I should do this more than once a week.

The last minutes of Sunday and I finally feel up to writing.

I was checking my blog, K's blog, the guy who reads K's blog's blog, thinking about Bennion's ever-expanding explanation of webs and connections and wondering how the broken fit into the web, when a spider descended inches from my eyes. I watched it descend, pause, and begin its ascension (and it's a pity no one from Kim's 519 reads this blog because this image is so AA's cheeky yet imagined piece of work). I was on the brink of a Charlotte's Web moment, began talking to the spider, complimenting its thin legs, its dexterity, when I realized what would happen should the spider return for another chat with the roommate present. The roommate who is deathly afraid of spiders. So I excused myself from our conversation, grabbed some toilet paper, and put one of us out of our misery.

tension

or lack thereof. not in my life. my poetry. which apparently results in crappy poetry and lowercased blog entries. anyways, i'm offering up the following for diagnosis.

Market: Florence, Italy

A pig is speaking
our wishes.

It doesn’t matter
if you whispered it
one wish
or twenty

it remembers them,
sends them running
out of its lips

left to be collected
by streetsweepers at dawn.

fine

I am not fine. And I am about to write a blog that will later go down as "too honest" or simply "too much," but this is the next in a long line of remedies.

I've been seriously depressed for the past month--I've been depressed since I was 11, but never this severely. This time there hasn't been a solution or a repreive, although I am working on that with a doctor, a psychologist, and (in the near future) a psychiatrist. There are moments when I feel like myself--like Sarah or even like eg--when I'm teaching every morning, when I spent a day with my cousin Meghan, and one night when I couldn't stop writing poetry that I finally looked at again today. It's actually not too bad. The poetry, not the depression. The depression never leaves and I find myself taking odd opportunities to get emotional: crying, raging, pretending I don't exist.

Today is actually the one month mark. I know the day this started. It was the day I pulled my last all-nighter, attempting to bring my thesis to a level worthy of defense. I worked frantically all day, all night, all day. And in the end, I came up short. I haven't touched my thesis since then, which I know is weak but I also know that it gives me a headache, among other undesirable side effects. It was also the day Abby was born. She's beautiful, perfect. And I didn't want to admit to my failure in the middle of the celebration. So I waited. And when I finally allowed myself to wallow in my third-year grad student status, I couldn't stop wallowing. I haven't stopped. I haven't written much, excepting that one night of manic poetics.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this, other than the responsibility I feel to those who read or used to read this blog. Most of you are friends, some of you my most important friends. I'm sorry if I've somehow let you down this month. I promise I'm trying to make it better.

Happiness is

buying twenty-three books for $37. And most of them are poetry. In the name of celebration (and bragging rights), I will now list my new friends. In alphabetic order.

Bang, Mary Jo. The Downstream Extremity of the Isle of Swans.
Brodsky, Joseph. Conversations. Ed. Cynthia L. Haven.
Brown, Lee Ann. The Sleep That Changed Everything.
Clary, Killarney. Potential Stranger.
Davidson, Chad. Consolation Miracle.
Eady, Cornelius. Brutal Imagination.
Fried, Michael. The Next Bend in the Road.
Levin, Phillis. The Afterimage.
Morgan, Frederick. The One Abiding.
Pavese, Cesare. Disaffections: Complete Poems 1930-1950. Trans. Geoffrey Brock.
Pratt, Minnie Bruce. The Dirt She Ate: Selected and New Poems.
Ratiner, Steven (ed.). Giving Their Word: Conversations with Contemporary Poets.
Redel, Victoria. Swoon.
Rubin, Steven J. (ed.) Celebrating the Jewish Holidays: Poems, Stories, Essays.
Shaw, Robert B. Solving for X.
Sholl, Betsy. Late Psalm.
Transtromer, Tomas. The Half-Finished Heaven. Trans. Robert Bly.
Ungaretti, Giuseppe. Selected Poems. Trans. Andrew Frisardi.
Wieseltier, Meir. The Flower of Anarchy: Selected Poems. Trans. Shirley Kaufman.

Additionally I bought The Spirit of Terrorism by Baudrillard, Reporting the Universe by Doctorow, an edited series of essays on Jewish American and Holocaust Literature, and a small book titled Grand Canyon Place Names by--ready for this--McNamee.

Can life get any better than this? I submit that it cannot.

collaboration and charisma

Yesterday's blogging was fun. I forgot that blogging was fun. But picking up Grover's idea and wreaking poetic havoc with it was . . . fun. I like working with other people, or at least other people's ideas. Last year's "Light" show was fantastic: trading ideas back and forth with Zack, rearranging my language to work with his art, finding elements of his art that created new language. He probably thought I was crazy, but I had fun. And last night my favorite Jim called to tell me that there's the possibility of a new collaboration this semester, working with the artist AA worked with in the Light show. This artist does funky cool plaster heads--that isn't the right way to describe it, but I'll post pictures if I ever can.

In other news, Possession and The Goodbye Girl. I've read Possession once a year since the contemporary Brit lit class that introduced it to me. It's the story of two academics discovering and unraveling the story of an affair between two Victorian poets. But it's more than that. Lit theory, poetry, essay, language. It's fascinating. As is the film The Goodbye Girl, but for different reasons. The writing is still brilliant, just a different kind of brilliant. Witty and romantically-inclined and hilarious. And Richard Dreyfuss. So you should watch it. Seriously.

Synchronicity, or Fall is Coming

A brilliant essayist, who still resides in my mind as Grover, posted a beautiful piece yesterday, endnoted with the comment "This is how an essayist writes this. How would a poet do it?" I'm not sure if this is a partial answer to his question, but his post woke me up. Since that hasn't happened in a long time, here is my (rough) take on his essay.

A Poem after "Synchronicity, or Fall is Coming"

Buried at your heart
is October, refusing
to line up and pass neatly by
with other months.
You will avoid the frost of February,
the sweat of August--
October's campfire clings to your hair
and the marching of ghosts and goblins
accompany your steps.

Fall is coming. We hold hands
against the cold, bracing ourselves
for the flames.

eg, girl genius

Okay. Story time.

I bought an insanely expensive hair straightener/curler, mostly because I can't say "no" to people I know when they ask if I want to buy something. The good thing is, I love this little appliance. It heats up fast, it does nice messy curls, etc. Life is good. Or life was good until one day it decided to quit on me.

I sent it back, got a new one. Life is good again. Until last night, when I'm trying to turn it on and it just won't work. Again. The sadness, the despair, the pure frustration which has been building ever since I drove through campus on the first day of classes. I gave up yesterday, until this morning when I decide to have hope. I plug it in, turn it on. Nothing. I try seven different things, and am ready to throw in the towel, when I glance at the label "Do not something something Dryer." I had plugged in my hair dryer, not the straightener/curler. I found the plug for the instrument I wanted, plugged it in, and voila. I got back to damaging my hair.

where was I?

My alarm went off at 7:00 this morning, which means I was out of bed around 8:25--just enough time to get ready for 9:00 church. I ran out the door, a bit apprehensive because today is the day they kick some people out and bring new people in. I don't like change. It's taken me two years to get used to this ward. And now the rumor is that the male/female ratio will now be 1:1. I suppose I should be ecstatic. I'm not. I'm annoyed.

Anyway, out of bed 8:25. Out the door by 8:50. I arrive at the chuch just a few minutes later and notice a sign on the door of our usual chapel announcing a ward that's not mine. So I walk upstairs to the appropriately-named upper chapel--another ward that's not mine. I'll spare you the details that should be between this discovery and the discovery that my ward is not only changing people, we're changing time this week. To 12:30. In the afternoon.

There are few words, and none of them appropriate.

in 20 minutes

three people are going to decide my fate for the next year.

No, it's not the defense.

It's the meeting where they discuss their "serious reservations" regarding the defense.



What the hell was I thinking?

losing my mind (again)

the evidence

1. I have started responding verbally to the questions my chair has written on the draft of my thesis. I've also scribbled answers on the pages before writing the revision. The most common answer has been "Fine dammit."

how I will celebrate the returns of Sven and Kapka

1. Drinking Apple Beer.
2. Letting my students watch an entire episode of The Office.
3. Buying Circumstance. (K and I already have the Pomp taken care of.)

losing my mind

The evidence:

1. Yesterday I ordered a pizza. I kept working on my thesis at my kitchen table, which happens to be near the front door. I forgot about said pizza, becoming engrossed in the archival mess of contemporary American poetry. Almost an hour passes. There's a sudden banging on the door. I scream. And then laugh, awkwardly, because I think it must be my sister or someone I know. I answer the door saying "I'm going to kill you." The dark-glasses-wearing, scruffy pizza guy answers "It said to knock loudly."
2. I just spent an unreasonable amount of time just now trying to decide between "Alfred Einstein" and "Albert Einstein."

the world's first unmanned flying desk set--all over again

I'm back.

Maybe you didn't notice that I was missing, but I did. A lot. It's hard to be with yourself when you're gone. My gratitude and apologies to those who were present when I wasn't. A sentence that doesn't make much sense--I am so back.

I started unpacking tonight. Not just books and movies--those things are always with me, I shelved them immediately. But tonight I started designating places for things. I think I'm finally ready to move into this basement, finally ready to live here, rather than just stay here. It's far from perfect, but so am I. I think we'll be just fine. (Especially if we find ourselves a few friends who don't mind that my apartment is personified.)

Today's class went really well too. Not that it was too hard to beat Friday's class--which, for the sake of my job, I won't post about here, but email me and you'll get all the gorey details. But they were talking and they were excited and they were laughing and I was in my element. I like my element.

The "flying desk set" metaphor first came up my freshman year on a day when everything finally clicked--I distinctly remember me strutting through the leaves on campus, toward the JSB, feeling like I could do anything, take on anything or anyone. For the record, I was wearing a long-sleeved sky blue shirt. Tonight I'm feeling exactly that. Tomorrow I'll tackle my thesis and some more unpacking.

Ladies and gentlemen, the world's first unmanned flying desk set.

white nights

L.M. Montgomery always describes her heroines (Anne, Emily) having "white nights": nights where there life comes to a crisis, where they have to examine their souls and decide what they want.

I think I'm in the middle of one.

The thesis is, of course, not done. It's also not as close to done as I was hoping it to be. I'm having immense problems with will power and focus and carpal tunnel and poetry and just being able to do this right now. It's come down to one night to do as much as I can. Tonight. In the morning I'll deliver what I have to Trent's door.

I've actually been composing funny blog posts about this subject. How I'm going to make it look longer (pull quotes, illustrations), "how to write a thesis" without doing any real work, etc. But tonight is panic time and I'm scared for my life. For my future. Because this is what I've always said I wanted to do: write, teach. You have to write to teach, but what if this isn't what I'm cut out for? And then the teaching goes away. I suppose there's always creative writing, but I'm seriously doubting my ability in that arena right now. I'm looking at three brilliant poets. I'm too scared to send anything out. I'll just be a girl with an MA who teaches part time and writes reviews of real poets.

White night, here I come. See you in the morning.

By George

I think she's got it!


Well, at least for the Lee chapter. Now I'll have the rest of the week to freak out over Osherow and the ghastliness of the intro.

Just one question: Who the hell is George?

thoughts at 3:36 a.m.

Have I come this far to fail, and fail miserably?

Do you tell him? Should you tell him? Does he already know?

Why is the rum* gone?

*And by rum, I mean chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate.

Little did he know? I taught a class on "Little did he know."

Yes, I am avoiding the thesis. Even though I don't have time to avoid it any longer. I did add my face to facebook, courtesy of TB's influence and my curiosity regarding the marital status of various friends. This turned out to be oh so true.

I've been in Bountiful for the weekend. One cousin wedding, one sister baby shower. I won't bore you with the details, mostly because I don't want to bore myself with the details. I will say that the wedding will forever and ever be known as the Fiddler on the Roof wedding (the bride was Jewish and I'm afraid that FotR is the only exposure most of the family has had to Jewish wedding traditions), and that my name came up during the toasts, but only because the best man had written a poem for his toast and joked about not knowing I would be there. I confess to being amused.

The baby shower went off without a hitch, unless you consider my parents' living room looking like the inside of a PeptoBismal bottle a hitch. This baby will be well-dressed and well-diapered.

And now, the thesis. Oh, the thesis.

for the love

I didn't know I could be this bored. Not that I should be bored. Teaching, putting away all of my stuff (I moved Saturday), writing my thesis. I'm happy that I'm living by myself. I mean, I can walk around in whatever I want--or not in whatever I want. I can stay up late, not do the dishes. There is noone to make me feel guilty that I'm not aware of their needs, space, whatever.

I hate it.

Right now I'd take 20 girls in a nasty Holland Park YHA over this.

dilemma

I am moving to the basement.

The moving is not the dilemma. The basement is.

The basement is fairly spacious, at least for one person. And I will be the only one down there (except when you all come for mercy visits). But it feels tight, close. The ceiling isn't very high, there is a short narrow hall formed by the end of a flight of stairs. I'm worried it will turn into eg's cave of unwonders.

(Side note: I'm going to kick my brother-in-law if he doesn't stop with the annoying laugh and the baby talk.)

The solution to this dilemma, I think, is to decorate. First step: remove Sister's kitsch. Second step: paint the long wall* in the "living room." But what color should I paint it? I've been thinking blue, but most of my favorite art that I'll want to hang feature deep reds and yellows and oranges. Is there a better color option? And did I mention the really ugly green carpet? No? There is really ugly green carpet.

Any suggestions?

*Actually, I'm only going to paint half of the wall--the top half. The bottom half is going to be white--not off-white, but white. And then I'm going to get creative. It's going to be hecka cool. Just you wait.

P.S. Is Andy Warhol cliché? Because I'm really liking this series:


Everybody

Art

The World

Love Affair

things i am regretting today

in no particular order

not blogging more while in England

not finishing more of my thesis before I left

not buying more chocolate in England

not taking more pictures like this one

or this one

choosing to go caps-less for this post

also the whole "hard return between items" choice

not stalking Fiyero after seeing Wicked

not emailing Eleka to tell her I saw it on the front row

moving to the basement

promising that I wouldn't choose paint for said basement based solely on its name

voting "no roommate" for next year

not having the guts to get Edgy to choose the color scheme for the basement