clever with words

She could have called...

2010-04-27T22:43:00.000-04:00

Today, my mom emailed me to let me know that my neighbor had died. Apparently, he had not collected his mail since the 3rd and when another neighbor with whom he would occasionally discuss gardening stopped by to check on him, she received no response even though his car was in the drive.

He lived alone. His son has been in and out of institutions my entire life. First up in New Jersey. Later Virginia. He's a a paranoid schizophrenic and when he was much younger and his mother was still alive, she wouldn't make him take his medication. Lately, on his infrequent visits, his father would refuse to let him in the house. Once he came into ours unannounced and in his underwear, claiming that he'd struck his father and the old man had fallen down. He was alright, but the police came regardless and Danny (the son) was gone again soon after.

He's lived alone in the house for years now, his wife is long dead. I would watch him from my room, pushing an ancient lawnmower or raking for hours at a time. Meticulously cutting away branches from the shrubs in his front yard. Regardless, they always grew wild. They were never neat. The house always looked like you wouldn't want to stop there on Halloween.

Mom and I would always say that we needed to be friendlier to him. We were afraid to get too familiar. Danny always comes back and we didn't want to let him in. He was our Boo Radley, only the stories about him were mostly true. He would howl at the moon and lift manhole covers. He'd drape Confederate flags from the rear of the car he couldn't legally drive and yell from his stoop that the South would rise again. He told my mother he'd seen the Devil because he knew she was similarly religious and would understand why he then tried to remove his own eye. The eye is still there, he just can't see out of it. He used to send letters claiming he was innocent. I never knew innocent of what. Mom wouldn't say. Later I found out it was something about two missing girls but there not being enough evidence. That was the first time he went away.

My childhood was punctuated by missives not to walk certain places alone. Never answer the door. If the phone rings, it's a wrong number. If we did see him, we had to go home for lunch, or dinner. Whatever made more sense. I hated seeing his father alone the way he was. I just couldn't bring myself to go against what Mom had always said. That these were people we didn't associate with, We didn't let them in.

The Reverse Murtaugh

2010-02-10T00:37:00.000-05:00

I was talking the other day to a friend who will turn 26 in a few months time. She is terrified that she'll reach 30 without a wedding ring or a toddler (preferably in that order.) She doesn't want to be 40 before she has a kid. I tried to tell her that that is exactly how old my mother was when she had me and I don't recall her ever being to tired to keep up with me. Actually, the night Michael Jackson died we danced around the kitchen to the stream of Jackson 5 videos playing on every channel.

She dances better than most of my friends and she's 65. She can still twist. She can still jerk. I'm pretty sure she could pull off a mean watusi with minimal provocation. She shovels the snow and never asks anyone to open a jar for her. The only suit she owns is a perfectly impractical shade of red. She once drove her car on the sidewalk surrounding the Washington monument because she wanted to see if it was wide enough for a VW Bug. The night she totaled her car and had to be taken to the hospital, she smiled because her panties matched her bra. They were both plaid. The other night, she casually dropped into conversation the nude pictures of herself she used to have hanging in her apartment. She did all this before she had kids. She lived a whole life before she met my father, settled down, and had kids.

Even still, there are things she never did and I know she wants better for me. She never really traveled. She pretty much always had to work. My friend might owe her mother grandbabies, I owe mine pictures of me on top of Irish cliffs and in front of Parisian cafes with dark Italian men who call me "Bella" because "Meredith" is too hard for their languid tongues. I might keep the languid tongues to myself though. I owe her poems and journals and postcards. I owe her roadtrips and staying out too late to catch the Metro home because I didn't want to leave before the next song. I owe her cup after cup of coffee and the occasional cigarette even though we know much better. I owe her scotch and just a splash of water.

So that's where my list comes in. I don't know if I'll ever get married or have kids. I do know there there are a few things I need to do before I turn 30. Before I get too old for this shit. I'm not going to compile the list here. It's a work in progress. But one of the things on the list is (and has been for a while now) go to a music festival that lasts more than one day. Today, I bought my ticket for Bonnaroo. I'm going to get dirty. I might even get crusty. I'll sleep in a van and "shower" with a giant bottle of water and some baby wipes. I'll wear my hair in braids and pretend that my striped bikini is a perfectly acceptable bra/shirt. I'm going to do this for four days and it's going to be magical because these guys will be there (and so will thousands of my new best friends):

It really is shaped like Virginia.

2010-01-24T21:25:00.000-05:00

From opposites sides, we looked at the map of Virginia
that table made in my parent's kitchen and
from under the newspapers and our cofffe cups
you pointed the eastern edge where you'd rather be
and asked me to do the same, but
where I want is out the backdoor and passed
the neighbor's yard, over other people's fences
to a table shaped like something else entirely.

2010: You can keep tomorrow. After tonight we're not gonna need it...

2010-01-15T16:38:00.000-05:00

1. Do not write off bands with silly names because this is how I almost missed on out Death Cab for Cutie. (See also Clap Your Hands, Say Yeah, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness, etc.)

2. Stay up long enough to see the Sun come up.

3. Kiss strangers.

4. Make things.

5. Do things.

6. Wear all my shoes at least once.

7. Finally wear the naked shirt.

8. Walk to Metro more often than I drive there.

9. Make food for people who will eat it.

10. Learn something new. One thing. And be able to do it well enough that I'm willing to do it in public.

11. Dance, even when the situation does not call for dancing.

12. Take full advantage of the puddles left by rainstorms.

13. Go see bands. Start with this one:

I need to find a cheaper happy place.

2010-01-08T23:25:00.000-05:00

Some girls eat their feelings. I, apparently, buy mine. Sadly, most of this has been purchased since returning to NoVA after college. The last year was kind of shitty and Urban Outfitters is my happy place. I haven't started packing my clothes to move yet. I was going to do that tonight but needed to clean first and tried to organize the shelves somewhat in the hopes that it would make the process easier...

Where in the hell did I get all this? Why do I own this many striped shirts and cardigans? You know how women like to say "you can never have too many cardigans"? I have 6. that's too many. 9 little black dresses. Also too many. I didn't count the striped shirts but it's a sizable stack. How many shows could have gone to were it not for that stack? Drinks with friends? Dinner? A movie or two? The dresses are worth a roadtrip or two, no doubt.

The thing is, I will pack up what is pictured and take it to my new place and try, fruitlessly, to find room for it there. Getting rid of it is only an excuse to buy more.

So here's the new rule: if I say I need more/new clothes. I'm lying.

Does this count as a resolution?

2009-12-31T00:11:00.000-05:00

The end of one year and the beginning of the next, if nothing else, serves as an excellent means of pausing to examine yourself, your friends, what did you or did not spend the year doing, the world at large, whatever you want really. So I've been thinking about this year a lot and have come to the conclusion that it kind of sucked. On levels. What's odder still, is that that doesn't necessarily bother me the way I know it should.

I rang in the new year by getting yelled at repeatedly, and then hit, by my ex-boyfriend at at New Year's Eve party. Suffice to say, I kissed no one when the ball dropped. I didn't have much time to dwell on that spectacular shitstorm because class started. I realized pretty quickly that I didn't want to be in class, but had spent so much time talking about how that was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life that there was no room (I thought) to change my mind...even at 23. So I stayed in that class, got my A, signed up for a summer course, got my A, and started my third semester. I shouldn't have kept it up as long as I did when every assignment was an exercise in making myself care in the hopes that eventually I would. I'd started to hate reading and writing (two things I'd previously considered hobbies.) I've only just started enjoying either again and it's still a struggle to write on even a semi-regular basis. It still feels like work instead of a compulsion.

Quitting school was terrifying. I didn't know what to be without my nose in a book. I'm still not sure who I am. I have a few things down, the basics: sexual preference, political affiliation, religious bent (that last one gets fuzzy sometimes.) Beyond that, I have no idea who Meredith is or what she wants. I went to get drinks with two childhood friends last night, one is studying oceanography and marine biology (ecology?), the other is in law school. While they're still hammering out the finer points of what they want, they have a big picture. We're the same age. I have no picture. I don't even have a background color (purple? some days I'd rather wear green.) I miss the certainty of a big picture (even if it's a Monet.) I liked my plan, rather I liked having one. And my lists. I haven't made any lists in a long while. I go to the grocery store and forget to buy the thing I came in to get and instead leave with hummus and a pound of olives. I needed soap. I can't wash my face with olives. Or hummus.

And then there are the dudes...

If I've learned nothing else this year, it's that I have spectacularly terrible taste in men. My entire dating history (up to an including my last misinformed foray into dudetopia) has been a failure. I've spent a good part of the last 5 or so months wondering what I could do or say to be more of whatever someone wanted. I kept my phone at my side, I rearranged plans, I watched what I wore and said because I was afraid that any of it might be the thing that killed it. In the end, none of that mattered because there was never anything to kill (I kind of knew this all along but ignored it as best I could.) I shouldn't really be upset that it's over because, as he'd be quick to point out, it was an unofficial few months. A 'lost' few months if you will. You can't be disappointed in end of something that never happened in the first place, right?

But I am. Despite my best efforts, it sucks. I'm bad with guys and this is yet another example of it. So I'm done. 2010 will be dudeless. I'm not switching teams. I'd like to think of it as "pulling a Morrissey." The absence of dudes will not tell me how much they want to like me but don't. They will not flirt with my friends. They will not tell me how terrible I am at not being a girlfriend or that I am too ambitious to care about anyone else. They certainly can't hit me or make be feel bad about my ever-expanding collection of dresses or the funny, obscure words I use. They won't try to paint me into a corner or continually tell me how great and funny and generally amazing their last girlfriend was. They can't stare at my tits when I'm talking or break plans. They can't do anything at all because they don't exist. And I can just be myself (whatever that turns out to be) without them.

No Recess.

2009-12-28T21:51:00.001-05:00

I've been trying for months to come up with a concise explanation for why it is that I left graduate school after being so completely sure that scholar was the only job for which I am (was?) thoroughly qualified. I've been able to explain it to myself well enough--the compounding feeling of wanting to be anywhere else whenever I was either in class or doing working preparation for it, the nagging feeling that I was in over my head (not because I wasn't getting the grades, but because I wasn't doing enough to merit getting them.) I felt bad about the As and the compliments scribbled at the bottom of my papers. I'd been phoning it in and I wanted someone to call me out on it, tell me I didn't want it bad enough.

I think (I hope) I figured out a way to explain it. I don't want to be an expert. In literature, in critical theory, in linguistics. I don't want to be an expert at anything because it means I didn't get the chance to try something else. It means I was too single-minded in my pursuit(s). I want to be a dabbler. I want to understand theory enough to explain to my brother that his frustration that his wife doesn't understand him is misplaced. His beef is with the English language, not his wife. Every conversation is an exercise in failure. There's no finite meaning in language. That's not even theory, it's polysemy. Some words just want to do it all.

I think I forgot how much I loved learning because I was so focused on doing well in school. When I was younger I read about politics voraciously. I knew what was being debated in Congress and how it would affect me. When the PATRIOT Act was hastily cobbled together and pushed through both houses, I read it. I read bits and pieces of the RICO laws that pertained to it. I read what lawyers and Constitutional scholars thought of it it. What made it harmless and what made it terrifying. When I was much younger still, I had a small microscope. I would pull apart leaves and pluck fine little hairs from my head and examine them, making note of what I saw in a composition notebook. I was a terrible student but I was an avid learner. I'd like to back to being a learner now.

This year, I know better.

2009-12-25T23:41:00.000-05:00

I'm not much for resolutions. I make them every year but lack follow through. Previously, this has not been much of a problem since I didn't keep a record of said promises to myself. Unfortunately, last year I wrote them down here:

1. Institute actual workout regime.
I go to the gym, run a little, stretch, dick around on machines and then leave. Yes I have lost some weight and toned up some but I've no earthly idea what I'm doing. This also may include taking a couple dance classes.

Have I done this? I do go to the gym. I spend less time on the machines and more time on the floor or in the weight area. I read articles and books on fitness and nutrition. I did start (and have continued) to take a hip-hop class once a week. Granted, I have also (because I keep a record of this as well) gained back almost half the weight I lost after college. Some of that though(maybe 5 pounds?) was break-up weight from Walt. I can't eat when I'm upset and I was upset a lot back then. I'm calling this a win.

2. Write more. I'm legitimately worried that I've become the woman in Raymond Chandler's "Cathedral" who only sits down to write a poem every two or three years when shit gets inexplicably real. I have both a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market and a Magnetic Poetry calender. Also two Moleskines and a pen at the ready. And shit has recently become increasingly tangible. I have no substantive excuse.

I am the woman from "Cathedral". Despite my Moleskines.

3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.

I gave up the Chanel. It never really felt like me. Now I wear $10 lavender body spray and it smells like me. It also gets more compliments than the Chanel ever did. I can pull off red lipstick though. I get a half point for this.

4. Be irrepressibly scholarly. I'd like to be able to discuss the post-structuralists on a substantive level (not just ending a pithy comments about what deconstruction isn't.)

I quit school. But last week I did fistbump my drunk co-worker over our shared love of Michel Foucault. I can quit school but I'll always have power structures.

5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. This applies to gym clothes, fun clothes, going out clothes, ladies nights regalia, work attire, shoes, etc., etc., etc... This will cut down on the money I actually spend on clothing and hopefully also eliminate last minute wardrobe disasters.

I do this. It has not eliminated last minute wardrobe crises or reduced the amount of money I spend on anything. Turns out, a lot of things make me want to dance.

6. Travel abroad at least once. I have a passport that is stampless and pathetic. It could do with some sprucing up.

Still stampless. Maybe next year? Even just Canada?

7. Do well at Mason.

See 4.

8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.

Win!

9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.

Fail? How is this even something one can accomplish?

10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.

Working on it. This one's harder than I thought it would be.

11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.

I own 4 black dresses. None of them are perfect.

12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.

I'm about to move out and into a place with a big closet and more wiggle room. I'll require bookshelves but this is an accomplishable feat.

13. Be admired from afar (this does not preclude the possibility of affairs with solvent but lonely gentleman who love me for my mind and lavish me with fancy shoes and Amethyst rings). I have too much stuff on this list (and far too much ambition) to worry about menfolk.

You know what? Being admired from afar sucks. I'm pretty good at being alone. I can grab things on the top shelf and open most jars. I don't miss having a boyfriend in a way that just anyone will do. If that were the case, I'd still be with Walt. Or Jimmy before him. I miss knowing that someone's got my back whether that means telling me that I've got everything under control when I don't feel like I do or just giving it a good rubdown after I dig my car out from 2 feet of snow. I don't want to be admired or adored or idolized. I just want a dude who gets me. Until, I will handle that salsa myself, thank you.

I'm not making any resolutions this year. I'm in decent shape and have the motivation to stay that way. Writing will be an outlet or it won't. Dudes will come into my life and leave it just the same as it was before. Plus, I got that lipstick thing down.

My day (12-21) in 6 pictures...

2009-12-22T13:56:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, thanks to snOMG! '09!, I had the day off and elected to document it... (pardon my complete inability to format this properly, the accompanying text is all at the bottom.)

1. That fortune was in the sink when I came down to rinse out my coffee cup. It reads "you will be traveling and come into a fortune." That it was wet, stuck to the sink might say something. Also, it could be less vague. Will finding the fortune require me to travel first? Will I do each independent of the other? It could be more clear.

Incidentally, in order to procure that fortune, I ventured out for Starbucks and Chinese food Sunday afternoon and in the process, I drove over something (ice, small person?) that bent on of the struts on my front end. You read that right, it's bent.

2. I routinely stand in front of my overfull closet with my feet in that exact position, trying to determine what I'll wear that day. Yesterday, it was a tee shirt, jeans, and a grandpa sweater. I'm still wearing those socks. I'm also working from home today.

3. After taking my car into the shop (see above) I went to Whole Foods for lunch and groceries. First things first: one slice of mushroom and shallot pizza, one slice of killer philly cheesesteak. Cheesesteak pizza should not exist. Not because it's a bad idea or does not taste good (it does), but because you shouldn't combine too many good things into one. It throws off the balance of the universe and I wind up having a shit week to make up for this pizza of unnatural deliciousness.

4. I'm moving soon and won't be able to explore the produce lined aisles and olive bar. I'll pine for their vegan pizza, greasy samosas, and brown rice sushi. Trader Joe's is fun and much cheaper (and a purveyor of the ever inexpensive [$3.29] Charles Shaw Cab Sav), Wegman's also has an olive bar and a completely respectable produce section but I'll miss the tidy rows of bok choy and eggplant, all lined up and stacked (not piled) on top of each other. This appeals to me the same way those design book pictures of living rooms with color coordinated book shelves. There's an organic Escheresque quality to the way green peppers fit on top of each other.

5. When I finally got home from getting groceries (mostly getting to and from groceries) took entirely too long and when I got home all I wanted to do was paint my nails, read Nylon, and Dark Was The Night, the hippest hipster compilation I've ever come across (including the nigh-monthly Nylon mix, The monthly Paste Sampler, various and sundry UO CDs, and the soundtrack to Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist.) Lately, I've been trying to expand my musical horizons (nice to meet you, Dudes-who-scream-a-lot-over-intricately-brutal-guitar-work) and while I like what I've come across (mostly), this week I reverted to my comfort zone: Dudes with beards* and feelings. listen to

Except that I couldn't. Kora came over and I had to paint her nails and watch The Little Mermaid again. It bothers me that she loves that movie so much. I mean, I loved it too but more and more these Disney movies bother me. She literally gives up her voice and then her family for a man and there's Kora, staring at the screen.

(*Beck does not have a beard but he makes up for it in the "feelings" category on Sea Changes.)

6. This is me about 20 minutes before the end of the Little Mermaid.

At least I got a chunk of my Christmas shopping done...

2009-12-16T20:04:00.000-05:00

Tonight I inadvertently helped a guy in line at Urban Outfitters behave like a complete asshat to some unsuspecting girl via text message. He and his friend were debating the merits of calling her "buddy" vs. calling her "pal". Which one would piss her off more, the one asked of the other. Before I could stop myself, I said, "Pal. Pal is much dickier." The guy (he wasn't a man, they take their hats off indoors) looked back at me, smiled, and said, "you're right. See, we do put thought into these," gesturing to the small phone in his hand. To wit, I smirked and replied, "it's the thought that disturbs me."

Given how my week has gone, it only makes sense that this is how I pay it forward. The girl on the other end of that phone, for reasons passing understanding, wants that guy. It's possible that she's crazy or can't take a hint. I've seen a fair amount of both from the fairer sex. It's also possible that she's just a nice girl who has the misfortune of being attracted to an unforgivable douche. I've been on her end a couple times. I don't even want to think about how many time I've coached my guy friends in the fine art of being a complete dick to someone who probably could do better anyway because there was enough distance between me and her that I could find humor in the situation and, Jesus Christ, at least it wasn't me on the receiving end.

Then again, was my alternative (apart from just keeping my mouth shut--a skill I doubt I'll ever acquire) to tell off Fratty McBaseballcap and his rotund line buddy? No. The most I might have mustered would have been an audible scoff and exaggerated eye roll. And it is entirely possible that this girl is one of the poor unfortunates who never get it until it's just too late. I've been there too. If he doesn't like her, she should know it. Maybe not like that, he runs the risk of her finding the platonic familiarity endearing. But that's a risk I'm willing to let him take.

I genuinely want to apologize to that girl for my part in this. I did immediately regret saying anything at all. I don't know how to absolve myself of this sin against the sisterhood. Then again, I might have inadvertently done her a favor...

Mixtape: Justin (You've got to promise not to stop when I say when...)

2009-12-08T22:11:00.000-05:00

I've been reading this book called Cassettes From My Ex. It's pretty self-explanatory. After finding a collection of old mixtapes, Jason Bitner enlisted his friends to discuss their own forays into High Fidelity-esque compilation making. I made a lot of mixes in high school. Granted, I didn't use tape because we'd entered the digital age (because of that, I still have a copy of some of the better ones.) But care was still taken to get across just the right message to the recipient.

Mixes for boyfriends were easy. Mixes for friends who were guys, who maybe I didn't want to date, were much much harder. Like the mix I made for Justin, my dear, gorgeous, Eagle Scout and acting partner who I loved (but would kiss and feel nothing.) It's possible that the mix I made was a bit misleading:

1. Everlong- Foo Fighters. If anything, we bonded over mutual love of theater and the Foo. It was really all we've ever had in common. Somehow this has sustained our friendship well after college.

2. Bohemian Like You- The Dandy Warhols. Perhaps the refrain "I like you, I like you, I like you" was a tad misleading. Also, no one would ever mistake Justin for bohemian. Ever.

3. Know You're Right- Nirvana. I think this had just come out and I was delirious to hear anything from Kurt. Maybe I was trying to negate the previous song?

4. The City- The Dismemberment Plan. This has probably always been my favorite D-Plan song. Granted, it's not the sort of thing you give to someone you're not interested in. I'm starting to think I really led this kid on...

5. Sing Along- Dave Matthews. There's no excuse for this. I should have known better.

6. Coffee and TV-Blur. "And agree to marry me/So we can start over again." For fuck's sake. Really?

7. Simple Man- Lynyrd Skynyrd. This also makes no sense. This was never a song I associated with Justin. Actually, this song's always belonged to my friend David, whose mom died when we were in high school. This was always his song. It's never belonged to anyone else.

8. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want- The Smiths. How do I go from Skynyrd to The Smiths? How do I do that and sleep at night?

9. Satisfied Mind- Jeff Buckley. I listened to a lot of Jeff Buckley in high school. We all did. Grace was on almost constant rotation. My friends and I had a thing for dead musicians.

10. Stolen Car- Beth Orton. I've always had a soft spot for Lilith Fair alums.

11. Adam Lives in Theory- Lauryn Hill. I completely forgot about this song. I remember when a story was going around about how Hill didn't want white people to listen to her albums. When I saw her the summer after 10th grade, she didn't seem to mind the white people in the audience who knew every word. I listened to The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill that whole summer. This song isn't on that album but it's just as good.

12. Walk on the Ocean- John Mayer (Toad the Wet Sprocket cover). He was (is/was?) a guilty pleasure of mine. My appreciation's waned since high school though.

13. Swallowed- Bush. Ahh, mid 90's pretty boy rock. In this and other songs on the mix is a need to get as far away from where I am as possible. We were about to leave for college. Maybe that's telling.

14. You Were Right- Built to Spill. Let's just think about the fact that both Dave Mathews and Built to Spill are on this mix. Just sit on that.

15. One Man Guy- Rufus Wainwright. Subtext: I'd rather be alone than with you. Let's us just be friends.

16. 2:45- Eliot Smith. I've never been sure if this song is about a person or an addiction (maybe both?)

17. Hide Your Love Away- Eddie Vedder. I've never been a huge fan of the Beatles. Like Led Zeppelin, I appreciate the genius but it doesn't move me. I suppose that's why I always preferred Vedder's version of this song.

18. Everlong- Foo Fighters (Acoustic this time.) Maybe I was trying to bring it full circle. Maybe I just didn't know how else to finish this song.

I really should have paid more attention to song lyrics.

Just make the most of what you’re paid, dear

2009-12-06T22:05:00.000-05:00

Since I found it, I've had the letter I wrote myself when I was 15 or so tacked to the corkboard next to my desk. I barely remember the girl with terrible handwriting and who couldn't spell completion (how did I think there was an "s" and no "t"? I remember the Che Guevera tee shirt. I remember the jelly bracelets creeping up both arms and the small x's she reapply with eyeliner after washing her hands in the restroom outside the theatre. I remember a worn out copy of Guerrilla Warfare and how she'd quote Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn and try to use words like "hegemony" before she really understood what she was talking about. The crossed out Gap label she safety pinned to a mechanic's jacket. Jeans she patched and re-patched and barely ever washed because she was afraid the thread might come undone so she'd just wear tights underneath them as if there was any way to feign modesty with fishnets. She'd dye her hair burgundy.

Ok, maybe I remember her distinctly. It wasn't really so long ago that I was 15. I think about her when I have absolutely no idea what it is that I want to do or be. Not even a vague idea. She had a pretty clear plan for herself. Granted, I think at least part of that plan involved accidentally running into Zach De La Rocha somewhere (since they so often ran in the same circles) and impressing him with wisdom beyond her years. In the letter she asked me if I still wanted to be a rock journalist. I don't know if that's really still a job description. I don't read music magazine anymore. I got rid of my subscription to Rolling Stone and stopped myself from buying a copy at Borders tonight. Taylor Lautner was on the cover. He's 17. There's no way to make that alright. I used to read Spin and Blender but haven't picked up a copy of either of those in forever. The only magazine I have a subscription to is InStyle and that's only because I keep forgetting to cancel it.

It's not like I don't read music reviews anymore. I spend too much time at work on Pitchfork and Tiny Mixtapes. If I hear something, I'll Google it. I check out what people say on iTunes and eMusic. But if anyone can review anything now (if I really wanted to, I could review things here) is there such a thing anymore as the Critic?

I'm getting restless again. It happens every once and a while. I build up energy for whatever reason and I can't get rid of it. I can't seem to channel it into any of my regular outlets and it starts to make me anxious. I have to do something. I take up ridiculous hobbies out of restlessness and make impossible plans. I don't want to do that this time. That feels like wasted energy. It's such a big thing to try and figure out what would make you happy but that's what I want to do. I can't stay at my job forever (it's good for now but it isn't forever) and I sure as shit can't stay in this house forever.

That 15 year-old knew what she wanted out of life. I don't see any reason why I can figure out what a 15 year-old already knows.

must remember what it's like on my end...

2009-12-02T22:09:00.000-05:00

So, the blog's been updated a bit. I started it when I was just starting my job and trying to start grad school. Since I'm pretty secure at work now and no longer in grad school, the quips about navigating adulthood and the copious literary allusions (including the title) seem out of place. "Clever with words" how my 9th grade English teacher described me to my 9th grade journalism teacher. It became a kind of joke between me and Rens (the journalism teacher) that stuck with me through high school. I'm hoping the epithet still fits...or if not, I can figure out how to squeeze back into it before too long.

Tonight, I sent out three poems to a magazine that specializes in pieces under 20 lines. I fully expect that they will all be rejected but this is part of it, that whole writing thing, and I have to get rejected to get better to eventually get published...or something like that.

The site (that shall remain nameless) promises to read and respond to my pieces within two weeks. I don't expect that to happen either. Ideally, articles under consideration where I work should be out of the system (after full peer-review) within 45 days. I currently have nine papers beyond that cutoff. Two papers are 80+ days old. One of those papers does not have reviewers. That's not ideal.

Needless to say, when I haven't heard back from the editor in two weeks, I won't be making a phone call or sending an email. The site says to ask for an update four weeks after submission. I'm giving this dude five. I had more than one author call me today irate that I had not made a decision on their very important and potentially groundbreaking work. Because I make those decisions. Because they want me to make those decisions. If it were up to me we'd publish articles on linguistics (because I can understand those), robots (because why not), and how Mike and Ikes are secret superfoods (because they taste like awesome) and how coffee makes you pretty (because I wish it did.) Screw evolution and swine flu, I want a reason to eat Mike and Ikes.

tiny poem not at all related to any ex-boyfriend (or pretend amalgamations of ex-boyfriends)

2009-11-23T22:54:00.000-05:00

I wrote this one on Veteran's day...on the metro home from work. I don't know if it's actually self-contained or if I an too busy to finish it. Maybe it needs a last line? I really can't tell so I'm just going to throw it up here for a while.

Nov. 11

The Metro home on Veteran's day
is governmentless. A quiet anarchy
of empty seats and half-personless cars--
silent and nameless without your one-sided
conversations and the plastic clank
of badges against coat buttons.

© meredith c. jones

Pictures

2009-11-22T20:54:00.000-05:00

There are no pictures of me and him
smiling and laughing at parties.
We go and come home again after,
undocumented. If someone were to
ask where we went or what happened
we could say nothing at all and keep
the secret to ourselves.

I’ve found so many pictures
of you and me: me with my tongue
stuck out, you mid-chuckle. Both holding
brightly colored drinks and gazing at the other.
Maybe it was the pictures that did us in.
Observation forced order into chaos
because you can’t live up to the face you’re
making.

What could you have said to prompt my tongue?
What could have possibly been that funny?

© meredith c. jones

This is how I know I'd make a malevolent diety...

2009-11-19T22:18:00.001-05:00

It was over the night
you fell asleep on my couch
with your shoes still on
and I didn’t think to take
them off and set them
by the door for you
or bring in a blanket
from the other room, turn
off the TV and leave you
alone to sleep.
All I could think was what
might happen when you
woke up to find that I’d
tied your shoe laces together
and gone out to get coffee
and another magazine.

I won't even go into the hands that painted this and what they must look like.

2009-10-19T21:34:00.000-04:00

I never cry when it matters. A couple nights before my grandfather died (he'd had a stroke when I was four, this was inevitable), I cried. I don't remember what set me off but I do remember sitting outside the space at the end of the hall between my bedroom and the bathroom and being inconsolable. I think I was crying about him but that wasn't why I'd started crying. I cried when Walt and I broke up, but that was because of the election results. They weren't sad tears. I cried trying to explain Whitman to someone once. I was trying to get across what it felt like (and still feels like) to read the line "one hour to feel sufficient as I am" at 12 years old, in my brother's bedroom. The realization that someone had actually put to words (simple, perfect words) exactly what it was that I desperately wanted but had never (have never) felt. I'm more careful when I explain Whitman now. Not everyone sees why poetry might make you cry.

So it made sense that in the Art Institute, when I accidentally happened upon "The Old Guitarist" I caught a small pooling in the corner of my eye. It wasn't surprising, just a little unexpected. I envy what people can do with their hands. Writers like to talk about writing like it's a craft. Like you could sit at a computer and crank out a chair. But it isn't that. It's all cerebral what I do. You can't see it in calluses or arthritic knots and cricks. I have a small writer's bump on my left middle finger, but it's gone down some since I started typing everything. I barely ever get smudges on the side of my hand anymore. My father built every shelf and cabinet in our house. He curses and sweats and takes forever but when it's all done, he's done it. I watch musicians in the hopes that if I look hard enough, I finally get the trick to moving my fingers that quickly. There has to be a trick to it. They all have hands suited to the job. All calluses and knots and elongated fingers.

The guitarist is curled around his instrument, gaunt and half-dead looking but still playing as if that's what won't allow the other half to give up. Even though he's completely contorted, it's alarmingly natural compared to the other Picassos at the museum. That might be what made me cry. He's human. Irreparably so. He has musician's hands, thin and long. Like his toes...though I don't imagine anyone has musician's toes...

You don't expect this painting to be where it is. Around an unassuming corner. Maybe that's why it's there. I wasn't the only person who turned and stopped dead. I'm not sure anyone didn't do that. The guy next to me, who'd been in many of the same rooms with me as I traced the map of the galleries, stopped just behind me. We both just traipsed through Carvaggio. These huge, Biblical scenes--all opulent purples and purposeful awe. What struck me was how the real the painted robes looked folded over angels and disciples. I wasn't moved. You're supposed to be moved by Carvaggio. It's easy emotion.

But look at this and tell me you wouldn't cry to hear him play.

that message on my phone saturday morning was all I needed to finish this, thanks.

2009-10-18T21:47:00.000-04:00

I don't usually post drafts this drafty. Literally, this is the first draft of this, written in the span of a Metro ride and culled from my moleskine. It's taken me a year (give or take a couple weeks) to get anything down on paper about all of this. Every time I would write about him it seemed too emotional still. This might still be that but it's down on paper and since I need to get more things down on paper, I will take it for the time being. I played with my form somewhat and it doesn't quite translate here. All of the lines preceded by an em dash should be indented. Please pretend that the are because I suck at coding . It also doesn't have a title yet. I've been toying with this title: Everything I Meant to Tell You Earlier, in a Series of Poorly Formed Haiku but I don't think it works here. I'll come up with something when I revise this. Let me know what you think of this:

The spaghetti’s still in the sink.
The noodles don’t give way
anymore to water or sauce—
but break when forked
from the collinder into the trash.

—not so much of a change from the night before.

“It’s undercooked,” you said not at me
but at the strands, spooled
uncomfortably around tines,
setting down the fork and carrying
everything back to the kitchen.

This is the call and response part of you and me.

—everything dries out eventually.
—it was dry all along.

Were I to write this scene—
you and me and the pasta,
half in the trash, half in the sink—
the clean lines of the room and us
would give way
to the palsied scrawl
of leaving well enough alone
and the argument we never had
because we never have.

—have we?

Were I to write you
it would be all dead letters and brown
paper-wrapped pornography.
The address isn’t right, the postman
can’t make it out and it sits in a room
with the others. Sits waiting for someone
to make out your concussive Rs and Ks—
to deliver you.

—for thine is the something and the something (I forgot the words to this part. forgive me.)

The Teutonic was always lost on you.
Too hard-edged for your hands
or the hair at the nape of your neck
that curled in on itself when you needed a haircut.
Then again, you never could get your legs that high.

—you make a terrible German. I guess it’s good I never wanted to call you Daddy.

Were I to write you it would be just this—
your back to me, scraping pasta into an empty
trash can and turning
to set the dish, unwashed, in the sink.

—leave the rest to me.

10/18/2009. meredith jones ©

it's funny that it fits my middle finger...

2009-10-04T16:03:00.000-04:00

I've been cleaning various odds and ends out of my room in a continual effort to streamline my life. I really have too many things. None (well, most) don't make me particularly happy. They don't make me particularly anything. I'm not clearing things out to make way for more things either. I just have way too much crap and could do with considerably less.

I have a small box wherein I keep old rings, bracelets, earrings, and the like (most of my necklaces are on a jewelry tree for expedient early-morning-coffee-has-not-kicked-in-yet-and-meredith-is-still-a-sleep-zombie access. Also, I rarely wear either rings or earrings. I don't know why, I just prefer necklaces and the occasional bracelet. I was looking through the box full of jewelry I never wear and I came across the claddagh Walt gave me when he went to Ireland. It doesn't fit either ring finger anymore and is currently backwards on my middle finger on my right hand. I haven't worn it in over a year and in the intervening time have apparently lost enough weight that it no longer fits the finger it was originally sized to fit. I can't decide, though, if wearing it all is ok.

I always liked this ring. It's not a strictly traditional claddagh and it's much smaller and more delicate than the one it replaced (which was somewhat destroyed thanks to my overzealous use of bleach when cleaning my dorm bathroom.) But it was a gift from a man whose intention it was to keep it pointed in a particular direction for the rest of my life...except that this ring was not indicative of that desire. It was just a ring --a present, because he knew I wanted a replacement and was in the land of their creation. No pending contractual arrangement attached. Perhaps there was the implication that there might be one one day, but not the day he gave me the ring. Certainly not related to the ring.

Can I wear it? How would I explain it to a new guy? Would he even necessarily notice or ask? Am I obligated to explain the ring to gentlemen callers? It does indicate that I am single. And while I suppose my current situation may generously be described as slightly more complicated than "single" (but that's not something that will ever be discussed here. This is not the place for that), I like this ring and am tired of having it collect dust.

I guess what I am trying to ask is, what's the statute of limitations? I don't have any jewelry from other ex-boyfriends. I don't know how this works. I kept the ceramic cow Mike gave me until it broke and I could not glue it back together (poor cow, I really liked it.) I kept the CDs and books Jim gave me. He also gave me clothes once or twice but none of them fit so they've been given away. Is this ring so very different from the framed Rogue comic that I can't keep it? The comic is still perched on my shelf. I like it. I like the way it looks against my purple walls. When I look at it, I don't think about Walt. When I look at this ring I don't necessarily think about him either.

Can it just be a ring now? Not a ring with an asterisk attached?

Maybe banging things will fix my shit...that's gonna get taken out of context

2009-09-21T11:42:00.001-04:00

I was thinking about the Large Hadron Collider this weekend (because that's something you do when you work in such close proximity to scientists--I call it nerd osmosis), and a thought occurred to me. We've built a giant, circular tube so that we can throw things at other things. This is what we do. When we needed a means to keep warm, we banged rocks together until we got fire. It might have just been something we did out of boredom (nothing on the cave wall that day) and fire was just a toasty side effect. Really, how much of science is just a couple of guys throwing things at other things and writing down what happens. Is this something I could apply to my own problems? Can I do this and avoid bruises?

ever tried? ever failed? no matter. try again. fail again. fail better.

2009-09-17T17:08:00.000-04:00

On the fourth of July last year, I got ridiculously drunk and explained to my then boyfriend and his roommate/hetero life partner that I was "ill-equipped for failure." I said this, apparently, repeatedly and with increasing sincerity all the way from Arlington to Manassas, where I promptly fell asleep.

Well, I'd like to test that theory so I'm taking the semester off.

I've been in school since I was five. For the last 5 years or so my education has been fairly focused on reading and analyzing literature. I can deconstruct meaning, find subtext, root out binaries, distinguish between my reading and what is expected from the implied reader. I know when differance isn't just a typo. I'm good at this. I almost always have been.

When I was in the ninth grade I had an English teacher named Mrs. Siggers. I wished now that I tried harder in high school because maybe I would have gotten more out of her class. As it is, I think she was probably the best teacher I've ever had. She sat at her desk on the first day wrapped in an afghan cursing the air conditioning unit that would not creep above 65 degrees. The blanket draped her head so that, when first entering the room, you could only see her nose and the tips of her white bob. The home-spun Fate or a folksy Weird Sister. She was terrifying. And I loved her.

She would pound out iambs on our still soft heads and yell at us for the misplaced semi-colon that marred an otherwise unblemished essay on scientific hubris in Nathanial Hawthorne's short stories (I got a 98% on that essay, she docked me two points for that semi-colon.) She gave me the best compliment my writing has ever received (apart from something Chuck Palaniuk wrote that I will get to soon enough.) She told me I was clever with words. It turned into a epithet that followed me until 12th grade. Mr. Rosinski did not think I was particularly clever. He had no real reason to. I hardly ever made anything in his class that would pass for a concerted effort.

Siggers, along with my high school journalism teacher, Mr. Rens, made me want to be a writer. I used to write to the detriment of my other work. It wasn't always good. Most of the time it wasn't good. But I felt like I had to do it. Unfortunately, my formal education has gotten in the way of writing. And pretty much everything else. I don't enjoy it anymore.

I've come to resent writers I love because of the time I have to devote to them. Whitman wouldn't want me hold up in some library like a latter-day Bartleby when there are trolley cars to ride and rogues to meet. Melville called the sea the only Harvard that would have him. In Moby-Dick, Ishmael refers to the whaling ship as his Yale, his Harvard. Even Emerson knew we could be scholars even when we weren't officially students. One of my favorite lines in Beckett ends with the the phrase "fail better." I'm missing the point of their work. It comes from experience and you don't (always) get that in a book. And you don't get it from only sticking to what you are good at.

I'm good at being an English major. 4 years of undergrad, two semesters of grad school and I have yet to receive a B on anything. I have established my proficiency in the field. But maybe it's time to find out what I'm bad at. Maybe I will never be a published author. But today I printed out everything I've written in the last 5 years. I am going to sit down and find out what needs to be thrown out and what can be salvaged. The fixed bits will be sent out and I will start collecting rejection letters. I also pulled my guitar out of the basement today. My fingers hurt and I can't manage to go through any exercise without mucking it up but I like it. I don't have to think about it.

...

Now about that Chuck Palahniuk thing. When I was a freshman in college, I wrote him and he wrote back and this is what it said at the bottom of his letter:

I cried in my dorm room when I read it (mercifully my roommate had already left for winter break.) It doesn't say I'm a good writer. But it hints that I could be. Incidentally, the "November novel" was part of National Novel Writing Month wherein you try to write a 50,000 word piece in one month in an effort to just get at the thing. I failed. Next time I do it, I'll fail better.

Things I learned in Cultural Studies...

2009-09-11T06:50:00.000-04:00

No one seems to be able to define what "cultural studies" is. Really, this isn't a major problem unless every exploration of culture in its myriad modes of interpretation becomes a defense of an academic field that has yet to be clearly defined. This happens a lot when scholars write on video games or comics books. They feel the need to spend so much time defending the act of analyzing the work that the analysis becomes secondary.

Speaking of defensive, apparently the only way to critique something is to shit upon it and then remark that you are surprised at your own ability to remain even-handed and neutral when discussing something so clearly abhorrent. It's a good thing I don't ding when my bullshit meter goes off. I don't think the class noticed my involuntary twitching.

The problem I am running into with this class is that the class (the people in the room, not the subject being taught..though perhaps this class is indicative of the larger field) isn't willing to participate in the critique. They don't want to make note of their own vested (economic and otherwise) interest in elevating a particular definition of culture and the means by which we perpetuate it. Who better than English masters' candidates to determine merit in a work (ok, perhaps the tenured PhD.s who have assigned us to read what they determine has merit...) It's asinine to assume that our interest is all "sweetness and light" to quote tonight's reading. Of course we think that reading is paramount and that reading poetry has benefits beyond paltry, utilitarian enterprises like making money or watching TV. We want to make money reading poetry and then telling why its paramount and beneficial to do so. It doesn't demean our purpose to admit it either.

I fundamentally disagree with the pursuit of perfection. Maybe that worked for Matthew Arnold. Maybe that's how he got around to writing "Dover Beach." Me, I like total fuckin' chaos. Perfection breeds a falsified sense of the sacredNo one seems to be able to define what "cultural studies" is. Really, this isn't a major problem unless every exploration of culture in its myriad modes of interpretation becomes a defense of an academic field that has yet to be clearly defined. This happens a lot when scholars write on video games or comics books. They feel the need to spend so much time defending the act of analyzing the work that the analysis becomes secondary.

Also, "historicismality" is not a word. It's not going to be a word because it sounds like shit and means nothing. And you said signifier when you meant signified. The utterance means nothing.

I don't want anything I do to be so sacrosanct I can't deconstruct it. I don't want to sit in a classroom completely unaware (more to the point unwilling to consider) that I am actively engaged in the activity I deride.

(on a semi-related note, if I think of nothing else I might write my course paper on whether Raymond Williams would tweet.)

the sum total of things was always such as it is now, and such it will ever remain

2009-08-17T22:29:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow, I'll be at the American Chemical Society's D.C. conference. When I was in the 10th grade, I failed chemistry. Not "didn't get a very good grade" or "didn't do exceptionally well on the final exam." I failed. Big fat F for the year. I blamed it on spending most of the year sitting the back of the class because my teacher didn't believe me when I told her I could not read the board from that vantage point and my mom didn't believe me when I told her I needed glasses until I tried to get my driving permit and failed the vision test. My mom blamed it (the poor grades, not the vision) on 9/11. Then again, everyone was doing that so I couldn't blame her. Terrorism seemed like an appropriate scapegoat for my inability to master the finer point of covalent bonds and titration. I was distracted by airplanes and anthrax, how in the world was I expected to remember Na was Sodium?

Really though, the was the conservation of matter. Maybe, just maybe you could tie that to 9/11 but it would be a stretch. I was fine in September. When we got to the conservation of matter, that's when I lost all grasp of ions, neutrons, and protons.

The way it's always been explained to me, essentially, is that matter is finite. It can be changed but neither created nor destroyed. In thermodynamics, it means that the reactants and the products must equal out. To me, it meant that I exist because something else doesn't. If this is any kind of closed system and I currently inhabit it, then there is something that existed, then me, then something after me. Maybe it was a bunch of amoebas. Or a family of otters. Eventually, I might be a small shrub. But I am right now, so the amoebas, otters, and bushes are not. It's like C.K. Louis says, "Some things are and some things are not...things that are can't not be...because then nothing wouldn't be. An you can't have, fuckin', nothing isn't, everything is."

For years, even now if I let myself think about it too hard and forget that it's completely ridiculous and scientifically unsound, I'd worry that my failures (that chemistry class included) meant that I was somehow wasting the matter bestowed on me by those benevolent otters. Would the otters regret their gift if they knew I was kind of a petulant shit who talked about writing but never actually did it? I read books upon books for my own amusement, but not the ones assigned for class. I faked headaches to get out of church and was too lazy to return library books on time. This is better than primordial ooze? I realize now that I simplified an incredibly complex theory into a thoroughly self-involved poor-me cop out. I got over it, I think. I'm twenty-four. I have plans, I'm not done with my life-sized checklist but that's perfectly acceptable. So what if I'm not living up to the otters. What do otters do for the universe? I have no fucking clue but I can't answer the question for myself either.

This is worse than "Love Story"

2009-08-13T15:46:00.000-04:00

Dear Taylor Swift,
This video promotes the stalking of innocent hunky football player types. What did the hunky football player types ever do to you?

The video opens with you watching someone else through their window. 1) That's a pretty slim patch of land between you and your neighbor so I can only assume you live in a magical land without zoning laws and 2) it isn't ok to read your neighbors lips through his bedroom window and infer that you can be his shoulder to cry on. Again, if you can read each others' writing, your houses are far too close and your parents should move.

"She wears short skirts. I wear tee shirts." Those are not mutually exclusive sartorial choices. Frequently in high school, I wore both short skirts and tee shirts. At the same time. It was like magic and you're an idiot.

"Standing right here, waiting at your back door. All this time how could you not know you belong with me?" I hope this this guy doesn't have a bunny or this could get heated.

Who keeps a bridal/prom gown just lying around in case hunky football player asks you to the prom...the night of the dance? Granted, I have outfits planned for occasions that don't exist yet, but they do not include the un-ironic use of tulle. Have some pride dear. And take off those glasses. American Apparel models wouldn't even wear those.

Also, when a girl in a music video is an evil boyfriend stealer, why does she have to have brown straight hair? See exhibit A and exhibit B. We, speaking for brown, straight-haired girls everywhere--we're a friendly accommodating bunch and not likely to go man-stealing just for the fun of it. I promise. I've never knowingly stolen someone else's fella. Honest.

I wasn’t interesting. And he was. Interesting… and brilliant… and mysterious… and perfect… and beautiful… and possibly able to lift full-sized vans...

2009-08-12T12:51:00.000-04:00

About a week before I left for the beach, I slinked into the Borders on 14th and F and did something I promised I never would. I marched right over to the large display in the center of the main level and picked up a copy of Twilight. I don't know quite what possessed me to do it. I'd rented the movie, and after watching it, asked my boss (who had previously admitted to reading part of the series but not finishing it because of the inanity of the writing) about various plot points and how they were expanded on in the book. This related mostly to vampire lore and the shapeshifter/werewolf Quileute mythology (which is apparently accurate. The "Cold Ones" legend is made up but writers make up mythology all the time to suit their purposes.)

I didn't take the book to the beach with me. Mostly because my mom might see me reading it and she's terrible about keeping her mouth shut. Also, I had a paper to finish and, on the off chance that the text was at all engaging, I elected that crunch-time was not the time to start it. But I wanted to know what the big deal was.

It was pretty slow goings at first. Meyer's fatal flaw is an inability to edit. Too many attempts at rhetorical flourish that fall flat. You see it a lot in beginning creative writers. Even more experienced ones really. Constructions that show a clear effort but get confused in an attempt at brilliance or epiphany. I know what it looks like because I've done it. I still do it. You think that every thing have to have meaning, metaphor, and really big words. Every writer could learn something from Hemingway.

Having said that, I read about 250 pages one night (mostly because I kept imagining Robert Pattinson. Really, I don't think anyone could blame me.) I get why it appeals to 15 year-old girls. Edward Cullen has the same qualities as Mr. Darcy or Mr. Rochester and how many of us have fallen in love with those two grouchy, mercurial dickbags? He's also more dangerous than them (well, maybe not Rochester.) Vampires appeal to women. Especially young women. They're sexually ravenous, eternally youthful, usually gorgeous, and completely obsessed with having you. It's not particularly Women's Lib-y of me, but women want to be consumed now and again. We want to be taken. The male vampire is that desire made literal. He's also the starring character in a cautionary tale about keeping your legs crossed and not talking to strangers. Again, if the stranger looks like Robert Pattinson, I'm pretty sure you're screwed one way or the other. Granted, Meyer's male lead is relatively cautious with the smooches but he has a soul of sorts and is trying to come to grips with the limitations of his own self-control.

I don't regret reading it but will probably just take the others out of the library instead. I also wish I had answered the imaginary craigslist ad, "Mormon writer seeks editor for YA story about teen vampires."

Why, yes. Yes, I am.

2009-08-02T21:55:00.000-04:00

Dearest Craigslist,
Had I known that "Are you a fan of Herman Melville?" could be used to seduce and beguile men, I might have gotten in a great deal of trouble in recent months.

Then again, that the poster in question did not actually answer the question which might suggest that the woman who asked it was just attractive enough to get over a line as bad as "are you a fan of Herman Melville?" I'm pretty sure I'm not that woman considering mens' eyes usually go a bit glassy when mention Moby-Dick...unless they have also majored in English. Then it's a 50/50 chance that the eyes glaze over.

This is still an improvement on calling me "bulgy" in high school

2009-07-29T17:28:00.000-04:00

Me: Yeah, I need to go to bed earlier tonight. I woke up late this morning and left the house without any make-up on.

Mom: Oh. That's not good for you. Did people say you look sick?

Me: No, no one said anything about it.

Mom: So no one said you looked terrible?

Me: Well thanks, Mom.

Mom: Oh now, don't take what I said and twist it around.

I really don't have any patience for dickbags...

2009-07-27T22:46:00.000-04:00

I feel like I missed out on the rules for this sort of thing. I should have been born earlier. I mean, really? What have I read lately that was written before 1900 and I hate pants. I should have been born when having the right gloves for the occasion was a real concern. There was a clear way to act. There used to be (it seems, unless books have been lying to me) a kind of code for civility and decorum in decent society. It seemed to be a relatively simple if A then B scenario. If Mrs. Penningworth's dog bites your child, you send a note apologizing on Timmy's behalf for having goaded the canine, assure Mrs. Penningworth that he's been instructed not to do this anymore, and politely request that the dog not be let loose in the future so as to prevent these unfortunate incidents on all sides. If you are invited to the Right Honorable Justice Misslethorpe's house for the weekend, you don't dare arrive without an appropriate hostess gift (cigarettes and dishtowels were, apparently, always a big hit with hostesses.) If you are Mrs. Right Honorable Justice Misslethrope you make sure your guest room/cabana is equipped with fancy soaps, fresh fruit, clean towels, and even more cigarettes (a few sheets of fresh writing paper, also always appreciated) because you want your weekend guests to feel at home and all your weekend guests keep pineapple on their nightstands. You know this because you know the fuckin' rules.

There are no rules for this anymore, for interacting with people. Every new gadget , every seeming improvement to our communication serves to sever our already fractured connections to actual, tangible people. I'm tempted to just say fuck the Internet; if you want to talk to me, you'll at least have to pick up a phone. At least that's a person only once, instead of two or three times, removed. But I would have to draft some sort of missive to this effect and post it on said Internet, thus nullifying the force of my mutiny (this is not that, this is just an irate, bored, and slightly (ok, more than that) lonely rant. It, like the others, will pass.

I can get quite a lot accomplished while waiting for the phone to ring...

2009-07-26T19:06:00.000-04:00

Before...Sad, disheveled bookshelf. No clue where most anything is.

Books atop bed. They seem to have multiplied since I last attempted this..

Molly fell under the weight of it all. Kermit, fight has he might, was likewise overtaken.

At long last, success.

now, onward to the closet of doom!

Thanks, Facebook. You just made my day...

2009-06-25T16:51:00.000-04:00

How did it know? Also, I thought he was blocked.

I am slightly concerned that my Netflix queue does not say good things about me

2009-06-19T13:45:00.000-04:00

It feels like I've included a number of the titles on this queue as a means of atonement. I might be intellectually over-compensating.

Adventures in forced interaction

2009-06-15T12:09:00.000-04:00

REENACTMENT OF AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION AT LAST NIGHT'S DELIOUSLY AWKWARD NO DOUBT CONCERT:

Ex-Boyfriend: I should take one of those flyers since I used to have to do that job. Oh well.

Me: Yeah, I used to have to be the person who took pictures of you doing that job.

Ex: Hey you got shows out of it. John Mayer?

Me: And Brett Dennon.

Ex: Yeah, how do you like that in your face?*

*this is an approximation of what he said, it did involve "in your face" I just can't remember the exact wording

Me: Actually, I would like John Mayer in my face. That would be quite nice.

Ex: [scowl].

Me: Ha, see what I did there, I turned it around on you. [dances to lighten mood] See that? It's my turned-it-around-on-you dance.
(editor's note: was the dancing excessive? Yes, probably. Was the other dance I had to do to avoid the turned over trashcan while doing my intended dance hilarious? Yes, I believe, enough to make up for the preceding.)
Ex: [scowl].

The concert last night was fantastic and lent an ironic level of hilarity when forced to sing along to No Doubt next to my ex-boyfriend. Then again, Gwen and Tony do that every night.

Has all the reading made me age prematurely?

2009-05-26T22:09:00.000-04:00

On the Metro this evening, while reading "The Cult of True Womanhood" for class and giggling silently to myself, I heard a voice I vaguely recognized. Admittedly, I first thought it was my very married next door neighbor chatting up an intern. Once I actual caught a glimpse of the guy, I realized it was the law student who'd looked me up on facebook, asked me if I wanted to catch This American Life live, never got back to me about the show only to run into me at 2 AM one U St. on Saturday night and never talk to me again after that. D.C. is an alarmingly small town sometimes. While he and the intern were chatting it up I did my best to keep reading and hide behind my hair (owing to magical ever-sagging pants and a noticeable umbrella absence this morning, I was in no position to pretend to be cute in public.) I managed to refocus my attention on the article, again to the point of giggles. I must have looked up smiling because I caught the attention of an older gentleman (40? 45? He had retired Marine hair and wore IT sneakers.)

It is possible that inferred flirtation from my smiling glance upward and immediate diversion. I've read that this maneuver is often adopted by girls who know what they're doing. I most assuredly do not know what I am doing. Two stops later, Sargent Orthopedic Shoes came over to me with his card, scribbled on it a request for coffee.

While I'm flattered and appreciate the balls it must take to do something I'd need an entire bottle of Irish whisky to accomplish, this whole appealing to the Grecian Five set isn't my thing. I'm starting to worry that these men think I am older than I am. Significantly older.

He also has a really ugly business card. Horrible, easily bent card stock and a terrible graphic.

In other news, while walking to the Mason bookstore today, I thought the man in front of me might have been Jason (I really should have given him a nickname.) He was grey in the same places, wore remarkably similar clothing, and walked the same way. By the time I decided whether I was alright with this man actually being Jason, he turned a corner and clearly wasn't.

Ok, scratch that. Reverse.

2009-05-10T16:49:00.000-04:00

Last night, on a corner in D.C., standing in front of a mobile curry stand, I met a person I only know through Facebook. It should be the other way around, shouldn't it?

Sometimes I think this contact degree-removal we encounter as a result of being inundated with electronic means of communication (and constantly choosing those safe encounters over the messy, physical in-person ones) will kill us before we run out of oil. Or it'll turn into Demolition Man and we'll only have sex through headsets. That will also kill us off.

(on a tangentially related note, I had been worried that my habit of only picking what I deem to be the most attractive pictures of me for my fb profile was giving the Internet a warped vision of what I actually look like. Apparently, I do look like that. Or enough like that that I can pass for facebook me.)

Now to finish this paper and figure out what I'll read on my break. Eco? Borges? I could go for a little PoMo.

You're right. That does put it all in perspective...

2009-05-01T12:55:00.000-04:00

Yesterday, after I incorrectly merged what I thought was a duplicate account (two accounts, same, uncommon name, same field, similar interests. I was 90% sure it was the same person), I was called into my boss's office and told that while this was something that is a giant hassle to correct and I should never do it again, in the grand scheme of things it wasn't a huge deal. This was her reasoning:

We've merged around 18,000 accounts since I [boss] started. This has only happened like four times.

Yes, that makes me feel so much better about my mistake. about 17,996 times better about it. Thanks.

et tu, facebook?

2009-04-29T15:57:00.000-04:00

Facebook made a point of notifying me about this:

Your friends completely changed opinion about you. Your friend didn't think you're the winner in 'who is funnier'. Getting to know people better either causes confirmation or a change of opinion. What do you think?

Really, Facebook? Really? Apart from the really shotty syntax, this isn't the sort of thing I want Facebook to let me know.

Nerd-Girl Triumphs!

2009-04-23T21:10:00.000-04:00

While I am woefully behind on the paper, I found something today that may help my case (or suggest that I have put far more effort into this than I actually have...and did not also just change my mind enough to require extensive additional work. balls.) F.O. Matthiessen wrote the definitive study of the five major writers of the American Renaissance in 1941. He shaped how we look at Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, and Whitman for a great many years. Even though he was gay, he could not discuss the strong homoerotic veins running though either Herman Melville or Walt Whitman's works. When I was researching Melville, I found a passage that belied his silence:

A curious mixture resulted from Melville’s effort to formulate his thoughts, since they were still so new to him that he had as yet no vocabulary to express them that was not at second-hand” (123)

Matthiessen cannot discuss how Melville manipulates and deconstructs heterosexual language (matrimonial signifiers mostly) because there is no language of egalitarian male relationships. In the 1850s, we don't have a word for homosexual, all we have is sodomy--an act of power. So he takes from a traditional male-female bond to describe how Ishmael and Queequeg relate. Because he had as yet no [other] vocabulary to express it. Is that what Matthiessen coded into his reading? I have no idea--it's just what I read.

When opening his discussion of Whitman he says another curious thing: "Whitman's excitement carries weight because he realized that man cannot use words so unless he has experienced the facts they express, unless he has grasped them with his senses" (518). So Whitman, we can assume Matthiessen is suggesting, knew exactly how it was to receive oral sex in the woods(25). To sing no songs today but those of manly attachments (92). To "wander hand in hand" with another man (99).

No wonder a woman had to wait for him...

Oh for fuck's sake...

2009-04-15T00:50:00.001-04:00

Tonight was my presentation and despite running over (only by five minutes this time), I probably did an ok job of it. Zach and I were fairly prepared, the presentation did not include any obvious typos, the fonts and pictures showed up properly and all the links worked.

But I did fuck up. Somewhere between the Structuralists and Reader-response, the two girls who sit in the very center of the back row (or two rows in the arena style class) started furiously scribbling notes to each other. Completely distracted and made exceedingly nervous by this, I lost my place in my notes and brain. I royally screwed up my Reader-response slide and lost about a minute and a half (in the 15 minutes I had) in the process. I could have done one of two things:

1. call them out in the middle of the presentation, regain myself and go on.
2. get completely flustered and fumble until Critical Race Studies and actively avoid looking straight on for the rest of the presentation.

I picked 2. Maybe I should have called them out. But they seem (at least one of them) to be that sort of girl and I just don't want to make enemies...knowingly. I seem to have annoyed one of them already but I'm not sure how. I'm not inclined to try and figure it out either. Any time she deigns to speak to me, it's as an accusation. It's as if that's the only way she knows to phrase a response. It's exceedingly unnerving and she's really good at it. Sometimes, I really wish there were fewer women in my life. At least fewer of this particular kind. The royal Cunt.

Now I can't sleep because I just keep replaying that part of the presentation. I have a feeling that when it comes to it, that's where I'm losing points.

Mistakes were made

2009-04-11T21:35:00.000-04:00

I should be frantically putting together a presentation on Critical Theory and Literary Criticism but am clearly not. Really, the biggest challenge with an assignment like this is editing the thing down to the time limit. One time, I gave a presentation on Charles Stewart Parnell that was supposed to be 20 minutes and lasted for 55. There's a stopwatch this time.

Earlier today, on the way to the store I was listening to the end ofThis American Life. The show this week riffed off the phrase "mistakes were made" and focused on people who, after fucking up royally, made performative apologies without actually saying "I'm sorry." An e-mail I got from Walt early this year and subsequently deleted (but not before drafting a response I never got around to sending) comes to mind.

At the very end, Ira Glass talked about discussing the show's topic with a colleague at NPR (one of the writers for Market Place whose name escapes me) and the writer mentioned a poem by William Carlos Williams. When he read it on air, I mouthed along because I've had this poem quasi-memorized for a couple years now. He noted that when he first read it in grade school his teacher told him it was an actual note Williams left his wife one day. Lou taught us that Williams had affairs and the plums in the icebox aren't plums at all. But he isn't sorry either way...

THIS IS JUST TO SAY
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

-William Carlos Williams

The writer, after all these years, is still infuriated by the line "you were probably/saving/for breakfast". He knew they were being saved. He knew her. And to him the "Forgive me" isn't so much mea culpa as it is a demand. I love this poem. I loved it when Lou first read it, the way he read every poem, slow and lingering. Lou, I think, had experience with plums. It's devious and beautiful in how it much it asks and how little is has to say. After the poem, a series of regular AL contributors read their own. Some were better than others. Some more in keeping with Williams winking simplicity. Others, well just one really, were too malicious to be really good.

Lately, this poem reminds me of Jason. That might not be fair because I do feel bad about how things ended. They again, look at that last sentence. How things ended? Mistakes were made. Maybe I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt. Lord knows I haven't given anyone much lately. I guess in watching other people wind up with someone just because they couldn't stand to be alone, I decided the opposite of that is probably better. I can't always stand to be alone either. When things start going inexplicably down the tube it's nice to able to just call someone whose job it is to help make it better. That's nice. But at what cost? I don't have time to really care about someone else. I don't even have time not to find unforgivable fault in them. I can't find fault in the plums though. The plums are always sweet. It's what comes after plums or the things you have to do to get to plums that seems to be most problematic lately. I don't know if I want the plums that badly. However sweet they taste.

I wonder if she knows there ar pills in her cheese

2009-03-31T11:02:00.001-04:00

I took my dog to the vet this weekend for what I assumed was a routine check-up/rabies re-vaccination. As it turns out, she may have Lyme disease. I say may because it's possible that the positive test just indicates that she has been exposed to it (been bitten) but did not contract the full disease (requires that the tick stay attached to the dog for around 48 hours.)Rather than wait for a quantitative test to show how much exposure she's had, I elected to have her immediately put on an aggressive round of antibiotics. If it is Lyme disease, we can make it a chronic condition that won't do serious renal damage resulting in kidney failure. If she was only briefly exposed, we can get rid of it all together. After a fair amount of googling, everything my doctor explained makes sense. I just hope she doesn't have the for real kind of Lyme disease.

Perhaps I am making entirely too much of this but it's my dog. No, I did not seek her out. Yes, I actively tried to get rid of her (or rather, find her owners.)But she's my dog. All complaining about the early morning walks aside, she's my buddy. She happened along when I really needed her (for reasons I can't possibly elaborate if for no other reason than I cannot fully articulate what was going on at the time and how she factors into it. Suffice to say, she does.) And now, I've failed her on a very basic level. I could have put her on a monthly flea repellent but elected to just give her baths because I never saw fleas or ticks on her, forgetting just how small ticks can be. She's come a very long way from when I found her. If she gets legitimately sick, it's entirely my fault.

Did I miss the point?

2009-03-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

I feel woefully unprepared for class most of the time. I can't/don't devote the amount of time (I think is) required and it bugs me because I will attempt to answer the professor's question but, even in the midst of articulating a response, fall short. I'm torn between wanting to participate and not having the proper tools to do so thoughtfully. Maybe I feel at a scholastic disadvantage because this is only my first semester and the rest of the class has been at this for a minute or two longer. That should make me work harder, no? Instead, I'm letting it swallow me. I'm forgetting about the elephant. I can't forget the elephant. It's buckle down time.

In looking at the reader-response articles for class, I remembered my first "experience" with reader-response criticism. My 12th grade English teacher, Mr. Rosinski, was actively pursuing a graduate degree in the field. He liked to give us what amounted to literary sound bites and ask us to respond to them in no more than a double-spaced page as a means of teaching us how to get right into a problem (they were always problems, these quotes.) One class he brought up Roland Barthes, authors of "Death of the Author" and asked us to respond to the follow line from the essay, "text’s unity lies not in its origin but in its destination." We had no training in literary criticism, certainly nothing to put the quote into context but we were plucky AP students and assigning this was easier for him because it allowed him to use the pretense of teaching us as a means of going over his class notes. A real win-win. Anyhow, this it what I wrote (I'm not sure why I kept it, I have a lot of things I wrote in high school):

A teacher of mine once told me what I wrote reflected what I’d read. I was talented because I had good taste. He thought this was a compliment but that statement has haunted me since because it forces me to ask a question I don’t necessarily want an answer to— Could I ever write anything that is truly original or will it always be merely the product of a lifetime spent reading? In preparing a response I am immediately tempted to quote a novel I read years ago, “ Nothing of me is original. I am the combined effort of everyone I have ever known.” So I suppose the answer is no.

This is a troubling thought mostly because I find myself at an impasse. A relentless curricular emphasis on originality of ideas over voice has stifled my ability to simply write. As a result, it feels, stylistically, like an abstraction of my bookshelves. A literary bricolage. But maybe this is not a personal flaw. Roland Barthes stated in his essay “The Death of the Author”, "The writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings [...] in such a way as never to rest on any one of them.” If this declaration holds true, this predicament is the inevitable result of being simultaneously a reader and writer. Barthes goes on to say that a writer cannot assert ultimate authority over a work because, in many ways, they did not write it. “A text is made of multiple writings…this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author. The reader is the space on which all the quotations that make up writing are inscribed without any of them being lost; a text's unity lies not in its origin but in its destination.”

I got a B. I always got Bs in his class. Apparently I took the quote out of context. Funny because the only context I had was my own response to the abbreviated reading. It seems I took myself out of context. I don't mind the grade. Really, I didn't then. This is the beginning of a response at best. I don't even really explain the last quote I use. It feels thrown in because I don't really know how to articulate my point. I remember struggling to write this and feeling woefully incapable of doing so. Maybe that's why I bring it up now. Again, I had/have tools, and with enough time (or a better application of the time available to me, then and now) could probably have come up with something better. But I didn't and again feel like I don't.

The context comment bugged the hell out of me though.

What's the opposite of 'he's just not that into you'?

2009-03-23T22:52:00.000-04:00

I told Mousetrap that it probably isn't a good idea, us going to a show together on Thursday night. He's probably a lot more interested in me than I am in him and I can't muster sustained enthusiasm for new people right now (see: the grad student I should have given a nickname but instead called Jason.)

Zoe suggested that I might be a closer to mustered (mustard?) were it not for my initial assumption that Mousetrap had a British accent. This was perhaps brought on by the loud background (ok, foreground) noises and Mousetrap's tight black jeans. Those jeans should only be worn by gay men and Europeans (who may or may not be gay.) It's just trickery on anyone else. I wasn't even wearing a push-up bra that night so I can't be accused of the same sartorial deception thus negating my indignation.

I also realize I've been pretty quick with the veto lately: too-tight pants, propositions via facebook, using the word tinkle (twice, mind you), being ever so slightly shorter than me, being ever so slightly two decades older than me, working in a shoe store, and quoting My Fair Lady (last two sins were committed by the same person. I'm hoping this newfound discretion does not turn into desperation down the road when men invariably stop asking me out and I wind up latching on to the first one to glance my way in months. I hope I'm learning that not having someone isn't the end of the world. Plenty of people would notice if I went missing and would make every attempt to find me before the I was eaten by Alsatians. As an added bonus, I get to keep the entire bed to myself. This is a double bonus on nights that I get to warm on one side of the bed as I can easily move to the cool half. Bagel is not terrible difficult to shuffle from corner to corner.

This weekend I bought the annotations to a book I have not read (yet) and a double bell alarm clock that is, for all intents and purposes, a paperweight as it cannot keep time and I am not entirely sure how to wind it. Men, even Oscar Wilde, would not understand my desire to purchase an ostensibly useful thing in order only to admire it intensely.

I was reading an article on reader-response criticism earlier today and was reminded what bothers me about that particular school of thought. I actually like the idea that a text is the coming together of author and reader, Barthes suggestion that the destination of a text lies with the reader and not the writer, etc. My problem is this--isn't every reading, every analysis, on some level a reader's response? Is it really possible to separate what's going on in a text from our rendering of it? Even the new critics brought the understanding of the world to each reading. Do you mean to tell me that their fundamental understanding of language did not shape/inform their analysis? No one is that objective. I'll get back to this later. It's late and I don't have to the battery power (in my laptop or my brain) to dig deeper right now.

Instead of the things I should be doing, this is what I did.

2009-03-16T22:05:00.000-04:00

Word clouds I made at Wordle when I should have been researching (i.e., taking notes while reading his blog) Dr. Sample's theory and criticism coursework for my interview with him on Wednesday. In a manner of speaking, this applies. It's a reflection of my low cultural output. blah, blah, blah, simulation. blah, blah, blah, Baudrillard. blah, blah, blah, hyperreality. blah, blah, blah, signs.

My blog (or at least the most recent postings).

My Nan Lacy Entry from Senior Year.

My Senior Thesis.

My editorials from high school journalism (possibly my favorite of the bunch).

...and one not by me, Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself"

do I dare disturb the universe?

2009-03-15T16:54:00.000-04:00

The conversation I was planning on having with Jason at dinner on Friday about what it is that we are and where we may or may not be headed did not turn out as I had previously anticipated. Firstly, I expected to be the one to bring up a relationship. And I did not think I would be the one to suggest that one would be impossible.

Earlier in the day, after I mentioned having been invited to see Modest Mouse that night (by a fellow with ambiguous intentions), he asked if I felt free to go out with said other guy. I told him the thought hadn't really crossed my mind. He asked if I thought he was trying to make me his girlfriend. That thought had occurred to me but so did all the others wherein he mentioned the impossibility of it all and told me about all of his previous dysfunctional relationships without the requisite detached self-depreciation required in that kind of admission. It never quite sounded like he was over a single one of them.

I was, as it happens, not prepared for our conversation to go like this at all (apart from the proposal bit and the somewhat dated attire, this is not an entirely inaccurate rendering):

I guess, I got tired of waiting for me to tell me what he'd figured out. I knew he felt something because he told me as much. When I asked for words, I received exactly that. Words. A series of signifiers that managed, with very few exceptions and really only when he was using someone else's vocabulary, to signify nothing at all. Unfortunately, as much as I do like him, I just don't have the patience for someone else who can't ever really manage to explain himself. Maybe I put my guard up because I wasn't sure what would happen. And when something finally did, I was too guarded to let go again. It's entirely possible that I did this to myself, again. Be that as it may, it's done. And like he said last night after our hours-long conversation in his hotel room, I'll go back about my day. I will. I hate to say that because I feel like I should be more upset, more bent over all of this. I'm not especially. I liked him yes, but not enough to put up with all that. When it came down to it, I thought I'd found Walt Whitman. But again, I would up with Prufrock. Too many coffee spoons. Not enough Yawp.

Eventually, I will find a man who behaves like one. And when I do, I'll be done.

That is of course, not the whole of the story. After we established that this was not going in the direction that we had previously anticipated, I might have casually mention that it would do no one any good to let the moment (or the hotel room) go to waste. That we shouldn't pay attention to the syntax of things and that kisses are a far better fate than wisdom. I might have suggested that we should be absolved from previous ties and conventions and that in naming the thing we'd only subjugate it. We'd kill it doing that.

Did I use e.e. cummings, Walt Whitman, and Michel Foucault to get a man into bed after telling him I could not be his girlfriend? Yes, yes, I did. And while I should probably be deeply ashamed of the intellectual manipulation, I am inclined to think that in that moment my education paid for itself. We'll add this to the list of reasons why I am a terrible person and call it a day.

For future reference...

2009-03-06T10:47:00.000-05:00

You don't read this (well, whoever you are reading this right now, you clearly do. The specific you to whom (who?) I am referring, does not), so I can say this:

When you're trying to explain how you feel about me, in admittedly stunted phrases (This seems to be the only time you're at a loss for words) don't sum it up with, "if I didn't care about you, I wouldn't be spending the money to come visit." You can just say, " I care about you." In fact, I'd prefer it. The other way isn't sweet. It's guilt-inducing.

I'm just saying, think of the leaves.

And limitless are leaves, stiff or drooping in the fields

2009-02-28T16:01:00.000-05:00

Thursday, while I was hurriedly getting ready to meet up with friends, I noticed a letter on the table addressed to me. I was expecting something (in addition to the usual notices from DSW and Borders that I should go buy more things) but I wasn't expecting what I got.

Inside the envelope was a hunk of grass (I was later informed is genuine Radford grass, from in front of Russell Hall) and a little notecard with my name on one side and this on the other:

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat;
Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best;
Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.
-"Song of Myself"

Admittedly, I'm somewhat of a cynic when it comes to things like this.I'm not very good at being wooed. I've never liked chocolate, I prefer to pick out my own jewelry, I think it's silly to send someone dead plants (regardless of how pretty they are), and I have been unnerved by displays of genuine human emotion on more than one occasion. Usually, I make inappropriate jokes that make the other person disinclined to act that way again. When people tell me about the great new guy or girl they just met and how they have magically found their other half--I'm dubious. I don't know why, I just don't think much of this stuff.

Notes like this make wish I could turn down the dube. It was unexpected and sweet and wonderful and I'm completely smitten. I'm also confused. The longer we go on like this, the more confused I will probably get. On the one hand, he thinks to send me leaves of grass. On the other, during our conversation last night he told me how great it was that I was also in graduate school because it means we both get how dating is impossible right now. I have no idea what that means or how the one even relates to the other. Frankly, in the last couple weeks he's gotten more time out of me than my ex-boyfriend did and he didn't have to share me with graduate school. I would argue that the distance makes the dating impossible. But that's the obvious argument.

I guess I'm just worried that I am going to screw this up because I have no idea what it is how how to approach it. I suppose, as before, I'll just have to wait and see.

This short blog can be made longer. You can help Meredith by adding to it.

2009-02-23T15:33:00.000-05:00

Thanks to xkcd, I discovered Simple.Wikipedia. No one should have pointed this out to me:

Deconstruction

I don't know what I find more troubling, the article itself ("the book or poem works because all of those meanings work together." Really? I'm not sure the emphasis should be put on teamwork when discussing deconstruction) or the implication that there are words in it some people (who know enough to use computers and navigate to Wikipedia or look up "deconstruction") might not know yet.

More Larkin than Whitman...

2009-02-23T13:29:00.000-05:00

On the list of things I should really be dealing with right now are the following: my taxes (so I can file for FAFSA and thus take some of the strain off my pocketbook right now), file for FAFSA, get car insurance (mine is gone at the end of this week), pin-point what it is that I'd like to discuss on the aforementioned bibliographical essay (proposal due Friday--I've narrowed it down to Walt Whitman, which is decidedly not narrow enough), figure out exactly how much I need in order to move out as quickly as is humanly possible. This is all in an effort to say that I probably should not have spent essentially every evening last week talking to a fellow well into the past-my-bedtime-hour. And yet, that is exactly what I did.

It's just that he's exceedingly distracting. This is both fantastic and, as the above-outline list suggests, not the world's best way to spend my time this week. Also, it's hideously confusing. While I knew him briefly while at school, I did not spend any significant amount of time talking to him there (mostly because I was dating Walt at the time and he had a habit of getting unnecessarily jealous of non-mutual male friends.) Fast-forward to last weekend. While staying with Laurel for her birthday, we all hung out and everything just clicked. We wound up staying up well after everyone else had left or gone to sleep, just talking (well, ok--not just talking.) I won't go into the details because, frankly, if you tell too many people I thing like this it becomes less and less special.

So here we are. We've talked pretty much everyday since I left Laurel's and he mentioned coming to visit me at some point. I'm certainly open to going back down there to see him. But to what end? I'd really love to go with the flow on this one and see where (in anywhere) it takes us, but I'm a to-do list kind of girl. When I travel, I make packing lists. I have musical playlists for most occasions (with tentative ones in my notebook that I have not perfected yet.)Lists of books to read and songs to download. I have a list of movies I have yet to add to my Netflix queue. If there is a way to organize a task into a series of cross-offable steps, I will. I will also probably write it down along the way. If I finish something that isn't on my list, I will include it only for the purposes of immediately checking it off. I'm not good at "wait and see." Granted, I probably would not be asking these questions were not it not for the distance. The distance makes this an undertaking.

I don't know, I suppose I'll wait and see.

When can I go to the supermarket and buy what I want with my good looks?

2009-02-16T18:54:00.001-05:00

Occasionally, I don't mind so much living at home. Money that other people would spend on important things like water bills can go towards shoes. Only, I can't live in my shoes (not unless I buy a few more pairs and build some kind of fort, then it just becomes a problem of fortifying the property.)

Then there are the other times, when I visit the smallish, cozy apartments of friends who never have to ask anyone to turn down The O'Reilly Factor or wake to find the food they'd bought for lunch has been replaced by a five dollar bill. I keep looking, but I haven't found an apartment that's less than a paycheck and does not require a roommate. Roommates (while I have had one good one) leave the door open and the stove on (ok, that one wasn't a roommate but I don't see why someone else wouldn't do it.) I'm not really inclined to move in with anyone I don't know and the people I do know would either also prefer to live alone or I would prefer not live with me. I suppose an economical experiment is in order. Or I can hold out for a magical studio apartment that is neither too far from work or school and well under the sum total of my biweekly paycheck. I have a feeling it doesn't exist, not that I won't keep looking.

Then again, I could just be inventing something to talk about so as not to mention the finer details of my weekend (or else, I fear I may get away from myself and sound them from rooftops and I think that just might kill them. I have to be able to keep something for myself.)

Things I purposefully left off the "25 Things You Might Not Know About Me" List

2009-02-08T21:54:00.001-05:00

1. I do not like what the 5 most recent calls on my phone say about me : Mom, Mom, Mom, Chinese Food, Micah (who called to have me look something up for him because he was out and was surprised to hear that I was also.)

2. Whenever I climb a set of stairs too quickly, I worry that I will fall forward, land on my front teeth and they will lodge themselves into my head. I worry about this for mostly cosmetic reasons.

3. I've lost about 20 pounds since I graduated college. Saturday was the first time I can remember my mom telling me that I looked better in a smaller size. She's been telling me I am a large since I was in the 7th grade. I didn't weigh 100 pounds in the 7th grade.

4. my homework is not done yet. I should get back to it.

5. Sometimes, I resent my dog. That bitch hit the lottery.

6. sometimes, I wish I was gay. I don't find women desirable at all but I think it would really fuck with my ex-boyfriend.

more conversations in the office...

2009-02-06T15:00:00.001-05:00

Meredith: I don't think anyone goes to jail for not reporting an extra $48 in my paycheck.

Jacob: That's good because they'd love you in lady-jail...They'd just eat you up in lady-jail...well, not literally, but...yeah.

Incidentally, I reported the extra money. Please don't fire me higher-ups who may happen upon this blog.

Conversation in the new office...

2009-02-06T14:21:00.001-05:00

Meredith: I think the problem I have with unfortunate men is that I am generally nice to them and occasionally they confuse polite conversation with flirtation.

Meagan: Actually, I can get solidly into the Friend-Zone in about five minutes.

Meredith: Really? How so?

Meagan: it's all about your stance, if you slouch the guy will start to think of you as a guy (here she gets up to explain her meaning, slight bend in each knee, hips forward confidently, shoulders hunched just so) This says to the guy "dude." Then you can just be yourself.

Meredith: (aping Meagan's posture awkwardly thanks to 15 years of ballet) so this? See, I was just cursing and drinking and making jokes about boobs.

(Meagan leaves the room)

Jacob: Yeah, that's never going to work. Also, don't joke about boobs. That will just draw us in. Pretty much, you're screwed.

(Meagan returns)

Meagan: I'm telling you, slouching every single time.

I'm pretty sure slouching is not the opposite of pigtails. Also this is not a social experiment of which I am likely to conduct as I have to try very hard to slouch and would not be able to carry on a casual conversation while doing so. I guess I just have to home my letting-socially-awkward-dudes-down-easy skills.

Meredith Finally Attends Class. Spends Three Days Geeking Out About Annotations

2009-02-05T10:13:00.001-05:00

Despite the warning from Doug Hill that there would be 1-3 inches of snow inside the D.C. Metro area, we finally had class. Granted, the professor had the wrong room number and was a good fifteen minutes late (before anyone starts about the 15 minute rule, I'm a) not sure that applies to graduate school[where you should really want to be, right?] and b) I once waited over an hour and a half for a professor to show up when I took Linguistics one summer at Mason. It was a one month, three hour course. I was not going to miss a day just because the teacher didn't show up.)

It was magical. Really, he could have read from the syllabus in the style of HAL 9000 from 7:20 to 10:20 and I still probably would have been satisfied. Mercifully though, he did not. It's a research methods course and he started by warning us that he occasionally gives homework problems meant to stump us. We are to make note of the time it takes us to complete each problem and should never spend more than an hour. I don't know that I won't occasionally spend more time on something. Once I'm given a question to answer, I like to, you know, answer it.

There is also a 15 page bibliographical essay (in addition to two shorter papers [5 pages] on the two course texts and two oral reports, one on a field covered by Mason faculty and the other on our research for the essay) on a topic of our choosing. I am kind of stumped as to what to do and completely open to suggestions. Monday, I started re-reading Leaves of Grass and now have Whitman on the brain (which has a way of bringing Melville to mind, as the two are exceedingly similar, especially if you look at the Calamus poems and the read "Squeeze of the Hand"...which I will probably do tonight.) I was considering looking at how or where to the two men intersect (male-male bonding, images of masculinity, and radical democracy). The Former Professor has suggested that I look into whether or not they were even aware of each other. This is a possibility as I could translate it into a potential thesis later on. Then again, it's really not stepping out of my research comfort zone at all. I already know the big names in American Renaissance from the Melville thesis. Also, there is just so much information in that field that the problem isn't finding sources but rather eliminating them.

Then again, I could go wildly in the other direction and look at something I know nothing about at all but am intrigued by. Earlier this summer, I read Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino and still have no earthly idea what I actually read. The entire novel is a conversation between Marco Polo and Kubla Khan, wherein Polo describes fantastical cities to Khan. Turns out, each one is actually Venice. Experiments with form have always interested me (that was part of the initial appeal of both Melville and Joyce and a big part of why I loved Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) but I can also find them annoyingly gimmicky. I don't want to get annoyed by my topic.

Oh, decisions, decisions...

If this means I'm spending the next semester cozying up to Freud, I'm quitting school and opening that taco stand.

2009-01-30T14:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight will more than likely be spent in the library. At least until it closes at 8pm. That would be an embarrassing admission, if I weren't looking forward to it. Class was canceled again on Tuesday thanks to the snow, but Dr. Foster still sent out an assignment (I may have e-mailed him asking what work could be done to stay on track for next week but I could not have been the only person and he'd probably would have assigned something regardless...don't start with me.)

I'm not entirely sure I like "The Secret Sharer". Either it's exceedingly obvious so we can use it to dip our toes into lit crit, or I missed something. My fear is the latter. Throughout the short story, the unnamed narrator refers to the man who climbs aboard his ship in the middle of the night as his double. His secret self. Occasionally, his other. Never once uses the man's name and despite knowing nothing about him apart from his amphibious aptitude and the reason he left his own ship (he killed a man) he takes him in, hides him away from the rest of the crew and risks their lives and the ship to insure that Leggatt can make an anonymous get away from the ship. There has to be something more to it than the obvious (literal, really) twinning Conrad's doing. There just has to be. It's short, I'll read it again.

First assignments, while I always look forward to them, are unnerving when prepared for someone I've never met. I always wonder if this is the time they'll finally figure out I have no earthly idea what I'm talking about. It's times like this that I really worry that Radford was too easy and has not prepared me at all for the work I'm about to encounter.

I really want to be good at this school thing. I really like it. I'm just a little afraid I've been operating under a false impression of myself. I don't like short stories whose apparent obvious makes me second-guess my ability. I don't like them at all.

At least I recognize the names of the critics in this edition, that has to count for something.

January Evaluation: 4.5 out of 13

2009-01-28T12:12:00.000-05:00

Instead of waiting until the end of the year to look over my failings and because I am nothing but a perpetual list-maker, I've decided to reexamine my goals for the year on a month-to-month basis and modify them as needed:

1. Institute actual workout regime.
I have a pattern and I tend to work from the top of my head down, does this count?

2. Write more.
This morning on the metro, I wrote a poem about scraping ice off the car. Let's see now much I can kill it between the mokeskine and the computer. In an effort to have something to read for Dave's open mic (at which I ultimately failed) I undid a few poems left from Lou's classes. I've been trying to de-Lou my work now that I have seen a disturbing pattern emerge in the stuff I did as an undergrad. More on that later.

3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.
Sephora was out of Chanel No. 5. I bought Chance instead. Still Chanel, still classy. Scrapped the red lipstick thing. My eyes are more interesting than my mouth. I'll focus on them.

4. Be irrepressibly scholarly.
My Friday night plans this week involve the MLA Literary Research Guide and a stint in Fenwick Library. Despite Mason closing on account of snow and canceling my second class in a row (we still have not actually met yet), the professor did send out our first problem set and ask that we read "The Secret Sharer" and Death and the King's Horseman (which I can't manage to finish and highly recommend, respectively). I think I'm going to spend a good deal of time this semester talking about the Other. I guess it's good I paid attention that day in Lit Crit...now let's just hope the prof. doesn't bring up Bakhtin.

5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. So far, so good. Clearing out my closet also helps. Although, I have noticed that I'm pretty much left with shades of green, purple, and black. I'm going to call this a style, not a rut.

6. Travel abroad at least once. This, I think, will be the thing that doesn't get done.

7. Do well at Mason.
I'll let you know if we ever have class.

8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.
Must fill out FAFSA.

9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.
As this requires going to parties, I have no idea if and when I will accomplish it.

10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.
I will also let you know if this ever happens.

11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.
I have not actively looked.

12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.

Bookshelf is still a wreak (and I am pretty sure it ate my C.K. Williams and Andrew Hudgins.) But as noted above, the closet is in working order for the moment. Now if only I could find a place for all my shoes.

13. Be admired from afar .
I'm giving up on this. There is really no way to know if you're being admired from afar unless you receive repeated Missed Connections on Craigslist that you can verify are you and not just another nondescript brown-haired girl on the Metro in a black coat (it's a town full of black coats). Really, what I meant to say is that I'd like to avoid an actual relationship for the time being as they only end in disappointment. However, I could easily be convinced to make out with thoroughly inappropriate, albeit irrepressibly handsome, men if given the option. This will be the first Valentine's Day since I was 16 that I will not have a built-in date. And while the prospect of spending it alone in my room with my Netflix queue is not especially comforting, I've decided it's better than being in a relationship. Also, I don't think I want to go to Kim and Vince's party. I like them, but that place is loaded with bad vibes now. I'll go back later. After I have accomplished my new goal.

Meredith models her life after Amy Vanderbilt's New Complete Book of Etiquette

2009-01-25T19:38:00.000-05:00

While in Radford this weekend, I found possibly the single greatest thing ever lying on a table in Dave's apartment and have decided that '09 will be the year I finally learn how to behave like a lady.

1. Never assume that an awkward child just lacks social graces acquired by their peers. It is entirely possible that he or she is suffering from some disease that makes them knock over dinner glasses. Always check for the measles.

2. From now on, I will never frequent the local bars and nightclubs (or those in other locales, if I am traveling) unescorted. If I absolutely must go out without a fellow, I will inform the staff in advance to see if arrangements can be made so that I may take in a show without causing undue embarrassment to myself or the nightclub. I can always join a touring group of other ladies if so accommodations can be made.

3. in an effort to avoid any undue stress, I will not invite ladies to parties unless I can be assured they can secure men for the evening. "Sad, indeed, is the lone woman who stays at a cocktail party to the bitter end, hoping some interesting man will turn up, only to depart well past the dinner hour obviously dateless." From now on, like dip, I will make sure there is an ample supply of men at any function I host. In the interest of full disclosure, I no longer expect to be invited to parties, cocktail or otherwise.

4. I will not steal the hats of sailors unless I expect to land squarely on first base after having paid for dinner and some extra buttons.

5. If a neighborhood dog snaps at my child (if I am ever to have one, see number 3), the onus is on the child.

6. I must immediately secure a social secretary and at least one servant.

7. Learn how to make Squab Chicken Alexandra and Schecken.

8. Learn how to make an expert martini as "nothing is so horrid as a martini with too much vermouth."

9. During a menstrual cycle I should clean (but not in such a way that irritates my eventual husband...best not to be seen) or retire to my personal chambers until "the weeps" have passed and I am once again human.

10. I should make myself an attractive roommate to men, not a banshee. That means dainty, feminine nightgowns. No lipstick to bed though, think of the sheets.

Meredith encounters her worst nightmare outside the State Department...

2009-01-21T09:04:00.000-05:00

Just before getting into work this morning, I saw two tourists (still? Show's over, please go home. You frustrate my morning travel routine and Springsteen is probably already back in Jersey), a man and a woman, wearing matching taupe puffer jackets. Last Friday, when my friend asked me why I didn't want to get married, I gave him vague answers about wanting to retain my identity. I had no concrete reasoning. Now I do.

When Zach and I were infants and mom decided it would be a great idea to dress us in matching sailor suits for a portrait at Olan Mills, we had no choice. Although, I think my permanently stuck out tongue and his actively rolling off the platform and requiring head stitches were forms of formal protest. We, despite sharing nine months in the same womb and having similar tendencies and tastes, have not had matching outfits since we could speak.

"Individual identity? I don't need that, I have this thoroughly unflattering coat that is far too masculine for me and verging on effeminate for my husband. Our Name is Stevinda."

This is why I have a dog, 54 pairs of shoes, and no boyfriend.

Which Dashboard Confessional lyric best encapsulates my mood...

2009-01-19T18:34:00.000-05:00

This weekend, in between contemplating the Inauguration, cleaning out my closet (seriously, 13 pairs of jeans? How did I find space for all of them?), staring blankly at Microsoft Word, making mix cds, buying textbooks (I'm talking 'bout you, Wole Solyinka), tallying up my shoes (54 pairs) and watching old episodes of the West Wing, I flipped through my high school diary. Most of it is crap but this was vaguely amusing:

I started to play a game at lunch with Eric today, we tried to figure out how famous writers would have sex based on their writing styles...

*Hemingway's done before you get started. [I suppose this was based on his terse sentence structure. I don't recall]

*Dostoyevsky would give you VD. [I also don't recall how we determined this, but I suppose it's all that time in the Underground?]

*Tolkien would want to role play.

*Poe would want to tie you up.

*Shakespeare would be the most romantic lover ever...until you realize he was just lying to get you into bed, but boy does he have rhythm.

*Salinger would accuse you of faking.

*Plath would want to call you Daddy.

*Dickens would repeat the same move so many times you'd start to fall asleep.

*Camus would only get it up when the mood strikes him and if he does there's no guarantee he'll finish.

*Kafka doesn't know what he's doing, no one's told him.

This is apparently what I did with my time (you know, for all this reading, I sure as fuck didn't study.) On Friday, I met up with a friend from high school for a few drinks. It was a thoroughly enjoyably trek down memory lane (apart from recalling all of the horrible things I did to him when we briefly dated.) The thing about old friends is how they, without effort, throw your life into stark contrast. Granted, looking over this diary, I was kind of a miserable shit. Petulant, self-absorbed, self-righteous. I was also in high school and I suppose we're all infallible in high school. I guess I had convictions, though somewhat misguided. Communism doesn't especially work in a free-market society... Unless you choose to live on a commune. I've never really been good with yard work. I have turned off somewhat when it comes to political awareness. I've stopped telling people how they shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. Some of my favorite shoes are made by tiny Chinese children. I don't spend much time quote Chomsky and Zapata anymore and I threw out my Che Guevera shirts. But seriously, we made a cultural hero of Proletariat revolution into a commodity. Not exactly in keeping with the tenets of Communism, is it?

I think I've improved it a lot of ways. I didn't try in high school. At all. Once I got to Radford, I made a concerted effort to give a damn and found it relatively effortless. Not that school wasn't a challenge, but it wasn't difficult to want to keep going, even if the going was occasionally difficult. I liked Journalism because I thought it was important to disseminate information. But I didn't necessarily enjoy it. I enjoy literature. I like the look on someone's face when they read Prufrock out loud for the first time. I love the ah ha! moment when meaning in a novel, intended or otherwise, hits the reader. I sit at my computer starting a screen for hours waiting for the moment when I can't stop writing...even if it's shit.

I suppose I have changed. I've become someone I can stand to be around. It's just an added bonus that that person gets to wear cute shoes.

Wherein she realizes she can never go back to that DSW even though it has a clearly superior clearance section...

2009-01-11T20:59:00.001-05:00

As of 9th grade, I'd never been kissed. Well, that isn't entirely true. At the 8th grade dance, Patrick Sanders (on whom I had an enormous crush and who, as it turned out, was fantastically gay) kissed me on the cheek at the end of the evening. That was it. I entered 9th grade with absolutely no experience when it came to the fellas. I had a working understanding of the male anatomy because of perfunctory sex-ed classes. Certainly no carnal knowledge.

I kept this a secret. One night, I slept over at a friend's house and in between late-night viewings of Cabaret and Evita (we were in theatre), the two other girls, both be-speckled, removed their glasses and had a contest to see how could fit the side piece furtherest down their throat. Noting that I was participating, they turned to me and asked how far I'd gotten. I was still trying to figure out the purpose of the contest and how it related to guys at all (my mother begrudgingly explained oral sex to me during the Barbara Walters/Monica Lewinsky interview after I asked if President Clinton was in trouble for talking dirty. Talking was the only "oral" with which I was familiar), and was not about to cough up the particulars.

I did get my kiss. Just not in the way I had anticipated. The production that Spring was The Merry Wives of Windsor and I played Rugby, a page to one of the play's various suitors (the details are fuzzy. It's one of Shakespeare's comedies. There's a buffoon, a pretty girl, some mistaken identity, a few jokes about the French and it ends with a wedding or two.) At the close of Friday's show, Jimmy Waters stuck his tongue down my throat after I said I'd go out with him. I had been expecting a longing gaze, Jim just led with his tongue. That isn't to say I didn't enjoy it. I'd just been waiting for a while and wanted to work my way up to choking on someone else's tongue.

Since that first kiss, the longest I have been without a boyfriend is six months. In eight years, I've had a boyfriend (four total, but two of them had made repeat appearances) for about six, give or take a month. I was in a relationship for two and half years, single for four months (wherein I had various dalliances we will not discuss), and then found myself in a relationship for the next three years. I don't even know how it happened. Other people, I am told, date for months. Not years.

It's been two months since Walt and I broke up. I miss the dalliances. It would be easier to say that no one has seemed interested in me. That isn't exactly the case. About three weeks after we broke up, I tagged along to a party with my brother and his friend Mark hit on me. Granted, I did not know that was his intention until after he stated it directly (albeit it sneakingly inserted into the end of an otherwise innocent questions). I thought we were just discussing Derrida and Ulysses. There's nothing wrong with Mark. Were he not two decades older than me and one of my brother's very good friends, I'd probably have gone for it. The newness of my break-up didn't help much either. Neither did the promise I had stupidly made to Walt that I would not start dating again until after he'd met someone new (I know, I know.) At least with Mark, there was hope.

Later, on my last night in San Francisco, a guy named Kenya (no, seriously. His name was Kenya) asked me out while I was waiting for my burger. Again, it started innocently enough. I figured he was just making conversation while we both waited for our food. I lied and told me I was meeting up with my boss for a drink and really couldn't flake on her. Today, while I was trying on shoes (a sacred and personal endeavor, during which one should not be bothered), I was asked out by a shoe salesman. He did not offer me a discount. He asked if I liked movies and if I lived in the area. Then he asked if I minded being friends with men. I told me yes on two counts and only if the men intended on remaining platonic. I have very little room in my life right now for messiness. Al (yes, a shoe salesman named Al) then asked if I had a boyfriend and I said I don't but didn't particularly want one right now as I had just ended a rather long-term relationship. He gave me his card regardless and told me he was very much like Professor Higgins in that he " was serenely independent and content before we met! Surely [he] could always be that way again." Yes, the professor Higgins of Pygmalion and My Fair Lady fame. I decided not to explain to him that I always thought Shaw was didactic without merit and it's a supreme joke that the Nobel committee honored him and not Joyce.

Can you veto someone because of a dead Irish playwright?

Haven't I earned a legitimate rebound? I haven't had one yet. Legitimate or otherwise. Instead, the universe has thrown me dud after dud. Mark probably wasn't a dud but it still didn't feel right. Kenya, was a good foot shorter than me and reminded me very much of Walt's old roommate, Paul. Al has no tangible chin and, in addition to quoting a musical when he asked me out, told me that he hated most people but that I seemed like I might be smart. Seemed, but he was not sold. Man, does he know how to man an offer a girl can easily refuse.

Granted, I suppose I can't actually have a rebound until I start meeting new people. The only two ways I'm about to have of meeting said new people are graduate school and the hip-hop dance class I'm trying out on Wednesday. They'll both probably be chock-ablock of ladies. Joy of joys. This isn't to say I don't like my people. I adore them. I just wish they would invite attractive, tall, eligible bachelors to parties so I can have my legitimate rebound and move on to the business of being alone for a good, long while.

Just a kiss or two from the lips of a determined man. Is that too much to ask?

Do they call that irony or foreshadowing?

2009-01-03T23:51:00.000-05:00

One time Jimmy and I were in the car in Blacksburg waiting for his brother to get off work and we got into a conversation wherein he told me that it was okay to smack a dog. That certain incidents warranted violence. I think that was about when I decided we weren't going to last much longer.

I have no moment like that to look back on now and think, "Ahh, yes. That was a warning I should have taken to heart." He never even hit a wall when we argued. There was never any indication that he'd take it there. Talking to Micah tonight ( I decided that my brothers should know what happened if only because I'd prefer they have no contact with him ever again and they should know why), he asked if there was any indication when we dated that this might happen and there never was. He said that he thinks the people who can hit a wall when they're mad enough, know not to hit people. That may be true. I have no idea, but then again, I only hit walls.

I suppose what bothers me, even more than anything else, is that he did it when my back was turned. He came up behind me, when I didn't even know he was in the room, didn't even know he was still at the party, and he knocked me over. He shoved me to try and get me to fall down. It would have been better if he'd punched me in the eye. At least then I'd have seen it coming. Instead, he was a coward. Apart from not hitting people (it doesn't even matter that I'm a woman and he's a man. At this point, that doesn't even matter.) A man stands up. If he's going to fight, he does so honorably. He doesn't run up behind someone, knock them over, and then run out of the room. I guess what's most upsetting is finding out how alien this person I thought I knew better than anyone in the world really is. I have no idea who he is or ever was (if this is what he was always capable of.)

There was a moment, when we first spoke that night that I thought, "you know, this isn't so awkward and we can just be friends eventually, if not soon." Not now. He wanted us to be friends. He demanded that I talk and let him see Bagel. He wanted my advice and asked if I could look around for girls who might like him. I would've. I mean the talking and the listening and maybe even the girl-finding. I was not, for reasons that (at the time, now so much now) passed understanding, comfortable with him hanging out with Bagel. Do they call that irony or foreshadowing? None of that's going to happen now. So far, I've been pretty clear that the ending was a 50/50 deal. Yes I walked out, but it was because we wanted different things. He was not inherently bad, he was even good. I just knew that I had to get out before we got any closer to permanent changes. He's killed all those warm, even affectionate feelings. He ruined everything in a split-second. Any hope for a new, different relationship. Any possible chance that we could be friends, even good friends. That's all dead and he killed it. Now he's dead too.

I hope, if I ever see him again, he isn't offended if my face loses all color and I run in the other direction. It's just how I assume I'd behave if I ever saw a ghost.

Resolutions, '09 Edition: Things at which I will inevitably fail

2009-01-02T10:55:00.000-05:00

I don't recall the last time I had a list of concrete new year's resolutions (that I was not required to create in class. It's been a long, long time.) So in no particular order (and ranging from the practical to the sublime and possibly ridiculous):

THINGS I WILL FORGET TO DO BY MID-FEBRUARY:

1. Institute actual workout regime.
I go to the gym, run a little, stretch, dick around on machines and then leave. Yes I have lost some weight and toned up some but I've no earthly idea what I'm doing. This also may include taking a couple dance classes.

2. Write more. I'm legitimately worried that I've become the woman in Raymond Chandler's "Cathedral" who only sits down to write a poem every two or three years when shit gets inexplicably real. I have both a copy of the 2009 Poet's Market and a Magnetic Poetry calender. Also two Moleskines and a pen at the ready. And shit has recently become increasingly tangible. I have no substantive excuse.

3. Become the kind of woman who can pull off red lipstick and Chanel No.5 without seeming like a possibly trashy septuagenarian.

4. Be irrepressibly scholarly. I'd like to be able to discuss the post-structuralists on a substantive level (not just ending a pithy comments about what deconstruction isn't.)

5. Only buy clothing that makes me want to dance. This applies to gym clothes, fun clothes, going out clothes, ladies nights regalia, work attire, shoes, etc., etc., etc... This will cut down on the money I actually spend on clothing and hopefully also eliminate last minute wardrobe disasters.

6. Travel abroad at least once. I have a passport that is stampless and pathetic. It could do with some sprucing up.

7. Do well at Mason.

8. Save money for a spiffy new computer.

9. Develop charming idiosyncrasies that amuse people at parties.

10. Generally carry myself like a brave, little toaster.

11. Find the perfect little black dress. I do not own a little (or big for that matter) black dress. This is a travesty and must be remedied.

12. Get organized. My bookshelf is in disarray and my closet is full of clothing that goes unworn. It's giving me hives.

13. Be admired from afar (this does not preclude the possibility of affairs with solvent but lonely gentleman who love me for my mind and lavish me with fancy shoes and Amethyst rings). I have too much stuff on this list (and far too much ambition) to worry about menfolk.

Borders does not have a "Commodity Aesthetics" section

2008-12-16T21:43:00.000-05:00

Since yesterday was my only really free day to explore the city, I set off after checking and re-checking my bank account (there was about a $200 discrepancy between what my company said it was paying for and what it actually paid for. Fun.) Hopefully my math, which I repeated checked on two different calculators, worked out and I don’t run any over draft charges. Eek.

On to my mini-venture…

Apparently, the west coast has a rainy season. It’s lovely in the morning and then the rains set in and normal people take cover under awnings. I pick this time to take a 15 minute walk to Chinatown. Well, it would have been 15 minutes if my shoes did not repeatedly fall off my feet. My lovely, dependable Steve Madden flats that have only ever coyly dropped off my heel while sitting on the Metro, slipped completely off my feet crossing Geary St. San Francisco, you could imagine is about level with D.C. when it comes to “places I’d rather prefer not to be barefoot.” I elected to try and find a shoe store in the area. Chinatown does not have shoe stores. It has Hunan restaurants and a few head shops (how does one city support so many head shops?) and weird Chinese herb shops the likes of which I’ve only seen on travel specials…no shoe stores. I figured out a way to walk with my toes completely flexed so as to create a kind of hook to which my shoes could cling and made my way to City Lights to spend too much money and dry off. (Side note, I’m writing this in a Starbucks and one of the baristas just alerted everyone to a messenger bag left unattended at a table. The barista warned the person who copped to owning the bag that someone could steal it. Everyone else seemed utterly nonplussed. I immediately thought, “don’t touch it, it could be a chemical weapon.” I’ve been living near D.C. too fucking long.)

City Lights was magically. As magical as you’d expect a bookstore owned by one of the Beats to be. The building is old and in the rain smelled vaguely of mildew (booksmell mostly overwhelmed that but not completely.) The poetry room was everything I'd hoped it would be. Unfortunately, upon reaching the room on the third floor I completely forgot the name of every poet or poem I'd ever read and proceeded to wander aimlessly around the room until something popped out at me. I almost left with the collected poems of W.B. Yeats. Then I remembered that, unlike Borders, I may be judged for my book purchasing choices at an (anti)establishment of this magnitude. I picked up a collection by Philip Larkin (not particularly impressive but I love him and own nothing by him yet so I took the risk. Then I frantically flipped through my moleskine for any name that I'd come across but did not own yet. I found Robert Creeley and Dorothea Tanning. I went with the Tanning but later remembered that Mark had mentioned I should look into Albert Goldbarth. I stuck with the Tanning but not without a decent amount of back and worth.

When I finally left (it took a while to work up the reserve to stop smelling the Derrida, I left with one children's book for Kora about a duck who buys ever-expanding purple socks, the Larkin, the Tanning, the latest issue of Believer, Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland, 7 postcards ( a picture of City Lights, Joyce, Whitman, Heaney, Bukowski sticking his fingers in his mouth, the staircase leading up to the Poetry Room, and Ginsburg), and a bumper sticker that says "HOWL if you love City Lights".

Were it not for my shoes actively falling off (requiring an emergency pair of pumas) I would have stayed longer and bought more. As it is, I think I showed an incredible amount of restraint. I want to love San Francisco but there are things I cannot reconcile. The homeless situation here dwarfs D.C. They're really all over. Not pushy or aggressive, but problematic nonetheless. No one walks fast enough. Even in the morning. It's as if they have no where to be, even at 8:45 in the morning. My skin and hair are simultaneously dry and oily. I don't know how that happens, but there it is. This climate does not agree with my face.

Really though, I'm just not cool enough for this place. I'm barely cool enough for D.C.

The post got progressively lamer the more I typed...

2008-12-14T19:53:00.000-05:00

Well, I made it. The plane took off and landed with relatively little fanfare. I don't particularly care for air travel (what very little I have done) but I had to be assured by the nonplussed looks of the other passengers every time the plane got a little shaky or the fasten seat belts sign clicked on that we were not actually about to faceplant (planeplant?) onto the ground 30 thou' below. They did their best (not knowing what they were actually doing) but I still spent the majority of the flight with my seat belt on and my tray table in the upright and locked position.

When I was checking in at Dulles, I entered my information into a kiosk and there was apparently another person with my name flying that day. only she was headed for Paris. It would have been poor form to take her place. Also I'd probably lose my job and might create some sort of pesky international incident. And I did not have my passport on me. Paris would be nice though. I wonder if it's raining there too.

The trickiest part of this whole business travel deal is the eating alone. I've been given $75 per day. I just don't know if I can walk into a fancy restaurant and sit by myself. I just don't see it happening. I realize that no one around me would care or even really notice that I was alone but the prospect of sitting at a table by myself at anything fancier than a sandwich shop isn't terribly appealing. I can do it there (and did earlier today). Coffee shops too. But a place with cloth napkins? I just don't see it happening.

Tomorrow, we're setting up the booth for the conference and I have the rest of the day to myself. I'm going to try and find City Lights, the bookstore started by Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Let's see if I can negotiate mass transit on the other side of the country. In the meantime though, I think I'm going to go to the gym before I fall asleep.

Ways I have attempted to organize my bookshelf*

2008-12-10T13:50:00.000-05:00

*Ordered from most to least efficient

1. Alphabetical, regardless of book category.

2. Book Catagory (poetry, style guide, philosophy, etc.) then alphabetical.

3. Publication Date (first, not most recent reprint or publication of most recent addition[for books containing introductions not found in previous editions]).

4. Publishing House (imprints fall in line alphabetically behind larger house).

5. Class for which work was purchased (Only worked at school and even then only for part of portable library).

6. Biographically (problematic because I do not know why I own a copy of Ain't Nobody's Business If You Do : The Absurdity of Consensual Crimes in Our Free Country.)

7. How impressive would I seem at a party if I casually mentioned having read it? (Most to Least.)

8. Brilliance of opening line. This method falls flat unless you are working only with novels and short stories.

9. Mental Illness/Major Vice that served as author's undoing. (ex. Hemingway, Burroughs, and Thompson: Guns; Poe: Mournful, never-ending remembrance...and liver failure; Woolf: pocket full of rocks [so far, she's there by herself])This method is wholly ineffective when the author is still alive and has no known addictions.

10. My own raging jealousy.

Bring on the fanny packs, I think I just hit tacky and classless.

2008-12-08T13:29:00.000-05:00

Walt requested that I honor his birthday in some way, presumably with a phone call or card. I did that. Except last week he apparently told the only two people in the in the area who were speaking to me on a semi-regular basis that I no longer required their acquaintance and they listened. This brings the "friends with in a four hour drive" count to a whopping 0. I also finally went to the dermatologist and was prescribed multiple creams that have, so far, only succeeded in make it look like my chin spent a week in Tahiti without packing sunscreen. Compounding this, not only have I not heard back from the therapist my mom suggested I make an appointment with, I'm also now being ignored my the nursing home at which I volunteered to be a reader. To recap:

1. Net loss of friends thanks to my exceedingly helpful ex-boyfriend.
2. face actively rejecting top layer of skin
3. Denied by both medical professionals and old people.

Owning to this most spectacularly shitty week and half I was not feeling particularly honorable, I sent Walt this:

http://www.someecards.com/viewcard/fc76abfbfd3a8d1e090c6239e169bb29

And I'm done.

And that's just what they'll do...

2008-12-07T22:42:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, while working on an endless stream of errands (which included going to the dry cleaner to pick up a dress, a skirt, and a pair of pants for which my mom did not have a ticket and had already paid for but insisted the owner had kept because of a stain that required special attention, leaving the dry cleaner with only my dress and skirt because (not completely unsurprisingly) the dry cleaner had no memory of the previous pants-related interaction and then going back to the dry cleaner after mom called the cleaners and promised not to yell...Given the number of bowing apologies made by the dry cleaner when I came back for the pants, I don't quite believe her), I walked into Starbuck(')s for a pick-me-up. I'd hoped to try the espresso truffle, which looks tasty but I never order because I usually get coffee on the way to work and only have time for the ready-to-pour-right-now variety. They were, of course, out of whatever is required to make the espresso truffle and I ordered a Venti Americano instead. But this is not the point of the post. The point is that when I walked in, the barista told me I reminded him of a snippet from the trailer for Pretty Woman. Apparently, something about the way I walk reminded this man of hookers.

I knew I shouldn't have tried the whole jeans tucked into boots thing. I was worried that with my coat it would make it look like I was recruiting for a reformed Nazi party (according to Ian, my coat is alarmingly Teutonic.) I didn't realize that my outfit made me look like I could make a living on Craigslist (I'm like 3,000 roses.) To be fair, he meant it as a compliment and told me I had a good walk. All I could think to say in return was "Well, I've been doing it for about 22 years now."

move along, nothing to see here.

2008-12-02T21:08:00.000-05:00

Last night I wrote him a letter I had no intention of sending, mostly because it snarkily outlined his less appealing points. I have a copy on my computer, where it will invariably remain despite having briefly considered posting it anonymously on Craigslist. I, if only for a mili-second, considered posting it not so anonymously here too. That would have been beyond the Pale. Also tacky and classless. I'm trying to avoid both with actively decreasing efficiency. Part of me wants to cop to every accusation and hurt feeling. To take responsibility for all of it and apologize again for all my shortcomings. The other part, when thinking about the last two or so years and especially this last month, wants to run screaming from all of it. The only problem is that I have a decent job, just got accepted to grad school and don't quite know how Bagel would fare on the lam. She does not like to walk for long periods of time and I'm get tired carrying her. I couldn't very well leave her behind though. I suppose I'm stuck.

What's difficult in all of this is how little I can actually say. I told Nicole a lot this weekend while she was in town. The problem is that she isn't in town anymore and I've only really started talking about it beyond vagaries--we grew apart, we just want different things out of life--it's hopeless bullshit and does not begin to get at the point of the thing. The only problem, and it's a rather large problem, is that the way I tell the point of the thing does not put him in the most attractive light. It's downright ugly. It's also ultimately an inaccurate picture because even though I'm the one who did the ending, it's still hurts a lot. It had hurt before and it still does. One of our mutual friends equated the way Walt feels right now to having just had an incredibly large band-aid ripped off. It makes sense, he never really saw this coming... except that that band-aid had been there for a while now and it was starting to gather fuzzy bits on all sides. Maybe he really did not see the bluish outline form around the bandage, but it had been discussed. As much as I want to believe his absolute ignorance when it came to the fuzzier bits, it hurts just the same to think maybe (and contrary to all his recent rantings) he just didn't care enough to to at least spruce it up with a new band-aid, maybe a a little rubbing alcohol, some Neosporin. Stupid is easier to forgive.

I wish I could actually explain this to my friends (the two or three I see in person on a semi-regular basis), gory details included. But they're all his friends too. Actually, they're his friends first. I wish I could talk to them, explain everything and have them tell me I did the right thing and deserve much better than I'd been handed. But I can't and they wouldn't. Even if they did sit through the tirade I've choreographed in my head, I'm not entirely sure they think I did remotely the right thing. I don't blame them for that. It makes a lot of sense. I just can't talk to them. We went out on Sunday afternoon and I had to buy boots afterwards to cheer myself up. It was nothing they did or said but there is a palpable distance and it's sad and I don't need one more reason to sit in my room and be sad.

Before I met him, I spent most every night at home. I'd run out of homework and rent DVDs from the library. Early on in our relationship, he told me he felt bad because we always hung out with his friends and that he'd like to meet some of mine. I didn't know how to tell me that I didn't really have any and that I only went out when my roommate let me tag along to whatever party she' was going to. He'd already met my roommate. Now, I can't get over how it's his friends (really, thats what they've always been) I'd have to explain all of these gory details to. I can't do that. It goes back to the tacky, classless thing. I've already let too much slip around them. I shouldn't; it isn't fair. I get mean and petty when I'm mad and hurt. Even saying this here, knowing full well they can and have already found this, seems hideously passive-aggressive. But I don't have a paper diary. I've never been able to keep one going. I'm sorry about that, the passive-aggressive part that is. I don't mean to be and can only hope this will get ignored. I just had to get out some snippet of something. I've kept it in too long, it's giving me stomachaches and acne.

I had been keeping a list of things about the relationship, things that marked our ultimate undoing. I had hoped it would be cathartic but mostly it just felt pathetic. I've re-read the list and I don't hate him so much (although, I can't help but hate him a little...it will pass, probably quickly) as I hate myself for letting it all happen.

On Saturday night, for a few minutes at least, all they wanted to do was take my picture. I hid to the best of my ability because my skin is worse than it's been in years and I really don't want evidence of that floating around when this is all over. It's hopelessly vain but when you feel like shit you really don't also need to be reminded how closely you resemble it. I should have stayed home. I have the special edition of Hamlet. An evening with a melancholy Dane would have put things in perspective, I think.

...And I got this little streak in me that's twenty times mean.

2008-11-24T22:18:00.000-05:00

There is a bit at the very beginning of Moby-Dick where Ishmael explains that when he gets in an a certain mood he has to the urge to methodically knock off the caps of people who happen to pass him on the street. It's the same part in the first chapter where he explains the need to pause before coffin warehouses. I get that. Unfortunately, I can't even bring myself to cut in line at Starbuck(')s. Ishmael sees it as the perfect time to take to the sea. Me? I write pithy, snarky poems. I just found this one going through things I wrote for one of Lou's classes. It'll never see its way to a journal or 'zine (except in a highly edited, almost unrecognizable form), so I assume it's safe for posting. It's part true, part complete lie, part my own working definition of Schadenfreude. I'm not going to say which is which. it's more fun that way (for me).

IF EVERYONE HERE DIES I GET TO BE EMPEROR

I.
I steal silverware from restaurants
and put it in a drawer in my kitchen
I wouldn’t use otherwise.

When the waitress isn’t looking
I stuff my purse full
of spoons, forks and steak knives.
Sometimes, if my bag is big enough,
I take mugs and decorative glasses too.
I stole a carafe once.
I always ask for extra napkins
so I have something to wrap them in.

She must think I’m a messy eater.

II.
I whisper obscenities at small children
getting off school buses
on sunny Friday afternoons—
just quiet enough that no one knows
exactly what I’m saying
but loud enough that
I make their parents and babysitters uncomfortable

III.
The day people told me you had a concussion
and couldn’t remember anything
passed the last 15 minutes,
I asked you questions
about conversations we never had
and laughed when you didn’t know
what in the hell I was talking about.

IV.
I find it difficult to sympathize
with Mary Magdalene.
she knew what she was getting into—
martyrs never want to go to sleep.

V.
I sniff underwear
in the women’s department
I hope someone tried on earlier
that same day.
I’m not allowed in Victoria’s Secret anymore—
they have my picture on file.
So I sit at the Starbucks
across the mall
and hope something wafts my way.

VI.
I carve voodoo dolls
of people who cut me off in traffic,
dog ear library books,
rent the movie I wanted to see,
make small talk with the cashier
when I’m already running late
and no other register is open…
I just don’t know how
to go about collecting their hair.

VII.
The night my ex-boyfriend
shot himself in the face
in the middle of a parking lot at VCU
I ate cake.
Later, at the funeral,
surrounded by Jell-O molds
and anonymous, green casseroles—
I didn’t have the stomach for it.

I didn’t take the spoons that night.
I can’t steal from church
and they’re plastic anyhow.

I offered to help clean up after
and stole the tablecloths instead.

Perhaps the title has taken on an ironic tone...

2008-11-13T12:35:00.000-05:00

I'm still doing some major fiddling with this poem but I wanted to put up the original and then the "fixed" version base on suggestions made by a former professor. I always thought this thing was too long and it may still be. I have not done a full line edit, it is a skeleton of what it was before.

First the Edit:
PRODUCE

Lately, I feign headaches to be alone
and wake, flushed, from fitful sleep,
from dreams where my hands
or nose or ears are missing
and no one notices but me.

The grapes in the produce section,
bunched tightly in hunks,
don’t notice this absence
the way I did that morning
in my paper dress and hospital slippers.

My knees in the air and without underwear on,
we discussed Benizir Bhutto’s
assassination before the doctor filled
the syringe and the room
went momentarily fuzzy.

The machine lisped,
the wailing welling in me
like an old Armenian woman
who’d mourn for years to come
the quiet renting in that tiny room.

The hollow spaces—
walls I didn’t know,
cavities I thought filled in
by connective tissue and millions of platelets—
ached from dilation
and the unsteady slurp
of being sucked (almost) dry.

The slow wet gulp
of a clogged drain
swallowing the last of my shower
is sinister in how it reminds me
of sounds anesthesia could not block.

These grapes, bagged
in unrepentantly happy clusters
don’t know their role in this—
what I buy to avoid
coming home with less
than when I left.

Now the Original:
THE UNKINDNESS OF GRAPES

I.
The grapes in the produce section,
bunched tightly in hunks,
don’t notice an absence
the way I did that morning
in my paper dress and hospital slippers.

II.
We sat—
me and the rest—
some reading paperback novels,
others staring mindlessly past the wall,
waiting to hear their name.
Absentminded, I did the crossword,
filling “working” into 15-across
even though it should have been “useable.”

I did not get the chance to correct myself.

III.
My knees in the air and without any panties on,
we discussed Benizir Bhutto’s
assassination before the doctor filled
the syringe and the room
went momentarily fuzzy.

The machine lisped,
the wailing welling in me
like an old Armenian woman
who’d mourn for years to come
the quiet renting in that tiny room.
But I only managed a gasping wince
before it was over and I was told
I’d be back to normal soon.

IV.
The hollow spaces in me:
walls I didn’t know,
cavities I thought filled in
by connective tissue and millions of platelets,
ached from dilation
and the unsteady slurp
of being sucked (almost) dry.

Even the slow wet gulp
of a clogged drain
swallowing the last of my shower
is sinister in how it reminds me
of the sounds
the anesthesia could not block.

V.
Every conversation we’ve had
since I left so early that morning
without leaving a note
to say where I’d be
or for how long I’d be gone,
has been an ellipsis.

What I could say to women
I’d never met, but not to you,
echoes in me when you ask
how’ve I’ve been
and why I didn’t call when
I was in town.

VI.
Lately, I feign headaches to be alone
and wake, flushed, from fitful sleep
and from dreams where my hands
or nose or ears are missing
and no one notices but me.

I am still waiting for the normal
I was promised weeks ago.

VII.
These grapes, bagged
in unrepentantly happy clusters
don’t know their role in this—
what I buy to avoid
coming home with less
than when I left.

Let me know what you think...all three of you.

I hope I did not just make a costly mistake

2008-11-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

"Are completing you thesis this semester?..."

That was the subject heading on the first e-mail I received from the GMU English Lit grad student listserv. I'm fairly certain that the woman who oversees the listserv is not actually a professor. This is slightly, though far from entirely, comforting.

I might have made another costly error in judgment recently. I'm not sure yet. But I do know that the place where I post letters to Starbucks is not the place to discuss said confusing, giant messes.

Instead, here is some impromptu haiku:

He sleeps on sofa--
shoes still on. Was raised better.
He'll trip, ties laces.

Decisions, decisions...

2008-10-31T08:58:00.001-04:00

Walking into the Vienna Metro this morning I had to make an awkward decision. Shake hands with former Governor, now-Senatorial candidate Jim Gilmore, or grab an Express from the guy who stands outside the entrance on weekday mornings and hands them out...

He could have stood just inside the gateway or slightly in front of the Express fellow. Out of deference to my mother (whose overriding sense of propriety pops in my head during just such occasions[also whenever I am tempted to refer to President Bush as Grand High Ass Twat in an official sense instead of giving due respect to the office]), I shook fr.gov. Gilmore's hand first and quickly moved to get an Express. Very quickly. I'll be voting for Warner. He's had my vote since he spoke in the Bonnie last spring and, when asked, told the crowd that while law degrees and MBA's could get you pretty far, it doesn't mean anything if you don't pay attention in English class.

I'd probably vote for anyone who stumps on the importance of a liberal arts education. Hell, all Joe Biden had to do was have a staffer put a Seamus Heaney poem on his facebook page.

The Woman at Border's Wanted to Know If I Would Require a Gift Receipt...I Did Not

2008-10-27T09:28:00.000-04:00

I was trying to think the other night about the last time I actually sat down and wrote something. I really don't know. I re-wrote a story to get it ready to send out...but have not yet looked into sending it out. While I have three other stories (and two sketches) that definitely need work, I have not brought myself to get into it. I scribble down ideas on the Metro but then stop once I realize someone is reading over my shoulder. As uncomfortable as it makes me, I cannot bring myself to stop reading what other people scribble down.

I did make some progress this weekend. Tiny, inconspicuous progress. I finally bought a copy of Poet's Market. Hopefully, forking over cash pursuant to my delusions of grandeur will actually force me to, you know, pursue those delusions and send some of my shit (operative word) out.

I think the problem might have something to do with work. I don't read as much as I should. I don't know why since there are so many books I'd really like to plow through. Right now, I'm tacking Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. I just couldn't get into Lady Chatterly's Lover (then again, I may pick it up again...I think I was just getting to the good part.) Invisible Cities so far follows a conversation between Marco Polo and Kubai Khan. Polo has been telling Khan about various and sundry cities that, as it turns out, are all varying descriptions on Venice. It's interesting but I feel like I'm missing a lot the first time out.

Why am I reading this? Because I do not know the meaning of "light reading".

What do I do with this poem? If there anything in here worth fixing? I have no idea:

Turkish Army

Silent except for the plastic

footfalls of army boots in snow

he cut throats in Korea

while Marines fumbled with rifles

and gave away their position

to sleeping Chinamen—

I don’t tell him that’s not what

we call them anymore.

Instead, I avoid his stare—

ringing up the shirts he buys

for his wife in Florida who is

Sicilian and will not fly,

he tells me as if the two are related.

His shoes are too white

for him to really be dangerous.

Too new and polished

to be the shoes

of an indiscriminant killer.

The Americans, he tells me,

did not keep ears like his men did

but they did not live either.

I nod but do not see the connection.

If you actually read this, let me know.

That's nice, now could you get your hair brush out of the bathroom?

2008-10-22T13:08:00.000-04:00

I found myself getting unnecessarily irate with my mom last night after she said the follow:

"I can't read novels, I can't read anything I can't learn something from."

This is a paraphrased version of what she said, but essentially identical to her statement (allowing for discrepancies between "can" and "don't like to"[because I can not remember which she said, the former or the latter], and for any and all emphasis created by punctuation.)

I wanted to ask her why, if it was such an apparent waste of time, did she pay so much money to have the state of Virginia teach me things from which no real knowledge can be derived. Instead, I grumbled and groused about how she wasn't trying hard enough and if she put forth the effort she could learn a great deal. That what she should have said was she "chose not to learn anything from novels because she refused to see the value inherent in them and how they are indicative of multitudinous cultures/ideas converging upon, and reacting to, one another. I mumbled something about how I had learned a great deal about a good number of things, and I was sorry she saw no value in that.

I don't know what to make of this exchange. Was it an off-hand remark? Does she really see no value in what I want to do with pretty much the rest of my life? I'm not joining the circus or running off to become a yogi (both valid life choice but would be inevitably frowned upon by mom). I want to get my doctorate. Every time I bring it up she doesn't support it, just complains that it costs to much and she does not want to see me go into debt. It is an understandable concern but I'm not going to Harvard and I'd only take out loans to pay for class, not my entire life. I only need a little help at the start of each semester so I can pay as I go.

She knows how much I miss school and how much I want to be back in classes. I don't expect her to get excited if I get in to grad school. Actually, I expect that the first thing she'll say will be something along the lines of "well, now how are you going to pay for it?"

I imagine it's what Shel Silverstein smelled like...

2008-10-21T16:56:00.000-04:00

Almost everyday, right before I turn the corner onto 21st and C, there is a man walking in the opposite direction. He's always carrying two briefcases and smoking a pipe. I smile when I see him because the pipe smell is so sweet, especially now that is it getting cooler out. I have no positive associations with spicy, sugared smell but there is something oddly inviting about this foreign, familiar smell.

He never smiles back, just looks right at me like something large behind me is about to fall. Then I pass him, turn the corner, and am hit in the face by the overwhelming smell of shit. Work crews are redoing pipe right below the State Department. The pipe smell is gone and I have to go to work.

Trick or oh f' it...

2008-10-16T09:13:00.000-04:00

In the time since Kim initially mentioned throwing a Halloween party, I've gone through the following costume ideas (and subsequently--sometimes almost immediately--eliminated each):

1. 1940's pin up--Cute, but not too slutty. More Betty Grable (not pregnant), less Bettie Page. Drawback: can't find a costume that is both affordable and fits my "not a total ho'bag" criterion (yes, I have one requirement.)

2. Gypsy--I have Ghillies (Irish step-dancing shoes that double as footwear of the peasantry), floaty skirts, and flowery hair wreath. Drawback: I look really bad in head scarves and everyone would think I'm supposed to be Esmerelda from the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

3. Belly dancer--See above. Add 8 million ab crunches. Negatory.

4. Can-Can dancer--already have dance strength lined fishnet stockings and character shoes. Get to have befeathered hair and bright red lipstick. Drawback: It's been done to death and I have neither the time nor the equipment (my sewing maching is ka-put) to make a decent looking costume. I would have to make it because the ones at the store are really, really awful. Also, I can't jump into the splits.

5. Lady MacBeth--Nightgowns are easy to find. Drawback: fake blood is exceedingly sticky and would get on everything...not just my hands.

6. Courtney Love--I have red lipstick and slips. I also have fishnets. I just need a tiara, heroin addition, and my dead husband's shadow to stand in forever. Drawback: I do not have a blond wig and or any desire to go get one.

7. Lisa Loeb--"Stay" is quite possibly one of my favorite songs of all time. Drawback: No one will actually know I'm wearing a costume if I just show up in glasses and a dress.

8. Clarissa (Explains It All)--I get to wear the most ridiculous concotion of patterns and colors I can think of...Drawback: no fun make-up (I might as well just stay home) and I could not convince Walt to play Sam. Also see problem with #6.

9. Daria--Could finally make use of my army jacket from The Gap. Drawback: See problem with #7.

10. Dorothy Parker--Finally, an exuse to drink martinis and act superior. Drawback: Definitely an expensive costume. See also problem with #7 and #(this time indistinguishable by action, not costume).

11. Sarah Palin--I have a suit that would suffice. I have red shoes. I can do that to my hair and I own glasses. Drawback: Sarah Palin.

12. Poetry in Motion--Very simple dress, fabric markers, and "Leaves of Grass". Drawback: Even I think that's nerdy.

13. Ballerina--really too easy as I have more leotards than I have pants for work. Drawback: Really not a costume for me. Also, I don't want to wear my ballet shoes ( pointe shoes def. out of the question) all night, they'll get ruined.

14. Sally Bowles-- I have a vest. I just need shorts and a top hat. Drawback: As I no longer am in high school theatre (and surrounded by other theater kids) I don't think anyone would get it. Even if I was wearing green nail polish...Also wig required.

15. My Last Duchess--Pretty dress and a picture frame. Drawback: No one will get it. Ever. Who dresses as a Robert Browning poem for Halloween? Who even considers it?

16. Ishmael--it would just be a name tag. Drawback: See #12 add times a billion.

17. Raver--Same essential appeal as #8. This time I get to wear more glitter. Drawback: I've never actually been to a rave so my only real experience with one amounts to a couple late night showings of Go and a very special episode of Dawson's Creek where the blonde girl not played by Michelle Williams takes some E and wants to pet everyone.

18. Marla Singer: I can probably find a thirft store dress that qualifies and can scrounge up a nametag. Drawback: I don't want to spend the entire night telling people I want to have their abortion.

19. Molly Bloom: Find nightgown. Put just a little bit of blood on the front. Talk about Gibralter. Drawback: People will presume I'm Linda Blair in the Exorist and not pay any attention to the Gibralter bit.

20. Flutterby--like a butterfly if it went to a rave. Drawback: See #17.

Right now, I'm leaning toward Katy Perry. I'll have a new idea tomorrow but I already bought falsh eyelashes so I'm wearing them, dammit.

One more thing...

2008-10-10T14:14:00.000-04:00

I turned in my application and all required documents to Mason. I just checked the website and it looks like they received everything so now I just have to wait and see what happens. If I get in, I have to scramble to get cash to pay for it. I'll give it a week before I start completely freaking out about that though. One week.

If this doesn't pan out, I'm opening a literary-themed tex-mex restaurant. I'm calling it "Krapp's Last Taco Stand"--obscure theatre references and the general impropriety of using "Krapp" in the name of a mexican restaurant be damned!

I make totally kick ass guac.

Metro Riders--please be advised, there is a train directly behind this one...

2008-10-10T13:52:00.000-04:00

There is almost nothing that has the power to fuck up the rest of your day quite so quickly as having to de-board the Metro on your way to work (discovering that your friendly neighborhood Starbucks is out of coffee/closed ranks a microscopically close second...and has yet to happen to me in the Nation's Capital. Thank Jesus.)

Having said that, I can deal relatively well with even these delays. I have about a half an hour window in terms of arriving "on time" at work and there are three reliable Starbuckses within in an eight block radius. When the doors closed and repeatedly reopened at the Court House stop this morning, everyone kind of knew it was time to gather belongings and make towards the platform. When the lights flashed to alert us, there was an audible grown among the throng of be-suited government employees and bleary-eyed interns but we got politely, regardless. The P.A. suggested it was train malfunction, which is usually code for "assholes who would not stand clear of the doors" as we waited for the next train. I waited for two more trains before getting into one. Mostly because my fellow Metro riders failed to notice the large gaps at the center of the train and instead corralled around the doors, perhaps blocked by some impenetrable force-field of self-importance and "personal space", unable to move to the center of the fucking train.

It's common Metro courtesy kids, we've all read the PSA posters about collecting our bags, not leaving errant copies of the Express lying around, and avoiding the label "escalump". Can't we also scooch down the lane?

We just come this way

2008-10-01T14:18:00.000-04:00

Saturday was Ian's wedding so naturally Kora stayed with us to give her newly official-entwined parents some much needed alone time. She had about three pounds of icing at the reception as she spent a good part of the afternoon methodically de-icing each piece of cake in her vicinity and dipping butter cream covered fingers in sugar. Because of this she was pinging well into the evening.

The next day, while we were getting ready to hand her off to Jen's sister, she decided to take all of Bagel's stuffed toys out of her crate and play with them. The only problem is that puppies and toddlers do no play the same way and Bagel was in no mood for frivolity. Kora proceed to take the stuffed rat (from IKEA and one of Bager-meister's favorites) and carry it around the house. It was funny until it was time to head out and Kora did not want to part with the rodent.

A fit of sorts insued. Kora calmed down when I asked her want she was going to do at Aunt Kristen's. She started jabbering, quickly stopped, and asked if we could relocate our dicussion to the bathroom because it was secret. It was not especially secret and relocating the the bathroom meant walking through the door in front of which we had been standing. All the same, it's proof posivite that girls are not trained so much a spring forth like some glitter obssessed Athena, fully formed and desirous of new shoes.

...She also asked for clothes for her birthday.

I have a problem...

2008-09-24T11:16:00.001-04:00

Grammar Girl,
I just subscribed to your podcast and love it. I have something that has irked me for a while now and was hoping to get your view on it. Perhaps I'm in the minority on this one, but shouldn't Starbucks have an apostrophe? A case study I found states that the coffee chain's name is taken from Captain Ahab's "coffee-loving first mate in Herman Melville's Moby Dick" (company background, par. 1). I do not recall, having read the novel a couple times, there being more than one first-mate named Starbuck aboard the Peaquod. Wouldn't grammatical common sense dictate that the company name should suggest possession of coffee and not plurality of coffee-drinking seamen? Incidentially, this has not deterred my Venti-a-day caffeine habit (but I have drawn an apostrophe on my cup more than once.)

Thanks,
Meredith Jones

(p.s. Should "Vent-a-day" be hypenated?)

What I do on coffee breaks

2008-09-17T10:10:00.000-04:00

Dear Moveon.org,

I enjoy getting e-mails from moveon.org, but do you think you could bring a (perhaps another) copy editor on staff?

"Today's news took even McCain's biggest admirers by surprise. In fact, we just 'found' an amazing video from Billy Mires, the 'real' bus driver of the Straight Talk Express reacting to McCain's impressive technological feat."

The quotations used to set off found and real are correctly used. The wink to the audience that this is a joke is made apparent by their inclusion. However, "watch Billy's video and spread the word by becoming his 'fan' on Facebook?" is a perfect example of when not to use quotation marks. You're neither quoting, as fan is not used sarcastically (presumably), nor is it quoted (rather, in the context, it does not require quotation.)

Please forgive my momentary English-major rage. I wouldn't point it out, but you guys don't want to end up here. I'll gladly continue to read your e-mails and pass them along to friends.

-Meredith

I realize that there are better ways to spend my time. But this was cathartic.

Books I did not finish the first time...

2008-09-16T15:36:00.000-04:00

Despite being a perpetual listmaker, I've posted nary a to-do list on this blog. In an effort to remedy that (and in honor of being oh-so-close-to-done with Jane Eyre):

10 Books I Did Not Finish the First Time, 2 Books I Did Not Finish the Second Time and 1 Book I've read so many times I lost count/am embarrassed to admit:*

1. The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald (first assigned in the 9th grade.)
2. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man- James Joyce (12th grade, I've since read it twice despite not particularly liking it.)
3. The Picture of Dorian Gray- Oscar Wilde
4. Jane Eyre- Charlotte Bronte (summer reading list, 4th grade. Still reading.)
5. Pride and Prejudice- Jane Austen (I tried reading this so many, many times.)
6. Heart of Darkness- Joesph Conrad (12th grade. Junior year. It was only 70 pages, why didn't I read it back then?)
7. Cat's Cradle- Kurt Vonnegut (not his best work. Comparatively, I read Slaugterhouse-Five in a single sitting. I only got two hours of sleep the night before 9th grade started.
8. Handmaid's Tale- Margaret Atwood (I think I took this out of the library three times before actually finishing it.)
9. Atonement- Ian McEwen (Cheated. Got it at audible.com. Started on a cartrip back to Radford. Finished it by taking Bagel on hour-long walks for the rest of the week in 30 degree weather. She did not complain.)
10. King Lear- Shakespeare (My 12th teacher kept referring to King Lear's classic hubris as "a problematic first example of Modern Man's tempestuous struggle with the rest of the world." There are many things wrong with that sentence--namely, it's bullshit. Lear's tempest was of his own making, he's no more an example of modernism than Oedipus or Jason. Asshole.)
11. Ulysses-James Joyce. (Giant, fuckin' accomplishment the first time. Mini accomplishment in the next go round)
12. Catcher in the Rye- J.D. Salinger. (First time I read this, it changed my life. Second time, I threw it against the wall. You have to be in a very particular place to read this book. I call it the 1oth grade.)
13. Bridget Jones's Diary- Helen Fielding (I read it when I don't feel like thinking and nothing is on television. Has not stopped being funny.)

*in that order

obligatory 9/11 post. Please ignore.

2008-09-11T21:36:00.000-04:00

On the way home from yoga this evening I did not expect to start crying because of a segment on emergency preparedness. Coming home from work today, packed tightly on to the metro because there had been a delay, I read my book--like I do every other day-- but my head wasn't all in it, trying to drown out the noise of other people on their cell phones.

Downstairs, mom is watching another in a seven-year string of 9/11 specials and I went upstairs because I still can't figure out how either tower came down, even though I watched it all happen in class. This one is new, they've compiled video from what people shot that day. The plane hitting the second tower, people jumping out of windows, scared co-eds filing into an elevator because this just might be the end of the world. One clip was a little girl looking out an apartment window, asking her father where the building went. It takes children years to think abstractly. Then there are the people covered in ash after the two buildings came down. They don't react to anything, just walk around in the cloud explaining to one another what just happened. As if the act of saying out loud what you cannot fully comprehend will make it tangible. As if it could ever be anything but completely unreal.

What gets me is the paper. The raining ,ticker-tape parade of paper coming out of the towers. Entire histories falling down. Companies. Just sprinkling down. How the paper is still here but people had to bury wallets and watches.

What isn't on tape is a girl named Olga walking into Mr. Smith's theatre room and saying should could not audition for Medea that afternoon. Her father worked in the 2nd tower (maybe the 1st?) and she had to find out what happened. There was the line of kids, because we did not all have cell phones, waiting to use the office phones because a brother or a father or a sister worked at the Pentagon.

The shirt I wore to school that day said Make Love, Not War. Why is that what I remember?

They cut the feed to news stations after the towers fell. We all had to go back to class. Most teachers gave up teaching, they either put in movies or read aloud from what they could find online. My chemistry teacher asked us to open our textbooks and look at chemical structures. I watched the classroom door and saw Zach's head pop into view. We had an entire conversation in two looks. Mine wondering if he had any news on our other brother, Micah, who was taking his second flight ever, home from Florida and his that everything was fine but Ian was here to take us home. When we got in the car all Ian said was, "aren't you glad Mom made an emergency contact?" We went to his house. Neither of us were hungry but we sat, watched the news and ate the brownies that Maggie had given me that morning. They were awful but at least it was something to do.

This morning on NPR, the news caster speculated as to how many people had PTSD because of 9/11. I suppose that could be true of people who were there. Who lost someone.

I suppose people might still wake up in the middle of the night because of it. I know it took me a while to get back to sleep. But I've always been like that. I never can sleep when something bothers me. Except I did fall asleep watching the news that afternoon. Ian and I both fell asleep on the floor of his apartment. After we finished off the brownies. We had to eat them dry because he had no milk. I remember thinking that he had grenadine, but no milk. He'd just moved out of my parents' house. I know I don't have it as uneasy as it all still makes me. The uneasiness is healthy I think.

When I was very young, I used to have dreams that Dracula was hiding in the bathroom, behind the shoer curtain. That night, when I finally got to sleep, I had the dream again. Only this time it was Osama Bin Laden. I went down stairs after that and watched TV until I fell back asleep. Thankfully, Comedy Central was doing regular programming. No one else was. I should have written them a letter for that.

While we were watching things tonight, my mom told me that she knows things are still ok because children are constantly being born. To her, that's proof that God wants us to go on about our lives.

That made me want to cry too.

I really didn't expect to start crying on the car ride home tonight.

And the mind of a four and half year-old...

2008-08-28T12:30:00.000-04:00

When I was in high school I was arguably far less at ease with my own body. I was never overweight in any (really) noticeable way, I just jiggled more than I was comfortable with. It did not help that I had a number of rather svelte friends (actually, I should really qualify this: they were just a lot smaller than me in general. It's really easy to feel like a giant if your friends are all 5-nothing and 98 lbs. At the same time, I was rocking a 5/6 at Express and worried that traveling ranchers--those who travel routinely to the D.C/Metro area-- might mistake me for straying cattle) who loved to discuss how their doctors told them to gain, rather than lose, weight. My mom spent most shopping trips telling me to go up a size. I was 19 before I realized I wasn't actually a large at the Gap (never haven been really, thanks mom!) I want to think that she assumed I would still "grow into things" even in high school.

This paranoia was only compounded by costumes I was shoved into during high school. When I was in 10th grade I played Medea in our present-day adaptation (set in the ghetto, yeah. I can prove it. I have it all on DVD) of the Euripides tragedy. I had to wear a cropped one-sleeve shirt. You know how hard it is to stay that sucked in for two hours and yell (ahem, "project') at the same time. Not cool. The next year, I was a Hot Box dancer in Guys and Dolls. Of the four costumes I had to wear, two required sit-ups (one of those was a bikini...always a good choice when teachers are present) and one was sewn too small. Way too small.

One of the tiny girls was usually the costumer.

The point of explaining all this? It all went through my head yesterday when, after doing a body composition test on me at the gym, a personal trainer told me I needed to gain 5 lbs and I have a body age of 18. apparently my body composition is only 15.1% fat (I have 123~ lbs of lean muscle and 23~ of fat, which amounts to 15%...or something like that.) 18.1% and under is where athletes want to be. 14% and under is unhealthy for women. Apparently if I lose two pounds I will be unhealthy. Here's where I get confused. Paul, the trainer whose services I will not be requiring, wants me to gain 5 pounds of lean muscle. Not fat. Wouldn't that make my fat to muscle ratio lower, thereby putting me closer to the "dangerous" range? I'm not good with math.

Other than that, I didn't learn anything about my body I didn't already know. I'm smack dab in the 50th percentile of women my age when it comes to strength. I need to work on that.

I'm in the 90th percentile in terms of flexibility (though not in the 90th percentile of any dance class I've ever taken). They made me take a sit-and-reach test. Total Presidential Physical Fitness test flashbacks (always did well in those, by the by).

The only really crappy thing is that he suggested I spend more time in the scary free weight section of the gym and far less time on the Nautilus machines. I really like some of those machines (some of them are admittedly lame). I don't know what to do in the scary free weight section. It's scary. All the men (because it's mostly men over there) growl in front of the mirrors and say vaguely erotic things to each other, without being attractive enough that I'm cool with it.

I'm going to the gym tonight, we'll see if I can brave the free weights.

On a completely unrelated note, I came home from the gym last night and found Bagel, my faithful ward, hanging out in the kitty litter. Not eating kitty shit (mercifully) just chilling in the box. If she would learn how to use it, that would be one thing. As it is, she's getting a bath when I get home tonight. Maybe two.

Don't forget the legwarmers...

2008-08-27T12:46:00.000-04:00

Walking to work from the Metro, I could see college students in matching shirts (presumably RAs or other organization who volunteers their members to help with student move-in days) congregating outside various GWU dorms. I miss move-in day. I miss refusing my parents' help unpacking because I couldn't remember into which box the contraband items. I never thought to mark them in a manner that would be obvious to me and not them. I miss having to make three trips to the store because on the first two trips, I forgot to buy Command hooks. I miss textbook shopping.

I bought new pens the other day because I just couldn't handle it anymore and had to buy some form of school supply. Mayhaps this is the first sign of some sort of academe-psychosis?

*********************

Last night at Tysons with Walt, while shopping for adult-type work clothes, I was thinking of all the things I cannot throw on in the morning and run out the door--namely leotards. I usually had a dance class first thing in the morning. Leotards matching nothing and therefore everything and I wore them religiously. So inconvenient, yet comfortable. If I couldn't get back home to change, I wore them into the afternoon and no one thought that was strange (if they did, I was gleefully unawares). Now, my only excuse for leotards is if I take up yoga classes again or find a place to take dance (this is harder after the age of 14). This is not happening immediately, so there the leotards and capezio tights sit underneath my bed. Sad negleted leotards.

On a related note, I am now almost to a week's worth of pants if I could just remember to take the one way too big pair to the tailor. Actually, I'm going to need to a few things in soon if I keep going to the gym. This is more inconvenient than it seems. Once the weather gets legitimately cooler I will have far more in the way of "work-appropriate clothing." Then I will be able to occasionally buy fun things and avoid stores whose color scheme revolves around beige.

Blah.

If she'd taken my doubleshot on ice, I would have shanked her.

2008-08-22T15:33:00.000-04:00

There are a number of things about Starbucks I really love:

-The Venti Iced Americano
-Knowing that where ever I am, there is one nearby should I need the aforementioned beverage.

There are also a number of things about Starbucks I do not really love:
-That the company name does not include an apostrophe. Starbucks is the first mate in Moby-Dick, as such, he is a single entity. Granted, there are multiple iterations of Starbucks but it would be like calling a coffee shop "Jones". It really requires possession.
-Sometimes baristas fuck things up irreperably. I ordered an iced coffee one day and what I received tasted like old oranges. It was, however, affective in keeping me awake. I cannot be sleepy with evil in my mouth.
-people who populate Starbuckses. Actually people who populate coffee shops in general. I walked into the Saxby's outside Mason on afternoon earlier this year and saw a guy busily typing away on his MacBook in a shirt that read "GMU MFA Student". I suddenly and violentely regretted every afternoon I spent at the Coffee Mill trying to crank out a draft for Fiction Writing.

But that is not the kind of coffee shop patron that necessitated that post. In D.C., everyone is v. busy and important...or would like to give that impression to the rest of the known universe. I got in line and ordered my usual Iced Venti unsweetened Iced Coffee. The girl behind me order an identical drink. Not unusual at all. It's a simple, yet effective, order. However, after I paid and moved over to the bar where orders are picked up, the girl that was behind me, started hovering in front of me. I knew what she was doing. She kept mentioning to her Gay BBF how much time it seemed to take for her order to come up. Let me remind you that this is the GWU Starbucks at 8 AM. It's going to be busy. The one across from the Warner Theatre outside Metro Center is much worse and the the one outside the GW hosptical has a line out the door most mornings. Girlie-girl got off light. I've stood in those other lines. Many, many mornings.

She kept looking at me behind her and smiling. We both knew she would grab the first iced coffee down the pike. She clearly was raised by ravenous, caffeine-starved wolves who, in their turn had to be continually remined to wait in line and decided not to raise their daughter with such restrictions. Way to go wolves. Way the fuck to go.

Coffee-bandit also proceeded to pour part of her illicit brew into the trash to make way for cream. Where I a bigger bitch this is wear I would point out that despite the flowiness of her top, she was sporting some serious muffin-top. Crumble topping. I am not, however, a bigger bitch. She did have pretty cool glasses. Not cool enough to explain her behavior.

It's ok. She'll get hers. The universe has a way of straightening this sort of thing out.

It's a lot of look...

2008-08-21T16:42:00.000-04:00

This weekend I will, yet again, take my meager earnings to the mall. If getting into heaven rests on my ability to refrain from covetousness, I am totally and completely screwed. Like, table-of-one-at-the-ninth-layer-of-hell screwed.

I can stop myself from over-indulging in most anything--cupcakes, alcohol, dangerous men. The fall line from Michael Kors ready-to-wear collection makes me feel things I cannot politely describe.

I spent a lot of high school trying to look "different". I died my hair various shades of black cherry. I had fuschia-colored fishnet stocking (I wore whenever humanly possible). I had 42" wide pants (at the bottom, not the top--I've managed to negotiate a 6 most of my mid/post-puberty life, which has lately slid down to a 4 at some stores...my new favorite stores.) I rocked plaid mini skirts and shirts with PUNK! written on them in red glitter(the irony did not entirely escape me, thank you very much.)

I eschewed twinsets (still do, unless they are leopard print or otherwise necessary) and khaki. But I find myself compelled to explore this wonderful structured retro-schoolgirl glamour. Mostly it's this dress (forth down from the top) that does it to me. I could do that. I can do that hair. I've had similar glasses. I already own a pair of brown leather peep-toe heels that would compliment the overall feel. It's so...structured. I prefer structure else where in my wardrobe. Why would I think that etherial works in my wardrobe better that darting and a sleek sillohuette? Frankly, it also works better with my body type. Flimsy looks big on curves.

Now I must attempt my Michael Kors fantasties (also D&G this season) on my Forever21 budget.

Alas and woe is me.

She only comes when she's on top...and other reasons people should hire me to write the break-up letters.

2008-08-20T16:50:00.000-04:00

More on that idea I mentioned last time:

Since starting to look what I need to do to a)apply to graduate school and b)go there while in good standing with creditors/the government, I've been trying to come up with ways to sneak a little extra cash here and there.

I will write your break-up letters. I think I can do this. I'll set up an eBay account, crank out a few samples of various styles and get PayPal up and running. This can be done. I can create transcripts to be passive-agressively left on answering machines while (ex)loved-ones are abroad. I can write break-up letters, e-mails, post-it notes (handwriting is an extra, non-negotiable charge).

I can also write why-did-you-break-up-with-me letters. I've actually received a couple of those. Also, I'm-sorry-I-broke-up-with-you-because-you-look-fuckin'-great letters.

On an unrelated note, Former Professor asked me to take a look at a story he's working on. This is strange in ways I cannot fully explain, least of which is that I don't think I'm actually qualified to critique the work of more successful (in that they have been published) writers. In asking me he called me a "rigorous critic". Don't know what that means beyond "annoyingly particular".

Hopefully the story isn't total shit.

Dear John...

2008-08-19T15:15:00.000-04:00

I had planned to take tiny bits of my bi-weekly earnings and spend them on building a respectable work/rest of life wardrobe, saving for school and imaginary-in-the-future rent and all the other fees that go along with. Nope. Not gonna happen.

I have to replace my iPod. About two weeks ago I dropped it coming out of the Vienna Metro and it's been acting skishy since. It won't turn off or sync, and it makes laborious computer hard drive dying sounds whenever I request a change of song. So that's like, $250 bucks. Gone.

Also, my dearest Bagel has a stye in her eye. I only noticed last night. I'm pretty sure that means it only showed up then as I get a pretty good look at the girl once a day. I was just going to let it be for a week but then I made the mistake of looking up the condition online. It turns out it could be completely benign...or Bagel will be blind by the time I pull up to my house this evening. I stopped looking up people symptoms online because of this. Why did I think it would be any different for animals?

I really should look into my own online-breakup letter writing service. I could set up a Paypal account. Get something going on eBay. This could be done.

The sirens that went off during the vows were're harbingers at all...

2008-08-14T14:35:00.000-04:00

It's been quite a couple of days and I don't think I've mentioned the wedding of the year.

After begging off the actual "wedding of the year" up in Boston, Walt and I took a mini-road trip down to the Radford/Christiansburg for a weekend of matrimonial festivities/dropping off graduate rec. forms to former professors and employers. The latter went smoothly and both Tims seemed more than glad to aid in my post undergraduate asperations. We opted to stay with my college roommate and her husband (of about two months) over one of Walt's friends from school I only recently met (but who is, ostensibly, awesome.) If we stayed with my roommate we could bring my dog. At the time, this seemed like a simple solution to the problem of who would walk the dog while I was away. Bad idea. College Roommate lives in a town infested with fleas that (which?who?) latched on to Bagel the moment we took her outside. Totally not cool considering a)fleas bring plague and I don't like posies, b)I had no means of preparing Bagel for fleas or aiding in their immediate demise and the stuff CR put on her did not work...at all, and c)how do you conveniently forget about a massive pest control issue after your friend/weekend guest asks if it is ok to bring her pet with her? I spent the weekend alternately convinced I had fleas and picking them off the dog. Neither of us was pleased with spending our time in such a manner.

If only this had been the totally sucky thing about the weekend. Nope. Not with a wedding on the docket. After handing out the rec forms, we (me, Walt, Walt's friend, CR and Spouse) went to lunch at the local mexican place. CR proceeded to drink a 32 oz. beer. I also had a, comparably diminutive 22 oz. beer (for the purposes of full disclosure). I wouldn't mention this at all except CR drank so much during the reception that she fell, hit her head, puked on herself, and had to be transported via ambulance to the hospital.

Totally fucking classy.

I say this out of genuine regard for her safety and well-being, but also overwhelming ire. When I talked to her after the fact, she said that she'd probably be drunk constantly were it not for the "scrutiny of [Spouse]." Granted, Spouse also apparently took a picture of her during the apex of her shenanigans. I'm kind of amazed by his forethought. When we were talking she kept mentioning how she's been down on herself and how this was all very embarrassing. Given how she chose to vent these feelings, I don't have a ton of sympathy. I hate that she lives so far away and I wish they had the means/opportunity to move somewhere better. Still, she kind of ruined someone else's wedding. Frankly, she was doing good job messing up the day way before she passed out. She fell on the dance floor and couldn't manage to say anything in a decibel range that did not include the entire wedding party in the conversation. Repeated requests that she switch to water or soda were met with "you're not the boss of me." No, I'm not. And clearly you aren't either.

Granted, this was a long-time coming. This is the girl who, if money allows, will drink 7 beers when the occasion calls for none. But that was college. The rest of us have since moved on to lifestyles far more forgiving of our livers' limitations. Personally, I've discovered a whole world of things that can get done on Sunday morning if one is not asleep/nursing a hangover/desperate for macaroni and cheese. Also my clothes fit much better. Much. Much. Better.

I don't know if I should wait until I'm less mad to tell her she has a drinking problem. I also don't know how to even go about telling her. We're not really phone people but this is not a AIM conversation. I think a letter is in order, not an e-mail.
...

After CR went to the hospital, Walt and I called his friend. We took my flea-ridden pup over, where I washed her repeated, and fell asleep on his couches. I woke up the next morning with a wicked head cold.

I had to leave work Monday morning at 11am after my boss suggested that I go get lots and lots of sleep.

So to recap: Dog got fleas. Took college roommate to hospital. Got sick=Best Weekend Ever.

Kids today with the hair and the endless excuses.

2008-08-12T10:17:00.000-04:00

I came home Sunday after The Best/Worst Wedding Ever (more on that later) only to be met by my mother flailing this in my face. I already had a headache and it was only make exponentially worse by listening to the petulant whining of unrepentant cheaters.

The questions raised by this article should not be, "are the standards of one of Virginia's, and moreover the United States', most prestigious universities 'too harsh'?" It should be, "why do students continually think they can skirt rules and nothing will come of it?"

I went to a far less impressive Virginia university but the honor system there was no less clear. Citing improperly is tantamount to plagiarism because you are not adequately attributing the work of others and instead, passing it off as your own. The students in the article seem to have paraphrased parts of Wikipedia entries (I'll get to why that's an awful idea in a minute) and did not remember where their notes ended and the language used in the article began. There is an exceedingly simple solution to this: if the assignment calls for you to watch a movie and summarize it, you do exactly that. If you actually watch the movie (and perhaps take your own notes if necessary), you shouldn't need a wiki-summary. You can write your own in your own voice. Problem solved. Yes, the two summaries might say the same thing but with different words and syntax. You have a writing fingerprint and the people whose job it is to read your stuff will invariably notice when you stop writing like yourself.

If you absolutely must reference an article in your summary (a dead giveaway that you didn't actually watch the movie), cite. Not hard to do. If you take an idea and reword it, cite the idea. Every style guide I've ever used (MLA, APA, and Chicago) has a way for you to cite a paraphrase. Here's an example of how to do it in MLA:

Ahab’s insistence that he can develop a blueprint for the whale’s movement, coupled with his private sense of injustice, serves to create the egocentric Western binarisms that cannot penetrate the whale any better than Ishmael’s meandering definitions (MD, 178).

Would you look at that. I managed to get across the gist of a quote without actually quoting the passage, at the same time making it clear to my audience that I didn't make this shit up. And it only took me two seconds. Incidentally, that's from my senior thesis on Moby-Dick. For which I did not use Wikipedia.

The students also argue that research in the online age actually makes drawing the line between your own thoughts and the notes you take from others more difficult. The opposite is actually true. Unlike looking something up in a book, you don't have to hand-copy titles and site URLs. You can copy-paste everything into a word. doc and have all your notes in a convenient location. You can know what you borrowed and where you borrowed it from without so much as a hand cramp.

Admittedly, I did not know all of those going into college. But these students are not first-day freshmen. Plagiarism issues are made painfully clear to incoming students, both in the universally issued student handbook and in every freshmen composition and/or research class, required at pretty much every college. Ever.

No excuse for this. None. At. All. Damn, I have to get my doctorate and start teaching. Actually, I might start teaching with my masters just to put the kibosh on this everyone-gets-out-of-jail-free bullshit.

Now a word on Wikipedia...

While the open-source, peer-edited encyclopedia is immensely helpful when you want to, say, remind yourself who wrote Gravity's Rainbow. It is not a reliable research tool, though. Certainly not at the collegiate level. Far too many articles are not adequately researched or cited. Many are bias or one-sided. It has too many flaws not to be used with the utmost caution.

Ok, end of rant.

He wasn't even a fun drunk...

2008-08-07T16:07:00.000-04:00

Almost directly before starting this experiment in actually keeping and up-to-date record of my goings-on, I stumbled upon the intricately detailed online journal of an ex-boyfriend's (possible) ex-girlfriend. The ex was wholly unremarkable, save for introducing me to the nuanced genius of Bruce Springsteen (something I actively fought, mind you, not particularly caring for the "Dancing in the Dark" phase of the Boss's career.) We dated from my junior year of high school to the end of my first year of college. We suffered, not at all surprisingly, from a total lack of compatibility and I can't remember now what worked well enough that we stuck it out as long as we did. I suppose that's how it goes with high school boyfriends. The end, and the little bit of unwashed history that followed directly, was not my proudest moment and somewhere in there (or before, this was never clear) he started dating her.

When I spoke to him some time a little less than two years ago, he'd broken up with her on account of her perceived insanity. He was also going through considerable family problems, though the two were unrelated. I felt for the kid (despite how little I felt for him in general) and thought he might finally be able to get out of the rut he'd been in as long as I'd known him. Such, apparent in her diary, is not the case.

I don't know that my entire life is together. I only just started my first big-girl job, I'm still at home and all the plans I've made for myself since starting college have not, yet anyhow, come to fruition. But I felt bad for this girl. She always, despite my general distaste for her while I was still with the aforementioned ex (she would call at 2 am asking him to come kill a bug in her dorm. It seemed suspect then and still does now) seemed smart. I can't remember what she looked like but she wasn't unattractive by any stretch of the imagination. She was a good photographer when we were in high school. How does their relationship still hinder her so much? I just can't fathom it. I can't imagine getting so worked up over someone like that.

I didn't have the heart to be gay. I'll disappoint my parents by writing.

2008-08-06T16:04:00.000-04:00

The story I've been working on for a few weeks now (longer really but this is active work) is, save a few misplaced commas, done. This means that I'll have to send my ever-so-slightly retarded baby out into the world soon. I've done this before and don't expect the results to be any different. I sent this one out (to Glimmer Train of all places in a moment of undergraduate well-I'm better-than-the-dipshits-in-my-intro-fiction-writing-class-I-must-be-publishable! grandiosity) and it was promptly (a relative term) rejected...albeit politely. I've since sent a few poems back and have heard nothing. I think I sent them out around the middle of May. I can't image that the poety editors at Magazine-that-shall-remain-nameless have been sitting on these poems beucase they cannot yet form the words required to admire and appreciate my genius. They have probably just forgotten that I exist.

Oh well. This is the life of an unprofessional writer, right? It takes years to get published, if that little. I suppose I will have to finally shell out the cash for a copy of the Writer's Market and stop pretending to do thing and actually, you know, do it.

More on this later. Especially after the second rejection comes it. That should be a good read.

It's a shame I won't get to buy that dress I'm never going to wear again...

2008-08-04T15:52:00.000-04:00

After receiving an e-mail this morning from the the maid of honor in one of the 19 million weddings I'm attending this year (did I miss the part of graduation where they passed out that Kool-Aid?) and one of two I in which I was asked to be a bridesmaid, I had to beg off. This particular wedding has seemed semi-ridiculous since jump but I kept hoping it would mellow. It has not.

Today I found out how to go through an entire paycheck in one fell swoop (without having anything to show for it):

$877
-200 (getting there and back)
-250 (staying there for the weekend)
-160 (being clothed during the ceremony. This includes, but is not limited to, dyeable shoes.)
-60 (the present, which could not include bacon-of-the-month at this price.)
-200 (boarding my dog, may not be necessary but I have to assume it because the rest of my family will be at my cousin's wedding.)
_____
7.00

What can you do for &7?
- buy two Venti iced coffees from Starbucks (You get change!)
-Pay my current overdue charges at the library.
-go to and almost get home from work for one day (in 14).
-go to an afternoon movie and sneak in some gum and soda you stole from your mother.
-lie in bed and cry (but not so much that you require kleenex, it's cost prohibitive) until you get paid again.

-

It's not like I gave her sprinkles.

2008-08-02T22:45:00.000-04:00

At Woody's earlier tonight, while enjoying some soft serve with Walt and my trusty Bagel, I was confronted by a woman waiting in line for her own ice cream.

"You know most dogs are lactose intolerant, right?" This was not offered out of the kindness of her heart or stemming from a general concern for the lactic tolerance of our four-legged friends. She was just taking a shit on the best part of my day. I didn't quite know what to say to her and at the time could only manage,

"She's fine, thanks." With the same fake smile she used to impart to veterinary wisdom. Later on, in the car I thought of better, pithier things to say:

" If that bother you, you should see my cat down scotch."

" Yes, but she needs something to take the edge off all those martinis she lapped up earlier."

" Well the ice cream offsets the gin."

" You're a miserable cunt who should not be eating ice cream but instead actively adjusting the size of your ass. Stop shitting on my life."

...Perhaps that last one was unnecessary. But it would have felt nice.

Conversations I've had with people after they find out I majored in English. OR-- A PSA for the pseudo-literary.

2008-08-01T14:23:00.000-04:00

CONVERSATION 1:
Sherpa-on-Metro: (After I have dozed off during trek home while reading Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut) Must not be a very interesting book.
Me: (waking up suddenly because he's also kind of a close talker) No, no, it is. Just didn't get much sleep last night.
Sherpa: Vonnegut, huh? Have you read Slaughterhouse-5?
Me: Yes, actually a number of years ago. I loved it, he manages to suffuse an obvious tragedy irreverence and irony without tempering the narrative.
Sherpa: I've never read it. Is Cat's Cradle any good?
Me: Yes it is, I read it originally as part of a class on Eco-fiction.
Sherpa: NPR is also interesting.
Me: This is my stop. Enjoy your weekend.

CONVERSATION #2
Dude-at-work-who-doesn't-look-people-in-the-eye: So what's your degree in?
Me: English Literature
Dude: Do you read Poetry Magazine?
Me: When I can pick it up, but I have to say many of my favorite poets are dead.
Dude: Do you enjoy the modernists?
Me: Actually one of my favorite classes at school was on the British and Irish Modernists
Dude: My favorite is John Updike.
Me: Is he a modernist? (note--I know he is not a modernist. I was trying to be nice. Updike is a modernist only if you extend the definition of modernism to include people who have written since the Modern Era of the English language began...before Shakespeare.)
Dude: Well I mean, he wrote in the 20th century.
Me: That doesn't necessarily make him a modernist, it all depends on his style. Would you call it stream-of-conscience?
Dude: I also like Wallace Stevens
Me: "The Emperor of Ice Cream" is one of my favorite poems. The thing about Stevens was the rich internal life he created as a contrast to his 'real' life.
Dude: So what are your favorite books?
Me: Moby-Dick and Ulysses, the one by Joyce...not Homer.
Dude: I've read some Melville, just not Moby-Dick.
Me: That's a shame, it's far and away his best work. Really the culmination of his particular vision.
Dude: I'm going to the park to eat my sandwich now.

CONVERSATION #3
Any-number-people-I've-discussed-my-collegiate-career-with-since-2004: What are you majoring in again?
Me: English Literature
Rest-of-the-World: Oh, so you want to be a high school teacher then?
Me: Nope, maybe I'll get my doctorate, but I could never teach. I don't especially like children.
Rest-of-the-World: ah, ok...Have you read The Lovely Bones?
Me: (looking down at my imaginary watch) You know, I've really got to run. We'll catch up sometime, ok?

Do you ever get the feeling that it just isn't your day?

2008-08-01T13:20:00.000-04:00

The sandals I wore to work this morning have proceeded to give me blisters on each foot and in various locations on and around my toes. They also, having a leather sole, make a farty sound whenever I walk, not unlike that armpit trick I never mastered. Little did I know I could re-created it with the help of my now-inflamed feet.

At least I didn't spill coffee on myself today. That was yesterday. I was wearing a white dress. I knew well enough not to pack chips and salsa for lunch (opening refrigerator for jar immediately conjured images of horrible salsa/stigmata/period stain on nice, white, bias-cut Ann Taylor cotton), but did not take into account that once the lid was put on the coffee at Starbucks that I should not, under any circumstances, remove it. Especially not to add ice to my "iced" coffee (quotation marks necessary as it did not resemble anything cold and was, in fact, too hot to drink easily with a straw. Much like sucking down broth or those evil Campbell's Soup-to-go cups that seem like a scalding waiting to happen.) In replacing the lid, I crumpled the cup and emptied the contents on to the floor of the office kitchen and the lower half of me. Right when the managing editor walked by. This is how she knows me now.

This is also not the first time I have managed to spill coffee onto a white article of clothing in the month that I've had this job.