouldn't be surprised if I started hallucinating again...or convulsing. But, it all just pulled back together, and for one fearful moment, I was inspired and I understood something, though I don't know what that was. I want information, but no one gives it to me...I need to seek it out on my own, but I doubt if I can find the power or confidence to do that. I'm not that person. I don't speak, or leave, or voice anything. I won't even tell you what book I read last. Yet, I find myself here...near tears...over a PBS special. It is the most peculiar, yet enlightening thing that has happened to me in months.
Also, I find myself angry at this country (somewhat blindly) and at all of the things I do not know. Why, for example can I not speak Latin...or play the violin. Or, why exactly do I lack the knowledge of this country's history (mostly) as well as the histories of others. Up until about a month ago, I could not have said exactly when the Vietnamese war was. Everyone likes to harp on things that have happened...dwell on thier bad expiriences, but they don't say anything of it - what it was, when it happened, why it was so bad...they just like to tell you it was bad, and they survived. Yay them! I am no different, which just makes me feel vindictive, which in turn, makes me worse than all I despise. Quite nice circle of things I have going on.
Also...Today, Burberry scarves were purchased, and one of them is mine. Oh the joy of Christmas for she who lacks religious beliefs!
On top of the Burberry excitement, I got diesel jeans.
I also saw Laura, had an awful chemistry test, was quite cold, drank chai, had revelations, forgot revelations...blah, blah, blah.
The other day, I wrote an article about how more people should have fondue parties. Maybe it will be put in the paper (should we get a second edition out) and maybe then, you will heed my advice. Maybe then plastic Farah Fawcett heads with plastic Farrah Fawcett hair will fall out of the sky and they will make rather tasty Farrah Fawcett fondue (on a side-note, has any other Farrah-Fawcett-website-frequenter realized that she goes for either an abundance of shirt or none at all? And really, I don't have a farrah fawcett fetish so much as a farrah fawcett pen that sits atop my desk and amuses me endlessly).
Have a fabulous thanksgiving (if possible...) and even better black Friday shopping! |
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[Nov. 23rd, 2002|12:04 am] |
I live in a world that doesn't exist. It is quite nice...also...this is a very bad uptdate. I continue to love new york. goodnight. |
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| One week |
[Oct. 13th, 2002|12:16 am] |
Today I finished...and I went on a journey. It was not a great day, but better than expected. Finshing was good - not that it was over but that I can now begin to understand. So utterly amazing. I really do love my mail order bride. |
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| Uninformative Information |
[Sep. 25th, 2002|10:33 pm] |
Yesterday I realized that I was in that place I always look back on and wish I was in. I am in the greatest mental state that I am ever in in the most enjoyable part of the year, and I know it. Something good will be made out of this...I realized that I am right in the middle of a "holy moment" not in the sense of the movie, but just the realizing that you are in a good place...the place you longed for - while you are in it.
I feel very good right now...oddly so...I hope it lasts.
Then, I moved on to today. School wasn't great, but it never is...it was quite painful actually...I don't like being controlled. Oh well. This made up for it:
1. Issue 9 will soon be mailed
2. We will meet again...this makes me so unbelievably giddy...I'm laughing...
[please note that all of the following information was provided by the very nice people at Mcsweeneys.net. I love them...]
-October 19
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Electric Factory, 421 N. 7th St.
8:00 PM
With They Might Be Giants.
The 215 Festival, now in its second-year, is fast becoming the leading literary and music gathering in all of Philadelphia. The festival organizers, who include the shadowy and reclusive Neal Pollack, invite you to the City Of Brotherly Love from October 17-20. The festival, which will be capped by a Saturday-night They Might Be Giants concert at the Electric Factory, also includes performances and appearances by, in roughly alphabetical order:
Jonathan Ames, The Bigger Lovers, Arthur Bradford, Judy Budnitz, Jennifer Egan, Dave Eggers, Jeffrey Eugenides, The Paul Green School of Rock, John Hodgman, Bob Holman, Gabe Hudson, Shelley Jackson, Ben Marcus, Meera Nair, Whitney Pastorek, Neal Pollack, Jim Roll, Ursula Rucker, Zadie Smith, Gilmore Tamny, Diane Vadino, and Sarah Vowell. For more information, visit the 215 Festival website at www.215festival.com.
-October 20
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
Joseph Fox Bookshop, 1724 Sansom Street
1:00 PM
Also, today I read some Oscar Wilde, and then some McSweeneys. Good times. Silly girl...I think I'll go back to my joyous pondering...such a fickle girl...i know not what to do with myself. |
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