If I’d been brave I would’ve looked him in the eye and said that I didn’t want to work with people who didn’t value my time but instead I waited and waited. Twenty minutes late the interview was, and there was I, perpetually early. But the best part of all was that I didn’t really want the job anyway, I found out that I’d gotten another job, a far better job, higher paying and in a college, a man from financial aid called to tell me about it an hour before I ventured out into the negative-five-wind-chill-factor Ohio afternoon. I decided to go to the interview anyway, I had already gussied myself up, ironed the suit and curled the hair, and to hell with them anyway. I knew they’d keep me waiting but I didn’t have to take them seriously, I didn’t have to give a fart about what they thought of me, and there was a delicious victory in knowing that but answering their stupid questions anyway.
Before he let me into the room with the questions and answers the secretary announced to him that I was there, that I had been waiting. He looked at her and said in the most condescending voice he could muster that he knew Ms. J was there, that he had seen me. He left for a trifle longer and the secretary looked at me and we each rolled our eyes and laughed and then he finally called my name, all formal-like, and I walked in wondering why we can’t at least be nice to each other on the surface. This is what the kids see, these meaningless little power struggles. So I answered their questions, knowing full well what an ass he was, thinking that he probably wasn’t listening anyway, and at the end I told a joke and everyone laughed. I got up and left, all of us smiling, and me thinking that I never fucking had to come back here.
Choosing what one does with oneself is a glorious and powerful thing.
*************************************
For the holidays I will be warm in spirit and in body because I am going to the Bahamas where the sun always shines, the seas are the color of fluorescent turquoise, and the rivers flow with milk and honey. And if ye are good, and love one another, I will post pictures of the magical tropics when I return. May you all write bravely on, in my absence.
20.12.05
14.12.05
That's the way the world ends,
Driving to Elyria this afternoon, to pick up the Honda, riding with my father in his truck, where the world is far away and everything is safe and put off for a time. Beyond the windows a desolate expanse of snow-covered corn fields, barren tree lines and rusted farm machinery slipped by, the lonely vistas of winter that only a native of these farmlands would find crushingly beautiful. We climb the hill over the train tracks and come upon several ambulances and fire trucks blocking the intersection where we're going to make a left. We slow with the rest of traffic, the grey sky weighing heavily on us all, and wait through a few changes of the light.
There is a truck off the side of the road in the snow-filled bank, there is also a car in the middle of the intersection and the entire front of it is completely smashed and ruined and as we make the turn to the left I peer into it and can see blood on the airbags and they're wheeling somebody away on a stretcher and their face is covered with a towel and I don't know if they're dead or alive or if it's a man or a woman. We continue on, to pick up the car, and the firemen and paramedics remain, to work on the dying, and the grey sky shows no sign of breaking up.
On the way back now, I'm in my car with dad following me in the truck, and I can see the lights of the ambulances off in the distance as I approach the intersection to make my way home. They've towed away the car since I've been gone and the State Patrol has arrived. And then there is a mighty gust of wind and snow like ice daggers are kicked into the air in cylindrical cones and there is only one thing that would make snow fly like that, and it's a helicopter. Its rotor comes into view, about 100 feet from where I'm sitting in my car waiting for the State Patrol to wave me on towards home. It hovers and turns and thinks about how its going to get its belly off the freezing ground for a few pregnant moments and then points its nose down and is gone. I watch it fly away and remember how Emily used to say that she says a little prayer when she hears the sirens of an ambulance, and I say a little prayer now, as I watch the helicopter glide through the grey sky with someone dying inside.
The State Patrol waves me on and I make the right towards home and I'm back into the vast expanses of Northern Ohio emptiness and I wonder how many deaths it takes for the paramedics to not cry. Five? Ten? The first one? And I think that I would have made a horrible paramedic because I would cry every time. And then I think a thought which is a stray, which comes from nowhere I can trace and leaves me without much explanation. I think that winter is the perfect time to die. But only in Northern Ohio, and only on a day like today, when the sky is grey and hovering low to the world and wondering whether it should release its snow on us or not.
not with a bang, but a whimper.
There is a truck off the side of the road in the snow-filled bank, there is also a car in the middle of the intersection and the entire front of it is completely smashed and ruined and as we make the turn to the left I peer into it and can see blood on the airbags and they're wheeling somebody away on a stretcher and their face is covered with a towel and I don't know if they're dead or alive or if it's a man or a woman. We continue on, to pick up the car, and the firemen and paramedics remain, to work on the dying, and the grey sky shows no sign of breaking up.
On the way back now, I'm in my car with dad following me in the truck, and I can see the lights of the ambulances off in the distance as I approach the intersection to make my way home. They've towed away the car since I've been gone and the State Patrol has arrived. And then there is a mighty gust of wind and snow like ice daggers are kicked into the air in cylindrical cones and there is only one thing that would make snow fly like that, and it's a helicopter. Its rotor comes into view, about 100 feet from where I'm sitting in my car waiting for the State Patrol to wave me on towards home. It hovers and turns and thinks about how its going to get its belly off the freezing ground for a few pregnant moments and then points its nose down and is gone. I watch it fly away and remember how Emily used to say that she says a little prayer when she hears the sirens of an ambulance, and I say a little prayer now, as I watch the helicopter glide through the grey sky with someone dying inside.
The State Patrol waves me on and I make the right towards home and I'm back into the vast expanses of Northern Ohio emptiness and I wonder how many deaths it takes for the paramedics to not cry. Five? Ten? The first one? And I think that I would have made a horrible paramedic because I would cry every time. And then I think a thought which is a stray, which comes from nowhere I can trace and leaves me without much explanation. I think that winter is the perfect time to die. But only in Northern Ohio, and only on a day like today, when the sky is grey and hovering low to the world and wondering whether it should release its snow on us or not.
not with a bang, but a whimper.
8.12.05
the dark veil.
You don't know when or how it started, the forgetting. One day it was easy to be cruel, one day you wanted to show them that they were stupid, that you were smart. Once you uttered the words, you realized that there was a time in the past that you wouldn't have recognized yourself.
Jaysus, you say in your head. Jaysus, in your always lilting commentary, what the feck hev I doon?
And still you can't help yourself. There is a big teacher, her face shows the wrinkles of a nearly constant hateful sneer, she is to be feared, she does not appear to be there for the wee children. In the office at the end of the day, casual conversation, she relates the story of the retribution enacted after a particularly raucous few days with a substitute. Me, the substitute. She tells me about the wee ones, fourteen referrals written up in all, Saturday school for most, a suspension for one, the verbal lashing, the destroying of smugness, the breaking, the breaking. Like an animal, I savor the particularly bloody morsels of her style of justice, remembering each wee one and their taunts (stupid, liar, liar, shut-up) and rejoicing in the news of their suffering.
Jaysus, Mary and St. Joseph. And who will suffer for the wee ones? Let ye who be without sin cast the first stone.
I'm standing in my coat and I'm suffocating, the smell of the school (pencil shavings and old carpet), the high-pitched chatter of the after school hangers-on, the florescent lights, the teachers, the yelling. And this woman's face and her telling me about the righteous suffering of the offenders. They are wild and we are to step on them, to crush them until there is no more resistance, until the path is made clear to them or until they are broken completely. My forehead is dotted with sweat and my eyes are swimming, drunk in the florescent hell of insecurity and unearned power. I hate the school, I hate the teachers, I hate the students, I hate the overpaid administrators who are never there anyway, I hate the system set up for failure. I run out as fast as I can and the cold outside hits my sweaty face like a ton of bricks.
'Tis a feckin waste. 'Tis a feckin Yank waste with the soul squished out flat with naught left but the steam of yer piss.
Aye, 'tis, 'tis.
*******************
I had a dream yesterday afternoon (I took a nap) and in the end I was drowning. It started out with some kids somehow and ended up with just me and this one kid, this little kid who used to come to the Saturday food distributions and who was probably seven years old but looked like a grown man of thirty squished into the body of a little boy. Too much worry for one so young. We were walking through an Ohio-type forest, looking for safety, it was raining and we were winding down a path that followed a swollen river. I misplaced a step and fell into the river, slow like, with enough time to look up and see the loss in his face as my head slipped below the surface. In the water all was warm and wet and mushy and I could scarcely move and I knew I was a goner. Take a moment to think, I thought, and clarity came upon me and I remembered someone once told me that in the end drowning is a peaceful way to go. I put my awareness on the top of my head and though to myself, okay, let's do this.
Here's to you, and here's to me, and here's to the both of us dying just like this.
Jaysus, you say in your head. Jaysus, in your always lilting commentary, what the feck hev I doon?
And still you can't help yourself. There is a big teacher, her face shows the wrinkles of a nearly constant hateful sneer, she is to be feared, she does not appear to be there for the wee children. In the office at the end of the day, casual conversation, she relates the story of the retribution enacted after a particularly raucous few days with a substitute. Me, the substitute. She tells me about the wee ones, fourteen referrals written up in all, Saturday school for most, a suspension for one, the verbal lashing, the destroying of smugness, the breaking, the breaking. Like an animal, I savor the particularly bloody morsels of her style of justice, remembering each wee one and their taunts (stupid, liar, liar, shut-up) and rejoicing in the news of their suffering.
Jaysus, Mary and St. Joseph. And who will suffer for the wee ones? Let ye who be without sin cast the first stone.
I'm standing in my coat and I'm suffocating, the smell of the school (pencil shavings and old carpet), the high-pitched chatter of the after school hangers-on, the florescent lights, the teachers, the yelling. And this woman's face and her telling me about the righteous suffering of the offenders. They are wild and we are to step on them, to crush them until there is no more resistance, until the path is made clear to them or until they are broken completely. My forehead is dotted with sweat and my eyes are swimming, drunk in the florescent hell of insecurity and unearned power. I hate the school, I hate the teachers, I hate the students, I hate the overpaid administrators who are never there anyway, I hate the system set up for failure. I run out as fast as I can and the cold outside hits my sweaty face like a ton of bricks.
'Tis a feckin waste. 'Tis a feckin Yank waste with the soul squished out flat with naught left but the steam of yer piss.
Aye, 'tis, 'tis.
*******************
I had a dream yesterday afternoon (I took a nap) and in the end I was drowning. It started out with some kids somehow and ended up with just me and this one kid, this little kid who used to come to the Saturday food distributions and who was probably seven years old but looked like a grown man of thirty squished into the body of a little boy. Too much worry for one so young. We were walking through an Ohio-type forest, looking for safety, it was raining and we were winding down a path that followed a swollen river. I misplaced a step and fell into the river, slow like, with enough time to look up and see the loss in his face as my head slipped below the surface. In the water all was warm and wet and mushy and I could scarcely move and I knew I was a goner. Take a moment to think, I thought, and clarity came upon me and I remembered someone once told me that in the end drowning is a peaceful way to go. I put my awareness on the top of my head and though to myself, okay, let's do this.
Here's to you, and here's to me, and here's to the both of us dying just like this.
5.12.05
suckerpunch.
This big goddamn kid, huge for his twelve years, unruly, belligerent, loud. Stupid. He has a place in most of the “special” ed classes in his junior high school, and more than likely he had a place in those “special” classes that they offered in his grade school, too. So many years of being special and dammit if he’s not insecure now. Dammit if he doesn’t have a shell three feet thick and tough as christ.
He has devised a way of mucking through the daily hell that is being the stupid kid in school; he is an outrageous and sometimes even violent clown. He pulls his nylon blue cap tight down around his afro, over his face, asks at the top of his lungs if he has the respect of the class literacy aide. And for a moment the teacher stops asking him to answer the question already and is busy yelling at the other kids to stop laughing. (Clown one, school zero.)
He is sad, he is pathetic, he is alone, he is someone who will never make it out of this working-class county in this working-class state, he will end up in jail with his uncle, his future does not belong to him anymore.
It’s freezing in the classroom, part of the board of education’s budget cuts. At the beginning of the school year they told the teachers to be tolerant of the cold this winter because it’s saving them five-thousand dollars. It’s the last period, it’s just the clown and another kid, just an easy and pointless worksheet to finish, one more day out of an impossible number of days, over. But not quite. The clown yells at the literacy aide, tells him to brush off his dirty shoes. He yells because I had asked him a question. Because he didn’t want to read. Because he is more insecure than I can ever possibly imagine. I sit down in the low chair next to him. I look him in the eye and I stare at him. He yells another pathetic joke. I stare at him still. He covers his face in his blue nylon cap again, pulling it tight, looking at me through the fibers. I stare where I know his eyes are. He looks away. Looks down at his worksheet. Pulls the cap halfway off and asks, in a very bossy and self-important voice, for help with the rest of the assignment.
The whole thing, from beginning to end, is a goddamn fucking shame.
He has devised a way of mucking through the daily hell that is being the stupid kid in school; he is an outrageous and sometimes even violent clown. He pulls his nylon blue cap tight down around his afro, over his face, asks at the top of his lungs if he has the respect of the class literacy aide. And for a moment the teacher stops asking him to answer the question already and is busy yelling at the other kids to stop laughing. (Clown one, school zero.)
He is sad, he is pathetic, he is alone, he is someone who will never make it out of this working-class county in this working-class state, he will end up in jail with his uncle, his future does not belong to him anymore.
It’s freezing in the classroom, part of the board of education’s budget cuts. At the beginning of the school year they told the teachers to be tolerant of the cold this winter because it’s saving them five-thousand dollars. It’s the last period, it’s just the clown and another kid, just an easy and pointless worksheet to finish, one more day out of an impossible number of days, over. But not quite. The clown yells at the literacy aide, tells him to brush off his dirty shoes. He yells because I had asked him a question. Because he didn’t want to read. Because he is more insecure than I can ever possibly imagine. I sit down in the low chair next to him. I look him in the eye and I stare at him. He yells another pathetic joke. I stare at him still. He covers his face in his blue nylon cap again, pulling it tight, looking at me through the fibers. I stare where I know his eyes are. He looks away. Looks down at his worksheet. Pulls the cap halfway off and asks, in a very bossy and self-important voice, for help with the rest of the assignment.
The whole thing, from beginning to end, is a goddamn fucking shame.
4.12.05
Rumi, for the remembering.
All day I think about it, then at night I say it.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
*************
We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.
They say there's no future for us. They're right.
Which is fine with us.
Where did I come from, and what am I supposed to be doing?
I have no idea.
My soul is from elsewhere, I'm sure of that,
and I intend to end up there.
This drunkenness began in some other tavern.
When I get back around to that place,
I'll be completely sober. Meanwhile,
I'm like a bird from another continent, sitting in this aviary.
The day is coming when I fly off,
but who is it now in my ear who hears my voice?
Who says words with my mouth?
Who looks out with my eyes? What is the soul?
I cannot stop asking.
If I could taste one sip of an answer,
I could break out of this prison for drunks.
I didn't come here of my own accord, and I can't leave that way.
Whoever brought me here will have to take me home.
This poetry. I never know what I'm going to say.
I don't plan it.
When I'm outside the saying of it,
I get very quiet and rarely speak at all.
*************
We have a huge barrel of wine, but no cups.
That's fine with us. Every morning
we glow and in the evening we glow again.
They say there's no future for us. They're right.
Which is fine with us.
30.11.05
I, Honda Mechanic.
If you read my last post, you'll know: I spent two days this week repairing my car's sick carburetor. It was like heart surgery, and I, I came out victorious! I took it all apart, replaced three gaskets, got it all back together, and the god damn thing started right back up. I am still in shock, everytime I start the car I'm waiting for it to die. But, to prove it to you, my two faithful readers, I took pictures:
It's kind of hard to see what's going on here, but this is the engine, with the carb halfway removed. All the red blips in the photo represent the complicated marking system I had to invent to deal with the RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED vacuum system. I labeled by using the alphabet, and I got up to the letter "v". Yeah.
This is the top half of the carb, the pinkish thing is one of the gaskets that I replaced. Can it really be this easy? Can I really have fixed the car?!! (Okay, okay, so it took me like ten hours to do, still, I'm amazed. I've never worked on a car before and those mechanics at the dealer made it sound like it'd be rocket science.)
Anyway, I came home feeling totally and completely victorious over machines, feeling like there was absolutely nothing that a man could do that I couldn't do (that's right, bitches), and so I played the few messages I had on the answering machine, and, I had a tentative job offer from the college! SWEET! Overly aware of the good luck I had stumbled upon, I locked myself up in my bathroom, drew a hot bath and read about 200 pages of the latest Harry Potter book. I figured the luck would have a hard time running out if I stayed inside.
So, I'm sending some good vibrations out into the nether spaces of the web, hoping my good luck will multiply and infect the lives of the readers of this here page (y'all know who you are).
It's kind of hard to see what's going on here, but this is the engine, with the carb halfway removed. All the red blips in the photo represent the complicated marking system I had to invent to deal with the RIDICULOUSLY COMPLICATED vacuum system. I labeled by using the alphabet, and I got up to the letter "v". Yeah.
This is the top half of the carb, the pinkish thing is one of the gaskets that I replaced. Can it really be this easy? Can I really have fixed the car?!! (Okay, okay, so it took me like ten hours to do, still, I'm amazed. I've never worked on a car before and those mechanics at the dealer made it sound like it'd be rocket science.) Anyway, I came home feeling totally and completely victorious over machines, feeling like there was absolutely nothing that a man could do that I couldn't do (that's right, bitches), and so I played the few messages I had on the answering machine, and, I had a tentative job offer from the college! SWEET! Overly aware of the good luck I had stumbled upon, I locked myself up in my bathroom, drew a hot bath and read about 200 pages of the latest Harry Potter book. I figured the luck would have a hard time running out if I stayed inside.
So, I'm sending some good vibrations out into the nether spaces of the web, hoping my good luck will multiply and infect the lives of the readers of this here page (y'all know who you are).
28.11.05
Gettin' my hands dirty.
Today my job was to replace all the gaskets in our carburetor. I didn't finish. I got about halfway done and it started raining and I feel like my back is broken and my ass hurts. I'm proud of how far I made it though... this was the first time I've ever worked on a car, and I did it alone. Now my hands smell like gas and they're kind of greasy and I think I'm really tough. :)
So, I'm lame for not posting anything during thanksgiving, like I said I would. It was small (a few factions failed to attend) and we ended up playing a ton of board games which was the most fun I've had for a very long time. (Although I think I'm too competitive.)
Okay though, here's the deal. I'm doing a poll. Everyone who reads this far into this post, vote by leaving a comment on what major I should pursue my master's in:
Communications
Criminal Justice
Education (Teaching)
or Pick Your Own that I Should Study
Thank you. My future awaits your decisions. That is all.
))<>((
So, I'm lame for not posting anything during thanksgiving, like I said I would. It was small (a few factions failed to attend) and we ended up playing a ton of board games which was the most fun I've had for a very long time. (Although I think I'm too competitive.)
Okay though, here's the deal. I'm doing a poll. Everyone who reads this far into this post, vote by leaving a comment on what major I should pursue my master's in:
Communications
Criminal Justice
Education (Teaching)
or Pick Your Own that I Should Study
Thank you. My future awaits your decisions. That is all.
))<>((
22.11.05
Bread and Snow
It was warm in the kitchen, if I had been a passer-by outside it would have looked orange inside, glowing, like walking home from shoveling sidewalks with Emily, the houses all lit up like christmas trees. We appreciate being inside so much more during winter. So I used the expansive morning to make a recipe for deluxe raisin bread and drank coffee did some algebra and contemplated the idea of winter; cold and grey and lonely and death. But we don't have to waste our time saying goodbye!
Yesterday I found myself subbing in an eighth grade math class. It was glorious. They were just discovering algebraic expressions, and I was trying to help them understand. The rules of math came back like riding a bike and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed what I was doing. I forgot that I like math. Or maybe it's just that I never fully discovered that I do. (Did anyone else have Mrs. Hamilton for high school algebra?!) So I didn't get called in this morning and so I went to the local library and checked out a couple algebra textbooks. I figure my foundation is a little weak, so why not reinforce it. It's never too late for renovation, right?
Maybe life is like the process of peeling away the layers of an onion. Maybe there's not supposed to be a great epiphany -- there's no gold hidden in the center of the bulb, just more layers of onion peel. Maybe the thing to do is to try and peel away as many layers as you can with the time you've got.
By the way, I'm blogging thanksgiving in realtime. Stay tuned all turkey day for photo updates of my crazy, crazy family. ;>
Yesterday I found myself subbing in an eighth grade math class. It was glorious. They were just discovering algebraic expressions, and I was trying to help them understand. The rules of math came back like riding a bike and I was amazed at how much I enjoyed what I was doing. I forgot that I like math. Or maybe it's just that I never fully discovered that I do. (Did anyone else have Mrs. Hamilton for high school algebra?!) So I didn't get called in this morning and so I went to the local library and checked out a couple algebra textbooks. I figure my foundation is a little weak, so why not reinforce it. It's never too late for renovation, right?
Maybe life is like the process of peeling away the layers of an onion. Maybe there's not supposed to be a great epiphany -- there's no gold hidden in the center of the bulb, just more layers of onion peel. Maybe the thing to do is to try and peel away as many layers as you can with the time you've got.
By the way, I'm blogging thanksgiving in realtime. Stay tuned all turkey day for photo updates of my crazy, crazy family. ;>
20.11.05
Rise like lions!
And then it dawned on me, at four o'clock in the morning, that all we ever are is alone, fragile, vulnerable, and the irony of it is that this is exactly why it's meaningful. I am a selfish wreck of an ego, and so are you, it's not the worst of all fates. It is a waking life, it is nothing if not resoundingly impermanent.
I had this dream last night that I was in love with a man who was horribly mean to me. I think we worked together. He was rude and insulting and beautiful and I had a huge crush on him. We worked in a school or something institutional. One day we had to go on a trip across a very large lake, so we found ourselves on this boat, like a ferry, we were sitting near each other on the open deck. It was overcast, cold, the water was choppy, there was this glorious danger about everything. He came over and sat next to me. He told me that he was in love with me but had a crippling fear of rejection which was why he was always so ridiculously angry. He had this menacing smile on his face when he was saying it. I woke up and I wished that I didn't have to move or breathe or think because the feeling I was left with was perfect, like complete satisfaction, like being hungry after a good long swim, you don't want to eat you just want to stay hungry. Like if there were a portal between this existence and the next THAT feeling would be the gateway. It would be like a magic-eye where you have to screw up your vision to see the picture; you would have to screw up your sensations to cross the void. The feeling of hunger and complete equanimity. Sympathetic joy?
****************************************
Rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in your sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many, they are few!
I had this dream last night that I was in love with a man who was horribly mean to me. I think we worked together. He was rude and insulting and beautiful and I had a huge crush on him. We worked in a school or something institutional. One day we had to go on a trip across a very large lake, so we found ourselves on this boat, like a ferry, we were sitting near each other on the open deck. It was overcast, cold, the water was choppy, there was this glorious danger about everything. He came over and sat next to me. He told me that he was in love with me but had a crippling fear of rejection which was why he was always so ridiculously angry. He had this menacing smile on his face when he was saying it. I woke up and I wished that I didn't have to move or breathe or think because the feeling I was left with was perfect, like complete satisfaction, like being hungry after a good long swim, you don't want to eat you just want to stay hungry. Like if there were a portal between this existence and the next THAT feeling would be the gateway. It would be like a magic-eye where you have to screw up your vision to see the picture; you would have to screw up your sensations to cross the void. The feeling of hunger and complete equanimity. Sympathetic joy?
****************************************
Rise like lions after slumber, in unvanquishable number, shake your chains to earth like dew, which in your sleep had fallen on you. Ye are many, they are few!
16.11.05
I feel like swearing. A lot.
We can take energy and turn it into matter, we can make electrons change from billiard balls to light waves we can make things dance and sing and pulsate and breathe, but damn if we don't know what happy is.
Watching this show last night, my favorite show, the main character has this mantra that he repeats to everyone to help him make decisions, "family comes first". And it's kind of a joke because the family is so fucking dysfunctional, but the decisions are all made as if that is the keystone to the whole thing. Family comes first. And we were sitting around last night and dad asks me if we're really moving back out west and where to and what for and when. And this big fucking elephant came crashing in through the northern window of the room and sat down right on my chest. I bit back some tears (soldier through it) and tried to not talk about it, went to check my email. And I realized, maybe for the first time, that I'm not entirely happy with the idea of moving back out west.
No, Ohio does not make me happy, but, can a place? I really don't know, can it?
I had these opposing visions of the desperation of the west, and of the desperation of this town. Is it better to be unhappy when you're surrounded by the people who you love most in the world?
What is the purpose of any of this.
Alarming, maybe, but I'll figure it out. I usually do. But god dammit if cigarettes weren't bad for you I would dedicate myself to smoking. I would be a professional fucking smoker and I would write a scientific paper using the hypothesis that nicotine is a gateway drug for creativity. For insecurity, for boredom, for hunger, for emptiness. Me and you and everybody else, we'd all light up.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, friends.
Watching this show last night, my favorite show, the main character has this mantra that he repeats to everyone to help him make decisions, "family comes first". And it's kind of a joke because the family is so fucking dysfunctional, but the decisions are all made as if that is the keystone to the whole thing. Family comes first. And we were sitting around last night and dad asks me if we're really moving back out west and where to and what for and when. And this big fucking elephant came crashing in through the northern window of the room and sat down right on my chest. I bit back some tears (soldier through it) and tried to not talk about it, went to check my email. And I realized, maybe for the first time, that I'm not entirely happy with the idea of moving back out west.
No, Ohio does not make me happy, but, can a place? I really don't know, can it?
I had these opposing visions of the desperation of the west, and of the desperation of this town. Is it better to be unhappy when you're surrounded by the people who you love most in the world?
What is the purpose of any of this.
Alarming, maybe, but I'll figure it out. I usually do. But god dammit if cigarettes weren't bad for you I would dedicate myself to smoking. I would be a professional fucking smoker and I would write a scientific paper using the hypothesis that nicotine is a gateway drug for creativity. For insecurity, for boredom, for hunger, for emptiness. Me and you and everybody else, we'd all light up.
Smoke 'em if you got 'em, friends.
7.11.05
Morning sit this afternoon.
"Are you afraid?"
"Actually, I was just wondering that. And I guess I think I am."
"Of what?"
"Well, I'm not sure really, life I guess. Of life. But that sounds vague and annoying and doesn't seem completely true."
"Can you clarify?"
"Hm, I was thinking about the future, I guess. These anxieties always start with thinking about the future. And I started to think that everyone I know will die, including me. And I had this feeling, like I was missing something. Like there's a purpose or a sense of participation to life that I'm worried I'm missing. Like everyone else has this feeling but me. And there's no way I'd ever really be able to know that I'm not missing it."
"Like those dreams you sometimes have where all of a sudden it's the middle of the school year and you have completely forgotten to attend a class and midterms are coming up and you know you'll fail it."
"Exactly. Exactly. I guess I'm just afraid of waking up some morning at age 62 and slapping myself in the head for not getting it. For not understanding life's purpose for the entire duration. Afraid that the realization will come too late."
"The frustration of not being able to make the magic-eye turn 3D."
"Goddamn, yes. But it's all bullshit though. God, this is what's most frustrating. I can understand, intellectually, that life is just crazy abstract. That you can't think about it as a whole movement, as something with rational stages. It's just a bunch of fragments and moments and thoughts and boredom, whatever. It's the breaths that slip in and out of the body, unnoticed. But I can't let the anxiety go. I can't take that understanding and pull it down to the body and understand it unequivocally. I still feel like everyone but me was born with a 'Life for Dummies' manual."
"You worry too much, you know? If you ask me, you've done okay these past 26 years."
"Yeah, you're probably right. I am the product of an entitled culture. We're probably all plugged into computers somewhere and this is just some silly artifical reality that doesn't mean anything anyway."
"Here we go...."
...........................................
All this and I was supposed to be meditating. Shut the mind up.
"Actually, I was just wondering that. And I guess I think I am."
"Of what?"
"Well, I'm not sure really, life I guess. Of life. But that sounds vague and annoying and doesn't seem completely true."
"Can you clarify?"
"Hm, I was thinking about the future, I guess. These anxieties always start with thinking about the future. And I started to think that everyone I know will die, including me. And I had this feeling, like I was missing something. Like there's a purpose or a sense of participation to life that I'm worried I'm missing. Like everyone else has this feeling but me. And there's no way I'd ever really be able to know that I'm not missing it."
"Like those dreams you sometimes have where all of a sudden it's the middle of the school year and you have completely forgotten to attend a class and midterms are coming up and you know you'll fail it."
"Exactly. Exactly. I guess I'm just afraid of waking up some morning at age 62 and slapping myself in the head for not getting it. For not understanding life's purpose for the entire duration. Afraid that the realization will come too late."
"The frustration of not being able to make the magic-eye turn 3D."
"Goddamn, yes. But it's all bullshit though. God, this is what's most frustrating. I can understand, intellectually, that life is just crazy abstract. That you can't think about it as a whole movement, as something with rational stages. It's just a bunch of fragments and moments and thoughts and boredom, whatever. It's the breaths that slip in and out of the body, unnoticed. But I can't let the anxiety go. I can't take that understanding and pull it down to the body and understand it unequivocally. I still feel like everyone but me was born with a 'Life for Dummies' manual."
"You worry too much, you know? If you ask me, you've done okay these past 26 years."
"Yeah, you're probably right. I am the product of an entitled culture. We're probably all plugged into computers somewhere and this is just some silly artifical reality that doesn't mean anything anyway."
"Here we go...."
...........................................
All this and I was supposed to be meditating. Shut the mind up.
31.10.05
We are all skeletons on the inside
The sun was shining through the yellow and orange leaves still clinging to the sweet gum trees whose branches press against our upstairs windows. The effect was beautiful; the whole of the upstairs looked like the inside of a Japanese paper lantern for about twenty glorious minutes this morning. And I wished that I had Emily's brain to be able to capture it on film. But I didn't, so I tried to enjoy it while it lasted.
It's Halloween, people! This is one of the most magical days on the calendar, the air is spiced with rotted leaves and burnt pumpkins and it's okay for you to go up to a stranger's door, knock, and ask them for free candy. I love this day. I always think of walking up the deserted part of Morgan Street with Emily and Libby, the creepy stretch to our grandparents' house, the crunch of fallen leaves under our decorated feet. And the song The Monster Mash, that would always play on the radio as soon as we made it into our grandparents' house. And the fact that they lived right in front of the cemetery, and Halloween was the one day where that was cool and not a liability.
And what do skeletons like to do? They like to dance.
It's Halloween, people! This is one of the most magical days on the calendar, the air is spiced with rotted leaves and burnt pumpkins and it's okay for you to go up to a stranger's door, knock, and ask them for free candy. I love this day. I always think of walking up the deserted part of Morgan Street with Emily and Libby, the creepy stretch to our grandparents' house, the crunch of fallen leaves under our decorated feet. And the song The Monster Mash, that would always play on the radio as soon as we made it into our grandparents' house. And the fact that they lived right in front of the cemetery, and Halloween was the one day where that was cool and not a liability.
And what do skeletons like to do? They like to dance.
29.10.05
A Nikon and cigarettes
Nightime in Philadelphia. Here for a long weekend, and extended break, a trip, an adventure. Patrick is attending a conference on experiential education and I, well, I suppose I am a tourist. I am posting again, after a long absence. I return to you disgruntled, disaffected, unenlightened and in the midst of a mid-life crisis at the age of 26. This is a journey, or maybe it's a hunt, or perhaps, and more likely, an awakening. It's good to be back.
This one is for the children
Carl Steinberg had become one of those men for whom it was possible to have a mid-life crisis without ever being fully aware of it. His forty-three years on earth had been very comfortable. His parents were so satisfied by his birth that they decided to have no more children. He lived with them for his first 14 years quite happily, and became a thoroughly spoiled child. It had long been understood that Carl would become a college professor just like his mother and father (who taught economics and law, respectively), and so during his 15th year he was sent away to a private prepatory school, thus beginning his long yet not very arduous journey of ivy-league education. Carl found himself studying as an undergraduate at Yale University during the height of anti-war sentiment in the 1960s. Wanting to belong, but not wanting to rock the boat, he decided to stage a protest of his own; he became an English major and declared his desire to teach English at the college level, instead of choosing architecture, the more practical course of study that his parents had chosen for him. Much to his dismay no one seemed to care what he studied -- he wasn't even sure that his parents had noticed the change in curriculum on the report cards he sent home. And for the first time in his life, Carl had the fleeting suspicion that he was not "the captain of the ship", as they say. That perhaps there was no captain at all.
The next twenty or so years of his life passed like clockwork; he graduated from Yale with honors, and went on to study at Cambridge and received his doctorate in the literature of the English Renaissance, and after a brief tour of Europe he accepted an assistant professorship in the English department of a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Like most whose lives are planned far in advance, he grew fat and sluggish and rather boring, but was quite contented with his station in life. The gears were well oiled, the clockwork never broke down, and life went efficiently by.
To be continued.
The next twenty or so years of his life passed like clockwork; he graduated from Yale with honors, and went on to study at Cambridge and received his doctorate in the literature of the English Renaissance, and after a brief tour of Europe he accepted an assistant professorship in the English department of a small liberal arts college in the Midwest. Like most whose lives are planned far in advance, he grew fat and sluggish and rather boring, but was quite contented with his station in life. The gears were well oiled, the clockwork never broke down, and life went efficiently by.
To be continued.
4.5.05
23.3.05
The jig is up!
My candle burns at both ends,
it will not last the night.
But ah my foes, and oh my friends,
it gives a lovely light.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
...................................................
So, it’s gotten really negative, hasn’t it? There’s a war being waged, people dying over oil, over something that we should have evolved beyond years ago anyway. A war to pave the way for the government’s brothers and sisters to set up lucrative contracts rebuilding what was destroyed, or what never was (I heard that there’s a Pizza Hut in Fallujah). With its right hand Congress is making moves to severely debilitate Medicaid benefits, and with its left it’s trying to force legislation to keep a brain dead woman alive, a woman whose family relies on Medicaid to pay for her daily observation and life-support equipment. The average CEO makes 360 times what the average laborer makes, WalMart stores are popping up like monsoon frogs, and lawmakers are laying the bricks to make a move towards a future ban on abortion. Racism, poverty, inequality, the brazilification of our entire society.
There is so much negativity, it will swallow us up if we don’t watch our backs, it will consume us whole. And it nearly got me.
I can’t continue to add to the downward spiral, the cynicism, and the constant critique of nothing. Friends, this is my last blog. I wish you all health and happiness!
Peace,
-Anne
xoxox
it will not last the night.
But ah my foes, and oh my friends,
it gives a lovely light.
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
...................................................
So, it’s gotten really negative, hasn’t it? There’s a war being waged, people dying over oil, over something that we should have evolved beyond years ago anyway. A war to pave the way for the government’s brothers and sisters to set up lucrative contracts rebuilding what was destroyed, or what never was (I heard that there’s a Pizza Hut in Fallujah). With its right hand Congress is making moves to severely debilitate Medicaid benefits, and with its left it’s trying to force legislation to keep a brain dead woman alive, a woman whose family relies on Medicaid to pay for her daily observation and life-support equipment. The average CEO makes 360 times what the average laborer makes, WalMart stores are popping up like monsoon frogs, and lawmakers are laying the bricks to make a move towards a future ban on abortion. Racism, poverty, inequality, the brazilification of our entire society.
There is so much negativity, it will swallow us up if we don’t watch our backs, it will consume us whole. And it nearly got me.
I can’t continue to add to the downward spiral, the cynicism, and the constant critique of nothing. Friends, this is my last blog. I wish you all health and happiness!
Peace,
-Anne
xoxox
22.3.05
Ostara
Spring is slowly, slowly creeping into the corners of northeast Ohio. It’s been a long winter and even the tiniest sliver of sunlight fills me with anticipation; and today there’s not even one cloud in the sky! I’m skipping lunch and I’m going for a run, reuniting with the kid I used to be, the one who would spend the entire recess at Prospect doing back flips on the big double slide. Play time!
And also, I bought a guitar over the weekend… (Rock star photos to follow.)
This weekend Patrick and I finally raked the entire back yard, and deposited the accumulated mass of leaves into our newly built compost structure. I have never seen as muddy a back yard as I saw on Saturday. Shame on us! Our punishment for putting off the task for the entire winter is that now we’ll have to plant grass seed. (Which needed to be done anyway.)
But, the leaves had already begun to decompose. Even through the freezing cold. Some of them were translucent, some of them looked as if they had been petrified, there were big fat earthworms and seedpods from the few sweet gum trees. At the end of the raking I was exhausted and instead of using the shovel to move the piles upon piles of leaves I plunged my hands in, and moved fistfuls. The smell was amazing; it was wet and earthy and dark and like thick roots dug up and covered with Ohio clay. And reminded me of the forest on Evergreen’s campus, and the path to the Organic Farm.
I think I might form an Open Spaces Coalition of my own.
And also, I bought a guitar over the weekend… (Rock star photos to follow.)
This weekend Patrick and I finally raked the entire back yard, and deposited the accumulated mass of leaves into our newly built compost structure. I have never seen as muddy a back yard as I saw on Saturday. Shame on us! Our punishment for putting off the task for the entire winter is that now we’ll have to plant grass seed. (Which needed to be done anyway.)
But, the leaves had already begun to decompose. Even through the freezing cold. Some of them were translucent, some of them looked as if they had been petrified, there were big fat earthworms and seedpods from the few sweet gum trees. At the end of the raking I was exhausted and instead of using the shovel to move the piles upon piles of leaves I plunged my hands in, and moved fistfuls. The smell was amazing; it was wet and earthy and dark and like thick roots dug up and covered with Ohio clay. And reminded me of the forest on Evergreen’s campus, and the path to the Organic Farm.
I think I might form an Open Spaces Coalition of my own.
18.3.05
My lunchtime story.
Today I had lunch at the burrito bar with a few people. We got our burritos, and took the table next to the rack with all of the hot sauce, napkins, and silverware. About fifteen minutes into my lunch (the burritos are huge) a college students walks in, gets in line. I don’t take much notice, because someone is telling a funny story.
So, sometime later this same college student has made his way over to the hot sauce rack with his freshly rolled burrito. It is then that I really take notice of him.
He was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, and a pair of levis that were falling down around his hips, you know, the way the kids used to wear them, drooped. Except the problem was that the guy wasn’t wearing any underwear. Nothing. Nada. His pale but phenomenally hairy ass was hanging out of his pants for everyone to see. And I mean everyone; kids, old ladies, me. It was an equal opportunity horror. He was shaking his shit around like it was happy hour and we were in some tropic locale. It amazes me that he didn’t feel the cold air caressing his exposed cheeks, but now that I think back, maybe he didn’t notice because his exposed parts were completely covered in coarse, thick ass-hair. Or maybe he did notice, which is even more disturbing.
Suffice it to say that I didn’t finish my lunch. Jesus Christ. I wish I had taken my camera.
So, sometime later this same college student has made his way over to the hot sauce rack with his freshly rolled burrito. It is then that I really take notice of him.
He was wearing a leather motorcycle jacket, and a pair of levis that were falling down around his hips, you know, the way the kids used to wear them, drooped. Except the problem was that the guy wasn’t wearing any underwear. Nothing. Nada. His pale but phenomenally hairy ass was hanging out of his pants for everyone to see. And I mean everyone; kids, old ladies, me. It was an equal opportunity horror. He was shaking his shit around like it was happy hour and we were in some tropic locale. It amazes me that he didn’t feel the cold air caressing his exposed cheeks, but now that I think back, maybe he didn’t notice because his exposed parts were completely covered in coarse, thick ass-hair. Or maybe he did notice, which is even more disturbing.
Suffice it to say that I didn’t finish my lunch. Jesus Christ. I wish I had taken my camera.
I don't like petroleum, either.
I like movies. I tend to watch them a lot, the good and the bad, and I tend to have strong opinions about them. So, if you noticed, I’ve added a “recently screened” list to my profile. And maybe, just maybe, when I’m really bored, I’ll make a separate page of reviews, and link it to the recently screened list.
Having said that, I watched I Heart Huckabees last night. If you haven’t seen it you should really watch it. Especially if you received a liberal arts degree. Especially if you have ever been captivated by philosophy or the English language, or have secretly enjoyed an awkward moment with a stranger (you pervert, you). It’s funny, it’s witty, it will affect you, and hell, it has Mark Wahlberg. And he wears a firefighter’s uniform.
Have you seen it? What did you think?
Having said that, I watched I Heart Huckabees last night. If you haven’t seen it you should really watch it. Especially if you received a liberal arts degree. Especially if you have ever been captivated by philosophy or the English language, or have secretly enjoyed an awkward moment with a stranger (you pervert, you). It’s funny, it’s witty, it will affect you, and hell, it has Mark Wahlberg. And he wears a firefighter’s uniform.
Have you seen it? What did you think?
17.3.05
Happy day, Patrick!
I have the coolest husband, ever. And on this, his namesake day, I thought I’d tell everybody who stumbles across this blog about it. We met about five years ago, in between years of college, when I was his supervisor at a summer job. I was naughty and assigned him to every job that I knew I’d be working, because I had a crush on him. Early on in our courtship he asked me if I had ever experienced “the lion”. I blushed profusely, as I tend to do, and soon came to realize that Patrick is a crazy perverted bastard.
But that’s part of the appeal.
We broke up a couple of times along the way, partly due to the fact that we are two of the most stubborn people I know. But the ego has a way of deteriorating with time (if you work at it) so we always ended up gratefully back together.
Then one spring day, as we were taking a walk through our neighborhood, we decided to get married. So we did, last October. And our relationship keeps getting stronger, deeper, more fluid with every passing day. (Sorry about the sap, everyone, but we wouldn’t have Maple Syrup were it not for the sap!) Sometimes he becomes an extension of my consciousness and I his, and I can’t remember if we’re husband and wife or brother and sister or if each one is each…
Patrick is the only man I’ve ever known who has encouraged me to shave my head bald. He’s the only guy I’ve met who is a better feminist than I am. Patrick wishes I wouldn’t wear makeup. He thinks my biceps are sexy. He boils water for me to fill up our giant bathtub when I take an hour-long bath and the water gets cold. He doesn’t accept “no” or “I can’t” and he’s the only person who has consistently been able to challenge my notions of right and wrong without being condescending or self-righteous.
So, Patrick, happy day, I am so lucky to be married to you!
But that’s part of the appeal.
We broke up a couple of times along the way, partly due to the fact that we are two of the most stubborn people I know. But the ego has a way of deteriorating with time (if you work at it) so we always ended up gratefully back together.
Then one spring day, as we were taking a walk through our neighborhood, we decided to get married. So we did, last October. And our relationship keeps getting stronger, deeper, more fluid with every passing day. (Sorry about the sap, everyone, but we wouldn’t have Maple Syrup were it not for the sap!) Sometimes he becomes an extension of my consciousness and I his, and I can’t remember if we’re husband and wife or brother and sister or if each one is each…
Patrick is the only man I’ve ever known who has encouraged me to shave my head bald. He’s the only guy I’ve met who is a better feminist than I am. Patrick wishes I wouldn’t wear makeup. He thinks my biceps are sexy. He boils water for me to fill up our giant bathtub when I take an hour-long bath and the water gets cold. He doesn’t accept “no” or “I can’t” and he’s the only person who has consistently been able to challenge my notions of right and wrong without being condescending or self-righteous.
So, Patrick, happy day, I am so lucky to be married to you!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
