Your mutter is like somebody else's banshee scream.

Mike said this to me during staff meeting today.

That is all.

That Darn Cat

Yes, I know it should read "damn." I just couldn't bring myself to be that violent in a title. And I think you all know exactly what feline I'm referring to. Damn cat indeed.

In a breakthrough of astronomical proportions, I've quit moping over certain male specimens of the human population, mostly because it produces really crappy poetry. Instead, I am going to focus on the happy. The following is the beginning of a list. Feel free to contribute.

1. Super Amazing Mixes (by Sven) which invariably include "Title and Registration" by Death Cab for Cutie and "I'd Rather Dance with You" by Kings of Convenience.

2. While we're on music, "Common People" as sung by. . . William Shatner. Completely serious. He's backed up by Joe Johnson, but still. I'll let you all have a listen next april.

3. april.

4. April.

5. Trashy magazines that somehow make me feel both superior and a new conviction that I don't have to spend more than 34 minutes on my appearance. Unless I'm styling my hair, in which case there is no such thing as a time limit.

6. Unearthing my best DI find ever--a compilation of five of Jack Weyland's made-for-brainwashed-teens novels, including A New Dawn, which is about a female student at Princeton who discovers an equation that basically explains the whole universe--something Einstein couldn't do--but then becomes too popular and has to find somewhere to hide out for a while. And where does she go? BYU, of course. And what does she do there? Major in musical education, fall in love with a cowboy-ish figure, and win the Nobel Prize, of course. I'm surprised you had to ask.

7. London in. . . I haven't started a countdown yet. But it comes after three, I think. We'll be living in Manson Place and spending an unhealthy amount of time in the Tate Modern. Or at least I will be.

8. Okay, forget it. My poetry is still crap because I'm still a little melted after some choice encounters with a certain young man who attends "the school on the other side of the point."

9. The tub that I'm going to go clean after I finish this rambling post.

10. My new London friends--meaning students going to London with my study abroad. The best moment was today when Whitney told me she wouldn't mind roomming with me. Which means I'm not the nasty-alientating type of TA. Hooray.

Rambling and running out of steam are not a good combination. I think I'll let you go now. (yay for HMP posts)

Cheers, sej

iocaine powder

I don't know if I spelled that correctly. What's more, I don't know if I care if I spelled that correctly.

my world has decided to spin out of orbit. this is not a poem, nor an attempt to mimic the great oh!resolution. i just feel like lower-casing everything. makes it seems less confrontational.

chad is not engaged. i'm going to england. today was a great staff meeting. i am now working 25 hours a week, plus inscape, plus april/fad, plus class, plus class, plus class. and i don't want to drop anything, but something has to drop and i'm hoping that something isn't me.

i'm playing chad's demo cd tonight. my roommate who knows me the best noted that it's rarely a good thing when i'm listening to chad's cd. but she finally figured out why i do it--it's like iocaine powder. i'm trying to build up an immunity to it and to chad and to the past and to everything else. my life is so good right now, but it's dropping away from me. undergrad is almost over. and knowing where i'm going to grad school isn't enough to couch my future in.

is anyone else terrified?

The Play's the Thing

I love the theatre. This obsession began in 2002 when I overdosed on plays during a little thing I like to call "The Dean and Gideon Show in London," aka the Theatre in London study abroad. So when my friend reminded me to check out the show he was directing at the Alpine Playhouse, I was so there.

The show was "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and I thought Josh did a brilliant job. There were times when it felt as if the entire play was coming from Josh's personality and experience, and other times when the play actually lived. Most of those times came when Puck was on stage. Played by an AFHS student, Puck created some of the most beautiful and funniest moments of the play. His final monologue was perfectly lit and the silver glitter he had spread over the stage earlier was reflecting from his hair and it was perfect.

It was only later, when I was driving back to P-town with my roommate, and analyzing the play when I realized two things. One, that AMND is about sex and sexuality and sexual tension, of which there was very little in this production. I was commenting on the exchange between Puck and the fairy, which I personally think is best played with some tension between the two. In this production it was treated like a child's argument, with Puck teasing the fairy. It bugged. Reason for this choice, and the other choices in the play? Utah Valley perhaps? Survey says: eh. The real reason is that Josh is a very good young man recently returned from a mission who gets a little queasy at the thought of a hug. And though he's had some excellent kisses on stage, off stage his love life hasn't really happened post-mish.

Second realization. I love theatre, but I always come away feeling somewhat empty. Why is that? I was debating that it's because I don't have a way to transfer the emotion created by the play, but I have this (aka writing). Maybe it's that I don't have a physical outlet. Maybe it's that I'm jealous that performing artists at least get to display their talent to their friends and family--most people who fall in that category for me don't want to read anything more than the most superficial of articles and they definitely don't want to hear about my theories re: contemporary anything.

I'm hoping grad school will provide an outlet. But I've decided to stay at BYU for my masters, and will that really change anything? When do the writers get to be heard? Especially if we're not looking to be the next Jack Weyland or Anita Stansfield, John Grisham or. . . I've run out of steam. Why do we do this? Why do we write? Because if it's for acclaim, we might as well stop. And now there will be many philosophical and slightly self-righteous postings about how we have to write, which is the right answer according to Leslie Norris. But is that the answer? Why do we write? Is it creation? And does it count if nobody is around to appreciate it?

Misinterpretation

Hello. I was feeling a tad guilty that I haven't written anything lately. Wait. Let's revise that. I was feeling a tad guilty that I haven't written a blog lately. I've been writing enough to publish a book. A very boring one, but a book nonetheless.

So, thought of the evening, not about poetry (insert gasp here). Tonight I was treated very respectfully by a guy and it surprised me. Not that the men of april are disrespectful, or most other men that I associate with, but this one surprised me. It was almost enough to distract me from trying to decide what to wear when I present at the AML conference on Saturday.

Any opinions?