Does this count as a resolution?

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.

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.

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...

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...

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...)

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

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...

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)

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

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...

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.

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.

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...

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

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.

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...

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

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"

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...

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.

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

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...

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...

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...

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

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

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?

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.

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...

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?

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!

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...

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

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

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?

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'?

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.

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?

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...

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

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.

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...

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.